Generated: 2026-02-13 18:21
The following meetings include full transcripts (all others show metadata only):
Quan Gan: Good morning. evening.
Aimee Ocer: Good evening. It's good morning.
Quan Gan: Good morning.
Stan Liu: Good morning.
Kristin Neal: Good morning.
Aimee Ocer: Good morning.
Kristin Neal: was a storm over there.
Aimee Ocer: I have to.
Kristin Neal: second storm. That there's a second storm.
Aimee Ocer: Yeah, just right now. Like yesterday and now. And then I hope it will last tomorrow. And then my top one. Last for the September. Yeah, the storm in a month.
Kristin Neal: You said monsoon. was like monsoon. That's. Wow.
Misamis Occidental/ Ptr. Kiara Grace Bajao: Great.
Kristin Neal: Thank you everyone.
Paula Cia: Hi, good morning.
Quan Gan: I think we're still waiting for.
Stan Liu: Hello.
Quan Gan: Oh, nice to hear you.
Kristin Neal: And how about Um, can you call me? I don't know.
Stan Liu: Is she joining today?
Klansys Palacio: Good morning, everyone.
Quan Gan: Good morning.
Klansys Palacio: Oh, well, you're on vacation.
Paula Cia: Yeah. Yeah. Feels like someone here, but there's a type of.
Quan Gan: We have a busy room today. We got. I feel like half humans and half AI, and I have a second no taker. want to take out this app called Falcon, my friend is recommended to me. We'll see. But yeah, thank you everybody for joining us. I think today is a milestone today because we're starting to shift gears in our company's history to really start getting into the attraction and rhythm of things. So, Stan and I respect a good amount of time we're talking about our progress and making this transition. I don't know, Stan, do you want to say anything before we get started?
Stan Liu: Yeah, good. Oh, you. That's fine. Yeah, but I'll be back on the computer in about 15, 20 minutes or so.
Quan Gan: Okay. Well, so I've had the opportunity to share with most of you, this may be new, but I wanted to to share the vision traction organizer and is related to a system and a process for us to implement into a company to make sure everybody is rowing in the same direction and hitting a certain rhythm. So a lot of this, I've already shared one-on-one with each of you, but I wanted to take today's opportunity to collectively go through this and make sure we would get everybody's feedback. Now that we've had some time to work at it and think about it. Yeah, so this is going to be a group experience and hopefully it's more interactive than the first time where I just dished out a bunch of information. But we're going to do this in a fairly repetitive ways of that over time. build the muscle memory into understanding why we do things the way we do and not just, okay, this is just something that we have to do, but There's a purpose behind it, and it's intentional, methodical, and you can see the trajectory of your own personal work and how that ties into the collaborative work that we do internally and how that affects our customers and people globally. again, I want to come back to share the analogy of the rowing team. I think Stan's known about this before too, but let me do my screen share. So everybody hit my screen, right?
Aimee Ocer: OK.
Quan Gan: So we're going to look at the Olympic rowing team. And just look at what it looks like here. OK, so on any rowing team, you'll see that the actual roars. are not facing the direction of travel. The goals are actually far behind the rowers, and the only person that is able to see the goal is this person right here. And that's called a Coxon on a rowing thing. It's this person seeing the goal, and probably the manager or whoever is on the shore, seeing where the goal is. But the actual rowers on the team are not seeing the goal, and they need to have some kind of a strategic direction and rhythm guiding them to make sure they hit their target. If they were not for this person on the boat, and you can imagine each person while they're rowing, the oars might be hitting each other, and it might be colliding. They might be having this communication. They might be out of sync. Yeah, one person might be rowing. before the other person. So it would be very difficult to have a consistent hand. And I remember seeing this before where even if you had kayaking, just like two people on a kayak, unless you're counting the numbers or having a rhythm, sometimes you might be sitting in circles too in the boat. So it's very important for us, especially at this stage in the company, to start implementing the system where we get into a a weekly rhythm so that we could check in to make sure the work we are doing is still in alignment with the overall vision. And so given this analogy, I hope that it's apparent to each person of why we're going have something like this. And also understanding why now versus not earlier and not later, you know, if we had implemented this system a year ago or earlier, as soon as you got in, we weren't exactly sure what market we were in. You know, a lot of these things were not clear until we had to be agile enough to find exactly what was the product market fit and start seeing sales, to understand what that processing level looks like versus just inventing it out of our heads when we didn't actually have any real context of what we're doing. And at the same time, if we're waiting any longer until we're twice as busy, imagine twice as busy right now without a system, right, things would be so chaotic that we would just be completely burned out by that. So this is kind of the perfect time for us to start implementing this. So I really do hope that by presenting those something that the team can collectively embrace. So we can get into that with them. Yeah, does anyone have anything to share? I'm up to open enough. Christian, you seem pretty excited. You want to say anything?
Kristin Neal: I really am because I've been praying for this for so long. It almost felt like I was running alone for a little bit. I just, only because I just didn't know what I'm just excited to get the whole picture. I think, too, that if we're, I love how you wrote, making sure the right people are in the right spots. Because I feel that so much with this team. We're all, we all have that foundation and we know we're here for a reason. We know the reason for God. So that's like such a good foundation. Now I'm excited to see where it grows, too.
Quan Gan: Thank you. Anyone else want to share?
Misamis Occidental/ Ptr. Kiara Grace Bajao: Yep. Well, that's for me, since there are a couple of times during the meeting that I'm asked to, know, pray after we had the Friday chats and same with Chris, this is like, not part, but really God's way of answering us in leading the manager in the boat to really give us a picture or the direction we're heading to as to each teammates. They call this like current efforts are aligned to the goals that we are establishing right now. So, personally, it helps me on the role that I am currently assigned and also gives a motivation to really help the team in this mission. Like, even if we do have different roles, but this time we can sync together towards the 10 year plan. So that's it for me.
Quan Gan: Thank you. Anyone else?
Klansys Palacio: Well, for me, same with here. So we do actually have different expertises, but we will, even though we have different expertises, we will meet in the middle because we have only one goal. So the thing that I learned in ZetaGastua, even though I don't know what the thing is doing as so much, we do collaborate and we do explain everything and communicate. contribute at things that can actually help Zeta to grow as well. it is not, it is not just the Zeta will go back but also ask. So it's like something that carrying Zeta is no one left behind. So we need to, if the everyone will go or will step up, all of us will go into step ups. it's something like helping each other as well. So, and of course we are, we are the roleers and you, Kwan Stan, is our vertical industry manager who lead us to that goal. So yeah, that's it for me.
Quan Gan: Thank you, Kwan Stan.
Aimee Ocer: Yeah, the same with me too with the other terms that I'm having in this Zeta as an to help especially the kids and you know I am closest to my heart closest to the kids especially those kids who are helping needs and it's not just about the kids you also help adults and all generous of our you know the mission that we had in the long run so even though we have different these expertise like for me and everything in the group we do this as one when we have this communication especially like Lance said that there is a lot problem arises so we do have this we do have this solution into our groups that we do this job to align what we do in the future and we help especially the one that we targeted like schools, and then in the future of what we are going to have for other products, that's bringing.
Paula Cia: For me, so this video meeting is actually helping us like to clearly give us vision of our roles in the company, and I also agree with Francis and Kia that this will also help us grow. We can learn from this and also it's a win-win situation, not just for us, but also for the zitang. So I'm happy that we are all here collaborating, also putting some effort to give feedbacks and opinions about out what we can do more to help the company succeed for 10-year plan. Thank you.
Kristin Neal: If I can add two questions, I'm real quick, only because it might be a word that we can kind of because it just keeps coming up in prayers. We're being intentional. It feels like that word intentional now is a good start. We're going to have intentional like this now.
Quan Gan: I like that word. think intentionality is in some ways it's like a laser. You have scattered light, but when you focus it on a single thing, the reason why laser can cut through material is because the same amount of light that normally was scattered is becoming coherent. It's a laser focus onto a single point, and so with that, you can shoot very, very far. So we all have the ability. We all have the work. Now that if we're in a boat and we're rowing together, and that strength is not canceled out but amplified. So I think that that's kind of what I hear from the intentionality behind it. And I also, I wanted to acknowledge and thank Stan for setting the foundation of our team over the past two years. You know, we needed this foundation first to build the trust and respect between all of our teammates. You know, even to get into places of vulnerability and really personal things. Because at the end of the day for us to be working in this business, it has to serve us personally. know, we are here So that ultimately we can bring something back to our homes and our communities to share with our loved ones. So it's not just about taking a job because there's plenty of different jobs that we can take, but it has to be something that is valuable that we can take home. So I do really appreciate Stan from setting the stage to make sure that we're all here as a team first before we start implementing. So yeah, thank you Thank you.
Stan Liu (3): Thank you everyone.
Quan Gan: Stan, I wonder if you have any feedback or maybe any shares on the various core values that we have on the VTO. And I can screen share if it's not available to everybody.
Stan Liu (3): Sure, I can share that. So, a lot of these goes back to what we've always talked about, you know, we often talk about life and it all starts with us wanting to make a different impact and we also want the life and with balance that we have and also it goes into this web of what are we here for, you know, we're here for two, we have a vision and Z-TAC is there, it's an impact in the world, in particular in youth and seniors later. But also what we learn at what we want is we continue to improve ourselves and then imagine if we improve ourselves and improve the people around us and ultimately one, three and exponentially nine and it goes up pretty fast, right? So, if we, each one of us can affect three people, affect us and in part. also think back three and then three and then another three and then nine impacts 27. So it goes very, very quickly and being in playful innovation means that we are we're being one mentioned we're being vulnerable but we're also being um uh to the point that we yes it works sometimes to serious but we don't really take anything seriously in terms of that as kids even as kids and playing in a game of tag is just that something happens we shake it off and and something when we celebrate you know active learning it's it's we're active learning it goes beyond what we we want to help kids to active learn or the seniors that they help but also us meaning us active learning meaning that once we get off the call here like one and I are let's just say less sometimes we set um um divisions for for the company but active finding me that we're really learning each other. Once the meeting is done, we're team members, we're team mates, and that means we're learning from each other. So what we want to ultimately achieve is a high functional team. It's a team that is a self-managing company, like a self-managing team. That goes on that each one of us have on-road, but we're managing what, taking ownership of what we do, but we also manage it that way. That means we're able to make most of the decision, 90% of the decisions on our own, and then we also, every day, we're looking for different ways to grow. Just imagine that we can do that in a workplace, but we can do that in our lives as well. So we're seeing that in all of us, and that's why that's a huge part of what we are, I'm excited, and every day it brings us a smile because we're growing as a company, but we know each one of us are growing, meaning that we're growing, that means our families are growing, the things that we go affect our friends and that. collaborative spirit that further strengthens the bond. want to collaborate and we're seeing that that the team is taking initiative to help each other and find a way to each other without without me or Juan talking about a lot of this. Technically and hence a connection that is what we believe and we believe in. Tack is here and then Tack is there to help to help our life enhance our lives not so much to evil you know many times that I heard this saying that each one of I had to give right and then some people I actually heard this it was at a target this guy was a I think he was a cashier so talking to the girl you know the kids were very talking to him and being playful and a lot of times when kids you have a certain charm, right? And he said that use your charm for good, not for bad, because there's always two sides to the thing. And when we can, you know, like, let's say, Ironman uses his gift and his talent for good, and you have somebody like the Venom or something, and the other guy, the other spider guy, he's super smart, but he's using his thing for for because he has negativity and greed and in vengeance in his head, he's using Italian for bad, know, like imagine a nuclear bomb. nuclear bomb was supposed to be, the reason why it was invented, because it was so powerful, it needed to, it needed to happen to stop a much greater scale of World War. now nuclear bombs could be super, super devastating, you know, and it still also had unintended, and people are still suffering from nuclear bomb, but at that time, it is something like that. So same thing with, AI. AI, it could be good or could be bad. So what we quite often talk about is we want to feed the positive thing into the AI. So we're doing our part in feeding the positivity into AI. And at some point, it will be a lot more of a daily life, much quicker, know, think of kindness and empathy and such. continuous growth, it doesn't mean just for a company, we want to help everyone grow. And on ourselves, we need to continue to grow in inclusivity. Inclusivity is a big one because it would see how we want to create inclusivity, but here we want to have everyone diversity is a beautiful thing in the world. And when we think, when we look at the world in a positive light, that once we including it be inclusive and goes from very basics, always come from the approach of giving somebody from the benefit of the doubt or being have an open mind. So being inclusive, I think you heard about the world mindset and scarcity of mindset, right? When we have a very scarcity mindset, we're not including other people and being inclusive and be open to other things, meaning that inclusivity is what I learned in here in a community and everywhere else. when we're inclusive, we're opening our arms to have others. And what happens when we open our arms? And the holding of this, the whole world gets much, much bigger. That's what we want to do that with ourselves and start with us. And then we expand out to people we serve. So that's what we want. One did a really good job in articulating these core values that we have.
Quan Gan: Well, a lot of everyone was also AI-assisted. So we participated to chat a bunch. And I think that the AI has a... a beautiful grasp of language to be able to take the essence of what we're trying to convey and putting into words.
Stan Liu (3): Yep.
Quan Gan: I wonder if anyone wants to maybe just highlight anything that resonates with them just for the core value.
Stan Liu (3): That's a good one point, Kwan. So maybe we can share what the two top things that jump out resonate. Is there no wrong answer here? So remember, playful innovations here. So there is no wrong answers on anything anytime. When we speak up, there's never any wrong answers when we share. Okay.
Kristin Neal: I'll start.
Stan Liu (3): Is that okay?
Kristin Neal: Sure. Yeah. Only because it kind of explains why I got emotional because number five continuous growth. I've seen the growth in this team individually, especially Kwan, since I got to call you out, girl, because I've seen most growth for me is beautiful. So number five definitely calls out and collaborative spirit. That's that's a big one. I'm excited to make that grow.
Stan Liu (3): I'll take care.
Quan Gan: Thank you.
Aimee Ocer: And for me, it's number three collaborative spirit. Like it's a very important thing between the team members and also the continuous growth for each one of us being here. Like, actually, the team on the first run that stand given us this job, this kind of job, each and every one of us, he did not like, he did not push through for a, you know, what you call this, like a feast for during that time. He, he, I can't explain the continuous growth, uh, said, he said us on each of everyone of us on how to make this continuous growth, even though ourselves being on the team, like, every time stand set around our mindset around we the girls, um, having this conversation and having this meeting, uh, what, what we could contribute to the company. So also for the active learning that we use to, you know, the learning that we've gone through from the very beginning up until now. So, on the four values, it's a, that these six core values will help us develop this mission of our vision on us to achieve this thing 10 year target that we are, you know, that we are facing towards Our goal, so that's for me.
Quan Gan: Thank you. Anyway, I'll finish it.
Klansys Palacio: Well, for me, the first one is the inclusivity. Well, no matter backgrounds or abilities we have, you're always making sure that we feel welcome here. So with that inclusivity, you know, different expertises, different things that we know, but you're always there for us. You're always there for us to guide us, to guide us in everything. And of course, the continuous growth. So after the inclusivity, so we were going to the continuous growth. Because when we already feel the things that were really welcome, because the hesitations at first really triggered me a lot, you know. I'm very doubtful to myself, my skills, abilities, but with you, with all of the things that we're doing here, I felt so safe, I felt home, you know. So that setting that I really felt here continues growth, you're always making sure that even though we do mistakes, so you're always there to guide us to make those mistakes as motivations for us to do not make it or do not do it again. Like, growing is part of the thing that really matters for me, because sometimes I'm too lazy to learn new things, because I felt like I'm losing too much thing and I'm too tired to learn new things, but here in Zitang, you're always making sure that we feel things that growing is not that too pressure, but you're always making ensure that growing is something that you need you need to take step by step. It's not something jumping on your goal but of course you need to to jump first at the first step then before going to the top level and of course that you're learning. So here in active learning that we have so new skills are always there but of course they're always giving us like you know the automation thing that's really not my thing guys. I do well but automation is really new for me but science goes by zitag giving me this one then at first I'm very hesitant to take another step because I'm too afraid because I am too afraid to do mistakes. At first and I'm too afraid to ask questions, but But of course you cannot learn things without doing anything. You learn things by doing it. So of course By doing that things at first I have one and a I of course a I I really maximize the a I Even I don't I at first I do write like a photograph thing, but a I will just go into as a I in our language then a I will go into To to show me a lot of things so it really helped me a I as well So because back when I was just using Google I Was so Frustrated at first because Google can't give me the right answer But can't really push us to do a I you know to do to do a I to learn how to ask a I and of course By asking getting as well and really helps me to grow here and all of us here. I can really say that I can really see the improvements. The things that we're learning even though not all of you here are good in technical, so yeah. Thank you guys.
Quan Gan: Thank you, Kwanzis.
Paula Cia: Um, me next. So, um, I think I'll start with in inclusivity. So, um, we all know that like we have different behavior attitude and then we also have like different expertise. But once we get on the Zoom call, we are all like one. We are all included. And I feel like I'm a valuable person because of the team, because I feel like my opinions matter. And then, um, I am also happy that Juan and Stan always make sure to hear our feedbacks on all the tasks and like other things that we do here. I feel included in the Zeta plan. So next is the continuous growth. So as I started here in Zeta, I have a really like, I'm not really expert when it comes to social media management. So I only have like a few months of experience, but Stan trusted me and then he hired me as a social media manager. And by that time I was able to learn things as that as the time goes by. And then I was able like to learn more on Zeta. full-home in other platform and it helped me grow not just in the job but also as a person. Next is a tech-enhanced connection. So I really appreciate it during the time that I was like um practicing the Photoshop so I have my old PC and then I approach one that I have trouble with with downloading the application because it's too heavy so one helped me a lot when it comes to the software and then other platforms that we can use like to share uh to share the to share some to share his PC because my PC is not really uh yeah it's not capable of on handling photoshop and other adobe applications. Juan sent me some software that he can access his PC, so I can do photoshop. So I'm happy that I was able to experience how technology can connect with the team and then the collaborative spirit. So it's like building a trust within the team. So at first I was also hesitant to approach the other girls because I'm shy but later on I feel that I feel very comfortable because it's like talking to a sister. So by that time I I'm starting to build a trust within them. So whenever I have like trouble in the in the past I asked the group chat and then they will come up with a solution and they can help me with that. So I'm really happy that I can approach the girls like my own sisters. And then active learning. So for active learning, I am happy that I am in Z-pad because Stan was actually let us explore the things that we need for our task and our position. So he didn't micromanage us, but he let us explore it freely. So it's like working but you are working freely and you are working out all. of electrical. I cannot explain but you are not you are not forced to work so it's more like it's really fun to do the job because you are exploring it within your your your you really wanted to explore because you want your you want the outcome to be as helpful for the company so I really I really appreciate Stan because he didn't micro manage us because last time from my job I was also like micro manage and there is a problem that in me so once I am 30 zitad it's like a life changing life changing job for me so I was happily learning new stuffs and then growing together with happy. And then yeah, I think that's it for me. Thank you, that's for listening.
Quan Gan: Thank you, Baldo.
Misamis Occidental/ Ptr. Kiara Grace Bajao: Okay, I'll go next. So I won't go through like all the six, but as I mentioned earlier, that really had an impact. Well, I noticed as going into the vision, I mean, the core values, it only lacks like only letter M to make the acronym like impact has to cease though. But then yeah, because in the inner church, we we have this the core values and we have that acronym. So we have like P life. So yeah. And I think that M stands for each one of us, like as Paula mentioned, like me or everyone has like valuable because I can remember the way back then when I created my signature. I'm Stan. that you should not, instead of using the word like VA or virtual assistant, use the word team member. So that really gave me the feeling that, whoa, it's the first time I'm using that in the signature. So, and also stand before I can remember during those Friday chats that treat Z tag as if it's also your business. Like it's not just mine or clans, but it's ours. That way we have this accountability that exists ours. Like stand kept on integrating that, that it's a shared thing. It's not just we dictating or instructing. So, overall, I think, as mentioned by the team members, we all felt the intent. clusivity, the continuous growth, especially the collaborative spirit for how many months or, let's say, year right now that no matter how far the distance and the different sets in time zones that we have, we can still manage to do our tasks. So I would like to touch the second hands connections. So this is where I really appreciated AI, because in the church or in some like vlogs, when you say AI, it's like when Stan mentioned like evil, but it's not like that at all. When quan introduced the the AI stuff, like it's something really useful and it's something that excites me that would bring out the creativity in us and would enhance the skills that we do have. it's not a bad thing at all. It's just the way how we approach and use and handle these things. So for me personally, there are lots of things I needed to learn. That's what I'm feeling right now, knowing the video. There's so much more to explore, so much more to learn about at the same time. It's not just for the company itself. So it's for personnel. Even quite mentioned during the one-on-one. You can borrow this to, you know, grow the church if that would be very helpful. So having this core values, what I because what I learned when you say core values, it should be not just what the company wears. It's what we, like the members, the family members, really have in us, inside or outside the business hours. So grateful to have started a vision of the VTO with the core values freely. That's it for me. Thank you guys.
Quan Gan: Thank you Kia. Yeah, I think something that keeps coming back to me over and over again is and I've shared this with many is that it's kind of like a nested doll of basically it's like different layers. So this VTO, it works as a company level, but it also works on a personal level. So when we when we have our own personal goals and we're in alignment and we're constantly improving ourselves, we are healthy and we show up to work. We can make work healthy and if we as a company are consistent and healthy and those who were influencing and impacting also become healthy, know, in my own personal journey and in healing my back. And learning about, you know, just how our cells and our body are all coordinated, it really made me realize how it's kind of like a fractal, you know, when you look at a fractal, which is the same pattern over and over again when you zoom in and zoom out, it's very much similar to our impact. So if we are, if we're living healthy lives and we're making a positive impact in our personal selves and surrounding, but also we'll translate into how we show up to work and how the work impacts people outside. oftentimes we see these, we see issues with the world, but at the same time, these issues might be things that we personally can improve on an individual level. And if we show up to work ourselves, if we're hold, that eventually impacts outwardly. So rather than focusing on fixing a problem out there, if we can make sure that we show up as a whole person, I think that It builds on top of that. Stan, did you have anything else to add?
Kristin Neal: Oh, Stan, are you talking?
Stan Liu (3): So, yeah, let's do it from what car meets it with the residents. Did you pick on me?
Carmee Sarvida: I'm not really like part of the ZTAC team, but I'm glad that Stan invited me here to hear the VTO. But the values that resonate with me the most are active learning and continuous growth, especially for me, that this is my first time having virtual work. I really thank Stan for the opportunity that he has given me to learn. learn new things. I believe that self-directed learning is very important, especially if you're taking a new role and you're assigned to like unfamiliar tasks. And just like what Paul has said, Stan doesn't micromanage, he just lets you learn and learn and learn until like for me during the first week or the second week. I like I learned new stuff and then I really took the effort to learn so that I can have something to bring into the table so that I can share Stan what I learned during those days. And then also being accountable for your roles and responsibilities is an essential hours and effort and characteristic of a team. number, you know, when you are assigned to task, you know that this is the deadline and I have to do this and that just being accountable will really have a big impact on the team's goals. then this also, you know, active learning can also foster continuous personal and professional growth. That is our friend.
Stan Liu (3): That's awesome. So I'm so glad to hear. I would say that it warms our hearts that we collectively, we're going to make a difference and we're going to make an impact. Oh, that's amazing. Thank you. give applause to everybody for that.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so I wanted to take the opportunity from here to see if anyone has feedback or over the past week, you know, you've probably had a chance to look at the VTO to see where your role may contribute to the core values and many of the more concrete things we've set. So the core values are pretty much, that's kind of, that's a DNA, that's not changing. But as we come further and further down the VTO, it becomes more specific to what happens on the daily, weekly, quarterly basis. So I wanted to see if you guys had any feedback pertaining to your role and how that might contribute to what the company-wide rocks are. And I shared that the rocks are basically the five or six major commitments that we need to finish for this quarter. And as long you As we are committing to finishing those from an individual level, contributing to those company rocks, and we know the one year, three year, ten year targets will be hit with fair certainty. I wanted to just see if anyone had feedback on that.
Kristin Neal: For me, number three, the implementation install and set up the system, that was a good one for kind of look back and say where, like this one specifically, where am I doing that, and where am I doing that, the one in the back, but when we where it talks about having like a process, like having that very, very clear, um, process, there we go, proven process for working with clients. That was something that I was like, okay, um, that one I, it was speaking to me about where I can improve with that. And, um, and I appreciated, I was able to meet with Juan yesterday, um, process might be different for every single person. So getting that big, the big rocks, for that, I'm excited to, to see where that can be broken down into, um, the, um, the ongoing support. There were, there was a big rock to about intention, um, that I spoke to Juan yesterday, and I had kind of mentioned it, um, I think in Friday's meeting, just having that partner, like that word partnership. Um, I love that we take that on. It's not just, okay, I'm going to just, you know, and hope you enjoyed it. This is actually a deeper sense of that. So having that process more clear for a partner, that's a big rock that I'm excited for. We're going to partner. Let's do it. Let's really take that on. So I'm excited for that the most. That's my biggest thing that I'm most excited about. Thank you, Kristen.
Quan Gan: So on those few highlights, I think it's something that's going to be quite collaborative with the team because in order for Kristen to be able to present a proven process to customers, so many other components need to work out. And I shared this with the team where we're transitioning between the early adopter stage and the company to an early mainstream stage and there's a there's a book that captures this quite well called Crossing the Chasm. Crossing the Chasm is a marking book talking about how a company goes from this early stage to early mainstream and something I wanted to highlight is when you're in early adopter mode a lot of our customers they just believe in us because they share a lot of same core values and it's almost like it doesn't matter what we're selling because they believe in us they'll just throw money at it and those are the early customers early on they just believe however as you start getting into the bigger early majority market that's no longer the case because those guys they need to see facts they need to see things well documented improvement they need to see the early adopters having a lot of success however they need to see a lot of guarantees so so as we're crossing this over that means we have to have proper documentation. We have to have tutorials. We have to basically if they're gonna pay this amount of money They have to know exactly what they're buying, right? So Making that shift means, you know our support desk needs to to have a lot of foundation with FAQs so that maybe Rather than getting all of these Repetitive questions on why things we have certain issues or replacements Maybe we pre proactively prevent it from happening or we have documentation that supports them So that you know only only things that they cannot resolve through those standard means that that comes to us but also having you know video instructions or Or clear manual so all along the stage, so I think that's something We can set up a separate meeting for you to really start workshopping Well, I would also, since we're getting close to time, I wanted to invite each of you guys throughout this week to find another one-on-one with me so we can start getting more focused onto the specifics of your role and how that contributes to the team's rocks for this quarter. And then once we get that a little bit more solidified, I'd like for us to come back as a group and present what that means and probably just do a group workshop. But today, I didn't want to have us to just jump in and start brainstorming that's a little bit too much. I wanted to really have everybody just to understand the core values and we're going to take this in a rhythm. not like dumping everything all at once, just slowly growing this company in this pace and slowly but surely we'll get there. Yeah. Stand to do Have any other feedback?
Stan Liu (3): I, my only feedback would be, since this is new to a lot of a new to the team, it could be overwhelming. In reality, it is our job to assign the roles. So I feel that one need to do a little bit more. We need to do a little better job in assigning the roles. That's based on it this tough, because we're sitting in the just going to the analogy of C, EOS to often talk about the seat. At this point, we fairly know what each other like, each one of us like to do and what one of us enjoys doing. So the big part of being in the seat in the role is we want to really take ownership of it. There's something that we can be very proud and something that we can be very motivated about, and then something that we can be very comfortable of doing, that I am just here. And then this is me kind of thing. Ultimately, that works the best. And in a scenario like this, a platform like this, as we are now, I think it's a little bit tough to say, we come out in which road do we think we have. We want to tick on. know, want to take on all the roads. When we feel to the point that we, our roads can overlap with each, let's just say, take one of the roads, and then, but I can do other things overlap. And that's when we started the job. So we're 80% of what we think of this is what I think this is a poor and absolutely love it. But if we, I can, I can spend the other 20%.
Quan Gan: that can help overlap to the other so imagine that we're then each one of us so we have a team of four five and when we're doing 80 percent but we end up maybe have a team of even about six or seven or even more than when we overlap that way so I feel like that could be a maybe move a little bit um um it be easier to visualize that way yeah I I agree I think um a lot of our roles are is fairly defined in what we do um however what can be clearer is what are those metrics that we're going to be hitting by the end of this quarter that can contribute to the the group rocks so that's something that I wanted to work with each of each of you individually on to to get that into more concrete things that we can hit by the end of in this quarter. And some of those goals may be collaborative goals. It might be in order for this rock to be completed, several other things in another person's role needs to be completed. So by having this one-on-one discussion, I'll be able to understand what the, how things are interwoven. Some are individual, some are collaborative. And once we get that more defined, then we present it together to make sure each person understands how their role is fitting into the overall tapestry. Okay. So that's pretty much it for me for this week. I don't know if else to say. Who me?
Stan Liu (3): Yeah. else? It seems like we're a little bit timid, think of it as when we go, I don't know, Vala was not this way before, don't know how to swim, but it's like testing out the waters or just going out to a plain field, right? So let's just say plain kickball. A lot of times we're standing on the side and we're like a little kick a little bit ball, and then after little bit, and we're just going to storm out to the field, and I don't care, we're going to play, we'll play soccer. Hey, I'm here. So that's when it feels like, and once we all get in, it will be fun, and we place as a team, and as a team, know, what's a really good thing about a team is we sometimes, each one of us may fall, but there's a team to pick us up, and one of us might have a big win, and there's everyone else there to lift up. That big win, and they're for all. So think of it that way. And that is usually, it's the best. We're here to support and we're here to help and we're here to celebrate each other. And together it would move forward. And in the beginning, we talk about when we're talking about a rolling team. So I would add something to the rolling team. At the lot of times, once we, I've been, I try out rolling in college. And it was really fun. And the thing, the reason I stopped it, I could not wake up in three in the morning every day. Those guys are like real super disciplined. They're like before dawn. And if I find something and I'll be ready, I just couldn't do it. But I absolutely love it. And because when we're rolling the same thing, it's almost like this thing. If you ever experienced a rolling and everybody does it the same thing, it goes like this. And all of a sudden, you can see the jaw of the boat just get pushed in. It's fast and you roll again and just goes and then rolls again and goes fast, but I would add to that is do not think of that. We don't have each, each row or each one of us do not have vision of what they. So that was something I would say I would say differ because I certainly we're not the row or that we do not see the finish line over there. We want to be, I would on on top of that that we want to be it at the same thing. So I would, I think, kayaking is a much better example. get kayaking each one of us has this I don't know if you've done kayak by yourself or kayak by team. So the good thing with kayaking a lot of times. I've done it. So sometimes I get exhausted. The person sitting in front of me behind me just rolled and let me take a little breather. And then I go like this in the right end of this and we seeing in the vision of what's in front of us and what's really ahead at the exciting. Yeah, thank you for pointing that out.
Quan Gan: I think not all analogies are perfectly shitting, but I think in understanding the context of why we're putting into system, it's important to understand we'll get into a rhythm, and it's natural that right now we're timid because we haven't tried it yet. It's very new, but I can guarantee at some point we're going to start feeling that traction. Every week we come in, we're going to have a new meeting format eventually called the L10, and I'll share that with you guys later on, but it's going to be a very rhythmic meeting that you know exactly what you're reporting in, you know exactly what everybody else is working on, and so we'll have a lot more context. we ultimately all see the goal, but when we get back to our role, we're powerhouses in doing that, and we'll build the confidence.
Stan Liu (3): So another analogy of a boat, if you haven't gone on a small boat, when you're first on there, the thing is wrong. It's kind of scary because it it tells like this, but when we start rolling and get out there as super fun and going out to places When only that we can't even swim or or something. So as I get I remember like the the scariest thing It's getting under the boat and off the boat. What's in there?
Kristin Neal: Everything else is really fun You guys are forgetting we have a lot of faith.
Stan Liu (3): You have a team of faith. What better example in the boat that jesus to the storm and Yeah, we'll ride through if a storm comes through, you know? All right. No one has got any duties.
Quan Gan: I finished mine earlier. Yeah, I got to take the kids to class, but yeah, so I invite you guys to just reach out to me on a one-on-one and then we'll work through what your specifics are.
[Metadata only — transcript not included in this selection]
Quan Gan: Hello.
UTF LABS: Yeah. Hi. How are you?
Quan Gan: Doing good.
UTF LABS: How are you? I'm going to wait. I also just want to test on feathering the real meetings. That's why I could, I allowed it to. So I checked your, you're also using feathering.
Quan Gan: Oh, yeah.
UTF LABS: Great. Yeah. I tested it and it looks fine to me to learn this, but I haven't tested it in a real meeting. So I just wanted to think against water. Okay.
Quan Gan: The nice thing I found about it is the transcripts are immediately available right afterwards. Um, it takes Otter a little bit longer, but I think it might have an API for us to trigger something because I know at least you can link it to Zapier.
UTF LABS: Okay. So, um, I haven't tested that much, but what I thought on that it was taking quite a bit of time in order to versus the video. So I wasn't able to see the transcript either. I don't know if it's related to the three words and a feature or maybe.
Quan Gan: I it's for fathom.
UTF LABS: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. No, I'm using the free version right now. So I haven't tried it to do anything beyond that.
UTF LABS: Also, I mean, we are going to talk about it when I'm waiting for actually Sean, I guess, but to me, I'm in the last week of a couple of days, we talked about how to check the activity. So I kind of expected the data from the data as well as over this part. And I was wondering my share with you the office so that maybe we can figure out some sort of APIs in order to take the activity.
Quan Gan: Go ahead. Thank you. You You
Shan Usmani: You Hi guys can you hear me yes yes so did you let go what agenda for today yes hi thank you so yeah let's just quickly the objectives so basically we'll do and align the access and VP documentation and just discuss the development of the MVP and then we'll assist the progress on as it's assisted tools and the work that you guys are developing for the previous in the last meeting we did discuss briefly over the MVP and we decided to hold on to the MVP development and focus on completing the documentation first then we quickly discuss the AI assistant board review stuff and the recap of project management where Nihal will provide you the updates into this meeting. Can you take us through your comments on the next review documentation?
Ferenc Orban: Yes so I started looking over the next documentation as you saw started creating the issues how I saw fit and I this morning I Assigned all the MVP related issues to one of us. Okay, so.
Quan Gan: Sorry, would you be able to screen share.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, sure.
Quan Gan: Thank you.
Ferenc Orban: So. Okay, so here is the main issue that I created, which contains all the findings that currently exist. As I ran through them. I was quite superficial with it, but I saw a few places that we might find that we might want to get rid of. I will. take some decision or ask your opinion on this once I get to those crossroads, so to speak, but most of these parts are okay, I think, and we'll have to go through this. So the next thing I did was I added the MVP prefixes or MVP partial, but I thought that we do need the file at some extent to provide this information for MVP creation. Those that are needed partially are signed like MVP partial, and the other ones I set to MVP simply. There was this build system that So I left the issue here, but I didn't assign it to anyone, and Sean removed the MVP font of it. And I think there was another one.
Shan Usmani: And yes, I won't talk about it.
Ferenc Orban: Yes, yes.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Real quick, before you move on, then where would you see your initial thought of the actual build, like the build pipeline? Would that be documented in a different document?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, well, here we either we decided that we added here, or, well, am I thinking it should be somewhere in the beginning of the documentation? It's more of a higher level, more either at the beginning or at the end. So it's less culturally, more of the environment. that's how I would...
Quan Gan: Why why don't you make a decision on that later and just have it as a placeholder.
Ferenc Orban: Thank you.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Ferenc Orban: please go on. Trying to take a quick look. So yeah, what else was there? So I imagine we leave this I found it easy to create a new issue for any of these if you can see the three dots and you can just convert to issue. So it just creates a new issue for any of these if you decide to start with one of this. So you don't really have to manually create it and then the new issue is. So what I saw is most of the documentation that is already done is contained within these MVP files. at a pretty good starting place for the NVP. But yeah, we really have to read through all the documentation and make sure that everything we wrote, we already wrote is correct and we align the things that we align the way we think about the project. So I feel there are two places we can individually make mistakes on. So we can make mistakes on our own parts like when I'm creating, let's say the taking management, I might overlook something, leave out something, or just totally mess it up. And so that's one part that I can make sure it's correct. Same on the UTF side and the other. The third thing is in the alignment of these, so everything should be complying to the same system expectations. Those should work together, so this is the link between these, the architecture parts, architectural parts, those things have to be reviewed I think. Because I'm still not sure whether we are thinking the same way about this project, so that's something we will have to review as well. So, yeah, I think the first step would be to make sure these are individually correct and every line is red. I don't know if you saw. So, when I assign this style back to you, you can leave this out. For anyone, if you decide so, but I think this is the file that concerns you the most, since you created this document structure, so I'm just a quick review from your side. We'll be happy on that. Okay, I'll take a look. Thank you. Yeah, I think that's the only file I assigned to you, so what else was there? Yeah, there were a few questions that I'm not sure we should discuss. For the ballgame, this MPP will have results, if I'm correct, Actually, okay, and the only MQTT for the first version, right?
Shan Usmani: Yeah, so actually, if we see the document, there are multiple stages for the MPP. We eventually, I think it's in the third stage that the youth will be implemented. Nihal, can you confirm that? Or in the second stage?
UTF LABS: Yeah, so the point was we went for the must be much less anxious. Like one of those things in the initial version. So the initial version, what we thought was only the ball game, which we had in the first, in the earlier before we had it. So it won't be controlled by this as what we thought to be honest. So you are going to use the buttons in order to make it the next device and not a device initially. And then we have some sort of satisfactory results with the next architecture. We are going to move towards the zombie sample version. So in that version, we are going to integrate youth and LGBT everything. But that being said, that doesn't mean that what we are going to develop on the MVP board. And then we have the classes for, let's say, and then we are developing the small game. So we are going to leave these bases for everything, but we are not working, so that we could pick it, and then we have to. Does it make sense?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, I think it does.
UTF LABS: So we have to re-understand this part. I think we had a very many classes.
Quan Gan: What are you thinking about? Sorry, can you repeat that?
UTF LABS: So I was saying that I think we should move towards two stages, first stage with the ball game, which will only have the ball game with the button version. You are going to make someone, let's say, a ball feature by using the button, or popular using the button. It doesn't contain that's use as well as hand-creating messages. So once we have sort of satisfactory results with that ball game, we are going to move towards this arrival. This will have use as well as entity, obviously, indignation within that. So we are, we are going to see like two versions of that's what I didn't hear the last part, but I understand the first part is a ball game where you're just using the buttons to assign the ball and then the second version is the zombies are available again. And by that one, we will have implemented MQTT, right? Yeah, yeah, with zero settings.
Quan Gan: Is there is there any need for an intermediate step where the ball game uses MQTT, or would you jump directly to zombie?
UTF LABS: I would prefer to jump directly to zombie server because we don't want to really invest on this use side just to find out that I did live at the working of the Nexus. We can use maybe the idea of agents or the really feasible agents we have for the tools to test the Nexus for it.
Quan Gan: Okay, and then eventually you'll come back to the ball game and then put MQTT back in.
Ferenc Orban: yeah you mentioned the ball game but you come like keep away and then you're gonna have a stable game the games we already have like the six games for it okay yeah I would agree to that yeah well ultimately at that point the game creation should be just just a few hours away anytime if if the Nexus is does support the MQTT just just same because that that's the idea if it doesn't if we can't create the MQTT version in a GFI then we have to improve on the Nexus okay sorry I didn't get you can you repeat sure yeah so what what I'm thinking is that creating You know, games should be a few hours away at any time if the Nexus is correctly done, if we did a good job with the Nexus. So upgrading from the ball game to the MQT, like this version of the ball game shouldn't take too long, so it shouldn't be a matter of weeks or something. Just saying we like a pick and taste when we have some sort of stable miniature voice, I agree with you. So if we can't create the Nexus version easily then we have to improve on the Nexus and we are not yet ready I think to move further with the project from the MQT. I think as you said it's a good thing to break it up into stages which is more digestible to us so we can prepare it and make sure that it's perfectly viable for games without server and after that we can upgrade servers to server games and so that upgrade should make us create the so upgrade the Nexus so that we can make sure that everything's working perfectly I don't think we have to go into more complex games or anything until we we are sure that every stage is perfectly created so just just a cool as a quick input into this so now we are not wasting much time if we are upgrading
Quan Gan: that we have to, zealous, very, I have a quick question regarding the, documents. Um, so I'm just looking through GitHub, you, you added the, uh, the file names, uh, or you changed the MVP and MVP partial file names, but that's only in the issues and not actually updated in the GitHub repo.
Ferenc Orban: Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. didn't intend to do so. Do you think, uh, it would make sense.
Quan Gan: Okay. No, just, um, I think that's fine. just wanted to clarify because I thought the files were actually updated themselves.
Ferenc Orban: Okay. No, uh, we could keep track of, uh, this information in one of the files. Maybe the MVP file, uh, we can have list at the end, which, uh, which documentation files, uh, uh, MVP version, maybe. So we do have it under, um, version control. So the. That's maybe the idea to have that if we do that then someone will you have to manually or use a script to link between the issue and the And actually get help repo file Yeah, we can do that. That's why I shouldn't take it on here. Um, can we assign that to someone?
Quan Gan: I can do it Okay.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, I just want to be sure that if we do then it's it's in sync Yeah, yeah, so The list shouldn't be changed too much. I think if Some files come into into the MVP stage Or We remove from it from the we can update the MVP file.
Quan Gan: Actually, we need to automatically update But what about the statuses? What about the statuses of reviewers that something that you would put into the repo or just keep it on the issues.
Ferenc Orban: Well, I'm not sure about the repo. Is it something that we would need to look back into?
Quan Gan: No, I don't see the immediate need. I just wanted to clarify what the decision is.
Ferenc Orban: knows where to go. I think this information about the MVP related files can be used in five years from now and we see a bug cropping up. We can look back and see if it's thoroughly created in the MVP. What files were related to the MVP? So, in that sense, I think this is Good information. The current state of the issues is not all that important, I think, down the line. Yeah, I'm not sure what was the, the zoos was the only real question I had. The other things were related to some of the files here that I saw. The game management and the game manager in the face, the corpse of these files. think we will decide when we get there. And it was another one. State machine. No, I think I answered that question. So, this is the main goal that I wanted to talk about. The issues that I assigned to Sean were assigned based on what we agreed up on previously. when I saw that you guys started working on the file, just assigned it to Sean. Feel free Sean, feel free to assign it back to me or assign it to anyone else you see it. So, it was just so every file has an owner.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, I had the idea. the plan was exactly that. So, we are discussing which files. It's not your decision. I'm discussing it with him. I think he's already working on the software, the need or he has some place for other files as well. So, once we're finalized, so I'll let you know and we can divide the files in between us.
Ferenc Orban: committed something as I have said so now he's working on it okay and feel free to put it back to my name so if you see that's better suited for me so okay so that's that's I think that's all from my side what I want to do is start like people working in the first time going into the details and making sure that everything is correct that we wrote and I'm taking from from the first MVP file from the list I iterate through the through the list I start with the MVP and go down the list all the files that I named with and I will start really with the ones that have my name until I Finish, I think there will be enough files for me to review that are already done by the UTF team and vice versa.
Quan Gan: How much progress do you think each team will make by next meeting on reviewing the docs?
Ferenc Orban: Well, we do have some time streams, all that, so I'm not sure how far you'll get, and yeah, as I at to my name is, but I think I can go through a few files, maybe half of them are assigned to me. how many people are working on the UGF side so and trauma is mostly I think he's focused on the bots so yeah so I I agree with this I think we can do like couple of files uh so we have a main vessel we will divide this both realness uh and we'll update on this part of which files we are going to do okay uh afterwards after I signed tasks uh all I had issues uh I felt like maybe maybe it's uh it's more gravitating towards you guys so if uh you guys feel there is too much um assign assign it to me as a okay so I think we should hang forward uh we present out so this activity didn't um was
UTF LABS: to our side for the end means that what we think regarding the word. I think we have discussed quite few things like we want to mention that we don't like the system or the address are like mandatory things as well as there's using production techniques for the first or initial version of it. So our take on the analysis is related to MVP. For example, there will be one to press U and those files first, which are the two MVP and obviously we are moving forward with that strategy. So that's pretty much it. And we realized, you know, what files we're working on and then assigned into each person. So I just want to mention this for the note figure that the generalization pretty much already not quite easily advanced, especially. And obviously, regarding the goals and deliverables, we wanted to clarify and obviously for all the asks. So the first For initial version, we have this current with the ball game, which can be comparable for the via the buttons. And initially, we thought that we could look into the core one taggers, but feel free to create it for the core S3 as well. I mean, we are going to design it dynamically, so each device or blackboard one or four S3, both can be playable. But the approach was that it should be tested or it can be tested firstly on the core one taggers. And obviously, the second version, which we are going to be delivering, which is a gillium to be with these on piece of value game. This will have this use and equity interactions. With that being said, just want to clarify one thing that when we are talking about divergence, it doesn't mean that the things which are not the word yet would have been left. as it is, maybe that we are going to have some sort of classes and sectional layers, but obviously they won't be some methods depending on those functionalities. So we've benefited that when we can build up the nexus or the MDPs kind of paid off what we were kind of planning on the nexus architecture. So yeah, that's pretty much it on the goals and the real business. So again, for the both coming point on the agenda, which is regarding the alignment of the current work of what all the mix architecture, we discussed that we will distribute the files within us. So bearing some responsibilities and whether it takes some of them. I really personally also kind of cover to some of them, like with regard to maybe a manager. And I think he also wanted to work on or maybe have put on the other part also, but we will update you on that. So yeah, that's That's on that point. Okay, so on the point 2D, which is AIS still on my development workforce, like multi-section to an access project. So I don't miss the point, but how we are going to be checking, like which files have been evaluated by a home and how much they have been done. For example, let's take an example of the envious file. So the envious file was previously done by the team and I believe it was done by the family. So how can I maybe tell that it's done by a team and what sort of like a percentage of progress has been done so that we know the status of what things are remaining or maybe if there is some sort of tracking to do on it. So is there any sort of mechanism? I just wanted to discuss that point.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, so quite honest about this as well. think we can first idea was we could keep track of this by adding these status tables like flags to the name themselves because originally I originally I wanted to add multiple checkboxes but the top address doesn't support that so I wanted to add multiple checkboxes and we should check in the faces of the documents. So that's not possible so I think we should write it in the same line maybe at the end of the finding that it's being promised or being created or like a time flow review or something and just as you were asking the question right now I was thinking maybe we'll We could utilize the labels in GitHub project. We could add the...
UTF LABS: Yeah, I actually want to comment on that. I believe this was also discussed in the report. So I think they should be doing it for checking it. Maybe the granular focus can be noted with the key files, but they should at least some sort of integration on the beta project as well, which stream which file and what progress has been done. So we can utilize details for that. Or maybe create some extra columns or groups, so that it can indicate. So I agree that they should be the tool kind of layer and the inner layer, which is the inner layer layer within the files.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, we can add it to the in-review and maybe assign the label. And also assign the issue to someone.
UTF LABS: Also, when I was asking that in the program, so how can you tell how much maybe file has been powered by someone? Is there any way that you maybe thought about that?
Ferenc Orban: For Singapore, how far it is done? Yeah, well, that's virtually impossible because you don't know what the end product should look like, really. So if we would know then, we would know how much we have to run it into it. So that's how I fed with the documents that I already created and kind of closed. I deemed them ready for review or something.
UTF LABS: So maybe what we can do is maybe create some sort of to-dos within the file. we can like check the to-dos. For example, initial extraction layer has been done or the clear method has been done, the same layer has been some sort of to-dos, so that if maybe it won't necessarily tell us about the percentage of the progress, but can at least tell us that these things have been done without going looking into the actual find. Does it sound like not good?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, I'm suggesting we start working on a find by first creating any stuff to-dos, like a high-level view. I think this file should have this, this, this, and this information in it. Okay, that would be great. I tried to kind of come up with ideas like these in the short descriptions, but I didn't want to overwhelm the reader with anything, but yeah, one thing. So we start working on the file, it would be great. And I think AI can have a blast with this, creating these small short lists and making sure that.
UTF LABS: Yeah, definitely, because we're going to be using the systems of AI and even so like it maybe create the kubus or maybe let it check the task what we have done against the kubus.
Ferenc Orban: So I think that's a little bit reasonable. It's really important, though, I want to emphasize that we really have to read through everything we accept from AI, because I do tend to accept stuff that like an overlooked stuff that it suggests.
UTF LABS: And it kind of sounds OK, but when you really think about things that it writes, sometimes it just doesn't have to add up with the things that I think it's nice. I agree. that was that sometimes it's taken off sometimes and it is hallucinating with some of that thing. So yeah obviously.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah I can't really describe the exact situation but it's like it feels when you read it you read what it suggests it it looks like it's taking a new view on the subject and it feels like a fresh view which you could agree with but once you really try to implement it or go by the idea that AI suggested it doesn't really add up. So these are some tricky things that it suggests sometimes. Maybe these are things that we will have we will overlook a few of these and we'll correct these once we start a really implemented call them you will see them down. So that really makes sense but yeah just we should just try to
UTF LABS: So, I think that should be going to point to me, which is balancing the hardware capabilities and access from where framework development. The point where I was trying to look at the way here was that, yeah, we have some sort of software architecture of the Nexus, but then we should be like in the last class meeting we discussed that we should be aware of the hardware capabilities also. For example, if LT and IR put can actually work and maybe if NBS is not like creating trouble with other tasks or other flash memory read write operations. So I just want to emphasize within this point of the data that yes, there are things that are possible within software architecture like for example, using a session layer or maybe using DBS or children task, but. but there are things in the CDAC which are beyond software which is like hardware and other things or the logic should be but like what are the these we should be taking.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, isn't that exactly then why we are going towards the MVP because we know from previous experience that a lot of things they don't work together as we mentioned like in some cases with the NBSM and just kind of things so it's right we can plan everything on paper and we can draw all the architecture but yes using the interval point of the MVP.
UTF LABS: Yeah, that is the basic model of it but what I was trying to make here is that there's a file for it may be I think task 30 so within that file we have LTS as well as the highest priority. So I was like suggesting that we should also also. take these points into consideration because they're just doing things like that. So obviously the point of making them will be so check or validate the next architecture we are working. Okay, so I think moving forward with the point three regarding the progress review on the YouTube side, I would like to add a shot for the status of M5GFX integration for the data. Initially we were working on the hardware side but what that's true like for the AI node HR, what has been done and if we have to stop why and what are we looking forward?
Shan Usmani: Yeah, so basically we were working on like It helps me to have an impact stack before the last meeting, but since we agreed into the last meeting that we will be focusing on the document from now on. So, sasselbin and I have been basically, mostly facile, basically working on, like the z-tech game management lab, think he committed it today as well, then by the document, and from now, today we will divide the other files as well, and mostly we will be working on the documents in the for the next meeting as well.
UTF LABS: Okay, on the progress on activity or meeting in a generation, I just want to continue this point for the performance meetings. I think it has been discussed quite a Thank you. the last meeting's task as well as the last meeting it and then with the few problems we are we are able to generate the next meeting data and then we can kind of tweak it to align with what has been discussed and that is part and other things which it has missed. So I just want to ask if this is the generation for the data we are going to be taking forward or the board is do you think the board is reliable enough or maybe do that task too so that we can move forward with the actual work which is in the sense that which is necessary for the typing. So it's specifically about one or betting so the thing you should move forward with with the specific meetings we can do discussion or board discussion if we are going to be having some sort of updates we can obtain them. But I don't think we should be making them as a part of the thing that I'm doing forward unless there's some sort of, like, very important, especially one with it.
Quan Gan: I think the general quality has increased over the past couple of weeks with this in assistance. I still do think that we should have some kind of a metric that we can see, but it doesn't necessarily have to be in the agenda. Maybe it's just some active reporting in the discord, I'm fine with that. And then if there's anything that I need you guys to jump on or to make corrections, I can keep it in discord so then we can focus this beating on the actual implementation.
UTF LABS: Okay, so, so parent, do you think the board can do that? Like if we can provide a key transcript for the last meeting and as well as the agenda and within like two terms it might be able to give some sort of agenda which we can do that with the board or do you think it is still in the task in place?
Ferenc Orban: Well, yeah, the bot can do these things, I think. I it can do something, it can't synthesize some agenda if there's a question. This agenda does look good. What I felt is that we are kind of focused on one subject right now. I'm curious on what it does when we start changing the subject, broadening the subject.
Quan Gan: There's both teams have access to the markdown files which contain the. specific prompts, so you can make adjustments if needed, as both teams have that access.
Ferenc Orban: Are you asking me?
Quan Gan: I'm asking you either one.
Ferenc Orban: I don't know where the actual the problems are still embedded into into the code right now. It's and it's on our list to separate those. But it's available nonetheless, so the code is available to both of us, it's in the repository, the MISC, the Z-TAN MISC.
UTF LABS: Yeah, but for your UTF side, where is the prompt for you guys to and believe in them better than representing within the all about meetings file and and I have like the transcript which I'm using, so it already has that form and if it generates some sort of errors, I let the AI know and kind of like feed it that it should be there, it should take care of the later responses as the initial but problems are available in the meta technical experience that all up on meetings file.
Quan Gan: How much time does it take for you to currently go through the process of generating the agenda?
UTF LABS: To be honest, it takes like five minutes to, again, I know there's some sort of solid agenda but it still has errors, that so we kind of feed errors in the sense that sometimes maybe hand-listen it, in the sense that it affects the things which I already discussed, so we have very much. that as well as there are things like which are discussing that it's for so it's not mentioned the customer or maybe like that so we have to add them those two so it can it can take like the time depending on the individual person.
Quan Gan: But it's not taking some hours of time right?
UTF LABS: No, not really. Next thing is like half an hour depending on much it's missing.
Quan Gan: So it doesn't take that time but I think it can be smooth out with you. Right. Okay. I'm just trying to strike a balance between you know the manual part and the automation because if it doesn't take that much human time to generate an agenda then I do see value in keeping the human in the loop just to check the output and being you know somewhat involved in generating the agenda. Now if it's taking a significant amount of time then we can think about spending an equal, if maybe little bit more time to automate it, perfect it and hand it over to the bot. if it's diminishing returns, then I don't mind keeping an manual process if it's not taking that much time.
UTF LABS: Yeah, but I think we might need more context. example, the context board, meeting board has in terms of what everyone has in place within the last meeting, as well as what they want to talk about, as well as the access to channels. I think that context is really necessary, which right now I do, like let me do this for channels and I'm kind of updated with every knowledge what's being happening. So I did that, but if we are gonna have some sort of information with the bot and then we can utilize that as well as starting point to generate the meeting. and it can, let's say, maybe five minutes, given a curve, like, you might have been in that situation. So I'm trying to make a point that I think the bot can be utilized in this scenario, and it's still keeping the environment that makes sense.
Quan Gan: OK, so it sounds like this might be a Chavez side, whether how you would give your prompt, or just point travel to where you're using the workflow with the different prompts, and then see if you can integrate it into the bot.
UTF LABS: Is that what you're asking? Yeah, I will maybe share these regarding what the process is. It's pretty basic to learn this, and that is thought. And then maybe we will work around if this can be done in the bot.
Quan Gan: OK, yeah, we could try that. then eventually, I'll need to implement it on my server. So. I'm still getting the instructions on getting that deployed.
UTF LABS: Yeah, so that's pretty much on the progress in you. So what about the men they ask for? are anything left. I think we have already talked about it, but just comment on it. If there's anything left on that.
Ferenc Orban: No, no, no, it was covered earlier.
UTF LABS: Okay, so I'm going to power it up 0.4, which is the integration that was closed. yeah, so I think on the daily thought, interaction with our development updates. So I just want to ask if there are any sort of maybe shortcomings of the bot and the bot in the task, what is it is assigned? For example, what the summary it is generating or maybe it is, it hallucinate or something like that. It's sort of limitations with the quad interaction you're facing because the reason I'm asking is because I was thinking that if we are going to integrate the meeting part within itself so it doesn't make it all to the empty.
Quan Gan: Well, something I noticed in just interacting with the bot yesterday is I had quite a bit to say but it still compressed it down quite a bit so I felt like there was some resolution loss at least from an entire week's worth of input whereas maybe if it's daily interactions it's more like a drip then it can capture the resolution on the daily a little bit better so I'm just wondering if if having daily interactions might give it better context as it's generating the agenda.
Ferenc Orban: So by daily bot, are you referring to the meeting? What? Yeah, meeting bot specifically. Okay, yeah, okay. So I think we can adjust the prompt that lets the bot create the summary first. So yeah, Thomas said that it will be available for daily, talking, it will, what is more precisely what I expect this bot to do is nothing really on daily chat. Regarding the week. like the workflow that it would just listen. Maybe we start up about Monday morning and the bottle reads back whatever I wrote and summarizes that into however long the message to be. Yeah I saw these messages these summaries are quite similar in size so but I felt like this is enough like it does come at least on my part I never had the feeling that it needs more. What I would expect from a summary like this is to touch upon every subject that I will don't. So anyone who wants to ask questions or teaching I can do so by just because you saw that working on something that is related to his launch.
Quan Gan: So if you have it like a passive bot that's waiting for human input, I just wonder how much enforcement of having enforcement in the right work, but just how proactive each person might actually have that habit. So this is why I was thinking the bot should at least prompt that the user may be on a daily basis. at least you feel that it's something that you want to be giving input for versus if it's just like an empty bot. And you throw messages into then I don't know how to interact with that feels.
Ferenc Orban: I want to make sure that I understood this correctly, and lastly, I think we agreed upon a version of weekly summary where the user can opt in on this daily option, daily like progress report. And this way, the user can, but is not granted or is not needed to report every day or when I'm going to finish something. But on Monday morning, when the question appears, what you did this week, the user would be presented with the commit logs, so just refresh his memory and summary of whatever he wrote to the bot. in the real time.
Quan Gan: Does this bot have any insights into the code input? it have access to the repose or the issues?
Ferenc Orban: It should. It doesn't have a right now. We don't use that information. I think it's possible to use the API. I think it does present a way to.
Quan Gan: Would it be a lot of work to implement that? To basically link a particular GitHub user back to the discord account so that it would already have context of what the user has done?
Ferenc Orban: I think we can do this pretty easily for just the simplest ways just to take the user from the discord. from the from GitHub and we can link it in the email if it's not possible in any other way. But yeah, I think it's the two of all, I'm pretty sure it is already done because the question the meeting but asked me today did contain the comets that I had and only the comets that I had.
Quan Gan: it is the there are some key very first I think that that's from from my side of just more of a project management standpoint. It would be nice for a bot to synthesize a more holistic summary or maybe maybe more comprehensive summary. the better word for me to understand what each person is doing because I don't necessarily know the details at the code level, but if I at least have the context from the spot that gathers from the rest of the team exactly what they did throughout the week, it would be more oversight on what's happening.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, I would suggest for us to start creating more descriptive commit descriptions. When we commit, like when we do some commits, the summary that it is required for the GitHub commit, we should elaborate a bit more on that and the bucket could use the description that we had at the commit.
Quan Gan: Have you guys used AI to generate the commit language?
Ferenc Orban: I didn't use it a while back. I don't use it nowadays, no?
UTF LABS: No, but I just wonder if that would be a great workflow to have to have the AI suggest something as you're But what I do is like if I have something like extensive content, guess more like two or on the file which does two or three things. I let it know that I push this and it does this and this so that the reader would have more context than what it's looking for. I guess the solution would be like doing the multiple comments or the zombie comments which we thought about. But even if you don't, if you're not doing actually make the comments more understandable for the English, I'm going to go very high.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, I think you're going to benefit of the speed of us and the AI and the summaries as well. So I think maybe I'm not sure but I think the AI would be better off with a good description than with the code.
UTF LABS: Yeah, so taking this point forward which we have in the second point, so I just started the board like it has access to I use the credentials on that and then I just try to extract the basic things from the channels which we have activity on which are these and then only the people with their developer roles because they were the members also like the boards and other things. So I extracted like the most basic directions of each member which it showed. So I mean we had one and I was talking regarding these sort of interaction things and I was wondering if what we can extract from the on this part. Obviously, this is something like more of a numerical or stress system data, which we had. And then the other thing I did with the, you know, so we have like the number of permits or the files affected or the titles. So it has this data. So I was one thing, and again, this is continuation to the point we had. If the model can extract all this data and maybe kind of create some sort of progress some way, which not only let know everyone, including one that worked each of us working hard at work, whether or not we, but also can contribute to the meeting as well. Do you think we can do that? I don't understand how we could contribute. I was testing is that. So this is the things which I had to expect from this product. I just to check the general activity of each and every one. And the only members which are present here have some sort of activity. The other ones don't have any equity, so they are not mentioned here. And this is the data which is from the GitHub. So we have some sort of data which estimates all the time, it's all the commit titles. So I was asking do things. The first thing would be like to have some sort of progress submit of each and every one. For example, Taring is working on the MP files and he has done something, something on the display as well as the when we are creating the meeting agenda. So it would take that as an input. And then maybe create some sort of relevant meeting agenda input format. Obviously, the part of asking questions privately is also part it. of it. I was just saying that if these two things can also be done with this data, that does that make sense?
Quan Gan: Sorry, I was just saying for me seeing more granularity in each person's update from the AI will be helpful. So having more context from the commits and the various interactions, at least from my standpoint, would help. The hope is that having that data available to everyone would also give people more context. But yeah, that's just my opinion.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, that's something like that is what I wanted to say. I don't see it right now how I would use this information, but I can see how one would benefit.
UTF LABS: I was trying to make a point that maybe some sort of delta mechanism or the KPIs that we should show the data from both of these channels are pretty extensive the more you are the more it will give you so there's no limitation in terms of how much data you can get but on the point only is that how much we can utilize it for our needs as well as if it is it can be done by about how much it can move Okay, so I think what we can discuss in this part is we can be creating some sort of meaningful KTI's and as well I think on wanted is some sort of maybe a regular book as somebody which is not only you can have what each and every one has done but also what each and every one is working on and right now and I believe that these two are channels like that it's got one and that it can provide more context to it rather than just asking people so that's what I was referring to so I think we can take this conversation there for this part and we will have written it on this point then what do you think? I'm fine with that, if you guys are okay, that's all I think we should move forward. So regarding the, which is the point of the agenda, which is protect management tools, this person, this person on the hosting options are server. So I believe, why you are using your private server right now, and what about the four differences that we discussed, is that like an option?
Quan Gan: I have a remote Ali Cloud server, it's Linux. So whatever script you guys want me to run on that, I can.
UTF LABS: I just need instructions. Okay, so I believe Saba has a mess and did message on the code spaces that regarding that we can use it and there are some sort of limitations on the data action that it can only be six hours and this can be done in the code spaces by a docker. So, first of all, I think, I believe that Niels already had created and we talked about the ESP idea. I think we can utilize top-by-face and we need to talk about it. So, what about it? can discuss it in this part because we are going to utilize the four displaces or not or we are just moving forward with the drivers of the coin. Okay. So, you have anything on it?
Ferenc Orban: About Spaces stuff. I didn't see you clear the day. Yeah, well, as you said, doesn't really seem feasible at this point. the other option, the darker, did I understand correctly that you would want us to move forward with that?
UTF LABS: I was saying that if you want to move forward, let me know already you had to work on it. And you also have an idea of what is actually to occur. So again, I'll explain that if we really need to work out.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, yeah, so I haven't really used a darker but I understand it's the tool for our biggest problem because once we start update, upgrade some libraries, we are going to have some issues. So yeah, This is exactly the issue that would be fixed just the same way I expected the code spaces to fix it. And I was hoping that the code spaces is better and will provide some additional features that was common. But it's really not feasible.
Quan Gan: So yeah, I think I want to emphasize is regardless of what process we use, I do want ZTA to be the one hosting it just so that it's centralized so that I can basically have admin privileges to whatever the services you guys need.
Ferenc Orban: I guess you guys figured it out and put but
UTF LABS: I just wanted to ask, what sort of things that you need for certain object that you can tell us maybe we can look into it. Okay, I think we need to continue this discussion on this code about the doc because I'm not really prepared on the Okay, that's fine. Just let us know. I was just saying that we already have someone who has experienced in it. So maybe we might be able to distill is into the right direction.
Ferenc Orban: Is it shared somewhere?
UTF LABS: Can we? I'm not sure. believe it goes. don't know. I don't Okay. So moving forward with the next point, which is the data project, you said for the task management. So right now what we have on the repository are the issues. So what do you think we should pursue in the type project as for the management tool that we have some sort of problems which are kind of maybe tell the case, it is in the development. For example, we have some sort of problems indicating that the file is in the index section or maybe it's in the back lower in the complete section. So other things that should be done in the data project management, that is the only new scale we have for that.
Ferenc Orban: All right, I think so. Yeah, we kind of touched upon this, I think, earlier with the labels and the state of the progress.
UTF LABS: Yeah, so specifically what I was referring to, maybe it's the time, maybe creating what we are, the commitments what we are, what we make in these, and the meetings or maybe we could like, use them in order to practice the progress, that was, I was referring to just something that we should be looking forward for, we should like, use it as it is.
Ferenc Orban: I'm not sure, okay, do you have any suggestion, maybe, because I think it's a good the way and once we start using it and we find that some things we seem we can expand on. I was thinking of making the project next a bit different like not just ready in progress in review and on but a bit more granular like after like it's in progress like the documentation is in progress and after that in review with the label of the or the assignee it's assigned to which would be some new information and after review we can come back into in progress or maybe during review we can update the files and after that when it's completed it comes into a like the dunk column let's say then after that we
UTF LABS: into like assignment part. if there's a need in this stage, I think we should go ahead for that. Okay, so the moving like just I think we should wrap it up and with the actionable items for the next week.
Ferenc Orban: So what are the things that you provide for anyone and then I would continue with we'll work on the the meeting but optimizing it with the because we do have ideas written out with adding the summaries and perfecting the summaries and working on daily questionings maybe and so Chava is going to focus on the bots. I will be focusing on the documentation part Oh I will create a document for the build system. I'm calling it build system right now, but maybe something as a pipeline, the build pipeline in the description somewhere, that the other document was about. So I'll figure out a place for that. I will let the file list to the MVP file. I'll note it here. I will create a place for the prompt that I promised to make things work. So I will do that for the next meeting. And we will look into the Docker thing that you asked what is needed and what inputs we have regarding the Docker. Above that, I will work on the documentations.
UTF LABS: Okay, on our end, just I want to like share the things for the meeting process so that we can look into integrating that with the meeting board if feasible. Other than that, I will specialize in regarding the software, if we can push more, we can look into more aspects, if we can, know, other things as well. Or if there's any sort of limitations, if there are any, and the most important thing would be like, we would, we are going to be working on the MVP. So I'm not specifically sure what pilot we are going to pick, but I believe we could appeal to some of the drivers. We were just looking into, I mean, the pilot ceremony looked into the Indian management file, but I think he would look into the driver. some kind of the diverse maybe the LCD one or the other one because we were gonna start with that within the code so I believe we're gonna be picking that from the like I think it's I believe it's called bottom self approach so we're gonna be like moving forward from the and then data files for the everything we will let you know in the discord or other general what we are taking because anyway we are going to be assigning that to the specific website so that that the type of thing is provided for the task we are going to be delivering next week order next meeting I think that's it from all sides is there any comment from your poll but then you can better know so let me think about this focus okay so yeah so that's it from our side see you guys um the next meeting and delicious to be on Monday and
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Paula Cia: I have to see what this meeting is being recorded.
Stan Liu: Good morning. Good morning.
Kristin Neal: Good morning.
Stan Liu: Good morning. I'm on my phone.
Quan Gan: I see a whole bunch of Oh yeah. It's then helpful.
Stan Liu: So we're switching over the phantom?
Quan Gan: I don't know. At least I might do it because the nice thing about it is you could tie it to Zapier and then you can automate stuff. So rather than having to go into Otter and get the transcripts, you can just get it directly.
Stan Liu: Like, uh, tidy.
Quan Gan: It's again?
Stan Liu: The police turn delete the meeting. Oh, okay.
Paula Cia: Take it from me or follow. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Stan. Hi, everyone.
Quan Gan: Happy Friday.
Paula Cia: So we are ending the week with a lot of like changes and also like new things. So I would like to ask if how the week going and what are your plans on the weekend. So let's start with Christine. Christine.
Stan Liu: I guess it's good.
Kristin Neal: It was good. Let's see. The high for this week was definitely the meetings with one and. Yeah, it's almost been freeing somehow. So I'm really excited with the changes and. I don't know. I have just a lot of good. There's just a lot of good things. feels like a lot of things I was telling my husband.
Stan Liu: I'm feeling like they're coming into alignment.
Kristin Neal: So. There's a lot of things personally that are coming into alignment as far There's like health and food and spiritually with Stephen and I reading together in the mornings from his word and there's just a lot of good things going on in it.
Quan Gan: Oh, your microphone's off again. It's weird. Nope, I can't hear you. Okay, maybe we'll go to someone else or what time.
Paula Cia: Okay, maybe let's catch up with Christine later. So let's go next week.
Misamis Occidental/ Ptr. Kiara Grace Bajao: Yeah. Okay, hi everyone. Happy Friday. So how this week went? Personally, still transition. So a transition physically, like the early days that foods, most foods are not, it doesn't taste really good, so does it make me feel good? So I only have crackers and apples as my best friends these days, but I still get to eat enough for me to be nourished and grateful as well for this week when it comes to the building of our house. I know it had been extended really because of some things, but the bathroom been constructed and really hopefully next month is the month wherein we'll be moving to that new home. So I also wanted to touch with the transition, like the meetings that we've been We do have revising the drafts, so as I said to Quan last yesterday, it's exciting and kind of nervous, but then what's good with this is that there's really collaboration, so we don't get nervous alone. We do this together guys. And so I totally agree with the word alignment wherein the analogy of that that both illustration at Quan explained before really do make sense when it comes to the team. And so I think that's it for what happened during this week. Earlier I wasn't to go to church since I wasn't really feeling well. So I wasn't able to go to prayer meetings, so I only had the leaders and workers to to initiate the prayer meeting, but it was a success. So plans for the weekend tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be able to join our cottage prayer one of our members gonna be hosting it. So it's still gonna be in the afternoon. So I think I still have time to prepare and rest. And then of course, church day and what else? I think visit the location of the home. think that's more, it's all about the week and for me.
Stan Liu: Thank you guys.
Paula Cia: I'll give it to Paula. Yeah, I hope you'll feel better soon. And congratulations for your home.
Misamis Occidental/ Ptr. Kiara Grace Bajao: You too.
Paula Cia: Yeah, so well for me, my week went and like incredibly great because... For my, like, my small business, I had like a lot of old clients came back and then so I did their name. So it's, it's going pretty well. And then for the work really that so with a lot of like revisions and collaboration, I think we are, we are really like going, going straight for our goal. And I'm happy that I can use AI now for work related so the job will be easier. And then I'm also excited to work closely with Kristen and Amy for content creation. So, yeah, and my plan for a weekend is, yeah, maybe tomorrow I'll buy some floor tiles for my little home also. So I'm excited, but I think my home will not be finished. until next month so maybe next next month so yeah that's it for me guys let's go next to eat any we can't hear you okay so should we go back to Christine can you hear me now yeah yeah oh cool okay hopefully Amy you'll get your space or it'll come back let's see this weekend craft craft fair all right oh we can't hear you again Oh, you can hear you again.
Kristin Neal: Oh, can you hear me? Oh, God. This thing is a different mental anyways, uh, big hurricanes. That's probably what with the issue is, um, Internet is going in and out. So that's all. Thanks guys. Back to you, Paula.
Paula Cia: Thank you. Thank you. Chris. Let's go back to Amy.
Aimee Ocer: No. Do you again?
Paula Cia: Uh, we can hear you. But it's a little bit, uh, far, far from, um, can you hear me now?
Klansys Palacio: Yeah.
Paula Cia: welcome.
Aimee Ocer: Um, for this week, um, I'm happy, uh, received it back from Kwan and I excited and, um, excited to do a collaboration with Christine and Paula for content creation and then, um, This week also I had some slight fever in last Monday and Tuesday and had to go to last Wednesday and all of us came out good. And then earlier, seven of my, seven classmates of my younger, my child and the girl had fever because I think the influenza break out from the school, so they had to release all the children early in the afternoon. So I had to get my kid so that we would have to get the fever because the fever with the kids is, they get high fever during the whole morning so the teacher called us up and then she said we had to get the kids. my feed and then plants for the weekend, just the same, do the laundry and get some groceries and my husband is not yet home. So I'm looking forward for this week to speak with Christine and Paul for the collaboration of our content creation, what we could share to each other. And then I also finished my revised job, so I'll send it to Juan later, so that's my weekend.
Paula Cia: Thank you, Amy. Let's go next with Juan.
Quan Gan: Hi, everybody, so this week has been great for me in many respects, being able to speak to each of you one-on-one, just hearing about the alignment, and from my perspective, just overwhelmingly. It's the same feeling of a mix of excitement, but also, you know, shy and, you know, unknown, but I think it's perfect. And also just for me, it's one giant experiment because no one has done this before in terms of applying AI so in-depth into a company's operation. And the experiment is a co-creation process because, you know, Stan and I had worked together to set the VTO and set the general direction, but really we wanted each employee or each team member to really just come in and be able to proactively be a part of the creation process to figure out exactly what they need to do to help us hit the long-term target. And so it wasn't, it's a fundamental shift in our management where we're not just saying, hey, you do A, B, and C, know, don't question it. It's a collaborative and co-creating process, and I've never actually heard people feeling that way. So this is very exciting that we're getting into that kind of alignment. So yeah, that's a big plus for me. The negative was actually on the family side, but we're working through it. So one of my dogs, the other dog, and so I had to take the dog to the hospital and get stitches for her, so she was resting for the next two weeks at home. There was that. But positive personal thing was we did figure out how to get a visa appointment for my wife to go travel. And so we're ending up going to go to France in addition to Italy, because France was easier to get a visa for Italy, so difficult at it. experience was completely different. Actually, I do want to share the kind of the difference in so the Italian embassy, they they basically don't want to work and so they find reasons to reject you. Like if you just take your paper there, even if you have everything, if they find one tiny little thing wrong, like, no, go back and then book another meeting, which is like in like, I don't know, six weeks or something. And then by then it's already too late. And so they do that for everyone. So everybody who comes to them are basically rejected, know, people they reject. So they basically don't do any work for themselves. They're like, they go to work just to reject everybody. So there's that. But then we ended up going to France, the French embassy, and they and many other countries actually contract out their visa process to a company, like a private company. And the private company just makes us so streamlined. In fact, they have agents that you You could pay a little bit extra, and they'll just like get the documents through. So it was like completely different experience. One is a private company that knows about efficiency. And they also want to make money while they're doing it. So they just get it through this company. The government does not want to do work. So they should try whatever they can to just kick you back. And yeah, but for this weekend, not much planned, but I think we're going to go hiking later today. So let me close side of that.
Paula Cia: Okay, thank you so much, Juan. How about we go to Stan? Is Stan here or? Yeah, maybe.
Stan Liu: So it's super foggy here. just want to show you all. just have the old stuff. This is your house.
Kristin Neal: So this is our house.
Stan Liu: Let me see. Let me see if I can turn this around.
Kristin Neal: Can you even see down the street?
Stan Liu: Okay, hold on. I want to see if I can swap the camera.
Kristin Neal: Stan, I like your hair.
Stan Liu: That is because that's what I look like when I wake up in the morning and after a shower.
Kristin Neal: Oh, you should leave it.
Stan Liu: Let see. I'm trying to hold on. Oh, here. So, so look at this.
Kristin Neal: That's crazy.
Stan Liu: It is super buggy here. Today is just a house and this is my rose garden. It's it's like blooming now. It's been good, it seems to have gone by pretty quick this week, and learned a lot about collaboration and some of the things worth stuff, so I don't, it seemed like a blur to me this week, I don't have a lot to share, so that's it for me, the weekends, it seems like it's, oh, doing a charity event that will help out with a childhood cancer fundraiser here tomorrow, and a couple of more events there, but that's it for me.
Paula Cia: Thanks Dan, next is Grancy's, okay.
Klansys Palacio: Thank you, Paula. So my week, well, it was great mixed feelings for this week. felt so excited, motivated, productive and nervous at the same time. So, the big plus there is the collaboration since they've already experienced the collaboration. So it felt like we're comfortable to share things with each other already. So, when Kwan actually gave the feedback, I was at first, you know, at first I was just, I just can't absorb all the information that Kwan gave me. But little by little, I was just able to talk to AI. I was just, I have a lot of information to AI, I came up with having my own plan. So I was just, oh, this is really cool. Like, AI was actually refining everything for me. And I was just going to throw a lot of information. as well, and of course, assessing the capabilities of the team, so it's not just about you who can that will handle all the projects and responsibilities, but you need to consider as well the team the capabilities of the teams. So that's one I learned as well as during this week, because I was just planning a lot of things that I was realized, boom, do my team really knows about these things as well, so I need to refine it again, so we will go in. So the capabilities of the teams and me will align, so it's the alignment thing here, I really learned in the transition, so well, outside work, so I just stayed at home, of course, watching a lot of movies, and I'm very excited. make my book. Actually, I get my book now. It's too. It's a gentle reminder and a tonic of it. So I haven't started it yet because I really want to do like, if I will go into read books, I need to focus because sometimes I get to forget things easily. You know, I can absorb information that quickly because I am this thing that I am, there's things that I'm easy to distract with. So that's why this week and I'm planning to read this a little by little. So yeah, that's that's I'm very happy and proud to myself because I am reading a book now because of you guys. Yeah, you're encouraging me to do things to do things that I am not doing back then. So thank you for that. And of course, big end. Maybe I'm planning to go to a coffee shop tomorrow. So it's might go to whenever you need to clear things or like thinking something, so I need to go to come shop sometimes. So and of course, joy rides. I'm very fond of joy, I have my own scooter, and Sunday will be, I think, the whole day I would stay at home and watch some k-dramas and movies, and after that, we'll go to church. I think that's it for me, guys. Thanks so much for listening.
Paula Cia: Thank you, Clancy. Is him really happy. That's good to hear here. Let's go next week. Last time.
Carmee Sarvida: Hi, guys. One of my lows this week, I'm staying with I was sick the entire week. I had a fever that came and went starting on one day but today I'm finally getting better and that's definitely one of my highs and at work I'm happy to see a significant increase in engagement in father response dance linked in account something that I've been focusing on since last week and another positive note or positive high that I have this week is that I'm just two days away from completing this book. This is a working day devotional book purpose driven life by requirements so I started reading this or I'm writing a journal every every night before I start my work so this has been nice. I'm able to to reflect on my daily life with this book and I have another one lined up for next. So I'm blessed for the week and I will be taking a lot of breaths because I've been, I need to recover. I've been sick for like how many days and that would be it for me. Thank you.
Paula Cia: Thank you. Thank Thank you. Should we go with the cards then? It's still there.
Stan Liu: I'm here.
Paula Cia: Sorry about that. All right.
Stan Liu: All right, Paula. So let me see, dream, life lesson, expose, courage, believes, and self-awareness, okay, pick a number, seven, seven, one, two, four, five, seven, I don't know if we did this one, but we may not have, it says if you were giving a year to live, what would you stop doing, and what would would you start it?
Paula Cia: Yeah, we haven't done that before.
Stan Liu: Okay. Who should go first?
Paula Cia: Okay, Grace.
Kristin Neal: Okay, so for, um, to be honest, I'd probably just keep my life the same. I, I love my life. So the only thing I would ask is that, um, family and friends from California would just come and just rest. I think that would be the coolest thing. just have like this open thing. Just come and rest with me for like a week and just like unplug almost.
Stan Liu: Do you mean like a retreat?
Kristin Neal: Yeah, like exactly, exactly. Cut, cut, come and just relax. We'll go, um, across the street to this big green field that will delay in the green field. just yeah.
Stan Liu: So yeah, keep the safe.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Klansys Palacio: As long as I'm here right now, but Lord, I really want to say thank you for everything that he did to me. that's really too much sometimes. Like, you know, I just can't, I can't even, I talked to him. I always say, did I really, do I really deserve these things like this? So I was just asking God sometimes, but yeah, this is Lord. This is way better than before. And I really thank you for everything. Of course, the team. I really, there's really a big impact that really brought me here, guys. yeah, there's no such thing that I will be going to change even if it's in the past or right now. So I'm just really happy and I really, my heart is really happy right now. So thank you.
Stan Liu: We can see it.
Paula Cia: It's the next one.
Aimee Ocer: You're you're in love again.
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, I'm in love with myself.
Kristin Neal: You can love it later.
Klansys Palacio: So let's go. Farm me.
Carmee Sarvida: If I had a year to live, I would spend as much time as possible with my daughter. Creating memories together. And then also traveling abroad for the first time. I haven't been abroad. And so that would be one of my, like, bucket list. And then I don't, I don't, I want to feel the need to stop doing anything in my life specifically because I'm saving everyone. I love my life right now. But that's one thing that I want to start doing. If only, if I had a year to live, I would spend most of that time with my daughter. That would be it.
Aimee Ocer: Yeah, same answers with the girls, you I just love my life and live what I have right now, because you know, life lessons can bring up the best of you, so whatever it is, it may happen to going forward. Or I just thank God for, you know, letting me learn everything through the good and the bad that happens into my life. And then most especially is that you give me, giving me strong enough and the determination of a digital life, because you know, life is so beautiful and you'll never know. And very thankful that in this life, I'll admit you all the time, so I won't regret at all that anything happens to me, so life must go on. And whatever happens to life, must go on. So next is Kia.
Misamis Occidental/ Ptr. Kiara Grace Bajao: OK. So the question, if I'll be given a year to live, I think what I should stop doing is worry too much about the future, since the only future I have is the year left. So stop thinking about the coming years, since I only have a year left. I think that something normal really personally for me, since I'm in this season of my life, what's going to happen, something like that. But then I think what I'm going to start doing, I think this is something really personal. But I would share Jesus to all people I know since from my personal belief, I believe that after the last year given, there's an eternity waiting for us, and that's something to be prepared for. Life is short, and eternity is very long, not to prepare for it. So I think I'll start sharing with my family. You guys, as my other family, and as much people that I know, not to convince them, but to somehow leave that message that there's a Savior, Jesus loves us, and is preparing a better home than this Earth. And also, I'll start, I think I'll start achieving that dream to see the Northern Lights. That's really something I always tell my husband, like, before I die, I want to really see the Northern Lights from what I want. like the Aurora Borealis. So that's a childhood dream that I still want to achieve right now. So yep, that's it for me. So I'll give it to Kwan.
Quan Gan: Similar to everybody, not much to change right now. I'm very happy with where I'm at. And actually, even just the things that I would do, I feel like I am doing, we're starting to travel more. So really looking forward to us. pretty much not kind of a boring answer. And nothing, nothing to change. I love everything. Yeah.
Stan Liu: Stan? No, let's put the no. Maybe we need to follow up question. No, for me, it's a life thing. I've been, this is not much for me to change. either. I just thought of something would be funny because it's one thing I want to change. I feel that I should change myself. It's to wake up earlier. But then again, if I have one year to live and sleeping as part of my enjoyment, I change it. I thought something like that would be interesting. you want a second card? didn't really get much out of us today. I have question for everybody. I wanted to share what I hear the collaboration a lot today. I was thinking maybe we can share what does collaboration mean to you. Is that the fair question? Or am I on mute? Oh, I'm not on mute.
Paula Cia: Yeah.
Stan Liu: Yeah, I have my phone, my computer broke today, I broke the keyboard, I have to, I can build my my desktop, I can't use my desktop, I'm waiting to get a keyboard later. You to try a different question, any question of what does collaboration mean?
Kristin Neal: I like that question too.
Stan Liu: Yeah, keep it. Collaboration? Me?
Misamis Occidental/ Ptr. Kiara Grace Bajao: Okay.
Stan Liu: Alright, where do we start?
Paula Cia: Where do we start with, follow? Okay, I'll start. Well, I think collaboration for me is like sharing thoughts and ideas together and also sharing the burden together. So, for this thing, like me, me, Amy and collaborating on and creation. This made me like a stepping stone like to create better campaigns for me. So I'm looking forward like to brainstorm and also express some different ideas together with the girls. So that's it for me.
Stan Liu: Let's follow up that question. What do you envision the best outcome would be? With the collaboration. Yeah, so what does collaboration mean to you and what do you envision the best outcome?
Paula Cia: Okay, so collaboration for me is like sharing our sharing different ideas, thoughts and burdens. And then what's the other
Stan Liu: What do you what do you envision the best outcome therapy?
Paula Cia: I envision the collaboration and the best, what I envision the best outcome for this collaboration, I think, is we can, me and the girls can better create a good campaign that can reach the potential person on us on our, on our rasts or VDO. Okay.
Stan Liu: Yeah, so, um, let's take a look at Oh, no, I just didn't walk around because I'm my phone, I'm getting sitting here.
Kristin Neal: Okay, I want to see.
Stan Liu: What the other side of my, what am I looking at? The piece of piece of piece.
Kristin Neal: This is the, today's essay.
Stan Liu: So you can see the front and the back of it. So that's the. Yeah, there's a lot of foggy out there. And on the other side. can see. Okay. All right. Continue.
Paula Cia: Should it be the next?
Stan Liu: Yes.
Paula Cia: Okay. Grant is.
Klansys Palacio: I knew it. Okay. collaborations for me. It is. Of course, an act of working together. So. In collaboration, you're always, you need to always. Consider. the capabilities of individual as well. So because in sharing our team, we have different expertise. I might know this something, but that team doesn't know it. So you need to assess their capabilities to keep up with the plan that align with all your expertise. So that's the probability of of course, sharing over ideas and open communications is one of the key. So because that's really what I learned on collaborations because back then I am not really like I don't do socialize a lot because I'm an introvert person. So it's like I'm keeping everything, every information's in me. but Zeta came, my confidence boost up. So I was able to talk, I was able to communicate and tell everything. that I cannot do this I can do this so it was really mean a lot to me because the thing happened to come for done is really not that easy so while collaborating with the team so I was able to realize a lot of things so of course you have this of course really less to do these things so it's just because you did to do this or you have to do this but of course you need to love what you're doing as well so so you will be having a very good outcome to reach those goals so what's the other question the end vision yeah what do you envision what in the like in your mind right it all of our minds that we we all have different very different perspective of what the outcomes and what we envision the end result it so we
Stan Liu: if we don't go into the thing aimlessly, then we start something with the end in mind. However, when we do something, and what I hear is, if all we are focusing us, end of the result, then we lose the tracker, lose focus on what we're appreciating the moment of the things. This is part of the journey, right? And life is the part of the journey. So that's what I meant. So what would you be, end result, collaborating, collaborating, like when you're working with teams and what do you hope for that? That would be the, what do we envision what the end result would be.
Klansys Palacio: Work for me, I guess it's the building the building you thought, you thought trust and respect for me because When collaborating, all of the ideas must be valued, because since you have different things in your mind as well, identify the common goals, so you're not going in your way, but that you need to meet on your own, like, your ally goals, you're reaching on a goal that the team is not there anymore, so the team must be included in all of the teams as well. And of course, anticipating some challenges, so you need to think ahead about the potential of the goals, that you can be adjusted, resume there that just by yourself. So and of course the band, the band, it's not always the collaborations are doing just the work of course you need to, you need, but I, what I said earlier, you need to love what you're doing so that you can have a very good football goal at the end. That's, that's my answer.
Stan Liu: Okay, go ahead.
Klansys Palacio: Let's be starving.
Carmee Sarvida: Okay, collaboration for me is about effective communication within a group or a team. Just what Paula mentioned, it involves sharing ideas, acting, be listening to the team members and working together towards a common goal, and then when team members communicate effectively and openly, it fosters trust, encourages for ATBT, and I believe it also leads to effective or innovative solutions. That's all for me. Okay, you've forgotten the question.
Stan Liu: You answered the first part. The second part was that what do you envision like something greater when we collaborate? Like do you envision the result? Not so much cooperatively, and what does that work?
Carmee Sarvida: I think I mentioned that when we collaborate with people it like it builds trust and then then we can like collectively share how to solve issues and problems and then it's also build like a a comfort zone or like a safe place or for for is especially us advances that we are both introvert so when when we collaborate with others we will we will feel that our opinions are valued even though we're not sure or because we often hesitate to share our opinions or how we see things. We tend to like give them to ourselves because we're afraid that other people might judge us. when we feel that a team is safe to share with or a team is has effective collaboration, we are more confident in sharing or in bringing our ideas to the team. Okay, I'm gonna pick Pia.
Misamis Occidental/ Ptr. Kiara Grace Bajao: Okay, sorry guys.
Stan Liu: I'm really eating crackers.
Misamis Occidental/ Ptr. Kiara Grace Bajao: Okay, so when I hear the word collaboration, what comes into my mind are are the words joining forces. So each individual has its own for his own like horse or something to contribute and then working together. So collaboration is something we've been learning in school. I think for me, like during school, like group groupings, something like that. So it's something we're used to do and we do have certain share of experiences when it comes to collaboration. In our days, even in social media, we can see there that there are collaborations. right, like in the YouTube, something like that, or Instagram post, there's a single post, but then there are I think two to three accounts collaborating. So collaboration, so it comes to like the work perspective right now. So with the relationship that we were able to build ever since, like it's worth collaborating since we're now heading into a direction that we are all wanting to arrive. And so no matter the differences, I'm not sure along the way, because it from experience, there are instances and collaboration wherein I think Francis mentioned earlier, I mean, I'm hearing those words like communication. So it's kind of challenging, really, when it comes to collaboration, especially when it comes to ideas and how to come up with a, you know, a final or an action plan. But I think the outcome, then, of collaboration, as long as, even which individual or team member focuses on the goal. So in spite of the hurdles or the challenges, maybe along the way, as long as we guys understand the, the, the entire goal of what we're really doing, and I think we can overcome it. So I would say it's collaboration is a positive thing, as long as we do cooperation. create and really think what's the outcome of it because before there are also collaborations in school where it's a group work but only one person does the whole work but then we've learned before so hopefully this time like me personally I would be able to collaborate well with teammates and specifically with the glances and Chris with a collaboration so collaboration is positive that's it for me I think I'll give it to Amy yeah are you right now I can I can answer so collaboration for me is working
Aimee Ocer: with someone or a team to produce or create something for the goal, share thoughts and ideas for better results that reaching towards the goal. And my vision towards this collaboration is the team gets an open communication which you can ask and answer questions, especially on problem solving, that you can tell everything about the goal you ask, about the goal that you want to reach, especially this now are our rocks for the 90 days, and then also personalized supports for each other, and then to be a patient and learning, learning to listen to your collaboration team about their ideas and insights of what are doing. So sharing the thoughts and sharing the ideas might be come up with a great effective um go towards what we are doing to the right now for the next 90. So that's my uh that's what collaboration and the ambition of mine for towards this collaboration. So Juan.
Quan Gan: For me um collaboration is the ability to tackle a task that is much bigger than oneself. Um you know to be able to collectively um yeah collectively come together to tackle something that is way beyond even just the sum of the individuals it's a synergistic result where you know one plus one is not two but you love it actually right and especially given the AI how we're leveraging it really can 10x. what we're doing. I think in the best case scenario, this giant experiment we're working on, is I would like to see everybody build so much confidence in what they are individually able to achieve, being able to learn how to learn, but also be confident on the entire team, that anything that they may not know, there's someone else on the team fully support them. So it's this confidence muscle, right? As you keep practicing what you guys are doing, learning about learning and figuring out new aspects of the company and our vision forward, know that we have everything within us to do these things and be fully confident that we hit those goals. So I think that's the best case. I'll give it over to Kristin.
Kristin Neal: Can you hear me? Hello. Okay, cool. Thank you so much, Jen, for even asking this question because it kind of allows all of us to see our hearts and what we're bringing to, to this detect boat. It feels like that we are all in now. And because I love what Klamtha said, it does take heart, but it feels like that's actually where it ends. Because emotions actually feels like it shouldn't actually be part of the collaboration. I think the emotions of fear and even competitiveness, I've seen collaborations where it's like a, it's almost like a vicious thing, you know, like, how could you have that good idea? I want that good idea. So there's healthy collaborations and there's not healthy collaborations. So keeping the emotions in check and remembering we are all in this boat. That, that to me is a true. collaboration, classes you mentioned, um, your confidence. And I agree with that completely, completely agree with you. And I love that this entire thing is a collaboration, this entire thing. So even getting walking to the boat, like on the dock, we are still in collaboration where we are encouraging you. I love that we are encouraging you in that you're growing and that you're reading and all these things because that is a collaboration of what's best for you. There's going to be a collaboration for all of us. If we're able to keep our emotions like at a specific moment in the collaboration and say, hey, look, I'm suffering, I'm this and this. So having that freedom to say that and us come to and be ready to, um, like, join in in that. know yesterday, I went with Juan and I said, you know what, I might need more help with this AI or, you know, things like that. And he was ready to say, he said, be ready. I'm ready to one on one. whatever it takes. So that to me is a collaboration of what's best for our team and then what it looks like to me in the future. This to me is the foundation. We are building the foundation of ZTAG. So the future to me is teams. We're going to have teams under us. We're going to have people that we are taking the collaboration that we learned, the healthy collaboration where we are free from emotions but just on the same page of ready to do it and we're going to be able to translate that into our teams underneath us to where we're just writing all the way from the top, from the root, all the way to the fruit. are going to have this collaboration just be so healthy.
Stan Liu: All right I got to say to that is praise it sister. It's the word you think about, I thought it was working on a word with, it just blows so well. I feel like, let's say looking at I actually like, I love the word collaboration, collaborating me to me that is working together and then be able to bounce off ideas of each other and be in sync and collectively working together. it's almost like, I don't know, like I will give you an example. I don't know anybody push a car that's broke down before. I used to work with an analogy. I used to work in central stores. We used to be able to move these crazy heavy machines that out of the engineering rooms or the different classrooms. And it takes all we have to be able to move these things. It wasn't important to do anything like that. It's just a couple of guys and then dollies. So dollies, meaning like these four-wheeler things. don't know if I've ever seen like a small four-wheeler. I'm like, that is crazy. How are you going to move that out? When I first started working on a dollies. I was like, where is it, where's the forklift, right in there? So what we do, is that no, it's gonna be just on us. So the way we work that is usually I was younger and we have a bigger guys that are more bigger than me, they could live much faster than me, I'd be happier than me. So, and then by they're a little bit slower. So what we do in terms of those collaboration is just be able to get the machine onto the dolly itself so it could get, once it gets in a dolly. So like once it gets on the wheels, it's much faster. Just once it gets on the wheels flowing, but then it'll get it under and get it off the super hard. And so that means if somebody needs to lift it, you can, it's so heavy, you can lift it only to about one or two, maybe about 15 seconds at most. And somebody's got to be really quick enough to slip that. um uh the the full the full wheeler under one of those licks so we need four positions four of them to lift something at least four right four corners ahead hit the machine almost like have you ever seen how formula one and some of these racetracks and when they change tires and feel how quickly those things everybody it's quick it's it has a passion or really that i think of it that way and then also if we had used the analogy of the pushing a car right there's a car dead and and we needed to get it off the road or something and then quickly we need to figure out who is going to do what and get it off there's there's pushing but there's also somebody that needs to steer so at that point what do we say when we figure out that we figure out who's going to push and who's um who's going to steer it most of the time that it comes from passion or somebody you want to I think I have been more than happy to push because I feel like I have a lot of energy. But we still need somebody to steer it. Most of the time, when we left the people that steering the car, it's the guy that does not want the heavy lifting and do the hard work. But in terms of the person steering, if you ever push a car, the person steering the car, just it's super, super important. That job is actually super important as well because if the steering the wrong way, it goes to the wrong place, and then all this effort is wasted. And then if the person just keeps on moving the wheel, it's actually the car gets much heavier to push. I've done it before. It's quite interesting. And then, until we get tired, maybe we'll just switch off because let's just say somebody, I use all my strength in pushing that car, then I can go in or sit in the car. But sometimes, oftentimes, like let's just say, may require that the person to sit in the car to stare. Well, it doesn't make sense because that's the extra weight in the car, but that doesn't, sometimes it is required for the best of it. That's kind of, and in collaboration is, I think we, I heard it here many times or without the other same way, it's about the passion of working together and wanting to work together, and that's a collaborating, creating something that does, that does not exist yet. And oftentimes when we, brands collaborate or when we collaborate, I personally enjoy the teamwork of collaboration. And what I find that when we, when I collaborate is other, if I wasn't left to tackle this thing myself, I mean, I think I have all kinds of stress, because I might be not be good at something or something that I don't want to do. And in result, it gets much easier and all the fun working together. and creating something that doesn't exist, is there, yeah, so in me what envision in collaboration is for me itself, it's about the enjoyment of working with each other and in the meantime of having the same result, I have been in teams that like in class, I hear it from my daughter and I think I experienced them once at twice, they come back, hey, the other team members are not doing anything and she's not get off-breasted, but teamwork should be pretty fun. I've done a lot of teamwork playing revolves and working on projects and things like that, so I actually love collaboration. In terms of how I see it, we all play different roles in what we do, meaning that in the company, different modes. Paula or Chris would be more near, nor social media, and Juan and I Chris would be more in the hands of themselves and Chris would be more of the CEO and CTO. And I oftentimes find that most of the time we spend our team members. So we can look at the collaborators or team members. Team members are actually in this respect we collaborate a lot because we're using AI to do some of the heavy lifting. So we actually collaborators on this and then we're team members. Sometimes if you even just look at the hierarchy it says yes we get quite an eye or we do division and we do implementation but that only gets a small percent of the time. Once that is done then we're actually working together and and bringing our head together. But to say, for me, I am no better than anyone, my skills, not better than anyone, but the exception that maybe I'm a little bit more in-depth on what's happening in the marketplace, and what can see a little bit further. That's what the invention is. In terms of other things, I am not strong. And when they say when I need some graphics done, Paula and Garvey would get it much faster to do it or not, like that's the most recent banner. I think you're here in here, and Paula will get 30 minutes later and have all these other characters that are kids that are on the banner. So I think that's something that's amazing. And Chris, the power of Chris, to connect with other people is just crazy. I'm like, how are Chris talking to those people? don't know. The same thing, you know, I with everyone. I can, I'll just name all the, all the strength that you have. Juan, it's just, Juan is crazy. Juan is like, okay Juan, hey, you know, you articulate? think this is something we need to do, but I, how do we get it? like, I would in 30 minutes, he just goes in there, it's like a whiz and type something. And like a MacGyver, says, what do you mean? I don't know if you guys want to know what MacGyver is, what MacGyver is doing here. it's been quite amazing and, and, and, and like, um, like, um, like personally, from, um, and cleansers building the website didn't think I, think. we need to do these things or transfer the website and in a lot of those expenses and Kia communicating to the team and previously getting team together and huddling and that's what's quite amazing. So that's where I would say in terms of the input in collaboration I hope that most of the time 80% of the time that we are we view each other as team members and not so much you know nobody's better than anybody you know we all we do all the same and when we look at each other and I certainly appreciate other people would look at me that way but that means we're more open and then where that means you're more open to and being vulnerable like like I'm saying and I think the introvert here feels like a safe place. When we feel like it's a it's a safe place where that means we really open we have a confidence to share all of our ideas and that's when the real growth it's you know so what I said I think it's kind of cool that seems like a more today game center and center around collaboration and that and I think Chris talks about today is like that oh that I feel like it's very motivated and and being that so it's great I think we see everyone to be able to see each other as team members and I think that not I don't I don't feel me, personal reconnection is a lot more important to me than it's what the outcomes indicate the things like that. So I am happy when I see people enjoying themselves, like when they're happy, but that's my self-isness part of it, and when we see the team enjoying the accomplishments, working with each other, learning new things, all that stuff, and growing, and that all shows, yeah, that what I would have mentioned, my vision and collaboration is like we're able to just kind of just sit in the table and talk about anything. I don't know if you've ever been. But I've been certainly been in the situation where I feel very uncomfortable and nervous to just talk about anything with somebody that's superior, or I feel it's a superior. You know, somebody I don't know and and that's not a good feeling. It's myself and I certainly feel that a lot of opportunities are missed that way. So I went to, like I envision collaboration we just sit in the table and just like any topic would be an interesting topic. We'd be able to talk about that. don't worry about, hey, I need to think about the good topic. They could stop thinking, oh, somebody that is somebody, the other person, they go, that's stupid or that's not funny. And why do you want to talk about something like that? was being judged, you know, that's, that's my share.
Kristin Neal: There's a saying I feel back to that stem only because it's relevant to what you just said. There's a line, a very common line in America. don't know if you guys know it. I said it was one yesterday. I've always heard stay in your lane, stay in your lane, stay in your lane. So right now there's there's no lanes.
Stan Liu: We're all on the lane. So that's pretty cool. Thank you. It's like, yeah, there's no length because it could be staying low in your lane. think it's just people talk about it, but that's kind of not where the opposite happens. I certainly didn't like people that say that to me, when somebody says that to me, I'll be like, okay, I'll do my job. There's no growth in that, that's for sure. And I think, well, I can't have you gone. I'm sorry. Have you gone? So, have you, have you already shared? Am I your last?
Misamis Occidental/ Ptr. Kiara Grace Bajao: Yeah, shared already.
Stan Liu: Okay.
Kristin Neal: I think that's it, huh? Yeah, you're it.
Paula Cia: You're the last one. Yeah, that was fun.
Stan Liu: All right.
Paula Cia: Cool.
Quan Gan: Yeah, actually a little bit logistical because I share with each person that, you know, we were still finalizing the roles and responsibilities this week. And so I would like us to kick that off next week to have everybody share, you know, in this period of collaboration, have each person come in and share what their personal role is and how that fits into the grandeur context. So I want to just find the time that is in alignment for everyone, you know, and hopefully this time is something that we can do once a week where everybody is here as maximal as possible. So I just wanted to see if potentially next Tuesday's, if Tuesday's in the morning, I don't know how early you guys can be. I can get up as early as 6 a.m. but I don't know if Stan, is that too early for you to do that?
Stan Liu: Are you talking about sharing with me? What is this going to be weekly?
Quan Gan: I went off. Well, I would ideally want to transition that slot into the L10 meeting, but I think we're a little bit early for L10, but I wanted to have next week for everybody to actually share their roles and then maybe the following we would go into L10.
Stan Liu: So, in the spirit of collaboration and talk about it, I think in respect to the team's time, I feel that we need to figure out that because we're still here for the amount of hours that we to work. So 6 a.m. if we throw different numbers out there for the team, I think that might get a little bit difficult for the team. It's 6 a.m. normally we are swimming at 9 a.m. that's right here. So I understand.
Quan Gan: just saying I'm a.m.
Stan Liu: I'm a.m. Yes, but that means it's the team that's out of the team working hours. Okay. That's what I'm saying. So we need you and I, we need we should be a little bit more considerate and we need to be more considerate of how we like we work on all hours unless we get to the point that okay yeah we just work on all different hours and would be will be will be fine but I still want to make it uncomfortable for the team.
Kristin Neal: Sure if you're talking about the 8 a.m. start on my that's not too early for me. What time will that make it for the rest of the team? was the time difference?
Stan Liu: It's not too early. It's not because that will be actually early in the nighttime. But with that, I'll ask with other things we should consider of what the working hours is on for the team. You know what mean? Supposedly, it's from 8 AM to 5 AM here. And that's so 7 AM, even like today, or certainly it goes out hours. It makes it, if we want this to shift it, then I think when we talk about alignment, there is expectation in terms of team that what hour they should be expected to be there, rather than us putting out numbers. I'm not too tired. Does that make sense?
Quan Gan: Yeah, I mean, can we hear feedback from the other teammates?
Stan Liu: to you what time works for them.
Quan Gan: I think we can start next week, maybe with a one off, you know, just like ideally we would have everybody share their their goals and that way and are we still meeting next Tuesday?
Stan Liu: Yeah, we're meeting next Tuesday.
Quan Gan: OK, so yeah, so my goal is to at least have you hear that before our meeting and then we can have our discussions and then give some further feedback and then we should figure out an L10 if that's a potential format or there's there's also a potential for it to be just done virtually like through chat. But I fear there's less collaboration that way. Everybody, you know, least weeks into an all hands meeting.
Stan Liu: OK, OK. So what I proceed is, in this, is to follow up. I think the real learning, it is to learn what, if we use AI to talk to each other, I don't think we're learning much, growing much. At the very minimum, we need to learn who our customers are, not based on AI tell us, just from what we're seeing and some of the marketing and the communication that we talk about. And that is because AI looks at what looks at history. We need to look, when we look forward, we can't, it's hard to rely on AI, what the AI feeds us. And for us to, for everyone to be, really, to be more in sync and alignment, it's looking, But I learned this in the past that we, standards are different in different places. So it's important to look at the people, the customer that we serve and what they perceive as a standard and what they perceive as good. Does that make sense? Yeah, So that is very minimal. that. And the books and thinking and all those are very, very good. The most, I'll share some more books. read a lot of books in the ideas and things. The atomic habits and all these other things are pretty good. All of them I read.
Quan Gan: so. It's the current thought just next week we do a one-off First and then and then see how to go from there. What do you recommend?
Stan Liu: To to To look at what each other roses so make it what the assumption that I will not be in all that meeting.
Quan Gan: Oh, yeah That's that's correct, I mean even for me too Because what what I hope to do is get Get it kicked off so everybody has context of how they're collaborating and then and then turn that into Meetings that you guys might have a small working groups So that you guys are holding each other accountable and moving forward and so on a weekly basis We would find a common time to just Really check in on each other and it shouldn't be a very long meeting because I think a lot of things can be Can be assisted offline, but it's really just a quick check-in So maybe Maybe it's not a, maybe it's not a formal long meeting, but kind of like Friday chat, but I, you know, what I realized was the Monday slot that we had, um, the participation rate on that wasn't that high. So I, I think maybe the timing is not as ideal for some. So I still wanted to find a way to shift it to something where there's a little bit more participation.
Kristin Neal: Kristin, you had something to say only because it pertains to that, and it's, I'm not sure if it was ever as structured as it was more like, if you need it, I'm not sure if you can gauge the attendance by that alone. that's the, the feeling that I got about that. It was more just, if it were more structured and it was like, yes, I would attend every week.
Quan Gan: Okay. Is it how other people feel? I don't know if that schedule works for you guys.
Misamis Occidental/ Ptr. Kiara Grace Bajao: I agree with what Chris just said.
Quan Gan: Okay. So it's 8am, we're actually good here in the Philippines, like 8am, New York time. Okay. Well, so 8am for me Pacific, it's a little challenging because that's when I'm taking my kids to school. So that's why it's either way before that or, you know, after taking the school after that.
Paula Cia: So, yeah, but then it's getting, you know, quite late, that's it there.
Kristin Neal: I go for 6am Pacific Standard Time, 8am Central.
Stan Liu: So, let's say if that makes a different question outside the direct customer service, this is what we talked about before, and if this is in more of, I have to do with more but work-life balance and how what we can offer our team as more of a lifestyle and it's the shift to ultimate because the team, the Philippine team, right now you're working on the daytime because you're working on our morning, a new working a nice time and nice shifts and then in our daytime. In theory, outside and maybe overlapping for one or two hours, maybe two or three hours, it may not be a need for the team to work in very upshift meaning like in the midnight hours and if we can find a way to work productively efficiently and more of a better hours meaning that maybe close to more eight hours on your end. I think it's worth exploring. Right now, it's eight to five, eight to five, our time. So that means you're like 12 to eight. It would be like that 11, So we, in theory, we can shift those hours around. If that works better. And as we get the more in sync. And that's one said, in theory, we want to get to the point that it's a self leading team, self leading company and self managing team and company. So that means you doesn't always need, it should not need fun and I input or Chris's input all the time where we need you to do something, where we need something to be done. So that means that you're doing things on your time as well as the collaboration. If we didn't then the worst case scenarios, we can wait for something for 24. four hours, right? We just wait 24 hours to be done later if we need something done and then be pump out. That's what I mean. So it's possible. I do see there's possible that we can shift it to be more easy hours for you, from like from noon time to 10 p.m. or something like that. Work at the same noon time to 8 p.m. or something and just overlaps about two hours just in case we need to chat or it could be to the point that we we find a system that works it you know what different hours of the day if you like you know that's like how fun and I we and Chris we sometimes we go out in the middle of the day yeah. Just like what I asked permission span the last few
Aimee Ocer: here that I had to do flexible time, but I had to do with the meeting. So anytime I can be available, especially now we have meetings and mostly do my work in the morning. And in the evening, like I had to spend work up to 11 PM here in our place, but extended when we had two meetings. So I'm flexible about the time, especially when we had meetings.
Stan Liu: Okay. Yeah, that's like maybe it worked quite early. So 6 AM in the morning, it works better for Kwan, other kids. But it's 6 AM doesn't work well for me. Because I don't wake up as early as fun. And I take the kids, I take the kids, I drop off Megan about 650 or something. That's when I leave. So you usually shouldn't meet me on those meetings anyway.
Quan Gan: That's typically we wouldn't need you on there. We can wake up one time, six, six, eight. I would like to hear, I think this is a kickoff one off.
Stan Liu: I don't know if you're right through this Tuesday. Yeah, that would be fine. And yeah, so that would be become a service. So, what I'm saying is the biggest question is maybe we can in spirit of collaboration. We look at different ways to create something that's not exist yet and find ways to work in the system that way. It's a little bit easier for the Filipino team.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I mean, technology is going to be able to assist us to work asynchronously. for example, let's say we shift that meeting to be regular and then you guys check in, even if I can't be there. If the AI is there, I can automate that task to be able to get the transcript and then be able to go through some workflows, tasks, assignments or just a progress check in. And even tie it into click so that You might be able to let's say if you can't attend the meeting we could potentially have it where You talked you report in your piece to to a chatbot and it caps captures that information in a sense to the relevant team members but there's a lot of ways to have Technology assist us in working in different time zones.
Stan Liu: Yeah, that's definitely what I to do for you for the team for everybody Make it this flexible.
Quan Gan: I certainly love the flexibility Yeah, yeah, that's that's how I'm working with our engineering team You know, they they're also in a different time zone But in order for me to you know, keep the collaboration in that team going we actually have an AI chat bot Like kind of check in with each person on a daily basis Just to see what what has to be gotten done any roadblocks and then those actually get raised into the company meeting So when we're actually at the meetings, it's all good
Stan Liu: very high level discussions now. Yeah, so I ask is we do not use AI to talk to each other. We do not use our AI to talk to each other.
Quan Gan: Oh, yeah, that's that's Well, here's actually I wanted to share this with the team because I think it's very relevant. What I found as an experimental result through this whole exercise and giving you guys the AI tools to generate the output is that oftentimes in collaboration, I see the breakdown when it's a breakdown in communication. And the communication oftentimes is the most challenging part is getting this amorphous undefined thought from our head into speech and being able to present it to other people and get it, you know, into into alignment. And so AI oftentimes, I think that's the kind of the benefit it captures that. It's able to take something that we it's kind of cloudy. But brings it out to a, into words that we could transmit to another team member and get that idea, you know, And then the benefit of that is it could distill out the challenges that we might need to overcome, give the context to another stakeholder, another teammate. And then when we're coming to the meeting, it's not about AI talking to AI. It's more about AI percolating out the key topics that need to be human discussed. So that we're not focusing on the mundane, just reporting in on, okay, I did this, I did this because the AI can do that, you know, those are topical, but it really allows us to get to the most like essential topics, you know, that that wouldn't have been percolated out if it weren't for AI kind of like getting the, you know, the low value stuff out of the way first. So that. that's my biggest intuition in working with AI. It's not that it's replacing any kind of human interaction. It's elevating our level of consciousness. So that the routine mundane stuff gets taken care of so we can focus on the care.
Stan Liu: I get it, and then I just say, no, it's hard to grow. And we all went on to grow. It's hard to grow when we use AI to ask AI to find the best answer, to answer somebody else's question. Yeah. At least not when we're in the room and talking with each other.
Quan Gan: Yeah, no, I agree. It's not to use AI to basically, yeah. It's not to answer someone, but it's more like, look at our meeting today, right? You can, AI got us here, where we're having different questions. We're having connections and discussions. But the fact that we were able to get to this level is because AI took care of a lot of the stuff that we would have been spending our bandwidth on.
Stan Liu: Sure, absolutely.
Quan Gan: So yeah, it's allowing us to focus on the human connection. And this goes back to our core value. It's AI enhancing the human to human connection rather than it.
Stan Liu: OK, so I just say, I want to say it when we're talking about vulnerability and being a safe place, it's absolutely safe to say what is in our mind. We do not need to use AI to find out the best answer to answer the other person's question.
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah, I see. Yeah, I see and I understand what you're saying.
Stan Liu: All right. Yeah, oh, that's a good thing to think about. Every morning, I understand what we talk about today in terms of also. the opportunity to ship around the working schedule.
Aimee Ocer: Yeah, we get it. Suggestion, like we had this Monday and Friday meeting, so Friday chat is just the same exact stand had meetings. for the team, like Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, it's okay with the team that they go on an 8th, 8th of the 5pm. And on Monday, one, we had this Elton meeting on the long run or anything next week, one can create time on Monday that team could fill in.
Stan Liu: I would go one step further. I think it's extremely difficult to have different sleeping patterns on different days. Let's just say, you know, I work in daytime Monday and Friday to fit in, and then I work on daytime hours on that. So for your saying that...
Quan Gan: We want to find the time that we You preferably work in your own day hours and find a time to overlap Like you just overlap for this couple of hours That's that's what I meant the weekend shift I kind of urge you to Just remove the Monday meeting and then do it Tuesday a little bit earlier if that's okay And try to increase participation on that Tuesday early morning meeting for us, so it'll be evening for you guys and turn that into L10 And then and then if there's anything that you guys need to discuss there You know the topics that would have been covered on Monday. We just take care of on Tuesday How do you guys feel about that? Yeah, good and it gives you Monday to kind of prepare you know for for Tuesday meeting Yeah
Misamis Occidental/ Ptr. Kiara Grace Bajao: Okay.
Quan Gan: So then, yeah, so then this coming week, we'll start at 6 a.m. on Tuesday. This first time around, it's not going to be so structured, it's more just going around and each person sharing your goals for the next month, or the next quarter, and then we'll absolutely. Oh, can't hear you again.
Stan Liu: I got to get that mic fixed then.
Aimee Ocer: I don't know.
Quan Gan: Is it an extra?
Kristin Neal: We hear Yeah, please. Oh, you can.
Aimee Ocer: Oh, good.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Cool. The scorecards. Are we going to figure work on that at the next meeting?
Quan Gan: So we're ready for them for the following weekend. If you're not clear about scorecards, let's do a one on one and get it to a form that you feel presentable. And then, yeah, you could bring it to the meeting to workshop if that's something we need to do. But yeah, if you want to have a one on one with me to to get that. So with a five, can. Yeah, I figured, you know, during this year, there might be some adjustments made now that people are more aware of what other people are doing. So we'll get into alignment and then make some micro adjustments there.
Stan Liu: Okay.
Quan Gan: All right. How do we want to close out?
Stan Liu: Right. Of course. What do you do? Who's good? How about, uh, that would be a great prayer. How about a car meet, do a prayer today? Upcoming? Are you, good?
Carmee Sarvida: Okay. This is actually my first library. Dear God, thank you for this time today, and we're able to, uh, the library and talk to each other. I thank you for, um, the opportunity to, um, have a team that we can share our, um, eyes and nose and, um, how we appreciate everything we do in our lives. And may you bless this team. Um, as we set our goals for the next 90 days, for the next, um, three to 10 years and. I thank you for the leadership of Stan and Kwan that they inspired this team, encourage this team to be productive as we should be and thank you for all the positive that happened to us this week and we look forward for another blessings in the coming week and thank you for all your mercy and your graces and I pray for more blessings for this team and more collaboration. Is there praying the name for our team?
Stan Liu: Hey man, thank you, thank you everyone.
Kristin Neal: Beautiful, thank you
[Metadata only — transcript not included in this selection]
Ferenc Orban: Hey, guys.
Faisal: Hello. Hi, how are you?
Ferenc Orban: I'm fine. Thanks. are you guys? It's only you.
Faisal: Okay. I'm just waiting for Sean, Sean. Hello, how's your weekend?
Ferenc Orban: Well, it was a long one. What's happened with the children? How is yours?
Faisal: Yeah, great. Yesterday I tried some beef smash for my kids and that was a big hit for me and I was not expecting that.
Ferenc Orban: Okay, it's much better. Nobody means them around here. If you want to have some, you gotta make it yourself.
Faisal: Okay, so not outside the world. No specific reason. don't like it.
Ferenc Orban: You know, it's just, you know, don't really have a big culture around here. We do have some burgers down, but not as many as Americans do. So I do know the burgers they cook or they make, but we only have a few kinds and simple ones that are easily available around here.
Faisal: Right, but generally about the preferences by the people.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, yeah, and people are more of uh um pizza nice pizza and show shower mind you know something about the way yeah those are the people do like boogers as well but nobody makes them uh good enough or maybe in the bigger cities they do but around here maybe one one place that makes some good boogers but um those uh but uh no smash boogers so which exact city are you guys based in uh it's official name is Miyapuriachi you know it's very hard to even pronounce okay let me let me send you uh yeah yeah so maybe uh
Faisal: Alright, so we've got Sean with me, got facelamine with me, Zappa is already there, so Kwan is purposely joining us a little late, so I think we can start now. Okay, I've got the link, you should.
Ferenc Orban: It's more simple.
Faisal: Yeah, it's a small, but seems to be very, you know, silent, cozy.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, exactly. No, nothing better. Nothing good either, nothing better.
Faisal: Right, right, Good to learn, good to learn. Alright, so let's start. Sean, can you just take the lead and take us through the agenda?
UTF LABS: Hi guys. Can you hear me?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah. Hi.
UTF LABS: How are you guys?
Ferenc Orban: Fine things.
UTF LABS: you? Yeah, I'm good as well. Okay. Sorry. Apologies for delay in sending the agenda. I've just sent agenda on Discord. If you guys want, you can have a quick look. I'll also share my screen. Okay. It's one here. A screen sharing is disabled right now.
Faisal: John will join us purposely late.
UTF LABS: Maybe you can drop your message. Does it say FEDM is recording now?
Faisal: Is FEDM recording now?
UTF LABS: I think the auto AI is only recording, right guys?
Faisal: Yeah.
Ferenc Orban: Auto AI is recording not. Recording and taking notes.
Faisal: That's what it says. I'm sure if it does then. if you just click on the top right menu it says whatever the apps are involved here so it just says auto ai yeah but the fedam has i think is joined as a user so let's share it with quan not even like the user also by i can see only quan's ai note taker and then quan's ai for recording purposes so earlier they used to be fedam okay hello anyway so i think we should start uh okay guys anyway if you can look at the meeting agenda i just posted it uh so quickly you know just to revise the last meeting uh where we discussed just a second yeah okay so we discussed the mv documentation there then we mostly focus on the
UTF LABS: structure and numbering topic and we also briefly discuss the task manager interface which fairing you will be working on so quickly we'll review the game management file and the feedback for fairings end and then we'll quickly I'll provide the updates on for the MVP documentation from our end and then we'll finalize basically the number structure today as well anything any questions of on that fairing now okay so yeah I think we can begin with the MVP documentation so I think I've pushed the sound interface and now I am moving towards the other component so I'm thinking about working on the heptic interface first so basically we'll all of the display sound and heptic like the motor interface completed together. So I'll be working on the motor interface wire from tomorrow. Yeah, and a facile I mean, he's basically replied to your comments that you raised on GitHub fairing.
Ferenc Orban: Do you have a chance to look at them? No, I just saw when the meeting started the budget for that there was a retransfer regulatory to it. But I understand it's interesting.
UTF LABS: So if you have any questions with respect to that, you can reply there and facile mean will you know take care of it? Sure.
Faisal: Can you please share your screen?
UTF LABS: Yeah, sorry. One can you enable the screen sharing?
Quan Gan: Why second? I should. Okay, that's a good reminder for future meetings. I'll try to enable it ahead. Go ahead.
UTF LABS: Okay. Can you guys see my screen?
Ferenc Orban: Yes.
UTF LABS: Okay. Yeah. basically, facile, I mean, you know, reply to the comments that you posted, pharynx. So you can check those out. And let us know if you want anything else. So we'll take care of those.
Ferenc Orban: Okay.
UTF LABS: Apart from that person, mean, also is also working on the game state template and the game state, much sorry. Hang on. Let me find the file here. So yeah, game manager, basically. So he's working on both of these files now, basically, after some changes, say, so in the including those into the game state, a game template and the game manager files. Yeah, so he's working on those during until the next meeting as well.
Ferenc Orban: Just a quick note here. I realized that there are two issues regarding this. fire the zeta game management and define it just if you go back you can see I left one of them in the no status then the other one is the one that is in progress if you have that and on the left most column no status okay I think yeah this the one in the end progress I think that was existing previously and then we created the zeta game management it's now it's fitted again but we continued on to the initial file okay we can merge those we can rename the existing one and delete the new one so we don't have any confusion on it okay we do that so what should I do and do that I just wanted to make sure that I think a facile man will do this on his on his on his so he'll make that necessary changes on here okay yeah
UTF LABS: So that was the big from our end for since since this. Uh, yeah, so can you give your update so we can move forward?
Ferenc Orban: Yes, so I've been working on, let me just show the, can you, uh, let me show, share my share. Okay. So this should be, so I've been working on, uh, the task. The interface and I'm reviewing the, the end result, uh, so, uh, the, uh, the idea basically is, is, uh, to have a friend, uh, the game manager's friend, friend class in the, uh, task manager. So I'm, uh, that would, that would be the idea, uh, that would solve, uh, the problem where the task management is not available for the, the games themselves but available for the game management so the task manager would be a private property, a private member of the Nexus and this way if it's a front pass the game manager would be able to access it and create the loop task.
UTF LABS: So this is the way I'm going with it. Have you pushed it yet or is it on local?
Ferenc Orban: No, I will push it just as I'm not leaving it like we're reading through everything and I will come with it today. Okay, that's why I didn't see it.
UTF LABS: Yeah, carry on, carry on.
Ferenc Orban: Okay, so this is basically it's from on the task management part, which is done most probably and trouble has been working on the meeting but especially on the logging into fires for future use and he intends to finish that which is not done yet and he wants to work on the agenda as well the agenda generation. I myself I want to finish with this one and review the tasks that I already created the issues so I can make sure that I can reassign to one of you guys to for review and review and I want to review the issues that you guys are creating or you already created so that's what I intend to do to the next meeting just to be.
UTF LABS: Yeah, so like just a couple of things I would like to say. So for this, the task manager, like the file that you'll be working on. So if you can just, you know, create a set overview section on top of the files. So we know what these files are about. So like as we discussed earlier, we'll like to do a section or something to, you know, to describe the contents of the file. So I think we believe there isn't one in this one. So, you know, just an introduction or view overview, whatever you can call it. Yeah, I think you have already read it here. Yeah. Okay. Apart from this for the, yeah, for the board generation. So I think we'll get, yeah. So for the board generation, for the agenda generation, I think that's like a main point right now. So if you can get a timeline for to do for that. So, when it will be completed, because the issue right now is previously what I and Mary and Nihal used to do, we'll just feed in the meeting, last meeting agenda and the meeting summary to generate the new meeting agenda. But now there are a lot of things going on on Discord as well, for example, like a separate topic for a new technology discussion or something that one post with the new workflow or something like that. So, I have to, know, copy those into the end, you know, put them into the prompt as well to generate like to cover the whole meeting agenda. So, as soon as you can get the bot ready, so then you know, the bot can use the data from the whole channel, all of the channels and create the new agenda as well. So, for now, it's not an issue, but yeah, as we move forward, more and more things we are discussing on Discord, so it's necessary to know, know, the bot can take care of these things.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, I think trouble we've been able to provide. version of the meeting agenda by next meeting so yeah maybe not perfect one but yeah definitely one that does one so you can go from there so as you can see the adjustments and the ideas are still coming in and still we are cleaning up what the what would eventually do exactly so yeah it's hard to tell when it will be finished but there will be progress until next and the next meeting got it got it okay anything else here and shall we move on to the next topic then no nothing on our way okay no I wanted to say something but I realized that I already did that I didn't notice here that this is like game management is too quick. So the question got it.
UTF LABS: Yeah, so the next was the document structure and organization and dynamic structure. So I think one posted like an updated version to that as well. Yeah, it's in the hang on. Let me share my screen. Yeah, can you see the screen?
Ferenc Orban: Yes.
UTF LABS: Yeah, I think so. One, you know, posted this device structure. I put it into the GPT, you know, to update it more or didn't finalize anything else, but more or less. It was giving the same similar answers. I thought that we can keep this as it is. So if you have any comments on this or any changes on this or if gone have any comments otherwise we can finalize it.
Quan Gan: Just to iterate for sake of AI the reason we recommend that this one is just to give more spacing for the double digit index because if you had it contiguous then it means necessarily when you insert anything later on it's going to have to insert afterwards but if you have these spaced far enough apart then new ideas should be able to be able to insert without making too much disruption.
UTF LABS: So do we all agree on this? Okay so we'll finalize this structure and move the current structure to this format. Can you ferry can you do this or
Ferenc Orban: should we do it on our end? I can do it. Researching based on the reverse that I think that the new domain system and the following structure with a little dead one shared. Yeah, OK.
UTF LABS: OK, move on to the next point.
Quan Gan: Sorry. Oh, real quick, just just to reemphasize this with the previous with the folder structure, we don't have those other files yet, right? We just have the empty file. I think even the TDD, we can go back to that folder real quick. I just want to make sure as fair is reorganizing it, what files we have. So the BDD documents we may not necessarily have yet for these, right?
Ferenc Orban: So that means we have to additionally generate that.
UTF LABS: Yeah, yeah, for now we only. we have like an empty file and we have some sort of C code in it, but we currently don't even have C files and H files as well. So once we start working on it, we'll be having those files, but currently it's MDD. Sorry, MD only. And then yeah, BDD is also not there. But I think we all agreed in the last meeting, like whatever files we work on, we'll create a BDD file for that. If not a separate file, it will include it into the markdown as well.
Quan Gan: And I don't like this separation. I think a separation keeps it more modular. So have the MD without necessarily too much detail on the BDD. I mean, you might be able to summarize it, but then the BDD be as specific as possible. So I think the order would be the MD file first for every folder. Then we start working on the BDD for every folder. should generate the header files for every folder.
UTF LABS: And then lastly would be the C. Yeah. Perfect.
Quan Gan: Thank you.
UTF LABS: Okay, so the next episode about development, I think we already discussed, there's anything to add there if I didn't go over Java, no, I don't think, no, okay, got it, so we have the integration of Zapier as well, one, and it reads on those.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so today's experiment was just to see if the bot will join when I don't join, because I'll be gone pretty much all of next month, so it is showing that it joined, so hopefully that should trigger an event afterwards. Right now, I don't have it in Zapier triggering anything useful other than sending me an email, so I need you guys to figure out. what parts in your workflow would actually benefit from getting the meeting summary or even the entire transcript and then give me some kind of end point so I could link it because that's here.
Ferenc Orban: Okay, who will do that?
Quan Gan: Who will be responsible for MGTF team is generating the agenda separately from the meeting but is that correct?
UTF LABS: Yes, that's correct. So we basically, yeah, Nihal worked on the prompt and we are using Sonnet, like the cloud 3.5 and then I passed in the meeting summary and the last meeting agenda and based on that we generate a new meeting agenda and if there are anything other than or like some conversation on Discord. Well, I did as well.
Quan Gan: Okay, so how can we integrate that process because Java's already made a meeting bought and he's and I've deployed it to my server. I'm just wondering if that could be a more integrated approach where his meeting, but it's also being able to take in the transcripts and also helping you guys make the agenda.
UTF LABS: Yeah, that's all I was asking.
Ferenc Orban: So if very good job, I can comment on that. Yeah, so that's that's what I'm thinking about. Like the, uh, uh, transcript will need to be saved somewhere accessible for the bot. Uh, automatically, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah, so, you know, I can have zap your point at you. Anything. I'll go ahead.
Faisal: Sorry. I was thinking the pattern gives the API access to the summary and the idea was initially we discussed that. We were gonna press that. somebody through ZPI or using API or Fetham?
Quan Gan: Yeah, so Fetham doesn't have an API, but it does have an integration with ZPI. Now, ZPI has output to anything, so I need to know what the end points on your end intends to be, so that I can link that to whatever that system is.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, so basically the question is how we link the ZPI to Fetham? Yeah, and so who controls the Fetham? But this is all, it's under my account and also my ZPI. Okay, so you'd like us to look up how those should be connected, those two just to call?
Quan Gan: Well, it's not so much looking up, but just on your end, decide how you want it to be given to you, right? you can expose an API. or if you rather pull it in from I don't know a database somewhere or you want to pull it in from yeah like how would be the best way for you guys to get that data.
Ferenc Orban: Okay, so we'll figure that out and he will ask you for the.
UTF LABS: Okay, can you send like apart from the meeting board and stuff since I will be needing it anyways to generate that so can you email me like via say fear or something.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I can send it via email that's that's probably the easiest way right now. It can send email but you know that still requires a manual out process from you copy and paste it so you know so that's why I'm thinking is there a shortcut whatever you're trying to copy and paste it into somehow expose that to have some kind of endpoint as app you can tap into directly.
Ferenc Orban: So I'm thinking since we are. I think towards having the, I joined the generation about the meeting, but anyway, maybe this is something temporary, so one or two times emailing the transcripts until then I will figure out something more permanent and something automated.
Quan Gan: Okay, yeah, I can have just email, so whoever wants that email, can you guys just type your emails in the joint meetings and then I'll get that set up.
UTF LABS: Sure, I'll just send my email here.
Quan Gan: Thanks.
UTF LABS: Okay, so anything else on this or shall we move to the new workshop at one purpose?
Quan Gan: We can move on. Sure. So I'll need a screen share Second In April Oh Okay, so I got a new laptop so I have to restart zoom for me to enable it on my system permission, so let me You you guys see my screen yeah we can see all right so I wanted to show you guys a workflow that I'm I've created for this is just any general development but I think it would be especially useful once you guys have the MD files and are converting it to code this particular project I'm working on is actually creating various flashcards for our matching game so that I just kind of give you some context what it looks like yeah so I want to be able to have you know like a shape drawing for and then for people to play a pattern match to match them. So this thing, without any coding knowledge, I'm completely having the AI generated. But the workflow essentially was having the AI first come up with a very detailed document of development, kind of like what we're doing right now. So let me show you that. So this is encapsulated into a pretty long read me with just essential features here, even where the files need to be, code structure. And then this is multiple generations, I'm going to show you some. Okay, so the next generation was showing you the basic steps. So this roadmap with atomic commits. It's very important for the AI to be creating commits atomically. It's like, you know, when we're coding, we're creating it atomically so that if anything happens, you can always roll back and not lose so much work. But the benefit of having the AI do it as well is since it's generating so much code all at once, and we're essentially not reading the code anymore. We want to make sure what it generates as output. It's also generating tests at the same time as it's creating the new code so it could essentially self verify. And so we're using this as a incremental way of going forward. And then so it has these commits, which are essentially milestones, but then I think I had it break it down even further. No, actually, yeah, this was, you know, so basically just these commits, all the way to the end. And as it's generating code, I find that oftentimes things break and then you have to kind of go back in. and basically scrap the work up to that sort of commit. So when I start a new project, because with AI, you often run into your context window getting way too long, because it's already created several files for you, and you wanna start a new session. Well, with the new session, you can give it the entire context of your code base, but oftentimes that's too overwhelming, because there's a lot of unrelated data, especially with things where it's already committed and verified to work, you really only wanna be focusing on the stuff that's new and fix those things. So the current workflow is when I start a new document or when I start a new chat thread, I give it this README file, which has the original spec, very high level. So there's about 800 lines of code. here, 700 lines. But then what I use is this GPT code snapshot. And what this snapshot does is it's a Python script that's just running right here, and it's asking the user to give it input. And it will only take snapshots of the files that it sees are relevant to the current error. So for example, if I take right here, know, and I highlight it, I copy this, and then I go back to this Python script, I just paste it in there. Okay, so these are your errors. And then hit enter, let's see, this works. Oh, hold on, you have to type end. Yeah, I add it as explicitly, because without this end, it might take some of your commands here as execution. Okay, so it's calling API. And then you see here, it's written it to this focus output. And this essentially, Finally, are all the relevant files that relates to that particular error, including pasting the error code at the end here. So this is also really good context because now we have the original scope of what the project is, which has those milestones, but it also has your current files that are relevant along with the error. And then you can send that back to GPT to generate. I found the GPT 01 Mini being especially useful in this scenario. The 01 preview is quite advanced and it spends a lot of time thinking. This is really good for generating the original read me document with your milestones, but it's often overkill and too slow for the GPT Mini, the 01 Mini. I've also heard reviews that what many it's good enough. We're doing most coding tasks if you're specific So what I have it do afterwards is You know you could you could fit in your your read me file Let me see how I'm starting here. I know there's a lot okay So I basically just paste it in the original context here, and then I ask it to give me the The The next thing so right now we're doing a refactor, okay, so give me the next atomic change. I need to move forward with this project And I want to make sure that's under 300 300 lines And I also have to explicitly tell it you don't need to be verbose with how to output the script because what it often does is it gives you a bunch of descriptions ahead of time Waste a lot of tokens and then it gives you the script And then also explains whole bunch of things about the script what I actually wanted to do is simply give me a a shell script to make the changes. Because oftentimes, if you don't ask it to do that, it will just give you the snippets of code expecting you to copy and paste it manually. But I'm just asking it to give me the entire shell script, which already affects these change. And then what I do is simply copy and paste this code into cursor. So I copy and paste this code. And it's essentially running the script. And then whatever errors it generates, it goes into problems here. Or it goes into my npm test here if it fails. And I copy and paste that back into the Python, which allows me to take my output here. I'm going to copy and paste this. And then go back into the bottom here. And just simply say, here, help me fix this. remember to output a shell script to fix all of it, don't be so verbose. And then let's just see what it does here. And because earlier I've also asked it to generate new tests as it's fixing the code, we have a way to self-verify. Okay, so now you see it's gave me the shell script. And then I go back into cursor, go to next step. And this next step.sh, I basically just keep on copying and pasting over it. I don't even read it much at all. And then I go back into here and then I run that script again. Okay, so still having errors. But at least these errors, I can copy and paste back in. So, I can go back here, I might update that, know this has taken a while, I just want to be explicit to see if this is something that would be useful when you guys are converting your code over, but a couple of just insights that I found is you have to tell it to not be super-bose, otherwise it's just going to keep generating. It's a back and forth process of ratcheting this, and you're basically just rather than having a copy and paste yourself allow the AI to do that, so a copy and paste is that. Save, and then run it again and see if that does anything. So there's still issues, I'm not going to bother debugging it live, but I wanted to show you this process of back and forth without having to manually copy and paste. or even use cursor for that matter, but just mainly leveraging or what may need to do the both the code generation and then the test process. here we have an MPM test and it's also generating new tests to be verifying if the code works. Yeah, so I'll hand it back to you guys. Does anyone have comments on this?
Ferenc Orban: Well, I found myself basically doing this whole process, but by hand, giving it context and searching for the files, rather than files and debugging it just the way you are doing it. So it's better this way if it gathers the relevant files and codes.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so this is mainly just in here. I've committed it to GitHub. I'd imagine over time, if you guys find some useful tools that we should be updating that into the get repo, let's see, so I put it in the code analyzer, and these might be separate projects later on, but how you would install this is just loaded into the root directory of your project, and it should be able to go in there and do that. This is the pattern that I find myself doing pretty much on every single new project using this next step.sh, and then snapshot. Sean, your team, do you guys have any questions or comments on this?
UTF LABS: Yeah, not at the moment, I read the description that you mentioned, I'm processing. But yeah, it seems good. Once I'll try it within some of my other projects as well, I will see mostly I'll use it for Python initially. We'll see how it works and then when we start moving towards our own, we'll use it here then.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and you know, the way I imagine taste testing this is since I don't know how to code any of these paradigms. The fact that I can get, you know, a relevant output to the point that, you know, it's a functional utility. I think that speaks a lot for the process, especially for you guys who know how to code, you'll be able to use them a lot more effectively than I am.
Ferenc Orban: Let me wait my needs some adjustments. So I'm a bit skeptical. So as I said, I do use this process when debugging and having I have an error that I can't really put my finger on. instantly. So I do do this and the results are somewhat were somewhat unusable. Like were usable but not all of it. So having it bulk fix with the share script might be a bit too much without a review. But I think it yes and that's actually that's key for telling it to make atomic commits.
Quan Gan: To tell it to fix something I find that O1 and O1 mini are overly eager is the term I would say to generate a whole bunch of output for you. So it's almost like overdoing it to the point that it's overwhelming to the user and so it's not tends to be a lot more relevant to just short little snippets and making that process even better than copy and pasting. But what one preview was good at doing was breaking down a very large refactor. Let's say we're getting, for this project, was one file getting close to 300 lines, so I'm asking to do a refactor. It was able to at least break down the steps into atomic commits for this refactor so that it's not doing, you know, five files all out once and then just hoping for the best, but it's making little shifts here and there. And I think using the this copy and paste method for bulk editing seems to work. Okay. Okay, so I'm done with that component. But you guys can move out on.
Ferenc Orban: Thanks.
UTF LABS: Okay, yeah, I think we'll have to review it and then we can discuss it in the later meetings. Okay, so for the GitHub documentation review, yeah, fairing any updates on the document review process and we are on the point number six project management and GitHub integration.
Ferenc Orban: Not sure. Just a second. I'm not sure what needs to be discussed here.
UTF LABS: Yeah, I think we agreed that you'll be posted. thing the files that you are going to review, I believe. Any updates on which files you have reviewed until now?
Ferenc Orban: I'm working on the one, the task management interface, the task manager interface, and the related files like the game management and the Nexus interface will be involved in this as well. So those are all my list. I try to put into the in-progress, the ones that are on my current list, because I'm constantly going back and forth between the files, know, the system overview, the training as well. I'm looking into these. In the same time, so I didn't want to put those into the backlog because these are constantly being reviewed and will be more or less ready at the same time, this is the current version. But the task manager, I don't know, should I put that on the top? Maybe I will organize this by priority or by current importance. I'm thinking about the documentation main task, should we put it into the ready or review or somewhere, so it's the one that you have your most of, the in-progress documentation main. Yeah, I was thinking I was looking at it and so how can we add files here which aren't already here so like I created that this sound interface and I was looking to it but I couldn't find it then I realized it isn't here so how I'm creating more files here and you'll be well so I think by editing the description up in the top right yeah oh okay lower lower that's just yeah yeah a bit to the right the three dots to the right of yeah okay I think we got it got it I missed that and once you open it up you will see it's how those checkboxes are representing so okay got it yeah this was one issue I was saying apart from that anything else we have to discuss here
UTF LABS: no i don't think so got it yeah so by next meeting the task manager interface will be completed yes but please share okay so moving on to the segment that was basically the new toolnet technologies do we have anything to discuss this figure box on the workflow that i just said no i don't think so i've been having new tools has advanced voice mode been enabled for your guys's chat GPT yet sorry can you repeat the question oh have you guys tried advanced voice mode for chat GPT i don't know if that's enabled in your region no Oh, I think I haven't found it yet.
Ferenc Orban: I'll I'll check it.
Quan Gan: I have to say you may have to reinstall the app, but that is available. And it's it's pretty cool. I think you can have a pretty casual conversation with it and potentially while you're coding, you would just have it as an assistant on your side and just talk to it.
UTF LABS: Got it. I'll look into it.
Quan Gan: It's it's able to be interrupted. It just feels like a much more natural language. And actually the here, I'm going to take off my head phone and see if you guys can try it out. Is there any?
Ferenc Orban: No.
Quan Gan: Okay. you guys hear me? Yeah, we can hear you now. Okay, hold on. Let me try this. Hey, Sage. So I'm here in our engineering meeting with our developers with ZTAG. Can you say hi to them? Hey, everyone at the ZTAG engineering meeting. It's great to virtually meet you all. Keep up the awesome work. Can someone say something back to her? Hello, it's great to hear from you. We're excited to have Sage on board to help us out.
Ferenc Orban: Hey, Sage, what do you do?
Quan Gan: Can you repeat that back to her?
Ferenc Orban: think you need to be louder.
Quan Gan: Hey, Sage.
Ferenc Orban: Hey, Sage, what do you do?
Quan Gan: Hello, it's great to hear from you. We're excited to have Sage. more to help us out.
Ferenc Orban: Hi Sage.
Quan Gan: Yeah, she's not picking up the microphone, I think. Okay, anyway, I'm it's supposed to be a lot more interactive, but it's one of the benefits, it does have long term memory. So as you're talking to it, it gets to know you literally like the movie or if you guys haven't watched it yet.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, I've seen it back in the day.
Quan Gan: Okay, that's pretty much the, the blade is relevant thing that I saw, but yeah, we can move on and there's nothing else.
UTF LABS: Yeah, I think that's it for this. So basically to discuss the action items for today's meeting. I'll be moving on to the haptic interface file. S l mean will complete the z tag. game template and the game management files and then on your end, please repeat your task.
Ferenc Orban: We will finish with the file saving by the bot, job will be working on the agenda generation and the transcript integration from Zapier, you will get it up. I myself will finish up the task management and will review the remaining files that you guys already created and I already created so I can hand it over to you for the review.
UTF LABS: And also we have to update the project according to the new structure and number it. for Kwan Zen Kwan Algona, I'm going to need the Fedam summary on my email to create the next meeting agenda.
Quan Gan: Yes, and I'm going to, I'm going log off before you guys. I want to see if Adam's still generates a summary, but I also have one more question for UTF team. When you guys are generating your meeting agendas and your summaries, can you give me the problems that you use for those?
UTF LABS: Yeah, sure. I think that's already added in the metadata repo. I'll point it out into your discord chat so you can have a look at it.
Quan Gan: Okay, all right. Thank you. So if there's nothing else, I'm going to log off first, but leave the meeting open.
Faisal: And then when you guys log off, I want to see it trigger. Sure. In the meeting, I cannot see any user.
Quan Gan: Oh, did it? No, I see it. this Kwan AI?
Faisal: Do you see it? Okay. So that's it.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
UTF LABS: I also want to see if can you add my outer here as well so it's by the backup.
Quan Gan: How do I add your otter? It should be linked to whatever you're doing.
UTF LABS: Yeah I think I'll have to add the link here.
Faisal: Okay I'll look at it.
UTF LABS: think I'll have to add the meeting link into my otter.
Faisal: Yeah it should join automatically not quite one.
UTF LABS: Yeah yeah got it.
Quan Gan: Okay because I've enabled the meeting to allow anybody to join without a waiting room. And then also I'll need to enable the share permission even if I'm not there.
Faisal: Right and is there a wake on this bathroom recordings or being the URL or being sent to one specific channel on Discord so that with date and anything so that anyone can just go through it.
Quan Gan: I can look into automating that I think that's probably only to figure out how to get it integrated with Discord itself but I can look into putting that into your meeting.
Faisal: Not necessarily, just a thought.
Quan Gan: Yeah. No, I think that that would be a good thing to have that automatically post here.
Faisal: Yeah, because what we do is like when in some of the projects, we, we rail on Slack or click up. So we feed in manually, although, but we have a dedicated channel where we know all the recording history has been available date-wise. anybody can jump in, jump jump back and see what's missing there.
Quan Gan: Well, so if I can do that, then I would imagine that Chaba, you can take that transcript that I've uploaded to Discord and do whatever with it afterwards, right?
Faisal: Yeah, I And start keeping those records somewhere in a specific way.
Quan Gan: Okay, yeah, so I'm starting to think just based on you're asking that that discord might be the good endpoint for me. So as long as it ends up been discord, then you guys, however you want to automate things can can take that information and do what you need with it.
Faisal: Right, right. All right, let's see how it works then.
Quan Gan: Okay, I'll see about working on that in the next couple of days.
Faisal: Thanks. All right.
Quan Gan: Okay, so I'm going log off and stay on and then, um, yeah. Oh, okay.
Ferenc Orban: See you guys. Bye. All right. Okay, so, right.
UTF LABS: Yeah, so we have just to, yeah, just to, know, have something for one if it's recording or not. Can you quickly give an update of the link you shared here in the chat.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah. It's the city where we live, where we're working from, we talked about it before the meeting with Farsam.
Faisal: Yeah, it's a beautiful city. I'll just go through and gather all these texts for your city. I love being doing that since I've had a background in travel and tourism way back in, I mean, early 2000s. But I love doing that. So, it's a great information.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah.
UTF LABS: Got it. I think we have enough now for the report. So, let's meet on Thursday, guys.
Ferenc Orban: Bye, guys.
Faisal: Bye bye.
Csaba: Bye bye. Bye bye.
Kristin Neal: Good morning.
Quan Gan: Good morning. Happy Tuesday.
Aimee Ocer: Happy Tuesday guys.
Quan Gan: Good morning. I'm still missing someone. Okay. How are you guys?
Kia: Everybody doing good?
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah, she's coming back on. Okay. So I imagine you guys are a little bit nervous, excited.
Aimee Ocer: What's the feeling? Okay.
Quan Gan: How about, how about I go first? Would I, would I make you guys feel a little bit better?
Kia: Yeah.
Quan Gan: it's not necessarily an example or anything, but just kind of uh, set some context and kind of lose things out a little bit. It's, this is supposed to be a oh, I see Paula. Okay. It's um, pretty introductory casual conversation. Really just to get everybody on the same page. You know, um, for the past two, three weeks, you know, we introduced the Apollo. So I was just recapping with everybody that we introduced the concept of EOS and the vision track. organization, organizers Fill that out, then I share with each of you, those contacts and taught you guys the methodology to develop your own quarterly rocks because ultimately the quarterly rocks are going to be supporting the company quarterly rocks, which allows us to make progress each quarter towards the yearbolt towards the three year Colon, and then ultimately to the tenure big. we call it the B-HAG, the big hairy audacious goal. And I have a feeling that given the response I've had over the past few weeks with the team, that we're gonna be able to exceed our goal tremendously as long as we follow this method. It's given me a lot of confidence seeing you guys being able to use leverage the AI tools to help you gain what you need to learn. So, rather than just understanding a new topic, but more so understanding how to learn a new topic, like how to learn how to learn, right, especially this new AI context, you know, traditional way of learning is you go to school, they inject your head with a bunch of information, you hopefully remember it, and you repeat it enough times. But that information is more or less going to be static because your job may not change over time. But with the rapid expansion of AI going to pretty much every aspect of our lives, people actually call it the new electricity. So if you imagine how much electricity has changed human civilization over the past 100 years, AI is going to do that with probably 10x. It's going to be in every facet of our being. So, being able to capture this so early on. I think our team is able to grow tremendously in the future without necessarily adding a whole bunch of other people, but it allows each of us to be so much more productive and enjoying what we do in so much more aligned. So yeah, anyways, I know it's kind of a monologue already, but I wanted to just jump in and share with you guys my rocks and responsibilities for the quarter. Since we have, let's say, one, two, four, five, we've got six people, let's try to time ourselves to be probably five to eight minutes each, and that way, towards the end, we can have some, you know, discussion points on these things. But really, it's not, we're here in a very trusting open space, so we're not judging any person. It's more talking about the topic, right? So if we find something that made you know, we might have questions on. Just remember, it's not a personal thing. We're going to be talking about specific issues and questions so we gain clarity. And also, the beauty of this whole thing is, because we have our note takers, you know, we don't have to personally take notes. We can, after the fact, go back and reorganize and then come back with, you know, more aligned thoughts. So right now, it's really just to put out all the content and then figure out how to optimize it with the AI leverage. So morning, Carmen. So we're just going to be going through each person's rocks and goals. So I know we didn't develop, you and I have not developed it, but just for your context, it would be good for you to listen in and just understand what we're going through for the next quarter. Thanks for being here. Okay. So I'm going to share my advice and then I will go to. The cursor. Are you guys able to read this? Okay. So my responsibilities in EOS, you'll see that people wear multiple hats. That's an often used term is a single person may wear multiple hats and hats basically mean different roles that you're responsible for. So in a traditional company sense, they may have fees as individual roles, but especially now given AI leverage, a single person can oftentimes wear multiple hats because we're able to have the AI do a lot of the actual data they work. So I'm going to be operating as the COO, the integrator, which is the key role for getting us into EOS. That's the integrator term. CTO and product lead. CTO is in charge of the technologies that we're developing. then the product lead is more overseeing the actual programming of those technologies. So for example, if we're talking to a streamer, customer and they might want some custom customization in their software, that would be my role as product lead. But let's say we're trying to develop something fundamentally new for many new customers, that's my BTO, involving going to the factory and seeing we have a new product in the pipeline. We're going stand here. So I'm just going to go over these quickly. So I'm mainly going to be in charge of seeing operations, just making sure you guys are, you know, in your roles and giving me you guys the resources to do those things. Product development came alignment, which is similar to the first one. So it's more of my role. whole as the coxin on the on the boat analogy to get everybody rowing together at the same pace, right? Process implementation. This is also part of today's meeting as part of that, right? It's to make sure that we have a repeatable process in holding our meetings in creating and finding out issues, identifying and discussing and solving these issues. It's part of the process implementation. And then technical oversight. So pretty much anything related to our technology, both internally and externally. So whether that's developing new automations with classes or developing products for our customers, that's going to be my technical oversight. my five big rocks for this quarter is we are doing a complete restructuring of the Zitad underlying software. So this may not look like something that's very different from the outside, but from the inside is going to be completely changed. To give you some context, the current Z-Tag software that's deployed to the market took about three plus years of dedicated development from our team in Pakistan and in Romania. And we have probably about 30 or 40,000 lines of code that we had to put together, but it's not perfect because we never really understood the future needs. So we are at a point where this code, given all the things we know now, is completely being rewritten and redesigned with the assistance of AI. So to think about how you guys were able to generate your different goal documents through AI, this is essentially the same thing that we're doing at the software level, which means the software is going to be also aligned with our goals. It's going to be less prone to errors, improve our customers. some service because we're going to have less bugs over time. This is a goal that needs to be done by the end of this year. And the result of this, not only do we have a more reliable product, it will also mean that we can come out with new games and new games much quicker once this is done. Because it's kind of like you get the foundation done and you're just making minor adjustments for anything new. A slight tangent, but this is an analogy that I use, where if you look at all the human population, our DNA is only minorly different, probably 0.1% different from one person to another person. Yeah, we can create the diversity of buildings and people in the world. This is very similar where we build this architecture and it's going to be the same architecture for all the applications we make, but we just need to make one tiny little tweak here and there. And it will come up to be a completely different application. That's the first goal. The second one is also towards product reliability. So at the factory, we're making a third version of the Zeus, which is going to be much easier to maintain and serviceable. It's going to be very modular. So if things break, we can shift them parts rather than having to replace the whole system. And also the parts themselves will be much more tested for longevity and durability. So this will impact our customer service. KPIs, this is what we're working on right now, is to work with each department to make sure you guys understand what your scorecards are to support our mission. Activate ZX, prototype of factory. Some of you may have known this, we're working on a secondary product for the entertainment market since we're shifting our focus as Z-tag towards education, and institution, so the ZXR is going to be purely an entertainment-based product, so that will satisfy some of the customers that are no longer a fit for Z-tag, but they may move over to that. So this is something that we hope to – the goal is to launch this by next year's IAPA, so this requires a lot more collaboration with the factory. And then the last one is to file at least one new patent. So, patents are important from a business standpoint, because as we're working with institutions, they're to be caring more about these credit credentials on the product. To see, is this product unique, or are there many other competing products? If it's the latter, then oftentimes when we sell the product, it has to go to bid, and the process takes longer and we're less likely to get it. But the more patents that we have on our products, the more that we're able to create a technological product. That allows the government institutions to say, okay, this is the one and only, so we really want to go with them and it will streamline our sales process. So hopefully you can see how these five rocks will support our quarterly rocks as a company. Okay, so I'm going to skip the details of the metrics for now, but hopefully that gives you guys an example of, you know, just kind of how I want each of you guys to share your responsibilities in your rocks with the team. Okay. I know everybody's a little bit nervous sharing for the first time, but hopefully I made that a little bit easier by sharing mine first. Does anyone want to volunteer to go or should I pick? Okay, how about I'll pick. Kristen, would you likely. Okay, you're muted.
Kristin Neal: I'm sorry. Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. So, I'm talking a quad real quick.
Quan Gan: Now, what's that? You like to just screen share or would you want to just talk to us?
Kristin Neal: I could just talk. Okay. I'll just talk to you. Okay. So, my responsibilities is to, my official title is the partner relations. So, in order to do that, my responsibilities will be to develop and launch a partnership tiered plan, lead sale, and customer relations efforts, collaborate with cross functional teams. Manage, support product demonstrations and continual improvement. If I could speak to the first one, my rocks right now. Let's see. Okay. Sorry. I'll get better at this.
Quan Gan: promise. is the first time where everybody said there's. Don't build any pressure from us.
Kristin Neal: Okay. So, Juan and I had our meeting like everybody else. And what I loved about the process of how he had us go into AI was there was a rock and it was to. I can't actually remember the original rock, but it didn't have the tiered plan. And after thinking about it, I was like, you know what, this is great having, hey, Sam, I'm having this opportunity to really figure out the partner logistics, like how we can really partner with them. But it wasn't until his feedback that I input that, that it came out with finalised partnership tiered plan. And that got me really excited because I was like, that's exactly what it feels like it means. After thinking on it, the website really came up. And the website to me, and I spoke to Juan about this, it is geared for the single purchase. It's not showing that we're ready to support. orders over 100. So that was like the big change for me. And if that's my rock, that's my only rock this quarter, I'd be happy to get this tiered tan finalized and then showcase that on the website and really kind of not gear it towards but have even our personas on the website like have it very very easy to understand um, especially for educate like the higher-ups the big big big people in the districts, the district leaders and and even possibly have a trial offer. So the there's some big things that that tiered plan is going to be a big one that I'll start working on. Um, first then we'll just go from there. Is that a big one?
Quan Gan: Yeah, very cool. Um, I do have a quick comment and this is just to give everyone more context. So part of our marketing strategy is to better hone in on the types of customer segments that we have, and that creates, that's using something called these personas. So since Kristin is the most active person in talking to our customers and engaging with them, she's helped us develop different types of people that we engage with. And each of those people have different needs in terms of who they serve, what they care about, and what Z-TAC can do for them. And so taking those personas and kind of making that kind of the core DNA to a lot of our marketing message will change fundamentally how people react to it. And it may not be like specifically which words or the website may not necessarily completely restructure and explore. They show these are the personas we work on but it's kind of baked in. It's kind of like, you know It's it's more like an internal algorithm that we know This is how our messaging becomes consistent But what's on the outside it may still look like a website with you know the typical formatting, you know We may not necessarily explicitly say a hundred unit orders or anything like that, but that knowledge big from side will manifest in a way that whoever is Looking for these large orders it might connect the right dots because a combination of words or a combination of how the website is laid out It's going to speak to them that way possibly subconsciously Thank you, Kristin. All right, you want to pick someone else?
Kia: Yeah Yeah All right, actually I prepared these lines It's easier.
Quan Gan: That's good.
Kia: All right, I'll share screen.
Quan Gan: OK, let's see. Did I give you two? Yes, you should be able to share.
Kia: Yeah, let's say. OK. So can you see my screen, guys?
Quan Gan: Let's turn it. Yep. Here we go.
Kia: OK, so as for my end, based on the exercises that we have done when we started the VTO, or when the VTO was introduced to us. So my role is customer support specialist. So I do engage with customers, but then it's more on the increase. Unlike Chris, it's more on the front. But for me, I'll be more on the back-end side. So for this presentation, I've included four parts, which are my core responsibilities, the quarterly rocks, or the 90-day priorities for this quarter, and then the scorecard and then accountability, which are related to the quarterly rocks. So for my core responsibilities, these are my five focus tests for this role, so customer support management. So this is something to do with the support tickets, which I'm currently working on the Zoho desk. So hopefully this time there will be an efficient way in managing customer inquiries and support tickets. Same thing using the Zoho desk. And then the number two responsibility is AI powered sentiment analysis and customer insight. So if I'm not mistaken, this is something to do with what Kwan mentioned earlier with, I think these are the conversations that Chris would have with the customers and hopefully get the data out of that transcript and then get the insight out of it so that with the help of AI tool, maybe the right AI tool and with the help of Kwan says, we can generate insights instead of getting the feedback from them the traditional way, like from forms or something like that through email.
Quan Gan: So number three. speak to why that is? Because I don't think everybody knows why this method will be better than the forms.
Kia: Yes, based on my understanding with big discussions, traditionally feedbacks are taken from customers, like normally sending them a survey or questionnaire as to how they feel about the product or the process, the customer service process. So instead of doing that, we'll have the help of AI tools from what, using the data or the transcript of the conversations that Chris does with customers, and then through that, hopefully we can get an analysis in getting the, in getting it from the daily conversations from those different personers.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so I just want to add this is to make it as streamlined as possible for the customer without having to explicitly impact them to slow down their data to give us feedback. So for example, Kristen, when you're having just a casual conversation with them, you know, just by talking about the product, we're already getting their casual feedback rather than having to force them to go out of form, which has a lot more friction. So AI has that power where if a client says helps us create this automation that just through your daily interaction with your customers, we can already gain those insights, then that's a lot more data that we can use to develop a product or correct any kind of issues that they have. Okay.
Kia: Thank you, Kia. Let's go on. Thanks. So number three still has something to do with AI, but this time it has for the enhanced knowledge based management. And so currently the knowledge base that we are that I'm utilizing is are from the, uh, the increase that we get from customers ever since we use the Zoho desk, um, including the emails before, but then this time we're hoping to use the Zoho desk knowledge base. Um, I think one had a first entry there, so I'm still looking into it because it's more easier for us to utilize the knowledge base in the Zoho desk than having a separate like data, which is in a Google Doc. So through this, um, inquiries when we get incorrect when we receive inquiries from the customer in the Zoho desk, and then the knowledge base that articles that we already had that we have are already in the same platform, which is Zoho, then it will be a helpful tool to um, an important. And resource, I mean, efficiently support customers compared to again, having a separate knowledge base tool. So number four, training material development. So this is something to do with instruction materials for internal use and hopefully for client onboarding. So this has been started already with collaboration of the girls. I think with the videos that we are hoping to to produce. So I create this, cleanse this and the girls were able to talk about this. So this time, hopefully we could collaborate to create a concise instructional material for internal use and client onboarding. And number five, cross-functional collaboration. So a sparkle by the responsibility to actively collaborate with, say, else. So that's with Chris and then sales product and web development. So with Clansys to ensure smooth integration of the AI tools will be using and the customer support process. So that's it for my core responsibilities. Okay, so so oops sorry. So for the 90-day priorities or the ROCs using the chat jeopardy it has gave me three but I added another one. So the first one is the AI powered sentiment analysis implementation. this is something one of the biggest ROCs I think. I'll be facing this quarter since this is something new but then I believe this can be doable with the help of collaboration. So I'll partner To achieve this rock, I'll partner with Chris and Clancy's to implement AI tools that analyze customer conversations, reducing customer reported issues by 20% hopefully. And then number two is the AI enhanced knowledge based development, where in real transition, the knowledge based documents from the Google Doc, which is a temporary one now to the Zoho knowledge based in the Zoho desk. And number three, same, I'll focus in collaborating with my teammates, Clancy's and Chris for what they call this, the AI drive and support tasks and solutions. So for number four, I added this one since I have discovered in Zoho desk that there is the way in categorizing the tickets according to priorities and utilizing as well. a different when there's an option there to edit. So instead of having just a one line, what I call this list of tickets, this way I can see which are high priority, low, a medium, and low. Okay, so scorecard. So this is the indicator if the tasks or, yeah, the tasks I'm doing. So let me know where am I or the determine, okay, to determine how I'm doing well on the task. So number one is customer issue resolution time, knowledge, basic utilization, and reduction of repeated issues. So I'm not sure if this is something approved, but I had learned this before in the BPO and most of as well. of the input of this is from JAP-JAP-JAP-D. So for number one, for customer issue resolution time, so the objective of this is to reduce the average resolution time of customer issues by 20%. So there is a formula there, but then basically what this entails is that for us to manage the resolution time. So the average amount of time it takes to resolve customer issues from the moment they are reported until they are finally resolved. So in the Zoho desk, we do have the analytics there to give us a total number of tickets as well as the resolution time since there is a timestamp there in Zoho. desk. So next to say, for example, for us to determine if the resolution time has decreased by 20%. So let's assume that this is for the partner, okay, or we can also think safe. It takes three days or two days to solve the tickets like average. So if it's 48 hours currently, then by using this formula, the goal should be from 48 hours, it should be just 38.4 hours time to get back to the customer. So this can be achieved once the knowledge base article in Zoho desk will be established too. So next, knowledge based utilization. So this is what I'm talking about in a Zoho desk. So the objective of this is to increase the usage of knowledge based by 30%. So I think, as long as we have the access to Zoho desk internally, can see all of us can see it. But I think there's also a way wherein there is a knowledge base for the customers to see. So it's going to be here, knowledge based, and then this will be the dashboard. So the number of articles. So currently we don't have yet since we haven't explored this one. So, maybe you are called a knowledge based utilization. So this is for us to be encouraged to use the knowledge base article. And Hopefully, the target set by the GPT is 30% increased, so by just using this formula, we'll know here it says page views, but maybe we can replace this with article views. Anyways, the article views can be found in the dashboard. So there, this is just an example. So, this one is also, I think, very relevant for me, reduction in repeated issues. So currently, we do have issues that are similar. So, hopefully, by taking these drugs, we can decrease the recurrence of common customer issues by proactively addressing them. So, again, this is related, if we have established a firm or. really good knowledge base. So again, repeated issues are instances where the same problem is reported multiple times by different customers. So by exploring the each ticket, like there's an edit button there, we can go into the additional information and go to the classification if this is more of a question, a problem, a feature, or we can, I think, personalize it more to see which tickets are similar and hopefully we can reduce the recurrence of each support ticket or kind.
Quan Gan: So real quick, I want to add to that point. So the repeated issues and with many of our scorecards, a person may be responsible for a scorecard. However, it very much might be a team effort in order for those metrics to improve. So for example, I have responsibility the in improving the product itself so that it has less issues to begin with. So, so it's not just creating the knowledge base that solves those problems, but the interconnectedness and the collaboration that required is sometimes what's required to to actually move the needle on some of these metrics.
Kia: Yes, I agree.
Quan Gan: Okay, go ahead.
Kia: Yes, so this is just an assumption. So, example, there is an issue A which is reported 50 times, which we're not really hoping this would happen since we're improving the product and so and so forth. So, if in case it appears to be reported 50 times, then there's a suggested formula. So, we are aiming from 50 recurrence, it will just record 42.5 and lesser and lesser as we solve the issue from the back of the and so these accountability again has just something to do with the rocks. So this is just for me to be able to know my deliverables. So my focus for this water is again to collaborate closely with Chris and Clancy's to achieve the sentiment analysis and then the knowledge base that will transition to the Zoho desk knowledge base. So and lastly these are the tools. These are the tools I'll be using in a raking down or solving those rocks. So we have the Zoho desk and Zoho project. We will work space AI tools. I'm not so sure what AI tools but I think we'll first time we'll talk about it and then I the rest for the training materials, the whole desk, whole product manuals and the FAQs that we currently have. And of course, AI integration. So that's it for me. I think that's the last one. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Thank you so much, Kia.
Kia: It's very comprehensive.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so I do look forward to seeing you guys collaborate. And I would like to be included in some of these meetings, at least initially, because I see where somebody's tools, maybe you haven't yet, I can introduce that to you, and then you'll have the resources to move forward. Okay, thanks. You want to call on someone else?
Paula Cia: Thank you, Kia. I wasn't expecting you. So thank you so much here. You did a really good reporting. So I think I just wanted to share that I actually revised the racks three times and it is still not perfect but I'm always open for like changes and suggestion. So my role here in the tag is social media and marketing specialist which I focus on promoting companies products or services through social media platforms and other digital channels. So I have here like four core responsibilities which is number one the social media management. It aims like to develop implement and manage social media strategies across platforms for brand awareness and engagement. Those platforms I am doing right now are Facebook and Twitter and hopefully I can start on LinkedIn and Instagram also. And then second is the content creation. It aims like to design and produce engaging graphics and content for social media posts, campaigns and background visual as needed. It also let me collaborate with Amy, which is the lead generation and Christine for sales and customer relations to create content that adds value to our users and establishes our expertise in face-to-face connections. Third, marketing strategy development. So it was not this is not on the first graph. the first correspondence. I generated with Chajapati, but after like third time with the help of one with this feedback, this, this came out. marketing strategy development is to work closely with the sales and lead generation specialists in first Christine to develop content strategies that support lead nurturing and customer engagement. And lastly, the fourth responsibility is the campaign development, which is to identify and focus on social media platforms and online communities where our target personas are active, tailoring content formats and messaging accordingly. So for my quarterly rocks, which is the 90 day priorities, I have also for here. These are the updated rocks that I generated three times. So, The first one is to launch new marketing campaigns. This is with collaboration with Amy and Christine again to publish six high value content pieces this quarter that can add value to the users and establish our expertise in face-to-face human connections. Next is to integrate AI into marketing efforts. So I am already using AI but this one it will allow me to explore AI powered content creation tools that can streamline the workflow and enhance content quality to share the insights and tools with the team and improve the overall efficiency. Next is the resource development. So this will allow me to gather and create new resources like graphics content to support and enrich our So, for now, Amy already created the group chat for us, me and Christine, so maybe this week I will also create a content calendar for our content deadlines. Let's go now to my key metrics or the scorecard. I have also four, which are the content engagement, the lead generation support, awareness growth and content output. For content engagement, it will allow me to trap the increases in likes, shares, comments and overall engagement on that published content. For the lead generation support, I will monitor the number of leads influenced by content efforts. For the brand awareness growth, I will measure the growth in followers, subscribers and brand mentions. For the content output, I will maintain a consistent schedule. of content creation and posting across all the platforms, so that's my rocks and my scorecard. I will also share to you the to-do list I made for the rocks and based on the rocks and the scorecard I have. So I have five to-do list. Number one is to initiate collaboration with Amy and Christine. My action here is to schedule a meeting with Amy, the legendary Sean, Christine and sales and customer relations to align on content ideas, roles and timelines for creating the six high value content pieces. Number two is to develop a comprehensive content plan. My action here is to create a detailed content plan outlining the topics formats distribution. channels and responsibilities. Number three is to explore and implement the AI powered content creation tools, which I use right now is the chat GPT and capital AI. Action here is to research AI tools that can streamline content creation and enhance the quality. So if there are other AI tools that can help me create a good content, I can search for it. Number four is gather and create new resources for social media activities. My action here is to develop engaging graphics and content, incorporating real world customer feedback and experiences like to enhance authenticity. Lastly, monitor the key metrics and adjust strategies accordingly. My action here is to set up dashboards to trap in increases in likes, shares, comments, lead generation support, brand awareness growth and content output. So that's my to do list for the for my for my rocks and scorecard. So moving forward through the collaborative efforts and strategic implementation between me, Amy and Kristin, I know that we are prepared to accomplish major improvements in our marketing objectives over the next 90 days, setting a strong foundation for future growth and success. Thank you, Gwen.
Quan Gan: Thank you, Paula. Yeah, I want to add here that clients will also be helping with some of that back again because since we're doing the sentiment analysis, know, Kristin is having conversations with our customers, that becomes the refined personas that allow you to start as the kind of the core seed in creating and generating the content. So you can see the interconnected nature of how each person's role will impact someone else's responsibilities.
Paula Cia: Thank you.
Klansys Palacio: My first time, guys. So anyway, thank you so much for sharing all your rocks. Thank you guys. Goodbye. Just kidding. So same with all of you guys. I've been revising my rocks and sending it again and again to quan yesterday because I've been because it's it felt like I'm not satisfied with AI. I generate it because it's not in line already with our roles, so that's why I revised it based on what I really feel and what the team is going to contribute as well. So we have, wait, I'll share my screen, I'm talking about your screen already. I did not prepare anything but my document is here with me, so it's very with me guys. Yeah, can you?
Quan Gan: Yeah, we can see it.
Klansys Palacio: Can you? Yeah, okay, thank you. Okay, so, um, so, okay, I'm right. Sorry guys, I'm really nervous right now. So, okay, so before I start, I will, um, going to introduce my role first here in the data. my role is, um, a web developer and automation has facilities. So my focus here is improving the overall customer support by enhancing the knowledge base of course, developing some automation solutions on the back end, and ensuring that our website is not only easy to navigate, but also optimized for access ability. So I'll be working closely with Kia and Chris. Okay, so it's a triple K team. Okay, so so I am here. I have six core responsibilities. So my first responsibilities are same with Kia is the knowledge base enhancement. So here guys, the goal here is to continuously of course updating knowledge base so that it replays or it reflects the real world. needs, and it will go into answers, customer needs and issues as well. So it includes here leveraging the AI tools, of course, and updating some of the FAQs since we have already FAQs and some articles on the website. I think we need some update on that, based on the repetitive issues on the, on the Zoho desk that we are receiving, because there were some of the FAQs there that absolutely not answered or not answered with the customer's issues on the Zoho desk, so I've been checking some of the data on the Zoho desk and entry form on our website as well. So, and of course, this one, the AI integration for support automation, so this is new. This is a combination of the chat, GPT and the robot. So just a little bit background of the robot. The robot is a chatbot. It's an AI training where we can use it for customer support. Like since we are receiving a lot of repetitive issues, so AI can help us to answer those questions. But we were going to see AI with support documents based on the customer's issues. That we're selling on the desk. So we are actually using the sales IQ already. So it is sales IQ is not only focusing on the chatbot, but also it monitors the visitors. It analyze all the traffic as well. And we can set visitors based on the sales IQ. we are using it right now that we are not yet maximizing the full features of the sales IQ. So based on my experience as well on chatbot, I've been dealing with customer support using chatbot. I've been finding some answers with their AI train bot on their website as well. Zoho, Zoho is using that Zoho bot as well. So if you're going to check the Zoho bot website, so they have that chatbot and you can just ask questions there and on their bot as well, they can turn it into live chat and AI train bot. So since we are not like available 24 seven, so if we're away, I will do the training. But if we're available on that service schedules are for the live chat, so we can answer the questions. questions through live chat as well. So this thing is one of, I've added actually on the racks before the drops, because I've been researching about how can we like lesson receiving a lot of customers, customers, users on the desk. maybe this can help the customers as well to find some answers with the repetitive issues that the customers encounter. So next, have the automation.
Quan Gan: Can I add to that topic? So yeah, so regarding chat thought, I want to share a little bit of a nuance for our company. So oftentimes when you're working on chatbots that's maybe just on a website, it might be more of a consumer brand, because it might be a small product that you You have incidental issues and high volume, but because we have very high value products and they do a lot of our customers actually want more of a hand-held process. I think the chatbot, while the knowledge is actually critical to giving us optimal answers, it may still need to be delivered through a human experience. It may be something that we can leverage to answer a lot of our things more efficiently, example supporting Kristin, since she's made many times the first point of contact, even though she's technically not customer support, she often gets those inquiries. If a lot of the automation behind the scenes allows her to perform her role and get the customer satisfied, that is still hitting that goal. But not necessarily having a chatbot on the front end of the website, so I just wanted to share that new one with you. Thank you.
Klansys Palacio: It makes sense. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for that. Okay. Okay. The next one will be the automation solution. So I will be the one handling all the back end automations, since we will be what they call this will be getting feedbacks as well on the customer. So I might just the Zoho flow for that because I've been, I've been really researching about Zoho apps. So we can maximize since we have Zoho accounts already. So we can maximize all the apps that offers by the Zoho. So we can, by using the automations, I can collect the feedbacks and analyzing everything inside of it since on the feedback thing. And quite mentions about the sentiment analysis. I have one, I thought, for FHS article, so they have big feedback, so I think we can use that as well. have big feedback with comments, if that support document is really helpful for them, so they can just click the helper or not helpful, then we can, we can determine, or we can update it more if the customers didn't find this very useful. So we can use AI to refine everything and update everything based on the customer feedbacks as well. So next, I have the website development and the maintenance. So here, guys, website is our first touchpoint with many customers. So, in the website development, and maintain and so I'm absolutely focusing on the support page. So I really want to have like predesigned or updating some some particular documents inside of it because before I want the customer to find some useful answers with their issues before going to the support form but before receiving a lot of tickets from them as well so I want them to see if that support page is really useful for them to find answers so before jumping on setting on us or giving us issues on support form so that's really what I want because I want the support page to be easily navigate because not all All the customers are users are attacking experts, most of them is naturally, we need to consider all of different types of users, so because not all of them knows about everything inside of it, so I really want to inform that as well on the support page and and the value of our responsibility is the customer experience optimization, so this is now the where we can or where we will be to implement the feedback mechanism, so in feedback my rocks is more about the service, but quite give me a feedback that why not just the or implement the AI based sentiment analysis for emails and zoom. So for me guys why is it better than like traditional because of course the real time feedback of the customer. So it's it's actually provides like image insight into how how customers feel during the interactions allowing faster response and of course adjustment to any potential issues. that's one of I research about the sentiments because when Kwan mentioned it I was what was that what was that sentiment analysis so yeah that's that's really useful for like collecting feedback on customers as well so I might like you can use the platform for transcript transcriptions you can use it It's an AI tools, it's really useful because I actually, during my remarks, when we have meeting with Kwan, I compare the author AI transcript and phantom AI transcript and trans, how phantom AI transcript is better than author AI because author is like getting like unnecessary words or but you will not going to pronounce it very well. The AI will just going to create another word for it. So that's what I have noticed on the author AI. So on the phantom guys, you can video, you can record everything and just clicking the transcript, it will the video will leave you. That transcript will lead you to that respective video. So it's that's really what I really like. with the fat on which I'm using right now so yeah and of course the last one is the cross functional collaboration so of course I will be working also with Kia Chris and of course Quan so collaboration for is it is a key to making sure our support initiatives aligned across all teams so I'm really hoping that this this may not yet be upper but I know collaborating with them will make everything possible you know so that's for my responsibilities so let's start with my quarterly racks so here on my quarterly enhanced support sections on the website so based on what I've heard earlier so I really wanted to update the FHUERS is based on the customer needs and issues that we have on the desk, so it's like I'm not totally revamping it but some we can change something that are more accessible to the customers because our support page must be a customer center so that they can before diving into or living an issue format as they might see some useful information inside of it so that's what I want to implement because it's lacking of FHUs on the support page but we have that FHUs page but since customers will go into dive on the support pages we might need to update some of it inside of the support page so next we have the training material set here. I already talked about it already. So this is actually, we're actually gathered all the information already the last time. So with their help of girls. So we've been collaborating about the materials. since we're still receiving some issues on the Zohadai, so we can still refine our existing like support document for the demo because this is what Christine shared the last time because customer called her because the customer is asking some demos. So I saw some of the entry as well on the form that like 2.3 customers asking if they can request a tutorial because they are a first timer on the tag. So, but this will not go into this close. So this will then internally. we will just go into it's either we will go into like, particularly this, give it after the deployment of the Zeta or up and requesting a request of the customers. So that's one of, I really want to process well this the training materials. So next we have the implement automated feedback mechanisms. So for emails and zoom, so we can use the fat home. So it is, no, it's for zoom. The fat home is only for zoom, but yeah, the fat home is only for zoom. Then we can use some air force to I am actually, you know, at first when I do video videos, or I do watch videos, when I saw a lot of, like, very, very long videos, I do, what I call this, social internet, like, trans, like, and online just transcribe, transcribe videos on the internet, then it will just give me a lot of, um, a lot of information, then I will go into use AI to summarize everything, like, what I've shared about the AI, so I've been doing that, transcribe this one, um, and, particularly this, and refine our summarize on AI, but with the use of the fat on this on the zoom, we can really, it can really be useful for us to collect more informations to customers. And of course, on the feedback mechanism, I want to implement this as well on the FAQs, can collect some feedback for the customer as well. So we can update if this is helpful or not. But the next, we have the implement AI powered support automation. So this is an effort for talking about the software's customer support. So I can already give feedback on it by doing it internally without implementing it on the front end. So I'll be revising this one. And yeah, that's the last scorecard. And here, I scorecard, I'm sorry, but I'm still shaking right now, sorry. So the last one is my scorecard. So here's knowledge base, thank you. So on the scorecard, the knowledge base usage, so we will go into achieve, it's unrealistic, but I know this is possible, so we can achieve like 30% increase visits, so others lot of measurement tools that we can use, we can use the sales IQ, we can use the Zoho desk analytics, and some of the Zoho apps, some of the Zoho report and monitoring, but we can really use it and we can combine it in one, so we can have a total of visits on the knowledge base. of that we have updated, et cetera, the bulk sites on the desk, so we can really use that. And of course, we have the support ticket reduction. And this one is, this is really what the VA is about. I talked about earlier, it's reducing support ticket volume by 15% if possible. And from some FAQs where we can drop some like, percentage on support ticketing by automating some common queries. So we can just instead of doing this so much so we can implement this on articles and FHUs for repetitive issues of customers. So next is this one. customers of service rate, so it's the feedback mechanisms, so by doing this, so we can have this a real-time update on everything that we have, the knowledge base, the FAQs or any support documents that could help the customers to find issues and answers for their concerns and of course, customer satisfaction scores, so here, so I'm planning also to improve customers that score related to support resources by 20%, so the date here's guys is not really short about this because as they may change along the way, so and next is the AI powered support effectiveness, so since I will be dealing with a lot of the tech meetings, so AI will be my friend here with everything. So I will go to help me on updating the technicals back and on the website, the support applications that we have, and of course by the team collaboration. So yeah, I think that's, I will just going to present this. So on our communication meeting with the guys we have, I'm trying to have a flexible weekly meeting. It's something like omitting that I want, I'm meeting that with updates. It's not like a meeting like just a meeting because we need a meeting. So it's a flexible meeting for us if it's meeting is necessary to do it or we have updates on on the task that we are doing so we can have a meeting a weekly so yeah I think that's it for me guys thank you so much I thank you class because you did wonderful thank you guys I'm still shaking you know I'm it's okay thanks practice thank you all right you get to pick you get it's being the last one yeah my last reporting was on my second year in law so it's a little bit nervous design so I want to share some some screen for you to look at it on my rocks so here it goes being a lead generation especially so my role is
Aimee Ocer: are responsible for identifying and generating new business leads to various channels including market research and email campaigns and social media. Since I'm only doing this research especially for the school districts, the leads for the school districts, homes and parts of the station throughout the year and email campaign just stopped last year through domain problems and I'm not in doing this in social media so as to collaborate with Paul and Christine and focus more on content creation, I would like to discuss only this time the core responsibilities that the part that we work throughout the 90 days priority and the metrics for my scorecard. So as for my core responsibilities to collaborate with Paul and Christine. Actually, we had not had a meeting yet. Hopefully this week we can do the meeting and so collaborate on RDS to go with the content creation. So the first is the audience research and persona analysis. So the purpose of this, it is a target for the end, demographics, pain points, goals, and preference through the feedback service and social media. So the purpose of this is to inform content strategies and create content that aligns with audience needs. And the activities that I would like to do with this is to use the analytic goals, the social listening and service, and also to develop and update persona profiles regularly. So these profiles will be updated regularly from time to time, especially on meeting that we could get what time that we do with the meeting. So update the details. the performance that we had. So the second is industry trend and computer content analysis. Actually, I got all these four responsibilities on me. I picked some of what I am going to collaborate and ask for Christine's help and for last. So the second one is industry trend and computer content analysis. So this one is to monitor industry trends, computer content, and use those startups and opportunities for unique content. So the purpose of this is to keep the content relevant, timely, and distinct, positioning our brands as leader. So the activities would be perform computer content audits. I didn't know if this one track training palettes would go like Google Trains and was more. So I will try to get on these tools to work. that really helps for this co-responsibility number two. So it also helps us to collaborate with industry experts to enhance content depth. And the third one will be develop and maintain a content idea pipeline. So this idea will build and maintain a content calendar with ideas from ongoing research and dense learning. And the purpose of this is to ensure a steady flow of relevant content that engages our audience and aligns with our business roles. So the activities would be a whole brainstorming decision for new ideas, especially on the meetings that we assess, every meeting that we had, then validate ideas using ECO posts like, I don't know what place I have or Simrush. I have an idea about Simrush, but not that I have no idea about it. So, and then priority types content based on all the instruments. and brand alignment. And for the important lyrics that I had to do with the collaboration team, I only had three for this one. So the first is educational content and thought leadership. the two create educational content like blog post, white papers, webinars or videos to inform our target audience about industry trends, challenges and best practices. The goal is to position our brand as a credible authority, building trust and making prospects more likely to choose our products or services. Example, this one is to, this includes on how to guide addressing specific point points. Q&A, webinars, industry efforts, I don't know if we can have this one. And the, it is also has publishing soft leadership articles and platforms like LinkedIn to expand reach after. Actually, I will be doing also for a link and especially on finding the link in the campaign. And I had this one, the successful link in the campaign is, I find it really wants to wrap the adobe's link in the marketing solutions campaign. So I will explain further this one during the meeting with Paula and Chris, and then number two interactive content and tools. So this will create interactive content like we calculate our assessment or service, I know service, but I would like to elaborate that this one that we see is the calculators and assessment on how we do this with the team. And so it will give us to offer insights and recommendations. So this engages prospects by addressing their specific needs. needs and gathers data to refine our content and outreach. Examples include self-assessment tools, saving for leaders, which is that needs to tailor content recommendation. So number three is case studies and customer stories. I know we had this Paula that saw posting videos, and that show case. The success stories we show at our services that help overcome the challenges and achieve our goals. So these formats, like video testimonials, written case studies, or interactive stories to inspire confidence and demonstrate the value of our solution. Example is the video interview, interactive case studies, and detailed case studies focused on industries or challenges really done to our target audience. So this might be the greatest tool that we can use to enter app board on our audience. So, the game is fixed. This is my score, this is my scorecard. So, I would like to elaborate the first is content engagement meeting. this meeting measures how actively our audience interact with our content in the eating weather, the topics to resonate where there needs an interest. So, it includes data on page views, on page, play through rates, or CDR, social shares, likes, comments, and overall engagement. So, the purpose of this one is to have a high engagement levels that suggest our content topics are really advanced and compelling to our target personas. Low engagement indicates a need of reassessments of traffic relevance or content presentation. So, if there are might be low engagement during time to time, so we have totally as is our content. to present it more relevant to our, to our, uh, uh, market. So, example for this is track average time spent on blog posts to watch if readers find the content engaging. Second one is mutual, making sure social shares and comments to determine how well the content is connecting with the audience. Then the last is analyze, click, flow rates and flows to action with its content pieces to access engagement depth. And the second one, um, scorecard is the organic search traffic and keyword rankings. Uh, these metrics, uh, tracks the amount of traffic driven to your content from organic search results and ranking of relevant keywords targeted in your activity strategy. indicates how well your content is meeting search and intent capturing the high expansion of your agent. I think this one, we, we would like, uh, to have help on. Uh, classes, uh, especially on the, uh, how there are, uh, how many, uh, organic search results, I think. And then for this one, um, it will create, especially the purpose of this one is to, uh, to have high organic search traffic and improved keyword ranking signals that are content topics aligned with the search behaviors and needs of our target persona. So it also helps identify which topics and formats are driving the most in-bound traffic. Example for this one. So these are the scores that I have to, uh, check from time to time, especially, uh, uh, these, uh, be, uh, for an ECO. So we have to monitor the number of page views coming from organic search to evaluate the effectiveness of topic research and ECO effort. Track keywords from teams over time to see how your content performs in search engine results for people. and use those like Google Search, Console, or Simrush to analyze search queries that lead to your content, adjusting topics to better match audience search and behavior. So the last one is the content and conversion rates. This is the most important on them scorecard scenes. This will be, this will be sure how effectively our content leads to decide actions such as downloads, sign-ups, forms, coefficients, and other conversions. It provides insights into how well your content addresses the needs of your personas and moves them along with the buyer's journey. So this will be guiding us on how we'll, our target had close deal. So the purpose of this to have high conversion rates indicates that our content not only attracts the right audience but also meets their needs. is effectively enough to prompt action. So this metric helps assess the overall relevance and impact of our content topics and the potential aspects. example, for this one to trap my foreign card is to trap the number of lead magnets, download from specific content pieces. Make sure the conversion rates of visitors are engaged with content, and then take the next step, such as subscribing to a newsletter. And the last one is to analyze with a content blog post with banners or guides that generate the highest and version rates to refine our content strategy. So hopefully, this will be my guideline for collaboration with Paula and Christine that we can do. Our targets are watched this 90 days, so that's all.
Quan Gan: just in the game. Right. Um, yeah, so good job, everybody. I know that was a lot of content. You know, we we spent a lot of time and effort on to it. So I really appreciate each and every one of you guys in presenting. Actually, I want to see if Stan has any comments.
Stan Liu: What do you think? Uh, thank you, everyone. Uh, it's a great job, everyone.
Quan Gan: Yeah, all right. Yeah, I think, uh, Stan and I will discuss this little bit later. We're it's quite a bit of content. So I know, you know, we feel pretty engaged with it over the past couple of weeks, but it's certainly new to Stan. So I'm sure he's. He's definitely thinking about it, but I wonder if any of you guys have any Any comments for each other where things said you've noticed Does anyone want to share?
Kristin Neal: I'm just gonna ask for a lot of grace you guys My name was a lot in your guys's rocks. So it's a little overwhelming. I'm not that blind because it's Trying to accomplish what you guys need to accomplish what I need to accomplish and Wasn't point like be there for the customers.
Stan Liu: I am just overwhelmed Yeah Chris are you saying over one meaning that it's besides what you're doing you're in the other rocks My understanding is a rock should be individual And when we have collective when we have collaborative rocks that could be departmental rocks. If a rock is between three, four, five different people and of having that rock really isn't a rock, not an individual rock, but for my understanding. Meaning that one of the big things that we in we learned that if more than one person is accountable for something, no one is accountable. So how do I... In terms of in terms of leadership or management or anything, right? So a lot of times we take ownership of certain things. So, meaning that we, when we take ownership, that's on the individual. Often terms that we learn, I learned in the past 20, so years, it works for me, for me specifically, that when more, if everybody is accountable for something, no one is accountable because it really isn't, it's tough to say, I'm going to do this and many times and incidents, okay, I am going to hold it, everybody accountable, but then somebody will say, we'll make you to be the person that holding everybody accountable. So if we don't pinpoint something that's very, very specific, that's a little bit challenging. This is something that is very new, and then we, in everything it seems like we have on here and involve AI quite a bit. This is still very raw, new, rely on AI, what I notice with AI is AI is constantly changing as well, the tools we use. When we are constantly changing tools, on one hand, we can argue that yes, that is the future, and then we need to hop on the different train. But at the same time, it could be a learning curve, or it could be not much continuity. My big challenge with me is, I know I have a tendency to get attracted to the shiny object effect, meaning that anything when there is a shiny object. focus, just tracks my focus. But a lot of times in terms of pushing, it just, like, rowing a boat, going an art once, if it's tough to change tools, and let's just think it could be quite a bit of distraction. Let's just say use the, because in this conversation, I hear a lot of tools. It's just talking about tools and tools and not so much of what is it that we are, what the outcome needs to be, what the end result is. And let's just say, everybody knows what a dragon boat is, right? So I would say, when we're using the the example of rowing, I think a Dragonbow, it's a little bit easier, a better analogy than it's rowing. Because the rowing one, an American type of rowing, we do not see the finish line. All it is, you just go like this and all practice. And the Dragonbow, the roller actually sees the finish line. The person that hitting the drum does not see the finish line. So all it is, it is a boom, hitting the drums, actually paying attention to the rest of the team, the strength of the team. And everybody that goes like this, it's quite interesting. There's a Dragonbow and there's American type of rowing bow. A Dragonbow, a rowing bow, I don't think I've I think Dragon Boat, I haven't gotten a chance to do Dragon Boat, but I know I roll a boat, just uses like this, it goes like this and then everybody does it at the same time. the rowing, it's leveraging something else as well. So I don't know which is better, but I know as I feel like it's a lot more fun to race a Dragon Boat than it is to race American types of what would you call it?
Quan Gan: True.
Stan Liu: True, yeah. even in the audience participation, Dragon Boat is a lot more fun. And I really like that analogy, that's something new to me. Yeah, if we look at it, but it is fun, we should go out there. Long Beach has a race every year, we take the kids over there man, and I'm learning can I add my reflection real quick?
Quan Gan: Sure. Yeah, so I think Um, you know, this, today, like, I didn't really have any expectations on how we're sharing or any particular format. Um, today was really the first day that we all got to hear each other, right? Uh, hopefully it gets us, um, a lot more context of what art roles are doing and how that contributes to others. Um, but I also understand how overwhelming it can be just because you have, um, spent the past two weeks working on your individual roles and put a lot of energy into it. And then just coming together in this space and hearing you've got, you know, six other teammates sharing their responsibilities and a lot of them do tie to yourself, right? So I can, I can definitely understand where Kristen's coming from, that it's, um, just, you know, at first your focus here and then now you're like, oh my God, there's everybody else is doing this too. And, you know, they're all dependent on, on me and vice versa. Um, so I do understand. And I also, I think, um, something that I've. became self-aware of in running companies as well, is it's having that pace, like pacing oneself and not over committing to the point of so much stress and then things break. It takes time. my other companies, it's taken many years to implement a system and get everybody into rhythm, so it's not expecting anyone to switch overnight. I would say of these rocks, if we're able to even hit a percentage of them over the next quarter, that's already a win for us, because every day we're continuously learning, so it's not to say, okay, this is what's at stake. It's more to set the direction and hopefully in doing this exercise and through your daily work, you build that confidence. You build the confidence in using the right tools in the right way, having conversations with the right people, and then getting little bits of aha moments that build that confidence. So it's not expectation that everything will change overnight. It's going to take time. Just like even growing a boat, whether it's a dragon boat or a crew, it's not going still stroke we make, it's going to contribute to speeding the boat up. So yeah, again, thank you, Kristin, for your honesty in presenting your concerns. So I open it up to anybody else who wants to share.
Stan Liu: I just want to share one more thing. We're not here to impress each other. We're here to work with each other to support each other. I still feel that when we use AI to answer each other's questions, we're still trying to impress each other. We're here to have fun and do things more realistic. I say rocks should be one or two rocks. It's not a lot of rocks, something like that. You know, they're just saying that. I've been in situations that I've spent a lot of meetings that were actually most of the time I spent on making the presentation. That's so much executing. I feel that's a complete. That's not a good use of time. And I understand that this is the first time that this is presented. But I also sense that the common theme seems to be everyone is nervous in presenting this. It's the rock is to really talk about, hey, this is the thing that I think we need. And. feel. The tools are incredible. But the knowledge in our customer and how our product, the knowledge in our customer and our team and our product, that is very unique to us. When we're talking about the unique competitive advantage, that's what the unique competitive is in the team. When we have a team that knows exactly who our customers are and then as we gain more and shift and progress through what we see and then a team that knows exactly what our products are and what we do and what want to, how we want to help our customers and then we all know what our strength and passions are within the team and that is a very huge uniqueness to a team because otherwise you have somebody that says all they know is it becomes like a data entry person. Data entry person can go company to company because all they do is just, okay, have me piece of paper, I type it, you know. So we know exactly what our products are and what our customers are and what they need. We are constantly creating a better product and a better customer experience because we're constantly refining and we're leveraging the tool to refine that way. So it's not so much, okay, we're constantly looking forward to how we do our job better and how a more more efficiently, I think the AI tool is working on and we'll be doing that. So I would still say we need to spend more time. Everyone just learning about a product in our spare time. That's so much learning of how to use the tools and what is defined, especially with AI right now. I can ask perplexity a question and it'll give me answer and then I go out there and it looked like a genius. But I'll tell you, I'll share one thing for you. I've done this in just giving a keynote or speech. So, there are times when I didn't know that out or I feel run out of time, I asked CHTCDP or perplexity, okay, write me a one minute speech. I'll go over there and then I'm just going to give it. Basically, I just read it off of it. People think, oh man, this guy knows what he's talking about, but it does not engage the audience. They don't come up to me at the end, hey, that was a good speech. The one thing, the good speech that I give are the ones that I sit there without nothing and I write three different notes. Like a lot of these guys I see out there and then it speaks to that specific audience and the heart and relate and those are a lot more engaging. So, but that the set the latter is understanding what really to be able to actually paying attention in the moment and see what the crowd is. So, check to be who you can generate all this that was there, but not. And so, when Chris talks about selling it to somebody buying a hundred system, it's not going to be okay here, this is giving them statistics and things like that. not going to happen that way. It will be building relationship and spend taking the time and say, guys actually know what we need. And then they actually have the ability to deliver it. And then after they deliver it, we can count on them to support us. We think that's it. Can I answer that?
Quan Gan: But, you know, as much as I am a proponent of technology and AI, all that, I do notice this very fine balance, one has to strike where, just like Stan says, it's like, you know, are you spending most of the time on the presentation or are you actually doing the work? The AI is an incredible tool in the process, but ultimately, the goal is to have that process lead you to key insights that become you, so that you speak from your own heart. The AI just kind of is a facilitator. It's more like Greece that gets you there, but ultimately, you know, you have to be a human, right? Because if we're overly focused on the tools, and rather that at their end result, I mentioned this before with the trend of automation. If we're just listening to AI and say, the AI tells you, okay, today you got how to do x, y, z, and you're just doing it? Well, then how are we different from the AI's arm? We're really just an extension of AI. We're not human anymore. So there's a very fine balance of how do you have AI enhanced your humanity versus having the AI tell you who you are, right? the goal is as you're working through this process, whether you're developing rocks or any other strategies that you gain insights from it that inform your human decision making, rather than just purely listening to the recommendation from the AI and executing on it. So we have to use it to enhance our own insights.
Stan Liu: So one thing that is here that I discussed with one a little bit. So this would be a very good example of a rock, if that is the direction that we're going, it's still a neat one's technical belief or something. So this will be a very good example of a rock. So we went to the meeting with the Pantera and Pomona Unify. They were happy to see Zetat, but the superintendent knows was a lot more excited to talk about the possibility of a drone leak. Developing, well, at least making a presence that we can do a drone leak, that would be a very, very specific rock for the next 90 days. the team can collaborate in making that happen. If nothing else, just doing the drone website. or a page of it. Because in terms of business right now, what we can see. Have you ever thought about it here? Okay, what would be a very good example of this almost example of customer have multiple needs, right? If one foot does not get us in a door, or the other foot should. if I were to look at the opportunity that we presented on what a Pomona Unified, Pomona Unified is a huge school. And they are right next door to us. And I think they get a lot more money than one at Valley Unified. And then they have a much greater need in terms of how the school experience for kids in Richmond than one at Valley. So. We have marketed it to them, and just as Zeus is not there quite there for yet, but they see they have a need for drone leak, particularly of what we're racing or maybe when doing a dogfight. So meaning that, let's just say, at some point, if a drone is something that they have a very, very specific need for, and then that's worth driving to, this is some of the things that A.I. is not telling us, right? Because the direction of how they spend the money and what they think their schools need is very specific to the superintendent and also the school board. So a lot of it is superintendent. So somebody superintendent comes and tells us, hey, this is what we need right now and have money for it. And that is what they are, that is what the school specific to the district we need. And Chris has seen this, because there are schools that come and buy or buy. I can continue to come back and buy or think the zoos fit their need much more this time than there's something a drone lead. But let's just say a Pomona unified. This is something that in terms of selling to someone. Once back in the day, we wholesale our customer selling into a huge, huge customer. Being able to open an account with them means the world, because that change maker. Once they have an account, they're subsequent their buyers and their schools and they can buy our product much easier because the account is always set up. So let's say Pomona unified and then we learned something that hey, you know, this school could be open to zoos and could be open to a drone lead that has some elements of z-tack to it. So if we can get them to drone and weigh the weight. that we may see it. And then that opens the door for the other things, schools in the district to make use on by the zoos. All we have the schools that already have the zoos that said, hey, we develop this other thing, the drone. And that may be an interest for some of your kids as well. So that is something very huge. And that's why I feel like, listen, we're looking at the 90-day rocks at the very minimum, we should put the website up. And have engaged some type of interest. And maybe that's something that they can. And then we look at, hey, how do we create that? that's all in front of me and getting the product to them. But at least to put that out there, we can capture multiple customers. Or we can offer different products to the same kids. So it's quite interesting that all the school districts outside I think we have increased from Riverside, which is really good, Westminster and La Marada. But another thing here that we're able to see the zoos in the knee for them yet, but very, very specific. I could see the superintendent light up and then this is something definitely they can do. But I know we know their drone leaks and things out there already. But why not add the Z-TAC touch to it, which is mixed as unique, you know, literally almost like we can add the Z-TAC to something that's existing and then make it and answer the product. That's, okay, I mean, but.
Quan Gan: I actually need to take my kids to school in a couple minutes. So I just wanted to just wrap up some final logistics. So, I know we presented a lot today. I invite each of you guys to have another one-on-one with me. It could be through text or you can have a meeting, either way, is convenient. And I really just wanted to hear your individual thoughts after this presentation and then see if there's anything else that we need to adjust. And then the other thing is I do want to get us to an L10 meeting at some point. But necessarily that means we have to get the rocks back down to what each person feels aligned with the whole team, given our collective feedback. And then I will be traveling pretty much all of this coming month, but I will try to make it so that we'll have the L10 meetings and we can start in that meeting rhythm. So, yeah. Does anyone have any final questions or comments?
Stan Liu: I don't care. One more comment. Let's have some fun with it, not over one myself. In terms of rock, maybe one or two. Let's have very specific one or two rocks. That we feel very good about being able to move.
Quan Gan: Yeah. I could feel everyone's enthusiasm and effort in trying to get to here, but we have to make an unwrapped. We'll build up to it. Don't stretch yourself out. know you guys want to do your best, but at the same time, just consider yourself. You have to be centered in order to proceed maximally.
Stan Liu: All right. Okay.
Quan Gan: Great. Thank you very much. Great job.
Kia: See you guys. Bye bye.
Quan Gan: So I'm curious who's leading this meeting.
Kristin Neal: We're seeing from yesterday. So I don't care who leads them, I have an update.
Quan Gan: Okay, go ahead.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Um, all right, guys. Well, thank you guys so much for coming. I do appreciate it. Thank you, Paula. And Amy and Klaan. Thank you. So, um, thank you, Paula. Good morning.
Paula Cia: Hi, everyone.
Kristin Neal: Good morning, Paula. Would you guys mind if I started in prayer?
Aimee Ocer: Yeah, sure.
Kristin Neal: Okay. appreciate it. Father God, thank you, Lord, so much for just here. How good you are Lord yesterday's meeting. You know, the in and outs of those that discussed, Lord, and you just placed this absolute piece around my part hours after, but still, Lord, I am very, very grateful for that piece and just this determination. to move forward, and I'm excited for what the team is going to be doing. Lord, in your name, and thank you, Lord, for just bringing us all on this mission. We lift all things to you, and we're excited to see what you are going to do with Zetag. We love you, and we praise you, and Jesus is name we pray. Amen. Thank you, guys.
Klansys Palacio: Good morning, Cremi.
Kristin Neal: Thank you, Lord. Okay, so after the initial meeting, I met with Stan. It was hard. think it was to see if I was okay. But one of the biggest things that I was kind of like stressing over was not knowing how to move forward with the rock of the tiered partnership. I hadn't had a chance to touch bases with him or anything like that. So, I wasn't even sure if that was okay, basically. And he actually, it was a very good discussion. I loved the discussion because we really talked, um, I explained to him, he asked how that came up. He was like, how did that come up? And I was like, well, to be honest, it was AI. It was because it was generated after I put all the names together. And when I said, okay, it was my new rock, this, um, he was like, okay. And I was like, but I'm going to be honest, like, this is an answered prayer. This is exactly what I'm praying for, that just the, um, understanding of Z tag and what we're willing to do. Um, so he actually did, we went back and forth. We kind of not thought about it, but honestly, like we were, we were going back and forth with why I thought it was me, then why he didn't think it was. And it wasn't until I said, look, to me, it's clear and concise. Understanding for the units. If we're going to get to the 10,000, 500 units in 10 years, there needs to be a very clear understanding that we're able to support that. So after that, he was like, okay, he's like, you want to communicate to those superintendents. And I was like, yes, that's exactly who I want to communicate to because we're not communicating to them on the website. And he said, okay, region three, this was not mentioned in my rocks and should have been, I'm sorry, this got overlooked. But in February, I believe, March of next year, we were invited exclusively to go to this region three meeting where it's all going to be superintendents. I didn't realize how important that was until Stan said, that's very important. We also have a sponsorship breakfast, hopefully to just love on.
Aimee Ocer: Nope.
Quan Gan: No vocation. Good last year for everybody.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Sorry guys. Sorry. And I checked it to us for a Monday. I checked everything. But anyways, so that's the show that's coming up. So superintendents. That's like who we want to be very clear and concise too. Okay. So he's not sure. If we're going to be able to do this seamlessly on the web page. Obviously none of us want it to be like. You're going to get discounts, you know, like we don't want it. So like in their face. But there's got to be a very streamlined, clean. Way of showing what we're willing to partner with. And how one thing came up yesterday and this was so. I'm going to come out. My brain is kind of going all over the place right now guys. So forgive me. So another huge, the after school care, huge superintendents, those are our main focus and at least right now for this rock of finding a way to communicate what we can do. So he said it was okay to kind of share that with you guys because I was like, can I please bring this to the team so we can come up with us and he was like, yes, but it's not guaranteed that we're going to implement it. So if we could work on this and make it look like how he envisions or hopes to envision, then I think we'll be on the same page. And he said it was okay if it doesn't matter, I don't know who runs the meeting, but if there could be some sort of direction, at least given to each of you, and I don't want to say it's going to be me, but I almost feel like at least for this one, it feels like I can at least direct you in a little bit. Like Amy, you're so good at finding information. I know a lot of things have evolved around probably nine. I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but that's where a lot of the funding comes from. And I know we've talked about this before, but if there's just maybe another layer to it or something, you know, where we're not so heavily involved, but at least just like in general. So at least I'll know what I'm talking about when we're over there discussing things like I don't know where the funds can come from. You look through. No, maybe not. I don't know. Oh, but there's got to be something that we're missing that we can communicate to them in person. You know what I mean? So there's things, Clancy's obviously the website will be able that you and Paula are probably going to be the biggest help with trying to to streamline this. If I would suggest looking on, I don't know where there's tiered partnerships. I don't know if this is a whole brand new thing. I don't think so, I'm sure there's tiered partnerships somewhere, but somehow research how that might look, partnerships for z tag, we could do that now, or we could do it later, but there's some like very clear things for, for the larger tears. That should be looked at as kind of like the foundation. Like if they're willing to consider 100 units, we should be out there, but clamps remember that ask for a demo on the web page that was like, oh my gosh, don't ask for a demo. Oh my gosh, they should ask for a demo. Like if they are considering that, then we should be out there, we should be ready to train their people. This is a gold standard, we want like the white glove, we should be out there with their people training them having the units ready to go registered to wear like their honor is like so fast and so quick and easy. Whereas the single school that just wants it for their single class, yes, we will still give them the swag. We will still send them a small donation, maybe under $75, you know, something like that. You know, mean, there's got to be very clear things that teachers, and that's huge. I said teachers talk, they talk a lot. And as reputation is huge in this field of schools. We want that very clear again, very clear on for teachers to say, just go to the website because it'll show you.
Aimee Ocer: What do you guys think? And another team was first in our team last late this year. Right, so we had this week of us on the after school program of especially in California. So that's why you've had this region one I forgot how many regions are there in the in California and Mostly I got this information and send back to stand and that's why flyers are sent to each of school districts in California And that's why we had these leads on the Website and I saw on the closed deals mostly are from the California school districts, right? so that way I can help in creating leads and content generation with Paula Especially now we have this target persona right the schools the schools of parent and ends and Afterschool program director or the head of the school like I know already people the persona that we are targeting so I want to share Christine especially on the leads that are coming through from the website so like it's hitting too bright like it's hitting too stone at two birds at the same time like that like we had the website all coming from information that we got there and all our target persona so that's what I am growing to help with Christine and Paula so we can team up that I am focusing on helping Chris for the generation and helping Paula for content for Asian and might be that one we can use in the website like I said on the key metrics that I had I had percent last night dominating on what what are the coming to and coming to in and out of the website especially we had these lots of ink or right in the website. I might get help with Christine going leads again for another state and also for Paula for containeration, especially on social media because we can also, another one, we can also get personas aside from school, aside from targeted schools and school districts, we can get also personas from other side of the world for widow in containeration. It's like attracting clients, attracting a perfect persona for that one.
Kristin Neal: Thank you so much, Amy. I don't know what just happened.
Quan Gan: I'm sharing. No, I'm trying to share the file. Hold on. This is kind of disruptive. Sorry. So I was trying to see if there's a file I can share because, yeah, so regarding tiered pricing and things, we're just tiered partnerships. My other business for lighting has something. Similar to that, maybe not exactly like you expect, but it might be a good framework to start with. Can I do a quick screenshot here? show you. Get one. Yeah, so this is something, it's taken a while to develop, but I wanted to get the first view context of how it came about, which was after having a track record of several years of sales, we found certain customers that seemed to resonate with us and other customers don't, and we wanted to create an internal system to identify the customers that are the best and really focus on them and make sure that they're well taken care of. And just like you said, it's not like we're neglecting the lower paying customers, but we want to really strongly emphasize that the partnerships with these customers that bring in 10% or more of our annual revenue. right? Because that's actually what's moving the needle for us. So, and also, in a way, we wanted to have a structure to emphasize good behavior. So, we know that across the board were fair. Prior to having this, it was made as one leader making these decisions, but they were so spontaneous and inconsistent that it ended up creating a lot of tension between different customers because it's like you had these different kids and you give them differently. They're going to start comparing notes and say, hey, why did they get this? I didn't get this, right? But if you have an internal tier, you know, this is how it is. It doesn't necessarily need to be published, but you kind of know internally, okay, when they hit a certain number like this, how do we treat them? Or even annually, you know, who do we send goodie bags to? Someone who buys like a hundred dollars. is a year, you're not going to send them $100 or more worth of gifts, right? But someone who is moving five, six figures of your business, yeah, they should be getting a lot of perks with that, but it's not like, so there is a nuance between a consumer brand and a business to business brand. For example, a consumer brand, let's just look at air miles. Well, if you're flying frequently, if you go to Delta's website, have a very clear, well, actually, yeah, let me show you this first. This might be more relevant, just to show there's a difference between what I'm going show you about a business that works with other businesses and then the standard business to consumer, so, okay, you guys can see my screen, okay, Delta mileage program. So, is a typical tier structure when it comes to consumer brands. They basically break it down into, let's see, have a whole program and where's the medallion status? Well, medallion benefits, okay, so they basically show you the benefits that each tier. Very specific, right, silver, gold, platinum, diamond, and then what you earn for each one. There's this table. This is consumer facing, so me as a consumer, if I want to elevate my status, I have a very clear structure saying, okay, I need to spend this much more money or fly this many more times to get these additional perks. Yeah, so for consumers, this is outward facing. It's for everybody to motivate them to spend, but I think with business to business, it's very different because it's not an individual. decision maker, you're not necessarily catering to the individual psyche because it is a group decision to become at a certain level. So showing this tier structure to a single individual saying, hey, if you buy 10 more, we're going to treat you this way. Well, sure, it might sound nice, but that individual may not have the entire decision making process to increase the numbers, you know, units. They might, but they might not, and maybe they don't care about all these things, but internally, this document for us internally may be very, very clear to show, okay, when this account gets to a certain level, well, then we need to make sure they're taking care of in this way. These things are set to them, or we need to maybe meet them in person, you know, check up on them physically, annually, or several times a year, do they have training, right? So all of that will kind of become clear with an internal tier. And in a Again, some lighting, we do have, we call it, I think, silver and gold or something status. But I'm going to show you these documents which are outward facing, but it's based on the information we had from internally. So, on the three move on, can I, can I respond to it? Yes, go ahead.
Kristin Neal: Okay, knowing our personas and knowing their, their drive, I guess, it feels like to talk among some cells, like that's how they communicate. That's how they're, they're getting us around. There's so many referrals from us. And knowing this, it's not necessarily a business to business because you're connecting with that one of us first after that. It feels like they need to take that ball to someone that's bigger. So can we get them? that ball that is so clear and concise so that their people can see oh wow look look at how how much support that we would get if we were to take this flight.
Quan Gan: I think that is yes but we can't have that difference is whether it ends up on the front page of the website or it's an internal document that you're like okay look this is i'm sharing something that is because we're working with you directly you know it's confidential within this client or relationship that you know don't send it to other customers right so but within an institution yeah they can share it it's more like this is how okay so let me this is closer to our doing business guide and they do think also take definitely take my response or any input with a grain of salt or calibration because that's how we do it for another company completely and the core values and everything is very different but we ended up going through a similar process of developing something internally so z-tag is going to have to do this whole exercise on our own but we have the advantage of having a system to develop these personas with lot of refinement and based on what the AI recommends but of course this is a strong emphasis between Stan and I is put our own insights in there don't just listen to what the the AI is dictating to us use that as a brainstorming session to inspire us to consider things we haven't considered before but ultimately it's the human decision maker saying okay this is how I feel should happen and we have the final say okay where did I put that document okay here so we have a we have a doing business guide with Gantone And you'll have some, you know, we even prioritize it in terms of what are the pieces of information you need to have access to the most, right? Just general support line, all of these things front and clear. they're not like sending emails to the wrong people, shipping tells us, know, when to place your orders, at what discount levels we give you based on your credentials. So if you just have a retail resale certificate, uh, happened? Ah, something that happened in my Adobe and, ah, it wasn't me to sign it.
Kristin Neal: This is annoying.
Quan Gan: No, it's, uh, I got a new computer, so it's not logged into the, okay. Okay, sign out of that old one. All right. So, um, this count level. So if you're simply just. Okay. buying at once, directly from us, you get 15%. But if you're, okay, so this is something really strong for us, for Gantam, but it might very well be is we have customers who buy the product, but they don't even know anything about it, and they need to get trained. So if you don't get training, you get 15% discount, but we give you a strong incentive to spend an extra hour with us to get trained, so you know how to use the product properly, then we give you a bigger discount. Right, so that's part of basically being an authorized reseller for our products. So this may not be exactly how we land for D-tag, but just to give you some ideas about how do we nudge people to behave in the right way that is in the best alignment with our business? Samples or demos, we'd love to loan demos to people. I think this is something we can- borrow from. The businesses I've created with various teams have always been let the product stand on its own. It doesn't need any kind of convincing if someone actually taste tests the product, they know it's good. And that's going to be the primary driver of the sale. So it's not like you're selling car insurance or something else where everybody has access to the same thing and you're just trying to convince them to work with you rather than anybody else, let our product do the speaking. So if the product is so good, as long as you can get it into their hands, our demos, the number of demo requests that we get or the number of demos that get loaned out is essentially our early indicator of how many sales we're going to get. Yeah, more so than the number of calls that we get, we may not even get take too many customer calls. But if we have a lot of demo requests and sometimes the demos are a little bit larger. Yeah, we'd be happy to loan these things out for 90 days because we know that ultimately turned into something, because the product is good. All right, so similar to Z tag and Kristen, you and I, we talked about this, it's like we should probably have several units of inventory just going on tour from site to site, getting demonstrations with people, showing them how to do it, And that's your foot in the door in having conversations saying, hey, look, you got this very expensive unit on demo for the next two weeks. Let me show you how it works. And then see what happens and try to take it away from them afterwards. You know, we got a lot of financial policies because early on, early on our customers were kind of passively abusing us because they want to put us on terms and pay us a lot later. but these are not institutional customers so they're a lot less reliable so this might be you know not relevant but the small businesses they might get the product and then end up like not paying you or they don't get paid on their project and then we get stiffed so we've made it a very strong policy that you know for any custom product we got to get 50% upfront non-refundable you know because the factory has to turn on machines just to get you what you need you there's just this is very strict but also realize we could stand on these policies which are typically more stringent than other companies because we have a unique product so it gives us a lot of backbone to push stronger policies for example if you're selling car insurance again you know because everybody else is selling car insurance or life insurance you have to basically play to the lowest denominator and give the same benefits everybody else has because if you don't they're just going to walk away and find someone else but if we're going to them and just Like, we have a very patented product. This is the only one in the world. So you don't follow our rules. you could like trying to find someone else giving you the same thing, right? So we could be stronger with our policies to show them, look, we're serious. We only work with serious people, OK? Warranty.
Kristin Neal: would love to have that as like the top tier, the custom, the custom game or whatnot. That's not displayed by having the full standard.
Quan Gan: So we can work through that. Math, this is not so relevant because Gantam is in the business of selling to sellers. So it's a resale business. Here, we're selling directly to end users. math is probably not going to be something relevant to us. But you'll see this document right here. This is actually an FAQ. This is a short version of the full guide to the. full guide is even longer. This is five pages of, you know, a lot more detail on how do you register a product, how do you request for demos, right? So the initial one is just kind of like a table of contents, like a one-pager showing you where things are. Yeah, you see here we've got this the tiers. So these, you know, we do publish this tier, but this tier, this is a document sent to internal people. It's not a, we don't put this on our website, you know, because, and also, you don't want your competitors to see these or your tiers either. So, definitely having the tiers is very valuable for us to gain insight, and it is something that it can be sent to your individuals that you're communicating with, but it's not necessarily something used on the website for Google to search out and, you know, be able to give your competitors that same information.
Kristin Neal: Okay. So that'll be something we need to keep in mind, ladies, is how to, but I'm grateful that you agree with sending this to like the superintendent. Okay, I can see that if you don't want to publish online. Okay, although I am a little like, at least maybe you snippets, you know, to where at least generate some interest in like, oh, we always get full training for the full staff. Okay, like that.
Quan Gan: I think those things are absolutely valuable, you know, so like I mentioned yesterday, and maybe this hasn't really made it clear, but it's the we have so our essence is we want to have this tier structure. And once we have the tier structure, it will inform a lot of decisions and manifestations outwardly, but it may not. So, for example, having this tier structure, your website, site will essentially have the essence of this tier baked in, it may not say this completely, oh, you know, this person gets this and this person gets that, but it may go, hey, look, we have, you know, different tier levels, right, just to tell them, depending on how you work with us, these are potentially available options, right? So, and these are things like after we spin it through AI with our own information and consent, AI might help us optimize what that website layout should be and what the language should be to reflect it, but not show it so overtly that the information can be used against us now.
Kristin Neal: That's that's huge. Yeah, but it also has to, it's weird to be held against us, but it also has to kind of put it like a, kind of like a promise, you know, that we promise that we will do this. So, it's almost, it got to be handled.
Quan Gan: in hand almost, you know? Yeah, yes, and actually, I think this is a technique I haven't really shown you guys through a loom video, but oftentimes when I do these brainstorming sessions with AI to come up with new ideas and try to implement something, in between I keep on asking, what are my blind spots? What happened I considered, right? Because now it'll, like, we're focused on here, but when you say, what have I not considered, it tells you everything else potentially and just opens your gaze a little bit more, then you can decide of that information, how much of that is relevant here, right? So, so it expands. But also, for example, some of the concerns Dan and I have about just publicly putting the tears out there so overtly, put that into AI and just challenge it and say, okay, given these concerns, concerns, how do we position this so that it satisfies both, you know, having the tear structure, but also prevents it from being, you know, weaponized against us and out?
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Um, ladies, do you have anything else to add? Do you think, do you hear anything that speaks to what your, your rocks or anything? I, I know, um, there was collaboration from everybody.
Klansys Palacio: Okay. Sorry, my, my, my mind is the first thing right now because I lost my Barbie earlier, so, yeah. Oh, actually, uh, actually Chris, your plan for the shared partnership is just a degree idea because it's focused on creating relationship with, um, where she cost me school. such as after school care program, superintendents, and, of course, ensuring ZITA can make their needs in a fair and structured way. So, of course, as the one who handled the development, so, you wrote here is, of course, developing the page. So, since still not yet, all my months, I really need your help for that, of course. So, we will be going to create structure for the tiered partnership website. I'm absolutely, while you're talking, I'm checking if some website who has a tiered partnership pages, so that I mentioned about the data, so I was just checking as well. most of the website, like Zoho, like, um, same rush, like everything I'm, uh, researching right now, it has the, uh, different types of showcasing their at-ear partnership, um, days or so. I'm, uh, to answer everything. So, yeah.
Kristin Neal: So, let me respond to that, because I love that it's, it's sparking ideas in your mind. Um, one thing I, I forgot to mention a few meetings, when we were talking about what collaboration means. I, I meant to say this and I was sad that I didn't, but I'm glad that I'm going to be able to say it now. Um, because collaboration is, yes, we're taking AI in, yes, we're taking these meetings in and these big ideas. But the Holy Spirit is so amazing. He is going to shape what you need to, so just be open, absorb it. I'm glad you're just letting it be absorbed. So just absorb and think about it. And, and yes, game. Um. you know wisdom and insight into delta and things like that but leave that room for him too because z-tag is not like delta we're not like anthem we're we're completely different i think that's what's so neat is that it's going to shape into exactly what the the tiered i don't even know if that's the right word we're going to call it who knows like maybe it's like partnership levels or who knows that's where it's at like that's where we can just let the whole spirit just move us so we each bring something different in here um you had mentioned leads and i was thinking yeah we can keep going on the route and i'm not saying no but i almost feel like we're missing something you know what i mean we're missing a connection between the leads and and the understanding of them do you do you know what i mean there's something that we're so just keep your mind open and and we'll just kind of go from there i feel like i heard go ahead go ahead
Aimee Ocer: Yeah, because I don't know what the connection I had only for this year is for Stan because I made these leads to 10 players like we had we had do it last year and early this year. So that's what the last time that I did so for now for the collaboration I want to go so I want to help Superstein especially on how to get leads and how do I get these leads to that you will use these leads for our sales, right? So the missing part of this one is how do I connect with you these leads of mine, right?
Kristin Neal: Yeah, I could see that.
Aimee Ocer: Yeah, because I had I had a lot of information especially on the school, on the school, I had the list names of school superintendents, school program coordinator and director. I had a lot of lists of that. And one thing for sure is that how do I connect this with you so that we can go on what we can offer more or what people this, what this needs, you need so that we can offer this to our school districts.
Kristin Neal: Amy, do you already have a way of finding all the superintendents? Yeah, I have. You? Okay. Yeah, that would be good information.
Aimee Ocer: Okay. Actually, I already did a lot of school districts, for me, and especially the superintendents from Texas, California, New York, and because my target today, I this year is to get that of 20 U.S. states. like last time that I had to study the Texas school district superintendent, so I had already the least and he already started sending flyers. So might be in the future. That flyers will need more email because the flyers had an email right for email information. So that would be the basis that we can get clients to the website.
Kristin Neal: Huge. I just want to say hi Kia. Sorry I'm jumping. Kia. We're glad you're here. Hope you're feeling okay.
Aimee Ocer: Thank you. that's what I'm going to ask you please for what I am going to do to help you with this leaves and for fall off or population of fall off or content creation and will do also. meeting together with Paula so that we can create that step or the connection that leads between us.
Kristin Neal: Okay, I'll be thinking about that. There's going to be a way to connect the table sales. Yeah, we'll keep working on that.
Quan Gan: Yeah, the leads I have an analogy for. It's like, and the analogy is fishing. Right, so you have this lake, you know there are fish in there, and there's different types of fish. There's big fish, small fish, and you're trying to catch a certain type of fish. Cold calling or cold game billing is basically startling the fish like you're jumping in there trying to grab the fish right out of the water like it's very disruptive. They'll basically they'll learn that people are trying to get them and they get very, you know, like. and see about that, and then we get blocked. knowing there are certain types of fish in the lake is very valuable because it allows you to cater your message or the ore that you put out there to attract certain type of fish. You have to know, where did these fish go? Are they out of an open water or are they swimming inside of a certain cave or something? And then what kind of vegetation or other things do they eat, right? So then when you're actually fishing with a fishing line, you put in the right ingredient that would actually attract them. So understanding the personas and actually knowing exactly which superintendent where and how they're connected to the system is absolutely critical. So I think Amy that a lot of that work is going to be used. It's just going to be in a different way. We're not directly coming. trying to go out and grab them. But we have a product and a message in all other aspects where we're going to be hanging out where they hang out. We're going to be in front of them, front and center. So when they're open to receiving that information, it's right there for them. I'll give you another example. This comes from my lighting company. We're right next door down the street from one of the largest, if not the largest rollercoaster theme park in the world. And they are a client. We sell lights to them. They're right next door. Now, I did not get any product to this company until many years after I sold to the same company, but they're East Coast park. Why? Even though they were next door, they were perfect to fit. Well, it's because they weren't in the mindset to receive the information yet. They weren't in the market. get looking for anything. But why do we get success when we go to trade shows or when we get invited to these regional events is because that particular candidate for purchasing has changed their mind from a, you know, canvassing scope or not interested for any new product to, hey, I'm actively looking for information. So as long as whatever is most fitting information come to me, I'm going to make a decision on that. So when you go to a trade show or when you go to these regional trainings, it's so successful because they're looking for new things. So as long as we're there, we're going to most likely capture and win that sale. But if you go start knocking on their door when they're not even thinking of this thing, then it's like we're being obnoxious and we're not hitting the target. So we were able to sell to the East Coast customer because they went up, went to the trade show. And then they actually brought their local customer, you know, one next. store to the same trade show they're like look this thing so good and they're like oh we didn't even know they existed they're right next door okay let me buy that now but you know it took that roundabout way to get to the customer that's right next door even though it looks like a perfect candidate they just might not have have the right mindset or they're not in the right stage of their purchasing cycle to make that that decision that's something they keep in mind it's truly yeah because you're right there were um there's seasons off seasons for sure yeah yeah and and also realize we're not the only thing they're considering in fact it's not it's not that they're even looking for product they might have a bigger headache on their minds like the superintendent might be putting out a fire with some individuals some kid right like they're not looking to purchase but if you go to a trade show the people who have filtered themselves to go to a trade show are definitely in the mindset of looking for stuff so So that's why cold calls I don't recommend either, just like Stan is because you have no idea what state of mind this person on the other side is like you might be, I don't know, just for fun. You might be catching him when he's about to go to the bathroom. Who knows? Yeah, I feel like when I'm caught. Yeah.
Aimee Ocer: Um, some people are used. I'm sorry.
Kristin Neal: Go ahead.
Aimee Ocer: Some business might call cold calling and email marketing will be good for them. So as for now, like Stan said that cold calling and email marketing is not what we needed just this time. So we find ways on how to connect with our person and my main objective to help with the team is to how my generate leads. question is how we go I how we use these leads. So that might be a question.
Kristin Neal: That's a good question. That's a really good question to think about.
Quan Gan: With any of these leads, you can do a deep dive to figure out what this person is. I mean, to a creepy level, but don't communicate with the person, but at least get to a very deep understanding. And that's how social media works. You know, when you're on your own scrolling, they know so much information about you, probably more than you know about yourself about your deep psychological factors, right? But we could use a mechanism to really understand the nuance of our customer. So it's not only just these, you know, five or six customer personas, but a much more nuanced kind of like, I like to think of it as like an animal classification. You know, like if you look at a kingdom, phylum, whatever, all those things. different ways to categorize animals and organisms.
Kristin Neal: Like we can we start with like these maybe five six categories but within each category it might go way deeper in terms of you know this superintendent is of what what region what climate is this person in the east coast or west coast well east coast customers have big winters right they they have they have to close people don't go outdoors during east right so there's a lot of regional nuances too so it's the opportunity connect go ahead keep going I'm sorry so connect the certain superintendents to those so we'll know the seasons of communicating to who so like okay we know summer was actually pretty slow but everything before June was crazy busy from April to June it was slant actually March maybe March we were slant so how could we communicate with them but for those schools. I think it was all California that actually ordered all in that time frame. So the leads, yes, that's a good start, but yes, totally agree. Getting that second layer of understanding more bottom, that's huge.
Quan Gan: So many insights came from Stan when I had my breakfast meeting with him afterwards that he, and this is again where the human factor and the real life experience comes in way over the AI because the AI doesn't have this. It is like, he says this, what separates the best surfers in the world from the good ones are the best surfers will camp out a week before the competition and scope out the weather. And they have, they have such an intimate relationship with how the water flows and how the wind and the tides and the weather is going to that, that they can already predict all of these things way beyond, you know, some mechanical tool. So we need to get so good with engaging through our customers. And Kristin, you're going to be our front line, but you bring those insights back into the data that's driving this machine that will be able to capture all the nuances of, okay, you know, I don't know, like East Coast region at this time of year, this is when we really need to promote because they're ready, right, or West Coast. you'll know like these nuances and be able to predict from just a human intuition standpoint, because you work with them for so long. But that information gets codified and put into our system so the system can amplify and help you with those efforts.
Kristin Neal: We had asked, I'm not sure if you were here during that part, but we were asking, we talked about the big rock of this tiered partnership, spoke with stand and he wants to see it. So he wants to see it before we consider it. He's not sure if we're going to be able to implement, but I think we have a pretty clear direction on how we can. We're going to keep that that internal tier page internally until we get contact with the superintendent where we would be able to share that, but we're going to be able to highlight the tier program on the web page like that we would offer full training to the staff. There's a way to include these subtle ways of having information of the tiers available. Paula, did you have anything to add? you see anything with your rocks?
Paula Cia: Um, but for me, David talked about the rocks with Amy and Amy suggested that I think It's not really necessary that I need to approach you every content I will make for the content creation because it is mostly on my part. And for lead generation, I think Amy will be able to help, but it's not like every day, but I can meet with you guys at least once a week for suggestions for the content.
Kristin Neal: I will create. Thank you so much for your right here. You probably want me any of my input because I don't know anything about that. like that is your cup of tea. Thank God. But what would be cool to get like your insight on is like how do other companies highlight things. I know Delta has it all laid out, you know, bear, which is awesome. Who knows who knows how we'll do it. But maybe if you can just give us an insight on how it's how it's presented, where it's not all on the table. So I. That might be your question on how to highlight the tears without highlighting them. You know what I mean? Like, it's going to take some absorption. I'm not denying that.
Quan Gan: Good to take a minute to absorb. Okay. Yes. Let's not get caught up on how to display the tears yet. Let's come up with the internal document first. And how that lands. Because that's kind of the core driver. It's more like we're still deciding exactly what that direction is. I think the way it's going to end up on the website or how the social media posts are going to look. Those are kind of decisions that manifest after this core tier program or this marketing strategy is formed. So we can focus on that and also just realize, just stand like anyone else. He hasn't seen it yet. So he may have. have a certain idea of what it might be, but it might be very different from the actual thing we produce. So create it like an experiment. So like any experiment, if you're following the scientific method is you have a hypothesis. So you're basically taking a guess that this is going to work. Well, then let's do an experiment and create some result from it. And then validate is that hypothesis true. So I think my hypothesis is, as Stan hasn't seen what this tier list exactly looks like. So he's, he's not responding with the clarity that we need. But given some of these documents and inspirations, I'm sure we can come up with something that feels right to Z tag and present it to him and see how it lands. You know, is it going to, is it going to land like, Oh, he can tell? Oh, this is just so AI produced that it I don't even want to read it because it's just too much. Or does it feel like we actually put in our insights and essence into it. And he's like, yeah, okay, this seems to feel good. know, a lot of this is energetic too. It's a, it's a, it's a deeper knowing rather than just, oh, some AI fed me a, you know, document that I'm not even going to spend any time reading.
Kristin Neal: It's understanding on a deeper level and it probably does pertain to, know, I agree one going with the content first, but also wrapping your head around the entire process, because, um, I don't know if you guys have it, but on your click, like there's a brief, we're talking about our biggest customer, our biggest partner in our school superintendents, teachers, that's where we want to get to. They are so overwhelmed, you guys, I don't know if you guys know in America, there's like a teacher, teacher shortage, they're overwhelmed. heard the statistic of 50% of teachers do not make it past five years, that 50% of teachers quit before even their five year up.
Quan Gan: So we have to also wrap our head around that concept that we are talking to people. We were not countries. I think this would be good for a cultural exchange Just if there's some kind of documentary or YouTube interviews of what a teacher's life is like in America. That would be really good.
Kristin Neal: I found it I did. found it actually. I was looking at it last night because I was like, how can I get them to understand where they're coming from? And I was looking at YouTube. I'll share it on the thing so you can understand the culture of the person that we're reaching. They're overwhelmed. They're underpaid. They're exhausted. So even having followed that. I don't know if you guys saw it in that clip. Where is that brief blank page? And it's like an inspirational quote or it's a blank page of just thank you for what you're doing. Take a breath and just know you are appreciated. Just that heartbeat of your amazing. That would speak to a teacher. You know what I mean? Like there's different ways that we can reach them where It's not a LZ tag. It's them as a teacher. So that's that's almost where I want like, yeah, I agree. Yeah, I think those are great examples of how do we do outreach without pushing product.
Quan Gan: For example, with Gantam, we send them amazing baked cookies, you know, like every quarter, right? They forward to these goody packs from from the company. So they just build a relationship with us. And it's not like us saying, Hey, look at this new product, we just come and buy it. No, it's just like, they like hanging out with us. So at trade shows, they come and say, Hi, like, you start with that.
Kristin Neal: Exactly. So the, um, I hope that kind of inspires you to kind of think about how to speak to these products.
Paula Cia: So, to tell you honestly, I'm still like also taking things in because I'm really not familiar with their partnership, so I think I need to read the comment, but if you're, if we're talking about, like, how to reach some of the the personas effectively, I made with, I made some booklets, brought sponsorship booklets before with some of my old clients for sponsorship. So what I did there was I, I added some images of, like, the events that the company did before so at least it can show to the sponsor. So, how will it went if they will sponsor the event like that. So what if we add some photos of kids with Z tags for the document.
Kristin Neal: I love it.
Aimee Ocer: You can practice.
Kristin Neal: Yes, we can take pictures of yes, the kids enjoying the product. Yes, but the pictures of what we're sponsoring. That's huge. We can add those pictures from the pool party at the booth. You know what mean? think that was sponsored. We don't show that anywhere. That's a great idea.
Paula Cia: Great idea.
Kristin Neal: The kids showing our grades. Sorry, there's nats here. Let's go. The kids are great, but I feel like that's a place for that. You know what mean? Like the place of, hey, this is what happens when you partner with ETEG. Yes, very cool. Thank you, Paula. I love that. I want to be careful of our time. We've got three minutes, but I hope it's just like, inspired everyone. hope it just like, just open your mind and let the Holy Spirit work. I know he's working like crazy. what do you do?
Quan Gan: I do have one quick logistical question before we go there. Do you guys have a separate channel for this particular topic? For example, where I can put the documents in?
Kristin Neal: No, not for this topic.
Quan Gan: Can you create one?
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Quan Gan: That way it just declutters from the main chat. So any kind of just work-in-progress files we could put in there? Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Cool. Sounds good. So just share on there all at the videos of the culture of the schools, of the teachers, because remember the teachers need an honorant too. So we can't leave them all. But yeah, I'll add that and then we'll just kind of, we'll go from there. Okay. Also, we can also on the tiers. I'll start seeing what gold standard. and then blue. So if you guys have any insight on what you think of the best partnership with me, definitely share it, okay? All right guys, thank you so much. Kia, did you say you wouldn't mind praying?
Misamis Occidental/ Ptr. Kiara Grace Bajao: Okay, so sorry guys was really late. Hopefully I was able to catch up somehow. Let's pray. Dear God, most gracious love we have any father. Lord, we thank you for this brand new day. thank you Lord for your continuous goodness and mercy to each every one of us. Even Lord in this Zitang family God, I thank you Lord for your continuous guidance along the way. Even Lord for these transitions. God Lord, we would like to involve you in this Lord because we do believe and know that without your help, without your intervention Lord, this will not be made possible. So we continually humble ourselves before you, knowing that with your help, we can have good success, Lord. So we ask for your wisdom to guide each team member, Lord, as we go along the plants. Thank you, Lord, for guiding us in ways, Lord, that you only know. And we thank you, as well, Lord, for the genuine unity of this team, the collaboration guide. We want to include you, Lord. We want you to be a huge part of this guide because I believe these transitions or these new things that we are into are just part of us to be challenged and to be better in serving the people in this mission. You just got to put everything into your loving hands and for this entire day we ask for your help. We ask Lord that you would help us and somehow Lord there will be that holy moment wherein you will inspire and give that aha moment God wherein that will be the start Lord of making this dear partnership collaboration into the partnership that you will really plan Lord. So thank you so much God bless our leaders, stand and quan thank you Lord for their lives and even for the lives Lord of each team members. We give you all the glory, honor and praise us with our full trust Lord in Jesus name and
[Metadata only — transcript not included in this selection]
Kristin Neal: Hi.
Quan Gan: Hi.
Kristin Neal: So you had mentioned something where is it? Okay. The EOS thing that you had mentioned before she comes on. When did this thing happen? Did this book, how long were you guys?
Quan Gan: Well, she's in the waiting room, but real quick. The EOS has been around for at least a decade, maybe more, maybe 20 years. I've touched it about 10 years ago. So I spent a lot of time implementing it into the other company, but without a lot of the A.I. steps, it's taken a lot longer.
Kristin Neal: we can resume that.
Quan Gan: I wanted, yeah, definitely. Okay. Sounds good. There's two people in 20 years now.
Kristin Neal: Good. Get some faces to the names. Good.
Quan Gan: Oh, there's more people.
Kristin Neal: Great. Great. You can just see their faces. Hello there.
Twonda Thompson: Hello. Morning.
Kristin Neal: Christian. How are you? I was excited to get to see your face.
Twonda Thompson: How are you guys doing?
Kristin Neal: Doing great. Yeah.
Twonda Thompson: Happy birthday. Happy Monday.
Kristin Neal: Yes.
Twonda Thompson: How are you? Good.
Kristin Neal: Thank you.
Quan Gan: Good. Good. What are you up to?
Twonda Thompson: Um, you know, just keeping busy, looking forward to this training today. want to just over to hear all the gay things and how to use Z tag. Okay. um, I invited, um, uh, we have our, our team within the office, um, and the meetings to include Maria, um, which you guys are very much familiar with. And then Nakia Lewis, who was one of our division managers here over family programs, I'm not quite sure. I think we've been in contact with you Quon before. We had a meeting, I think Nakia was in that meeting.
Quan Gan: And we found you guys at the N RPA conference last year. That's coming right up. Are you guys going? Yes.
Twonda Thompson: Okay, so you'll see us there too. Oh, awesome.
Quan Gan: It'll be our reunion.
Twonda Thompson: It sure will.
Quan Gan: then we can meet in person.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Sure.
Kristin Neal: Very cool. Stop by the booth.
Twonda Thompson: Stop by the booth. I'll have something for you for sure. Oh, we will definitely stop back.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Cool.
Quan Gan: Very cool. I see a few other people here, they're muted and we don't get to see their pretty faces. But just curious if they want to say hi, or should we proceed?
Twonda Thompson: Maria here, and I see Nakia here. think Aquana is going to see your notes.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, so we have these AI note takers. What's great about it is they'll capture the transcript and then send us all the key takeaways so you don't have to take any notes, so you can just talk. So yeah, if you guys are okay with it, we have these note takers. Otherwise, we can always boot them out if it's not appropriate.
Twonda Thompson: No, that's fine. Okay, with me. Let me, I know we were looking for another team member.
Quan Gan: Let me see if he's here.
Twonda Thompson: me poke the door a quick.
Kristin Neal: Maria, Nakia, how are you? We're glad you're here. I'm curious who do you guys connect with the most? Are you guys, Maria, you're, I believe, an assistant.
M Vilchez: Is, am I correct?
Kristin Neal: Administration manager. Okay.
M Vilchez: So I assist them with. purchasing of all these goodies and actually the one that saw you Mitchell and play with y'all last year and then it was Nakia.
Kristin Neal: Very cool, very cool. Nakia, are you on the ground? Are you with the kids or overseeing the the staff with the kids?
Twonda Thompson: We've had a multi-text, know, we're multiple heads here. We're doing a job fair today, so we're doing some interviews, so Nakia is multitasking at this very moment. So I did invite some of our non-profit organizations. I'm not sure if they're going to be able to join us or not. And the goal is today, obviously, just kind of again walk through Z-tag and become more familiar with it. Z-tag We're looking to integrate it into our STEM programs that we have existing with our non-profit agencies, as well as our within our community center operations. And so we got the supplies about a couple of weeks ago, so we were excited to see the and they came in actual crates. So we thought that was cool. And so we were looking for the team to begin to start pulling them out crates and then began to just start touching and filling and seeing the great things they could do. Another thing that was following this session today, we'll continue to just kind of go through Herbie, well, our superintendent, he just joined us. He's one of our team members as well. And then we're looking to have a hands-on training. with some with our nonprofit organization as well. we're hoping to get a lot of great information today so that we can transfer that out to our partnering sites so we can begin to start implementing the program.
Quan Gan: So we're excited about today.
Twonda Thompson: So I'll pass the mic over to you.
Quan Gan: Okay, well, there's quite a bit to cover. And this is also an opportunity for us to, since we do have the AI note-takers, a lot of the training material, you guys will be able to take that after the fact and then share with other people. And they'll be able to basically just review everything we've gone over, including any kind of questions or details you guys have. Yeah, so before we get started, I just wanted to ask you guys, so to give me a little bit more context, where are you in the process? So have you opened up the box at all or is still packaged of how much have you interacted with it?
Twonda Thompson: Herbie, I don't know if you're available to speak or if you need a kid. I know we opened up one of the crates and we did pull out the device. I'm not quite sure how far we have gone as it relates to actually. we've turned it on. But we haven't really begun to, at least I haven't begun to really play with it and see how it works. So I know that's going to be Herbie task when we're gone next week.
Herby P: Hey, good. Thank you Just introducing the natural things that kids like to do run around. on and pay tag and but it's just reinforcing a safer way of doing it. So I'm definitely looking forward to the training and see other ways how we can utilize it.
Quan Gan: But it looks like a great program to me. Thank you so much. And Herbie, are you going to be in our peer next week?
Herby P: I would not be at the conference.
Quan Gan: I hope to see you guys next year. Okay, got it. Yeah, I'm always happy to you in person training. And and also this is something that person and I we discussed even prior to this meeting is, you know, if if it's something of value to you guys, we might be able to fly out and train you guys in person. If that is something that you think you'll get more a benefit out of, I'm happy to do it virtually. In person is also something you know that we can extend. And at the same time, this is designed to be somewhat interactive because I got to be able to show you to really teach you how to use it. So My first question is, do you have a system with you that's open or do you want me to open up my system and just demonstrate over video at this time, myself and the key are actually not at the office or off site right now with just an event.
Herby P: So yeah, we would have to. Okay.
Quan Gan: me about a minute. Let me, let me get my stuff powered up in the back there and then I'll just walk you through that. Okay. Interesting. Entertain.
Twonda Thompson: But I will also add that while Kirby will not be at the conference next week, both the key and I will be there. So we'll definitely popular pop our hands up at your booth. And it was actually the key who found you guys last year. At the vendor fair with in our PA itself. We were happy that he brought that back to us because we're always looking at. Really. resources that we can bring back that can further enhance our deliverable services that we have going on. And as her be indicated, this seems to be going to be great addition to what we already have pre-existing. And as indicated, it's just a safe way of just really integrating the youth and what they're already doing, but providing in a more safe and rich, fun way.
Kristin Neal: So we're excited about it. I'm excited, too. And I'm really curious, maybe you can share a little bit, how do you connect with nonprofits? they bring like a service to them?
Twonda Thompson: how are you going to partner with them? So we have nonprofits that I work with. provide funding for after-school programs. We also provide training opportunities for after-school program providers. in of professional development training opportunities. So these are partners that we've been working with for a while, so we've been able to expand our services with them, only providing them with funding, but also providing them with resources that their campus may not be able to afford to to their campuses. this program is funded through our child care quality improvement funds, which further enhances program deliveries, but it builds into those gaps where, again, agencies who may not have the financial resources to purchase items such as this, because this, you know, Z-tag, while it's a great program, there's a cost to it. And so a lot of our providers don't necessarily have that extra budget to be able to do that. So, we've been partnering with agencies for a while, help it to expand our programs. know Helen just came on, believe she's on beta. That's one of our partnering sites that we've been working with for a while as well. Through our Apple STEM program, through our SPIRO program to just a whole range of activities that we've been partnering with. again, this Z-TAC is just a great added on addition to where we already have pre-existing.
Kristin Neal: Excuse, thank you so much, Juan, for sharing that with us with knowing how to future serve you guys, how best we can get this information to free to share it, because you're going to need this information for those schools that you will partner with us, that's great. Juan, it looks like you're ready.
Twonda Thompson: Ready.
Quan Gan: So I want to get a little bit more context. you guys turned on the system before? You know how to do that? Or you want me to walk me through the very beginning?
Twonda Thompson: You can walk us through the beginning.
Quan Gan: Okay. I haven't on already just because it takes about two or three minutes to boot up. But I'll show you how to do that. And also, when you open up the package for the first time, there's a welcome letter with three QR codes on there. Those QR codes are resources to some of the most needed things. So for example, a quick start video. It'll take you to our YouTube link. And it's like a three minute video showing you exactly which buttons to switch here. So there's a little red button to turn on the power for the dock down here. And actually, before I go too much into detail about that, it's just I'll give you a overview of what the system does. And then we'll proceed with the instructions. Z-Tag is an interactive edutainment platform in the form of wearable, a smart wearable that all the kids put on their wrist. And what this allows us to do is engage them in all sorts of physical and learning interactions that kind of combine the best of both worlds. You know, with learning, standard learning, you're either looking at a screen or a book, something pretty flat and not interactive. But with sports, there's a lot more movement going on, there's a lot more emotions going on. And when you're coupling that with educational content, you're really able to get that learning to stick because they're using much more of their brain to process this. So that's kind of the whole motivation of having this system. There are some additional benefits from an operational standpoint. We understand how now in education, it's hard to manage lot of kids. There's a lot of misbehavior and all of this stuff going on. So having a single teacher or instructor trying to wrangle 20 plus kids, it's pretty challenging to say the least. Now with this kind of a device, it essentially puts these video game mechanics that they already have in regular video games, but they put it into real life. And the rules are automatically enforced by these devices without the teacher having to argue with the kids, know, did you cheat, did you do this or not? You know, this is also why a lot of your traditional old school or analog games like TAG or really tends to break down when you have a lot of people because the honor system just doesn't work when you don't have an enforcement mechanism. So by taking elements of video games that work off the screen, bringing it back into real life. We're really creating this interactive platform that's the best for both worlds. So that's kind of what ZTAG represents in a nutshell, as a system, and then all three more specifics on how we deliver a lot of the content for you. So this dock has a charging station for 24 units. It's designed to be all self-contained so that you can roll it from site to site, indoors, outdoors. It's on wheels down here, so it's very portable. It is a little heavy, but it's probably about 40 pounds or so. But this thing is all that you need to get it to operate, plus power. So right here I have to connect it to an extension cord, but let's say you're running this in the middle of a soccer field, you can have a portable battery bank, an inverter, those that you can get on Amazon for a few hundred dollars and plug it into there. know we'll run for several hours. So as long as have access to power. Many people ask us, well, what about internet connection or Wi-Fi? And the answer is you don't need it to run the games, but you may need it if you want to update to new new software because it needs to get that from our servers. So that's the only time you need to get an internet connection is for any kind of software update. But beyond that, we made the system so that it could be very turnkey and deployable anywhere. For example, when you first load up the system, you're going to see this welcome to Zeus, and there's a few steps of registration, which allows you to choose your Wi-Fi network and then register an account. You can skip that if that is something that, you know, you're just giving it to someone temporarily to use. There's a skip button down here, and you go immediately to the main interface where all the programs are located. But again, if you wanted to do updates, that's where you go to the registration process. There's a QR code that you scan, you enter some information, and then we'll go from there. Any questions so far? OK. So you'll see this detail in the video, but essentially there are two switches down here. There is the red master switch, which gives power to both the charging base and the screen. Sorry, no, just the charging base. And then there is the blue button, which turns on the computer as well as the screen. So the reason why we separated these two is there are times where you only want to be charging this system, but you don't necessarily want to be operating this system. So at night, you might be prepping for the next day. You could turn off the computer and then just have the dock lit, and then the taggers are charging. It takes about one to two hours to fully charge the system from empty. But if you're, and it will run you for about three to four hours of continuous gameplay, if you were. or just go from empty to full. But if you're doing this between classrooms or sessions, just placing this tagger back on the dock to top it off, you're basically going to keep it alive for the entire day. It's not going to run out, because the charge is faster than you use it. So once you charge it here, you're going to see it lights up. And it's going to be red when it's not fully charged. the green, solid, once it's completely charged. So to get this working, what you do is just pull this out. And there's a little red button next to the charging port. You tap it once, and then you wait about two or three seconds. And it will make a little beep and light up. And then you just set this aside. I'm going to pull out few of them, each of them I press the ones, and then you'll see a turn on. OK. And then it takes about 30 seconds. for the first time when it boots up to find our internal router. So we do have a router built into the system, and this is why you don't need your own internet to get this working. This router is designed to talk to all of our devices, and it would give you coverage up to an entire football field, an open field. So it's quite an expansive space for people to play. Now, oftentimes we find people play a lot of our games in much smaller places, like a gym, multi-purpose room, a single classroom is fine even, provided maybe some of the desks are moved around. So you just want to give people a little bit of open space, but it's also a number of people dependent. If you have four people playing this game, you could be in like a 10 by 10 square, and the game can still work in some of that function. But if you're trying to get a lot of kids active altogether, I would say the general size would be a tennis court would be approximately the size. And there's also a consideration for, you don't want it to be too large, because the whole thing about Z-Tag is to encourage face-to-face engagement, face-to-face interaction. So if you have a lot of kids running around and running away and going off into, you know, hundred yards down the line, you lose that interaction. So you actually kind of want to contain them or corral them in a smaller space, makes it more manageable, but pretend they're kind of like molecules in a vessel, or they're bouncing around. And the more they're bouncing around, the more engagement and interaction they're having, the more success you'll have with the system. So oftentimes we tell people, don't go crazy and say, we're going to use the entire football field and then good luck, because people are going to get so tired, they're not going to be able to find each other, they actually lose the interaction. when you put them in a small area, or the excitement, it really boils. Got it so far? All right, so I'm going to show you three games in this demo. You guys can explore the other ones, but they largely follow these three game patterns. And I'm going to introduce it to you in the same pattern that I would want you guys to introduce it to your new kids, because each of these games build on the skill of the previous game. If you just jump and throw them into the deep end, most of them will probably get it, but they might miss some of the nuances, and it disrupts the interaction a little bit. Because, for example, they need to know how to actually tag each other. If they don't know how the sensors work, they're just randomly flailing their arms. Well, then it's less effective, and sometimes they might get hurt, because they're overly aggressive with how they're tagging without knowing how it actually works. So how it actually does work is there's a tiny little window up at the top here. This is where the sensor is. So that's where a sends and receives a signal. So when two... Tagers interact, they have to be facing each other, but they don't have to be This close they can actually be three feet away or even ten feet away in in certain conditions If they're still they could still get the signal to go across This is a really important point because if the kids don't know how the taggers are registering They're just like bumping and colliding into each other They think they have to like push each other or something to register a tag No, it's really just getting your window to face another person's window okay But before we get there, I will show you more about the the first game, which is red like green light Red like green light doesn't involve tagging. It's an individual game. So you're really just teaching them how the tagger is being worn And how you got to pay attention to what's on this screen in coordination with your whole body so we have these taggers you have there's a velcro wristband on the back here and you just Have that put on to each kid, okay Adults can usually put it on themselves pretty easily, but a lot of kids might need some additional help or guidance in putting this on. Now, we've considered different risk sizes for kids. You have some kids that are much larger and some that are super skinny. Now, this wristband is one size fits all. And how you do that is, depending on whether you take the loop, you put it through either the standard way this way for a slightly bigger wrist or you go the other way, but you double it back over itself like this. And it makes it much smaller. I don't know if you noticed that. So this way for longer or you double it over this way for shorter. Okay. So these things, whoever is actually on the ground operating it will get very good at, you know, putting it on the kids. And eventually, once you get the kids doing this one or two rounds, they'll know how to put it on themselves or put it on each other. So, again, just another tip for how do you save your own resources and having to manage the kids? The more you can get them to self-serve and put it on themselves, it's going to be easier. then you can motivate them to say, hey, we'll have more game time. If you're not just throwing the tagrs back at me, and then you can put it onto the next group yourself. so these are just little tips and tricks to make the operations smoother. Okay. So I'm going get this on my wrist. And for red light green light, what you're going to do is you're going to see this go red or green. Whenever it's green, you tell the kids to move their body, shake around. In fact, the more ridiculous we tell them that they act, the more points they're going to score on the leaderboard here. Okay. I press the red light green button here. Okay. And then close. When you go into each app, it'll give you a quick instructions on what that game is. So even if you're new. to it, it should give you everything you need to know how to run this game. And then you'll see, as soon as I get in here, it has already detected which taggers are online. So it sees six of the taggers because I pull these out. Okay, so all the taggers are kind of in this get ready state. They're showing this is the game we're all playing. Okay, at this time the game hasn't started, but it shows the preps all the kids saying, okay, we're going to play red like we like it. And then you hit the assign all button. It puts them all over here. If they're not assigned, it means they're not included in this round. Then you press next. And once you get to the next, you're going to see a bunch of check marks here. The check marks show you that the the taggers know that they're in to get ready stage and they've sent an acknowledgement back to the system saying, okay, I'm ready to start. So then I have And this is also by design here. if one of this haggers, let's say it's out of range, when you hit start, it's going to give you a warning saying, hey, one of the taggers has not connected so they're not going to be in this round. And in this case, going to say continue anyways, before the operator, it's kind of a good reminder to say, okay, someone may be too far out, bring them back in, make sure that tagger is functional before you hit the start. Okay, so the game has started. If you had this on your wrist, you would actually feel it. You would feel the vibration every time there's an interaction. And then whenever it's red, I want to stop and whenever it's green, I'm really just moving my wrist, but you tell the kids to move their whole body, run, laugh, or whatever. And here if I shake intentionally, it actually went black and it minus 10 points from me. So that way it's a self enforcement, don't have to, know, in red light green light. Teacher usually has a call out which kid is moving and then they get into an argument, but this you don't argue with it It already tested or removed it up. Okay, so if I said this I'm not sure if the beeping transfers over the microphone But I just know it's really loud Okay Yeah, and then your scores will end up on here The let me see if I can get my microphone to Let me show you guys Now I can't turn off the mic okay to Get to show you this now, but also you'll see that the game is self-timed. So This is two minutes. I ended it prematurely Just for demo purposes, but you can set the game time. So every one of these games You can go to the settings here and then tweak a lot of the parameters such as how many seconds I want to play this games, how much sensitivity I have with the movement. Sometimes people will add the red green light to games like dribbling a basketball or a scavenger hunt. So it's a really good additional element to something that you're already physically doing. So if you're getting a team to do a relay race, well then say, hey, you got to do red light green light and we're going to count your score, you can only move in the relay race when it's green. And then if you if you move when it's red then we knock scores down for you, right? So it's a think of it not only as a dedicated standalone game, but it could easily be an add-on to existing programs. You know, just something to spice it up, right? Yeah, so let's go on to the next one. Any questions on this? No? Okay. All right, so the first game was individual. So you could play that game even just with one player. The next game you're going to want to have at least I would say four or five people or more. because it's it's all about interaction now the next game is called pattern match so in this game is kind of like playing Uno but with your body you're going to get a random shape and color displayed on your screen once we start and you're going to look for another player who has either the same shape or the same color with you and then you match your taggers screen to screen like this okay and remember I said you don't have to be this close you could be aiming you know five 10 feet away um and and still get that to register now there's there's a nuance on this on any of these games we kind of give both the the positive reward and we also give the the negative correction if the behavior is not right so for example here if you um if you don't match with the right person you'll also get minus points so you have to be very intentional about your interaction action. And that encourages further communication. When I have a green triangle, I'm going to ask, I'm going to call out, I got green triangle or green, green, triangle. And I'm looking for other people who either have green or have triangle and match up with me. If I get a blue square, which has no match, you're going to hear a and then your minus points. Now, that also means you don't want people to just huddle. If you end up having a group of 10 people just huddle and all your signals are crossing, you're naturally going to get the wrong signal and you're going to get a minus score. So this is a game where you encourage them to take a step back, really look and actively communicate and then engage deliberately to another player. Okay, so I'll show you a quick demo, but because I have all these things closer to me, you're going to see it's going to go a little crazy. All right, so it'll take get ready. Okay, oh, I got a perfect match right there, yellow and yellow, okay, and then you also see at the end of every game, we try to really emphasize, you know, the scoring, so the winner actually has this kind of nice hero like look on a tagger, so that the kids get to interact with them and say, oh, yeah, look at my points, you know, how many points and they also get to see it on the scoreboard here, okay. So I won't show you the other games, but with this modality, but you can easily infer, this pattern match game works great with educational content as well. Even though this is basic shape and color, We can match English and Spanish. You know, we can match pictures to words. So those are all things that we're developing and we'll be rolling in future updates to have all of this new content for this pattern match type of game. So imagine a classroom where you basically remove all your desk and anything you're trying to learn. It used to be flashcards, but now you're moving your whole body and using that as a flashcard. And then one of the benefits that I saw firsthand in doing the English Spanish is typically, you know, the Spanish speakers are not the most involved in the classroom, but now they're kind of the foreground and the highlight of the game because they have access to this knowledge that, you know, just the traditional English speakers don't have. So they actually feel very much engaged and kind of the hero of the game and helping out. So even after that session, you'll see in the hallway the engagements between, you know, the English speakers and the non-English speakers. actually increase as well. Okay. Any questions? All right. So now I'm going to show you the third category of game, which is our tagging game. And this is the most exciting one. This is zombie survival. Okay. So zombie survival is a role play game of zombie tag. And you're going to be choosing for it. You're going to be randomly assigned. Oh, there's my daughter.
Kristin Neal: She's hanging out in the back.
Quan Gan: Sierra, they see you. want to wave hi to me? So with this game, you're randomly assigned to human zombie or doctor. So humans are going to be green. And their role is to run away and stay away from being infected by the zombies. The zombies are red. Their goal is to tap. I have green taggers just by getting their taggers close. Okay, so now you'll know that dynamics are different because previously for a pattern match, they're wanting to get close. Now, in this case, the humans are trying to stay away, so they're trying to get, so you're trying to actively get in front of them to get that window to meet. Now, this also encourages teamwork because if I'm a single zombie that I'm trying to chase and tag your human, as soon as the human player pivots, they're facing the other direction and it's very hard for me to get around to them. So it encourages teamwork. I got to find another buddy who is also a zombie and we surround this human, so no matter which way they turn, someone gets them, okay? And this is why in the beginning, when we do an auto sign, we automatically put at least two zombies in the field just to make it a little bit more fair for the zombies to have an easy start to spread, okay? And then the last role we have is the dog. doctor role. So the doctor is the hero of the game. The doctor gets to heal an infected human within 10 seconds and turn them back into human. If the doctor fails to heal this human player, also by tagging the same mechanism, right? So if the doctor does not reach this human player, the human at that point converts over to a zombie and then continues to act like a zombie now. Okay, now the doctor role is very special. If you have a player who is typically less engaged in the classroom, you give them this role, they actually become the hero or the star of the game because everybody comes to them to get saved and it's a great way to boost their engagement and boost their self-confidence. So we know every classroom there might be one of those kids that would really benefit from this role. So we've made it so that not only do you have a random assignment button down here, you could deliberately assign a person to a role because at the bottom Autumn here, the Z-Taggers have a number, so you can see what their role is, and then you can take them out into the, this is the standby column, and then reassign whether humans, zombie, or doctor, and put them back in. Okay, so you could pick out that particular player and put them back into the game with that assignment. Okay, so I'm going to try to demonstrate this, um, pretend like five people, so I'm going to move these things in different locations. Okay, get ready? Okay, so this is a human player, and I have a zombie player right here. Okay, so you see, when I get close, it's got a zapped, and then I have a doctor get close, and it's safe. Okay. Oh, the zombie just re-infected. So it's, yeah, exactly. So the kind of like COVID, you know, soon as you're you know, you're better, you get re-infected, but whatever. So the doctor does have a balance of power too. The doctor, we have a limited number of saves they can do. And once they run out of saves, they actually become a human. So they're vulnerable again. So they're not just powerful indefinitely. And there's also a thing where doctors, every time they save someone, they have to cool down for five seconds. So they're not just constantly saving. So they have to pace themselves as well. But the doctor also does have another unique advantage is they can stun a zombie for five seconds. So the zombie loses their power for five seconds. So it's just a little, you know, tricks and tips that you could teach the kids. They don't have to know this ahead of time. But if they're playing multiple rounds, they start figuring it out. Okay. Okay, um, yeah, so that's pretty much the the three main games the other ones you guys can easily explore on your own, but he's essentially the category is It's really loud. they have a the cat the first category is an individual game So that's just a movement based red light green light The second one is coming together pattern match and the third type is a tagging game So you're you're chasing each other and we have various versions of each type Okay, any questions.
Helen Abernathy: I have some questions. Yes.
Quan Gan: So the first one is actually about the zombie game I'm just wondering if on the sensor uh, if they can just cover up the sensor and be They can they can they can so this is where The instructor may have to set a couple of additional ground rules. The first rule we always have is for safety just saying there's no physical contact in any of our games, that's the number one. Number two is no no sensor blocking. If you block your sensors, that's the equivalent of a handball in soccer. You don't want to pick it up. So if you set those ahead of the time, then you can like the social mechanism of the other players will kind of guide them into not doing that. So yeah, that's where you do have to get it involved a little bit.
Helen Abernathy: Okay, I just wanted to know if that was possible or they couldn't block. All right, my next question is, because I know you mentioned like there are three main types, but there are different ways to use those. And I was thinking about the pattern match one. Are there any games that are already created that are mathematical? So I'm thinking like fractions. One could be visual fraction.
Quan Gan: You have it. So we don't have fractions yet. We have a basic arithmetic so we have match and a lot of our games right now initially are very basic just to kind of get enough feedback to say okay do you like more of these games and we can we can develop that so this game you can choose the operators you can depending on the age range you can say I want to do only subtraction or only addition application division and then you can also you can also tune what is the lowest number that I want and what is the highest number so that way gives you some specifics on what grade level to make it appropriate so there's that but eventually we're going to be adding some additional content such as fractions or language arts in fact I think by the end of this year this is the goal is to create a kind of like a a wizard where you can create your own flashcards that gets loaded in So we might come up with some standard ones that any teacher can use, but if you get creative saying, hey, I'm teaching history now and I wanted to talk about this era in particular, you could put into the years and then the names of people and actions and then you can get them to match.
Helen Abernathy: Okay. I love that. I'm a big believer in kinetic learning, especially when it comes to things that you just need to rotely memorize sometimes, so I think this could be a really powerful tool to help them enjoy practicing their multiplication facts or differentiating between fractions visually versus the numerical version. So that's really exciting.
Quan Gan: Thank you. There's just infinite ways we can expand this. So it's really just we want to get it out to your hands first, get your feedback and then over the coming years, would love to co-develop something that's going to be very honed in just like you mentioned.
Helen Abernathy: Okay. Great. Thank you.
Quan Gan: Anything else?
Herby P: Just a quick question for Ana. Each time that he explains the name on the monitor, then automatically sync with the enabled.
Quan Gan: Okay. Well, you said something about something that didn't automatically sync.
Herby P: Each time that you switch the game on the monitor on the actual computer, does it automatically sync with the wearables? Do you need to do something different on the wearables to match the game on screen?
Quan Gan: No, the wearables, basically the kids don't have to do anything. They don't have to press any buttons or do anything here. It's all controlled by the operator. Yeah. So all you've got to do is go from game to Select one of these icons and you'll see here as soon as I select whichever game this automatically switches to that category. Do you see that?
Kristin Neal: Can you show them when they receive it, because sometimes the Z-Taggers are not connected to the unit. Can you show them how to reconnect the Z-Taggers?
Quan Gan: Right. out of the box, they should automatically link to this Wi-Fi router. If for some reason they don't, or if they're on the bottom, it doesn't say what number they're assigned to. So, there's this cog in the main menu, you go here, and this goes into the system settings in the back. And in the system settings, you can go to devices, and then you press this button called reset devices, and it's going to re-link them, and then re-assign numbers to all of them. So, if I say yes, it's going to go and scan for all of them, and then it will assign, they'll do a little flash, and then you'll see they get assigned a number right here.
Kristin Neal: That also will happen if you have more than one unit, if you can play with two units at once. So at the end of it, you're going to need to redo exactly that so that the unit will have the.
Quan Gan: Yes, thank you for mentioning that. It's because oftentimes there's cases where you might be running a much larger game than 24 kids. And so in that sense, this is also why we have the two buttons here. You don't want both systems to be on because their programs are going to be conflicting. So you actually want to turn off one system and have all of the taggers from the second system link to the first system. Yeah, and that's where you would go into the devices setting here, press reset and it would detect all the taggers that would have been in the second system and then you can operate it just from here.
Kristin Neal: Perfect. One other thing I wanted to bring up too, at the very beginning, you had mentioned the Wi-Fi and you guys are City of Houston. Um, but you guys are going to be sending this out to schools. A lot of times schools, um, have a firewall or updates or things like that. I'm sure you guys will have the updates already. But just in case, um, let us know when we can send you, um, there's actually port on there that we can send you the drive to be able to get those updates.
Quan Gan: So this is, um, we can essentially swap out an SD card so you can have a physical update or you can have it over the air update.
Twonda Thompson: Uh, quick question for the updates. Um, they come out, I know you say that you can, um, you'll download the updates with the Wi-Fi on the computer. Do you get notifications or when the updates are available?
Quan Gan: Does it automatically come on the device itself or will we see emails on that? Uh, so yes and yes. Um, here you can refresh and it will show you any new updates. It won't necessarily say, Hey, a new update is available. And the reason for that. is we don't necessarily want an operator or someone who's not familiar with the backend of the system to update it in the wrong way. This way, because it's a little bit more complex than saying updating software on your phone. On your phone, it's only your phone that's running, the update. On here, it's you're running, you're updating the system here and you're updating 24 individual taggers. If you end up giving the wrong version and they're incompatible, that's where things break. So this is where we want to really make sure we guide you into pre-update. It'll be available for you to download, but we don't want to expose that to someone who doesn't know what they're doing. So we'll be sending an email with specific instructions saying, okay, go here and do this, follow these steps and then you'll get your update working.
Kristin Neal: just wanted to add to that the person that's registered. So when they registered, the email, that's where the update is going to go to. So make sure that whoever is registering them, it's your IT department, maybe, but someone where there's like a general email, so that someone that leaves, they don't. I mean, we, you can't re-register the unit, but it's just an extra step that maybe we can avoid getting that registered to a general accountant.
Twonda Thompson: Okay, and then you talked about being able to use two boxes, if you will, depending on the size of group that you're working with. So is one of the devices unique to the individual box that comes in, or can they be interchangeable? Very interchangeable.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we design this, we design it that way deliberately, just because we know, incidentally, some of these devices may need to get replaced. And so when we send you a new one, we don't want it to be a very difficult. process to relink it.
Twonda Thompson: It should just naturally link to whatever it sees it's on. Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah. You may still want to go and hit the reset devices to detect the new one just to get it, get its number assigned, but that's pretty much the extent. You don't have to do some kind of a pairing process.
Twonda Thompson: Okay. Yeah. Anybody else have any questions?
Nikia Lewis HPARD: Nakia, Herbie, Jacobi. I did that one question real quick. know that with the device being able to play indoors or outdoors, I want to know in reference to whether resistance is a waterproof or is this something that you wouldn't recommend getting with the things of that nature?
Quan Gan: Yeah. So you want to keep this in a dry condition. I would say if it's starting to drizzle outside, that's marginally okay. You know, if you had water come in, where it would come in is actually on the speaker port. Those are holes that go in. into the circuit in there because we we need to get the sound out. We have we've considered this at least to be dust proof you know and also impact proof because there's a silicon cover on top all of them to keep it fairly clean. But as far as you know water goes yeah this does need to stay dry.
Nikia Lewis HPARD: Okay yes sir.
Quan Gan: Yeah sweat proof is fine you know they're gonna get they're gonna get sweat on the back here for sure you know sweaty wristbands but as long as you don't have any drops of water going here and if you do think some water has gone in there recommendation is you double click this to turn it off and just let it sit. Let it sit for a day or something so it dries out and it doesn't corrode. anything else yes as far as with the downloads and I know you said to be coming to a general email so when you say downloads would that be like software you can download it then upload to the actual computer itself to the to the system or it was just mainly those thick games that are that are on the screen yeah so there are two types of updates there's in the about section there is oh I don't have this logged in so you won't see it but there is the system update for the computer that's built into the box and there's also firmware update that has to be on these Z-taggers so there's there's two files and they're typically bound together and we have some mechanism so that the incompatible ones aren't gonna show up for you so you know don't worry too much that you're gonna it's not gonna brick it'll it'll still be able to update but when let's say we have a new game. The new game means we have to update both the computer here to know how to operate that game and also updated in here so that it understands how to play that game. So it's a two-step process. You have to update the system and then you have to have the system download that software that wirelessly transmits it into the 24 taggers and get those updated.
Nikia Lewis HPARD: Okay now I had one other question myself because I didn't want to just bombard you with a ton of questions and I guess I can read the manual but since you're here I might as well take advantage of it. What is this miniature keyboard for?
Quan Gan: Yes that is a very that's kind of like a backup of a backup because this whole thing is running on a Linux operating system. If for some reason something happens to the system and you can't get it running we may need to remotely assist you into doing some back end but over the past You're going to have two years. We've never had to use it and we're actually considering getting rid of it all together. So just basically just store it and store it away. Yeah.
Nikia Lewis HPARD: Okay, you said that's you.
Kristin Neal: And however, you might have seen in that create to additional of the Z Tigers. So keep those also hands back up. If there's any issues. Those came with the service plan that each unit came with. So each year that you if you choose to renew. Of course, it's all in that that information, but you also want to store those for just in case.
Nikia Lewis HPARD: Yeah, yes, man.
Quan Gan: Yeah, a lot of it is really just considering what would happen in the field, you know, just random things happen. And so we want to be prepared for that because if something happens and we have to ship this to you, well, you're going to be down for quite some time or ship you a keyboard. or you have to ship something back. So we try to minimize a lot of that, uh, the logistics.
Nikia Lewis HPARD: These are turn green, right?
Quan Gan: They read it. Yeah. Are you playing with it?
Nikia Lewis HPARD: Yeah, we actually have it over. So out of the, um, risk units are currently read. So I know that they're not choice from what you told us. So once they turn green, we know that they're fully charged.
Quan Gan: Oh, yeah. And also, you know, every time you turn them on, even previously green taggers, they may still temporarily go red for a few minutes because they're just doing this popping off process.
Nikia Lewis HPARD: Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah. So you don't have to worry about really getting them back up to green. If you know they were green the last time you had it on, then they should be holding their charge unless you waited, I don't know, like three months later, then you got to charge it.
Nikia Lewis HPARD: But those three need to be used.
Quan Gan: Okay, do you have any other questions?
Nikia Lewis HPARD: We are disconnected to the Wi-Fi.
Twonda Thompson: So I have a quick question. Yeah. Go ahead, Nikki.
Nikia Lewis HPARD: No, I want to talk. just forgot to meet my speaker.
Twonda Thompson: My mic. So I know everything is on the device. Do is there anything because we have like a big. We have Apple iPad program as well. So does this connect any way to like iPad?
Quan Gan: there an app or anything that goes with it?
Twonda Thompson: currently know.
Quan Gan: Yeah, the reason why we designed this this way is just to make it independent. So that you don't require anything else to operate it. We try to make it as streamlined as possible. Now, if you have to worry about how to get another app, that's additional things. we try to keep it very simple.
Twonda Thompson: I like that. Thanks so much. I like the fact that it's very much compact. seems to be user-friendly. is transportable. So you pick it up and you can go. And if you have multiple box that you can communicate with each other. So I think that's really, really great.
Kristin Neal: On the way to see the kids. So once you see the kids, those kids have their hair in their face and they don't want anyone to see them play. I can't wait to see a reaction to that.
Twonda Thompson: So you'll have to let us know. I'm super excited about it.
Quan Gan: Get us some photos or videos or put it on your social.
Twonda Thompson: Absolutely. They're probably out here in the hallway right now playing with it. That's why they're all on mute.
Kristin Neal: That's all please do.
Quan Gan: Yeah, do this for training, you know, your app training, uh, socials. Yeah. I don't know if you guys can drink, but it that's too.
Twonda Thompson: Oh, yeah. They're going to the key of her being Jacobia outside of my office right now. Having a good time. If you go in here, they left her.
Quan Gan: Oh, we don't hear them, but I can imagine it.
Twonda Thompson: Yeah. So I thank you guys for just taking the time on today and giving us a quick overview of the ETAC. Like I said, I'm really excited about seeing the program being implemented not only in our community centers, but in our partnering sites. Beta is a really strong partner. They are quick to implement absolutely everything that we provide. And so we are always excited to see them interact with integrated into their school day, as well. is one of a charter schools in that area. we just look forward to seeing that. One day I may take you guys up on your offer and coming out and providing some hands-on training as well. So we're going to, like I said, Herbie and Nakia, team, they're going to go through the box and play with it. then Helen, we're going to have you guys come in and we're going to all play with it together. So you can touch it and feel it for yourself.
Helen Abernathy: And then we'll just group you out the supplies then. Wonderful. Thank you. Looking forward to it.
Kristin Neal: Wanda, we're partners now, so let us know if there's anything else we can partner with you. Okay, if you have events, we'll come out. We want to partner with you guys also. Thank you.
Twonda Thompson: you so much. And actually, what's the warranty on the device? and like the wear and tear. Does it is it is it functional, durable?
Quan Gan: Kristin, you want to take that one?
Kristin Neal: Sure. I can brag on you. So Kwan actually, his background is the, forgive me for forgetting. What is that background that you have with mechanical engineering and mechanical engineering and and major partners with with these major theme parks. Thank you major theme parks partnership. So he understands the durability that is needed. There is a year warranty for wear and tear after that and it has that service plan. After that, if you want to continue that service plan will cover any damages with the wristbands. won't cover it completely. There's one deductible where there's a 75 dollar deductible. If anything goes on, goes wrong with it. Whereas if you don't have it, it's 250. I believe to replace the Z-Tagger. So, But for that first year, you're covered. you want to continue it after that, then that's up to you guys, as far as I said.
Twonda Thompson: And we'll need to have a conversation in a year. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Thank you. Let's see how your kids do. then we can mess up a year.
Quan Gan: OK, perfect. We designed this just so you know, this is the eighth generation of this product. So it's gone a lot of trials. And initially, it was being served in the entertainment sector. for like family, fun centers, birthday events. And the kids with that is actually especially rough. They have no consideration to the product. it's been beaten up many, many times or hearted. So we know that it's supposed to last. And if anything doesn't last, we want to stand behind our words and the product. So this is why we share with you the service plan is included in the first year. We have these two additional tasks. as backup incidentally. At the same time, what also reduces the cases of incidents are oftentimes the training with the kids. So, for example, when I showed you about the tagging, if you spend, let's say, five extra minutes ahead of time showing the kids how the tagging works, we actually bring a couple of kids from the, you know, you're sitting on the ground, we choose two from the audience, have them wear it, and have them actually just inch up towards each other in that first tag game, and you'll see when it starts clicking. And then once all the kids see when that interaction happens, you're way less likely to have collisions or other mishaps or roughness on the device, as long as they know how the tagging works.
Twonda Thompson: Okay. Well, thank you guys. I'm sure you, you're all, you're going to be available for any additional questions that we have. One last thing I had, are you guys? looking at how are you going to add on additional games and would that be yes that's the plan and would that be a part of a download or is that like conversation for next year.
Quan Gan: So the service plan essentially includes all of these rolling updates and our focus for this year has just to make sure that the product is as stable as possible so you can run this day in and day out and then from next year on the theme will be adding additional programs based on feedback from our current customers.
Nikia Lewis HPARD: Okay we'll have an additional feedback from our I'm sorry Nakia are you saying something? Oh yes we we were with the system right now so we have two of the wristband units on and we're going to one of the games with the assignment of the taggers but the numbers that it's showing is not showing like the wristband that we have is showing a wristband that was currently still stopped. In the charging station is there a way to that we can make it I'm going to fix that with going to the reset here reassign the numbers just to check Today we're sitting in first time and numbers When I mean Yes, so you go to the main console here Okay, that's that And then go to devices and then hit reset devices and yes The prices Recent devices It's doing the amounts below That's something to note is make sure all the devices yet your resetting are on.
Quan Gan: They have to be either charging or on while they're off the guard.
Nikia Lewis HPARD: Okay. Yes, sir.
Quan Gan: Did that get the number right?
Nikia Lewis HPARD: Yeah, I think it did. Cause I would numbers actually switched on the rich units. Yeah, 15, 19.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yes, sir. Okay.
Nikia Lewis HPARD: Very good. All right.
Quan Gan: Thanks. Okay. Cool. Anything else?
Twonda Thompson: I think that's it. We'll contain the play with it. Um, and if we have any questions, we'll definitely send you guys an email.
Kristin Neal: Um, come see us next week if you do.
Twonda Thompson: We'll see you next week.
Kristin Neal: That's right. Yeah.
Twonda Thompson: Just bring it up. Yes.
Quan Gan: I'll be at the booth. Thank you so much.
Twonda Thompson: Thank you. Bye bye.
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Roland Graf: This meeting is being recorded. Hey, go on.
Quan Gan: Hey, Roland.
Roland Graf: How are you?
Quan Gan: Doing great.
Roland Graf: How are you? All right. What's the time in LA?
Quan Gan: It's 1030.
Roland Graf: Oh, okay.
Quan Gan: or?
Roland Graf: Yeah, yeah. Michigan. Yeah, same same same position.
Quan Gan: I'm on sabbatical currently. So I have a little time to take on some crazy ideas. Yeah. Okay.
Roland Graf: Okay.
Quan Gan: Are you traveling about?
Roland Graf: I'm mostly here, actually. just did some travel. We traveled back to Austria and my wife is from Brazil. So we also go to Brazil for the holidays. But mostly here in Michigan.
Quan Gan: Stuck in Okay. I'm I'm going to Europe for the rest of this month next week.
Roland Graf: Oh, wow. What are you doing?
Quan Gan: Just vacation with the wife. Oh, that's nice. First European trip together, so it'll be nice.
Roland Graf: Where are you going in Europe?
Quan Gan: We're going to go to Italy and France and I think maybe Denmark for a little bit.
Roland Graf: Oh, nice. That's very nice.
Quan Gan: What are you doing with the kids? Just throwing them at the grandparents. Yeah, you spent the summer with them. We went back to China for two months and so it was, even though it was summer, it was actually more work than anything because we were 24-7 with the kids and taking them to different places, getting them exposed to a lot of things.
Roland Graf: So it was actually more active than the school year. Wow.
Quan Gan: How old are your kids now? Geo is almost ten and Sierra is six and a half.
Roland Graf: Okay, okay, that's like my, my youngest one, 11 and all of them on 14, so I'm a little bit there.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, a little bit.
Roland Graf: Yeah.
Quan Gan: are they going through a teenage struggles?
Roland Graf: Yeah. Yeah. You can call it that. Yeah. think I guess we can call it that.
Quan Gan: Yeah.-hmm.
Roland Graf: So, like, I'm just very, very, first of all, thanks for, like, being available to Trump on the call. I'm also, like, curious. I remember last time we talked about the XR arena, you said that your Chinese partner is coming.
Quan Gan: Did you, did you work any, did you do any further work with the arena idea so far? Yes, and no, I've been, I've had my finger on that. A pulse of that, and ultimately, I had to put that project aside because I felt the technique technology was just way half baked.
Roland Graf: was not.
Quan Gan: I found a lot of insights on why it wouldn't work. I think eventually it will work, but we need a couple of other competitive players. In fact, you can still see that in my background I have the camera still.
Roland Graf: Yeah, yeah. I'll give you a memo from last time.
Quan Gan: Yeah, the cameras are still there. This is a very expensive PC that I bought at the time. has two 30 90 graphics parts in there, which was like top tier at the time. But ultimately their their software was not up to par because you would lose tracking of people when they get close and then it was scramble and then you lose their ID. So I can't do any kind of game state versus on your stuff you have the people separated on two sides. So you can always say player one and player two. But as soon as you get any kind of. interaction between players and you start having occlusions, the system just can't regenerate the IDs with consistency. you know, that without that, that's a deal breaker.
Roland Graf: Yeah, I see, I see. you encountered some basically technical challenge that was just too hard to crack.
Quan Gan: at least for now. yeah, and it's not my responsibility to crack. think with recent AI advancements and all this stuff sooner or later a company is going to crack it. So, I'm just waiting until that that rips and also, you know, that's that's on the tracking side of things. But the other thing I'm waiting for things to enable is on the on the display side. As you can see, displays are getting way cheaper these days. In a point where you go to the grocery store, like just advertising some chips, what have like LED walls, right? So, so it just just means like that is going through the same trajectory as large screen TVs, where you used to be a millionaire or a billionaire to afford a large TV, go to Walmart and get one. So I'm waiting for that same pattern to happen with LED displays or, you know, find economical enough to build into a floor or a wall. So I think giving it another year, two years, a lot of these things will catch up to competitions.
Roland Graf: Yeah, that makes that makes a lot of sense. Price point and technical challenge is like waiting for the right moment. Actually, it's kind of a similar situation with iChame, if you remember. It's actually less of like an engineering challenge, but we still need some funding to kind of develop monkey system and basically test our way to success. And currently, I found like an engineering collaborator who helps with the NSF proposal because I I found out actually this NSF SBR, it's really enough not to crack to make a case for the technical risk, basically describe the scientific risk, it's basically not a commercial risk, it's a scientific risk. And that's even for me as a university like academic, it's without the computer science background, it's not an easy thing to make a case for it. So in a few weeks, we hopefully get our proposal in and I see this as kind of the last straw because without this 300k, I don't think we can develop the grantee systems because we need to hire professional developers for that and do this professionally.
Quan Gan: Well, there's definitely, since we last spoke, the biggest variable has been AI. I don't know how much leverage have you put on to AI in the recent year and a half?
Roland Graf: I'm not so much because I'm not sure if AI will really benefit us in any way. think it's more like just straightforward like engineering or improving the vision, the tracking, make it like more reliable and fast.
Quan Gan: That's around the software and where's the hardware end.
Roland Graf: That's mostly software but we what is called in the data pipeline. So something is slowing up the tracking process. when we run it with pre-recorded video, it's fine. we do it live, there's an issue. all my university collaborators, they haven't been able to really look into it. I think for somebody who's working in real-time systems, it would be probably straightforward to figure out what's happening here.
Quan Gan: Well, so I have a data point that that's probably very different from what people experience in institutions or large companies. Because I've been working with AI for about two years now, like non-stop. And I talk to that. I joke when you say that I talk to AI at least two orders of magnitude more than humans now. to the point that I will tell you this, at my company, I've actually outlawed physical typing of code. So to allow you to know how much trust I would rather have onto an AI-based system to develop our code. And what that means is if you are physically typing code, you as my employee is actually costing me more money later, because that's an opportunity cost that I'm not or contractors only to be typing human type of whole language. And I asked the AI to convert their specification into code. Interesting. so we're no longer touching code. Yeah. Like, for example, I would rather you spend three months now to specify the code to be done in three months and have AI do the conversion, then for you to be typing code in three months.
Roland Graf: Do you see what I mean? Yeah, no, I see, but it's interesting because when I talk to my computer science or collaborators, they are a little bit because a lot of students make a similar case. And then some of my engineering collaborators push back a little bit, say, well, you still need to understand the architecture and stuff like that.
Quan Gan: And here's the thing, and you'll see these two data points. The people who are the most experienced with computer science, if they touch AI in the beginning, like last year, they go through this hype cycle and the trough of disillusionment. And I think it's not good enough. The thing is it is good enough now. But because they have that perception that it wasn't that good last year, they don't, and they kind of think that it's not good enough this year. In fact, it is so good, it's better than a PhD student today. So, so like, I've been pushing my team, I'm like, if you're, if you're touching code with your bare hands, you know, that's like you going to touching your assembly language right now, like you should not be doing it.
Roland Graf: But they still need to have their proper training to methodically like a problem solved and structure, mean, even even with actual language, right?
Quan Gan: and, and that level of understanding, I think you still need to have this level of understanding, um, understanding, you have to have their nuances in doing it, but the actual coding practice has completely shifted away. So, basically, AI to me is a expert compiler. That's kind of how I look at it. And so, as long as you understand the specification well enough, then the AI should be able to do a lot of the, the, the legwork. Yeah. So that's. At least a huge variable because our team for ZTAG can essentially be 10x more productive. I don't have to hire new engineers as our product expands because the same engineers should be 10x more productive and also we're doing a complete refactoring process. So the previous code was handwritten 30, 40,000 lines of code over the span of four or five years. So they have a decent amount of expertise in there knowing what works and what doesn't. But that code was hacked together, it's kind of like Frankenstein. And so it's getting messier and messier as you keep on adding new modules and start breaking. So right now I'm asking them to take a big step back. Knowing everything you know from before, can you redesign this from scratch? Now that you have the hindsight, the benefit of hindsight, can you redesign this? putting into the AI all the things you want and have the AI refactor everything for us. that's the process we're going to do.
Roland Graf: I see. So it is focused on execution or compiling and still like the humans or your engineers who kind of outline the structure or in conversation with the AI potentially.
Quan Gan: several architects and then they will converse but ultimately the the coding doesn't require a huge workforce anymore.
Roland Graf: Yeah. mean you have way more experience with that. It's just currently I think we wouldn't even need that much. It's more about we need to figure out what is the bottleneck for our speed. What slows down our tracking, our vision based tracking basically. That's, yeah.
Quan Gan: I'd say one of those things you might be able to hold on a second.
Roland Graf: I'm getting distracted. got attacked.
Quan Gan: I don't how many lines of code do you have, like, 40,000 lines or less?
Roland Graf: No, I think it's less. I actually, I didn't count, I don't know, couple of thousand lines here.
Quan Gan: That's easy. If it's a couple thousand lines of code, you could shove that into, like, pay $20, it's the best $20 you'll ever spend. Pay $20, get a GPT-01 preview, send the entire code base in there and have it do a code review, and then ask at those problems, saying, like, I'm seeing these inefficiencies or whatever. Even if it doesn't give you the exact answer, it might be able to help you pinpoint things too. to look at at least, you know, from our standpoint, if we're project managing something, we're so far from the needs that we might not even know how to ask the right questions. But at least this is like your exultants that can tell you, have you look here? Have you look here? Have you looked there? So when you throw an engineer who actually can get down to the weeds, you know, you can make sure they're accountable to those things.
Roland Graf: I see, you know, that's actually a great tip. I, yeah, because like, if you don't solve that, then we just lose an opportunity. We did so much more like customer discovery, if I achieve and actually we have two interesting ways we could move forward, but without everything falls and ends with the drink system. If you don't have that, we will never be able to promote an agent. Right.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I would definitely try using the O1 preview version of chat GPT. you made $20 a month for that one service. Oh, one preview. Yeah, it's just this came out about three weeks ago. Um, it is, um, it's passed all of these tests that puts it at a, uh, at a good PhD student level of intelligence. Wow. And so, yeah, so if you give it your entire code base and then you give it, you some context about the problem, um, or even just your website, copy and paste that in there, you can start asking the systematic questions. And before TPT would just start spitting out answers, Oh, one preview basically will have internal logic. It will create a whole bunch of steps, go in and review it, execute, and then reflect on did this actually meet what the user is asking and then go back. It might give you like, after like two minutes, give you the actual answer. And a lot of those are like insights that you probably wouldn't even have that comprehensive.
Roland Graf: from a human. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. That's something. Thanks for that. need to check it out. That's our last hope. Not the last hope. I've been pushing this project for so long.
Quan Gan: if you don't see any traction, it's just getting a little bit ridiculous. I'm at a point where like consultants are irrelevant. I don't need any consultation from anybody now because the AI is so good. It already has knowledge. know, unless there's some, you know, a private information that I don't have, but anything that is public knowledge or best practices, I asked this and it would give me a lot of really good pointers.
Roland Graf: Wow. Yeah. I see you have like two different AI note takers. Just like, I know the author.
Quan Gan: What is the other one?
Roland Graf: No, it's both. No.
Quan Gan: Yes. One is otter. The other one is called fat. Otter has been around for a longer time, I might actually stop, well, no, I have to use that one because, so Fathom will have an API so that after the meeting the transcript ends up right into my Dropbox and so for example, I don't have to take notes, but then afterwards, that summary can go into another process, it can send out things into my developers, review meetings, you know, so we've kind of automated it completely, whereas Otter, you would have to manually copy and paste the text output, yeah.
Roland Graf: But the reason why I keep it around, I keep Otter around is because it's on your phone, so let's say if I have a meeting in person, I can record the transcript, whereas Fathom, you have to have your laptop with you. I see, I see, I see, I see.
Quan Gan: No, that makes sense.
Roland Graf: Well, Juan, to like, basically, I'm also now starting to work. Actually, I'm working already on a new kind of project, which is kind of unrelated to ICHIM. But I was, basically, I'm dating, so to speak, our co-founders, business partners. And I was curious to reaching out because I enjoyed our last conversation. And two things I was wondering, if you were to get attraction, if you get NSF funding for ICHIM, that's one thing, would you be interested at some point maybe to collaborate or be, I guess, a strategy partner or maybe even join the team to get this? Because what we're thinking about ICHIM is there are two routes that we're exploring. One is like starting to equip schools of special education that have special education programs. We already have one set up in Tokyo. in a special education school, we started to collaborate with Japanese Research Group, who also does AR, and we found out that it's not just kids using VCHAs that enjoy this, it's also like kids, narrow diverse kids, kids with autism or intellectual disabilities, some of those kids that typically don't engage in team play. So with this AR soccer game that we have developed, we saw that this is actually a lot of fun for kids to play like soccer kind of sport games. So our thought is like we try to like get traction with like special education schools, on these actually we start our own like pickleball version of social AR game, where we basically turn like one pickleball court during low peak times of facilities into like an AR, AR soccer game. So we have different ideas and I think we have, but that's kind of the long vision. was just curious if that would be something interesting for you. So if you were at that point and to start the back. Yeah, as we mentioned before, you and I have a lot in common.
Quan Gan: There's a lot of specialty and kind of the vision of us doing something to help our next generation. think you and I have that in common significantly. So I think on that front, I'm more than happy to continue our conversation. then just as as colleagues or friends in the industry, like, you know, share notes, I think that's a capacity that I can always be on. And you know, including just like right now, happy to share with you what we're doing and what tools I'm working on. And you know, so those things I'm very happy with. The other part is really just a consideration of time and formality. And this is actually personally where I am in life. I mean, it's been at least a year and a half since we last spoke, right?
Roland Graf: A little more.
Quan Gan: I think so, yeah. So since last year, the big theme for me has been to refocus on just a core few things.
Roland Graf: I actually trend out a lot of responsibilities.
Quan Gan: I sit on two or three boards, travel all the time. That's not for me and my family. And it came at the cost of my personal well-being and relationships. So this year, the theme has been just, can I really focus on myself and my family? It's kind of the main thing, right? So I am just typically very cautious of anything I make come through, right? So that's kind of where I'm at. It's, you know, I don't know where things are with IGM or some of your other projects specifically. But I'm always more than happy to just get on a call and exchange notes. I think at that level there's kind of where I'm at. But also, you asked me regarding like technical co-founding and such, I think the rules of the game, based on what my experience with AI in the past year, has really, really changed. To the point that I even questioned if that's necessary. I think if you spend enough time using AI and leveraging it to do a lot of what you want to do, you might be very pleasantly surprised how far you would get without having another person that's formerly on your team.
Roland Graf: Yeah, no, that's a valid point. mean, the other project which we haven't talked about, it's more like a small hardware project. So I think there's a lot of like physical prototyping and testing involved. and AI, I'm sure it can help with that tool, a lot of it has to do with, mean, that's actually go ahead.
Quan Gan: The thing is, if it's hardware, I'm happy to introduce you to our OEM. They do all sorts of different projects for people. They have on engineers who can do that. So those are resources that I'm happy to just point you to the right person and then you can make direct contact. His name is Jimmy.
Roland Graf: He's a great guy.
Quan Gan: They do all sorts of both industrial and consumer-based electronics, they would be an expert more than me, but I can be more of like, so where I'm at with a lead and those, but then ultimately the engineering work.
Roland Graf: is going to be given to someone who's actually at their desk nine to five and optimizing it through our specs.
Quan Gan: No, that's what I would be saying. You oversee it.
Roland Graf: That makes a sense. mean, you are a seasoned CEO and an engineering manager, so you know that that game way better than I do. So what I'm hearing, in my sense, is like it would be smarter probably to first for this other idea that we worked on like a sleep and screen time management device for for teens and families would probably be smarter to like, check out the first prototype, test that, and then we have confidence like approach like OEM and this and take it from there if I hear you correctly.
Quan Gan: I mean, you're going to have to do that step sooner or later, and I don't know what access resources you have locally. If you have someone in prototypes and PCBs locally and Demonstrate proof of concept that's always better than to just and I'm saying hey Hey do this But here let me show you Well, I I've shown you Z tag and the the actual product.
Roland Graf: I love it.
Quan Gan: I remember you surely Right so so like prototype off of an M5 stack right at least get your Arduino code or whatever with the right sensors Once you get that working, that's good enough to present to the factory and say hey Can you help me produce a initial prototype of it and get it?
Roland Graf: industrially designed Know that I think that's I think I would have somebody like that Where I'm coming from I'm really excited to start ideas. I don't like make sure that we get over the hump I'm probably not the one that would want to be like a lifetime CEO Like I would be willing to take on responsibilities for the first few years until it's large enough. So that's also a little bit why I have this conversation with you. I just look for friends or people in the industry who know that I can trust the kind of share similar values. so, so, yeah.
Quan Gan: See, even in that respect, AI has completely changed my job. So I think you and I share this commonality too. I like to start ideas, but I hate repetitive things over and over again. So, my previous company, I was implementing new ideas and then I kept wondering why is it that after I leave, all of that stuff just falls apart. And then, it took until I hired someone who comes in as an operational CEO to make sure everybody is on rhythm and then getting this process started maintain for the past five, six years now. Now, with Z tag, well, so that previous role, hate it. I would hate doing that role. I see you like trying to But today, I'm actually doing that role for z-tag, but I'm leveraging AI to do all the stuff that I hate doing, which is, for example, after this meeting, I need to make sure people are held accountable, action items are done. Well, the AI is doing all of that, so I don't have to worry about taking any notes. I have automation set up so that they're sent to the right people, so they're assigned. And then the next week, prior to the meeting, we have bots that have checked in on every single person's productivity through their GitHub. Summarizes it, sends everybody pre-meeting agendas, and then when we're doing the meeting, nobody's just doing updates because they already got the updates earlier. They're jumping right into solving the problem, so I get to solve the problem with them, which I like. And then afterwards, it generates a meeting evaluation of the meeting. So, like, AI is taking care of all the management.
Roland Graf: Well, you probably... I have thought about this already, but it sounds like you could create your AI consulting business, because all this experience that you have, working as a bootstrapping entrepreneur.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah. yes, I definitely have thought about it, but I also realized like if you go on to YouTube, there's plenty of people who teach this, how to automate things, but I really, and so they're there. But here's the thing, my opportunity cost to actually start a business that does that is is too high rather than implementing it for my company, because our company is very much z-tag is growing exponentially right now.
Roland Graf: Oh, congratulations.
Quan Gan: I'm done. So yeah, so like if I took the time to actually spin up on another business, I'm actually, that opportunity cost is too high.
Roland Graf: I see it. No, that makes a lot of sense. So I didn't know that C-tag is picking up so quickly, like how is it going?
Quan Gan: Are you selling mostly to schools or selling it to after-school programs. That's the main thing. There's a lot of government funding that we found since last year. So that's actually probably a big piece of news or to the market that I realized is schools don't have any money anymore. In fact, teaching is more and more difficult these days. But a lot of the government money has gone to something called ELOP, Extended Learning Opportunities Program. So extended learning. So basically, the general theme is schools are no longer serving our children. And so a lot of funding is being shifted towards other institutions such as after-school programs or libraries. And those are more flexible because our in-school or in-classroom infrastructure means you have to get these test grades. You have to just show up and attendance and so it's very traditional and if the students aren't going there then the schools don't get funding so it's kind of like a downward spiral like the students don't go or or the parents are pulling their kids out of school so the school is like dwindling in less and less funds but these public funds are being shifted outside of the school because there's no um they don't have they could be a lot more flexible with how they spend their money interesting and and what is the justification how do they justify buying um CTAC a socially emotional learning activity face-to-face the engagements uh all of that you know like the the problem is if you ask any adult uh what do they see as the benefit of Z time they can tell you all it's very obvious you know it's uh face-to-face is active and all of that stuff but if you have to ask a school administrator can you pay for it? not from in-classroom budget, they don't, because it's not directly teaching you towards the curriculum. It's not an academic skill, it's not math or reading, Right, so they can't check that box, but as soon as you jump outside of classroom, and you're talking about after-school or enrichment programs, oh, yeah, they love it. It's perfect alignment.
Roland Graf: And there's money, there's money even from the government that you say to after-school, yeah, okay.
Quan Gan: Yes, it's basically that money is shifting over to- Is this just in California, or is this nationwide? Nationwide, California, Texas, and Florida are big. New York, so basically the big states are much more focused on that, yeah.
Roland Graf: Interesting, that's that's great insight, yeah. I didn't expect it, but it's almost like going into a mentoring conversation, because everything you tell me is really available for-
Quan Gan: for our inclusive players as much appreciation for me. So I'm pretty open book about these things. I think there's plenty of opportunity to help kids. So I'm not going to keep it to myself if someone else is going to hit.
Roland Graf: No, no, no, no, it's just like, yeah, I wish there was a reason to collaborate. mean, the other half the idea, I don't want to take too much of your time. I think you would like it, too, but I think maybe it's better if we prototype it, rank something out, then maybe start it back when we have something to show and ask for you advice or maybe your connections or maybe you are even interested in getting involved in some capacity, yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I mean, happy to provide whatever value at that time, whenever the scope needs to be.
Roland Graf: wow, that's amazing. You're like a true business range, really. That's amazing, yeah, so. It's hard to find people who are business minded and understand like social value and contributions.
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah I've made a couple of like pretty major spiritual shifts in the past two and a half years Um, it's to turn like basically. I I don't treat business as a As a zero-sum game You know, I bring my own Spiritual value to a lot of this stuff. So if somehow I can affect you in a positive way and you're Able to affect more people. That's ultimately helping my personal mission. You know, I to me In terms of funding or whatever. I mean, that's that's not the main thing. You know, all of this this entire life is a rental It is all temporary. Yes Yes, you know So with that understanding like yes, I'm happy to share information if it helps everybody move forward.
Roland Graf: Yeah. No, I really appreciate I I also believe in this type of karma and this thinking of good spirit and how that can spread on the other. Yeah. I think, yeah, so I think maybe like in hopefully in the next two, three months that we have more to show, because I really want to be mindful of your time and like cutting to your opportunity cost and and precious.
Quan Gan: But I can see, you know, opportunity causes freedom, that that's the biggest thing, right?
Roland Graf: I know, I know.
Quan Gan: It's like, a vacation, you know, for like half a month or go to some China in the summer, like to me, that's invaluable. I wouldn't be able to trade that for any amount of money.
Roland Graf: Oh, no, you should not like even give me a trip now to Europe. I mean, this is so important and you are not good for you and your families. I think that that makes us greater human beings.
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah.
Roland Graf: No, I will definitely come back. and I think like you already helped us a lot. I didn't like I approached this meeting completely different, more like you know mentoring. It's also I've been so long in academia and outside academia. My network is still relatively small and you probably know people in academia think completely differently than people outside and I actually even so I'm now at the peak of my academic career. I'm just got promoted to full professor. I'm not sure if I actually want to stay like in social venture and have my freedom.
Quan Gan: Yeah so my hope is actually though eventually go back to Europe and start like a business day. That'd be awesome. Yeah let's keep in touch and you know I'm always happy to have a conversation. I get a lot of value and energy from this kind of exchange.
Roland Graf: Yeah you help a lot. I'm not sure if you're like yeah that's why I mentioned like consulting because the way you approach it and think I think Kate has to Those specific people that are needed kind of to change make a dent in the universe. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah, I I don't I don't put a formal label on it. I really just view every conversation as a energy exchange. So if somehow the energy, you know, helps you do something like whether you call it consulting or mentoring, whatever it doesn't matter. Yeah.
Roland Graf: Yeah. No, I appreciate it. I look forward to circling back in a few months.
Quan Gan: You're probably in Europe. When are you going to Europe? Next week. Oh, okay. Wow. Well, November 1st or November 2nd.
Roland Graf: Okay. Well, maybe before the holidays in December, I circled back and see how hard you are.
Quan Gan: If you have time for a short chat. Yeah.
Roland Graf: right. Thanks, Ron. Have fun and see y'all. Yeah. Happy Friday. Happy Friday. Happy weekend. You too.
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UTF LABS: Hey guys, how are you?
Ferenc Orban: Can you hear me? Oh yeah, we can hear you. Oh you guys, I'm fine.
UTF LABS: Yeah, we are good as well. My Java. Let's wait for FSL in Java to join and then we can begin. Just give us a few minutes. Thank you. Yeah, okay guys, I think we can begin, first, let me know what will join shortly as well. Let me know if you can hear me clearly.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, we can hear clearly.
UTF LABS: I got it. Hey, can you guys see my screen?
Ferenc Orban: Yes.
UTF LABS: Okay, so just a quick overview of the last meeting's effectiveness. So it was up to 83% so overall, I think the meeting was good. We discussed a few and then with the team and making good progress on the game framework, etc. I think we can look at it. Just to review the summary of the last meeting, we discussed of course the search changes that will take effect from the next week and then we discussed the display interface updates with respect to the toggle screen creation and then we discussed the abstract game class. After that we discussed the talk management documentation that fairing you shared, then we also discussed the progress tracking system as well. For the progress bar and task management with respect to the progress tracking, then we will also discuss quickly the device build updates. Okay, for this meeting, let me quickly open the agenda. So it's more or less relevant or related topics in this meeting as well. So any questions with respect to the last meeting or evaluation?
Ferenc Orban: No, it's just fine.
UTF LABS: Okay, so for this meeting, so basically, facelamine is still working on the abstract game to the functionalities. Facelamine, do you have any updates, shareable updates on this? Facel, we can't hear you. I think he's having some issues with his mic.
faisal Amin: I love that. Can you hear me?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, not so clearly but we can hear something.
faisal Amin: All right, so actually, I'm still working on the abstract game class. So my address to implement like, you know, adding as most functionalities that are common in each game, in the abstract game. For example, I will share my screen. Yeah, so I will share all the ball game logic. So you can see that in the ball game class, I have implemented like send tag message, okay, so this is a function for example, if you are having two members of the structure which is type and the command. So, it is just implementing these functionalities and utilizing the next is to send the message. But this function should be common in all games, right? All the games have to utilize this function deep for sending that message. Maybe it could in like add more like data types in this function argument. So I think we should implement this function in the abstract game so that all the child classes, all the games can utilize this function without defining every time. Similarly, when we get the data from the Zeus, like the configs. So, these functionalities are also somewhat common in each games. For example, every game have roles, game, tag, tag, rollers, and I guess this sort of thing. So, that function should also be implemented in the abstract game, in the parent class. Similarly, we have like that on tag received, for example, when you are receiving the tag messages, the data should be parsed in each game, right? And this should be also common to each of the games. So, trying to implement all these functionalities in the abstract game, so that developers have not, they should not need to implement these functionalities in each of the games. So, that's why I'm working on currently. So, they have any idea or question regarding this approach.
Ferenc Orban: Uh, not exactly. Sure, I do want to emphasize the importance of constants. if you could just use a constant instead of the hard-coded various from the get-go, it would have done the nice, so you don't have to like go the runner and don't just use the hard-coded strings there. You should create enumerations and such. I can see a bit of extra configuration parameters there to roll, game time, type time. I don't think we should ever see anything in the apostrophe. Only when text is written on.
faisal Amin: Yeah, alright. So actually, I didn't understand it properly, but I think your point is like, know, very good approach. For example, you would say that without doing the hard code like you know, different role game type or some sort of things. How we can approach this thing? For example, if I need to get the role from the series or game type, game type, type type. So how you can appreciate it without hard code things in the series?
Ferenc Orban: Well, hard coding is going to be present. It does lots of good things in embedded programming, hard coding it into every place where it's needed. When we decide that we want to write the role with the cap sound, we're going
faisal Amin: example if you are making a JSON packet with like you know value and the keys right so we have to make the keys roll or game type that that type so is there any variables for you without defining the exact syntax like you know roll game time not exactly well in the game time just for example I will get the JSON packet in this way I'm just an example it should be like for example key should be game time and its value will be like well minutes something like this then the another key will be like roll and its value will be like maybe it's only something like this so this packet will be sent by the zeros right so better approach that we can avoid these hard-pulled values from the zoos and it could easily be like bars in the z-text. So is it any better way to do this thing? I call it maybe.
Ferenc Orban: I don't really understand the question, to be honest, so it might be a few pieces.
faisal Amin: Sorry, I'm not saying that we should avoid the hard-pulled values like this, like this, it would be like capital R, you're pretty small, am I right?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, no, so you can create just in before in front of the method. Please create a constant, maybe even if you just create a string constant, that the value is roll or whatever was there previously. let's say you want to write holder and then you have to write holder into every single place where you where you want to use that very and maybe you mistype something you say hoodler or something like that right you so you write to run with one end it is hard for this one is hard for it right yeah yeah something like this so essentially that would change all that much in as a processing but maintaining the code would be a lot easier the other thing I can see the game time you are changing a value from string 2 integer am I right yeah yeah I think that value was at some point an integer can we save values in integer or some new
faisal Amin: it's value yeah it depends on the use actually uh most of the ports is generated by AI right so obviously these things can be optimized later on it's not like uh that it should be the the use have to send the string and you need to be converted into the so uh more definitely about all these things but you're very special right you're right and i was also going to as well as i i was saying that these are the edge and input obviously these things will be like uh enums will be used later on like roll and uh other things so it would be far easier we we're also not emphasizing the output uh letters or streams so yeah yeah just just just up so you you should i think you should uh try to do it from the core because uh i'm afraid it's coming away Yeah, when I did this course based on my like, you know, architecture. So I need to also pick this code based on our like, you know, approach or our standards. So this is would be like, have to be editor properly and use the enums and there are definitely other things also. for example, get game logo, get like and these sort of things. I'm not like, know, in the favor of these types of functionalities. This function should be like, there should be a class number that should have the game logo or like us rather than utilizing these functionalities. So really, I will also like, know, modify these things.
Ferenc Orban: Okay, that's a good approach. So, and I also said something a bit higher up. I'm not, I don't remember what it was. Can you scroll up a bit, please. It was one of the attributes. think a bit higher. I'm not sure which function it was up.
faisal Amin: I don't know what it was, you can read this code, it is already pushed in the web, so I can read any issue and just suggest us to the connections, okay, I guess we'll review it when it's ready then, so yeah, sure, definitely. So that's all the updates from my site, I'm working on the abstract game, this one, and I will add most of the components in the abstract game, that is for the game site, thank you.
Ferenc Orban: Okay, so what to take away is we should never use, not just a hard code, we You should use hardcode values every now and then, but don't do the string in line. So you create a constant somewhere in the scope where it's used, so not too high. We try to keep it as contained as possible, so maybe, so we try to avoid the global variables or all accessible stuff, so everything has come.
faisal Amin: I can define these variables in the specific classes and it can be that should not be loaded in the memory rather than it can be utilized from the flash, right? It is a constant word or something like that, forget the keyword. So I will measure how to make strings and these things as a constant. Okay, I will, I will, I will, I I
Ferenc Orban: let you know about it either constants or or the the macros both are fine and they logically or in the code for the compute computers it doesn't add anything or change anything it's just code maintenance thing and so that's what you're going and that's in some cases it's better to use the string value as a hard-coded value but in other cases it's better to have the enumeration with holder or runner let's say as the enumeration name but the value is smaller than the string itself you know yeah I got it in simple memory right yeah I'm not sure how it can be processed on the server side but I think This approach would make even the JSON packages smaller and everything if we just send 10 numbers instead of 10 words or 10 phrases.
faisal Amin: Definitely, it will also make the JSON string or shorter JSON data, right?
Ferenc Orban: Instead of the clustering, we will utilize the numeric value for Linux. Yeah, exactly.
faisal Amin: Okay, we will talk about these things. Thanks for your sessions.
Ferenc Orban: Let's go with the presentation.
UTF LABS: Okay, are we done on this project for Selenium Fairing on this task?
Ferenc Orban: Yes.
UTF LABS: Okay, moving on to the next point. That is the task and technique manager documentation fairing. Do you have any updates on that? Yes.
Ferenc Orban: Okay, so I'm still working on it, but what the main things were that I added a few things like the priority and the task handle to the task information. I'm not sure if you remember this, there was this part. Well, there are two things that I'm working on in this task manager. One would be the priority and in the priority management, and the other would be the task creation and the task handling a bit more detail on that. And I'm using three, three artists as a good team. I mentioned here, so cause. Finally, it was, I was considering a more generic approach, but since we are using only free ad for now, it doesn't make sense or it's not a big deal. We are going to move specifics. So, these two things came into the code. was thinking about having the task manager quantified or somehow prioritized the tasks. there are a few approaches that I consider them. finally, I came up with a version where we use five tiers of Also, priority, let me put up, it's about that, but as per the critical level that you mentioned. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so we're gonna. Nice. I can.
UTF LABS: Correct. So is this like the. The in them, is a structure to greater what that was. So, it mapped to numerical priorities on the backend or how will it work?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, so yeah, exactly that's what I wanted to show. I'm going to show you in code version because I'm not sure. by the preview doesn't update so there would be five tiers the critical would be the the tagging stuff and we'll see how we manage this but when you when you start up when you create a task you would okay this should be updated as well but in the code let me example i did this so you should also add priority and the priority would be one of those one of those task priority values so one of these these five values okay for example in the system we are going to create all the middleware tasks right we display sound and all of these so yeah while creating this task we also have to define the task priority right
faisal Amin: maybe it is very low or critical or high, really fast station, really fine also, that's good approach.
Ferenc Orban: Yes, so I was thinking first, I was thinking that maybe the task manager should be aware of all the classes that would be able to start up but it doesn't make sense, it would be too to expose this term.
faisal Amin: Yeah, maybe we will add more middlewares or the other modules, that task also needs to be created and we will not, the task manager will not aware of the task security of that module, right. So, this is needed to leave it to the application, maybe not application, the that module to developers, it even implies how much to achieve, it will be needed for you. yeah, And the application managers will not utilize But last mission, right? For example, the game developers will not need any tasks.
Ferenc Orban: No, no. Every task that the game creators would need should be created here, because mainly they would be I consider two categories. One would be the hardware use tasks and the logic tasks that would handle the game itself. the hardware related stuff is going to have to be handled by us. So we can manage all those and start up all those tasks by the way we want it. And everything else can be handled on the main thread, because that shouldn't be all that much of processing, I think.
faisal Amin: Even the game logic task will be created by the game manager. So it will take
Ferenc Orban: it's logic function from the game itself and it will give the task with game manager will game manager will handle that task issue for individual game so we can define the priority of the game in the game manager so use application developer will not have the access of this setting on server yeah exactly we this this has to be hidden and i was coming back to this a few times i just want to make sure that we're doing the right thing but every time when we back in history every time we started a new thread or a removed one or pumped up one like added a few more functionality to one of the threads or speeded up something and it messed up something else and it's really hard to debug when you when you change something in the
faisal Amin: on part and the suddenly the display doesn't work right so yeah it's may it is just easier the actually the new architecture will create it will create the task of individual module like display and sound motor we sort of think in the system initialization process so after cliche from each task the object will not created any other task like duplicate task about this sort of thing so it will be safe in the previous architecture we can create a multiple display task is like simultaneously so there will be like flash in the system now it will not happen because of the new architecture so i think it is paper in this way exactly yeah exactly so so regarding the mapping of the priorities and i do have a mapping map priority three are sold
Ferenc Orban: This would map the priorities from the lowest to the configured max price. I'm not sure how high this goes. think we added around 32 or something, but it would be mapped to this. I'm not sure exactly whether or how granular I would go after this, but we might add some code to this part, don't blame. So maybe when you get your medium, I think there was an example where the medium would return. Well, if we have 32 max priority, then it would return about 16, I think. And we could to work from 8 to 16, and when we start our tasks in the medium category, we can prioritize the programmatically right here in the task manager.
Quan Gan: So I have a quick question or input, and maybe you guys can leave it useful, but for the priority, does it make sense at all through the product of the notching numbers instead to give us a little bit more sense and scale with inputs?
Ferenc Orban: So it doesn't make sense to have what?
Quan Gan: Using Fibonacci number sequence. Yeah, are you familiar with that way?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, yeah, I'm not sure how it would help us in this case. So we have limited the where do you imagine the Fibonacci numbers?
Quan Gan: I know it in the context of managing task on the Kanban board for strum methods or ad-dell methods where you have the sequence not so much in a linear ranking but having the not your ranking so it gives you a more distinct sense of priority differences. So for example the difference between a much higher scale number is going to be greater than you know the scale of difference between one and two. So maybe having that kind of a Fibonacci scale or like an exponential scale would give you better clarity on exactly how to rank certain tasks and which one should take priority over the fill-up.
Ferenc Orban: The fact is that I'm not all that sure how the time-sticing works in the background the time-sticing of the operating system. As far as like I've always considered It's kind of down down. So if you have a task with priority one, priority two, and you have another one with priority 25, these are going to be handled one, two, and three.
Quan Gan: Yes, I understand how the system will process it. It's more for our own internal readability and code design. So that when you, like for us, it might be for a human, it might be easier to see the differential between, let's say, 15 and 21 versus the difference between three and four. Because, you know, they might just rank a difference at one versus when you have a bigger difference that you kind of have an understanding of, okay, this, this task is much more important than that other task. when she'll rank in that how the task management will improve it.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, so are you saying we could use it instead of these values?
Quan Gan: Possibly. mean, if it's only those low, medium, high, critical, you're only having four distinct priorities. So I wonder if giving you guys more, if it's in Fibonacci, if it might kind of combine the need for understanding the relative importance with an absolute scale. So it's just kind of a mapping instead of even low, medium, high, because if you have a bunch of things in the same category, then it's hard to say which one is actually ranked higher than the other.
UTF LABS: Can we do something like ranges inside of these levels? Basically, for example, it's
Ferenc Orban: critical can be from 25 30 yes so my original idea just just for a second I'll come back to the concept here so my intention in clarifying how these work would be sort of like something we did in the early stages of this architecture where if you remember I created a list with the tasks that would be needed at that point what that we have foreseen and I kind of mapped those to every category every priority and so between the like where I think I had there written out the critical would be tagging It may be sound, and at the lower part, was some, I don't know, game, game of g.
Quan Gan: My question is, if you have all of the tasks that we could possibly have already laid out, are you able to, at this point, already determine which task is more important than the other, and go through a binary tree search and just deterministically arrange their relative importance already. Do you already do that right now?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. So, if you have that, would it be beneficial to essentially encode that in and to say, this task is always going to be above the other task and below it?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Ferenc Orban: So, yeah. I was thinking about having that in a at a higher level. So let me just undo this. So this mapping of five layers of priorities, this idea is here to hide this max priority value. Do you know what I mean? So maybe we set the max priority at one point, we set it to 16 or maybe to 125 or whatever value. We can change that. And this would be right. It would be hidden at this level. And when we change the operating system below it, maybe we go to some windows or some Apple machine. This would still be true. And the logic And it would be change the mapping and the priority or sort of thing. And I would consider only just a few, like five, or maybe 10 in regularity. And what I was thinking, we would have a list somewhere with constants and having the values, like an empty tag in this play and such. So these would all be the test priorities. And these would have a value, one of these. So this would be critical as well. That display should be pretty, maybe in a medium, in optics. go to higher level for the user experience. I would map these at some higher level. once the programmer caused this managed method, it could add a task here, and the priority priority would be one of these. just priorities, but maybe I'm starting up the haptic. So, it would be like this. And we would have all these values in a list here, and mapped or linked the tasks linked to one of these priorities.
Quan Gan: Sorry. can we take a step back? I just want to ask you the question, what is the overall intention of this? And I kind of want to capture the to see if AI might be able to give us some pros and cons of different approaches so that we can re-discuss this, but once we're all clear the original process.
Ferenc Orban: Okay, so I talked about a few things here, so I'll try to summarize it. priorities are to be hidden, the exact values of the would be hidden in the task manager interface and the task manager interface would present only five values of priority which would concern the programmer who uses the task manager interface and so I'm not sure if this comes, you can understand what my issues are here with this, but I think I'm I think the exact values would make sure that even if we change the operating system or some, so yeah, changing the operating system, this interface could stay the same.
Quan Gan: We ever want to expose the priorities to the programmer, or why not just put it in the way we determine what needs to do right now and just set it?
Ferenc Orban: Well, maintenance, I think, would be the key here. High-code maintenance, if we had another hardware, or maybe just adding would be a bit more fussy. When you want to add another hardware, maybe you add a motor, some sort of motor to the hardware, and then you want to add another task for that, you would have to add the task and go down.
Quan Gan: this path and adding the task priority itself the exact value we it's doable also doable but that would mean that this interface that we are creating here would maybe change I think so I'm just imagining that at least at this point we're in the foreseeable future any hardware additions it would have to go through me and you guys internally anyways rather than exposing this to a theoretical outside developer yeah so so I just wonder if we need to even expose that you know with the with with this simplicity in mind from the developer standpoint You know, shouldn't we just say, okay, we already controlled the relative importance of everything. Yeah, within our system.
Ferenc Orban: So, the thing with that, I would have to think a bit more about this. If we don't expose it, then it, there wouldn't be a value to be added to, like, sent to the task creation method. If that's so, we would have to be able to start what was created, exactly. So, the task creation would not really know the difference the way it is right now.
Quan Gan: So, what are all the sources of task creation? Is that our code internal or is that a customer?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, it's all our code. There's a test critic method that would need the priority sent to At this time, we will have to know what the priority is exactly. So by this time, we will have to know what the priority of the task is. We can do something like I was thinking about having a value priority value in every method. I mean, if you.
Quan Gan: If you. Free define all the tasks and their respective priorities in a. In a config file, then I guess you can just use it. variable and just say I'm creating the display task with display priority, and it's just looking that up in a header file, right?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, yeah. So that would change from operating system to operating system.
Quan Gan: Okay. And I don't know, is that okay?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, well, this is something that does that.
Quan Gan: I'm just trying to see if there's any value of having both a number system and then also having this low, medium, high versus just combining it or just having it, you know, strictly flat, pre-defined.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, yeah, it might be more useful to have just to separate
UTF LABS: So, my question was here, what happens to the two tasks or of same level are colliding? Like if we have two tasks on a critical level and they are overlapping each other. So how can we prioritize one of them at that point?
Ferenc Orban: Well, there are two things about this. They are pretty much at the critical level. are no two tasks. I think that is just a positive thing. But in other cases, two things can happen. If the exact same value is given to two tasks, they just get the same amount of time in the processor. So it is going to be managed in the task manager. And the other thing that we could do. who is by having this map out here, we can go from 50% to 75% in Italy to those, like we have from 16 to 20 something, 23.
Quan Gan: It just seems to me if we have three defined numbers that we have a much more deterministic system than potentially two or more tasks and up in the same category.
Ferenc Orban: And then, yeah, I'm that this does add some dynamics to the whole code, like even if we do this, we might be protected in a sense that when we migrate the whole code and we... migrate those, we will have to re-test and make sure that every single task priority is not okay and it's getting handled. having a separate configuration file for the task priorities could make sense. It's ingrained enough, like the hardware is ingrained enough into the whole that we don't just start creating tasks.
faisal Amin: I want to add something here based on the task creation as we are discussing. So, in the newer architecture which I already defined, so I want to share my screen first. Yeah, you can see that.
Ferenc Orban: So, your screen is not visible yet.
faisal Amin: Can you see my screen now?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah.
faisal Amin: So, Based on this new architecture in the system initializer, we have a function after initializing the system defining all the objects and like classes, there is a task like, know, set a middleware task. So actually all the task question will be happened inside this function. So if I show you in the board, yeah. So for example, here it is accessing that access task manager create task and it is creating the display task, right, and in this way it is also creating the application. So all the task creation of the middleware will be happening in this system initializer class. There will be no other modules that will create any other task in terms of drivers and middleware. So we will not create any middle, any driver task, we will just create the middleware task. And middleware will utilize the drivers for all of the operations like screen, grid, class, the LCD, sound will utilize. is the speaker. So only the middle class will be created. And apart from this, we can we can handle the priority in here. For example, if you are creating the display task, you should know what should be the priority of the screen display task. We will have to define here, right? The task is also what are the tasks we are going to create here. And apart from this, only the game logic task will be created in the game manager because it's in the application side. So user will not have access to the task creation in any way. Because for example, the next is will utilize the task manager create task. So it will be this function will be only like, you know, the task manager class will be accessed by the drivers and middle class only. After getting drivers, game developers will not have the access of the task manager anyway. So we will make it private. So that's the idea actually. My point is you sense?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, so you were saying that kind of the same thing happens in both cases.
faisal Amin: But what I think what KOM was saying that we should not be yeah, so that's what task manager will be only access to the like in applications middlewares and this sort of thing not in the not for the game developers. So that's the idea because game developers don't have to create any tasks. With the game manager middleware these modules will utilize the task manager.
Quan Gan: And overall I just wanted to make sure Our system is more deterministic as, or as deterministic as possible. I know it's impossible to be fully deterministic, from a design standpoint, if you guys can make something more deterministic rather than less, I would opt for that.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, as you are saying, it does make sense, because it's definitely more deterministic where if we define the values, the transparency values in configuration file. So I think I'll review this, review this page, and come up with a simpler solution, which is more deterministic. Because, yeah, adding exact values or defining the exact values would be better for us.
faisal Amin: Yeah, I'm also adding this one, and I think I'll person need to focus that we will just make the architecture in this way that we will only create the middle layer task, not the drive driver task because I think it is not a feasible thing.
UTF LABS: Like we are not going to create the motor task or the LCD task because we also like the course are they assigned automatically just to confirm previously we had like we had two versions where we were signing other core one or two or we were using affinity as well. So I know we discussed that the task should be assigned automatically using the affinity We should have an option if needed, then we can pin a car to any specific core when a task is in a specific core.
Ferenc Orban: Why?
UTF LABS: I'm not necessarily, it's not needed every time, but just in case we need for anything future where we need, you know, task one in a specific core. So just we should have like the option enabled, it's not necessary that we use it.
Ferenc Orban: I'm more of the opinion that we should not use a pinning course and if we need it, we would expand the functionalities of the task manager interface. I don't think we should be working with that. This, if the priorities are right and everything is all thought out well enough, then spinning tasks to course would only slow down the processes. maybe you want to make the issues with the resource management should not be present in this architecture. So those should be all out the window. We shouldn't have any issues like that anymore. When we want to have something really critical, then maybe we pin all the tasks to core one and one of the tasks to core two. So we can make sure that core two is always available for that single one task. So that would make sense, but this is, nobody is going to die if it was something. So it's not that critical. I mean, it's we don't really have the use case for, for getting the course. I agree with you.
UTF LABS: But from what, so I think it should be there.
Ferenc Orban: We won't use it. I agree with you.
UTF LABS: We shouldn't need to use it. But still it, I think, I can comment on it. But I think it should be there as an option that if we need it at any point of time, we can utilize it. Because, so I personally think that the spinning to code thing will have an effect later on when we have all the things running. Because what we observed previously, this specific point was causing issues. that just might have you guys can discuss on it.
faisal Amin: Yeah, I think you can just have that functionalities in the task manager. Whether we are going to use it or not. It's not, it's really depends on that. in the use case, maybe we will have some tasks that might need to pin the specific code for the task, but definitely you can create that functionality with the task managers.
Ferenc Orban: But if you assist, I can shoot. Sorry, on. Yeah, so I just wanted to reflect a bit on the issues that we had with that were solved by pinning the code. think there was some. some resource management, resource accessibility, if I'm not mistaken, right? So if you've been, I'm not sure how it went, but I think it was something about that could have been solved by what was the semaphores and like new texting or some sort of accessibility management there. And I think it was kind of a side effect that side effect of the pinning to cause that sort issue, it wasn't solving the issue, it was just mainly addressing symptoms of the issue. it did take away a bit from the processing but it's almost simple for us. So it didn't really matter all that much. But yeah, I'm just saying that I think when you have an elevator program, you want to make sure that the sensor, the processor processes the sensor that notifies the processor, that somebody has its head in the elevator door. So you want to make sure that every result, so it's not stuck on some other task. So you want to make sure that this exact thread has a core open for it and ready to perform when it's needed so that you don't cut off anyone's head with the elevator at all. So, do you understand where I'm going, like those are really critical, like someone can get hurt if you don't, if you're not pinning stuff to this core, so it's that critical that you are removing availability from the other ones that would be able to use the core. when it's free so that that's okay and it's a reasonable thing to do when it's about this elevator example but when we are doing this in our code when you start pinning stuff to particular code then when you pin the display to code 2 then it's never gonna be run on core one even if you if you start pinning two cores to one like two tasks to one pin those two so when you start pinning two tasks to one core those two tasks are going to have to wait for each other every single time because they only they would only be executed on that exact core it those would never change to core one even if core one doesn't nothing if it's in either end it has nothing to do the second test that it's that that stays in line is going to have to wait for core to be to be approved. So that's why we would be wasting resources.
UTF LABS: So I'm sparing. I'm sorry to interrupt.
Ferenc Orban: I get so we all get your point.
UTF LABS: I understand and I 100% completely agree with you with what you are saying is right. So but I'm just saying like just keep an option open. If we did it. If we did it, we can use it. I'm not saying that we are definitely going to use it or we should use it. It's just an option. That's because I know because we spent hours and hours of testing that retaggers with a core task assigned to pins and that's assigned to affinity both conditions. So we tested for hours and days and we still find you know when we left it for affinity. So we would find retaggers for resetting because they are work cases. here, where two of the tasks needed separate course to work. For example, we were getting reset when saving if on EPROM, right? what was happening like when this player was accessing, sorry, and side by side, EPROM was accessing, they were using same core, you know, the attacker's resetting. It's just an example, not necessarily what exactly was happening. Just an example to code, just keep an option open instead of like just resetting it down. So I don't think it would have that much negative back just to keep it, you know, option there, because we have been through this. And so we know that it might, you know, it might be needed.
Ferenc Orban: So just keep an option open. Okay, I will add it to, to the task manager and to face, I will do it too.
UTF LABS: And one more thing I was going through, like we weren't using, there's an option. I think I don't know if you guys know it or as well with respect to task notifications as well in the Fiatos Have you guys looked at it?
Ferenc Orban: Not sure So basically it's it was in similarly to I haven't looked at it in complete detail I just came across it while I was working on the light bar documentation file so We can use Suspend and then resume the task.
UTF LABS: So similarly there is a concept of ask notify And so we can you know activate the task based on notifications So we might you know it might be useful somewhere in the future in some cases as well So if you can look it up and if you think that's useful, you can also include it into the task management interface Okay, anything else remaining? In this point, hear me?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, okay.
UTF LABS: I think we can move to the next point. So we are done with the time measure. So for the middle viewer, I've been working on the light bar interface. So I think it's almost ready, but I made a few changes to it today. So basically, previously, we were using sort of an looping concept for the new pixel LEDs. I'm still trying to find a more optimized way. and that if we get, you know, find a more efficient way to use that official LEDs. So most probably I'll be able to complete the light bar file by tomorrow and then I'll push it on GitHub. After that, I'll move towards the button interface. Currently we don't have any button interface so I think we'll have to create one just a simple interface. So we have a uniform buttons for all the middle vias. Any questions?
Ferenc Orban: No questions.
UTF LABS: Okay. Okay, moving on to the progress bar system.
Ferenc Orban: So far, do we have an update there? No, no, no, not much has happened. So nothing to update you. I read a song. I had a bit of chat with GPT, I moved to past management.
UTF LABS: Okay, I'm moving on to the build updates. Yeah, so I was basically working on matching the builds with respect to keep away and the main build as well. So I was working. I was trying to merge. I created a new build, a new branch on GitHub from the main branch. And then I was trying to merge the keep away build to the main branch and to the brand that I created. But I'm facing issues. it just says it's up to date, but the branch is already up to date. So do you guys have any idea about it or have any such thing?
Ferenc Orban: I didn't get the last one.
UTF LABS: Let me just show us just a second. So can you suggest Queen? Yes, yeah, okay. So we have the keep away multiple ball branch here. So this branch of it has the multiple balls feature with respect to keep away. That's, you know, being released to customer and to test customers and they are free playing it. So it's working fine. And then we have all the updated into the main branch here. So what I want to do is now I want to merge this multiple balls feature back into the main branch, so you get it so far.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, yeah.
UTF LABS: So what I did, I created another branch from the main called keep away, keep away much. It currently just have the code with the main branch, okay? So now I want to merge this multiple balls branch into the much branch. So what do I do? So basically I'm just using the merge command using the git, you know, git bash. And but when I do that, it says that keep away much. And just already up to date. So for some reason, I am unable to much multiple balls into the branch. Do you guys have any idea what's wrong there or what's happening there?
Ferenc Orban: What does it mean that you can merge it?
UTF LABS: How are you doing it? It just says basically it just says that the branch is up to date.
Ferenc Orban: Where you have to merge it? Yeah, what are you using for merges?
UTF LABS: Let me just just a second with the code.
Ferenc Orban: Thank you,
UTF LABS: here. So I just use the merge command here. So since I'm already engaged, I think it won't get merged. I believe if I'm wrong, you guys can correct me underscore multiple. when I do this, it just says it's already up to date, even though it's a different branch. So am I doing anything wrong or what is the issue here?
Ferenc Orban: I'm not actually sure about the command because I tried this.
UTF LABS: It did work. tried a few other things as well. So there was an option of, you know, doing it the other way, going to the multiple boss build and then merge the other do that. But it was just overriding the new changes. that's not a valid option. No, I think I'll try to merge it manually. It will take more time and I'm not sure if I can miss anything, but I was trying to do it this way, but somehow it is giving me an error. So I just thought if you guys know, manually, what does it mean like copying, pasting the code into that?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, yeah, exactly. To be honest, I tried to use the GitHub desktop. Uh, program usually all right, uh, I have been using another project, tortoise, tortoise, git, which is something similar, a bit different design. But those do help me, uh, point out what, uh, what there is to be merged. I'm not sure about the command that you're using and, uh, install.
UTF LABS: I tried doing it into the VS code as well since there it can show you know the status of all the commits and merges but it's giving the same error there as well. anyway, I'll look into it some more if it's not working then I'll try to merge it manually anyhow.
Ferenc Orban: Are these committed?
UTF LABS: Are you changes committed to the yeah so far you guys have I think you guys have access to it right? So both of these committed changes are committed here main branch is the it is branch and I want to merge the multiple balls branch into the main branch. Okay, so I sense so just as a safety measurement you created a new branch you want to merge into that and move it back to the main.
Ferenc Orban: Exactly yeah yeah. Okay well we'll take a quick look at we'll let you know you know.
UTF LABS: Okay, moving on. Okay, yeah, so we have a related section for one is one available here.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I'm around. So my current process was taking our transcripts and meeting agendas. And then now, I don't know if you guys have seen me in the. The loom video, but I'm able to actually generate from one preview directly from first or no. And it gave me some output. So I just wanted to see if any of that output was useful in the last week. Great.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, I did take a look at it at the part that I'm using. So it does make sense. In this case, I had. a bit more in my website than it is suggesting so I could go over it. But I definitely defined it helpful.
Quan Gan: Okay. Sean, have you or anyone on your side taken a look at the output?
UTF LABS: Yeah, I looked at it. But yeah, I think it had a lot more detail than it was previously. I think that was more of the mark and more helpful. But it was useful, but I just think it had too much details.
Quan Gan: So it was too verbose this time around.
UTF LABS: Yeah, so I think it was fine till last week, but this was the last one that you shared. I think I have it here on the guitar as well, just a second.
Quan Gan: Yeah, this one. Yeah, it's hard for me to get. which the level of granularity you want, you know, so I usually haven't do a very high level for the same first, but I figure you guys probably already know high level and that's why I ask it to give code specific to batch, you'll see if there's anything or a drill down, but if that's not needed, then I could just actually have it high level.
UTF LABS: I think let's give it one more try. Let's see what it generates to this meeting as well, and then we can decide if we want to keep it same or, you know, or simplify it down.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so I think Java is working on implementing that through the API, rather than me doing this in the first, but you know, I do find the cursor being pretty helpful. If you guys did it just on your own, let's say you took it. relevant code base, and then put it through O1 preview. It seems like the output is fairly in alignment. Have you guys tried that on your own at all?
UTF LABS: Sorry, can you repeat the point?
Quan Gan: Have you guys tried O1 preview within your cursor?
UTF LABS: I'm using O1 preview separately in the GPT, but not in the cursor here.
Quan Gan: Okay, yeah, it is a model you can select, so I would just say test it out, but it also is more expensive because on my cursor subscription, I think it costs maybe 50 cents or something for every generation, so I do this very much. But if you're trying to generate a whole lot of... it all at once and you already know what you need and it might be useful.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, I had a O1 preview set as a default in my typing and I wasn't aware of it. I just started up new chats in a few times and got surprised and how much it was taking of mine. So I'm trying to be careful with the preview.
Quan Gan: Yeah, you use this barely, but I would say it's very useful when you have a multi-dimensional query. So for example, even our last discussion about task management and things like that, if you put into it several computing priorities, it might be able to give you some roughing themselves out there those two or the first times. Yeah, other than that, you know, yeah, we just didn't go on and only have much purpose this week.
UTF LABS: Okay, so I think it's most of it for this meeting. So what do we have over do we have for the next meeting fairing?
Ferenc Orban: What's on your end? Well, creating a configuration file for the task priorities, adding a pin to call option to the task in the task management interface. And we see from the what's remained from last week, the diagrams, sequence diagrams, the training management, some will go to the training management. And Okay, on the problem as well, if I also look into the notify feature for that are touch as well. Yeah, okay.
UTF LABS: Yeah, for the on our end, I mean, we'll complete the remaining all like move forward with the extra game class on what he's still work. I will publish the the light bar empty files to the GitHub after completing it and then try to move to the button interface. And then I'll also work on the merging keep away to the latest build. So, you know, we can move forward with the new release build.
Quan Gan: Okay, any estimates of when we can actually do the update to customers?
UTF LABS: Yeah, I'm trying to, you know, merge it as soon as possible but since I have to do it now manually it might take some time and some testing so hopefully in the middle of next week it should be done but I'm not sure I will have some idea where the next meeting and also I will also start updating the documents from tomorrow so we'll have our new team member joining in who will be basically working on the documentation so with all the documents that release documents release notes and all those kind of things should be updated by the next week as well okay anything else guys okay next meeting the timing is it it's a woman being in the hour later yeah I think from the next meeting we would like to move it to later to other around nine 10 am your time, Pacific time. So I'll just confirm what's for our feasible to us.
Quan Gan: And you guys, if you guys agree, then we can move just for a few weeks. We can move to that time. Okay. I mean, it's certainly my favorite because I'll be back in California. So that's all cool. many weeks do you force to be scheduled?
UTF LABS: I think for like two or three weeks, I'm not sure at the moment. So we'll see.
Quan Gan: I'll let you know. Okay. I'll just confirm that way a few ways ahead and I'll upset my schedule.
UTF LABS: Sure, sure.
Ferenc Orban: Okay, guys, let us know in this phone. thanks.
UTF LABS: Okay, guys, next week for now.
Quan Gan: See you on my gift. Bye, guys. See you.
UTF LABS: I think how are you.
Ferenc Orban: Can you hear me? Yes, I'm fine for you.
UTF LABS: Yeah. I'm good. I'm back.
Quan Gan: Are we waiting for it?
UTF LABS: I think special. mean, it's going to join us, but I think we can start. He'll join us later on. Okay, so first of all, we have Java here. He basically joined us last week. So he'll be part of the team now. And from most probably towards the end of the week, or end of this month. Facile, he'll be leaving us. Java will be taking over from him. So this is this. I'm onboarding Java with all of our previous work and all of the previous to this. So I can have the idea of what we are trying to achieve with them in architecture.
Quan Gan: Java, nice to meet you.
Jawwad Malik: Alan, nice to Okay, so let me just share my screen.
UTF LABS: Okay, can you guys see my screen?
Ferenc Orban: Yes, yes.
UTF LABS: Okay, so quickly go through the last meeting evaluation report. Yeah, so it's again, into the same 80s, media teams, when overall the meeting was good, we discussed a few important points as well into the last meeting with respect to the strategy and plug development where we are developing the tag method functionalities, and then we discuss some in and then a constant instead of our coding strings, such as the roles that Pering mentioned, then we discuss the task management system with respect to multiple tiers and multiple priority levels. And then we'll also discuss the middleware deployment with respect to LED light bar and button surface progress bar update was postponed to this meeting. And then we will discuss there will remain in the system. So most of these things were discussed into the last meeting. Anything else guys have we discussed?
Ferenc Orban: I'm not sure if there was anything else.
UTF LABS: Okay. So moving on to this week's meeting. So basically this week we have been mostly working on the light bar interface that we discussed. So I have been able to complete it from my side and I have pushed the food onto the gate as well. I have also completed the button interface development. We previously did not have any interface for a button like as we did for motor sound bar and light bar and all those. of things but we had quite a few uses for buttons so I tried to create interface that we can utilize for different purposes with the buttons. I have committed it to the GitHub as well so faring if you get time you can just review it if you think that button interface is useful for us. So that was yeah so that was the major update from since the last meeting. I have also worked on good on manually merging the Kipa branch. So most of the merging is manually is complete. There's just one thing remaining or the X basically when we update the Zeus with the tag in Kipa way so I need to add a color as well you know for the correct ball update in multiple balls. So most of it is done. had it tested today with other games and it's working fine so just one change is remaining. So hopefully I'll be able to complete it by tomorrow so and then we can run a complete round of qc by Wednesday or by next meeting. So this was the update from our my end for the MVP and then you will be able to update yours.
Ferenc Orban: Yes so I was on a leave so I just started looking on the task management thing that we discussed which would be adding a configuration file for the for the for the task priorities and so that's where I'm working on nothing it's not finished yet I'm considering having a JSON file as a configuration file just for the so for having it across platform like you more user friendly the other Consideration was this YAML, I'm not sure how to pronounce that file. It's more human readable, but yeah, so I decided I'll go with JSON for now and just have a task name and task quality in the configuration file and the task manager will decide when it's starting on the task between now on what priority it would start it up. I also added to the first version, I also added the option to bring the task to a specific code. I will add an optional parameter in the less parameter of the create task will be an optional parameter which would be 40 to minus one. So if it's set to my... if It's not set by the user, one who is calling the method. It will default to unset, no affinity. And otherwise, it will be pinned to the specific code that you can solve. This is what I've been looking around, just thinking through the whole system and getting into ways of making it as clear as possible. So this part is pretty clear for me. They are the remaining, the priority adjustment. We was, I'm considering having it, but I could just consider whether it would be good to have it dynamically setable. So just as I'm chatting with AI, this game up.
UTF LABS: Can you can you recap in detail like what you are trying to like what's your idea with respect to the priorities?
Ferenc Orban: The original idea is to have it set and hard coded to every run of every task that can be run on the device. Those would be hard coded. And that's it, so having it fixed. The dynamic task priority is not sure where the AI wants to go with it. It suggests a run time adjustment, which I don't think at first that it would make any sense, but I'm still having it right now.
UTF LABS: You initially proposed like a few levels of priority, like medium, high and low, right? then we agreed on having like a spare.
Ferenc Orban: and data value to each task. Yeah, yeah, so so the idea current is that we would have a configuration file. We would have a list of all the tasks that can be run. They would have a specific name, a hardcoded name, which should match most probably the task name that we want to create in the code. And by the task name, it would select its priority that is in the starting file.
UTF LABS: So we would have a list of all the priorities and So can we also like use the heap value there as well into the same file and heap heap to all the tasks, right?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely anything that goes into the task management. And part should we will most probably end especially because these things are task specific. Yeah, yeah, what they are going to get to get asked. Let me bring out the questions.
UTF LABS: You can share your screen if you Yes, you can see my screen now. Yeah.
Ferenc Orban: So we don't, what we would definitely use would be the function itself. The name, the stack depth is the. the one, the heap that we talked about, the priority, we talked about the, this is the handle that we received, which would be also used for stopping and such, so we would use the, the only thing that is not considered is the parameters, which we usually don't use but probably would be wise to have it exposed at some, or in some way, so I consider that as well.
UTF LABS: I think so basically from what I understand there are only two things, priority and that's tech depth, which is the basically heap size, that we can use into the file that you are working on creating the JSON file, right?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah. Not sure I understood the question, can you repeat it?
UTF LABS: in the OTA task.
Ferenc Orban: But I remember we were using this for something. Yeah, okay. I'll expose it to make sense. I took a note for this. So basically this is where I'm at. The other thing is the other task pins. So this is the other method that we are using in the cases of coop in the core.
UTF LABS: Yeah, so we need to add the core ID, right?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, okay. So I think this is the only thing that, you know, I have to make sure that these are considered. But this is a really special case. just, okay, we have to go set things fine.
UTF LABS: Okay, so we have covered the disparities and the beginning to grow option.
Ferenc Orban: Okay, so what is what's there?
UTF LABS: You had the progress bar, I believe.
Quan Gan: I do want to ask about some of the new files being uploaded. I'm seeing in the unified document that quite a few files are pretty long. I'm just wondering if you guys have any plans to separate those files out or make them more at home.
UTF LABS: Yeah, so I think you're right for most of the files that are long because at this moment, at least on my side, I'm just into including what I think should be present into each file. But some of those things are like the same for every file. example, the implementation with next is the code snippets are almost same for every file. Just their name is changed. But at this moment, I am just, you know, including them just to complete the, you know, to complete the file and to have them into the file. Later on we can remove them and then I'm also adding the BDD scenarios as well into each file what I am grading right now. So once we have agreed and pairing attribute the files then we can you know distribute those, we separate the code files and the BDD files so each file length should come down.
Quan Gan: And I would suggest you know some of these if you have code sections maybe under that same folder the reason why we have these folders is to allow you to put in multiple files maybe you could break that apart.
Ferenc Orban: I just took a note for me that this is most of the content is a bunch of code here examples which you can't really belong here. I will not cut this file into two because it's almost fine.
Quan Gan: Yeah, just from a readability standpoint, if there's any individual season file that's going on in 300 lines, you know, one's less inclined to actually read through it.
Ferenc Orban: I did this wasn't really until then also I didn't really have it on the front. I'll make sure that it's not too long.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I just want to make sure we keep that still in the foreground because otherwise even at this level, we start accumulating technical debt and then you have to go back and refactor even at this level.
UTF LABS: So, we convert the files into those code MD and the V2D files. Okay.
Quan Gan: uh what's next we have the area isistic tools and workflow for qua and shava uh suquan did you update the last meeting section item somewhere i couldn't find them on github on neither on discord um i should have put in a discord let's say um in the meeting summaries let's see maybe summaries was it not in there hmm i thought i had placed or or did i put it in general and this is actually kind of related to the topic later is um i find we have too many channels so sometimes it's hard to see where things are let's see let's it's in joint down
UTF LABS: Oh, yeah, I think joined them.
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
UTF LABS: we definitely see to simplify these channels.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, and I think Chaka was able to generate something today. I don't know if anybody had a chance to be through that.
Csaba: Hey, I review the both database and work and where. So the optimization of agenda generation is done. I think I will deploy to the service tomorrow. And the last week I mostly, I was working on the recommendation generation with cloud and typically preview. I don't know the digital.
UTF LABS: Sorry, can you repeat where did you put it?
Csaba: So mostly I was working on this generation, best week and did you check it the first version? I think I was put to the during meetings channel.
UTF LABS: Yeah, I think you posted in the joint dev channel that Juan just mentioned, yeah, I missed that just so I don't know problems. So coming to the point, did you raise with respect to the meeting transcript of the summaries. So are you now passing the meeting, last meeting summary to the board as well?
Csaba: Yeah, I will in this week, I didn't just the evolution and the less the agenda, think.
UTF LABS: Yeah. Okay. So. So. next meeting you will be able to pass there so many. Yeah, that's all from. Okay, what else do we have? Yeah, so just one point I wanted to say here, so like, can we or you guys can connect? So when we had everything on the GitHub into the same sequence that was better for me, know, I didn't have to search for them and what do you guys think about that?
Quan Gan: You mean as the GitHub issue?
UTF LABS: Yeah, the GitHub issue in the metadata. So like, we had everything there a few weeks or like up to till the last week, had the agenda, then we had the summary, then we had the cascade, then we had the meeting evaluation report, then we had the next step as well, so we had everything there. So you only had to look at once in one place, right? So or I was thinking like what this thing about this.
Ferenc Orban: Can you repeat the first part please?
UTF LABS: Let me spin.
Ferenc Orban: Can you guys see my screen?
UTF LABS: Yeah. Yeah. basically until last week into the metadata issues. So we had everything with respect to that meeting in here on the GitHub so we had this meeting agenda here, then we had this summary here, then we had the meeting evaluation report here, then that transcript. Then we had all of the high level guidance that Juan is posting. So I was thinking if we can keep it here on the GitHub since we all have everything in one place.
Ferenc Orban: I would appreciate it. was looking for the the suggestions regarding the So I've been looking for it today. found it in the discord channel, but yeah, first I was looking for it right here. Oh yeah, it would be great to have all this in one place, even for context.
UTF LABS: One, what do you think?
Quan Gan: I would do whatever you guys have a habit of reviewing. So if the issue seems to be the central place where you guys would have a habit of going back to do, then yeah, I jump in and I should align to that and then get you the info in there.
UTF LABS: For me, GitHub was best since even in Discord, although we do have all of the things in one place, but still since all of the previous meetings and all of the things into the same channel, so it's a bit hard and it's get tricky sometimes finding out which belongs to meeting. So I would prefer a fairing also that we have all the things related to one meeting in one place like an issue here on GitHub.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, I prefer it as well. Just as we are touching on the Discord thing, I find it's kind of overwhelming every once in a while. think you guys do that too. You can especially because I know you asked Joel to remove some of the channels. I still find it's a lot when I'm looking. Just this joint dev I've been searching for because I knew I wasn't working on Friday and I saw this message and it got on exactly it. So I didn't know which channel it was in. So I've been looking for it.
Quan Gan: really wasn't sure if it's the last message in one of the channels so it's somewhere scrolled up because of all the other chats so i've been looking for it i'm not sure if you can still stream some of the some of the channels so maybe group the messages in some other way okay just yeah should we should we move on to that topic because i i do see it being pretty impactful to everybody's work is there anything else that we need to get get through before we talk about that if now we can dive in yeah i think we can go to the topic yeah i mean initially in setting the discord was to just have a central place where we can we can go back and get our notes and not get lost, but also make it a little bit more granular than the completely flat structure where we had on WhatsApp. So I think we probably oversteered very much into the other direction where it was too granular and now it's hard to find. So I'm just trying to figure out what would be a happy medium now that we've spent several months on this new platform. And it definitely didn't make sense at first to meet.
Ferenc Orban: So it's not that any user it doesn't seem so maybe maybe having just one or two channels, one for maybe the the development like the stuff that is going on with the current working in the new software and the other one would be for maybe this next part and I think the AI automation tools AI tools automation this can can be more geoengineering more geoengineering can you also share that screen yeah I should so I'm just thinking that maybe if we have just two or three channels and go from there and add new channels as if we need that if we see that those those are needed or just group the teams or by topic group group those a bit differently like I'm thinking that we have in as a main thinking I'm thinking of to to project the one that is working and is running on the on the user's machines right now which needs to be updated, upgraded, fixed and such and the other part would be the Nexus. Maybe having two channels at start for these and maybe we can start with removing the access such channels that we have like ID duplication, lighting and turn and then impact detection.
UTF LABS: So since these aren't the part of discussion for now, so I think that we can remove those and keep the importance like the join meeting, meeting summaries.
Csaba: Are we able to?
Quan Gan: Yeah okay that's what I was asking because we may still need to go back and reference things. yeah, have the lectures high the opens.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah. I'm thinking the best way would be to have as little as possible maybe flat and to go from there. you feel the need to add a new channel, really play with that.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and I think before we had team specific channels, but practically I haven't used that at all since starting this, so maybe we can hide those as well, unless you guys see the need to keep them.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, we do a parking private for it, something private. We can add the new group check or something.
Quan Gan: Let's remove the teams. And then Let's see, what else, these issues, specific things, maybe we can hide them for now unless we need to go back and revisit, and then I'm seeing the overall Nexus conversation. We dove down to a markdown file responsibilities with maybe a lot of these things we could bring about up to the main thread on the Nexus Dev, from meeting dev or meta dev, I don't know if that's a separate thing. So maybe we break it down into just the various projects, so for now it would be meta dev and Nexus dev, meta dev being the AI in automation and things like that, and then the Nexus dev being the actual server we're working on.
UTF LABS: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Do you guys still see the need for joint meetings and meeting summaries? Because I think those are still probably consistent, even if we have other projects, we should part of who those, that's my current thought.
Ferenc Orban: I think the meeting summaries can go to the general, some general chat, which should be, we're not using the general at all. I think we can chat about the meeting summaries and the upcoming stuff and things that we need from the other team. We can talk about those in the general and just leave out the meeting.
UTF LABS: I think we can keep those meetings summaries, both the meeting summaries and joint meetings, like both of those are meeting specific. So I think personally that we should keep those on the side. We can use just
Quan Gan: for other things that we might you know encounter in between but so it's basically it's easier to find summaries and all those kind of things I'm meeting from this channel and whenever we want to discuss the agenda so we do this and we join meetings so for me it's easier if guys can do so you think something works alright okay so if we were to change meeting summaries it may break a couple of things because the automation is looking specifically at that channel so if we change the the name a possibility of those gaps we'll break them out because they do that we can shift the AI tools automation to general was actually using the channel ID so the name can can be changed just okay yeah so I'm too sure what way was mapping to it okay but the the AI tools in automation you're you're thinking I put that into general discussion
Ferenc Orban: I think this can go to the customer support and the box can maybe go into one or I'm not sure but I'm not involved in this. think we can keep the customer support as it is and it seems easier for me to find if there is any shoe from Kia.
Quan Gan: Do we even use bugs? we remove bugs?
UTF LABS: Yeah, we can hide it for now but I think we might need it when we release it already.
Quan Gan: Okay, so let's keep that around. Okay, so is it right now really just hiding some of the threads and so we're just coming back to in the channels themselves.
Csaba: Yeah. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. Let's start with that and then hopefully that result is overwhelmed. Yeah. Or even. I know you implemented a bot to keep the threads alive. But maybe there is a good reason for those threads to automatically archive it. We're not. How do you want them?
Csaba: I didn't get this.
Quan Gan: So you have a. A bot that keeps threads alive so that they don't disappear. Yeah. we can turn.
Csaba: Yeah. Okay. Okay.
Quan Gan: Anything else on this topic?
UTF LABS: So who's going to, know, make these changes? Java or one?
Quan Gan: Travis, the admin for the Discord.
UTF LABS: Yeah, think that should simplify a lot of things on Discord.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay, and then we've also made the decision to have the AI's recommendations for next steps also consolidated in the GitHub issues, right?
UTF LABS: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay. Uh, comma, do you see any issues in, in doing that?
Csaba: No, no. Okay.
Quan Gan: And then right now, are you taking, um, you taking transcripts from previous meetings or are you just taking the transcripts in the current meeting?
Csaba: Um, on the next meeting, every time. Okay.
Quan Gan: Okay. I, I, I. I don't know if it gives any better input if you give an additional transcript from the previous meet of basically two meetings to see if there's any differential from one meeting to the next. It would be interesting to experiment on that output to see if it gives you any nuance on the difference versus just the current meeting.
Csaba: Okay.
UTF LABS: Yeah. And then I think initially in the half-landed that way like we should have last three meeting summaries as an input.
Quan Gan: Yeah, that would be good. Yeah, I think just having some overall trajectory to make sure we're on track rather than just looking at the current state.
Csaba: Initially I have used the last three summary, the last agenda and the last food transcript. But that's in the prompt one and so good and we didn't use the history. that's done. So I'll be trying now and we'll come together.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it would also would be good in the issues if you can also post the exact model and the prompts you've entered. So that way, maybe collectively, we can look at it and debug or offer suggestions on the prompt so we can evolve that as well.
Csaba: I think I have already posted in school.
Quan Gan: What I mean is posting it as part of posting every issue. So like, you know, after this meeting, when you do the automation and give the recommendations, we should have the prompt itself and a version of GPT. or AI you're using, and what the inputs are. Just as a way for us to debug it visually. Even if you have put it into Discord, yeah, even if you put it into the Discord, that might be lost versus if you explicitly put that at the end of the GitHub issue, then each of output.
Csaba: OK, are we right now?
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah, I think in general for each of us to see the prompt, that is still, that's very valuable. Just similar to us being able to see code in previous generation of software development, I think now it's important for everybody to be able to see the prompt and see what the output of that prompt generates, because we've all got all elevated our abstraction level.
Csaba: Okay, we did that again.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so it's almost like a stack trace, right? know, we're going to be looking at the prompt itself as well as the generated output.
Csaba: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay, thank you.
UTF LABS: Okay, moving on. Yeah, I think that's about it with all the current topics. For the next week, Farik, what do you have on your end? For the next meeting, I think.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, I finished the task management part, and I will look into the auto-snotify feature that you guys mentioned and After that, I'm not sure how much time I have, but the sequester diagrams for the taking management is on the table.
UTF LABS: Okay, I think we'll have to move towards the driver section pretty soon. Since we're already in November and we haven't started the driver section, so yeah, I think we'll have to discuss it into the next meeting. I'll basically look into the keep-away build and most probably it will be ready for testing by the next meeting. So, and if I get time, I'll also start working onto the the use controller. I'm basically the humidity portion, yeah, so that would be on November.
Quan Gan: Sean, can you give me a little bit more detail on the release because you're a We're still waiting to see when we can release things to customers and then how you're segmenting their needs for both the entertainment side which fixes some bugs hopefully but no new games and then the education side with bug fixes and new games.
UTF LABS: Yeah so basically I think the last build was mostly stable with respect to any major bugs just a few issues with respect to the alignment and those kind of things. All of those are called but then we had to you know we tested a separate build for the multiple balls feature in keyboard and then we have so in the current build where we implemented other features such as the abuse detection and all those kind of feature with updated build it did not have the key for the multiple balls feature right so I'm working on merging and we also implemented the build system into the into the updated code that did not have the multiple balls feature. So now we have the same code with uh we just you know we just have to specify which uh the build we want either uh entertainment or the education and everything so whatever changes we are making with the two bugs that will be implemented in both the builds entertainment and uh educational both just uh only thing remaining is the multiple walls feature uh so i'm trying to match that uh since it's done so we'll be able to release builds updated builds for both educational and entertainment okay and so what what is the deadline for that uh yeah so i'd previously i wasn't able to merge those over get up so i'd then start to do it manually and i was able to you know get it working today uh i you know tested it initially and it was working there's only one uh bug remaining it's not a bug it's uh there's something remaining into the implementation uh so i should be able to complete it by next week So I'm hoping by the end of this week, I would have a tested build ready to release, but then we'll have to work on the documentation part.
Quan Gan: Okay, so is it a reasonable target to deliver this or to officially launch it by end of this month? I think we can do it Okay. Yeah, thank you.
UTF LABS: Okay, anything else, guys?
Ferenc Orban: Not on my son?
UTF LABS: Okay, I think it's probably from my side as well.
Quan Gan: Okay, thanks everybody.
Ferenc Orban: Okay, thanks.
Csaba: Bye, guys. See you.
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Amber D'Amico: Hi there you are hi all right okay we're setting it up right now and then I'll be able to tell you what wristband how do you know how to tell what update the wristbands are on.
Quan Gan: On the T-Taggers themselves they should say the 7.07 and then on the on the Zeus you'll need to go into the settings and then I think in the about the very last page there should be a number at the very bottom that tells you what measure.
Amber D'Amico: She is setting that up right now but while she's doing that I have a question for you. Is there a way that you can run Z-Tag without Wi-Fi or do you have to have?
Quan Gan: You don't need Wi-Fi? Yeah.
Amber D'Amico: How do you do that? all our sites are requiring us to set it up with Wi-Fi like it won't even let us go on the game without connecting to a Wi-Fi.
Quan Gan: Okay, yeah, so that shouldn't be the case. It should hold on one second. Wait one second.
Amber D'Amico: Now, I don't think this one won't work. We'll let them play.
Quan Gan: Okay, so the Wi-Fi is only needed for updates. When you first load the system it'll give you a registration screen. It asks you for a Wi-Fi but that's only for registration purposes. can hit that skip and then it'll just go into your main menu. and you could run your games.
Amber D'Amico: OK, you just have to take one of the recipients up.
Quan Gan: But once you've registered and logged in, let's say you have Wi-Fi at one point and you logged in and registered, it shouldn't be you to get Wi-Fi again for running games anymore.
Amber D'Amico: OK, I think when we were trying to set it up, like it would just keep asking for a Wi-Fi password and we didn't, we're trying to connect it, but then I don't think we've ever tried to play it without Wi-Fi.
Quan Gan: OK.
Amber D'Amico: Can you go to the settings? I'll go back to the name of you. OK. Yeah, where do we? Okay, so what did you say how to find the Zeus?
Quan Gan: Okay, so if you press the cog button, so are you in the menu?
Amber D'Amico: We're in the settings.
Quan Gan: In the settings, right? So what is the last tab you see?
Amber D'Amico: It should be about or something? Let me show you. This is where we're at.
Quan Gan: Can you see? Okay, go to the last tab. to the about. Okay, so what does that version say?
Amber D'Amico: Seems the Zeus is not registered.
Quan Gan: Kindly sign in again. Okay. What is the number right below the about?
Amber D'Amico: 2.6.9.
Quan Gan: Okay. Do you see the right word that you about tab is like physically where it says about? There should be a small string. What does that say? 2.6.9? I'm wondering if there is a newer version. Let me boot up my system here and see if it matches what you have.
Amber D'Amico: Okay. Okay. Sounds good.
Quan Gan: Okay, give me about 2 minutes. Something we can verify as well is. go to the devices tab and then hit reset devices again and that should reassign all your numbers. Okay. Here I'm going to move my laptop over here. Okay so you see here um when you normally load up if you didn't register ever it it will go to this screen and you can hit skip for now I know take you right into the game menu. Oh okay yeah um okay so we registered so maybe that's why yeah so if you've registered then it should just go into uh you should hold on let me turn on all the other games so you see so this should match what you have right now right yep okay so one question this is a perfect example so
Amber D'Amico: This one is ZTiger 14, and so it says on here that ZTiger 14 is charging, but it's not. It's like out of the port and it won't connect to the game. Do you know how? So there's it.
Quan Gan: So there's no Wi-Fi bar on there. This might be a router issue.
Amber D'Amico: Okay.
Quan Gan: Does that happen consistently with this one unit, is it sometimes this one or sometimes a different one?
Amber D'Amico: It's sometimes this one. I feel like sometimes at different schools, like some watches don't connect. Okay. But yeah, I think that's a consistent thing.
Quan Gan: Okay. It might be a router setting.
Amber D'Amico: Okay.
Quan Gan: I'd have to check a little bit more on my side before I get back to you, Okay. The thing is happening is when these things are booting up. of some kind of interference with some some other equipment possibly and then once it basically assigns an IP but it got disconnected it's not going to reassign it again and that's why the tagger is now logging on okay may resolve itself if you waited a day and tried it again it should it should connect but it's something with the router setting so I might have to go in there and change that that setting for you okay that's fine whatever you need to do that just like one that was like a perfect example of what we've seen with like yeah the numbers will mismatch if they're not actually connected so basically the okay I want you to always know is do you see the Wi-Fi bars on top of here um so once basically when you turn it on you wait about 10 seconds or so if the system is working this should have Wi-Fi first pop up.
Amber D'Amico: yeah, do you see how it's, yeah.
Quan Gan: If it's not popping up, then it's very possible the numbers are going to be mismatched because it's not talking to the system.
Amber D'Amico: Okay. And then, uh, Is that something that like, how do we fix that on our end? that something we can fix on our end? Or is that something that we will just have to like reach out to you about?
Quan Gan: If it is the router setting, um, it's something that I might have to go in remotely with my team to go in the back end and change something. It's a little bit more involved because it's not the software update would do. Let me verify that first.
Amber D'Amico: Okay. you can just get back to me about that.
Quan Gan: Yeah. But it's when that's happening. It's not on all the tag, right?
Amber D'Amico: It's usually on like one or two. Yeah, it's only on like one or two or whatever one is, I think at most it's been three.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. Yeah. Um, yeah. It's it's not an easy fix other than you just kind of might have to wait about 24 hours before the like the IP has to get refreshed, but I'm trying to see if I can turn that to be as low as like one or two minutes, and then it should refresh itself.
Amber D'Amico: Okay, perfect. Also, so we've noticed that some of the games have just like random glitches. One of the things was like the tag just won't like a sign, which is something we just talked about. And then sometimes it just like stops. Do you have any like techniques for us to use? Like sometimes we'll turn it on and turn it back on and it'll be fine, but then sometimes it won't work that way.
Quan Gan: Do you like, can you explain what is happening when you say it stops?
Amber D'Amico: Yes, so I have a photo. Let me find it one time. But we were playing it and the wristband. Let me find this photo. Wristband like did this.
Quan Gan: It's scrambled.
Amber D'Amico: Okay. And then here's like another photo where it just kind of like. That's the best way to describe it.
Quan Gan: That to me seems like a hardware issue. Okay. That could be because they've been knocked around and there might be a loose connection. That doesn't look like a software issue anymore.
Amber D'Amico: Okay. And in that case, is that something? What should we do with those?
Quan Gan: Yeah. So we would go through the standard warranty process.
Amber D'Amico: Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Just reach out to our team saying you have two broken taggers and then they'll go through a warranty process of replacing it.
Amber D'Amico: Okay. Sometimes when we notice that though, we like turn them off and turn them back on and then they're fine.
Quan Gan: like it's not something that's consistent like on the screen are you finding that happening on the same device over and over again or not or it's floating around um that one has been on the same z tagger combo but I haven't seen or heard any from the others it's only that one z tag yeah so I would say if you're seeing any issues like maybe put a sticker or something to mark it and see consistently on that unit because if it is then it's most likely a hardware issue but if it kind of randomly occurring for example the connection issue that software issue okay perfect I'll have the school that had that problem I'll have them put a sticker on the ones that happen like that and then I'll probably reach out to your team again and give them an update on that sure
Amber D'Amico: So, I think the only other thing I need to clarify myself on is the when we talked about the number of the bands don't match the computer is that the same thing as like the band doesn't have the bar.
Quan Gan: I think so. Yeah, because as far as our system goes, if it's connected, then the number has to be consistent. So the only time consistent is just it's not getting the signal to update the number.
Amber D'Amico: Okay. Okay. And you're going to check into that.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Amber D'Amico: Okay. Perfect. I think that is all we have on our end.
Quan Gan: Do you have the system with you for the next few days? If I were to give you a video, you'd be able to try it out.
Amber D'Amico: Yes. Yes.
Quan Gan: I can definitely do that. Okay. And you also have the little tiny keyboard that came up with it, right?
Amber D'Amico: Yeah, we were wondering what do you use that for?
Quan Gan: kind of for this potential issue. Like you have to get into the backend.
Amber D'Amico: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay, perfect.
Amber D'Amico: We haven't been using it.
Quan Gan: Right. It's not like you're not supposed to have to use it, but this kind of thing, it might be a router issue. So I might give you some instructions on going into the back end of the system and then changing a route specific setting. And then we'll see.
Amber D'Amico: Yeah, you can email me or email me a little recording and then and then just have you follow through with it. Okay, I can do that.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Amber D'Amico: I appreciate you meeting with us.
Quan Gan: This is going help us a lot.
Amber D'Amico: We love your product though. It's been a hot hit at our schools.
Quan Gan: you tell me a little bit more about your use cases.
Amber D'Amico: love to learn more about, you know, how are the girls? I have three other girls in here. I don't know if you've seen, but we're all at different schools and Our kids absolutely love it if they can do it every day. Yeah, they Because they get kind of crazy with it and yeah Okay, I think they get it like they asked me like missy everyone Are we doing D tag and we've had to move it like every Friday because yeah, but they just get like It's like a special privilege. I want to make sure they're using it correctly. We don't want them to hurt it but No, it's a big hot commodity. I had parents emailing me asking how often they're doing it because they want them to do it some more Well, no Jordan they love the zombie survival of the zombie survival especially with the doctor They love the concept of a doctor.
Quan Gan: Okay That's the one we probably play the most Yeah You guys do any do you guys do any obstacles or other things to put out on the field with them?
Amber D'Amico: No, do you have any?
Quan Gan: Well, it could be as simple as like cones or just some kind of like soft barriers. it's like, you know, an open space. Are you doing it in a gym or what's the set?
Amber D'Amico: Well, so we thought that it had to have Wi-Fi, so we haven't only been doing it in a gym.
Quan Gan: I don't know. You can do it out in the middle of the woods if you wanted to.
Amber D'Amico: We might start trying that because I think outside might be a little bit better for our circumstance, but we haven't done any barriers or anything, which I think would kind of be funny. Their wrists are so small that sometimes the Z-Taggers kind of like...
Quan Gan: Okay, so we'll help you with a couple of frequently encountered issues or things you can So normally you put your Z-Taggers on like this, right? For smaller wrists, you can double it over the other way. Okay, I will. Yeah. Okay. So that's something we're adding to a new instructional video just to help you guys with that.
Amber D'Amico: Okay. you easily do that.
Quan Gan: I mean, the other Clujie way is like you basically double it over like this. That might be too tight, but...
Amber D'Amico: Yeah, that was... That's what I do with one of my kindergarteners and it's just that way.
Quan Gan: Yeah, just flip. So normally it flips this way, but for smaller, just flip it the other way, like double it over. Okay. So that'll be something to... Like if the kids get too rowdy with a lot of the games, especially for new players, it's good to show them how the interaction works before you play it, meaning bring two Z-Taggers like at a distance, like slowly together and you can show them that it actually tags even as far as 10 feet if you're just slow, right?
Amber D'Amico: Yes, they've noticed that too. Like we actually did that at my school. Well, we showed them, I'm like, you don't have to be like that to tag. I, I could tag Jess if I was right here. So they get that concept. I don't, that's why when the glitches happen, I think we were confused because there's, we're not doing any, like, watch on watch contact. If anything, they're just kind of like sticking their hand out more like this.
Quan Gan: Well, you show them that the sensor is actually here facing forward. So if they're just their hand out, they're actually shooting upward. So, so you want them to have the screen facing each other.
Amber D'Amico: That's actually how they connect. Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah. So there's little window up at the top. That's the sensor that's both sending signals out and they're receiving signals. So if they know that mechanism, it'll probably give them more accuracy.
Amber D'Amico: Okay, good to know. I will go over that with everyone.
Quan Gan: And then other things you can do, let's say for, for example, red, like green light. But that game is a wonderful add-on to a lot of other activities you already do. So let's say you want to run a scavenger hunt, and now, well, not a scavenger hunt, a relay race. Let's say you're doing a relay race, just a random relay race without Z-Tag. But now you add Z-Tag on there, and you say you have to complete a relay race without getting out or with a certain amount of points. So now, while they're doing their obstacles or whatever, they're also very aware of controlling their bodies, whether they move or not.
Amber D'Amico: That's a good idea. We haven't really done any extra, and yeah, we kind of just have been doing the basics of the games, but I love all those ideas.
Quan Gan: Consider things that you're already doing and see how you can come up with some creative ideas of mixing Z-Tag in there. So whether that's like teaching them how to dribble some balls, or maybe a spoon with an egg in there and try to run from one side. Yeah, we have some games that we're looking to release by end of this year. It's a little bit more educational focused, so you might be matching English Spanish words. Do you have Spanish speaking populations?
Amber D'Amico: Not at my school. I don't think you do that either, but at some schools in Columbia do.
Quan Gan: We're also adding some like number sequences. So it's just a little bit more just trying to get the educational component in there as well as the movement. But let me see if there's any other combinations of things that I might be able to send you and then you can basically take that as a almost like different ingredients you have and then based on that you should be able to come up with a whole. Variety of games. Yeah, if you've seen anyone do like I like the idea of a relay race and we do that We have like a bunch of clubs here That like incorporate like obstacle courses and stuff So I think that would be good to include with Z tag, but if you have any more ideas, I know we're trying everything we can we've also done a team version of Zombie survival So I'll describe this to you Let's say you start with That's a 12 people Six of them are zombies Three of them are humans and three of them are doctors Humans and doctors are on one team and the zombies are another team Yep, and what you're gonna do is start the game and see how long the the doctors can keep the humans alive Then the zombies you're gonna have them like all line up on one side of the field and have them Let's say every 10 seconds or whoever you want to regulate every 10 seconds come into the field So it's kind of like a human version of tower defense. Have you played those games? Yeah, so it's basically the zombies are trickling into the field and eventually you're gonna have six zombies versus Three doctors, so they're gonna kind of overwhelm them and eventually infect all the humans So the humans are kind of like you can treat them like capture the flag They're basically a moving flag. They're trying to stay alive, but eventually they'll probably all get converted So the game will stop once all of them get converted and then you can say okay this team team a survive for Two and a half minutes okay with their doctor trying to you know save their humans And then you swap the teams so okay now that team becomes the infecting zombie team and then the original zombie team You do half human half zombie and then see how long they can survive. So now it's actually a team competition That is interesting.
Amber D'Amico: I would I wonder how our kids would do it. Yeah Do you one thing we've noticed with zombie tech is when we incorporate a doctor We usually only do one and it gets like really really overwhelmed Do you recommend doing more than one doctor?
Quan Gan: I think you'd you'd have to kind of cater to the crowd Really, this is something you're you're almost like a DJ like you have to see is your like how rowdy your audience is and how like crazy So I would say use your best judgment and seeing if that one child is getting way overwhelmed or not You may add more the balance of it is this Thank if you got too many doctors, the zombies may eventually feel defeated because they can't even affect one person.
Amber D'Amico: Right.
Quan Gan: And so that's why we do have in the settings a limit on how many times the doctor can heal or if they have a cool down period.
Amber D'Amico: Yeah. Yeah. And we played with that. I think what we've noticed when we play that, like, all the second infected will go run towards the doctor and the doctor is like, whoa. And then I think it auto makes him heal the human and it's just a big thing.
Quan Gan: So I don't know. Yeah. You may want to add more. You can also look at giving humans additional lives so that they're not immediately going to get saved.
Amber D'Amico: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Also, like it really depends if you have other crops or obstacles. mean, we've done the zombie survival Paintball field before and but they got bunkers, right? So it's not just all about oh, I got it back I got to go find the doctor.
Amber D'Amico: They're like playing hide-and-go-seek while they're doing the whole thing.
Quan Gan: So So yeah, it could get really exciting if you're adding these props or You know places to hide around Yeah Okay, well, this is great.
Amber D'Amico: My team's gonna love this. I feel like we've Played it and we all love it. We just I think there's just like my Things here and there that have been happening and we're like we want to keep playing but something happens So I'd love to help you with that.
Quan Gan: So let let me get back to you on resolving the The connectivity thing.
Amber D'Amico: Um, okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and then Other than that just keep me posted and if you guys have any photos or videos or anything I would love to see how you're playing.
Amber D'Amico: Yeah, definitely we will We will be reaching out with that because our kids love it and we appreciate it Wonderful, okay No, I think that's it.
Quan Gan: Okay, all right. Perfect. Thanks. Thank you. Bye, team.
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Vania Chen: person yeah hi kuan hi kuan jerry jerry is with you uh hello okay now i didn't realize we have the same hairstyle kuan yui hey jerry hi uh look uh i just i just send out the i don't know if i speak in chinese right he's wearing uh uh english is fine he's wearing a ai transcribing glasses so yeah wow wow but yeah anyways i just sent out the annual report for everybody so if you look into your email uh you can pull it up um and then uh well i didn't know he has a ai translation glasses but you know uh i i think do my best attempt to translate everything into Chinese um I hope that I don't anyways so yeah anyways so please uh just uh let me know I'll I'll share it here as well okay yeah we have it downloaded okay so but then uh well let's fill it read the reading all right does everybody have the report yeah okay because I think it will go faster since some sections have text if you read ahead okay and everything is translated so you should be able to read ahead
Philip Hernandez: So essentially DeepSky and I put this together and I think DeepSky worked on all the numbers and I kind of worked on some of just the wording of the summary but whatnot. I put here a summary, I think I've already said most of this to everyone and I wanted it to be here translated just so that it would be clear for everybody but I think the high points is just that Gantum in the last few years has done really well and everyone should be really happy and proud that Gantum has improved its numbers so much that it is a pretty, like it's a functioning business, I would say it like, but you know it's like I think Gantum has moved from the stage of an early company where it really needs like too much help into a relatively stable. company. And I think that's all really good news. The main issues is just balancing the cash flow, which is still an issue. That's the first one. And the second issue is just planning for next year, which could involve tariffs. there are, of course, we have other goals and other like market factors and all that's here in later pages. But today's meeting is mainly focusing on these two items. is on making sure that our main shareholders, which would be Jerry, Ping and Kwan are, you know, fluent in the Ganttum's financial position. And then these guys prepared different strategies that we can take to address the cash shortfall that we have for Ganttum. And then we We'll look at the tariff plan since the terrace is a lot about just waiting to see what's going to happen. So we have strategies that we're really just going to look at them and talk about some of them. A lot of them involve Jerry's cooperation, so he needs to help us with that. And then aligning with our vision, I've already reviewed this with the Gantem staff during our annual meeting. So a lot of this is stuff that we've already covered with the staff. So this portion is really just to cover with the executive team here. And I really wanted to highlight that we really need Jerry to be fluent in all of this information. As an owner, we really want Jerry to be involved more. And I think this is why we were trying to get everyone on the call and get it translated. I know that Jerry does have the transcription and his English is good. But now I think that we wanted to just make sure that the translation was here because we want to bring everybody All the owners together so that we can you all can decide because it's not going to be our decision You know deep sky and I are not going to decide how to Cover the shortfall. It's mainly going to be Something that between Ping and Jerry and Quan they have to decide so you know We might we might put you guys into a room and let you discuss that portion That's that's gonna be your portion. Our portion is just we want to make sure everybody's on the same page Yes, okay questions comments concerns on the agenda on the review with those items So I put here this we probably want you probably want to read on your own as well because it's a lot of information but This is the state of the industry, which is what I reviewed during our annual staff meeting already and this report puts together my information like from from being in the industry and and I kind of put everything together here like this is this is more about the industry as a whole and where it is going that I see and where I think it impacts Gantt and I tried to where I could I tried to cite specific data for you so that you know you had challenges or you had a data points in here you can read that on your own because I know it's a lot if we the main part right down there is the very end which is positioning Ganttum for success and there are like four trends that I think Ganttum could capitalize on in 2025 and that's kind of what we talked about at our staff meeting and I've already mentioned this all to you but regional partnerships because The UAE market is growing and regional partnerships would be us trying to establish a distribution network there. China, I did, this week I did meet with a lot of folks who'd run tourism in China and they, yeah, finally that's probably better, the Chinese version. I did meet with folks in China and they said that China, the China tourism is recovering that a lot of the operators there are seeing double digit growth the past quarter and they're very optimistic that new work will come back there but it's not going to be as fast as the work going into the UAE and we don't have a distribution that worked there and so that's why that's item one, it's like we got to got to fix that and I've been working on that but we'll work more on that. Number two is the, so in general thing entertainment is becoming more themed which is a good thing for us because generally our fixtures go into the more interactive environments. But for number two, is why we're working on the ethernet thing, essentially, the lights, the fixtures are still too difficult for most integrators to integrate. There's too much friction, basically. So we need to reduce the friction point of integrating them into systems. So that, our view this year, reducing the friction is two elements. Once one element is the pricing, and the second element is the interoperability, which would be the ethernet compatibility, making sure that it can, basically, the lights should be able to function in other systems to make them more able to be integrated into larger projects. that's number two. Number three is there's a big push for sustainability that's not really in the US. It's actually more coming from Europe and the UAE. But Ganttum's low light. or low voltage features, I think we can use that as a good advantage going forward because a lot of the industry is trying to calculate their energy usage in a better way. I think that's a big thing. then Halloween is becoming a much larger piece now of the theme park and themed entertainment space. so it's kind of like we were maybe a decade too early actually. It's like previously nobody liked Halloween, but you know it was just for the individual haunters. But now it's like the thing. It's the big trend that everybody is talking about. IAPA is talking about it. IAPA has a dedicated section in their impact study as well. So it's really big element. And I think we can lean into our history in Halloween in a way that allows Now to sell Halloween to theme parks to the bigger the bigger clients. Well, we already had a lot of sales this year. Actually, um, specifically for Halloween items into theme parks. It was maybe 10% of our sales, which is an enormous chunk because a few years ago it was only maybe two or 3%. So that's a that's a big opportunity. Those are the four trends that I have noticed that we're going to be addressing in this coming year. And you'll see that later when we talked about our 2025 goals that I talked about with our staff that we have elements to address all these trends. Yeah, I think after this, it's into the finances. So I'm going to hand this off because I'm done.
Vania Chen: No, the following couple pages basically it's just to I think Philip touch on that really quickly that it just basically showcasing that Again, Tom was actually doing pretty good from the last couple of years that the trending has been going up. We're going more and more. We're getting a little bit more efficient. We're getting better profitability. We're getting overall, the, the, if you look at the financial compared to year to year, we're all trend up from this for this report at pool from 22 to 24. So we are, we are in the training up on the margin as well as our net income. So it does shows that we're getting more efficient and we're getting profitable. There is a, but however, I think every year there's the whole cash thing coming up and then that's always race concern. And that's basically this, the next page liquidity summary. It's always, it's basically showcasing kind of a brief idea of where did the cash go overall. So every year. So this is how you look at the chart. This is the beginning cash from the beginning of the year and then this portion, the first portion was exactly how much we collected overall, including all of the revenue collection, all of the customer deposit collection, any other possible collection, basically all the money collected. So, we just look at the 2024 as a overall picture, we actually collected 1.2 million dollars in 24 in cash, but and then out of those 800, 76,000, 77,000 goes to inventory purchase, it goes, it literally go to the inventory, prepay inventory component, all that inventory purchase, anything that we purchased over. And then we actually pay back $231,000 in loans in 2024. And then we have some details related. We have some credit card. So, but the biggest chunk is the loan and the inventory. And then it actually end us. This is actually the. balance at the end of October. When we close out the book, we have $152,000 left in the bank. So basically, this is a graph kind of showing you exactly how much we're, we're, we're our cash web, basically.
Michael Hsu: So I'll just, I'll, after this, I'll start my question.
Quan Gan: Yeah. So, just, can you tell me the, where is the other half, you know, compared to our about 2.4 million revenue? Yeah, where is the other 1.2 accounted for?
Michael Hsu: I'm sorry. it's all, it's, so that's, that's exactly what I was going to address. think of the first column as your net business activity. That's how much cash you built from business activity. So the 2.4 is revenue. That's not all the money we collected. That's all the money we collected, subtract all the expenses that attributed to that. So just think of, so at beginning we have 158 and then all of our business, all of our business activity generated 1.2, then you're like, oh, well, I should have 1.2 in the bank. Well, you don't because paid inventory, pay down loans, pay down Z tag. And that's, that's where you see that's why net net, we're actually like negative 6,000. Does that make sense?
Quan Gan: Yep.
Vania Chen: And the, the next one, well, I know, Paul, you requested that this is this big chunk is basically answering the, the, the, this as of 2024 year today, January through October, these are basically the. Cash out by percentage, by numbers and by percentage overall, right? And then it, it, it kind of did this shows that, you know, if you look at the pie chart green and greenish is in the
Michael Hsu: or related blueish is business with like the operation related and then the orange one yellow orange one that's low and the purple is the the the owner expenses okay so I kind of I know that is a lot of numbers so I kind of color coded it a little bit and everything is from large to small so you can kind of take a look at but I kind of color coded it a little bit so you can see the now and I'll add to this real quick because this is actually a big question that all of our clients that we are trying to educate them right now is the difference between profitability and cash flow right so profitability is great you guys saw the first page with the first page of financial profitability we're trending up better margin better profit cash flow it's not that great but then the probability is so good actually cover most of our cash flow and then now so you're like okay so this is actually a great cash spend so the difference is so one else says the two biggest category the green and the greenish the 35% and the 19% the inventory and prepay inventory those are inventory that we pay for that we did not generate revenue for and then the cost of good so are the inventory that we pay for and we generate a revenue for so that's why the 473 you'll see a number of similar to that on the P and L because that's that's measure so one measures performance right one measures performance the other just simply measure cash flow so basically we have $800,000 in cash that we pay for that we haven't that we haven't really you know benefited from yet so that's that's the difference if you're like hey if we buy so much inventory how come how come like we don't sell more it's just a timing timing issues and that's the gap that Philip I think is trying to make everybody understand this like performance is great but performance again I and Quan last time we talked we brought up the conversation of cash profit cash it takes cash right to buy inventory to pay our staff to generate Avenue and then it takes time for that to turn into profit and they eventually turn to the cash. And that's the timing difference that we're primarily trying to close the gap on.
Quan Gan: So the the 876, so that that's just sitting in the warehouse, right? Is that essentially what we're doing?
Vania Chen: Or it's up, no, some of us sitting in the warehouse, some of us are coming to us because all of the right now everything is prepaid.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, we count the prepaid in that as well. right now we're trying to order Chinese New Year stock. so there's a lot of, so this is always a timing problem. Like Michael's exactly right. The timing problem is that especially now when we are ordering for Chinese New Year, we are extending this for what, four or five, I don't know. But Michael, I have any idea like four or five months essentially. we're like, we're way, like the delay is like massive on this.
Michael Hsu: Yeah. Yeah. So the cash conversion cycle that we always look at is a couple of proportions, right? Number one, between we place the order and then getting the order, So lead time. And then once we get the order, how quickly we get rid of it? How quickly we sell it? So that's a sec, call it section two. And then once we sell it, how quickly do we build it and collect it? That's the term, right? So that's a financing. So you have production, production, and you have finance. So when we're looking at the business, we gotta look at each segment of those and then we're trying to crunch. Even, and once you plug this into a cash flow cash, that's which we have, you will see like even just three or four days make huge numbers, you know? Like I still, I still can't wrap my head around it. And that's just how it works, right? even if we just like, hey, if we can build people faster, if we can collect faster, if we can have better terms, if we can eat slower, even by just like one or two days, one or two days, that's a, you know, each section we're able to free up five days. And that's 15 days that will significantly help us without cash flow.
Philip Hernandez: And I do. just want to note to over the years, the last two years, this is what we have been working on. And the thing is we can only control what's in our control. And what's in our control is the terms that we give our customers. And we have, most of our customers do not have terms. They pay almost exactly on time. And that is extraordinary. Hardly any businesses anywhere operate are able to do that. It does actually hurt us that we have lost a few projects this year because our terms are so strict. Because most places, Disney Universal, expect net six year, net 90. But that would be unfeasible for us because of the way that this all pans out. And so we don't give terms to hardly anyone. And even on large projects, we require deposits. And so it's a really, we've been able to close that gap significantly, which has helped with our capture. flow. now we get into the issue of the two biggest factors are there's not a lot of demand for our stuff in Q1, but we have to order everything for Chinese New Year. So it's like we have two quarters stacked on top of each other that compound this time issue. And even though everything else we can control, everything we can control, I think the past two years we've controlled. But we can't control when the customer orders and we can't control, you know, that having to order for the Chinese New cycle. So like these two things are like, I mean, we probably could, might be talked about later, like that's that's the past two years have just been trying to reign in our customers stuff, which, you know, that's why we consolidated all of their discount levels to reduce it to help with our margins. And also is why we removed people's terms to help with this cash problem. But anyway, that's my take.
Quan Gan: Can I just check with Jerry just to make sure he understands?
Philip Hernandez: I was going to suggest that. Because I think actually Jerry can ask questions directly with Michael in this case.
Quan Gan: I don't think any way to define the next year's stock. Zintag is relatively small. This is only 3%. What they want to emphasize is that it's over 50%. The green one is stock. But not only the stock, it's also the that's not made by This means that this money... It's a payment, so it's already been spent, but it been to money. The company's capital flow is mainly three stages. The first stage is to sell. The second stage is to...
Michael Hsu: Production.
Quan Gan: Production.
Ping's iPhone: Production.
Quan Gan: have wait for your production. This is the time. The third stage is to get the money back to This is the normal flow. What we can control is to get the money Because other companies, if they want the money, they have to wait 30 to 60 days before they get money. We basically... We are forcing customers to pay for So this is the can control the money. It's a very time. This is actually a good thing. Now the most difficult thing is to save money and wait for the goods. This is the biggest in time. This is actually because it wasn't done But because it done it caused a lot of losses. The situation is I made the decision. So the rules can't be changed. And all the exports are paid first. the goods are paid first. Yes. So now the result is that when you run most of year, there is no problem. But at the end of year, it's very difficult because you are If the amount goes down, then you have to make a lot of money, and then you have to wait for a time, and then have to breathe, and you the energy. But I'm curious, actually, why this year there be this problem?
Vania Chen: Oh, there is such a problem in In fact, there are problems but at that time, actually, long as there is a recent problem, it is Ping and Ping helping out, helping out here.
Ping's iPhone: There seems to no sound.
Quan Gan: Okay. No sound? Can you it?
Vania Chen: Can hear it? Ping, you it? Hello?
Ping's iPhone: Can't it? Hello?
Vania Chen: Can other people hear it?
Quan Gan: No, we can hear it.
Vania Chen: Okay. Ping, can you Yes, I hear it Okay, now I hear In the few years, have that in the past few years, actually, every time there were actually Christmas times, there were the on the線.
Ping's iPhone: Yes, there will be such a thing. This year, because there a lot of things store, it's a bit tight. I'm not very clear about the details.
Michael Hsu: There are these problems every But PIN is our big stock. So PIN has solved this problem. PIN is our small bank, so it has solved this problem. But another thing, I hope that the Philippines is not too clear about it. We have been doing a good thing In addition to our profits and profits, we have taken a lot of those profits and returned the total debt. We used to owe a lot of money, and now we are returning PIN's money. We are starting to it So this is a difference. Although PIN has grown the past or three years, For example, the growth rate but the growth rate has been reduced to one aspect. In the was because we understood that we had bear the burden not paying the money, so we had pay the debt. This is part of The other part is that the debt we was almost same as In the past two years, we continued to bear the debt, but we started to pay it But like I said, this year we are going to discuss how we are going pay The company is getting better and better. The profit is getting better and But we don't have the air. We can't live on. We are to in the next six months. No profit is, we don't have money. What we don't money? The first problem is that we can the We can pay the debt back in We can pay debt few months. These are the two ways. We don't time right because when we making money, for example when April to October, there will be cash flows in. After these cash flows came in, we went out to pay some debt or something, but in November to December, after the new year, there was no cash flow.
Ping's iPhone: If there no cash flow, we have to discuss how to do it to survive this time, but is a matter of We have done some hard work We the trade with Charlie, and we slowly transfer them to Z-Type. This has already started, so there will be some changes from But this is a matter of time, not month. I think it's because the order is set to a very large number of goods, especially during the Festival, so some adjustments Now there be some improvements.
Quan Gan: I want to ask you about the end of I understand that the year, December 1st, may be of the Festival. Do you there be any problems with Yes.
Ping's iPhone: Actually, in the first quarter of this month, I a little bit nervous. From my experience, we all died the Festival. But at the end because the production stopped there, we had to pay budget. So there is a gap. time difference is about a month. The first quarter is a little bit tight. Last year, this year, we feel that we before.
Michael Hsu: Another thing that want add is that we about the Z-Tag. I'm against you. I also have a question about What this thing? I want to say that I to reach the Z-Tag. The first I want about the Z-Tag is that want ask the-Tag to reach the Z The other thing is that if I ask Phillip to reach the-Tag, I will be-Tag. This is the inventory part of So, no matter we are, whether it is in the利物 or in the cashier, we all have a target. I'm saying that I'm against it.
Quan Gan: 全部看嘛 從頭看吧 其實不是我啦 是巴娘 巴娘的工作就是從頭看到我 然後告訴每個人說 你的地方是哪裡可以幫公司 不管是利潤增加也好 或者是現金流 舒緩也好 對 我再加一句 比如說那個像 一大部分的這個利潤是被 我和家裡的Gantel公司在吃掉 但是我們其實很多做的事情是Zeta 所以現在我們在Gantel這邊也在減少 然後讓Zeta吃更多的 然後有一些開發費用 我們這塊也減少 然後讓Zeta再 再做 對 因為它這個等於是一直在 在發嘛 就等於Zeta一個起來了以後 就沒有這個問題 對 然後這時候 如果Zeta 就是完全就是 脫離了Gantel的這個需要的話 那其實Gantel的這個盈利 是非常健康 又更好了 又更好了 對 我們現在也沒有虧 我們現在也沒有虧
Vania Chen: It's just it's way better.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay.
Vania Chen: Okay.
Michael Hsu: Alright, we're caught up. And then just real quick, also, just real quick, we also, I also mentioned to Jerry, to Jerry that it's not like we're targeting him, that we actually made necessary call, I told Juan to move to $75,000 that got up. We're working on both profitability and cash flow. basically what you and Bonia have been working on is we looked at the company holistically both in a profitability perspective and in a cash flow perspective, and we're working on both of both both axels. So that's that's the actual thing we talked about. Otherwise, we just answered this question.
Vania Chen: Keep going. So the next portion is basically a really the overview of what were short of. So I did a quick update. saw as of today, the total cash in our bank account is 143. I say expected to collect is because I see our AR. Our AR is literally like I think at the end of the last month was 80,000. So we have very, very small AR to collect because like Philip said we are either they're all prepaid deposit terms. So we're very, very on time with our customer payments. our expected collect is actually not that high. So even if we with 80,000 collected is 223. Should I just say in Chinese?
Michael Hsu: I think there's some clarification right now.
Vania Chen: Okay. Okay. this is what we are currently. I think it's now. So today's balance is 14,000. And then, before the of what of the current AR? The AR is called the sales account. We can collect another $80,000. Because our sales accounts are always very small, because the customers' terms are very short. So everyone is very quick to pay. So our sales accounts are always maintained within 30 days. So they are very small.
Michael Hsu: And then, Gunn's text, Lisa today said that we still have $40,000 pre-paid. The customers will pay $40,000 again.
Vania Chen: The customers will pay $40,000 again.
Michael Hsu: So we to pay first.
Vania Chen: Perfect. So this will add up. Next, I will probably calculate what we need before We still have three payrolls haven't gone out of the bank yet. And then we still have bonuses the end of And then this time we will need to buy about $25,000. internet adopter this this this this 50,000 dollars will come out. Another one is the other one.
Philip Hernandez: Yes, I'm just going to tell Kwan the chip order here. Uh, we discussed this at the annual meeting, but since you were talking about that right now, it's going to just clarify where that about that. Uh, Kwan, the chip adapter is there because uh, we talked at the annual meeting about ordering another batch, like another year batch of the chips now to kind of potentially get around any stock issues and any freight issues and tariff issues ahead of time. So that's why this is here. It would have been ordered much later in the year, but we're concerned about getting about them getting here just because of all the issues. we put in Lisa wants to put in a pre-order for those.
Quan Gan: So that's that's what that item is.
Philip Hernandez: But yeah, we don't have to if they don't think we should need, but we think we should need that.
Quan Gan: I think this is This is little more than ones.
Philip Hernandez: That's it, I just wanted to clarify that one, sorry.
Vania Chen: Keep going. No, no, no. And the rest is what I calculated. We need something to pay before And then the couple of credit cards are all except Chase. Because when I was looking at Chase, Simon wasn't closed I just paid $50,000. Actually, a lot of things are a little bit more conservative. So then we don't have to freak out. far, if we say, I didn't count this $40,000 customer deposit, of course. And then, you estimate cash balance at the end of actually, we are small. That's basically what we can cover. But if we want to add... Because we are now planning to go with Jerry Warder, we already have more than 30,000, we already have a low rate, the low rate has lowered, and then we still have $80,000, $90,000 left go down, right? And then this is expected to the year to Jonathan, and then add, and then, but if we this, we will be negative, and then if we add it then it's we still need ongoing operation, at least need a month's, a month's cushion, so we can operate. Then this, this figure is purely out of hand income, I did not count the income, because I, like I said, my cash flow, I hope to be conservative. So this is part the output, so if we look now, if we to continue on to January, that our, our current shortfall is at $20 If we add the deposit of we have this shortfall. course, all the revenue can be collected can be our deposit. But January itself is a slow month. So, I'm not willing to estimate a lot.
Michael Hsu: We can have a lot of collections. I don't think so. Because the cash flow is like profit. If have money, you money. If you money, the company will fall. So, if you this, it's almost $200,000. you add the deposit of $40,000 us, the will be $200,000. $200,000 will allow us to peacefully until the end of
Vania Chen: You can go to the end January, then you can give Gantem some time to continue on the flow to the subsequent operations. In fact, in our opinion, there several more possible solutions. Of course, according to Jun Tao, the term will be the it was before. The idea we had at time was that we hoped that the be in the new year. In fact, we can normally do the as before, but only in the new year. In way, we push period of to the end of March and April When there are more cash flow customers can come in, we can sustain them. At that time, we return the money new year. One is that we now have PIN the of PIN. That's $10,000 a month. If we can stop paying PIN first, then these two boxes will probably be about $100,000. Probably a lower short of $10,000. This impact on the current 12 months will make Gantel much to deal with. Of course, rest is the cash injection, loan, either loan from bank or either payment from ZTAC. Payment from ZTAC, I don't know if that's realistic because that's quam, that's quam's money. Either way, there are a few.
Michael Hsu: 像你们一样你们可以讨论或者是发想或是maybe从这边开始当个出发点可能有其他的想法 这几个这几个方案吗这几个我们可能可以想到的方案 这当然这当然是是可能是你们要你们要稍微讨论一下那当然jerry rest assured what we're not asking for like我们其实并不是就是我们就跟魁道2017年这样子2017 2018 no no no no no they're not the same no no 想法只是把新年貨款这边稍微稍微换一下给我们一点一点点 这那这几个这几个是combination 因为是希望公平哦我们总是但希望就是就是公司本身其实是healthy It's healthy, and it's getting better and better. But now, company is still money, and it's in the hands of Now, it's looking for shareholders. It's not same as 3 years ago, 3 years ago we didn't help each but we are this period of and after we the money, we are giving it each other.
Vania Chen: In fact, like Philip just said, in fact, in this 25,000,,000 Ethernet and chip, it is not necessarily current order, it is just that he thinks that the current order is the company after a year. If we discuss it, then we don't have to order, then we can also change that part. So this may be a few. You have to discuss it Probably decide which direction to Yes, it is possible.
Michael Hsu: It is possible to say that everyone is ...
Vania Chen: Can not.
Michael Hsu: You are right, or ...
Vania Chen: Can not.
Michael Hsu: Anyway, everyone is ... Yes, because it's quite sad because he can understand that he is the CEO, his job is to transport, but he is not the shareholder. In the Gantung, in fact, Gantung was the most difficult, it was about the three shareholders, the of the the money of the company, money of money money of Now it's about the money, but they have some thoughts about the proposal Philips is these, he thinks he can save but he can maximize the money in the Let's all these data on the screen. Next, it's about the company, Philips, and the four discussion results. We can tell you that if you decide to go A, what it look like? Or you can also tell us that if we create another C, what it look
Quan Gan: Okay.
Michael Hsu: Okay. Any questions or any thoughts?
Quan Gan: You want us to discuss that right now or continue on?
Michael Hsu: Okay. So you guys, I don't know if there are more of them.
Vania Chen: Do you have more? Well, the next is the Earth planning and 255 goal. That was our meeting agenda.
Michael Hsu: So we got to the point where we explained the cash flow and then we're saying, hey, at this point, we gave you some proposals here. some ideas, but it's up for the, so you are obviously coming from, because this year is the CEO, you're head of, you're head of operations or you're coming from, you know, maximizing company performance with minimal expenses. But now the other day, it's up to you. And so you're coming from operations perspective. And the three owners are coming from, hey, they own this, they're either going to fund it or benefit from in it. So it's a discussion. and it's not just the all or nothing, right? It's not like, hey, Jerry's going to take all the hit, or Quan's going to take all the hit is, you know, they can discuss it. They can either choose A plus B or A plus C, or they can come up with a new plan. And our job, you know, Deep Sky's job is to basically forecast and tell you, well, if you choose A, this is what it looks like. If you choose A and B, this is what it looks like. You guys are, you guys are wanting to discuss that right now, or do we move on to everybody on the same page? And then they can find a different time. You guys can find this guy to discuss, and then we can move on to Terif, or, I don't know.
Quan Gan: Okay, so we'll discuss this in person at a later time.
Vania Chen: Okay.
Michael Hsu: Okay, so I'll say, Terif.
Vania Chen: All right. Onto the, onto the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the crazy part.
Philip Hernandez: All right. So, yeah. Yeah. So I think this is another one where you can mostly read it. And there's not actually like a decision here because we don't know what's going to actually happen. It's more of a scenario planning of things that we could do. But the proposed currently proposed tariff is 60% on anything coming in from China and then 10% on everything else that comes in from any other country. So that would be a significant increase on what we are doing. And that is supposed to happen in the first within the first hundred days. There was actually news that broke today that President Elect Trump intends to do that on his first day in office, which would really shorten our timeline to. January basically before that comes into effect. So that is a pretty existential crisis for Gantem because of the amount of money that comes in. So we have outlined five options for us based on what would be happening. Obviously, it's possible that nothing happens that then that would be great if nothing actually happened that would that would be great. The second option would be, which is what a lot of people are talking about, which is like where you just raise, raise the essentially just pass on the tariff. I talked with a lot of manufacturers at IAPA and nobody knows what to do, basically, because we're not sure what's going to happen. But the second option would really depend on whether or not the other lighting manufacturers are going to pass on the tariff or not. I think the problem is a lot of the a lot of other companies have been moving out of China since 2020. And we haven't so we're entirely dependent on China, but Competitors are not so the challenge with that is if there is a tariff it might Only impact us. like it's possible that it would it might only it might disproportionately impact us as is the the better way of putting it and so So that we option to would be trying to pass it on but option to depends on like How much the other how much our competitors are like also doing that? But if we did that we would actually add it as a line item to our bill Which would we'd call it a tear of tax, which is what we would do and I spoke with a few of our customers already at Iapa about this and I think the consensus is it's it's better for us to add it as a tax than to raise our prices Because then they can communicate to their customers that it's a tax. It's not a price increase, right? So it kind of it's more transparent that way And then option three obviously manufacturer in the US that is the most stable option for the long-term growth of the company because Things will never get better between the US and China and potentially Just because the Trump administration has very nationalistic view. They really do not want to work with You know, it's foreign policy is a I don't know what to it They want stuff in the US. So like The best like four-year plan would be the manufacturer in the US, but that's obviously Very difficult. So but it's an option. I'm just putting it there because it's an option number four would be manufacturing in Japan, which would Still be Tariff increase, but it would only be a 10% increase Versus 60% but that Jerry would need to do that in like January like it would need to be a fast item We also talked about having an international fulfillment center So if we could The best thing to do would be to put up a fulfillment center wherever Jerry's going to go, so put one in Osaka, and then we could ship hopefully hold product there, and that way at least the international market would be unimpacted by it. But international sales only represents 20% of our sales, so the 80% is still going to be impacted with that plan, so that's only really like a half measure. Of course the last one is the thing we don't want to do, which would be to cut our margin based off the differential, which would mean I don't think we would have enough profit to cover that, but I don't know.
Vania Chen: So the tariff right now, let's say that we're paying approximately on the duty and for duty and all that we're paying about $130,000 increasing and to 60% we're talking about jumping up to about 560,000 about for that. Our current margin with the 52% with the increase, we're actually going to drop to about 35% of profit margin before we even hit the salary. So, to put that in dollar perspective, we would right now with all the cost of goods with everything, we have about 1.3 for our operation overall, but with the increased tariff, we're probably going to left about $800, $900,000 for our operation, which is not definitely not enough to cover for our expenses. we're actually going to go into the, that's going to happen, that means we're going pretty negative for the next four years. Yeah.
Philip Hernandez: So, I think we had talked before about whether or not. So, in essence, we don't have enough profit to pay for the tariffs. That's what I'm trying to let's say. So we would need to do something more than just cutting the margin. Like we would need to like try and pass on as much as we can, you know, at least 10% you know, to the client in form of attacks to match our competitors or move as much as we can to the US so that we have less items that are tariffed or move as much as we can to Japan. I don't know. These are just, this is all we could come up with, basically. And it probably is going to take a combination of whatever we can do as fast as we can do it, unless nothing happens. But I just want to stress, even if there are no tariffs, and I hope there are not like really, really hoping that that doesn't happen. I just want to stress that like, it's not going to get better. Okay, it's not going to get better. Relationships between the US and China are not going to get better. So even if there are no tariffs now, It is like we need some solution here. It's it's a long-term solution.
Quan Gan: That's that's it You know, even bought I was using Chinese so just We also know a month or two months later, there may be some changes on Or it's about taxes Uh, what I want to say is that we don't need to make deal for This is the first point Because this thing didn't happen That may happen, but it didn't happen So of course I will think It's like bullets can still fly for a So Jerry says Since Since it's unknown It doesn't really help us to Set up influx
Philip Hernandez: Additional anxiety so he he wants to just he wants to wait and see I Disagree I disagree a lot because We cannot pivot fast enough If we don't have a plan, I mean This is why we do crisis planning as leaders because we need to be able to move quickly and It's better to make a plan and never use it than not to make a plan at all And if we do not plan for it now The thing is that the terrace can happen in one day It's like this isn't a thing that you know, we'll take long amounts of time a tariff can happen when we wake up tomorrow and So we need to be able to move quickly so in order for a ganttum to be able to move fast and to be agile we need to have a plan and also Our staff is really upset My staff is crying My staff is worried about their children. My staff is worried about their livelihoods and I don't want them to quit and go somewhere else. So as leaders, we need to have a plan to be able to reduce their anxiety and to let them know that we can lead them through this.
Quan Gan: That's what I mean, I don't wanna panic anybody.
Philip Hernandez: And this isn't anxiety, this is about planning to make sure that everybody knows that we're gonna be able to get through this. That's more what it's about. It's about like assuring everyone that we work with. You know, that's why we've been talking about this.
Quan Gan: Many big companies will withdraw from China. I see every day. But from my point of view, from all I've touched on, the export, including the market, our company has reached a very anxious state. Because our ship is small. fishing line is also very fast. It's not a Don't take it It's not necessary. Because of the export, I have only two or workers doing this. This is not possible. Life itself is not possible. So don't call it Philip, do you need me to translate? I don't know if you have a translator on your side.
Philip Hernandez: I don't have a translator on my side, no.
Quan Gan: Okay, so Jerry is saying, secondly, if we were to be worried and anxious, From Jerry's standpoint, the news that he hears on the China end is caused to be even more anxious than on the US side. they have, yeah, they have a much more clear outlook on that side. he doesn't, he's still, you know, holding relatively stoic about it. And he's, he's expressed that the the fact that again, Tim has lasted for this long is a is a testament of our agility. And also the fact that we're small enough to be able to enter a lot of these larger currents that that may affect, you know, multinationals more, but we're more nimble to get through some of that.
Michael Hsu: Oh, I think I think there's a gap. I'm hearing a gap. Whereas Jerry is stating that there's no need for anxiety, which I agree, but I also agree with Philip that it's not about anxiety and stress, but more about planning and being ready for it, you know, and I and I get that we're a smaller ship and we can turn faster. But I mean, rather than having a reactive, like this is my my thinking, right, like rather than having a major reaction, if we know it's coming up, why not have a plan in place? don't think it's not. And even if we don't execute, you know, if we don't execute the plan, at least we know what the plan is. think that's why I love it. Am I hearing you correctly, Philip? Or did I just misunderstand you?
Philip Hernandez: No, I that's exactly right.
Michael Hsu: Yeah.
Philip Hernandez: I think it's two things. I think the ship going through the storm is a pretty good analogy. here, know, but you same thing, you know, you train to be you train to be able to go through the storm so that when the storm happens, you know what to do. And I think that's exactly what I'm saying we need. I think the other way of looking at it too is that we're a larger company that has manufacturing all over the world actually is a better position. In this case, because we're so reliant on China that because we're smaller, that's why we need to be more agile. I guess that's my point, like we need to be more agile because we're smaller and part of being agile is being able to move our entire team quickly. I mean, you know, just because we're not upset doesn't mean that they're, I mean, they're upset too. I think what they want is, you know, to show that we are thinking about this and we have a plan because they're not like, I think Jerry is confident in Gantum because he's seen all of it and because he has this perspective as an owner, our staff does not, so they're very worried. And I really don't want them to quit. That's why I've been trying to give them a plan to show them that we will be able to steer it through what happens. Because I do believe that we do any combination of these things that we'll be able to get through it. But it's more about having that plan just in case so that everyone is not worried. I'm not anxious really. For me, it's just having the plan to move. It's not about being anxious and worrying. It's like we just make a plan and then if it happens you just do the plan. It's pretty easy, but our staff is worried and that's why we have to show them that we be able
Quan Gan: We have a plan Why? Because Japan doesn't say there is a cost on it It must to Japan But Japan may have new technology It may help us develop products More is long-term interest Not for this trade war I don't think it will become a reality But I will do this Because this also It's something I need to do. Let me translate it Okay, Jerry is talking about manufacturing in Japan. It's been on his radar and his goal for a very long time. However, it is not the primary driver to go there to save cost or to get around the tariffs. His primary motivation for any development in Japan is that we may have access to more advanced technologies there. So his position in moving to Japan has always been there. That's what he wants to do, but he doesn't want to make it a reactive approach to tariffs. So in this case, The powerful strategy is not fight anyone, because we all know that if you fight, no matter how trade war is, both sides are not good. But the best way is not to fight. So according to the art of war, best tactic or the reason why you have a strong offense isn't necessarily the fact that you actually use it. It's really just to, it's more of your defense is to do not actually use it on the offensive, to just to have it for preparation so to neither side really wants. to get into the actual conflict, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Philip Hernandez: Right. A big part of the art of war is also planning. There's a big section in there. Plan for what is difficult while it is easy. And I think that's what we need to do. You know, it's Just because if we wait to make the plan then we're not gonna be able to move as quickly we're gonna be caught off guard, but I would On the sales and on that item. It's not Like we go over this every year, but it's more like It's not that The interoperability is our plan for the sales because Like the the market that we are selling into is not any fundamentally larger as a percentage of the overall theme entertainment market and Essentially all of our lights function in the same way basically like we're not producing a product that serves a different need All of our products serve the same need And because the need for that product is limited, it's not likely that we're going to be able to grow the sales very much. And the only plan we have for that is to make the system cheaper so that they can go into more environments, like more system environments. That's basically our plan. the need for that particular thing is not necessarily growing as a percentage of the theme entertainment market. because all of our lights serve the same, like all of our lights come at the same need, it's not like we're almost like competing with ourselves, essentially. Because it's not like we're a food manufacturer and we make peanut butter and we also make jelly and you can use peanut butter for different All of our lights solve the same core problem and so unless we were to make an entirely new product that solves a different problem then we're just focusing on solving the same problem and that problem, the market for that problem is not growing, like it only grows as the theme entertainment market overall grows, right? It's like a fixed percentage as growth. And so we're relying on tourism as a whole to grow, which it is but you know it's not going to be that fast of a growth I guess that's what I'm trying to say which is why we're trying to make the fixtures cheaper because when we have spoken with our customers our customers say that the system cost is too expensive and if the system cost were cheaper it would be able to purchase more lights and that's why we're trying to get away from selling too much Cables because we want to focus on the lights because the lights is what we do best so if we can also Ethernet comes from a different budget for a lot of people like like a lot of stuff comes from different budgets So if we're able to say it's this amount odal for the project But we can reduce it by this amount for reducing the cost of the components that are not the fixtures then They can spend still this amount, but they can buy more fixtures basically so that that's what we're trying to do This next year is to encourage people to buy more fixtures by making it easier to integrate them and cheaper to integrate them so The easier part You know our DM is still something we get asked for all the time because that would be the easiest But because that's not possible You know I think working on the M5 item to upgrade that would help us, but the Ethernet would also help. the perfect solution, if we were to have a perfect solution, according to our customers, the perfect solution would be a slightly larger fixture that had the ability for RDM and they had the ability of daisy chain, because that would be the cheapest, most efficient fixture for them. That's what our customers want most right now. But since we can't do that, the best, yeah, anyway, just make sure you get the last part. The best thing to do right now is to focus on the Ethernet and the new M5 product quality we're working on to make sure it's, because right now it's still too hard for people to use our lights. That's the problem. So that plus the cost.
Quan Gan: Can you repeat the, what was the ideal thing from our customers?
Philip Hernandez: Oh, the ideal light from our customers is a V2 that slightly bigger like the size of a g7 but it has room inside then for rdm the rdm chip and it could be a little bit more powerful with a larger heatsink and it would have two tails on the outside so that they could daisy chain instead of having to home run and that would make the fixture where they wouldn't need a programmer so it would make it easy to put into any installation because they could use rdm to address it and then it would allow them to daisy chain ethernet which means they wouldn't need to which means they wouldn't need to cover cable costs from their budget cable costs would come from the a different budget line items so they would have more money to spend on the fixtures and they would just be able to plop them in somewhere so that's that's what we that's the ideal thing that we've heard from people is like just the v2 But a little bit a tiny bit more powerful and have those capabilities and that's that's what we hear Everyone like every customer diopah said that Fixor is still Indoor no no like like we've said the the you know 80% of our use cases are indoors so so it's really a just small percentage that wants outside and Even if they were to put it outside we talked to a few integrators about this, you know recently essentially Essentially there they already work with ethernet outdoors. So they already have Like protocol to put ethernet outside So if they if if we had this fixture and they need to put outside they would be able to plan to have it covered and protected The problem up to now has been because we have proprietary cable like they don't know it's like the integrators don't
Quan Gan: how to protect our cable because it's not something they work with but if it's Ethernet they like they already know how to work with Ethernet they don't know how to work with Ganttum if that if that that makes sense okay he just said the most ideal is a slightly larger light and then there is a lens and then a slightly larger light your chip is your board is large then you have a 2dm chip in there just like Ganttum 7 ah almost as big as this but inside this computer board can allow 2dm this function because we are not very small now there is a to use Ethernet there is a way to use network this is necessarily because you see how many lights you in a piece if he can put it a piece then of course this is low his cable cost because they do cable this is from another budget So Jerry is happy to work on that, on the idea of fixer.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah. think we Well, Jerry's happy to work on it. I think we should meet more regularly with Andy and Chris and I and Jerry to discuss it. because Chris talks to all of our customers and then Andy has been taking our fixtures to a lot of his friends at Universal to get feedback on them. So Chris and Andy have been collecting feedback. back from customers and kind of putting it together. That's how we know that this is what they would want, Dealey, in a situation. It's also that, I guess, a big point, to make sure Jerry understands. like, I think, you know, Gantum is growing up. I think is what is the big trend. I know Jerry, you know, to think of Gantum as a child. And I think right now it's like a teenager. Basically, it's kind of just barely entered teen years. And when it was younger, it was important for us to protect, you know, build a mode around it, to protect it. And then no one knew about it. But now it's a teenager. A lot of people know about it. And now the problem is more access, like getting the light into situations. Like, because Gantum has such a good reputation, we're not as worried about, you know, other people kind in or this or that, know, it's now it's more about making sure that the that the fixtures can get in as many places as they can and that they're easy to use, you know, and less about, you know, because everyone knows the brand already, you already know Gantem, if you want to use it, we have a track record, we have quality, you know, we have all of that, we have the brand, it's just making sure it integrates better. And in the beginning, size was a big issue, because a lot of the places, know, were haunted houses and smaller attractions, but the bigger clients tend to have bigger show buildings. And so the difference in size between the V2 and the 7, you know, the customer doesn't care about that size difference as much as they care about the ease of use of the fixture. And I think that that's been a big learning the past several years is that the size is less an issue. And if you think about it, it makes sense. But we don't, it's hard for us because we're stuck in the office. But when you think about it, the clients that have the money, it's Disney Universal, their buildings are really large. So to them, an extra inch is not an issue. Right? It's more like the small customers like the haunted houses or the really small people where the size is an issue. But those people don't have, you know, the budget or the money. So it's really, it's like, as Ganttum grows into being supplying for larger customers, the larger customers are less concerned about, you know, basically the difference in that one inch, if it was to give them RDM is a big difference because they, you know, the larger customers are ordering hundreds of fixtures for one ride for one area, hundreds. And to them, it's a big challenge to have to Assign each of them because there's they're ordering so many lights, right? So But the smaller customers if they're only ordering one or two lights so It's less of an issue. So it's almost like as we move as Gantem gets older and it moves from The smaller customers to the larger customers the customers have different challenges Yeah, I hope that makes sense.
Quan Gan: It's difficult for me to explain it, but that's what we've been learning The for the ideal size, I mean if size is not that much of an issue But I wonder are we are we getting ourselves into? These situations where there is plenty of Generic competitors.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, I think yeah, I think so here's the thing size is still an issue But I think because we have the Gantem 7 out there. We've almost liked market tested that size. Does that make sense? So like the difference between the V2 and the G7 is fine. So if it's as big as the G7, it's fine. You know, that's that's still considered a small compact size for them. So it's really the difference between those two. So if we're bigger than the G7 it could be a little bit bigger than the G7, but not too much. So it's it's like a it's like a it's like a like a Diagram or a chart, right? It's like we're pushing the edge of of the size, but the G7 people can use the G7 people use the G7 in the same places as the V2. So that size is still acceptable. So it's more about could we increase the capability of the V2 to solve our customers challenges. while still keeping it in that same size. And if we did that, we wouldn't run into any competition. But Quan's right. If we got much bigger than the G7, we're starting to get into different competition. So it's a really, it's like a fine line here between still keeping it compact by their standards, not our standards, like their standards of compact, but also adding the functionality.
Quan Gan: Okay. Oh, know what you're Let me tell you a little bit about this product. In fact, the size of is the our Gantung product. I used to work in a Japanese company. They would dig up the size. You have to make to some competition. So... Some customers might think that the is too big. But from our company's perspective, how much space How much space can This might be that's stronger than Something that's more core. Okay. So while our customers may not find the size, or even the larger stuff that negatively impactful, like they might be receptive, Jerry's expressing that size is a fundamental gene or the DNA or the core value of the fixture's expression. And many Japanese companies, they really spend a lot of time perfecting that core detail. And while they feel like a gene, detail to outsiders, that small essence is actually what he believes makes all the difference.
Philip Hernandez: I think it's balance between the core essence and what the clients need. And I think that we're starting to edge up against what they need, their needs, because it's starting to become very inconvenient to use Gantem. And that's the biggest problem we're trying to solve. If you are a big customer and you're ordering two, three, four hundred of them for one area, it's beginning to be a problem to use Gantem. And we don't want it to be a problem. We want Gantem to be a delight to use. We want it to be something that they're excited about using. And right now, the big customers are less excited about... because they have to program each thing individually and that is sometimes not possible because of the hanging and where they're located and all that stuff, but also because right now, at least they have a proprietary cable, so they have to order all this extra cable. I understand that and I agree with that 100% that that needs to be our core, but it's also about balancing. I guess it comes down to which master do we wanna serve I think would be more apt. do we wanna serve our best customers or do we wanna serve the rest of the market? I think that's a good question. it's unfortunate that for our best customers, we are making more problems for them and I don't know how to resolve that. I don't know. It's tough to explain, but yeah.
Quan Gan: We're good. In my opinion, in order to sell more, we have consider the number of lights there. Some of lights may not feel painful, it's a small part of but if you make it times smaller, it becomes a big group that they may not want to use. Because it's too small. It's a design. If that's you have to customize this product as a custom. Don't make it a line. If it's sold well, you can make it a product line. That's it. I think this is a specific way of doing it. We have to consider the rules to help customers. It's very likely that it become a mainstream. You have to do it Even if it's mainstream, you still have to do it. If you don't do it, you... So I don't think we're, we're in disagreement on any of this. It's more that Jerry, where Jerry's attention is, he's saying, even if it is a bigger fixture, the attention to detail is still the most important thing. Yeah, yeah. So it's like those little details that actually separates the Ganttum brand from anything else. It's not merely just the size, but it is the fact that you're willing to refine it to the point that, you know, like that Japanese refinement of anything, you know, how like these spend years to I understand.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, I think that we're saying the same thing. I'm just trying to point out that like, I think now might be a time to consider additional refinement. I think is what I'm trying to say is that because now that now that we our our clients are changing and their needs are just slightly different. And in order to make the fixture even better for them, this is what we're hearing. That's all I'm doing is I'm just reporting like I'm just conveying what we are hearing from our customers, the larger customers that it's harder for them to use our fixtures because of these these issues. And I think it was different when we were smaller, we had people were not ordering this many fixtures. But now that we're larger, the same client is ordering hundreds and hundreds of them, and it's becoming challenging for them to use them.
Quan Gan: that's that's it. I explained to them that what used to be a cork of gantum for smaller volume becomes a you know a much more amplified pain.
Philip Hernandez: Yes. Well, it's the programming. It's not the fixture design. I mean, I don't want to to, but you know, I mean, quant it's the programming. It's not it's not the fixture design. It's it's just the the use of it.
Quan Gan: I mean, you just think about it, you just put yourself in their shoes where they have maybe 300 and they have to individually address each of them, but then if they don't address them before they hang them, then what, how are they If you have this function, how much money do for it? If it's the same, then it means that it's our control. Yes, that's a bit of a meaning. Because the whole industry is the same, then it means that they are using DMX, you don't use DMX, you just play by Yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah, I think we can move forward.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, can we move forward? So anyway, back to the regularly scheduled programming. So the tariff stuff, I mean, I understand not wanting to create anxiety, but I still think that we need to think about the option so that we can move quickly, depending on what happens. And I also want to point out, some of these items would help us regardless of the tariffs, like getting an international fulfillment center would help regardless of the tariff, because even right now, we still pay tariffs, right? Right now, there are tariffs that exist. So like, if we had an international fulfillment center that could receive product and ship, then we could serve the international market, and we would be able to be more competitive in those markets. gets pricing wise you know so so some of these items are not like I understand here's point about we don't want to we don't want to make decisions based off a a tariff that might not happen I think that's what Jerry is saying but I think my point is some of these items are not just that like that's not they're not just going to help us with those they're going to help us overall even if everything stays the same as it is now the international Fulfillment Center would help us because we would be able to be more pricing competitive because it you know the UAE they're building four new theme parks there and the last theme park that they built they used a quarter million dollars of ganttum fixtures so that's potentially a million dollars that's going into that market potentially right I don't know I'm just saying potentially and if we're able to make sure that the pricing is equivalent to what they would pay in the US or you know maintain pricing some degree in that area, it would help make sure that we get that revenue. I'm just saying, some of these things are not just reactions to the tariff. Some of these are like items that would help us for other reasons.
Vania Chen: anyway, I just want to bring something up. It's just that, because actually I think sometimes it's like, as Donghe said, we are small companies. We can go and react to these kinds things faster. But relatively speaking, because our company is relatively small, our resources are relatively small. For example, a super big company like where are going set up a factory, where you up a factory? We don't have a way to do this. But I think it's just that, as I today, we are
Quan Gan: 如果这个真的发生了,我们大概需要多久时间去有一个应对的方式让我们减少我们的损失 那只是这个只是一个, it's just a future planning 我能够理解这个事情,不好意思,我打断一下 因为像我们这样规模的小公司,其实有很多很多,我是说在中国 那可能他们也在同一个时空,同一个时间线,也在开类似的会议,但是请相信中国劳动人民的智慧 他如果在那边去赌这个事情的话,有一百种以上的方法可以解决 我们再说这么小的公司不用担心这么小的这么大的事情 小公司不用担心很大的事情,很多样本跟案例都会出来 因为我们的出货量不大,就DHL有几个箱子,不是说几个集装箱,如果今天我们谈到我们一个礼拜要出十几个集装箱的话,那我们得要担心了。 你能明白我的意思吗? I understand. I imagine that there will be such a situation if that day comes. We are too small. But it's not enough for others to pay attention to us. It's OK. We are a big company. Our company is on my side. I can hear this company changing every The the chicken soup is gone. It becomes a private business. I see this every But the small company is like a ants. They don't care about this. There must be a to But what I emphasize is that I always want to do research And I tell you that every month I have to go to Japan to promote this thing little by This has to have fate. It has to have a time limit. I don't know how to do it. I won't do it. This will make me uncomfortable. But I will do this, because Japan has a very, very big, for me, a very, very big attractiveness. Because they focus, because they have our no, China's no technology. This is my debut, and it's because Trump went on stage, I want to escape 60% of the water, it's like that. I've never thought about this. I'm not anxious.
Vania Chen: Are you going to translate, or am I going to translate?
Michael Hsu: I think Quan is better at it.
Vania Chen: Yeah, Quan is really good at it, I realize.
Quan Gan: It's largely the same, you know, there's motivation to doing any of these. And he's not saying we're not doing these, these things are, many of the things are underway in his plans anyways. But it's motivated by innovation rather than fear or reactionary. And also, because we are small, and he's not, you know, he's not on the record saying this is what happens, but typically any kind of policy that comes into play, it creates market pressures that actually create some additional opportunities for people to find alternatives. And so it may not necessarily require us to physically go to, you know, yeah, so, so basically it's like there are ways and especially for a smaller nimble or more nimble companies, there are plenty of ways to get around whatever the issue is. So, and those, those methodologies will probably pop up faster than you think because of how innovative Chinese people are.
Vania Chen: And I think so, I think. There is basically transit. There's going to be people who's more impacted the best. was going to think of a solution around this whole tariff thing, and then we could just tag along and to make sure that we're not impacted following the newly developed ways. That's what Jerry was saying.
Philip Hernandez: Right. I don't think that changes my stance at all, unfortunately, or fortunately, because it doesn't like, that doesn't help our team really, like just telling them not to worry about it's not going to stop them from worrying about it. Because they don't have the background that Jerry has. That's the problem. Like, they don't have the context. I understand what Jerry is saying, but also it is my job to make sure that we have a plan. So I'm just trying to do my job. And part of my job is to argue for these things. That's part of my job. It's kind of the essence of what I'm supposed to be doing. And I'm just saying that our... staff does not have Jerry's background. So they don't, they haven't seen this before. That makes sense. Like Jerry has seen this happen. So Jerry knows, and I've seen it happen with other businesses, but even when it is happening, we still need to plan. So, and I'll just point out, I spoke to dozens of manufacturers last week at IAPA, and they were all feeling the same thing. So it's not like we're, I mean, it's the only, we're the only ones thinking about this. Cause the problem is if we're part of an ecosystem, and so even if it doesn't change for us, the impacts of the ecosystem are still going to impact us. You know, we're one piece of each project. And so if a budget gets redesigned for a project, they might just cut our stuff entirely. So it's really like, yeah. Anyway, I don't, I think that's it. I understand Jerry's. viewpoint. I hope Jerry understands too that I'm, this is part of the job I'm supposed to do is to come up with these threats and bring them to people to discuss them. And then just understands that we're just trying to make sure also that our staff feels that we're looking after them, basically. Anyway, that's it. Also, the last thing I was going to say too, is I do think it's important for Jerry to share his plans with us and then by proxy with our team, because what we're trying to avoid is Jerry and Quan talking about things and then us not finding out, because I think Jerry needs to be more integrated with the Gantem side. So I guess it's like Jerry's about these things, but we don't know. We don't know anything. And so, from his perspective, he's doing it, but from our perspective, nothing's happening.
Quan Gan: And that's why we're trying to close the communication gap. Yeah, so I am very much encouraging him to travel more to the U.S. this coming year, so that he would spend more time with the entire team.
Philip Hernandez: Sure. I plan on traveling more to see Jerry, so either way. Okay, I don't know. just want to, we just finished this really quickly. But these are the 2025 goals that for our staff, you know, for Ganttum in the U.S. and the U.S. staff, I also want to point out to, I'm not sure, I might need like my help to explain the context of this for Jerry, but I think earlier Jerry talked about the sales and the marketing and investing in that. And I just want to... Can they or have Jerry understand like our marketing budget is maybe half or 30% of what it should be. And part of the reason behind that is because we have to still manage our cash flow and pay back debt. So don't really have the money to like do anything beyond like what we're currently doing. And I think what we're currently doing is the bare minimum. But I think that might where it might be helpful for Michael and Vanya because like I know because I work in marketing about the percentage of of marketing budget spend the other businesses usually have and how it all works out. But I think it would be helpful for their perspectives to kind of be like, look, we've been reducing our marketing budget deliberately to pay back debt. So that we're in a better cash position, but that also makes it hard for us. Anyway, I don't know if you guys want to speak on the percentages, but
Quan Gan: Every year, at once month, go to Japan to spend my money, yeah. Yeah, so Jerry is saying that, yes, he understands all of these cross-money and it's mutually dependent. And given that the cash situation is tight and also there's a lot of potential unknowns, it is difficult to want to throw money at solving something that is unknown, yet he is still proceeding with a lot of the plans such as going to Japan and trying to get things set up. So despite these uncertainties, there are things that he's already, that's well underway, but it will just take time and more calculated risks.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, well. Anyway, I just, I don't, I just wanted to like clarify that what's not like we I get all that. I think I guess it's like it's not like we're not trying to increase sales. I just want to make that clear. Like we are trying. It's just that we don't. We managing the cash flow is something that we are looking at every week. And so we're very much still like on a budget. So like we yeah, it's just we don't like like it's kind of like there's a lot of like we're still short staffed, you know, we don't have the necessarily the money to do some of the trade shows we'd want or the campaigns we want. Like there's there's still like issues with that. So that's so it's like we are trying. Obviously, we're still working on the sales, but we have to like. It's yeah, I don't I don't it's it's very tough because our team is so small and the marketing is so small. But that's because we're trying to conserve our cash flow as much as we can. So it's, it's not like we're not trying to make sales. It's just, it's, it's more like a very slow process because of, uh, because of the budget constraints that we have.
Quan Gan: Uh, I want to say that China and the U.S. The of relationship that may not good, the that may be that China is making the U.S. exchange rate. At least I feel that our U.S. employees have this kind of exchange rate. But, but the current situation is actually very, very realistic. has caused my exchange rate. I'm to think about a of things. But what I want to tell you is that even in this kind of exchange rate, I will fly to Japan every to do this thing. Why? Because I'm not affected by this exchange rate. Because I want to do this. Okay. Despite the China side causing anxiety or unknowns for the U.S. team, Jerry is saying he has more reason to be anxious on his and because he doesn't know even spending this much time and effort that it ultimately pays out, know, like setting up a factory and then just saying, hey, we're ready yet not getting orders like that. That's a bigger anxiety on his side. But even so, he's still traveling to Japan every single month to continue on that plan.
Michael Hsu: I think, let me, let me, um, I think, I think. Sorry. So Everybody is working hard. Everybody is working hard. problem is, I feel like Jerry doesn't know what Ganttum is doing and all the effort that Ganttum is putting forth. Ganttum doesn't know what Jerry all had planned. And from this call, everybody got on the same page, which is, hey, everybody's working hard. So from my perspective, third party's perspective, I think increased communication between the two parties. And then also, it doesn't matter, I think both parties agrees that everybody's working hard. Everybody's doing their best. And then right now, it's just for the sake of the company, us coming together as a group, communicating with each other what each of us are doing. then everybody is more, like, we get that Jerry is like, hey, I should feel more anxious, but I'm still doing it anyways. Yeah, that's cool. But then the team are feeling anxious and they're still doing it anyways. So then that's bring the two and two together because right now, Ganttum doesn't know Jerry's plan, Jerry doesn't know Ganttum's plan. The point of this call is to green everybody on the same page so that we can move forward on the same path. And I think that's where we want to get at. I don't know if we can achieve it at this call, but it sounds like there's a couple of things, right? There's the financials, which we've gone over that, which the donors are going to talk about, and then resolve that, and then come back. There is the tariff, which we don't know if we're going to happen or not. But we don't know if we're going to happen or not. And then I think it's for the health of the company, that's all have a plan together. And yes, I think that Jerry was like, hey, I'm only going to Japan because you have better technology, not a reactive action, which is fantastic, it's just that the proactive action will also help us in this reactive situation. And then Philip is like, awesome, Jerry, if you have a plan, that's great. Let us know that the team knows. Because the team is not as equipped or as smart as Jerry. So then that way, the The U.S. team can now also, and I totally get Jerry too, right? The Chinese people are really smart. We come up with all the time. the Chinese have the saying, 上有政策下有对策, like, hey, the government has a policy and we have a way to deal with the policy. Like, I get that. But then the thing is, like, the U.S. team don't get that. So whatever, whatever do it so, whatever plan Jerry has or is thinking about or has, if we should, then everybody is at ease to be able to move forward. Right? So we have the financial part. We have the tenant part. And then we have the increase of the sales part. the increase of the sales part, what Philip is trying to state right here is also, hey, we're working really hard. Usually we spend anywhere between 10, 10, growing part of a growing company, we might even spend 30% of our total revenue on building that revenue, right? But the issue is, you guys saw it on the cash flow perspective, we're spending most of that. on debt repayment. again, this is not a pointing finger thing. It's just an explanation of, hey, as Philip, I agree with you, Jerry, that we need to grow sales, and I'm growing sales the best we can with what I have. that goes back to question number one of cash flow. So I think the point of this call is just aligning. I think we have a number one identifying the issue, which is financials, profitably versus cash flow. And I think we got tariff with potential risks for it down the road. then we're like, hey, we need a plan. And if Jerry's got a plan, great. If we don't have a plan, that's at least come up with a plan. Because both of us, all of us agree that even if a plan, we don't have to use it, that's awesome. So that's an open communication thing. Jerry, you have encouraged Jerry to come to the States more. Philip is like, hey, I actually want to go to Jerry more. So that's the second part. And then the third part is sales and marketing, which everyone agrees on, which type back the question number one is, you know, the chicken or the egg, right? If we free up and we're doing the best with allocation, right, we bring it up, you know, you guys saw the financials, we're being a million two cash, right? If we, if that doesn't go to debt services, you know, if we go to debt services, that benefits you guys immediately. If it doesn't go to debt services, you can move over to profitability, right? And so on and so forth. So we're constantly working to maximize this. So I think what will help this company is it's costs like this, right? Instead of doing it once, three years, every two years, That's either monthly or quarterly. So everybody's on the same page. everybody knows what's right. Now it's like the right hand is, you know, we're rolling a boat and the right hand is rolling super hard. The left hand is rolling super hard. But if we can roll together, then I think that's what we're trying to get at. So that's a good summary.
Philip Hernandez: I think, yeah, that's shockingly good summary.
Michael Hsu: Good job, Michael.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. Yeah, I don't want people to think we're not, like, exactly, the additional cash flow would help with some of these goals. Again, freeing up the cash flow, like to your point about profitability, having a fulfillment center overseas was going to take a lot of money, which is what we need cash flow for, but it would increase our profitability in that section and or, know, hiring, like I put it on personnel, hiring help for engineering is another thing that would take cash flow, but it would also free up some people to work more on sales because right now I only have Chris and Andy and they have to manage the sales and the quotes and the RMAs and the support, you know, and, you know, help with engineering projects to cost out stuff and do ordering. I mean, like it's two people, they can't like do all of that. And when when Andy had to go to the ER during the APA, so that was difficult for us to get around that. So, so yeah, yeah, it basically is Michael's saying it's probably a better job than I did of trying to explain that the cash flow, you know, balancing the cash flow is a direct impact on either our marketing efforts or our profitability. And so these goals are, you know, to help us improve one or the other lever, but it's also, you know, that the cash will determine how quickly or if we can do any of them.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Philip Hernandez: Okay, good. Okay, are we done?
Michael Hsu: I think this is, I think this is a great start. And just, and just again, this is beyond the conversation. by looking at from a third party vendor looking at you guys. Gantung's done amazing. And I think the projection of Gantung is very rosy, very good. But having these increased communication between the owners and ops, it will help it faster. Because at the end of the day, I know you guys have been funding it. Jerry, and Ping, you guys have been funding it. But then now you guys are already starting to see a little bit of the benefit coming back to you, and I think it will be more. I don't think we're going back to three or five years ago. I think we're just going to get better and better. And then this increased conversation and these increased transparency between the financials of the company and the operations of the company. On both sides, the manufacturing part and the US sales part, I think this is what will help the company going forward. But I think going from here to just you guys to discuss in it and then establishing a set of rhythm to talk with each other more often.
Philip Hernandez: When do we need an answer from them about cash? I don't know.
Michael Hsu: I'm asking. you guys have money. You guys have money to go until December 31st, so before then.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, so sometime in December. Maybe before you leave. Is that a good marker to leave on the 10th, right?
Quan Gan: So before December 10th? Yeah, while Jerry's here, we'll have an internal discussion.
Philip Hernandez: Okay.
Vania Chen: That was good.
Quan Gan: Alright, thanks everybody.
Michael Hsu: Bye, guys.
Vania Chen: Bye. So good to see you.
Michael Hsu: Bye.
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UTF LABS: So, do you guys both work together in the same office or are you working remotely or how's your sitting there?
Ferenc Orban: It's mixed. We do have an office. We work in the same office usually but sometimes either one of us is not in the office. But we're usually here.
UTF LABS: Got it, got it. Okay, I think he's here. we can quickly begin. So, basically for the last meeting, we discussed the driver development updates with respect to sound light and heptics. You guys were working on and we agreed that the IR driver development was completed. Then Juan also discussed about the MIDI generator and for pattern generation for sound and vibration. Then we discussed an abstraction game interface abstraction with. sort of a pseudo code to, you know, as a template for the main game code. And that should be under three grid lines and we discuss also discuss like a unified notification interface for sound heptics or displays or notification or whatever we like to call them. Then one had to provide us with a sample code. Then we discussed the Wi-Fi connection optimizations that I was working on. We also discussed the meeting schedule. So mostly that was the main point from the last meeting. Anything else?
Ferenc Orban: No, I don't think so.
UTF LABS: Okay. And I think Juan is constantly evaluating the meeting breakdown or the meeting evolution. So I don't think, I don't see a total score here. But I believe it's still in the same region.
Ferenc Orban: Ferrari D285. We can edit up if you want.
UTF LABS: Yeah, okay. I think let's move to today's meeting. Is there anything, any other message? Okay, I think Shabab posted the status here. Okay, to begin guys, what's the update on the driver development?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, we can do that. We have been working on the sound light and optics and also another layer, so to speak, more like a helper part of the architecture that I also mentioned to the the Motsori includes a dominant presentation so I can explain what we've imagined there. So we're kind of Finish with the light and heptics drivers, and we're working on the sun So that's as far as we got and and and the sequence thing So Sorry sequence what? The game sequences that I talked about.
UTF LABS: Can you see my yeah?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah So Let me just Chava come in just committed the the heptics part.
UTF LABS: So It's it's kind of finished.
Ferenc Orban: It can be reviewed reviewed The the hardware setup parts should be should be fine and those should be in line with the the usage that we've used beforehand and Uh This was tested and given that they are basically two I think two parameters that can be considered while starting a vibration like I think it's the duration and intensity. So it's using those it should be using those parameters and so yeah the haptics are committed you can review it once you get the chance. We'll also review the whole system I think from top to bottom a little bit. I was thinking where we start coding it will be obvious where we looked over things. But we will definitely have to go through the whole documentation of the MVP part, I think, before we start doing code. Or even if the strategy we might take throughout, if you think it fits better, we start experimenting with building and doing the MVP in a really basic fashion. Just to start things and to start up things in a really simplistic manner, just so we know that the hard work and the whole hierarchy can start up. After that, we can add the logics and the special cases. However, we will get back to that part, I think, just around the corner. So this is the haptics, the light bar was in the other thing, light bar, the light bar driver is committed as well. So here you can see how it integrates into the whole system where it well this was the part I think that that was a bit tricky to figure out. Let me go back I think to the to the sequence thing. So this is basically almost the same as in the IR so it's basically the same as in the IR so things go down and from the game logic to the game manager into the nexus and it connects to the driver through the access. it's basically the same idea depicted here and some of the flow diagrams are.
UTF LABS: So why do we have like battery or power management here?
Ferenc Orban: I'm not sure.
UTF LABS: Here we have like in this chart here we have power manager and power control and there's also battery status update down below as well.
Ferenc Orban: I think it had something to do with the hardware optimization in the original. I have to look into that.
UTF LABS: That might be due to the fact that we need like the LEDs based on the charging grid.
Ferenc Orban: So like we have different color for charging. Yeah, maybe that.
UTF LABS: Yeah, but if that's the case, I don't think it should be included here, that would be handled separately.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah. Yeah, it's a, so it's coming from the code that we originally used. some of some of these things might have seen think and okay, I will look into that and I. I'll fix this. It's probably not needed. It's going to be through the, through the Nexus, through the Nexus.
UTF LABS: Yeah, it's a system manager or manager, you know, control power and I'll defend interfaces.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, I was thinking that it has some, the protocol that it's using, does it use a, okay, I'll look into it.
UTF LABS: Yeah, I don't think so. you know, since you used the code we had, so it might be interlinked to the extracts and it did it this way.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, I was thinking pin interference or something like that, but it would definitely not, should not be represented by. Yeah, exactly. even if it's not the same case. Okay. So this is the sound is we're working on the speaker right now. There's still a lot to do. think we will have to consider the tagging as well. So even if we don't. So do you think we should be here?
UTF LABS: Do you think we should, you know, consider tagging at this moment for sound since it's just like a speaker interface? So do we need since and where we won't be working on and then we prefer on this. So do you think we should include it at this moment?
Ferenc Orban: No, I just I just think that. We should leave, leave, leave place for that, you know, just so we don't have uncooperable issues down the line. So even if, yeah, I don't want to implement this, that's what I wanted to say. such as to even if we don't implement the IT part right now, we should consider leaving place for that.
UTF LABS: just so Yeah, like a placeholder for now. So we don't spend too much time on it.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, no, no. I don't intend to spend any time on the IT part really, just the most important part. we can make sure that even if this, so we don't get, so we don't run into the issue that we implement the sound right now. And once we start implementing the IT, the sound will break on this part, know, because that's what we had initially in the original on the original hardware, if you remember, we had a bunch of situations where we had to switch off and on and re initialize the whole system for one use and for the other, that added a bunch of plays and memory issues. that's what I'm referring to, which should just concentrate on the sound part, playback music, the game sounds, just keep in mind to have to add the ERT down the line.
UTF LABS: That makes sense. So one more question here, so basically speaker, driver will have like support for LTE and speaker as well. won't it be accessed by two separate interfaces like you have tagging manager and then you have the sound interface itself. So I think you handled that in the tagging manager class, but just if you can quickly, you know, shed some light.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah. Yeah. So I think you mean. Oh, yeah, this is the diagram that we're looking for, think, yeah? So there's the tagging, not exactly, but this is kind of a similar situation, I think, because it has the tagging interface, which we don't have in the sound plus tagging, but we did have the IR and the IT which both access the instant message interface, which would be the radio signal, the ESP.
UTF LABS: But in the actual, we have written the speaker interface, so the second column, the second column. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So is it, will the LT tagging directly access the drivers, or basically game manager will also be accessing the speaker interface, and then the tagging manager will also be using it. Oh, that's something we might have to look into.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, I think I'm not sure what was the final agreement on this. Sorry. So I think it was two options. Either the messages come straight from the nexus. When it goes to the sound, it plays the sound and when it comes down to the LTE, those are both messages from the nexus that should be... I think Karate is going to interact with the speaker interface directly.
UTF LABS: Yeah, but you're right. At a time like the nexus or the game manager should control if you want to use via LTE or directly to the speaker interface.
Ferenc Orban: Part where the speaker interface should not get messed up and start to to speaker playbacks at the same time. It should be handled by the speaker interface anyway. But yeah, we'll probably keep track of it somewhere even in the game manager.
UTF LABS: But I think this is going to cause the same dependence issue that we discussed earlier, if you remember. Since tagging manager is also in the middleware and then we have the speaker interface that is also in the middleware. So that might cause some dependencies issues. I think we'll have to move this tagging manager above the middleware. I think. If you, if you open the Nexus architecture diagram, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. You see here, if you can zoom in. So we basically have, we have the tagging interface. Yeah, on the right. On the right. Yeah, we have the tagging interface here and on the same, we have the sound interface as well. Sound or speaker, whatever you'd to call it. we'll have to figure out how, because since the beginning we have been trying to avoid the same scenario where two interface on the same level should access each other.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, the issue with this drawing, I think, with. that this is not exactly like this because the tagging interface is a bit sorry it's a bit higher up so is it called tagging interface in this scenario so I'm thinking the tagging manager right here is a bit higher up oh so basically this is a separate entity called tagging manager and we were talking about tagging interface yeah so this is basically a bit higher and this would control both of would have access to the sound and and the tagging we'll have to add this tagging manager into the second tagging diagram as well we have the tagging interface there but we'll have to tagging but then again yeah I think we can find a way there Yeah, there's the other part where does the sound have access to the tagging, but I don't think it has to have. So we can stop the tagging while the music is being played back because those are just short bursts of music and mostly action-less. I think the user is mostly action-less. You either get infected or the game is over or something like that, or the game is starting.
UTF LABS: But where do you think that will place tagging manager? So who will have access to tagging manager?
Ferenc Orban: The game manager, Nexus or how will that work? Nexus will have access to the game manager and like the tagging manager. And the tagging manager would stop the music if it needs to and either or wait for it to finish and start its tagging.
UTF LABS: But in that case, we'll need access to tagging manager in every scenario. Right, like it's taking me to stopping us, you know, stopping the music or playing it, then that means that it has the access to speaker interface, which the game manager will also have. You're getting my point.
Ferenc Orban: I'm not sure why the game manager has direct access to this or the game manager can have access to it. I'm not sure it's probably just thinking about the.
UTF LABS: The game manager will have access to the speaker interface. So basically that will play the sounds if you're sort of using, we are not using LT, right? We're using IR. So then the game manager will have to play the sounds using the speaker interface. But then in terms of like tagging, if we have LT, then we have have the tagging manager at some place where that will also have the access to speaker interface.
Ferenc Orban: Yes. Yes, so right now, back to the, I think the next interface. It would, the tagging manager would come up here, so the game manager would have access to the tagging manager and the sound interface and the tagging manager would have access to the tagging interface and the sound interface. So it doesn't come up, it would come up if the sound interface should go to the tagging interface but I don't think that's necessary.
UTF LABS: I think there is some issue but I can't really exactly pinpoint it right now but I have a hunch that it might cause some issue. I'll have to discuss it with Jawad and you as well but if you can, in the next meeting if you can include the thing that we just discussed, the tagging this diagram as well, so we might be able to better discuss in the next meeting.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, I understand that you have this hunch because it feels a bit dangerous, but magically until now it doesn't seem so. Only if we have to have some direct information about the tagging, but we don't really need to have that. We can, for example, use those messages that you mentioned back a few meetings ago across messages. What is that, some sort of triggers? Notify? Yeah, notification, notify. So either that I think would be useful in this case. When the tagging is finished, then you can play your sound stuff again.
UTF LABS: Yeah, I get that when only one will work at a time. was just, you know, worried about the axis, but yeah, once you can draw this here and we can discuss in the next meeting and it will clear some more confusions then. Okay so we have basically discussed the heptics the light bar and now the sound of your basically you guys are working on the sound so we'll try to review possible in the next meeting or after date sometime the sound and the heptics drivers sorry the light bar and the heptics driver and by that time you will be able to also complete the sound okay moving on so we have new that you think that you proposed yeah just second I'm still taking mine I'm just taking those right sure sure sure so let's like this so okay uh
Ferenc Orban: Oh, where did I end it? right. One, two, three, five, Second. Thirty-two. Thirty-five. Game management. Game sequences. So this is something that would happen in the part where we, for example, have the start-game sequence, countdowns, for example, which is a more complex situation. We don't want the... in itself to implement this we want it hidden uh below the game management somewhere uh let me go back to to the thank you i think i did it to the system of the user so the next access interface here it is so as you can see here's this game sequences where this has changed by so i i changed it by adding these game sequences part here the all the all the other things remain the same you are you can access from the game through the game manager everything that you've accessed until now but now you can create sequences and i mean And by sequences, mean you can put together instruction sets like play some sound, play some haptic pattern, start the led, create a led show, do something with the screen. So you can, for example, do these things at once.
UTF LABS: So basically how will it differ from the game manager?
Ferenc Orban: So it would not really differ from the game manager. It's basically a helper for the game manager. It just implements these sequences of instructions.
UTF LABS: Can you show me the game sequences?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, game sequences. So you should be like the game sequences. For example, we... I think it had a, okay, well, so we would basically have start game, stop game, pause game text. I came up with this that someone got tagged and such. So with a few methods or even more, you can pre implement these sequences and the sequences would look like something like this. I just started out as a pseudocode, but it's kind of became a code and on. You basically code the game, you add the callback method and so you add the callback method and you can describe the sequences. It's just the way it was before, know. It's just not in the game part of the implementation. These are separate. You display number three. think you vibrate for a half a second. do some flash lighting and play something.
UTF LABS: I got the concept. what I'm trying to struggle, so I'm struggling right now, how will this link with the game manager?
Ferenc Orban: I understand basically this will consist of the logic of the game you can say and how will this link with the game manager, yeah. So you can see this callback function is called when all is done. So you basically, what happens when the game starts up is you call the game manager's start game method and that should do these visuals, you like me, and it should start really start the game. So we do the MQTT and other instructions as well. So after all this is done and it should move to the next screen after all this is done. So you can put this sequence for example together when it's and the game manager calls. this method directly and the game manager implements the callback method that will be called when this is all done and the game manager, I'm not sure if I have anything to do, I don't think I do. But the game manager should add the callback to I don't think I'm doing this. But basically what I was thinking that the game manager gets the start game method call, it would just call this helper method which creates the sequence and when it's finished with that it gets to the callback method and does whatever else it has to do when it's finished. So basically
UTF LABS: I got the concept but if you can include this sort of like a simple example in the game manager as well so that might better explain the concept.
Ferenc Orban: Okay okay but so you don't have to think all that big with this one it's just basically so what we were thinking really what triggered us to do this was basically the fact that we do need some way to abstract these more complex but game logic which are not all that complex but a lot of code right there which is not really needed for the game and we can add these and these since these are really just game related stuff they don't belong in the in the Nexus.
UTF LABS: So I get the idea so how exactly game sequences will work. Is this a class that developer can use to implement his own game or how will this work basically?
Ferenc Orban: no, so you basically when you want when you are implementing the zombie survival game, you call the start game method and the start game currently is in the game manager, right? It will remain in the game manager and the game manager instead of like the game manager what would have done until now it's the same thing that we implement in the game sequences. This abstraction so you in the game manager you would have done the same you would do the countdown code you would write it in the game manager and call all these functions from the game manager but we put this little layer right here for the little part of abstraction because we want some way to make this configurable down the line so I'm thinking that at some point we will have a way to allow the end-users up there to add some secrets like this so you want to be able to set the music to play the Turkish March and this place green green lights for example they want to allow that for the user at some point so this this is an abstraction that would allow us so this is just more modular this part which should be more configurable down the line so this was the best thinking okay I understand
UTF LABS: I'll review it. So I'll have better idea basically when I review in detail. what exactly is this used for? Javad also basically worked on a similar thing that we discussed in the last meeting. He'll update you next when you are done.
Ferenc Orban: Okay. So you got really heavy.
UTF LABS: As you can see, we left the line here, the direct access from the game manager to the next.
Ferenc Orban: If you want to call the start game and you want to override the sequences, you just want a simple start without the countdown and stuff like that. We can implement another start game as well, like a different function that just does just that just just start the game at once or with another sequence or stuff like that. You can do that and you will have the access to it. So if you just want to play some music or just do some other thing, you can access it through the game manager. But this would be for we set sequences like this that we know and we have all the devices and they are the same like the countdowns the the tagging part when it gets tagged it's always the same when you get zombified you get when the game is over and stuff like that so these do have some similar sequences but they're really different colors and and the music and so this would be set up in these games I get the idea yeah okay okay so this is what I wanted to show about this so is this now completed at the moment or have you linked it with the game in manager interface as well well as you saw I need to add some documentation in the game manager so so it couples this as well yeah
UTF LABS: They said also had like a snippets of code that, you know, can help understand better and link with a game sequence file.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it came in, yeah, okay, so stuff a few things that the hardware does it's not sorry. It's not always obvious whether the driver should do it or the game should do it itself. With the motor, let's say the vibrations maybe should we just give full access to the motor from to the game manager. So it will have to create all the different playbacks or stuff like these and the things like these make us think back into the. higher layers, even though we're looking into the drivers, we were kind of all over the place this week because of that, but we're getting there.
UTF LABS: I think I get the idea. I'll review with Jawad and I'll let you know if I have any questions.
Ferenc Orban: Okay, thanks.
UTF LABS: Okay, anything else on your end?
Ferenc Orban: No.
UTF LABS: Okay, let's move to the next, basically, the abstraction for the game that Jawad worked on. Jawad, can you show your screen and let us know how it worked to plan?
Jawwad Malik: Yeah, sure. Hello, can you hear me? Okay, so as we are saying that like in each game, like if I give the example of zombie survival game, here we have a middleware from where we are playing sound, and then update motors, then update light bars, and we are doing that again and again and again and again in each game and in each part. So last time Shans like proposed some thing like we don't have to call this multiple time, we just call one functions and these all tasks should be executed automatically. So here I have something which I want to show. Yeah, so here I create one more folder like that's called action handle what exactly do I will tell you like here we have a theme interface where we have an structure structure for sound haptic and as well as let the light bar okay so here we have all the structure of it here we have a horror theme where we create an horror theme for display like how it should look like the display part is like just one so we just write it once but at a sound we have some different sound like at a start of game we have some different sound at a stop we have some different sound tagging we have some different sound and we have multiple alerts multiple like tagging sounds we just placed here similarly as for lights too like we have a different start and another type of lights and haptics so as we see like it returned the theme like display sound light and haptic so what actually action handler do before what we are doing. We have to execute the sound separately, light separately happening separately. now in action handler, we just have a start function when we just call the action handler dot start in our game. It execute the start theme of like the sound and as well as like the start color of from the like light bar and the start pattern from the haptic. Similarly for tagging, we have similar things too. alert, we have a similar thing too. We can make some more functions here and then we are just here, we have a setter function which returned the theme which we have selected. So if we see the example, if we want to use that in our game, how should we use like we have a ball game. We just create an object of action handle class. So we create an order team and pass that order team to that game to the constructor of that game. And then for the start part, we just call like we have some starting logic here, whatever the logic, but we just have to like write action handle dot start it will automatically initiate the like the haptic of start as like the light bar of a start as well as like the sound of a start. Similarly, if we like gain some score, so we just write action handler dot tagging and it run all that three together. So here I have like something which I want to propose here. What do you think guys?
UTF LABS: So that's basically the notifications, manager sort of thing that Kwan wanted to name that basically instead of calling separate haptics, we just call them unified make unit functions and call the unified class instead of separately accessing them. So I think it's more linked to the game sequence file as well that you also proposed fairing. I think we can combine both of these in some capacity.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, I think the things part should, it's what we didn't add for now, but yeah, the idea is almost the same. We definitely don't want it, we don't want to implement everything by line and redo the things as it was before because it messed up a lot and we wanted to fix something, was really tedious. we have to put all these parts together or something in some way. We have to see how these two differ because these are obviously different and somewhat the same in the same time.
UTF LABS: So basically I asked you what to just focus on the haptics right now serve just for the notifications with respect to the sound the light and the motor because that's that's what different display can be different in different scenarios for example start is different the main screen is different the end screen is different tagging is different but in the aspect of the sound the motor the light so basically we are doing the exactly the same thing with such as different parameters so that's why we called it Java called detection and one wanted to name it the notification manager or something like that so we name it anything that's you know it will just reduce the access code where we have to call it then each one by one and I think you can link it with the game sequence file that you mentioned as well yeah you can review it what have you published it to the github so you can review it pairing and we can discuss it uh yes I published it at github you can okay thanks any questions here uh no no not here uh kwan also provided some uh the code or like abstraction layer for the game did you have a chance to look at it uh briefly yeah we looked into uh I think that it yeah it's it's on a higher level right now it's uh we didn't consider it right now but uh we don't to uh do that it's uh
Ferenc Orban: Pre-processor thing.
UTF LABS: Did you look at it? No, Java did.
Ferenc Orban: I didn't have a chance, but yeah, Java did.
UTF LABS: So what did?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, it's basically a pre-processor thing which comes up of all that we implemented and that we referenced and so on.
Jawwad Malik: It was extremely abstracted. So even you are right, like we can't relate it or wipe on it right now. So of course we have to wipe on our pillars and these.
UTF LABS: Okay, I think we can discuss this later, Doug, once, launch it later on when we are at that stage.
Ferenc Orban: Okay, where are we?
UTF LABS: Yeah, I think it's for we are. We have covered till point number five for the build and the Wi-Fi connection optimization. So I have been working on that, still quite figure out the issue with respect to not the all topics not getting subscribed. The issue that we saw in the meeting yesterday with you, Frank, I figured that out. Basically, used WinServe and WinServe commented out the connect Wi-Fi function. That's why it wasn't connecting. So basically the connect function wasn't even called in the code. Yeah, so that's not an issue. I think that it's connecting to the Wi-Fi now. But still I can't really figure out the MVDT issue. was looking into the code, but then I run the code on the local network. It subscribes perfectly without any issue in the blink of an eye. Then I'm trying to see the logs on the pi now and see if, but I'm also trying Early previous code like the earlier versions code that didn't have said that met complexity. So they are also having the same issue so I'm not sure that maybe it's the connection via the router or I don't have like much detail at the moment. I'll it will take some time to debug this Apart from the other things are working and basically the games and the bugs So those have been fixed. I can share the build with you if you get time you can look into it But just this FHU is the one that I am focusing on right now Yeah, it would be good if you just commit something that I can build for any eventuality because I don't want to use it right now, but sometimes I get Something the code the updated code is already committed in the kmh branch. I committed it yesterday there you can see checking the commits. the code, updated code, the working games is everything is there and even the MQTT and the Wi-Fi connection files aren't, they aren't that much different. So that's why I'm still trying to figure out what happened now that wasn't happening previously. the use is untouched, the connection, the code for connectivity with Wi-Fi and MQTT is untouched. maybe it's a router, I'll try to change the router as well, but then we observed it in your end as well. So there is something that I think I might be missing for now, but I'll do some more detail testing during next week and see what's happening.
Ferenc Orban: Okay. Do you intend to merge it back to the main?
UTF LABS: Not right now, but once, when I'm about to release it, then we'll merge it. main. Even though we can merge right now, but just for the sake, like if there is something that I missed in the code, so let's keep it in the k merge branch for now. And when everything works, we can merge it back into the main. Okay, anything else that we want to discuss?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, I was thinking about the build setup. will we proceed with that? we're kind of, even if not at the end, but we're close enough that we should start considering that. How will we do the build stuff? Because I think you guys already started working with the docker or something. You're setting up a docker or just thinking about setting up a docker. I'm not sure of how you got with that.
UTF LABS: Sorry, I'm confused.
Ferenc Orban: A build system about what? For the next. When we start implementing the code, we want the fixed system. I don't think we'll use the Z-Tex firmware as it is right now. We're going to have the whole pipeline set up, possibly in VS code or Windsor for whatever.
UTF LABS: Yeah, I think we have to discuss that.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah. So we should discuss that as soon as possible, I think. Because right now it feels that even if we're not perfectly ready to start implementing code, we're close enough that we might start and just see what we've missed, you know, and then come back to the documentation if it's needed. But it's right around the corner as well. So I think we should consider that.
UTF LABS: Yeah, I think Facelamine had some ideas about the build system, but if you can like I'm. still a bit confused here. I get the idea, but if you can get the message of what you are trying to propose or what's in your mind, I can review it, discuss it with Elimin and get back to you.
Ferenc Orban: I can just tell you straight up. what we want is figure out what ESP version we're gonna use, the environment is going to be that we are going to use. Are we using VS Code, Visual Studio, Eclipse or whatever? So stuff like this, we should set these. these are possibly the worst things that we need to set.
UTF LABS: I think the best for that would be like a Docker image that we all can put on our end and work accordingly.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, something like this. I was thinking of something like that, but every basic question needs to be answered right now, I think. We don't want it. We had a lot of issues in the past, you know, because when we committed something, you guys committed something. We couldn't do it. For a while, had the platform IO and we had Visual Studio and we had everything set up differently. So I think we need to figure this out as soon as possible. I think this is a way more important right now than some of the details that will happen. At least to start thinking about it.
UTF LABS: Yeah, I get that. I think, yeah, we can look into it. You can look into it and also if you have some, I get the idea. So if you have some working behind it, you can propose it and we can discuss it to on and finalize it. But I think uh if you are starting then uh docker would be a good place to start yeah that's what i was thinking i just didn't know how far you got because i do remember that you guys started uh something like this but everything has uh happened and uh i know that you stopped working on it i just didn't know if you took it off there was uh we personally worked on a separate different base system that wasn't like related to environment uh it was was related to all like different builds with different versions like educational build uh and uh truth build whatever builds we had different you know games so he developed like a quite a comprehensive system for that so we just have to specify which build uh which version uh we want to create the build for and it will compile the code using only those games so that's done but uh what you are saying right now we discussed it earlier like a year or a half ago where we wanted to use docker to compile the code i agree with that we can figure out, agree on something and use that instead of manually accessing the code.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, what you said that Fasari was working on, that's also important. Because I just, right now, I needed the branches on the Z-Tec firmware.
UTF LABS: It's overwhelming on the system. Yeah, Now the codebase we have is unified. Previously, we had a separate code for the truth build. there was an entertainment build and there was an educational build. So there were around like five or six separate builds. There one was for the demo, one was for trade shows. So now we only have one like a combined codebase and we just select, we just select what version or what build we want. So the codebase is basically the same now.
Ferenc Orban: Okay, so you can get rid of most of them. branches yeah okay yeah that would be I think although I'm not sure we need to work on this because yeah we're working on a new code but it would be nice to clean this up because when I'm looking when I'm looking for a branch it's overranging and just just just to think about it's it's really hard to maintain it this way when you change something in the code that is common then you to change on every single branch yeah exactly I agree yeah okay so coming back to the action items for next week you'll be working on what fairing well cleaning up a bit the code like the things that we talked about the led bar and reviewing what we've committed we'll work we'll finish the assault Okay, so we'll finish the sound and I think we'll start thinking and figuring out to wait for the build system, the pipeline, like a docker or something.
UTF LABS: Okay, so basically we were completing the sound interface, looking into this the environment and also if you can update us what did we discuss the other diagrams with respect to the tagging interface and the speaker interface, like the architecture level think that we discussed earlier in the meeting. Okay, I'll continue working on the Wi-Fi issue that we have. Jawad, can you look into the game sequence file that Farin proposed and the action handler that you proposed?
Ferenc Orban: then sort of find out ways how we can merge them both okay sure okay thank are you fine with that yeah okay got it so Jawad will try to work on this and how say or how we can merge both I'll and I'll work on the WIFS you mean well you guys can look into the sound interface the build environment and architecture thing so Jawad sorry have you commented yeah yeah okay yeah yeah so just to keep in mind this is something that we want possibly down the line we want to use it to be configurable so I was thinking of those things the setup that you made with those little configuration looking setups the for let's say the horror team and stuff like that those are really good I think We need some structures like those, so it would be easy to set up these teams. Okay guys, I think we are all set for today.
UTF LABS: Let's meet on Monday.
Ferenc Orban: Bye guys.
Csaba: See you.
Ferenc Orban: you Hi Jawad.
Jawwad Malik: Hello.
Ferenc Orban: How are you doing?
Jawwad Malik: Doing well, you tell. Good enough. you Hi, Sean.
UTF LABS: Hi, Frank. How are you? you hear me?
Ferenc Orban: Yes, we're fine. I can hear you.
UTF LABS: are you yeah I'm good as well okay so so how's the weather there is it winter it well it's winter ish we had some snow but it's all dried up now but it's cold enough it's two to four degrees Celsius that's quite cold by our standards that's quite cold how cold does it get in the winter it doesn't when on like when it's extremely cold and it goes down to around two three degrees here otherwise it stays around 10 12 yeah but these days are so just weather just started changing here so the transitioning is happening right now we're getting my little minus 20 degrees
Ferenc Orban: in the winter.
UTF LABS: In your area?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, in the winter.
UTF LABS: It's extremely cold.
Ferenc Orban: It's pretty cold, yeah. We got used to it.
UTF LABS: But you said you already have snowfall.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, we had some. We had some and we have some mountains around us and those are snowing right now. we're down here and it's not on this.
UTF LABS: Good to know that. Okay, I think Jawad is having some internet issues. He's trying to connect. Jawad, are you here?
Jawwad Malik: Yeah, I am.
UTF LABS: Okay, yeah, I think we can begin now. Okay, let me just share the screen. So quickly going through. the last meeting. Basically, we discussed the driver development updates from you guys. Then we discussed the game sequence abstraction or like the action handler abstraction that Jawas proposed. Then we discussed the Wi-Fi connection issues. after that we looked upon the build system considerations. We'll still have to discuss this in the next meetings as well. Yeah, so mostly that was the last meeting with respect to the meeting evaluation. I think that seems fine as well. I think the meeting in summary on the Discord channel also shows the evaluation score. Here it is. Yeah, it's 82 for the last meeting. So any questions from the last meeting fairing?
Ferenc Orban: No, no.
UTF LABS: Okay, moving on to the today's meeting. Okay, so to start with Uh, any updates on the driver development?
Ferenc Orban: Uh, no, I think, uh, no.
UTF LABS: Uh, just some changes, no, I saw you committed something on the sound, the driver development. So was it something new or was it an old one?
Ferenc Orban: So let me, uh, let me go back to. Uh, which one are you talking about?
UTF LABS: I'm not sure. I just saw some commit on sound. Yeah, here I did a first version for the figure driver documentation.
Ferenc Orban: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, it's, uh, it's, it's needs some work, uh, to be done. Okay. Uh, the first draft, so to speak, and it has to be reviewed and adjusted. You definitely have some work on that, so that's why I'm here.
UTF LABS: Okay. Okay, apart from that, anything else going on your end?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, there were some small changes. There was that part management thing in the lead driver that wasn't, didn't belong there. I removed that. added the tagging manager into one of the diagrams that we talked about as well in the last meeting. So I added that and I started looking on an example for the game sequence usage and that's what I'm working on right now. It's not finalized yet.
UTF LABS: Sorry, can you repeat working on what?
Ferenc Orban: An example that we chatted about. within this code.
UTF LABS: An example for the game.
Ferenc Orban: OK, got it.
UTF LABS: Yes, yes, what did so? I was discussing it with Java, so we basically just need not very detailed. Just an basic idea of how what how you have envisioned the game manager interfacing with the game sequence. So because from what we discussed, both the thing that was action handler and the game sequence is almost identical or like exactly similar. I was thinking I wanted to keep the game sequence here in the middleware on the haptics, but it's fine here as well. So we just want to figure out if it's better suited with the game manager or the driver like the middleware, but the functionality is almost the same. So Java wanted to get some basic idea of how you want to use it so he can further look upon it so how he can optimize it.
Ferenc Orban: Yes, I started to draft what I imagined for the usage, but it's not well in line with the game manager. That's why I didn't comment anything really. In my mind, I was imagining a system where the game caused the game manager's start game method, and from there the game manager itself has a call to the game sequence start game method and after it's done, it does what it wants to do, like start up the actual game, do whatever it wants, do the MQTT course, or whatever it needs to do, so this was a really simple version in my head, the game manager is not used this way or it's not imagined this way so that's so.
UTF LABS: Yeah, that's exactly what my, it was my concerns like if we have the game sequence here then it will exactly be performing the role of game manager basically.
Ferenc Orban: Okay, so where the idea behind the game sequences is basically its purpose is to have these sequences and the so the sequences have have these configurable so this is the idea basically however we come up with a good solution it it's okay so. My what I imagine is not really in line with what we have, as I can see but if you guys, if Jawad can come up with. is all version of this that is in line with the architecture and is mainly just an attachment of the game manager. So it's a module of the game manager. it's module enough then I think it should be fine. What do you say?
UTF LABS: I think Jawad can look into a bit more meanwhile you can commit like an initial version of what you thought and then we can optimize it further.
Ferenc Orban: So my issue with this is that as I can tell I would have to start modifying the game manager as well for it to be used as I imagined it originally. That's why it doesn't really make sense for me to commit it this way. This way it doesn't make sense and for it to make sense I should change the game but the game manager should be good I think.
UTF LABS: I think you can look into a bit more, see if you can optimize it further. Otherwise, we'll discuss what you have in the next meeting and finalize it then and there. Okay, moving on to Feringa, also saw that you included the tagging manager here. So how do we scroll towards that, right? So my question was, you added like the I2C interface here, right? Sorry, I2S interface here in the tagging manager. So do you think we should have like this linked towards the speaker interface or do you think the I2S here will work?
Ferenc Orban: Should be some, can you zoom out a bit or go to the left so I can see?
UTF LABS: So we have the speaker interface here.
Ferenc Orban: Yes, it's basically the same hardware. Yeah, that should be represented. The link should go from the tagging to the speaker.
UTF LABS: Somehow we need like a unified interface here for both of these. So maybe we can move the sound here and then this could be renamed to something else. It will be managing the tagging and the sound both. That's what I'm thinking.
Ferenc Orban: Okay, we're looking to that. I'll take notes about this. I'll look into that to figure it out. Maybe it makes sense to have one manager to manage the sound.
UTF LABS: Yeah, exactly. But just I had just had a thought then in that case. Since we also have IR here as well, so we don't need this, like the sound manager to be accessing the RMTA, so we might have to rearrange this somehow.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, yeah, that's what I thought initially. That's why I don't say that the sound should obviously be managed by the technique because it's not very much obvious. But yeah, we'll look into it. It's a bit more complex. Anything the next meeting? Finish the sound. That's what we had in mind. so that's going to be touching on the tagging as well, both the speaker and even the IR, so that might be a new addition plus there. So that's what we are going to work on. So yeah, I think I'll leave the example out so I won't work on it for you.
UTF LABS: Sorry, what example?
Ferenc Orban: The example code that I've been working on right now.
UTF LABS: Yeah, the game sequence code?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, the game sequence code.
UTF LABS: Yeah, I think you can leave that since we discussed it and think Jawad also has some sort of an idea now. So maybe what he proposed, we can optimize it and present it in the next meeting. But yeah, I think you can leave that out.
Ferenc Orban: You can focus on the sound driver. Yeah, okay. That's what we're going to do. The sound driver and the base, the docker.
UTF LABS: Yeah. Okay. Moving on since Juan is all, are you here?
Quan Gan: Yeah, I'm here.
UTF LABS: Yeah. So since Juan is here in this meeting, we've presented the action handler, I'd concept in the last meeting. Java, can you quickly present it to Juan? So Juan has also an idea of what you proposed.
Jawwad Malik: Yeah, sure. Let me share my screen first. So as earlier, what we are doing, like whenever we want to use some patterns for light bar or like sounds we want to play sounds we want to like have to use haptic we are using it again and again and again in our functions so in our main code so I just make an abstract handler here action handler here it should like one function that used to call all these three things how it's I will explain you like here we have a theme manager theme manager have the structure of sounds the structure of haptic and the structured like the sound passes through the theme like start tune stop tune tagging tune alert tune and game over tune there are many more alerts and tagging tunes inside like the sound theme as well as same for light theme and haptic theme do. And if we talk about display, like display is common for all others. So we just leave that. So here we have one class like a order theme. This is a header file of it, where we just put all the implementations or you can see the definitions for that, like the start tone, tagging tone, other tone, game over tone, similarly for light. in case like we can just let's suppose like if the start color is red for order theme and the tone was sound tone was like the start tone was this as well as like the half biggest one. So what we are actually doing in our action handler, we just put the implementations of that like the methods here and how we use that thing into our game. If we just Like call action hender dot start. So what action then handle dot start do is play the start tune of the sound like this. As well as the light and haptic pattern. So if so here we have some function where we make it like so here is start is doing that. Like it has current theme dot sound dot start tune dot temple. Send for like the light. And for the haptic too. So we just call action hender dot start. It play all three together. If we just write like action hender dot tag tagging it play all together. So that was my concept.
Quan Gan: Okay, so can you tell me how having multiple themes might work out and how do you create these themes?
UTF LABS: So basically we define the tunes into the theme itself. So whatever tune we need, we can tune pattern, whatever we need, we can define this into the theme itself. And then when we are creating the theme, we just declare it there, whatever theme we want, whatever tune we want, and then we just call that relevant start, stop, or tagging or whatever tune we want. We can have multiple here like alerts, notifications, whatever we want. So just make it a part of a theme and then the game manager will directly access it via the theme.
Quan Gan: So we don't have to define it into the game itself. Okay, and then the creation of the theme is at a... a script we would generate to hold to a certain template or is there some kind of a validation to make sure a theme is valid before you apply it.
UTF LABS: So basically we have a template here for creation of themes and then we can based on that template we can create different themes. a theme it's just definition for like colors, displays, sound, and all these things. especially in presented we discussed it earlier as well. Select this is a horror theme which can be used into the zombie survival and similar games. Then there can be other themes sports themes or whatever themes. So they will like declaration for display sound or patterns for haptics then we can use it into the game itself. So instead of creating different sounds for each game we can create themes and use those themes into the games.
Quan Gan: Yeah that part I get I'm just wondering if there's some kind of error handling or validation a script to prevent invalid definitions to be inserted.
UTF LABS: Yeah, I think we can manage that easily. It isn't there right now, but we can create a script for validation and then there are ways to handle that. I think we can do that easily.
Quan Gan: Okay, yeah. I just want to see if we can add that into the CICD process so that we don't accidentally do something that we shouldn't.
UTF LABS: Yeah. I think yeah, we can manage that.
Quan Gan: Okay. Thank you.
UTF LABS: Yeah. So this was basically the idea behind it. And then yeah, okay. Moving on. basically I needed to discuss the next steps. So since of fairing and Java are working on the drivers and we have reviewed most of them. So I would like to say that I think we can start with the MVP development now since we are already in December and it will some time to get everything to set up. fairing and Convert, you think shall we dive into that?
Quan Gan: If you guys are ready, you know I'm in full support of getting the MVP done.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, I think we're around there. Well, keep in mind that we still need to finish the Docker setup and so whatever code you create that's going to to move with the Docker or we'll have to merge the Docker thing into the code.
UTF LABS: Yeah, I think that wouldn't be an issue since once the Docker is finalized we can move all the code there. Meanwhile, you guys can develop the drivers as well. what we can do is we can start with just. the basic environment and basic files with all the system in it and all these kind of files. So I think that will still take quite a lot of time to just initiate it. So once I think we can start now and by the time you guys are done with the driver, we'll have like a base environment in place.
Ferenc Orban: We can shift that into Docker and then from there on we can continue developing. Yeah, we have to get some agreement on the versions of libraries that we are using. Do we have some input on those? Do we want to use the latest possible version of everything or the version that we used initially?
UTF LABS: I think we settled on, I'll confirm it with Faisal. mean as well where we were using IDF 4.4, I think he tried to move to IDF 5, but there were some issues with IDF 5 with respect to the support of ESP. we analyzed IDF 4.4, I'll confirm it with him so we can then start it.
Ferenc Orban: Okay, I think we should add some documentation in this. There might be some, but if it doesn't exist, we should add that to the documentation. All these versions should be listed somewhere in one place because that's always been an issue when we wanted to know what versions we're using. So these agreements would be.
UTF LABS: Yeah, I think we already have the MVP documentation there. We can include it in there. So we can finalize the Docker implementation as well so we can include all the details there and then we can move the environment there. So I'll ask Java to just set up the basic environment and all like get it all together, the basic setup, the basic code with like just a hello world sort of thing. So just to get up, get us up and running and then we can. start involving more things from there.
Ferenc Orban: Okay.
UTF LABS: Yeah. Okay. Meanwhile, I also need Chaba's help with the Wi-Fi issue. Chaba, will you be able to have some time to look into this issue with me this week?
Csaba: Yeah, yeah, sure.
UTF LABS: Yeah, so basically... No, not something recent. I'm just testing it with different things. So I tried over the weekend. was working with the like of four parts to this. The Wi-Fi was connecting. Basically, everything was connecting. Everything was working fine. But then I today uploaded the newer code and then still started having the same issue. So I've tried to figure out the patterns here. There isn't much better... which can be observed here in the ESP. what I looked into the broker here, so the broker sends the acknowledgments back, they're, so like the subscription acknowledgement. So whenever the client connects and it starts, you know, to subscribe to topics, the broker sends the subscription acknowledgement back to the Ztegr or to the client. So I can see it sends the ESP receives some of the acknowledgement subscription acknowledgments and then it stops receiving the acknowledgement. So I'm trying to figure out what's happening there. I looked into the settings on the views as well, but there aren't any settings or any limitations there with respect to messages or anything. I'm also trying to arrange another router. I just have to set it up as well. So I don't think it's a router issue, but I'll still set it up to see if the, maybe the cause, but I don't think that's a router issue. So the main issue or the main issue think that is confusing me is like when I run on a local setup with my the broker running on my laptop it works fine so that indicates that it might not be like a code issue so that's why I need Java your help too so we can figure out you can test on your end and maybe you can find something that I am missing okay first please commit everything to GitHub and we check it yeah everything everything is committed to GitHub I think it's the keep keep of a merged topic or like it's called branch that up to date recorded is already there I'll push it again if anything is missing so it will be updated here and then I just need you to know like test with your end see if you can see I got the tagger subscribe to all the topics you can easily figure it out through the what's happening and I'll be available as well so if needed we can have a quick meeting So you'll be able to know exactly what's happening.
Csaba: Okay, okay, sure.
UTF LABS: Yeah, okay, so that's the thing going on in mind. Java, do you have anything else to share? You are also mentioning like a flow diagram between the ZUs and the ZTaggers as well.
Jawwad Malik: Yeah, I have something to share. Give me time. Thank you. So, you I was like initiating on working on this project. I was confused, like, how are views and what the role of them, what the tag is, the tagger's rules and how they are working. So, today, I just like, give some prompt to GPT. So, like, because I seen in our documents, was, they have many things, but they all are separately written there. But here's some relationship between how our views and see tagger's words together. here's we have some, like, like, we start the game that published to our MQT broker, and then we perform game logic that also communicating with MQT broker, and that sends the data to dashboard and that would have some receiving command or controlling command to control uh our like taggers so here was something like uh I thought to add in our documents but where should I add it I didn't like um I have a strong like um knows about it so I I didn't push that so first I want to know like should I add this anywhere or I just leave it I think it's related to the system overview so you could edit somewhere around there and uh it should be reviewed I think by uh I'm not sure on the Zeus server part what what exactly is happening there I think it's just the flow for now but the MQTT broker is on Zeus instead of the ggmware devices so the broker should move there if you want to include it but I think like a float
UTF LABS: start might be more suitable instead of this this is causing more complexity instead of clearing it or do you think very well yeah this first the first time I looked at it I didn't really get it but as Jawad explained what he sees it's a bit clearer but yeah maybe a full charge yeah it would be better because you don't know where to start looking and the tagging event is kind of part of the game logic I think that's basically here's the score upload that whenever tagging happens so we upload the score via MQTT I think that's the point Jawad can you confirm yeah okay so this some or like a similar diagram might help in someone newer to join or to understand the documentation as well so you can use this that may be created in the form of float or a more simple version, so that it's easier to understand.
Ferenc Orban: The main point is that diagrams like these are workable, think, because it makes it easier to jump aboard for anyone. If you see that you don't understand something and you can make a comprehensive diagram, it's all good and it's workable. Then you can add it to the documentation, I think, John.
UTF LABS: Okay. Yeah, so I think that's all for today. Just to sum it up, you'll be able to try to complete the sound driver by the next meeting. Chaba was also finalizing the Docker environment. Just to update Kwan, we are thinking about having a build system in place with this. to a common build environment where all of us can code. So we discussed if we can use a Docker for this, where we all have Docker images and we can, so we don't have to separately set up environment for testing or like coding. So what do you think about that, Kaun?
Quan Gan: I think that's generally a good idea just to make sure the environment is the same.
UTF LABS: Yeah, so previously we had issues where fairing and each other had different environment. We had different environment so we are trouble, you know, in building the code. So I think yeah, fairing proposed in the last meeting and it's good idea. A facility worked on it a bit. I'll also discuss it with him as well. So we can have like a common environment where we can all use the program and Chaba. Once you have something substantial, you can also share it with us on Discord and we can have evaluate it and then we can move towards it.
Quan Gan: So does that mean I have a question. So if you guys have. Docker, does that mean you have to do some additional setup on the VS code and before you're able to do any kind of programming?
Ferenc Orban: I think not. think we can finish the, like the UTF guys can start with the code I think and we can merge this to the Docker from our side and after that we have an image with the code. If that's your question.
Quan Gan: Well, there's a few things I want to see that it's addressing. One thing is just, you know, a package version to make sure that's consistent. But also, do we have the specifications like, you know, typically some other full stack projects you have, like the proper include or the requirements.txt, like do we do have those set and then if we need to upgrade, how do we make sure things don't break as we pack it is?
Ferenc Orban: I'm not sure what the docker handles exactly, so we're going to have to answer that bit at a later point.
Quan Gan: Okay, yeah, I think maybe just having a more comprehensive overview of what docker will do for us and how it would impact future upgrades as any of these imported packages gets updated on their own and what that process would be like.
UTF LABS: Also like since we'll be using select serial ports, I'm not sure I heard somewhere that docker has an issue on accessing serial ports on Windows. I'm not sure if it's true, but just a thought I remember. So since we'll be able to upload, we'll need to upload the code to this. So, Chava, can you confirm that it works with the serial ports?
Csaba: I don't know yet. I didn't try. I'm just on the setup right now.
Quan Gan: Okay, they're also...
Csaba: Yeah?
Quan Gan: Oh, sorry. I was going to ask, there is an alternative that... I'm not saying it's the right method, but I want you guys to consider it, as you guys are doing research, is a platform IO. It's a plug-in. It's an extension in BX code that allows you to... Essentially, of like for Node.js, you can have node modules imported based on your requirements. So it's kind of like for ESP32, you can tell it exactly what package you want to import, then it allows the platform to get set up rather quickly. So, that's just another thought, but there is one caveat to that, and I had to overcome this last week. So, in Windsurf and Possibly Cursor, they don't have all the BS code extensions because it's a fork, whereas Platform IO, has to be on an official Microsoft marketplace. So, have to do some manual update to get that extension into the BS code. So, that's just something I found in case you guys want to use that in Windsurf.
Ferenc Orban: I think we have used the Platform IO in the beginning. We started working on the taking part. I think we shifted to the clean once we started working together with the UTF team. use that I'm not sure what what are issues with that but there were some problems we're looking into that as well yeah I think it just it saves you from having to independently download the IDF and it's much more maintained to be consistent rather if you if you build your own IDF there might be a new version and then you might run into compatibility issues yeah we had I think some some version issues with the what was in the background but not not exactly sure what the issues were but we had some issues I know yeah we have used or we are still at using idea platform in a few different projects as well so I'm not sure if it that provides the same instruction like our detailed lower level detail as IDF but I think we can use IDF also in the platform IO and if that's the case then platform IO will make make things
Csaba: easier it's like quite easier to use and it also I think I think it can automatically configure the libraries as well so Java you can if you get time you can look into it as well so maybe that might be an easier or better option yeah I'm using activities so yeah I think it's a good idea because we can use the idea framework so yeah yeah I think and Java were you able to get to work on Windsor yeah yeah I could import it okay great because I to go to the extension website and manually download a particular file I think it's called a VSIX and then install it manually did you do that too yeah okay all right but I installed Windsor with the automatic
Ferenc Orban: That's for my from the settings my VS code. So I do have it by default.
UTF LABS: But so I'm sort of like a little confused here once so if we are using the platform IO files, so we can't make updates to them using Windsor. I think we can't them using Windsor, but we'll be still be able to make updates to them using Windsor by now.
Quan Gan: It's just because Windsor is a fork off of VS code, it doesn't have access to the full Microsoft marketplace for VS code. So if you want some extensions to work on natively, you have to go through a manual installation process rather than adding it from the sidebar.
UTF LABS: I get it.
Quan Gan: it will work just the same. Yeah, so it'll work the same identically to working in cursor or not cursor in regular yes code once you manually install it.
UTF LABS: Okay, I think you can look into it and we can discuss what's the better option. Meanwhile, we'll try to initialize the project on R and Java can start building it and we'll then discuss on how far we can reach. Meanwhile, you guys can complete the drivers and then we can look into integrating those. So far now Java can be started with basic project setup and then base. display integrations you already have the display driver. So maybe we can just do a basic display integration and from there we can move on. Hello, I'm Aurodevil.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, it's okay.
UTF LABS: Okay, anything else guys?
Quan Gan: I noticed today's meeting is a little bit shorter and that's perfectly fine. I just wanted to see if anybody can share with me why it's going faster, which is fine, but I just wanted to document that.
Ferenc Orban: I think that's because there's not a lot of finish work done. So we started looking on the The sound and the docker. and some example for the sequence game sequences that you talked about. So we were able to run through those quite fast because it doesn't have to finish yet. that's why we were fast.
Quan Gan: Okay, so just what I'm hearing is you guys need more time on certain modules before you guys can report, right?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, yeah. So there were three things that we had in mind in ongoing. One was an example for some of one of the modules that we started working on and it isn't finished and it's not in line with the game manager. we jumped over that and the job was finished. The Docker is not finished, obviously. Chava is going to add the Docker to the platform IO and come up with the best solution and look into what platform IO provides. So there's not a lot to report on that either. And the sound, we did start working on the sound, but it's still not done. I committed the first version on Friday, just so I know if Chava has some time remaining, he could work on the sound alone. But he didn't, so that the sound is not finished, we started working on it, still needs to be looked through and touched up. So, yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. And how much time do you guys estimate on these uncompleted parts?
Ferenc Orban: Um, We expect to finish this by the next meeting this week. The sound in the dark part, yeah, we see how the darker thing goes. I expect that to be easy enough to so we can finish it as well. Sorry.
Quan Gan: Okay, thank you.
Ferenc Orban: Sure.
UTF LABS: Yeah, on our end, basically most of the task for Jawad was to review the file and have takes light bar, task manager, tech interface. he's been able to do that. He worked on like merging the sequences and action handler files that Jawad and Feng proposed also. But then we have agreed so like the initial concept for sequences file isn't really compatible with the game manager. So Jawad will try to finalize the action handler. I think it's mostly complete, but if there is anything else he'll look into it. So that was the update on my end. I am still trying to figure out the pattern for the Wi-Fi connection issue. I haven't observed a clear pattern yet. It works and then it starts giving error in between. So one, you get time, can only if you can test on your Zeus as well and see if the Z tag is connected to the Wi-Fi or like the display is the Wi-Fi symbol basically connects to the Wi-Fi. They connect to as well, but just doesn't completely subscribe to all the topics. that is restricts the Wi-Fi symbol from appearing as well. So if you can, I am testing with older builds as well, and I can see it there as well sometime with older builds with like, so I have quite a lot of bills, but I'll check what's the last build up return the heat up or release to the client and see if I can find it there as well. But what I mean to say is I have like not into the most recent build as well. a few builds before that as well I can see. So I'm trying to figure out since we're it started appearing. So if you can test on your build on what you have, so I can try to figure out if anything there's anything additional thing that I did in between.
Quan Gan: Okay. can you give both me and how about specific instructions on which build and how to test it and we'll go do that.
UTF LABS: I'll do that.
Quan Gan: Thank you.
UTF LABS: Yeah. Okay. Anything else guys?
Ferenc Orban: Oh, that's from our side.
UTF LABS: I think it's from ours as well. Let's meet on Thursday.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Csaba: Thank you everybody.
Jawwad Malik: Okay. Bye.
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Quan Gan: Everybody Thank you for seeing more people Good morning everyone good morning Okay, I think is is this everybody I think everybody's here now morning morning Hi, good morning everyone I am uh in mammoth right now. I'm at a ski Uh ski cabin. Yeah, and it's been storming the past couple of days.
Kristin Neal: No way.
Quan Gan: Yeah The the snow is so good that they had to shut down everything So like uh 50 mile an hour winds Because uh, yeah, there's so much wind they can't take the lift up.
Kristin Neal: Oh, no But today should be good today should be really good
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay. So everybody, welcome. So we're halfway into December, almost towards the end of this year. So I want to start with a one word open. So for me, it is excitement. Excitement. Kia, how about you?
Misamis Occidental/ Ptr. Kiara Grace Bajao: I think the word for this week, stretch. Amy.
Aimee Ocer: For me, it's overwhelming again, since new learnings and new AI tools for the market research. that's for me.
Paula Cia: For me, it's loaded loaded with new videos to watch the social media plan and some tasks.
Kristin Neal: Um, Chris, uh, thanks Paula, uh, revitalized me and Francis.
Klansys Palacio: For me, it's grateful.
Quan Gan: Okay. Thank you.
Kristin Neal: How much do want?
Quan Gan: Oh, I said excited.
Kristin Neal: That's right.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Did everybody go already? Okay. Yeah. So, uh, so yeah, I want to just kind of give you guys a couple of top themes, um, that I wanted to, uh, to talk about, um, one thing is just to, uh, some of the things that we have in the VTO, uh, just to make sure that everybody is, I'm sure you guys have already seen it, but I think repetition is what helps with learning some things. Uh, so the three uniques, um, I wanted to maybe, uh, even have some people just, uh, read through it and then share and talk about what it means to just really make sure that beyond my understanding and Stan's understanding that you know as a company we all understand what it means. So I posted the three uniques in the chat wondering if anybody would volunteer to read through the first one and tell me what it means. Five more seconds and then I'll pick someone.
Kristin Neal: I don't have it up or I would just do it.
Quan Gan: Sorry. It's in the it's in the click. I'm about classes.
Klansys Palacio: Okay. I'm still observing the information.
Quan Gan: Okay. It's towards the end of the last like second to last thing where I can screen share it can you guys see my screen yeah okay so why don't you start with the first one just tell tell me what do you think it means it's okay yeah this this is part of some new initiatives I want to put into the team to really help us fully understand the company and our products can I help her out yeah thanks Chris
Kristin Neal: I'm thinking proprietary technology means technology that is not anywhere else. It's only exclusive for Z tag. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay, what about the second part of that statement?
Kristin Neal: We're taking back. We're changing the course of how technology is used. It feels like that that's what that means exclusive systems. So like this proprietary technology is exclusive in these systems that really that real world interaction is.
Quan Gan: Yeah, actually, what I meant was the face to face part.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, well, that's the new thing where we're using this technology for face to face, which usually you don't combine them to. That's like a new concept of using tech for her face to face.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so excellently stated and I will help add some things into it. So as we explain, so you know, this may feel new and possibly a little stretching for you guys, but what I really want as a result is for these words to actually be embodied and felt and rather than these are just mere words in a marketing document, because that's usually what happens in a lot of companies where you have core values, but really nobody actually knows what they mean. So I want to basically get everybody to try to learn it by teaching it. So this first statement, proprietary tech, means exactly like Chris has mentioned, unique to Z tag itself. Every company has their own tech, but really what makes it so unique to us is we're using it to enhance the face to face person to person engagement. And if you look at any screen based technology up to this point. The interaction is between the human user and the screen. You you're interacting with someone, even like Zoom, right? We are talking to each other at directly face to face, but we're talking through a screen medium. Or if you look at video games, even though you might be next to someone playing the video game, you're really still first interacting with the screen before you're interacting with the other person. Does that make sense? So what ZTAG is uniquely able to do is we're still using a similar screen-based technology, but that screen is reduced to a very small peripheral that's worn at the watch. And in doing so, we're de-emphasizing the technology itself, but we're using the technology to enhance the person-to-person experience. Whereas the tech actually becomes just more of an enhancement factor. It's kind of like a spice to an existing face. face connection. Yeah, so I don't know if anyone else would be willing to comment on it or, you know, see if you're understanding that.
Kristin Neal: I'm glad you mentioned the smallness of the unit. I think that sometimes people see that as a bad thing, but that's actually what the goal is to, so that's great.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and also if you look at, let's say a video game, they're spending millions if not billions of dollars creating these hyper realistic video games. Like they're trying to mimic as much as the real world as possible in doing these creative and immersive storylines. Well, that's very different from Z tag because we're also on the opposite side of the spectrum, where the game is incredibly simple. and it's enhancing your relationship to the real world. So in that sense, we get the real world technology for free. And rather than having to spend millions of dollars rendering something that looks cinematic or like a movie or real life, you get that for free. And that's why the technology itself, it's kind of really baked into something very small, but it's enhancing your relationship to the real world. Okay. So I'll probably be testing you guys on this over time, we're gonna try to bake this into our weekly meetings just to make sure everybody understands this.
Kristin Neal: Chris? I'm curious. Do you mind if I ask a question? Because I'm curious if you guys understand kind of like the kids right now in America because they kind of turn into zombies. Do you guys have that? Our kids kind of like just with their faces. Yeah, disengaged. Is that how it is in the Philippines? do or do you guys not have that kind of issue?
Paula Cia: Not really. Most kids don't have gadgets either.
Quan Gan: That's good. Yeah, I think this is probably a developed country phenomena. Probably you'll see this more in America and possibly China. That they're so plugged in that they don't know how to be humans anymore.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, they don't know how to play. It almost feels like that. When we saw, when we went and played in person, the anchor, there's like a spike in behaviors that are really, it was really interesting to see. And the fact that this one actually, it's so fast moving as simple as it was like they didn't have time to have that behavior to continue to escalate. It was escalating, but because they were already onto the new thing, it was like, oh, okay, they're going to move on to the next thing.
Quan Gan: Yep, absolutely. Okay. So, let's move on to number two. know we're going to spend a little bit more time on this stuff because I think it is important for us to understand the foundational principles on our product. does anyone else want to volunteer to read number two?
Aimee Ocer: Number two, seamless blend of active play, social interaction and learning outcomes, integrated experiences are fun, social and educational. So, one thing for me that I understand is that they do not just play, read or anything that is an interaction between physical play for them.
Quan Gan: Very good. Yeah. emphasis on this unique is we're blending all elements together because if you look at how children interact I don't think they have separated these aspects of engagement whether it's play it's learning or social or physical to them it's just all part of this part of interaction like if you ask children you know are you playing are you socializing are you you know being physically active like they don't know like are you learning they don't know but they're actually doing all of that right and then it's actually the modern day adults that have kind of destroyed that model by segmenting it or compartmentalizing it into different segments saying okay you're learning right now you're playing right now you're socially interacting right now right like they're actually separating it but what we're trying to do is integrate it back together and so even in product. And I tell this to my engineering team, as a standard, every single interaction needs to be multimodal, meaning that it has to, you have to see it, you have to hear it, you have to feel it. You're taking a multiple sensory, right? So your traditional learning would be like having a book in front of you, and then you're reading it and trying to understand it, but you're not actually physically embodying it. So when we are engaging our audience in all sorts of sensory, because there's plenty of research showing that learning is not just one way. So for example, I don't read very fast, but I realize I can listen to audio very fast. So that's my way of input. But some people might be able to read or their visual. They might need examples or they need to physically touch something. So it's super important that our types of of technology incorporates all of those things all together, so it allows it to be adaptable to any audience, certain things work for some people and certain things work for other people, but we have a platform that supports all of that. Okay, does anyone else want to maybe comment on that?
Misamis Occidental/ Ptr. Kiara Grace Bajao: I'd like to add, prior to being a VA, I actually attempted to join the Department of Education as a teacher, so I've learned what makes me reminded of talking about number two, speaking of the word blend. Here in the Philippines, as a teacher, you do lesson plan, and you have this like three parts of your lesson plan are objectives, so we have the effective, the psychomotor, and the cognitive, so these three are very like should be a target in every lesson that you teach to students. And so with seamless blend of active play, Juan mentioned earlier, kids really don't realize if they're really learning or they're just playing. So with Z-Tag, we incorporate these things like when they socialize, their emotions are being affected. Psychomotor, I think, when they do run and do the play itself. And the cognitive, what I've learned is the videos that we have in our manual, it's not just a game, it has intellectual and knowledge-based side. kids or the users, specifically kids, would be able to do problem solving and be able to enhance their intellectual side. I totally agree. I agree that for number two, we really have this unique feature of our product in helping those develop those stuff.
Quan Gan: Excellent. Kia. Thank you for sharing that. And I think at the end of the day, what it means is we're activating more neurons. So when you're engaging someone and you're activating all of these different parts of their brain. That's much more conducive to retention. know, if you trace back to your own memories, like some of your favorite memories, most likely those memories involve quite a few different things. Like you probably remember where you were, the people that were involved, maybe the emotions that you were feeling, what you were doing, like look back for yourself. And essentially you're just activating so many different parts of the brain that it mutually enforces that protection. your experience. So that's what number two is all about for us. Okay, let's see number three who wants to go on this one.
Paula Cia: Number three we continuous innovation in program design commitment to fusing traditional play with cutting edge technology keeping offerings fresh and exciting. For me what I understand about this is that we should always adapt to the trend so we can always stay on the market just like social media. But we are committed on using the traditional play on these programs like the rock, paper, sea source. It's like playing traditional game but in a modern way. That's it.
Quan Gan: Okay, thank you Paul. Does anyone else want to share? Okay. So I'll add something to this. I think for us, we are actually, we want to be the trend centers, rather than looking at social media and what their current trend is and following it, the tag fundamentally is setting what those new standards are. And you'll see this in many ways where Z tag. And my core belief is here to remedy a lot of the issues that mainstream has created for especially the developed countries. So social media, if anything, it's actually tearing a lot of people apart. know, it's creating more separation due to. News or information that generates anger. It's, it's easy to type something and then just throw it out there and then you end up getting a lot of polarized reactions. But with our program, we're trying to set a new standard of using social technology to bring people back together, you know, back to the face-to-face engagement. And I want this to be so popularized within the customer base that we serve that it becomes a new standard rather than following what tends to be popular. Now, there are things where we might be adaptable to kids or meet them where they are. So there might be certain themes that they like or certain modes of playing that is currently popular that we can bring that into our platform. I think that's certainly one of the things we could do. But really, the way I look at this is we're kind of a balancing factor. We're taking all the elements that are great about technology, but also blending it with all the elements that are fundamentally human, which is having this face-to-face engagement being able to run around, play around like, you know, like places where they didn't have technology. So it's kind of like, in a way, we're fighting technology with technology. know, the very damage that some of the tech has done, we're using it to flip the equation around to counteract that. And in doing so, you know, we have to stay adaptable with the different types of programming that we seek to bank. Does anyone have any additional comments on this last one?
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, actually, I have. It is actually based on my experience when I was teaching coding back then. So if you're not going to adapt new technologies or follow the trends, the participants will get bored easily and will lose interest. So, and I agree that that's one of the things that ZTAG really offers, like having or having new games were in a role blend to the modern technology as well, where we were kids who tend to have or to boost their interest on playing, not just, that's just what they call this, like playing the games over and over again, but having a new features on it as well. So, because when I, when I do teach them, like, of course, teachers tend to keep us on doing it all over again, so that all of them will go into catch up. the, the negative side of that is most of them were going to get bored because they're just listening and will not go going to learn from it.
Quan Gan: So, that's
Klansys Palacio: It's really what I've been trying to adapt with new technologies and like you need to, if the technologies were going to, uh, adapt this such level, so you need to follow it as well, because if, if you will not, it's either you lose customers, your, your participants will go into this, um, interest as well and your products were going to become outdated. So that's for the innovation.
Quan Gan: Yes, so classes, while you're mentioning that I found this, um, this chart that might be helpful for, for you guys take a look, are you guys able to see this? Okay, can you guys see this, uh, difficulty curve? Okay, so this is actually from a game development field. three. So on this vertical axis is how challenging something is. And then actually here the skills and resources, actually I used to see this as time, so as time progresses, so pretend it's time, but basically when you have a game created, you want it to stay in this middle area to progress with the user. So basically as the user moves along in some kind of a game, challenge should also be increased. Just like if you play a video game, you level up over time. But if you go out of these boundaries, and I'll show you what that means is, let's say up here, in a very short amount of time, you give them something too challenging. Or even within our company operations, in a very short amount of time, if I throw too many new things at you, you get into the zone of frustration because you're not able to build your own skill set yet, right? It's like everything's paled on. You don't know what's going on. You get very, um, so you get into this, uh, like too much challenge for the given amount of time. So that's the frustration zone. Um, but on the flip side, if too much time goes by, and I'm not challenging you, then you get bored. Right. That that's this bottom piece. Right. So if you get, if I give you a game, right, and it's just the same game over and over again, you've, you've mastered it and it's not pressing and it's here. Uh, so getting it into this perfect balance where you're kind of kind of pitching up against here a little bit, you're feeling the challenge, the squeeze, you know, um, uh, but you're not into this permanent frustration zone. And then over time, what happens, you're like, Oh, okay, I learned that skill. Okay. It's becoming a little bit more normal. Then you start flowing here and then we up the skill again. Right. You're going to feel that stretch. it's like working out. And then you go through this trend and within here, they call flow state. This is kind of the ideal path of And I really hope to bring that and not only to our customers, but even for our team right here. I know you guys are stretched with a lot of new things that I'm asking you guys to do. But hopefully, you know, it's not throwing you too much into this realm, but you feel like there's balance that you can achieve.
Kristin Neal: Can I add something to that, Gwen? When we went to the second school on Thursday, it was neat because we tested out the sequence game with the kids for the first time, and they got into that frustrated zone. Because it was so difficult for them to... I don't know if it was the skill of being able to count evens or if it was just they they didn't quite understand, but they got frustrated with it. So they didn't quite do so well. But it was neat because you have that human element where it was like, no, it's okay, you guys. You But I do this, know, there was that encouragement that that isn't on a spreadsheet that's not on something, but the teacher, hopefully, or someone who's in charge would be able to say, it's okay that that human ability, which, which you don't get in a regular game, like, you don't get someone to say, it's okay, you guys, you didn't do it the first time, but that's okay. Do it like this and then do it again and attack it. the second time they did it, it went a lot better. They got up to, I think, 30. So it's easy even past this. Like it's even more than this.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah, and I think oftentimes, especially with younger generation, we try to feed them everything. So it might be a little bit more here, rather than being. Okay, it's telling them, hey, sometimes we're going to bump into the frustration zone and understand what that is and how do you go from there back into this flow state. Yeah. And this would teach more resilience. One other thing to speak to this is you'll see some of our games are, well, actually many of our games are person to person. It's not just challenging yourself. Let's say you're playing red, like green, like you're playing against yourself. But in a lot of the other games, you're playing with other people. And so in that sense, the game self elevates, because as you progress, so do your teammates. So your teammates get better and they actually make the game inherently harder for you, right? So that's creating that team aspect. And this is also why if you look at sports, I probably have asked you guys this a long time ago to think about what's the difference between a game and a sport. Does anybody remember that difference?
Kristin Neal: Yeah, I remember that. Okay, who? You had a stump?
Quan Gan: Yeah, someone else. Who wants to say it?
Misamis Occidental/ Ptr. Kiara Grace Bajao: I guess the F word. The F word?
Quan Gan: Oh yeah. That's different answer. There's an element of the focal point, but does anyone else want to talk about the difference between a game and a sport? They're both games actually, but what makes a sport a sport? The focus is one of them, but there's another piece to it. What? There's, yes, there's physical, you know, there's, okay. I'll tell you guys this. The games have to be constantly updated. Otherwise, people get bored, right? You fall back into here. But the sport is the same rules over and over again, right? How come we can play soccer or basketball or any of these major sports for centuries? without totally changing what it is and it's because it's the team versus team nature of it. players themselves is what elevates the difficulty and makes you progress through here, right? Versus a game, if you're playing this against yourself, then yeah, if that game, you know, you finish a story, it kind of just drops out. But if you're playing it against other people and we can take the same game, essentially, like zombie survival, you know, you can give it to four-year-olds and they'll have a good time, you can give it to athletes and they'll probably have a really good time, too, right? Because you're putting it against each other. know, you're not having four-year-olds play against athletes, that would be very, you know, challenging for the four-year-olds, but you're putting them against the same group so they're elevating together. All right, so I know we spent a good amount of time on this, but I think it's actually very important for us to, you know, just cut actually fundamentals of the company and the product. And then as for the market, I would just tell you this for the priority that over the past year, we're finding the after-school programs, compared to anything else, is going to be a much bigger market for us. And in talking to Stan and Chris, we're noticing that our focus should be on that. Even though we do have the other segments, it might be as big of a difference as a 10-to-1 ratio. So if after-school programs are 10 times larger than any of the other number 2, 3, 4, 5, or then combined, then most of our marketing efforts should be towards the former. And then we'll make it adaptable for the other markets. But we wouldn't want to put the same equal amount of energy in pushing if we know the first one is really where a lot of the gains are made. Does that make sense? Okay. All right. So let me see. There's more things I wanted to go about before we make it departmental. So something else that I noticed in traveling with Chris and talking to our customers, and I'll have Chris talk more about that during her update, is that my conclusion is we really want to be doubling down our efforts on both on existing customers to really drive that relationship deeper, because not only can we impact them more, but we realize that they basically have already created a big open door for us, because the product has engaged them so well and they're so happy with it. When we have new products, sharing with them is going to be a much faster and straighter approach than having to create new markets and new customers. Saying that we're not going to do it, but I think we're going to get new customers inherently by helping our current customers really, really well, because word spreads. So that's going to be a really big effort just to concentrate on existing customers and how do we focus on them. And then many of them have shared with us when you have new products, they'd be happy to see it and even take us around to show other people that might be using it. So doubling down on those existing connections. But the other thing I've come to realize is we have an amazing team that we've built up over the past two years. And I think we should also be doubling our efforts within our internal team to enhance our own skills. And this is why I'm kind of asking you guys to do self-study and also potentially teach each other. Because that's. how we can enhance and stay on top of the AI race so that we don't stay stagnant. We also walk the talk. Whatever we say we're doing for our customers, we're also doing for ourselves. We're engaging more, learning new tools, and then hopefully this is not something that I'm teaching you guys top down, but rather you guys have learned new things and you share with each other. as a collective consciousness, treating the company as a collective consciousness, how can we be self-elevating rather than leadership pushing you guys? Yeah, okay. So let's move over to the second section. Amy, can you start us off with your updates and anything else? So talk about your progress this week and if there's any challenges and then anything you've learned through the day. AI tools.
Aimee Ocer: Thank you for the market research update for the past week. I already had the list of target networks association and that is 10 associations that I had on this and I'll show some screen.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Aimee Ocer: This one. This will be our target after school association throughout the next year if this could be pushed with one and 10 and 15 so out of this one I already had created actionable steps. are the actual for example for this one California after school networks this will be What we do in the past almost for two years now and we are focusing on California after school networks already and some of our customers are in California. So what I did is for example for the next one if we could go to the New York state network for success. So I had already some of the steps for marketing strategy from the DTO context in alignment with Zeta and its mission. apart from this I also have all information from the leads that we need especially on the contacts for superintendents or after school coordinators that we might contact in the future. So for current challenges for me I still had the challenges for diving deeper for marketing research to really get this exact strategy for marketing and then also searching for new AI tools that helps me for further market research and also for market research updates I already share with customer research group chat all this one and then all of the all of these all of these associations I will be updating updating it time to time and I already had seen send out of two out of ten for this one and then also for the new the last night Kia taught me on how to do Windsor and I think Windsor helped me not just for posting but for also uh i show you uh this one so last night uh kia taught me for this one i already had this um conversation so kia uh guided me um step by step and it's uh really overwhelming these windsurf scenes um i had difficulty on um getting into put into one information so with windsurf i i get it all like this one so i had all the target networks with all of these uh 10 1 2 3 from alabama to take the saffron school it works so each of each of this association already had this information so it really helps me a lot with this one so if you pick that one you have to uh you see all of the information that I've event in one, not just like going into Google Sheets that you have to jump from one Sheet to another. With this one, you have to add information on one on one area only. it also has, I had this on my desktop that I created, sorry for this one. I created also this one. This one. So whatever I did for the Winsurf, it will connect to the folder from the desktop. So it goes along and when you click it, it goes back to the Winsurf. thanks Kia for see me how to do it, I will for another one for the blog post. I will try for the blog post in my leadership. I'm really overwhelmed with this application. thanks, Kia, for this one. So that's for you, for me to share.
Quan Gan: Awesome. Thank you. This is very encouraging because I just told Kia, hey, try this out. I showed her a few things, but the fact that she's able to teach you to work on this. Yeah, this is very encouraging because it isn't quite a powerful tool, and I believe that we're probably the first ones to use it in this way because Winfirm is traditionally made for coders, right, for product developers. But us being able to leverage it for various documents. knowledge base or blog articles, I think it's going to be able to really enhance your productivity because you're not having to copy and paste a bunch of things from GPT, but it's all integrated into one, and it can even help you organize the folders. yeah, thank you.
Aimee Ocer: Yeah, so that's that gets me easier to get the work done, especially on combining all the information that I had. I had this Google Docs and put it on the Winsor and you had to extract to create some folders or anything that you need. So it goes out like this. Happy to know what wins are these. thank you guys.
Quan Gan: All right, let's move on to Chris, and maybe you can give us an update on what happened last week too.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Thank you so much, Gwen. got back late last night, guys, so, but I will definitely check out those videos. So sorry, I haven't had a chance to look at those, but I will for sure. Last week was, I think, a breakthrough for me, as far as getting to the point where I'm so comfortable with asking those like hard questions, because Z tag is such a great answer for a lot of things that I didn't realize were important to them. When we went to the city first, we had the big meeting that the city kind of find out there. They're very, very interested in data collection, which I didn't realize was important to them. So that was huge. And the fact that Z tag can offer that, that was huge. And it was just, it was such a good, a good meeting. So that was, that was huge. And then seeing later on the next day. Partners that we, we've already partnered with in seeing the impact, I mean, when you have 11, 12, 13-year-old kids saying this isn't just a game, it was like, just very, it was just, it was exactly what I needed. I told Steve on the way home, like I feel like every cell in my body is united for this, like it's exactly, and just seeing Juan like work with the unit, and there's like some things that he showed me about the unit to where I'm a little more comfortable with answering calls, it was, it was really huge. So, yeah, big takeaway, data collection, and, and it sound, it felt like the city is more open to change, you know, additional things that Z-Tech can offer that we might have offered before, but I don't think it was the right timing. So I'm excited for that. And the, the school being able to just kind of just talk honestly just talk with them and hear about what they're they're experiencing and experiencing and things like that. Yeah, it was huge. It was really huge connecting with those those partners.
Quan Gan: Can I add something to this?
Kristin Neal: Please.
Quan Gan: So one of the customers or the partners that we visited with Julian and and he had some issues with just the product itself with updating it and internet connectivity. And so this gave me a big contrast because when we see it from the ticket desk, right, it's usually them having some kind of issue coming out and asking us to solve it. Right. So it seems kind of like a almost like a negative light. They did something the product didn't behave the way they're expecting. since they're frustration, right? But we were able to go all the way out and travel to see them face to face. And it gave us a completely different perspective. Sure, they have some issues, but genuinely, they're very happy with the product. And they're excited to share with their students. And they're so excited that they're probably looking to get even more products from us. And so I think each of these tickets, if they are unresolved, there's some huge opportunity to be had to actually go in person, fix it. And they use that as a way to say, hey, how can I support you more?
Kristin Neal: And that will actually turn into future revenue.
Quan Gan: And so I even talked to Stan about this. I really do believe in the doubling down in our customers, it also means we should have more of these. We should do a tour and probably spend a week on the road or something maybe a couple of times per year. So you focus on the top partners and see how we can support them in person. And that will translate to a lot of impact both to their students, but also financially to our company.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. reconfiguration too, like we, there's some things that we learned from them that we could change. So that's probably what I'll start redoing as far as rocks. And I spoke with Stan about it changing the service plan to where it's available at the beginning to be able to pre-purchase several years in advance. So it's that protection that leaps their issues with not the subscription, but that your leak
Quan Gan: cost, they don't want that yearly cost. having it straightforward, but I needed to talk to Stan face to face with him.
Kristin Neal: There were things that needed to talk face to face with him. So I was very grateful that I was able to meet with him yesterday.
Quan Gan: Excellent. Yeah, I think also this is exactly the point we're waiting for. Up to now, we've been creating different products and kind of guessing what the market needs. And finally, we found the product market fit. So the next step is to actually be engaging in person with our customers because now they'll tell you exactly what they need. The market is telling versus before if you don't have the market, then you're just guessing. But once you figured out, okay, this is generally the right direction, then by engaging those customers every few months, they'll tell you exactly what their pain points are. as long as that basically it's like, you know, imagine the T you're handing out a test, but she's also giving you the key to the test, right? You know exactly the answers. As long as you keep on developing products that are answering their pain points, we got a long ways to go and a lot of prosperity to be had by following that formula.
Kristin Neal: It's kind of like a hand in hand because you need like the tech, but you also need that support that will get them that.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and we also get the grace of, hey, this is experimental. We're going to make mistakes. There will be bugs on there, but they're willing to try it with us. You know, it's not just like we release a product and then good luck, right? We release a product, but we want to work with them to enhance it.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, that was huge. So I think another word that I could share for the week would be a newfound confidence, which I never thought I'd be able to say that, but I think so.
Quan Gan: Thank you, Chris. Okay, let's move on to classes about you.
Klansys Palacio: So, for me, I really had a lot of achievement last week because I have been working with a lot of automations and I only have one automations working working on so the other automations are done. Actually, so it was really working well. So for Chris, the labels is now working fine. So the labels from CRM to Zohodes is now syncing. anytime you can, if you're going to update an account or contacts on CRM, so it will automatically reflect to the cost to add to the accounts and contacts under the Zohodes. So that's working already and. Yeah, I already fixed it and I already updated those all the accounts that has been tagged because the function is actually working only for newly created and newly updated tags for accounts and contacts. So for all the accounts, it's already been updated to the end of the desk. So it's now working. And of course, quite the other things, the flow that I've been working on, bot. Of course, that's what really new to me, the bot one of click, where I can easily pass a message to Zoho bot click from Zoho flow. So I've been working on it like weeks now. I don't know how to do it like passing a message. where in I found some real-time answers by a particular this by this is a new features or GPT the webs the search web web search so that's that's where I found the answers that I've been looking for for both how to connect the flow to both so and it was really helped me it is I think it is under the project as of the AI so and you can also use it guys under the GPT the third one it has a lot of things as well like canvas recent pictures so you can really use it if you want to generate so I've been I've been really engaged with the AI since I'm doing that I'm working with automations and of course what I've learned as well on zap zap here is the copilot and the code by the Zap so copilot on the Zapier is is something that AI were going to do a new actions for flow like you just need to feed AI what you want to do so what I I I'll share my screen for this one so you can so it is more around the automations guys so sorry I just want to hear what I really had been doing for the wait can you see my screen yeah I can see it okay so this one so this is what I really working on this last week like because some of the flow on the Zap is not like the things that I really want the requirements like extracting document because AI cannot extract document directly. So you need to extract the content from the document and turn it into a index. So that's what I've been feeding AI to do the custom. So that's why AI will be able now to get the transcript from the document. So that's really one of the hardest part of feeding AI because sometimes AI cannot understand me. but of course with the help of some prompt that I have been working on, because I do have a prumper on my GPT. So it helps me a lot to create a prompt. And yeah, it really helps me to do this and help me as well to have this from the solving thing. first this one so I just this is really overwhelming because this is all code so this is this one as well is made by AI so and I was really this really helps me a lot because it helps me to determine what what part of the code that I have been missing or thing so and AI helped me to point it out and help me to recreate it and solve everything so what we knew about the interesting about it is AI will go to give you the what they call this the points of what you're missing what you need to do and what the step that you need to add so you can achieve your actions for this a code so I've been really working on the AI of Zap and it was really easy you know and one thing as well the windsurf so it was my first time I do have this visual studio already visual code so when you when you were going to connect it to the github it will actually you were going to do it manually so but in windsurf I was shocked so windsurf can do it by all all itself so you just need to feed windsurf that hey I you need to can you connect these these projects into my 5-8 repository then windsurf are going to give you step by step you just need to click click click click and read everything and it was just suck and it was my first time to deal with it because I was doing it on visual studio and we saw studio just you need to write it on the terminal but here on the windsurf since the plot is helping us because Cloud were going to give you, like it will redirect you to the page, it will just need you to authenticate it. So that's all you need to do. Just click, click, click and authenticate. Even though pushing projects to get, just need to command the Cloud like, can you push my project to repository without writing it on the terminal? Because based on our experience, like when we do manually back then, so you just need to write everything on the terminal without engaging to AI. And it really, really helps a lot because it's not just giving you, like the step-by-step are feeding you, or it's a spoon pad, it also gives you the steps or the things that if you really want to do manually, it will give you as well the manual instructions, not just the step-by-step of just clicking and clicking. So that's what... really Windsor I was really shocked about it because at first I'm doing it manually I'm I'm installing it manually on my device I was installing I was doing it on the terminal but when I tried I just tried I was just curious so I tried to talk to Claude then Claude Claude fix everything because I did had really issue on that connecting Windsor to get and it's working properly now so yeah that's it for me guys thank you I see classes I can definitely tell your excitement about it it's excellent yeah so what what I want you guys to understand especially coming up in the next few quarters is this concept of AI agents the word agent is going to be very key going forward
Quan Gan: The agent isn't necessarily what you're thinking about in a traditional customer service support agent type of framework, but agent is basically these AI robots that can go and act on your behalf. For example, you are able to create these GitHub connections. It used to be a very manual process, but now as you're giving the AI a command, it basically creates these agent robots that will go and achieve a task on your behalf. These agents are going to be more and more powerful in the next few years. It's also uncanny we use the word agent because it's similar to the matrix. They were saying the agent Smith and all these different agents. They basically replicate agents and each of these are basically a self-intelligent robot that can go off and achieve a certain task. And so, as we're moving forward, each of you guys will become a manager of different agents, you're going to be creating these different tasks and then the agents will be able to go off on their on their own and help retrieve a lot of the information and present it to you and you make your higher level decision. You know, so we're transitioning from humans being the agents that used to be, okay, the boss gives you a task and you go off and do it on your own. But rather, you're the manager of these agents that go off and achieve the task, the manual nature of it and then you're doing the review and you're doing the cognitive decision on what's the next step. All right, then let's move on to Paula.
Paula Cia: Thanks, Juan. for me, the achievements last week is that I have already closed up all the documents. documents and spreadsheets from that 2024 that was used for social media and then I am already creating new documents and spreadsheets that will be used in 2025. I also created the new accounts for Facebook and IG but I haven't posted anything yet because I am still working on the Instagram tile that we will be using for IG. It's a template so I am already finished but I need some approval for iFromStand and Kwan before posting and then I have generated some social media campaigns and double checking it if most of it are useful for our target market and I find out that some of it are very useful and some are not so I already removed it and then yeah that's mostly for the social media and for the AI tools that I can share is I discovered that I can generate photo in Sora or yeah that's Sora I just found out that um when I watched the video that one sent so it was amazing because how it generated the the image that you can that you have of the prompt is like very realistic and yeah it's you should just put the prompt really so you can achieve what you are imagining but overall it is useful for me especially on the like generating some image just that used for marketing. But before I was using also the Firefly from Adobe that was just a very simple AI generating app also. I used it when when Stan requested me that the kids from the photo should have a smiling face. So I just put the prompt that can you transform the kids like smiling faces that are showing their teeth? just a few seconds it already generated the faces, smiling faces. So I used it in the social media and yeah it was approved by Stan. AI is really amazing.
Quan Gan: can have a screenshot of that.
Paula Cia: would love to see the it is in the canva but I can share it later.
Quan Gan: will find it. Yeah share it to the team. I really want to see that those capabilities of making those expressions.
Paula Cia: It is really like perfect at first because since it is AI generated, but later on when you generate, generate, generate until you found the perfect pose. that's it. So AI is really helpful right now for generating images and also editing. Yeah, I also use some, like, I don't know if it is up, but it's like in the system of Adobe Photoshop. There is one time that the background that I am using is very short, so it doesn't go on the edge to it. So I expanded it and it's like nothing happened, but it's like the original background, it's already expanded. So it's really helpful for me for marketing.
Quan Gan: then some images, that's it, but awesome. I have a few comments on this. So one thing for generating good prompts, what you could possibly do is do some YouTube or Google search on tips and tricks for for using these various tools. And once you find the tips and tricks, it could be maybe an article or maybe a YouTube video, take the transcript and throw it into AI and say, okay, summarize what are the key things for me and then and then take those tips and turn it into a prompt generator. You can say, okay, I want you to take all these learnings and turn it into maybe a set of questions you can ask me when I have a new topic. And that way it becomes kind of like this brainstorming engine for you. And so when you have a new topic, you can it'll ask you, okay, what, how many kids or what expressions do you want to see? product it is but by it asking or interviewing you you enter the questions and it will actually generate the best prompt for you according to those tips and tricks and then you can use that prompt and put it into the AI into generate the thing. The other thing I wanted to see is yeah I'm first of all I'm very excited that you're able to generate some things so I'd love to see the results. And this is something that I haven't decided exactly the best approach but potentially AI can help us get around some of the photo rights or the video rights when we're capturing kids in you know these various schools because we want to anonymize them we don't want to have someone's likeness show up right so if we can possibly take action shots of existing kids they're playing maybe you can swap the faces out or their identities out but they're still using the same motion I think the AI has incredible ability to be able to do that. You know, so you're just using the photo as inspiration, but you completely do it so that we don't really have any kind of liability issues with identifying kids. And so there's that. And the third point I want to make is it is also especially important now because I is generating all of this content. People are going to be more aware. I think of what is a generated and what is authentic. So we really have to make sure this thing does look real and it's not obvious. Oh, that's just a generated because there's plenty of things that go out and see, oh, that poster is definitely a, right? But we we still want to capture the authentic nature of it. So hopefully you're still using the same backgrounds and the same settings, but just the faces and stuff are are modified.
Kristin Neal: I'm thinking the exact thing. I'm encouraged to hear that.
Quan Gan: Stan already approved it. That's great. I'm so excited to see it. Yeah. Okay so let's move on to Kia.
Misamis Occidental/ Ptr. Kiara Grace Bajao: Thanks Paola. So for customer success, first for the tickets, still no progress with Matthew's shipment for Canada. We have actually, oh you're showing something. I see. Yeah so that is on hold. Close some unresponsive since you already practically told them that no worries if you will close it. As of the moment they can simply reply and it'll be reopened. Because say for example like Petresha, she doesn't have yet the unit with her or she can't go there so but I think I'll still need to do a follow-up with that and So there was a reminder from Juan yesterday, I think, he to thoroughly check the email thread or the customer concern for that specific one. I was just focused about the replacement, but then there are certain things the customer wants us to address. that's something to me and Amy should really apply on handling the tickets. So currently we only have seven tickets open. I think three of them are technical issues. Others are quotes or inquiries. And then the current challenges for now, when serve, I mean the terms, repository, commit, those are really new for me, but with the advice given to us during our free time, I'm really doing my best to understand these stuff as I work on the progress for the knowledge base, which is the biggest project why I'm currently in WinServe, or being introduced to WinServe. So, the challenge as well was connecting it. I think for Glances it was easy, but for me it wasn't that easy, but I was able to ask Amy Glances, but then I wanted it to be checked, but I think it is already connected. I'm not just so sure. So, it's a really long time to do that, but when it, there was an instruction to reload, or like a reload the WinServe, and then it worked that way, because there's source control. I into source control and then there's Git, there's GitHub, I downloaded Git already on my desktop, so let's go over the place, but I'm really thinking it was connected, hopefully. So for support updates, currently working with Amy, as she mentioned earlier, I've introduced her as moving forward. That's really true for an un-techy person like me. Windsurf is really overwhelming, along the way, when I compared the results, though I know ChatGPT is right now, you know, evolving and they are launching new stuff, Windsurf at first is hard to use, then the good side of it, it helps us say organize, organize it more compared to the chat GPT, but both really have advantages as well. So I was able to talk Amy, I think very low, mean out of hundred percent of what I've learned I think that was just really small but I'm glad she was able to understand what I was teaching her because when Juan also introduced been served to me it was more of very simple exercise and the rest of it were more on exploration on my part.
Quan Gan: So it's like learning by exploring on your own and then real quick sorry just I want to capture this thought and then I'll hand it back to you. The imagery that comes to me is like we're all in this like a culinary arts school. Okay so we're all in school we're learning together. But then All of these AI tools are essentially new ingredients that I am introducing to you guys And so we need to be so good at working with these various tools to know when to use what ingredient And so some new ingredients might taste completely different to you or they might cook completely different, right? I want you guys to just use it so much that you know, okay for this task It's this for this task is that right and be able to pull in as necessary So it will be stretching you guys but as as a team. I really want to treat this like a As a class like a culinary arts class and then you from that you would be able to create the the masterpiece So you know that the most delicious dish out of it.
Misamis Occidental/ Ptr. Kiara Grace Bajao: I Agree like a mr. Box challenge So currently on in min surf What I'm seeing on my text is that the skeleton of the entire knowledge base is already there It's just that with the help of AI and of course a human intervention on putting in the good stuff in it as we are being assisted by AI so for me what I'm seeing on my perspective is since we have this real or like legit source which are our tickets both closed and open ones so I'm doing it manually right now not because I have trust issue with AI it's just that I myself wanted to really reread all those tickets and I have this spreadsheet being currently being built right now whether the tickets are technical issues if it's inquiry if it's a quote so that I can put it in once it's complete to another say file or like inquiry with vinsurf But along the side, I'm also asking AI if there's a way on how to do it, like extract it not manually in Zoho Desk. So there is an instruction, and that's something I, that's the next step I'm about to do on gathering the FAQ or email threads from our tickets. Should I proceed with the presentation?
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah, we have time for it. I think this would be great. And I really want this to be the theme where going forward, maybe on a weekly basis, someone can share something that they learned to the rest of the team.
Misamis Occidental/ Ptr. Kiara Grace Bajao: Okay, thanks. I'll share my screen. Can you see guys, my screen right now?
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah.
Misamis Occidental/ Ptr. Kiara Grace Bajao: Okay, I it. WinServe. So basically when I was taught by Kwan, WinServe is more like a used for coding. But this time, as we may be using WinServe as one of our AI tools, we don't use it just for coding because since texts are also codes, correct, Kwan? Text are also codes.
Quan Gan: I mean- Everything is language. Language is the main thing. Yeah, because you're using a large language model. whether it's code or human readable text or HTML, it's all language to it.
Misamis Occidental/ Ptr. Kiara Grace Bajao: Okay. Yeah. So where am I now? Let me- So the very first thing that we need to do is, of course, download, create an account. Create an account for your WinServe account in the website and then download the application on your own PC or desktop. So once all of those are already set up, we need to create a separate folder in our computer with the files or the data or the sources that we will upload or introduce to the AI so that AI would work hand in hand with us on those things that we need to generate. So this is the original one the tag files in which this document is the very first one which includes all the files that I have so far that are being what they call this I've gathered so far when I was working so from the manuals from all those files so Going back to Vinserve.
Quan Gan: I'll just add Chris for your knowledge on this. is similar to projects that you've been using in cloud where you're loading it with a lot of documents and it's all for context. So the only difference is you're going to see this in a much more folder structure format where you're putting the files in there versus cloud is all flat. You're just putting a few files in the flat structure. This allows it to be in folders and much more granularized.
Kristin Neal: This is what I was asking for, isn't it? All the source files for AI in one spot?
Quan Gan: so this is essentially what it is. But right now I'm having each team member kind of do it on their own, so it's living on their own computers. We may, once we get a more verse with this, create a central repository where everybody's sorting. Which is the same piece of information, but right now I think, you know, it's good that we're developing it independently. So we're kind of building the muscles. But then ultimately, we should probably have a central repository for all that information.
Kristin Neal: I would prefer it only so I know it's the most up to date. I know some things might have changed while I was gone or my files might be added.
Quan Gan: So the only reason I haven't connected everything yet is because we're still kind of using this as a sandbox nature. So everybody's still playing on their own. We haven't figured out what is the best format yet. And I think probably in the next a few months, we'll figure out what is the central core that is going to be common to everybody's workflow.
Kristin Neal: And we can make a repository. Okay.
Quan Gan: Thanks, Kea. Yeah, back to you, Kea.
Misamis Occidental/ Ptr. Kiara Grace Bajao: Okay, so as we continue, you have already the file on your computer and what we need to do is to put it to WinServe by going to this part, which is Taskade or same with ChatGypity, this is where we type in things to generate. Since I've already had conversations with WinServe, let me just go to this fast conversation. This was the very first one. By typing the add sign and putting in the name of the file, let's say ZTAG VTO, so tagging it means letting WinServe analyze everything that is on the file that you are mentioning to AI and then ask your question. The first what happened here was there were errors, so sometimes guys it would get stuck. or there are errors simply because based on one's explanation maybe some the server or many are using it but let me share with you that one that has an answer so there so all all that is in the explorer or in this part like the left part of the screen are the generated outputs that Windsurf gives us along we along the way we we make conversations and ask questions to Windsurf and this can be organized or we can ask Windsurf itself to organize it for us so and then say for example this one so I click I click after the word created this one the knowledge-based specification. this was the, the result of, um, after asking AI, since there are, um, sorry, there are suggestions. When, when Windsurf answers, there are suggestions that, um, it would throw back to us if what, what areas of, um, the inquiry we wanted it to clarify or elaborate or explain, uh, so on and so forth. So for this one, um, we asked, um, the, the AI to, to work on those specific suggestions that it gave us. And so here on the center part, so these are the output that it gave us. as Amy also mentioned earlier, everything our old folders are generated by WinServe are automatically also saved in our computer. So say for example, Ztec Knowledge Base. what's seen in WinServe is also being saved in our PC, our desktops. So what I've learned so far is that from the 12 days of open AI videos, it has something similar with the projects of chat GPT because it can make collaborations and the way it organizes it is kind of the same. I think it's just for WinServe, it's kind of complicated since it's more of a coding, though we can also do coding in chat GPT. it's the mechanic, what I'm understanding the mechanism is more like it's more of like a project feature of chat. at gpt.
Quan Gan: So yeah I want to add something here for the nuance so for chat gpt projects or cloud projects I think if you're generating a single or a few documents it's quite easy and useful but for extended content for example you're trying to generate the entire knowledge base or you're to generate consistent articles for social media over time or even generating all of these meeting agendas that I've been doing like extended but the same format I think using Windsurf might actually be better in that because it helps you organize into very deep folder structures that that will be more scalable for large amounts of documents versus the projects which might be like one-off at the output. Yeah, something that I think might be helpful and maybe kind of volunteering clients is to talk about this maybe the next week or the following is to really talk about the version control. So that's the GitHub connection is what also is a benefit here with version control is let's say you organize your folders into things that are basically deployable that we would put on the internet and share you want to version that to say okay this is gonna be if I make further modifications and let's say something goes wrong I can always go back to this particular backup and that's your versioning. So you'll see in the second or actually all the way to the left you see there's like a blue 28 or something or 20 click on that yeah okay so this may not have started yet. Okay, so maybe that's something we could work on for next week. As you're making modifications to the file, Windsurf will actually keep track of the changes you've made from the last time you saved it to the new, to the new, and it will actually keep an entire history of all the entire, the entire progress line of this document from, you know, maybe when it was only a few paragraphs to when it was like several pages. And if you made edits, when you cut things out, it will give you this entire history. And that's the benefit that this coding tool will have over your traditional projects, because you wouldn't really be able to go back to old versions. Okay, Kia, was there anything else you wanted to share on that?
Misamis Occidental/ Ptr. Kiara Grace Bajao: So far, that's, that's still a part I've been exploring for now.
Quan Gan: Okay, great. Um, I know we're over time this week, but I really do enjoy being able to make this much more of a interactive meeting rather than just all of us reporting in. I'll give you a few more minutes to the team discussions just to see if anybody else has new insights from any of the videos I've sent. you guys have any feedback on things that it can really do to help us. Anyone?
Kristin Neal: After this portion, if I can just clarify a few things.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, well, we'll come back to you. it anybody else want to share what they've learned throughout this week?
Misamis Occidental/ Ptr. Kiara Grace Bajao: Hmm. I mean, a tools specifically.
Quan Gan: Things that might be positively impacting our workflow.
Misamis Occidental/ Ptr. Kiara Grace Bajao: We're Well, I think I've mentioned it earlier. I know I need to work with Windsurf, but I was like interested in trying, since I was just watching the video, like trying the projects in ChatGPT, just to get the feel of how things are generated in ChatGPT. So, as they said in the video, they're launching stuff more like early next year. So, I think it's a more personal perspective. I really needed motivation doing this. That's why I shared the word stretch early this meeting, since it's beyond what I know now. But I do believe I do have the potential with the help of AI and of course the team, Kwan, being there. there were days like it was really overwhelming. I came across this podcast. It's an audio book, a podcast from a book being turned into audio. The title of the book is 10x is easier than 2x. So this is 10x for me. Like, really. But it was quite inspiring and it really gave me a motivation like talking about Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, those people. Like, they really didn't started the 10x on their selves, but they did something. They did they did actions. They did something to get into the point where they arrived, the achievements they've got. So this is like a new level in in my career as a VA. Like, the early days, it's not easy. But with that podcast, I was motivated to to get. You know, that just generate things, but experience an X out of myself, not just, I know, personally, I am the type of VA that does things when asked, does only the things that's being asked by the client, but this time it's kind of really challenging. But then through that podcast, it inspired me to, I know it's possible. It just needs hard work. So that's it.
Quan Gan: Thank you. I really appreciate that. And I think this is going to be a resounding theme for our company and many other companies as we go forward, because the AI will be able to take care of a lot of the traditional things of the task following of agents, right, using the agent, but you'll see that we have to elevate ourselves into. coming the managers of the AIs, right? We're constantly intervening on the AI, because like you said, we can't actually trust every single output, because the output is depending on the input. So we have to make sure we have the human insights on giving the correct input so that the output is in alignment with a company mission. yeah, and you'll see, even with the chat GPT with the O01 model, in itself it's doing a lot more self-recollection, right? It's saying generating this and then it's thinking about it, has an internal process. That in itself is also called an agentic workflow, because what it's doing, it's generating output, and then using another agent to inspect the previous output and then giving it feedback, and then it's generating additional output. So this constant loop, it's not only us being in loop with the AI, but the AI is also in the loop with itself and it's creating better output. So you're going to see that theme going forward. Okay, Chris, let's bring it back to you.
Kristin Neal: Just a few things that I was able to take notes on some of the things you guys had mentioned. I just wanted to clarify if this is the direction or whatnot. Amy, you had mentioned you showed like those top 10 and you might have already done it. I just haven't had a chance to look, I saw like websites, emails like that. you have a physical address for those as well?
Aimee Ocer: Yeah, all information from physical address, the email, the website, and then the contact number. most of the important information I had that I'll show you each of the spreadsheet, the content is the information is reading.
Kristin Neal: So
Aimee Ocer: And not everything, I already had some, not everything with the 10, but I'll fill up information from time to time.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Perfect, Amy. Thank you. another realization with Julian was he actually got a postcard from us, and his boss got it and gave it to him when he realized he had already seen us at the boost. that finding out how important these brochures are. Timing right now is kind of, we're kind of on a crunch right now, but I really want to get, Stan is already sending me postcards, so I need to get those out like in January, because when we see them in February, it would be a great like, oh, we got something from you last month. So that's something I'm really, really wanting. So there's any way, Amy, you can take those. Addresses and make labels for them and send them to me. That would be huge. That would be and not not even you don't have to get the labels, obviously, but just download the. It's on every you're able to to transport the the labels. That would be a big help. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, go ahead.
Aimee Ocer: I asked the team. I already had some information specially on the address for the postcard because that's that's what we do. We stand before way back. I think we do already. Uh, the California, the Texas, and then I had already some information sent to him for New York, and he said the last time that we will be giving out postcards twice a year or twice a year. So, um, what's then asked me is only. address and on this end he generated the address on that postcard so if you want to have some labels on it and I will ask to help for Plantsy or for Pia on how to do it.
Kristin Neal: Okay it's actually quite simple if you go to A3.com and you just export it's very simple.
Aimee Ocer: It's the address.
Kristin Neal: The A3.com so I'll try that.
Quan Gan: And maybe we can include some of the new findings that you have in terms of those network associations where we can send some stuff to them.
Kristin Neal: I said I was thinking I was like those top 10 that's a really good start. Let's just start with those top 10 and get all those.
Aimee Ocer: Yeah and with that top 10 I already had some of that information way back before and that's include Texas and New York for the leasing.
Quan Gan: I wonder for some of the associations, does it make sense to send them multiple cards that they might be able to hand to other people? don't know.
Kristin Neal: Or do we just send more? That's a good question, That's a really good question.
Aimee Ocer: You might be able to...
Quan Gan: Let me think out loud, but maybe even Chris would you send as gifts or something to make more than just an advertisement.
Kristin Neal: We're talking about 3,000. 3,000 postcards is what Stan said he's done.
Quan Gan: I'm talking about all 3,000, but I'm saying for associations specifically because they are a network for more people. Maybe some of those mailers are a little bit more significant than the individual ones. Just thinking right is that that may not be the answer. You know, maybe you guys have to look into what are the pros and cons of that, but I'm just thinking out loud.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, no, that's something that Stan wants to say.
Quan Gan: I totally agree, but I just need to be able to scale it in my.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Aimee Ocer: Yeah. And that's maybe that's the starting point for our marketing strategy that we that's that has that planted a year back. know, some of the after school associations from within California. Got that postcards and then that some feedbacks. And yeah, that's what we do some sales on them. So I think that's the stepping stone for planting leads in the near future.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, yeah, I agree. Sure. Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much. Um, one of the things I wanted to ask you classes, you had said the labels were now generating on the tickets. So that's the the People that said like the gold customers and the silver and okay, perfect. So now I just want to make sure that we know on the ticket. So if it says gold, it's like, they're on fire. We need to help with however as soon as possible.
Klansys Palacio: Wait, it's on the. It's on the accounts. I wait, I'll show you Chris. Thank you.
Kristin Neal: I forget to show.
Quan Gan: Thank you, doesn't make sense. Maybe you guys can take it offline and then just either have a separate meeting or maybe a living video and she can show you the details.
Kristin Neal: That sounds good. I just wanted to clarify here and Amy, that you guys understand that label gold is the one that we want to look for it. Perfect. And then Paula, the one should I send her the videos pictures from the trip.
Quan Gan: Yeah, that'll be great.
Kristin Neal: I got some great pictures. I got Juan helping one of the, specifically it's so sweet. very cool. Okay. I'll send that over.
Quan Gan: And that's, thanks guys. Okay. Awesome. All right. So, think we're, yeah, we're way over time, but let me try to just help close this out for this week. I also especially wanted to share my appreciation for Chris for sending out all those gifts. Because we did see that they had genuinely made an impact with the people that we visited. So that's been really, really good. Thank you.
Kristin Neal: Thank you.
Quan Gan: So, yeah, I know we got a lot of progress today. In fact, I think today is actually been the best meeting up to this point. So, yeah, I'd like to keep this format. if we can have more of a discussion and a co-learning process and I hate to put you on the spot but Clarence, do you think you can share with us GitHub next week?
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, I'll work on it this week.
Quan Gan: I want us to learn by teaching. The best way to really learn something is you have to present it to other people. I know it's a stretch but I think if we get used to this type of format, collectively we're going to be so much more intelligent and impactful with what we do. So thank you all. Okay, well then let's close out this meeting. So yeah, thank you. Any last remarks from anybody? How about let's do a a one word close. so I'll start with or I'll give you guys 30 seconds to think about it and then I'll pick someone. We all have our word. Yeah. Okay, how about we'll start with Paula. And you get to pick.
Paula Cia: A one word.
Quan Gan: Yeah, one word.
Paula Cia: Achievement.
Quan Gan: Achievement. Next.
Paula Cia: Plan C.
Klansys Palacio: Engage.
Quan Gan: Engage, okay.
Klansys Palacio: Um, here.
Misamis Occidental/ Ptr. Kiara Grace Bajao: I know it's an L word. But I'll stick with 10x.
Quan Gan: 10x, OK.
Misamis Occidental/ Ptr. Kiara Grace Bajao: Next. Amy.
Aimee Ocer: I'll stick with my one word earlier, and that's over with me, so, yeah.
Kristin Neal: What was that?
Aimee Ocer: Over with me again. Chris.
Kristin Neal: Chris. Centered.
Quan Gan: Centered.
Kristin Neal: I know now what we need to do to go forward. I understand better. One.
Quan Gan: For me, I feel aligned.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, I do too.
Quan Gan: OK. Yeah, we're bringing everybody into coherence. will stretch a lot of people, including myself. But I think as we move in this direction, yeah, we're going to see a lot of impact. OK. And also, I will be in China next week. I'll have to figure out my schedule. I should still be able to run the meeting. I'll make it happen. But I'm doing a three-day trip in and out of China. We're going to the factory, checking it out. Stan, I think his family will be there. I'm actually also taking Charlie. So my wife will also be there. It'll be further alignment, because we'll be able to get everybody on the same page as far as what products are coming out, and then we'll be able to come back and share it with you all. Okay. With that said, let's end our meeting. It's been like 100 minutes. It's been pretty good. All right. Have a great week, everybody. Bye, Thank you so much. later. Bye, guys. Thank you.
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UTF LABS: So can you hear me. Can you hear me.
Jawwad Malik: Yeah, I can hear it.
UTF LABS: Okay. Hi, console. Basically, we'll just give you the update. I have been working on the build issue that you mentioned. basically, I shared, I think I shared the build with you as well by removing the in the math match. I mean, well, we are working on the other points that you raised. So I've shared the bill if you can let me know. The math match not matched screen removal is working now properly as you expected or not. If there's anything else or any change needed at that, I'll do that. Otherwise I'm working with Uzair on the rest of the points that you raised. So hopefully Uzair will be able to finalize these very soon. I think he'll take some time by next week. I think they will be finalized. by that time, we'll be ready to share the bill with clients with the updated points that you mentioned. Meanwhile, Javad has been working on the MVP. He was basically able to merge the drivers that Java provided with his code and he is now facing like it's not working on some other issues that he identified in the code. Jawad, can you quickly update your progress?
Jawwad Malik: Yeah, so let me share my screen first. Okay, so as earlier I was working on MPB flow and so now I'm also working on it. The problem was I was facing earlier like I have some I was using as earlier I'm using some different version of platform IO and what the code which Java gave that code to not merging with my code. I was facing some issues so I just like set up a new platform IO so now we all have a new platform IO so at that the Java code was like compiled into my site and after the compilation. I try to merge Java's drivers, my code. So what I did, the INO file of Java's. As earlier, we clearly see that we have system initializer and system initializer when we go to system initializer. System initializer, system initializer, like initialize driver first before like calling is constructed and then the drivers passed to the middleware and that middleware passed to the Maxis and then Maxis passed to the game manager and system manager and all this flow are like completely working and I compiled to ZDAG and it was working there. The next what I do, this is the folder, this two files I make as a dam where I have like one I have the constructor of that driver, second the initialization functions and third one is any like driver functions which we want to use. and this this basically the code of like troubles which give me. So here we have this file. I what I did, I directly use that into my main file. I didn't rigid are completely with my existing code but I just directly call it with my existing file and both are working parallelly and there is not issues between now Java's driver and on my drivers but I didn't like put it into the drivers and I didn't work with the flow like the flow which we decided in our architecture with the Java's driver but they both are working parallelly now the problem which I was facing here like here we have display driver yeah this is our driver class so here we are initializing and then we are like when we are calling the constructor of that that class and then we are using the remaining function whatever we want to use in our code and in our haptic we again haptic where it is yeah any speaker so in a speaker again we are initializing this m5.pagan so whenever we are like with whatever the driver we are using that are accessing the m5 like library we are initializing this everywhere like m5.pagan m5.pagan I have three to four like ways to fix this one if we like call this m5.pagan inside our inside our drivers. So here, like before the driver's constructor is calling, we are calling this file. So we just put all this file inside our like driver constructor. And before this driver constructor, we just call m5.begin. But we have to like inherit this parent class driver to all the subcharger and the subcharger of this like driver class would be each individual drivers. there should be some like dependencies issues like not a dependencies but like the lower class are accessing the above classes if we do like this. The second way is like we make the we make one more driver called m5. Here I even make it. So the second thing is like we make one more like driver here m5 driver and then inside m5 driver we just call the m5.pig in and we inherited this class into the classes where we need this m5 like driver but the things still remain the same. It just redirecting from one way to different ways but things are doing same. So I just need to confirm like what approach I have to choose here to like fix this problem and the third thing is like we remain same. I think in every like drivers where we want to use the m5 flag rating we visualize m5.pig.
UTF LABS: Can you hear me Jawad? For now, you can just import the drivers.h file in all of the underline drivers and just use the m5.begin in the drivers.cpp ones so that every driver can access it. So meanwhile, the team is on holidays, so when they'll return, we'll discuss it with them. For now, you can use that approach where just import the m5.begin once in the drivers.cpp file so we can move on with the MVP and complete basically the performance of the task. So we still have a lot of like a long way to go still with the game management concept and we have the Zeus or the ambiguity concept. So there are still quite a lot of things to be taken care of. So just move ahead by importing the m5.begin once in the driver. I know there's still a little circular dependency as we discussed but I don't think it will have any impact whatsoever. Since usually the m5.begin is only like included once in the whole project. So it doesn't make any sense to just include it again and again in every driver file. So just import it to any at any one place. And since we are at the same level, it's not like the driver.cpp is accessing the middleware file. So it's all on the driver's layer. So I think we can move ahead with this. Meanwhile, Kwan and other guys can comment on if any other better way there is. And we can continue our work.
Jawwad Malik: Okay. I will do it like here. I will like use m5.begin functions in our driver. And then I will import this last to each driver where it needed.
UTF LABS: Okay. Anything else we need to share in the meeting?
Kristin’s iPhone: Hi.
Quan Gan: Hi.
Kristin’s iPhone: How are you? Can you hear me?
Quan Gan: Yeah. Happy New Year.
Kristin’s iPhone: Happy New Year. Yes. Oh my goodness. I can't believe you're driving.
Quan Gan: My car is driving.
Kristin’s iPhone: Oh, good. How was it out there?
Quan Gan: Oh, good. I escaped the blizzard.
Kristin’s iPhone: Did you really?
Quan Gan: Well, not escaped, but I mean, I actually wanted to stay for another day, but I when I figured today was enough. It was like it started getting pretty stormy and then probably two inches of snow in the afternoon.
Kristin’s iPhone: Oh my goodness.
Quan Gan: Yeah, because I came back and my car was completely covered.
Kristin’s iPhone: Oh my goodness. You're sitting at our way. We're expecting a pretty good storm on Sunday, I believe.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin’s iPhone: So.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Kristin’s iPhone: Very cool.
Quan Gan: It's been itching because I did.
Kristin’s iPhone: five days right after we were hanging out and then yeah your camp yeah and then just like had to get back on the slopes good good good good that's awesome very cool yeah how was your holiday really good really really good really needed it was a it was a perfect wait in the year yeah yeah it's a very good break but it ended so well like the air that it it was just like a perfect everything was perfectly timed so great yeah really excited I'm really excited for this next quarter so yeah yeah um did you and Stan talk by any chance because that's number one on my quarterly rocks about assistant with Kia yeah he mentioned something about that yeah I mean I I've been supporting
Quan Gan: for it. What was the conversation like? he seemed to have kind of come around a little bit.
Kristin’s iPhone: Well, he was, we were talking about Kia. I can't remember. I guess there was like things that he's still not seen. And I was like, well, you know, it's already in place. I guess we'll just, time will tell kind of thing. we started talking about something else and the subject of an assistant and he brought it up. He's like, you know, maybe I should, we should find you an assistant. And he had already mentioned that Kia earlier in the discussion that she had missed several meetings. So I was like, yeah, like, but I can't if I told him that I was checking in on her.
Quan Gan: I was kind of, I felt like I was speaking on her behalf. she's doing work.
Kristin’s iPhone: Like I'm working with her. She's, she does. really good with me she's really good so um later on when he said that like I went like like in my brain I was like Kia would be perfect and then he was like I'm not gonna give you Kia and I was like what I was like no no give me Kia and he was like I would never give you Kia and I was like no seriously and I kind of just said really I don't I don't know so he's he seemed to finally come around okay so I think she's gonna do really good though on on that I think you know I I want to give everybody the benefit of the doubt that they're trying they may just not be in the right capacity so so maybe that shift would be welcome yeah yeah I think it I think it would too and her and I really work together well so I'm I'm hoping one of my my mentors always said that you always work with someone that's the opposite so I'm really hoping that she like my opposite is very organized.
Quan Gan: Okay. Well, you see why I work with Stan? By the way, I'm wearing shades so my Tesla doesn't detect me not looking at the road.
Kristin’s iPhone: I was a little curious. Yeah, it has a kind of gradient so I could still see. Yeah, I just don't want things to like shut off on me. I love it. I love how you know how to be very cool. Very cool. So if that's okay with you that would be my first my first rock is getting her on board and getting the spreadsheets.
Quan Gan: There's a lot of spreadsheets that I would love for her to just kind of take. Do you have that roughly defined? Yeah. Like exactly what she can do what's measurable.
Kristin’s iPhone: Yes.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yes. I do. And you know very clearly what success looks like?
Kristin’s iPhone: Yes. Okay. I do.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. I mean, I think from a management kind of view, both Stan and I, we want things to be simple. Like, we don't want to be micromanaging people. And if you can guarantee that success metrics are hit, then, you know, I'll give that to you to define it. And then if you feel like that's going to be what, you know, gets her to be most maximally helpful to you, then, yeah, I'm also good.
Kristin’s iPhone: That's huge. In fact, it almost feels like I can't go any further until I get that assistance.
Quan Gan: Well, what about Amy? Isn't she kind of doing a little bit of that? Or do you want her to continue doing what she's doing with the SCRM and enrichment? Or is that someone back going to transfer over?
Kristin’s iPhone: Uh, it might transfer over. I would actually prefer to work with Amy like, um, especially with these groupings of like potential in-person demos. It'd be great to get that her information regarding those and like potential partners, argument partners in that area. Like, kind of, I don't know if they're that thought came to mind. was like, wonder if I could get Amy on that. Or even, yeah.
Quan Gan: I have a thought. I'm not sure if I shared with you last time. Like, with how work is shifting with AI and all these automation tools coming up, we really need every teammate to be a general purpose player. And what I mean by that is, like, anything tactical the AI eventually will be able to do. But what we really need to turn everybody into is like a general, someone who is able to take the overall direction and figure out what questions to ask and what tools to figure out, basically figure things out on their own without having it being assigned. And that would be the biggest thing because if we can get everyone, and I can tell you, you know, out of all the teammates, you have that. You know, Stan and I, as business owners of course, we have to have that as default. But this entrepreneurial mindset of creating something out of nothing rather than being told to do something, because the told to do something, AI is going to do way better than any human within a year. In fact, I think after we've met, the recent new AI has already cracked, they scored with 75 percentile on like the world math. the highest level like so by next year it'll outcompete any technical person in the field.
Kristin’s iPhone: Wow.
Quan Gan: So there's no need for people following orders anymore. There needs to be people figuring out what orders to give.
Kristin’s iPhone: I'm great at that.
Quan Gan: Yeah and I can see ourselves you know becoming just this team alone becoming a billion dollar company without adding additional humans.
Kristin’s iPhone: I was thinking about that. That's actually been a lot going on in my mind and I agree. I actually agree.
Quan Gan: You know once you have a few things kind of set in place you can expand it infinitely just essentially by paying for your electricity.
Kristin’s iPhone: And a bigger warehouse.
Quan Gan: Yeah you know physical resources you know energy resources yes but not necessarily human capital anymore.
Kristin’s iPhone: Yeah. Yeah nice I see that. And I can see why it makes sense.
Quan Gan: it makes sense. And, you know, the other thing that's been, from just a human evolution or organizational standpoint, when organizations get beyond 150 people, it tends to, the dynamics really tends to change. Just because they've done a lot of studies as sociology and psychology where communities more than 150 people become impersonal, because you can't actually keep track of all of those people in your head. And then it becomes this like new breed of like a corporate structure where you have to put in policies just to make sure people are above board and doing, you know, in the best of intentions. Because if people can start hiding, know, then things kind of deteriorate. see force mechanisms in there. And that's why, you know, you have all these like large corporations that just like waste so much money because people are like, Oh, I'm on someone else's payroll. It doesn't matter if I do my work or not. But keeping it in a small, tight group of no more than 10 people. In fact, seven is ideal. They say any organization, the ideal number in a flat structure should not exceed seven. If it's more than seven, you start having to kind of like create hierarchies again. But if we can maintain this poor group, and then use AI to leverage for us to be competing against something that traditionally was 150 people or 500 people, that is a huge shift for ZTAC to come into this world in this 21st century and like be very disruptive in creating the value without all the management overhead.
Kristin’s iPhone: That's cool. I see. I understand more where you guys are coming from. get it. Good.
Quan Gan: There are these terms, and it's also kind of eerily or uncannily like prophetic. Did you watch The Matrix, right?
Kristin’s iPhone: Mm-hmm.
Quan Gan: Did you watch all of the episodes? Oh, yeah. it Reloaded? Oh, yeah. There were like all of these Agent Smith clones, and they were fighting Neo?
Kristin’s iPhone: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay, so the word agent has been around since The Matrix, but the word agent in AI is actually very, specific. And it's also pretty much what Agent Smith is. It's basically an autonomous AI that's able to go off and try to do its own task, and it will figure things out, and it would even replicate to do its achievable. Wow that's a real thing so it's a real thing like literally like agents is all the topic right now in AI if you just if you look on YouTube is what are AI agents yeah it's everywhere oh wow that's the truth so for this this coming year you're gonna probably start seeing that pop up into the mainstream just like AI pop up in the mainstream if within the past two years AI agents will pop up probably this year and it's essentially you can hire or spin up AI and it would work as if it was a like a virtual human and it would go in through a task for you geez yeah it's incredible on its own that has figured it out that that's more or less you have to give it permissions and this is and the reason why having humans in the loop is still critical is you have to oversee its work to make sure whatever Delivering to you is acceptable, but it's very much the same as You're breaking up. Oh, can you hear me? Yep, there you go.
Kristin’s iPhone: There you go.
Quan Gan: I might be All right, so I know it's little Kind of a side topic, but I just want you to be aware of this particular trend and there will be tools coming up where You either yourself or you can have Have a Kia or Amy or anyone Just spin up agents and it will go and do the job of their behalf and they're the ones that review it Wow.
Kristin’s iPhone: Wow. Okay Okay, so it's all about learning how to manage You Okay. That actually would work well with the other things that I have I want to work on, so that would work out. Should I keep going? you in a good spot?
Quan Gan: Yeah, keep going.
Kristin’s iPhone: There's just a few big things I think everything. Well, we'll see. The next thing I have is I'm going to get the automations in place a hundred percent with classes. I know we've I've gotten like automations with like reminders and things like that. But I need to get something for partners for the quotes that are sent out. I would like to get that email automated and also for the partners that have gone over like a few months, you know, like a check in kind of thing. Um. Next, I want to look. want to prepare.
Quan Gan: So, there's something like that.
Kristin’s iPhone: Are you there? Hello, hello. Are you there? Okay. I think I lost you. Yep, I lost you. Let's see. Hello.
Quan Gan: Hello. You I Was asking if if you made a diagram like a flow chart of how No, not a flow chart, but I can You
Kristin’s iPhone: Can you do that say that one more time?
Quan Gan: Did I show you cursor or windsurf or writing documents?
Kristin’s iPhone: No.
Quan Gan: Okay. That might be a tutorial I record later and show you but you can essentially take our transcript or maybe you could just verbally talk about how you want things to happen and rather than you talking it feed it into the AI and it could draw a diagram for you.
Kristin’s iPhone: Beautiful.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. And then you could play around with it saying, okay, this workflow doesn't work, maybe this one works or maybe even have it critique the workflow to see if it matches what you're expecting.
Kristin’s iPhone: Okay.
Quan Gan: That sounds good. Yeah. So for automation it's really important. to have that diagram out before you give it to someone because how you're thinking it and explaining it, it may be interpreted differently when it was on their end. having a very specific diagram will hold it to as like you'll both be on the same page.
Kristin’s iPhone: I like that. I need to it anyway so that's perfect. That's perfect.
Quan Gan: thing you can do is you can just hand draw something and then you can have chat GPT take a photo of it and it could also generate it.
Kristin’s iPhone: That's what I've been doing. Like that's how I've been working because that's just how my brain up here works. Yeah, that sounds good too. And then I go back and forth with making sure it aligns and and I'll hey by the way I love that standard thing that you sent me that California standard That was great. I actually took my own notes on it, and yeah, I was really, really impressed with that.
Quan Gan: the standard, I've had access to that for a while, but I didn't really get a chance to look at it. It was Peter from Westminster at dinner. He mentioned it to me. And what was kind of like self-affirming was the things that we were doing were already touching on most of those topics. absolutely. that was really just kind of putting it overtly out there and saying, hey, look, we're hitting all of these metrics for you.
Kristin’s iPhone: Yeah, so true. It was, it was hitting a lot of them.
Quan Gan: I was like, oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Did you listen to the EI summary?
Kristin’s iPhone: You know, I didn't.
Quan Gan: I actually wanted, I didn't on purpose because I wanted to actually compare my notes with the summary and see how they came out.
Kristin’s iPhone: So I didn't want to listen.
Quan Gan: Very good. Okay.
Kristin’s iPhone: But yeah, I'll get on it.
Quan Gan: It's just if the way you're working and I think it's actually better if you're willing to spend the time on it because you're activating your neurons and you're connecting it, you're creating a relationship. But if you are in a time where like you just need the information and you don't have time to absorb it, the podcast is a way to kind of shortcut that.
Kristin’s iPhone: Okay. Yeah.
Quan Gan: But if you're actively writing it out, I think that's actually the best form.
Kristin’s iPhone: Okay. It feels like me.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin’s iPhone: Very cool. Okay.
Quan Gan: So I'll start working on that flow chart. Perfect.
Kristin’s iPhone: Let's see. I want to prepare, review, and get all the trade shows in for February and March and start booking all that.
Quan Gan: And I'll just send it all to Kea like this is the room for such and such so she could just integrate. Oh, that would be great. Yeah I hate them. I have this giant calendar. They call it a life-size calendar. It's like It's like five feet wide. Well, they're kind of a whiteboard Yeah, I have it in my home now. So I Long time nice.
Kristin’s iPhone: I gotta get that You're cutting out again, yeah, you can get that on Amazon. Yeah, can you hear me? I can hear you now Okay, we're gonna work through it. I love it So that'll be a great thing to get her help with out the emails to the lost leads. still want to work on that. And also mail the brochures. Stan sent me all the brochures. So I want to get those to the superintendents. having Amy's help with that would be huge. Like if she could figure out labels and things like that, it would be so nice to get her help with that. especially like the lists and things. She's been really good with lists though. So if I can get the replacement parts from you, so I can start sending those out. Okay, so do you want every single replacement part sent over? If you want. Yeah, because I need to get the replacement clip to Julian. Julian, the one that we went and visited.
Quan Gan: Well, because he broke it off.
Kristin’s iPhone: Okay, yeah. Okay.
Quan Gan: I'm in the car, can you send me, or I guess after this, send me. like a 2D for me to remember to get all the items for you.
Kristin’s iPhone: Yep, absolutely. All right. Okay, perfect. The next one was actually about Amy and getting her help with partners and things like that, especially around, you know what will be another one is if she could do that around the shows, the trade shows because there's a lot of time that we could be off, you know, maybe we can get someone off over there. Yeah, hopefully that'll work.
Quan Gan: I think in general this year if we can optimize our travel to be, know, we're already going out there, let's just maximize it for a week.
Kristin’s iPhone: Perfect.
Quan Gan: Yep.
Kristin’s iPhone: Yep. And hit as many as we can.
Quan Gan: That'd be perfect.
Kristin’s iPhone: Yep. The next one I have, I do need an updated 2025 W9 sole source letter. Then I do want to include, and this is my fault, so I'm taking full responsibility. I forgot to have Paula redo the onboarding to include that video that you've given us with the operations, CTAC operations. I got to get that, but there's some information on that welcome letter that I'm not sure if it still pertains, like the warranty, the explanation of the warranty. All of that information is actually on the warranty page that I already send, so it's kind of like a duplicate, like it's not needed, so I'll need to kind of do like the warranty.
Quan Gan: That was one thing I didn't have a chance to talk with Stan yet. And for some reason, I can't find our last transcript about specifically what you need to be to check with them. Was it removed? in the two, uh, two taggers from, from Prod.gov, from the package?
Kristin’s iPhone: Yeah.
Quan Gan: And then just something else?
Kristin’s iPhone: Um, no, it was mostly just that, and if it would be free for the first year, that was another thing that was brought up. Um, but that, I've been thinking about that a lot too, and I'm just not sure what, I do agree with keeping the two free Z taggers with us and just being ready to send them when they need it.
Quan Gan: I think we should probably get on a three-week call for that. It just seems like there's a lot of moving parts to consider before we need exactly one way or the other.
Kristin’s iPhone: I agree. Yeah, totally agree. So that'll be good to get cleared. I think I'll be able to still redo that letter with Paula by just taking that out, and then we can have that discussion with Stan later, and then we can update the actual page of that information. So I'll get her started on that with Paula. Let's see, and then that's it. The other things that I have are things to be brought up with the two of us, like the extended warranty, the in-person demo for Fort Bliss, which we already talked about, and then I need to confirm payment for all the 2024 units, the harnesses and the cancer symposium. We sent a check, I'm not sure if that was ever cash, and then I got an inquiry today from Georgia, actually from the NRPA, and there's two separate inquiries, the cities in Georgia, so they're only 30 minutes away, so it looks like we might be going to Georgia. It might even be, because Georgia is super close for me, it's only an hour and a half flight, I almost, I mean, I'm not saying like I don't want you there, believe me, I want you there, but if time is short, it might, it might be something I might be able to do.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin’s iPhone: Yeah. Maybe.
Quan Gan: Maybe, maybe. I think you can do it.
Kristin’s iPhone: As long as you're on the phone, I think I'll be okay.
Quan Gan: You're going to grow wings. I'm going to have to kick you off the branch.
Kristin’s iPhone: No, no, no, no. Not yet. Hold on to that branch. All right. I think that's it.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. How do you feel?
Kristin’s iPhone: Good. Really good. Excited. I was so excited to email the people interested because I was like, let's do it. Let's go. So I feel a lot better doing it.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Are people coming back to work this week?
Kristin’s iPhone: I was too. Only from Georgia. There's in one camp that they were like, send it. Send it now. So I like, dang, okay, that's the one.
Quan Gan: That got sent out today.
Kristin’s iPhone: OK, so maybe next week and coming weeks will get hard encouragements. I'm hoping, yeah. Yeah, it was encouraging to see the NRPA. And the guy from Fort Bliss, the one that you had such a great conversation with, I was so glad that he reached out.
Quan Gan: He's the one, do you remember who he is? No, can you give me the name? is he in the CRM now?
Kristin’s iPhone: Yes, now he is. Brian Foreman. he's the one that was brought to you from that other guy. And he was like, this is the guy you want to talk to.
Quan Gan: He can, he will get it.
Kristin’s iPhone: He will, he's won. And you talk to him for like 45 minutes, I think. OK.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah, I think if you and I have both interact with them and then you talk to them, I mean, that's already good enough qualification. and saying that it's more important to make the demo.
Kristin’s iPhone: Cool. Cool. I'm thinking too, we get the OK from his base, we can leverage that with everybody else, maybe.
Quan Gan: Oh, for sure.
Kristin’s iPhone: Yeah, OK.
Quan Gan: For sure. I think it's just getting social proof in one location that you can spread it out.
Kristin’s iPhone: Yeah. Yeah. The wife had mentioned only purchasing one unit, but I don't think that's what he wants. I think he wanted it more. We'll see.
Quan Gan: OK. You said his wife?
Kristin’s iPhone: Yeah, that's who contacted me.
Quan Gan: Oh, OK. So he works with his wife at the fort?
Kristin’s iPhone: She's a military wife. So he is the base chief. What does that mean? OK. So my aunt, my aunt was a military wife, and basically she's like his right hand man, but off the books, like off the books. My ancient Karina was like anything that had to deal with social or kids or families, it was like you figure out the information and then bring it to me.
Quan Gan: If it passes her, it'll pass for him for sure. So yeah, she's like a really important assistant. Okay, I didn't know that, but yeah it's interesting to know about these dynamics.
Kristin’s iPhone: Yeah, it's really cool. It's very cool. If you were going to a marine base, I would bring her with us.
Quan Gan: I was like, my wife? Did you talk to Charlie? I was kind of confused.
Kristin’s iPhone: Who's wife?
Quan Gan: Because you said the wife.
Kristin’s iPhone: like, who is the wife? Who's the wife? That's funny. That's funny. Okay, I think that's it.
Quan Gan: I'm feeling good.
Kristin’s iPhone: I'm feeling good. Thank you so much. So I'm excited. I'll be able to just share this with the team on Tuesday and like I'm going to say I need you to work on this.
Quan Gan: If you can work on that kind of thing. Okay. The rest of the team is still on holiday over there because nobody reached out to me. So I'm not sure if we'll be prepared. We'll see. Maybe my request has taken a consideration if they're returning to work this week or not.
Kristin’s iPhone: Yeah.
Quan Gan: It's a little up in the air. Yeah, even my engineering team some are on vacation so I think we'll need to have a soft start next week.
Kristin’s iPhone: Oh wow.
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Philip Hernandez: I mean, Andy did not tell me that he's not coming.
Chris Balint: but he's not. He wrote me on click. guess he's not feeling up to it or something. OK, yeah, I will be taking notes for him, though.
Philip Hernandez: Let's see if we can figure out this translation thing. See, do you all see the captions below me?
Quan Gan: I think I have to enable it myself.
Chris Balint: Yeah, let me turn off the captions.
Quan Gan: OK, testing 123. OK, it was showing me something in Chinese. Well, I'm trying to have it output in Chinese. I don't know if it'll show me correctly. OK, testing 123.
Chris Balint: Do you guys see anything?
Quan Gan: I'm not seeing anything.Oh no, hold on.I see when you speak in English, it works.So maybe it's only able to pick up English,which is not very helpful.I'm Chinese, so is Juan.你好,聽得見嗎?喂,喂,喂.OK,我要說中文的話,再能不能寫?Yes, but it doesn't actually translate it.Yeah, it doesn't translate it.I mean, it's actually pretty good in what it's saying.You're gonna have to hit like live translated after the fact.Yeah, there's supposed to be a way to do that,but I don't like, I don't know.It's enabled and everything is just not like live translating.OK, transcribe.
Philip Hernandez: Have you been able to get a hold of Jerry maybe I'll let me call him Maybe his alarm didn't wake him up Mmm. Gary has to say yeah I guess um maybe we can ask him if what about those the ethernet cables I think like if you give us a price bracket they get included with the pro cable stuff or you think we should get spursed should we should we try and explain the whole pricing situation or what I don't know well I don't even know the details of it so maybe you can explain it to me first um yeah well I wanted to write up something for gerry regardless which I think would help we just didn't have time to do it before this call no but gerry was the one that requested it so I'm not sure
Quan Gan: if he, um, yeah, okay. No idea. Did you confirm anything with him the night before?
Philip Hernandez: I did not confirm the night before, but when we set the meeting I confirmed the dates. So I don't know if I need to do that.
Quan Gan: I think we might need to. That's a Junotel thing because they suck at Great. Perfect. Because I think, well, unlike us that live by Google Calendar, there is no calendar in China. So we just need to check again and again. Yeah, so he brought that and he's in deep sleep right now.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, you're right. It was like, they didn't confirm the calendar invite, but we confirmed it but I didn't send, but Jerry's never confirmed any calendar invites.
Quan Gan: don't think his system
Philip Hernandez: And it that to happen. OK.
Quan Gan: And the fact that Andy is not here, think we'll have to reschedule anyways.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, I need to add that to my SOP. I remember we used to do it that way, and then I just forgot that we used to confirm it. So I'll just make a note to change my SOP to do that. It's OK. It's all part of learning process. It's all part of the remove-quan from the process. Yeah, Jerry and I coordinated the date and time, and I confirmed it with him, but I confirmed it like when he asked me.
Quan Gan: Well, yeah. just, yeah, you have to also realize Jerry's probably jet-setting or car-setting at some point, so he's not by his calendar, so it needs to be like, yeah, on top of it. I think that's kind of, I don't know if it's a single trade of Jerry, but he might also be a Chinese CEO thing like they just have to have assistance hounding them.
Philip Hernandez: I don't have enough. Okay, sure. I don't know. I have no response.
Quan Gan: I don't know. I don't know enough. I don't have enough data points, but that's at least in working with him for long. I think it's like you get up to the thing and you just have like, there's a lot more we chat communication up to the point.
Philip Hernandez: Even if we go to M5, we have nothing on the calendar. It's like, oh, we're going to show up today. Right.
Quan Gan: And then there are like two or three days ahead of time. They're like, okay, still come and confirm, confirm. And then even like the day of you're like, okay, we're coming.
Philip Hernandez: All of my Chinese friends that have worked in Shanghai just complain about how terrible their bosses are. So I don't have any.
Quan Gan: That lens is a, okay. Okay, as maybe this is a good time to impart some cultural differences. What I've gathered in simple terms is Americans or the Western society is digital, and Chinese and Eastern society is analog.
Philip Hernandez: Oh, except for our like infrastructure and all that, which is way better in China than it is here.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I mean, well, it's kind of yeah, that that is a paradox. But yes, like the apps are better, like the payment systems are better, the infrastructure, the cars, the proliferation of electric vehicles, the like food, medical, an authoritarian so it's a double-edged sword, you could cut things very quickly, and then you can also kill things very quickly.
Philip Hernandez: Maybe it's just a boss thing, because I know all my friends complain about how like their bosses are like disorganized and also
Quan Gan: don't know anything and like think they know everything and are like old and i'm like okay and you guys a youtube video or maybe that's like like a young thing i don't know here is okay oh this guy this is a very good unlike america well i won't put it here but i'll i'll send it as a link for you guys to check out later but it's talking about the fundamental difference between chinese and us mindset and politics or actually how it goes into politics and i think it's also a developed like a darwinian development because because in china and the way the political system goes if you say something concrete and you end up on the wrong side of politics that may kill you you realize that right so yeah who have to be very ambiguous with what you say, which inherently will create a culture of an, like an analog culture, right? It's kind of amorphous. You can't really define it depending on the times you end up on the right side. Whereas the US, like it's very logic driven, and it's, you know, like sequential. And it's by law, right? Because law is at the top. So you can trust that as your foundation. But in China, the ruling party is above the law. So if you trust your, your life on the law and a lot of changes in a digital fashion, you would just be gone. So the leftover people are those who will learn the analog way.
Philip Hernandez: Interesting. Yeah, it's interesting. don't know. It's interesting. I like to also hear how individuals interpret these things too.
Quan Gan: I would say probably Russian or communist regime.
Philip Hernandez: Might be sharing similar traits.
Quan Gan: Yeah, you have to say something and you have to be careful of how you say it because it gets interpreted differently at different times Yeah, that that makes it ultimately hard to schedule something concrete with people and have things following a letter Great Okay, well We can try again another time.
Philip Hernandez: I can talk to Jerry about it Do We already went over the price thing. I don't know Quan do you want to look at the price stuff with me? Now What do you want?
Quan Gan: Do you have something on the screen you can share so I could look at it concretely and maybe Chris can get some comments on it Correct, I just don't know if like we already went through it.
Philip Hernandez: So I don't Chris if you
Chris Balint: Something to do, you can jump off like I can talk I was going to see if Kuang could say a sentence in Chinese, because I think AI companion might be able to translate the text.
Quan Gan: I'm Chinese now. Can you the translation in Hello, 12345. Chinese is a model, American is a digital model, or electronic model. Find it up here.
Chris Balint: Let's see if this worked. Analyzing what Kuang said. I think you broke it.
Quan Gan: I broke it.
Chris Balint: It says, Kuang said, hello, how are you? Don't worry, I'm sure.
Philip Hernandez: Ah, good morning Singapore. How are you?
Chris Balint: For your, this is a mix of Chinese greetings and phrases.
Philip Hernandez: It's just, yeah, it's just summer. Can't interpret it.
Chris Balint: Okay That was a fail It's fine figured out We'll figure it out.
Quan Gan: Are you are any of you guys on max? No, don't okay. I don't know if there's a PC thing, but there's got to be some kind of a maybe like a Chrome extension that you could just have it listen to your Your speaker feed and then just give you live captioning.
Philip Hernandez: So let me see if I can find something. Yeah If all that fails I Can also add like if quan can't be here and if all that feels like and also ask this one of my friends to come in and translate But we're in this digital era where I just can fundamentally believe it's not already solved so I can't either but Finding it has been elusive or rate way too expensive like I feel like there's the problem us just be Because like you we could do it in person like we did at Disney right? I think it's just that it's the audio, although you'd think it'd be easy because it's already isolated.
Quan Gan: The way, but you know, even the recent Lex Friedman podcast and he interviewed of Vladimir Zelensky, yeah, like they had to have three interpreters sitting next to each other, switching between US, Russian and Ukrainian.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, I don't know.
Quan Gan: I think it's just, I don't know, man. Non-trivial, for sure.
Philip Hernandez: We'll see. I don't know. One of my friends, I think it's class right now. I mean, we'll see. Let's see if like he could jump on. He offered to jump on, but I think he has class, we can probably like find another time he can jump.
Quan Gan: Well, do you want to do pricing now or save it for another time?
Philip Hernandez: Um, I still have coffee left, so we can do it now. Um, let's just jump into it. Chris, you can stay or you can go. doesn't matter to me. Um, I mean, like I can take it. It's to you.
Chris Balint: If you need me, I'll stay. not, I'll go either.
Quan Gan: think it would be good to have Chris just as a sounding board because I want to I have certain assumptions.
Chris Balint: want you guys to either destroy or confirm. OK, we did.
Philip Hernandez: We did already go through all this. So OK, wait, hold on. Let me make sure it might be good for Kwan. This is in the huddle under twenty five twenty five twenty twenty five price list. The documents are there. Both the price list map and the comparison. What we want to look at is comparison, because that's the thing that has all our information.
Quan Gan: And I'm going to send this one to Jerry. And the source of the data is from Deep Sky or our own. Like what what kind of.
Chris Balint: I pulled so I could break down real quick while I'm pulling it from Kwan. So, I'm taking what our current list prices, what we're selling, or so, I'm comparing last year's data to this year's data just based on what we have in-house. So, I'm taking what the list price was from last year's proposed this year, the Junitel cost, which is what they gave us on the XY sheet from each year. Total cost, that's what we're paying for, plus any components that are going into it, picking fees, shipping fees, all that stuff. So, that's what I had Lisa help me out to verify for total cost. The unit cell cost, that at a certain volume across the board? That is at the norm what Lisa orders. The only difference is where it is Burgantum 7s on the 2025. They gave us a potential better price break at, I think it was 500 units. We normally order only at 200. Let's try to tell Lisa only order these at 500 units.
Philip Hernandez: I I already kind of I didn't approve the budget, but I already told Chris what we need to talk about that because like But yeah, anyway, we'll get into that Because I think that we should try and divert some funds from some other fixtures and items over to trying to order like that 500 because we know that they're going to sell And you know what I mean like if it's a fixture that we don't know is going to sell I'm not going to order that much but I think we know we're going to sell 500 of them looking at the ordering history and I think that we should try and do That to get a better margin, but we need to get the capital in which we don't have and so and then Jerry's not letting us put that one on terms so We I need to like talk to Quan and and Ping and Deep sky, but I think that's one of the things we we need to do is like get some of this Anyway, so can you see my cursor?
Quan Gan: I can.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah. Okay, so here's what Chris was talking about. This is last year's list price, right? And this would be this year's list price. But then if you look over here, it will tell you the amount increases. The list price increase, change in margin is here. And then especially we added this unit in. So here's 2024 sales you can see. So to me, the items that were and Chris can talk about what he thought was most important, but to me what's most important is looking at like what were our top sellers and making sure that the margin is good on those. And I think that you, we can see here that Gantem 7, right? 1252 units sold. And if you look at the pricing, we're just trying to adjust it slightly to make sure that we keep the 60% target margin on here. But this is what I mean, like if we can order 500 of these, if we can put the money together to order 500, we could even improve that margin a little bit more and then keeping it. So that's why I think that would be a good investment on there, is to do that.
Quan Gan: One quick question and comment is, do we have the raw file of this Excel you can share with me instead of the PDF?
Philip Hernandez: I already put it through all of the three different AI models to come up with notes for it.
Quan Gan: Well, the reason why I wanted is also I would love to have a last column to see the actual total dollar amount to really understand the scale of it relative to each other. Even though we're looking at percentages, I think it's important to look at the actual total financial impact.
Philip Hernandez: Right. What kind of financial impact do you mean though?
Quan Gan: Like do you mean the amount it would cost us?
Philip Hernandez: Or do you mean the amount of total revenue?
Quan Gan: Yeah, the revenue so basically just another column which multiplies your percentage by or or the yeah the percentage by the the profit times then the actual Volume or you know does does GPS have that report because I don't know how I would put that in Excel to just because every order It would might have a different Whatever the source is prior to converting to PDF if you just give me that and then all I'm doing is probably multiplying to Call them together and just get another number.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, I can make a copy of this Yeah, but Juan, I think what Chris is trying to say is that's not entirely accurate because The profit margin changes depending on who orders it So you could you so you can even right now you can multiply the previous number So the 20 you can multiply this list price by like the quantity sold and you could get an estimated amount of total revenue impact. But you're not going to know for sure because this this number is like our target margin.
Quan Gan: get that. But we're in the same ballpark. You know, I'm just I just want to kind of order a magnitude. mean, I could do it in my head just mentally right now. But it's certainly easier to see just one extra number with a with an absolute dollar.
Chris Balint: Okay. I mean, yeah, I can make it to where it's the it shows it based off of as if all the orders are like the 30% discount, which is like the top second top dealer.
Philip Hernandez: I would just just give it to Quan and let him do it.
Quan Gan: I'll play with it if you just give it.
Chris Balint: Yeah, I'll make you.
Philip Hernandez: We don't need to waste. mean, not like waste, but like I think Quan just wants to understand the numbers more intimately. And I think that like, that's fine to like, let him look at it. But like, it's not going to change.
Quan Gan: Right. It's not that I don't trust it. I need to grok information by really playing with it in, you know, a lot more.
Chris Balint: Yeah, that's right.
Philip Hernandez: Sure, it's not going to change the information and it's not and maybe it will give us a different insight, but I don't think it's going to change the direction of what we're doing. anyway, I think, since I don't see the top column anymore, know, I just want to see what is the final what is the last column here? It's right there.
Chris Balint: That's the total percentage. like of all out of all sales, that was like 0.64% of all sales.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Chris Balint: Oh, of all sales.
Philip Hernandez: all sales.
Quan Gan: Point looking at change in margin.
Philip Hernandez: Okay, got it.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. No, that's actually a good thing. So like, let's start with whatever is the highest percentage.
Philip Hernandez: that's what I was talking about, right? So if you if we look at if we look at like this one, this is almost 5%. That's why I want to try and put budget into this guy because it's almost 5% sales. And if we can order at the
Chris Balint: 500 amount we could increase the margin here without needing to increase the list price to the customer that mark and Philip is If we go with 500 now. Yeah. Yeah, okay It's I think it was like 51 or 57 right or something like that. I know that if we did not do Yeah, yeah But I mean compared to last year anything is better.
Philip Hernandez: We were getting last year. Yeah, I mean So this was another problem quant like last year the numbers were not quite accurate because Lucas was not reflecting all of the operational costs I Don't know what happened whether I think Lisa tried to talk to Lucas about it But for whatever reason it didn't come in so basically not all of the ops numbers were correct in last year's pricing So that's why you see here. We were taking a march and hit last year Versus like this year here and as Chris said that was my mistake But as Chris said, this is the number with the 500 unit order
Quan Gan: Are we, just to make sure I'm understanding, we're increasing our price from $438 to $495.
Chris Balint: Correct.
Quan Gan: Is that feasible?
Philip Hernandez: I mean, that's a huge jump.
Chris Balint: I compared it to, so I asked GPT to compare the seven to any other fixtures on the market. Everything's a much larger, but it's still less. The closest fixture was the Nalation 6-par, and that is a list price of over $600. So, yeah, we're not as bright and we're smaller, but we're also less. And we fit that need for a small form factor like. And most orders are coming, for the Ganttum 7 is coming through dealer, so it is much less.
Quan Gan: Right. Okay. So, this is one assumption I guess I want you to help break for me because I was making in a hypothesis that the seven or the one up is more bang for the buck for the customer in terms of it being you know at least twice or three times as bright as v2 but not necessarily that much more in cost so it would be better for them to to purchase up from from that you know in this direction but if you're showing that you know these margin are actually well at least what i've been told by uh some of the designers and stuff about that like comparing the two they prefer the v2 because of size they want the small form factor um yes that was a sensitive thing like we could it's it's to bury it into stuff they can hide it a lot easier um okay so so it's breaking our previous hypothesis that the difference between
Philip Hernandez: V2 and the seven form factor is inconsequential, but it is I think there are two items that we learned about talking to them a yes The size to be able to bury into things is still important But be the price does not seem to be worth it to them like there's something about the The pricing that is not working like when so basically when you when they look at these two things even last year And they're looking at like four thirty eight versus the two like that amount of jump is just like They're they're really like I Mean I don't know like the stickers or whatever the word is but they're just kind of like oh like it's an I pop in amount like the the the perceived difference between the two is too great So that it seems the value is not worth it on the one up so And then if you look it so actually we talked about this during the huddle, but like This is one of our majors. we have I think I see is we have two big challenges, maybe One is that the one up in order to maintain even a 50 margin, which is still a terrible margin, honestly We need to put up to 525 and I don't know what that's gonna do demand But we're gonna have to test it like we don't know unless we know it's possible. We could start to have an inverse thing like there one hypothesis is that The pricing being close enough to the v2 is Is actually detrimental whereas if it's like twice the price then it's perceived as a as a different fixture entirely So it might so increasing the price might actually inversely create more demand in you know that happens sometimes with with luxury items So that's a possibility and there's also no other way to do it about staying in margins The other thing you mentioned about price ceiling is Is a problem with the Juni because the Juni the 410 is the price ceiling for the Juni because that's the the source for a mini price and look at the margin on this. Even at 410, the margin is only 40, which is one of our lower margins. But if you look at the total amount sold on here, it's not that many, right? The percentage of our sales is not that much. I think this year what we're going to have to do is slowly phase out the journey. Unless this price, again, inversely attracts somehow more demand, which we don't think it will only because of the source for mini exists as a competitor.
Quan Gan: It's just inconsequential then. Correct. Even if you look at the 7 and the 1 up, as much as I like them, mean they seem significant.
Philip Hernandez: Correct. But look at the 1 up, 0.5.
Quan Gan: Yeah. sure, 1 up, we haven't really marketed as a B2 replacement, looking at the numbers, mean, if this is 8%, maybe the strategy is actually to shift this way.
Philip Hernandez: That's what we were talking about.
Quan Gan: That's literally 100%. We were talking about earlier today. Right, to keep the margin for the B2 because that's kind of our bread and butter and really lean into that more.
Philip Hernandez: I mean, yes.
Quan Gan: Yeah, okay. I mean, you're getting ahead of everything, Juan, but that is what we... Do you know if we can get any better margin with this as the...
Philip Hernandez: We literally just talked about this earlier in the meeting. I literally told Lisa and everyone on the huddle with Ping there, I was like, we get no price break after 200 units. So I told everyone, I want to talk to Jerry and just ask him, Jerry, if we could commit to ordering 1,000 of these, could you give us a price break? There has to be room for negotiation here because... doesn't make any sense of it 200 like if we could order five times more there has to be price break somewhere in there and then so what I was thinking is if we could move the one up almost like basically we consolidate between the seven and the v2 but ultimately the v2 because it's it's still the best item and if we could then put purchasing power behind really pushing that and then if we could like if we could collapse the cable cost we could basically just specialize and have much better margins like across the board so that's what we talked about on the huddle is like but all these things like I want to get your feedback on my hypothesis but my for all this I think that like we need to share the data with Jerry and we need to explain the situation and then we need to do these like kind of like ask like okay we really would like to order a thousand is it possible or how what Is it possible to get a price break and then him understanding the margins and understanding like why the, you know, why these things are important like I think that's all part of it. Like he needs to be brought up to speed basically like if Jerry is going to be like taking over for Quan, he needs to understand how to read this chart. Okay. What's what's your like reaction to that Quan?
Quan Gan: you think it's important that we try and It is important for him to see, I mean, okay, so tell me what what is clearing out all of the the nano spots and the dark flight pluses do for us at all.
Philip Hernandez: Oh, that really was just to make Jerry feel better.
Quan Gan: I mean, like we made a little bit of money, but like Did he make any concessions on the price?
Philip Hernandez: Yes, he did. Yeah. Um, but basically what I told him was Look, we're gonna throw these out. So If like, I know you don't want to just throw them away or recycle them. So why not just give them at cost to the customer? And then at least somebody will use them and we don't have to just throw them away. And he seemed like amenable to that argument or he he actually seemed like he didn't want to just throw them away. And so that's what we avoided.
Chris Balint: But we didn't really make any do you think we made anything Chris on it? Like nothing we made about, I think it was like 26 percent margin, which is still something.
Quan Gan: But we're trying to see if that same scenario might happen to these where we decide, oh, none of these are actually worth our time. And then we have to kind of we have to decouple our sentiment from it because yes, Jerry spent a lot of time on it. But if it's if this baby is not financially viable or successful and it's actually sapping energy from our full concentration on what's been proven to work as a stable percent.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah.
Quan Gan: get distraction, actually, I would adjust that slightly.
Philip Hernandez: I agree with the distraction. But I think that the seven is still differentiated enough, and it's still profitable enough. And if anything, what I would ask Jerry is like, he gave us a break. So this is at 500. What if we could order a thousand sevens? Could we get, could we make this margin even better? You know, and could we allocate capital to doing that? Then we could remove, you know, the one up and the Juni from consideration and move that demand into the V2 or the seven and then order more V2s at once. And like, say we order a thousand V2s and a thousand sevens, increase the margins, focus on those, and then fix the cable stuff. We would be way more profitable.
Quan Gan: So there's there's another dimension that I think you guys need to consider, which is the sentimental value to Jerry as a know, for these babies.
Philip Hernandez: I know, I know.
Quan Gan: Yeah, this is the hard part, because I know, there is the one product that really exemplifies this is the uni. I know, we spend a lot of time, him and I both a lot of mental power and time, but it is a market, it's an unsuccessful product at market. And I think also, potentially it will second to that, if not second, maybe in front of is actually though the one up. Because we're actually, especially the one. It's a, how would I say it, from a technical achievement standpoint, not a financial liability standpoint is a feather in Jerry's cap, because this is something not even toky star can do on a technical level to achieve in terms of the optics. So so that artistry from the artisan has a lot of value for him to keep around. But it may be more of a trophy fixture than something that actually keeps the company thriving. just so you, yeah, I just want to make sure you guys are aware of that dimension that keeps the product around rather than, hey, this thing is just not viable and we got to just cut it.
Philip Hernandez: I understand that now after having worked for Jerry, and I think that was why I was hoping like, I don't want to start with that. I want to start with just having him look at the numbers and understand them first, right? And then I want to like, then the next part is like, can we get a discount on the seven, right? Because it's so popular, right? It's kind of like that, that like sandwich approach where like, I wanted to understand the background that I want to praise the seven and how great it is and asking if we could get, you know, even a better discount of a thousand and I want to praise the V two. And then we can kind of like say, well, the numbers for you know, these are at the price ceiling because of the source for, you know, I kind of want to be like, I think he needs to understand everything. And we like, I agree with you. If we just told him tomorrow, we're going to discontinue the journey because it's not popular. That would be terrible. But I think if he knows if he sees it for himself and he sees that we are really interested in investing more in fixtures, I think that would help.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've learned this lesson kind of the long and hard way with both Ganttum and Z-tag products. As the developer, there's certain things, there's certain babies you would want to give its full blessing and see market success. But sometimes it just doesn't match the reality of what the customer is willing to pay for.
Philip Hernandez: And I think that's what happened. If you look at the cost, it's just it really like skyrocketed for the one up versus the V2. I mean, like over $200. I it's just like, it's like, it's kind of like no wonder. mean, I don't know, we'll see maybe with the margin adjustment, it could have that weird, you know, luxury items, right?
Quan Gan: Like the more expensive it is, it's like, but I think that that's a very, that's a Hail Mary hypothesis that we have no grounding on.
Philip Hernandez: I agree with you. If you have a different suggestion, I will hear it.
Quan Gan: No, I think that's more in the realm of fantasy than what's realistic, given our track record, you know, our track record shows me to being good because that was actually, okay. So it started with the Ganttum DMX. It was the world's smallest RGB fixture. Yeah. Now we increase it to RGBW, but it didn't have the right cabling. And so we finally listened to customers and add that, but it didn't have the right accessories. And so over the past 15 years, yeah, we've injected a lot of incrementally. improvements to this. so this is a highly optimized workhorse. Correct. This is the other ones. It's kind of like, I don't know if you guys have heard of Liars, that book by Gladwell. Talks about why do most NHL athletes happen to be born in the first two months of the year? Yeah. You guys know about that phenomenon?
Philip Hernandez: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Right. So they, it's a tangent but related to this. It's that those kids happen to be the biggest in their class.
Philip Hernandez: Correct.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Philip Hernandez: It's just a timing thing.
Quan Gan: in the front. Yeah. And they get more playtime, which makes them better than those other kids and compounded over years they become those NFL athletes. And I think with the V2 it's similar. It has an early advantage and it has more playtime that overshadows anything else that we have that just doesn't have a 10x improvement over it. And so it doesn't have the market or the momentum. So I think It's actually really, yeah, the focus is back to B2.
Philip Hernandez: Yes. Well, we have been saying that at this point for three meetings. think, but there is something to the continuous improvement that you mentioned, Quan, because we made the conscious effort last year to make sure that we reinvested in the B2 and in the year previously to make sure, you know, look at all we've done over the past several years, making sure that the threading and you can adjust it, like making it really like, so.
Quan Gan: And it's also because we have the volume to just to harden that product over our many, many use cases. Whereas the first time we put the one up or the seven out, mean, we had the zoo fiasco up in Canada, right?
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, I remember that.
Quan Gan: So B2 has just like been a lot more.
Philip Hernandez: So I would suggest if anything that we This this this follows exactly the plan that we set the end of the year for the most part But I think that we should look for ways to reinvest in the seven and the v2 And we should kind of try and like phase out some of these other Fixers that are less of our sales and that are less meaningful And I think what we should try and do is both increase the margin By seeing if we could do a deal with Jerry to do higher volume and cost Control and then we should look at the cables and try and transition to the ethernet Which should in theory again another hypothesis But the hypothesis we've been working on is if we move over to an ethernet That would increase the demand for the fixture because it makes a system less expensive if the demand for fixture is higher So we can increase the fixture demand and we can increase fixture margin And we consolidate that demand to the fixtures and have the best margin that should be increased profitability That's way to go down half a page.
Quan Gan: want to see the
Philip Hernandez: This row box, yeah, that was so getting to that so Chris had suggested focusing on the GP002 because of the margins Here and kind of consolidating into that and then when you start to look at the cables You'll notice that we everything gets Grim Basically and this is exactly kind of what we're talking about I mean some of the US items here, you know, if we can control the cost we could reduce some of the prices but you look at the prices in comparison to the fixtures and then you look at the margins on them like We're in a situation where people don't necessarily want the fix the cables and they are low margin and they are expensive and so the question is What can we do anything about that? Like what can we do? Can we and then will the Ethernet?
Quan Gan: solve it or not that these are all the same questions but we just spitball in here but can you go back up to the uh the distro yeah there you go so uh no but put it next to the v2 i want to see both okay so we're at eight something percent and then the digital box is still you single single digit all right so what if our volume on this goes high enough that we can give the distro box out for free or basically not for free but like zero margin or lower it substantially so that the cost of infrastructure is essentially subsidized by our increase in volume of purely just the fixtures don't know how much that would really matter that much quantity because i i almost look at our product similar to how
Chris Balint: Color Kinetic did their prop products with the color blast, because every color blast had to run back to one of their brains. In my mind, I have to make sure that it's just like color blasts. You have to run it back to the power supply. That's just how it works. I think a lot of the designers are so used to that idea from Color Kinetics. That's how their mind works with our stuff. like, oh, this is just what you do. You need the power supply, listen to the data, it's just like Color Kinetic's brains where you have to plug it into that.
Quan Gan: So that savings doesn't really incentivize them anymore to specify the fixture?
Chris Balint: No, I think the biggest thing that hurts them, and even Warren said it, it's the cable costs. Cable costs is too much. Something that I talked to Philip about the other day is, I think once we can get our Ethernet distribution box fully ready to be marketed, if maybe we include the female branch to Ethernet adapter with all DMX fixtures, just as this is a including now, that will then give the customers the option and the freedom to say, do I want to do a bare wire install to 002 and you buy the branch bare wire cables, which we already have really good margins on for like outdoor applications, or do I want to use the Ethernet adapter, run up my own Ethernet cable into the Ethernet distro? Because I think we could probably charge probably around four or 500 for the Ethernet distro and be okay, because then we're like, look, you really provide the adapters, you just run Ethernet cable, you could get what? A 10 foot Ethernet cable for less than five bucks, you know?
Philip Hernandez: Okay, how much financial impact is it to give those adapters away with a fixture?
Chris Balint: Significant. At the moment, that's a lot. I do have another spreadsheet that I was working on where I kind of show the difference. We'd have to make margins the same, we'd have to up it. So one of the ideas I thought that I talked to Philip about was possibly would Jerry be able to give us the adapter so I could with the fixture at cost and then any additional adapters we buy say for if customers want extra or if customers need replacements, he then gives us a separate peer pricing for those that we buy individually.
Quan Gan: Can we see a world where let's say if the V2 purchase is double work on Drupal that we can get those adapters for free.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, I think that's what Chris was hoping for and I think that's going to come down to negotiations with Jerry like.
Quan Gan: Jerry's calling me right now. Okay. Let's The meeting today, Phillip, he said he was two weeks ago. Then we should re-order it, because we are almost done the discussion. Then when you are ready, we will confirm it with you one Yes, do you still have something urgent? Or do you to re-order it That's it, get ready. Not today, maybe the tomorrow or next week. I'm gonna have him rehe coordinate with you Since we're at the end of this anyway Um Yeah, that's fine.
Philip Hernandez: Anyway, yeah, so I think there are two paths going forward. One would be to see if we could get a deal. These are the adapters, right, Chris, that we're talking about. you see that the price here is pretty significant. So there's two things. price is significant. Even if they were to buy them, that's an extra $50, basically per fixture.
Quan Gan: Oh, yes. But if it were included in the fixture, then you knock out a lot of like the, you know, the operational costs around it, because it's part of the other fixture.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, that's that's what I think Chris was thinking. Like if we were able to include it and then get a price break from Junitel because they were like they're like a stocking order, you know, maybe we could do a deal or something to get them included. So there's that option, which is I think a pretty short term like that. That's like we could do that easily and we could use that data to test and see if it actually does increase demand because that would be the test, right? The test would be it's going to help us with demand or not then in the long term, if it does help us with demand, I think we should, we should at least open the conversation about redesigning the tails to be either net. Entirely entirely and that would that would then save this whole thing.
Quan Gan: We wouldn't have to do the adapter. The counter argument for doing cables native.
Philip Hernandez: is that there's more scoring points and that might actually have some increase in cost or come correct. So we need, but we need the cost analysis from Jerry. We don't actually know. We don't have the number. We don't know either way. We don't know that the Ethernet will increase demand. We also do not know how much it would cost extra to make native tails. So I think that's why Chris's solution is good because it's in the middle. So it's like, we'll get to test out if how much it helps demand. And if Jerry can give us a price break, it'll help us. But we need the numbers from Jerry to know like how much it's going to cost. Jerry and Andy had a conversation about it and Andy's interpretation is that Jerry doesn't think it will be significant to make that change like it'll be easy. But.
Quan Gan: Oh, OK, that Jerry thinks it's It's fairly easy to do. Good. I mean, they have done Ethernet before because we've done it for Disney, so it's possible. It's just probably a little bit more involved on the testing end. I think fixture cost-wise, I would anticipate it to be similar, maybe a single big percentage difference if any.
Philip Hernandez: But that would still save us a significant chunk if we aren't having to order an adapter for each fixture.
Quan Gan: True. Yeah, but I think the way I would kind of scaffold this, I think you've already said this, we're including the adapter first just to see is the demand increasing, and if it is, and changing that, like whatever that basically comes back into our pocket without having to shift things.
Philip Hernandez: Yes.
Quan Gan: The only question I have on the hypothesis is, is having that conversion node? somehow detrimental to the design that it's not a pure experiment or apple to apple's experiment.
Chris Balint: Like one of the adapters?
Quan Gan: Yeah, like you're having an adapter going from pro to ether. I don't think so because everyone we showed these two at like IAPA and LDI, they thought this was the greatest thing we're putting out right now.
Chris Balint: Yeah. So they didn't seem to worry about it most of the stuff it gets hidden away. know, it's either getting hidden in a ceiling or it's getting hidden in a set piece, things like that. So they all seemed happy. Warren was super happy about it. I'm about to send a follow-up email to everyone I sent care packages to to get their feedback on these and the new package after. So we'll see what they say. But I mean, I know at least from IAPA and LDI, everyone was very, very happy.
Quan Gan: And you think maybe a It can add cost increases, something that they're expecting or, you know, like I wouldn't want to increase the fixture cost by 45, but maybe you have this adapter for 10 bucks.
Chris Balint: Um, I mean, let me see. Let me look at my one spreadsheet real quick, Phil, because I have some of that information.
Philip Hernandez: Oh, which window is it? I think we had talked about this already, right? We were going to, in order for the experiment to be successful, don't, need to include it. At, like for free. So we're going to take the hits on it in order to know if it's actually going to increase demand. You know what I mean? Like it can't be the, yeah, I know we don't know how much changing, like redesigning the fixture cost and how that will impact the cost. But I think in order for the experiment to be valid, it needs to be frictionless and be the same price so that we're measuring the demand based off the current.
Quan Gan: model so like In the G7 real quick again, I want to see that Yeah Okay, so yeah, there you go. I think you know That many fixtures here That basically we were gonna plan on losing $25,000 That's kind of what I'm looking at to okay So it's a 25k experiment to be giving it away for free with every single fixture correct and we Netted about 250,000 in profit this year.
Philip Hernandez: So we're saying we're gonna allocate or last year 2024 was that 250 in profit, but We overspent so that's why we were negative. So In theory though We should have 25k to put into this experiment, but it's kind of like depends how much we can control the the spending but that's the idea is that we experiment with it and we See how it goes. And then we collect customer sentiment on it as well. Because right now it's like too anecdotal.
Quan Gan: And this is over the course of the next entire year. So you might have some early data just to see if it ends up getting on projects in slightly higher volumes.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah. My only concerns we might actually run out because we only have allocated a thousand right adapters, Chris, to this agreement.
Chris Balint: got of the female branch, I think Andy totally said to do 1700.
Philip Hernandez: Oh, okay. Maybe we Well, okay.
Quan Gan: So if it's 1700, you would know if the experiment is positive or not. If you end up running out before half the year is gone, then that's actually a good indicator saying, hey, yeah, moving some volume here.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah. But they're not even here yet. So we'd have to delay it. So it would be like Q3, basically. Because they're not even here yet.
Quan Gan: So we're not, we can't, we're not. Yeah, basically you would. Time it like say how fast can you clear these out? And if you're clearing it out faster than six months then it's a Indicator that you're moving faster than what the year expenditure would have been Correct.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah Okay Yeah, that's the plan at least and that was the plan we had made last year When you know before Even you know like right after LDI office kind of made the plan and then the numbers I think just kind of Emphasize it because when when Chris redid the margins and you know Provected all the data from the priceless then it became really apparent that it was so So we had already been down this road and then nothing in the data has shown us that it is the wrong path yet We're just you know, if anything is just making it more clear that the cables are kind of pretty standard control So the only other thing to that we have is like so like Chris mentioned he has people that have already received stuff and so he'll be going through like systematically and getting their feedback on it on the adapter so far so that'll be able to give us a better sentiment uh like a more like like I don't know like scientific like you know we have the list of people we're going to go through the list you know like versus just talking to random people at LDI and IAPA but nobody said anything negative about it at all the trade shows so um and I know I know that I had a few discussions I'm sure Chris did about people about the ethernet and the outdoor installations um I only talked to Warren about it and Warren was not concerned at all because how Warren explained it is that his team like breeze ethernet and so they have like dozens of solutions like to being able to put stuff in different places you know like kind of wherever they need to fit ethernet they already have a solution that they usually work around so he is not concerned about that at all. I don't know what conversations Chris had about it, whatever, I mean, that's just my, the feedback when I, when Quan raised the concern about ethernet being out there and I brought it to Warren and that's what Warren told me, is he just, okay. So I guess we'll find out more, right? As the experiment goes on, anyway, Quan, my suggestion for all of this is like, we need to like write this into like a plan and translate it so that Jerry can understand it because I think that that's gonna help us because we need his cooperation. we need, ideally, we need him to be able to give us a price break at the thousand level for V2s and 7s or maybe it's not a price break. Maybe if he just include, maybe if we agree to order a thousand V2s, he'll give us a thousand adapters with them or something. Like, or like, but I think that he needs to know that we have a plan and that there's like you know like I don't want to just make it seem like we're asking for random stuff you know and then we're not ordering what he thinks we should be ordering and I want him to see like this is where the demand is this is why we're doing it people love this fixture it's a great fixture this is why here's the ether as we're trying to do and then include like customer sentiment like Chris has talked to 16 of these designers and they all say they like this like that's my suggestion do you have any feedback on that or different ideas or I'm just over all I'm just hearing that we just stay in our lane yeah that's exactly what it is like I literally was like look we're good at selling v2s and d7s we're not really good at making cables so we should stop trying to do the we're not good at just do the stuff you're good at and make money at it and then make it better like I'm worried about Jerry getting discouraged So I want to try and make it like positive like the reason the V2 is doing so well is because Jerry has innovated on it over the years. It's not the same fixture it was. And I think we underscore that because if we can consolidate it down to the fewer fixtures but that are really good, then Jerry can apply the same Kaizen approach to it where like we make the fixture better every year. You know, there's still improvements to be made on it.
Quan Gan: It's not like, yeah. I mean, yeah, can you give me some ideas of what can be furthered on to that fixture?
Philip Hernandez: We can start asking. I mean, right now everybody is saying Ethernet.
Quan Gan: That's what we're hearing. right. So yeah, we'll focus on that rock first and then we'll see what refinement is afterwards.
Philip Hernandez: My Chris can give his feedback, but my the things I hear most from people is that it's right now the fixture is great. But. Using it is difficult.
Quan Gan: And so the two things that make it difficult are the cable and the programming Okay, and we're trying to fix both of them But like ideally if you know you had RDM in a ethernet box, it would make it work like every other fixture and then You know it would be RDM we had had that solution years ago But we mixed it because it didn't fit the pricing model so I wonder if actually turning that project back live and we eat that cost to bring RDM to the to them if that actually would increase our volume to I think it just depends on what the overall cost is gonna be. I think I think it was the cost was gonna like Maybe double or triple. I think it was somewhere between maybe
Philip Hernandez: two and a half or something.
Chris Balint: So what's that I mean that depending on what the Ethernet box is already going to cost is I haven't gotten any proposal.
Quan Gan: think it was apples to apples to a zero zero three.
Chris Balint: So what does that cost? Oh, that's like three. We're hoping to do 375 I think this year.
Quan Gan: Margin was is that our cost or I forget which one that that's cost.
Chris Balint: So our full cost is 1935.
Quan Gan: Okay, so it might be a $300 import. I'm thinking I think that was kind of I think that would hurt us. But because there's a thing like went up there and then you're able to get the volume for the v2 to compensate.
Chris Balint: The thing about RDM integrators will love it. You know the one that's installing it will love it.
Philip Hernandez: Designers don't give a . They're not the ones installing it.
Chris Balint: That's true. So Warren Warren Warren could care less if we have RDM because As you know you address the fixture once and you don't need to worry about it from a maintenance standpoint Yes, if a fixture needs to go up the tech could just sit there on the ground and dial in and say, oh, that's your address Or oh, let me see what's going on because RDM is also really only good if you have sensors on the fixture that can give you feedback Like oh, this is your temperature. This is your voltage. This is what's happening.
Quan Gan: You know here your lamp hours Um Yeah, so we don't have that is it's really only a mental benefit in the beginning.
Chris Balint: I get that same with a programmer Yes, more designers will specify it with our DM designers again designers don't care They don't care the integrators are the ones that are the ones always pushing it or it's like the smaller design firms That also do the integration.
Quan Gan: They're like, oh, we want RDM because then we don't have to buy 3d I do have one data point and it happened to be right when I was at the booth at LDI It was it was a Disney designer and his was Adam, I forget his last name, and he came by with our former sesco rep Kyle Ledford. I don't know if you know that pair of people. But they they've been using our stuff for quite some time. And internally, they basically did the the RDM version of that box, like they created a an address shifter that kept all of our fixtures at address one, and then they totally do it. they actually it was painfully enough that they hired someone to do it internally.
Chris Balint: Because that's a theme park because it's dizzy, they have maintenance tax. That's why you know, same with Universal and Andy will, Andy will stand from the rooftop saying oh, well, the tech service team, they want RDM. And it's like, yes, I understand the tech service team wants RDM because it would make their life easier. But the designers don't care. It doesn't pay the bills. Exactly. Right.
Philip Hernandez: it's Is it correct Chris in your thoughts that like the Ethernet option would help with the sales, but the RDM would not and that fixing the programmer box will kind of be like a middle like a compromise. like what one is fixing the RDM box makes it easier to use the fixture. Moving to Ethernet makes it easier to sell the fixture and we put those together and it should be increased the sales and also the use ease of use.
Chris Balint: that correct? Yeah, I mean, I think our biggest bang for a buck is going to be Ethernet because again like we all like like Warren even said and all the other designers said that cable comes from another budget so they can maximize the budget add more fixtures and I have to worry about factoring cables into that their lighting budget. Will RDM help maybe boost sells it might help a little but I don't think we're going to get the return on it. you know I really don't so it's mainly just fixing the programmer box to make it db32 db32 can make it a little bit quicker um because the other thing they ask is oh can i address all the fixtures you know i want or multi fixtures like no because it's one to one um but i mean the the biggest complaint of the db32 is battery life and we're already working on that you know we're trying to already solved that um you know i i think between fixing the db32's issues and making it to where we give a more cost-effective cable solution that that should help drive things up okay uh okay so um just one thought i don't know if i can achieve this but just imagine if we had x number of fixtures we're actually up to eight or whatever the distro box handles
Quan Gan: We plug in a programmer directly to that and on the programmer side, you can select which port you want to be addressing.
Chris Balint: Okay.
Quan Gan: Right. So maybe we can on the port level have a little bit of additional intelligence. Maybe not like a whole lot, but a little bit of additional intelligence so that on the programming side of things, you could just keep the programmer connected to it. Okay. Allow it to flash like literally blink whichever light fixture you're trying to address. Okay. Then when you're ready to confirm the address, you press it and then it will set that address.
Chris Balint: Okay. So basically take the DB32 connected it to the new distro such as starting address or port address and resize it that way. I think that would. Yeah, as long as you can have it do either on the fixture level or on the you know, either or I think that's fine. So it's not a full rdm implementation, but it might. They just they're just looking for ease of use call that a lot of these texts like the tech service Texas they don't even know really what rdm is they just know.
Quan Gan: I plug a DMX cat in and I can say that's your address.
Chris Balint: They're not fully rdm to its full potential.
Quan Gan: know, they're they're handling rdm. How often is the thing already installed versus it's on the bench top and they're addressing right then and there.
Chris Balint: What was that?
Quan Gan: I'm sorry. How often is the infrastructure installed and they're dealing with addressing after installation versus doing the addressing.
Chris Balint: Before just on a truck like if they have to swap a fixture, they're just being lazy. They don't want to have to sit up in a catwalk bending over dialing in they want to stand on the floor take. There's your address they're just they're But like during a normal installation process Let's kind of keep the maintenance aside Prepping the fixture on the bench with the addresses first it depends EOS absolutely for 902 They that's why they wanted all the stuff ahead of time because they prepped it all in their Orlando warehouse So everything was prepped labeling sent to the install site When four wall does the install out that universal for epic absolutely not and that's we have found that because they are killing things left and right So it just depends on the company level. What's their procedures for install, you know, and those procedures?
Quan Gan: Is it ganttum specific or it's also other manufacturers?
Chris Balint: They typically You know like a larger fixture might they have that on the bench top and do it or sometimes they might It just depends on the company it depends on who's installing it and what their SOPs are You get what you pay for, you know, I'm sure EOS costs more than four wall, but you get more service from them, where for a while literally they're hiring anyone they can find off the streets to install and they're blowing up 002 boxes left and right.
Quan Gan: Okay, because now you pay for it one way or another.
Chris Balint: Yeah, exactly. The only other feedback that I kind of have right now, I haven't physically held the new ethernet box, but Andy did show me pictures and stuff. If little like LED indicators could be put in just at least on the back to say, hey, power is being read by the box and data is seen. Kind of like, you know, the T connectors, once power is off the little green LED lights up, so you know, oh, power is being transmitted, just something like that. Because from what Andy showed me with the solid black box reports that he couldn't tell, is this receiving power? Is this receiving data? Because I can see their text, their later people, their text service people say, I don't know if this is receiving power data because there's no okay, that's a service issue.
Quan Gan: Okay, no, that's a really important point. I think it's valid, you know, to assert that into our, our spec. Yeah. OK. I'll, I'll tell Jerry about that.
Chris Balint: OK.
Philip Hernandez: OK. So. I wrote some notes down, but I think.
Quan Gan: My AI wrote a bunch of notes down.
Philip Hernandez: Great. Can you send me the I know it's also to help me?
Quan Gan: It should probably automatically send it to whoever is in the meeting.
Philip Hernandez: So if you don't get it, let me know. OK. I think. Then is it. Correct that, like. I think the next step is we, Chris and I can put together kind of like an explanation of everything and then I can get that translated and sent to Jerry before our next meeting so he can review it.
Quan Gan: Yeah, do you, um, you want me to catch Jerry up prior to our next meeting?
Philip Hernandez: That's up to you. Um, I don't know if you should be trying to make the summary first and then you can see if he has any questions or like, I don't know how much like we should. This is a question. I don't know how much we should rely on Quan or not. I don't know. I don't know.
Quan Gan: I mean, like I could literally just share the meeting summary with him via AI.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, you could try that. mean, we could try that. we could, I think probably Chris and I will want to do a more like, uh, focused approach for Jerry that kind of lays out what we're asking for.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Philip Hernandez: But it doesn't matter to me either way, you know, I just, I would like to try and figure out how we're supposed to communicate with Jerry, like on our own.
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah, so I get it. I think the summary will at least assist you guys in generating your summary.
Philip Hernandez: That would be very helpful, yes. would be very helpful. then we could, because I want to put all of our asks in like one bucket, like, okay, we're gonna like, see if we can get price breaks, this or that, programmer.
Quan Gan: Yeah, this thing really involves a holistic approach and not just, you know, we need to maintain this particular margin, but it involves his volume and the longevity of the product line.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, exactly. I'm worried about it coming across as like too, like rude or too like, I want to find a way to like feel like we're making him part of the discussion and we're not dictating.
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay, no, we're just presenting facts right now, right? So hopefully under, you know, us all look at the same facts and having a similar set of logic that we end up in the same place.
Philip Hernandez: Yes, and I think under, I mean, we can say hypothesis, you know, I think it's a good way of putting it. Like we hypothesize that by doing this, it might increase this and we would like to test it in this way. What do you think? Like I think we need to be much more like deferential in a way like, hey, this is our facts. This is how we understand it. Give us your thoughts. Cause I think in the past, we've definitely tried to dictate too much. Like we've been like, we're, you know, we're doing this or we're discontinuing this and we didn't even ask Jerry. But he doesn't understand why we're discontinuing it.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah. So like, I don't really want to mention the Junie at all. Like I want to just him look at it. Like I don't want to bring that. That is not a bridge I want to cross right now. We can cross it next year. I mean, well, it's not like he hasn't heard that the Junie is not successful. He knows how many Junies they've made. Yeah. I just don't want to bring it up. yeah, we don't have to highlight it, but you know. Yeah. Well, yeah, like we don't want to highlight it. We want to highlight how great the V2 is.
Chris Balint: doing it and how we want to make that better.
Quan Gan: So on a high light. Good, good.
Philip Hernandez: Okay. Yeah, okay. So looking at the schedule, so Jerry sent us a WeChat, he asked about schedule another meeting for next Wednesday at six, which would be same time at Tuesday. Um, do we, uh, we want to do this meeting again at the same time next week with Jerry?
Quan Gan: Yeah, and hopefully Andy will recover. happened to stomach flu?
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, something with his stomach.
Chris Balint: don't know. He has apparently has a really bad UTI, but then he thinks there's other stuff and he's seen three doctors so far and he's been out for, or he's been sick for about three weeks now.
Philip Hernandez: So I don't know. Yeah, he says on heavy antibiotics that are making him sick. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, how, how's Tres, is he generally is he a lot of stuff?
Chris Balint: don't know. I don't know.
Quan Gan: I this is a different role than he's used to.
Chris Balint: So I think he's tried. He's very much still in the theme park mindset, whereas you can't be sick. You can't make mistakes. You can't do any of that. So I think because he's done so many years doing that, he's very scared to mess up or to make anyone upset.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah.
Chris Balint: So.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, and, you know, it's like there's only so much we can say. I mean, I think it's just going to take a little bit of time to kind of keep reinforcing, you know, it's like it's like a learned behavior, right? You know, so you learn it's like that you learn that like you are sick and then you get like, yeah. hit or swatted, right? we have to change the behavior. takes longer to be like, it's okay to tell us you're sick. No one's going to hit you. It's okay.
Quan Gan: As if he's like an abused dog.
Philip Hernandez: Well, I don't know.
Chris Balint: Aren't we all just abused dogs really? That's how Theme Park Street, she was an employee, man.
Quan Gan: Well, it is an abusive relationship, I've heard.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah. I mean, come on.
Quan Gan: The codependent.
Philip Hernandez: So do we try, because we had scheduled to do these with Jerry every two weeks, but should we try and do it next week? Because if we wait, then it's going to be Chinese New Year, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah, let's get next week.
Philip Hernandez: Okay, all right. I'll send the invites and set that up.
Quan Gan: Yeah, okay, we'll do that. Send yourself an invite the day before or the night before.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, I'm working on it. Yeah, I was going to put that in there to be like, remind Jerry of the meeting. Yeah, I'm doing that right now. I just want to double check it would have set his wake-up alarm Yeah, okay, we will we will correct it next week Come let's put this in my counter right now realize he does not have calendar on his phone I've never seen him actually look at a calendar on his phone Yeah, that's wild Um, still so many things when I understand that China, that's okay Thanks so much Good discussion. I've learned a lot from all of us great That it okay good Anything else good Okay, is that like a Chinese New Year outfit or is that just a red coat? It's my ski jacket My sister yeah, I'm in ski season. I need to get I need to get some Chinese New Year stuff
Quan Gan: Or my friends keep telling me to get like like red boxers and I'm like that's kind of weird Some something I am highly recommending it may sound kind of weird, but I do this for skiing for balance I bought a wobble board for like 15 bucks from Amazon Yep, and I stand on it in front of my standing desk which in the first few hours You're like terribly wobbly, but yeah They do say that having proper balance on your feet is probably one of the biggest Safety factors as you grow old so you don't fall.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, it helps with your hips.
Quan Gan: Yeah I mean if you end up falling like that is catastrophic as an older person, right?
Philip Hernandez: So you're able to better balance overall like it's almost like buying the $15 insurance So I've been doing that for skiing. Yeah, I used to have one of those balance boards But I didn't move it with me $15 investment from Amazon. Okay. Thank you.
Quan Gan: I'm on it daily with your ankles.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, okay.
Quan Gan: Thank you
Philip Hernandez: Nothing to do with Chinese in here, but all right, we got it. I'll take it Okay, bye
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Jawwad Malik: Thank you for your Good.
Quan Gan: Good, how are you?
Ferenc Orban: Hi guys.
Quan Gan: Hello. How you doing? Pretty good. Yourself pretty good as well. You're still waiting for Sean and Chaba?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, Chaba probably will be joining us as as I can.
UTF LABS: Hi guys, can you hear me?
Ferenc Orban: Congratulations.
UTF LABS: Thank you guys. gone. So, Jawad will be joining shortly. He's basically looking for his earphones.
Ferenc Orban: Just wait a minute. Hello, guys. Hello.
Jawwad Malik: So, guys, am I audible?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah. Yes.
Jawwad Malik: Okay.
UTF LABS: Okay, guys. So, basically, Jawad, with the updates, I have asked him to lead the meeting for now. he can get used to it. So what can you provide the update?
Jawwad Malik: Yeah, sure. Like, let me share my screen because I have to discuss many things today. I So actually, from my side, just last push, I just do that. I was working on a game manager. like an earlier meeting, we are facing some problem in test manager. It was working, but we have seen like, in a driver level, in an interface, in an axis, and everywhere, like the task is creating again and again. the ones, and I also follow, I also try to follow the MVP structure there, but Even right now game manager and system initializer have the are also creating a task and a task manager is also creating and remaining all drivers nexus middlewares I remove the like the task creation from everywhere. So it just takes a few more time to just work on it, but it's almost done. So as I'm sharing my screen like here we have to we are working on our task manager and almost it's done just need few more time. And after that what my like I want to work on again I just work on a simple test game where I just I just seen in our simple test game we are including drivers on there. So, yeah, so here in a simple test game, we are using accelerometer interface here and in the CPP file. And even like I just compile whatever like from where I just remove the task creation part I compile it again and again and check that like it's working then I will I move to another like you know another drivers and one by one I just do that and of the last push which I did like the code was wiking and they're not having and and I do that by the help of cursor AI so but in our simple test game like what we are seeing here like in a simple test game it not following our MVP structure in our game level we are seeing like we have but an interface here but it should get this interface from the Nexus so we have to remove these things from our simple test game so why I just want to work on the simple test test game because it just make me the justification like if I just compile the code and it's running but I didn't test that on our device how it's working when it causing problem but with the help of simple test game I just compile it again and again and I just test it again and again I know when it at what scenario what happening and how it's working so that's why after that task manager I have to restructure this thing as we are mentioning our MVP after that like I just I just shift the theme interface I I make I will make to enter three basically themes where it's a common theme common theme or common theme is like that like the starting window or if the game is not playing what the screen is there so such a team are in our like common window or in a or I will make a separate theme for that purpose and for a game I just make two themes like horrid theme and chasing theme what I like what I think you guys think recommend me what I should have to do there. I can't share me some previous code file. So I just try to make this from there because in our MVP we didn't identify this thing in very detail. I even I was working on this document in a theme interface but there was some basic like details there I didn't get a complete detail like what actually the tone at horrid theme what actually the chasing theme or tone or like display color and other things like in a like in a chasing theme so I just take that thing from the like previous our previous code base and I try to make it from there. after that I worked on an action handler. So action handler just like if we just call game start action handler dot start it is start the starting tone is start the starting light bar and what the display should have been seen like everything like it care from with the one function. And after that again I have to update the simple test as game and I just integrate this theme interface and action interface theme interface and action handler on there. And once it was working then I will work on like I make the proper game like a zombie survival game. So that thing what I decided and one thing which are seeing like it. Yeah. So first like please tell me like if you have any questions or any recommendation for make this more.
Quan Gan: Actually, I have a few things about the theme to clarify and possibly you give you feedback on I okay so the seeming is it purely visual and audio, or is it more related to the different types of games that we might be producing.
UTF LABS: It's actually both. Can you read your mic? basically, we'll decide the teams will be like matching games of course we currently have matching games, chasing games or horror games or whatever we call and based on those users can develop their own games on using the same themes like for a matching games we have like three or four games better match, match, match, word match, sequence train all of those fall in the matching game category. So we can divide like create categories for those and then according to those we can like identify themes.
Quan Gan: Okay, so so based on that I I would say we have a few categories and maybe you could just jot this down one would be tagging games right so instead of chasing just call it tagging so it's you know actively people tagging each other running around the other type would be matching. These are kind of like opposite right so tagging is like I'm trying to run away from you and someone's trying to get me matching is people actively coming together. Right so that's those are two almost like opposing very different categories. So running away versus coming together. And then we have. Oh, we have red like green light which I would call a movement game. So that that's you know more just like you're coordinating your own motion and we might have. have yeah so I would say that's its own category and then the other let's see what else we have and then the other one we have was a sequential game where you're passing your number or logic down the chain so kind of right now I see we have four there might be other ones later on or other ones might be a combination of these so I wonder if that feedback gives you any kind of insight or consideration on how to structure this yeah I think the overall of our idea was revolving around these four teams like sort of like we have for zombie survival and drug purposes are for tagging for matching we have bird match math match I think we can like make it more dressing with sort of selects we can have a sports based teams for the tag league and ball game or a horror team for zombie survival so just naming you know
UTF LABS: to make it more interesting so we can add those as subcategories for these, what do you think?
Quan Gan: Well, so, so I see it as kind of a, yeah, like a different dimension because the four categories I mentioned is more related to the mechanics of the game, not so much the theme, I guess. And the theme would be more like what you're saying would be is this a a sport theme or, you know, like a survival or a theme. how do we combine it or do you see it as like yet another layer or something?
UTF LABS: Yeah, that's interesting question. We can do both, we can combine them as well and we can add another layer as well. But I don't think adding adding any layer with will have any like kind of impact in terms of coding or will it I think like it's much better.
Jawwad Malik: better like that we keep that both things separately because this theme concept is like for the appealing part like what we are showing to the user but that functionality is the functional part of our code so we I think like we should make them like separate.
Quan Gan: Okay and then in separating them the implications are you can have any combination between the different layers right so you can have a sport mechanics or actually now you can say you can have a tagging game but it is you know sport theme versus a horror theme is that what you're you're thinking as well.
UTF LABS: I think that will cause issues in the display or like the visual element for example like say for matching themes we have to display something else and so like we have shapes or words written in between but for like a chasing game we might have something else. So it's like say we have roles in zombie survival. So in terms of displaying or like the display template for each team that might that interfere then in that case.
Quan Gan: Okay, because I'm trying to figure out what the separation of concerns are so you don't have that conflict. you know, so right now if we're thinking theme is actually really just what appeals to the user to me that seems to be controlling what you would display. Here and and feel but there seems to be another layer where the mechanics of the game would dictate what actual word needs to get displayed to tell you to give you instructions on the game so I'm not sure how to separate those two concerns. Yeah, one seems to be more mechanics of the game related. The other seems to be more. or what's appealing to the user.
UTF LABS: Yeah. I feel like if you want to make it more or dive into deep into it, so I think then we'll need to add another layer. But then we'll still have to restrict those or map the mechanics with the interfaces as well.
Quan Gan: Yeah, not quite clear on how to separate those concerns. When do we need to make this decision? I think this is something we have to think about and maybe even use AI to give us some recommendations on how to parse it, maybe based on our previous code or previous game logic.
UTF LABS: Yeah, definitely. I think we are already using AI for everything, so why not use it to suggest it? I think we'll need it by Tuesday.
Jawwad Malik: Jay, Jawad? Yeah.
UTF LABS: Yeah, so we have a few days to think about it.
Quan Gan: One of the things that I would consider asking the AI is, how would you come up with categories that are orthogonal to each other, orthogonal in the mathematical sense where you change one variable it doesn't doesn't affect the other variables. Versus, you know, right now if we have themes. It seems like the, the different dimensions are not completely orthogonal. So when you change one thing, it's also affecting another. So we need to figure out what is the best way to come up with orthogonal vectors. Yeah, and in a way you can think of like if we could come up with different orthogonal dimensions, then you can create an infinite number of games by dialing the different to which degree you're sitting on each dimension. If you come up with, you know, a completely new. new game or new experience. Does that make sense?
UTF LABS: Yeah, it does at some level. I think we'll have to use to get more ideas on it.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay. All right. So that's something remaining to be discussed, but I'm glad we're starting to point at it now.
UTF LABS: Yeah. So basically I discussed with Jawad and like set out this schedule so we can continue working according to it. So if we have anything else to include in it so we can discuss it now so we can report better or so if we have anything else we can discuss it now.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. And then I see down here is this is how you're looking to segment the screen to update certain sections.
Jawwad Malik: Yeah, exactly.
UTF LABS: What can you refer?
Jawwad Malik: Yeah. So as we've seen like they have two sessions like when I had a session. second one is the body of the game screen. like as earlier, we are just refreshing our screen again and again. So now what we are doing, are just, first, we are break down our screen into mainly two parts. this is the screen header part and the bottom one is like the screen game part. So in header part, at the S1 part, we show the volume level and in our S2 part, we are showing firmware version in S3, are showing Wi-Fi when MQT is connected and in S4, like we just shown the battery. like here, like we are break down the screen into a multiple small chunks. So it helps us to just update only the specific part rather than updating all the screens. And in our game part, we have seen like in our S5, every time like the timer, if the game is starting. the timer was like on like calculating on this this screen and if the game over it overwrite that screen into the game over part as in our earlier like firmware versions we have seen I just raffle that and try to make something like that and in our game logic screen part here we show the test text or maybe like a BMP images here for like for the ball game here we show see the multiple balls live or if we have health so we are just seeing the health or something like that and in the seventh one here we see in the player name so if the update was after the update like we've been seeing like just this and this part should updating again and again and the player part player name should not be updating because it not changing there so I just make some concept like There's a few guys approve that, then I will work on it.
Quan Gan: I think in this overall interface, that's fine. My only suggestion or consideration would be your game screen. I would probably call that body compared to header. the body might be, the template might affect multiple, to give you multiple configurations of bodies. So it may not be a range necessarily like your S567. There might be other configurations depending on, maybe we're talking about themes here, or maybe different parts of the game. this might be your countdown timer. In a countdown timer, you might, just the entire screen is really just the numbers. So there might be different formats that need to show up on the body.
Jawwad Malik: Yeah, I got your point.
Ferenc Orban: So you will, again, depend on the themes and the game types.
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah. So I think this is a good start to have this implemented at least right now, but then just realize that the body is there's going to be different parts that's going to require that to be swapped out.
UTF LABS: Are you saying something? Yeah, I've been interested.
Ferenc Orban: Are you thinking of this structure on which level are you composing this? I'm thinking this should be somewhere down way down below the drivers somewhere. So when or somewhere around the drivers, like because we don't always have this same exact resolution or this type of display. It could be totally different. Maybe we don't even have a screen which can only display two icons at the same time and such. So the management of these sections, I think belongs to the lowest part of the...
UTF LABS: I think the management should be handled by the game manager. So this is what I think because we have multiple things here and the game manager will be able to know all of those. That's what I think. The functions obviously will be in the drivers, but how they are utilized should be part of a head layer.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, I'm just thinking that the drivers might not even have a function to display something in S6 or...
Quan Gan: I think we might need to look at how current iPhones or iPads, these apps are... being abstracted to handle different types of devices that stay on. have we taken any considerations from existing hardware? And for example, if you develop a game on iOS, you know, it's gonna tell you, okay, are you developing this on, like what's it gonna look like on a three-inch screen, a five-inch screen, on a tablet, you know, on a computer. So there's different templates. So how do we apply that to what we have here? And then maybe for now, we only have one template, but having that structure set up, it'll allow you to adapt it to other screen sizes or other hardware eventually.
Ferenc Orban: The way I imagine this, the higher part, like this, the information about the connection quality or what is there, the battery and stuff like this, those won't even make it, the information won't even make it to the highest layers, the game manager. Those would be handled in a lower layer somewhere automatically. I would think so. Yeah, that makes sense because the game manager doesn't need to talk about those things. Yeah, so it doesn't care. So the game manager should be able to tell the display to display at another point to this team or something like that, and somewhere in, maybe the game could handle some of that, but the display itself, like the way it is displayed on the screen that I think should be handled in a Just because we can change the display and all of a sudden you have this display-specific code in the highest layers of the code.
UTF LABS: One point is like some of the things that you mentioned, I think they can be in the interface as well since game manager won't have the information of battery, Wi-Fi, etc. So they might be in a included in the display interface or somewhere or even the system initializer or system manager that can manage the display or these type of functionalities. Secondly, I think we have forgot to include the power management interface as well. We'll need that. I think about included it somewhere. So yeah, it is. we'll have to just to keep in mind that we'll have to include that. The more important question I think that I wanted to ask is so like Are we going for this separate regions of the screen update or previously we used the eSprite? I think I read somewhere in the AI that this separate like regions updating will occupy more memory. So Farinq, what do you think about this? Should we continue with this?
Ferenc Orban: What would be the upside of using this section? Because I'm not sure if it was loading too slowly. I think it was working pretty good.
UTF LABS: Yeah, I think in terms of this updating it was working good by the time. Like in the end, it was pretty optimized as well. But if we don't need to update the whole screen, can update only the portion of it. But only if it has any advantages, and especially if If it is occupying more memory, then it would be very hard for us to, since we already have memory limitations, so we'll have to keep that in mind.
Ferenc Orban: Exactly.
Quan Gan: I think the memory is the highest priority to make sure we can squeeze all the stuff in there. So that's going to be kind of your limiting factor. But I think the, from a preference standpoint on a user side, seeing the screen less flippy is the way I describe it. if you're adding something like, you know, you see that screen like wiped down very quickly, that's rather annoying. Versus if you only update an element, then you wouldn't really notice that the entire screen wipe. So that's the only thing to that I would like to reduce if we have the ability to.
Ferenc Orban: So when it was changing between the yellow and red was. Was it giving this this effect?
Quan Gan: Yeah, I when it's typically, yeah, when it's switching back and forth between two mid to big colors, you know, ideally it would change the screen a lot faster. But I don't know if that's yeah, I don't think this would solve that if it changes the whole screen.
Ferenc Orban: Like, if the whole screen is red and it has to change all the pixels to yellow, I think this wouldn't solve it either. Anyhow, and when there was only some text that the chips have been pretty good, I'm not sure if it would.
Quan Gan: Well, the other thing to think about is we could still use this structure with E-Spray because the way we had E-Spray was it basically had a buffer set to the side. And then you're constantly updating certain elements within that buffer and then having the buffer get pushed. Right. So, so this entire structure. if you could still apply to that, right?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, so I was thinking this type of management, we can have the separate sort of variables and stuff of the places for these design elements and text in the memory. those can be updated from outside, like the information itself. And the drawing part can occur when an update is called. And we can only read rules in the sprite, maybe the parts that are... Although I'm not sure that would affect anything, or it would have any mentionable benefits. So yeah, but the structure, having this information structured separately, it would be good. It will be better than having everything laid out and really creating every time when you want to draw something, finding the place for the battery icon and stuff, so I'll drawing all of that, I think it's thinking of it like this would help definitely.
Quan Gan: Is this something that we can assign to each person to kind of come up with their own recommendations that AI assisted? So, for example, you take the transcripts of what we're talking about right now and then feed it into the AI with the context of whichever code elements or which files are relevant and which sections in the specification. And then work with it to come up with some. Some recommendations and we can reconvene and reveal review all of those.
UTF LABS: I think we'll need to provide both the scenarios if like searches for East pride with AI and Java searches for like this region base. So it might be biased. So whoever does this should provide both options. So the AI can make a very like really can the comparison between both.
Quan Gan: Yeah, the reason for this exercise is I want you guys to convince yourselves of whichever way, you know, it should be decided. Right. So, yeah, adding as much context as you think it's relevant and then and then maybe provide some counter arguments for the other side. So so that, you know, we can collectively come up with it with something that we we all think this is going to work.
Ferenc Orban: And whatever it comes up with, I would say we should go for abstracting this part. this shouldn't be a higher part. Like this is really display specific. It will change the display to something of different proportions. So we had devices running air tea that didn't even have screens. So yeah, we had those on iPhones. I think this should be on a low level. we should maybe think of it in some way like that. So like thinking of it like these sections or these types of information that you want to feel it like. So this is a today's overall meeting, I think.
Quan Gan: Probably warrants a separate thread in discord and that way, you know, once you guys do the research and I'll do some of my own too. Let's just start throwing the ideas into that chat so that we can already see what everybody is thinking. then when we meet again on Monday, what do you say about this? Then we can make a decision together.
Jawwad Malik: You're sure?
Ferenc Orban: Okay, so there was another thing when you just started, there are some stuff you wanted to achieve with AI and it didn't comply to the to mention the architecture. I think you instead of removing or changing these links by hand, you should try to either make sure that it focuses on that part of the architecture in the from the documentation, or if it's missing that part or any references to that part that would fix it, you should try changing the documentation so this is mainly one of the main arguments of having the documentation so when we see something's missing or something should be implemented differently than we originally intended to be, we should change it back to this. Do you understand what I mean? If it doesn't see the structure that we imagined, maybe we didn't describe it very much.
Jawwad Malik: I got your point, even like I tried to follow the structure, even I give AI every time the context to follow our structure. And even if I think like there, it might be like working something else, as we are mentioned in our MVP, even I give some buys, like my like point of view, same to make it more better and better and if there should be any change, if we require any change in our document, I definitely change on there and even I am using cursor for all these things. But what as at first when I was trying to removing this multiple task creation from, and I'm giving the complete code access to AI, it was not working great on that, rather than I just particularly target on one folder structure and then recommending him to remove the task creation from there and verifying that with. Our documents should like you are working according to that or not. So, every time I try to work as we are mentioning MVP or something like which give more better some more better recommendation from.
Quan Gan: So, basically, I just want to say that the, um, like, I've tried as many times where I just feed the entire unified document to it. Um, and I think that's way too much context for it to focus on. It's like giving someone the map of an entire country when they're trying to work on the road. So, yeah, you have to have it already zoomed into the level of detail that you needed to work on. But at the same time, if these things like the task manager is inconsistent between what you want to achieve versus what the documentation is. We should both change the documentation in the, um. In the other repo, get that updated and then create a new Unified document and bring that Unified document back into our current repo.
UTF LABS: Yeah, basically, So, we are both using only cursor to make any changes. are not making any changes by hand, whatever we want to add or remove. We are using the cursor to do this. Secondly, you're right. we can be there. I think I identified a few places where we'll need to update the document as well. So, what we'll do it and updated documentations as well. Secondly, this specific case that just showed earlier that is due to so since in the test game that is due to the fact that we added the accelerometer interface from outside that's why it was using directly just to prove the like it is working with a simple test game. It wasn't like the part of the original. flow. That is now Java is taking care of that and it is including it into the original flow as well. So that was the issue. That's why it is showing like, including the exclamation meter and the button interface separately into the test game. Okay. Anything else for today?
Ferenc Orban: Well, just wanted to mention that when Java was working on it a little bit more and the AI doesn't produce enough results. It messes up the structure and the architecture inside. So it's not even working as well as it did yesterday. So we decided to put that aside and let's just work on the testing of things, the unit testing and you will get back to the LTE part when we have a bit more time at hand. It looked like the code is not prepared to receive the LTE and once Charles started to force it a bit more on to the AI it didn't produce good enough results so we decided not to pursue this right now so we make sure that it doesn't eat up too much of our time so we can create something by next week so we prioritized the testing so that's what he's been looking into, he started looking into it and setting up So you find that there's this testing that ESPIDF suggests to be used. There's something called ESPIDF unit testing and pie test. There's two main testing types. The first one is more of on-chip testing. So to test things that are on-chips embedded, to test the hardware-related functions and functionalities. the pie test, we don't really understand right now what it is exactly, but it seems to be something for testing external stuff and communication. So reactions to external prompt. Some, but we'll have to get on with this. now it looks like we're going to use the ESPIDF unit testing in the project.
Quan Gan: And so when would you be more clear on what can be tested and how you'll go about integrating those tests into our current project?
Ferenc Orban: Monday, I guess. Yeah, so you've talked about Tuesday twice. Does that concern Monday's meeting or will we have Monday's meeting? Oh, well, I wanted us to have our Monday meeting.
Quan Gan: I just wonder if you have enough time to make progress on it.
Ferenc Orban: Well, so yeah, we're dedicated that time to have some progress. And we'll see you all fall again. Okay, that's awesome.
UTF LABS: Okay, guys, anything else?
Ferenc Orban: No.
UTF LABS: Yeah, that's it from outside as well.
Quan Gan: Okay. Thanks everybody.
Ferenc Orban: See you.
Ferenc Orban: Hey, guys, everybody.
UTF LABS: Hello, guys.
hassan: Hello, guys.
UTF LABS: Okay, so basically we have Hassan with us today. He'll be working in place of me for the next week mostly. He's one of our senior developers and he's been with us for like a few years now. He's quite familiar with our Ztec as well. He did some QA as well back in the time, he's familiar with most of the code so he'll be taking over for now. Jabhat will continue as usual and he'll be basically leading and Hassan will be supporting him with all the development requirements.
Quan Gan: Okay, thank you.
UTF LABS: Yeah, so I have spent a day today with Hassan trying to, know, let me catch up with the things. He's currently looking at the architecture documentation, all of the stuff that we have read over the past few months. So he's reviewing all those and whatever the code we have with respect to all the functionality and the simple test game. So he'll take a day or two to get the complete familiarity and then he'll actively start developing.
Quan Gan: Okay, so what's the progress for today so far?
UTF LABS: Yeah, Jabhat, can you update the progress? Just a second, he's just connecting.
Ferenc Orban: So now I looked into the display refresh types that we talked about like having the multiple like the section the screen update either that or the full screen update and what I pasted into discord what I arrived to but the main thing is about this that both have some advantages and disadvantages mainly the main thing is that the the version that we use the whole screen update is slower but it's simpler to in the sense of implementation less prone to bugs I think or errors and the other one the sectional screen update is faster can be way faster like it can be especially when we are only refreshing the the little icons or just just a number or something like that it can be a lot faster than the whole screen update but you will have to manage the memory allocation and and these sections separately so it's a bit harder to implement and harder to keep like to maintain or ensure that it doesn't produce any bugs and issues so what I would suggest on on this part I would suggest with the simplest simpler version and upgrade if it it's mandated if it's too slow because as far as I know I'm not sure exactly what the SPI speed is on the devices right now but I saw that it defaults to 40 megahertz in the SPI and the one refresh takes 15 milliseconds for one display refresh which is not too much in and of itself because we don't do that many of them so it wouldn't be an issue it's an issue if we see the refresh like if we can perceive these 15 milliseconds I'm less concerned about the the screen flipping I think
Quan Gan: simpler is better. that allows us to move forward, my main concern is if later on, if we do decide to move to sectional refreshing, how much of the underneath code needs to get adapted or is basically, is this a huge fork in the road where it would be quite difficult to add that later? Or Is the simple version kind of a good scaffolding for a future if we do decide to go into sectional?
Ferenc Orban: This is three, we are working on this architecture to leave it changeable like modular and like it's designed to be able to do these kind of these types of stuff. So this kind of change would be organic change like something that is accounted for by the layers. So what we would really need to update in the case of moving from the simpler version to the more complex version is to update the driver side, like the driver management and the part that I suggested that would manage these sections would be on the driver part. So I wouldn't go higher than that with displaced specific tasks.
Quan Gan: Okay, so you would still keep the interface to the higher levels identical, right?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, yeah. So maybe this time it's just like we would have only a few methods and after that, if we want to upgrade, we would upgrade the driver side and expose some new functions that would allow us to allow the higher layers like the mid-layer to use the driver as a partition on the display.
Quan Gan: Okay, I'm interested to hear what Jovaat has to say because I think he uploaded some new code relating to the display, right?
UTF LABS: Yeah, so I just want to explain. So can we include the functionality in the drivers for now and not use it? So like if we can just have the functions available in the driver and if we want to use it, we can utilize them if we cannot ignore them or just keep them as it is. So in case we need them in the future, so we don't have to work on it again and change everything again.
Ferenc Orban: Well, if it's done, if the code is done regarding this feature like the partitioning of the display, if it's done and it's working, I don't see why we shouldn't use it. like the only downside like the only downside the main downside of this would be the more more complex code and prone to to bugs but memory-wise it wouldn't use more than the simpler version because I would suggest in both cases that use preallocated memory even for the section one I wouldn't reallocate like free upspace and reallocate the the race for this updates on the run I would much rather prefer to allocate can you somebody's microphone is okay so I would allocate the memory for in both cases which would use up 75 kilobyte that's if I'm not currently of data in both cases. there's no difference in that. What the difference would be is that set like this partitioned speed, like the partitioned display update is faster, can be faster, can be way faster. So if we want full screen display refreshing, then there's just no difference, maybe a bit slower, but I don't think it would make much of a difference between the two. yeah, if you guys have the code, didn't look into the code that he committed, but if you guys have the code and it's working, then I don't see why I'm not using that.
Jawwad Malik: I support your opinion. Even today, I try to implement this functionality, and let me share my screen and I make some difference. differences after like implementing this thing. So here if we are using our like memory in an optimized way, we are, if we are like trying to access this like session functionality but we are, we are making our code is more optimized and it didn't have too much differences between like if we say like refreshing the screen and if you're refreshing complete screen or rather like we are just refreshing the session. today what actually I just did, I just like here we are seeing like there's a time session which are refreshing in every second and the role and game and player that are like refreshing really. So I just seen the memory like with respect to memory constraints and they both taking the same space even like this session breakdown or make the code more optimized and taking a less memory.
Quan Gan: Okay, so is this sectional code pretty much all functional or are there other things you still need to work on?
Jawwad Malik: It is not functional and not learned to merge with our like with MVP, but this is working great like separately. I just make the separate code in Arduino where I just give him this four sessions where the time refreshing every second and the role when the event perform and the game and the any specific event perform and the player name is constantly like there and if we have any different trigger like change the like change screen to the pause screen or stop the screen that change are completed. screen. like this all are like handling separately here.
Quan Gan: Okay. So what I'm hearing is you've done a demonstration of what Ferry is suggesting, but it has not been integrated into our actual code, right?
Jawwad Malik: Yeah. Okay.
Quan Gan: So then in terms of implementation, it seems like the the eSprite is probably the approach we should take now, since that's does faster so we can move on to getting.
Jawwad Malik: Right now, I don't think like we need a eSprite because like if we seen here, in this video, I just mentioned, I just sent this video in our like screen optimization discussion where I have three different code, where the first code is the like our previous code where the game is working and then accelerometer is updating again and again and we are seeing little flipping there because this code is also making a different session but this code is not more optimized code so that's why it's working like that but after that I just use this method but make it more optimized and even in that thing I didn't the screen refreshment and the flicking problem is not like I didn't see any flicking problem in there even it didn't use eSprite at that time it just we are breaking our screen into a different session but we are using like we are trying to use it more optimize and something like that and and the third one like where I just push one where I integrate eSprite and both results are almost same like with eSprite and with like the simple test game and using optimized memory and how did you optimize in the second case in our second case like let me share my code because as even this code is AI generated but what we are doing here like as earlier we are refreshing our each sessions again and again but here what we are doing we are just updating the sessions on event so let's make that part on the refresh when the event handle when any event triggered so okay so by optimization you mean the sectioning of the screen yeah okay so I think what question
Ferenc Orban: Which is easier to implement right now in the project? The second one, without eSprite.
Jawwad Malik: Because with eSprite and without eSprite, we both are in the same level. But if we just use our special code, regional code, but if we make it more optimized, then we get our result as we expected. And with eSprite, take more buffer memory and then we already have code like memory constraints.
Ferenc Orban: Well, the buffer memory thing is something like it's a weird thing right now. with the buffer, we had the issue of fragmentation. So you can save buffer like you can save memory by not allocating. enough space, like the space for the whole display, okay, so by not allocating the whole 75 kilobytes of memory that is needed to refresh the screen, right?
Jawwad Malik: Yeah, you are right.
Ferenc Orban: So let me just, because you are not allocating this memory upfront, you are maybe thinking of allocating it as you go, so freeing up memory and reallocating memory, right? So at one point in time, you don't really need all the memory that the screen takes up, right?
Jawwad Malik: Yeah.
Ferenc Orban: So that would mean that you might fragment the memory a bit further, so you wouldn't have a large chunk of this display but yeah if we're using it in small chunks like this it might not be as big of an issue as it was previously but let me tell you about the original problem that we had with this kind of approach like yeah when the game is running and you are not allocating like you're freeing up the space for this for the display that has been used and you're not using it right now you free it up and you reallocate it a short while after that and you're doing this a couple of times and this leads to a fragmentation of the of the memory so you're allocating a little bit of space you're creating a new variable you're reallocating the space somewhere else you're using up like you're breaking the space that has been allocated for the free space so we had issues with it when we wanted to allocate a whole reallocate a whole screen size some A while after the game was running, we had issues with this. we ran out of memory, like chained memory, where we ran out of memory where it was from one place, 75 kilobytes.
Quan Gan: Yeah, Ferris, so what you're saying is that we... If we pre-allocated the 75, you're basically just reserving the whole screen and not moving it. every time you call it, you always know for sure that that amount is right there for you, right?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, yeah. So if you want to use the screen at any point, you want to refresh the whole screen, you have the memory...
Quan Gan: Yeah, I would agree with that approach. I don't want to see any fragmentation because there's just too many dynamic things happening.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, so I just want to say that the... Memory optimization that comes with this kind of approaches might not be our way to go, so it not be a good point.
Quan Gan: I mean, I'm even fine with seeing the screen flipping for now. mean, we've had quite some time where that was the case in the product, but right now the the priority is making sure that we have a reliable screen interface so we can move forward with everything else.
Ferenc Orban: So, even later in the project, I would say that the the upside of this approach is the speed to which we can refresh the screen, the parts of the screen. So, if you only want to refresh the points or the time or something, then you just refresh that so it's not flipping, it's refreshing and cleaning and fast. That's also assuming that we have.
Quan Gan: the sections predefined, right?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah. I'm not sure how the sections are defined in here. I think we could define those dynamically when we want to recreate something, you would have to manage the whole information that you know is on the screen. So you would have to make sure that what's on the screen and what needs to be the lead to display the new information to the backgrounds and stuff like So I guess for now, let's just split it into top, middle, bottom.
Quan Gan: Maybe the middle can be subdivided, but that way, your head red and your footer is always going to be constant, and that's easier to allocate it, and the middle stuff can be more dynamic.
Ferenc Orban: So is it hard to implement this, Jawad? Is it easy to put it in the project?
UTF LABS: I think we can, so like we know what types of things are there. So like we have system information on top, have names, we have then scoring, and we have the rules, etc. So maybe we can create different layout or different combinations of these positions and different positions and use those layout.
Quan Gan: Yeah, let's start there. yeah, again, to focus on how can we keep things simple? so we can move to the other sections and not get stuck here.
Jawwad Malik: Okay, so if we are agreed in here, like so, like we are break out the screen into a multiple part. So there was something I have to discuss related to our theme interface, how we divided that. And I think it is quite easier to achieve. that to break down our screen into multiple part and we just start working with our game. right now, but just I just want to know one thing like we are implementing ease right now or we don't need that like for this MVP just we don't if we don't need if the flipping part is not our concern. So I just divided our screen to into multiple part and just start working on this thing.
Quan Gan: I mean if it's going to take similar time then go ahead and do this approach or if if eSprite is going to save you a considerable time I would use the other one but if they're all about the same then do this one.
Jawwad Malik: Okay so I just give tomorrow for this thing like if I think like eSprite is working like for me for all this thing I just use that and if I think like it take more time than I just implementing this partition session and I just work on it.
Quan Gan: Okay, I did notice in the previous compiled code that there were watchdog timer issues. Is that something that will be addressed by this?
Jawwad Malik: Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, I actually I just seen that like there have some issues like there but the code is is still working. I just figured out I tomorrow I will just look on it and then I will update it about like what why it's coming here.
UTF LABS: I don't remember seeing that before.
Quan Gan: This was an issue off of Jawad's last update before the weekend.
Jawwad Malik: Okay, I will check it and I will update it.
Quan Gan: Yeah, the AI was saying it wasn't feeding the watchdog time or something and then needed to add some delays. I try to just fix it on a surface level, but I wasn't able to it was getting a little bit messy.
Jawwad Malik: Okay, so next thing I have to discuss like about the inter the theme interface. So as earlier meeting, like we have discussing like there are two mainly part of interfaces. One is like a functional part second is the more visual part like how the user scene and all that things. So we divided our things into four segments.
Quan Gan: here the first segment is like the tagging one.
Jawwad Malik: So in our tagging like I just yes. So I just want to confirm this. So I work on it. So here we have like a four session in our tagging team. We have the first session we have time and the second we just seen the role here and the third is scoring. Scoring should be in text or in a BMP form like in the image form. So it should be multiple and the fourth one is like the player name here and I try to make this layout into a like we can do you want to shift this layout into a multiple part like if you want to just this session one like the timer at down and the player name at top or the role at the center or something like that.
Quan Gan: I don't know exactly how it's going to look. mean right now you're breaking it down which is good but I don't know what they would actually look as an example. You know maybe we could take you could borrow some images from previous interface and see how with fit into this section.
Jawwad Malik: As earlier, I just seemed like the timer at top and the roulette after that is scoring after that and the name at bottom. I just want, if you want, we just, at default, we just make it like this. And if we want, if we give some more access in our game level, so if someone want to just shift that at bottom and shift the bottom layer at above or such a thing, if you want to do it.
Quan Gan: I think the general order is fine. It's more just how is it going to look once you size it properly. So I think it's fine to start with that.
Jawwad Malik: OK. And in a matching team, at top, we have a timer. the second thing we, at the center, we've seen the shape and the words. Shape should be, shape and word should be in a tech form or in a BMP form. And at bottom, we have the player name, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Jawwad Malik: And in our sequential like we have the time at top sequence have should be in a text form in center and the player at bottom.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Jawwad Malik: And in a movement based game like the time at top the game state should be like red or green like the state should be changing here so after that in scoring blow of it and like the player name is at bottom.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Jawwad Malik: So, okay, so I just take this I just fear this note and then I just make that team interface in this former. Thanks for your like information.
Quan Gan: That's fine.
UTF LABS: Okay, anything else we have to define the watch.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah. Yeah, something on the other side, there's this other thing that Chava is working on the testing part. So there was the pie test that we've been looking at and the ESP-IDF unit testing approach. So we're sticking to the unit testing approach because the pie test would be really tedious to allow us for hardware testing. So Chava was going with the ESP-IDF testing. He committed some readme that says how it's going to be used, but he started implementing the test for the drivers. And that's what we're going to with AI. So he's going to test the structural layers. Uh, upwards and the drivers. So that's what she's working on. That's it for now.
Quan Gan: Um, I wanted to ask if you guys have seen what I posted on on the chat just regarding some new tools and then. Uh, maybe trying custom instructions. you guys that with any result?
Ferenc Orban: No, not yet.
Quan Gan: Sean, you guys.
UTF LABS: Yeah, not me either.
Quan Gan: Okay.
UTF LABS: There's a, sorry, there is a tool for like a problem engineering tool as well. just saw that you guys familiar with it. I think it's called prompt meteors or something like that. So I just saw it. So I shot. I can share it with you guys. I haven't tried it, but it seems to generate prompts or stuff like that, maybe more of the nice prompts or something.
Quan Gan: Okay. think just whether you're using cursor or Windsurf, O3 Mini is also available, so I would encourage you guys to try it at least and then get a field to see if it's any better or worse compared to Cloud. I think I had some issues with using tools sometimes, it might be able to give you better, more in-depth suggestions. And then the other pattern I was looking at is... So I uploaded some new scripts for you guys to consolidate the code into a single unified doc. You know the problem right now is our unified document is quite huge and also our code base is growing. So if you were to add all of that into AI to analyze, you're forced to use Gemini because it's well over like 400,000 tokens. But if you're working on a specific area and you're hitting a wall or you're trying to get the AI to analyze it, it's better to pick out just the corresponding markdown files and the corresponding pieces of code. then having an analyze and that tends to be a lot more focused. I mean, in a way it's kind of the same argument for our screen, right? You're trying to, rather than updating the entire screen, you're updating a section. context memories are similar. that script allows you to be more focused and get the AI to to work on it. And being that it's smaller, you're going to be able to use any of these AI tools. Uh, any of these models and you can compare the answers for yourself.
UTF LABS: In Java, I have a look at all these relevant documentation now that go out, share, and test out the script as well. Also, I'm sorry, one with the point.
Quan Gan: Uh, one more thing, and this is something else I want you guys to give me feedback on if it's helpful is, um, I posted on the nexus dev. The last thing was custom instructions. Because what I was generating code, I often find that the AI focuses too closely to my immediate ask, and it forgets holding the code to certain conventions in a document. So what I did here was, um, I basically asked. the AI to give me a general custom instruction that's always reminding it how architecture is working. So hopefully if you're trying to fix bugs or if you're trying to refactor it doesn't forget this fact and it helps you keep consistent. So that's something I want you guys to try out. But I did add this thing here at the bottom. just added this random word rapid feet just to prove that the AI is responding and listening to that particular part of the custom instruction. otherwise when it outputs you're not sure it did it actually take my suggestion or did it just forget it. So I added this just to give me kind of like a little marker to see if it's actually doing what I'm asking it to. I'm done.
UTF LABS: Yeah, sorry everyone. Yeah. So I think your depth is like a better approach to keep it focused on our next special task, otherwise it will be able to deviate from the main task as well. So we can try this. I think that should be more helpful.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and I don't know if you guys did notice, but I did pull in the the unified doc into our repo. So there's a script that you can run to to pull that in. Yeah, so I provided the link and instructions.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, we needed that.
UTF LABS: With respect to the repo, I was like looking at documentation with Hasan. So I saw the action middleware or the action interface. Do we know where it came from? think it was there, do you guys know when it came into effect?
Quan Gan: What do you mean?
UTF LABS: Like we have an action, let me just share my screen. Here, can you guys see the screen?
Ferenc Orban: Yes.
UTF LABS: So we have this action middleware here. In the game, we are calling this action middleware. So have this action middleware here. It has these defined functions of play sound and everything. So like do we need this action interface here or should we just play the sounds here directly? Or even we will have action handler for that. So in this case, we'll need to define each function here in the action middleware. So is this recommended? don't remember including in the documentation. So it might have been generated by the AI detector.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, it wasn't in the documentation. I don't remember having it in the middle where it should be above the middle. I think the middle.
UTF LABS: Currently this file has like function for all like for sound for vibration for light everything is there and we have custom function and here. So do we keep it this way or I think we should be using like prev radiating or playing sound directly into the game or like setting the light back color. I get it like it is reducing the game code, but if you think if you want to have any effect will have to add it here.
Ferenc Orban: I think I think it should go on type of all the other middle areas because of the sound management, the tagging management and such those should be below this. So this shouldn't handle those. And if this comes down to the middle where then it's on the same level as you know. Other ones that are doing the job. So maybe maybe it's just a name, but yeah, it shouldn't be accessing the drivers this. What's the difference between the interface and the middleware.
UTF LABS: They are basically at the same level. the middleware layer has all the interfaces.
Quan Gan: If we were to remove it, is it going to increase the game logic or can you still keep it in a way where the game logic can stay very simple.
UTF LABS: So basically we have to include all these functions into the game directly. Currently what's happening is that this action middleware, it is communicating with the interface and then the games are communicating with the action middleware. We can give it a way. is like in the flow, but we didn't have this action middleware in all of these functions. work to be called by the game itself. Like where we playing the audio or something. instead of just calling action interface then audio, we would have or like there in that bar, we can, we'll have to call this like the functionality directly.
Ferenc Orban: This approach is fine as well, but then we'll have to create all the functions here in the middle. I'm not sure about this. as far as I understood, we will be able to use like the user. Let's consider the game, the user and the user would be able to use the nexus directly or use the nexus through these actions. So which would make the actions some complex instructions if I'm understanding this right. So this would really just come between the game and the nexus layer. So these instructions shouldn't go up. into the game layer but rather the action would be separate layer between the Nexus and the games as in this we shouldn't use the haptic directly or I'm sorry I'm not sure what the haptic is, is that a global variable that gives the Nexus object?
UTF LABS: Yeah, so basically I just got it here from the middle-ware interfaces and it's like the pointer to all of the interfaces have taken over. It should, yeah, you're right, it should access it through the Nexus, not directly.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, so that's my only issue with this, so it should access it through the Nexus and so that's my only issue. shouldn't, like changing this shouldn't add any surplus in the game layer, so the game shouldn't handle this complexity. That's the idea between the whole action layer I think that it simplifies complex tasks.
UTF LABS: So do you want to use Nexus here or do you want to remove this or like just call these functionalities directly into the game?
Ferenc Orban: Well, yeah, I would like to use the Nexus here and in that case, yeah, something like that, yeah. And in that case, the middleware part of the fine name or the classic name doesn't really make sense because it's not in the middleware.
UTF LABS: Yeah, we'll have to remove it from the middleware.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, so it's just that. This would make sense because all the abstraction that the Nexus creates would be lost if you start accessing the hardware directly. using it through the Nexus, then you take use of the Nexus abstraction.
Quan Gan: Okay, so what would you do this file? it completely remove it or you change it to some other function and put it somewhere else?
Ferenc Orban: be a separate directory for this folder for this.
Quan Gan: Should there be a new name for that layer?
Ferenc Orban: The actions or maybe some helper classes like game help.
Quan Gan: Is an action layer something that we need to insert?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, I'm not sure if it's only going to be the action that's going to be there. Maybe we will have some other ideas that come above the nexus and below the games. actions right now, I'm not sure what that could be. maybe call it some helper layer.
Quan Gan: Help me with the nomenclature, what's the definition of interface?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, so the interface would mean something that you access in this sense. the nexus interface would be the interface through which you access the nexus functionalities. So the nexus does a bunch of things and you ask nexus to do one of those things. start the line bar, start tagging. So nexus would handle the tagging, like it would make the decision whether it's lighting at under or EIR, make the decision on how fast it tags or stuff those are hidden below the layer and the interface would present you with one method let's say start tagging and maybe you yeah so just start tagging and you just have to call this. So this would be an interface like an abstraction that interface So I'm curious if we're having this discussion right now, how come we did not face this when we were making
Quan Gan: making the definition, yeah, like, you know, we're trying to figure out what this additional layer is, how come that wasn't something that we found back then?
Ferenc Orban: I think we saw this and the drawings should not allow for this, like, if I remember, if I'm not mistaken, there was this drawing where the actions came a bit out to the right of the drawing. again, I had two.
Quan Gan: Can we review that? Can we get back into the GitHub next definition? And let's review that, because if this is out of alignment, then I would imagine we've considered this particular thing. So how can we get it back to alignment?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, okay. So I'm not sure. Okay, I tried to.
Quan Gan: Because yeah, this was an AI hallucination early on. certainly don't want it to leave it as a stray. Um, especially if this is something that we've already considered before.
UTF LABS: Yeah, so basically, uh, I don't recall this in the documentation, uh, all. So, like, we have this interfaces for the exact same purpose and we can use those interfaces by an access in our game. Right. So I think on the reason that I might, you know, created it to reduce the code into the game as you also discussed here as well. Uh, so all of the common functions functions, which might be used in all of the games are made part of this specific file on the action middle.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, so it may have been generated due to me trying to refactor something, but I still do want to make sure that the game code is held to as simple as possible. So, so you're not forcing the user to to make any of these low level decisions.
Ferenc Orban: And also, I don't think. So this would be, may I draw a little bit for you guys? just to show what the way I imagine this part. this would be, this would be the nexus of a. So this would be the nexus line. So nexus is down here. So then we have the game. Which was accessed directly at one point. it was accessing all the hardware and everything that was down here through the nexus interface, which presented a few methods, you can call the methods, whichever method. So, this is good. But when you start the game, it requires a bunch of instructions. Count down, change the screen, everyone sits in a while, wait a bit, play some sound, play something with the vibrating motor and the light bar and such. So that we make this easier, we wouldn't implement the starting loop in the game, but we would create another class that would be these actions. Which would consolidate these instructions into one piece and into one instruction, and this way you could call a start game. And it would do all the instructions, it would call the methods that are needed. So this is what I imagine the action.
Quan Gan: So is that the action handler?
UTF LABS: Yeah, that's what the proposed action handler was.
Ferenc Orban: Okay. So I'm, okay. So can you clear this for me? what does the action do if this is not it?
UTF LABS: So basically the concept for action handler was it will take care of all the haptics together, for example, for a start, when we go to start the action and like you let all the display, all the hardware, speaker, motor, everything. This particular file here, we have it's basically defining the the select, here we have all the functions defined in this action middle, that is directly get it from the interfaces and then utilizing the flow here. So I think this all should be like part of the individual games and because this file here has general functions for all of the, it is playing sound, it is playing tone, it is playing melodies, it is vibrating light bar, everything is included in this. This can be like used to reduce the game code as I mentioned, but then again it is we have to shift it from here to a top layer or like a layer above where it can be utilized by the game manager or the even game.
Quan Gan: If you're adding this other layer Or was that not in our unified doc?
UTF LABS: No, not really. So because we're playing all these will be called from the game itself rather than like, it will be part of a game logic instead of like separate functions. for that, since now we are planning to keep the game simple as well. So it's created like, you can say like these it's a simple library connection of functions or like a lecture of components functions which will be used by the games.
Quan Gan: OK, I think regardless there's an extra layer that we're not accounting for. so I'm trying to figure out with you guys doesn't make sense to move it up to at least the current implementation of the game. And then maybe we have the current implementation of the game become more like a I don't know like a more granular. or game that can be turned into a template and then you go one level even higher for a user facing game. it's like our current game implementation would have these details, but that may not get exposed to the user. That may be like a, know, only what developers touch as far as a game definition. And then later on, we make yet another more abstracted game version above that. Does that make sense?
UTF LABS: I think, I'm not sure, but what you're saying might be something else. this will have to move, as Faring mentioned, have to move this any way to a top layer since this is using, it's not going through Nexus right now. It's directly interfacing, using the interfaces, and then we are calling it. So it's bypassing the Nexus for now. So we'll have to move this over to Nexus at least. So that's one thing. Then what you are saying might be for later on where we can create a layer above what we currently have to help our developers or like the users.
Ferenc Orban: So I'm looking at the code that you're showing. I'm thinking these are not really needed all that much up high. Can these become part of, let's say what I'm seeing right now on the screen. Can this part become part of the Lightbar, the Nexus Lightbar interface?
UTF LABS: It is using, it should be part of Lightbar interface. I think it is the function here, it's from the Lightbar interface. And we are just creating an instance of the Lightbar interface here and calling the function directly.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, and it's setting a bit more like it's adding the error-rubbing and Uh, the new checks and stuff like this, these should be, oh, no, the new checks, I'm not even need this at all. So if it's part of the Of the light bar in the nexus, what's the reason for this? I don't get it. Sorry, which reason for which? So let's say you want to set the light bar color, 170 lines. So what does this give us, this method? Like, what does it give us that nexus, that time bar doesn't?
UTF LABS: It will give the same, the nexus dot light bar will exit the same as well. But in so we'll have to use the these lines from Nexus are in our game code. That's the whole point So instead of like really calling all these lines doing the error check We have a file called action different and we are using that in our game code So in the actual game code instead of doing all these lines. We just use this that's their content like a section Yeah, yeah, I'm okay with that, but can't this go into the into the light bar Middle interface interface.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, so can't this be a part of the light bar You call nexus dot light bar dot set light color and stop and you have this method exactly this method Yeah, I think yep We don't have it in a separate file action middle But rather in the in the respective places like light bar parts in the light bar and sound parts in the sounds and such. So these are some more complex things that the light bar has to do like check for, this check is for, okay. So the filling the RGB color and the show method core, this can be part of an interface method. That makes sense, yeah. So then this, this file shouldn't be, so initially I thought this was the reaction and that's why I didn't start to choose, excuse me about that, but I thought this was doing some more complex things and I just realized that this is...
Quan Gan: So then your question towards this, would that also apply to every other aspect of the hardware implementation?
Ferenc Orban: I don't understand the question. here for life bar is that the same question you would ask for haptics for you know other elements of hardware yeah so let's let's see what what does this do so well yeah i think so because these are basically separate methods that access only a particular hardware path am i right so there's no hybrid between these like play sound and haptics and some lines am i right so it's either concerning the sound or the the display or some or the haptics am i right sure i think yeah yeah so then then it can be yeah the whole file that we are looking at can be picked apart and the methods can be inserted into their respective interface cases i would say
Quan Gan: Okay, so how would you do the refactor? would take these functions, insert it into one layer under, and then you would remove these files, do you replace it with something?
Ferenc Orban: No, I wouldn't replace it. So the game wouldn't call the action middleware.playSound, let's say, but it would call nexus.sound.playSound.
Quan Gan: The same function. So there's going to be a pretty significant amount of refactoring if we take this on, right?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, by hand, it would take a few hours, but it shouldn't be, it's really just refactoring.
UTF LABS: I think AI should be able to manage it pretty quickly.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, and the good thing is that you wouldn't even have to change those paths that I talked about initially.
UTF LABS: Yeah, yeah, I got the point and it's like a valid point as well. So I was basically discussing with Hassan today, I was explaining him and then I saw this whole file. it was like, we are using in the game as well, but where did it came from? It wasn't even planned earlier. So that's why all the discussion occurs.
Ferenc Orban: Okay, I do want to point out when you make the factor, still continue referencing our unified doc to make sure that it's consistent.
hassan: Okay, sure.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and if you do find that maybe the refactor means the unified doc is no longer the way it should be defined, then you may even need to update that. So I just want to make sure our code and the doc is always matching.
hassan: Okay, okay.
UTF LABS: I think we'll have to do a similar review with the unified doc and all the code soon as Well, since we are generating everything from AI, there are, there might be few things that might differ from the dog. So, so there will be make a comparison, the better it will be.
Quan Gan: Okay, so, yeah, let's plan for that. You know, when can we look at the document or we're actually what sections in the document do you think needs to be reviewed at this point to make sure we're consistent.
UTF LABS: I think overall generally the whole documentation with respect to what we are trying to implement. There are few things that are pointed out as well. They might be different from the documentation such as this one and there are other things as well. I don't recall them right now, but we can do some sort of a review and see if everything is, you know, accordingly. If in the point here that we were discussing is If something is different, then we might have to update the document or update the code, but we'll have to figure out if the code is correct and that should be a part of the document as well.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so can we allocate a day where you guys are reviewing that and then let's let's bring it for discussion.
UTF LABS: I think if you guys have time, maybe you guys can look into this and since Java is developing the code, so we might not be able to find a better approach for this.
Ferenc Orban: Okay, so yeah, so we're talking about reviewing the discrepancies between the code and the documentation. Yeah, we're looking to it.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I mean, in many ways, to bring back to a evolution. You know, we're basically making mutations here, so you're, you're optimizing your selecting, but then if you're making mutations, then your DNA needs to change. So we have to look at the document to make sure that gets updated.
Ferenc Orban: It's interesting how it created and I created this file because it really doesn't, it really shouldn't be in the documentation at least. don't remember having.
Quan Gan: It may be, it may be a branch off of me just prompting how can I make. The simple test game easier or something and then it probably inserted this layer.
UTF LABS: Yeah, I can see the user when you're going to like reduce the input this would be helpful, but as I said, we can try to incorporate all of this.
Ferenc Orban: in the interface so yeah so so I think the interface the nexus is a great place to have these more complex uh repeated like methods that would repeat anyway to have these inside if they are not too complex and the the action handler is better for better suited for the hybrid actions which which are made of with more hardware make sense okay anything else for today nothing on our side yeah I think that's it for us as well
UTF LABS: quite a long meeting to do.
Quan Gan: Thank you.
Jawwad Malik: care. Have a nice week.
Ferenc Orban: Bye guys. Bye bye. See you. Bye.
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Quan Gan: the same questions how many people do you have when you start the game i started the game with seven evil okay and it keeps on being the same for seven okay i'll take those notes down i think we may have revised it uh in a future build that it may not be on your build if uh are you using the z stations with it uh no i actually it's my second question i don't know okay did i provide you some documentation earlier on no no okay let me let me check that out um but uh tell me without the z stations uh have you run any other games uh without the z station yeah we run yeah all the okay so so other than mass match are other things functioning yeah exactly okay okay cool yeah so um the z station uh I, I don't know if Stan mentioned this to you when we were working together that it's kind of an earlier on add on, you know, so there's, there's less test cases. I need your feedback, like, exactly, like, you know, the fact that you haven't tried it or anything to see if we can work out. You know, whereas the six games we have, you know, hundreds of customers using it. So it's a lot easier to progress. I want to make sure it's foundationally. Your, your six games are working first and then we'll, we'll add on incrementally the Z stations.
Mathieu Huppé: Perfect. That sounds good. I have also a Z Tiger. Without a number.
Quan Gan: Okay. Have you, have you done the reset? Or I mean, yeah, the devices.
Mathieu Huppé: I reset all the the computer and all that to reset. No, I didn't.
Quan Gan: didn't know. So in the. Um, in the settings, so you know how to get to the back end, the settings.
Mathieu Huppé: Yeah. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. So on the devices tab, there should be a reset Z taggers button.
Mathieu Huppé: You see that device and reset. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. So that should really detect everything and reassign the numbers.
Mathieu Huppé: Yeah. That worked. And I have 20 Z tagger right now. And perfect. But no, right now I have like.
Quan Gan: Are you missing some?
Mathieu Huppé: Just one sec. It seems that. Yes, I'm missing some. I have like 24 Z tagger onesie station. You should try it. So I just started. Um, and I see that I have 25. Z with numbers, but they have only 24 Z daggers.
Quan Gan: Okay Can you take a photo? Um, you should have 24 Z taggers, but I want to make sure the the Z station count is correct Okay, yeah, let me Yeah, you got close. Oh, it's too bright. Let's see it on my computer. It's too bright. So are you able to just take a photo of it?
Mathieu Huppé: Sure.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Mathieu Huppé: Sure, I will take a photo of it. It's actually I have like 25 Z daggers right now. Like in there, I have 25 like to use pretty much. Okay.
Quan Gan: So you do have an extra one? You have an extra one that's hanging out somewhere? Yeah, I have the extra one right there. Oh, okay.
Mathieu Huppé: Yeah, so that's fine. These are ones.
Quan Gan: Yeah, the Z stations, they should be detected as long as they're either on or being charged. Is that not the case?
Mathieu Huppé: I have the Z stations zero one right there that it's functional. It's it's right there. But I'm not sure I have. And when I see the devices, I see that there is zero one. But I'm not sure if it's station and it should be.
Quan Gan: Yeah, anything that doesn't say Z tag or should be a Z station. But it's possible that the firmwares are not identical.
Mathieu Huppé: So maybe it's naming it differently. Okay. Oh, I see what's my problem right there. It's I tried to open the Z tagger right there. It did the sound.
Quan Gan: Okay. And then nothing. Nothing. Okay. It might be dead, so we might need to replace that.
Mathieu Huppé: Maybe, but it's a brand new one that you sent.
Quan Gan: Oh, it's brand new? Yeah. OK, so if there is a sound, let me just, it's not turning back on? Or even if you put it on the charger?
Mathieu Huppé: Yeah, it's full charge. Just want to make sure.
Quan Gan: OK.
Mathieu Huppé: Full charge. When I try to, we see that the Z-Tiger tried to open.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Mathieu Huppé: But it stayed dark.
Quan Gan: OK. If you put it on the charging dock, what happens?
Mathieu Huppé: It's charging.
Quan Gan: It is charging? Yeah. And then when you take it out and press it again, it's not working?
Mathieu Huppé: No, it just, it did the sound. There is something like white that doesn't
Quan Gan: Yeah, it dies. Hmm. Okay. And that that one's brand new.
Mathieu Huppé: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Can you read for me the serial number at the top?
Mathieu Huppé: 240111.
Quan Gan: so you just recently got it.
Mathieu Huppé: Yeah.
Quan Gan: I should not do that. Okay. Okay. Can you try right now double pressing the red button to see if you can fully turn it off. And then press it one more time to see if it turns back on. If it's still not functional, may need that back and get it to the factories.
Mathieu Huppé: No, it's not.
Quan Gan: That's really odd. Okay, well, we'll that after this meeting. Matthew, can you remind me what is your business right now?
Mathieu Huppé: Who are you serving? Yeah, we are an FEC, so family entertainment center. We have like 35,000 square feet with. We have 16 bowling lanes with movie screens at the end of the movie screen theater like at the end. We have also a laser tag with 40 vests on two floors. got the arcades, four escape rooms, a full restaurant of 150 seats, and a terrace outside. And we have also a different person. We are using the Z tag actually when we have a lot of schools. So we digress 200 groups per year just for school or kids. So we're using it in their banked room when they are too crowded and they are many times. Also, are a lot to do in the around this around the country, pretty much to directly in the day camp or in the full day care. there and it's very nice. Actually, we also work with cities console that they want just us for a special family. Okay, it seems like you have quite a hybrid business.
Quan Gan: You have both the entertainment side and the education side.
Mathieu Huppé: It's not educational. It's just like entertainment, but a lot of schools are coming to a place just to have fun for.
Quan Gan: Oh, so it's kind of like a like a fun incentive?
Mathieu Huppé: Yeah, like a field trip, right? Exactly.
Quan Gan: Yeah. OK, OK. So it's more like a reward than something that's part of their.
Mathieu Huppé: Yeah, for them, it's a reward. And us, we are using the the the tiger for like maybe for smaller, smaller groups or smaller. Like the camp when they have like a budget, we just. Yeah, the budget to pay for the buses. So we come to your place with two, two person and we're going to have fun for three hours.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. Would you ever consider or have you done done the tag in your laser tag set up?
Mathieu Huppé: Yeah, we tried. Yeah, we are doing that a few times a year when we do a full night of laser tag for like $25 and they play a lot of games.
Quan Gan: And we take out the right. Yeah. So what's the difference? Is there any benefit to doing that?
Mathieu Huppé: No, just nice for the customer to try something else, but because it's different games, there is that like the later that you want to shoot and all that. This is for so they like it and it just change the game.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. And then just I want to know more on your operational side. Is it easier or same or.
Mathieu Huppé: You know not even comparable to the laser tag in the same setting It's easier for me with the tiger because what what's happening is when we go outside Usually we're trying to go most outside with that So we have like it's a side attraction that we can go to to the customers Because we just needed like plug-in and go play for three hours So we did that to a lot of schools and we have a lot of them and actually we are going out like I Think Per year we have like 25 reservation groups Maybe in two weeks we go outside and we go play with the kids and then yeah The reason I asked all this because it's I wanted to update you on some of the the new development We're working on and I wanted to get your feedback and potentially If if we have something available, maybe it's something that you'd be interested in Playchats for us. Yeah, we are and there is in Actually, I was thinking about buying one or two more stations, because none of stations are full-case.
Quan Gan: Full-case?
Mathieu Huppé: Okay. We were looking to add one or two because we have a lot of demand, and we know that the schools and they can... They have all the same holidays at the same time, so we can go maybe two in a day, but not more than that. I think last Friday we did one, but we had three or four groups that wanted us to go to their place to be tired, so we chose the most profitable range. That's why I was looking into that, and I heard that you are looking to change a bit and have a new product.
Quan Gan: Yeah, quite a bit.
Mathieu Huppé: I'd to get out to see what is it actually, and maybe to buy one or two.
Quan Gan: Okay, cool. Also, from a business standpoint, how has Z-Type been for you?
Mathieu Huppé: Good, very good. Yeah, yeah. We are charging between because we did some special, but around like 2000 for three hours activities. And plus the transportation and all that depending where they are, because sometimes we like up to 500 kilometers just to go there. yeah, they pay for a room for sure for the night, but usually like we have one. It's in Quebec City, we're in Montreal. So it's 300 kilometers. We have one in two weeks and I'm sending two person and they're going to stay there overnight. They have a six hours of Z tag with that. So we're going to play like 12% we're going to charge 12 Z daggers 12 12 always moving like this. To be sure, because three hours it's like the max that we can use. It's very good for us. Actually, it's a we had a very good response from the customers that came to her place and Oh, it's very expensive to come to your place because we have the transport to pay and they have to pay like around He is I just heard that it's between 500 to 800 dollars just for one bus So it's a lot of the eight kids just come to a place. So I guess okay, but for us if we go to your place We can have like one 200 kids playing there. This is very easy to do games It takes five minutes and we switch and switch and switch all the time. So it is very a good addition for us And and I saw you I saw you like a couple of time and at Iapa and Like two years ago. I said, oh next year is I think it's gonna be great if we add this and I said to do to my co-worker on that I said we're gonna buy it. So I'm pretty sure I want to you And he said, yeah, you're right. I think it will work and since we did that we did a couple of Of Like representation with it we we went to some schools and all that we showed They're the product and all the people loved it and say, oh, wow. So you just need like electricity pretty much. said, yeah, and just, and just to have fun for two hours.
Quan Gan: Do you ever rent the case to someone else to run?
Mathieu Huppé: No, no.
Quan Gan: So you always operated yourself, right?
Mathieu Huppé: Yeah, I always send my employees there.
Quan Gan: dad. And how did you train them?
Mathieu Huppé: Easy. I just showed them how it works and I made them all the games.
Quan Gan: OK, OK, pretty easy.
Mathieu Huppé: All right. OK, like it's it's very easy with a computer. You just press there and you just go to play. If you reset the devices, you and I send them. I give them the or the you give them our manual. I know. Yeah, no, what have your manual?
Quan Gan: Or did you create something yourself? Oh, yeah, yeah, right. OK, so yeah, that's that's our link.
Mathieu Huppé: well, I actually did the actually is my employees that they they said the the station is what what's this?
Quan Gan: Okay, yeah, it's a, well, frankly, speaking the stations, we never really put. As much effort as the full unit, because we sell most of just the unit by itself now. But stations, I want to reserve for a future use and I'll tell you about that a little bit later. I just have one more question on the business side. Do you know about how quickly you're able to make your on the unit?
Mathieu Huppé: Oh, yeah, I took times. As I said, like, calculated, it's 25 groups per year, 2000 a group around that. 50,000, it's Canadian, so we don't have like the same, but it's all right.
Quan Gan: Let's say that six months. Took only six months. Okay. That's great data. Okay. Awesome. Let me, actually, I'm going to join.
Mathieu Huppé: Less than six months. If it's going to be between. During summers, I have mostly all my groups.
Quan Gan: I have like 30, 35. Hey, Hey, guys.
Stan Liu: Hey, man.
Quan Gan: Hey.
Mathieu Huppé: So yeah, I'm like 35 groups.
Quan Gan: Oh, that's great.
Mathieu Huppé: OK. Make me like three months to just my back, yeah.
Quan Gan: Stan, so thanks for joining. So Matthew was just telling me on, you know, how he's been using Z-Tag. And I asked him right before he came in, how quickly it took him to make his money back.
Stan Liu: And he said approximately six months.
Quan Gan: So I thought that was a pretty good metric for us. And so we got a lot of his stuff working for just the Z-Taggers, but I'm about to share with him a little bit more on our direction on the ZXR.
Stan Liu: Sure.
Quan Gan: OK. So Matthew, over the past couple of years, you know, we've been trying different markets. We've been at IAPA and actually last year we didn't attend IAPA because we realized. We need to go back to the drawing board and really figure out a specific product that is targeted towards the entertainment use case and it's slightly different from the, you know, going out to hosting with the current product, even though right now it might be working for you just fine, but what we're finding from an interactive standpoint. If the kids had a chest mount type of device and it's a lot brighter, you can see it more visibly during the daylight. That would actually be a lot more engaging than a wristband and the wristband were more or less kind of moving that towards the education and school sector because they're using it in classrooms. So it's a little bit more tame and slower, but we want to increase the engagement on a mobile operator or even we could potentially put in a family response and inside the arena. It's kind of like if you were to take a hybrid between what you currently have for laser tag, reduce it down to a chest harness that's super bright, kind of like an Iron Man's part, and a little bit more on the spectrum from, you know, Z-Tagger, which is this, but make it brighter and more interactive. So it's kind of in between model. Yeah, do you have any thoughts on that?
Mathieu Huppé: No, actually, you have to, for us, and I think for all the FECs, it's not important to play in the laser tag with that, because we have the full laser tag, we have all the phasor, we have the vest, and all that, we don't do that. But keep in mind that we want to do it mobile, always. So it needs to be not easy, actually, if you put some things on you, and it needs to be bright, yeah, for sure, and it needs to be easily put in.
Quan Gan: Like the dagger is really easy.
Mathieu Huppé: You're just like that. If you put something on the chest, that's to be like a vest, very rapidly, know, that's like all the way because we have a troop right with my, you know, you seen the GoPro chest mounts? No, it's like an action camera that you strap. It's it looks almost like a bra. Okay. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So we're looking at a harness kind of like that where it's kind of one size fits all. And it may be something where you first distribute those things to your kids and have them wear it or someone helps them on. And it doesn't even have the device yet. And then you pop the devices out of the case and then click, click, click. And then they're all ready to go.
Mathieu Huppé: Oh, nice.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Mathieu Huppé: Yeah.
Quan Gan: And so there's, there's some consideration in that one is, you know, yes, we definitely want to have you have high throughput. The the other thing we wanted to adjust for is in many of the entertainment settings, you know, your kids are probably a lot more active than potential. essentially inside of a classroom. So we want them to be able to sprint. also, if they're in hands, they're waving and hitting. It might also break the Z-tigers. So if they had it here, it forces them to be controlling it right here. And they have kind of more directional because they have to move their whole body rather than just wave their hand. So for example, like the red light green light beam, you probably find kids that just kind of shake their hand. Whereas if they had it here, they really have to move their whole body in a different way.
Mathieu Huppé: Would it be the same games?
Quan Gan: We're probably going to have a subset of the same games, but we may add other ones that are more dedicated to this kind of active setting. this is kind of where it leads into the conversation where Z-stations may be more relevant add-on to that kind of activity because you might want to hide these as checkpoints and deploy them and get the kids to run around and deal use those checkpoints more kind of like laser tag.
Mathieu Huppé: Okay.
Quan Gan: Does that make sense?
Mathieu Huppé: Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah. That's what's your timeline about it?
Quan Gan: Well, so, uh, we're on a very tight schedule. I want to release it at, at IAPA, so don't tell anybody, but, uh, the goal is to probably get a readily testable system by the end of summer.
Mathieu Huppé: Nice.
Quan Gan: Perfect. Yeah. And because we would, we would love to have existing customers, you know, actually put it into use and really put it through, uh, through its paces, uh, before we announce the product and, know, get it to launch.
Mathieu Huppé: Nice.
Quan Gan: Yeah. knowing that we have to do this iteratively, you know, there might be, you know, some bugs or some hardware issues that need to go into revision, you know, like, hope you understand that.
Mathieu Huppé: You're kind of a guinea pig at that point. Yeah. Understand that. uh, that's nice. You have a good timeline because anyway, we, we are. We are going to IAPI every year, we always find something interesting to go there and it's nice because it's like notification because we work a lot there but it's nice to see all the people there and all the suppliers and all the friends and customers and all that. So for sure we can tap by and I'm very thrilled to know more about your system and to see it because it's very, it's very, actually the ZTAG is very good for us so I'm pretty sure that your next game, but not game but next product will be also.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so the real focus for us is maintain your ease of use but at the same time way up increase the engagement level for the kids so that they see it visibly you know it's a lot more flashy so you know if you're playing doesn't daylight you're gonna you're gonna have much more engagement than the current product which you know sometimes it's hard to see the screen.
Mathieu Huppé: What's nice about the ZTAG and I'm sure with your next product but it's. It also fits in a suitcase, so if you can find something that the new product will add, like, all together, all tied in, it's very easy for us to work with.
Quan Gan: Is two suitcases potentially okay if it's about double the size?
Mathieu Huppé: Yeah, it's perfect. It's just up, because right now with the Okay, we have a reservation there, you take it and you leave.
Quan Gan: Yeah, that's it. Yeah, the reason why I say that is because with the chest harness and the mount, you know, the way we're mounting it, it's substantially bigger than before. So either we increase the case or we maybe do, you know, separate cases. Yeah, so I just want to consider that.
Mathieu Huppé: Okay, what's that? I think two cases is better than a big one.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. same sizes, okay. Yeah, this size is just perfect. okay, it's all right.
Mathieu Huppé: doesn't matter. in the car.
Stan Liu: Well, what if we say that the curtain size of our of our Z tag case is that the biggest it should be, or it can go a little bigger.
Mathieu Huppé: It can go a little bigger, but I will say the Z tag is like a carry on on a plane, right? So we're good.
Quan Gan: Yeah, don't go with it. With the big one that when I go like, so if we if we keep the same case, but potentially have two, is it okay that it's only six units in each?
Mathieu Huppé: Yeah, why not?
Quan Gan: Okay. So so then with the denomination would be, you know, instead of a 24 unit set, it would be a 12 unit set or maybe even a six unit set.
Mathieu Huppé: Yes, but usually for us, when we go like in parks with the the summer camps and all that stuff, yeah, it's 100% like 100 kids, even 200. So six, it's not enough like 24. I think. Okay.
Stan Liu: So 12 12 and 12.
Quan Gan: that work?
Mathieu Huppé: That's work very good. And it can be a bit like bigger than what we have like right right now with the Zeta.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Mathieu Huppé: Don't aim for that.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Mathieu Huppé: Like, I don't know, but you can maybe double the size maximum. It's going to be the double. It's also it's a bit easy. So if you put like the double the size, but you put like double the weight.
Quan Gan: Yeah, right. Okay. Now if we did sets of 12, and they each have monitors in there, would you ever use them separately?
Mathieu Huppé: What do you mean?
Quan Gan: Well, so let's just say instead of selling it like a pack of 24 with one screen, it would be a pack of 12 with a screen and then a completely separate unit a pack of 12 with the screen. Would you most likely be running separate 12 person games or would you most of the time? be combining it, so you're not trying to use the actual computer.
Mathieu Huppé: It will be always combined.
Quan Gan: Always combined.
Mathieu Huppé: Okay.
Quan Gan: So maybe maybe we have like a master set and then a secondary set.
Mathieu Huppé: Yeah.
Quan Gan: So what?
Mathieu Huppé: The like 12 sets is going to be good for like at home with kids like birthday parties. Right. we are not we are not doing the birthday parties with this because it's maybe too expensive for families to say, okay, but I have to go there after an employee to be there. like it's for two, three hours. It's a bit yeah, I'm not sure. Like for 24 is perfect because the parents can play and everybody can say and maybe it's irrelevant. But for 12 maybe it's better for birthday parties but depends how much is it. But I won't go under like for us 24 is the perfect number. if we buy a product or it's going to be always for 24 and we're going to maybe sometimes like big groups of 48 can play together. Yeah, but we will be like Two groups of 12, I think in half, it might be too small.
Quan Gan: Okay, so what if we sold it as, let's say, a base unit, which would be the computer plus 12 units. And then we have these add-on sets, which are no computer and just 12 units, so that you can buy as many of those as you want to connect to the base unit.
Mathieu Huppé: Sounds good. Yeah.
Quan Gan: So that way, let's say you wanted 36, right? You would buy one base unit and then two add-ons. If want 48, then you get one base unit and three add-ons.
Mathieu Huppé: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay, that's helpful to know. Okay, so the other thing I'll just tell you where we are with the Z stations is we have the option to try to figure out whatever's going on with your current version. Or if you're willing to hold off, you know, I'd be happy to replace you a new version. but that is connected to this future ZXR product. Yeah, we can hold that for you for sure. can. Because it takes our resources to fix whatever bugs are there versus I'd rather spend that resource on revamping it and then making sure it's ready for that next product.
Mathieu Huppé: Makes sense. Yeah, I can wait for that. problem.
Quan Gan: Okay. Stan, did you hear everything we were talking about?
Stan Liu: Yeah. Yeah. So I have a question if you get like to do this has to do with tariffs. If we ship you something from here, do you incurred additional 25%, assuming that 25% will stay?
Mathieu Huppé: If I will be willing to pay like the extra 25%.
Stan Liu: Well, saying it will it be. Well, the question is, we may be able to ship it direct to you from a factory that kind of bypass the shipping to the US and the US. shipping it to you, because right now if we assuming he's doing the 25% on everything, right?
Mathieu Huppé: No, know.
Stan Liu: Does that mean to apply?
Mathieu Huppé: It would be very nice if you can just avoid the US like in the 25% and we will love it.
Stan Liu: Because yeah, okay, okay. Yeah, that's something that I wanted to check, something that as we plan forward, with these tariff things, you know?
Mathieu Huppé: No, yeah, the 25% will just, it's a bug for everybody.
Stan Liu: Yeah, man. That's my question.
Quan Gan: have we resolved everything for you?
Mathieu Huppé: Any other questions? No, just maybe just tell me, send me the information about the color match, like the, no, color match, the math match, the math match that is not working.
Quan Gan: Can you also go to to you guys okay yeah so for example uh when you start do you ever get the time where some kids are they're like oh uh it's not ready and then when you hit the start game they actually don't start on time yeah with everybody else okay so the updated version will do this acknowledgement it sends a message to all of them and gets feedback to make sure they're all ready before it hits start so it should make things more insane for you okay and uh how can we have when can we have how can we have this version i think you should be able to uh just connect your wi-fi right now and then do hit refresh and let me know what the latest version you see if you don't have it i'll i'll check the account and see if i can enable it for you so the available the version that they have is the 2.7.3 yeah okay so uh is this a two seven eight E or two seven eight E there's a E right okay i'll Download that and then there should also be a z tagger version that's probably in the sevens like seven point zero seven or seven point zero twenty five seven zero seven of eight. Okay, yeah, so update all of that and it may have it may resolve it for you.
Mathieu Huppé: Doing the upload software.
Quan Gan: It'll take a few minutes.
Mathieu Huppé: I will try it and I will let you know if it's working.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Mathieu Huppé: Perfect. So yeah, you resolve everything was only this and I'm going to wait for this.
Quan Gan: Okay. Dan, do you have any other questions or comments from Matthew?
Stan Liu: No, I appreciate Matthew and I still remember our conversation and it's very exciting to hear that it helping you, your business and your vision of. of reaching out to the community. At first, I thought you'll be implementing it in a bullseye, but it's good to hear that you use it differently and go out to the community. And we're excited to partner work with you and get the product to help the kids over there in Canada.
Mathieu Huppé: It's pleasure, actually. It's really a good add-on for us, for a business to be able to go out in mobile and just to go in every summer camp around the province of Quebec. just, yeah, to have fun with the kids with that. And it's a good source of revenue that we can add to our top line pretty much.
Stan Liu: That's awesome, that's awesome. So good.
Mathieu Huppé: OK, let's back to work, guys.
Stan Liu: OK.
Quan Gan: All right, I'll see you later. Photos, okay.
Mathieu Huppé: The photos, yeah, would you want the photos of?
Quan Gan: Yeah, anything that's not working, just send me photos of it so then I can document it and send it to my team.
Mathieu Huppé: Perfect, I will do that.
Stan Liu: Yeah, if also you have like photos, like gameplay, that would be amazing to help us as well, to see what's it like out there.
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah.
Mathieu Huppé: If we take some photos and we go out there, I will send that to you. Okay, appreciate it. Okay, thanks, talk soon.
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Stan Liu: Thanks for joining us, let's do a check-in. So this check-in is for the share of personal professional update, and or celebrate a small win or something positive that happened from your week. And I will start with, I'll go around in my screen. Paula.
Paula Cia (3): Something positive happened for the week is that I attended the baptismal of my friend's daughter last Saturday. So. Although I'm not a godmother, but I attended and witnessed that they are already married after having two kids. So that's it for me.
Stan Liu: Alright, thanks. Paula?
Quan Gan: For the week, we finished a trade show. We had a lot of good connections. Ready for this upcoming one.
Stan Liu: Alright. Carmi?
Carmee Sarvida: Good morning everyone. Since last week, I had a wonderful stay at Boracay. then weekend, I was able to have a restful weekend. So that's pretty, thank you.
Stan Liu: Thank you. Carmi?
Tin (3): I went for this week. celebrate. So, we ate spaghetti and I bought her a bucket of chicken since my mother is lazy to cook, so we just ordered a takeout. But it's a great celebration. The Filipino spaghetti is a little bit sweeter, so we like it that way. So, I think personally that is my wins for this week.
Stan Liu: Okay, thanks. Kristen, Chris.
Kristin Neal: Win for the week, finding out how to get CRM on my phone and do quotes straight from there. having that good balance of being in the show with Quan and being able to step away and get that done really quick. That was a huge win.
Stan Liu: Thanks, Chris.
Klansys Palacio (3): Well, for me, my biggest win. where my father got discharged from the hospital. So that's really very huge for us. So it's really sad. I felt sad because we're not there. We're not there with them. So hopefully we can stay this April with all of us. So I'm really looking forward to that to travel. that's it.
Stan Liu: For me, the work is definitely the realignment of the team. Ting coming on and hand over customer customer support, Ting and Francis and Paula working on the website and doing the back end things. For me personally, I was able to declutter quite a bit of my workspace. So be able to move and get rid of, donate some of the things. So that's big. That's for me. Let's go to work on reviews and have rock update. What we have for rock, I look at them as we continue to refine our rocks from top to bottom. I came out was the three rocks that we want on the back end of here. we can do is in 90 days, the team members can do self-decision autonomy in 60 days by the end of March or maybe a little bit older. 90% of the decision could be self-decision, could be made. A lot of that as well. I discuss, the main part to be able to do that is it's a skill of what we do, but also a huge part of it is understanding who we are, what we do as a company, that both means the values that we do, the values and the core values as a company. A lot of times when we make decisions and the core value comes into play. And then also what our products has, the products that offer the value of a product, how we're different from what is out there in the marketplace. And the other part of it, it's also understanding what the marketplace is looking for and how we can best serve them. So with all about four of those things, then it is a good knowledge and we've able to do decision making with They have a lot more autonomy of able to make about 90% of the decision by ourselves in which each one of us is a leader within our own department that we are moving forward and it's almost like rowing a boat. Sometimes we don't really need to hear the drum beat to be able to row. We're anticipating it like a concert and all these other things that we, however we look at it like even playing basketball, football, all these things. we're in sync and we kind of can expect where we are, where we go and then can expect where our teammates will be as well. The second one is to capture statistics or improvement. That goes, a lot of it is to do understanding what our customers and a of it is would be on our website and what the how, this statistics, meaning that. It goes a lot to what pages are looking at, what keywords they're searching to come on the website, even with the quote forms and how they are coming in and how they're hearing about us, and then go even one step further to perhaps when we're not quite an e-commerce company, but we do have a quote, a page. So there is this thing called abandoned cart. The abandoned cart is actually quite powerful. You can actually increase the sales by about 50% when we can capture who actually started filling up the form and then just abandons it. That is something that we want to capture as well, and then as well as what the other statistics that we... mean, this is what website. And the other big, big statistics as we do the search, and this has to do with QANN the product development, one of the big, big things ELAP, the teachers, and especially the ELAP directors, they are not, in theory, they're not teachers. They are educators that outside of schoolwork. So statistics actually helps them a lot. At this point, we don't have statistics that can prove how, how their kids has improved with their social, emotional learning or academic. But what we can do is at the of the day, we can give them the tools that we have, we can offer them statistics on engagement. Those are in school and as in government and it goes a long way when they, when they talk and report to So ELOP need to, there's a superintendent, there's a ELOP director that reports to the sometimes the principal and then the superintendent, but also they need to report to them, the finance people as well, so making sure that money is being spent, it is spent specifically for them, for the two of the we're using, which here, some of the big ones are being compliant, teamwork enhancement, social emotional learning, collaboration, then cost saving is something that we can do as well, but data driven accountability and proven outcomes. That is just something that is very, very big. We kind of have it. Let's see what else we can do to do something. As someone, it is something that, as a company, there, how do we describe it? So, let's just say, Elon, so they're the coordinator people that deploy to Kit and help the Kit that work directly with the Kit. And then there's the supervisor that looks at, looks at and make sure that everyone's doing the job and everything is going good. And then there's the director. The director usually is a higher end and executive. Once you get an executive level, don't have time to, because you're overseeing, like, maybe, let's say, one coordinator oversees maybe 50 kits. So, you have the supervisor maybe oversees 5 to 10 coordinators. By the time you get to the director, you're overseeing maybe about 100 coordinators at that point, and all you're looking at is statistics. And then you go up to even a higher superintendent that they over... look like maybe uh however just um so to give you a little statistic the school districts in our cities um outside a city of the biggest los angeles but in most cities a school district they're operating budgets actually much much more than than than um than the city so give you an example here in the city of diamond bar are operating operating budgets 35 million a year the school district in walnut valley at 350 um a million a year uh early unified like billions so once you get up to this this higher level the decision-making they're just looking at numbers a lot of it is dependent numbers because they still have the time to to understand everything else so that if the second one that we want be a data-driven look at statistics and make a lot of decisions with with our uh data thanks especially now that with the emergence of AI that's getting even more and more smarter and fun as the expert in that. So the more statistics that have, we understand who we are. And then the AI is able to find data in our field and our potential customers or even our competitors. So we can look at how we're comparing to them and what decision making process they are. So that's where something that we want to get to the point that I would imagine, I don't know who, I am thinking Francis would be the person that will be reporting the most data by Tommy Q2, maybe me or Karmie, look at some of those things. And then Chris and Juan can, can do in more of this. the background, so from all the different statistics that we're talking about, even Ting. So Ting is the customer support, so that means customer support actually plays a huge role, because what customer support really is, is after sales experience for customers. Chris is the before sales experience, and when we go into trade shows in is a lot of it before purchase, so showing them and how a product can impact. Ting, it really, once the customer gets the product in their hands, and it goes from immediately, how do I set this up, or how do I run this? I have this issue with something like this, or something is not working, then it's entirely customer after sales. So after sales experience, it not helps with. with recurring sales, a customer coming back, but also where the amount that is super, super important. We believe our product can make a difference, and we certainly want to make our customers happy, so they can make their kids happy as well. So that's the second one. The third one is we want to create and drive in-bank marketing. So I don't know. Some of the plans that we have is we're starting re-bumping our website. Where the mouth is in-bound marketing as well. So all of it that, let's just say, what Quan and Chris is doing out there, the more we articulate solid values, very specific, even that maybe the person they're talking directly to may not be right fit, but they can tell somebody else, hey, I heard about this product. I think this can... help you and you know take your values and then a team would be people hey these guys are so good they got back to me within like 30 minutes or kind of thing and then don't worry if any you can or I can certainly depend on them. Then the other thing is we create more content on our website both here on the website and also where Carmi is helping with the LinkedIn so B2B so it's something that we can look into we're not sure how many of the coordinators are actually are on LinkedIn because I looked at I searched up other people that I know in the district and the government it seemed like city people are a lot more on LinkedIn than at this school and then I will continue to do that so those are the two two different avenues The social media is just there for street cred, meaning that people look at it, hey, these guys are actually quite a few people like them, or they have the product in a very active company. One of the questions that people will ask, one of the easiest knocks for someone will ask is, hey, how long have you guys been around? If I invest in you, will you be around and be their support, especially with technology? This is why Tesla is outperforming all the other companies. When we go shopping for a car, look for something, one explanation is Tesla is an electronic car, So it's something new. So we go over there, okay, how's the network? How efficient it is? Because that is first hurdle. Because, you know, I can go. gas in five minutes and I can fill up my car. How quickly can I charge my car? I don't want to be spending a few hours. So two, it is what we're seeing now, a lot of people. So the smart people would ask this question, the experienced, maybe not very smart, but experienced the question of people, okay, so I buy this, will you be there when I need parties or service or when I'm the second one, will you be there to be able to support it? Tesla, most people would buy Tesla because there are other cars like Rivian, Placid, Fisker and all that stuff, Fisker is already out and then quite a few electric cars are already out. So you buy them, like you can literally buy it this month and then next month all warranty is all gone, all the money to pay and even you can try to find a part to fix it, it wouldn't be able to fix it. So this would be an answer that we need to, what do call it, a confidence that we need to give to our customers. Because yes, we created a product, but can we, you know, we'll be able to sustain it. That a lot of educational tech technology come and go. We have seen, one, I have seen the people that we saw on even in Q, Q is actually a much better example. Do we go to PCP people at Q four years ago? At least half of them are no longer exists, you know? So, and then that is one of the easy, easy question, easy thing our competitor to say. Yeah, those guys are, I don't know how long they will last, you know, they don't really look legitimate or they don't, you know, so that put the doubt in our customers because our customer, the worst, let's just say, if I work for the government or for the school, I'm investing something and I can't guess. report or that it becomes obsolete the next year, then it's all on me. Because we're investing in something minimum five years and then even to grow in about 10 or 10, 15 years and then help our students and with that. So that is something that that's a big part of we work on and help and creating legitimacy on there and giving someone that comfort. It is big as well. So let's see what else. So that's that's where we those are the three that we will work on this year. I mean this next 90 days. Okay. And then we'll continue to come back to this. Okay. So next, we're going to do a headline. Share any significant feedback, news happening, or shout out, or highlight, or anything that could happen. What?
Quan Gan: Chris and I walked through Dallas, I think like four miles of the other day to get some lunch. And they don't have sidewalks here. So we were walking like right next to like highway traffic was kind of crazy.
Stan Liu: Oh, wow. I know what you're talking about. I've been, I did the baby treasure over there a while back.
Kristin Neal: Good times. Gets you some cactus, some dead rats, urges.
Stan Liu: I did the walkthrough with Austin. That was a pretty interesting walk as well. Superhuman. Okay, cool. Thanks, man. Carmi.
Carmee Sarvida: Mine would be closely working with Francis and Paula. And of course, Dean. Actually with everyone, also with Stan and Chris. I feel like I'm more engaged with the team. that's actually a big win for me.
Stan Liu: Thanks, Carmi.
Tin (3): this week what I did is I checked because I'm checking now some of the tickets. I tried to close some of the tickets that is open and checking also the... close one to gain understanding how we response to customer and what is the information that they are need from us. And then I also send the process handling I coordinate or collaborate with Carmi about that the process of replacement. I create a spreadsheet for that so we have a more system-wise process on how to do it.
Stan Liu: Hey, good day. Kristen.
Kristin Neal: So on Friday, and let me know if I should forward this to anybody, but we did get on the Shasta County weekly newsletter our visit to Ellis School. So we were featured on with just like rave reviews. So that goes district wide. So that was that was awesome being able to have that. So if you all made it forward that to Paula, please let me know. Um, and I think the, um, a really great thing that we, we noticed, um, at the can, um, symposium was people really do love Z tag. Like, hey, that's that's their exact words. Love Z tag. And after they play, after we show them the demo, there's kind of like this heightened like energy that's just like, woohoo. Like we're gonna, what can we do to start, you know, this process? So of course we're giving them like the material and stuff, but they really wanted pictures with us. I thought that was really, really sweet. just having that, um, added level of, of, um, because they're not just connecting with the gate, they're connecting the experience, it feels like, that they want to make sure that they take back home with them. So having that picture with, um, with the unit and with, with us, um, it was just a really sweet connection. So I'm excited to see how we can help that, um, grow because even And at the beyond school hours, we did that still. continued it. wasn't as high as the canned symposium. We probably had about half the people, but it was still a really good energy. it just, it felt really good.
Stan Liu: Yo, thanks, Chris. Okay, Paula.
Paula Cia (3): Yeah. Same with Karmie. I work closely with Karmie and especially Clances for the website. I think collaborating with the team makes the job this year and almost perfect for the task. So that's it.
Stan Liu: The classes.
Klansys Palacio (3): Okay, so, of course, one of the headlines is actually collaborations. for that week, I've been really collaborative with the team. yeah, I agree that it really makes the task more easier, like more brains functioning for a task to be completed. So it was really great because you can think clearly and dropping a lot more ideas to complete it. And of course, one of the headlines. So I think this is worth to share. So I just check our analytics. we gain like 500 engagement, this 18 days. from, and of course, the old quote. So this one is, I was shocked really for this one. So the old quote was actually, we have only 45 engagement from January 1 to February 6 because last February 7, Qain asked me to add like more. fields on the code. So we gained like 215 engagement on code. So there's really a huge number, a different number from the old code and the new code right now. and we have like 2.3k page views from 1.7 back then. yeah, we really, I think really SEO really hard to work on it, but it was really great. I did really, we did really check this, but I'm still learning the analytics though. But D3 just wanted to share the main pages that they mostly visited is of course the homepage, the code, the about, the FAQs, blog and the contact. So the good thing is I don't see any support. It wins. I don't need any support, anything that engaged our support. Which is good thing because that's one of the goal when we started out and meeting like less and the users to go to our support pages to us or to give more tickets and that should be great data for this February. Yeah, that's it. you.
Stan Liu: Oh, thanks, classes. Thank you, everyone. Mine is the team gratitude journal. I encourage Chris to do it on a daily upon. Let me know when you're back when I'm back and I deleted you because it's not. So, I encourage you to do it before the end of the day. It meant to be it's not nothing trivial is nothing. Don't overthink it. You just go on there. The three things that think that come to your mind. I get into this space, hey, you know, I wrote three, but there was this other one that reminded me as well, maybe I should, but that's not the point. So the one is to write whatever is on your mind. from there, it not only it helps myself, it didn't not only help yourself, but it helped people like the rest of the team as well. So because it brings, let's just say, have a rough day. And then I look at other wins and appreciations and actually uplift me as well. So yeah, so let's let's continue to do that. As we said, it's not all about a word. It's about us as people. It's perfectly fine that, you know, the win is about personal wins. and thoughts or people around us that's even better because we're doing this to not for ourselves. And we will move to the L10. This is what we have last week and I will go to this quickly and before we talk about this week. So that's why I mentioned that we created the sheet. This is something that we have on our different apps. We can just fill out the different issues and topics we want to talk about on the L10 as some could be resolved within a week and some may not. this one, Paula, redefine language and update logo. That's mostly done. That's still waiting on me to do that FAQs and some updated FAQs. did, we delete most of the thing that not relevant, but the language that could be changed. Reach out to Charlie, that it's done, Ting, organize sheet to ensure access to necessary information. How's that going?
Tin (3): Yes, it's done. It's just that need to, there's something need, something came up or changes or something need to add, but I already read one, it's organized.
Stan Liu: Okay, strategic share customer testimonials on our website. is in progress because we need to, the videos are great. And I look at the videos and we want the videos, one is not the overclutter, two it really specifically speaks to the value of what a director would find value in. And otherwise is would be destruction. What what what we could do is maybe do like a really like 25 or 30 second a combination of all the different ones. So they're just picking up one sentence from each person.
Kristin Neal: If Dan can I add something to that because that's exactly what I felt like. And maybe if we can have because especially with the double boost that we have or even with what we're showing on the promotional video on the at the shows if we can have that exactly that on the screen instead of just showing the kids running like have that but so I don't that's something else that we can talk about later.
Stan Liu: You said this is this isn't about the booth for for NAA correct? Yeah or boost yeah yeah so let's talk about that later this is for for particular for the for the web right. And in terms of sales, what I learned in testimonials, the testimonials taking at thresholds are not the testimonials there, but because of the background, they're not very I wouldn't say convincing, but it's a judge on based on what people see on YouTube and different things, they're not as effective if it's something that's not at the ratio. Yeah. So let's talk about that. And that is a big part of our team can work on whether some of materials and we can really put the focus on the next ratio, which we have a little bit of a time for the materials we do be concise and purposeful. booths as we have this is when we talk about we can schedule customers ahead and and our sales team can reach out to our customers hey we will be at booths would you like to schedule a time begin at that time we can create give them on device attention to talk about address any issues or even talk about sales and the different challenges or what they're thinking and and such so this could be a good way boost I believe we have two booths um the originally what the idea was a boost what the two booths was because we got fine for playing outside the zone yeah so we we cannot put which is good so I respect booths for that because you you are invading into the people's space you know they can't be we they can't be wearing our stuff and then be outside of a booth playing. They've been pretty cool with us. But that is it. It's not a thing. then I think one time we, there was one that we went around with it. So they're playing, if we're playing the game, playing using the product around the facial. So the other one is quite unexpressed that a 10 foot booth with a 10 by 20 would be would be helpful as to really showcase the different softwares. we can even go as far as have a table like around table for Chris to talk to people just, hey, let's, let's, let's, let's chat here. And then when other people are demoing them the product. So that would be one thing or even have a chair that they can come and just sit and chat. So that's something that we want to do. We'll talk about this week's issues and topics I will have maybe I'll go last today and who would I'll go with class on this IDS class.
Quan Gan: IDS, like issues that I want to bring up.
Stan Liu: Yep.
Quan Gan: No, I like the website. like how it's coming together. I think on the I'm opening it on my laptop and if the browser is a little bit smaller, I don't see all the menu items. I think it's kind of getting hidden. But overall it's pretty good. Yeah, there was just some like tweaks here and there about making sure it's responsive or different screen sizes and mobile.
Stan Liu: Okay, so action, website mobile website optimization. I'll catalog and I'll be putting it on next week to do this. Okay. Okay. Thanks, Juan. Ting.
Tin (3): Yes. Yes, I have this one ticket that is 963. It's about a support for broken tag and game issue.
Stan Liu: The banana blast?
Tin (3): Yeah. This one is for... This one is for... Yeah. This one is regarding the... The warranty is already expired. So when I read the history of... so it expired last April of 2003 and the cost of replacement unit is $250 so for six units the email was sent $150 so the client is asking if she can buy the plan and then get the plan benefits for that is $75 each for this one so I'm not sure if she or they are still allowed to get the plan since the expiration is since 2023 because it is following up yesterday if there is already an update for the question if she can get the plan and get the discounted price for the replacement this one is the ticket that Stan told me to put
Stan Liu: on hold since we don't know yet how to respond with them since they are asking if they can appeal the the plan for $930 so because they don't want to pay the $150 for six units because they don't have any more warranty so I have to put this on hold for now right now we'll make a decision this is what IDS is for so so Yoseo has two different accounts they bought one which is a banana blast he does he serves schools and birthday parties and birthday parties in particular I remember the conversation with him at IAPA two years ago and he also seemed to be working with Area 53 as well. Area 53 was one of the first, first people that kind of supported us, believed in us. I think every 53 came after there was IAPA but also it was around the first trade show we went to the ACA camp. this would have been 2022. Yeah, so that would be three years ago. They're not schools that were not there to help but they have implemented our product in their system that outside do it, that they continue to use on birthday parties and that kind of deviates us from our mission of supporting in schools now. I am a little conflicted. We have made a decision not to sell any more new systems to non-school organizations or physical camps or cities. So, this would be a good exercise for us. I would say if we were to do it, let's go with the new extended warranty. on the product only. That means the 930 only covers hardware replacement. It does not include software upgrade because software upgrades, what we're learning now is the schools are, as we scale and as we make a product that's available for schools, they're looking for newer curriculums and software to help them. And then also there seems to be a distinction between hardware and software. So what we want to work on some of the things that we think this may be able to, this is me brainstorming. I wanna share this with the team on the product lines that we are looking working at this year. So these are the three possible things that we're looking at. So we have the ZTAC Active, Play Social Emotional and Learn, which is the Zeus right now. What we're learning that we can implement as we develop in the system is the software, the curriculum, the software, which we also call games themselves, could be a standalone long product line that supports the ZTAC, the Zeus system. So customers would come and buy different packs, let's just say linguistics or chemistry or mathematics or kinsiology and some of these things. So this is one product and the other second is the ZTAC stem, is what has been working on. This will debut at Q. It's called a computer using educators. is actually within a month. And then also the ZTAC aviation as well. So this is why we're not, we don't want to throw. And then also the other part of it, when we say a subscription, we offer a subscription, annual subscription, rather than just a hardware insurance kind of thing. The schools have a challenge with that because they feel that they think that the moment they stop the subscription, the product stops working. So we're taking that away. So in return, we're offering them six units for free. Before it was as part of the software upgrade that we kind of combined it by packaging it together. They still have to pay 75 for each. each. So that means in six units, 75 would be $450. So now they don't have to pay anything. We just get, okay, six. You can just take the six if you want every year, something like that. if I were to offer that to ESL, let's say we would change, because at the last time, I think they were still thinking about ASP, which is the annual service plan. We would do the hardware only. Sao at the area 53, which is super, super popular. I think Juan went over there one time. They're super popular family event center. He supported us early on, and I feel that even though they're not schools, and then they could be going out to school to support, we can continue to support him even though This warranty is slightly out of space. I would like to pick inputs from a team.
Kristin Neal: I had a quick question, Dan. So I'm clear. The extended care, the D-Tech extended care that we're offering now, it does not include updates?
Stan Liu: For more updates, but not games.
Kristin Neal: Firmware updates, but not additional games.
Stan Liu: So software is not included. So we wanted to create the software itself with this standalone software. So later on when we can send them a package, open the packs.
Kristin Neal: Okay. But firmware updates, yes. Isn't that the same thing if we add games to the company?
Stan Liu: There's something that we've got to figure out. If we want the scale, that is something that we need to figure out.
Kristin Neal: Okay, yeah, because I'm a little confused on that.
Stan Liu: I'm sorry.
Quan Gan: firmware updates would be fixing bugs. Just to make sure if they find any bugs with the existing software. Yeah, we would get that working.
Kristin Neal: Got it. Okay.
Quan Gan: Thank you. Yeah, just bug fixes.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Stan Liu: Chris, what do you think?
Kristin Neal: Um, I this guy has been like a piece of gum on our shoe. So I think whatever it is that we do if we could get him on a very firm foundation of this is what's going to happen moving forward.
Stan Liu: Because he's going to keep coming back.
Kristin Neal: So whatever it is that decided it needs to have a very, very clear understanding of what is to come moving forward. So if we do the hardware that's cool if we can offer the extended care I will I was not aware that it did not include the updates So I'll make sure to change that because I know I said that a few times to potential partners in the last Few trade shows, so I will definitely make sure I'm clear about that but Yeah, I think that's a good way moving forward to offer that that extended care and then Making sure that he understands if he wants the I wouldn't even it since we are moving away from Partnering with you know those that do not have associations with schools I would put that very clearly, you know, we appreciate you guys We love that you guys and supported us at the beginning but because we've we're moving forward with Partnering with schools we're able to offer this but nothing more
Stan Liu: Yes, so that we communicate that, I told GameTruck already, they want to buy three more, a couple of systems. They tell GameTruck, no, wait until ZX talk.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, that would be a good way to make it a little easier to explain that, that we're creating something specifically for them.
Stan Liu: Yep, for that industry.
Kristin Neal: Because we don't want to break that, we don't want to burn that bridge, you know. They were there at the very beginning for you guys, I don't want to make it like, ha-ha, we're not going to support you anymore, or value them. I think there's still value in them, and I just, I don't want them to feel, I don't want them to not feel that.
Stan Liu: Mm-hmm. What? You.
Quan Gan: Well, I just know, as long as it's getting used, they're going to keep breaking. just consider that as a not a one-time thing, but it will probably repeat.
Stan Liu: Okay. So chances are, they will, since we're not selling them anymore, your new unit. But this is good. I believe he goes out there and search the schools. New York is something that we have not, even with that lady at the trade show to tell you, oh, I serve 25 different sites, that's what they do. So the schools are not buying it directly yet, like California. Texas, it is. The only one that bought directly was this in a school in the Bronx. Speaking of which, should reach out to them. He was a good guy. I talked to the principal. Okay. So Let's do that. I want to show the team something really cool. I stumbled on yesterday so this is a idea So This is Wasco Union Elementary This they made a specific page for expanded learning opportunity In the different classrooms and such the first look at Robots and STEM second journalism look at the tag isn't on its own category So on here where you're looking all the coding To the using code.org 3d printing Arts so artsy to the performing arts and writing Drones so So Gaming gaming kids are playing gaming, learning, collaborating, VR, this with another thing, cooking, which is one of our friends' businesses doing. something shows robotics, which is here. They talk about robotics team work, hands-on, the sports tech lab, and that's what you guys were talking about. They did the implementation. So, if you and Dan are performing arts, this is all called the steam and helping them from the whole child. So, by looking at that, if you were to go, if we were to share a reminder, if we were to look at here, something that should be encouraging was, say here. So, three things that we had ideas and look at. looking at vision going into this year is Z-TAC STEM, which is the Z-TAC accent that's a product. Helping kids with STEM, the people, you see those kids are coding, but only in front of computer. What we want to help them is code, and then they can really interact and play with each other already. So that's at the activeness to it, and then the Z-TAC evasion and which is the drones. the drone does is not kid learning how to fly drones. What the teacher is really, the school is really looking for, it's getting a kid the mindset of going into the aviation industry. Aviation industry is so big, you don't need to be not just a pilot, because there are people that fixes the planes and mechanics and all kinds of stuff that are super, super important. So you look at it, it's quite encouraging, the three that we had the vision of last year and looking into this, and then these two other ones, now we can get a new, A student that we can serve, also the schools that we're in, we can add STEM and then also the aviation that part continue to support other bit. If you go back to the other page, it's simply put, those areas are there as well. So, let me put this on the chat. Okay, so that's me and I was that was Quan. Ting. So, Ting, did you get the answer you needed?
Tin (3): Yes, so do you want me to respond to her but be prepared that what exactly specific do you want me to push that we will provide him just for now, but we will provide a free room that we can some information that we can provide this this time.
Stan Liu: So, in that you would ask me or What exactly does that cover the extended warranty so you knew anyway having gotten it to you? So that would be action item for Stan To give Ting the what the extended warranty covers and we create another invoice point to pay so make sure the invoice doesn't not ASP Otherwise, I'll come back and just take like a double gum and said hey you got Um, okay. Thank you, Ting. Okay, so my screen now is Paula.
Paula Cia (3): So Paula I don't have major issues right now Stan because we already like we sold most of it together with glances Just a question for these new account that we are going to create so we have Now the active learning account for Instagram Facebook but it doesn't have any followers yet. I updated the profile of it and then I haven't updated the cover photos for both and I will also add all the details. will copy all the details from the old accounts that we have. So my question is, are we going to, I mean, private the current accounts that we have since I am still posting on this story IG and Facebook, Facebook my days.
Stan Liu: So the option item, the answer is needed. are going with Zetat Learn. I created Zetat Learn already and experiment with it a little bit and I will hand over that to you today or tomorrow. Zetat Learn. search, I did look at what is the best endo. Zetag Learn is the way to go, compare it to, we want to be something as similar to Lego Learn or Lego Education as such. So it'll be Zetag Learn. So that would be an item for me to stand to hand over Zetag Learn over to Paula. And that will be our new handle. Because you look at all the ELOPs, the whole thing is expanded learning opportunity. So ACE is also after school something education. ACE is the Texas version of ELOP. Okay, thank you Paula. Uh, for me.
Carmee Sarvida: Mine would be, I just want, for us actually clients' clarifications on the system for scheduling. So is it something like we put all the shows or events that we have so that people can go or like click on a specific event and then they can schedule with us?
Stan Liu: that what I know? that would be something that they would be very specific. What, like, let's just say if Chris has a mailing list, like right now, this use for booth, for example, that we have people's, most of the time when it sells a partner that they would, first, they would send the email to the people that they know first. so that they get first dip. And then the people we may not know, but that becomes kind of spamming. Or we can put it on our website that, let's say, we have a show that's coming out in Booz or somewhere, Chris can put it in our signature. So the page itself would only have that specific tracial. And then I would think it's most closely tied to Chris's calendar. So Chris can block it off in 30-minute increments or 15-minute increments. That's something we decide. But there are two things that we're doing with Booz. We are inviting people to dinner and then we're also inviting people to come chat and let's just say, usually, the way at the tracial, the big part of the tracial... It's a recent go-to-trace shows is to reconnect, since we are not a product, at least not a company that has sales to people. Most people go to the Trace show to sell stuff. The goal is to showcase what we have, what the company is doing new, but also reconnect, you know, and you buy more or put us a priority or something like that, right? So, since our product at this point, it is not a very consumable product, meaning that they buy one classroom, buys one system, that may be all they need for five years. If they can come and say, hey, maybe this other classroom keeps on borrowing ours, maybe they can buy their own. So, that's a good one, but two, let's just say, is this is where we're building the ZTAG leap, which is the software learning. education, learning engagement active programs. that's something Chris would me say, hey, we are introducing WitWays, and then also a couple of other programs, you want a personal demo, or come to talk to me some issues that you have, right? So that would be somebody specifically, carve out a time to talk with Chris and one of us to give them a personal demo, or somebody that wants to say, hey, know, we have, we have just like, let's just say some celebrity that does this with us. would schedule a time, hey, we need two or three systems by this certain time. Can you make sure we order it, you have it? Those are the things. It could be as far as a, you know, we're thinking implementing this in next school year, which is August. We want 20 systems, but we need it absolutely by between the week of July, the end of July and the first week of August. Can you do that? That's all these things. the big, big purpose, the value as we continue to go to trade shows is, one is to reconnect and upsell, two is to introduce new products and that could either attract existing customers, and also the new customer is saying how we can help. Those are the two big purposes of going to trade shows. So we're already seeing the slowdown in traffic because we are not looking at the shining object anymore, which could be a good thing because all the conversation could be meaning, could be a lot more meaningful than it was before. still remember going back to the example, the first trade show that we go that I think which into a headline, like three or four or five times to try to get people to stop by a booth. But most of those people are not, they talk to us and stop by a product. So that could be, this could be a reason. So what they want to see from us is to strengthen the relationship, the existing relationship and to see what else that we have and how we can better help continue, either continue or better help to serve the customers they serve. So that would be a short answer, allow me a long answer. So something that we work on, maybe we can look at use perplexity and just search on what some of the people use to book trade show appointments. It's a real thing, like a real popular company, if people fight over those appointments.
Kristin Neal: That would be cool, Stan, if we had something like bring a friend or something, you know, bring, so they bring their, you know, their fellow people to come connect with us.
Stan Liu: Yeah. That's certainly cool. That's all these cool ideas that we can make connections. Bring a friend to dinner or bring a friend to Tray Show. When they bring it, we give them something special. Oh, here, by the way, this cool thing under the table is not up here that everybody can take. Yeah. see those things, right?
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Stan Liu: be cool. So, if everybody loved, like, to be, everybody liked to feel special, and we want to bring people like this special, so, okay. Thank you, Carmen.
Carmee Sarvida: Thank you, Stan.
Stan Liu: Francis.
Klansys Palacio (3): Thank you.
Stan Liu: Okay.
Klansys Palacio (3): So, I do have a little bit of... show this first to Chris, so it's all about this year. So, yeah, I just discovered this module linking. Can I share my screens?
Stan Liu: yes. Ah, okay. Ah, okay, here we go. Okay.
Klansys Palacio (3): Okay, thank you. Can you see my screen guys?
Stan Liu: Yes. Okay.
Klansys Palacio (3): So here Chris, so this is different from the Loom video I sent because I just discovered linking of invoice. So this one here, it's already a table for the invoice. So compared to the one that I created was actually a lookup thing. So, but the other thing that I observe is, observe here is we have this original invoice. So we need to, I think we need to delete this one. same look up for the invoice, but it can only show the invoice subject, but not the whole informations, unlike to this table here. So I think we need to remove this one. So this is actually here already. So but since we do have the invoice table here that we can ink on the replacement. So I think we don't need this anymore. But we think this...
Kristin Neal: That's huge, Clances. Tin, I hope you're seeing this because this applies to that process. So you're going to get rid of that original invoice. So we'll just stick to the process that I shared with you, okay, Tin? If you go down right there, Clances, if you go up a little, I'm so sorry, to that shipment, yeah, that replacement shipping. Does it go because then Tim is going to need to have that being sent. To the person that Jerry placements.
Klansys Palacio (3): Okay, when you hit save, it is actually we're going to show here still. So, because it is already linked on the invoice module. If you wanted to check the whole module for invoice, so just for the invoices module here. So, you can see all these all the modules here.
Kristin Neal: Perfect. Wonderful. Okay, so you can either go under the invoices Tim, or it should be under their account too. Yeah. Right. Okay. That's awesome. Thank you so much, Frances.
Klansys Palacio (3): That's perfect. Okay, great. Are you having any trouble on code number? Because I think it's already working.
Kristin Neal: Yes.
Klansys Palacio (3): Yes. No, there's no issue. Thank you so much.
Kristin Neal: It's definitely working now. Thank you. Yes.
Klansys Palacio (3): Perfect. Yeah, so that's it for the CRM and yeah, I, I just realized that I'm not sure if we were going to create a page, but I think privacy policy, we don't have that on our page. And it is one of the. They, it is one of the thing that really make us rank up on SEO. Because it is, yes, gnawing on the search engine can help us to rank up aside from doing the keywords. So we need a privacy policy for our one side as well.
Stan Liu: Okay, so thank you, Francis. action item to do a stand, create privacy policy page. you. Okay. Oh, this is getting good. Okay. So for me, I have here, I'll show you. that capture, get a close status card, amending card feature, info, that's something for to do. Keyword, capture keyword search coming into ZTAG. That could be done on Google Analytics.
Klansys Palacio (3): Actually, Google Analytics only show some of the relevant data for the website's topic. But I do know some tools from Udemy. So it's a same-rush tools and still checking it so that we can get keywords for a website. But I did research on that as well. combination of AI, like I'm asking what would be the best keywords for our, what do you call this, for our website. So I have a list and checking it on the tools that I am exploring right now.
Stan Liu: Yes. So what we want to see is the people are actually, what keyword are they using to come to our website?
Klansys Palacio (3): It's Zeta, mostly.
Stan Liu: That's it? Okay. Well, if you could just look at that, if we can look at maybe of, for now, a weekly report. That's an output, nothing in depth. So we can have a little idea of this. And then working our alignment. So that's something that we want to talk about. I learned that the team may prefer to do eight-hour straight. So meaning that we're not doing the one hour break here, it is doable. The question with that would be, is it important to know which is more important, the start time or the end time? Because a lot of the work hour I'm in is, Ting and Karmie, it's more customer-facing, that meaning that when a customer sends an email maybe later in the day or earlier in the day that would be good to have. They're to be able to answer their questions. If we can get back to them, especially schools, back to them within 15 minutes, would be most useful. Because the chances are, We'll have a question or something in after school hours, and we can support them that way. That would be good. does that mean that it is 5 p.m.? So let's just say we're going to just do the four-hour, eight-hour straight. So with the expectation of 5 a.m., is that when Ting signs off? Or is it 4 p.m. US time? Car-Me works with me a lot. And a lot of stuff for me is, in the mornings, I am not as active. I don't get active until maybe about 8 or 9 o'clock. So and a lot of throughout the things we encounter throughout the time, that it may go up to 4 or 5 p.m. So Car-Me could be. e could be to four or five. Either way, it is fine. Paula and Clancy, it's less front-facing, but it's also what Paula and side of us having our autonomy, it's also to help the team members that just say sometimes we need a little update urgent or a design update graphic that it is good to have the expectation that we think you will be there until three o'clock all-time or four o'clock all-time that would be when we reach out, the rest of the team reach out for some help that you will be there. So those were our alignments. A lot would be we want to build for us on the back end, means more Ting, Paula, Francis, Karmie, and me, that take care of a lot of things. Chris just focused on talking to customers and building partner relations. In theory, that Chris shouldn't even have to worry about replacements and supports and anything like that. That would be Ting will own all of it. So with that being said, how important is it to align the working hours with Chris, for some of our team members? Because Chris starts, Chris is on two hours ahead of us, meaning that it's 6 a.m. our time and Chris is 8 a.m. already. So, outside of army, Chris, how do you feel?
Kristin Neal: Good, I agree with Pauline, classes, except if I could get classes, it's help I've noticed in the mornings. That's usually when I'm going back and forth with quotes and things like that. And there's some hiccups. That's when I'm reaching out to classes. So, at least before noon. Having classes kind of online, that would be great.
Stan Liu: Okay, so I want to take this opportunity and write down what our hours are. So, we know that when to expect each other to be there.
Kristin Neal: So, it would be about this time and it's to 20, right? Over where you guys are.
Stan Liu: So, let's use the specific hours. So do you want your 6 a.m. I mean like your a.m.
Kristin Neal: 8 a.m.
Stan Liu: Yeah, a.m. So 6 a.m.
Paula Cia (3): Yeah, it's 20 and what we'll have a clock change in the public but let's just say we do have to check you have to do daylight saving something with that.
Stan Liu: So 6 a.m. 8 hours 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 1, 2, 2, 2 p.m. This is all Pacific time, correct? Yes. Pacific time. Paula, would be the same?
Kristin Neal: She can go a little bit earlier because or even later in the evening that that doesn't it's it's she can do it whenever especially because she can use And schedule the release of media, that was not go earlier. Yeah.
Stan Liu: So if it's 62, then that would be because one of them. A lot of times that's like, that's like the entire afternoon on us that. When we need to, to chat at times, I don't have time to chat in the morning.
Kristin Neal: I agree. don't think they're on social media either that early in the morning. So more like late.
Stan Liu: Okay. Well, do you prefer to six a.m. to. 2 p.m. Well, will happen.
Paula Cia: Yeah. Yeah.
Stan Liu: Okay. Okay. So this is almost like. Yeah. Okay. Ting, um, they will work backwards.
Kristin Neal: Um, yeah, that was the hard one.
Stan Liu: Yeah, I had, um, uh, share with Ting that she went to go out to run and it's five in the morning. She can take the hour to exercise, she said it's a little bit tough. Um, if you were thinking about the team, every tough that, uh, with the scheduling, Ting, what do you think, what do you think? For her, it's definitely what you're, what you're seeing at this point.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, it's after the, the kids are out of school. So it's like two 30, like the prime time is two 30 to six.
Stan Liu: Okay. So it would be five PM. We'll just do it at five PM, which is specific times. Um, would that be okay for Ting? Okay.
Tin (3): Yes, uh, that's all right.
Stan Liu: So, 9 a.m. I won't get to talk to you guys at 8 a.m. when I kick off the day. I have a call me.
Carmee Sarvida: I think the schedule that they have right now works. Is that right? Ours should be aligned. 8 a.m. Yeah. Is 8 a.m. okay with you? 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Stan Liu: Okay, let's go with this. We will look at statistics and see the number of calls between four to five, support four to five, 14. If that is a very minimal, maybe we can shift it to be the same time as Carmi as well, because sometimes, let's just say Chris is starting the day six a.m. at the time, they have to wait three hours to chat with Ting. And even to through the labels support printing the labels, Chris is shipping out some of those things that would be 12 p.m. your time already. Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. I mean, California, we still have that and that is still California time. Okay, so let's look at this monitor. Monitor support traffic. Between 5 p.m. Okay, so this is what we, what we settle for now and we'll put it. All right. So, okay, the lead a full profit information on website. I think that part of it done and we just need to read language. This thing, one more thing. But I needed to talk about the look here. Clothes, like right now, I am looking at, let's see. Yeah, I haven't been able to close those tickets guys, sorry. So, is that something that would be a good process?
Kristin Neal: That would be great, yeah.
Stan Liu: So, once you get it, or it could be a different process here, because we see it here.
Kristin Neal: Once I'm home on my home computer, I'm able to close the tickets really easily. Oh, okay. I can't get it while I'm on the road.
Stan Liu: Oh, really? Okay, yeah. So, here, okay.
Quan Gan: You don't have Zoha desk?
Kristin Neal: No.
Quan Gan: Can I help you install it?
Kristin Neal: Yeah, yeah. What are you on Chris right now on my laptop, but I cannot get on my CRM on my laptop.
Stan Liu: I can only get on Sierra on my phone. Oh, okay. That's you cannot log into like the whole one like I do.
Kristin Neal: No, it just keeps loading and loading and loading it will not do it. If I'm on my hotspot.
Stan Liu: Oh, okay.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Stan Liu: Let me see if can maybe slide the data. Okay. So. Great job everyone. So one other one that I have for the one that issue we have. Oh, two more. As with Chris, I would think about this. I recently even in the office at City Hall that some people are doing these when they hand over something, they give you an entire packet. Right now, it could be just just a pocketed folder. So meaning that if somebody comes by or somebody could be a meaningful customer that they rather than just grabbing a flyer, you can put it in the folder that I have one example. Let me see if I still have it here. Like a packet they can take, so in this folder you put a business card here, maybe a detail flyer, maybe even a W9 or the forms or something like that. It's a little bit more than just one thing. It's something to think about, but then again, it's a lot more for you to take to take, to take to a trade show, or something we can build something like that, as let's say somebody wants more information, you can actually send that entire packet with a printed out W9 and maybe some history of the company or some testimonials and things like that. So that could be great. Yeah. So this is the ghost that wants to further than somebody just grabbing. This is this. Okay. You want to do something that this is sending the entire packet and maybe they can let's say if it's just a coordinator, they can present it to the director here. Other information about the ZTAC or something or even to the point that who is deploying of the people that are using our systems and such. Yeah, that's something I saw. I'm especially, these are especially with, it's almost like, like somebody does a cold call, even a warm call, right? They go on site visit, okay, I'll just leave you this packet, you know what I mean? I have more information than just a flyer, it's a little bit more intentional. Yeah, like some of these people that send us some email, then we can even put the stuff in here, with your business card ready if they want to reach and just put it on the minimum envelope and drop it in the mail and send it to them. There's something else, or even with something cool, like some of the swag that we have, like a van or the lapel pin that we're working on and all that. So that's something I thought about, I saw and I was thinking about it, we get to talk about that. then the other one was this person, I don't know when to reach out. I think it was, I'm wondering if Ting have it in the back of your head. There was this one customer that is in Texas, one of the schools, that she said that their math thing was not loading, the one that Ting escalated to.
Quan Gan: I just replied right now. I have to get our developers looking at it.
Stan Liu: Let's not have the developer talk directly to them.
Quan Gan: This one I have to, because I can't figure it out.
Stan Liu: I would say don't do that one. We can have, I've seen those developers that we cannot allow school personnel to see who's access, who's. is helping them fix these things. We need to fix the product.
Quan Gan: They have a Z tag email. The thing is, can't figure it out though. So either that or it doesn't get fixed.
Stan Liu: Then if that's the case, if you don't know how to fix it, then.
Kristin Neal: What's the problem?
Quan Gan: Their math match is not in-king right. So there's some kind of bug that I couldn't replicate on my side.
Stan Liu: Have you done the Zoom call with them?
Quan Gan: Yeah, I've even sent the Zoom call to the developers. So we're pretty baffled about it.
Stan Liu: You mean you have the Zoom call with the developer, with the school?
Quan Gan: No, I had a Zoom call directly. It's recorded. I send it to the developers.
Stan Liu: They can't it without Zoom. So something like that.
Kristin Neal: Or is it are they close?
Stan Liu: we go to them and just, uh, dear feel. So. Two hours, two and a half hours. Um, it, are you? So that's something, if you have time, uh, one, that's pretty late. Uh, but if something like that, it cannot be fixed. And I would look at that as a marketing value to ship a new unit to them and then bring the other one back. Because Texas is one of the, uh, the markets that we want to explore and then there's something, uh, we could maybe bring it back and and see if we can fix it. I mean, we can look at what, what, why, why that is happening to prevent it from from happening again. So this is, um, what ticket was it? Do you remember?
Tin (3): Yes, it's a ticket 942. Uh, it's, uh, or done.
Kristin Neal: Oh, Trisha, yeah. She actually brought us another partner. So yeah, she's one... I think they only purchased one unit though, right?
Stan Liu: They do. That's one elementary school. But it's quite meaningful because they're in Texas.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Stan Liu: She brought us someone else. So let's look at here.
Kristin Neal: almost feel like we saw her. Didn't we see her at the last show?
Quan Gan: It's Patricia?
Stan Liu: Yeah. Yeah, Patricia.
Quan Gan: It's not the same person.
Stan Liu: not that I know.
Quan Gan: The person that I had spoken to, she seemed pretty boots on the ground and not someone in a decision-making room.
Stan Liu: Yeah, it could be like the coordinator, Patricia, it could be the thing.
Kristin Neal: It was P, T, R, E, S, H, I, A, P, T, P, T, yeah.
Stan Liu: Ah, here, Patricia. yeah, so Westfield, I remember that, Ningerfield, a long-star school district, yeah. So, the way we're to make a decision, this is another good idea, offer them to ship them a new unit?
Quan Gan: Well, I just replied like 10 minutes ago.
Stan Liu: Okay, okay. Let's say if we can fix it, then we can send them a unit and bring the other one back, and we can... trying to diagnose it yeah okay yep so that's uh that uh okay that's all right okay so that's all that and then uh anything else anybody yeah any issues that come come to mind yeah i do um i've got okay so um i was going to send right now to attend the the extended care plan um pdf that you sent me but i'm looking at it now and you have it as complimentary first year extended care plan but that's only a conference special yeah right so because you were asking me for the conference uh uh special thing yep absolutely can we can we add that like oh no the first year as a complimentary Every school that buys it, we're giving them the complimentary, and I think we're giving them the second year as the trade show special, correct? Correct.
Kristin Neal: The first year's manufacturer is free, we also, there's manufacturing warranty, and we're also throwing in the first year for free as well. Right, but only as a conference special, but if I send this for Yenchul, this won't be, he'll, that won't apply to him.
Stan Liu: Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Kristin Neal: So, for any, any others, because like, I have Riverside right now, they wrote back and they want their, their quote updated with 10 units. So, I would offer, if you want to purchase, pre-purchase this, but I don't want them to see that it's complimentary for the first year. So it would have to be reworded for anyone else.
Stan Liu: That's not at the conference. Okay, so let me get clarification. In the past, we were offering ASP for all the non-profit schools. This year, as the complement complementary, are we saying that we will not be offering that or are we still offering?
Kristin Neal: No. The only thing we're offering now is the manufacturer's warranty for the first year. one year.
Stan Liu: Correct. Okay, good. Okay, cool. That helped me a little bit more. Okay, cool. That actually would be actually a lot easier for them to calculate. Rather than just one or two years. Yeah, okay. I will reward that.
Kristin Neal: That's to come to you, okay, Tim? Once that's done. So then you'll have that free initial. And that's a man by the way, just for clarification.
Tin (3): you.
Kristin Neal: course. And then I saw on your list in the California customer map, would that be possible to have that that graphic for boost or for queue? Because those are California specific.
Stan Liu: Okay. So, Stan, do you have the customer list and give it to Francis and do the map?
Kristin Neal: Yeah, that would be awesome. Then we did just this morning get the invite to the dinner. Last year, you had your list and then you had me add to it.
Stan Liu: Do you want to do that again or do you want me to? that's all you. Okay. The whole thing. Yeah, I was giving you some idea. Yeah, this is all you and the bigger the better.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Then I'll just go through. Okay. All right. Carmi, I'll probably connect with you this week about that so we can get the RSVP list and things. Okay. And get the list. I'll start getting the list. I've already got people so, okay. Thank you.
Stan Liu: Sorry, so call me and roll is an extension of me. So that's it.
Kristin Neal: Wonderful. Very cool. And then the new material for Boost and Q. Well, that packet will be great. That packet actually, Stan, those pictures that I was talking about, I was even wondering if it would be too much to grow on that and do like a Polaroid with them so we can add to that that packet that you were just showing.
Stan Liu: You mean like like a real Polaroid photo? Yeah. They put a couple in there.
Kristin Neal: Let's take a picture. know how they they love you tag, take our picture, take our picture. So we take that Polaroid picture and we add it to that. That folder.
Stan Liu: You mean at the show or take a Polaroid photo with them? I love it. It's almost like taking a selfie with somebody you met and it's kind of then you remember who they are. You get the contact info. The downside to that is I would, I don't know, it would take too long. There is a portable printer. The downside to that is once you take it in a polo right and unless we print two and that picture, we can't use that picture anymore.
Kristin Neal: I'm not getting the pictures anyways because I'm taking it on their phone.
Stan Liu: is another, that's an issue. Yeah, so we, maybe we just get a phone that's uniquely just for photos or something. We definitely want those. Kami and Paula is working on like a 16 point thing, almost like a prop. We went through the different scenarios of what they could be. We can look at the rate then what does on the stick or the ones that are on the phone board, but Most practical one would be that we print ones that they can write on it. They can either keep the postcard, or we keep the card with them. And then on the back of it, they can write us notes, those we can keep and just have a huge collage of things. Carmi and Paula is doing an amazing job in coming out with that. It will be about the size of... Like probably about eight and a half by six, like here. It could be a die cut or a little bit cut out, something like that. So imagine that here somebody just hoses it and take a photo together and we love Z-Tag and maybe either put their school name or something like that. And the back of here where they say, hey, tell us why you like to see that. Oh, what do you want to leave Z-Tag and they can say, we love you guys or our kids or thank you or something like that. So... Yeah, when they're done, we can keep it and they don't need to take it with us and or they can write notes and things.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Oh, that's a good idea.
Stan Liu: Okay. So I definitely love the Polo right one that still the downside is we don't get to keep the picture.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Stan Liu: Polo right is actually the very cool thing, especially with with older with what you call it with existing customers. They take a photo and people love to put in the office. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. I'm wondering if there's one that actually can keep a digital copy as well.
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, I tell you there is that's the camera that I bought last week can print out a Polaroid photo and then you can also transfer the a copy to your phone or to your laptop.
Stan Liu: Okay, so we'll get the info from Carmen. That's awesome.
Kristin Neal: I had no idea that existed.
Stan Liu: That's awesome. I'll poloize it. That's a great idea. They can even write something or even take a polo right, they can write something below the polo right and we get to keep a copy.
Kristin Neal: That's really cool.
Carmee Sarvida: You can also use your phone. You can take the photo on your phone because the phone captures clearer photos and then you print it out on the camera. So you can do either way.
Kristin Neal: Wow. Oh, that's pretty cool.
Stan Liu: I have a photo printer here that we used before, but those are actual pictures. If they can print out nothing like a polo or a photo, that's cool. All right, um, that's it and then we're getting the new material for, um, like fires, all that's getting worked on. Right. I just want to Chris that we want your help because the way they help you if you can give us timeline. Let's say when do you need something and buy and like literally shift to your house, then we can work backwards.
Kristin Neal: Perfect timeline. All right. And then, um, just wanted to make sure because I know there was some issue with the invoices and thing or not the invoices, the replacements. Um, Jess main, the 11, the tag replacements. just want to make sure that was input somewhere in their account. Right. Remember that was, um, that was last week. The 3 of us, me, then.
Carmee Sarvida: Then.
Tin (3): Yes, yes, the 11 replacement. I already took care of it. I already take note about the tracking number. So I don't. There is an issue about that and I already closed the ticket and input all the detail. So if you want to go back to that ticket, we can read the history about it.
Kristin Neal: Awesome. Thank you so much, Tim.
Stan Liu: Hey, I noticed that that we end up shipping multiple boxes to them. Is that a reason why?
Kristin Neal: Oh, that's another thing I need. I need more packing and the little boxes wouldn't, I only have those little boxes. So I filled them filled them and then. Okay, so I will teach.
Stan Liu: Call me how to order these things for you. So you can reach out to me in the future to have them order for you. Why all this stuff from you like anyway. Either. No, no, you like you like seem to have better material. Awesome.
Kristin Neal: Thank you.
Stan Liu: Yeah, so you can. Yeah, okay, that is a process where we're coming and then. Okay. Anything else?
Kristin Neal: That's it.
Stan Liu: Thank you. Okay. Good meeting everyone. So we are come to conclusion, conclude and recap. Tell one word closing and why. Thing because you're on my- the first one on my left.
Tin (3): One word that comes to my mind and why?
Stan Liu: Yeah, because we're closing the meeting. That's the one closer level we talked about.
Tin (3): The first thing that comes to my mind is I'm grateful because I have this opportunity to collaborate and said my opinion about things and I'm getting idea also about my task. I'm feel thankful to all of you.
Stan Liu: Okay. Thank you. The word is I think the best word to feel is sweet. I had a birthday yesterday but today seeing everybody coming together and work through this and it just feels, this is saying, in Chinese, I joke this with Margaret all the time. It's, it's, in Cantonese, it's a step tall. So means like when I, when she looks at me and I'm looking at her and say, what are you doing? This is step tall. That means like I just know the internal gratitude or something that I can't even explain but it's almost imaginative that you're just tasting how the sugar in your lips and how sweet that feels. Yeah. It translates into tasting sugar. Tasting sweetness.
Quan Gan: Um, progress.
Stan Liu: I like seeing the team come together and move it forward. All right. Um, Chris?
Kristin Neal: Kind of the same thing, Stan. But for me as Shalom, that means just peace. Upward and between all of you, there's a lot of peace, I feel. And, um, yeah, definitely Shalom.
Stan Liu: Yeah, okay. Shalom.
Carmee Sarvida: Uh, Um, I'm getting involved, more involved with the team. We don't just meet during Friday chat. And, um, I, I interact or I age with you on the normal day, not just in Friday chat, especially on the outside. We do work things together.
Stan Liu: Exactly. What's it?
Klansys Palacio (3): Me? Let's engage. So that's with the team, but also with the things that I'm doing. it was really great. But the engagement that I'm feeling right now.
Stan Liu: with the team.
Klansys Palacio (3): That's working.
Stan Liu: Yay. Okay.
Paula Cia: Okay. Productive. All these collaboration and finished tasks that we all made. The terms of the productive weekly.
Stan Liu: Okay. Thank you. So as a reminder, Chris, signed up on a Udemy account for all the team members. If you would like to one, please feel free to sign up for one and take classes. Take some of the courses on the surface level. The courses seem very expensive, but there's a trick that they go and sell every week or two weeks. each course is about 15 bucks. It's very cool to learn. I would say I would encourage that we spend at least 10 percent of our time learning a different thing. The more we learn, the more we can live with each other and elevate each other and ourselves as well.
Kristin Neal: And that was you, Catamie?
Stan Liu: You, Demi. So you, Demi, yep. So it's very, very cool. We can do it, learn, read different things. So like right now I'm learning Zoho.
Kristin Neal: They have that on there?
Stan Liu: They have Zoho, yeah, yeah. So that's the first class we sign up, signing up for. They don't have a lot, but they do have a few that are actually pretty good. Yeah, oh, so flash out again, 12.99. Okay, Chris, maybe it's spent the next hour looking at this. Seriously. Yeah, so I think it's that part of a core value, continuous learning, and that can really help us to be bow and courageous. Okay, everyone, thank you so much.
Kristin Neal: Have a good night, everybody. Bye. a week.
Carmee Sarvida: Bye. Bye.
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Ferenc Orban: you Morning one, how are you doing?
Quan Gan: You're okay you guys you feeling better? What did you say about chopper hey
Ferenc Orban: He's worse.
Quan Gan: He's worse? So throat. Oh, okay. Something.
Ferenc Orban: Did he get it from you? Not sure. He doesn't have the same symptoms. It could be anything. It's season here. So everybody has something.
Quan Gan: Hello everyone. Hi guys.
Ferenc Orban: Thank
UTF LABS: you Hi guys. Can you hear me?
Quan Gan: Yeah. Hi Sean.
Csaba: Hello.
UTF LABS: How are you guys?
Quan Gan: Are you, are we still waiting for anyone else or should we start?
UTF LABS: No, no, I think we can start it. Okay. So Jawad, can you provide your agreement?
Jawwad Malik: I'm sure. So from our side, like I work on an action handler, I completed class, and I also link action handler with an access completely like earlier, like we just make the APIs for today. I also add the implementation and link with an access as well as like I just also try the test for the action handler and like how we. directly access the nexus and nexus to like the middlewares and getting their function in our game. I just test this both thing together into a main file and like the major things today's I did two ones was the action handler and the second was the system initializer the action handler code I pushed and also they have a test part also like which are tested in a main and like system initializer has some little work on it so after meeting I pushed that code too and I put like all the basic functionality now in action handler but in future that are in a modular code so if we want to expand it more so we can expand it easily so whatever we have scenarios now we conflict with our things it is modular build in a modular way now. And Sean's working on the game part. he will describe it.
UTF LABS: Yeah. So basically I'm working on building the ball game basic initial logic with conflict file as a header and then we'll try to start the game from the main file first and then once that is completed, logic is completed for and so we'll then move towards the MPTT or the control interface. But currently I was facing the issues utilizing the faces in the game, but those will be fixed soon or after that we see how to incorporate the MPTT interface there.
Quan Gan: Okay. Oh, what do you mean? How much more time does it take to finish that?
UTF LABS: I think the game logic should be completed by Monday. But I think it should be completed as we have some idea. Given that Farin and Chathak can also complete the digging interface. if that is completed, think then we should be able to wind up the MVP as I said by Tuesday or Wednesday. Okay. Farin, any updates on your end?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, so Chaba has been working on the technique manager. He created an example as well that should work. And there is a... There might be some issue with the tagging going on in the back, IR plus the acknowledgement, those might not come back, but he's working still on it, thinks he might be done in a few hours, maybe today he will be done with the tagging manager, but if not then on Monday. He also changed some partitioning value from 2 megabytes of flash to 16 megabytes, and that's it. I had my documentation changes ready to commit on the last time I was in the office, but I couldn't commit because I also started looking at into the commit hooks and of course it's not something fixed something here because I can't commit anything I hope because there are some pre-commit hooks set up half setup basically so when I try to commit it comes back with another it doesn't find some some lines of code or something so I don't have to look into this so I can't commit IS trouble to commit my changes just now so that's it from our side right now the code that we're adding is it going through any kind of formatting checks or you know the the ceiling checks and it just doesn't go through before we commit to it We are on our side, but the ceiling is set up on our computers.
Quan Gan: In terms of having enough commenting to describe what each section does, you feel like we're doing adequate or can we do better?
Ferenc Orban: No, we can definitely do better. The code that is being committed right now, it doesn't have a comment every three or four lines. we shouldn't ramp that up, I think.
Quan Gan: So how can we make sure that happens going forward and even code that we've already committed to add the necessary comments in there?
Ferenc Orban: Well, I think we can add automatically afterwards. AI can do that. I have to go through them individually, I think, I wouldn't trust AI to just go through the whole code and change things around, because I'm not sure it wouldn't change any other things, right? From now on, I'm not sure what the capabilities are of these hooks and how we can automate this. We don't have to see if we can automate this check. If we can, then we will have to paste a step into the argument process, not just adding some description, but also making sure that we have all the comments that we need. Just a new code being run through AI to the to generate some documentation into the code. This might be, we might be able to add it to cursor rules to automatically when you generate some code to also add more context to the code.
Quan Gan: Because I believe the original cursor file should have something like that but I'm not sure if currently it hasn't. To have a ratio of comments to the code.
Ferenc Orban: Okay, we'll have to check. And if not, then we'll end it.
Quan Gan: Can you give me some more details on what the hooks are? I'm not too clear what that is and how it's blocking.
Ferenc Orban: Okay. So basically when you commit something you can almost with anything. I think there's a default hook which prompts you to add some description or a title to the commit. But you can also add other things. You should be able to add other things such as maybe code checking. I'm not sure how I can automate a hook that makes sure that it's compileable. The code is compileable. I'm not sure how I can involve the compilation into this, but I'm pretty sure that I can automate textually like it could check the code maybe for linting errors or stuff like this. I'm not sure exactly how this does, but basically what hooks are is when you try to commit it checks something and if it's not in line with the expectations, it doesn't let you commit.
Quan Gan: So currently, what is the function that it's preventing you from doing it?
Ferenc Orban: Not exactly sure. know I, on Wednesday, think, or Tuesday, Wednesday, I tried to, like I chatted with AI in the composer, and I asked it to add some commit hooks that make sure that it's buildable. And it did something. I just wanted to check, and I wanted to revert all the changes. But I think it ran some scripts that I'm not aware of anymore, because I was doing some other work in the new one. I was working on something else, but I just ran a few puns.
Quan Gan: where would be the definitions for these hooks?
Ferenc Orban: I don't understand the question.
Quan Gan: Well, okay, so you added, you had to ask it to add some kind of hooks in there, but where is that defined for you to see what is it actually checking?
Ferenc Orban: I'm not sure, but it's not in the code, because I reverted everything and I still, only a few words, I only had the dmd file as a change and I wanted to commit and I can, it's somewhere in the environment. So this is what I'm looking at right now to fix this and make sure that I pay closer attention to how this works. Okay, so yeah, we'll find out then. Yeah, so you're thinking you might have to just erase the folder and then redownload it or something? I'm really not sure, I'm not sure if it's something in the GitHub or my GitHub desktop, is it something in cursor? I'm really not sure where it's, but yeah, I think something like this, I have to sort of revert something, like either reinstall something or just make a check where these, these books are kept, so I can revert that, look for it and change it.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Ferenc Orban: And I'm, I'm sorry. I'm looking for, I'm looking for a history, a jet history in the composer, but I can't find it. I thought it was more accessible, but I don't have it at hand. Do you have any idea when I can look back at what it did for me in cursor?
Quan Gan: I'm not too sure. Yeah, this, this is something new to me as well.
Ferenc Orban: Because I, because I was, I tried to, I have to go back in history and look for the check that greeted this message maybe try try committing on a on a sandbox project so something else and then see if it has the same issue okay okay i'll try maybe you have to reinstall cursor i don't know yeah i'm sure i can figure it out i just wasn't okay so besides this um how do you feel about the mvp coming together today uh today well uh the tagging part uh could could come together today so the tagging management and the ir tagging with the acknowledgment as well it did in alignment with what uh what shawn and jilad are saying for early next week that we can get this game working yeah okay did no no other issues you see popping up uh no no i i would be Probably will be out of time in the next week, Chavo will be here to help out, but yeah. I think I might be able to manage to come to the meetings, but I have to go.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. So what remains from your perspective for the ballgame to be fully functional?
Ferenc Orban: For now, it's the tagging management and also there's the thing that Sean has to do.
Quan Gan: No. Control interface?
Ferenc Orban: Sorry.
UTF LABS: Control interface are you talking about? The MVD interface?
Ferenc Orban: Not sure. Not sure if it was the MVD. Yeah, it might have been. Comments?
Quan Gan: Okay, so describe for me what the ballgame would have, it have the full countdown and then if I have multiple devices here that I can see it passing back and forth, what other functionalities might there be?
UTF LABS: Yeah, I'm aiming for something like that, when Tiger will have the balls while other will chase it, you can say like a simple version or more related to a keep away, where we can have start, stop, countdown functions and Daddy will be there along with all the headaches.
Quan Gan: So the start, stop functions, are those being controlled by the button for now?
UTF LABS: For now, I'm just like testing using them or I'm planning to test or using the main file, so like one tagger will be a chaser, there will be runners and they'll automatically do We start the game after a few seconds will automatically pause them or we can use the buttons as well. I'm focusing more on the logic first, and then once we have this, we can maybe use buttons for start stop and then move towards the.
Quan Gan: I'm thinking for testing purposes, it might be having the three buttons to have some kind of a start pause functionality. Maybe initially you can get it to select who's got the ball and who doesn't with the buttons and then you have another button to start the game for everybody. So it might need to be sent to me. Broadcast it.
UTF LABS: Yeah, we can look into that. For now, so I want to just keep it simple so we'll assign one figure as the rest. others as Chasers and see how the tagging is happening once we get the tagging interface, and then once that logic and everything is timer is working properly, then we can implement the buttons as well.
Quan Gan: Okay, so the initial version, if you're doing different roles, does that mean you're flashing different code or how does that work?
UTF LABS: Yeah, different code just by changing like a role variable to Chaser or running.
Quan Gan: Okay, yeah, I think internally start with that, but yeah, my expectation for a functional game would be getting the buttons to be intuitively able to start and start with the games.
UTF LABS: Yeah, I think buttons interface should be like similar as compared to the other ones. So I think once we have the logic working and everything working as expected, then buttons interface, I think I can incorporate that easily.
Quan Gan: Any other topics to be discussing?
UTF LABS: No, I think most deaths are working. I was still confused with what Farin was mentioning about the hooks. mean, did any of us implement those hooks or are they implemented by default by GitHub? I believe you were saying about the option that we get before merging. I'm not sure if they're the same thing. Like when we made some change and then Farin made some change and then we try to push the port it asks to merge. Is it the same thing or is it something different Farin?
Ferenc Orban: It should be something different. this is a pre-committer. It's a local thing. works locally and it's just on my computer. So for now, this is this mess up thing. talked about this we should work on the automation of as many things as possible as many parts of the process as possible and we always want to make sure that the code is buildable and I want to add the check for this somehow to make sure that the code is buildable or at least a prompt that prompts you to make sure that it's buildable okay so when you commit maybe you can commit but you have to go back to your cursor and build one and commit like that either that or straight up automatically build the project in the background make sure if it's okay then it commits so this is the idea behind it but I didn't want to mess too much with it I just wanted to see if the the AI can do it easily and it did it pretty fast but now I can roll it back and it's not good it's not working really it comes up with a larger and I have to look into that so it's just on my side it's not about the merges though the merges should be there and like when codes are conflicted you should fix that by hand always and take good measures that all the code that is at the end it's a it's good working so if you and I commit to the same fire if I have to merge the code I have to make sure that your code is a valid like it's it's working and my code is working as well even if it's a bit messy maybe you rename a method that I worked on so the all these changes have to have to be considered and so this is a more involved process the merging like especially if it's it's got new conflicts so yeah we don't just override the other ones code yeah are there any other questions that you guys need to ask each other before we close out nothing awesome yeah not on our side as well just the question about cursor is that fixed I think I just told the latest
UTF LABS: as well, but I'm not sure that fixed or not Java. you comment on that?
Csaba: Yeah, it's working now for me. 0.46.
UTF LABS: Yeah, think I have that as well. So we don't need to disable any updates or anything like that, right?
Csaba: No, no, that's the newest.
UTF LABS: Got it. I think that's it.
Quan Gan: Okay, I see a minor detail. I think maybe Java can address this just on the on the the log that's being output from the tagger, the the units of measure for some of these intensities are inaccurate. For example, 255 is percentage, right? Like that's not a valid percentage. So just making sure for each of the intensities or anything that you have a unit on there that it's actually accurate so we're not confusing ourselves on that.
Jawwad Malik: Yeah, I was just testing that and I was just seeing like if I putting the value from 0 to 500 the intensity should be same but after 500 whatever the value I put it into it it also shows in a log that this is at the compilable part like this value is maybe like incorrect or something but it compiled that quote and the intensity was so large and even after that I put 501 to 1000 it have the same thing. So I think in a driver level or maybe in a interfaces that is not iterative properly and it is not a proper like it have a fixed static value whatever the value we give so we have to fix that and once if we see that thing like if we fix that thing and then we put the logic like if user could not put any value like if user put a value less than zero then it's mean the value minimum is zero and the higher range is maybe hundred so if if a person put a value thousand or anything so it make the value that to the hundred and give to the function so if the user put any value higher than the range it give the maximum if person put the like the value lower the range then it set into the minimum part so I was just seeing that thing and and I also want to address that that thing is not working might be because of a interface part or maybe on the driver part okay so I I agree that we should you know correct any erroneous inputs but
Quan Gan: I think we need to figure out either have a strong warning or actually make it not compile both of the the user fixes it before it does compile because we don't want to mask anything that is incorrect here.
UTF LABS: I think the right way here is usually happens or we did as well with early in the volume and all those kind of things like we were mapping that anything above a certain range will be mapped to 100 like a value above 100 will be mapping to 100 anything below 0 will be mapped to 0 something like that.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so that's on the protection side to make sure it stays within range but there's also a user expectation standpoint from from the API level like we have to have proper documentation to tell the user what is your acceptable range and even reject it so the user corrects their own code because if the user doesn't know whether it's actually. from 0 to 255 or 0 to 100, then, you know, they might be entering the wrong number with a different expectation. So, for example, if I think 100 gives me the strongest thing because you're giving me a percentage, but I enter 100 and it's actually 100 out of 255, then I actually have less than 50%, right? that's going to be a weird thing to debug if it's not set out in the documentation as a correct expectation. And even right now, I'm not sure if my motor is fully spinning at 100% because I'm feeling this thing and it feels kind of weak, but now I'm questioning, is this the hardware specific problem or are we not actually activating the PWM to 100%. So, do you understand the concern? It's not just making sure that a code can fix what the user is, but you have to communicate to the user what they expected.
Jawwad Malik: input value should be got it so if the user put the value maximum the range you won't like we print any statement or warning to them right yeah either a warning or even just fail to compile I would rather it fail early so then the user can correct their mistake then to you know mask that in there somewhere I think like giving the error is little difficult because like if we just taking a number like integer if we just taking a type integer can store the values have a certain range there and if we set the value between zero to something so giving the error a compilable error is something like we have to look maybe not a compilable error but what about the ESP log e you know just raise
Quan Gan: a certain flag and say, this is a wrong expectation.
Jawwad Malik: Yeah, we can do that, like we can lock that, what the value you have give, it's not in a range, the value should be between this, we can lock that.
Quan Gan: Yeah, let's just make sure this is a paradigm we follow. Maybe even have cursor, you know, write this into the rules, but I want to be very clear. You know, this is, even though this might be a benign thing right now, but it's a really good topic for me to discuss because, you know, we want to make sure as the user are programming, we somehow set them with enough documentation that they know exactly what they need to input. But, you know, rather than, okay, I think it's supposed to be 0 to 100 or 0 to 255, but there's nowhere telling them that. And then if you're just a code happily accepts, without any kind of warning, then you're going to have a mis-expectation between what the user thinks they're doing and then what the hardware actually is. like bugs like these are going to be very difficult to catch. So we really need to build that into our design paradigm to make sure that the values of input are very clearly stated throughout the documentation what the user should be putting in. And then we have warnings or testings to make sure that if it's out of range, we don't just fix it for them. And they think they never made a mistake, but we strongly warned them to correct their error.
UTF LABS: One thing I learned about point you also mentioned with the vibration right now, I tested it more in detail today. I also thought the vibration like a bit felt like on the lower side as what we used to have in the previous one. Reverse some more or is it just my feeling that the vibration is a bit low?
Csaba: Yeah, I'll be checking.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so again, this is not to emphasize this single issue. know, this single issue is just a topic that I'm bringing up for a general thing. So I want you guys to really understand it generally that any interface we create, you know, don't just fix things, if it's your Ronius input, but make sure you have proper warnings and tests to tell the user that they've made an error, so they have to correct their design. Does that make sense?
UTF LABS: Yeah, that makes sense.
Quan Gan: Yeah, because if we don't do this, it's going to be a very difficult bug to figure out later on, you know, right now, like, you know, I'm glad we caught this early, but, you know, a driver level bug deep down, the user will never know. And they'll never know that the the motor should have been a lot stronger, you know, in the first place.
UTF LABS: How would they ever tell you that?
Quan Gan: No, so we should, you know, as we're making the drivers go in systematically, add in the proper comments and make sure we add in the proper, you know, the ESP log or tests to to make sure that it handles these things correctly with the right warnings. Right. So, so all of these are super important. You know, yes, we want to hit the MVP, but we want to make sure the MVP is robust enough and it has necessary warnings in place so that as we build on top of But we don't get ourselves, you know, we don't shoot ourselves in the foot with some kind of really weird, weird bug. Yeah, so can I can I get a confirmation from both teams that you guys understand what I'm talking about?
UTF LABS: Yeah, yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay, anything else before we close?
Ferenc Orban: That's it from outside.
Quan Gan: Okay, so then we are the next time we're meeting is it. Let's see here, it would be my 1030 p.m. on Sunday. So I will actually be flying to China for another four days to check on the factory. So I'm in flight during this. You guys will have to take that meeting and then I'll catch you guys. China time.
UTF LABS: Do we need to meet on Monday morning since we are meeting on Friday evening and then Monday morning or can we meet on Tuesday morning instead?
Quan Gan: We can do. We can do that. What do you guys think?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, not much.
UTF LABS: Yeah, exactly. There won't be much to discuss on Monday.
Quan Gan: Okay, so I'm just curious meeting wise, then should I just shift everything back by a whole day and then we'll have a tail end meeting on Friday? But that would be or is that your Saturday?
Ferenc Orban: I'm trying to figure out. Yeah, it's Saturday.
Quan Gan: Okay, so then for this week?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, just this time because we're ending this week with a meeting starting the next one with the meeting. But after that, we'll start the Friday meeting and we can start the Monday meeting.
Quan Gan: Okay, so then the following week? it will just be like a basically like a check in before the work day and then you're you're stating what you're doing for that day right yeah basically okay okay that's fine so so the next meeting will be your guys's Tuesday morning right yeah yeah okay okay hoping to see some good progress then see you guys bye guys see you bye
Quan Gan: Okay. Great. According and taking notes, so, yeah, today is the last day of February, 2025, and I really need some chicken soup for the soul for myself because it's been an arduous week and a half. And the end result is I am now separated from Stan Lu, my former business partner and co-founder in ZTAB. Where to begin? Well, maybe as I kind of worked it backwards, today we just signed the papers in front of a notary that he will be, that he has resigned as CFO from the company and another agreement where he has nullified all of his shares. And this is because we have discovered over $235,000 of misappropriated funds over the past two years. And now if you ask how could this happen, I guess there's many ways to approach answering that. And I think my biggest lesson is that as an owner, I just not exercise my rights earlier enough to mandate controls for finances. And I gave one person the lock and the key to the bank. they went to, well, he wrote a bunch of with drew a bunch of cash and all of this. While it was his actions, I don't think he was at the time to be relatively aware of how runaway his actions became over the past two years. substantially he was justifying these things in his head. There's probably a substantial amount of cognitive dissonance. And in hindsight, don't think there was any, any intent to, to defraud. I think he was, well, he spent money on his family. And, oh, man, it's just, it's really hard to say, you know, just putting into words challenge for me. he donated a lot to local organizations. know, Stan has been on city council for the past few years. And we saw him get elected and we were related for him at the time. He even became mayor of Diamond Bar last year. And yeah, these, these funds were related to his local community and his family. And I think he And he just completely mismanaged his role. He's unfit to be a CFO, know, for whatever reason, he took on that job, maybe because that was what was needed at the time. But in hindsight, that was the worst decision the company could have had, because it's like, you know, putting a drug addict with a bag of Coke, and he just completely went to town with it. You know, he didn't admit at the time that he had a lack of control. But over time, he spent all of this money. yeah, even on his daughter's college essay or some other college prep, all of these services, it was just, you know, when I found out over a week ago, I was just in complete shock. know, initially, Charlie, it took me off about this because she started handling the check deposits and coming to the office and looking at checking the mail. And he looked at the bank statements and noticed there was a substantial amount of ATM withdrawals and she asked me what's going on. And I didn't bother to pay much attention to it. I'm like, oh, let me look into that. But she had a signal that something was very, very wrong and really pressed me. Pressed me to the point of breaking because I have a seven-year relationship with Stan. And there's a friendship and a bond, a brotherly bond, spilled over the seven years we've been through a lot because I had asked him to come on board. were to Z-tag when the company was essentially zero. We had just freshly started. We had a very initial product, but really not much beyond that. We were looking for a VC funding. Never end up getting that. We pivoted probably four or five times through different product iterations. We went through COVID with almost zero income, but I was able to get some drone income there, and we survived through it. Over the past few years, we finally hit our market and started really, really growing. I didn't know he had this problem. Once we had the money, he just ran away with it. The past week was just utter turmoil for me. emotionally and mentally and spiritually. just made me question a lot of things, question my own judgment, question just how things could possibly become a trainwreck like this. But you know, at some level also just at your amazement and wonderment of why exactly now and if the timing or the circumstances were any different, would have just been like, it would have been so different, like either this has never happened or, or it would have been a lot, lot worse. know, ultimately the terms were, he's no longer associated with Z tagging any capacity and we forgive him. forgive the amount that he owes, we pardon that. And if you look at the growth factor of ZTag and what it may become, in future hindsight, that's a great deal. Great deal. Because we've essentially bought his 40% shares, or I bought his 40% shares for that price when the company could be evaluated at billions of dollars in the future. And mark my words, someday it will be. So it's basically buying the shares of Apple before Apple became anything, right? It is bittersweet and also heartbreaking for me to see how he could just completely destroy the very thing that he created with me. I had some resentment over the years that made it feel like I was doing a lot more, at like the development work, the sales travel, and a lot of that, he's just kind of commanding from a high horse. I did feel that resentment. It came and went depending on the times that we were going through, but maybe that subconsciously sent vibrations to attract a certain circumstance. It makes me question even just causality. did I somehow bring myself into a universe where this had happened? Really hard to say. I have such mixed emotions because there's anger, there's hurt, there's frustration and even a sense of guilt that I didn't prevent this earlier. It had to come out like this and it even got caught in between Charlie and him because Charlie from the out of the distance only saw the numbers and realized we caught a rat and she wanted to kill that rat. She came along with a vengeance and I couldn't do it. This is my friend of seven years, even though he did train me or betray my trust. I think at the end of this, I realized that I don't think it was actually his intention. He had the best of intentions, at least for his family, but very much at the detriment of our company. And so today, he handed over the keys, amicably. We settled in private. We didn't have to take this to any escalation. He fully cooperated, gave us the passwords, signed off two notarized documents, resigning from CFO, and one nullifying all of his shares. And we have a handshake agreement that there are no additional liabilities on his part, and we will not chase him for liabilities on our part. You know he needed our assurance just as much as we needed his assurance that there's no other hidden charges to come at us, you know, because we definitely are bleeding cash in the dryest of times throughout the year because ZCAG is seasonal. So during January, February sales are very low. And so this is also the most painful time. But in this crisis, opportunity is Charlie is coming on board. It really galvanized her. It also, you know, I feel blessed for the situation that she and I are a team again. We're working for a common cause after being separated. for so many years and working on our separate parallel projects for her that was the kids for me it was Z tag but now that she's coming on board I am so blessed it's as if this rocket before it's about to take off we have to do some final measures and even shed some final weight and is unfortunately that that included Stan he was not able to join us on this journey upwards so it is with a heavy heart that this thing happened again just a complex bag of emotions to process I was reading the surrender experiment throughout this week Michael Ace and that book really has accompanied me through the journey and just allowed me to observe the emotions, deal with it, even if my personality finds it very uncomfortable. But as an observer, it allowed me to be unwavering in what I asked for. Even on day, I had to meet with Stan in three, including today, four days in a row. But on the third day, and each day, it was really just talking through things in the most amicable way if possible, yet firm that there was no way to turn back. The damage has been done and there's, there was no way for me to allow him to remain with the company, given what had happened. So the only way forward was to separate and to meet Reliance to you What's up What's up I I'm recording Oh, no, I'm recording that You But So Michael Singer's book, it just allowed me to observe the range of trajectories and outcomes and be okay with how everything's unfolded, as uncomfortable as they may be. I had finally convinced Dan on day three, the only way out of this situation, and it was non-negotiable, was to completely be coupled from the company. And that's how we can only decouple him from any financial obligation. That also means for him, you know, he's completely cut off from any source of income. He's going to have to figure out what that needs to be. I was his life raft once, when he was pushed out by his former partners in his previous business. I never went to ask exactly what the search was. circumstances were I trusted him and I trusted that he was in good faith trying to tell me the truth and so I still never asked but for all we know maybe he had a similar situation but it doesn't sound likely because this time around he's got a whole so much more to lose because he's a public official misuse funds if we brought this matter to legal and this became on public record it would be devastating to his entire career and by extension his entire family but I realized through this whole situation was there's under a lot of cultural and family pressure you know he lives in Dunbar people there are fairly well to do and At least on the surface, the outside, they all look like they have a lot. And if he's a public figure and he has to dress the part and his wife and kids have needs as well. His wife likes handbags or luxury items, even if they are not in the capacity to afford it. They were living beyond their means at the expense of the company. And his kids, I guess, you know, at the high school they go to, he needed a car. And somehow he decided it was a good idea to buy his kids a Porsche. Unbelievably unbelievable. know, just even at my saying, it sounds incredible, but this is what happened. So there was no way to reconcile that from a company standpoint. And while my trust was lost, try as a friend to salvage the relationship in any way we can. So I told him, if our friendship is of any value, then let go of the company. Give it back to me wholly. And we part ways as business partners. But maybe our friendship can remain. And yeah, those were the terms. when I came back home yesterday, which was Thursday, Charlie was completely flabbergasted that I did not ask for the money back. I personally didn't think he would have the ability to pay. And that it would also create additional entanglement and complexity. is enforcing the payment and also extreme hardship on his family. Those were all of my considerations, although at the time Charlie didn't give a because she does not have that relationship and she only sees the numbers, which is also a complete, correct truth. And I find myself stuck in a paradox where both sides I can see and I feel the compassion and I empathize, yet I cannot find any reconciliation with them. Charlie thinks that Stan was intentionally defrauding not only the company, but also manipulating my emotions to get to these terms. I didn't sense that we're in this whole ordeal. My judgment of people has been shaken considerably. I don't think I misjudge people's character, but I oftentimes misjudge people's ability. Hypothesis is yet to be proven. I guess we'll see what happens going forward. It's very, very sad. You know, it is a breakup. You know, Stan, his eyes are often dry. I don't think he would very much cry ever. But when I went harder ways, I think, you know, he had some tears. And just based on what I know of him. There's a good soul in there, or so I hope. It's difficult for me to prove, but I do hope. I do hope that. Looking ahead, think, you know, the dark cloud is passing. And each day as I reflect, I think the weather kind of matches my sentiment. Today, there was this sunset as we came back home. was a very textured, beautiful red sunset. Look, crimson. It was beautiful. It was dark. And it represented the end to this chapter. And in my relationship with Stan and Z-Tag's relationship with him, this... I am utterly emotionally drained, physically, mentally tired. It was a marathon. And when I found this out a week and a half ago, I couldn't sleep. There was a gut-wrenching, sinking feeling that just, you know, felt like the rug was pulled from under me. Everything that I had wanted to believe was, it felt like alive, it felt cheated, betrayed. Any mixed bag of emotions, all negative, I felt. This was, it was a crucible. Yeah, and I had to channel and will my energy to become forensic detective. Use my AI skills to comb through the records to see this for myself. and it's still unbelievable this this thing just feels like a dream like a terrible terrible bad dream that when I awake that things will be all right you know it's going to be tough we're seeing how going forward with our cash flow but we're going to make it and we're going to make it strong we're going to fortify and I really look forward to building this future with Charlie and the rest of the team and for Stan it's going to be especially difficult for him to start his life over at 60 but I think relative to the consequences that we held back he's actually in a good spot you know he could be in legal battles he could very most be in jail his political career could have been completely torched all the above to the point that he wouldn't have the ability to set his face in public again. And that would have affected his entire family's trajectory. I even saw the potential that he might kill himself. I saw some, I certainly pray that does not happen and I think as best to my ability, I may have prevented that outcome. I still pray that those thoughts don't come because his family needs him. His family needs him the most right now. And he needs to learn his lesson and recalibrate what it means to truly support his family. There was a saying for everything you give someone, realize what you're also taking away. And I'm very much learning that it is so difficult and it's so difficult. I'm done.
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Quan Gan: Hey, I really appreciate you taking the lead on that meeting. It's a very, uh, yeah, very uplifting.
Kristin Neal: I sure am so sorry. So I got I was very nervous at the beginning of it. I don't know why, but I'm glad it worked out. Thank you.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it was a very different vibe compared to previous meetings.
Kristin Neal: I hope so. Very cool. Thank you for your reasons. I think that went a long way too.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so I wanted to just connect with you. I don't have any specific topics, but just really to catch up for the past week, see where you are with things and where we are, and, you know, our prep is going for, I think we're leaving. We're leaving tomorrow? Yeah. Yeah, we're leaving tomorrow.
Kristin Neal: oh yeah. Yeah.
Quan Gan: So, last minute prep. Is there anything that you need?
Kristin Neal: Oh, you guys are bringing the unit and the 3rd unit, right? empty case.
Quan Gan: You mean the small demo thing?
Kristin Neal: But the suitcase? The empty Z tag case so we can show because you wanted it, but you said it doesn't have any of the guts in it.
Quan Gan: Oh, yeah, I mean, I we can each bring at least one unit. So we can have so we'll have one fully functioning one. What do you have right now?
Kristin Neal: I have one unit that I was going to bring.
Quan Gan: Because we have. Yeah, I could potentially, well, so we we can each. Check into extra bags now. So that we just need to see if that's if we need three total or just two total.
Kristin Neal: Okay, that sounds good. I'm going to see. I'm glad you you mentioned that because I'm going to actually need you guys to take back the blue bag with the banners.
Quan Gan: Because you're going to so you'll have those when we go to Palm Springs in a few weeks. Okay. Okay. I mean we we may get new banners as well for Palm Springs. For Palm Springs is it a well for Q is a 10 by 10 right? Okay. Q is 10 by 10. What about boost that's 10 by 20?
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Okay.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. I don't think we're going to bring four bags total so we can at least bring one back, we'll probably reshuffle some of the Banners yeah, we might reprint some stuff. It's more specific.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Quan Gan: So, Christian, do we still have enough of flyers?
Kristin Neal: We have like a stack like this. Do you have any extra?
Quan Gan: Is that the newly designed ones? So, is it a big one? Is it a big show? I think this show should be good. Well, how much did you get rid of last time?
Kristin Neal: Like a stack like this in the first hour, but then just a few the next day.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: It'll either be perfectly enough or we'll be out just a little bit. It's like right at that weird.
Quan Gan: Well, you have extra business cards, right?
Kristin Neal: Yes, I do.
Quan Gan: So they can at least go on that. And does your business card have a QR code?
Kristin Neal: Yes.
Quan Gan: I just need to see what does that link to that's a meeting with you or?
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Do you want that to be rerouted to the website or we're still a meeting with you?
Kristin Neal: Yeah, no, that sounds good.
Quan Gan: Okay. Take a photo of your cards. Okay.
Kristin Neal: That sounds good. I'll do that. Okay.
Quan Gan: The projector is also with you, right?
Kristin Neal: I have that. Yes. Okay. Okay. And then I'll take the blue bag. I have the table and chairs. And I think that's the only thing extra that I'm taking.
Quan Gan: We don't have enough tables and chairs at the show.
Kristin Neal: Because it was a double booth. We thought the two tables on the side. And then the table in the middle.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Do you know the size of the table? Yeah, it's a round table. It's only like 32 inches.
Quan Gan: Do we have a screen? for it.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, I got one of those.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. Nice.
Kristin Neal: And then two taller chairs, like bar style. Yeah, I think the only thing that kind of like where the projection is going to be.
Quan Gan: Okay, we'll figure that out on site then.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Yeah. This is going to be a dupe. Anyone? Okay. I do have a few things. Let me send you this before I forget. But I do have a few things that I wanted to ask because Boost, especially, and I just got a call from her Lily. Are we still doing the busy tag dinner and cocktails?
Quan Gan: Yes. We want to, well, we need to connect with her at some point. Maybe we can all get on a meeting call. Can we do that next week?
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. I want to probably improve and brainstorm with you a little bit more. On what we can do for boost and we'll have a group call with the way so we're all on the same page.
Kristin Neal: Okay. When we get back from Nashville.
Quan Gan: Like, yeah, is that fine? Is that still enough time or are we under?
Kristin Neal: Okay. I mean, it is I think we're okay.
Quan Gan: Okay. So she's in contact with you directly right now.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. Then just letters know that we're, you know, we're attending this conference and then after that we'll or regroup.
Kristin Neal: Perfect.
Quan Gan: Does she know about about the recent changes? Stan leaving and stuff?
Kristin Neal: Wait. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. So we'll need to. I guess we'll tell her next week.
Kristin Neal: Okay. That's where I was kind of like, should I bring that up or should I come from you?
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Um, there's a few other things that are kind of smaller. Can I, should I bring them to you or?
Quan Gan: popular.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Are we still not including game updates for the extended care? was something that was up in the air with student vote.
Quan Gan: Okay. I wanted to put this into a group decision, because there's a there's a couple of details I need to share with you and then we can figure out what is optimal. So right now all the stuff coming from the factory still only has the six games. That's because those six games are currently stable. They're they're not in beta, whereas the two new games are still being tested. And while they anybody registering now can get access to those two, that is kind of I'm thinking of it as a way to encourage them to get online access if they do have it. Because if the benefit of them getting online access, and this has always been the case is that they're exchanging data for These offer from us, right? So I wanted to give them some incentive rather than just saying, okay, forget about it. We're just get the SD card, which we can, but the SD card is, you know, it's more manual effort on this side, having to logistically handle it. So if they're able to get online, it's easier for us logistically to have them get online. And then the benefit is like, okay, you can update these two games. You know, that's kind of my current thought process with that. don't know if you have any thoughts about that.
Kristin Neal: That sounds good. Just getting online for the updates. That sounds easier, I think, than waiting and going through the process. But I think what the question, what we were never able to get through was, because Stan wanted to charge extra for those updates. He didn't want them part of that extended care.
Quan Gan: Well, the long term trajectory we've yet to Move this, but the long-term trajectory is we want to be able to sell software.
Kristin Neal: Okay. It is the long-term.
Quan Gan: Okay. Because that's where ultimately we're going to get our margins back, right? you're selling the hardware, we have a profit margin on that, but given Trump tariffs or anything like that, hardware is a one-time sale versus being able to sell new software packages is really going to improve our margins and help the company with a repeatable revenue stream.
Kristin Neal: Would we, if you were to do that, would you be able to send them a direct link, like software to their unit?
Quan Gan: What do you mean?
Kristin Neal: Like, let's say I was talking to someone yesterday and they wanted like a Hebrew language word, WAV. Could we send them that?
Quan Gan: So we could start. Certainly do customer specific software, because if they're registered within account, then we can say this account gets this particular software. So that that is certainly possible. So in that alignment, then, you know, I don't necessarily want to promise them free games every year fixing bugs patching, you know, like that's that should be part of the service. Like I phone you operating a lot of times. Yeah, exactly. Like, you know, you get an iPhone, they'll keep on sending you updates to make sure the phone is working, but they're not going to be, you know, giving you free games or free apps. Right. You have to download and buy those.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Quan Gan: So, so I think that's kind of the equivalent where we give you a base set of products, and then maybe a few freebies. But then ultimately these additional premium packages you have to pay for.
Kristin Neal: Okay. That actually sounds like a good.
Quan Gan: Right now, okay, so curious when you're talking with the customers, are they mentioned about a new games or is you mentioned to them and there's come up to new games.
Kristin Neal: They bring it up.
Quan Gan: Oh, so it's pretty much like when they notice we have new games at the trade show. they brought up, do we have that? Is that a new customer or old customers or contact us for the new ones?
Kristin Neal: On where is it a new customer contact to us about the old ones?
Quan Gan: No, no, I mean, it's the old customer. They realize there's new a new game come out and they asking for it or it's a new customer. They, they just saw us have new games. So they're asking about this.
Kristin Neal: The new customer is asking if there's more games coming.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: So they, they're looking at anything past and that's including the eight games. Okay. The old customers are not reaching out for the dates.
Quan Gan: Okay, they are seeing it talk with okay. Yeah, because I think we're talking about a strategy because we do want to collect the old customers data. So maybe we will swap the the new SD card, including the upgrades of the game, but meanwhile, I'll have them send back the old SD card. Okay, so, yes and no. it's much easier to have them get online to get the update because we just get the data.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, I think the SD card is more of a fallback plan.
Quan Gan: It's that they can't get online for whatever reason, and it's too much hassle. Then we get it. I realize it's quite a bit of hassle for us because every one of those cards, I have to plug in and go through a whole bunch of sequences just to get one piece of data. Right. so I would rather not do that. We should have that is saying, okay, that's the absolute way we have to do it. So, for example, Would Julian has he ever did he send you back anything or okay? What what's going on there?
Kristin Neal: Yeah, I don't know if he had a chance to swap all of them, but he did But I haven't heard anything about the old ones I haven't I have reached out to him several times in his last weeks because he has an open quote and all the swag I guess is pending to So I'm definitely chasing him.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, so so you see how? That is makes it it's complicated if you're multiplying it by you know, 200 customers, right?
Kristin Neal: So I would rather use this as a strong incentive for them to get online and exchange the data for us Perfect. Yeah, that sounds good. I like that anyways because it's Following up what I've already been telling him the last year that updates will be online. That's the only thing online Perfect, can we Charlie is there any way that you'd be able to add like a little disclaimer to the The video that quick start video right like How you did it with the testimonials, you just had that little pop-up, like partying the being online part. Yeah.
Quan Gan: What is that regarding? is that? You know, the three minute video, it's the first one. Yeah, the first one with Jonathan. Oh, OK. Just put a little thing saying Wi-Fi is only required for. OK, yeah, yeah. But you can also, like, optionally press skip. OK, OK, yeah.
Kristin Neal: Yes, perfect. And just hit skip. That's a big one. So just that disclaimer.
Quan Gan: One is Wi-Fi only needed for updates or updates, right? OK, yes. What's the other one?
Kristin Neal: And the it's skippable.
Quan Gan: You don't have to be online to to. Oh, OK, if to play the game.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. No Wi-Fi is necessary to play.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah, I think these are the very important details because sometimes we're really confusing for the customers. You know, I always like talking or talk about we need to having updated Q&A and updated a step-by-step guiding to problem solving, like, if there are technical issues. yeah, and also that's something also we want to discuss, like, what we can best support for the cells. And the customer service because I do feel like meanwhile, when put for a full force to develop a new product, but still there are so many things to patch and to, yeah, yeah, to, to, I think, like, for the current customer, we need to constantly providing good customer service. So, like, when they talk to others, know, it's fully, it's a great product, but it's not like, okay, it's the customer service, not good. You know, like, yeah, it's already pretty simple, but I feel like we need to just make it super, super easy to to access something else to I think a value add to existing customers without necessarily requiring new software is we can interview our existing customers, get a program out of it to see how they're using it and then start creating that newsletter. Create the newsletter and start sharing, putting a blog or something together so that they can always refer back to it. I would love to channel the team's energy. They're making that happen.
Kristin Neal: I'm so glad that you brought that up corn because as much as I love the welcome letter, it almost is like it's falling short. Let's change it to the Z 10 community.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Like, let's build that community and have.
Quan Gan: So who, who do you think on our team could spearhead that.
Kristin Neal: Like, um, the technical.
Quan Gan: Or the vision the the execution of it. So that would involve, you know, well, it may be you having to talk to these customers interviewing them and just making sure it's on fathom, right? You gather info, but then that information needs to go to someone on our team to synthesize it into a format that can be put into a newsletter. All right, I need to put you on the test. Okay, I'll come back. Yeah, yeah. Of course. Yeah, so.
Kristin Neal: Thank you.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so it's ultimately it's getting the meeting data or whichever way to collect the game notes from the field. And I turn it into a newsletter.
Kristin Neal: Perfect. I was already thinking about that reaching into Rebecca and seeing if that's something that we could deal with like her few things that she has said, we could start that.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and then we also have Steve and Eric, they have plenty of resources.
Kristin Neal: Great ideas.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I think if we just spent an hour interviewing each of them on the things that they've done, we could probably come up with at least several months of content.
Kristin Neal: Absolutely. And welcome to share in what they're doing.
Quan Gan: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, because there's something I did notice. Because I've been asking Tin and Karmie to tell me more about their roles since they're pretty new and I don't know them that well. And it seems that Karmie has a similar and possibly overlapping skill set with Paula. And so I need to figure out what is the best way to manage their roles, maybe put them to different tasks, but kind of doing similar things. So we need to figure out how to distribute that.
Kristin Neal: Really? I'm shocked at that.
Quan Gan: Yeah, because well, know, you know, Carmen has a graphics design background.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Oh, I didn't know that.
Quan Gan: Yeah, because Stan had brought her in to do social media kind of independently. I don't know exactly what his reason was, yeah. So there is some overlap, but you know, I want to make sure that we're properly utilizing your skill set.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that.
Quan Gan: Yeah. And then, and then Tim, I think she's doing really well on customer service, especially given this is her first month, a lot more proactive. I would like her to help us with getting the manual done. she's also answered, you know, like generally these are the questions that get come up. So figuring out exactly what the FAQ and the knowledge base needs to be once I have some more time, you know, training her about the product. But I think that that would be kind of a general direction.
Kristin Neal: want to send her on that's huge one. Is there any way? it just not possible to send her a unit?
Quan Gan: That would be very difficult. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: I mean, there's quite a few things. mean, import is one of the big things, but also it's from a company liability standpoint. It would be difficult to just have, you know, this is like a several thousand dollar device being sent to someone. Yeah, because even my developers don't have the full, full unit. They're the ones working on it.
Kristin Neal: Okay, got it.
Quan Gan: it, I would, I would rather at some point, you know, if we could do an in person maybe maybe a year from now, if you know, the team is stabilized. That we haven't and meeting and we can actually play and then go through and they kind of works.
Kristin Neal: That would be cool. Yeah. Yeah.
Quan Gan: But yeah, she's doing quite well for not having any experience with the product at all. yeah. I also had a question on, so I see some of the new deals and some of those were lost, but I don't really see where the like on your email thread, I only see your last email, but I don't see their response on, you know, why it was lost. Is that not logged in the CRM?
Kristin Neal: Oh, as far as their response. Yeah, it'll, I've put like close loss because of no response. Like I've, I've tried to reach out to them but if they do.
Quan Gan: Can you share your screen with me? I just want to see if if I'm getting the full info because it may not show up on my my side. Yeah, like, for me, it's really important to understand why some of those deals are lost, improve on that process.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, let's see. There we go.
Quan Gan: Okay, so this one. Okay, I see this one. Okay, she hasn't responded. Okay. Do you feel that it's not worth following up, even though it may imply that it's too expensive?
Kristin Neal: I'm not on that one, because she was under the impression they were $2,000. $2 that's a big that's a really big difference.
Quan Gan: I get it, but I would still follow up maybe like two weeks later or something just to just get a firm confirmation on exactly why okay and because even like you know how do they get this wrong number of $2,000 so are we miscommunicating something so all of that is really good information for us if we basically like if we have something stuck in our teeth I wish some someone's telling us right right even if it's you know perhaps not the answer you want but see it see these things as um not something to just okay pass pass by and forget about it but how can we truly use a lost sale as like turning into really really bad valuable information. There's a cliche saying, it's like, never let a perfectly good failure go to waste or something along those lines. Even though it's a lost sale, let's see how we can really capitalize on it. Because a no is actually more information than a yes. Because yes just says, okay, you did all those things right. But no tells us what did we not do right. And then we decide, okay, are those things we actively want to change? Or is it things that we know, okay, this is not the customer type. And next time, don't have a customer like this approach us. I want to get that those kind of signals.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah. This is along the same lines as why is it important to get broken problems? products sent back to us, at least when it's early. If we know the issue, we don't need them to send us the stuff, but if it's like we have a new batch of products going out, every one of those failures is actually more important to me than the successful products going out there, because we generally need to get that feedback to improve the quality.
Kristin Neal: OK.
Quan Gan: Yeah. So, yeah, this one or any of the last ones, I really want us to, you know, just get the information on exactly why it was lost.
Kristin Neal: OK. Well.
Quan Gan: OK. So let me see a few of the other ones.
Kristin Neal: This one. This one.
Quan Gan: So what was this one? Spoke it down. Okay, okay, did he reply back after you sent him anything now, but I still sent it to him just in case any of it applied. Yeah, so I would still, you know, just reach out and say, Hey, just checking in. It's fine. And that, you know, it's over your budget now, but just let us know if. You know, we might get on your radar at some time later. And then even on these things that are lost, we should probably be on some kind of email cycle. It could be very quick for you, but just like, let's say, six months later or something, just back out on lost deals and say, Hey, by the way, know, you know, have you reconsidered there any new opportunities and you never know. Many of these things, think of it this way, like, let's go back to the funnel. So I look at this as a whole system, like very mechanically rather than individual. So can you scroll to the last, yeah, so we have, you know, the close lost, and that's roughly like a two to one ratio between a one and a close, right? So looking at that, I would venture to say in that 1.1 million of lost, you probably get back a couple hundred thousand dollars potentially by reaching back out to them. And the reason why I say that is those people have already gone through your funnel. So they're probably more prime than a new customer coming in. So there's definitely value to extract further. It may just not be the right timing or a condition. Remember, there's anecdotes like the colexico. They just forgot about us for a whole year, right? It doesn't mean they're, you know, they're completely saying, no, we just know at that time.
Kristin Neal: Well, um, let me share a little bit of the. I'm underside under understanding of where I was kind of going with that because I don't know if you saw, um, I had car me do all the labels for the the accounts. So what's. Like, once the camp, all the camps, I want to get all their information and then at the ACA be able to say, hey, are you guys going to the ACA? We would love to connect with you. know we were being considered at 1 point. So if you'd like to come join us and then have that availability for them to come in.
Quan Gan: That's great. Love it in person meeting. Okay. Yeah, like that, that was kind of like where my, I wasn't giving up on them, but it was more like, I'm trying to organize them to where. I think it be a hybrid approach. You know, rather than a 1 to 1. gear thing to wait for the the conference, which I think is absolutely good. I think it should be we should still have them in some kind of a trickle reach out cycle, maybe once a quarter, just even or even just some like they should be part of the newsletter. Like they should be able to get active information from us to see what they are rather than just, you know, from their perspective, we just dropped off the face of the earth as soon as they said no. But if you look at a lot of, you know, if you subscribe to certain things or buy certain products or you didn't buy certain products, you're still getting their emails, right? They're just constantly kind of nurturing that relationship, even if you don't buy it. And I think we should probably have a similar approach where we somehow even if we didn't sell them the product, we're still providing something of value to them over time.
Kristin Neal: You don't think that would, because everyone does that. You're right. does that. What's their emails?
Quan Gan: then they unsubscribe. Well, unsubscribe is also a good signal because that means we don't have to, you know, spend our energy with them. But it's an active choice.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Quan Gan: It's an active choice. Yes, everybody gets that spam. But it's almost like it's almost like you have to do it to even maintain relevance these days. It's kind of like makeup. like, you know, you have to, that's kind of dressing the part. It's, it's like you're having a window, you know, like being, we're not spamming them. You know, we certainly don't want to be sending them stuff that is of no substance. We want to be sharing with them. Hey, these are what our customers are doing and how we're helping them out. And if they see that as something that could potentially add value, that could turn into a sale.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Or with new products.
Quan Gan: Okay. That sounds like we're getting. And these are things that we could probably strategy. guys out with the AI to figure out what's the optimal touch rate, like how often so that it would be high value and low bother, right? I don't know if it's a monthly or a quarterly but just something because all I'm saying here is the lost deals because they've already had the interaction with us. It's not lost thread. So yes, getting them to come to the trade show is very important but I think we could probably touch them a few more times per year.
Kristin Neal: That sounds good. It'll probably warm them up too to coming and seeing this stuff.
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah exactly. You know I've had so many trade shows where the guy comes to the booth is like look I've seen you guys so many times so okay this time around tell me about your product maybe I got you know maybe my mind will change and sometimes that does.
Kristin Neal: of what what else there's is there anything over on the recent one the linden one wait oh did we just close that today or no that was a few days ago yeah this one this one how many units is that eight eight units okay i think that that number is different from what i saw in the purchase order right the um it was actually the original deal because the original deal was only for four units okay um i was actually talking with her it's just is amazing how much change um and i was like hey you actually have an open quote from before but i didn't mention anything about like price change or anything like i just let it you know if you want to follow through with that one let me know that one has i think it had seven units and she said um no not at this time but thank you so much and i said hey like right After I said, do you guys, are you interested in joining us for boost the dinner, boost dinner? And she said, wow, yeah, that will be great. So she's, she's totally on board and then the very next email was, Hey, I just asked my finance department and they said, we can double the order.
Quan Gan: It very, very natural.
Kristin Neal: In fact, that has happened a few times the last week, whereas I'm being that the intuition is being a little bit better. Another one, and I hope you're okay with this. I know we had talked about the coffee thing before, but I'm offering that coffee. Daisy with Riverside. When she responded, thank you so much. That was so sweet of you. then I saw that she opened up her, her quote again.
Quan Gan: yeah, I, I think. I don't know what the policies are with purchasers. So that that's the only thing I would check maybe. Maybe I can give you that perspective, but they talked about it in the queue.
Kristin Neal: They talked about it with that queue meeting. They said $20 is the limit. They can't accept anything over 20 in California.
Quan Gan: Got it. So if that's very much, you know, within kosher limits, then I would say do it. If that's what, you know, if it speaks to their heart through coffee, that's fine.
Kristin Neal: I've gotten some good response and it's not like, okay, I'm going to offer everybody coffee. It just, if it naturally happens, it just, I just don't want to just feel too salesy. Yeah, exactly.
Quan Gan: You know, so if, if they feel like there's, you know, like a hidden string or something than that, that would not be the case. But if you're really, you know, just doing it because, you know, we're offering value to them, then I think that would be a good approach.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. It feels like it's gone better. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Oh, also, I didn't get a chance to type this, but I think it would come across better just telling you. is I really want to say how much I appreciate this last deal and really share with you the significance of it. This is something that you had started and nurtured the relationship from the beginning and landed the sale, which also shows us that as a company we have a working formula now. You're the person making it work. So it's especially meaningful because prior to that the data is mixed with Stan's input and a lot of stuff that he's warmed up and put in your hands. But seeing that this is something that you've completely took it from start to finish and this is after a year, it's giving us a lot of encouragement that this is going to be a strong year because you have all the formula.
Kristin Neal: what it takes to to land it and even you know unintentionally throwing you into the deep end of the trade show you were able to handle that too that almost i'm sorry what charlie no i just give you a thumbs up i would not miss that almost was the most discouraging thing of the month but it ended up being so good yeah and also it's such a great uh good timing of because it really is the the the saying all about stan and also financial is a big shock for the company so we really need to quickly put our you know everything back to the normal so yeah yeah thank you thank you charlie it was perfect i mean i can't i couldn't agree more every everything um even learning from you guys both being with you both um at time about energy And I don't know, I just everything just aligned perfect. Yeah.
Quan Gan: But also, I think the thing is, um, I will, we're going to start jumping to, uh, how, how the procedure of after you finish the sales and ship out when is the time we will give you the commission and, and, like, maybe you need to work us through, like, at what stage. Um, Stan used to pay you through what, you know, I know, and he pay you through a guest though, right? Is that, like, because, because this has a cycle. So it's a half month payment, or is that the payment to you is every time after he assigned is instantly goes to you. So, maybe you can walk walk us with the details how, like, after you approach. and finish the PO or the sales when what time is that before the check coming or right after the shipment? I think it would be better to give us more details about the procedure.
Kristin Neal: Okay, sounds good. So, I'll get a PO from Lyndon.
Quan Gan: Yeah, this might be going into too much detail. Okay, I think as much detail as I think it's also help us to understand the process.
Kristin Neal: Awesome.
Quan Gan: Awesome.
Kristin Neal: This here is like the Lyndon. So, this was so good.
Quan Gan: In large, yeah.
Kristin Neal: February, March. So, it was about six weeks, it looks like. Actually, it looks like less than that.
Quan Gan: Awesome. Yeah, yeah. you can improve in the time frame, it would be awesome.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, it's more like two weeks for this one.
Quan Gan: Two weeks? Is the beginning?
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Actually. one week February. it's been a little over a week for this one. So this one, good communication going back and forth.
Quan Gan: She sent over the PO.
Kristin Neal: This was when I look at exactly what it is needed because they'll have different requirements. And then I come over here. I go to the deals. And then I'll close and win. I'll go to the quotes and then I will convert it.
Quan Gan: So the quote number is a different number from the deal number. I mean the grand total.
Kristin Neal: Yes, because this one includes tax.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay, got it.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, I don't include the tax for.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: And then once I converted to the sales order, that's when I add the PO. Number 2, and then it's between the grand total and the subtotal.
Quan Gan: There's a subtotal is even higher. Is that because there's a discount?
Kristin Neal: Yes.
Quan Gan: Okay, so there's so the subtotal has a. Discount and then the grand total is. After discount, but adding tax, right?
Kristin Neal: Yes, tax because it goes. Um, actually, I'm glad we're looking at this because I wanted to show you something. This has come up a few times with some partners. So it'll go the subtotal, the discount on tax. And then the grand total, but we had, we had talked about this before. Why are we adding discount down here when we can just add it right here? Is that something classes can help us with? I can do it when I create it.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Um, I'll just show up right here. The amount that's discounted.
Quan Gan: Right. Okay. So what's. What's the question? Was it a decision that Stan wanted?
Kristin Neal: No, keep it down here.
Quan Gan: I never understood.
Kristin Neal: He never explained.
Quan Gan: Okay, can you take a screenshot and ask AI, maybe get its opinion?
Kristin Neal: Yeah, that sounds good.
Quan Gan: Yeah, just take screenshots of how you would want it to be and then just see what the pros and cons of it and then you can make your executive decision there.
Kristin Neal: Okay, that sounds good. Then I will convert this as the sales order.
Quan Gan: So it's P.O. coming in and you will create a deal and you generate a quotes and what is the sales order is same as quote or is after the quote, the sales order?
Kristin Neal: The deal and the quote have already been created.
Quan Gan: That's the same. Okay, so when you create a deal is you generate a quote.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Yeah, like it's right after the process, the process of a quote. The deal has already been made and then I create a quote.
Quan Gan: The deal is as a project registration. So you're you're registering saying there's this potential customer about to make the sale. Okay. The quote is the physical PDF. And you send it back to the customer.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Yes, it's converted into a sales order if they send appeal. Yes.
Quan Gan: Oh, so, so it's the PO is not the beginning. The beginning is later. Okay. the deal is contact. Okay. Well, no, no, no, okay. We need to get the language very clear. CRM. There are various clear words. Okay. Okay. It comes in as a lead. Okay. A lead is a is is usually the contact information of a person from a an organization. But then Kristen would convert the lead into an account when she's, when she makes the deal with it. So a deal and an account gets created at the same time. Okay. I'm speaking correctly, right?
Kristin Neal: Yes, and I'm actually going through it. Charlie, you can watch this after and you can see the steps. So you convert a lead into an account.
Quan Gan: But when you convert an account, account may have multiple contact people underneath. Account is like a company, right? very lead might just be one contact within an account. And then the deal is associated with an account. It's saying this is the project size, but you can have, you can have multiple deals with the same account because the account might later on like next year ask for something else and then you create a new deal. But you don't duplicate accounts. And so with every deal, Chris would send them. One or more quotes, because sometimes they might need quotes for like a lower volume and a higher volume to see different price breaks and then they decide whether they want to purchase it or not, and then they send a purchase order. So, Christian, you have here convert lead means, is it the time you're giving them the quote? Yeah. In the very beginning of the process, we convert a lead. Okay. So, okay, convert to. So it's the time by the time you already know the details like how many units there are already. Yes.
Kristin Neal: Yes.
Quan Gan: And then that will automatically turn into an account.
Kristin Neal: This is their account name. And then I'll come down here to the quote. I'll create a quote. And then send it to them either through this, you can send it. the email. Okay. This is the quote template. So it'll look like this. And then next. And then sometimes there's templates that you can add or at least be able to get like a general that you tweak. Um, let's see.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. Awesome.
Kristin Neal: They can just tweak. I never actually just send that. So you have to add your own personal. So like ahead of time, you have either for after school or for camp, you just different language. Yes. Yes. All of this process you can do from your phone now. Yeah, it's beautiful. Yeah. And then sending this is where we send them the Oh, and now I'm distinguishing it in the email. So it's not so overwhelming for them saying, here's a quote that you requested and here's for your finance department and then I'll do the W9 and the soul source letter. I'll specifically say this is for you. And this is for them. If you have any questions, I'm here to partner with you in any way to be able to get this to your district. And then I will wait for their PO and then That's when I convert the quote to the sales order.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Right here. So I would convert it to the sales order.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: The sales order comes up and then I input the quote information and then I convert it to the invoice. The invoice is left there while I in that same. Field in the same module. guess you could go it. You can create shipments, and through that link of creating shipments, they will come down here, and so you'll see all the units with their individual labels registered right here. This might be something, is this deployed systems? Would that be a good time to.
Quan Gan: To input that information, the deployed systems should actually be automatic. Let me see.
Kristin Neal: Should we check it out, Linda?
Quan Gan: Yeah, well, originally deployed systems should be when we ship it to them and they register. That it's logged in here.
Kristin Neal: So, remember those that you told me to do before I forgot that I did them, you had me go over. Rehearing deployed products, I think.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, I did.
Kristin Neal: I think almost, I think all of them.
Quan Gan: I think what it was deploying deploy products means there's an association with this serial number or that that unit to a particular customer. Where are they now? don't see.
Kristin Neal: I don't know to tell you it was under that it was so long ago. Was it under systems or was it shipments? I don't miss shipments.
Quan Gan: Shipments should happen when you make a shipment that that's automated. I didn't get the deployed systems to fully work yet. Let me look on that again. Yeah, because I ideally eventually you should go into CRM and be able to see what software package they have.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: That's but it's dependent on them being able to get online with that.
Kristin Neal: That makes sense because several of them that you had me register, they were already online.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so they were already like, connected to their account.
Kristin Neal: I think that's what you were having me do.
Quan Gan: Connect them to their accounts. When you have some time, can you find that screenshot again? Or maybe scroll through, when did I give you that?
Kristin Neal: It's been a while. I feel like it was in the airport, like running through and you're like, oh, by the way, let me show you this real quick.
Quan Gan: I'll look it up again. Yeah. I lost my thread.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, sorry, I did too. Okay, so let's see. Okay, so after the replacements are in on this side, Charlie, then I go over to Shippo.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: And then they should come up right here.
Quan Gan: So it's connected already so when you're general over there, it's already connected over here.
Kristin Neal: They should be. they haven't been the last few weeks, but it looks like we got it figured out.
Quan Gan: got it worked out. So. So, for example, like this order, you quick bathroom break. Okay. Go ahead. So, as you said, order has complete the sales order has complete and you generate the shipping label. So Ricardo at office, he already being able to access the label. So whatever he's ready in office, so he is able to. and ship it to the customer, right?
Kristin Neal: He doesn't have access to this.
Quan Gan: He's never given access.
Kristin Neal: I have to, after I download all of them, then I go to a compress website and then select compress and merge all the labels. And then I send them to Ricardo.
Quan Gan: Okay. Oh, okay, email to him.
Kristin Neal: Okay. So all he has to do is print and stick.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Very, very adamant that he does not do anything more than that.
Quan Gan: Oh, awesome. Okay. To ship person. So is that already these eight units are already come out this time?
Kristin Neal: They're already the, Ricardo said that they were ready, I believe. Let's see. I saw somewhere. Usually, if I give them a day notice, then it's not an issue.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, when it's less than a day's notice, there's issues.
Quan Gan: I see.
Kristin Neal: And then after this, then I will go to UPS.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: And sign in. Um, what's your name? And I, I know 10 has access to this.
Quan Gan: I don't think her me. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Yes.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. So 10 has access. she will helping you on prepared a prepared shipping label?
Kristin Neal: She is only for the replacements.
Quan Gan: Oh, for, okay. Okay. For placement.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Yeah. Not for new orders, which would be. Really, really nice, especially because we're going to be on the road. If that could be something I think I showed. Carmi the process, so I think she might just need access to ups. I haven't shown her. How to do this, so, but I can show her how to. Create the pickup. Yeah, that's a really good, I especially with us coming up because we're going to be on the road. It'll be hard. I can do that and I'll do that before leaving. Then after that, then the the pickup is is ordered. Everyone is notified because you can add. Do you want me to add you to the the email for pickups?
Quan Gan: Oh, yeah, it would be nice to to see. sometimes if one is traveling, if I'm at office, I can't.
Kristin Neal: Perfect. Okay. Perfect. And then that's it. Oh, and then. So after that, getting it all, having all of the tracking numbers of the units, I will email the contact, the new partner, and I'll say, thank you so much for your patience. Your units are on their way. Here are the tracking numbers and here is a link to the welcome letter. And that's when all the training videos and things like that, so we can smoothly implement into their programs. So we say, if there's any issue, that's when I'll bring in the support, know, if you have issues, go ahead and email support or let me know. And then that's it.
Quan Gan: So, right now, the welcome letter, know, are working on the welcome letter. And is that right now you still using the formal, the formal way. of sending them PDFs and links.
Kristin Neal: Oh, Stan, and I was thinking about this through earlier, Charlie, I'm glad you brought that up because Stan at the time said to do a PDF version still, including the welcome page. I'm OK with that, doing the PDF and sending it. I haven't sent it to the linen one yet. I'm sending it today because they're being shipped today. But I don't mind that version because if we can create the community more on the web page, that feels a little bit better. You can see more by scanning this. You can see the community page. I don't know. That might be something to bring up to Kwan.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I think it would be nice to because I do feel like it's such a great community. Out there as the school district and also the site coordinators. So, if we can provide a platform for them to build the. The closeness, the connectedness in that would be really, really nice. And even in the future could come up with some trade, like retreat or something. know, I do feel the potential of providing. Um, give back activities like that. But also, I do feel. That the language we're providing, we're not just selling the product, we care about the stories they share. We care about the kids, how they love this. So we would definitely love to even on that page. Welcome them to constantly connect us to to send photos and this and that. And yeah, I feel like it's it. There's a lot of things we can do, including having like polar. or cleanses or all of that, we need to give them a lot of, a lot of things to, to, to, to build up this because I agree. Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. Yeah, yeah, so not only just letters, because I think the letter maybe just stays at the person who pays the money, right? But, but later on, even it could be included in, in the box. And they scan the QR code, they can constantly know, oh, there's a community up there. yeah, yeah, it will be, it will be very cool. Yeah. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Okay, so you're thinking a letter to the person in charge is a good idea, which I, I agree. And then how several have done it, they'll send off that letter and my contact to their team. So it's easy for them to, to kind of
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah, because I do feel like she is she has, I do feel like she has a good ability to quickly come up a website or a page. So we can have like community page or you know, it's easy, but it just like probably during the trip we have to brainstorming like how we collecting these how we. Not put every every day at the up there, but I guess once I like, we're very passionate about collecting all the testimonials, but Stan, he mentioned he want to because at the beginning I said, oh, mate, why not we just put a testimonial like link on our manual, like website manual, but he said, oh, we need to promote this strategically. But I think I am not fully understand why he say it needs to strategically even it's hidden up there but but these boys are. valuable. So as I said, maybe we need to divide it into different, different customers like cams or racks or, or who so maybe separate them a little bit, but still I want them to see what other people use and how, how their feedback is instead of hiding it. Yeah. So, so these are the things even can be included in the welcome letter.
Kristin Neal: that's interesting because now you're getting like cross pollination almost, do know what mean? They're, they're taking ideas that would be good for and seeing they have something that might work with that bill too. That's a really good idea. So like even saying, because like some web pages come up and we'll give you the option I am a camp counselor or a after school care or parks and rec so that they choose who they are first and then it would be.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Because we're we're attending the traditional last time I can feel the force, you know that the force of they willing to talk about Z tag how the kids reacted they do want to share right like every time we ask them there, there's so much emotion involving and so it is it is like they it's not like we're forcing them to do but they come up with that how positive impact we were being they They're proud of putting into their school and they're they're so happy to witness so many positive things being so so I think it's we need to collect this and feed it back to to the potential customers. And also like we're even talk about with coin. Maybe we need to work with some Institute to do some data, you know, like the research based on data. That's a very solid evidence of how we can impact. Bring the wellness to the kids. I think these are also we need to build up the. The media, how we spread these words out to let more people to know how, how, uh, how the tech works.
Kristin Neal: Charlie, that's interesting that you say that because I totally agree with that data at the ACA. I connected with someone back at the Cherokee nation. Remember the. The one that we got, think last year, and she was like, would you guys ever consider doing the foreign, the language wave with their native language? And I was like, we've already discussed this with someone actually there. We are totally willing to do that. So she was like, yeah, I totally, of course, I didn't get any information from her, but she, if I go through that other contact, because I specifically looked up the contact from the Cherokee and she's like, yeah, I know her. So I was like, okay, so let's get on it. So that might be a good. I don't know, what do you think? A good test?
Quan Gan: Yeah, let's do it.
Kristin Neal: It's only for that data that you're looking for, Charlie, because everything is data driven right now.
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah, I think it's quite, quite exciting. just like how, you know, meanwhile it's very exciting, but meanwhile we need to focusing on the most essential things to make the foundation solid. Then later on, we can add up whatever, you know, but yeah, I just, right now, it's still the time to find a balance.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, yeah, I totally agree with that. Charlie, one of the biggest things that might be best to work on, and you had already mentioned it, is that manual? And at least just restructuring it, like the videos and things like that. I hate that it's in the back, it's like hidden, people really like those videos. Stan had said, because a lot of them need to be,
Quan Gan: The manual has like 10 different QR codes of videos, but it's at the very back. It's like a reference.
Kristin Neal: Oh, okay.
Quan Gan: Okay. There's like a 20 page PDF page. We need to completely redo that. Yeah. Is that something Paula can do?
Kristin Neal: Well, yes and no. Because before no, because it took like videoing the unit and working through that, et cetera, et cetera. But Stan had a really good idea about actually doing it a cartoon version of the videos. And that was what Paula had sent to the team. It was a very, very rough draft. there's maybe a way that we can even, Juan, we met Zane. Remember Zane, the tech leader of North? I mean, it would be so neat to have like a character I'm sorry have them do it for us. Yes.
Quan Gan: Can we get would they like I don't even know like if that would be like yeah we can get we can get kids to produce it and then like we could pay them like yeah yeah well maybe it's a fundraise what they there some come up some project but if they can help providing I think it would be really nice like a budget we can talk about if it's a budget and they can yeah okay so maybe I can reach out to them to see if they because they have a whole production team so if they're willing to take their unit and help us make a an updated demo that would be really good do you think just the videos of them or cartoon version of them if they're willing to do real video I think that that probably is more descriptive and actually yeah if you had to make a card And like with the details that we have in there, it's probably going to take more time than just to get people to film it.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah. And I think that right now it's everything is trying towards more artificial. Um, so I feel like it's the real content, like really people smile is, it's very important and it's valuable. Also, you know, we took plenty of video Ricardo did last year at Eric's place. It's in that drive. I don't know if you had a chance to look through what for introduction or how to use it. Yeah, there's there's so much. Well, it's not so much on operating. It's more on best practices because he actually chose having students walk together and how they approach. There's so much good b-roll in. Oh, okay. Okay. So, so like, I think we actually have quite a bit of existing content. Okay, and that's good.
Kristin Neal: So then we can just give them like a snippet of exactly what videos we need kind of thing like not, you know, open up the floodgates.
Quan Gan: Okay. you reach out to them, let me and Charlie go through our inventory videos first and see what we have. Yeah, and get clear on that. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Oh, let's get back to get back to the the so after the shipment is that at the time is then start sending you the commission.
Kristin Neal: Oh, yes. Sorry. Let's go.
Quan Gan: After the shipment.
Kristin Neal: Yes, that's when. Um, that my commission gets paid out a lot of times though they will be shipped. Um, I can't remember.
Quan Gan: Does he have it on a like some kind of a week or bi-weekly schedule or is it as soon as the ships he goes into the castle and does it.
Kristin Neal: So last year, he was doing that because there was, there were several all at once. So he would wait, you know, a few weeks and then
Quan Gan: Everybody in a batch, right?
Kristin Neal: Yeah. But then once, if there, there's nothing, then he just pushed right like these, these are pretty. Yeah. Every couple of weeks he pushed them through. Yeah, and then just putting that date on there. So I know that to look for it. That's huge. Oh, okay. This also helps me if you're able to put in when a payment is received.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: And I'm kind of curious if Karmie would be able to, unless you guys are taking control of that, but yeah, I hate reaching out. don't know. just, it's very, I don't know.
Quan Gan: Reaching out to get paid?
Kristin Neal: Yes. That's so weird.
Quan Gan: Like, I'm okay with it, but it's also like. She's a, she's a bloodhound.
Kristin Neal: Oh, that's right. Right? Is she also, well, she's also sales, isn't she?
Quan Gan: No, she doesn't do sales. No, she just, but it's, well, it's a little bit. easier for Ganttum because we have ongoing work with people, or actually, with Ganttum, we don't even ship until it gets paid. the customers are typically more proactive. But with institutions, you just need to call their department. But I think it's actually going to be easier because you're dealing with institutions. You're not dealing with small private companies.
Kristin Neal: There's also, I'm sorry to jump in. We had talked about this at the last meeting about having a better after-purchase process, because there is no process for after-the-purchase. It's they send the payment and then there's no word until they get the unit. But if we're able to, like at that last email, I was telling Charlie in the last email, I send them the tracking numbers of their unit and the welcome letter and saying, here you go, here's your team to implement very well. If I could include Carmi in that email and say, This is card me if you have any issues with your payment, she'll be reaching out to you when we receive payment and and kind of do that introduction of her. So, there's any issues with him and things go through her and then they'll know that she's the one to goes that. We'll be reaching out to them if there's any issue.
Quan Gan: What do you mean the payment is normally they, they will send us a check like that. So, what do you mean, like, the problem of the payment?
Kristin Neal: Well, there was a few times that they got lost at your house, I think like there was just like.
Quan Gan: Okay, so that was last year where they still had my house address and then we don't think that will happen in the future if it just directly sent to the office and you've updated the address with all of those previous contacts, right?
Kristin Neal: Yes. Yes, I have, like Soledad, Soledad's payment didn't come in until a while later. Like that was one that he had me. And he still hasn't been put it how interesting that one was remember the week that we were in Okay The can the canned symposium is that that that's the big check that came in this yeah, yeah So I guess I never input that but we did get it. Yes You input that I Don't stand always did he only date.
Quan Gan: Okay. I'll stand over okay. Yeah Well, I would say just go ahead and edit that since he's not gonna edit it Yeah, maybe in the future every time I receive it.
Kristin Neal: I can access this document and then put it.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay. Yes That should actually turn into a Zoho creator form I Think this is fine for now, but I'm gonna convert this into an app later. Okay. Yeah, that would be because I ideally you See the check you take a photo and then it just logs it right there You Yeah, but right now this is manual because there's not too many things to do with it. so the after purchase process needs to be defined after a purchase process is it just chasing the check or is it more of like sending a receipt sending a receipt? Do we have to send them a receipt? We never have before. Yeah, normally like again, when I receive a payment, will send a deposit then also send a receipt. Oh, okay.
Kristin Neal: I say always send the receipt.
Quan Gan: I think for government, it will be more formal to send them back a receipt. So then that should just be your process then? Yeah, yeah. So you do it through the CRM? Yeah, every time if I receive a check, I deposit and mark it over here. I send a deposit in systems and send a receipt. It's I think it's a very normal procedure.
Kristin Neal: Let me show you on this one. Hang on one second. Let's say, London, London. Because there is a way to this. I don't for some reason it just never got through with Stan and it's very frustrating. Um, okay, so this year in CRM, you're in the invoices and right here go to books. So this is their invoice. So when you get the payment from Linden, you would just go over here to the go. And it comes up right here, Charlie.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: And then that's when you, um, the payments, the credit payment. There, there's might be off because, uh, They sent shipping costs, so I let them know that it wasn't it was over, who knows? And then this is where you record the payment. And then it would come up with the, this might be where, is this where you want her to attach the files? Oh, I think I need to attach the chat. Perfect. And then after that, receipt will be generated and then just send it to them. Let them know that that we, we got.
Quan Gan: So, okay, what, what, so like, how do I, how do I send it back? How do I send the receipt?
Kristin Neal: Once, let's see. How can I show clothes list? Okay, here's a paid one.
Quan Gan: It'll come up just like this. And you hit the pd.
Kristin Neal: PDF. So it'll create the PDF and then you're able to go back to when it's contacts. There's a few different ones. So I would go to the invoice, go back to the invoice and see who the contact was for that.
Quan Gan: Okay, I'll go back to the invoice on the CRM and that's for that information. Okay, so okay. You would copy the email?
Kristin Neal: Yes, and then send it to them.
Quan Gan: Is there a schematic that I can do that? For example, like zero. It's something. That should be through books. I am so right now. Yeah, what happens if you say send invoice or sent invoice? should send a receipt. okay. So in a, um, can you find one that has been paid?
Kristin Neal: see. Do we have a test page?
Quan Gan: Um, well, if you click on send email, I probably won't send immediately. Just see if you're asked something. So yeah, if you press, uh, send email, what does that say?
Kristin Neal: This, Stan said that he hated how automatically it's looked.
Quan Gan: Oh, how it's very cold. Yeah, it still looks very nice. Um, well, I mean, you could change that template, but let's see.
Kristin Neal: And then it should, yeah, it'll come up automatically with the contact.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. What, what was the concern about sending this email? No, I mean, sending, uh, a receipt so this is an invoice right it's not a receipt but it says okay your invoice can be printed oh yeah i did say it was paid didn't it oh didn't it say it was paid let's see yeah so i think that just might be a matter of yeah um so for example like you can send them this paid and it's for them because it's it's just marked as paid right instead of a very raw format that's an interesting one yeah because it didn't didn't mark the zero balance it didn't mark it as paid but on the on the corner i think that's just that might just be template not doing it correctly so maybe classes can help you figure out that template first
Kristin Neal: Yeah. So the template in books for paid invoices.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: And she might be able to automate that if you have a nice.
Quan Gan: yeah, yeah, that would be, that would be nice too.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Consistently because that one. Not looks very.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, like too. Yeah. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Just have a corner on mark as paid.
Kristin Neal: Exactly this. Just like that.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Um, but having that encouragement to like, we're here for you. Um, you know, we'll be checking in in a few months. We can't wait to hear feedback or something. And then that, in that third one in the third month, when I check in, that's when I'll say if you have, if you know anyone, we would love to connect with them. Oh, okay. Yeah, nice.
Quan Gan: And the thing is for like following up after you send out the invoice and the shipment, is there any page here? I can see the process, like how many days it's due, you know, like, so I would know when I expecting the check come in, or if you're overdue, maybe someone like Karmie will start contacting them. Is there any page over here? will, what? We will see.
Kristin Neal: This one right here on the shipment date shipped right here, or even in the shipments.
Quan Gan: Okay, so it's based on the shipment. I think it would be nice to have a page. You will see all the payments. All the payments process from one customer. No for all the customers from all the customer. The product has been shipped and we're waiting for the tax. That should be this one.
Kristin Neal: That's this one. Yeah. Where did it go? This one. So this is where we're waiting on the payment. How they have it is they pay when they receive the, the units. So if it's 2 weeks after the date that it shipped, you, you'll know 3 weeks or overdue.
Quan Gan: So is this can be automatically? Yeah, I, I believe there be a form that we can create that does this in a CRM. So you don't have to come back here. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's important because. Okay, so let's not break any processes yet, but keep to this and then over time I'll see if I can optimize it. Yeah. Right now you will say, like, based on the ship dates, you add another. other week or two then then after that for 30 days it will be the time we're expecting so okay they do have like a term 30 term um 60 um those are rare a rare those are rare so normally you said there's normally when they receive the the package they will start a writing a chart right oh okay so it's not like net 30 no okay awesome yeah but but do we have a will we have a note if you you know the customer will asking for a net 30 will we note in our system they've been so rare but i can oh okay yeah yeah that would be nice if we mark it somewhere so we typically tell them we we don't do yeah we don't do terms um we're doing that term so it's uh payments due upon yeah receipt yeah there were though a few that we
Kristin Neal: He said, okay, so is that okay? We still do it for the very rare, because they were fine.
Quan Gan: We just need to note that we get overstretched because let's say you have 10 different customers each having 10 units out there. And we're not getting paid for 100 units. Yeah. And for such like 50 days, that's that's yeah, that's quite a risk.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I think it was only like two last year.
Quan Gan: I think that's manageable. Yeah, because this comes back to where our intellectual property does hold enough weight because we're not competing with anybody else. So it's like, yeah, you just don't get this product. We can't get it from anybody. So we get to dictate those payment terms.
Kristin Neal: Okay. This is the version that I'm sharing with the girls now. So they'll have this info. And I forgot to add. Um, the conference special. So this will be where they They also see that I have a.
Quan Gan: I have a question, I see how you feel about it. So, with our import tariffs increasing. I wonder if we can decrease the amount of discount we give.
Kristin Neal: I'm glad you brought that up. I'm glad you brought that up because. I was so like, oh my gosh, I don't know what to do because. So, twin rivers was given a quote without their discount. It was only at 12%. And that was for the 30 plus orders. They technically with the discount set was given to me. me show you. At the beginning. He should have already been at 17.5% off.
Quan Gan: So that was like, oh my
Kristin Neal: I didn't know what to do as far as rectifying that because he was getting two additional units. he technically is still at the 17 and half percent. So I was going to add that to stay honoring this. it also would have dishonored our previous engagement not giving him that. That's why I told Stan, please, can we just donate the swag? Like just donate all of it so that we're kind of like even it out. And then I told him, please, can we reconsider the discounts? Because there's only been, I think, one, one that was at 12 and a half percent. I don't think anyone has gotten 20 while I'm in here. I don't think anyone's been given the 15 percent.
Quan Gan: I'm actually even talking about the lower tier. Like, do you think we should give 10 off the bat? Is that expected or can we maybe decrease it to 5 percent?
Kristin Neal: We could do 5 percent and then anything over 10 is 10 percent.
Quan Gan: I over 15 is 15% and just leave it at that because the same is right now on the import tax are rising 20% and I think it's just overall is rising up the cost of the manufacturer in general and so like even get them we're doing 10% price rise so. I think it's we're not like we're not like fully push that to the customers, but also I do feel like we need to. Do some according that you know that the change political everything change to to adjusting the policies and and I think the the customer will understand. But I wonder with the below 10 units. How often did they ask for the 10% off and versus how often do we tell them they get it?
Kristin Neal: They never asked for it. I just say it automatically.
Quan Gan: Because I wonder if they would have paid the higher amount anyways and we're just leaving money on the table. Because for the schools, they buy us it's not because we're providing discounts. I think it's the content we're providing is the things, the service they need. But I do feel like how we can collect this money and turn it into making the connectedness or build up the later on the retreat. I think it's like how we go back to school to bring the merchandise, know, like all of that. So if these are the things, it's not just only make the money higher feel comfortable, They're half money to pay for us. I think we deserve that amount of money. It's not like we're not providing a products. We're not proud of. We're very proud of the product. And it was that amount of money. Then I don't feel like discounting ourself. Maybe it just makes us feel comfortable. But the thing is, if we can using we have a pool of having money constantly get back to community. I think that will create more values of both contributing to the people who using us, but also helping us to build us the representation, how we representing that.
Kristin Neal: Okay, yeah, that sounds good. I like that. Like, instead of giving them discount, how can we go into them another way?
Quan Gan: Yes. Yeah. So I would say maybe just. Keep it. Well, okay. So before I stay what I think we should end up. with is the discounts need to be properly aligned to the incentive of the behavior. So for example, why would we give a discount to at a trade show? the incentive should be hopefully they can turn it into a sale quicker rather than oh you're just going to get a discount whether you see us at a show or even six months later. So maybe the discount is like you get you get a 10% discount if you can if you can make this deal within the 30 days. You can get this approved within 30 days will give you a 10% discount. If not, then it's the retail value.
Kristin Neal: I would cut it down to two weeks we just saw how fast that one came through.
Quan Gan: Okay then just say yeah within two weeks we'll give you a 10% discount if you can do that right because that that's incentivizing okay we're getting faster cash flow then then we can extend that to you. If you're waiting for three months and no it's the retail value. of you, right? And then the, and then the other incentive is, yeah, if you're buying a higher quantity for your entire district, if we can bump you up to that tier, then sure, we can give you another few points. But you know, we just give discounts everywhere, you lose the incentive, so you're really, that money is lost.
Kristin Neal: I almost would prefer the other way because it gets so, it would get so ugly because they didn't get their payment in or their PO to us within the two weeks. I would almost say let's just forgo the discount and just still honor the ZTAG care, the extended care, because that seems like it, and well, the only thing that I've noticed, though, Juan, with the extended care is people, it feels like they're thinking, okay, I'll just keep getting that every year and just get the additional ZTAGers and And I won't have to buy another unit. So I almost feel like that's where their thought process is going. So we can even bump up the Z tag care to where it's like, okay, maybe it's not, but it's, it's up to you on that one.
Quan Gan: Well, I don't think that will actually play out anyways, because they're going to have breakage. They're going to, even if they got new units, they still can only run one game at a time. So it doesn't allow them to necessarily serve that much more people. Like if they wanted to fully scale, they have to get a second unit because it means they're concurrently using them. If they're just getting six extra units every year, four years later, it doesn't equate to a new system because they're still connected to the same system.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Quan Gan: Good. Because Z taggers don't work by themselves.
Kristin Neal: No, but they could join the the game of what up to 48 on that one case I'm okay with that.
Quan Gan: You know, it's It's up to their logistics to take care of because they have to charge them separately. It's a lot like There's gonna be more pain in managing those extra units Then just getting a separate Okay, that sounds good then I like that But I do appreciate having the the extended care be the Incentivizer because that that shows there's some inherent value. So, you know, you may give any discounts just say look, this is 9700 at the show but with the show we're giving you this extra year of care and put a price tag on that Okay, a thousand dollar value. Yeah 930. Yeah, exactly. And and that's like By being to bump up to that, mean, we get several benefits it essentially covers the the price increase on our on our cost curves. And you get a bump in your commission to a little bit.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Okay, that sounds good. then after you think 10, that'll be the 10%.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I think we can do that.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Quan Gan: It's a very flat.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Would it be something that I could kind of play with?
Quan Gan: if they're, I've, yes, you know, since. Yes, I would say, feel it out.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: And don't leave money on the table, right? That's really the skill of the sales. It's like, you, you see what they're able to afford. And then you see how much we can charge for it.
Kristin Neal: That actually seems like it'll be even better with that one that said they thought the unit was like 2000. So that'll clarify.
Quan Gan: Yeah. How I've worked with others. sales reps before with Ganttum is they get a certain leeway you know as long as you don't break out of that leeway because we certainly don't want to be selling it at a loss right so you can even say hey you know I talked to our management and you know play a little bit and see okay we're able to offer you know some something additional right okay and it's very much to our discretion and we don't have it on a table saying okay like you have to get this because if something official goes out then then other people are like okay why why did they get it because they cried or something okay and that's okay with you if they're mad that it's not written out because I do get that a lot I get that where is your pricing what where is your pricing form they want to see it black and white um well then I think the pricing form should be rather conservative we shouldn't give too much discount on the price Pricing form and then if you need a little bit more leeway, then indeed just come to us and say, look, if, if we can give them a few extra. Hundreds of dollars of discount, then I think I can close this deal.
Kristin Neal: Then we approve it. Okay. Okay. So like a per person.
Quan Gan: Yeah, fresh.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Gotcha.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. So then, then above 10, we can just keep it flat. then if they really have a high volume, then we can say, Hey, let's talk.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Quan Gan: So far, we haven't really hit anything above 10, right?
Kristin Neal: Not really besides Julian, but he had 12% off.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: There's a few 12s. But yeah, they've just got 12 and a half percent off.
Quan Gan: Well, any quote you have out there, I think we can hold, but new ones just readjusted this pattern.
Kristin Neal: Okay, so anything over 10. Okay. And I'm glad that got worked out.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I don't think someone buy 60 units.
Kristin Neal: At least not yet.
Quan Gan: Whoa.
Kristin Neal: My goal Charlie. Unit.
Quan Gan: We'll get there. I think we can have, you know, hold deployments like that. But okay, are you clear on everything on your end? Yeah. Okay. So, so right now we're owning you the, the commission for eight units right now. Right. Processing that.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Yes. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Do I have access to this document? Yeah. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Good. Good. we go.
Quan Gan: Oh, I had a army just reached out to me directly to see if I had. anything to assign her. Okay. I would actually more defer her back to you. Do you have anything that she could really help you with on your back end process?
Kristin Neal: I know there is. Yeah, absolutely.
Quan Gan: Yeah, because I do feel like we are right now hiring them for eight hours a day. I do feel like a lot of things can't be done. So it's because when we're talking about they can pre ahead of time thinking of what can contribute. But also I do feel like we need to have some, some further like strategies of what our company are moving to, even like if we want to involve in more community content, how they can do that. But the thing is I do feel like I want, I want them feel they have works to do instead of just wasting time there waiting for orders and yeah. So I like maybe later on All night we need to hear more from you, like how many work load they have to support you and besides that, how we can give them a direction, at least a directions on what kind of things they can work on.
Kristin Neal: Okay, that sounds good.
Quan Gan: Okay, I'll give. Yeah, like during next week's, you know, just a huddle time. You should have some kind of a work group or breakout form so that we have these different tasks and then they can just You know, really, really work on it. So for example, I'm seeing like Someone should go back through all the historical sales data and really kind of do like almost like a forensic analysis of when this happened, what chain of events had to happen to lead to a successful deal Versus the ones that were not successful and then once we gather all of that data, we could put it into the AI and the AI will give us a better model of how how to guide our sales process. I see I see the wisdom of that one but I also um knowing on my end it was such a hard year last year I'm not even joking we're trying to figure out the process because I never knew the process so I'm only coming into that process this year to be very honest um like all of what I have said this last okay you know whatever so like I would hate for the process to be based on that because it was kind of so you feel like back then it's not a good example exactly like yes I know now what not to do right now within the CRM are um are you actively adding enough data and metrics that we could pull from it and CRM yeah I think so yeah because I would love for us to generate some kind of like a weekly report to and this may not be something that you have to do but if you're
Kristin Neal: working with a process one of the other teammates can do for us to see you know how many deals are closed and how many deals are are lost and then get the learning from it and we can talk about it and then that we can IDS into okay do we have any revision yeah I mean if anything it would be like I get those those things but I'm also like the tangible like if we're able to like I have the deals right here these ones are not responding but I don't want to give up on them like so like creating labels create a label so I could send the shirt and a note you know just create the label and send it to me so I'm there's things like that that they can you know I mean who will be best to do that really car me okay okay
Quan Gan: So, yeah, talk to her about really just supporting you with how do you get your metrics so clear that you, at a glance, you know exactly what you need to do every day and who to talk to.
Kristin Neal: Exactly. Yeah, that's something that you can design or you need us to help you design that. No, I figured it out already.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and I would say 10 might be doing the equivalent on the ticket end. I want her to go through the past and see what are the issues we've had and how to turn it into a knowledge base.
Kristin Neal: That'd be great.
Quan Gan: Those are kind of the two primary themes I see for Karmie and 10 respectively.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, definitely. I'm working on the community page for Paula and Francis. Yeah, like going through maybe they could go through those videos.
Quan Gan: Okay. Then how about this? Tomorrow or over the weekend, let's just like have a powwow and really just list out brainstorm, right? Like we don't even have to figure out exactly What yet, but just put everything out there. Yeah We'll pair it down to things that they can do for this company quarter.
Kristin Neal: I think that's a good idea. Yeah, for sure Alrighty A lot for Friday Kidding Oh Man, that's okay You feel well prepped for NAA. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, I don't know why this one feels different. So we'll see See you very soon. Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow And do you want us to pick you up from the airport?
Quan Gan: Now, we'll take care of it.
Kristin Neal: Sure Okay, then I will see you at the at the hotel. Let me know it there
Quan Gan: All right, all right, travels. See you, bye safe, bye.
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Kristin Neal: this meeting is being recorded hi there hi nice to meet you what are you doing good how are you I've got a book from Scott that he may not be able to join us because he has a scheduling conflict I haven't heard from Juan yet there we go perfect okay hold on I'm trying to get my headphone working can you guys hear me okay
GameTruck HQ: Oh he was talking about something else. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Sorry.
GameTruck HQ: Is what happens when you have all these things happening at once and everybody's trying to make sure that tees are crossed and eyes are dotted and I was like, oh he's not gonna be able to make this call. Wait, what?
Scott Novis: I totally have friends on the camera.
GameTruck HQ: You're good.
Scott Novis: That's wrong. Hello.
Kristin Neal: Hi everybody.
Scott Novis: Hey.
Quan Gan: Hey Scott.
Scott Novis: It's been a minute.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Find a minute. Yeah. And I sent you a little message, you know, just kind of brief you, but yeah, we've had some pretty big changes over the past month. Leadership changes, but long story it stands no longer part of the organization. we're restructuring internally. And with that, it also means some strategy. kind of want to go back and kind of rehashed to see where everybody's at and then just see how we can optimally align and move forward. So today's that conversation, I guess.
Scott Novis: OK, what's going on?
Quan Gan: Well, we've been making a lot of progress over the past few years with Z-tag in the after-school space. And that's really become our full-time focus, because we're seeing just tremendously positive impact with the kids that it's reaching out to. And even the things that we've done now, I would say a lot of it is also thanks to you guys. You guys were there in the very beginning. getting testing the gen two of the zoos and really putting it through its paces. And we've seen, you know, because you guys have had those products since like early 23, that some of those early batches had certain kinks and issues that we're still kind of working through today. You know, we've learned through that. Yeah. So we've learned through that and the product is certainly a lot more robust today than it was previously. And we even have stuff that's kind of in the pipeline that's trying to be the next gen to really make it a lot more attainable and serviceable. So that's kind of our intent. But before I jump there, I actually wanted to forgive my manners. I didn't get to introduce the members of the team that I'm not sure if you guys had previously interacted with.
Scott Novis: So no.
Quan Gan: So Kristin, she's been on board for just a little over a year. We threw her into the deep end. here as our partnership relations director. So she's really just overseeing, you know, every single account, all of Z tag. And she's been going to trade shows. I've been her sidekick on a lot of that. And you know, she's just making sure every single sale doesn't stop the sale. That it's a long-term commitment and a relationship. And we want to maintain that. So Chris, do you want to say anything first?
Kristin Neal: First of all, I'm not the sidekick. I'm your sidekick. I appreciate you thinking so. No, I'm excited to meet you guys. And I do appreciate you guys a lot. I've heard the history between the partnership and I thank you so much.
Scott Novis: Yeah, nice to meet you.
GameTruck HQ: Nice to meet you.
Kristin Neal: For sure.
Quan Gan: Yep. And then, you know, second but certainly not second. You know, she's first in my life. If she's, you know, Charlie, she's first and foremost, my, my life partner, but we've actually started several businesses together. And Scott, I don't know if I shared with you the haunted house stuff, but we started the haunted house in China. I remember you telling me about your origins in the house.
Scott Novis: And I, Charlie, it is wonderful to virtually meet you. I've only heard amazing things.
Charlie: Very glad to meet you all.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah. So she's been there since the very beginning. And the kind of the theme for now is, you know, we've had kids, they're semi grown, they're not fully grown, but they're at least able to, like, you know, manage without both parents all the time. And so Charlie is really taking initiative to reenter the workforce and, you know, be an executive within Z tag. And really, overseeing a lot of the the operations, the back end, but also with a strong focus on the marketing. So I think her official title, we haven't really formalized it yet, but it should be CMO. So she's making sure that our marketing, our messaging, and everything that the customer and end user sees and touches are state consistent. And so, yeah, did you have anything to say?
Charlie: Oh, yeah, I just really honored to meet you both. And recently, we're working on the operating new operation menus. It's really, based on Scott, your team, put your effort to put everything together. It's really is the time, quite neat, that support, you're right there for him.
Scott Novis: So, yeah, we really appreciate the relationship between us. Right on.
Charlie: Yeah.
Scott Novis: Well, let me introduce Stacy. So, Scott Novus, I'm the founder of Game Truck, but Stacy is... I'm going bungle your title, but I'm just going to say she is the these are clean empress of the franchisees.
Charlie: So anything and everything comes to getting the franchisees on board.
Scott Novis: She is the pod piper for our franchise owners. And so we normally like to have a single point of contact when we're working with a partner, whether it's Nintendo or you and so that tends to be Stacey then gets the word out to the franchise owners and so right now that's what you got on the phone and we're we would love to get caught up on where you're at and then we had some open items that are coming up that we had discussed last fall and just kind of a it sounds like we need you've restructured so we just kind of then I was like, where are we and where are we going?
Quan Gan: Yeah, awesome. Yeah, so maybe it would be good to just kind of go through that list again, because I want to make sure that we have as smooth of a transition as possible from what Stan had shared with you guys and whatever those commitments were to where we are now and then how it received from this point.
Scott Novis: Okay, for me it's kind of simple. I'll recap it.
GameTruck HQ: Stacy, is that all right? Yes, go ahead.
Scott Novis: As you know, we bought early 2023, first gen or version two, like your zoo systems and we went out and used them and had some breakage. And we're like, okay, and there are some things about them in terms of screen robustness and some electrical, but it finally just came down to what Stan said is we won't. cut you a deal if you buy a block of replacements. send us back the old ones, we'll send you new ones, and owners could buy them out like a 24-unit swap. And there would be like a 60 or 90-day warranty if we do that. And we were like, okay, we would want to take advantage of that, but we started talking about that in September, which is going into our slowest part of the year. And so the owners wanted to try to do that in going into April or May, their busiest time of the year is the summer. So they wanted to start working on the upgrading equipment to the latest generation to the wristband taggers, what we're talking about, not the zoos. So it's more robust. just more a more reliable piece of equipment. And the other one too, We have some owners that are, you know, not the same volume we did in 2023, but are interested in adding more equipment. And so that was, I think, what sparked this was, hey, we want to buy one. You're like, November. And what? And then couldn't get all the stand. It's over like, we do have this outstanding issue that was in November of last year, November of this year. Well, no, this year. Yeah, whatever guys in I'm gonna sell, obviously to where I'm at. Well, that's what we need to know.
Quan Gan: What is availability? What can we actually buy from you?
Scott Novis: But the bigger issue is, we have a lot of very old taggers that are electrically and screenwise fragile. And we want to get them replaced with, you had put gorilla glass in them and electrical protections. They were just more rugged tagger.
Quan Gan: We're still very interested in planning on doing that swag.
GameTruck HQ: Okay, got it. And there's more to that. I don't know if you want me to add on to Scott.
Scott Novis: What did I miss?
GameTruck HQ: Well, yesterday during our meeting with the owners and that was the meeting that I was hoping get the information on. What is the cost, you know, how many units are we able to fulfill at a time? What was the available cost for the extended warranty after that 90 day or 60 day period? And then what was the timeline on receiving the taggers? I didn't get that information. I still went through with the meeting with our owners. And there were several other questions that came up pertaining to your new ZXR website itself.
Scott Novis: So we do need to talk about So let's postpone that of what the new thing is because we do want to hear about the new thing for sure. We just we have equipment that we're generating revenue with that is slowly deteriorating and we're looking.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. I think first things first, I agree with you. Let's focus on the Zeus. Let's put ZXR off the table because even with this transition, I would say that's kind of, there's a variability on that. So I wouldn't really put it on the table at this point. So let's look at Zeus. Can you tell me how many systems you guys totally have right now?
GameTruck HQ: I believe we have 13 total. I will verify that right now though.
Quan Gan: And are you able to just share with me roughly the usage that they've gotten over the past few years?
GameTruck HQ: Has it been successful? It has been successful. those who are using it? Yes, it's been successful. That's cool. We currently have 18.
Quan Gan: 18.
GameTruck HQ: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. What's the team you replaced?
Scott Novis: Well, okay. So this is the way we would operate is that in theory, yes, that everybody would want to participate. How many actually? Well, I don't know. Z-Tag in some markets has been a big success and other markets have been hard to sell. The awareness is low. People don't know what it is and we try to variety of things to raise awareness. But we're not going to trade shows that we are because we're not selling the system, we're selling events. And so there's still concept awareness is slow and coming. But to answer your question, we would say is, here's the price, here's going to participate in the program. And then we'll be able to give you a hard order and say, because then we will go through with the entire order process of, if you want to do this, this is what it takes. Who's in? And we will give you the list of what that is. And my gut would say it's probably going to be nine or ten and about half. We'll probably do something.
GameTruck HQ: And then half. We have nine. Sorry, go ahead.
Scott Novis: Okay, we have 19. So somewhere in the nine or ten range would probably they actually step up and do it. I'd be shocked if we got all 19. Stacey might be able to make that happen. historically, you know, 40 to 60% participation rates and programs like this.
Quan Gan: Got it. And would you say when you say success, does that mean it's at least made its ROI back over the years?
Scott Novis: There are a few markets that have made their ROI, yes.
GameTruck HQ: I a couple locations, right. But they haven't there. You can certainly tell the difference in owners that I can say. The ones that are out there, the ones that are pushing it, the ones that are constantly talking about it, have it out there in the forefront and they're they're actually selling, they're doing well, they're doing well. Those that have it and they're like, I don't know what to do with it, help me. And then they stop. They're not they've not met their ROI. They've they've they're floundering to speak.
Kristin Neal: Stacey, can I ask a quick question? Question, sorry, fine.
GameTruck HQ: Sure.
Kristin Neal: On that. Do you know if the owners are actually staying with the unit and doing the event or they just yes.
GameTruck HQ: Yeah. This is not a drop off. We don't do a drop off with this. It's a coach grant coach lead or owner led activities.
Kristin Neal: Thank you.
GameTruck HQ: Yeah.
Quan Gan: of the things that we are also trying to improve upon and this is whether it's you guys as partners or also our school partners is having better training. So better video based training for the different models and even sharing successes between the people who are hosting it. So we really want the entire ecosystem of people hosting Z tag and the end user experience to elevate. So maybe that's something that could also cross pollinate over to your operators as well.
Scott Novis: Yeah. mean, it's the we get better the more events we have to run. And so it's, I could take important. It's sporadic. Like we are. trying multiple ways to get it into the market by combining it with other things. But in our company's Game Truck, people call for Game Truck. But also, I got to say, laser tag is way down by super far down. There was years where that was a couple hundred grand in revenue, and now we're lucky if we get 40 or 50 a year out of the same market. I'm surprised some of companies are still in business. I don't know who they're selling to.
Quan Gan: Is that more of just a kind of the general zeitgeist of the community, guns are out of the kind of thing, or what do you think?
Scott Novis: So, personal opinion is nobody wants to see kids playing with guns anymore. There's too much school violence. And we've heard parents being like, we would love to do this, but they're afraid of and what their guests will think. So, two would like to do it. But inviting the other families over. Um, especially, you know, Denver's, I mean, Portland is very left coast, but is a very liberal city. So that's, uh, we've seen a sharp drop off, but our economy is also not too great either. So it's hard to tell.
Quan Gan: I think, um, that's on our end, we're very much kind of turning away from the notion laser tag entirely, um, and we're really redefining was the tag is at least in the, uh, the education space, you know, we call it an active learning platform. Um, of course that that's not very eccentric, but you know, that actually turns a lot of heads as far as parents and teachers go, um, because yeah, they're certainly, they're not the ones that are looking for guns or any kind of tactical engagement.
Scott Novis: Yes, if you use laser tag at all, that image comes to mind, everybody pictures, guns, invest.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah. I think that the overall Z tag brand, we are trying to We a new wave entertainment. And we just want to call it ETAC. We wanted to get it no popular in the general population that they would use that.
Scott Novis: Yeah, I get it. It's it for us in the field. Those are heavy lifts.
Quan Gan: It's going to take a while to do that. I get it.
Scott Novis: Yeah. It took a long time for even the game track concept to become something people like, what? Yeah. And I tell you right now, if we say it's ETAC or LaserTac, we game track them like, how do you play LaserTac in the trailer?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Scott Novis: It doesn't actually play in the trailer.
Kristin Neal: don't do it in the trailer.
Quan Gan: But, you know, I'll give us a couple of years. think ETAC would probably become a dinner table name where, you know, then on that sense, like we've done the marketing through the education sector that enough kids know about it.
Scott Novis: just going to ask for ETAC. It's well, man, I would love it. We would love to get there. But in the meantime, we're after functional equipment.
Quan Gan: Absolutely. So let's roll back into that main thread of thought. So, I do have a question on the overall evaluation, the partnerships, since you and I first spoke about bringing this out. You guys basically were our guinea pigs. To put it bluntly, you tested early first-gen equipment, their work breakage, and we were incrementally patching it while keeping your operator costs low, without having to swap the whole system. Has that been a net positive or a net negative or neutral experience?
Scott Novis: Okay, so here's how I will compare it. Okay, so we have three different types of mobile laser tag hardware in our system and we just started rolling out phone cannon. Okay, so if something goes wrong with any of these companies, there's either, can I send a tagger in for service? Absolutely, and there's a price sheet. it says here's what it costs. Can I replace the tagger? Absolutely. Here's what it costs. Or can I get a kit from you so I can do the self repair and they go, absolutely. Here's what it costs. It's just really straightforward and it is rarely to repair a tagger more than a hundred bucks. And you have phone canning, it's a fan. There's nothing to go wrong. But there's a service number, somebody responsible. If you got to replace because you're banging a thing or dang, whatever, they're like, here's a replacement partner way we go. You guys do not operate like that at all. We do not order parts from you. It is hard to buy from you. It's hard to get response from you. It is hard to know what it costs. You want things returned after we buy something from you. You're trying to control what we have in the field. You're really hard to work with.
Quan Gan: Okay. Care. Okay.
Scott Novis: just thank you for that. We're just trying to run stuff. Yeah. Pics it and go back. out and entertain kids and the industry norms we're used to dealing with are we a thing broke what do I have to pay to get it fixed and it's reasonable for both of us but there's some thing about how many taggers are out in the world was problematic for you then problematic for us you guys did some favors of sending gave short and I should warned you like never send anybody anything for free you'll never see it again um so I apologize because there are some people that were will you know if you give them house a cookie you know they live by that motto they are the mouse I did it um but you know we we do try to it we just first we just wanted simple it broke what's across the fix you'll tell us one great thank you we move on okay um so I want to be open and transparent with you on where we are today compared to when we first started and I guess early
Quan Gan: three, right? The 23, it was a monolithic system. So if anything were to go wrong with it, like, basically, it was very hard to repair, like going from the charging dot to the screen or anything, it required the whole thing to get sent back to us and I might service it and send it back to you. And even if I taught someone on your end to do it, it's still a heavy lift. Where we are today, the current stable system that is being sent and sold to our afterschool customers is as modular as it can get based on that previous version of Hardware, this V2. What that means is the computer or anything that could go wrong and still beneath the charging. So if something went wrong with that, this whole thing still has to get sent. But it was modular in the sense that, like, if a charging dock broke, you know, we could say. a small part. But if it still wasn't very modular in replacement. Now, we do have a pre-production V3 that I only have five units of from the factory right now that's in circulation that's being tested that makes every single part completely modular. It's kind of like if something breaks with your car, you're not trying to fix it, you're just going to replace that component. Now, this is something that I'm proposing to you if it's fixed every single thing that we've encountered over the past two years. But I also have to be transparent in that it is not a production release yet. So there's only a few that I've been sending out to select customers to get them to play test and make sure that it's robust. So from my standpoint, ideally, we would help you guys jump onto that system because it would be operationally, you know, the most robust system. there it is, but it's not in circulation yet.
Scott Novis: What's her timeline for that?
Quan Gan: When do you expect those to go to production to those? Well, so it could be as early as like two months from now to come off the assembly line.
Scott Novis: Right. so maybe... Sorry.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Scott Novis: Two months from now, it's just problematic for us because it's the busiest time of the The busiest time? Okay. we would need to... So we'd definitely be interested in that, but then what we would make, what we ask for then is, what is your... What do you currently have in production? And can we negotiate single unit buys to replace our busted taggers?
Quan Gan: I think that's fair. I think we could probably do that. I'd have to look at what's coming through the factory and how we're allocating it, we're balancing it with our current sales.
Scott Novis: Yeah, we're trying to be firm enough in advance to, you know, to... Can we, you know, whenever the next time is you're ordering from the factory, can you slot in an order for us so we can get these that we're not trying to be like, I need them yesterday.
Quan Gan: It's yeah. See, um, the guys don't listen to them. The factory is prepared to make the, uh, the version threes already, like we could be placing an order for today. Um, the reason why I, I'm inclined to help you guys with the V three, even if it means pushing at earlier in production is, you know, all honesty, your guys's use case are probably the, the most, um, the highest requirement in terms of use cases, right? Because in a classroom setting, you got to teach monitoring is the same group of kids they get used to it, but you're dealing with new customers all the time. So we're incentivized to have you guys, you know, really be the beginning to pick for B three, if possible.
Scott Novis: Um, I don't know if we can work out that is yeah, look, there's Definitely my okay. I would love to work with you. So I'd love to figure this out. It's I'm happy to be the guinea pig and my corporate markets. So up in Portland, I will tell you that I don't want to buy any more laser taggers and they're slowly deteriorating up there. We'd rather have Z tag, but we're kind of getting into the situation we're running on the taggers. Like I could have a functional thing. And who can I buy from?
Quan Gan: And so if there's, I don't know what your timing is, I have two systems on the shelf right now that to deploy immediately. So if you're interested in taking these two and replacing it and get them out in the field and getting a few games behind, then I would feel confident to tell the fact that, Hey, look, you can start producing B threes.
Scott Novis: Well, okay, is that how? we'll see you, then we can definitely reach out to two of our busier. We would take one and I would reach out to one of the busier owners going, can you pilot this and give us feedback on this ASAP? Because there are people that are pretty good at getting these things sold. The real issue for most of the owners is, and that might take some pressure off because look, what if we do this? So you and I work on this so we could borrow a couple, I'd like to borrow rent, whatever you want to do with it. And if it's like, this is awesome, we'll buy them. Unless you're like, no, they're pilots, they're prototypes, let us get you the real production ones, whatever. But here's what could happen with that. If that works, we could probably take the taggers out of RV1 systems and sell those to other owners to replace their broken ones to backfill, because that would suddenly put 40 taggers up. Okay. Because that'd be two systems where the taggers that are offline, and we're like, Like, let's resell those tigers to people that need replacements. Stacy, do you think that would work?
GameTruck HQ: I think so. What is the, what is the V3 system that we're talking about?
Quan Gan: my understanding was that it was just the taggers stuff that was going to be upgraded.
GameTruck HQ: It's just the whole, it's the whole zoos.
Quan Gan: Well, okay, so I'll tell you what we've learned over the years. Taggers themselves do have some mechanical things that we've improved in longevity because the most often thing is like you just get ones that are dead screens, right? But it actually means that it's the charging circuit or someone's like jam it into the dock too hard and it basically breaks the charging part. So, so it basically have to completely replace that. So the taggers have become more robust. That's regardless of it's a V2 or V3. Those are going to be consistent, but the main thing is actually the system. The newest system. if something goes wrong with the computer because we've had some of those things happen, he'd basically just replace the lid only because the entire system now actually lives in the lid versus before it was underneath. So it's a lot easier of a replacement. I could just send you a top unit and then swapped out because the reason why I'm less inclined to have V2 currently have fundamentally. over time, if something wears out, you're still going to have to replace the whole thing. So if I just sold you a new V2 unit, I think eventually after enough use, the whole unit still has to come back versus a V3. If something does break, we can give you a part.
GameTruck HQ: a part at a time. Okay. What is the cost on those systems?
Quan Gan: Is that the 9,700? Yeah. our cost is, you know, Has gone up because of import duties and all that our retail price on all of these are ninety seven hundred I know we gave you guys a special deal before So I like to work with you on that, you know, can we find a middle ground where you know?
GameTruck HQ: We're not losing money But you guys are enabled and refreshed Well, that was one of the questions that the owners had yesterday was somehow they found out about cuz they're they They're they were probably CIA or FBI agents back in the day or their previous life Yeah, you give them an engine there there on it Yeah, but that was one of the things they found yesterday and we talked about was what? Does that point look like if I have a current use case and I want to upgrade to the new one What does it look like?
Quan Gan: Yeah?
Scott Novis: Like I said it's a question.
Quan Gan: I mean, yeah, what's the price? So we haven't worked out a system wide deal. I think it's something
Scott Novis: maybe. Do you want the old ones back?
Quan Gan: We practically don't need them back anymore. We know some of them. don't want to surface them. You know, we want to get you guys new systems. You know, that's our incentive. And if it means discounting it to a certain acceptable level to incentivize you guys enough to refresh, that helps us and hopefully helps your operations too.
Scott Novis: But I would be for sure. So the request is, um, we're not asking you to lose money. No, no way, right? But it's like, okay, just what's the, just, you know, you don't have to answer this minute, but we need a price. tell us price. And, um, but if you're trying to make the decision to go from two to three and you have two systems and you're willing to get them available to us. We'll deploy them immediately. Okay. we'll get you feedback ASAP.
Quan Gan: Okay. Is that something you guys are willing to be basically like, a test to purchase like with the intent to purchasing them because they're actually production units. It's just we've only made a few.
Scott Novis: Yeah, I mean, I would look at it this way. Well, short answers, yes. So that's part of what we have to tell the other owner is that it would be really helpful to know what the exchange or special price is when we do purchase them. And so, yeah, we just as much information as you can give us as possible. But if you're looking for, hey, can I get these in the field and get some data, we can do that. If you're like, oh, use them and buy them. We're like, well, are these prototypes or these true production units?
Quan Gan: Like, what are these things?
Scott Novis: you know, so we just need all the information to set some of these appropriately.
Quan Gan: the hardware is production unit. It's just the first five that ever came out of the factory as samples to us. And we're putting them out into the field to to improve the the larger order.
Scott Novis: Okay. um, I'm sure we can work something out.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Scott Novis: You know, I just don't have enough information to go.
GameTruck HQ: Yeah, sure. Yes. What are you saying yes to? I don't know.
Scott Novis: I'm just saying yes.
Quan Gan: But is there a work with you? You have a sense of what your owners based on their own incentive structures are willing to pay to, that you actually just buy this not 90.
GameTruck HQ: Right.
Scott Novis: Yeah.
GameTruck HQ: They would that.
Scott Novis: Yeah. What they were looking, this was we're looking to just buy new taggers. Yeah. um, because, you know, a couple, I could see them doing like, I forget what the price was we came up, but there's like a couple grand. And they would shell out a couple grand completely buying a new system and replacing the old one will be tough. Okay. So this is going to take some messaging. It's going to take some time. Um, it might be the kind of thing where we sort of we work. something out where, like I said, maybe you could sell some V2s just to keep some of the old ones running and it's more of a organic over time. When their box is dead, you're like, okay, we're letting you know now these are end of life. Here's what we can do for you. And partly game truck, partly some help from you. We use some old taggers to keep them going as long as they can. But we're like, your option is you got to go up to three. And you're just going to buy another piece of equipment, which is what happens. It's what I'm facing with my laser tag equipment, my laser tags from battle tech, battle techs, not even a business anymore. They sold out to, I don't know what they're called. And they're like, we won't service anything over 10 years old.
Quan Gan: We're right on 10 years.
Scott Novis: We bought this stuff in 2015. So there's a point where just things wear out over time. But I don't want landowners to get punished for being early adopters.
Quan Gan: Right. Yeah, I mean, in some sense, you're subsidizing our R&D. So I get it, you know, no, and I'll be frank with you, like our margins on this are about 50%. So, you know, our land it costs is about half that price. So you'd have to just figure out like, you know, we don't want to be losing money, but it's going to be, you know, and, you know, Well, here's the other way to do it. We do this once.
Scott Novis: We're only doing this once. This is not ongoing. This is a you had to be of this generation. Like, if you're going to do it, you know, it might be. Okay. Thank you for sharing that. That helps me understand some ideas. Let's say, see, and I get together with Brandon and we're going to talk to a couple key owners and see what the reactions are. So let us go gather some data. Okay, we've got a range somewhere between 5 to 9,700. Yeah, best case. Okay, somewhere in that window, and we can kind of get a sense where we'll start at the higher end going, hey, and some of it is like Stacy said, we need to find out who's actually making money, because if somebody's making money, they're not going to worry about it that much. If they haven't made any money, it's going to be a pain for them.
Quan Gan: Exactly, yeah. so from our standpoint, it's like you can do a group buy that will try to be, you know, more like having more discount in there to just, you know, get a complete refresh.
Scott Novis: That was the original intention with the taggers themselves. Yeah. Let's just, we would just buy a bunch of them right now in the spring. Right. And be good to go. I get what you want to swap out the whole system.
Quan Gan: Taggers, we can, taggers, we can replace, but it doesn't fundamentally change the service issue, because eventually if parts of the system will have wear and tear, and then that whole thing needs to get swapped.
Scott Novis: Our franchise owners were focused on their biggest pain point.
Quan Gan: the biggest ping-pong of the taggers. If it's just taggers, I mean, yeah, we have enough in the inventory. We could just do that. It's easier, but it's not really helping us really test the readiness of B3.
Scott Novis: Well, okay, so let's think about this from a sociology point of view, not a technology point of view.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Scott Novis: Is I think it's better for your brand if people don't think that the whole system they have for two years is somehow defective and needs to be swapped out. What I would prefer is, if you're like, hey, I have a more robust charging port and a better piece of glass in the screen, those two things sound reasonable and they touch the biggest failures we get in taggers. And you're like, oh, I've got plenty of taggers. I'll sell them to you. Doing a bulk swap of the taggers is more affordable for them. and I think it gives them the idea that they're going to be able to- we've been running it for two years. We'll be able to run it for another couple of years, but now we can start saying version three version two is now deprecated, version three is available. So if you want to expand and enhance, we're going to be rolling out version three in the fall, and then give them time to think about it, and then we'll get one Z2Z sales. But we can definitely take a couple of your systems, and there's probably a couple owners that would want to buy them, and we could give them a run for your money and give you feedback on them.
Quan Gan: I guess if we're doing this kind of two-stage approach, then you would just be swapping out a system that's just without the taggers at that point, because the taggers are going to stay consistent.
Scott Novis: Yeah, it might be at that point where everybody has the new tagger, so you're just like, okay, then the purchase is we just need to- if a Zuz dies, they have to buy a new Zuz, and that's the V3 Zuz.
Quan Gan: Okay, and that's a pill. They're willing to swallow you think they have to or they're done with the tag Because you won't be able to service the V2 Zoos Okay Christie have any thoughts if you back on this I like that approach.
Kristin Neal: I think the the two stage one and it'll give them time for all It doesn't make it tag.
Quan Gan: It's taggers.
GameTruck HQ: have plenty of inventory of it right now Yeah, yeah, it is important to note that for a lot of our owners Zee tag is a summer camp So so they're pitching it to the schools and camps throughout the summer fall is usually when they dial back So to get them to upgrade in the fall is gonna be hard sell maybe the first of next year Yes, because that's when we're gearing up being ready for springtime and summer events They're not gonna want to spend their money during the fall on a product, any product, because that's usually when system sales slow down anyway. But I think that in all honesty, I think it's gonna be a hard sell with a lot of the owners. But I will certainly do my best.
Scott Novis: is a hard sell, like upgrading to three.
GameTruck HQ: Upgrading to three will be hard.
Scott Novis: I think the taggers themselves will not be as difficult. Okay, so let's focus on that, because what we're really saying now is we're putting time on the other side. If you have plenty of taggers, we can offer them a tagger. Look, I don't even know. It was something I heard from Stan. I don't know if you still wanna do this, is if we swap them out, we have to swap them all out. Okay, but the owners are like, can I just get eight? Yeah, they would wanna replace the ones that are dead. So if we could just do a really simple the simplest thing is can we just place in order for a bunch of taggers that are not working? Okay, and buy replacements and just let them do that. It's the cheapest thing for them. I Think it'll be easier for you guys and then they're up and running and they can go do their summer camp Stacey. Here's the issue When their system to Zeus breaks and we have that happen in Denver. You're buying a system 3 Right, that's the issue and I now it's not like they want to spend money.
GameTruck HQ: It's like they have to if they're going to continue to operate Right, and I think that's the position.
Kristin Neal: I think that's most natural.
Quan Gan: Yeah, okay.
GameTruck HQ: That makes sense I mean I'm willing to put work in to get them to have a conversation to get them to the table and and try to move this forward I think it's gonna be an easy sale for some and others Yeah It is what it is.
Scott Novis: Quang should be very happy you didn't purchase. That's why we're going to have their charm to I am sure there's some educators and government purchasing agents that you just love to talk to. But but franchise owners have their own, you know, yeah, yeah, I get it.
Quan Gan: OK, so what I'm what I'm hearing is taggers, which is get us a total number of how many needs to get swapped. Well, we'll figure out what the pricing is. I think Chris, you have those numbers, right? then we'll get get that done.
Scott Novis: And then yes, Stacy work with Kristin.
Kristin Neal: Please, yes.
Quan Gan: Yes, you guys are your counterparts.
Scott Novis: Yeah, perfect. That would be great because we do not like to bother you. I like to bother you because it's just fun and so it's like I just find it using each other's language.
GameTruck HQ: why y'all like each other thematically.
Quan Gan: Yes, totally. Okay, and then can I also clarify for v3? Do you think you can convince two people to test your purchase? we can do that?
GameTruck HQ: Yeah, I think we definitely do that.
Quan Gan: What pricing doesn't need to be to make that move for you?
Scott Novis: Um, great question. My, well, I'll tell you one right now is Stacy, I think, I don't know if I would run it by Rick, but I have three people, let me make a phone call, but I think the $8,500, $7,500 to $8,500 range, somewhere in there, is that it?
GameTruck HQ: I would say your two people are going to be Joe Carlson because he does the most and Rick Jurgens because he's looking to buy into new.
Scott Novis: Yeah, and I was gonna, okay, I was gonna call Eric Schwartz. I can't talk to Rick.
GameTruck HQ: You'll have to talk to Rick. I'll talk to Rick and Carlson.
Kristin Neal: Can I ask what region they're in or what location?
GameTruck HQ: Carlson is in SoCal, Southern California. He's Orange County. Rick Jurgens is in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. Eric Maxwell is in Howard County, Maryland and David Schwartz is in New York. He's in Long Island and Westchester. Yes, Baltimore. Eric Maxwell services the DC Metro Virginia area. He's got a fairly large piece of territory, Virginia and Maryland.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah.
GameTruck HQ: And then David Schwartz has two markets in New York.
Quan Gan: We just want to make sure that whatever price we set, it doesn't disrupt our retail price, because that's typically how much they do get sold for through the school system. So if somehow... you know, they're saying, oh, someone was able to get much cheaper, that would damage our, you know, our sales for the other system. So that's why, you know, I want to work out something with you guys where they're able to set the price tag that it has.
Scott Novis: Yeah, what's that price? Is that that $8,500 or is it the $9,700 number?
Quan Gan: Chris, do you have any thoughts on that?
Kristin Neal: I think if it's fall, it's $97. But if they're willing to take the risk, then it would be blowing.
Scott Novis: Okay, I mean, some of it is, you know, when you go to schools and everything else, I mean, there's only two. It's prototypes. We have a long-standing relationship. And our owners are pretty good at not talking about what they spend on things. You know, but even so, I get where you're coming from. You want to protect yourself from like, well, why? You know, like they were two prototypes. Never sell you a prototype. They're unsupported prototypes. And school will be like, okay do that and you know they don't it's one of the purchasing agents that get upset but once they buy something they just wanted to work yeah that's been my experience i could be wrong maybe it's changing in the fall we should have that be able to provide what that assurance yeah i mean you're saying hey i've got two two first off the factory runs here you're like get it those first cars you know i grew up in Detroit you didn't want a first one car i know you have confidence but still but we'll try so um i give give us till a week from today does that work for you is that past enough yeah okay we can deploy which i'm okay better willing to risk so Stacy is that enough time for you to get information from the owners about how many tigers need to be replaced and then we can have the calls with the owners I mean, if anybody else is going to drop out, I can also commit to taking one of those systems for Portland. So I know we're going to sell one of them because I'll take it. And if Rook is going to get the other, or if we do something with one of the other owners, we'll figure it out. So we've got some options for you.
Quan Gan: Okay. Right.
GameTruck HQ: I'm going to cover it every time. Do you need me to reschedule? Do you need me to schedule the meeting for next week?
Scott Novis: I mean, you just work with person and let's try that. And then if we need to have a meeting face-to-face, there's miscommunication, we can do that in two weeks.
GameTruck HQ: Okay. Sounds like a plan. Okay. you should have all of my in my email signature, all of my contact information.
Kristin Neal: So I'm feeling you right now. Feel free to reach out and yes.
GameTruck HQ: And the number of my Office numbers also is a textable number as well.
Kristin Neal: Oh, great. OK, that was good. I'm both on my end, too, everything on mine.
GameTruck HQ: OK, perfect. Yeah, I just got back off of a cruise this past weekend and I was in the middle. No, no, no, I'm actually some like complaining because although I was on a on a pleasure cruise because we personal and fun, I was handling work stuff in the middle of the Atlantic.
Quan Gan: Oh, .
Scott Novis: You did a bad job You did bad I know I did.
GameTruck HQ: I to be better than that.
Quan Gan: Which cruise line did you go?
GameTruck HQ: We went on carnival.
Quan Gan: OK, very cool.
GameTruck HQ: Drinks were had fun. Fun was also had. It was great. was my first cruise. It was very short one. Just see if that was what I was going to like.
Kristin Neal: But first of many.
GameTruck HQ: I do. Yes, first of many.
Scott Novis: It's a moving hotel.
Quan Gan: It's great.
GameTruck HQ: It is. Yeah. It was amazing. Floating city, actually. All kinds of stuff to do well gang.
Scott Novis: I is it okay if I bounce I gotta go We're good Today, I gotta get ready to go to the court so all right Me first and next meeting both of you ladies so good to see you.
GameTruck HQ: Yeah, good to see you all right all right
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Lily Eibert: Hi, Kristin.
Kristin Neal: Leah, how are you?
Lily Eibert: Well, how are you?
Kristin Neal: Good. Good to see you. Kwan is coming in with Charlie. There he is.
Lily Eibert: Hi, guys.
Quan Gan: Hello. Hi, Kwan.
Lily Eibert: to see you again.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it's been a, been a while.
Lily Eibert: Hi, Charlie.
Quan Gan: I love to see you. So, she's my life partner and also business partner.
Lily Eibert: Fantastic.
Quan Gan: And, yeah, I mean, we've also, I'm not sure if you've been in communication with Stan at all, but I don't know if he's told you that he's no longer with CTAG.
Lily Eibert: I heard right before he left for Asia. He mentioned that because I actually, I confirmed with Dan mid December because I was in Taiwan for 10 weeks.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Lily Eibert: And just. to better understand the overall plan, just so I can be working on a lot of stuff while I was there. For sure, including confirming the venue for the restaurant, as you know, whenever there's a conference, a lot of venues get booked out very quickly. so, in February, I was able to commit to that, but I just wanted to touch base now that, who will be my main contact?
Quan Gan: I think that would be, well, we're kind of like a CEO at this point, so it would be the both of us at this point. But I think from a marketing standpoint though, Charlie would definitely have more input on that. So she's just making sure that our overall messaging is consistent from both what we showed to customers, but also the product and the entire experience and language.
Lily Eibert: Okay, great. So I would love to, to be able to share my screen because basically based on so far what we in speaking with Stan is pretty much going with a lot of the things that we did last year that he and I felt worked well and as we go along since there's going to be a lot of people that have attended this this boost conference from last year we wanted to refresh some things to make it so exciting and branded so would you mind Kristen if I shared my screen please do I need to give you um here we go let me see if this works okay so let me go to my chrome okay are you guys able to see this
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Lily Eibert: Let me just go through really quick. So this is a working calendar. So with Charlie and I probably will kind of fill in some spots as just so everybody's on the same page on timing because these days will go by very quickly. And especially there's a lot of lead times for a lot of items that if we are agreeable to moving forward with, lot of them say six to eight weeks, I was talking to Kristen about that. So a lot of things, if it doesn't work, I'll either pivot to a different way of doing things or kids need very similar. But right now, we're in, you know, this period right now, and then there's about six weeks for week 13, which is when I need all the items in, just so we can start fulfilling some of that stuff. So last year, for the pool side gifts, we had some lands and and totes that, because we weren't sure exactly how many people were coming for dinner. So we had some extra bags made. So that became the premium product. So basically, Charlie, the poolside booth, we had a spinning wheel.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Lily Eibert: And so the premise is just to have people come and engage with our Z-Tag booth and have some kind of fun element that would make it exciting and memorable for them, walking away and wondering, okay, what is Z-Tag? And there were a lot of people on hand to kind of introduce the company to them and what the products our offerings are. So it was just an attractive way to kind of engage with the company. So last year we did that. We did these tag, tags, playing off Z-Tag that were engraved with the Z-Tag. and then people where I got these holders so people can use those as air tags for their items. And then there were some beach balls that I had branded as one of the prizes. And then we were running out of some stuff. I took out some groovy glasses I had for another event and people really wanted those. They're like, can I have that instead? And I really didn't have too many of those but I thought that would be because you know, it's April, May, spring, know, Palm Springs, you kind of have that vibe going. So this year I decided instead of maybe some of those products we would introduce those groovy glasses which is very economical and fun. In speaking with, you know, I talked to a lot of school district people because I have so many of my friends belong either on the school board or interact with, you know, district folks that make a lot of decisions on school district items. asked them because they go to a lot of this stuff, go to they go to meetings and I said, you know, what would be exciting to get because they definitely didn't want more pens or more, you know, things that they were like, no, I wouldn't even take it. So, this is when the lottery ticket thing came because they had that happen at another event, they thought that was super fun and, you know, a chance to win some bigger items, things like that. So, these are the items that I was thinking of for this year to refresh. So, you know, going with sort of like a retro vibe, because everything old is new again.
Quan Gan: Actually, V-TAG as a game really is that. So, we like to happen to like, like, Tron or NASA 70s or 80s video.
Lily Eibert: Yep, yep, yep. So, everything is old that is new because my 18-year-old, you know, he's always coming up, know, like digital cameras, Polaroids. I mean, please, that was like, you know, back in the day for us, but, you know, Igloo has this retro line that I thought was super cute.
Kristin Neal: That has a lot of things in line with our, yeah, right.
Lily Eibert: So that could be a prize. Of course, the group of classes I mentioned and being Palm Springs and in terms of just being an affordable and tiering these prizes, these were like $7, you know, grocery totes that has this Palm Springs vibe to them that I thought would be super cute. And then these, this would be like the, the $1, you know, this would, the lottery tickets would be in place of the branded beach balls. The beach balls, I thought was super cute and it's why the pool and things like that. But that, that became sort of, they're trying to negotiate with me at the booth, right?
Quan Gan: Instead of beach, well, I get something else?
Lily Eibert: know, know, These 1999 1999 yeah, but then I have to get them They're they're good size like a regular. It's almost like a lunch tote type of lunch bag Yeah, the air tag for like 18 is yeah, very similar because it was four packs for like 99 I think The the igloo then I have to get them pressed with your logo and things like that, which costs a little bit And then last year we had I made this chalkboard wall That had the Z tag and people were able to write a message You know It's just a kind message or or put on something of something about their company things like that With some balloons around and make it look really interactive and fun. So this year In lieu of that, I thought what we could do again playing off of the old is new again. So we could do this Polaroid wall that I've done before where people take Polaroids and they can write messages right on their Polaroid and then I can paint this the whole different color again aligning with our you know with our logo and then I had it you know shake it like a Polaroid picture but you know with this we could put the logos on there and things like that. It's just super fun and it lights up as well it won't be that dark but the lights are what the Polaroids are hanging off of. This is super fun and it's again something interactive for people to do while they're there engaging with our booth. It can be in addition to or substitution 4 option is these marquee letters so we can have these Z tag big marquee letters right at our booth so it's another photo op opportunity for people to take a photo with our with our marquee. and that's a rental and so again depending on budget we can you know play with all these different ideas. Any questions about these? Do you like that?
Quan Gan: So the polar right wall is do we have someone in charge of taking photos so are we having multiple the device to take photos because it could be many people there.
Lily Eibert: Yeah so and I don't know who's coming. Last year we had quite a bit of staff from Z tag there plus I think a like a roaming photographer and someone else. So typically when I do these I have these available on they take their own or we can have someone take it for the them and then they can do the writing and put it on the wall themselves. So I think it just depends on our end, how many people we have there. It's really easy to use. And then we can have the extra foam just for loading purposes and things like that. And then the marquee letters are pretty straightforward. I do a lot of balloons as well. it's just making things look festive and inviting. So any questions about any of this stuff?
Quan Gan: I do, actually, more about the logistics and kind of the overall strategy. Because Stan and I had differing opinions before where I thought if you really have a big crowd at a pool party, like that's actually the perfect place to host a quick z-tag game just to kind of get people pumped and playing. But he was very much against it. He was like, oh, we should just show up like, you know, we're like celebrities or something. And it was more. Jill, like we had no product presence.
Lily Eibert: It was really just a brand.
Quan Gan: I'd love to hear your thoughts on the pros and cons or which way you would lay in. Yeah, given that.
Lily Eibert: So my just from a logistics standpoint, there's a lot of restrictive areas based on where we're where we're placed because so there's two doors and beyond us, there's food and drinks and things like that. I think, you know, because we have the demos happening at the booth, I would imagine the mission and the purpose is for people to recognize Z-tag as a brand and for them then to go seek us out at the booth for information and demo. This is their downtime. This is their like, I just got here, I'm trying to get kind of acclimated and. Having some drinks food and hopefully win some prizes as sort of an introduction to the boost conference and then hopefully they're so enticed with the presence of Z tag and recognition of the brand that they would seek us out during the conference at the booth level. For more information or to engage in how the game works because things are going there they're focused actually there was quite a bit of a line and they're so interested in winning something. Sort of that was their purpose. I don't know if there's a lot and then they're going for the food and the drinks and they're probably unpacking and putting their stuff away.
Quan Gan: Have you played some of the games before? don't know if like how much content you have on the actual game.
Lily Eibert: So I watched it.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, I watched people engage.
Lily Eibert: I have videos of it actually of people. playing and yelling and screaming and so excited.
Quan Gan: I was just thinking like we're not, I'm not there to do a pitch by any means, but the product was supposed to lend itself perfectly for these kind of social situations. Like if any of ice breakers are out there, like my hope is we can do like a like a pattern matching, like one round, just to show how new people are coming in and actually engaging. That's just my thought is, you know, you guys can decide to veto it, but I just felt like, you know, of all the places that did to have like a single presence to get people like yelling and screaming and like talking about it, like when did it be better that it's actually our product doing it?
Lily Eibert: I am open to it. I think if that is something that we'd like to do, I am, this is your call. I'm completely open. I'm here to execute your vision. The only thing I would want to do is double check.
Quan Gan: there was that area like kind of where the speakers were, I think, there was like kind of a kind of a square space and I'm not asking to actually do zombies or anything like that just a simple game of pattern match so they're actually meeting and people play that in place. So we just need to give it to like, you know, do one round to give a quick demo to like, you know, maybe hand it out to a dozen or two dozen people and then we'll give it back and it's done. So I think you better try. Just the situation over there is like, is it is the time everyone gathering for that event or just people when come in like constantly. So how is the flow? Is it like they're all together at the same time or just like adding up? So I guess I never been there. So I'd love to know more the detail of the flow.
Lily Eibert: I can also say. send you some photos from last year that I took that maybe is helpful. So there were people coming, there was a rush at a certain point, but normally, because I think we have about an hour. So, you know, it's just people coming in slowly, and then there's some kind of, you know, maybe during, like, I think it starts at five, like around five thirty, there's the height of, you know, most of the people coming through. And again, there, they have a hat competition going on, there's a DJ there, you know, there's a lot of, there's giveaways that are happening down further where the food and drinks are. So there's, it's a very festive environment with loud music and people talking and laughing. it's just, it's a good time. And so, so it's a stream of people I would say.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. So is the beginning of the show, like, or end of the show, or like the conference or trade show? second day, isn't it?
Lily Eibert: The second day? what time?
Quan Gan: You said, like, five to six?
Kristin Neal: The first. The first day.
Quan Gan: Oh, first day? Okay.
Lily Eibert: When they're coming in, flying in, driving in, getting situated, right? There's a whole schedule that they put out to say, okay, you know, this. So Wednesday is, is when the booth setups are.
Kristin Neal: right, Kristen. Yes.
Lily Eibert: So Tuesday, some people are just flowing. This is sort of like a, you know, getting situated, a day.
Kristin Neal: I'll take a part of the window.
Quan Gan: Chris, do you have any feedback on your name of having Z tag actually there? I just want you guys to convince me of one way or the other. Really? I don't, I'm not talking to you side yet. Okay, I actually agree with Lily.
Kristin Neal: There's so much chaos that I feel like it would actually do damage to even despite being in a closing town. There's just so much going on. So it almost feels like it would just be the opposite. So, hang on, but I do agree with letting them know that demos are done on every 10 minutes or something like that. So definitely come out of the booth so you can get that demo in or even schedule a specific. A special demo for your team.
Quan Gan: What did what it hurt to at least have a system set there so they can talk about it like it could just be passive and on.
Kristin Neal: There you go.
Quan Gan: Like last time we had no product so I think there was no association of the brand to anything that we were doing.
Kristin Neal: Please point to it. Maybe they organically start something up. I was gonna say, let's let Yeah, let's let them Have a table and just have a set there, right? Okay, that's great. I have a few other things, Lily, if you guys are ready to move on.
Lily Eibert: Oh, Go ahead, Kristen.
Kristin Neal: Um, I have a few thoughts about the The gifts because I love having kind of I heard so many good things about the air tags. So I almost feel like if we um Continue that one gift and a half others or if you want to continue with the lottery, but kind of have that.
Quan Gan: Oh my gosh Okay, I remember this from last year. I think with that. I thought it was pretty good.
Kristin Neal: We hope what's in the actual air text Everybody needs those. Yeah, that was a really it felt like a big hit. Um, I loved I don't know if you noticed Lily but everybody really loved the the um Maybe they didn't love the the ball idea, but they loved it But it was on our hats. Do you remember how so we can help them with doing something with their like the glasses actually speak to that because it's, you know, a dress up thing. So I think that actually might Just be enough, but having that element of whatever we do for our hats, if we can have that available for them to I loved how you had us with the hat the balls on our hats. Last year, so we can keep that up and and still get the balls. Do we still have any of those balls.
Lily Eibert: No, but I can order them.
Quan Gan: Okay, so I I have a slight pushback on the balls because I feel like it's kind of like a throwaway item, like literally a throwaway item just for that event you're right, but then, you know, it's it's also less sustainable that way versus your your four items here, or let's say the igloo becomes the z tag from the air tag again, like all of those things they could put in their pocket and it's less trash. They're they're actually going to use it because I really felt people were actually disappointed. they got a ball.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, it would have to be a z-tag hat, and we would put the ball on the hat.
Quan Gan: Like there you go, there's your prize. Maybe it's more like an ornament, but not really part of this prize. Like if they had to pick the prizes, the ball really seemed like it was kind of disappointing for them.
Lily Eibert: And that's why it's tiered, right? Like the the springing wheel can't all be right.
Quan Gan: mean if I got a one-dollar lottery to take it, I would pick that over a ball because it was like, you're in with the ball, I might just throw it back in the pool or something. We had a bunch left over in the pool.
Lily Eibert: We put them in the pool, yeah, the leftovers. So the hats, I don't have any hats, and those are very expensive in terms of like, there's no budget for hat and this, because they're really nicely embroidered those hats. So while speaking of what which there's the dinner right and the dinner last year we had those totes forty five dollars each um and then i put a blanket in there that was probably eight dollars each and then um so just just stuff something inside um and then they all had a luggage tag sort of customized that i put their name on um so and then we had t-shirts if you remember so um i would we can totally do the t-shirts again primarily for staff maybe but as a gift it was difficult because sizing right we just didn't know who was coming what size they were so we were challenged with people that couldn't get one um so this year again depending on budget and how many people come and things like that um you know things that are going to feel like it's a premium product that you know these are the 30 plus people invited, what would they use? What would they deem as like, wow, this is nice. So these were some ideas like in lieu of a coat, maybe a backpack, something that's recognized and considered a, we want the tag to be associated as, you know, with a premium product, right? And so yeah, Stanley's less so, but we can do that if budget is a concern. Well, you know, there's a couple of different options, but so this is sort of, you know, if you guys like some of this direction, once I price things out, so speaking of which, can that logo be horizontal on the Yeti or it's only vertical? Oh, this is just me sticking it on and it won't be like that because they can only do one color.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay.
Lily Eibert: Yeah, they can only do this over. Yeah, but ideally it would be horizontal, horizontal if they're tooling allows for that. Yeah, I think their tooling allows for vertical, quite honestly, that they would do, but I can, I can do it without yet, like, I don't have to go through yet, per se, just from a pricing standpoint, perhaps, because I think I'm going to price it out and see if I can get it cheaper somewhere else. But if you want color, it has to be those plastic, you know, those see through bottles that we get, like, if you want.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I'm okay with a single color. have, yeah, we can do monochrome if they end up like laser etching it or something. Yeah. Yeah. But the preference is if they can actually lay it out horizontally.
Lily Eibert: Okay. Um, I mean, do you guys have a preference of either of these?
Quan Gan: Do we pick one or the other or it's?
Lily Eibert: Yeah, there's no way. Well, okay. If let's just look at the budget really. This is all based on last year's information. And so you can tell me, hey, you know, so basically for the poolside total. It's around $3,000 for all the items, and then the dinner, because we initially, I was thinking, you know, small wireless earbuds, but I don't know if want that, but we had changed it later on to those lands, and so that was what update. But that's around $10,000 total for the, and this is an actual number now because I've put in an $1,800 non-refundable deposit. So I've already done the menu. It's very similar to last year. People really enjoyed the drinks and felt very relaxed and festive and thought that was a premium thing to do.
Kristin Neal: Kristen, do you agree? Perfect, yes.
Lily Eibert: And then, you know, the centerpieces will change, very similar. So if it's about $10,000, then for the VIP dinner, if we want to keep to that budget, and then my, these are my fee, the one night's day, things like that. and then these were the payments received from last year and then these are the what everything includes that I do but again we've already seen it from last year so there's no big surprises but are we in line with budget so is 18 is that the grand total or yeah I think this okay so what what is still outstanding at this point well not that nothing's been committed except for the rest got it okay yeah all things you can say lily I like both or lily just pick one or this is your budget you know do what you think is or 18 that was the overall budget from last year right this is from this is the exact total from last year I think I think generally I want to keep or it's meet or exceed what we did last year
Quan Gan: here, right? don't want to we don't want to backtrack. I mean, I understand there's probably increased costs due to tariffs or whatever. So there may be some incremental like higher just to meet what we have. So I want to at least keep that standard of quality and then see if there's something else that we can just add a little bit.
Lily Eibert: So I so for example, I I don't think I can do so this one is already maxing out at so I'm trying to be similar to last year. So it would have to be one or the other if we're going to keep it.
Quan Gan: So I think I think that bad looks good. How big is that?
Lily Eibert: Is that a backpack or is it like? So there's a mini version and then there's a regular version. Let me move this out of the way here. So Amazon was cheaper for some reason, but depending on color, right? So this is 70, I found some for like, I think it was like 60 some dollars, you know, can you guys see these by chance?
Quan Gan: I can see it, yeah.
Lily Eibert: Okay, so these are the different depending on color, there are varies on the price if I buy it through Amazon, but if I buy it through their website, sometimes it's you know, so I would have to pick one or the other because they're both going to be about the same price as last year.
Quan Gan: So I've only seen this brand every now and then, I don't have any idea of the market perception, can you educate me on that?
Lily Eibert: Oh, well, it's, it's, it's simple in design, but it's super popular in terms of, you know, recognition. you their, their or flagship bag from this brand. don't know, Charlie, have you seen these bags?
Quan Gan: Oh, yeah. they're nice. Yeah, I tried to see which color mesh Z-TEG best.
Lily Eibert: Yeah, no, there's so many colors. And I wanted something young hip and the look that go with their vibe of art, know, I could go with like a laptop bag or that's black and I don't know if that's so exciting. You know, for a lot of people. And I've looked at a lot of different brands that is just not within our budget. So this is falls within the realm. It's still young and hip. It's still a quality product. Cause again, that is the focus for me. don't want a random bag from a vendor that does corporate conferences.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it's a good brand and if I get our co-hosts and use it. So if it's a logo on there, it's nice to promote it.
Kristin Neal: Like Z-L-O.
Lily Eibert: There's a lot of muted colors, but ours is that, you know, blue.
Quan Gan: We can go like with their turp. mean. Yeah, she lays the, the, the, the, the indigo blue and like very bright vibrance. Go up. Let's go going.
Kristin Neal: The yellow branches, the Zeus units.
Quan Gan: Oh, Zeus. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, too. Okay.
Lily Eibert: know, that mustard color.
Quan Gan: Even going.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: little bit. You like that one.
Lily Eibert: Very first one. This, this one or this one?
Quan Gan: Just this one. Like the right.
Lily Eibert: Right.
Quan Gan: Okay. The ball.
Lily Eibert: it's got expensive taste. But also the second row, uh, second row, like the, oh, moving a third. So it's roll like the fourth one. Uh huh. This one.
Quan Gan: And can.
Lily Eibert: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah. color. No. It's close to the detail. Blue.
Lily Eibert: So I'll try to find that Caribbean turquoise, you know, type. I've already sent him some like, hey, can you print on this for me? Can you print on that for me? then, so depending on and things like that, I'm trying to get pricing. But I'll let you know if I encounter any hiccups, but that's the plan.
Quan Gan: OK, yeah. How many people we know so far for this year would join the dinner? I'll kind of plug back into it.
Kristin Neal: That's a good question, Charlie, because it kind of fell off with Stan's departure. But we have like four confirmed so far, but I have probably about 10 invites out that I have not heard.
Quan Gan: So now it comes from like each school as a group. So we cons on the hats or normally we invite by person.
Kristin Neal: So I'm inviting by person and then I'm inviting their team.
Quan Gan: So I have all of DAPA list.
Kristin Neal: Hello.
Quan Gan: Do we have people from Ken that we
Kristin Neal: can invite.
Quan Gan: I can see if, um, yeah, like, like Roy, uh, or Bill.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, those are the big players. Okay.
Quan Gan: Oh, we get on their good side. I think they, yeah, they're very active in bringing people into our booth.
Kristin Neal: They invited them last year and they said, no, that they had dinner with their own team.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay.
Lily Eibert: So I just have to get, last year, uh, it was 25 was the number I gave them that was seven days prior to the event. And then the day of the event, we did increase. So I think the total amount was 30 last year. That was what we gave the restaurant and the count we were providing, you know, who came because I get it during that day. I'm sure there's people you see that maybe.
Quan Gan: Yeah, we might be able to, yeah, some people. Now, does it, um, does it change? Okay. So the dinner is the second day, right?
Lily Eibert: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay. So we even have some opportunity. We don't get those numbers, right? We still want to have a, you know, a filled out, you know, event.
Lily Eibert: I mean, Kristen, do you think, I mean, we're in early March, mid-March. Do you think, um, I don't know what the RSVP deadline is for this time? think that, um, do you think we'll get about 20, 25, including, because I saw your list from the shared, um, I mean, if we can get maybe, you know, in the 20, 25 range, and then we can add, or I think just for the purpose of, you know, those items, I just, I'm planning towards maybe 30, then, um, items, just so we're not shorting anybody. Um, and that way, if there's, you know, there's some flexibility based on what the final count is.
Quan Gan: If you guys are good with the 30, exclusive, so you're not like inviting people at the booth.
Lily Eibert: like it's something you okay yeah it'll be nice to invite them ahead of time okay we did um both last year we do what go ahead Lily oh I was just gonna say I think the people that went last year and I maybe when I had asked and he thought maybe half of those people would be the same um you know for this dinner um I think they had a great time and they walked away with you know so I'm thinking for you know I don't know Kristen do you think those are the same if we invited very of those folks a lot of them will come back because it was such a good time I have talked to several of them and they are some of them are not coming but other people on their team are so we can definitely um yeah go that route to bring the rest of their team I'm also trying to get new that was the thing from last year that we did so we had like a set and I think
Kristin Neal: It goes extra five people were during that day. So we go with 20, I would say go with 20 and then add if they're able that that day. And we know that they can fit 30, but I say if we commit to 20, I think that will be.
Quan Gan: Yeah, because I think it has to prepare for 30 gifts, right? And then we have RSVP 20 for now, and then we have 10 flexible tips that we can bring in.
Kristin Neal: So the only thing is, I think we have to hit a minimum, I think, to the room for the room.
Lily Eibert: I mean, but also I don't know if they can do like 50% more based on our original number. Does that make sense? if we take, you know, let's say we say 20 and then we go to 30, I think they have a harder time being flexible. If it's just if it's five, four to five people, I think from food and from a logistics setting standpoint, they can probably accommodate because they may have. have to have additional people if we're going, you know, over 50% of our, you know, quote unquote, final number, we're not even including ourselves.
Kristin Neal: I'm sorry. Yeah, I just want to know.
Quan Gan: So from your point, what is the deadline for us to finalize more by accurate numbers for whom to come, like what, at which date?
Lily Eibert: Wow. Was it raining cats and dogs where you guys were last night?
Kristin Neal: I'm hearing thunder right now. It was raining.
Quan Gan: Not that hard.
Lily Eibert: No, we were hearing a hail or, you know, some crazy.
Kristin Neal: Wow.
Lily Eibert: I bet Indiana is having better weather than we are.
Kristin Neal: I'm going to look up.
Lily Eibert: I think it's a seven day prior to the event. Let me just look really quick here and to final count. Oh, five business days before your event. I need to give them a guaranteed account. So guaranteed account again means if I say 20, it cannot be lower than 20, but they they're hoping that that 20 is correct. But if you go to 23 or 24, they can probably accommodate.
Quan Gan: what did we do last year? Did we guarantee them 25?
Lily Eibert: 25 was the count that we with that Kristen and I discussed. And then we they were able to accommodate the additional five.
Quan Gan: Chris, do you think it would be difficult to do a repeat of last year to hit 25?
Kristin Neal: Yeah, I think that's doable.
Quan Gan: Doable? Okay, so then let's just commit to that. The theme is to meet or exceed last year's expectations.
Lily Eibert: So when we get closer, I will give them. I will touch base with Kristen and see what, you know, again, five days prior. That's That's probably as accurate, you know, as possible, and then if there's a little maneuvering to do, we can, as long as it's again, not under, we'll just be paying 20 or 25, whatever we say we're paying for and then any additional ones.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Lily Eibert: So, just to confirm a couple of things, and I just had some quick questions then. So I'm going to be sending over. Hold on. So confirm budget, are we good with this, not, maybe it's a not to exceed. You know, 19 or whatever it is that you think is good.
Quan Gan: If we put it at 20. Yeah, you think there's anything else that we can squeeze in there or it's probably, you know, similar.
Lily Eibert: We've proposed, I can do probably under the 20, but let me configure them based on quantity and things like that. Um, if we can add anything, you know, budget wise, we will, and I'll confirm that with Charlie moving forward. Um, I wanted to see if, um, Z tag shirts, are we needing more shirts? No. Yeah, we should just, and I think we had some branded tablecloths. Did you guys, are you using them right now?
Kristin Neal: Yeah, we do. We have new ones.
Lily Eibert: Yes. Okay. Good.
Kristin Neal: We have only six foot, though. Unless Kwan, you have the two eight foot ones?
Quan Gan: Oh, we do have one just newly made, but the logo is not updated. So probably need to redo it.
Kristin Neal: Oh, the new ones have. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Lily, what is the size of the table over there? how many six feet? Oh, six feet.
Lily Eibert: Okay. From the outside, from the pool side is six feet.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Lily Eibert: Oh, no, inside, Kristen and your booth.
Kristin Neal: Are you using six or eight or using six?
Lily Eibert: Okay. And because we bought two custom tablecloths last time. So I'm just confirming that those are still because Stan had them the last time.
Quan Gan: I take it back. I don't know where they are.
Kristin Neal: It's going to say, wait, do you have them still?
Quan Gan: I don't know.
Lily Eibert: Well, you obviously don't know. gave them to Stan.
Kristin Neal: You understand. God, she got you. He must have them still then. OK, I'll need to check with them.
Quan Gan: OK, but now they're all with their all. Yeah. So if they have the tag, we just reorder it. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: OK, if not, let me know.
Lily Eibert: And I can maybe get it from the same place if if we don't have them for any reason. And Charlie, I'll check back with you on that as a follow up.
Quan Gan: And these are tablecloths or are they just straight over?
Lily Eibert: Well, it's it's it's tight on the front and then. has cut out on the back so you can sit behind it.
Quan Gan: It's more like a stretch. Okay, but it's like a stretch.
Lily Eibert: It's a stretchy. Okay, you know that you get so because when we're outside, I don't tend to buy the flowy ones. I want the ones that you can secure. So the brand name always is in place and you're not flying around, you know, especially outside and probably.
Quan Gan: We kind of need those all the time anyway. Maybe we can let's go back and see the pseudo warehouse.
Lily Eibert: Maybe have one store somewhere and I'll send you what they look like in the price. And that way you can let me know whether you want those same ones or different ones or things like that. then so I guess if Charlie's my contact, I'll send you the contract with the payment timeline and you can do Zell or Chex. But now that we're further away, I guess, Zell would work best if whatever works well for you. And then day of on the pool side, last year I brought an assistant. But who we have this year? Are they the same?
Quan Gan: Is it the same crew? Well, we haven't exactly decided on that yet. But I'm thinking Ricardo might be there. We might bring in the photographer again. Steve might be. Or a Z tag Steve. Oh, yeah, not my Steve. And then do we want to air it from? So last year, do you think it's manageable, like the size of the team? Last year they were there. But I mean, we were relying on them to do the actual work they're doing. And for example, the photographers are busy. They're not necessarily helping us with setup. So if anything.
Lily Eibert: it might really just be a syntax or if we need the yeah yeah so it would be us for so Lily last time I saw the picture are you have a assistant with you as well is or just so this year I feel like it's not going to be as critical only because last year we had to inflate all those beach balls right there and then and that took time so this year I don't feel like I need as much help but I do have an assistant ready to go that wouldn't be an additional to this I would just be you know if I opt to bring my assistant then that comes out of the fees but I just wanted to know from your side because I know we're going to have the explanation of the of the device and the game structure right? And, you know, it's always fun to have like people behind the table. Do you know what saying? So people feel like, you know, they can engage in conversations about Z tag along with, because I'm going to be doing a lot of the price. They'll literally ask me what Z tag, right? So, if there's people there that's going to be standing by discussing it, that's always really good to have a full book to the booth, you know.
Quan Gan: We can invite both Eric and Steve. Okay, so so far, do you think four people is enough?
Lily Eibert: like Kristin?
Quan Gan: No?
Lily Eibert: Yeah, no, that's great.
Quan Gan: So Kristin, me, you, and Steve, and maybe two more. So either four or five? Oh, no, like Steve. So it's four already. But what about Eric? Yeah, Eric, when I come, but we still need to Yeah, we still have on the budget. Yeah, we'll get that.
Lily Eibert: Okay, all right. Then that's it, unless you guys have any questions for me.
Quan Gan: Um, oh, do you have Charlie's email?
Lily Eibert: I would love to get Charlie's email. Oh, I saw it on the invite.
Quan Gan: think yes. Okay, good. So, I live for the next catch up, what we are going to focus on. So, what we need to do to prepare the meeting.
Lily Eibert: So, this is the biggest determinant right now, because if I know what the budget is, and if these items are, you know, and good to go in terms of the direction and things like that, they're made. The only shifting that could happen is if the budget is not, you know, in line. But a lot of this stuff, it can be executed. And then I'll be touching base with you. Maybe we'll touch base, you know, in the beginning, we'll send emails. And if you have any questions, but then every two weeks, we'll touch base as we go along. Or if you have any questions. any time, of course, you can reach out by phone, text, email, but I'm just, you know, gonna be, because there's a lot of lead time stuff that I need to do. So I'm just gonna start executing it now that we're all pretty much on the same page and agreeable. Yeah, it's just, it's a lot of fun and I think it's very doable and I had such a good time meeting the crew last year because I didn't know anybody. I met Kristin, and I understand, and nobody else. And so, so yeah, and I hope last year's experience was a good one for the for the company and for the group as well. So I'm super excited to do this again.
Quan Gan: Wonderful. Looking forward to it.
Kristin Neal: Can I just confirm one more time? I'm not sure if we can confirm the gifts. So the gifts are for the high end gift is going to still be the air tag. The funny glasses. we're removing the the glue and going back to the air tag.
Lily Eibert: Yeah, so unless I can finagle it. So what can happen is fewer of one item to have five options, let's say, versus, do you know what I'm saying? So depending on my my my printer, if he said there's a minimum to let's say the igloo, then I'll pivot to something else. Or if I say, hey, can I combine the igloo and the Palm Springs bag in terms of the pressing because it's the same logo, can you do that for me? then I can, do you know what I'm saying? Like minimize the the minimums for these these bags. So I'm gonna try and fit five if I can. And if not, then yeah, maybe the igloo will go.
Kristin Neal: Or you do that, Lily, if you're gonna combine them, maybe just offer them either the igloo bag or the Palm Springs bag. So the value
Lily Eibert: These are quite different, but I can do, you know, last time we had 18 of those z-tads, I'm sorry, 16 of those air tabs. So again, that could be the same because it depends on how they spin, right? Because and then as things fall off, we just erase it. Like totes, we only had like four or five of those. So we just started racing and replacing them. So if we think variety is more fun, we can definitely, again, based on the budget, I can make, I can make shifts.
Quan Gan: Okay. So how many items total?
Lily Eibert: Like how many? It's 100 people. 200 was last year's count in terms of actual items.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Lily Eibert: And the flexible one is the lottery ticket because they're, I'm only doing dollar ones this time. That was $5 ones last time because the ball was the cheaper item at $1.75 a piece. now the lottery tickets will be the dollar, then it's The glasses are $1.50. Actually, I take that back. It's around $1 for a little bit over $1 for the glasses. then the palm string bag is $7 and then $24 for igloo.
Quan Gan: Okay, so what is the total attendee? How many people will attend the show? So why is 200 is like someone we didn't catch? 200 is only for that event because there's limited space and not everybody's even in town. see. You know, the show is much bigger. There's like thousands. So that event is invite them to call? No, it's their opening event. It's the you know, like the last trade show they have the like the opening ceremony. Oh, you know, it's not everybody goes.
Lily Eibert: All right, guys. I'll be back in touch. Um, as soon as I get more pricing information, but if you're all agreeable to these things, I'll just, I'll just be in executing mode and, you know, we can ask one more question.
Kristin Neal: so sorry. Did we have enough? if I remember correctly, I'm glad that Charlie brought that up because I remember correctly, there was actually still time, but we didn't have any prizes left for people to continue to still do it.
Lily Eibert: No, the only thing that we really ran out of was the totes first. That's why I brought out the groovy glasses. We had some lottery tickets left that we gave to the servers at dinner. But everything else went. So there was a few left over, but it wasn't too much, but it wasn't of every product. And then we threw, we did have some balls left over that we threw into the pool.
Kristin Neal: Okay. So not enough to expand on that, but not, it's perfect.
Lily Eibert: I mean, I think that's probably a good amount, but again, we've only been to one show or I've only been to the one show for Boost. And so I don't know if that's enough to kind of make a trend, but I'm planning on about 200 again this year. And I suppose if we run out, we run out, but I'm hoping that's about right.
Kristin Neal: A lot of people still bring it up from last year, so definitely have to act. Yeah.
Lily Eibert: I'm excited. No, I think these are really good prizes that people walk away really happy with.
Quan Gan: So, very fun. Okay.
Lily Eibert: All right, then, thank you so much. And I'll send over the contract and the payment schedule along with any additional information, you know, if it pops up, but I'll follow up with Charlie on that.
Quan Gan: Okay, perfect. Thank you.
Lily Eibert: All right, guys.
Quan Gan: Thank you. No one to meet up. After this or okay, so we'll jump on this vlog app.
Lily Eibert: Thank you.
Quan Gan: All right.
Lily Eibert: Bye you guys.
Kristin Neal: Bye Okay, yeah, it was your zoom to begin with. Yeah, should we exit or are they uh, yeah, let's exit Or this thing.
Quan Gan: Yeah, okay.
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Kristin Neal: entertainment center that he's building and he wants a tag of as one of the options to do.
Quan Gan: Chief, stop it. You're disrupting our meeting. Correct.
Kristin Neal: He's building that up and he will eventually franchise. He's only looking for a one to two unit right now, but it sounds like he would sell it to other franchisees. because he's creating this zone or the center and he wants others to come to him and say, yes, I want this.
Quan Gan: I want this from my own center.
Kristin Neal: But definitely look at the transcripts because there was a few questions technical wise that I was a little but they were such small details. I was like, yeah, that's a small detail.
Quan Gan: talk about that later. I'll go through that. I mean, this might be a good opportunity for me to go over that overall plan, the VC pitch deck from a couple of years ago, because I want to put that into the whole context of where we're going and then us three, we can make a decision because I know previously we've been very much like anti foreign sales at least for now. Also entertainment, we were kind of like very much segmented. So I wanted to kind of relook at everything and then have us come to a decision on how to proceed.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, that sounds good. I forgot they are also wanting to go into schools.
Quan Gan: So yeah, so it's part of this total equation. Let me see if I can find that slide. It's been a while. It's Koen's original dream, big dream.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: I've been dreaming about this for years, but it was kind of canned for quite a while and I feel like it's kind of wanted to spring back into action. Oh, there's so many car planes with me. Oh, well, yeah, here I'll show you my screen on just how many. How many dreams? Like how many decks I've made over the years.
Kristin Neal: Ooh. What are the decks? Oh my God.
Quan Gan: Deck parrots slides.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, just for. Presentations.
Quan Gan: Wow. Presentations. Yeah. Hold on. Not this one. Yeah. So these are outdated, but I think the general vision has been the same because it's based on first principles. And I say this all the time and she, it's, she's, she's got a callus in her ear from me saying first principles because you hear this all. time, like whether it's Musk or any of the other tech leaders, first principles just means when you go really back, pull it back down to fundamentals, the very basics is really simple. The whole thing, everything we're doing is about eyeballs. Attention, right? right now, from a society's standpoint, the collective attention is in the wrong direction. We're being fed the wrong information. It's basically separating us and creating all of these problems. Like all the problems that we see really stem from the fact that we're not having face-to-face engagement, but we're separating and, you know, we're as a species. Yeah, so a long time ago, when I looked into what can potentially shift our global consciousness, I started just looking at what do people pay attention to the most? And it ends up being sports look at any like World Cup or NBA or any of these major league it that gets worldwide attention, not just for the sake of the sport itself, the sport itself is really just a vessel. The actual thing is the entire ecosystem that it commands. Like if you look at the NBA brand or the NFL brand or anything beyond the sport itself, it is like, think about how diehard the fans are, right? It's part of their, it's part of American culture or global culture. It creates teams. is it also is completely injected into into the education system because there's a lot of money to be had in professional sports. So they put a lot of money back into the schools to basically be a feeder into that ecosystem. There's our, yeah, it creates a teamwork and there's a lot of potential for, for industry, you know, there's a lot of like sponsorships or there's just a lot of deals surrounding it, but the negative to it is you'll see, you know, people are betting money on it, they're risking their lives into like, into this pipe dream, thinking that okay, I'm gonna make it as like a big NBA star, like for, for every LeBron James, there's probably millions of kids that don't make it, right? And it actually ends up being a net negative for many families to spend all that time and energy just so that their kid has a marginal chance of even making it. And so from first principles, think sports have a huge grab on, on human culture. But if we can take some aspects of what we learn from how that has happened and use Z tag as a new vessel to basically repopulate the way. That's really what I'm, you know, it's not what I'm hoping to do, but I think that's the vision that ZTAC can really capture is to how do we get it so embedded into culture, symbol for with the symbol for face-to-face connection. Like you look at any major brand like Coca-Cola or Nike, any of these brands, they represent something that really tapped into the psyche or the zeitgeist of the population. But I would argue that at this point, the world needs something to really shift. You know, those are very popular commercial brands and at the end of the day, they're just trying to make more money. Right. You know, but the mechanism is still the same mechanism is really how much. attention it gets. Like how many eyeballs see this logo? And this is also why I shared with you that I thought having like a little tagline underneath was actually diluting Z tag because we want everybody's attention to focus on this. And there was even this physics principle I was sharing with you about social gravity and social mass where collectively if every time someone sees the Z tag logo it resonates in a certain positive vibe in their own consciousness. You spread this out over the billions of people across the planet I think we're going to be able to really shift. So all of that is kind of the foundation of where this presentation kind of goes. So taking a couple of trends on well so the letter Z has been redefined and you know that but really right now it's like how do we help Gen Z and beyond? and to engage back into face to face and the sports analogy of this is if you look at riot games I don't know if you know anything about them they're the creator of league of legends and many other like very like I bet your kids would know about them okay so they're they're actually a huge producer it's like a Microsoft of video games okay so they're that big if not bigger our generation probably doesn't know about it because our kids are the ones playing their titles but what they've been able to do over the past 20 years is they actually created themselves to become both or all three of these where they are the activity they are the league and they're also the they're also this the broadcasting of the activity So imagine if, you know, in the terms of basketball, they are the basketball game, they are the NBA, but they also happen to be the ESPN that, you know, broadcasts it. And so they've already done this before. And I think Z tag can take a similar position eventually, where we basically have a completely vertical channel where we're producing something called Z tag. We have our own leagues, and then we also have the distribution of this to really, to really affect the population. And so in order to actually like own a sport entirely is actually having a fourth component, we have to have the intellectual property. And that is basically the logo, you know, the brand itself, but also some of the technology underneath that really makes everything work. And so far we have that. So I've always been kind of starting at four and then waiting for when one, two and three kind of show the right timing.
Kristin Neal: Interesting.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Go back to that last one. Yeah. Where do you think we are now?
Quan Gan: I think we're, we have four. We're starting to work on one. But two and three, these things I've touched upon over the past few years, enough to the point to know what needs to happen or what are the necessary conditions for it to happen. So I've been very much prepped. So for example, during COVID, there was no human game. that's why we will jump over to that later. But that's why we actually jumped into the drone stuff because we were able to turn it into a tournament play. And I also Invested a lot of time and energy into understanding what the state of the art is in wireless broadcasting Because that's actually a key component because eventually imagine Our kids playing z tag or running around and then turning that into a professional league Where they're actually wearing like head-mounted cameras and you get to see first person as if it's in a live action video game Okay, and that needs to be broadcasted so A lot of that stuff it's easy to imagine but to actually get it to implementation There's quite a bit of tech behind it Although we don't have to develop it because there's plenty of other people already working on that so So our whole thing is like let's say Imagine there's this new land that you're you've discovered Okay, but there's from the current land to the new land There's like there happens to be like a thin strip that can actually from the old world to the new world. Think of a, you know the Bering Strait that connects Siberia to Alaska, right? Like, there's ones in a blue moon, like that part actually freezes over and allows humans to migrate. Well, if you knew that, if you know there's this new continent to be had, the way to really be able to take ownership of that is you have to be the gatekeeper at the Bering Strait. So the IP, the intellectual property, and the things we've been doing is how do we focus on being at the gatekeeper rather than having to put a fence over the entire continent? Okay, so I'm really looking at the key things that allow us to be the gatekeeper for anybody coming through and making sure anybody coming through gets populated with the the type of mindset. know, and I think, and in some ways, like the Things that have happened over the past few months is that it's like, we need to make sure everyone who's within the Z tag organization and we affect are already redefining what it is to show up as a human being in the 21st century. Okay, so, so we'll come back to this part. Any questions so far. Okay. Charlie's already heard this whole spiel session.
Kristin Neal: It's just not really good to get the electricity bill paid.
Quan Gan: Oh, like the mercy tasking right now. So if you look at it, look at what it is to be in the game. There are a few things that are vital. So, you know, we, we have. Okay, so it's been a let me read this over because it's been a couple of years so. We've been able to experiment with how human players work right so you know all of our Z tag games are humans and then during the during COVID that was a remote control versus remote control right so so we've really figured that part out already. The game mechanics and remember how I asked you. What's the purpose of a ball.
Kristin Neal: The ball is the capture of attention. Yeah, every major ball sport.
Quan Gan: That's what you're focusing on. And so right now we actually have an initial patent on having a virtual ball because even if Z tag is the one that popularizes a future physical digital game. Someone will do that. It's almost a necessary condition so I jumped on that and I stake that out way before anybody started coming in.
Kristin Neal: Art. Yes, I love that.
Quan Gan: Well, so we have that mechanism and you'll see that mechanism in keep away where your flash kind of one person's flashing and then later on transfers or we're sequence train where one person is it and they're trying to pass it on to the next person because now you have a focal point. It's a virtual ball and then we have to have, you know, mission based and strategic games. Those are pretty general. Okay, so, so, yeah, I covered this, this slide. Okay, so getting to a league though means, okay, well, actually, before I get into why a league, if you look at like the Olympics, why is there Taekwondo or judo, but you don't have kung fu?
Kristin Neal: Oh, good question.
Quan Gan: It's really because they have it regulated. It's consistent. So you take Taekwondo in one country versus another, it's still the same set of principles or mechanics. There's a format. so it allows you to have essentially the same, you share the same language. So when you come together, there's enough people speaking the same language that you can actually have some kind of interaction. With Kung Fu, there's so many different forms of it. There's no consistency. It's like everybody speaking a different dialect. So how do you imagine going to have the same thing come together? the reason of having a league is to get some kind of a sanction format that is deemed official. And so by me explaining this, you see this is why basketball, soccer, or any of these major sports are popular. It's because they all follow the same set of rules. Essentially having the same set of length. which is a protocol that allows it to popularize. So in order to have a league, then you need to have consistency rules and regulation. The game needs to be balanced. So anybody playing it feels like it's a fair game and it's not unevenly matched. And then finally, this piece, it needs to be playable, watchable, and self-practiceable, meaning that you have to be able to do this on your own and get better. Like maybe, so you get a basketball. You can play in a league, you can play at home, you can watch it on TV, but you can also just shoot some hoops in your backyard. So Z-Tag, the self-practiceable part is tough right now, but I've experimented with versions where you can actually do some play by yourself or you could train for it at least. But these are necessary conditions for this thing to really be better. Yeah Any questions on this page?
Kristin Neal: It's There's something about that self-practiceable that is sticking in my brain and that If we're This is like really big picture, but I definitely see the the school being as the self-practiceable is that is the most Um What do you call that when it's all the same for everybody? When it's all Inclusive it's very inclusive school will include whoever wants to play with that and I do see the playable and watchable for like the The Parks and Rec because they would be it would be awesome for them to do the league, you know them Really do that because they also need that a little bit extra time and you know, like that.
Quan Gan: So I definitely see the the truth of that kind of The way you're looking at it still, that's more of a team based thing still. I'm saying like someone could still do something practice a certain skill on their own, like throwing a ball against the wall or something.
Kristin Neal: And like a consumer But you're you're completely fighting against your own mission of bringing people together. I think that's the beauty of it.
Quan Gan: Maybe a small version like a Yes. So I think one on one is hard. But maybe there are some skills that you could do. I mean, no, not one. I mean, like as individual, like, if you're alone, that is hard. You might want to find a buddy. But it's still like red like green light. You can practice on your own. Like if you had a single thing. And I allowed you to practice it. It's kind of like jump rope, right? You can you can do it, but you can also do it in a group. So we have to get things that encourage it to even start, even if you didn't have anybody. Although the group is what makes it better. you know, like, even if you're a martial art, you can't really do anything without the other person. But you still have something where you're practicing a single person skill. But something that may have to help with that is we might have to have a consumer and product at some point. know, we had those badges before. We've tried it. It didn't work out then, but it doesn't later on when ZTAC is a popular brand, and you could start selling stuff through Target or, you know, other retailers. it's more of an order of timing. But eventually, we're going to need something where they can just take home and do self-practice. But I do agree with you that, you know, the schools and parks and recs, like, I want that to be our ground to start creating the league.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah. From our perspective, because I do feel like as I was mentioned, this one stream, because I feel like he sees the potential of bring, bring Z tag towards the, the bigger platform stage or whatever is the sports, like right now, we probably can foresee it's the, the, the form it can go towards. But I always against clients that I don't actually like this word gain, like a sports, because the sports is competition. It's not really you know, like they in a small group of cooperate, but a bigger group is like fighting with each so somehow I am not really, you know, like when I was raising my case, I tried to avoid them, put them into competition sports too early because I feel like we should teach them love and share and more than like when they're at young age they're being put into a very high situation of competing or you know like self-protecting that type of mode. I feel like it's like we ancient time we have to protect our fight with the animal is feeding to that type of needs. So I was I was like how we work on both not just focusing on just compete or how fancy the interaction could be but like a higher behind like how we work with each other to make it fun for it's a very fun presenting meaningful all over the people watching it.
Kristin Neal: I think Charlie how to do that and I hate to be that pain in But it will be to stay away from the third party, because then everybody will have that capability of playing. As soon as you put money behind it, that someone can just buy their way in. Yeah, you're right. That would deter that.
Quan Gan: Yeah, you're right. it's like, yeah, if the money are getting there, their voice are getting in there for sure. Yeah, I don't understand. I feel like Kwan have a big vision and we do want to moving forward. But some part of me, I want to make it slow, not grow as fast as out of control. any decision could make this good or wrong. So, so we have really like, think triple times or even more to to see are we taking the right step of.
Kristin Neal: our goals yeah it's like it's like Anakin Skywalker can turn into Darth Vader like watching AI right now you know I for say good things and bad things it could lead to good future bad future yeah it's just really if that's okay I'm I'm so grateful that you guys are spiritual even though you don't have a you know you don't claim Jesus as your lord but as long as it feels like you're still absorbing like that the force you know I mean so you are getting that that deep understanding because I'm exactly that way everything I I am understanding is we need to be very careful with with every single step absolutely I'm very grateful for that I wanted to uh wait you said something and I wanted to piggyback on this oh oh quaint you had yeah I agree with what you're saying about, this again, just to plan to see, just to see where it goes with you guys, but you had on the slide before NBA and, you know, like the professional, the NFL, things like that, but, and I do understand what you're saying about that. But it doesn't have to maybe fit in that exact mold. But if we are being serious about protecting this, this magic, I want to say that Z-Tech is have that in the college, have that in the college form, because that is huge. If we were to say the highest that you can get in NFL is in the college range, how many kids would would flock and hate for that, for that team. So it's just putting it out there and then of course like the NFL, like there's there's another way it feels like that's that's what I'm saying is just that there might be. healthy your way.
Quan Gan: Absolutely. You know, this framework was built with historical data, right, versus we have the opportunity to create something completely new. We're inspired by history, but what we're trying to do is something completely unprecedented. I'm presenting this so at least it's believable. It's not just like, you know, crazy, because if had I shown you this two, three years ago, most people think I'm crazy, but it's been there, you know, like for seven years. And it's been waiting for the right people to get on this boat to really steer it in the right direction. So I'm absolutely happy that we would repopulate the definition, potentially change what sports that means. So populated with with very positive energy, because sports actually, frankly, it's a proxy for war, you know, the humans have to have this aggression, but sports has been a channel for them to have that outlet in a manageable way. arguably, Z-Tag is already doing that because kids have this aggressive energy, right? It's chaotic, but we're doing something that allows it to be in a channeled and structured. So, we're already doing that on a small scale. But we have the opportunity to shift what competitive sports look like. Yeah, I do agree. These are our natural, you know, like thousands of years ago, we're a natural, we're an animal species, we're a human. That's also part of us. We have to chew to ourselves. also, I feel like we're even talk about we can have come up with a game like teach kids to understand their emotions. So we will give them platform to express like angry bear like how you tell her about the game. Yeah. So we're thinking maybe it's a game it's like a crazy zoo you know when the kids are so each kids will have an animal and also have a joke about how the animal is happy or angry or surprised so so I get in motion yeah emotion and and and I don't like pattern match where they're like changing so you put a random animal and a random emotion you have to have a half will have the picture of the animal in the emotion and then the other half will have the emotion and they got a match no no actually it's expressive like a personal expressive and let other people see you so when like a five kids so they're presenting different animals, and they're expressed differently. so, you know, like some, it's make a gimme fine, but, you know, like some kids, maybe in their life, they trap their emotional beings here. It's kind of like acting, acting class. Just common at the beginning, it has a spiritual, spiritual meaning of this activity. So it will make you to representing another personality, twist you, like switch you to another perspective or looking back to your life in another way. So it will broaden your understanding of the surroundings or peoples, how you use a different way to interact with others. So these are even just a very simple game, but can help kids to, you know, understanding, oh, this is how I express my anger. But when I express my anger, it's not always come with suffer. It come with fun. know, it come with... Oh, shoot. I gotta get on the support call.
Kristin Neal: I also have to get off. I have to get off in five minutes.
Quan Gan: Oh, I just wanted to... I said 11, okay.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Yeah, I'm scared. Yeah, mine's at 11 too. So, yeah, five minutes. can I speak to what you had said before, Charlie, before you were explaining the game, which is very fun. It sounds amazing. sounds really fun. But we had talked about yesterday or the day before about universities doing that and having that connection. So, like, if we did go that route, we already have University of Missouri.
Quan Gan: They're ready to expand.
Kristin Neal: So, if we're ready to maybe show them exactly what the redefinition of that, like redefining the game and having it really embedded into the... up into the university level. I'm definitely excited to see where that goes. And I also wanted to bring up another thing, because we had brought up to the team, or I had brought up to the team, and I'm sorry, this is going to be a very quick, but it's probably better that it's quick because I think you guys understand that my limit is, my thing is self-conscious. I'm very, very, so if never, and I'm being dead honest when I've told you this the other night, that I've gotten over and over and over again from jobs. And it is because of my self-consciousness. I know because I was never able to go to them and say, hey, I don't feel valued because I'm doing all this work, but I'm not getting that help that, I was never able to say that. Okay. There are some things here that, and I'm grateful that I know you enough, Juan, that you would understand it simply because there isn't enough time in the day for me to be the mom that I need to be, and the wife that I need to be, and what I want to be for Z-Tag, you know, what I feel like I'm being called to be for you guys. So there's two things that if you guys can consider and that would be a monthly incentive for me and that would be if we're able to hit like maybe let's say 10 units or you could figure out the numbers, five units, whatever, then I would be able to get the help that I need around this house. I'm falling apart, like the house is falling apart. I can't keep up with that. I just can't. On Mondays and Fridays and Saturdays, sometimes Saturdays, but definitely Mondays and Fridays I am really struggling with feeding my own family. Thinking of what to provide for dinner is so overwhelming for me. After work it's like I can't even make rice, like don't ask me to do anything. I'd rather starve, like just please, but I can't let my three kids go starving either. So I have someone that does do their own business here. that she would be able to quickly make dinner and bring it and it would be something healthy and nutritious and I would be able to just have that alleviated. So there's these things that I would hope that you guys would agree that would be something that I can work Do you guys have number? Can you just talk about it? I have. I'm thinking 250 a month for the cleaning. I'm sorry, not a month, a week. It would have to be a weekly thing. So that would be a thousand and the food I'm thinking she'd be able to do for those two nights, 150. So 150 a week. that would be so 1600. Again, these are numbers that I want you to just think through and let me know because I want to be as honest with you as possible. I don't want to feel like I'm drowning.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Well, I appreciate you guys speaking and vocalizing that. That's really important. Thank you. Thank you. Where I'm trying to learn. Yeah, and I appreciate you teaching me. I think that's what if anything that's what exactly I need is I need you guys to just Teach me how to be vocal about and not be self-conscious. I don't want it to look I think I'm fearful of you looking like I'm greedy. I don't want to feel like I I don't want it to look like that But I'm just showing you what I'm struggling with really harsh.
Quan Gan: No, I really appreciate that Yeah, and two things like I I've shared with you that often times like in our heads. We're the worst monster compared to actually just being spoken out Yeah, and and the other thing that helps me when I get self-conscious that I realize other people They're so busy. They really just don't care, you know, they don't care as much as I care about something So it really hits my self-consciousness on something. So true So true, but there's a reason it's that you got to kind of like dig in your own No, well, thank you for that We'll discuss this and then let's see if we could come to the table or something that's going to work for everybody.
Kristin Neal: That sounds good. One other thing, one, there's one issue of this that is overwhelming also and that is the technical calls. I know we're not getting technical calls as often, but it feels like that is something that's going to come and I want to be able to have something in place and ready. I've already heard from Stan and I believe from you that it's not best for me to take those calls. I need to be on that front and not on that back end. from where my perspective was, if Steve, actually, if we could get Steve a work phone. Steve, he knows the unit from back and sideways like he's, he would be able to just rattle it off off the top of his head and have it as him available for three hours every day, Monday through Friday. And if he gets any of those calls and he gets. 50 bucks, you know, like have it to where it's like a consultant fee. Here's your $50 consultant fee and then move on. So that's just another idea. Again, I just want you to think through, but that's something that I'm like, it's, I just, we need something in place for that.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay. Okay. Those are very interesting new underpins to consider. So I appreciate that.
Kristin Neal: Thank you guys. you so much.
Quan Gan: going to, I get to go do my hair.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Okay.
Quan Gan: We'll resume this call later, but yeah, I just wanted to keep you in contact, but also thank you for your feedback on that.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Thank you guys. Bye. See you. I'll see you guys. Bye. Bye.
Quan Gan: I can't seem to hear you now you're kind of talk yeah I can't hear you you can hear me though right you can hear me no that's so weird okay you might have to switch audio settings or something Yeah. Okay. I can't, I can't hear you. Weird. Okay. Let me log out and see if I can log back in. Or is that okay? Did I face time you? Well, Elijah, can you hear me? Elijah, can you hear me?
Elijah Severance: Yes, I can.
Quan Gan: Okay, it's weird. Is it is it Triton or Triton? How do you say it? Yeah, I couldn't get audio with him for some reason, so he's My back in Do we want to go over anything while he's off or just wait for him for now arm Yeah, I think Okay, just coming back in Elijah I take it you're related to Brian.
Elijah Severance: Yes, I miss him.
Quan Gan: Okay Yeah, okay Okay, we can hear you now.
Triton: Oh sweet.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. Cool. All right. So back to business Yeah, just email email help at Z tag calm
Triton: And then just let them know we we had this discussion I can also brief my team and then they'll help you replace the the ones that are broken As far as uh, is that the same way we'd order like spare parts and stuff Yeah, just email here at help at Z tag comm okay So I know Elijah some of the screens have cracked as well, and I think Elijah was able to I Don't know did you replace the screen Elijah with like other ones that weren't working or what would you do?
Quan Gan: Some of them here pretty handy.
Elijah Severance: Yeah, I was able to swap around the screens of ones that wouldn't work at all The ones that would work with the break notes. I got I salvaged a few of them, but I still have a lot of it Okay.
Quan Gan: Well, so um, you know from from our standpoint, you know, I'm happy to I'm happy you're able to do that on our standpoint From a service point of view. We basically just replace the whole thing If that happens, but typically like if if there's that electrical Issue I mentioned, those are things that are, you know, we're happy to swap out. But if it's a crack screen that, you know, that's a user error. So then we would, we would basically just charge you to replace it. We do have a extended care plan. that's something you guys want to get on to, we can send you some more information about that. And it basically covers up to 6 incidences per year.
Triton: Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Um, yeah, so we, we can give you some more info that I can help with.
Triton: Do you any more questions, Eliza, or was that generally?
Elijah Severance: Um, speaking about earlier, we, um, our old model, I know we want to put some of our, our, our skins, but I was thinking if we could just possibly get one of the newer ones, because all of them are pretty old and eventually they'll probably all start speaking out like the rest of them.
Triton: Oh, you're talking about like a complete replacement, is that what you're saying?
Elijah Severance: Yeah, for the entire, if it's not too, you know, out of reach.
Triton: No, yeah, you, I mean, you make a good point because if some of them are crashing out now, mean, it's eventually inevitable they're all probably going to do that too.
Quan Gan: Yeah, we might be able to do like the one-time system swap. There's, so your system was purchased, yeah, it was like probably quite a few years ago. I wonder if you would be willing to even swap out the entire case for a new one if we can get you guys an upgrade discount on that.
Triton: Yeah, send me some details. You said upgrade discount, so yeah, I would just have no numbers.
Quan Gan: Okay, we're giving you a options. know, one option would be just swapping out the taggers for a set price. And then the other one is like, if you guys just want a whole new system, then we can look at that as Oh, okay.
Triton: Yeah, just send me all those details if you could please.
Quan Gan: Okay. Was there anything else you needed?
Triton: No, did I answer most of your questions, Eliza?
Elijah Severance: Well, if um, if we are eventually going to start with systems, um, then most of my questions will be community knowledge. Some of them were just, uh, when I'm trying to update them really I wasn't able to get newer versions and it would only show one of a few ends and then I had to downgrade the actual case itself because the wristbands were not compatible with the system.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Triton: were the versions that were available to you?
Elijah Severance: let me check right now. when I go to the settings and then Is it similar? The highest one right now is 2.7.8. You know, I had to it's currently at 2.6.9 because when I go to that higher versions, they'll all be the taggers say that they're out of date. And when I go to update the taggers themselves, I only have access to 0.07 bin.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. Okay. Um, let's see. Well, 7.07 bin should be compatible with that. Were you able to upload it?
Elijah Severance: Yes, I was able to upload it. they're all at 0.07 but when I had upgraded their things, it did not.
Quan Gan: Okay. Let me check on the latest version because I think you're close to the latest, um, which should be 2.7.8 on the, or I think we might have a 2.7.9 on the, um, the Zeus and then the latest on the Z tagger, it is in the sevens, but when you Did that what was the result you weren't able they weren't able to connect or what happened?
Elijah Severance: Um, I think they still worked, but it was giving me errors that these titlers were not compatible with the current version.
Quan Gan: So it was just saying not compatible, but it was still working, right?
Elijah Severance: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. Um, that that might be something internal to us. I need to check with my developer to see if they're truly incompatible. if your games are functional, then I would ignore that for now. Sorry, update them to the newest ones. Yeah, I would just put it to the newest one and just check all the games because they do actually have quite a few new features for you. Um, this is to make the management easier because the older version, um, if you're starting and let's say some people are out of range, it doesn't give you a warning. Uh, so then sometimes they might not get the count down the newest, but With the new version, it will do an acknowledgement to make sure all the devices are ready to go before you press start. Yeah. So yeah, I would update it to the latest that's available on for you.
Elijah Severance: Yeah. And then when you guys do get higher updates, would it automatically go to the Zeus because I know you said something about 2.7.9.
Quan Gan: As long as you're logged in and you have Wi-Fi connected, if you go back and check where the about pages, it will show you a newly available firmware. Yeah. It doesn't get automatically downloaded. It's more like you have to just check it every now and then. don't have that many updates, but occasionally if you do find it, you can feel free to push it to the latest. How has the game been working for you guys?
Elijah Severance: It's loved it whenever we have it running. Early morning, maybe on a Saturday.
Quan Gan: They'll always be coming back.
Elijah Severance: If you play the Z tag, everybody plays zombie 10.
Quan Gan: Oh, that's It's their favorite thing to do and you always watch them to get over it.
Elijah Severance: I'm like, sorry guys, but they have to charge real quick so we can get back to playing.
Quan Gan: That's cool. So how are you deploying it or showing it to the kids? Is it a special event or is it available all the time?
Elijah Severance: We're trying to get that system back down. But what we have now is we have it set up in our Ninja tag, which is just like a giant obstacle course and then run around it. Okay. And we have it near the entrance. And if any big group walks by or some kids already know about it, we are like, hey, do you want to pass out this tag game that we have stuff and we describe the game to them and we get them in and then they start playing and they just.
Quan Gan: It's super cool. Yeah, they'd be cool to see some video of that.
Elijah Severance: Yeah.
Triton: Yeah, so we're trying to get a better system as well. just said kind of like every 30 minutes running games type of thing or some of the games go pretty quick too. don't I think people underestimate how tired they're going to get how quickly, you know, so yeah, we're trying to still time that out. We were thinking maybe every 20 minutes of the game or something like that. But yeah, it's been good. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. So, you know, the game is there is just yeah, I do admit the first generation hardware tends to wear out. So we'd be happy to help you guys get up to the latest version hardware wise as well.
Triton: Yeah, sounds good. Send us those details. Elijah's going to be the one mainly probably your main contact. I mean, I'll still be involved, but kind of Elijah's domain, you know, kind of running that area. So, okay, and he's probably better suited to because he's a lot smarter. Me so yeah, so I'll make sure that if you have Eliza's email, I think I Email yeah, yeah, just go ahead and send us both the details or okay, I mean I was it can discuss further steps Okay, sounds good.
Quan Gan: And Elijah.
Elijah Severance: How's your dad doing? I'm doing great. Yeah, I actually got married almost a year ago. So I haven't I'm not In contact with them every day.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay.
Elijah Severance: Well, congrats.
Quan Gan: Thank you life. Yeah Very cool. Okay. Well, um, yeah, is there anything else you guys need? I'll send you guys some more info after I did off this call and then I'll yeah. Yeah, I think I'm good.
Triton: Elijah.
Elijah Severance: Are you good?
Quan Gan: Okay, all right. Have a great Friday. Thank you. Thanks. Come on. All right
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Paul Fruia: Go is 10 and then Sierra is almost seven.
Quan Gan: They're able to take care of themselves a little bit more.
Paul Fruia: So we're starting to travel more. Oh, that's good.
Quan Gan: Yeah. And what about you?
Paul Fruia: Oh, yeah. Just crazy busy. got my first grandchild. She just turned, she'll be 17 months old on the first.
Quan Gan: oh, cool.
Paul Fruia: That's fun, you know.
Quan Gan: Yeah, fun for you, not for the parents.
Paul Fruia: Yeah. Well, you know, it can be fun for them. got to go out on Saturday night and grandpa got to go take care of the baby.
Quan Gan: I think that the newborn is kind of like a honeymoon period and then you get to the toddler age. It's okay, but right around right now, it really drains my parents when we dump the kids over there.
Paul Fruia: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Because the kids get at it. They do this time.
Paul Fruia: Yeah. Well, right now, we only have the one.
Quan Gan: So, okay.
Paul Fruia: Right now, she's, I mean, she's super busy and, and everything, but it's also to deal with, you know, so that's good.
Quan Gan: Life moves on.
Paul Fruia: Yeah, I'm telling you, how's business treating you guys?
Quan Gan: Um, Gantum's been stable for the past couple of years. the main thing, uh, pretty much a hundred percent of my time is actually on Z tag. So I've, I've not touched Gantum for that much, um, at all. I'm out of the day today, but I, I, you know, I still, uh, talk to the team, but, uh, tag is actually growing phenomenally. Um, we're in the after-school market now.
Paul Fruia: Oh, really?
Quan Gan: Yeah. So we're providing these, uh, systems. Actually here, I'll show you the background. It's probably nothing like you've recognized from before because you remember the tiny little badges, right?
Paul Fruia: Yeah. Yeah, I remember those.
Quan Gan: Yeah. So we have these full on computer systems now that, um, that have, uh, these watches. Okay. So these are full IOT watches, uh, with scrolls. in lights, haptics and all this stuff and the kids are running around and playing tag with them. But we're also doing a lot of educational content. So for example, if a kid has two plus two, the other kid has four, then they're actually going to be seeking each other out if they were getting movement into the curriculum.
Paul Fruia: Interesting. Yeah. And do they do some kind of a tracking of the kids as well? is it just strictly around the gamification?
Quan Gan: We don't do any kind of, what do you call it, a personally identified data. It's just all in aggregate. So it's anonymized. So we don't have to touch sensitive data on that front. But we do track in terms of how much movement they have, like step counts or total number of interactions, which is super interesting because our hypothesis is more face to face interactions. from first principles is going to heal this planet. sure. All right, so ZTAC is unique in that we have these sensors. I mean, we're still using IR, but every time you interact with another device, that's plus one, so that's kind of our KPI, how many face-to-face engagements we have.
Paul Fruia: interesting. Well, you know, the reason I'm asking is because we've had people contact us a couple of different people at least, maybe even more with coming up with a tracking system for school-aged children that are on field trips and things like that, because a lot of times they'll get on a bus and what he's accounted for, they go on the field trip and then they divert everybody back on the bus and it's hard to keep up and make sure everybody's accounted for, but if they had some sort of tracking system and then if God forbid somebody did get lost, if you had the tracking system, you'd be able to know where they are, right? You know, see it on map kind of thing. And if you had to call in, you know, again, mean, in concept, it sounds very obvious.
Quan Gan: I mean, similar to like the dog trackers and stuff. But I think in practice, you'd have to get over quite a bit of like, regulation and, you know, the security just debate, especially if you're talking about children, right?
Paul Fruia: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, but I mean, if it's a, if you're just tracking a person, and, and that somebody's, you know, the school is responsible for them. mean, I mean, you're not, it's not like you're tracking their social security number or anything like that. You know, so anyway, but I don't know, we haven't ever, nobody that had that idea has ever had any money to do anything with it.
Quan Gan: Yeah, exactly. I think, I mean, from a technology standpoint, what we have, if you add a GPS, or maybe UWB or something, you could probably do it, but it's, yeah, it's all he'll wear some money at or they're willing to pay for it.
Paul Fruia: Yeah, right, right, right. But anyway, just the thought, because that's interesting that you've got something like that that the kids are wearing around. what these people were looking at was not something that was so interactive. It would just be like hung on the back of the back of the lanyard or clipped to their.
Quan Gan: You could probably do that just with air tags, though.
Paul Fruia: Because some days you probably could, yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah, you just like, I mean, that's what I do with my kids. But I guess they're trying to do that maybe on a more.
Paul Fruia: Yeah, but how many air tags can you associate with one device? mean, can you have, you know, 50, let's say 50 air tags?
Quan Gan: I mean, air tags can be unlimited. mean, I probably track over a dozen of my devices on air tags. So, you know, in the Apple network, you can have like billions of air tags, but it's really just like does Apple give you some kind of a management system of all of them?
Paul Fruia: Yeah, right, right. Yeah. Yeah, that's the challenge.
Quan Gan: Yeah, anyway.
Paul Fruia: Yeah, interesting. Very interesting. But I mean, are you guys still making the emitters?
Quan Gan: No, I mean, other than you guys, that's in a blue moon, you know, it's like, it's kind of a painful part because I'm the only person that has anything to do with it. Yeah, so, yeah, it's just like, it feels like an appendix that needs to get cut off, honestly.
Paul Fruia: Well, we kind of feel the same way about the dirt tech stuff, but it keeps it from turning its ugly head.
Quan Gan: Yeah, exactly. It's like, can we just like, just stop it? I mean, it's, I don't know how much of it is, you know, Greg Hale really wants this thing to come to fruition, but it doesn't have the momentum in that ecosystem. You know, and we've been in this whole thing for like 15 years now.
Paul Fruia: Um, I mean, is there any chance that you've got? some old stock laying around, because we've got this project, I think I mentioned, is we're really 40, we've been able to scrounge about 30.
Quan Gan: Well, I know the factory doesn't keep any of them in inventory. The only thing that I could potentially have to find are like the emitters we actually made for torch. You know, I might be able to physically find, you know, 10 or something, but, you know, that the firmware is not even really dedicated for that. So there's quite a bit of engineering to basically hack this hardware to to be compatible with the sync link.
Paul Fruia: So I think we could get by if we had, if we just had 10 beacons, right? You know, we don't even need the sync link control. It's just the packet, right?
Quan Gan: You know, it's just the ID packet, the location. I mean, if you're just trying to send a particular ID packet, think the torch could probably do that if we could just
Paul Fruia: I mean, what if I just gave you the hardware and you guys like burn it yourself with your We could do that right probably but just know that in that sense there's not much to be dialed in the well actually no it still does have a digital pot in there but it won't have that sensitivity range and I remember we had some issues with and I think I think in this particular case we've got enough we based on what we have currently we we should have enough flexibility and then we could take if you had if you could somehow found find that scrounge up 10 more we could use subs in areas where we didn't need to dial them down right yeah okay they could just be just be full on but again it's not the it's not the sink link stuff it's the torch stuff and you you'd have to bust this open and it's gonna be epoxy and there you got to get at the circuit board and you is that something you guys want to mess with maybe I mean I'll let you know I'll let everybody know this is the role that we're up against, right? And see if they want to deal with.
Quan Gan: Yeah, because like having to crank out another batch, I think it's just it's painful on everybody's front to deal with. Yeah.
Paul Fruia: Yeah, I know it's just it's unfortunate.
Quan Gan: And it's just it also just feels like, I mean, there's probably a lot of just momentum of an older era, but you know, I think new technology can really resolve this problem in so many other ways now.
Paul Fruia: Yeah, probably. We just haven't gotten, haven't quite gotten there, right? And you know, the shame of it is, is that Disney doesn't want to spend any money on. Yeah, they want to just keep limping along.
Quan Gan: Yeah, they really are limping along.
Paul Fruia: Yeah. Well, I mean, they're even contacting us. They've contacted us to try to build a batch of batteries for the DH3. Okay. You know, and we didn't even build that thing to begin with, right? And then And they want us to go through all the certifications and all the stuff, literally doubled the cost of the battery. Actually, we came back to them and said, we could build new batteries that meet the electrical specifications for about $80,000, based on the quantities that they needed and the NRE and all that. They came back and said, oh, whoa, whoa. We need all the certification testing that we did on the previous battery pack and all of this stuff. Oh, now it's for $200,000. Yeah. you kidding?
Quan Gan: that really? Did they didn't pull the trigger on that, did they? They did? No, not yet. OK, OK. I mean, I'm just curious, like, what happens if all the licensees just say no?
Paul Fruia: What are they going to do? Well, the thing is, they're just trying to make the existing devices last.
Quan Gan: Sure, I get it.
Paul Fruia: And they only have probably. 200 in each park or something, right?
Quan Gan: So they only want 500 batteries and yeah, it's it's frustrating Yeah, because I Mean also Greg's made the right the introductions over the years to other partners, but nothing ever came of them you know, we we have like a quick little cordial meeting trade some specs and silence Yeah, I mean, I know you know, we've collaborated Quite a bit.
Paul Fruia: I don't know if you've collaborated with anybody else, but Burkett is a pain in the butt to work with really They're just really not collaborative and then and then listen technologies the same way Okay, we met with those guys at their offices out in Utah before and they're just Just not very Cooperative, you know, I mean they're they're they're cordial to you when you talk to them But they do anything and they're just right is it I'm just trying to find their underlying Is it like do they just want the the Disney feather in their cap and is that it or do they actually want to do any business I Mean I think Yeah, I just I can't answer question. You know, I don't have any idea. I mean, maybe Maybe they're maybe they're making their own itters and and and somehow Using it with their their audio tour systems or something. I just I don't know there again They don't really communicate very well Yeah, so no, it's like Yeah, we're on the same boat here, you know, we just try to get get by and hopefully they'll call us again Well, I mean we really as a company we made the decision that we weren't gonna take on any news or a 10 projects But yeah, same with us. This is an old project. Yeah, so it's the it's the the Gateway Arch in St.
Quan Gan: Louis, right?
Paul Fruia: Oh, okay, cool did that whole big Man project and then it's always kind of been a side project to go and outfit the old courthouse. And so now they're finally coming back to us after however many years, 10 years or however long it's been, probably not that long, maybe six or eight years, but coming back to us and saying, okay, we're ready to do it and we're having to scramble parts. you know, we, anyway, it's just, you know, and they, you know, they want to hold us to the bid that we gave them, you know, years ago and stuff, so.
Quan Gan: Well, okay, if just practically, if I found these devices or just sitting in my shipping container somewhere and I just gave it to you, can you guys do something with it?
Paul Fruia: I mean, we might be able to, but before you go to that trouble, before you even lift a finger and try to find them and, you know, we pay for shipping or whatever. I mean, it's very generous of you to give them to us, but let me run this by the rest of the team and make sure it's something that we want to take on.
Quan Gan: Yeah, okay. tired.
Paul Fruia: Oh, okay. And so, I mean, he may, he may be bored now and, and that's something to do.
Quan Gan: So, yeah. I mean, it's the, the circuit board tech is largely the same. It's just the main difference is it's not using an opto isolator. It's using a RS485 chip, but oftentimes you can probably drive it with the same stuff and it didn't work. And then the firmware is different. So you guys would have to flash the firmware onto it.
Paul Fruia: Yeah, which we can do.
Quan Gan: Yeah. And you guys have those pick. Yeah. You know, I haven't touched a pick for probably five, six years now because everything we do is for, for Z tag is all ESP32. And it's just so much easier.
Paul Fruia: don't, I don't like to have programming Pogo pins on stuff anymore. Yeah. No, that makes sense. Right.
Quan Gan: We use a lot of ESP stuff too.
Paul Fruia: yeah, yeah, we use everybody. We're pretty much at agnostic.
Quan Gan: stick to whatever it just whatever makes sense for the project. I'm super curious how how soft are doing as a company?
Paul Fruia: No, we're doing okay. You know, we had a really good year in 2022. had a growth of like 70%.
Quan Gan: Yeah, okay.
Paul Fruia: And we really felt like, you know, we weren't we weren't going to be affected by the pandemic. And then the and then the bottom fell out, right, just because of uncertainty. And and the you know, economic situation, you know, the macroeconomics and everything, nobody was spending money on projects, right? You know, even big companies that that had, you know, budgets in the past, they were all just just not pulling the trigger. Okay. So 23 was was was rough. We we that all of that 70% growth, we pretty much lost. And we were able to sort of tread water last year. So we didn't we didn't go down really. we didn't improve and really last fall was kind of scary because I don't think we signed any new contracts. We had a lot of stuff in the pipeline, working on a lot of stuff, but nobody was willing to commit to anything.
Quan Gan: Would you attribute that to AI?
Paul Fruia: I don't think it's AI because we can do AI stuff. We've been doing AI for a long time with automated driving assist systems and a lot of vision work on NVIDIA chipsets.
Quan Gan: I'm talking about just the workloads.
Paul Fruia: Using AI agents to be doing the code work and all that instead of hiring them? No, I don't think that's affecting us really.
Quan Gan: What about your political stuff?
Paul Fruia: I think that's more than anything. That's what it is and really in the last This quarter, we've closed probably a dozen or so deals. Okay. I mean, so it seems like things are kind of loosening up. And myself, just in the last two weeks, I've closed four deals.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Paul Fruia: So, I mean, they're not large. One of them was pretty substantial, but most of them are smaller. But we're going to see things loosen up a little bit. But I think there's still some level of uncertainty because of Trump and his craziness and, you know, all the, all the geopolitical stuff that's going on.
Quan Gan: I think that's really a lot of . Yeah. I'm curious. Do you, have you heard of the term vibe coding?
Paul Fruia: You know, I just saw something about the thing for you guys yet. I, what is it exactly?
Quan Gan: I just, I just ran across an article and I haven't had a chance to It's basically a prompting for code. So like basically not touching a single line of code. Turn it into code and then and then iteratively work on that Yeah, so that's been a huge shift for us first person.
Paul Fruia: I've heard that's gone like totally AI generated I have not heard that. I mean, we're certainly we're we're utilizing it and we're leveraging it, but I mean Yeah, I mean Yeah, I don't know.
Quan Gan: I've always been pretty outlier extreme in a way, you know But that's also how you make a product because when I saw what is able to oh with GPTM Every other model is able to do on like a small scale. I'm like, well if it has The knowledge of best practices from all the open source code then we are Liability if we're not even tapping into it. We're just typing our code thinking this is what it what it should be So everything we do now we have to get the AI's feedback and the human has to be in alignment with the AI and
Paul Fruia: work together. Interesting. I mean, and what about things like, like security and things like that? mean, does it, does it, because I mean, well, and, and also like, I mean, any question you have, it's really just a matter of asking those questions to get the awareness.
Quan Gan: So security with a human, the human may not have considered all those things. Or let's say you have an entry level developer, they may not have considered the security risk. But now knowing what you don't know, you can have that person ask about security or me as the architect, I'm going to ask about the security and say, okay, these are the best practices. Now I have my developer go and attack it because I at least have a list now versus before. If I was blind to it, I wouldn't even be able to ask that question.
Paul Fruia: Interesting. Yeah. Because I mean, I know I've seen, I've seen some code generated where it was like, because like Hey, you know, this is this is pretty rudimentary, you know, don't just deploy this code, right?
Quan Gan: know, go right. Well, that's that's if you're like a lot of this stuff you see on benchmarks or just online tutorials, it's like one shot coding. You can't trust that because there's just too much stuff you don't you're not reading into. And yeah, security could definitely be an issue. But what we've done is gone back to the drawing board, use AI to assist us in human language to architect out the entire spec first. There's no code to be had here first. Specification gets sent rinse through the AI several times to get constructive criticism. So now it uncovers any kind of blind spots or things we're not aware about. And then we further specify. Once you have this huge specification document down to the level of what every single C code needs to be, then we basically just page turn from, you know, AI makes the spec turns into code, take the spec turn into code. And then the humans are kind of making sure that it compiles. So it's like as long as you have enough constraints on the whole equation, then security wouldn't be at risk. But if you only give it one shot, then there's could be a lot of things that can go haywire.
Paul Fruia: Yeah, OK, that makes sense. Interesting.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so we've been doing this for the past six months. Like completely rewriting like, well, on the several tens of thousands of lines of code, but it's still pretty significant. And because it's ESP32, like on an embedded processor, we have so many like multi-threaded things that human developers have historically just like, you fix this, this thing breaks. You fix this, this thing breaks, right? So we're just redoing the whole thing. Yeah.
Paul Fruia: Interesting. Uh, that's very, very cool. Um, this curious, have you seen Chris's podcast?
Quan Gan: No, no, I haven't, I haven't been in touch with them since, uh, we, if we try to apply for the, uh, the startup plan. Yeah.
Paul Fruia: So, um, I'm going to, I'm going to put a link in the chat here. Um, because I think you'd find it interesting and I'm going to suggest, um, I'm going to suggest that maybe Chris invite you to come on the podcast and you talk about this, because I think this is a very interesting subject.
Quan Gan: Hmm.
Paul Fruia: Okay.
Quan Gan: Be interested in. I I, I've kind of like, you're the first person I've heard of. talked to, I talked to AI probably an order of magnitude more than I do humans these days.
Paul Fruia: Yeah, I noticed that it was really hard to get in touch with you.
Quan Gan: No, it's just, uh, I don't take a single, a single meeting without the AI. you know, you're taking the notes because that's all context, right? It's all context you could put in to optimally output. You know, we, when we have our engineering meetings that AI is generating all the agendas and making sure we cover all of these topics. And then when we talk about it, that goes back into the loop. Because you know, you know, like Elon Musk with Neuralink, his whole hypothesis is that our human minds need to be tapped into, you know, this growing AI. Well, I'm not ready to, you know, chip into my brain, but as a company, we are basically doing that on a collective. Because if everybody is AI enhanced, and our meetings are AI enhanced, and we talk about whatever the AI is presenting to us, we essentially are a collective brain of Neuralink. It's been a lot of fun, you know, it's like just seeing tremendous productivity and doing this now.
Paul Fruia: can imagine.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I mean, it tends to value. Okay. I got I got it open.
Paul Fruia: Yeah. Like I said, I mean, I you're the first person that I've that I've heard that's really gone, you know, full board into it. I mean, I know, I know we're we're utilizing some of it internally. I know some people are trying it. But yeah, that's that's the first I've heard it before.
Quan Gan: I think it's probably inversely proportional to where you are in your company and scale. like the I've seen, you know, large companies are going to be very slow to adopt because they have so much infrastructure and momentum in a small scrappy startup, like you're trying to be as lean as possible. So if one person can scale to using AI agents and X, yeah, why wouldn't they?
Paul Fruia: Yeah. Very cool.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Paul Fruia: All right. yeah, let me let me circle back with you on this. I know we've kind of committed to some some kind of like June timeframe to go and do an install. So I know it's that's not a lot of time.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so I'll get an answer pretty quickly. I Think I might be able to find 10 physical emitters Randomly, but it's gonna be torch and not sink link.
Paul Fruia: Okay.
Quan Gan: I mean as long as as long as we can reprogram them and and just get Them to spit out a you know And I'm also curious like why why even use that in the first place like why not just use some ESP 32 you could program with the IR output and just mount there Like that's probably a easier approach into like is there something that's married to this form factor at all I Guess not I mean nothing other than it's it's very nice, right? It's it's nice It's it's it's already, you know, I mean, obviously we're gonna have to we're gonna have to come up with a closure Your board right so you could get you know these z-haggers It's actually a modification of this company called M5, M5 stack. I don't know if you know of them. They are our factory, but you can actually just go on DigiPi and buy the core part for like 30 bucks. And you get a little IR sensor and you could reprogram it. Super easy. You know, they're basically, they're actually subsidiary of expressive. So ESP32 owns them. You know, so if you just go on DigiPi, buy this module and then they have little IR plugins. I mean, it's not like one contained thing, but it's not like, you know, bare circuit board that you got to put in an encoder. So that might be an easier solution rather than getting this integrated opening it up reprogramming all that.
Paul Fruia: Okay. Yeah, let me kick it around with our guys and see.
Quan Gan: I honestly think if you're simply just trying to the IR signal there are so many like probably like remote control open source a lot of stuff on adafruit and all that kind of yeah Arduino stuff you can just hack together the way cheaper than having to take you know our hardware yeah yeah I mean it's just a matter of you know how sensitive they are to the the physical phone factory of it you know yeah if they're not I mean honestly that code you could vibe code that probably in like two hours easily right it just needs to spit well no probably less than that just like you just say okay this is the packet I need to out at this bottom it just generates Arduino code it's like probably just a page or two yeah yeah I know I mean with Arduino it would be pretty simple yeah and this whole thing is Arduino compatible too okay yeah well great stuff I appreciate your time here let me let me give you that link um you guys can check it out yourself this is my factory So they, they, they build our stuff exclusively, but the core component you can get and just experiment off of it very quickly.
Paul Fruia: Cool. Yeah, I'll check it out. Sounds good. give my best to Charlie.
Quan Gan: Yeah, definitely.
Paul Fruia: And that's great. Great seeing you.
Quan Gan: Let's, let's not make it so long. Definitely. All right.
Paul Fruia: Nice chatting.
Quan Gan: See you later. Bye.
Ben - CMSC: Our AIs are coming in. We like one more minute and then we can get started. We've got 85 people on this. There's Karcy. Is Eva on this one? I forgot. Did she have to skip this? This is one that she has to Getting close to the start time, making everybody wait. I have like four pages of Zoom people, only one page of actual videos of like seeing people.
Laura - info@cityofstem.org: Did you start the recording for us or is it only AIs recording it right now?
Ben - CMSC: No, I'm going to record. I guess it's recording. That's good. Well, everybody, it's 104 and we have 100 people on this call. So this is great. Who's excited? We're super close. It's two and a half weeks. I'm losing sleep. I hope everybody else is sleeping well. Welcome. Thanks for being here. I hope you all are doing great. It's two and a half weeks away from the biggest science event of the year in the second largest city in the country in the largest metropolitan area of the United States. That's a pretty big deal. And we're all a part of it and you're all contributing to it. It's super exciting. So I hope you're all doing well. Coming back, this is the last meeting, the ultimate meeting before the big show. And it's an exciting year because it's bigger as far as how many booths and like participants were passed last year even. It's in a new location, a historic location, which is super exciting. We've been trying to get used to it. We got used to that, to the LA State Historic Park for a couple years. And of course, why stay with something you know? Let's change it up, which is what we did. So now we're learning how to deal with Expo Park and all that kind of stuff. We have new partners on board this year, new sponsors, it's really exciting. So anyway, I'm super, super impressed by all of you and what you're bringing to the table and just excited that we're here. This truly is like, for me, it's like holiday time. So I'm like my nine-year-old, but I'm also not getting a lot of sleep. So that said, before we start this sort of ultimate thing, because we've got a lot on our agenda, right? We've got to talk about, we're gonna walk through the site plan. We're gonna talk about parking. We're gonna talk about drop-off, which I know everybody wants to hear. We've lots of stuff. We're gonna tell you things that we know and we're... tell you things that we can't tell you yet, but you will know by next week, stuff like that. But before we do that, I think it's really important that, you know, we meet once a month. I have a bad habit of just assuming everybody knows each other because we meet once a month, once a month, so what the heck, but you should probably do some introductions. given that, so my name is Ben, you probably all know me, but if you don't, my name is Ben. I'm the, by day, president of the Columbia Memorial Space Center and by also day, the library director for the city of Downey, and also day, one of the people behind City of STEM and LA Maker Faire, and I tend to be the guy who talks during the meetings. And we've got our core team. I think I might call some people out unless you just want to jump in, but we've got... Laura Brim from the Space Center. She's a program coordinator and has been handling registrations. Her also, who's not on this call, but should get a huge shout out is Vivian Bird from the LA Public Library, who also handles, you know, program stuff and registrations and things like that. We got Carsey Bowles down there from the LA Public Library, who really, like, truly keeps us all on task and tracks the expenses and all that kind of stuff. Eva Mitnick, honestly is my sort of at the library, who's not on this call, but huge thanks. Diane from the library, who also does program stuff, who's a big supporter. We've got, I don't know who else is out there. There's Michael Kelly, who's site producer. He's over there. His teammate, RJ, who also works on the site production isn't on this call. Milena Acosta from Natural History Museum, Natural History Museum is this year a new collaborating partner because we'll be right in their yard. Milena's been out with that. Who else is out there? What about Deborah or Jennifer on the volunteer side? I saw Casey O'Neill just joined from Biocom who's been sort of a thought partner on this and a lot of the programming stuff for a long time. If I'm forgetting any of you guys, please jump in. But that is the team that's been working pretty much since maybe like a month after Last Year's Show to get us to this point. We meet, let's say once a week on average, ever since May of 2024 to put all this stuff together. I say that with a little bit of trepidation because as you guys know, we don't always have all the answers even right now. We're waiting on some stuff, and I don't want you to think, what have you guys been doing for 11 months? We've been talking and putting this stuff together, but there's a lot of pieces to this. Anyway, I want to thank the LAPL Space Center, RJ, and Michael team from the bottom of my heart for getting us to this place again in 2025. And all the rest of you who served on the task force and all that stuff, just thank you so much for this. That really is a big deal. Little stats, some stats. We have about 230 booths this year. That's up 20 from last year. Our main stage, panel tent, workshop tent, we even added indoor theater at the Natural History Museum. All of it is programmed to the nines. We probably have about, let's say, organizations that will be represented on site that day. We have not one, but... two LA County supervisory districts that are helping us out with this. We have a late addition of the city council district of LA who's come to support us like just this is like I said this is a big McGill even more than last year. It's funny we cut down the amount of square footage from last year because we remember like that LA State Historic Park is a ridiculous huge. We've cut that down to a manageable size but then just added more stuff because why not. So anyway I hope you guys are doing well. I hope you guys are impressed by all that information. You are a part of it so thank you very much. That said I want to give it up to Carsey for a minute. Anything you want to add to that sort of opening statement?
Karcy Bowles: Eva is on her behalf. you all for participating and Ditto what Ben said about all of the teams. Members who've gone into this and all of the folks who are. Exhibitors who have stepped in and really out with a lot of various things that as an exhibitor, we did not expect you to help with like street measures and. Various other things and thank you to everyone for putting out all of your social media and encouraging people to show up the day of and for doing that next week.
Ben - CMSC: And I think I have some time later on for Eva's other updates, right Ben. Totally, absolutely. All right, well, let's get into that. First, well, I guess this is the second thing because we said thank yous and stuff. Anybody on here for whom this is your first meeting, like you registered, I'm going to do this big old thing in LA, but I'll show up for the last meeting. There's a hand, there's a hand, there's a hand, there's a hand. All right, well, all of you who are here, welcome, like you've been here the whole time. We really appreciate you being here and thanks for it. I see Steve and Natalia, that's awesome, good. Okay, so, well, this is the part of the agenda which is like news and updates. But I've been kinda doing that already. I wanna throw it, I think, to Carsey for the next one which is, let's just get straight to the real fun which is the pre-party that happens the Friday before April 12th.
Karcy Bowles: Yes, so just a reminder that there is still space and time to our soup, yeah, just put the link in the chat for the mixer event at McKay's the night before the event. It's a great chance to meet each other, talk, have some snacks, have some food but it's also in close proximity to the event site itself so you can come to the mixer before you come to the mixer, you can stop off at Expo Park or drive by Expo Park if you don't wanna Pay for parking just to walk around so that you can see what things look like if you are able to do that I think you'll get a better perspective for Saturday because you'll see that while it's a big event It is a small footprint in terms of space. So if you've been at the event in the past, it'll help you situate yourself But that is the fund before the event Is the mixer.
Ben - CMSC: So please RSVP Please RSVP by March 31st That's this coming Monday everybody And yes everybody you will be getting the comprehensive email with the bat with the With your math booth number parking all that's everything that we're covering today except for your booth number because that'll be just individual Is all coming in a big communication that's coming out next week and Laura will cover that but But for this meeting we want to walk everybody through it Then you'll get your specific info after the meeting Okay Um, I just want to, I like putting what we do into some sort of perspective, so I do want to show you guys kind of where we're at with planning. Um, share. So, unlike what my delivery might sound like, actually, or we actually put an agenda together for these meetings. there's our agenda, but just want to show you guys that we started meeting about this in May of last year with sponsor outreach starting in June. Went through all the stuff and here we are. We finalized the program actually after March 1st, but we've started the marketing and we're going to get to a little marketing discussion later today. That's, you know, that's really the last step in all of this stuff is all of you pushing out messages telling your followers. There's folks come to Expo Park on April 12th. It's super important. There's gonna be a media day coming up in the next couple of weeks to get media to show and get some TV coverage. Other sort of media, there's lots of messaging out there already. I know our social media has been going crazy, but also some of our partners have been starting, not youth partners, but like sponsor partners and starting to share this out. So, you know, a big thing over the next couple of weeks is to please get the word out, tell people about this. You know, this is a big event and a lot of work goes into it. We wanna make sure you've got an audience for it. So please get that out. But yeah, April, we kick off. Remember, the city of STEM portion of all this is the full month of April and there's all kinds of things going on. And then, you know, we culminate the last day of April, but April 12th. city of STEM, and le maker fair, smushed together into one big event, um, just tell people about it. Okay, um, well, now that I've looked at the timeline, um, I want to show you guys, uh, I want to just get into it. So let's, uh, I think Michael, if you or Michael or Laura, if either of you could, um, put the site map up here, I want to do a quick sort of 3000, 30,000 foot walkthrough of what we've got planned, and then Laura and Michael will start to get down into some, some detail about things. But this is the, this is the site plan. Um, you'll see the natural history museum is up at the top at the bottom, is, uh, it's expo park drive, which is separates this lawn from the Coliseum. Don't forget we're in expo park. Park this year, not the LA State District Park. We have more boos than last year, like I mentioned. Also, we're showcasing some of the new area at the Natural History Museum up in the upper left-hand corner. That's where the sort of lowrider, Mattel Hot Wheels environment is going to be up there, which also leads into the brand new theater at the Natural History Museum, which we're going to be able to use for programming this year. Jason Latimer from Impossible Science is going to be doing a science and magic show, and we're going to have a couple of interesting panel discussions in there, including one that is in partnership with DreamWorks and the Natural History Museum. Kind of running down Bill Robertson Lane, there's going to be lowriders on the street, but then you just go down. The panel tent is over there on that western end of the park. And the workshops, you can see down in the lower left corner, restrooms will be over there as well, and food trucks start there. As we move a little bit to the right through it you'll be seeing, you know, foods and stuff along the bottom, the bottom street, which is Expo Park Drive, there are more food trucks around that corner, and then the sort of large mobile museum or mobile maker trucks and things like that will be along that southern edge of the park. If we start walking up the sort of main, that main walkway that leads straight up to the Natural History Museum, as you go up you'll see info booth there, actually there, I believe there are five info booths here, one at each corner of the park, plus one straight in the middle, the one in the middle down there in the the mid, the south end in the middle is kind of the main booth, but if you keep walking up there you'll see a career lounge, that career lounge which is being sponsored by Microsoft and LinkedIn this year. There's a whole activation going on really focused on late high school and college students to become there. There's literally a lounge in there, which is great. And a little coffee service in there. There'll be staff in there kind of to talk through like how do you put a LinkedIn profile together and here's like set up resume and all that kind of stuff. There's also gonna be a photo booth in there where you could take headshots for your profile if you want to. That's pretty exciting addition that just came in in the past month that Microsoft is coming in to help us out. You see like innovation challenge tent and things like that at the top. The R2D2 Builders Club is coming in this time. So there'll be your droids all over the place. As we move to the, let's see the east side, the right side of the park, you'll see our main stage up there. We also have a large tent for the young inventors that was a new addition last We're super excited to be able to promote with these young people and have them kind of show what they do The if you kind of kind of look down Sort of the mid-part you'll see the big kids activity tent Z tag is coming back as a outdoor sort of running running experience we also have the LA public library truck and the LA County library truck towards the south end We've got some really awesome custom Trikes down there that are also a great sort of connection of stem and art and making and then And then you get the science center and the California African-American Museum and everything else way farther at the other end of the extra park So this is exciting. I want to talk to you guys through that to show you how much content we're providing to people for free on April 12th But now I want to stop talking and hand it over to my
Laura - info@cityofstem.org: and Laura for much more information Michael do you want me to go first are you I know you were having some internet trouble are you out there I think that's a yes okay I will go first so Ben can you go back to letting me participate yes yeah okay was was the screen share flashing just now or was it just my computer being weird when you're looking at the map all was good okay it was flashing for me I'm not sure why okay let me bring the map back well okay sorry first let me start with this one okay so on Mondays this past Monday in the Monday before I started sending a weekly task list of all the action items that I need from you And reminders and that sort of thing. So hopefully you're getting those. you're not getting those that would look something like this. But if you're not getting those, please let me know. I'm the face behind the info at city of.org email address. So you can email me there if you're not getting these reminders. Another one will go out this coming Monday with. Hopefully the exhibitor packet will be ready and that sort of thing. If it's not ready on Monday. Then it will come with your individual details, which will be coming during the week. So on this past Monday's email, I gave you the form to RSVP for the social mixer and lunch, lunch form is due on Monday so that we can get the order in. So again, the lunch order is optional. It's for anyone in your booth. It doesn't have to just be for the person that's receiving this email. So if, if you're not the person that's coming to the event. please share the lunch order form with the people that are. You can pay ahead of time with credit card. There's a link on the Google form that will let you pay for it with your credit card or you can pay with cash on site. It's $15 for the lunch. If you could have exact cash, that would be very helpful. Someone will come around to your booth between 9 and 10 ish to collect the cash. And then lunches will be delivered between 11 and 1. We'll have runners bringing the lunches to you. That's for if you paid cash or credit card. Water access. So I said on the form that as far as the park and our reservation is concerned, we don't have access to a waterspicket, but since NHM are awesome partners in doing this, they're letting us Let's get water at a certain time of the day. So, from 8 to 30, if you are an elevator that needs to fill containers full of water, I need to have you on this list for the water access. And in the days leading up to the event, I'll send an email that has like pictures of where you're going to go. So it's, it's over by kind of the command center. And I'll go back to the map and I'll show you that. But from 8 to 30, you're going to come bring your wagons and your containers and get your water. Hopefully that will last you throughout the whole day. We might be able to get access at another time during the day, probably like around 1 o'clock. But I'm really hoping since since they're doing us a favor and giving us this access, I'm hoping that we can just have it all handled in the 8 to 8 times slot. But please don't forget to fill out the water access form. If you are bringing a bunch of people by bus, please let us know so that we can figure out how many buses to. I expect and where those buses will go. And then if you're on this form, I will email you more, more instructions for your bus drivers if you're driving a box truck or an oversized vehicle at our mobile museums. But if you're coming with, you know, a big truck that's bringing all of your supplies, there's an 8 foot to clearance to get into the parking structure. So if you're not going to be able to go down there or you're extra wide or whatever, then please fill out this form so that we can plan for you in another location. And again, we'll send you the info on where you're going to go ahead of time. It's really helpful to have these Google forms filled out because then I can just copy all the emails that are on there and send you the mail with the details. If you need to cancel, hopefully at this point you're not, but if nobody let us know, nobody's going to cancel.
Ben - CMSC: course.
Laura - info@cityofstem.org: If you do need to, then please let us know as soon as possible because we do have a wait list. So as soon as. But he sends me something I get. I go to the wait list and let somebody in. the sooner the better marketing. There's also a link here for the marketing packet.
Ben - CMSC: We're going to get to that later. So we'll need to put that in the chat later.
Laura - info@cityofstem.org: Okay, I'm going stop sharing this one and go to the map. Switch to the map, but still on the email.
Ben - CMSC: Nope.
Laura - info@cityofstem.org: Hold on. There we go. Okay. When you arrive, we're asking everyone to enter at 39th and Figaroa, whether you're unloading or parking, whatever just everybody's coming in over there. You'll go past the California science center, past the California science center.
Ben - CMSC: Hey, Laura, do you have, I know. Oh, do you have the map that's a little farther out?
Laura - info@cityofstem.org: think you sent it to you. Yeah, I can start with that one.
Ben - CMSC: All right.
Laura - info@cityofstem.org: Let's do the overview first and then jump that one. Okay. And I think I just saw Michael jump back in with his phone.
Ben - CMSC: yeah, I don't know.
MPK's iPhone: I did. Sorry.
Ben - CMSC: That's okay.
Laura - info@cityofstem.org: Okay. Do you want me to talk over this? Are you able to see it since you're on your phone?
MPK's iPhone: Yeah, it actually did pop up.
Laura - info@cityofstem.org: Hello, everybody.
MPK's iPhone: Yeah, this is a brief look at our exhibitor load-in plan. So you can see over to the right where the blue dot is, where it says exhibitor entrance on South Figueroa Street. That's Figueroa and 39th. Everybody will enter there and proceed along Exposition Park Drive past that blue structure, past the California Science Center, and then and you will be briefly stopped by some people from our team just to verify whether you need to drop off supplies where your booth is and if you are dropping off supplies then you'll pull over to the right on the curb and put your flashers on and leave your cell phone number with the volunteers and staff there and we'll put it on your on on a piece of paper on your dashboard and quickly go and drop off
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Kristin Neal: This meeting is being recorded so the meeting is happening. I came on just to check see if they would respond and yet so yeah do you want to get to something else and then I can message you if they do come. Okay.
Quan Gan: Bye. Bye.
Kristin Neal: Bye.
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Hunter Smith: Hi, can you see me?
Quan Gan: Let's see. I think you're coming. Oh, there you are.
Hunter Smith: Hey, how are you? I'm doing well. How about yourself?
Quan Gan: Good? Good?
Hunter Smith: Happy Monday? Absolutely. Happy Monday. Thank you so much for finding some time to time to connect. I have my My guy helping me here blue. No, how you doing?
Quan Gan: Thanks?
Hunter Smith: So yeah, thank you for hopping on the call with us. So yeah, so we're just we have our season starting up in a few months We're trying to get tag units ready. want to get up there And we're having some trouble still connecting to like the wife. Yeah, we do have the two units We have I mean I have them right here So I only have one Okay, so why five is all lit up it seems to be on and working but for some reason I can't get the units actually Okay, so a couple of layers and oftentimes this might be a kind of a source of confusion
Quan Gan: The units themselves to operate does not require Wi-Fi. The only time you need Wi-Fi is if you're trying to get an over-the-air update from the Internet, So there's that component. also the other part is I'm noticing if you have both units at least charging, it's possible that while you have both routers actually connected as well, right?
Hunter Smith: both routers, so only one of the routers is on. The other router is not on.
Quan Gan: Meaning it's, have you physically unplugged?
Hunter Smith: Physically unplugged.
Quan Gan: Got it. So you're having 48 linked to the first router.
Hunter Smith: That's correct.
Quan Gan: Okay, great. Yeah, that's that's another thing I want to check because if both are on and the taggers are going to get confused which ones to hop on.
Hunter Smith: Right, exactly. I do have like the box itself on for the charging aspect, but only one of the routers is plugged in.
Quan Gan: Okay, as long as the other one is unplugged, that's okay. Yeah, we're actually working on a version three where the button, the blue button actually turns on.
Hunter Smith: turns off the router and we're actually integrating the router into the screen so you don't ever have to worry about it but that's something we learned along the way. Gotcha, perfect. Okay no that makes sense. I think I saw on there that I just checked just now that there is a firmware update that I'll need to do.
Quan Gan: I think I had to update.
Hunter Smith: I think I saw it was like 7.2 or something like that maybe.
Quan Gan: Okay well so if you're seeing that then that that would confirm that the Wi-Fi is actually connected.
Hunter Smith: So yeah so I am seeing it I see that as an option but like the the taggers themselves aren't connecting to the router.
Quan Gan: Oh it's not connecting to the router. Okay so if you don't see the connector there um okay um what's the version of the taggers right now? Let me actually yeah absolutely let me get over here so like right here and this has always been been hard because we don't know if we're talking about the Wi-Fi to the internet or the Wi-Fi to the taggers yeah so
Hunter Smith: Let me see here. I can tell you what firmware came up It looks like the most recent one like the top option is 7.0 point two five Okay And you have not updated to that yet, right? I have not done that yet.
Quan Gan: No, okay What is the current version that it shows on the bottom of the screen for you? On the bottom of the screen That is Z tag dash six point nine Okay, you're at six point nine and then On this there is a an about at the bottom that should show you the the actual software version of the Zeus What does that show you?
Hunter Smith: Version details, right? I'm in a bow.
Quan Gan: It's a It should be the last tab.
Hunter Smith: Yeah, does it say anything version details?
Quan Gan: Current version 2.4 2.4 That doesn't seem okay. It should be Okay, so that's probably an old That's actually quite old. Uh, does it what is the drop down show you?
Hunter Smith: Let's see Uh, oh, there's a few okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it's the latest one the top one is a 2.7.8 2.7.8. Okay Let's try downloading that.
Hunter Smith: Okay perfect Gotcha, and I'll need to do that on both of these. That's right.
Quan Gan: Yeah, let's try it on one just to make sure Okay. Yeah, and also, uh, yeah Can you clarify for me this symptom? If you're not seeing the wi-fi bar, is that only on this particular one you're holding or is it on all of them?
Hunter Smith: You It's on every Z-Tag bracelet that we grab, we're not seeing that Wi-Fi simple. Okay, so it might just be, I mean, with this, mean, obviously it looks like there's a software update and a firmware update to do.
Quan Gan: So that might be part of the issue, maybe. It's actually two different things. I'm wanting you to update just to get rid of any software glitches, but the connection is most likely something else.
Hunter Smith: So I'm going to take a little bit deeper.
Quan Gan: In your guys' unplugging and replugging of the routers, you always checked it's always in the port that is to, if the back label is facing you, it should always be plugged into the port that is to your left.
Hunter Smith: On the left side. Yes, I do remember someone telling me that on a call. Every time I was doing it, that was the case.
Quan Gan: Can you confirm that? Yes, this one right now is working on the right so that might that would be okay that that will for sure that will cause not connecting and the other the worst-case scenario is not connecting cause someone to hold down the reset switch that would definitely break things got it okay perfect because that button is in there I see that reset switch because on our new and so you've had an earlier system on our system we have like a strict warning label to say don't open this ever got it that is good to know absolutely okay so that just booted back up for me okay yeah and so once you boot up hopefully with the right connection the router if you unplug it and plug it back in you'll probably have to wait at least two minutes maybe three minutes for the router to go through its cycle it actually boots up slower than the computer system and after that You may need to reset or like repower each of the z taggers either like just kind of pull them off the dock and putting them back in or pulling them out into pressing the red to turn them on. Yeah, because what may have happened if it didn't get a link for a long time, it might have just timed out and give up looking for Wi-Fi all together.
Hunter Smith: Gotcha. That makes sense.
Quan Gan: Yeah. So my hope is you have not reset the factory settings on the router because then we have to go into the back end to manually type everything back in.
Hunter Smith: Gotcha. All right, I did just get a little thing that popped up that said updates are available.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Hunter Smith: That's good.
Quan Gan: So if your zoo system is updated now, I would then go back to go back to the devices tab and see if any of those z taggers will repopulate. to hit refresh and see if they'll start popping back up. It might take a while first because you'll want to confirm that the Wi-Fi bars start showing up on the taggers themselves too.
Hunter Smith: So I do see like all the Z taggers on the devices.
Quan Gan: I don't see Wi-Fi on them yet. Where is it coming from? You'll see it, it'll be on the top. Yeah.
Hunter Smith: So if it's already on there, it just means that was probably a previous refresh, but if you were to refresh right now and it doesn't find them, it probably won't repopulate the screen. Updates.
Quan Gan: Yeah, but we're still waiting another 30 seconds or a minute to see it pop up. Worst case, I would have you seat everything back on a tagger, do like a hard turnoff where everything wait about 10 seconds, turn it back on, and hopefully that gets reset. If that still doesn't work, then it might be that the router got reset and we have to go back in the settings.
Hunter Smith: Got you. Okay. Yes. So this is going to go up there. No, no. When I click the devices as well, I get a thing that pops up that said not all Z tags, sorry, not all Z taggers are compatible with the current Zeus version.
Quan Gan: Yeah, that just means we'd have to update the firmware on the Z taggers, but we first have to make sure that the Z taggers get the signal bars before you can even do an update to them.
Hunter Smith: Right. Because without the Wi-Fi, then they're not going have any connection.
Quan Gan: So you still don't see signal bars on any of them, right?
Hunter Smith: Okay. I do have to turn them off and back onto these. I turned these guys back on. Yeah. We'd try to grab them in the moment, maybe at all.
Quan Gan: We may try the other router that's unplugged and try to plug that one in and see if, uh, you know, maybe, maybe that one didn't get reset.
Hunter Smith: No, so like, I take this and I plug the cord. Oh, yeah, yeah, because that way you case it's the box. Yeah, then we can do them back here. mean, I know, but I know a little bit about testing things. Interesting that way. So, left port.
Quan Gan: Hold on. Yes, on that port. Yes. And then let's just switch everything off entirely and do a re. Restart, hard restart and then see if that does everything right.
Hunter Smith: Shut it down. Shut it down. I'm to set this off. Sorry, I'm just kind of moving the laptop around a lot.
Quan Gan: Sorry. Okay, no worries. Okay, are you able to point the laptop at the screen just like said it?
Hunter Smith: Yeah Okay, if can just face it, I'll see what you're up to it.
Quan Gan: Thanks Perfect, and then are all the Z taggers or at least most of them seated in there right now now they are yes, okay Then yeah, and off currently, right?
Hunter Smith: are all These ones It might need to manually switch them off.
Quan Gan: Yeah Is they have to be properly docked for it to shut off when you press the red button because it gets this turn-off signal Yeah, otherwise you have to pull them out and manually double-click them Perfect.
Hunter Smith: There we go.
Quan Gan: Okay. All right, and then yeah, let's boot boot it back up When did you guys get your system Two years ago, I want to say 2023 Oh, okay. So it's been a little while. Yeah. And have you guys had other issues along the way?
Hunter Smith: Um, not other issues. Maybe this same issue one other time where we're just having trouble connecting them.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Hunter Smith: I thought it might have been the heat and them being outside. So we kind of took a break from them for a little bit. Okay. But yeah, since we're booting them back up, this has been the issue we're seeing just, just the connection.
Quan Gan: Got it. And often have they been used.
Hunter Smith: They have not been used since, I mean, September, October, right? Oh, yeah. been a while.
Quan Gan: So, okay.
Hunter Smith: How are we doing? All right. I'm all booted back up.
Quan Gan: Let's go back into the config settings and then let's see the devices tab. Okay. And let's hit reset here. We'll just kind of hang out and wait and press yes. you guys still have the little keyboard that's in there we do okay as we it still doesn't do that yes it does have a battery in that we may have to check on the settings if still not showing up after a better minute okay so you still don't see any signal bars do not you've seen these but these were all even if they're docked in there there no signal bars are showing up right no nothing okay is it possible someone has held down that reset switch
Hunter Smith: It's possible, I guess, mean, they have it not in the last few months, but I mean, it's possible at the end of the year, somebody did or they're just trying to make it work.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Hunter Smith: But you know not to do it. You're the only one who really does it.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Hunter Smith: I didn't do it.
Quan Gan: Is that that's kind of the only other thing I would test is basically though the Wi-Fi settings on the router is no longer the factory settings and that's why the Z-tactors can't find it anymore. Or it is back to the factory settings prior to entering our factory.
Hunter Smith: had to put the other factor when they made the router.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. We had to custom configure the router after purchasing from the Z-tactors. that makes sense. Exactly. Yeah.
Hunter Smith: Yeah. So we're going to have something ready, man.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so that that means probably going to have to get into the back end with that keyboard. It's okay. I'm trying to figure out I still remember exactly the settings if not I have to look up some older documentation that's sent it to you. Okay. Because it's basically going to like configure the router with specifically the SSID and everything. Gotcha.
Hunter Smith: Can we do that? Should we plug it into a laptop or we have to use this little keyboard?
Quan Gan: The key. Well, the thing is this computer you're looking at is essentially like a laptop so that's why we provided you the keyboard that's just in case.
Hunter Smith: Let's try it.
Quan Gan: Yeah, let's try it. If you're able to turn on that keyboard, there's a switch in the back, but if it doesn't have power you're going to have to use the provided USB cable to keep it charged while you're operating. creating it.
Hunter Smith: Gotcha.
Quan Gan: And you should have an extra USB port on the side here just to keep the power. Uh, well, uh, so do you see it on the surface? There's a little, yeah, there's a dongle right there. Plug it in.
Hunter Smith: Oh, this is a USB C. This isn't.
Quan Gan: Yeah, there's another, there should be another cable in there.
Hunter Smith: There we go. Yep, I have it.
Quan Gan: How often were you guys able to use it during your season?
Hunter Smith: Uh, maybe like once, twice a week. Something like that.
Quan Gan: Okay. And how was the reception?
Hunter Smith: Oh, it great. Absolutely. People absolutely loved it. Okay. It was definitely a great addition, Matt.
Quan Gan: people want back so okay cool all right I think I'm in okay does the keyboard look like it's moving around if you move your thumb on the pad you see a do you see a cursor there I do not is the key or lit up at all it is it's lit up with a okay flip it over and see if there's a switch make sure that's on there we go that would make sense wouldn't it and perfect yep okay all right so you want to hold down a function alt 11 you're gonna see it's gonna look weird on the screen function and f11 yes alt f11 so it's like two keys on the bottom part and then hit that f11 because what you're trying to do is reduce yeah there you're reducing the browser window okay so you're gonna have to open up a new browser you might have to move that over a little bit and see there's a world icon. Have you ever operated a Linux system?
Hunter Smith: have not.
Quan Gan: OK, we're doing a little bit of the heart surgery here. OK, so that top bar, you're going to have to probably drag it out of the way and OK, we're closing it. Yeah, do you see a world icon maybe up to the top corner?
Hunter Smith: I do. There we go.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and then there's a trigger like a left trigger. think that's basically a double click. So double click on it.
Hunter Smith: Gotcha, OK.
Quan Gan: Or maybe single click just open it. We're going to open up a new browser.
Hunter Smith: OK. There we go.
Quan Gan: OK, does it allow you to type somewhere for the address?
Hunter Smith: It's just Google. It doesn't give me like a web address up top.
Quan Gan: Try typing it in there. might still allow you to do it. type in that search bar one, nine, eight dot one, six, two dot. I think it's 10 dot one. Let's try that. And then press enter.
Hunter Smith: Okay. thing is like a mind of its own.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Hunter Smith: Not research. my God. Enter. Enter does not seem to work. What about?
Quan Gan: Okay.
Hunter Smith: Oh, okay.
Quan Gan: Oh, good. Nice. Okay. So, um, in the screen there, type admin and press the button and see what, what it gets you. It's all in our case. Yes.
Hunter Smith: Okay.
Quan Gan: All right. So, we're in the back end. I can't really see your screen, but, um, you need to. Okay. Oops. You can put that on the side. Yeah, you can just put it on the table.
Hunter Smith: It should be fine. Gotcha. Okay. Um, so I'm seeing four options. I'm seeing router bridge, AP and repeater. Um, and then there are some more options on the left hand side status wizard network. users, system and firewall?
Quan Gan: Let's try, let's try router.
Hunter Smith: You said router?
Quan Gan: All right.
Hunter Smith: There are three options at the top. The one selected says DHCP and then it's asking for an IP address, a subnet mask, gateway and DNS.
Quan Gan: Are those, does it have a default in there already? For the IP address, at least?
Hunter Smith: It does not. It does not. It just says automate.
Quan Gan: Okay. Let's try 192.168 like we had before.
Hunter Smith: up. Wait one sec.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Hunter Smith: You said 192.168. Hold up. I'm sorry, it's not... It's not letting me type anything in that bar.
Quan Gan: Okay, um So Unfortunately, I have a call in about five minutes and this will take a little bit longer Would we be able to resume this? maybe in two hours or Same time tomorrow.
Hunter Smith: Um, I could I could do the same time tomorrow. I don't have I have a few other calls scheduled for today But um, okay. Yes, absolutely.
Quan Gan: If 230 would work for you tomorrow then absolutely Yeah, let me schedule that because I may end up just trying to find a way to remotely log in to do it. Or are you able to keep that system just on tonight?
Hunter Smith: Yeah, I'll leave it right here plugged in. I won't touch it.
Quan Gan: OK, if you can do that, and then just let's go back to, well, I need to know your settings. Are you able to shrink that screen and go back to the old one so I can see what's the name of the system?
Hunter Smith: I'll try to remote log in. Let me try. I don't want to exit out. It's not giving me the option to minimize it like the other screen.
Quan Gan: I'm OK with you just closing it so you can do an alt F4, like a function.
Hunter Smith: Oh, wait, yes, absolutely, you're right. Okay. All right. I'm there.
Quan Gan: Okay. So if you're back into the Zeus, can you show me, um, the about page and then, uh, yeah, or are you able to just take a photo of that screen, uh, with the system name and just send me an email with it?
Hunter Smith: Yep. And so that's the, like the MAC address, right?
Quan Gan: The MAC address and then the, I need to know the system name and also, um, your user account.
Hunter Smith: Okay. I'm just not seeing a system name on there.
Quan Gan: well, right there. So what are the three lines?
Hunter Smith: it has just the name, right? It says, yes, it does. says name, MAC address, and then the date it was registered.
Quan Gan: Okay. So that page and then, um, where is the login screen? page? Yes, those two pages.
Hunter Smith: Perfect. Absolutely. I can take a picture of both of that.
Quan Gan: Okay. So by default, let's meet tomorrow. But if I can get this done without it, we won't have to meet.
Hunter Smith: Perfect. Yeah. No problem. I will, I'll send those to you in the next few minutes.
Quan Gan: Okay. Great. Thank you.
Hunter Smith: Sorry, I couldn't figure out right now. No, no, no.
Quan Gan: Thank you for your patience.
Hunter Smith: know you're trying to deal with this remotely. So I appreciate you. You deal absolutely.
Quan Gan: Okay. Cool. All right. Thank you very much. See you later. All right. Bye-bye.
Quan Gan: This meeting is being recorded to move the meeting time officially.
Charlie Xu: Yesterday, Carmen mentioned they have a festival. she mention to you guys?
Quan Gan: Nope.
Charlie Xu: Okay. So, I just say, I say, because she mentioned, and I say, okay, it means I know about that. But I don't know, do we have a schedule, which is the day to day they are off or not? feel like we probably have to have...
Quan Gan: Yeah, it was the one maintaining that before, so we probably need to give that to someone else to do. I think the previous person that was here, she had maintained that schedule.
Charlie Xu: someone else okay are they are are they getting a holiday like a year or are they not like just disappear.
Quan Gan: Okay what is the holiday?
Kristin Neal: I do see it on the calendar it's a holiday EIDU it was yesterday so that's why the the festival.
Quan Gan: How do you oh it's the end of Ramadan is hold on there is a public holiday it's an Islamic holy month for fasting April 1st.
Charlie Xu: It's a religion festival fasting fun
Kristin Neal: Hold on.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay.
Charlie Xu: Oh, yeah, it is a regular holiday nationwide Okay Charlie were you able to get the invoice figured out what you were Added I manually added so because I just need to send them a payment receipt So I manually add the number so the receipt is just showing them the total number So I don't feel like that matter that much I I don't think I manually entered that order So and also on the check actually Then the number they refer to is the sales order number Interesting.
Kristin Neal: Okay, then on their Their packing slip their packing slip has the sales order on there. So that's probably yeah, we got it So it is an issue for classes to look into them since you didn't manually input and it's got a transfer over So I think that's gonna be an easy thing Go ahead. I'm so sorry, Trin.
Charlie Xu: I don't know. What did you say?
Kristin Neal: I wanted to just look at real quick what we had talked about the new community page. And remember how we had talked about the Z-Tag extended care being separate from the community page? They can't be separate because they involve each other. The cost of the extended care reflects what they're going get as far as community. So I was going back and forth with the AI yesterday and I got to find it. so sorry. they said like just a very clear graphic, like a table too. Because there's kind of a lot of interchanging would be best. I don't know if you guys want to...
Quan Gan: You can have it generate the table?
Kristin Neal: Yeah, it did. It totally generated the table.
Charlie Xu: So I'm just trying to find it to see what... Yeah, Chris has already given the form. I'm probably just working on... that a little bit to finalize the style in the future for Paula to work on that. Because I think right now, I still try to catch up on my breath. There's a lot of marketing, financial here and there. Yeah. Also, I really feel I want Paula to, it could be able to redo the visual somehow. So, yeah, a lot of things to catch up, definitely. Yeah, definitely we're working on that to make the template, at least make the template so, so Paula can based on the template to work on future document.
Kristin Neal: Okay, this is what we need to get this figured out though, as soon as possible, because I have 10 reaching out to 2024 partners that they're accepting care is about to expire. So, as soon as we can get this.
Quan Gan: This first shot looks too complicated. I don't know if it's the coloring or just how many Grids are on there. Yeah, what can we do to make it even more simplified?
Kristin Neal: That's either like a Table like this or it's all written out like how you've had it.
Quan Gan: Well, I mean like our terms maybe too January and that's why it's causing the table like I'm kind of wanting to look at it in reverse How do we make it look more like it in and out one two three new And that might need to push back on policy itself I was thinking about that because we could just have it to where they can add like the community pack They can add the the digital, you know marketing things like the symbols rather than including it or something exactly like just they are already The original bundling was trying to incentivize them to buy the the five year to show that it as it. So typically when you have these services, at least for software, it would be showing you three tiers vertically, kind of like small, medium, large. yeah, sometimes they're trying to anchor you towards the middle. Like that's kind of, they're just psychological things, right? It's like, they really want you to get the middle. So they make that high and like really high. It's almost like a go away price and the low one, low, but you're not getting what you actually want. And then you end up in the middle. That's kind of how they position it. And then below that would be these a la carte things that are like separate line items that you can add on. they're also like in these tiers, it says, okay, this might include some of these things below. So it's kind of like a vertical and a horizontal.
Kristin Neal: Stontal I think we I had that option to where it was like this and then the next one was just like the above plus this The above yeah Yeah, because the the small medium large it's supposed to show you like every tier up you include all the previous Plus you're getting these additional Okay, let's see what this one.
Charlie Xu: Let's see just in the future I don't like protected partner, okay And I I think for the the previous Table I feel like we would mind less the Care one three five as Horizontal so they can compare easily to see the difference that the price difference I think that looks more logical for me to like compare Instead of having the ones reply vertically.
Kristin Neal: Okay. So have them up here. Yeah.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. Okay. So it's a comparison. logically we compare, like you subscribe a website, it's not only there horizontally compare the numbers.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Yeah. So switch the tears to the song. The options.
Quan Gan: There's something I might recommend us to do to get this more efficient is in the meeting and then get the transcript because we're already putting our human feedback just by looking at this. Yeah. And then you can share with me this entire conversation. We can jump in and then re-inject the entire conversation. Back into it and then get it to regenerate rather than you typing it out for now.
Kristin Neal: Okay. You want me to just share the conversation with you now?
Quan Gan: Yeah, but it may not generate until we actually in the meeting. So we might have to jump back in. Oh, I mean, yeah, this one, but then also we need the transcript. Yeah, and then so let's take a look at its current iteration and see if it feels better. So we don't like the names at the top. we'll, that's an adjustment. We can come up with new names that are more aligned. Okay. Warranty duration one or three. No, so it doesn't. It should just keep it like one, three or five years, the duration. Yeah, I like how the check marks show that you're getting more stuff. I do like that. So that, that's generally what I see with these tiered pricing.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. So this would be, um, not extended, but.
Quan Gan: It should just be a three year and then give us a solid price. Yeah. Cause otherwise we're adding too much flexibility in there. Like we, it should just be one, two or three.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. That's, it's one, three or five.
Quan Gan: It's not even one. Oh yeah. I mean options one, two or three.
Kristin Neal: But yeah, one, three, five. Okay. But if we get into that detail, then the table overcomes. It's, if we get that, cause that's where, I think that's where the misalignment is. We're getting the, the hardware separate from the community. You see what I mean? So it almost feels like, should we have two different, um, graphs? One that this is what you're going to get for.
Quan Gan: Recoverage and one for a community. Um, but you're going to possibly they're making they are making extra decisions. Um, so yeah, actually, let's, um, like a choose.
Kristin Neal: I don't know.
Quan Gan: Yeah, the pros and cons of it being bundled in. So it's just all part of it versus there is some complexity. So. If you guys are okay with it, let's just quickly end the meeting, get the transcript and then see what it comes up with.
Kristin Neal: Just based on our current feedback. Can I get one more in before we do that? Yeah, please. Okay. Think about like Costco, you know, Costco and like the bread, they pick two. There's like, you could pick whatever kind of bread you just got to pick two. So if we give them that option here, pick one hardware, pick one for the.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay.
Kristin Neal: The community pack and then boom, here's your price.
Quan Gan: Okay. So it's like, I'm hearing like, like a poke bowl.
Kristin Neal: It's like a pick your protein and then pick your carb, right? Yes. Yes.
Quan Gan: Okay. That's an interesting way to look at it. Okay.
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Quan Gan: good to meet you. Nice to meet you. I'm just so you know, I look a little worked out. I'm in between in between ski runs.
Seth Peterson: I'm a break.
André: in between ski runs?
Quan Gan: Where? Yeah. I'm a mammoth. This is like my, I'm so jealous.
André: This is like where I go.
Quan Gan: You know, as much as my son is into yo-yo, this is my thing.
André: I'm trying to squeeze as many days out of the season as I can. Good for you. Yeah, we just like everything shut down like last week here. We meet me and I suddenly get out. Massachusetts.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. So you got a whole, I've never been out there skiing, but it must be a very different condition that here is icy.
André: I mean during the winter it can be good, but like it gets, it can get icy.
Quan Gan: Yeah. I think mammoth is a good choice. Have you been out here?
André: No, I haven't.
Quan Gan: It's been on my list.
André: Okay. Yeah. I want to get out to the West Coast in general for more.
Quan Gan: Play I think I I look at I I look at the snow condition probably like my son looks at like strings and different yo-yo specs Totally different or more expensive sport, but oh my god.
André: It's awesome though. Well, thanks for jumping on in the middle No, no, this is this is my office.
Quan Gan: That's trust me. I take like four or five calls a day So, but you know, I'm not complaining because I get my break in between It's awesome. Yeah I'm good.
Seth Peterson: Yeah, I like immediately after the The contest I think my body was like, all right, I've I've wanted to be sick for a while But I've held off for the contest and now we're gonna be sick. So the last week I've been Yeah, getting over a cold and everything but Yeah, doing good. Thank you. Thank you again for being flexible on Yeah, on of course Friday Friday afternoon got like a three-day workshop dumped on my calendar. So it was one of those like, wait, it literally like kicked off at our time we had set up. So I appreciate your flexibility and everything. I try to make my life pretty flexible.
Quan Gan: So you know, drop on a dime and do . So no, it's good. And also like definitely take care of your body. I've personally gone through some pretty hard lessons. Before we get into the details, I'll share with you like a few years ago, I actually couldn't walk for four months because I had a severe back injury.
Seth Peterson: Oh, wow.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and it wasn't like, it was something that I had on and off for about 20 years, but mostly it was, you know, me or my soul not listening to my body. And I just kept working myself until my body just said, set the down, you're gonna, you're gonna rest. And, but actually like three doctors said I need a surgery for, that, but really just through meditation and self-care and just isolation for four months, I'm actually slowly going to find out I'm better than skiing. That's phenomenal.
André: I can relate to the need of, I've been going through similar stuff, I've always thought if I could get four months off my work schedule to do something like that, so that's inspirational to hear you say that, I'll still work towards that.
Quan Gan: Well, it's, you know, I would wish the pain that I had to go through on anyone, but yeah, going through that was also the biggest that I got as a wake-up call, you know, especially us in our age.
André: Beautiful. Well, I'm so glad that you're able to, I mean, that's amazing going from that to being on the slopes, kind of mind blown, so just, you got to disentangle from everything, right? There's just so much, you know, Seth you're talking about getting sick but really the mechanism is just the cortisol and the stress hormone are just breaking out your body until your body is like, no I've had it. Totally.
Seth Peterson: Yeah, yo-yo content can definitely add to the cortisol. Just before we get started, are you familiar with Andre and yo-yo expert and all of that?
Quan Gan: Yeah, I did a little bit of my research, know, and my son for sure knows you so.
Seth Peterson: Probably learned many tricks from Andre's videos and tutorials and everything.
André: It's funny, need to redo them. I launched yo-yo expert in 2008 and the original video I made was like 2004-2005 and so like when YouTube came out, I was the only source for learning how to yo-yo all the way through like 2012-2013 and so since then people learn from a lot of different people, but for a while that it was like, people were only learning from me. And I've redone the tutorials once, I need to redo them again. It's like been 10 years. some of the younger kids like, don't don't always find me immediately.
Quan Gan: But eventually, they, well, you're the OG then, you know, you've been an entrepreneur longer than I have. bad crops that you're still in game.
André: Thank you. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
André: No, it's, mean, yoyoing is, is, it's, you know, my true passion. I always has been in the community and seeing the kids. And my son's 11 now.
Quan Gan: Is your son, how old is your son? He's 10. But yeah, we're probably around the same age, right?
André: Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, he got into yoyoing two years ago, pretty hardcore. And it was just like the most amazing thing to watch that happen after it's consumed so much of my life. And I was able to see through him again, like the real benefits of every, all the work I had put into it, too, because sometimes you lose track of it when It becomes work, it's it's really is still a passion for me and I'm thankful that it's So made it have continued to make it work. That's that's beautiful because you know Passion turns it into work as a double-edged sword Because you you enjoy what you do, but eventually it's work too. So he kind of Totally does. Yeah, we own a toy store too that we bought 10 years ago And I have been a long time employee there as well And it's actually been really good because it looked good balance between having those two things So neither completely consume my life. I mean between the two of them they completely consume my life But uh, it's a good balance In terms of when one gets harder or the other can be a place I can go to kind of be uh Get inspiration or just more enjoyment out of out of that kind of work Uh, yeah Yeah, Andre's also been very instrumental in kind of um re creating the new foundation for Um, but, um, so I don't know where do you guys actually live live?
Quan Gan: Oh, me, um, yeah, Santa Clarita. Do you know where Mad Mountain is?
André: Okay. Yep. Yep. Um, well, and if you ever made up the Chico, uh, in California there before. Um, but there's a store there called Bird in Hand and, uh, they started the National Yoyo Contest and every year they would run it up there in Chico. Uh, and so from whenever the first one, 19, let's see, actually 1993 it says, uh, I thought it was, might have been earlier than that. So from 1993 till 2000, I want to say like 2014, 2015, every year the National Yoyo Contest happened in Chico, California. at that point in time to yoyoing, Is that how Gentry got in? Yes. Yeah, he's from Chico.
Quan Gan: Correct.
André: Yeah. There's a bunch of yoyo players. Nate Daly is another one. There's a couple others, uh, yeah, so Chico was the real center of yoyoing there. And so every year we would make this pilgrimage to Chico. You fly out to Sacramento or fly to San Francisco and drive up to Chico. And you get to the contest and they always ran it outside because they had this amazing park there. And, you know, for us, like that part of it was really neat. You could see the community, you know, in the 10, 15, 20 years it was running. It still continued to work pretty well, too. And then as time went on and as the younger generation grew into adults, they started feeling like every year in Chico got difficult because it was really expensive to get there. And they just wanted to make yoyoing bigger. And so there was very much a conversation amongst people our age and even a little younger, I feel like, too, that wanted to see it start becoming something. different and that they can take some ownership over. so we worked with a lot of different people to encourage people running the Yoyo Contest to move. And so they moved it to Los Angeles the first two years after that, which was a lot of work. it did work. And then Chicago, we did Chicago twice. And then we moved it to Philadelphia. And I think those were like the four or five years. And that was the year before COVID. And the thing that happened as it began to move, the old guard, which is the kind of two people that run burning hand, they I feel like they kind of just got busy, but they also it wasn't really their thing as much anymore, because it started to move and other people got involved. But there wasn't like a real group trying to come in to pull together and make it all work. so after the 2019 event, right before COVID, I volunteered a nonprofit group here. locally and we do grants and help provide stuff to the schools that they normally couldn't fund. And so I learned like, oh, this is how a good functioning non-profit group could work. I would love to like take what I've learned and try and get the National Yoyo League moving in that direction because there's never really been money and there's never really been support and there's never really been good delegation and teamwork and stuff like that. That's always kind of last minute. so in 2019, I proposed to Bob Bologna as the person who owns Burton Hand and who kind of started the National Yoyo League. And so he agreed to like let me kind of form a new group of people, which is where stuff came into things too, and try and kind of like, yeah, just build more of a team effort and think about trying to to grow yoyoing and make it bigger and make more of a format to the event and stuff. So that was great because then COVID hit right after we ran the first contest under the new group. And so then We just, it just turned into battles of like whether or we should run events and like what mass requirements and vaccine requirements and it was just like this insane three years until we finally was able to run a contest again and there is in Arizona first national year contest was in 2022 and then in 2023 we did run regionals and 23 and 22 23. It's kind of so confused 24 so 23 and 24 the first two years of regionals to return. 22 was the first nationals we weren't able to do it and. 23 was the first nationals 24 22 23 24 24 so 22 is the nationals 23 we ran regionals 24 we also ran regionals. All right, Seth.
Seth Peterson: I think I believe so yeah.
André: It's such a blurry timeline so I feel like I haven't stopped for a minute ever since.
Seth Peterson: It's the four months to to click myself sounds like an amazing idea after all that um so anyways one other big things that that kind of like the reform natural yoyo league kind of centralized the organization and sponsorship kind of cool so that allowed um it allowed like kind of us to be able to focus on bigger venues and kind of like before like pre-covid there was you know a bunch of little things happening all over run independently and kind of like from a kind of logistical and and kind of a brand standpoint a lot of kind of like disconnected things like different contests would have slightly different rule sets and so like somebody might go to their their regional contest and then go to another contest and the rules were slightly different. there was like different weighting. another big thing that like Colin Beckford, who was the head judge at ENWR and a whole group of people have really gone after standardizing and like making rules very clear. like, in the, you know, in the 20 years that I've been going to Yo-Yo Contest, the rules and like the ways that things are judged has become incredibly standardized and like no longer after the contest you hear, you know, 10 different opinions on 10 different who should have won and everything. So there's been a lot of kind of like foundational building and a lot of it has been, mean, Andre and I used to be some of the younger people involved in Yo-Yo Contest and now we're the older guys. And there's a lot of like new generation younger, younger Yo-Yoers that are coming up and taking ownership and like helping build it into like a future as well. So I think that's another big shift that I've noticed. than that has. I mean, I feel like adds a level of, you know, almost like legitimacy, like we're as a as a governing body of these contexts, we at least have, you know, standards and practices and a lot of that foundational.
André: Yeah, I mean, the other thing I'll actually tag tag on real quick on that too. You know, at our toy store, we teach yo yo classes here twice a week. And so I see a constant influx of kids getting into it. then as soon as they get into it, like the first thing it's like, well, you know, I've got this great skill, like other competitions that I compete. I like, generally, I would run three to four events a year, because we would run two local events here, I would run our state contest, I would run a regional contest, and then I would help with other ones too. But I was like, actually running like three to four events, like locally. And so I had a vision as well for like, just like the flow of getting a new kid engaged in yo yo and then trying to help them understand like how to Be excited about competing so that it continues to get them to be into the sport And I saw I felt like with the national yo-yo like there was like a real Lack of awareness of that group because everything was so much catered towards the professionals and just fixated on like Who should win and how instead of trying to build away for the kids to get into it and then succeed and then continue to want to Compete and so the sports freestyle division is actually like a newer division that we formed like coming out of that 2018-2019 it wasn't always a thing a lot of times you would get all the kids competing in all in the prelim division No age divisions Before that there used to be something called sports ladder to that was just like a list of tricks that the kids would do and you know got kind of boring and I think the horror and expression of yo-yo and kids learn so fast now too that They can get on stage and and enjoy freestyle and pretty quick So that's actually been one of the biggest successes. I think that we found over the past three years Is that we have grown the sports division and so much bigger than I think even a lot of the people expect that joined the board of group that we were going for. So that's something I've been really excited about. Because when I was growing up too, the other thing I feel like that we, I've been trying to bring back and model up until 2013, there was world yoyo contest that always happened in Orlando, Florida every single year. And for us, was like always like everybody came to it. It didn't matter, you know, which part of the world and which part of the country it was like the one central place. And the person running at the time did an exceptional job at like kind of doing all these little community events. There'd be like workshops and there would be places for parents to meet and greet. And it just helped build these community vibes and allowed people to see like just the wonderful ways yoyoing, you know, connected, would connect people and touch their lives and stuff like that. And the world yoyo contest in 2014 started moving across the world because it needed to start doing that, that point. But it left a bit of a hole in the US scene that wasn't quite filled. And so one of our larger focuses with nationals specifically has been trying to reincorporate that into nationals, because nationals was, you know, running gun event in Chico, there wasn't much time to do it. And so as we continued to try and build this, this larger event, we've been trying to do stuff like workshops and opportunities for kids to get more engaged and involved and meet pros and get inspired and stuff like that. So that's the, that's, feel like the big vision.
Quan Gan: I'm really excited. I want to respond to all that you both of you guys have said. So Andre, I have to thank for the sports division, because, you know, as a parent of Geo, he ended up winning first place in his age category. And I wanted to tell you not because, you know, the fact that you won that, it was really, I wanted to share the appreciation that I have knowing, you know, how it was versus what it is now that this format I see as an on ramp. or New York players, right? It's like, you're not necessarily having to compete against someone who's already, you know, 10 years into it. And, um, just to give you a little quick story, you know, he practices routine, um, you know, nonstop. and when he actually got on stage, this was like the first time it being official, um, he actually missed the first beat because the audio or something, like he, he didn't get it, right?
André: went back and watched his video and I noticed that I was impressed that he just jumped into it.
Quan Gan: Yeah. And so he kind of like was probably delayed by a two seconds or something. And then when he came off of stage and realized like how that was relative to his practice, he was just balling for like 30 minutes. You know, it was really hard for him. was like super low, but we were like, okay, this is going to build resilience and, you know, this is the first time we're doing it. And he was like, you know, starting to quit too. But the fact that like later on, you know, you got announced, I would. We were over the moon, you know, like we didn't expect that, but just the way that you guys were able to set them to age groups. It really allowed that highlight for each of the participants, regardless of what their place was, but I just felt that was that just made it so much more enabling and accessible. yeah, thank you for that.
André: I'm so happy to hear that.
Seth Peterson: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Right. And I'm also just, you know, reflecting that, you know, thank you for sharing the story that it's like you guys have made tremendous traction over the years. You know, maybe some of the older people have left, you know, the organizing part, but the new ways that you guys have implemented, you know, for the new kids coming in, they don't know any better. So they're probably shifting with you, right?
André: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I feel like that's the one thing, because like there's been a lot of disruption and a lot of things that have been complicated to try and resolve and stuff like that. But like when I come back and I see this. success of the kids, you know, across all the regionals and then coming to nationals. And again, even with my own son, it was like, it's what makes it all worth it. And what you can see, you can measure the success so much better there too. Yeah, I mean, it's nationals in particular last year was really neat because I there's one person on our board who's also been yoyoing like for too long. And he hasn't he hasn't really been a competitor recently.
Quan Gan: And he always argued with me that the sports freestyle division was was not needed or not as necessary, you know. Oh, it's needed. I think it's needed.
André: Well, last year, we had we had more people in the sports category than we had in the professionals. And on both sides of the thing, people were just like, Oh, this is so weird. And, you know, like, even the pros were like, like, we're all the pros. And, you know, after the contest happened, everything too, it was, it was unanimous that this this is really the future. this is how you build it. And this is actually really working And in some ways, too, it's more enjoyable because the people that come to compete in the sports divisions, too, are the people that that honestly make the contest more interesting at this point because after you've competed for a while, too, stuff like that, it's.
Quan Gan: So you can, you could just say from the audience field energy when a six year old goes up on stage, right? Yeah, we're not trying to get the six year old competing against someone, but they want to pretend 15 years.
André: Oh my God, it's funny actually. last year at the regionals in particular. It was also one of the biggest wake up calls. So we ran a contest in Denver, and I don't know if you know the name Zach Gormley, but he's the world champion.
Quan Gan: He's incredible player if you Google him.
André: so Zach hadn't competed, I feel like in four or five years or something like that before COVID, think he in a one world that feel like before it. And so he came out of competition and he was going to compete at regionals. And so at the contest, the sports division happened first, know, and then the finals happen later. In the sports division, the room was filled for the age range like 13 and under and the kids were all watching the other kids and they're cheering and the crowd is just like on fire and they were so excited. And then the afternoon, it gets the pros and everyone just started yoyoing. Everyone was in the back of the room. Zach gets on the stage and I had sent a picture to somebody of him yoyoing. Everyone's like, where's the audience? Like this is the most monumental moment in yoyoing. And I had to kind of explain like, well, you know, actually the excitement was in the room when the kids were on stage because everybody, the audience, was that much more excited and engaged for the kids. It's been tricky to explain it to people who have been in yoyoing a long time. yeah, it also was the best example of the true success of what's happening.
Quan Gan: that's cool. Yeah. And I think we're kind of sitting on the, well, this is me as an outsider because we've only been doing this for about a year, but just as an outsider parent, I just feel like we're sitting on the cusp of something really big. Especially post COVID. It's almost like this tension, right? of parents wanting to get their kids physically active again, socializing the social and emotional skills. And well, because the schools have removed so much of it at this point, too. Like, there's not much left there for the kids. Well, there's that. But also, I think you look at the differential between competitive or professional yoyoing, that's, I don't know, arguably, tens of thousands of people or hundreds of thousands, what do you think? In the world.
André: At any given time, yeah, more like tens of thousands.
Quan Gan: OK, so even further, competitive wise. Yeah, right. So so let's just say tens of thousands at that caliber, versus how many people on this planet don't know what a yoyo is or know what a yoyo is, right? That like that will be in the billions, right? You could arguably say anybody that's connected to the Internet or just modern age would know what a yoyo is. So there's like this huge differential between, you know, the core competitive side and then like massive amount of audience of, you know, parents and adults and, you know, who would just love for their kids to do this as soon as they see it. And if we have the on-ramp, if we could provide that on-ramp like you guys are saying, but also somehow publicize it beyond the narrow scope and really just say, how do we get this into the clubs of schools, after-school programs, summer camps, right? Like really have an easy on-ramp. I think that could do wonders eventually.
André: Absolutely.
Seth Peterson: Yeah, and we're fortunate here in Portland to have a really robust kind of like school-after-school program. There's probably six or seven schools in the in the Portland area that have Yo-Yo Club and
André: for COVID and that's like completely separate from the National Yo-Yo League stuff. And because it's like, you know, we've done classes here for like 20 years at our toy store. And so I've learned lots of different approaches and stuff. So we have like a whole trick card program and like kind of like, it's funny that the final step is trying to come up with like some rewards and stuff like that, but we're building all the structure to try and basically give somebody something to kind of have the confidence to start a club wherever they want to, but it is a whole like structured program at this point. So, yeah.
Quan Gan: And do you need someone that's already decently skilled at it to inspire more people to join?
André: Not necessarily. mean, obviously that helps. I feel like this is something, because like the whole approach with it is, you know, it's broken into like three levels and the first level is all like the most basic beginner tricks. And I feel like a lot of times you just need someone who's enthusiastic and the kids can learn from. videos easily enough. And then as soon as you get one kid who's a little good, they can learn from each other. they're kind of always trying to learn the next big trick. And I mean, even even from my experience with our teaching of the class that we have, the kids who get really into it, they quickly start coming back to the class and like, you know, I taught them four tricks, and they come back and they know 10. Because they immediately went online and learned all of the tricks that were on the list and advanced and they come back in. So at that point, it's more like community building and just getting them excited. So yeah, yeah.
Quan Gan: I have a question on that to dig a little bit deeper. Because my son got into it because there was kind of a phase that a couple of his friends started doing it. And then he got really into it. They pretty much only play during recess. There's not been any kind of formal program. And I've actually heard from another parent in their school that the yo-yo got banned because It happened at my own son's school and it drove me mentally insane. I'm just curious, okay, so with or without official approval, what is that difference? Like, because I also feel like my son's recess activity is kind of fizzling out because maybe he's a little, he's like way more advanced than most of his friends actually doing it. But how can you maintain that fire once it's stoked and, yeah, I'm curious.
André: I mean, that's, I mean, I'm actually even trying to figure that out a little bit myself because, like, it's very different. Like, as Seth mentioned, like, I kind of was an awe of Portland having this whole program in the schools where they wanted people to come in during the school day to do it. Like, out by us, there's always lots of opportunities for afterschool programs. But then I need to find teachers that can actually go and do it and stuff like that. Sometimes I do find school teachers that are really interested in like doing doing it and then like we work with them and kind of get them trained and then they can run the program pretty quickly. That's the part I'm trying to actually like finish on my end too, is more of the structure of the program, like the teaching component, less of the tricks and more of the actual like, this is how you structure a club, this is how you structure your class. I mean, from my experience too, a lot of libraries are looking for events that are easy to do. And so, you know, we've done a lot of library club kind of program setups and stuff like that. Boys and girls clubs are usually really excited and interested in too, and stuff like that. And then obviously game and hobby, toy stores, if there are any locally, and or then, you know, it looks like you got to to DXL, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah, we just did that last weekend.
André: Yeah, I mean, that's always most ideal is when you have something like that where there's a person who, you know, it really is just like somebody has a picket date, a place once a month, and
Quan Gan: And then you're kind of golden. But I think there's kind of a, there's a pro concept to that where the pro is you have someone super passionate spearheading it, but it is from my outside perspective, it doesn't seem like a scalable system that could be replicated because you need that particular parent who has an expert or professional Yo-Yo son or daughter who's kind of keeping her in, in the game.
André: So you don't, it does, it can work. I mean, we've had a number of people who are not good Yo-Yo players that run clubs and it's funny, actually, like one of the best conversations I had actually at PNWR, it was, there was a Yo-Yo player and I'm going to have to remember where he was from, but we had sent him like the club pack a year ago in the club pack consisted of a case starter Yo-Yo's, the trick cards and I think he, it's funny, I think he is I think he even is a teacher himself actually, but the club that he's running is largely adults.
Quan Gan: That's kind of exactly my point, but you're, you're, you're giving them material as a curriculum so they can run it versus something like DXL, there is no curriculum. It's just a bunch of passionate people doing it.
André: But when the passion goes away, then you have no baseline to return to. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I've been honestly trying to figure that out myself too. So it's it's kind of two different things because like the contests are one side where it's like, once the people get into it, you know, they'll find the contests and ideally that's the community and then they're kind of in, but the structure from the ground up is the harder thing. I mean, it's hard too because COVID really messed with that too because up until 23, we didn't have people reaching out to us to ask about clubs again. So I couldn't even like start, we had, I actually have like club yoyos that say yoyo club on them that we finally got ordered last year so that we could have the program to like put into people's hands and stuff like Up until last year it was like it just wasn't happening.
Seth Peterson: So Like one one thing we're still you know adjusting and figuring out post-covid and just like the immense change in like retail landscape like that like retailers used to be a great resource because there was More, know, there was there was a passion incentive But there was also financial incentive to to have those resources so that their customers could come back and learn more and just working like I've worked for Duncan and the factory in the past and like those were always great kind of like local foundational resources that we leverage to just like be able to to have those those more regional like more localized clubs and Yeah, so that's Yeah, I'm getting pretty excited because I feel like we're kind of on two parallel paths, but at a similar stage
Quan Gan: in our growth or rebirth in no sense post COVID because for ZTAG, I don't know if you realize, but our main market is after-school programs and summer camps. so we sell to a lot of these schools and they have substantial funds to throw at these kind of activities. Our product's not cheap. It's $10,000 for a system. And it's something that they can use for practically three to five years and they can serve hundreds of kids. we found just over the past two and a half years that we really struck a chord with them because we're checking all the boxes for them. You know, in terms of this is a physical, social activity, there's a lot of social emotional learning involved. These are key terms that after-school programs are looking for so they could necessarily check the boxes. Not saying by any means I'm an expert in here, it just means I have two and a half years of experience working with them and kind of speaking And I just feel like there's tremendous potential and the fact that yoyos are way more accessible compared to the systems we sell. there's some way we can. Oh, hold on a second with me. Oh, you guys still there?
André: Yep.
Seth Peterson: Yep.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I had a call from it. Um, that it just feels like there might be tremendous potential to even, you know, maybe go to some of these trade shows to present it as a club kit. You know, if you're already building this thing, getting an official getting into all the after school programs, I think that might be a really good foundation to sweet kids in it. Even if the passion falls off, like you're still some foundational thing as a club that supports it.
André: Yeah. 100%.
Seth Peterson: That would be, yeah. How, like, how many, you mentioned it, PNWR as well, but like, how many trade shows are you? and the team like presenting out a year.
Quan Gan: about a dozen throughout the U.S. but with a strong concentration in California because there's a very there's a very big a budget here that's just allocated for after school and it I don't know if this doesn't map on to the entire country because every state is different but California what we're finding is the after-school programs allow for the flexibility that our modern kids need whereas your traditional in-class curriculum is like still to the state tests and it's kind of they're kind of pulling the fire out of that or the fuel out of that because that's not actually what our kids need to be successful in the 21st century you're not just memorizing facts anymore you know about history or do a math problem when we're writing essay and chat you can do all of that now right so it's more of the human factors but the incumbents in the school you know they have their pensions they have all these Just inertia of how things used to be, they don't want to change and and a lot of it might be policy like there's just so much bureaucracy that prevents it from changing. Whereas the after school program, they basically get to color outside of the lines. They get to be very creative and innovative with technology like our stuff. They're willing to jump in and yeah. So, think for Yoyo and after school clubs, it could be a very strong, I said, very, if you guys try.
Seth Peterson: That's so interesting.
Quan Gan: Have you guys considered that angle before, actually go to the shows and promoting it?
Seth Peterson: Not, I so, but I don't know about your, I mean, it's, it's hard because it's like two different things to the league.
André: I like it's been, you know, I kept that part separate. So the league is like focused on running events and trying to do those the best they can and provide the structure. and stuff like that. On my side with the club program, yes, but not as much since COVID because of the level of disruption that it created in my life. And the program itself was kind of still getting off the ground, but it's kind of at that point where it's been something. I had a really good group of friends who were part of the Kendama community. I don't if you guys about to buy one. They're great. mean, they're awesome. it's funny. They got really popular just as Instagram video came out and they just got these huge surges of people getting into it. And so they grew really fast and they were able to put a lot of money into the things at the right time. one of the things was there was a guy that was doing school programs and so he put together really good curriculum and went around to school and stuff like that. And I was watching them kind of do this and having lots of conversations because I felt like as a free thing, but there's an opportunity there to take the yoyos and take the program and and definitely like you can, I mean, there's people that do run classes and charge and and turn it into a business, you know, and the after school programs like you're saying can be quite lucrative. So for us, it's more just about spreading yoyo and and trying to build the program as a, you know, something that they can look at as a, you know, so I see it as a flywheel because you need to have a successful business to generate the cash that you can then re-inject in to create awareness.
Quan Gan: Without that, then it's without that, you're basically just subsidizing it with passion and go funds. Yes, I am guilty of that. I see that in so many industries, because I serve, you know, prior to the to Z tag, we have another business that served the theme parks. So we had to go through a very similar at Pivot through COVID, our business is down more than 50%. Like, you know, at the end of the day, we realize in the entertainment sector or any sector where there's a strong passion for doing it, the people are undervalued because they would do it for free. You know, so capitalistically, if you charge a certain price, someone will be able to do it for less. And it just like really, it actually kind of creates this abusive environment where you don't get much funds and even the best talent is just very underpaid.
André: Absolutely. Yeah. We definitely... Very true.
Seth Peterson: I don't want to speak for Andre, but I think we've both experienced those things through YoYo as well. From certain, you know, certain people and everything. So that's what's been, you know, like what you're saying 100%, like I think YoYo as an industry has always... relied on those services to promote the product and the sales of that, but in many ways I think that there's a certain flip of that where the service is, we're looking more at services as part of the industry versus just the product because I mean for the first time you can go on Amazon by a $15 unresponsive metal yoyo that can do pretty much everything that the $500 yoyos can do. So there's definitely an interesting shift in the industry as well.
Quan Gan: I think as a macro trend what you're going to see is hardware and software is going to commoditize because AI and technology is just going to make it cheaper and more accessible. So what's left is actually the human factor. It's like how do we get these thought leaders to go out out to the schools, inspire the kids, get them a program, and hand hold them through it so they actually want to do it, like, it's actually the less tangible stuff that's going to retain the value of it.
Seth Peterson: Really true.
André: Totally.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so I, yeah, I really appreciate this, this long conversation to kind of circle back to, you know, that's your, your conversation with me a few weeks ago. I'm just throwing this out there and by no means do I want to fear things because, know, I'm guilty of like, you know, like, just get very excited about certain things and I have a certain way of, you know, wanting things but I really just wanted to kind of sprinkle this in here as an idea and do that as an experiment, almost like just selling a seed and seeing what happens, you know, it may be a lunch, maybe it isn't, but the inspiration I have is kind of like Red Bull. You look at Red Bulls looking at extreme sports, you know, it's not a direct product. It's kind of a tangential product, but we pretty much don't see any extreme athlete without Red Bull helmet or something about Red Bull veering, right? It's like they've become synonymous with that. And it's really turned these niche activities, like how many people in the world go down a cliff, right? But how many people want to watch it, right? Or kite surfing or any of these extreme activities? How can we get yoyo to be like that where you've got billions of people who know what a yoyo is, but they haven't seen it? And, you know, anytime my son or any of these competitive yoyo players go out in the general public, they're gaining an audience instantly, right? So how can we amplify that? it just looks like this might be the right time to promote or inject a little bit of capital. Well, to get your wider audience to understand what it is.
Seth Peterson: Yeah, absolutely.
André: So do you, do you have your own vision for what that looks like you're saying? I have a few thoughts.
Quan Gan: My, my video is kind of cutting off on the turn it off to get.
André: Okay.
Quan Gan: Can you guys hear me?
André: Yep. Yep.
Quan Gan: So I have a few initial ideas, but I would love to get your feedback just to see which direction might be more resonant. You know, I'm kind of learning with you guys as we go because it seems like you guys are trying to build a curriculum. Even for our program, we're trying to build curriculum to get into schools. There might already be kind of like a similar mutual learning process there. But it's more tangibly directly right now would be, you know, I talked to Seth and. ask what are the sponsorship packages like and ranges from a few hundred dollars to low thousands of dollars and from my company standpoint I think at least right now that seems pretty affordable to try it once and see if we can promote VTag as a way to not so much the product itself but can we strike the same why with the current audience the parents right it's like we're at the end of the day we're trying to get the kids offer screens back into face-to-face you know having these social emotional learning concepts and so can we come in more as a brand to just associate ourselves with this type of activities you know it might it may not even boost the activity we we look at but maybe this is a springboard for us see how can we get the logo placed so anytime you know people are looking at you know people doing really cool tricks that, you know, we have this upper and then, you know, it's not, we're not trying to sell a system off the site that that's not my, my angle. It's more like, who knows, maybe some of these parents sit on a PTA or they sit on the school board or some have some kind of relationship to their community is education. And then they can generate awareness through that, right? But if we can just show there's the synergy between, you know, this, this technology enhanced activity with yo-yo. So what one thought I had was like, okay, I don't know if you guys saw the red light like demo.
André: Yeah, I went on your website and watched all the different demo videos of everything sick. And this is this is right in my wheelhouse to have just like, I'm, you know, it's one of the interesting things with the club program and just even the classes and stuff that we do in person is like I'm always looking for ways to get kids engaged and a lot of it comes from like trying to gamify some elements or, you know, Uh, and so your approach to this is like just like, oh my god, and even just like my role locally with the schools and stuff here too, you know, like, like we have the toy store that all the teachers come and like buy stuff for their schools and stuff like that.
Quan Gan: So, um, I'm always having conversations with people about like, how do you get your kids active and engaged and so, uh, immediately, like, yeah, the whole game of fire and that we're speaking in their language because this is there's a dose of digital technology that they so desire. But we're again making the move and socialize. maybe if we combine the two, it has some potential to get non players to even be interested in trying, you know, just maybe just a basic bind or something. You could do binds over and over again when you're doing red light and then see how they could competitively not so much be on the yo yo trick itself, but maybe on the digital part because, you know, pretty much all kids know squid games these days. as soon as you've mentioned red light green light, you know, they're pretty much into it.
André: Yeah, absolutely. My son would be all over it.
Seth Peterson: I think just like, as I was thinking through, like, what ZTAG could look like at nationals, for example, I think we talked a little bit about this earlier too, but just like in there's, I see it every contest. There's like a very, there's a prebuilt wall for kids when they see their like yo-yo hero or like somebody who's really good at yo-yo. And I think like Andre spoke about it earlier, but like back in the day, we had a lot of workshops that broke down those and kind of like equalized a lot of conversations and gave people permission and space to interact with, you know, their yo-yo hero. So that's like one exciting thing about ZTAG, like integrations of like having another activity where like, you know, So, GEO is going against like Gentry or like, you know, these like big yo-yo stars and, and that, that interaction, physical, digital, like kind of spatial interaction, but not necessarily with a yo-yo in hand or like doing the tricks, but hopefully that builds the rapport and kind of those relationships. So, afterwards, know, a kid could feel comfortable going up to somebody they, they played with, hey, like, can you teach me this trick you were doing? So, those conversations and those like permissions are, are an exciting thing that I see just like involving we kind of get at contests.
André: Yeah, I'll also add just real quick too. I think one of the things that's happened with contests is we've, we filled it with contest. And so like you start it and it's like there's contests and then you get to the end and there's contests and then what you're, you're left with is like afterwards people are like, Oh, like, I guess I had fun. But like, it was actually kind of boring, because all I was doing was watching in the sports freestyle last year in particular, what the sports taking over like half the competition. There was actually a lot more excitement because people are excited to watch the kids get on stage and stuff. But at the end of the day, it's like, if all you're doing is just yoyoing on stage, and that that sucks up all the time and energy in the room, you are left feeling less fulfilled after the event. And the most fulfilling parts people tell me afterwards are like the little things and one of the other things that we I've always done at my local events. actually, I don't know if you probably met him, Eric, his name is Eric Klossky. works for me. He was at our booth the whole time if you stopped at all and spoke. So I feel like I saw you guys there at one point. But he he does online workshops with kids all the time and stuff like that.
Quan Gan: And so he's always gamifying his like one on one sessions. But also like when we do events and stuff, he's gonna really really good at like throwing. Were you guys part of the Yoyo University?
André: Not part of Yoyo University. just had like our own table on the end. what's that? Yeah, yeah, that was Colin and Greg, who I'm also like, really good friends with too and stuff. But anyways, like, so at nationals, like we're actually at a regional last year, he had a table and it was like, can you do the DNA on this? And he had a wheel and you spun the wheel and it landed on something and he would give it to them. So we'd be like, can you do a DNA on a lollipop or can you do a DNA? And he had like a plastic dinosaur and he had all these things. And then they ended up getting finals. so on the finals on stage at the regional, we did like the DNA contest and the kids would get up and spin the wheel. And we had like first, second, third, whoever did it. That's kind of thing, you know? And like that kind of stuff, people came up to us after and were like, oh, my God, like that was my favorite part of the contest because it was like just entertaining and fun. So I feel like I'm always looking for more of that because that's honestly what people walk away with going. You know looking at the sponsor proposal, I don't know if Seth sent it to you Like what what makes sense looking at it to you that gets you most excited about about being involved Because you're right. I mean we've tried to make it Economical because like we're just trying to build And grow from the bottom up and like you said, sometimes we don't always value We're starting out. So we're learning We we you know, I think the other hard part too is like we've always kind of run yoyo contests at this bare minimum level Because it's just how we've done it and there isn't there isn't always a lot of money And one of the things we've been trying to do is we've been trying with with this sponsor proposal is put it all together And one thing so we can like better budget and and trying to you know Do like one run of medals and one run of this and try and make it like more consolidated and efficient And so that way we can focus on adding more to the events themselves Rather than spending on this time like reinventing the wheel every time we go to run events So
Quan Gan: Yeah, so I have two kind of tangibles. So maybe we can just kind of see how to put it around those and all. Yeah, so the main thing I noticed was, you know, I wish the kids or any of the competitors for as much as they do, you know, maybe the trophies or the prizes could be a little bit more substantial. And maybe that requires a modest amount of cash injection there. But I think just a little bit more of a gesture to the competitors, think that would just make them feel, you know, it's substantiated, right? So that's kind of one thing from the player standpoint.
André: I think we can. Absolutely.
Quan Gan: And then the other part from the from the Z tag perspectives is really just to get playtime. You know, so if we have some activities, I'm happy to just host it. You know, we could do a couple of hours, you know, during the off time, or maybe like in a hotel or something. something and just announce, okay, we're going to try these socials, right? Like just kind of a meet and greet, but then we're going to be adding a particular activation. So that's one of one thing. So we don't even need to sell the product. It's really just having to, having them try it, right? Um, and then the other one might just be, maybe we have a red light green light contest on stage as an intermission, you know, to see, uh, because red light green light, get more points by making more movement with your wrist.
André: Oh, cool.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, there's an accelerometer built in. So it's kind of risk and reward because if you don't stop in time, you actually get minus 10 points. So, so it's, I think it might be an interesting mix to do fine. Red light green light and yo-yo.
André: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
André: That sounds really fun. Cool.
Seth Peterson: Yeah. It could be interesting too to like strap, um, strap the device to performer. or like like a little bit more like yo yo specific as far as like you using z tag to to augment a score in like a yo yo game like the more movement you get in your tricks the more you know z tag could see how many how much movement you're you're doing that's interesting like some way not to make it like a yo yo specific game i it maybe it turns into like a yo yo red light green light but yeah there's just like i'm just thinking like lie hops or something where you're like doing a lot of of movement and stuff like that could be you know like maybe it's so software wise day or something like that we can customize it my my only concern right now with that is maybe the the yo yo players would push back if this was like kind of a a thing that gets in the way of their tricks because it is a pretty substantial way
Quan Gan: watch, right? But if we're doing like red like green light, and it's like for this purpose, yeah, there's a reason for it. But if you're doing this as part of some other competition, then they're like, oh, this is getting away.
André: Yeah, that was my first thought to you a little bit.
Quan Gan: Yeah, because it's to me, it feels a little gimmicky, kind of like a, it's kind of like a potato saccharine. So you're handicapping yourself in a way, but you're doing this other game, you're not just trying to race, right? So that's where I see the red like green light combined with this as a kind of, I don't know what you call it, like just almost like a sideshow, you know, it's kind of a fun intermission thing, just for fun, would be more interesting than making it very serious.
Seth Peterson: Totally. What, just logistically, Andre, what's like the space and like, like, like salon rooms and stuff like that for the venue currently?
André: Yeah, mean, we have space. Uh, you know, I can get, I guess I can, I'll have to talk to, I think we have all the specifics, like I don't want to go running numbers off without having a lot in front of me, so I can email back, um, like stage space and, but we definitely like, we have access to rooms for the workshops on Friday and so that could be one of the things on Friday and or something on Saturday or Sunday too. Um, so yeah, I mean, I don't think space is an issue. Um, and I feel like if anything too, like, anytime we run a game, uh, there are more kids that want to do it than can't. So as soon as we say, hey, hey, this is like what we've usually done is, um, and again, we did this at national last year, we did like sleeper challenges and, uh, like, like, you know, had them all stay on the stage with more of like a beginner who could ever get the longest sleeper and we had to break that into age. The age divisions that match the sports divisions to everybody want to get. stage and do it. There is no lack of people wanting to participate in stuff like that too. the only thing I think we'll have to think about is how we decide who who is going to get to even compete whatever it is that we're doing. But I love what you said too about like the prize components of things like that is one of the things we identified as a problem with contests is that we end up spending all this time. the problem we you know, my goal has always been to get like larger sponsors because right now yoyoing relies on yoyo getting sponsors from yoyo companies. Yoyo companies generally don't have a lot of cash and they have product and they want to send you product. And the problem with product is that it is not all created equal. You know, one company will send you you know, $300 worth of product and you end up getting like one or two yoyos. Whereas another company might send you that and you get 20 yoyos. And then you try and decide how you're going to award prizes and it's like this nightmare game to play trying to figure out who gets the $150 yoyo and who gets the plastic yoyo. and stuff. So the goal has always been to work it back to a point where there's enough financial backing to then do some more solid prizes. So I love that you mentioned that because that's definitely in my mind something we want to get back to and trying to figure it out has been, has kind of been that next step, you know?
Quan Gan: So if that's something else. What if we even had like a like a small catch prize, know, maybe $50 to $150 for these players then they could buy their own yoyo.
André: Yeah, I mean, we can do it. The only, I have to like, this is where it gets a little bit out of my area of expertise. I don't think it's prom, but the National Yoyo League like it's a non-profit group. And they're just got to be some weird stuff with lots of cash prizes. But I feel like it just, we just have to collect the data and the people that were involved in at the time were, were always wary of doing too much of it. But it doesn't mean they also like, they did, we did, we haven't had cash prizes before. And I used to do a lot of cash prizes at like our state contests and stuff like that, like 10 or 15 years ago, we were giving away, you know, $500. And actually me and Seth, and one other person, we ran a contest called the triple crown of yo-yo. And our goal with that was to actually kind of do exactly that. We ran three contests, one on the East Coast, one in the middle and one on the West Coast. And we gave $500 cash prizes to each of the two divisions because we were trying to like make yo-yo contests feel like they were bigger than they were at the time. And so like, you know, it is cool. People love to see the cash prize and it's super motivating. I think it's also just trying to decide like where does the cash go at this point because it is it to the pros that to the sports and, you know, it's a conversation I'd be happy to have because I think everyone agrees there's not enough money in whether it is you're competing or whether it is you're running the contest. But the goal would be that there should be. um so it's good conversation to have again.
Quan Gan: From first principles kind of going back to first principles it's really just eyeballs right because the eyeballs eventually convert to convert to cash whether that's social media or other means so um as I mentioned earlier you know you have this core group of competitive players that are doing really amazing things that general audience would be uh in awe about so if there is a little bit of cash injection just to show this off to a broader audience and you can increase your uh your number of audience then I think necessarily it will turn into uh you know big sponsorships because you know they they see this as the arm just a niche group that's watching it when you say that so do you see a specific avenue of the cash creating more eyes
André: moments was we were at the Mall of America running that contest, the Midwest regional, because it happened every year right in the main rotunda of the mall. And so the number of people walking by seeing yo yo there is is insane. And Angelo, I don't know if you know, Angel two up, he was actually at PNWR.
Seth Peterson: Oh, yeah, we did a video with.
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's right, that's right.
André: I saw that.
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
André: So, you know, Angelo really made yo yo and blow up on Tik Tok and it was incredible because we had kids coming up to us saying, you know, can you go Godspeed and can you do the DNA? And a lot of that was thanks to him and Gentry's, you know, viral videos online. And so like while we're at the mall, like there's people that are that are not into yo yo and all walk by and they looked at him and they go, are you the yo yo Tik Tok dude? You know, so they knew they knew he was that guy, you know, and that was like an amazing moment because we've never quite had that in modern yo yo and you know, yo yo and was always like people walking up to asking, you walk the dog. And now they're coming up to you and they're asking you can you do the DNA? So we are at this moment because that did not start happening until 2022-23. So now we are at that moment where we're seeing, I think we're on this slow continued growth. I think it is really healthy and sustainable because I feel like the contests are ready to take on more people and take on more kids and build off that. And so it should only continue to get better. And you're right. mean, the more marketing we can do to get people to the events and stuff like that. And that's kind of at the point where we're at, you know, it's trying to get to that next stage and working with the group of people. Because I mean, that's the one difference is that the national yoyo league itself is not a business. It's it's been on profit, you know. And I mean, me and Seth and that one person tried to start running contests under a business and it just it was hard. And so that's kind of what went through this model of a group of people with passion trying to do it. You know, so it'll be interesting. Listen, you know, but but the money is needed and I feel like that is the one advantage of the nonprofit group. It was like, you can make a donation and it's going towards a nonprofit group, which, which has its own strengths there, I guess. Yeah, money money can definitely make a big difference.
Quan Gan: I'm in alignment. I don't think there's anything we fundamentally need to change. I think, organically, you guys are doing the right things. And just, you know, right now, maybe for the national, we try a modest sponsorship to see if that cash can tangibly do something for you guys, you know, and that will allow us to have the exposure that we wish as well.
André: Awesome. Um, so I guess, do you want to follow up with email and kind of the nest out details of what would make the most sense?
Quan Gan: Uh, or do you want to play another call to kind of talk about specifics, or Um, maybe another call, but, you know, I love for you guys to digest all the information for a little bit and then sure, you know, we can regroup and then just even let me know, you know, what are those, what are those costs right in order to have you guys do the next thing that that's on your wish list. You know, I want to make sure, you know, whatever faster able to sponsor is put into will do something that have substance that you'll be able to see.
André: Absolutely. It sounds good. Well, we have like an upcoming meeting with the whole group to and so I think this will be a really good opportunity to bring that to them and then we can talk about. Talk about that with them. think we'll get a lot of other ideas and excitement about, you know, to come back with you and kind of finish this up.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I think just, you know, right now I'm at this stage where this is still just an initial idea. I want to see how much traction between you two and then other people that are related to the this if they're in support and then we'll go from there, you know, I'm not in a position to say, okay, I want it this way, this way, this way. I really want to be on the sideline and supporting you guys in what's in alignment and if there's synergy, you know, we want to be there.
André: Awesome. Love it.
Seth Peterson: Will you get back to the slopes?
Quan Gan: Oh yeah. Yeah, I know. It's a little melted right now, but yeah, I'll get a few more runs. Nice. Yeah.
André: When does the season end out there for that? Well, I've heard it.
Quan Gan: Sometimes it might go into June, so I'm kind of milking. Yeah, so.
André: That's amazing.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
André: I love it. Oh, enjoy.
Seth Peterson: Cool.
André: Yeah.
Seth Peterson: Thank you again so much for taking the time.
Quan Gan: really appreciate it. Oh, yeah.
Seth Peterson: Similar to our conversation at B&W, I was, it's so insightful and interesting to hear outside perspectives and really helps me get out of mental rough and just kind of preconceived ideas. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Quan Gan: I appreciate how much openness you guys have. you've really just invited us with open arms, with my son and me and to the community. So yeah, I look forward to your drawing together with you guys. Awesome. Thanks. All right, take care. See you next time. Take care. Bye.
Quan Gan: Thank you. How are you? Good.
Kristin Neal: Good.
Quan Gan: I got two ais.
Kristin Neal: No, I don't actually don't know where the fellow came from. I never signed for fellow. I know. Yeah. Yeah. Should I take out?
Quan Gan: I need to go. Here go.
Kristin Neal: Here comes.
Quan Gan: Oh, no. It's back in.
Kristin Neal: Hi, I'm you Sonya.
sonya.lopezmercado: Hi, good afternoon.
Quan Gan: I'm. I'm. I'm.
Kristin Neal: It looks like we're waiting for Anthony.
sonya.lopezmercado: Yes. I think he is or he was out of the building. So I don't know if he's joining us from off site or he has just come in. So we might take a couple of minutes for him to appear. But yeah, thanks for meeting with us today.
Kristin Neal: No, thank you. Thank you. We're excited to meet with Ventura.
sonya.lopezmercado: Yeah, we. I had only recently heard of Z tag through one of our site coordinators who went to the symposium. And she was pretty excited. I think Anthony may have independently known about Z tag. So, yeah, that's kind of my. information comes from and then I think somebody may have mentioned a Z tag from in one of our after-school program California after-school network meetings probably from like Sacramento folks up there we have some partners up there yes okay you meet with the can oh good yeah do you you meet with them yes so I'll attend either their office hours or right now and this is kind of where I'm going with this and where I see Z tag being something for us is around play day and so we're looking at scheduling play day for a play day date for the summer and using the Z tag at least for that event and then seeing, you know, if that would continue to work for us throughout the school year. So really, and especially Anthony and I are really focusing on student wellness and so whether that's physical or mental emotional wellness, that's kind of where he and I are focused and then other folks kind of have their other areas. So we are planning for Play Day and we don't have a date yet, it's either we're not going to use the regular June 28th because we don't have kids at that time. So for us it would have to be either July 18th or July 25th or summer school kids and then kiddos in the neighborhood. So that's where we are with that. Anyhow, so I mean I guess kind of just gave you like what our intentions or what our vision might be and so maybe if you want to just get into it and let me know and maybe let me know how that has, how ZTAG has been used at Play Day for in other LEAs and in Expanded Learning Settings.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Kwan, do you want to jump in?
Quan Gan: This is your wheelhouse. I'll let you do it.
Kristin Neal: How long will we introduce ourselves first?
Quan Gan: Go ahead Kwan, start us off. Oh, okay. Well, hi, I'm Kwan. I'm the founder and the person behind the tech, but Chris is really where the magic happens. She's making all the relationships to enable, to allow the tech to enable us to get the kids active and living and socializing. So, yeah, it's been an incredible journey. So, ZTAG's actually been around for about eight years, but we've only discovered the and a learning program, probably within the past three years or so, and it's really taken a gain in tracking for the years because we've seen the alignment where we're meeting the twins, where they are, and at the same time developing them in the ways that people develop, but after their ideal, and they're able to close.
Kristin Neal: Thanks, Kwan. He is definitely the brain, so I'm very grateful for that magic that he has. We have been honored to participate in Play Day, so I'm so excited. We actually were up north with Riverview up north, so that was a lot of fun last year, and then we were just on the meeting with Kwan two Fridays ago to coordinate with partners. So if you're looking into that, we would love to be there in person and provide that training and be there for you that day. That would be awesome, awesome, awesome. So without further ado, I'm I'm gonna screen share and this is also being recorded. just wanted to kind of make sure that was okay so we can send that to you after and then you can send that to Anthony.
sonya.lopezmercado: Oh, sounds good. Thank you.
Kristin Neal: So when you order your Z tag units, this you will actually get this welcome letter right here. And this will show your team exactly how to get started. Come on. And I'll show you how to set up the Zeus. Now this Zeus unit right here, this is the command center that we like to call it. Right here is the touch screen that you're able to choose between eight games. We're gonna get into those games in just a minute. But it's all in this case. So it has wheels, it has a handle that you can move from side to side very, very easily. It also charges 24 of these Z taggers. So those are, these Z taggers are the game watches that each child will wear. And it takes one hour to charge and you're able to play between three to four hours, but you're if you just rotate kids in and out, you're able to play all day. So this is the command center for in choosing, but it's also the charging port. Very, very simple. And all you need right here is a plug. And right here, you see a little clip for a router is so that the Wi-Fi, the Wi-Fi is actually built in.
sonya.lopezmercado: Okay.
Kristin Neal: you don't need Wi-Fi to connect or anything like that. And I'll show it. Yeah, it's nice and quick. the only thing you'll need, like if you want to go to like the real community park.
sonya.lopezmercado: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Or a generator.
sonya.lopezmercado: Okay.
Kristin Neal: So you'll have videos of how to wear this e-tagger, how to set it up. These are the videos that display how all the games are played. So we like to go in this order. The red light green light is the one we like to start because that will give the kids the opportunity to focus on their own game watch. That's kind of a lot going on, kind of like in life, or going around us. But we need to focus on ourselves and our movements. So I'm going to play this one.
sonya.lopezmercado: Oh, Anthony says he's in the waiting room.
Kristin Neal: Oh, Izzy. Izzy. You know, because I'm screecharing, I'm so sorry.
sonya.lopezmercado: OK, there we go. OK, I think.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, OK. Thank you so much. Hi, Anthony. Sorry we're in the waiting room.
Anthony Unchangco (he/him): Hello, no problem.
Kristin Neal: We just got started right now. We're going to look at the very first game that we like to show the kids. And this is the red light green light. This shows the kids how to focus on their own game watches and from what a school count. So let's see what that's about. That's the first game I typically introduce you players to. I press assign all and that moves all the available Z-Taggers to the plain Z-Taggers. And then I press next. And during this time, the system is sending a get ready signal to all the Z-Taggers. And you'll see on your wristband here. It says get ready. Once this is get ready and you see there are green check marks on all of them, that means this system is ready to start the game. And you just have to press start match and this will go. Okay, so this game, whenever it's green, you want to have the people move around in shape. And whenever it goes red and you keep moving, you'll see that it says you're out. When you're green, you want to move as much as you can, and as soon as it's red, you've got to stop. And if I didn't stop in time, you saw that it has a warranty. I took right now, I move when it's green, and as soon as it's red, yep, so I stopped, and then you see my score increases the more that I move when it's green, okay. And this one has already happened because I move when it's red. Now, you can wait for the timer to run out and the game will automatically stop, or you can press the stop match right here, okay. And after any game, the winner is going to have a rainbow bar on their lights, so it's very convenient here. And then you can go back, and you can restart a new game for me. Something else to show you is with any of the games, you can click on the settings with this card. Anyway, will allow you to adjust some of the parameters, such as sensitivity or time limit. In this particular game, this negative scoring is kind of a cool feature. For Red Light Greenlight, you might want to give some of your players an additional chance after they move during red, and not just automatically knock them out of the game. So I recommend actually keeping negative scoring on. And what that means is, if you do move with red red, it'll just minus 10 points for you. And you're not actually at the end of the game, which keeps participation high. But if you're doing something much more competitive setting and you want to have a strikeout, you can remove the negative scoring. And if you do move when it's red, it'll knock you out of that round. All right, so that was how we play, see, Red Light Greenlight. And this right here, I'm glad I paused right here because this is an HDMI cord. right here that you can add to any TV screen or maybe a projector. A lot of schools like to add that to their, um, their like gym, the big gym projector. So that's the game we like to start them off with. So again to focus. Now let me have our pattern match. pattern match has kind of the same concept for several of the games. So I'll show you these and then you'll kind of get the basic understanding of the math and of the newest game actually is our foreign language. That one is still in testing, but each of the units do come with that. But it's going to have the same concept and we'll see how that goes through. Okay, so the next game I'm going show a few more taggers here. Actually, let's just have three for now. I'll turn this on. We're going to be a pattern match and I've shown you games in the order that I would introduce it to your players. The reason why I'm showing you red light green light first is because this game is an intro. game and it just requires a player to look at their own z-taggers. It doesn't require them to look at anybody else back in your own movement. So how your taggers are going to be interacting with other people. And so in this game, the goal is to find another player that has either the same color or the same shape as you and you want to have your taggers link up by getting within a few feet sensor to sensor or screen to screen. The sensors are actually right up here on top of the taggers and you want them to be facing each other in order for them to register. And so there's a few implications to the sensors. Now if you have a bunch of people with signals and they're all just let's say a couple around like this, you're going to get random signals crossing over even with people that you may not want to. And in this game, we might also have negative scoring set up, which means if you get the wrong now, you'll also get minus points, which cancels out of your progress, and that means people have to be very deliberate in how they interact with each other. If everybody just bunches up, you're most likely going to get the wrong signals and that's going to cause a negative scoring. So usually we recommend to have the players take a few steps back and call out what they have and observe other people and look at their colors and then do the match. Okay, so I'm going to give you a quick demo here because these are placed here and not going like theirs, you're going to likely see a lot of cross rate random points. Okay, so I'm going to hit next. Just say, get ready, start. You're really young. Yeah, because these are so close to me they're registering the hit. So for example, right now I have a red circle. Okay, let me put that aside. And over here I have a yellow circle. So circle and circle will match. And if I bring that over. Oh, actually these are changing at the time. Circle. Star and star these won't match, but there's blue right here. These will match. Okay, this is red star. That is what doesn't match. Okay, so you saw in the last bit, I had two identical shapes and that actually gives you five points instead of just one point. So you can match either the shape or the color. But if you match both identically, then you get extra points. And also notice I have a pause and resume game button right here, which allows you the the attackers to be paused and then you can give additional instruction. Okay, I'm going to stop the match here. And you can see after this match, you also have the winner declared and the points are shown on the leaderboard over here. So that one really helps with communication. Kids are clearly communicating and they're covering their game watch. So I know it got kind of there for a minute, but when you instruct them, cover that sensor and be very deliberate, blue circle and be very deliberate with connecting it. It really is great. So that concept of matching is great for the match match. That's what it's it has the problems and it has solutions. So one will say two plus two and they're clearly saying, I need a four. I need a four. And someone who has the four says, I need a two plus two. So that's when they're matching the newest game. Which wave. So half the kids will have Spanish or French and the other half will have English and they also have to connect and find each other. Okay, and there's an opportunity for you to actually upload different languages. It just needs to have the the characters. So it could be can't be needs to have the same letters, not characters. So the zombies survival. This is what schools, a lot of schools right now are doing it for their fun Friday incentives. This is their favorite and also an SEL favorite does really well with grants because with this game. Well, I'll just play. Okay, I'm gonna go ahead. And then in this game of zombies survival. We have three roles. We have the humans work green zombies for red and the doctors were going to be white, and we can randomly assign them. Actually, I'm going to take a. a few more taggers out, just redemel, okay. And I'm turning them on with the red switch right here. We'll wait a few seconds for them to load up and then put them into random. Also, while we're waiting for that, we can go into the settings, just see some of the parameters you can adjust. For example, you can change the total time on this game. You can also change how many zombies or doctors do put into the game. But let me first show you how the rules work. So we randomly assign people to be human zombies or doctors. The humans, they're trying to just fade away from the zombies and not detect. The zombies are trying to get close to the humans by getting their screen linked to a human screen and convert the human into a zombie. Now, if the zombie gets close enough to a human, the human gets infected and has about 10 seconds to go find a doctor to get saved and become human again. If they can't find a doctor in 10 seconds, then they become zombie and they can start trying to attack other humans to turn them into zombies. The amount of time that someone stays in transition or infected mode is dependent on what you write here. So you can change the infection duration to be 10 seconds or longer depending on the game. But for most of our games, pretty quick pace, 10 seconds is a good amount. And then also the doctor, this is a really key role. If you give this to a player who might be a little shy or possibly special needs, this is a great way to increase their engagement because everyone who gets infected by a zombie is going to come to the doctor to get saved, and it's really going to boost the self-confidence of this player. And to assign someone manually the doctor and say you want this tagger to be a doctor, you can find that there are number 18, go in here and select the doctor. Doctor status and this player will later on be the doctor. So for the sake of this demo, I'm gonna put a few zombies on the side here. Actually, I'm gonna just start with one zombie here. So we're gonna do 06 as the zombie and everybody else will have as a human and then 618 as a doctor. So 18 I'm gonna set here, 06 I'm gonna set aside and then all the ones over here are gonna be humans when I start. So let's go next to see the load screen and everybody's ready to go. All the get ready, okay? So you see, these are the humans, that's the doctor. I'm gonna turn it upside down right now so I can demonstrate before you the interaction. If this zombie gets close to these when their screens are facing, we'll see they get infected. fact you see that signal actually across the overages here. And if these people are close to the doctor, the doctor will see one person. The doctor will only say one person because the doctor actually goes into a time out after some time and has to wait about five seconds before the doctor can save someone else again. The doctor also has this ability to study a zombie so that the zombies can't in fact wait for a short amount of time. And because these are all on the table here, I'm basically bouncing the signal back to them. You'll see them. It's very easy for them to expect. But typically these are actually on players so they're running around so the interaction won't be so instantaneous. So that's basically how you operate ZCAD in a nutshell. Alright, that one's. the last incentive game that we'd like to share down here is where they'll be shown how to shut down the system, the full operating manual, and hearing from others what they're using, and how they're using their unit. So this is what we'll be sending to you after purchase. Anthony, this is our welcome letter. And I know you've had some questions, so did you have any questions on this anymore? Or how many games total? There's eight games. Eight games, and then we have, but what's neat about Z-Tag is that you can actually layer it into games that you might already play. A lot of folks are doing like the red light green light while they're doing basketball, or while they're playing, if you have the scooters that you sit on, they look of using the keep-away game. So, or an obstacle course, adding that to an obstacle course is a lot of fun, too. So, there's eight, but...
Quan Gan: Yeah, I also want to tag onto that. So, we intentionally keep the games relatively simple, so it allows you to dress it up differently by adding additional hardware or try to find ways to easily blend it, because if we make it very specific, then there's only essentially one way to play the game. But if we make it, well, general, we want to give the opportunity for whoever is posting it to be a little bit creative as well.
Kristin Neal: They were even talking about adding to the foreign language game, adding actually list for states and matching cities. So, there's things that you can definitely add to it that would better tailor it to what you're intending in. And then you did also ask... about like the coverage, you know, how long it things like that. So I'm excited to share that we do have this coverage that is available and we can go over this. We can go over it briefly. I can send this to you if you'd like to review it at your your leisure. But there is an included manufacturer's warranty. So that is included for the year. And then we have coverage up to one, three or five years. Five years you're going to get this community launch pack where we send you things that you can add to your community events. And here is the cost of those. So there's snow, deductible, anything like that. just, the one time fee for this. And then if anyone has an issue, get 60 taggers, they just email us and we should be right to them. So we try to make it as easy. It's possible for you guys. Did you have any questions on these? You had also asked about the software updates. The software updates for any new games are included in any of these extended care plans. But we offer the updates like, Juan, did you call them?
Quan Gan: It basically patches. If we find any kind of bug fixes or things that like that or add a digital functionality to the current games, those are included.
sonya.lopezmercado: And is that like, is that an automatic update?
Quan Gan: So that that is something that you'll have to. You have two options to update. One is if you do have internet connection and you can load that over the air, just download it, it will tell you. So when you refresh, it'll say a new firmware is available. And we do have instructions on how to do that update. Now, we also understand in certain schools or districts, they might have IT that is pretty difficult to get their internet connections. So in those cases, we do offer a physical SD card that we can ship to, and then you just swap the SD cards.
sonya.lopezmercado: What is the cost per unit?
Kristin Neal: Yes, thank you. So for the cost per unit, for the 24 Z-Taggers, including with the, and you actually are being offered free, Z-Tag extended care because we did see you at CANDY. 9,700 is retail. We have discounts for bulk from five and up. If you'd like to, you know, and we can start you off with a quote for one, and then we can go from there.
sonya.lopezmercado: Okay, and then how have you, so I know we mentioned we talked about playday and how other LEAs have utilized dz tag in their playday. So can you talk a little bit, speak a little bit to that and was it something that you all helped facilitate or was it just their staff doing it, how was, what did that look like?
Kristin Neal: Yeah, absolutely. I was up at the Northern one I have mentioned and it was myself coordinating the games and an assistant actually that I was training also. So I was, anyone who wanted training, I was there for that and it's very simple. She was just starting the games while I was, you know, talking with the kids and coordinating with that. this playday though, we're actually looking into being more intentional without side the box training like we were playing the games pretty straightforward but with this year we actually want to have new games like what we had just talked about like maybe an obstacle course to play with kids with the z tag and things like that so we would provide the training videos or that in addition to the training videos on on the welcome letter so you would have the training for your staff if you're by yourself but i'm thinking we'll probably be be able to partner with you guys especially in july yeah did you have any what about you about playday any thoughts or questions um nothing that hasn't already been brought up and discussed so just nothing at all thinking okay Anthony do you work with the kids where what Where do you work?
Anthony Unchangco (he/him): Yeah, I work at the district office, teachers, specialists, and so I support all the different sites.
Kristin Neal: You work with the site coordinators and things like that.
Anthony Unchangco (he/him): Great. In between. Yep, go back and forth.
Kristin Neal: That's awesome. Yeah. We love site coordinators. are the boots on the ground.
Anthony Unchangco (he/him): Yes, absolutely.
sonya.lopezmercado: Yeah. Okay. Okay. I think that's that answers really the questions that I had. And it looks like the same, Anthony may have had the same questions. So, yeah, if you can just send that over to us to to review and then we'll we'll look at it and see if that works for us.
Kristin Neal: Yes, please. I will also be, I don't know if you guys are interested.
sonya.lopezmercado: you guys going to boot? We're not but two of our colleagues are.
Kristin Neal: Okay, if we would love for them to join us if you're. Yeah, I'll send the invite for that.
sonya.lopezmercado: Okay, we would love to meet them down there.
Kristin Neal: And if there's something we can do the following week, I'm going to be in the area. So fantastic. can figure something out.
sonya.lopezmercado: Okay, sounds good.
Kristin Neal: All right. I'll get around that. Thank you so much, you both. Okay. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Bye. Nice to be you.
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Quan Gan: Hey. Hey, how are you? What do you think?
Kristin Neal: It went good. I thought so. I was not expecting to begin that meeting. thought it was individual meetings.
Quan Gan: was like, Okay.
Kristin Neal: What meeting am I in?
Quan Gan: Oh, sorry to throw you into that.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. I was like, wait, I thought I was dating the church and you're taking this one.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. No, I, well, I wanted to give you context for it. And I think especially, I mean, I think the way it flowed, and you had personal experience to speak to that, I think it really helped.
Kristin Neal: Oh, good. Okay. I was going to ask, was it, did you think it was a good thing? Okay, good.
Quan Gan: Well, because notice, we didn't mention anything about like what sponsorship level.
Kristin Neal: We weren't even talking about business anymore. Good point. financing her that we were a good match.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah. So I feel pretty good about it. And I don't know if you got to see the packages, but I'm thinking like, it's almost in a consequential like two, three or $4,000. But if we can, if we can stretch and do 4,000, I'm thinking like, and the ads are there for the whole year. Maybe it actually turns into a lot of other relationships that we can get.
Kristin Neal: Home deal one was exciting. We're not in home deal yet.
Quan Gan: So that would be a good one. Well, and this is this is in LA Office of Education. So that's the price of a ticket for entry.
Kristin Neal: I'm willing to pay for that.
Quan Gan: I don't have anything regarding the sponsors. Oh, you didn't I sent it in the partner.
Kristin Neal: Oh, yeah, that's your message is up. Oh, that was part of it. Okay, gotcha.
Quan Gan: Yep. Gotcha, gotcha.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Quan Gan: Take a quick look. do you think?
Kristin Neal: So is it like the other one where it was like a yearly, a yearly?
Quan Gan: I think this is your annual.
Kristin Neal: Just a.
Quan Gan: Well, I think it's just this, there's only this one event. Where's the other one? There might be several events throughout the year. But this one, yeah, you're basically buying a $4,000 booth.
Kristin Neal: And then it gives you all these additional things. Do we do a separate channel for just conferences? I'm able to find.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay.
Kristin Neal: next time. Yeah, this looks good.
Quan Gan: Cause like, yeah, I mean, so somehow. Somehow I want to convert her to be our advocate. So if we can come in. And then just like, look, we're going to come in strong because this is actually, I think core to our mission, like you know, yeah, really this, the more the deeper someone is, I think the more they can feel the benefit of our program.
Kristin Neal: It was shocking to me that the kids in their program, they're so, I mean, it's understandable. I get it. You know, they've seen horrible things, but they're not even allowed to be kids without suspect, you know, it's like, yeah, be perfect for them.
Quan Gan: I think so. Yeah. You know, and she hasn't, she hasn't played red light green light as an adult. You know, I think it's like, wait till you try this in person. Like if I can get her to try it in person and she sees around her like how other people are behaving, think I think it would actually dispel a lot of those hesitations.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, I can see that. And it's not really like, I don't think any amount of video or talking is going to convince them and actually get them to experience it. She didn't say no.
Quan Gan: She didn't say no.
Kristin Neal: I'm sort of talking that got us through at least this part. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah. So I think it's a good baseline. But yeah, what do you think of like going to 4,000 and doing the platinum?
Kristin Neal: If we're going to go, yeah, just do it.
Quan Gan: Go all the way, right?
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Just do it. Because yeah, like any other conference, you know, like the camp or whatever, like this camp conference, you know, Charlie reprinted a stack of like 250 flyers. We've probably given out like, I don't know, 10 or 20 at most. But, you know, that was like, that's kind of experimental, right? Versus this, like I'm willing to go all in like.
Kristin Neal: So the one thing.
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah, it's I've been there for a couple of years, but you know, camps, it's kind of a hit or miss. I think it's kind of like this in between crowd of some are for profit and have a lot of money, but many of them are nonprofit and they don't really know where to get their funds. And then we have our schools who are nonprofit, but they have a pretty good channel of funds. So the camps are almost like this limbo section.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, it would be interesting if we get kind of like a rhythm going to where we know, like the camps are at least the big ones, the very big ones will go like, you know, basic or whatever, you know, or at least a double those big double booths, like boost, you know, the NAA, that one was a good one. And the site coordinator, if we go all in on those big ones, then even knowing, okay, these are the ones that we want to kind of have on our radar this year, but we'll go all in on these and then maybe the.
Quan Gan: not okay it made me so happy thank you it's a little detail but it's important yeah it went directly to it though they didn't have to go searching so thank you so much i was like okay i gotta go dig in all those videos and then it came up i was like oh good i'm glad you noticed very much so i did yes because it was so easy yes it's a that's that's how it's supposed to be right but there's just a lot of little wrinkles to iron out so um i'm working on that is charlie with you i wanted to um talk about let me see why can't flag her down she's handling the kids right now oh jelly eh you don't get chris they always are my hair oh well follow can you can you talk and cook at the same time you Oh, she says she needs like 15 minutes.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, no worries. That sounds good. Um, as far as this one, because it's at the same time, are you thinking about driving? Because the church event is in the evening. It's going to be like at 6 30. So is it something that could we go to this one in the morning because it's usually in the morning and then drive back for the demo and then drive back for the next day.
Quan Gan: I think. I don't know the exact schedule. mean, I'm inclined to do I'll go as many places as I can in one day. I just need their actual schedule of when the setup is and then we could probably coordinate that.
Kristin Neal: I think I'm okay with that too. the only thing though, would it be okay if I just took our rental? I just take my rental?
Quan Gan: Yeah, while you're here, get a rental. I want you to be flexible. Don't don't be locked down by my availability.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Um, well, as far I meant like as going to this. It's like hop in, we're jumping in like let's go, like I want to stop.
Quan Gan: Yeah, okay. Yeah, if you need to rental for the entire time you're here and get one just yeah make it easy on yourself and you can be anywhere whenever. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Cool. Thank you so thank you. Well, I actually already booked it but I purchased it on our so that I'm not worried about I just wanted to make sure that if we're going to because I'm okay so maybe we should take a step back.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: You guys are planning on being in San Diego the following day right after you guys leave you guys are going to go back up kids and then come back down.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so okay hold on. Let me just check. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: A lot of things to get on schedule.
Quan Gan: Okay, so. So, yes, on the 3rd is the San Diego contest I think it's just for a single day so we may stay there Sunday, but we'll definitely be back by Monday.
Kristin Neal: Okay, perfect. see you guys if that's okay either well if this is going to be in this is Palm Springs right which one this the jsac one yeah this is a universal studios oh oh that's close to you isn't it yeah it's like 30 45 minutes oh yes thank you lord thank you lord i thought it was in Palm springs i was like we're just gonna have this yeah you didn't hear she said this is at the universal hillton i didn't even dawn on me okay there's a universal sign on me didn't even totally lost it okay oh good okay so we can just go to this and then come back up is that okay then if i come so what what time is the actual okay and then we need to get everything on calendar that's the like i don't see anything on my calendar right now it's just blank well i i you took away the treasure checklist so that was okay okay so
Quan Gan: But I need to, well, Charlie's not in the loop on that, so I'll probably have to jump in and just start making that. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: All right, I'll, I'll work with her on getting that checklist done. There's gotta be, yeah, there's gotta be a way. All right. So do this and then you'll be back on Monday.
Quan Gan: Oh, actually, this is where Tripit is really good. Can you get a Tripit account and put it on the company? Because we, we each have it. And then any of these bookings, you just put a trip together and you can add all of us together so we can just edit it and it ends up automatically in a calendar.
Kristin Neal: Oh, gosh. Okay. Got it.
Quan Gan: Yeah, just get the Tripit Pro.
Kristin Neal: The Tripit Pro.
Quan Gan: Got it. Okay. And then you can add our emails in there. Yeah, I think that's probably the best way because now you'll have like, you can put a lot of itinerary details in there.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, you can put your car rental, you can put your hotel booking, it'll all be in one place. Okay, yeah, that is huge.
Quan Gan: And then the other thing that's helpful for it is once you set it up, you can create like a like a tripped email where anytime you have a confirmation, all you got to do is forward it to this email and it would automatically get populated into the app, which is also linked to your calendar. Nice, nice, nice, nice. Yeah, so you're not manually adding any of that stuff.
Kristin Neal: Got it, okay. And then I can just add this all to it.
Quan Gan: Yeah, exactly.
Kristin Neal: Okay, that sounds good.
Quan Gan: Oh yeah, and by the way, did you end up paying for a YouTube?
Kristin Neal: No.
Quan Gan: You're on the company card.
Kristin Neal: It got too hard. was, I got stuck and I was like, I forget it.
Quan Gan: You might have to just do it on your personal account and then when you're watching YouTube, make sure you're on the personal account and this is premium.
Kristin Neal: on there okay stop watching ads for your husband too like you should get everybody off the ads it's very important okay yes i will i'm putting it right here get off ads i think there's if you're doing it on a on a personal plan you could probably get a family plan and then just have every everybody login they can all be part of the family plan okay got it yeah cool i will get that i promise i will get that by monday um so is it okay if i come to you guys on the six on the six uh yeah that's a tuesday or should i you could be here all week i mean we're always open to posting people this is sweet so let's see uh you want to be here on the six okay yeah i can help you prep and then we can go on the seventh eighth the ninth i'm not gonna be able to go with you though okay that's fine so Okay.
Quan Gan: Sounds good. All right. Then I'll work on getting the community page with a tab working, and then I'll send her an email. I'll copy you just so you know what's happening.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Sounds good. I'll get that tripping going.
Quan Gan: Okay. Cool.
Kristin Neal: Awesome. Okay.
Quan Gan: Thanks. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: I have a Charlie in like 10 minutes. That's what, okay. Wait, I was hoping that connect with both you because some of the Stacy came up. Okay. Then we'll hop back on when she's done. Okay. Sounds good. All right. Bye.
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Kristin Neal: Hello. Hey.
Quan Gan: It looks like it's on your account or their account.
Kristin Neal: On my account.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: That looks great.
Quan Gan: And then I can get it.
Kristin Neal: That's awesome. Yeah. Very cool. Very cool. I'll just all the time.
Quan Gan: Sounds good.
Kristin Neal: It's just in the chat, right? Q and A. think Hi there hi Kirsten, how are you?
MBrimmage: Oh you can't me. You can't hear.
Kristin Neal: Hold on, give me one second, sorry. Yeah.
MBrimmage: Can you hear us Yes ma'am. Yeah. Hold on, me Hey, was working. Like I she can hear me, but I can't hear her. That's Ronald. Yeah, yeah, it's all the way up. Yeah, so I'm trying to get the audio on here. Friends is trying to help me. We need a different mirror. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. Okay, you know what, do you have a person looking here? I know.
Kristin Neal: One, I sent you the things to go over.
MBrimmage: I think that's the only time you're going to get it.
Quan Gan: Oh, yeah, okay.
MBrimmage: Yeah, no, I don't know why. like to put the bottom up. Thank you. I'm sorry. don't so.
Kristin Neal: Thank you.
MBrimmage: Nice. If you have any other notes, we can just keep typing it. I'll have my phone with me. Sure. Sure. Sure.
Kristin Neal: Sure.
MBrimmage: Thank you. Do you have a microphone that comes back to the back? Oh, is it speaker's real, sir? It's out of the house. It was the computer and then the other one is at the house.
Kristin Neal: We don't have a lot hands. don't have hands.
MBrimmage: She's not even working on the audio. We don't have hands. don't have hands.
Kristin Neal: don't have hands. I'm sure somebody down with one.
MBrimmage: I'm so sorry, Christian.
Kristin Neal: You're totally good.
MBrimmage: was working earlier.
Kristin Neal: We're just not too sure why it's not working right now. Do you want to go out and come back in?
MBrimmage: Sorry, do you want to type it in the chat?
Kristin Neal: Sorry.
MBrimmage: We're going to connect you to Bluetooth device us one second. Is this one? Thank you. Yeah, go for it. Let's just pair her. Let's play. I'll try to find some of these. I mean, can you say something, Kristin?
Kristin Neal: Testing, testing, one, two, three, testing. Where is she coming at? Hello, hello, hello testing.
MBrimmage: Testing, testing either. One second.
Kristin Neal: Testing, testing.
MBrimmage: No, that's what we're here testing their audio is connected. Yeah, we hear you on the computer, but we have you connected to a projector. So we're trying to like get that connected to one of our speakers.
Kristin Neal: Testing three two one testing three two one.
MBrimmage: Oh, here go. Three, two, one. Did you get it? We might. We might. Is it coming out of it?
Quan Gan: Hello?
MBrimmage: Hello? Hello? There we go.
Kristin Neal: Yay!
MBrimmage: Sorry. You're good.
Kristin Neal: Thank you. We got it working. We have the voice of God. On the room.
MBrimmage: Okay. Sorry. We're on a meeting. We can hear you, Kristin.
Kristin Neal: Awesome. Thank you so much, everybody. All right. It looks like we're all ready. Okay, Kwan, you want to go ahead and take it away?
Quan Gan: Yeah. Hi, everybody. Can you guys wait back?
Kristin Neal: Okay. Here we go. There we go. Hello, everyone.
Quan Gan: I am curious. Does someone have a Zeus next to them or how can I, I'm standing with you guys.
MBrimmage: We have two connected to the site. I don't know. Do you want people to come up to help demonstrate?
Quan Gan: Yeah, it would be great if I can sync up with someone. So I'll just virtually instruct you guys. And for now, I would actually turn off the second system. I want to just try one system first to make sure you guys can get familiar with it.
MBrimmage: And then we can try to link a second one afterwards. Okay, we have one on.
Quan Gan: Okay. And also I wanted to check. Did you happen to get a chance to do a system update or is it still in the original packaging?
MBrimmage: I believe our tech guy did a system update.
Quan Gan: Okay. How many games do you see? Is it like this with a eight, um,
MBrimmage: Give us one second she's turning it on right now.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: I just have to say you guys are the most dedicated people I've come across lately. We are on a Friday at the end of day that's pretty impressive. So thank you guys.
Quan Gan: And I only see half the room curious how many people are in attendance today.
MBrimmage: Maybe like 50 or so.
Quan Gan: Okay cool. Hi everybody.
Kristin Neal: Thank you.
Quan Gan: Well maybe this is a good time for me to just give a quick intro about what the tag is and hopefully what it can provide for your community. So we're all about face-to-face connections. You know at the at the core of it is we really just want to get our next generation back into face-to-face social. visual and physical movement and connection and so the tag has been this I would say a long-running experiment. We've been around for about nine years now. We tried all sorts of different ways to get kids more engaged and within the past three years or so I think we kind of hit our stride and realized in the after-school programs it's really it's really meeting the kids where they're at these days you know they all they're all attached to screens they want the dose of tech but at the same time we're able to deliver a coordinated way to get the kids moving teach them about social emotional wellness get them connected and in a very managed way too because as you guys probably know when you're working with kids they have all sorts of different needs they come from different backgrounds and it's really hard to get them to all play in one place and so with Z-Tag what we've experiments have done is we found a way to basically deliver what the kids want, which is a video game like type of play, but at the same time it allows your staff and your, you know, you're trying to coordinate large groups of kids to really regulate them in a manageable way so that they're all having fun, very safe, non-contact, and low conflict. So that's what we hope to be able to bring to thank you for this to share this e-type program with you.
Kristin Neal: How are we doing? Do we have a volunteer to kind of help quant out? I see someone pointing.
Quan Gan: I think maybe the easiest way is let's have one person volunteer or volunteer to come up to the screen. So you could press with me and then everybody else we can distribute up to 20 to 24 watches And i'm going to have you guys actually put it on your wrist and turn it on with me Thank you Have a brave soul coming up Do you want us to distribute the watches? Yeah, yeah, I would say let's just do for one system For now and then we'll add a second system after this first round of demos Does it matter if they're green or red? I know it's Green just means they're fully charged and topped off red means they're charging But for the most part they should come I would say partially charged already. So for the purpose of this demo It should have enough charge to last Okay, so I'm going to show you how to put this on your wrist. So there's going to be a strap on the back here. And then you put it through the loop and put this over your wrist and then just wrap it around this way. Now there's a detail right here where if you're putting this on kids with smaller wrists, you can also alternatively, instead of going this direction, flip it over, double it over the other way, this way, and it will be a lot tighter for tiny wrists. Okay, so there's two ways to put this on, which really allows people to wear it in all sizes. And worst case, if it's still too large, you can even have some of the kids ride it up further on their arms. You will maybe some kids, they might have sensitive skin. You might have like have them wear it over their sleeve or something like that. So just different accommodations for the kids. So yeah, just different. ways to put this on. Okay. And then once you have this watch, you'll notice there's a a red button right here that is next to this charging knob. That button is what turns it on. And all you have to do is tap it, you'll feel little click and let go immediately. And you want to wait about three to four seconds and then the screen will turn on. The thing you don't want to do is hold down the button. If you hold down the button, it'll never turn on. You're keeping it in reset. So you want to just do a gentle tap. You'll feel a tiny click and then it'll turn on. And the reason for us kind of hiding it here is you don't necessarily want the kids when they're playing messing with this button. So it's a little bit recessed in there. Okay. Can I get a show of hands if you guys have it on already? Okay. So if anyone doesn't have it on, help your peer and just make sure it's turned on. And then also, I would assume you have the zoos. right now already, uh, is the system turned on right now?
MBrimmage: It's turned on.
Quan Gan: Okay, if it's turned on, I want to confirm that you guys see, um, signal bars on here after a few seconds of it turned on. So can we confirm that?
MBrimmage: And signal bars.
Quan Gan: Okay. So that's kind of the number one thing you want to verify that you have signal bars because if the signal bars are there, it means you have a proper connection between the Z-tagger and the Zeus. Via this, uh, this and this antenna, I just want to share is building its own local Wi-Fi. So you're actually running this independent of your school Wi-Fi or anything like that. It's essentially broadcasting its own Wi-Fi signal to these and it would actually handle up to an entire football field of range if you don't have any obstructions. Now if you're playing most of our games, you don't need, uh, you don't need some space that much. I would say a basketball court or even a half court is more than enough for most of the activities because when you have more people concentrated, you're actually going to get more interaction happening. So if you just go out and put it in the field without any boundaries, then the kids, they end up running all over the place running too far. You're actually losing the interaction. So one of the key things is actually you want to corral them a little bit so that there's more, they're almost like balls bouncing back and forth. You want the interaction count to be high. Okay, so now that you guys have this on and we've confirmed that the Wi-Fi is on, I'm going to show you guys the first game and this is how I deliver it to the kids too because the first game teaches you just to watch your own watch to be able to read this and see the instructions that it gives. So I'm going have you follow along and then press the red light Okay, and then on each of these menus, when you get there, it should give you the quick rule set. if anyone I was not familiar with it. You can always read through this. But for us, I'm just going to close it, and I'll describe it to you. So here, let me take out a few different units here.
Kristin Neal: Great for Sims.
Quan Gan: Yeah. So I'm turning all of these on, and just kind of pretending they're worn by people around me. And then on your side here, you should probably have a few of the taggers already showing up either on this side or this side. Is that right?
MBrimmage: Yeah, so it says.
Quan Gan: So in the beginning, if they all are just here, it says, available Z-taggers. Those are the ones that are basically in the waiting room. They haven't actually been loaded up to be part of the game yet. So you want to hit a sign all that sends all of the players from this side to this side. That means they're going to get to be part of this round. And then you can hit next. And then when you hit next all the watches at this point should say get ready. Can I confirm that with you? Yeah, so get ready Well, basically just mean you press one more button and the game actually starts now this first round How can red light green light works is it's very simple you look at your own watch whenever this is green You want to move your body as much as you can? Practically, it's really just shaking your arms, but we tell the kids you want to be as ridiculous as you want, right? You want to jump around You know sprint roll whatever right just to get the movement you can dance and we tell them the more ridiculous You are the higher the points you score Now as soon as it goes red and you keep moving I Think right now we probably have this on the hard mode. It'll actually say you're out of the game Okay, so it's it's kind of one round but later. show you a way to make this continue So it does count and just remember this is going to be quite sensitive. So You really want to pay attention when that thing goes red. So, someone let's hit the star button and see what happens over there. You guys want to stand up a little bit.
Kristin Neal: There you go.
Quan Gan: Everybody get up.
Kristin Neal: There you go. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. Have you guys started?
Kristin Neal: Dance moves. Oh, I found.
Quan Gan: Let me know when they started. Okay.
Kristin Neal: I think it started, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah, I can't hear them, but I'm assuming they're. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Okay. I see smiles. Awesome.
MBrimmage: it okay to invite them to come closer to the screen?
Kristin Neal: Miles.
MBrimmage: We can't come closer.
Kristin Neal: Come on over. And we could just keep them close for the next time.
Quan Gan: Because otherwise I feel like I'm talking to ants.
Kristin Neal: Oh, we got them to look like mannequins. There go. Oh, I like how it looks like you're bouncing a ball. Yes, you could be bouncing a ball right now. You could be playing an obstacle course. You could do an obstacle course with this.
Quan Gan: Okay, let's actually stop this game. I'm going to show you guys the variation that works better. So let's stop and then go back to the previous setting.
MBrimmage: And then Juan, sorry to interrupt you, but I guess her attack guy didn't update the system. So we only have six games, he connected it by connection.
Quan Gan: Okay, that's fine. I'll show you. I'll probably just only run through three games to show you, and then you guys can explore a lot more. But I I want you guys to go back to red light green light and then press the cog that you see up here. And then tell me if you notice, it says negative scoring.
MBrimmage: Can you repeat the last part? Can you lower your screen for us please, sorry.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so there's a cog right here. And then when you press that, you should see a setting saying negative scoring.
MBrimmage: Yes.
Quan Gan: Okay, so I want you to check mark that and then press save setting.
MBrimmage: Okay.
Quan Gan: Okay, let's try this round again. And this time, this is a much more continuous game. Basically, if you are moving when it's red, it doesn't say you're out, but it just minus is 10 points from you.
MBrimmage: Okay. Then you have to do that.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
MBrimmage: Okay, at this time, let's make it count.
Quan Gan: Okay, when you're ready, let's hit the start.
MBrimmage: We want to be ridiculous.
Kristin Neal: Yes. Go.
MBrimmage: I'm sorry. Sorry. Sorry. we go. Oh my God. I'm got get in. Thank you. Thank you.
Kristin Neal: you.
MBrimmage: Now you don't have to worry about any arguments that is the digital referee no mercy cheater cheater how many minutes did you guys said it to is it three minutes okay so halfway through this game will actually get harder some of you will be ready
Quan Gan: and while others will be green. So you really need to focus and not get thrown off by your peers.
MBrimmage: Oh, it looks like we have a winner.
Quan Gan: OK, did you guys finish? OK, perfect. Cool. So let's go back to the main menu. And I want to show maybe the next group. So for those who haven't worn it, why don't we switch out to some others? And then let's show you how to match game.
Kristin Neal: OK, this is a great way to do with the kids, too, guys. Have the kids put it on their peers. Really helps with time.
Quan Gan: And then when you guys have your watches, I would like you guys to come up closer to the screen here.
MBrimmage: Okay, let know when you guys are ready.
Quan Gan: Okay, so pattern match is a really fun social game. So the first game you saw that was you just reading your own watch, but you weren't interacting with others. So pattern match is the first game I want to show you where your watch can connect with someone else's just by getting close. And how this game works is it's kind of like, like with your body. You're going to be matching colors or matching shapes with someone else. So you can either match the color or match a shape. don't have to match both. You just have either the same color or. the same shape and you want to get your watch within a few feet to someone else's watch and you'll notice we have these tiny little sensor windows at the top of the screen that's actually the sensor that you want to connect with someone else's okay so just putting it close together like this doesn't always work you actually want to face your screen to theirs now when this game starts there is also a nuance you don't want to just all bunch up because if you bunch up you make it someone else's wrong signal and then you actually get minus points so this is a very deliberate game where you may actually need to cover your hand a little bit so that the the signal isn't just spraying out to connect to the wrong people so you want to be deliberately communicating okay so now let's go back to this screen and then hit assign all so once you do that it should be on the get ready for everybody else, right?
MBrimmage: Yeah, you start when you're ready.
Kristin Neal: Clear communication, everyone. You'll call out blue triangle. Blue triangle, don't forget either or it could be a blue circle, a blue square, either or matches. If you get a perfect match, it's five points. Perfect matches, five points. If it starts to go a little crazy, you want to spread out a little bit. I love the cheer, the cheer squad in the back, I love it.
MBrimmage: I love it, I love it, love they're helping him yeah I can't wait for the zombies I can't there you go there you go 30 seconds and you can have this plugged into the HDMI so you can have it on a really big screen so everyone can see where they're at I like She's really I love it Who's a winner nice?
Quan Gan: So as you can tell at the end of each round the winner is gonna have rainbow colors and you can also see them on If you guys are ready, I'd like to try the the final game the zombie game with you guys Yeah, and maybe this might be an opportunity if you want to get everybody From the second system you can take those units out And we try to have it linked to the first one Awesome. Okay, so let's see if we can get everybody playing
Kristin Neal: Yeah Do I'm you turn on the other box as well?
Quan Gan: They'll actually keep the second box off intentionally because you don't want that Wi-Fi to Interfect interfere with this one.
Kristin Neal: Okay as long as that one is off take those watches out if they turn on they should bind to this first system a lot of schools use this game the zombie survival as an incentive so a fun Friday activity for maybe perfect attendance I definitely want to save this one and you can also hide it in the in the settings So if you if you need to hide it, there's a way you can do that Here put your screen down.
Quan Gan: Oh, yeah, okay, so just to show you guys how to Hide certain games if you don't want it available because you know when the kids see it they're gonna ask for it. You can go to the cog right here in the settings, and then there will be a tab here called Games, and you can check mark which ones you want available.
Kristin Neal: Juan, while you're there, can you show them how to do the step counter and the unit metrics?
Quan Gan: Okay, yeah. depending if you're logged in or not, if you are logged in, it will actually show you right here the total number of minutes played, how many games, and what are your popular games? You can also go to more here, and then it will show you some metrics on the total lifetime you guys have played.
Kristin Neal: You can also clear that. Every time you reset the unit, it'll clear that.
Quan Gan: Okay, so this is really good for anything you need to report to upper management to show them the effectiveness. actually one of the metrics that we have that I don't think any other system has is we have these total interactions. So these interactions count every time, for example, in red light green light, or every time in a pattern match, you guys were making a connection, right? it's telling you that you had a personal face-to-face connection with another player. Okay, so does everybody have a watch on now?
Kristin Neal: Any?
Quan Gan: Okay, and then just verify that they're all turned on, and then let's go back to the main menu, and let's try this zombie survival game. Okay, let's try this one that has a doctor in there, and then I'll explain it. Okay, so everybody's watches, can you verify that everybody has this yellow logo?
MBrimmage: I see thumbs up.
Quan Gan: Okay, so I'll explain the game rules to you guys here. This game is a make-believe game of non-contact So first of all, non-contact is the keyword here. So we don't need anybody physically pushing, shoving, no physical contact. Just like the pattern match game, how you guys were finding each other and connecting the watches. This is almost opposite of that because you don't want someone to connect the watch for you in this game. So we're going to have humans, zombies, and doctors. by default, it's going to be randomly assigned. When you press this button, it will just randomly assign people into one of these three categories. And how that works is the humans, if your watch is green when it starts, your job is to stay away from anybody who is red, because they're zombies. If a zombie gets within a few feet and their sensor connects with your sensor, you're going to get infected and you have 10 seconds to find the one and only doctor to heal you. So the doctor is going to be able to heal an infected human back to healthy human status. If you're not able to find the doctor in 10 seconds, guess what? You become the zombie. And once you're a zombie, there's no converting back to human. So zombie stays zombie and their job is to find another green player, a human player, and connect their watches close by to infect them and spread the infection. Now, the zombie is actually afraid of the... doctor. If you're a zombie and you get close to the doctor, you're gonna lose your infection ability for five seconds. So the doctor is actually a great hero role in this game. The doctor can actually zap all the zombies surrounding and remove their power for five seconds, as well as heal the humans. The doctor, however, does have two weaknesses. Okay, so the first weakness is the doctor can only choose one human to heal at any given time. And after that heal, they're gonna take a five second break. So during that time, you know, zombies can continue to infect. So doctors, you kind of have to strategize when and how to heal. And it may be in your best interest if you're the doctor, you want to raise your hands so people can see you. So you want to practice that communication. And as a doctor, you probably want to choose zapping zombies first before you heal the human. Because if you heal the human, you go into a five second break period, which means you can't actually be effective against the zombies. So this is kind of a strategy that you have to have on the doctor role. Now, one more thing about the doctor. This is a highly engaging role, especially if you have a student that might be shy, just unengaged or even special needs. If you give them this role, even if they just stood there and did nothing, people will seek them out to get healed and it's really gonna boost their confidence and engagement in the game. Okay, so everybody really wants to be the doctor. Now, you can randomly assign this, but you can also intentionally look at the number on the Z-tagger, you can see what number they are, and then you can manually assign it. So let's say number 16 is who I actually wanna be in doctor. So I can press the X to put them back into the assignment area, and I can put the doctor back in here and the number 16 I selected. doctor, so I can intentionally put them here, okay? One other thing to note is I recommend starting with at least two zombies in the field, because only having a single zombie is actually going to be pretty difficult for this person to catch other people to infect, so you want to have a little bit of the attention of that interaction. So when you have two, if they work together, they can surround a human player and get them from either side, even if the human is pivoting, okay? So for the purpose of this demo and for the safety, let's just do walking only, but I want everybody who is participating to stand up and spread out while you guys hit the next button and get it ready. Someone should probably get their cell phone out and record this.
MBrimmage: This is your inaugural zombie survival event Send it to us to we love to see I
Kristin Neal: I like the day.
Quan Gan: There's somebody run up on stage. I saw it by camera. You might be kicking the computer.
Kristin Neal: I see a lot of copies. Thank you.
MBrimmage: I didn't even know how to say it all. Doctor. What? Who was the doctor? was the I forgot to mention the doctor can eventually become a human once they run out of heels.
Quan Gan: And that is a setting you can configure. Yeah. Is time up yet? If time is enough, maybe you guys can keep playing or stop the match. And sometimes you want to just monitor the field because if there's only one. Human left and they're kind of hidden. Um, the interaction kind of dies now. So you might want to prematurely stop the game So the whole thing about this is you're almost kind of treating Z tag like being a DJ you want to feel the energy of your students and Depending on that you might have to switch different modes of gameplay and you might have to start it or stop it Depending on how they're interacting It seems like you're still still in it So Question are they supposed to be covering the same tag Technically, no, but that's something you guys have to kind of monitor. Yeah, so we do tell people no no covering But yeah, it's kind of like picking up a soccer ball with your hands, right? So you want you do want to share that by default you don't want to be covering your badge at least It's for this game.
MBrimmage: All right, Juan, can you explain that one more time?
Quan Gan: Everybody is covering the Z tag. yeah. just like you don't want to be handling a soccer ball with your hands called Handball, right? So for this zombie tag game, you don't want them to be covering that. So that should be off limits. They should have their watches exposed so other people can see it. But the move would be to pivot your body, and move your arm around so people can't get you. But you don't want to be covering the sensors. OK, so are we done with that game for now? OK, I hope you guys had fun with that. Let's go back to the assigned players and I'll give you a few more details on how this works. So again, every single game, you can always explore into the cog and see what kind of settings are available to you because those settings might be specific to how you're going to play this game. So right now, by default, we were doing a three minute match and we had a preset number of zombies and doctors in here. You can always change that number, but you're going to have to kind of experiment with it because, for example, if you have a larger field or a larger group, maybe you want to have more zombies to start or maybe you want to give a longer grace period. Right now, we only had 10 seconds where you have to find the doctor to save you. You can increase that or you can make it one second is basically instant death, right? So it's just how you tweak these parameters, although we do have these as default, which don't Okay, any questions about this screen? Okay Okay, I will tell you about some of the other activities We won't necessarily have to do the demo, but just to kind of brief you on what's available to you We have a version of rock paper scissor tag, which is kind of like zombie survival But it's essentially one color is going to dominate a second color and the second color is going to dominate the third color And the third color is going to dominate the first color So they just kind of it's a circular infection and and so it's almost like the the last part of zombies where You know everybody is just chasing one person at some point So this one eventually one color is going to dominate the entire field Okay, so that's a variation of zombie survival We get pattern match Mass match is very similar to pattern match, but this one you're going to be working with math problems and math solutions. So, for example, if one player has two plus two, they have to look for the player who has four. So this game is very cool if you wanna just, you know, add in some math in there. And I will also show you here in the settings, you can change what operators are available. So depending on the age level, you can cater it to that specific age range. And then you can also change the high number and the low number to make it more specific. Okay. Some of the newer games, I'll show you here. We have two, actually I'll jump over here too, keep away. So keep away, this game is like reverse tag. And how this works is one of the players is gonna be assigned a virtual ball. And this player, their watch is gonna be flashing. If you guys know the game Halo, there's this format called oddball. It's kind of similar. to that where you want to be the person that's flashing for the longest, so you want to be holding on to the ball and keeping it from anybody else, so you're keeping it away. And everybody is trying to tag whoever is flashing. The key thing to this one, especially if you have a large group to make it not so aggressive where you have 20 people chasing one person, is you also want to go into the settings and enable a few different balls in the field. Okay, so if you have more balls here, then it will allow the game to be, you have more choices, right? If there are 20 people, you might have three or four balls available, but this basically makes it, so for every four to six people, it will allow you to add one more ball into the mix. And whoever has the highest score ends up winning this game. Okay, so next, word wave is very similar to mass match and pattern match, where you're actually trying to match English. words to Spanish words or English words to French words. We're going to be adding additional languages in the future, but you can see here you can select English versus Spanish. So if someone has the word cat and another player has the word gato, they can connect their taggers and earn points. Now it's important to realize this is an active communication type of activity. So you have to find the person that has your translation. If you have cat and someone else has cat, it's not going to give you any points. You have to find the person that has the translation of that word. Okay, so we have that one. And then this last game that's not currently updated on your site, but I'll show you, it's a sequence train. This game teaches how to count in a large group. So the simplest one is if you guys select natural numbers, then you're just counting one, two, and up. The goal of the game is to get the group to count to the highest number possible within your time limit. And how this starts is let's say you have 10 people, they're all going to be assigned random numbers and the person with the lowest number is going to start and their watch is going to be flashing. Whoever is flashing is it and they're looking for the next person who has a higher number than them. So if one is flashing, they're looking for two and they're going to link their watch to number two. And after they link, number two is going to be flashing and looking for number three to pass that flash off to number three. Okay, so the goal is to eventually get to a higher number. Once you pass on your number, you're going to get reassigned a new number, which means you kind of get back in line and when you're called upon, you can go and connect to help the whole group count as high as possible. And depending on what age range, we have counting and national numbers, odd numbers, even numbers, by fives, by tens, or even prime numbers. If you really get, you know, harder than that, so this is a great way to just get the whole group to work together and get in sequence. You guys have any questions so far.
MBrimmage: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so this, we do have this that if you need to replace, you could remove the four screws and this come out. You can ask us to send you new ones, or you could probably even find some on Amazon. That's quite easy for you guys to remove and replace. So this is designed to be kind of an expendable item, but it should practically last you at least a year, if not more. It might lose a last to city over time but yeah. It's easy to replace if you just change the four screws right here. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions?
MBrimmage: Does everybody understand how you did with your classrooms and stuff? it going to be available for everybody? Yes. Okay. Was it guaranteed on the actual box?
Kristin Neal: This gets damaged. I was just going to ask you guys, do you guys know where to go if there's any issues or anything? Is your district actually purchased a five-year coverage? So for the next five years, if there's any issue, anything, just go ahead and email us at help at ztag.com. It's part of that Welcome Letter. So there's a digital Welcome Letter that I believe Mary Brimanche sent to you guys. It's all in there. And you'll also see videos for any kind of troubleshooting. There's several videos on that. And there's also videos on training. There's a PE teacher in Ohio that has video how he's doing it with his class. So I definitely highly suggest you look at that.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I also want to add to that. So beyond the coverage that we support proactively training the kids how to engage is probably the number one way to ensure the longevity of the system. Because the thing is when people don't understand how the how the sensors actually connect together, they might be banging their watches against each other. And that might be the number one thing that would cause damage. So you want to demonstrate for them that the signals can actually happen remotely even at a few feet. We have some of the online videos to show you that. For example, if you're doing pattern match. If you have the same pattern, you could be 5 to even 10 feet away if you're not moving very much, and actually the sensors will connect. So by demonstrating that fact, it's going to make the game feel a lot more intuitive. They don't have to be all bunching up and then, you know, causing physical damage to the devices.
MBrimmage: If there's a, I'm sorry, the same way that you turn it off, you turn it off?
Quan Gan: No, there's actually, you won't need to turn off the system by pressing the button. All you got to do is place it back into the charging dock. So when you put it in the charging dock, it goes into this charging mode and you'll see the, the screen will eventually show charging. And when you're done with it at the very end, flipping, I don't know if you can see on here, I have a red power switch, well, yeah, I won't be able to see it in here. But there's a power switch when you have that flipped off, all the Z-Taggers should turn off in sync. Now the only. Time that a watch might not turn off in sync is if it's not properly seated in the dock, meaning that it didn't get a charging connection, at which point to turn it off, you're going to have to take this back out and you double click the same button. So double click and it will stay off. Okay, so single click, waiting four seconds, we'll turn it on, double click turns it off. However, practically you should not need to double click because if it places, if you place it back on the dock and you turn off the whole system, they should all turn off together.
MBrimmage: So will I have to turn off the ones from the system we did it turn on because that system isn't on?
Quan Gan: Yes, however, there is a trick to that, you could momentarily turn that second system back on and then make sure they're in charging mode and then flip it back off. So that's kind of a trick to to get them to turn off because as soon as they get a power or off signal from the dock, then they all will turn off in sync.
Kristin Neal: The five-year coverage is to clarify the five-year coverage. You have six z-tiger replacements per year. So definitely let us know. Keep us in the loop. Is that a question? Is there another question?
MBrimmage: Does it matter which z-tags go into like which unit? No, right?
Quan Gan: I generally know, but you might get some confusion in the number assignments. So, yeah, that is a common thing I want to share with you, because if you have something from another system going to this system, then you might end up with two of the same number. OK, so the way you want to refresh the number so they're unique again is you go back into the settings. And then you go to the devices tab, which loads up all devices that are detected by this. system, and then you hit reset devices and confirm yes, and it will go through and scan, and all the devices will actually do a little quick strobe and reconnected, and the numbers will get reassigned from 1 to 24 or more.
MBrimmage: Okay. Thank you. Questions? I think you want to go to the chat and you can ask me questions down to time while we have one. You to go up there and check it out, and you may need to know how to figure it out.
Kristin Neal: The Book of Letter has a link to the community, the Z-Tag community. Check that out for different ideas of how you can add it. It's more, this system is more of like, it's not just like an open and play once in a while kind of thing, it's how can you integrate it with everything. With the virtual ball, I like to do with the spelling bee. I like to add the spelling bee with that. So there's definitely different ways. just a start.
Quan Gan: Yeah, we really encourage you guys to get creative with this. Once you see the interaction that the kids are having and how much fun they're having, if you can incorporate this into other activities you already do. So for example, with red light green light you can either easily add that to a obstacle course or they might be taking an egg on a spoon and trying to move it to someone else. So you're just adding that layer on top of existing analog activities. It really spices it up and it allows you to stretch the value of the system over many different activities. Yeah, we also have, if you guys have access to a gym and if you have scooters, we have people playing tag on scooters. They've even turned it into a a rocket league game, right? They're passing balls, they're on scooters and you have to pass the ball if you get tagged. So yeah, really just get creative with it. You know, start getting the handle on it and get a few games under your belt. But later on, yeah, you can try to find every single way to incorporate this into your existing activities.
Kristin Neal: All right, everybody. What do you think? Awesome. Awesome. Thank you all so much.
MBrimmage: Thank you for having us. Thank you. smiles.
Kristin Neal: Yes, you'll be hearing from us soon.
Quan Gan: We can't wait to hear from you guys. Definitely send us photos, videos, anything you got.
MBrimmage: Yeah, I took video, so I'll send them over to you guys.
Kristin Neal: Thank you.
MBrimmage: Thank you. you so much. I'm wondering if you could.
Quan Gan: Thank you Friday.
Kristin Neal: Bye bye.
Quan Gan: Bye everybody.
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Quan Gan: I'm on you. Can you hear us? This meeting is being recorded.
Vania Chen: Yes. Hi. Oh, wow. That looks great. Whatever. Wherever you guys are, it looks awesome.
Quan Gan: Oh, it's kind of windy. No, we're kind of like walking our kids in the park. We range a little bit so we can get some.
Vania Chen: Okay. Well, I don't know if I know you probably saw my message. was hoping to, to, to reschedule today because Philip sent me a bunch of questions and I really actually want to discuss with you before I talk to him next week. And it's obviously a lot of it's about downtown. So that's why I wanted, I wanted to include Michael and then you and Charlie, all of you guys, I want to get a sense of what you guys think. Which guys take on that because I did talk to Ping last week. So I have a little update from Ping's and But obviously Philip was talking about shutting down company. It was talking about bankruptcy and all that, you know the the precautionary items so then I Want to Extend our meeting and then include Michael to actually have a little discussion before I talk to Philip Okay, that's bad and then but with Z tag though a quick update on the Z tag I did a first round of clean up and Charlie if you don't mind either we can use the time today or we can schedule a separate time I there are a few items that I feel like I need to walk you through because I think the changes are It'll be easier if I I need to kind of step by step showing you how to book those Just so then it's easier for you to understand why A is going what each entry is going kind of so then we can kind of fix it because the changes I can't really just post it. have to actually the action actually need to be changed individually. So then there's a cleaner record of it. And then I'm hoping that you will be there. I kind of I'll guide you through it. So then in the future, you won't be confused with that. So we can use today's time for me to guide you through or we can schedule a separate call just for those instructions up to you guys.
Quan Gan: What do you suggest?
Vania Chen: Well, right now, honestly, I have the biggest thing for me will be the will be the Ganttum. if you don't mind, I mean, right now I don't have a like a more build up report for you guys for ZipZTac. of instructions and comments instead. I don't know if, since you're here, Kwong, I don't know if you want to do something like, I don't know which one will be more productive for you guys.
Quan Gan: I think maybe like, what is more urgent? I think if Bill is brought up the situation of even talk about bankrupt, it could be like, if it's a decision, we might need to do as early as possible or we need to make decision. But I think for ZTag, it's still, we're not like as urgent.
Vania Chen: Yeah, no, I mean, I get it. then let me just, let me just ask this. Kwong, what do you did? I don't know if you saw my email, the question that he asked me, right?
Quan Gan: The question that, hold on, let me just pull it up. Has Bill updated that? No, they haven't. To you yet the decision. No, no, I mean, I I know we're dealing with Care of sad would basically be making the lights of losing propositions And I know I know when I spoke with the whole pain last week They're saying he was saying that you're trying to change the category To be to make our product as part of the tax exempt So then we don't have to pay tariff on that But that's only specific lights not all of them I mean, it would be the the main product that we sell but Not the the cables or other accessories Well cables right now a lot of the cables are being manufactured here though So it would it would be the parts that would that would come in But it's kind of It's still experimental because right now we have one shipment in limbo they Because it came to the states, but this was pre before the exemption so they kicked it back and it's in it's kind of stuck there And we're even thinking of abandoning it because like it becomes back and it's like 245% and it's not worth it But we don't know if there's a next shipment if that's gonna get stuck so it's kind of it's unknown whereas With Z tag our stuff is much closer to a high-tech computer Which is very much line to you know the exemptions that just came out. In fact, it just landed today. No, we just received it. So Yeah, that's the situation whereas the answer they shipped it right before the exemption so that particular shipment is in limbo and now they're just kind of reeling from No, that that kind of that adverse effect Have you talked to Philip about this whole thing? mm-hmm.
Vania Chen: Yeah, and What's the what's the conclusion on that the thing is we can attempt to do the
Quan Gan: Re-categorization, but we just haven't had another shipment since the exemption. So the sentiment of a lot of the teammates is just Just kind of a wait-and-see or try to not ship anything for now is hold on and see if You know, maybe they they reach to some kind of an agreement and it will have more clarity because right now It could be changing day by day Yeah, yeah Okay, and as far as your plan goes What was the well, my plan is Basically if they can hold off not making any sales and can't and detag if we can temporarily Just subsidize the the company to keep its doors open until things stabilize then we can Reassess Yeah, or have, or basically only ship out of June and tell and say, look, we're not shipping into the US. You guys can F O B China. And then deal with it. Whatever that means.
Vania Chen: Okay, so we're still going to try to sustain it for as long as we possibly can basically.
Quan Gan: and I don't think you're going to let it go away either. have you talked to Jerry. Yeah, like I want to see why Philip is even brought up the bankruptcy. what, what is his intention is like. It's we're really struggling is. We're not working because it's also like, you know, like, if it's a big hole and if, like the train is eventually we're going to bankrupt. Probably we're going to do it earlier, but it just do we really reach that point of needs to come. Or that directions because I want to know why Phil even like talk about that part. there is there that like he wants some data we can you can analyze to see if it's worth doing that or.
Vania Chen: Yeah, well, dealing with Phillip of this couple years, I know that he's extremely conservative, right? He's very, he's very conservative. He's very careful. He want everything to be legally protected. And make sure that, you know, nothing is going to fall out, like not cover liability wise, right? So with that said, like, he always is the kind of the worst case of scenario type. So I think he that's why we had this that the really long meeting before the end of year last year before Trump got on with Jerry with with everybody, right? Um, and back then has whole focus. was on or are we going to move the warehouse? We're going to deal with it. We're going to not ship out basically either the Japan warehouse or Middle East fulfillment or something to deal with the possibility of the tariff. And then back then it was not really the only conclusion we had with Jerry was that we're going to delay the Chinese New Year just so then the funding is a little easier and then but then the whole warehouse and fulfillment it wasn't really it wasn't I guess really it was not moved forward for for all those topics right and then my guess for Philip is that right now is that well it happened right and we're still shipping from China right and then so there's nothing that we can really get out of that the only thing like the fastest thing I can think of is since Jerry's in Japan maybe we but to Jerry and Jerry ship it out from wherever right so I don't know but either way I think because of that Philip was he brought it up just I think it's more of a just in case if there's no light type of deal what's the proceeding going to be looking like what's what's the possibility it what does it what does it look like basically because if we're going to file bankruptcy that's a that's a whole different that's a whole different ball game right and then there's the legal fee that involves is also going to be pretty significant for that right and then the good thing is well I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing the biggest debtor for the company is Juan and Ping and and your family right so obviously if we do decided to go with that and liquidize all asset you guys are going to be the one that take the biggest hit with the bankruptcy if anything isn't technically the government right well yeah the idol right but i don't know honestly like do they collect if you go bankrupt if you did for the idol part so i mean that's an interesting thing to put on the table right because technically it's all right so because prom right we can't fulfill then we can't pay and just like really just random spitballing here but can't one company go bankrupt and then z tag just go buy up all the liquidated assets honestly it's not impossible because technically you're and then then then i think it's more of a legal issue than anything else then we gotta just just make sure that the whole arm length thing doesn't get applied because the last thing you want is to the structure of the companies to make sure that, you know, whatever Ganttum have doesn't get blown over to you or to ZDAC or your other entities and so on, so on, so forth. Right. Because you and you and Ping really are the only owner on the on the paper. Right. And Jerry's not on it. Phillip is not on it. So if anything it would be you and Ping that's going to be mostly affected. Right.
Quan Gan: will be like legally your like your credit will be affected or I don't know I'm going to ask GPT for that.
Vania Chen: Okay. We don't have to go too deep into that right now.
Quan Gan: Okay. So looking just like day by day what's the calculation because we actually paid back a substantial portion of funds from ZDAC to Ganttum. And recently, I think they had a, they had a decent order that was like a three figure order.
Vania Chen: Yeah, well, they did. They did have a good that's a good part. They just don't have order. Right. So that at least that's that's still going. They still have cells there. That's still going on. But because this talk is on the table, I just want to get a sense, right? he he's off while shutting down companies also on his mind on the table.
Quan Gan: I mean, I'll entertain it through just some AI chat sessions to kind of allow me to see the dimensions, but I don't think we have any intention to do that. I'm doing that unless it's actually like a really viable plan. Yeah, so because Vanya, want to know, even if like, we don't have that, because recently I also do the reconciled on Gantem. It really is that not that much orders come in. It's like slow. So even by the debt, we, Azitakon, Gantem, like if we like fully pay back, how sustainable it's going to be, because right now it's still, it's a big cost of all the employees.
Vania Chen: That's the problem, because they're, hold on, let me get the mic.
Quan Gan: these are the hard costs of like every, every month we're paying, paying that. If we seize operation, we could furlough? Or like if not much work, maybe, you know, we need to reduce employees. whatever I feel like before we then we sometimes we need to make hard decisions if we don't have that much work. So by the time if, you know, like the situation getting better, then we might hire you back. But now I feel like it just the high priority is just to make sure it survives. So, so I don't know, like, what do you think one, because I feel like we need to we need to make multiple plans to see if I think I think the staff would understand if we had to reduce pay. At least some, well, I think at least Lisa and Kathy would because we had to go through that through coven. And then Chris and Andy though they're, they're post COVID so that will be harder.
Vania Chen: Yeah, well the minimum the right now the minimum that guys are doing just if just the payroll is about 2425 a week. Now week every two weeks. So 50 at least a month. Right. Even if we pay back all the tag, which is what $200,000. Because you already pay back like 50, 60, right? And then plus, you just loaned Ganttum 28, right? So let's say even if we pay everything back, that's too much, right? And then that's nothing else, right?
Quan Gan: Well, that's not considering there still might be sales coming in. But you're just assuming. So are we just like Z-Tag more money to Ganttum? I mean, that's basically what Ganttum did for Z-Tag. I think it's okay to reciprocate after some time. I know, but the situation now is a little bit different. It's just not like a normal situation. Well, COVID wasn't normal either. Okay, so my general position is like the forest gum, the bubble gum shrimp. I don't know if you remember that image right there like they were barely catching anything But if it was they were out there and it was a giant storm and it would actually wipe out all the other ships And they were the last ones standing so that's the same mantra that I had In covid as I do right now We were going through a big economic storm Let it wipe out everybody else if we can hold our breath longer than anybody else It's a in the game then I think we're going to capture the substantial upside on the other end Okay, so we're companies Okay, that's for for z tag. I encourage it to be even stronger because it'll wipe out all the me too companies Yeah, okay No, but both companies Both companies are unique and they have their unique ip and that is the reason why we're able to command The the margins that we do If we didn't have the ip then you would be just Owling a commodity like everybody else and sure you might be able to diversify it like everybody else does but then it's still a numbers game Yeah, but I think from points perspective is still pretty optimistic But I I'd love to hear from Vanya to your professional aspect of you know, like if Z tech keep supporting Gantem like how sustainable or how long or like how much we should prepare For a go over the storm because I feel like it the story could be long and short It could be a burden for Z tag.
Vania Chen: So, you know, like I Yeah The thing the point part is Charlie the point part is usually You need to kind of be like Huang to really You'll have the successful company. That's why that's why a lot of the CEO that I'm dealing with are here They're always very optimistic. They're always, tomorrow we're going to make more. We're going to be better. We're going to be, you know, bigger and better and make more money. My stand are a little bit more conservative. That's why I want Michael here as well because then it's usually a, a one, one, a dreamer and a more or more ground. Yeah. So that's like, you and you and call right now, right? You guys kind of balance out each other. You're more careful and call is the one that's more optimistic and more and more, you know, going for it. I would say that the way I was a just and I don't, I'm kind of curious to see what Michael would think is that, yes, I think it's very good that you have that mentality. And then the next question I actually have for you was that, where are we going to draw the line? is there a, is there a, let's say that today, if it doesn't get better, right? Because right now, the biggest problem with can come right now. on what I heard is that people are kind of holding off because nobody like like you guys said nobody's going really knowing what's going on right now so people are holding off ordering and then we're holding off like purchasing right everybody's kind of on hold right um but salary is still gonna go out um rent is still gonna go out so our idol payments are gonna go out right all these things are still outflowing right so obviously you guys are not a unlimited a limited pot of gold here yeah yeah it still has a lot of debts i need to go back to because i think so i feel like there's two trees it's like you have to cannot close because these are all both number oh yes you're not very stable hey i don't agree with that because because z tag would not exist if gandam did not definitely fund it until this point
Quan Gan: And also, the macroscopic climate, unless we go into World War III, entertainment is still going to go on and the long-term bet is it's going to turn back on. whether this is like a few months to a year, Z-Tag is actually capitalizing on that differential of commodity versus IP. Because fingers crossed, I'm going to check my bill that we might actually be tax exempt for duty exempt on the stuff that comes in. I would purely on Z-Tag side go for 500% duties as long as I'm zero. The bigger that differential, the bigger we're going to win because if it's harder and those other companies go away, we get all of that market. And you could use that to fund Ganttum. That would be chump change compared to that. And that's better than the EID. L loan because, you know, it's our own equity, right? It's it's our own cash. don't have to be paying it back or anything. So. I think at least for the next 5 months to a year, Z tag and somehow hold out and provide the extra funding to pay it back. I don't care of Gandamo Z tag. Like as a additional loan.
Vania Chen: Like, and do you have a cap now that you want to be under?
Quan Gan: I don't know. I think I have to speak realistically looking at what we currently have cash flow wise. I think half a million is reasonable. If Z tag is earning even money, then you've been a million or something. I think that's also reasonable. I think strategically Jerry needs Junotel to at least stay in existence because there's there's stuff that we can be developing and just doing other stuff on. Yeah, so, so there's a lot of infrastructure that needs to be kept. If we can't shut those down, even if we have to subsidize it, I think it needs to be kept around.
Vania Chen: One of them, what else say again?
Quan Gan: said, one of them, what else need to, um, I think the industry relationships, the entertainment is actually pretty significant. So we need to look beyond the equation of just selling lights. think the fact that Philip is out there making these connections, pretty deep connections in the theme to entertainment sector. Those could be chips that's D tag can use later on. Like, it may have seemed that they kind of source from the same branch that ganttum is doing lighting and entertainment and the Z tag came from entertainment, but somehow got into education. But these are actually two very big industries that. mutually beneficial when you get big enough. When I say big enough on the scale of NFL, and I've talked to Michael very early on, the intention is to get Z-Tag bigger than the NFL. At that point, you're going to need entertainment relationships, and you also need education and institutional relationships. Gantem gave birth to Z-Tag so that Gantem would actually become Z-Tag chips later on.
Vania Chen: Okay, okay. So, and how realistically, how likely is some of the Gantem's picture go under the exam?
Quan Gan: Well, I put it into AI and it could argue all of the DMX lighting to be under that. So, we'd have to just do a new import and see, but right now the staff is dealing with the current shipment that's in limbo, but they might be able separate them out and one of them is purely the exempt stuff okay wait right now the product is it back to Junitel or is it just somewhere in the middle think it's in China somewhere in a in a holding area and I think they're looking to re-import it back into the US with the new exemption and then see about if it can at least clear some of them it's $20,000 worth of inventory and do you guys well we just pay another one um do you know when the next one's gonna come in I well that would be a Lisa question all right I'll ask Lisa about it okay yeah okay is there any way like how you did on z-tech you make the management Or lean or think think see that again time is right now. It's the I kind of like that I think you you can maybe remove one more person, but that's I think that's just incremental um, I Mean eventually Eventually two of them are aged out. They might retire and then have to would just play AI in there But still that's not I think the answer is you guys have seen it historically.
Vania Chen: It's only gonna be at this scale It's not gonna like Flip overnight or anything Z tag will so so Ganttum would just kind of become a fixed cost that needs to be kept alive okay Okay, yeah, Ganttum has not broke really broke the two million dollar Revenue threshold and then you guys are always doing around two million for Ganttum for the longest time and then the the manufacturing is one of the the the the Area of the product we have for product use is also another but you know it okay okay and there's there's also no reason to onshore it because that technology unless unless we hire well that may change in let's say three years two or three years if humanoid robots there if their fingers are as dexterous as workers then it might be feasible to onshore it but then everybody has the same yeah same future so that that'll probably just get leveled out economically yeah because I think the only the only reason why the cable manufacturer in us are viable is because they have you guys have somebody doing it in the warehouse like literally Lucas Lucas was actually doing it and then they have someone higher on on the slot
Quan Gan: But for the manufacturing, it has to be in that sense, it has to be like so dead, simple, that it keeps the cost low. If it's anywhere with a little bit of expertise, then you're going to have to highly automate it. And automation has not gotten to the point where it could compete with dexterous human hands.
Vania Chen: Yeah. Okay. All right. Okay. Good. Thank you. That's actually, so that's not okay. So that actually answered most of my questions. So then basically then I just need to prepare the forecast and the crisis plan for Phillip. Like I said, Phillip is very, he's very conservative when it comes to the number in the business. anything in place and three steps ahead with him. So he's very, very careful. He's extremely careful actually. But as far as the staff goes, I know people, you guys, the staff that you guys have for Gantum are, I don't I don't know about Chris and Andy, they're new, newer Chris has been there for a little bit, but then they're newer, but Lisa and Kathy, they, I think Phillip keep trying to readjust their salaries to bring them to market, because they're all like a little bit below market right now. I don't know how much they're willing to take a cut, but that will be something that we have to entertain that we have to entertain.
Quan Gan: Right now they're already below market, right? And so he's asking to cut it further or to bring it
Vania Chen: up to market well he wanted to before this holding he keep he kept wanting to bring everybody's to the market including himself right um he's he he he's he doesn't get paid a lot right so that's why he keeps saying that he's he needs to do three jobs right so and i did ask him then why is he still here then if he's not happy with the the pay and everything he said he does enjoy the job so i think you guys you you have a very loyal group of employee which is great which is actually really good um but also i don't i don't know i don't know how if we do have to cut or we do have to lower or temporarily you know go on you know for low or whatever then i don't know how yeah that will be something i guess we can entertain but i would i would think that that's the last Heart that I will touch simply because it's a little good people. It's hard to fight, but let's say that I would say, think about like, if today, if you want to the one of the exercise that was the justice that like today, if we hire, hire, if we fire everybody here today, who are you gonna? Who would you want to hire back? I do that go through that little mental exercise. I'm gonna ask Philip to see me as well. Just then go through that little mental exercise a little bit just to then we can we can kind of see.
Quan Gan: I think we have a fairly clear mental model already between me and Phil.
Vania Chen: Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah, you want me to tell you or that's something on our own. I would love to know but I think I think.
Vania Chen: uh Andy and Lisa they're pretty like involved on the day-to-day I don't know about Chris um but I hear good things I think really uh Kathy is the person that Philip has been wanting to let go that's kind of my guess too I think I heard before okay okay all righty okay so so okay thank you I let go of me of course because I got to get myself off payroll well we already got we already got uh we lower already lower quite a bit we've moved Charlie's pay right from from ganttum right pink supposedly pink's gonna get retired so pink's salary is supposed to get off the bug but I don't think that's gonna happen anytime soon because now Charlie is more focused on DTAC right now right? Unless you can handle both. I mean, then we can, then pink can retire because pink was talking about like, oh, he's like taking care of the kids and all that, right?
Quan Gan: I think he does feel I just feel like he wanted to retire.
Vania Chen: But also at the same time, I think he's also very nervous about letting things go.
Quan Gan: yeah, it's kind of me a little bit like the things that every day you have to be there. But other things I didn't hear you talk about you want to or there's no even never talk about like, if it's passed by handed up. So maybe he's still enjoying or doing part of it because yeah.
Vania Chen: Yeah, I kind of kind of have a sense that he might be so because he also talked about, oh, we drive a lot to pick up to pick up and drop off the for the activities and all that. But I'm pretty sure I actually think he actually enjoys it too. mean, it's because
Quan Gan: This can't be too much involvement.
Vania Chen: Yeah, so, so, so, yeah, we'll have that stayed on. then if the CTAC does go into a more stable pattern where it's sustainable, yeah, we probably will move like you guys is a lot of the so-called executive like related expenses into CTAC, so then it would relieve Ganttum. But again, we do still, Ganttum still has cells. mean, it's not like it's completely out. It's just that it's more or less a holding pattern right now. I think Philip just want to be careful about it.
Quan Gan: That's all.
Vania Chen: Yeah.
Quan Gan: All right. And I think also as CTAC increases, we may have access to more capital. Like right now, right now there's a, did I tell you about the Amex line of credit?
Vania Chen: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Right, so that came in, and then if we keep on doing more, think we can unlock the more capital to lend if we needed to.
Vania Chen: Yeah, but those have got to be careful because a lot of those you are personally live over for all those right so it just make sure that you're protected. Yeah, it's it's it's it's it's the line of credit a max on your name or on the tax thing.
Quan Gan: Have to check it. Well, I'm pretty good on Z tag because it came from the reserve card. It was a lot because the spending on the reserve card.
Vania Chen: Okay, and then the reserve card. I mean, what type of entity is it? It's also it's okay. And who's the owner on it. Only you 100%
Quan Gan: Yeah is a here's something I just realized as an implication I'm looking to apply to some Some government grants yes, and like SBIR grants And they need the U.S. citizen to be at least 51%. Okay, so that's actually 49. Yeah, it's fine. It's actually pretty Written pretty deeply in because if if you're not a U.S. citizen, then yeah, they don't want to be giving money to the Foreign Oh, but the company is applying for it then technically it's a hundred percent you right Well currently it is but right now if we were to change the articles You uh, or have an amendment to, uh, give shares out, and that, that is some, that's, that's a line that we have to be, um, aware of. Yeah, because also currently I'm not US citizens, I'm still a card.
Vania Chen: Oh, you still, you haven't applied for it? How come?
Quan Gan: No, I'm still on green card, so. Oh.
Vania Chen: Yeah, so, you don't, you just don't want to or, or you just have, you're still waiting for it.
Quan Gan: No, because, uh, because right now, like, my, my, my, my, my, my, my dad is still in China and also there's like properties and I was heard that it could be like very complicated if, if it was like, you know, like your citizens come back and the government mind, you know, like, so, yeah, so I see.
Vania Chen: Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah, but does that work? fact, it's like, eventually quite a nice. join the company? Is my identity still okay?
Vania Chen: Was I'm holding green card? Well, you guys are C Corp, so it shouldn't be a problem. You cannot have an S Corp because of, like, S Corp can only have citizen as partners, right? As owners. As far as the, if you are restructuring to the shares, then yeah, the grants, then that you guys might have to consider US citizen versus not citizen. So that would say that would, other than that, on the US side, I don't think that's really going to affect too much, honestly. Because, yeah, I read all the stuff on legal, so I don't know. That I don't know. I'm not really aware of that.
Quan Gan: Yeah, another thing is we're getting so close of the deadline of April 30. Is there like something we We need to file up and just like, is there any, because we'll probably need to talk to Patrick. Wait, April 15th is the text that I'm already passed that.
Vania Chen: don't know if we, uh, Oh my god. You guys are C Corp. So then it's 315. Z tag and Gantum are both view 315. So I'm, I'm assuming all the extension has been filled. And then the personal one is April 15th.
Quan Gan: So did you guys We haven't done that. I have to It's April 15th.
Vania Chen: So yeah, we haven't done that. Gosh.
Quan Gan: I was like at least at least built on a whole file, your personal tax return though. Last year it was a another CPA, but I don't this year. Yeah, we just haven't gotten around to it yet. I also like end of this month, but yeah, if anything, if anything go on like
Vania Chen: free tax USA or something, create an account and just shoot an extension out and extensions are free. You don't have to file with them.
Quan Gan: just create like a, there's, because free tax, free tax USA.com, I use it myself because it's kind of free time.
Vania Chen: Okay. And then I'll put in your information and then just say that your tax liability is zero, whatever, it will ask you a couple of questions and then you will have to file California and file for federal and that's e filing. Just shoot out the extension.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. So is it a, it's a problem right now because we're missing it? Is there any.
Vania Chen: It's always good to have an extension on hand. Usually it's the, it's the, if it's tax due, then there's, it's more, there's more issue if there's tax due.
Quan Gan: Most likely it's been taken out of the salary already.
Vania Chen: Most likely. Yeah. So it should be fine. And like, honestly, like, if you're, because if you're combined income is the salary that I've seen you guys drawn out overall combined, you guys should be fine. Plus, you have, you still have mortgage. You guys have like those like every tax interest in space, all that stuff. And then plus the income for like, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, whatever, whatever else that still need to flow into. That's a different story and plus investments, right? I would say that, if anything at least have a paper showing that, okay, we're just going to take care of it later. It's always. Yeah, they will tell you. Yeah, it's always, it's always late than never. So I would, I would just shoot something and first just tell them that you'll deal with it. And then just remember the tax returns are after extension are due September 15. and then you guys return October 15 after the extension. The six months later.
Quan Gan: Yeah, for the extension.
Vania Chen: Okay.
Quan Gan: But what about, what about the sales tax sales tax?
Vania Chen: That's something that you have to talk to Patrick or deal with it about, and we want to get it, get it file, get it done because I R S and franchise people think that they're bad. No, the sales tax people, they're, they're, they're a little bit more vicious overall. So I would say that definitely get that taken care of to see that you guys are saving money for, for to pay for that already. So that's fine. Just, just make sure that we're filed. And then, and then my, my theory for that a lot of the time is that I rather file it wrong than not file it. So, let's say that I file it wrong, then I pay, I pay a bunch of, I pay money already, at least on the records that I did my best, we're switching system or whatever. And then the next one, we're adjusting, we're amending later. Right. So it's always, it's always better. and not okay yeah because I I do see Stan well using that platform constantly pay a little bit pay a little bit maybe is that something we can also do even just we would have them exact amount but constantly pay a little bit I would say that's the work with work or whoever that was dealing with the sales tax before at least get the get the even if it's not exact number but at least calculate something and send it out don't just send in the money because with the government the problem with them is that you don't if they if you don't give them a very specific reason pack that payment for they might hack it anywhere like you don't know where it goes to like so you want to make sure that it's very specifically tell them that hey this money I'm paying for q1 2020 for Z tax sales tax right then then then you know at least you have that record or else be like you send in a bunch of money and they're like I didn't get it because it was sent to different departments I mean, it was categorized wrong, right? So that's the last thing you wanted to happen. I would say that at least, when I say do it sooner than later, but it doesn't mean that, I need to transfer money right now to take note. It's still find somebody to look at what you have and then to actually calculate the best that you could. Even if there's wrong information, it's fine just like the best of knowledge right now. Prepare something and then file it and then pay for it right now to take care of the Q1 at least, right? And then we'll kind of deal with the differences, the amendment along the way.
Quan Gan: Is that the deadline also April 15th?
Vania Chen: Call for your sales tax deadline.
Quan Gan: Like, I need to talk to Joey. Joey? Yeah, Joey as early as possible.
Vania Chen: It's due day, it's reporting first quarter, quarterly return is April 30th.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay.
Vania Chen: So, okay, this one is the service.
Quan Gan: A quick question for CXR that Stan and I created. We didn't operate at all. I got a notice of like late payment because we didn't do the $800. I want to shut that down. I'm just wondering like what are. What happens if we don't do anything, like there's not even a bank account. So, like, what's the worst case if it just, like, we just let it sit.
Vania Chen: Well, the problem with this California would charge you $800 every year until you shut it down. So, I would say that if anything fell a final tax return, a zero final tax return, right? You have it, you have a VIN, you have a California ID with that company, right? So just send in literally just do a business tax return and then just zero everything zero income zero expenses. And then on the status of the return, choose final return. So at least you close it out with the California shows the federal that this thing is done. They might ask you for all the unfortunately, the $800 that's just California, like you can deal with it. But if you don't file it, they would just keep asking you for that $800. It doesn't matter if you do anything with it or not. yeah, file the file, file the final return. Call it a day.
Quan Gan: Is that something I need to be a for it where I can do it myself if there was nothing in there?
Vania Chen: I think you can do it yourself. Yeah, the only the only thing I will say that since you guys are very close with Patrick, I will ask that, okay, if you want to shut something down, is that the only thing we need to do? Or is there something else that I need to really think about? Because honestly, Michael opened up a bunch of entities and that's what we do. We close it down and then so far so good. But I don't want to give you the same, you know, suggestion because we didn't consult any legal advisors or anything, um, but we just told them, it was shut down a long time ago. We filed the final tax return and that's it. We, we, we don't have anything anymore. And then they kind of just left us alone so far. So I don't want like maybe 10 years later, I'll get a letter. Who knows? You know, that's, that's the thing. Who knows, right? But, you know, as far as I might, my understanding go, should, that should be taken care of it because you don't have, you never have an employee, right? You never had an employee with you, you never had anything else with it.
Quan Gan: yeah, it's- either. Huh? No income either.
Vania Chen: Yeah. So, so I don't know if like, if you've filed any expenses on it, it doesn't matter. But either way, I would say that just zeroed everything out, no asset, no whatever, and then just do a final return. At least we add that up to report to the government that it no longer exists. Yeah. Oh, yeah, so try that. would say it should be pretty straightforward. You should be able to just do it on any, any sort of a, I don't know which one you like a turbo tax tax act or whatever, all those online following us. You won't be able to do it on free tax because free tax is individual only. So a tax act turbo tax, they all have platform where you can just do it yourself. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, then, right now, then probably I'm going to schedule another meeting with you where you can sometimes I don't know how long it'll take. I will, but I will at least give it an hour where you will have computer access and then, because there are things that I wanted to transaction that I wanted to walk you through. Mainly the wise account mainly Gusto wise account Gusto. And then there's the, the, the, the, the, found out the, the, the inventory portion of things. So called the, the finished goods accounts.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Vania Chen: Okay. are set up in there where it was some of it will run automatically and then so you shouldn't worry too much, but I wanted to give you a couple, a couple things. So, so, you know, how to, how to deal with it.
Quan Gan: Last time you had some question about like a positive funds account or petty cash.
Vania Chen: Yeah, it was, it was miscategorized as like, there was income.
Quan Gan: Yeah, got marked as petty cash accidentally when it should have been under one of the income account.
Vania Chen: I saw that, I saw that disappear. So thank you. So, and then on the positive fund actually I wrote off the anything prior to 2025. They are to transaction on 2025 so. for a good portion to you. And then those are most likely used on Z-Tags. Do you know where did that go on the book? Or did that even go on the book for Z-Tags?
Quan Gan: Could have gone on to the books. You mean from Gandham to Z-Tag?
Vania Chen: The idol? Yeah, you know the idol fund I think was like either 200 or 300,000 or something like that?
Quan Gan: Yeah something like that. I mean that's from what 2020? 2021? Are you able to see that transaction? I'm pretty sure it ended up in Z-Tags books.
Vania Chen: Okay so it would be then it would be your loan to you, a loan from you then, right? I guess because yours?
Quan Gan: Well let's see. Yeah I don't know how Stan had named it. Maybe it was he said loan to Kwan, but it's actually from Gandham because he probably sees everything coming from me to me but it was actually the company.
Vania Chen: Okay well your company I'm total including your funds, your inventory contribution, and your loan and then I actually just remember we had a 54,000 nobody knows what that is. It's a journal entry made way long ago so I can't really see where the fund came from but so I kind of group it with your loan as well. So right now with that combined you have about close to 400, like 311, 38, 350, yeah that's something about right. Yeah about 400,000 yeah so that you loaned to and then so I might actually recategorize some of yours just so do you want it to sit under you or on the Ganttum?
Quan Gan: Put under Ganttum.
Vania Chen: Okay so I'll match it up whatever Ganttum has for you guys then I'll just kind of regroup that to Ganttum. You from Guantanam and then you will still have some of it, but well, I'll move some of it to. Okay. So, so Charlie, when will be a good time for you and I to chat?
Quan Gan: This week, my kids are off school. So maybe next week, Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday, anytime. Yeah, Tuesday would be good. What time? Let's say maybe 11.
Vania Chen: 11 a.m.? Mm-hmm. Okay. I am going to book an hour and a half. Okay. Just a case on your calendar. But if we don't use that long, we don't use that long.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay.
Vania Chen: Okay. Very cool. One R and a half. Okay, and then that one, I don't, I don't need Kwan for that. So I'll just send to Charlie. Yeah. then I will talk to, most likely I'm going to talk to Phillip. He told me next week to 30th, first or the second, and after I talked to him, I'll update you guys on our conversation as well. Unless Kwan, do you want to talk to Michael before we meet with him?
Quan Gan: I'm fine.
Vania Chen: You're fine. Okay. Alrighty. All right. So then cool. Very cool. Then I will, I will keep you guys updated and then Charlie, I'll talk to you next week.
Quan Gan: Money, I think the long you're talking about the concept. I think there's one time I talked with pain because at the beginning pain do invest a lot of the money to get him. So, but he's still right now, didn't get long back. So, um, is that like pretty much I feel like the point actually is not getting slow. It should be painful.
Vania Chen: Oh, well, no, both. Yeah. then for pain for pains. So basically on the book right now, pain long, get him quite a lot of money. We started to pay him back. We started to pay him back after we paid off. I think it was a California bank and trust that one. So, so, and then plus we paid off during the tells 2018, 17, 18, 19. there so because of that we start paying paying back um but it happened stopped lately for the last two months because of the cash situation and tariff and the uncertainties right so we stopped paying paying back but he did get a little bit of payback but not so much just yet right and so on the book um on Gantum's book uh Gantum old ping but on Gantum's book also Gantum actually qualms take money from Gantum to ZTAC so it's qualm 0 to qualm 0 qualm or ZTAC 0 to Gantum so it's kind of like the other way around with ping right so like i said so if let's say that if Gantum really do have to get into the space of bankruptcy or whatever ping is going to be the one that's that's that's going to be affected i know it's going to be the loan that's affected right but con is more of a of a of what That's still, oh, that technically Ganttum will need to collect from, or Ztec's the one that need to collect from, if I'd say that, if it's not family and if it's all arm flings, right? Okay. So, yeah. Thank you for certifying that. Yeah, so what's going to look like is that we're going to add on to Ztec's liability, so what Ztec O2, O2 Ganttum, and then, but because it's all pre-categorized as Ganttum, Ztec O2 Ganttum is going to get moved around. I'm going to make sure that the two books matched up just so that the number matched up. So we'll move some of it to due to Ganttum.
Quan Gan: How much Kwan owns a Ganttum?
Vania Chen: Let me see. yeah oh god it's like complicated what it's gonna be kind of like it's gonna be kind of like c tag um because we have a hundred let me see a hundred and four and then we have the three hundred. About four? Four hundred?
Quan Gan: oh okay about this pretty much the same about the same yeah okay so so basically all the money that I want to probably put it all into c tag in the god so it it was it was the main one is the few hundred thousand during the idle time yeah but yeah yeah yeah but definitely i think yeah okay i yeah maybe maybe like if z tag has a sustainable uh fast bro
Vania Chen: or if like yeah when yeah when then we can support them to bring it back to a normal normal state that's ideal it might be a 120k check right now in the mail let's go get it Charlie it's okay it's okay all right i i understand because i do you okay all right thank you guys for your time thank you mania thank you mom we'll we'll continue on with the this little project but at the same time i'll talk to you next week charlie okay see you next week awesome thanks bye you
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Quan Gan: Hello, what does it mean a one of two slots is that something on Calimally?
Kristin Neal: Yes.
Quan Gan: Okay. It makes you, it makes you very scarce then.
Kristin Neal: I didn't even know it came up like that. Hello there, Brooke.
Brooke W-MON: Hello.
Kristin Neal: How are you?
Brooke W-MON: I'm good in yourself.
Kristin Neal: Good. Good. you so much for meeting with us. This here is a quan. This is the inventor of Z tag. And I'm Chris. I am the partner relations director. And first I just wanted to apologize so much, Brooke. So it was really weird because yesterday I had to step away from the desk and that was when your call came in. I got it this morning and I was like, that's so weird. how did she call before we got the lead? It's called the lead, but we'll get it. But didn't, but it didn't come into this morning. So we were like, what happened and then quan jumped in and he was like, it got lost. It had to go. goes through all kinds of channels to finally get to us, but we finally got it. But I think it was for a good reason and I'll get to that in a minute. But how are you, Brooke, please tell us about yourself. Where are you from? Tell us about your school.
Brooke W-MON: Sure. My name is Brooke. I'm an after school director at us by our academy. We are located in Oakley, California. have elementary school from TK to fifth grade. In my after school program, I have about 130 students. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Very cool. So are you gearing up for summer?
Brooke W-MON: Yes, gearing up for a summer program.
Kristin Neal: Okay, very cool. We love summer because it gets hot, but you can also jump inside of your conditioning.
Quan Gan: Can tell us a little bit more about your kids? I'd love to know how are you?
Brooke W-MON: Full of energy. I mean, just like that. Okay, it's full of information on the client, but then to be around, um, so Dan is going to love to explore, um, yeah, sorry, my, uh, my desk is in the main office and so I'm going to view and come back at my dog.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, no problem. Totally get it. Um, all right. Well, I'm going to be able to show you the, um, the Z tag unit.
Brooke W-MON: Um, is that okay with you or did you have any questions? Is that okay if we're just going to jump in? We can jump in. I did get a preview of it. Um, during the beyond two hours in Florida.
Kristin Neal: Great. Okay, great. So you did play with us there. That was fun. Yeah, we were both there. Oh my gosh, yes. I'm glad that corner is able to join us. Good. Okay. So did you have any questions? Um, there have been updates since then. Do you want to, um, kind of see where we've gone with that?
Brooke W-MON: Sure.
Kristin Neal: loved you. Yeah. Okay. So now we are offering, um, Brooke with the, um, each purchase that we use. You know, I'm going to share my screen real quick. With each purchase of a unit, we are offering a lot of support. So I'm excited to say that that is improved since that conference. Each unit that is purchased, we send this welcome letter straight to you, so you're able to actually forward this two year site coordinators, things like that. We want to make sure that everyone is on equal footing to be able to launch ZTAG very thoroughly. So you'll get this welcome to our ZTAG community. Here you have the Quick Start videos, and I'm sure you remember the big yellow box at our Florida show with the 24Z taggers. These are the game watches, everything is very simple to push. It's just like an iPad, you know, very simple, in fact junior high students have taken this, and they've put them in leadership positions. it's that simple, like open and play. These are the game launches, everything is sensor based, some of you remember that there's no physical contact and we do encourage very great, it really helps when you have very thorough training at the very beginning to show them that they really don't need to get close. And I'll get to that in a little bit but to show you the training on that. And everything is lit up, we love encouraging this to be used at like a fun Friday event, a lot of schools are using it for incentives, you can have a lights out, a glow party, it would be awesome incentive to have for all ages. There's also no Wi-Fi, if you remember there's that router that's connected right here, so it's all in one box. So no Wi-Fi, you're going to get the 24 players plus two additional Z-Tigers, so you'll have the 26. And then also if you're playing on the unit, you'll see like this little cog up here. I believe we might have shown you, but there's a way to count the steps, the step counters and the interactions. Did you have any questions on the hardware of it?
Brooke W-MON: One question I know with the router, do you have to be additional for the internet or just the router. That's just it's good to go.
Kristin Neal: It's good to go.
Brooke W-MON: It's part of it. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, it's all connected.
Brooke W-MON: Oh, yeah.
Kristin Neal: Great. Great. So everything very simple for your team to look over and know how to get them on the kids, how to set up their Z-Taggers. Here are the six games that we have available. probably played the red light green light and the pattern mesh and zombie survival. Those are the main three that we like to encourage the kids to play by so they're learning how to focus on their own, their own. body movement through the red light green light. then the pattern match, we're really encouraging the kids for clear communication, clearly saying they have a blue triangle. I'm sure you remember the organized chaos. The mass match, clear communication with, I need a four, I have two plus two, so it's great for visual and audible. And yeah, gets all kinds of places in the brain. I forget what that word is called.
Quan Gan: Sorry. It is a multi multi sensory feedback.
Kristin Neal: There we go. That's it. Yes. But we do have two that are actually in testing mode right now and your unit will come with that. And it's the foreign language. That's our language wave game. So that will have the kids with the Spanish or French word looking for the English word. So we're really bridging those two kids together, the ones that speak. kind of like the next round. It's 10 minutes and they're ready for a break. So, great, great game to be able to get your kids active. The other mass match, actually, the other testing game is the sequence training. And that one's super fun. So the kids have, you can have the option of going natural numbers, odd, evens, prime, things like that. And you have that choice. Once the game starts, everyone gets a random number, but someone who has the lowest number, their watch glows. So they're the very first one. So if they have a five, they have to look for the 10. And the 10 has to look for the 15. So they have to get in that train. That's probably one of my favorites because you see so much of the improvement. From the very first time, they really, really are not very good at that game. It's like, what happened? know how to count by fives? was what I was kind of saying to my kids. They were my kids class. But they get better. They get better at communicating. get better at speed. all just starts coming together the more they play that one. Here's videos on how to correctly shut down the unit. Here's our full operations manual that is very thorough. And this is the part that I'm excited to share with you since we've been at that conference. We got feedback that that institutions, you know, schools like that, they really wanted additional information of how ZTAG is actually being used in other aspects. It's not, ZTAG isn't just, let's bring it out as a one-time play. It's, how can we incorporate everything that we're doing in ZTAG? You can do story building. You can do all kinds of selling bees. It's just, it's unlimited with what you guys can use it for. So down here, you will get, here's some training videos. And here are how other schools are using it. Oh, there's like a rocket leak. you have those scooters, things like that, arrival with the ball, the mass match with obstacles. We love that. And then red light green light. And this is just growing. This was just the start. So they will be added to and it'll just continue to grow.
Brooke W-MON: Are these videos available on the website?
Kristin Neal: They're not.
Brooke W-MON: They're only available after precious. Okay. Wouldn't it be possible to get an example just to show my friends a little bit more? Because I thought the game was really cool when I played it. was able to do the zombie tag and the red light green light.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Yeah, absolutely. could send it to you. mean, I don't think that's a problem.
Quan Gan: Good. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. We'll just send it to you. and take a look and yeah absolutely. So that's just one of them we have the digital artwork and we have the logo files. here's some more information on how they're using the z-tag. You'll hear about the incentives. One of them actually even has a kids sign a contract. The kids and the parents. Yeah, that's really neat. like the accountability of that. Hi, it was a new twist when she said that. I was like, wow, that's really, really interesting. I love getting the parents involved. In fact, Juan and I were talking, we want to be able to have it to where z-tag is so known in the parent world that, I don't know if you remember the zombie survival, but that doctor role is very coveted. It's a very important role. So I mean, the parents are like, did you play the doctor today? They'll know if they had a good day or not. Yeah. Yes, I was able to play the doctor because I got eight. An A on that test is that, you know, very cool.
Brooke W-MON: So I like what is entered of the doctor. I didn't think about that.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, it's, it's interesting what you can take with it, what you can, how you can use that, you know.
Quan Gan: Yeah, you know, something else we are really trying to show in the data is if we can actually somehow improve your engagement and attendance in the schools. Right, if they're knowing they're doing this, you know, as often as you are, it's seeing if you can bring the attendance up to you.
Brooke W-MON: That's actually a good idea. You do a thing taught in the 10th dance and actually have a 10th dance today and we have it with the glow party. So actually important writing this along with the little party.
Kristin Neal: That actually sounds like a fun idea. wish we were there right now. Oh, that sounds amazing. Yeah, that's awesome. So with the hardware that was everything that you'll, you'll get included with the purchase you'll get that support. and all those videos. So now we have what we're offering now is our z-tag extended care and since you were part of the conference we can honor that first year conference special that one was in place. So this is what you'll receive with that. So here's the manufacturers warranty that all z-tag units come with. This is the one-year care that you'll receive up to six z-taggers per year for accidental coverage. And let me go ahead. I'll go over these two. This one we have the three-year care and after three years you can trade it in for credit. And this is our five-year care and this was a lot of fun. This isn't what I'm excited about because not only do you get the five-year coverage but you also get this community launch pack and this is the fun part. Because we want to support you guys in however you need. you're looking to get out into the community and do those big events, we definitely suggest this one. And this one, you will also get the right here, right here. You'll actually get banners, a tablecloth, and the standy materials. So that, actually there's a picture of them here and they'll be like this. So the tablecloth, the event banner, and the a-frame. Okay, so that's the game. Sorry?
Brooke W-MON: No, we should thank you. And so that one.
Kristin Neal: Okay, I think it's just looked at the tag material with it.
Brooke W-MON: Yes.
Quan Gan: Yeah, by default, we gave you access to digital artwork, so you can always spin up your
Kristin Neal: for our and I'll send you this I'll send you all of it at the end but okay so I have good news because I'll go ahead and stop sharing that. Good news is that your inquiry did get lost because I looked into your account and you have an open quote actually from last year so we didn't we don't actually offer that discount anymore it was a discount of 10% which we had to you know with rising costs and things like that it's no longer available for a single units but your quote is still open so we can honor that 10% and the the complimentary year of the Z-TAD coverage so you're kind of like in a great spot to take it and as you can say need that quote and so just going face off the lab baby or the lab.
Brooke W-MON: talking in that was on there, but one year nine, 30, 20 years was 25,000, and the number five, there's worth alpha. Um, and then how long would it take to be different, like to Shabbal?
Kristin Neal: We have units coming in mid to late May.
Brooke W-MON: So do you have a June 30th I'm hoping for an online May deadline.
Kristin Neal: A May deadline, but what, um, we're having a bill today, online, was May 30th May 30th, That I think we can do. Want, yeah, yeah. feel comfortable with, with saying, yeah, we'll be able to honor that. Yeah.
Brooke W-MON: You can go ahead and be thinking through that over, so I think you can share it with my friends. Yeah. And then what I need from you is that you nine.
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Kristin Neal: Hey there, how are you?
Quan Gan: Good, how are you?
Kristin Neal: Good, good. You're using your office more, or you're using your car more for an office lately.
Quan Gan: It is my office, yes.
Kristin Neal: That's cool. I always thought that a car, like your seat, if you could just rotate around and have a desk behind you.
Quan Gan: Mm-hmm. I think they already have cars like that.
Kristin Neal: Really?
Quan Gan: Yeah, I think so.
Kristin Neal: I thought it's that like...
Quan Gan: I mean, future of cars shouldn't even have steering wheels. They'll just hide the steering wheel into the dash.
Kristin Neal: And so true. I know you don't need it if it's drivable.
Quan Gan: It's self-driving. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Very cool.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I still don't get why you have two note takers and you don't know how to turn.
Kristin Neal: No, and even sometimes I don't know where Fathom goes, sometimes Fathom doesn't even join us, so.
Quan Gan: I saw some, yeah, one of our teammates had the fellow note taker, and then somehow later on it infected you, maybe you clicked a button somewhere.
Kristin Neal: I think so, I think that that's exactly it. Yeah, and I tried looking, but I just didn't.
Quan Gan: Are you able to find an account and then turn it off? Oh, and might have to, yeah, go to fellow, and then, like, see if you could try to log in, or maybe lost password or something, and I'll go in and turn it off.
Kristin Neal: Okay, I'll try that when we're done, for sure. Okay. Okay. You So Heather Thomason is from Alabama.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: What, um, yeah, what's your school?
Kristin Neal: It doesn't, she didn't put on there. Um, to tell you the truth, I'm not sure where, um, how she signed up for a meeting. That was, that was on her side, so. Yep, there's nothing through our website. No inquiry. It's just the meeting sign up.
Quan Gan: Okay. Maybe, uh, maybe your business card?
Kristin Neal: Yeah. I'm also kind of, I don't know where my link is, like my meeting link, because a lot of things have been created in the last few days, and I'm like, I don't know where that's from, so, we'll see.
Quan Gan: Wcslive, that looks familiar.
Kristin Neal: Weird, right? Yeah.
Quan Gan: Wcslive.
Kristin Neal: I thought it looked a lot.
Quan Gan: No, it doesn't show anything. Okay. Did she confirm that she was coming?
Kristin Neal: This was just created yesterday.
Quan Gan: Oh, but do you have, I'm just wondering if there's a phone number. Let's see, looking for the purchase of an after-school program. It didn't say she, I don't see her confirming this either.
Kristin Neal: I'll shoot an email real quick. I'll an email quick. I'll shoot an I'll an email quick. an email email shoot quick. an email an an I'll shoot an email real quick. you. Thank you. Okay, how do I add my Fathom notetaker if I'm in a meeting that it's not in Thank you.
Quan Gan: you. so did you download the Fathom app?
Kristin Neal: yes but sometimes it doesn't come in.
Quan Gan: if you download the Fathom app then you'll need to copy and paste the um the meeting link the invite link from the top and then um Fathom should be able to load in.
Kristin Neal: okay very cool.
Quan Gan: because right now you have a little window that has Fathom on it.
Kristin Neal: on my desktop right?
Quan Gan: yeah. because if it's saying recording yeah so right now it's in but if it's not yeah you you want to just uh click on the icon to open it up and it says you can have a join a meeting oh great okay yeah but um oh i see okay yeah it should just jump in because it has access to your calendar so anytime it sees a zoom zoom call it should try to activate at that time there's sometimes that it just it's weird that it just isn't appropriate.
Kristin Neal: Okay, she says she's ready.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Maybe she doesn't have the invite link. Here we go. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah, it doesn't look like she accepted it, that's what I'm I bought a new pair of inline skates, so if I'm not going to the mountains, I'm just riding on the roads back and forth. Nice, you're getting that same, yeah, that's cool.
Quan Gan: It's good workout.
Kristin Neal: Gosh, I haven't done that in 20, no, yeah, about 20 years. She should be joining us in. Hi there, Heather. Oh, you're on mute.
thomassonh: Hi, I got you.
Kristin Neal: There we go. Okay.
Quan Gan: Hello.
thomassonh: Hey. There you are.
Kristin Neal: Okay. There you go.
thomassonh: Yes.
Kristin Neal: How are you doing?
thomassonh: I'm good.
Kristin Neal: Good.
Quan Gan: Great. Happy Wednesday.
thomassonh: You too. It's kind of storming here in Alabama, though.
Quan Gan: don't know if it's storming where you guys are. No, we're good.
Kristin Neal: Oh, my goodness. I think we're expecting rain on Friday and next week.
thomassonh: So it's heading our way. I mean, it's rained here for three days. It flew. Flooded yesterday, so we're waiting for a break, I guess.
Kristin Neal: Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.
thomassonh: Oh, my gosh. Oh, it's okay. It's okay. I like rain.
Kristin Neal: We need rain. Good.
thomassonh: It's just when it floods, you know, that's kind of serious.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, that's when it gets scary. Yeah.
Quan Gan: We're in different spots. I'm in California.
thomassonh: Chris is in Indiana. Okay. Wow. Yeah, we're just kind of spread out, aren't we?
Kristin Neal: I love it.
thomassonh: I love it. So, I run an after-school program, and so we're always looking for, you know, different ways to entertain the kids, of course, and somebody told me about the ZTAG. So, I looked it up, and I saw where I could, you know, meet with you guys and kind of talk about it. I just, I guess I basically want to know a little bit about it and then the cost of it.
Kristin Neal: Sounds good. Great. Can we, did you want to ask her?
Quan Gan: I ask her?
Kristin Neal: just like, who referred you?
Quan Gan: Who? Who? Tell us, what brought you here?
thomassonh: Okay, so we have, in our county. System, we have two after-school programs. And I'm the psych coordinator, and then we have a director that's over us. And so the director called me, and she said, have you heard about this? And I said, no. But, you know, the way that some of our parents are, I was thinking back to when my boys were younger, they would do the tag, and it was a laser gun. And I thought, some of these parents are not going to go for this. And she said, no, no, no, no, they don't use guns with it. It's like a tag game. And so I was like, okay, well, that sounds pretty cool. And so I looked it up, you know, on the website, and I noticed that it, you know, it's just the wrist thingamajigger. And they just, I don't know, play tag. So it just said that anybody recommended it. They didn't. It's just my director had heard about it through somebody else.
Kristin Neal: I mean, just word of mouth. Yeah.
thomassonh: Did she go to a conference? No. Maybe a teacher knew about it. I don't know.
Kristin Neal: That's cool. We'll take We'll take any how a bird could have told her.
thomassonh: And I think they're going to order it, too. So you'll probably be getting an order from them and from me. I just told her, said, well, look, you know, I've signed up for this meeting. Let me see what it's about. And then I'm going to report back to her.
Kristin Neal: That's awesome. Thank you so much for clarifying that, Heather. So we will absolutely jump in. Are we talking about elementary school sites or are we talking middle school?
thomassonh: Well, we are a pre-K through eighth grade school. So we do accommodate, but the majority of the kids that I have in the after school program go up to, well, it goes up to eighth grade, but the majority are through fifth. So we have pre-K through fifth, and then we have some sixth through eighth grade that are kind of sprinkled in there.
Kristin Neal: Perfect. Perfect. I know you're busy, so I'm going to just jump in.
thomassonh: Is that okay?
Kristin Neal: Yeah, sure. Awesome. I'm going to share my screen and I'm right now what we're going to share with you. It's exactly what your team will get when you purchase the ZTAG system, okay? So this will all be sent to you forwarded so you can go over more thoroughly with your team. And this meeting is also recorded so you can share this with your director. Sound good?
thomassonh: I'm trying to pick this camera because I'm looking. I've got a double screen and so I'm looking one way and to the other. Okay, maybe that's a little better.
Kristin Neal: There we go. Awesome. Awesome. So here we are welcoming you to the ZTAG community. We have our quick start videos. This is how we instruct your team on how to set up the Zeus. Wear these ZTAggers. This is our Zeus system right here, our V2. All compact. It has the wheels. It has a handle on the other side. Everything you need is in that one box. There's also no Wi-Fi that you need to connect to any school Wi-Fi. It has a router actually that can. Next, and right here to the top. So that's that, and all you need is that plug. That's simple. Yeah, it's great for working out in the fields. You know, you just need an extension cord or a generator. And you can also put it in, like, your gym if you have somewhere where there's a large screen or even a library. We love libraries. There's an HDMI cord right here, a plug, so you can get it on that big screen. Everything right here is this touch screen right here. Very simple.
thomassonh: Anyone that can do, like, an Apple Pad, iPad, can easily do that.
Kristin Neal: In fact, a lot of schools for, like, your eighth graders, they have that as a leadership role. So they have, like, a tech team leader, things like that, that kind of manage this also. This also has a three-hour battery. It charges, it takes one hour to charge, three to four hours. But if you're, if you have the. 24 players, we suggest just rotating them in and out. It really helps the longevity of your activity. And you'll see there's educational games, and we have entertainment games. So whether you need to dial in the, like for tutoring or after school or anything like that, that's a great method that you can use those games as transition or to get that energy out for those rainy days. Yeah. So this is the ZTAgger. And yes, you're right. Everything is contactless because everything is based on these sensors right here. So everything just connects. And you can have it. We really, really suggest training up the kids and having to come up and show how far they need to be. So they really don't need to be close at all in order for them to be tagged.
thomassonh: Okay.
Kristin Neal: It all has lights, sounds, it vibrates. It's, it grabs your attention. It starts, beep, beep. I mean, it's all eyes are on their watch. So we have those things that are great for adding to like a glow party. That's, they use these for, they use the system for Fun Friday incentives. So it really helps with attendance, boosting attendance, things like that. And yeah, that's, that's a zombie survival. That's my favorite. Yes. Yes. So you'll get the videos of how to, of the hardware. And you'll also get videos of how to play the games. But before I get to the games, is there any questions on the hardware?
thomassonh: No, not so far.
Kristin Neal: Okay, awesome. You'll get, before I forget, sorry, you'll get 24 players, but you also get two additional, just in case. Okay. So 26. Here's some games. I'm going to show you these games. And this is in the order that we suggest because this is how we're getting the kids to focus on their own. Okay. So we have the. Red light, green light? I'm going to do red light, green light. That's the first game I typically introduce new players to. I press assign all, and that moves all the available ZTAggers to the playing ZTAggers. And then I press next. And during this time, the system is sending a get ready signal to all the ZTAggers, and you'll see on your wristband here, it says get ready. Once it says get ready, and you see there are green check marks on all of them, that means the system is ready to start the game. And you just have to press start match, and this will go. Okay, so this game, whenever it's green, you want to have the people move around and shake. And whenever it goes red, and you keep moving, you'll see that it says you're out. When you're green, you want to move as much as you can, and as soon as it's red, you've got to stop. And if I didn't stop in time, you saw that it has a warning signal. So right now, I move when it's green, and as soon as it's red, so I stop, and then you see my score increases the more that I move when it's green. So the kids are really kind of glued to that scoreboard that will tell them where they're at. And on this one, I'll just kind of briefly quick, because I, we can, so we can move on. This one right here, it does show that, that student would be out, but instead of them having go and sit out, there's a, up here in a cog in that previous screen, you're actually able to adjust that to where it just minuses points. So they're still in the game, they can still win it, and they're not technically out. So there's that, that option. Okay, we have our next one. That's the best. Just wanting to get the kids up and moving and getting them focused really helps with getting them focused. This is our next one. Math match is very similar to pattern match, except this one, you're solving math problems. So you'll have players who have the answers and other players who have the questions. And in the configuration, you can determine whether you're doing these various operators. So, for example, if someone has two plus two and this person has four, they're going to link up and get points. So we're really clear communicating exactly what they're looking for. And with, I actually skipped that one. It was the pattern match. That's the next one that it was describing. But we're working on clear communication, what they have, blue triangle, blue triangle. But the math match and then there's a new game that is our language wave. It's the same concept as a pattern match. Half will have English. The other half will have Spanish or French. And they have to find. So they'll say, gato, gato, and someone will say, oh, cat, cat. Yeah. We also have, so those are our, this one is how we start. This is how we get them to connect to each other.
thomassonh: And then this is our zombie survival. This was a kid's favorite. I'm sure it is.
Kristin Neal: In this game of zombie survival, we have three roles. We're going to have the humans, who are green, zombies, who are red, and the doctors, who are going be white. And we can randomly assign them. Actually, I'm going to take a few more taggers out, just for demo. And I'm turning them on with a red switch right here. Wait a few seconds for them to load up and then put them into random. Also, while we're waiting for that, we can go into the settings to see some of the parameters you can adjust. For example, you can change the total time on this game. You can also change how many zombies or doctors you have put into the game. Let me first show you how the rules work. So we randomly assigned people to be humans, zombies, or doctors. The humans, they're trying to just stay away from the zombies and not be cat. The zombies are trying to get close to the humans by getting their screen linked to a human screen and convert the human into a zombie. Now, if the zombie gets close enough to a human, the human gets infected and has about 10 seconds to go find a doctor. That's good. If you can't find a doctor in 10 seconds, then they become a zombie and they can start trying to tag other humans. The amount of time that someone stays in transition or infected mode is dependent on what you write here. So you can change the infection direction to be 10 seconds or longer depending on the game. But for most of our games, pretty quick pace, 10 seconds is a good amount. And then also the doctor, this is a really key role. If you give this to a player who might be a little shy or possibly has special needs, this is a great way to increase their engagement because everyone who gets infected by a zombie is going to to the doctor. Get saved, and it's really going to boost the self-confidence of this player. And to assign someone manually a doctor, let's say you want this tagger to be a doctor, can find that they're number 18, go in here and select the doctor status, and this player will later on be the doctor. Very simple. So for the sake of this demo, I'm going to put a few zombies on the side here. Actually, I'm going to start with one zombie here. So we're going to do 06 as the zombie, and everybody else will have it as a human, and then 18 as a doctor. So 18 I'm going set here. 06 I'm going to set aside. And then all the ones over here are going to be humans when I start. So let's go to next. You'll see the load screen, and everybody's ready to go. Want to get ready? Okay. So you see, these are the humans. That's the doctor. I'm going to turn it upside down right now so I can demonstrate for you the interaction. If this zombie gets close to these when their screens are facing, you'll see they get infected. In fact, you see that signal actually crossed over to here. go. And if these people are close to the doctor, the doctor will save one person. The doctor will only save one person because the doctor actually goes into a timeout after some time and has to wait about five seconds before the doctor can save someone else's thing. The doctor also has this ability to stun a zombie so that the zombies can't infect for a short amount of time. And because these are all on the table here, I'm basically bouncing the signal back to them. You'll see it's very easy for them to infect. But typically these are actually on player so they're running around so the interaction won't be so instantaneous. So that's basically how you operate ZTAG in a nutshell. Alright. Awesome.
thomassonh: It's very simple.
Kristin Neal: Very, very simple, yes. In fact, that's one of the highlights of it for sure. But that one was a great collaborative where they're really collaborating and whoever's in Trying to figure out how to work as a team. So, all right. Did you have any questions on the games?
thomassonh: I don't.
Kristin Neal: Okay. So you're going to see the six, and then you'll have the additional two. It'll be the language wave. And then the other one I forgot to mention was the sequence train. And that one's a very, very fun game. And one of my favorites, because you can see the kids when they very first do it, they're really not good at it at all. They kind of, it's almost like they forget. Like, did you forget how to count by fives? But they get better and better and better. So they see it. And it's a timed game. So you really want to encourage them, you know, get better and get the highest number. So they'll start with five and see how high they can get in that time. This is a video how your team would shut down the Zeus. This is our operations manual, very thorough. Everything they need to know in there. And this is our fun, newly updated. This is actually. Brand new. We just unveiled this last week. So it's our community launch pack. So what we love is this is a real partnership with you guys. And we want to make sure that that's done correctly. And we got great feedback with saying we would love to know what other teachers are doing. Kind of like what you were saying about, you know, networking and just, you know, getting people together. So we have here educator video library, and this is how ZTAG is in schools. The other ways that they're being used. So here you'll see they're playing it on those scooters.
thomassonh: I don't know if you have those. we have scooters.
Kristin Neal: We do. Perfect. So this would be something that they could play with it. There's an obstacle course right here with the math match. Red light, green light with the ball. So it's not ZTAG is not just, okay, we can bring around. Yeah. And it's not just run around. Yeah. And it's not just something you can just use once in a while.
thomassonh: It is. Absolutely, can use for every single thing. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Awesome. Did you have any questions about this community page? This, let me see. We have, this is the welcome letter. That was this part. This here we have our digital files. If you have any artwork that you need, anything like that, everything is provided here. And, of course, we have what others are doing. You'll see there's a woman in here that's giving her a review. And I love it because she shares that she actually has a kid sign a contract with the parents. So it's really getting the parents and the students, you know, being really held accountable. Yeah. Yeah. So here we have, watch more, if you need more information, you're welcome to reach out to us. Is there any questions? Is it on the hardware or the software?
thomassonh: I don't have any. I just kind of basically wanted to know, you know, the gist of it, of what it was about.
Kristin Neal: Awesome.
thomassonh: And so you've done that.
Kristin Neal: And so since this is recorded, I'll just send it to our director and let her watch it.
thomassonh: Like I said, they're thinking about getting it for their program as well.
Kristin Neal: Wonderful. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Heather. That'll be great to forward that to her. So I'll go right now over, excuse me, what the coverage is for the unit. So once you purchase the unit, you will be covered for 12 months with a manufacturer's warranty. This is automatically applied. But you do, however, have options for continued coverage after that. So we want to be able to take that, you know, stress off of your site coordinators. Okay. So here we do offer six ZTAggers per year. And you have the offer to cover it. Option of one, three to five years. The five years, would love to, we would love that commitment. And we also offer the community pack with that. So this right here, digital trading resources, everything is on that welcome letter. Here we go. And this down here is the community pack right here, included free. So you will actually get, we want to make sure your events are being supported as best we can. So with that four year, five year coverage plan, we will offer the printed banner. So what was it called? A sandwich banner? Is that what you call it? A-frame? Sandwich board. Sandwich board. Thank you. Sandwich board, the branded tablecloth, and the standing materials. Okay. That'll come with that. And here are some other, you can also get custom materials. So you can have your school name on those banners. Okay. And here are the costs of those, one, three, and five. And that's it. I'll also send this to you so you can read the video. Okay. Heather, was there any questions on the coverage?
thomassonh: I'm sorry. I'm listening. We've got a kid that got hurt on the bus, and I didn't hear it with the last part of what you said, because I hear him crying coming down the hall.
Kristin Neal: Of course. Of course. No. Did you have any questions?
thomassonh: As far as like a warranty, have you mentioned a warranty? Is there a warranty?
Kristin Neal: Yes.
thomassonh: The next thing.
Kristin Neal: Okay. This is it right here.
thomassonh: This is the warranty. Okay.
Kristin Neal: We offer the one year. I got you. But anything past that are these right here.
thomassonh: Okay. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: And I'll send it all over for you to look over.
thomassonh: Perfect.
Kristin Neal: Awesome. Okay.
Quan Gan: A question. I'm not sure if I heard I had to step out for a bit. Did you mention the actual price of the unit?
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Thank you, Quan. Yes, actual price of the unit, $9,700 is the retail price for the 24-player.
thomassonh: All right. So it's $9,700, and then the additional, like whatever plan you pick, the one year.
Kristin Neal: It's not mandatory. These are optional. This will just cover the hardware and any future updates. Your purchase, you just need that, and you'll be able to play forever.
thomassonh: There's no subscription.
Kristin Neal: This is just an option for coverage for the hardware and future updates.
Quan Gan: If I may, I'll just chime in kind of to share with you the difference. So we as a manufacturer will cover anything on the hardware as far as the quality of the product itself. We'll be warranting that for the first year. It's really the incidences that may happen. You know, with a usage, you know, let's say a child might, you know, bump into another child and, you they break something on the device. So that would, that would not be covered under manufacturer's warranty. And that's where the extended care kicks in. And, you know, we cover up to six incidences per year, which is actually, we would never really run up to that number. Um, so that's why we have that number in there, but also, um, it's not, it's also to emphasize it is an optional extended plan because with proper training and showing the kids that you don't need to have physical contact, you actually reduce a lot of the risk of breaking the gear. So a lot of it is on the early training to make sure both your site coordinator and the kids know how to properly operate the devices. Okay.
Kristin Neal: It's also, I forgot to mention, it has this guard around it. I'm not sure if you can tell from this picture, but it's also has a double screen, uh, protection.
thomassonh: Okay.
Kristin Neal: And Quan actually came from the The entertainment industry. So this has gone through, like, he understands about needing high-peam things.
Quan Gan: When you see here, it's actually about eight years of product development. So our company's been around at least eight, I think we're at nine years now. And prior to working with schools, it's actually been very much hardened through the School of Hard Knocks, which are family fun centers, theme parks, birthday operators. So the kids tend to be a lot more abusive in those settings. That's why we added the various hardware protection. So the device is pretty robust on its own, but, you know, we can't cover 100% of the incident.
thomassonh: Right. Okay. Okay.
Quan Gan: So the extended plan, it's recommended, but it's absolutely not an obligation to run the games.
thomassonh: All right.
Kristin Neal: Awesome, Heather. Okay. Okay. Please let us know if you have any questions. Okay, we're here.
thomassonh: So when we go, if she decides to purchase this, is that something I need to reach back to you? Or I just go to the company and...
Kristin Neal: Yes, ma'am. Go ahead and just email me back and let us know if you'd like to move forward.
thomassonh: Would you like me to start you off with a quote? Yes, please.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
thomassonh: And that's my email. Well, I would, you know, my school would get one, of course, and then her school, but it would be two separate, you know, schools. So I don't know if you just want to quote me for one.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, that sounds good.
thomassonh: All right.
Kristin Neal: All right. Thank you. All right. Have a good day. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
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Ferenc Orban: Hi Quan.
Quan Gan: Hey Ferenc, welcome back. How's it going? Can you hear me? Yeah, no, can. Wrong headphones. Okay, welcome back.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, thanks. How are you doing?
Quan Gan: I'm good. I'm at a trade show for the next three days.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, just so. How's that going?
Quan Gan: Good. We just set up yesterday. So, yeah, today's the first day.
Ferenc Orban: Do these trade shows produce many leaves?
Quan Gan: Yeah, this is the biggest one of the year. So, potential sale of, you know, many systems. The some are of We We Yeah, we have a lot of school districts come in to see the products, looking forward to it.
Ferenc Orban: Is it a trade show for schools?
Quan Gan: Yeah, the after school programs. Are Chaba's out today?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, and tomorrow it's a national holiday, and on Friday I will be here in Chaba. I took another day off, so we can have a long weekend. So, yeah, I won't be with them, so.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Ferenc Orban: We'll see you around the meeting.
UTF LABS: Hi Sean, hi guys. How are you?
Quan Gan: Good, are you?
UTF LABS: Good, how are you?
Quan Gan: I think we have everybody. Chapa is now joining us today.
UTF LABS: I think we can start now. Okay, so the update on RN, Basim has been working on updating the score to Zeus from the ballgame, so that's done, and now the Tigers are updating their live score to Zeus as well. Now he's working on an issue that he found that when the Tigers are connected to charge, sometimes they go to the reset screen and they start the game. So that goes without a difference. I'll see you time. The overlapped the charging screen and the main logo screen. So it's sort of a small bug that he's looking into right now. He's looking on that. On the other hand, I found another issue with the pause functionality. I'm still looking into it. It's not yet resolved. But yeah, when we click on pause, so sometimes the taggers get stuck. There aren't many more logs to identify the exact issue. So I'm still looking at it, but sometimes it happens that it sometimes gets stuck. I mean, when I reduce the tagging delay to 100 milliseconds from like 2000 seconds, it's working like, you can see the tagging happening very fast. I still think that it might be taking more than 100 milliseconds. I'll still look into it. But so far, the overall tagging is now a lot faster than what we previously have. had. Also like made some changes to put it fast in the display update rate as well, but it's like taking, as I mentioned yesterday as well, it's taking like 150 to 250 milliseconds currently. So I have to look into it to update it now.
Quan Gan: Okay. A couple of questions on the timing. For the infrared, are you giving it a constant delay or are you adding any kind of randomization?
UTF LABS: It's a constant delay right now. It's basically defined in the game config file. So the tagging delay, it's defined in the config file format.
Quan Gan: Okay. I think if it's not too difficult to change the algorithm, I suggest adding it now because that's more reflective of the realistic. usage where you have a random delay so they don't consistently step on each other if that happens and they're having a backup. Like a sequential back-off with listen-first-and-speak algorithm.
UTF LABS: So you mean like I had different ranges of delays, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah, different ranges of delays, but also just make sure the protocol is you listen to see if there's anything on the IR channel first before you speak. Then it hopefully allows more bandwidth so they're not stepping on each other. And then adding some kind of a random seed in there with some variable delay. But maybe in the beginning you listen first and immediately speak. But then if you listen first and the channel is not clear, then you may have to wait a random time. But that random time may have a back-off, meaning the first time you check. to again might be immediately but if it's still not clear then you wait a little bit longer and then if it's still not clear you wait even longer so it's kind of like a I forget what the algorithm is for back-off but it might be doubling the back-off time until you wait long enough and there's still there's no channel and then you speak do we have something like this already pairing or do we have to implement it from stretch?
Ferenc Orban: I think it should be done on the like the driver level or the interface level there were there were two things related to this there was one thing when we were working with the LT tagging there was this issue when messages collided messages from two different devices collided and they couldn't mess up each other's messages so we had the delay so you You can imagine if by some, like somehow the messages align up at one point in time, if you don't add a random delay, you would always receive the signals at the same time from the two devices, if the timing is the same. Like both devices send a message every 200 millisecond, then if these two messages align up in time at one point, then the next one, and the next one, and the next one, all the messages will align up. And if you add the delay to this algorithm, you don't send the message exactly at every 200 milliseconds, but plus or minus 50 milliseconds. Then there's a good chance that the next message from one of the devices, even after they are lined up at one point, one of the messages will come at 150 milliseconds. The next one will come at 250, so on, and so sorry, your mic is on, I think, so you won't get this interference with the messages, so this is one point that we do have, this is just a simple random seed in the message sending. So, I think it was, we had the messages, if I remember correctly, 100 milliseconds, 125 plus or minus 50 or something. So it went from 75 milliseconds to 175 milliseconds. So this was the interval where the messages were sent out. So you could basically keep your setting just. The way it is, but you hard-code this random seed into the message timing. So this would be one point. And the other one was, what Quan suggested, was the waiting for its time. So listen first thing. I think this was implemented as well for the LTE. I'm not sure if it's necessary in the IR, but it's Quan said, so I'm not exactly clear on what we decided on. But I think we were talking about the IR as well, back when we first started talking about this a year ago. So yeah, there should be an implementation for the listen first algorithm as well. Yeah, and I think it's called something, listen first something. So it's inundated to listen first. And I think Chavo implemented it.
Quan Gan: I'll post an algorithm for that. It should be pretty straightforward, but I just want to make sure you guys consider it and bake it into whatever layer. So if it's driver, then yeah, then put it in the drivers.
UTF LABS: I think it should be in the driver, both of these.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, think there was something with the listen first. It was first implemented for DIT. The IR was fast enough, so we left it behind, but I'm not sure if it was implemented for the IR as well. But there was an implementation for listen first. I'm quite sure about that. We can ask Chabot about that when he comes back.
Quan Gan: I'll post it right in the message. Oh, it's too long. Okay, let me shorten it. Okay, and then also for the screen or other things that's related to timing, I wonder if you guys have a method to output the timing on the various tasks that are happening. I know if you put it in the print F statements, just the actual printing itself to serial may actually be slower, potentially much slower than the actual execution of the tasks. But I don't know if there's any other way to monitor or trace it. It's almost like, let's say if you had an oscilloscope connected to your chip, and then when you're actually asserting a certain task, you raise the line from low to high, and then when the task ends, it goes from high to low again. And imagine if you had, let's say, So a number of different IOs connected to each task. So let's say we had like five tasks and then you have five pins tied to high and low of those tasks executing. And when you're actually running through the tasks and you have a oscilloscope tied to it, you should be able to see a trace of the timings of all of these tasks coming in and executing and finishing. So being able to see something like that might be very useful in figuring out how to get the proper task management to work. So you can see exactly, you know, what process is coming in most of the time and the hogging the space to really see accurate timing. So I don't know if you guys have a setup to do that potentially.
Ferenc Orban: We don't have, I don't think we have a logging system for this, but the best practice for this is having. Saving this information into, let's say, an array or some sort of data structure, and dumping the info afterwards. So you're not receiving this information real time, but you're receiving it afterwards. So you're just saving. The saving doesn't take much time, as much at least as the value. So you could log into a file after that.
Quan Gan: But then it's also, if you're putting it into a dump, timing when you want to start that dump and ending that dump is going to be really important because it could quickly flood, right?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah. So you don't want to use up much space, but you want to know when you start it and when you finish it. So you can do it when the device starts up, but if you want to check something during the gameplay, then it will definitely fill up until you get there. So, yeah. As you're saying, there needs to be a trigger that triggers this process, so dumping, saving process, and the dump comes afterwards, when all the info you need is received or saved, so you can time it if you want, so you can make a timer for, I don't 10 seconds, 2 seconds, however long you want to save this information, and you just dump it. And you could go and do it in an ongoing fashion, so you can save this information for 10 seconds, dump all the information, you know that the information that you dump is correct, but you can't necessarily, I mean, can, yeah, there are techniques, but yeah, so you can, you could theoretically manage to put these dumps one after the other. So you could connect these, and I have audio. From the running process.
Quan Gan: Achaba, does your team actually have hardware logic analyzers or scopes or anything?
Ferenc Orban: Ours?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, well, we do have oscilloscopes and digital oscilloscopes, maybe.
Quan Gan: I think the hardware dumps is good, but I think also just trying to figure out that logic might take longer than just having the physical hardware, and then you wire up, you know, your various IOs, because then, you know, exactly when you're monitoring this issue, you can just press and stop the trigger, versus, you relying on us having to make sure the dumps are working properly first.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, I've been using a lot of oscilloscopes when doing the tagging in the air team stuff, so, like, the timing was. So we did use a bunch of tools.
Quan Gan: Yeah, since that's pretty critical, think putting a hardware scope on it might be a better way to really get that surgical precision on there.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, we can do that.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Ferenc Orban: We need to lay out the testing criteria, so what we want to test is what we want to fix.
Quan Gan: Okay. Sean, are you understanding what I'm asking?
UTF LABS: Yeah, I got the whole idea of what you said with respect to the oscilloscope. Yeah, I think it's good. I tried to do something similar using the ESP logs and then feeding it to AI, but not exactly what you said. So if we can get access to an oscilloscope, we'll have a better idea.
Quan Gan: Yeah, because the ESP logs, it takes... It takes a very long time to be able to do any kind of print statements, and it's going through several layers of embedded processes, so it's not going to be accurate at all, especially when you're getting down to task-critical timing.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, the logs are a little bit cool.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
UTF LABS: The logs are usually, like, they are faster than BigDef, but still, they'll obviously take some time to print. What we can do is, like, we can have a consistency of, like, delays between them, between one log and another, but, yeah, we'll still need exact knowledge from the OSC score.
Quan Gan: Okay. I mean, right now, how many tasks do we have running concurrently?
UTF LABS: I think we have one each for the peripherals. Then we have one for the task manager, the game manager, and I'll check the rest of them.
Quan Gan: Okay. I don't know if we have that many pins that are available. Ideally, every task has its own pin. But you might have... I have to create some kind of infrastructure to say, okay, I'm running the first set of tests. And the first set of tests, they wire up, let's say you only have five pins, you know, for the oscilloscope. Then you have some kind of a log saying, okay, I'm running the first set of tests, and these are the tasks that I'm wiring up and connected so that once you produce your oscilloscope output, you can map it onto exactly which task you're testing for.
Ferenc Orban: We can do it in binary if we have three or four pins, three pins, I think.
Quan Gan: Three pins, yeah.
Ferenc Orban: You can do binary.
UTF LABS: Do they have GPIO exposed inside?
Ferenc Orban: What?
UTF LABS: I'm asking like the R-taggers. Do they have GPIOs exposed when you install them from behind?
Quan Gan: You have at least one. I think, I think at least two pins, because if you look at the side of the M5, there's, there's a growth port, and that should have at least two pins on there for you.
UTF LABS: What? It was like, for something like I2C. Are you, are you using it? No, not really using in this one, but I remember seeing it mentioned like it is for I2C or something. I'm not sure which one this, our tag has had.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Ferenc Orban: Well, I was imagining opening up one of these devices, and we do have pins inside. I'm not sure how many of those are in use, because there's a bunch of pins. Those are usually not all used.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I would say start with using the, the growth pins on the, on the side. You have two, just to get a proof of concept. I think with two pins, you know, it's, it's not great, but you can at least always compare between. Two different tasks and see, and then if you do enough of these, figure out which task actually is executing the most. And then you theorize, okay, this is how the task looks, and then you actually do the measurement and then see if it's consistent with what your theory says. And then you can dive a little bit deeper. And if you need more pins, yeah, you can expose it, but for now you can try the two without having to open any hardware.
UTF LABS: It says for input interface, let me see, and group, and it says I2C, IO, or UR. So I think we should have like two IOs.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah, because unless there's some other major bottleneck that we're still not clear on, I think maybe it's time to get into the refinement. And to, you know, really get the tasks laid out to know, okay, exactly when they're coming and then, and they actually come producing a timing diagram. So then we can actually see how long each of the tasks take to execute.
Ferenc Orban: So you mean these four pins that are exposed, we should use some of these?
Quan Gan: There's two of them because I believe you have a ground and a five on two of those.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, for some of those two.
Quan Gan: Yeah. I mean, do you guys agree that this is the stage to test this, or would you say later, you know, there's still other things to clean up?
Ferenc Orban: Well, having the setup for it would be nice anyhow.
UTF LABS: I think one thing can look into it, and we can continue developing. And if we have this, it would be helpful.
Quan Gan: And Sean, what, what brand? I'm sure you guys are developing on mostly now.
UTF LABS: We're on the East Bradshaw. I did mention on Discord.
Quan Gan: Okay. What's the ongoing plan? Is it to merge it back to main?
UTF LABS: We have several branches. What do we do to handle that? Yeah. So once I get it working on a stable level, I'll merge it back into the main. I discussed it with Java as well last week. But so once we have something stable, we'll merge it back into the main.
Quan Gan: Okay. Ferry, what about your side?
Ferenc Orban: Well, as you know, I just got back from the holidays. So I've been picking up Steam and I wanted to work on the task that Java started. I did have some issues starting it up. And running the MQTT part as well. So I've been working on that, and I also tried to look into the code that has been, like the tests, the unit tests that were created initially. Because before yesterday's meeting, I talked about Chava on what he sees there is to do, what I could take over while he's gone. So there were a few things, like updating the unit tests, so they run on the current state of the drivers, because we're not sure how much those have changed since the tests have been created. So that was one thing. There is the MQTT dropping out every once in a while that I could work on. And there is the other one. one. There is And the compatibility between the two types of code, like the devices on the Zeus. So they will be compatible. So this is the task that I started to work on, but it seemed a big bite for me right now. So I decided to start working on the unit tests. So that's what I started doing. I still have some issues with my Python here, because I have too many Pythons installed, I think. And it's not running correctly, but that's what I'm working on.
Quan Gan: Okay, so what's the plan for the next couple of days between the two teams now?
Ferenc Orban: So there was a... I think I would leave what Chaba started to Chaba, just so I... All right. I'm not even sure that I can start working on it until it comes back, you know, since I only have Friday for that. So I would much rather start working on the task, on the tests, on the unit tests, updating those. So if I can get those up and running and updated, then I would be great. And also this thing that you, that we talked about just now, the tests, I'm not sure what priority this gets.
Quan Gan: Well, I think, when are you guys both back? Is that by next week?
Ferenc Orban: When are we?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Ferenc Orban: I didn't get the last part.
Quan Gan: Yeah, when are you guys both back and working?
Ferenc Orban: Well, I'm just going to see it for next week, I think. Next week we'll do it, we'll be here.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I think the main theme is just continue making sure the necessary tests are there and then having a good handoff so Sean's team can use those tests to verify everything they're doing.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, okay. So I'll be working on the classes. And also I think it's really important to force Chaba to finish what he started with the compatibility.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, so unit tests and then also maybe on your side, wire up the framework for oscilloscope testing on the task timing.
Ferenc Orban: Okay.
Quan Gan: And then, yeah, and meanwhile, Sean, your team continue working on cleaning up whatever you can without those insights. But hopefully once those insights come in, it gives you much more clarity on exactly how the tasks are being handled.
UTF LABS: Yeah, we'll continue continue like waiting on. Or even optimizing and if we find any more bugs. It's good that we are finding these kinds of things at this moment. So it's good that we are taking care of them right now, but yeah, there are some small optimizations that we have noted right now. So we'll continue working with respect to the charging screen and all those kinds of things. So hopefully this will be solved soon. And then so the major task is for me to reduce the display flash rate. That I think will take some time. So we'll try to look after this small issue.
Quan Gan: We'll try to look into the display issue. Okay. And when do you think would be the proper time to start refactoring and reducing the line count on the game itself?
UTF LABS: Uh, yeah, was thinking, thinking to already started, but then I, uh, when this starts small bugs, static repairs, I thought, let's get rid of them first and then we'll look into this. So ideally if, uh, the display and other things. These are done, so I'll ask Basim to look into it for Monday, but yeah, sometime during next week.
Quan Gan: Okay. Sounds good. Do guys have any other questions or comments?
Ferenc Orban: No.
UTF LABS: I think tomorrow is all for everyone.
Ferenc Orban: For us it is it. For you too?
UTF LABS: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. For one day, shall we resume on Friday?
UTF LABS: Yeah, we'll resume on Friday.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Bye, guys. Bye. Bye, guys.
Quan Gan: Hey guys, hi guys, hi guys, guys, right there, do we have everybody?
UTF LABS: Yeah, I think we can start then, on my end, I was working on the pause issue that I discovered Wednesday, so basically I was able to fix it, use it in Texas, so that is now, think, then I started to work on the speed refresh rate for the 10 hertz, the hertz. So basically, I was able to get it to work a lot faster, but when we increased the speed, seems to have an impact, which seems like the display is hanging, or not so much boot updates on the display. I'll try to record a video and send it to you, and you can also push the code after the meeting. And then, I also observed, due to this past, like the loop is going so fast, that sometimes the pause messages are being missed, even though currently, they are not, it's okay, fine, I've made some last changes, it seems to be fine, but pausing and like having this scope so fast, it seems like it is causing some issues and not visually really good. So, yeah, but the display is now operating very fast.
Quan Gan: Oh, what is your record?
UTF LABS: I tried, I think it's... Currently at 5 Hertz, I've tried more as well, but then I decreased it to 2.5, which seems a bit like towards normal, like this visually looks better. At 2.5 Hertz, when I'm at 5 Hertz, seems like the display is getting stuck while updating. It's updating so far that it's giving that regression.
Quan Gan: Where in the code can you make the adjustment?
UTF LABS: I think it's a variable. It's a value that we are editing in the ballgame file for now. It's a check where the function where the display is updating. I'll let you know, it's the exact line number where we are checking it. You can play around with it as well. So it makes that loop go so fast that... Shouldn't that variable be somewhere further in the driver? Yeah, it should do. Basically, currently it's the function that's in the ballgame. So once it is like finalized, we'll have to move it to either the interface or the driver, basically because the driver doesn't really have like a function to get the screen flashed, currently it's handed in the game loop by the game itself.
Quan Gan: Okay, is it possible that very structure is potentially also causing the problem?
UTF LABS: It's possible. I looked into it, so I asked AI what's causing this so much, but so it seems like it's updating so fast, even though it is e-sprite, but it's updating so fast that it obviously it will take some time to, it takes around like 40 to 50 milliseconds to update the screen and to push the new buffer. So it might be causing that illusion that it's updating slowly. So I'm still playing around with it. We'll see how good it can be.
Quan Gan: Okay, and then if it is currently in the game, is it happening sequentially and thus blocking other things or is it a separate thread that's running independently?
UTF LABS: It's independent. Basically, it's handled by the display thread. So other things like MBTT or other things are separate, but since it's executing so fast that it was missing the false commands earlier, I made some changes and I tested it, so it's working fine now. But still, I suspect it might cause issues further down the line.
Quan Gan: Okay, are we still seeing any MQTT issues?
UTF LABS: Disconnections? I'm currently testing on my own view since me and Basim are working separately, so I tried it there. If I use my own local views on my laptop, Basim is also using its local views on laptop, so from local views it's working perfectly fine, it even connects within a few milliseconds of powering on the device, but I suspect when we go to the main views, it will cause some issues, we'll test it tomorrow, we'll try to test it tomorrow, I'll ask Basim to have a look at the actual views, but I think it will cause some issues.
Quan Gan: Shana, are you still speaking?
UTF LABS: Yeah, can you guys hear me?
Quan Gan: Yeah, okay.
UTF LABS: Yeah, I was saying like, Basim are currently working on our own local views on our laptops, but I suspect when I will test it with the actual views, it might cause the issue.
Quan Gan: Wait, Why do you think that?
UTF LABS: I'm not sure. I'll test it tomorrow. But I think since the broker on the Raspberry Pi is a bit slow as well, but I don't see that the slowness of the broker will cause such an issue. But I'll ask Basim to test it tomorrow, probably, and then I'll update it.
Quan Gan: I have a question comparing this code versus the code in production right now. Because I know when we turn on the ZTAggers, it takes maybe up to 20 seconds for the signal bars to show up and then actually getting into a game. Are you able to tell me what accounts for most of that wait time?
UTF LABS: In the production code?
Quan Gan: Yeah, in the production code.
UTF LABS: Yeah, I don't exactly remember, but there was, it's, I think it was the way that sequentially all of the hardware is initialized and then. Wi-Fi is connected, the Wi-Fi connection itself takes some time, and then the MV2T is connected. So we tried to optimize it, if I can recall, but it was taking some time.
Quan Gan: Okay, and what do you think might be the difference right now if you're saying that a pump boot up, it almost instantly connects?
UTF LABS: Yeah, even in that code as well, when we are working on the local device, connects faster than with the Raspberry Pi as broker. Even in the production code as well. But even then, think the newer code is, I would say, structured more cleanly, that even in that case as well, it connects faster than the production code.
Quan Gan: Okay.
UTF LABS: Yeah, because in the previous code, we kept on adding code, and there wasn't any structure, whatever, we thought we started initializing it, and then in between, Wi-Fi was being initialized as well. So, I would say, like, this one is...
Quan Gan: I missed the first thing you said. You said there was, like before all of this, you said there was something else that you fixed early on.
UTF LABS: Could you repeat that? Yeah, was a pause related issue when the game wasn't, you know, pausing. I made some changes. I'm not, I don't remember what exactly what was. So that fixed one thing and then it was causing, like, the game wasn't pausing upon clicking the pause button. So that was the fix.
Quan Gan: Okay. Anything else?
UTF LABS: Yeah, Basim basically, he'll provide this update.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, guys, can you hear me?
Ferenc Orban: Yep.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Okay, so I've been working on charging screens because there was a... The that I noticed, that basically is the device, you were saying something, okay, so basically I noticed a problem, an issue there, that the charging screen was displayed after the ZTAG was subscribed to the MP3 topics, so the issue that arises from this is when the charging screen has been displayed and then other messages are received on those topics, so there's basically a screen overlapping issue, like the charging screen and the logo screens are overlapping, so I needed to fix that thing, and I fixed it, there was a first problem, another issue that I noticed was the ZTAGers weren't sending their charging status, like probably, which is used, like in the debug mode, it should be in Sending status 0 as a false that it's not charging, however it's charging obviously, but to use it should be sending false so that ZTAGOS could be appearing on what it's used. So these were some small errors that I found at Pixel, and currently I also found another error, that was that in the charging screen, since we were running the status monitor task, and the status monitor task is basically responsible for printing the sound icon, the battery icon, and the Wi-Fi and MP3 icons on the top of the screen. So basically the issue was that in the charging screen, although the battery was being displayed, the battery icon was also being displayed, so it was a redundant thing, like the battery being displayed twice on the same screen.帥 so that I have also fixed it. fixed That's it right now, just right now, I'll be doing one 2G, catch the pain, personally, get the wrong game, I'll be doing it, yeah, that's it.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, I've been, as you know, I've been trying to fix the unit tests and get those up to date, so I got a bit late in today, but I'm still working on it. It suggests that I should change the, some of the, some of the versions here, like either the ESP IDF version or the, or the, what, what's the, the Let's Trip version, so that it can run, which seems off to me. So I'm, I think there's some issue on, either on my side or either the code somewhere. So I am looking into that to fix it. I have used AI in the cursor to try and fix this as easily as possible, but I think it just drove me down the wrong rabbit hole, so I am looking at it personally, so I can figure out what they show it. So that's mainly it that I've done. I'm hoping to finish fixing the tests by Monday, figuring this out and update the tests.
Quan Gan: Barry, were you in the conversation or maybe it was Chava a few days ago about implementing some kind of hardware probe on the tasks?
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, it was a meal.
Quan Gan: I think it was yesterday's meeting yeah that's third on the priority list my priority list at least if you yeah so we have the compatibility thing between the devices which Chava started working on so that's I left it up to him I wanted to fix these unit tests and after that the oscilloscope testing would you like me to work on that I have a question for the whole team I'm just trying to figure out like how do we how do we merge the branches so we can try to work on the same piece soon so that you know ideally the end result would be getting this new system compatible with the current one so we need to integrate whatever Chava is working on on the And then still making sure that it has all the fixes that Sean and Basim are working on. And then while they're doing that, we certainly want the unit tests and the probing to also be in place. So how do we merge everything together?
Ferenc Orban: Well, most of Chava's work is on the main. I think the only thing, if I'm not mistaken, is this compatibility thing, which is on a separate branch. So I think he can merge that back, let's say, when he figures this out, I would think he can do this by mid-week, next week. this-week, Thank
Quan Gan: Sean, your end, is there any reason to have two different protocols or should we try to get Chava's work in there as soon as possible?
UTF LABS: No, we don't have an issue with the protocol. If Chava can merge with Backwood, we can use that. We also have to merge a lot of things in the main. So I was thinking we can spend some time, I went on one day or Tuesday, and merge stuff going back into the main branch.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. Let's try to merge first and see. That might uncover some issues too. So I think it might be more immediate just getting the merge.
UTF LABS: Okay. We'll try to finalize what me and Basim both have on our ends. Push it to my branch. And then we'll try to merge it on Monday or Tuesday, even if Chava can return, might have, since he's been merging the code as well, so he might have some of you in as well, and then he can merge.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and yeah, Ferry, I would say continue working on the unit test first, because that can at least test whatever we're trying to merge, and then as soon as that's done, let's work on the hardware test. Okay. Okay. One other question for Basim, how do you change the debug versus non-debug mode to display or not display the battery indicator?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Well, I'm doing the same technique, we just do it live.
Quan Gan: I'm sorry, I can't hear you.
Muhammad Basim Ali: I'm you guys? Yeah, I can't hear you.
Quan Gan: No.
Muhammad Basim Ali: So it's kind of muffled.
UTF LABS: Yeah, so basically it's, can you hear me?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Ferenc Orban: Yeah, so it's basically the same as we have in the previous code.
UTF LABS: You hold down the center button on the tagger while booting it up. That will take it into the debug mode and then will display the actual game or whatever.
Quan Gan: Okay. And right now, if you're testing, you're just burning the same code on multiple devices. And then they're not actually playing the game against any production ZTAggers, correct?
UTF LABS: Yeah, not with the production ZTAggers. Since we don't have that protocol right now, so they can't even play with the production.
Quan Gan: Okay. But what about the actual selection of the ball and assigning?
UTF LABS: Is that working? From the ZEWS?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
UTF LABS: Yeah, everything is working from the ZEWS. You're going to reset the devices, select the game. I start, stop, pause, assign the balls, that is working. I think we had the option of the multiple balls, so multiple ball option is not here currently, but the ball assignment and everything is working.
Quan Gan: Okay, and how many devices do you typically test with?
UTF LABS: For now, for developing, like we use two to three devices each, but when Basim tests, we usually use like four to five.
Quan Gan: Okay, so if I burn five devices and put it there, I should be able to start seeing the ball bounce between all of them?
UTF LABS: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. All right, yeah, I'll see if I can run a test today.
UTF LABS: I'll try to update the latest code as well today, so you can also test the design of the branch.
Quan Gan: Okay, so that's on your branch?
UTF LABS: Yeah, it will be all. think it's Eastbatch, Sean Branch. I'll let you know.
Quan Gan: I had one other question. think it was in the Bugs channel. I didn't get an answer on that one. Hold on. Let's see. Oh, yeah, for 7.0.25T, that firmware, that still has this bug where upon the first boot up, you won't see signal bars on any of the devices unless you pull them out of the device. charged and charging dock and then put them back on the charge. Are you familiar with that bug?
UTF LABS: I'm not sure. I'll have to test it. I remember we discussed something like that, but I will recall it exactly.
Quan Gan: Is it? I think you had fixed it in the in the 7.026 version without the T, but yeah, the 25T doesn't have this fix, but I still like having the rainbow sidebars during the charge.
UTF LABS: Okay, I'll check. Basically, all of the functionalities remain the same. We just changed what in the build system. We just changed what we need to compile for the trade show board. it's functionality is just adds the rainbow feature. Otherwise, all of the things remain the same.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, so if you can explain. Yeah, the way you verify this issue is you basically boot up the ZTAggers at the same time as you boot up the Zeus. Since the... The Zeus and the Wi-Fi router takes about 90 seconds to boot up, then I think the ZTAggers, for some reason, they're timing out or not catching the Wi-Fi. So basically, you have to do a reset on each of the ZTAggers after the Zeus is properly boot up.
UTF LABS: I'll check. I'll have nothing to be.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and then if you don't reset it, but just go straight into the game, you're not going to get the Wi-Fi bars, and it also doesn't do the MQTT acknowledgement. So that's why when you're about to start a game, you can see the ZTAggers, but none of them actually respond back.
UTF LABS: And this happens in the T-builds only, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah, I've only seen this on the T, yes.
UTF LABS: I'll check. I'll look into it in a moment. Thank you. Thank Do you need it immediately or do we have something?
Quan Gan: No, it's not immediate, but I do want to drill into this bug in case it comes up later on.
UTF LABS: I'll plan it sometime later on.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I think that's it for me. See you guys Monday.
Ferenc Orban: Bye guys.
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Preston Pollard: Yeah, tell me a little, I just was curious, know, little bit about yourself and, you know, ZTAG. I'm just curious, yeah, because you'd always, you know, have great things to say. And so.
Quan Gan: Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah. So I, first generation immigrant, grew up in California since 1990 and went to school out here. End up with two engineering degrees and actually, long story short, went to China and then quit my job and started a Halloween haunted house with my now wife. Um, she, we were boyfriend and girlfriend at the time and we scared the out of people. Yeah. It was the first American Halloween haunted attraction there. Uh, we did that in 2009 and 2010. And yeah, it was just a crazy, like full on production with, um, yeah.
Preston Pollard: Yeah. you ever go to the haunted houses? Well, I've only been to like, you know, once I've been like universal.
Quan Gan: Studios, one of those. Yeah, kind of like that, but just like a dedicated single event venue. It was like 10,000 square feet. And it actually, the first year we did it, I calculated we needed about 300 people per night to break even. We did all this promotion and marketing and everything. And, you know, when we actually opened for the first two or three weeks, and we're open only for five weeks, I was averaging maybe somewhere between like 15 and 50 people.
Preston Pollard: Oh, wow.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it was like, it was just not happening. But everybody who went through, they were actually like very genuinely, they liked it. It was something very different. And they started telling their friends. And it started growing, but it wasn't like the direction that it was going to make our money back. But then about halfway through it, some, some person posted a blog article about it. And they ended up writing In such detail. And we try to keep it kind of secret because we don't want to reveal all the tricks. But this person either came in with a camera, which supposedly they didn't have access to, or just has a photographic memory. And they basically wrote an entire layout of like a whole walkthrough of this thing on their blog, like telling you where every single scare, every corridor was happening. And it was crazy. And we're like, no, you just reveal all the tricks. But my wife ended up just like any, any news is probably, you know, it's good news for the business. So she reposted it. And in the matter of a few days, it had gained like six figures of views. And it was starting to like kind of become viral. To the point that we started doubling our attendance on a nightly basis until we capped out at 13, 1300 people a night. And the lines end up being about eight hours long. Yeah.
Preston Pollard: Wow. From a negative to a positive.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah. And it was like, it was. It's like a crazy, phenomenal thing that happened. And so much to the point, there was like ticket scalpers outside. There were like vendors, like just people just kind of flocked to it. We didn't even know what was going on. And then we tried to do it again the second year. And actually, all the profit we made, we actually lost. It was just a bunch of like miscalculations in the market and where things were. So a hard lesson learned, but then what we did do was actually in between, we pivoted to a lighting company. Because I realized in creating the Halloween attractions, one of our biggest pain points was properly lighting the show. And back then, they didn't have anything dedicated for these kind of dark, small spaces to tuck the lights in. You know, you have your traditional really large stage lights. So we decided to invent a product that not only we can use, but also sell
Preston Pollard: To the American Halloween market.
Quan Gan: And so we moved back to California, started selling to Haunted Houses. And then the years after that, it actually crossed over into theme parks. Wow. So yeah, and now fast forward to today, that company's been around since 2010. And we pretty much are on all the major new shows like Universal, Disney, a lot of these new rides. Star Wars or Epic Universe. Because essentially what we do is we make the traditional stage lights that you see everywhere. We pack them down to this size so they can get hidden into all the nooks and crannies of these immersive experiences. Wow. Yeah. So yeah, it's kind of a long story. But because I was working with theme parks, making technology for large-scale interaction was always kind of my jam. Let's see. Thank Like, how do I use technology to get people not only to interact with the show, but also potentially interact with each other? And then 2014, I became a dad, and obviously thinking about our next generation, and basically our kids are born with these in their hands these days.
Preston Pollard: Right.
Quan Gan: And just seeing where we are, we're definitely going towards this Ready Player One or Matrix type of dystopia in many sense if we don't do something about it. So I started to think about what can we do to take the technology that I learned about theme park interaction and apply it to our next generation. And so that's been the mission of ZTAG since the beginning, but it wasn't until this one moment that really, really clicked, because at first it was actually just kind of a side project that my lighting company had.
Preston Pollard: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Quan Gan: Thank you. And we were called to host this event at a comic convention in Phoenix. They had like over 100,000 people over the four days. And we had this zombie laser tag arena where the kids are like running around playing tag and scavenger hunt. And there was this one boy, his name was Logan, and he was probably, I think he was like nine at the time. So he's grown now. So I just remember him playing nonstop other than going to the bathroom. He was in there. He was like, he was the best player or the poster child. And he was going out into the hallway and grabbing more people and getting them to come in to play. Yeah, he was just like super into it. And the last day, his dad came over to the booth to thank me. I'm like, what are you talking about? I should be thanking you because your kid's been helping me run the show and everything. And his dad said, you don't realize this, but my son doesn't. Behave like this normally. He's not that outgoing. And it's actually hard for him to make friends because he gets bullied at school. So bad to the point that we had to pull him out of school. And this comic convention was actually his field trip. But in playing this game, he's come out of his shell, he's making friends, just completely transformed. I didn't know this.
Preston Pollard: Wow.
Quan Gan: And it really hit home for me because I had realized at that moment, I actually fulfilled one of my biggest challenges growing up, especially as an immigrant. I'm here and I look different from a lot of my peers. Fitting in was kind of the theme of all the way up until college, especially for high school. And somehow, like, you know, a decade plus later, I've created a game that kind of fulfilled this need that I didn't back then. This kid. And at that point, I knew, man, this is the mission. Somehow I could use technology to really foster face-to-face communication. And as I started diving deeper into that thesis, I realized that is the ultimate first principles of what this world is now missing. Because our technologies, originally, they were created to connect us so that you and I, we can have this conversation remotely, which is great, right?
Preston Pollard: But same screen now is also dividing our society with, you know, fake news, polarization, and all of this is actually ripping the fabric of society apart.
Quan Gan: And so we decided to see how we can take, or basically fight fire with fire, but take the same technology, but change the underlying DNA for it and the intention behind it and use technology to bring people together. So now these, the things that Ricardo is actually helping us shift. We have these game watches. I don't know if he's shown you, or have you seen anything about it?
Preston Pollard: A little bit, but I need to see it again.
Quan Gan: need to combine, yeah, experience it.
Preston Pollard: okay.
Quan Gan: So it's essentially a watch that keeps track of the game time and the game rules, and depending on what game I select on the main computer, this actually will enforce those game rules. And so I'll ask you this. What is the most popular game of all of human history?
Preston Pollard: Most popular game?
Quan Gan: And when I say all of human history, I mean going back to ancient times, like prehistory.
Preston Pollard: I mean, that's a good question. never even thought of it. I mean, all I would know from back in time was the Romans when they were doing stuff.
Quan Gan: Okay, well, let's just say, before you even put society in there, what's going to happen if you get a bunch of kids? Kids coming together, and they don't even have anything other than, like, they don't even have sticks or tags, right? That is the default human interaction, right?
Preston Pollard: It's running and chasing, right?
Quan Gan: But we don't get to do that anymore. In modern society, whether it's because we're stuck to screens, or there's safety issues, or bullying issues, it actually gets banned in some schools.
Preston Pollard: Wow.
Quan Gan: So the problem is not that TAG is bad. It is the fact that it's not regulated in this new age, where if you have lots of kids together, it's really hard to manage, right? So from a safety concern, all those aspects, you just take it out of the equation. But it has fundamental things, because it's so human. We evolved from TAG because we were either chased by animals or we had to chase animals. So TAG is built into our DNA, and people want to run and chase and interact, but we just don't have a way to do In a coordinated way. So the watch allows a single person to, at the press of a button, get a whole bunch of people to coordinate together because the watch actually keeps track of all the games. You can't cheat. Just like when you're playing a video game, you're not going to be yelling too much at the screen because what's fair is fair. You're not going to lie about the numbers, right?
Preston Pollard: Yeah.
Quan Gan: So if I tag you, rather than arguing, oh, did I tag you? Did I not? The device will see it, right? So it alleviates the argument factor, but it allows us to have the back and forth interaction. So that's one of many games. We also have some other games like Red Light, Green Light, where rather than you calling out, oh, I saw you move, this will detect your movement. So if you move, you just lose points, right?
Preston Pollard: So you're not going to argue against the machine. Yeah. Yeah. That's really cool.
Quan Gan: I love it. I love it.
Preston Pollard: Yeah. I love it.
Quan Gan: That's amazing. I know it's a long story, but it's just kind of to show you the progression.
Preston Pollard: Yeah. Exactly. No, I love the progression of it. Getting started and how you were able to, you know, maybe take what all didn't work, but put it in something that could work. And it's just a beautiful thing because I'm passionate about working with you as well. And, you know, I use, you know, mindfulness and skateboarding, but, you know, working with elementary students, this could be something that there could be like a potential collaboration or something.
Quan Gan: I don't know.
Preston Pollard: It's really cool.
Quan Gan: Well, tell me about yourself because I read up a little bit.
Preston Pollard: Okay. Yeah.
Quan Gan: I, I, I didn't grow up skateboarding, but I met Tony Hawk before.
Preston Pollard: That's what's up. You know, beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. You know, a little bit about myself is born and raised in Anchorage, My mom's from Guatemala, dad's from Georgia, ended up connecting in Alaska and I was born there.
Quan Gan: What were they doing in Alaska?
Preston Pollard: So, yeah. So, so my mom was on a vacation from like, so she was from Guatemala, then she lived in California and went to vacation. To Alaska. That's what she meant, my dad. And, but. The reason how my dad got there is because my grandfather was born in Georgia, but from the military, they ended up moving to Alaska. So that's kind of how my journey to Alaska started.
Quan Gan: Did you grow up as a, what do they call it, like a military brat or something?
Preston Pollard: No, not necessarily like that, because my dad wasn't in the military, but his father was.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so at the time that they moved to Alaska, he was already retired.
Preston Pollard: So I didn't have to move around, thank God. But just as a kid, I was just hyper.
Quan Gan: I was so hyper, the teachers didn't know what to do with me. So they put me in special ed classes. So it was ADHD, it was labeled Ritalin. And then my mom figured like, he's not acting like himself.
Preston Pollard: He's more like numb and more like zombie vibe. So she like took my medication, which was amazing and started placing me in like sports and activities and things where I can express energy. And so I ended up, didn't really like following like the rules. So that's when skateboarding, I just discovered skateboarding. Open up a magazine, I saw Tony Hawk, and I was like, that looks cool, there's no rules, it's kind of like you kind of do what you want to do, and it's kind of like, you know, you feel like a rebel in a sense a little bit.
Quan Gan: You're going on property, you shouldn't be, you're just, it was fun. I was doing that this morning with rollerblading, I was just going on a parking lot.
Preston Pollard: There you go. So it's like, it's fun, and I just started out with that concept of having fun, and then slowly I realized, man, maybe I can get sponsored. So I, you know, did everything that I could to prepare for that, and I got sponsored at 14, and then next thing you know, things started to- You were competing? Small competing, I was mostly like in magazines and in videos and things like that.
Quan Gan: How did you get yourself out there? I mean, that's not something you just know.
Preston Pollard: Yeah, well, you get a, first you get a local skate shop sponsor, and then the big brands like the Vans or Osiris, Nike. They have like this, you know, their their shoes will go through the company. So they the local skate shop would have connections with these bigger companies. So what you start with getting a shop sponsor and then eventually as you progress, you know, they would take, you know, your information and they would share with these bigger brands. And that's kind of you also have to be good, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I wasn't like the best ever. I'm not saying I mean, at my time, you know, if it was a 10, I was I was about like an eight, you know, and the reason I say that is because, you know, I just I just knew where I stood, but I also knew my uniqueness. And so that's what propelled me. was like, look, I'm a black skateboarder from Alaska.
Quan Gan: That's so unique. So yeah, that was really the thing that the magnet that people were like, really interested in, you know, yeah, yeah, I was able to do some some wonderful things.
Preston Pollard: But I think most of all, it was the uniqueness of me being from Alaska, I was got on Book covers was sponsored by Joan Soda.
Quan Gan: I got on a billboard in Times Square. Okay.
Preston Pollard: Yeah.
Quan Gan: So you lean into that unique quality.
Preston Pollard: Exactly. You lean into your uniqueness. And then around, say, like 18, my aunt was like, you should, you know, what do you think about speaking at my school? And I was super nervous about it. And she was like, no, just come out, share your story. And, you know, maybe this could be a thing. You know, she's like, you're not going to be able to skateboard forever. I was like, no way. Like, don't be able to do this for, you know, and she's like, no, just think about it. And that literally changed my life. And that's what I do to this day. I'm a, you know, that's what I do for a living. But after I spoke and just shared my story, I was like, I'm actually really good working with people. And I just started, sure enough, to develop those communication skills by reading Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People.
Quan Gan: And the list goes on.
Preston Pollard: I just started to, you know, learn how to connect better with others, speak at. Schools, collaborating with non-profits, and then now I have my own 12-week program where I go in and I help students with social-emotional learning. Okay. Basically, essentially, life skills, and then I collaborate, and then I infuse it with skateboarding.
Quan Gan: How do you do that? That sounds like a super interesting combination.
Preston Pollard: Yeah, well, it's, you I do like an hour with, like, so if it's discovering your purpose. So I will, in a short format, share with them my story. And then after I share with them my story, then I have, like, action guides, questions, and different things where it's basically helping them discover what their natural abilities are, their uniqueness is. So it's kind of different than a teacher because sometimes a teacher will kind of explain, like, oh, well, you can do this, and you can meet these people. Well, I actually show them. I actually show them, like, this is the stuff that I've done. These are the people who I've met. There's video, so they're getting to see firsthand. I just interviewed Martin Luther King Jr.'s daughter, and she talked about the power of creating change. Sometimes we think about creating change in this big way, but sometimes we can do it in a small way, being kind to your neighbor. You know, so yeah, so I do it like that, and then the second hour, we go out and we implement those skills. So if it's breathing, if it's resilience, you know, if we do like a game, like a classroom game, now we're going to skateboard, and now you're going to understand why your breathing is important. Now you're going to understand why you have to be focused, and so then they kind of, they put it into action. So I was able to do that with a school in Lancaster, and yeah, so that's one of the things I put this in on.
Quan Gan: Do you live out here in LA?
Preston Pollard: Yeah, well, I live in La Crescenta, so it's like 30 minutes from you, Valencia.
Quan Gan: Okay, yeah.
Preston Pollard: Okay, have you made it up to the office? Sure. Yeah, I have.
Quan Gan: I have. Okay. So I just wasn't in the office to see you, I guess.
Preston Pollard: Yeah. Well, it's usually at like night.
Quan Gan: It's like, oh, yeah.
Preston Pollard: Kind of pop in real quick.
Quan Gan: He's like, okay. He's a late night animal.
Preston Pollard: Exactly.
Quan Gan: Exactly. There go. Yeah.
Preston Pollard: But yeah, so that's my passion. I'm doing that. So that's push forward. That's with programming, with skateboarding and speaking. speak all over, share my story, help people with, you know, communication. And also I trademarked this expression, my breath is my miracle. So now that's doing a lot with, like, it was actually in a museum as well last year, which was great. I'm going to be doing some like murals and things of that nature. And it's going to tie into mental health and mindfulness and breathing and things like that.
Quan Gan: That's wonderful.
Preston Pollard: Okay.
Quan Gan: Awesome. No, I think, yeah, we have a lot of common, I think, common motives. And even, you know, there's some, something interesting. I don't know if Ricardo shared with you, but my son is actually into competitive yo-yo.
Preston Pollard: Oh, yeah, he mentioned that.
Quan Gan: think, yeah, competitive yo-yo. You know the modern, like, yo-yo. Yeah, so, and I think that's kind of like what skateboarding is to you. I think it's what it is to him. He's recently discovered it, and, you know, we homeschool our kids, but he goes to a day program. And, like, I would see if he were in a normal school, like, he would probably be getting diagnosed with all of that stuff, too. And he just needs to move. So I can totally relate through him as well.
Preston Pollard: Yeah, yeah. The reason why the school is not so great is because from the beginning, it was designed so they weren't – it wasn't created to really create thinkers. It was really to create workers. And it wasn't really to create the mind to express, define those natural abilities. So I definitely believe that there's power of, like, helping youth discover what they're And making things, like, hands-on. Like, I think that's the key. So, I mean, if your son's into that, I think that's going to spark so many other things within him.
Quan Gan: Oh, it's transformed his life because he's able to talk to people. Like, there's so much community around this activity now. There's no barriers. You know, he's not confined to saying, oh, I'm only speaking to people my age because that's – he can talk to anybody. In fact, he ended up getting second in his category. But more importantly, he's met the former world champion of Yo-Yo, and this guy's, like, 29, right? Most other kids are, like, seeing this idol.
Preston Pollard: Yes, you know, he's an idol to my son, but he can just go and approach, and, you know, they're friends now.
Quan Gan: So it's like there's no barrier there.
Preston Pollard: Yeah, love it. love that. Yeah. Like, yeah, it's – yeah, things are definitely changing now where – Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Back in the day, maybe your mentor would be in a book, but now with social media and different interactions, we can grasp onto those people, and it is cool.
Quan Gan: I love that. Yeah, it's like a small little in-network. Everybody within that network knows each other, just like probably all the skaters know each other.
Preston Pollard: Yeah, exactly. We all need community. I think that's what it comes down to with bullying and different things. Everybody's just trying to find their community.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I think technology in many senses has transformed the way we interact in some positive ways and also some not-so-positive ways, but it also allows you to connect with someone on the other side of the planet and feel like you know them, and when they're at an event, you're like, yeah, you're just reconnecting again.
Preston Pollard: Right. No, 100%. Yeah, 100%. I agree. Now I'd have to go to wherever you do your events where I can watch and really get to see it live. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, I'm happy to, you know, share with you some of the things we're doing. In fact, tonight and the rest of this week, oh, yeah, I want to ask you, have you worked with any incarcerated youth?
Preston Pollard: Yes, I have.
Quan Gan: actually have.
Preston Pollard: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. So this is actually new for us because really where ZTAG makes the biggest difference is when there is the biggest differential between those who have access to resources versus those who don't. We are primarily sold to Title I schools. Yep. So, you know, these are, you know, sometimes very rural schools.
Preston Pollard: don't normally have access to much of anything.
Quan Gan: For sure. But something else we are trying now is there's this, the juvenile court system has its own community of administrators and superintendents. And there's this event at Universal Studios tonight that I'm going to be checking out. Let's bring that event.
Preston Pollard: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah. So it's, yeah, they're, they have a conference there for the next couple of days. It's called the JCCASAC. It's a long acronym, but it's like the Juvenile Court Something Alternative School or Alternative Something Community.
Preston Pollard: Can you buy tickets now or it's too late?
Quan Gan: You still might be able to buy tickets. think, I think $750 a person to, to attend. But if you're interested, I can send you some info on that.
Preston Pollard: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know if I'm pay the $750, but yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Preston Pollard: But definitely. Yeah. So we, yeah.
Quan Gan: Cause it's a, it's a gathering of all the decision makers of the, of the school board. Oh, wow. So, so these are like the superintendents, but they're actually people like in charge of these alternative education. And justice system care students, which are probably the most troubled youth because, you know. Our stuff, normally we sell it to after-school programs as enrichment to get the kids moving and socializing, which is great. But this particular audience, when I first introduced it to them, they're like, we're not sure because we normally don't want the kids to be getting up from their seats because otherwise a conflict might come up. Some of these kids, they have a lot of personal trauma and issues, and so every time they get up from their desk, the facilitators are on edge.
Preston Pollard: Oh, wow. Yeah.
Quan Gan: So that's an interesting new crowd that we're trying to see if we can break through because if we can, then we know if that's the toughest market, then any other market should be cakewalk.
Preston Pollard: Mm-hmm. Right, for sure. No, that's, yeah, I understand. No, I think, what are the ages that you're going to be for the juveniles?
Quan Gan: I think they're mostly going to be high school kids.
Preston Pollard: Okay.
Quan Gan: So at the conference, it's not the high school kids, it's the administrators, but their target audience. Audience, mean, it's usually people who, kids that ended up in juvie or something.
Preston Pollard: Okay, got it. Okay. Yeah, definitely keep me posted, but no, that's amazing. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Preston Pollard: That's awesome.
Quan Gan: Well, tell me a little bit more about the SEL component you have. How do you teach that?
Preston Pollard: Yeah, so it goes over like 12 components. So from discovering your purpose, I have the different talking points that I do. And so every time I'm showing up to a school, I'm opening up with the first one is discovering your purpose. And so, like I mentioned, basically, you the first hour we're going over, how does that look like? I'm showing them videos, there's action guides, and then we do, you know, small games and activities to where they get to like move around and do things. Sometimes it's like a, you know, collaboration, teamwork, where they have to build things together. So, you know. The reason why I wanted to really focus on that is because I realized that in schools, they teach a lot of things, but a lot of the basic life skills, they're not teaching them.
Quan Gan: So, yeah. I'm like, I didn't get any of this.
Preston Pollard: Exactly. So that's the spot that I'm feeling and just making it relevant, making it cool. Now, like I said, not from a teacher, do this and do that. It's very different. We start off the class with like mindfulness, breathing, and just, yeah, like, you know, basically, you know, how to elevate your physiology with movement. So many cool things that they, I didn't get, but I've been practicing for years and years. And I was like, man, would love to share it with schools and youth, particularly middle school, because that's like an area where there's not a lot of, it's like, you know, they're saying for those particular youth, they're getting lost. like, well, you know, don't School kids are really getting lost. So I've really been trying to figure out how can I focus on that group and give them a way to kind of begin to see their future, understand that it's a lot of the choices that they're making that's going to either get them to where they want to be or not, and just try to instill that confidence within them now so they can really start thinking about their future because time goes fast. And if you're not thinking about where you want to go, then oftentimes you're going to be following the crowd, getting into more trouble. And so I just love to give them, you know, analogies, examples of you could do A or B or C and kind of get them to kind of think for themselves because you can't control what they're going to do, but you can give them different choices and options so they can kind of think, you know, what they want.
Quan Gan: So I'd imagine post-COVID, the topic has become a lot more relevant.
Preston Pollard: Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Have you seen?
Preston Pollard: With, well, for me, particularly after COVID, it's mostly youth just not able to connect very well. So before, as soon as class starts, we have like a conversation card game where they can be able to sit and learn how to actively listen, mirror each other. Because I feel like that's just something that they're really struggling with right now. Real connection, real conversations. They're good on their phones, but when it comes to like person-to-person shaking hands, and they're just like, I don't know. Like, I don't know what to say. It's like, but once they do the card game where they ask each other questions, like, oh, man, I've been knowing John for all these years. I didn't know he loved this or he was, because they just haven't asked those questions. So, you know, I, yeah. So I just, you know, explain to them, you know, you can have 18 degrees, but if you can't get along with people, it's going to be really hard for you to find a job.
Quan Gan: Yeah. It's even harder to find jobs now.
Preston Pollard: Yeah, you got to be almost creative.
Quan Gan: Yeah, almost creative. Yeah, mean, you got to be completely creative.
Preston Pollard: Yeah, now you got to be really uniquely you and create and partner with great people, be humble, listen. That's what I tell them, I said, you have to learn how to shut up and follow up.
Quan Gan: Okay, okay.
Preston Pollard: You know, sometimes I say it blunt, I know it's really blunt, shut up. They know I'm not telling them to shut up, but I explain it like you got to really listen so you can get the information you need and make sure you're following up with these people. And eventually they understand what I'm saying.
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah, that's great. Well, so I'm curious from your standpoint, where do you see the alignment and how do you see things moving forward?
Preston Pollard: Yeah, definitely. I mean, this is a new thing for me. I guess there could be. Couple of things. I mean, there could be something. First, I need to go and see it. I need to, like, really see exactly what it looks like, because maybe this could be something where, like, it could be something where I'm, you know, I'm sponsored by ZTAG or I'm going with each one. I I don't know yet how it can look. It could be something with, you know, elementary students. I just have to kind of see it first and I can kind of get some ideas rolling. I know it's not necessarily skateboarding, but I think there's still some synergy with, like, movement and games and fun. So there still could be something there.
Quan Gan: Well, okay. So the reciprocal of that would also be, I'd love to see what you're all about in person. I mean, when's the next thing that you have going on?
Preston Pollard: The next, uh, right now it's, it's, it's going to be like my next event is actually like more towards like, like August, November, but that's going to be up to like San Jose, but I'm still like. Working out different engagements now. So I don't have anything yet on the books, but I can definitely keep you posted.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. Yeah, I mean, we drive or fly up to pretty much anywhere. So yeah, I'd be interested to see what that looks like. We down here, there might be some times where I host the games. Either I go to a school to do a demonstration or training, or there might be some activities. Actually, there's a, we're working on a, there's a National Play Day coming up, which is just to promote across all the schools how integral play is to childhood development.
Preston Pollard: Okay.
Quan Gan: That's cool. So we're going to be hosting some events and stuff.
Preston Pollard: Yeah. So let's check it out and just meet you in person. And, you know, I think that'd be great.
Quan Gan: Yeah. No, that's cool. Yeah. I look forward to that.
Preston Pollard: I mean, even just if you're coming to the office or something. Exactly. Yeah. I'll show Ricardo. This week is kind of crazy, but maybe it could be next week, or you're looking at your schedule, too. Do you have my cell phone number? No, I don't think I do.
Quan Gan: Here, I'll type it here, and then you can shoot me a text later.
Preston Pollard: Okay, let me see here. Okay, so I'll write this down. Six. Six, one. Okay, zero, two. Okay, and you do ZTAG full-time.
Quan Gan: That's like your full thing. Yeah, that's my company, yeah.
Preston Pollard: Wow, that's amazing.
Quan Gan: Yeah, thank you. Me and my wife run the show. We're a small, lean team, but yeah, we're getting out to a lot of programs out there.
Preston Pollard: No, I love it. I love it. The cool thing is that you can scale it so you don't have to be at all the schools at once. So that's what I'm trying to figure out for what I do as well. Like, there's no way I can be at all of these schools.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Preston Pollard: So I'll probably We'd be picking your brain in the future, too.
Quan Gan: Well, one of the things, yeah, we're talking about even just prior to this meeting is how do we scale the training? Because the product itself, as easy as it is to get going, still requires a trained operator to really deliver the right experience and share the rules and the nuances to how the games play. But so it's almost like rather than a DJ, I like to call it a ZJ, you have to be a ZTAG jockey.
Preston Pollard: You have to be able to read the crowd, read the audience, and see what energy levels are they, and then select the right game and the right parameters to say, I want you guys to try this game. Got it. I understand. I understand. Well, it's happened to me. You're doing it.
Quan Gan: So you're doing great. Awesome. Thank you. One last thing I wanted to ask you is just, you know, what, what is the, what is your, your, the biggest challenge that you're working through?
Preston Pollard: The biggest. Child, to be honest, like with these schools, it's like even though they're Title I, but I'm learning of like the funding aspects of it, like trying to get like the right doors for funding and like, you know, some of the schools have it, but then it's just been like a journey to like figure out that.
Quan Gan: Are you going into the school during the school day?
Preston Pollard: No, so for the program that I did, I did a sale, they had it where it's after school, it's an after school program.
Quan Gan: So I'm trying to figure out to really, you know, Title I, after school, I'm to figure out that link. Well, that's the same space we're in. So you're familiar with ELOP funding?
Preston Pollard: I heard about it. I don't know like how it all works because I'm not a non-profit.
Quan Gan: Do you have to be a non-profit? No, for profit. Yeah. So has Ricardo told you to use ChatGPT for everything yet?
Preston Pollard: Oh, he said, do you use it?
Quan Gan: I told him.
Preston Pollard: Okay, I love it.
Quan Gan: love it. So yeah, do your research on ELOP funding. Yeah, and there are after school conferences, and that's basically where we get all of our income from. Wow. Yeah. Okay. So there's plenty of ask for school conferences. However, the main conferences just ended around now because most of the schools, their budgets are by June 30th. And then things start up again after the summer. So we've been in this huge, busy trade show season since February until now, so for three months. But most of these schools, at least in California, they get funding from these expanded learning opportunities program, which is like statewide. So it's like a big pool of grant funding. And then these schools, they get access to it. And you can get, oftentimes towards the end of the school year, they Have some excess funds that they have to spend, otherwise they lose that budget. So there's that engagement. And then also the beginning of the year. So there's, it's kind of a very seasonal thing.
Preston Pollard: Got it. Okay. And I can just, okay, I'm definitely going to reach, and then you can like apply online.
Quan Gan: It's kind of one of those things or? Well, no, it's you. Well, I mean, going to the trade shows, you just have to pay money to be at the trade show. But I think what you could also do. So there's a couple of different avenues. here. So California, after school network. Okay, after school network. Yeah, go to that website, it'll give you a lot more information on the ELOP.
Preston Pollard: Okay.
Quan Gan: And then the other ones are just conferences that you can get either invited to, or you can even give a proposal. So a proposal to speak. And then you're doing a session. I've seen speakers like that. They might take out a small booth on their own, but their main thing is going to these conferences and giving value-added seminars or these workshops. And then if the audience, which these are site coordinators or principals, if they'd like the content that you're delivering, then that's a perfect opportunity for you to get those gigs.
Preston Pollard: Got it. Okay. Well, I'm going to be on that California Afterschool Network and ELOP funding. That's beautiful. That helps a lot.
Quan Gan: Yeah. I mean, there's billions of dollars in funding there.
Preston Pollard: So that's definitely what pays for all the equipment that we sell. Wow. Okay. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I'm going to look into it today for sure. For sure. And then, like I said, let's keep in touch. Let me know when, you know, your next event and vice versa. And then I got your... The number here, so we can just, you know, stay in touch.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Preston Pollard: Yeah, that'd be awesome.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, looking forward to it. Cool. Me too. Thank you, Quan. I really appreciate your time. Okay, yeah. I'll see you next time. Yeah, stay in touch, man. Okay, well, stay in touch. Okay, thank you. Okay, take care. Bye.
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J White: Hey Quan.
Quan Gan: Hey James, how are you?
J White: Good.
Quan Gan: Happy Monday.
J White: Happy Monday, how's it going?
Quan Gan: Great, good. I've been traveling for the past couple of weeks, so I finally got a chance to sit down. How are you doing?
J White: Good, same. We were out in the light fair last week out in Vegas and so forth, so got back the end of last week and just digging through emails and everything this morning, so slow day.
Quan Gan: Cool. Yeah, I appreciate you meeting with me, so I guess maybe would you like to get started just kind of going through your guys' response?
J White: Well, I mean, I guess the response was in to your termination there or attempt to terminate the license agreement, so obviously the initial call we had was just as made most particular question. That's the new infringement found and the hope to kind of establish a new patent license agreement there. So we're a little surprised by that termination letter you sent. And then, yeah, I mean, I guess the response just outlined that obviously there's no grounds for termination at this time. And then also to point out the current breach and so forth that's going on. And so because obviously the contract was initiated in 2013 and there's no notice and notification of new products that when they went on sale and so forth. Yeah, I'd like to respond to that if okay. Sure.
Quan Gan: Okay, yeah, so the new products, they may be seen as new products on our website, but they're actually basically cosmetic or minor adjustments to the original products. And we actually have been paying royalties on those. So those are actually grouped together. They're based on... On the original, yeah, so there's actually no fundamental new products that we put into the market that has not been bearing the royalties. Yeah, because originally when Philips approached us, it was strictly for the PWM. And so everything that we have been putting into market that's related to PWM and color mixing have been paid with royalties. And then the other part was, I think you guys had asserted two new patents. And so those things I have to look into, and I did. But actually I found some prior art that maps onto it if you were using the same language that you guys are using to map onto our products.
J White: Okay, I mean, you can send that over and we can take a look. I mean, these products are part of our name. Those patents are part of our current enabled program, so yeah, mean, I don't imagine there is prior, but we're sure happy to take a look at it.
Quan Gan: Well, so I'm just curious, what would you see as an amicable way forward? Because from our standpoint, what was enabled for us was the PWM, and my understanding is those patents have since expired, so I'm just wondering, beyond that, what additional things are required? And I know there were two new assertions, but from a procedural standpoint, those assertions need to be on the annex that are in line with the original license agreement, which we have not gotten an actual annex.
J White: Yeah, well, I mean, I guess that gets back to the issue with the past use there. If we're identified when new products come out, then we're We're able to kind of update the annex, and I mean, it's part of the procedure there. So if we're not notified, then we can't update that annex, and then we end up in situations like this. So I know you're, I guess, alleging there are minor changes and so forth, but I guess I'm not aware those products were ever sent our way for review. So that's part of that issue there. And then I guess our end goal here is to get an update to the patent license agreement to reflect the new coverage that we identified. And then, yeah, so that's our status. And then look at, I mean, again, there's, we'll take a look at when those products were released, because potentially a pretty significant past use penalty as well.
Quan Gan: Well, if, if we haven't, so any of those new products that have been released, we actually have been paying royalties on them, then how would they?
J White: Okay. Yeah, I mean, if you have been paying on them, then there wouldn't be.
Quan Gan: Yeah, exactly. We've been paying on them. So for example, like the Gantom 7, which is basically another PWM color mixing fixture, we've been paying on those. So rather than sending that to you, we've been volunteering to pay those.
J White: So I don't see why there would be penalties on that. Okay. Yeah. mean, as long as you, we just have to verify that as long as you have been paying on it, then it wouldn't be. But if anything there hasn't been paid on.
Quan Gan: Yeah. So I can assure you, you know, since our license agreement and you guys have even come in and audited us a few years back, we've been, you know, putting everything above board. You know, it's, it's like, if I can save you the time from having to review something that I already know, okay, it's patent bearing. So we've been just doing that. So right now my, my main question to you is if a P. PWM patents are no longer, I kind of want to segment this into kind of two separate things. So the first thing is, if the PWM patents are no longer valid, then what value does Gantom get from paying royalties on things that are on an expired patent?
J White: So I guess, I mean, I haven't looked at the PWM patents or whether the original, those patents that were applied when this was originally agreed to have expired or are still applicable.
Quan Gan: So I I can't comment on that right now.
J White: I guess the only thing I know is just that there are products out there being sold that infringe on our patents and we just have to update the license.
Quan Gan: So then the infringement claim is on these new two patents that you put in front of us, right? Is that correct?
J White: The infringement claim is on those, what was it? Yeah, what identified in the letter.
Quan Gan: Okay. So on those two, Can I actually go through that previous letter with you again, and I can show you my technical response? Because I did spend a significant amount of time reviewing each of the claims, and we feel like we either have prior art on them. Actually, for both of them, we have prior art on them, and some of them, it was not mapping directly onto our product.
J White: I mean, yeah, you can go through it.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I'm just wondering if this is the best time to do that, or should we bring in someone with technical expertise to oversee that?
J White: I mean, at least on our end, we've clearly identified those two patents there, so I'm not sure if anything said here will kind of change our standpoint there.
Quan Gan: Okay, well, then how do we come to your interview? Because I don't agree with those assertions.
J White: I mean, yeah, I mean, I don't know. I used to say we've identified patent infringement there. So we need to come to some kind of license or some kind of agreement there. I mean, if you want to forward that prior art, can have our team take a look at it on our end. But this is where we're concerned. I don't know, it's pretty clear that those products are infringing those two patents.
Quan Gan: But the infringement would mean that you guys have to, the burden of proof would be on your side from a technical standpoint, right?
J White: Uh-huh. I mean, it on both parties, but.
Quan Gan: Because anyone can say something is infringing, but the actual proof has to be technical and valid. So we would have to go line by line.
J White: Yeah. I mean, we provided that.
Quan Gan: Right. Yeah. And then I'm also providing a. Rebuttal from a technical standpoint. I can send you that. I'm just wondering what is the best way for us to move forward rather than argue without technical stuff. I'd rather go line by line and have someone say, okay, this is the line. then let's pinpoint exactly where the infringement is. Because in patent law, you would have to map onto every single line, even on that one claim. Right. So I know there's a specific part of that claim that we don't map onto, but I need to make sure that, you know, you can speak to that point or someone technical on your team can speak to that point and make a judgment on it.
J White: Okay. Yeah. I mean, if you want to send over your, I guess, detailed technical arguments and also the prior art, I'd we can review on our side and then I guess set up another call there and just kind of walk through it line for line. Yeah.
Quan Gan: That would be very helpful. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Just hypothetically, if you find that there is something that does not map onto us exactly, what would be the scenario beyond that point?
J White: Yeah, I mean, I guess I don't really want to get into hypotheticals right now. You kind of misquoted me in that letter last time, so I didn't really appreciate that in the letter you sent over, so I'm not going to get into hypotheticals. Like I said, our stance is we have infringement, and it needs to be rectified.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay, then I will send you the prior art, and then when would be best to have another meeting?
J White: I guess once we get it and review it, I can reach out and set up a time.
Quan Gan: Okay.
J White: The other thing, mean, obviously the royalty too, you submitted zero for the last few weeks ago.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I mean, we're pending that because I want to make sure we get to an agreement here. I'll be fine. Before we go through that, because, you know, we submitted it. So technically, we're still holding to whatever the license agreement is. So we want to be respectful of that. But procedurally, we need to figure out exactly what these new.
J White: Yeah, I guess that's the issue there that, I mean, you're still in breach of the license agreement. It's not terminated. It's still active. And so.
Quan Gan: OK, can you tell me what is the worst case scenario if we just we just stop?
J White: You just stop paying?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
J White: I mean, I guess a breach of contract would have to file a breach of contract and then regroup that and then pass use penalties and interest payments and so forth.
Quan Gan: OK, but then if we argue against that, then we would have to do that in court. Is that what you're saying?
J White: Yeah, forget. I mean, forget Sapphire, but.
Quan Gan: OK. Are there any. Any avenues of negotiation, maybe a new terms, new deal?
J White: I mean, there's always, yeah, I mean, there's always opportunities there to kind of discuss that. I mean, at the end of the day, we'd rather, I guess, make a deal or have kind of come to some kind of agreement.
Quan Gan: Do you have anything in mind that you can propose?
J White: It would depend on, I guess, the numbers. We'd need the numbers and kind of revenue data and then make a specific judgment. I mean, you're on an itemized now, which is pretty strict. There's a flat rate, which is kind of the average, which is based off of the actual coverage and so forth. I know it looks like it covers all your products, but it's an average based on our actual coverage. So that way, I guess you don't have the requirement to kind of notify us of all new products moving forward. But there's an ability there to kind of work at a different level.
Quan Gan: Okay. Would you be able to present me some of those options? Because, yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, if it just saves us time to having to nitpick on patents, maybe that's more agreeable to me. Right now, on my side, we paid Philips originally for the PWM patent, but that is no longer valid. And then these new two assertions, I have technical claims against it. And hopefully you can see from my side, I'm not seeing the value in providing a license, right? But if there's some way you're showing me, hey, there's some good technology out there that I'm happy to pay for, maybe at a reduced rate, I may be open to that, right? It would save us a lot of time and, you know, having to argue through, you know, claims.
J White: definitely. Absolutely. Yeah, let me see. As part of, when you send over that data, maybe as part of the next call, I can put together kind of what the other kind of rate options might be, flat rate, and then maybe base it off of some previous, the previous kind. Yeah, I just wanted to make it clear that we saw value when the PWM patent was valid, right?
Quan Gan: Because that was something already granted and everybody in the industry is paying PWM patents. But if that's expired and we fundamentally had no new innovations beyond that, that we feel is royalty bearing, then why as a small business would we want to pay additional for things that we're not actually using?
J White: Yeah, okay. Understandable. Yeah, I understand that point. Yeah, let me put that together, I guess, on my end as well and then see. Yeah, maybe there's some kind of middle ground or promise that we can kind of come to. Awesome.
Quan Gan: Sounds good. So yeah, I'll send you my information and when would you be able to get back to me, Mike?
J White: I guess it would depend on, I guess, when I get the information and then kind of put that all together.
Quan Gan: I'll it to you later today.
J White: Okay. Yeah, I mean. And I guess within two weeks, so.
Quan Gan: Awesome. Great. Thank you, Quan. Bye.
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R Erwin: To the second floor, into the aquarium. Okay. So then on the fourth floor, we started building this giant labyrinth that we had seen in Ginte, Belgium, in 2015. so it's just a bunch of walls. You don't even know it until you get to the center that there's a slide hidden in there.
Quan Gan: Oh, wow.
R Erwin: We've been working on that back and forth, but always pulled off on projects and everything, you know. And then just being food and beverage and building that , we never got to do the fun stuff. So what's up with you, Ben? How you doing?
Quan Gan: Man, when's the last time we talked?
R Erwin: Man, last time I saw you was in IAPA years ago.
Quan Gan: Okay.
R Erwin: And that was also with Eric?
Quan Gan: Is he still working?
R Erwin: Yeah, he's still around.
Quan Gan: Okay. Why that? Okay.
R Erwin: It's kind of taking the City Museum to a place now that's covered in signs.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay.
R Erwin: We don't really build anything. The 10-story spiral slides? Closed.
Quan Gan: Oh.
R Erwin: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Don't sleep. Thank you.
R Erwin: He just continues to close slides.
Quan Gan: Okay.
R Erwin: So I went from 30 to about 15, 20 now.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay.
R Erwin: Yeah, so that's what's going on here, man.
Quan Gan: Okay. On my side, man, okay, so since all that time, so we've completely pivoted our market to afterschool programs.
R Erwin: I don't know if you've seen ZTAG. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah. And it's actually been beautiful because the original product was basically tried and tested in entertainment and hardened to the point that if it's not breaking so much there, institutional setting is actually way easier. So we're deployed in like probably 300 different programs now.
R Erwin: That's awesome.
Quan Gan: Yeah. And actually, let me show you the stack on this. This is fun. So the system will keep track of aggregate account and interactions. These are the numbers we have right now.
R Erwin: Whoa. 22 million plus, 515 million. Wow, dude.
Quan Gan: That's crazy. Yeah. So we're making a digital impact that's measurable.
R Erwin: Yeah.
Quan Gan: And I'm looking to partner with research institutions to see how play and education can work hand-in-hand and with data to back it.
R Erwin: Who are you working with?
Quan Gan: Do you know yet? Well, not yet. I'm actually going to be applying for SBIR Phase 2 grant. Are you familiar with those? No. So the SBIR is like Small Business Innovation Research. It's basically funded by the government for these various side projects. Normally, they start you on Phase 1, and these are almost like venture funding, but they don't take equity.
R Erwin: It's really just the government trying to back a good initiative.
Quan Gan: Yeah. But we've already kind of surpassed Phase 1. We're actually going straight to Phase 2 because we already have a proven product. I'm planning for that and some accelerators to see if we can really scale this to more schools because ultimately we would love to see ZTAG in every single school in America.
R Erwin: Yeah. just thought, gosh, last month I was the keynote at the U.S. Play Coalition at Indiana University and it was nothing but researchers and designers and stuff. It's been a long time since I've been like really motivated at the conference. And that's great, man. Like everybody was just jammed into a play, man. That's like all anybody wanted to talk to. You know, like I always felt like at IAPA and even Children's Museums, American Alliance, there's always a sense of like competition. You're always one-upping each other. But when I was there, man, it was straight about kids and let's play.
Quan Gan: That's all they care about. Okay. This is also why I'm in the education industry now. Like it feels night and day different. So at IAPA, my customers, I mean, they're businesses, so they're going to feel they don't want to compete with people because they want to buy this. It's like, I want exclusive. Blah, blah, right? It's like they want to carve out their space. Education, everybody shares. I'm helping kids. You're helping kids. That's great. You're next door.
R Erwin: That's great. We can come by and do something bigger. Yeah, and I loved it. I was literally looking at So Kaboom. They're one of the biggest outdoor players. And so they're working with this guy in Kentucky who's an outdoor landscape designer, playground. So they're in California in the San Francisco area, building trees on playgrounds now and looking at natural playscapes. And it's just – I just loved watching this girl that, like, this head designer over here in California now, she's with this Yahoo Kentucky guy that even talked like this. But they're building something amazing that's really impactful for these kids.
Quan Gan: That's the stuff that I'm starting to get into. In recent times, we've actually gone and visited our schools, some of these partner customers. And, like, the energy that we get. Like, when we go there, there's, like, a –
R Erwin: It really makes everything feel so rewarding after all these years. Yeah, awesome!
Quan Gan: In a good place, my kids are a little bit older. Charlie's re-entered the business because she's been mom for the past 10 years and my son's gotten older. Okay, so this was an interesting update. So last year, during the solar eclipse, we actually went out to Niagara Falls to see the eclipse. And then afterwards, we got a yo-yo from the souvenir shop. And then from that point on, fast forward to today, so this is one year and one month. My son is into competitive yo-yoing and he's actually placed first in two regional contests.
R Erwin: No way!
Quan Gan: Yeah, have you seen competitive yo-yoing?
R Erwin: So... Okay, man. I'm going to take you back on this one. When I was 13, my aunt bought me a yo-yo. Okay. And it was one of the ones with the springs on it.
Quan Gan: Yeah, the brain, right?
R Erwin: Yeah. She brought me the Smothers Brothers DVD on yo-yoing, and I got real good to the point I never competed, but I was teaching kids at the Missouri School for the Deaf. Now, when I came to City Museum, we actually had the Missouri Yo-Yo Society here every Saturday, and they would hold competitions. It was crazy. That's crazy. Your kid just picked up a yo-yo at a thing, and then here he is.
Quan Gan: I need to send you his Instagram, but this one video he did has like 7.4 million views on it.
R Erwin: No!
Quan Gan: Yeah. He's super into it. By now, he's got like over 100 yo-yos. I mean, a lot of it he earned with his allowance and stuff, but it just took off, and he's actually getting trained by the current national champion. Whoa. He also met the former world champion.
R Erwin: Like, just within a year, he's Like, how old is he immersed in this space? How old is the little man?
Quan Gan: He's 10.
R Erwin: 10. 10 is what my little one is. He was, mine was way into Funkos to the point where.
Quan Gan: What's that?
R Erwin: Funkos, they're little statue toys and stuff.
Quan Gan: Oh, the Funko Pops thing?
R Erwin: Yeah, Funko Pops. Yeah. He got so far into those that he was selling them. And like the youngest guy in like St. Louis, he would go to these conventions. They'd be like, there's John. And he was rattled. And then one day he just said he was done with it. And I got stuck with all these Funko Pops now I've been selling on eBay for years.
Quan Gan: Okay.
R Erwin: Okay. But is cool how kids find something and they get really into it. And for me, even with John, when he was done with it, he learned about the market. Which was, you know, at one time he's like, just got this one. It's $200. And I'm like, let's check where it is in a month.
Quan Gan: And it was like $50. I think it's, you know, when you take what they love and you just fuel it with like, you know, resources, they actually just flourish. And they, and it's so much more relevant than. Sitting in a chair in a classroom trying to learn.
R Erwin: Well, that was the whole thing about going to the Play Coalition was, you know, I started looking back at what City Museum was and how Bob set it up. And it was really, you know, I hear, I don't understand, I see, I get, but I do, and I understand, you know, that play thing.
Quan Gan: And like, so really focused on it.
R Erwin: Yeah. That's awesome, dude. Man, I got a kid going to high school next year.
Quan Gan: It's freaking. kid going to high school?
R Erwin: My daughter's going to high school, yeah.
Quan Gan: What's that like?
R Erwin: Like, is she in the rebellious team? No, my daughter is, she's pretty cool. She's cool. She is a hardcore swimmer. Like, that's all she wants to do. Competitive. Her goal is to make state her freshman year in a relay. Her cousin swam in college. I think that's her goal. She was going to be a pilot, and then she just backed off, and I think she's now thinking she wants to focus on occupational therapy. Annie, you're short, man. You got plenty of time.
Quan Gan: We work got think We work with occupancies. So a therapist on our property.
R Erwin: So, you know, we live on a path to land. Yeah.
Quan Gan: And there's a permaculture food forest that Charlie had built. And yeah, she brings her clients to the nature space and like get the kids to like, you know, rolling in mud and playing and stuff.
R Erwin: How is the land? Like, what else have you added? You had like, you guys were doing stained glass with like...
Quan Gan: Yeah, did you ever see this?
R Erwin: I don't think I ever saw photos, but you were telling me about it.
Quan Gan: Yeah, we, she, in three years, like basically the COVID time, she built an Adobe hut. And that's her meditation chamber. She sleeps in there sometimes. Like when the kids get too much, it's like, I'm out.
R Erwin: out?
Quan Gan: Yeah, it's like Hobbit house. And the door is round, you know, so it's like, I'll take some photos and send it to you.
R Erwin: I it, man.
Quan Gan: You guys are so cool. I think it's like totally like City Museum essence in there.
R Erwin: Yeah. I originally wanted to build something like that, know, one of the ground houses, and then you'd be able to walk way up over it and we couldn't...
Quan Gan: Oh, On top, with grass on top, kind of thing? Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
R Erwin: We were trying to make Art City, but it wasn't, to here in the building, it wasn't long enough for the ADA compliancy for the rants.
Quan Gan: okay. Okay, yeah. Now, this thing, she was just out there for three years stomping on mud every day after dinner.
R Erwin: I love it.
Quan Gan: Putting it together like bread.
R Erwin: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah, that's been a lot of fun.
R Erwin: Well, before I missed your family the other day, I had to run to a job site, but I think Tashir got them.
Quan Gan: Okay, yeah, that's cool. Yeah, my parents, they loved it.
R Erwin: Oh, good.
Quan Gan: You know, I told them, this is like our first major sale, and it's still running.
R Erwin: It's still my favorite story of just you finding us, and then coming back with that little suitcase, and us being like, we'll take this, and you're like, these are prototypes.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
R Erwin: That was awesome.
Quan Gan: I mean, in hindsight, that's kind of the theme of my life. I'm pretty shameless about showing off what I made to people. You know, so, yeah, and sometimes it bites me in the, in the, in the back because it's like, uh. It's, you know, I get people excited, but it's not completely finished, and they want it, but I'm like, okay, I got to fix all these other things, but whatever, I mean, that's how we got here.
R Erwin: Yeah, awesome.
Quan Gan: Yeah, well, so what else is going on with you? You said you're looking to go other places, or?
R Erwin: I did, I have. I've actually met with, like, started looking with PGAV.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay, yeah.
R Erwin: So they're local, you know, I don't know, you know, I just kind of feel like the City Museum isn't the same place, you know, still a few people here that I care about, and that's kind of the only reason I'm here. Okay. But yeah, I just started, like, just really with the families, they finally were like, look, it sounds time, Dad, like, you can go.
Quan Gan: We've had our fun there, we're out of it, let's go do something else. What were you doing there with PGAV?
R Erwin: You know, I don't know, like, that was the thing. I know a few designers over there, and so they quickly said I wasn't someone that could apply through the website. So I'm kind of waiting for John or one of the principals to meet. I don't know. It'd probably be in sales or something like that, honestly. I feel like I could go and be like, look, you want to build something cool? Let's build something cool. We could talk about it. I don't know. I'm just trying to – I'm really playing out stuff. But coming back from that Plague Coalition conference, man, it was just so fun to talk to people. Like you said, no competition. It's all like, what can we do to make things?
Quan Gan: It's all collaboration.
R Erwin: Yeah, it's great. Yeah. And it's always nice still to walk in someplace and people freak out that you're City Museum. I still like that.
Quan Gan: It's fun. You're like – yeah.
R Erwin: It's nice.
Quan Gan: It feels good. It comes with a good badge of honor. mean, yeah, everybody knows it. Man, there's – I still imagine like trying to get Z-Tag into City Museum again, you know?
R Erwin: Yeah. With Katie and, you know, Maria Casley, Bob's daughter-in-law, she now is like our chief curator and stuff.
Quan Gan: She puts on all these events. She'd be the one. Okay.
R Erwin: Lisa showed off.
Quan Gan: Can you put me into it with her?
R Erwin: Of course I will. She's wonderful, dude.
Quan Gan: I love Maria. She's great. know, I think we might even have some customers out there that maybe they could bring the kit there and then run it. off?
R Erwin: Yeah. Or like, how do you like go to schools?
Quan Gan: Like, could there be a thing where like you show it off here, like to a bunch of divers? Absolutely. I mean, we can read something like a play day, you know? Yeah. But the biggest way to show this off is just to get people to come and try it. Yeah, So like, yeah, you invite the schools.
R Erwin: I don't know, like, do you guys already have some school events that are planned and maybe we could just show up and say, hey, like, let's do There's school events, yeah, all the time, especially in the summertime. There's summer camps coming through. But yeah, they do, like, we know when certain schools are going to sign up for like Fridays are big. Okay. Or big trips and stuff like that. I think if something like that's just it, people are going to talk about it.
Quan Gan: Okay.
R Erwin: That's how I got the Zorbs. Did the Zorbs back in the day, you know?
Quan Gan: Once you get into little hamster wheels, I just throw those out on random days, and the next thing I know, they're all over St. Louis. So, you know, I've heard from operators that that's the single most dangerous thing they run into.
R Erwin: Dude, because if you run through the hole and it flips, yeah, an arm will go quickly through it. The other one that was really bad for a long time they were doing is those hang tests at amusement parks.
Quan Gan: Okay.
R Erwin: People hang as long as they can, and they start ripping out their shoulders.
Quan Gan: Oh, really?
R Erwin: That's another one that was a stupid, yeah.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay.
R Erwin: I started kicking those out.
Quan Gan: Okay. I remember this one thing that created some problems. like when the Nintendo Wii was like high demand in the early days, and there was like, hold your Wii for Wii. Hold for this to win one of these. It's crazy.
R Erwin: Love it.
Quan Gan: The things people do. Yeah. Man, I still remember when we had like 600 people going up and down the whole place.
R Erwin: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Remember when you rappel down the side?
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah.
R Erwin: The only person that's done that ever since. All right.
Quan Gan: Your badge. Definitely. You know, the thing we, well, for your current way of working with schools, do you guys do summer camps or is it just a field trip?
R Erwin: Field trips, mostly.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, because a lot of our stuff is more turning, we're kind of shifting into curriculum. Okay. Well, we actually have, we have math and language content now. So I don't know if you've seen the latest version of how things work, but it's no longer just, you know, I'm running and chasing you for tag, but we're actually doing more collaborative work. So if I have two plus two and you have four, I got to come find you and we link up taggers. Or if we have foreign language, if I have the word cat, you have the Spanish word gato, I got to come find you. We have some ways of like getting groups to count together.
R Erwin: So if I have one, I'm looking for two and then two is looking for three.
Quan Gan: So it's like ways to kind of enforce. A group, a group play, but you're also, you know, loading them cognitively.
R Erwin: Yeah, you're not, they're not thinking about it too much. They're just kind of doing, following the space.
Quan Gan: Yeah, exactly.
R Erwin: Yeah, see something like where even if we just could have you guys bring the stuff out and then just have, invite schools, being like, this is going on. Because for us also, I can also see it as a thing of like, look, come see what City Museum has for your field trips and everything. There could be a double.
Quan Gan: Yeah, how close are you to, well, one of my staff is actually, she lives in Indiana.
R Erwin: How far is that from you? I think it's about four hours.
Quan Gan: She's in Evansville. I don't know where that is.
R Erwin: I don't know either.
Quan Gan: Okay, so I'll look it up. But yeah, maybe we can like make a trip there when we get a little bit closer.
R Erwin: Yeah, and I'll hook you up with Maria so we can start because she's always looking for ideas to do things. Okay. And they're always for STEM research project ideas and stuff. mean, anything educational to try to put on that side. The corporate office likes.
Quan Gan: Totally. Yeah, because we hosted this at our. Yeah. L.A. Maker Faire a few weeks ago. It was like the single most well-used part of the event.
R Erwin: That's awesome, man. Congratulations, dude. I'm so excited for you, man.
Quan Gan: You're killing it on the lights, and now you got this thing. Well, the lights, you know, that's kind of, it's the mother of ZTAG.
R Erwin: Yeah, it allows you to do the other stuff.
Quan Gan: Exactly, yeah. No, it, I mean, it was like 10 years, but it's really the fact that from first principles, it's like I see our kids just so digital these days that we need to find a way to channel them back in, and you guys are also the epitome of that. mean, like, what more tangible can you get?
R Erwin: Yeah, exactly.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
R Erwin: Oh, that's awesome.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah. mean, is there anything, you know, that, like, what are you looking for these days on your end? I know you're kind of looking for new avenues or maybe things that I can keep an eye out for.
R Erwin: Dude, I mean, I'm wide open. I've always been a guy that's kind of went with the flow. I never applied for jobs. The jobs always found me because I've always looked at opportunities. I like to see what happens. What City Museum was, I turned it down three times.
Quan Gan: Okay. So tell me, what are you ideally looking for? Maybe there's some way for us to work in the future.
R Erwin: I'm just looking into how to – again, play is very important to me, safety in play, what it does. I was a heavyset kid.
Quan Gan: Lost 30 pounds. You can't see it. So I started really working out.
R Erwin: So I got myself down to 200 since I last saw you. Man, much better lifestyle now. That's great. But I just think that I want to go out and – I don't need to be the designer, but I like the projects. I like figuring out the problems and seeing them come to fruition. I like that.
Quan Gan: Like big things?
R Erwin: Yeah. Now Mary designs everything, and I'm so happy to have Mary design everything.
Quan Gan: She's wonderful here. I lost Leif a few years ago. So he wins. So Start his own company.
R Erwin: Okay. But, yeah, I just like kind of making sure everything comes through.
Quan Gan: Are you looking for tangible things that you really need to get your hands dirty, or is it more conceptual?
R Erwin: It's more or whatever. I just joined the art commission here in Webster Groves, and so now I'm meeting with artists every once in while to help them be like, what's your ideas? Or let me help you find solutions to get what you need.
Quan Gan: Okay. Let me show you this vision. I'm not sure if I – I probably did share with you a long time ago, but I want to kind of refresh it and see if any of these things might fit in.
R Erwin: What's the gun in the case back there?
Quan Gan: Oh, this is in case of zombies.
R Erwin: Oh, I love it.
Quan Gan: So all this stuff I got from like Halloween shows over the past few years. Yeah. I think it's probably just a BB gun or something. They distressed it pretty well.
R Erwin: well. I like this, in case.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay, hold on, let me see what it is. Okay, so for a long time, I tried to, like, put a cohesive argument for what Gantem or ZTAG really wants to be. And looking at, you know, where we are with, like, digital technology, this is the future of entertainment, I see. Where you're basically taking League of Legends or all these, you know, online video games and bringing it to life with AR and VR, right? And then, like, this would be what you actually see from a real player, where you're running around with these AR glasses and you're, like, shooting fireballs at people in this giant stadium. And so, kind of, I'm putting the pieces together little by little. So, obviously, Gantem is in lighting, so we have that part. You know, we know the people in a theme park who help us make the production. But in first principles, if you look at a sport. Ultimately, to get something as popular as a sport, it has to be institutionalized. You got to get into the schools from the elementary, right? That basically trains and feeds them into professional sports. So ZTAG has always been straddling both the professional market and the educational market. And eventually, once we get to several million kids playing this whole generation, and they go up, right? Now you can have this ecosystem where you have professional entertainment, kind of like you got NBA or NFL, but you also have the school versions of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I've actually also, you know, patented a couple of core technologies where if you look at, well, so let me ask you, like, what is the purpose of having a ball in any major sport?
R Erwin: It's just the object that moves, right? Like it's the only thing that keeps things going?
Quan Gan: Yes. And also, so yeah, there is that point. But also you realize like a sport that doesn't have a ball, like let's say track and field or whatever, compared to a sport with a ball, which one is more popular?
R Erwin: It's always the ball.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it's always the ball. So the ball is the attention mechanism in any sport, right? It's the focal point of everything you do. So not only the players, but the commentators and people placing bets, it's all reliant on what fundamentally happens to this ball.
R Erwin: What's interesting you bring that up is remember back like 10 years ago with hockey, people couldn't see the pucks on the ice.
Quan Gan: they started trying to like make them bright so you could see them more and draw people in because when you don't see it, you don't really care.
R Erwin: Exactly.
Quan Gan: Yeah. So it's always been on the attention mechanism. And so my hypothesis was as sports, physical sports is becoming more and more digital. I don't know if you've a TGL, Tomorrow's Golf League. Yes. Right. So that's kind of a really good take on it. The sports are digitizing, become more game-like, but games are becoming more sports-like. Games are trying to get offline while the offline is trying to get online. So ZTAG has been trying to hit this intersection before they come. And so I've actually patented having a sense of a virtual ball. So we have a physical ball that you pass back and forth. We did ZTAG with drones a while back. And it was novel and fun to watch, but you lose interest as soon as you kind of see there are just kind of drones hovering around because there was no focal point. But once I made one drone flash and everybody's staring at that, now you can turn it into a spectacle.
R Erwin: Yeah, a spectacle. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, no.
Quan Gan: So we started trying experiments of like a human rocket league where out of all the players, one person is flashing. So he's it and everybody's trying to tag this person and the tag the ball away, the virtual ball. But I imagine going forward, even if ZTAG doesn't do it, eventually we're going to fall on this physical digital. Go ahead. With some kind of a transfer mechanism. So the BHAG, or the Big Harry, his goal for ZTAG is to become bigger than the NFL eventually.
R Erwin: Wow, nice. Yeah, I can say that, because my son, he's not very athletic, but he does, with his AR goggles and stuff, he's all over in there with the gorilla tag and whatever else he can have.
Quan Gan: This is the new generation. Like, unless traditional sports are willing to start digitizing like a TGL, and a lot of conservative folk is like, I'm never going to watch that, but they're not catering to you.
R Erwin: They're catering to these kids that are going to grow up.
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we want to basically be at the forefront of first amassing millions and millions of dedicated ZTAG players, turning it into basically having Olympics, ZTAG Olympics at these schools, and they're starting to compete, and then having the professional in, and start putting into it. Where they go, yeah, yeah.
R Erwin: Yeah, I mean, you're right, because if you watch something like Gymnastics, You're only focused for a few seconds, and you're lost and you're roaming, but you're always looking for that ball.
Quan Gan: Yeah, exactly. You're focusing on one person, that's an individual, but a gymnastics sport, as a general sport, is never going to be as popular as baseball, basketball, or any of the ball sports.
R Erwin: No, well, it's like even that Libby Dunn. I mean, for LSU, she makes like $9 million in an NIL deal. She could have graduated last year, but she's like, there's no way for me to go as a gymnast. Like, I'm going to stay in college one more year and make my money.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah, because it ultimately comes down to eyeballs. If you have a ball, then the number of eyeballs on this is actually what creates the commercial need. can start putting sports bets on it, you can put commercials behind it, you can put all this stuff just because the attention is so focused onto that one object.
R Erwin: Oh, cool.
Quan Gan: Yeah. So just putting that out there and, you know, like, if that sounds remotely interesting or something.
R Erwin: very interesting.
Quan Gan: I want to know more. Yeah.
R Erwin: Yeah. Because I feel like that's, I'm with you. I feel like that's where it's going to go. I can sit here and I can watch these kids all day. And, you know, they'll do a few slides and they'll see a few things. But a lot of times it's right back to the phone, like even at City Museum, you know.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
R Erwin: And I like that for like for my son too, that he'd be active, you know. Yeah, it's cool. It's a great idea. I can't believe you took ZTAG so big, man.
Quan Gan: That is amazing. Well, it's been in my mind for all this time.
R Erwin: So it's not like I'm doing anything new. It's always been here.
Quan Gan: It's similar to Bob.
R Erwin: It's always. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Quan Gan: It's just, you got to progressively do it. There's this other analogy of like the chick hatching from the egg. Like people from the outside, they're like, oh my God, there's a chick as soon as it cracked from the egg.
R Erwin: But the chick is like, I've been here all along.
Quan Gan: I can do the eggs as part of the process. Yeah.
R Erwin: Yeah.
Quan Gan: No, no, it's good to see.
R Erwin: You too, man. I'm to you reach out. I never reach out because I never. Bother people, but man, I'm so happy, like, yeah, you're, I think you're one of the coolest cats there is, man. You, Charlie, just a great time, man, the way you raise your kids, the whistling to go to the bathroom, all that.
Quan Gan: Do you want to, do you want to say hi to her?
R Erwin: Yeah, sure.
Quan Gan: Okay, all right, hold on, let me see if I can pop in real quick. Oh. Can we say hi to you real quick? To Rick, from City Museum. Okay, just say, just say hi real quick.
R Erwin: Oh, hey. It's so good to see you.
Quan Gan: Oh, my gosh, hey, Rick.
R Erwin: We're a long time no see. Yes, ma'am, it's so good to hear about your family.
Quan Gan: I'm always missing that place. I definitely bring the kids back to there. Yeah, we're definitely coming back. Yeah. Probably within the next year or two.
R Erwin: Yes, yes, yes.
Quan Gan: Oh, great. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, what a great connection is this, yeah.
R Erwin: No, I love it.
Quan Gan: I love your family. guys, I think you're cool. Thank you, thank you. Good to see Good you. so great we're so connected i'll definitely see you visit you guys yeah all right she's going back in her work no sorry to bother cool yeah no um i'll just keep pinging you and um yeah seeing if there's anything that comes yeah and everything comes to mind i'll let you know okay good thing but man it's still good to see you dude likewise well happy wedding yeah you too all right go back to grinding yeah all right i'll see you later later man all right
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Quan Gan: Good morning.
Kristin Neal: Hi. Good morning.
Quan Gan: How are you?
Kristin Neal: Good. How are you?
Quan Gan: Doing well. Happy Friday.
Kristin Neal: Gosh, it is Friday, isn't it? Yeah. Is that too loud? Can you still hear my music?
Quan Gan: No. It's not there anymore. This meeting is being recorded. You have music in the background when you work?
Kristin Neal: I do. That's my brain.
Quan Gan: That's cool. So are we only expecting one of those, the partners, to show up?
Kristin Neal: Yes.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: I believe, though, that there's two people on her team that are joining.
Quan Gan: Sounds good. Thanks. I don't know how big Shasta County is.
Kristin Neal: It might be huge. It is from what I've seen. Yes, it is.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so I wonder how far apart they actually even are.
Kristin Neal: I'm Yeah. From my notes, they're one of the largest, if not the largest. At least, like, spread out.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank Thank you. No, think I was thinking of Butte.
Quan Gan: Sorry?
Kristin Neal: I think I was thinking of Butte County.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. Yeah. Overall populations, 181,000. Not that large.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: You Median age 41, median household income is $71K. Okay, so it's low population density. The average in California is about 253 people. Per square mile, there are only 48 people per square mile, like a sixth of them. Predominantly white, and then Hispanic or Latino is about 12%. There's actually a higher suicide rate, 25 per 100,000, more than double of the state average, which is 10 per 100,000.
Kristin Neal: Does it say if they're adults or kids? Sorry.
Quan Gan: I can look up that. It says higher than average rates of child abuse, neglect, and teen births compared to state level.
Kristin Neal: We'll give her another minute, and then I'll reach out.
Quan Gan: Do you still use Google anymore?
Kristin Neal: Google?
Quan Gan: Yeah, Google search in general.
Kristin Neal: Oh, Google search. No, I don't actually.
Quan Gan: Mostly GPT?
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, that reflects a larger shift. I think a lot of people are doing that. Because you have the answers come to you, rather than you chasing the answers.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. But then there's some things that I'll check, too. But yeah, not as much. How interesting. you. Thank you. Thank you.
Quan Gan: Most of the suicides are men, 82%, and a significant number of these cases were white men over 44.
Kristin Neal: Really? Over 44?
Quan Gan: Over half were by gun.
Kristin Neal: So they've got kids, they've got young families.
Quan Gan: So the contributing factors is limited in mental health services, rural isolation, high firearm ownership, mental health stigma. So we're
Kristin Neal: Thank you. Thank you. Thank There she is. Okay. Hi there.
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Good morning. Good morning, for being a little late. We had three staff out this morning, so I was trying to figure out how everybody could do their job with being short staff. It was fun.
Kristin Neal: You got to be an octopus.
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Yes. Yep. Yep. Trying to figure it all out, but we got it rolling, so we're good. Anyway, how are you guys?
Quan Gan: Doing good. Happy Friday.
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Kristin Neal: You too. right back Friday. Tim. Thank Okay. I'm so excited it's you. I remember meeting you in the line.
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): That's so cool!
Kristin Neal: Yep!
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Oh, I love it. I know, that was fun. Yeah, one of my teachers, they pulled his name and they're like, wait, there's more! You guys won the ZTAG. And we're like, okay, like, that's cool.
Kristin Neal: I'm like, I was talking to them when we were waiting to get on the shuttle. So, yeah, that's fun.
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Awesome. Very cool.
Quan Gan: Yes, it's funny how just everything kind of comes full circle because we also mentioned to you guys that we already have some partners out in your county.
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Yeah, which is crazy. And it's perfect because they are actually, Project Share has run to Chess County Office of Fed.
Quan Gan: So we're, you know, attached to the same organization. So that's pretty cool. I'm curious geographically, how big are you guys and are they even anywhere close to your facilities?
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): It depends on which site they are. So Project Share is like, they're after school for all, like, pretty much almost all of it. We in the county, and our county is pretty vast because of, you know, being more rural, so I'm pretty sure you said this site was like, which sites did you say? Was it just Project Share, or did they have specific sites that were using it?
Kristin Neal: There's definitely specific sites. One I know is Fall River, and then let me get Nicole's site. That one's way up. Give me one second, and I'll get that.
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Yeah, Fall River is probably over an hour away, up in the mountains, so yeah. So we are pretty vast as far as where people can land in the county. So our sites are in Redding, all three of them, so we're a little more centrally located. And just to give you some background, so we, you know, part of the County Office of Ed, we're... It's a department that's student programs, so we run the three Alt-Ed sites that are run by the county. So we have Juvenile Court School, an independent study program, and then a regional special ed program. And so the independent study and the regional special ed program are located on the same property. It's two separate campuses, they're right next door to each other. And then Juvenile Hall is on the south end of town. And so, obviously, all three very unique sites, you know, the way they're set up, and, but in thinking of, like, how we could create, I know you guys talked about, like, you know, the older kids creating, like, and running the games for the younger kids, definitely something we can do, especially with our independent study kids, but then within Juvenile Hall, we have a camp program. So, and a series, a lot of, and is an very Depending on their behaviors, so that's something, too, we could partner with them going out to work with the little kids or partner with the other school.
Quan Gan: That sounds great. Originally, we were thinking of coming out, which we certainly can, but if there's someone local, we'd love to support them and foster that tighter connection for you guys.
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Yeah, that would be really cool.
Kristin Neal: The other site is Shasta Union Elementary.
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Okay, yeah, so they're in Reading. So they're closer, yeah.
Kristin Neal: Great, okay.
Quan Gan: So that's Nicole Harper's site? Mm-hmm. Oh, well, then, you know, it's verendipitous.
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Yep, exactly.
Kristin Neal: That's really cool.
Quan Gan: Yeah, you know, I reached out to Nicole and I think the main thing was, you we're coming up closer to the end of the school year. So it's just timing. So I don't know, like, how, is everybody's calendar pretty much aligned or how does that work?
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): lead care Yeah, juvenile court school is a little different, we're year-round, but I think as far as if we were wanting to plan something, it'd probably be starting next year, just because I know we all end, and they follow pretty much the same calendar we follow too, so last day of school is June 4th, which is right around the corner, so the other two sites, they do an extended school year for three weeks, but other than that, the other two sites are are closed for the summer, as most schools are in the county, and I'm not sure what projects are, if they offer anything during the summer for students or not, I'm not as familiar with their program, so, yeah.
Kristin Neal: Not for Nicole, yeah. Yeah, she said they'll come back in August.
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Yeah, yeah, so we start back up, I think it's August, 13th is the first day of school is in session, so, yeah. Yeah, so probably looking at maybe Yeah. Planning some sort of connection or partnership after school starts back up.
Quan Gan: Chris, what have we supported with the current program so far? think we did something last year for them, right?
Kristin Neal: Was it a site visit? It was a site visit, yeah. That was in December, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. They didn't actually play the system, though, but I think Nicole would be open to that. Would you want your own students there, Jill? Yes, right?
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Yeah, I think that would be cool.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, and that would be okay to kind of get them transporting them there?
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Yeah, if we had something planned out and we knew, you know, probation has really been, we've been doing a lot of partnership between probation and school, and people more, they call them, like, OSAs, like, they're field trips that For probation of, you know, re-engaging students in the community, we call them field trip, and we were running up against issues of, like, they're like, oh, we're going to take them to Whiskeytown and kayak on Wednesday in the middle of the day, and we're like, ah, that's an unexcused abstinence, because we didn't know about it, and you're just pulling them out of school, like, you know, so we're like, okay, how can we make this better, you know, like, we can align it to, they're going to Whiskeytown, let's talk to the science teacher and have them do an activity, and send a school staff with them, so now it's a school trip, you know, and so, we've really been trying to increase those opportunities for that group, especially the students in the camp program, because it's kind of part of their programming for exiting the program is, you know, getting back in the community, doing more community service type things, and I think that, like, having, building some sort of mentorship into, you know, games would be so cool, and it would really align with what we're trying to do with those students, and then have it be still a school activity that gets them out of the facility, you know, you know, interacting with other kids, either kids their age or younger kids, to build that, you know, kind of that relational component.
Quan Gan: What's the age range of those kids?
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): The ones here at Juvenile Home, they can be from 7th grade to 12th grade.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Right now, I think in that program, we have, I think we've got the youngest kid we have in there right now is 8th grader, and the oldest one is 11th grade. They range quite a bit. But, you know, and then the Excel Academy, where our regional special ed program is K-8.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Yeah, and independent study is 6th, 12th. We hit them all. Yeah, cover the whole spectrum.
Quan Gan: Okay, and would you see this as separate visits, or would you possibly combine them into a single?
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): We do, that's what I'm thinking, is if we knew ahead of time, we could get our- Um, camp program kids, our rehab program kids, up to the other site. And like I said, those two schools are next door to each other, which makes it really easy. So I think we could probably just do one site visit up at our independent study and Excel campus and then bring those kids there.
Kristin Neal: So it would actually be at that campus?
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Perfect. Okay. Sounds good.
Quan Gan: Okay. Uh, sorry, just to clarify, so are you, um, thinking of having Nicole's kids come to you guys or you guys come to her site?
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Yeah, either way. I think it'd probably be easier for her to come to us. Um, yeah, to, you know, if we were doing like kind of like a demonstration or like a collaboration, like this is what it looks like, having them show, you know, the students that are new to it.
Quan Gan: Yeah. And do you guys have a space to run activities like that?
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Mm-hmm. Yeah, we have a whole track and soccer field, uh, and And even at Excel, for some of little kids, we have a big basketball court, outdoor basketball court, and then they have a large quad area as well, so that's why that space is more ideal, because it has more open space and also kids can't come there. Kids can't come here unless the county says they have to come here.
Kristin Neal: Kwon, I see actually that really working out, because Nicole's kids are very familiar with the unit, and they have taken it on. They've just owned it, so it's kind of neat for them to show that on your turf. Kwon, kind of share what they can, what they can even do, almost like a sharing how they've implemented and how it's growing.
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): That'd be kind of neat. Yeah.
Quan Gan: I think there's that dimension and maybe even like... They can collaboratively come up with new games or something, new formats, and they can experiment.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, that would be cool. Yeah, like on-site collaboration.
Quan Gan: Yeah, we'll give them a little project.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, yeah.
Quan Gan: We run them through the basic activities and then say, okay, well, now that you know these basic game mechanics, what are some ways that you might be able to improve it?
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): know, and then give them some props or props that they could use. Yeah, that would be cool. I wonder too if there's a way, like just thinking and front-loading the students to, you know, so they're coming like kind of with that in mind or that, you know, like basic understanding at least beforehand. Do you guys have something that we can do in the facility, in the classrooms? Because there's, you three different sites, so like in different age ranges prior to them getting together with those other kids. So that way they would feel familiar with it and not feel like, why are we here? Or I have no idea what we're doing, you know, so.
Kristin Neal: I'm actually so glad that you're You asked that Jill, because my brain went to that, and you saying that is perfect, because there is something, and that's the welcome letter actually, because we're building the ZTAG community, we're in the process of it, and they'll see like where we're at, it's at the very foundational level, but collaborations that they'll actually do, we'll put it on there, we'll add them to this, to where all the schools are seeing it, so that might be an incentive if that's okay for them, but to also see where it's kind of started, and where it's kind of now taking, that might be at least the easiest, as far as like getting some, like an actual product out to you, it almost feels like that would be kind of shooting ourselves on the foot, you know?
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Yeah, and I'm thinking more just like, that introduction to what it is, so that when they show up, and you're like, okay, this is what we're doing today, they're not like, I thought we were just going to a field trip.
Quan Gan: We got plenty of content, yeah, we can send you a bunch of links to things on our website. And hopefully that should get the kids pretty amped up.
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Yeah. I'm thinking like get the creative juices flowing of like, you know, we're going to ask them to improve or make something themselves, but also like that basic understanding so they're walking in knowing, you know, and I think that always helps, you know, kids be more open to trying it as if they, you know, kind of feel familiar with it ahead of time, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Good, good.
Quan Gan: That's good insight. Would it help if I recorded a quick little video message to the kids and tell them what the project is?
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): That would be so cool.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay. What would be the best way to address them?
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Like I don't know exactly what my audience is, so like. Yeah. And I'm thinking, you know, we'd probably show it to all three sites. So I think just, you know, Chess County student program students.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Yeah. Because they're all at three different schools. But, yeah. Mm-hmm.
Quan Gan: Mm Mm Mm
Kristin Neal: A little introduction of your story, Quan, it's very sweet, because he has another company that's in Disneyland and Universal, White House, so it's kind of neat to see where his own story kind of morphs.
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Yeah, that's cool.
Quan Gan: I mean, if I were to tell that story, might be like a five to ten minute thing.
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Is that okay? Oh yeah, that's totally fine.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Capture the audience.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Yeah. I think kids like to see that.
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Kids like to know. Oh yeah.
Kristin Neal: You know, I think. Okay.
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Yeah. Absolutely. I think that like builds more of a connection to it, too. You know, if you have like, you know, like that understanding of where this came from, and you know, who created it, and you know, like, you kind of feel a little, little, like, proximity pride, right?
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I want to do that as a way to give back because a lot of my inspirations came from other people that I really looked up to, yeah, when I was a student, so definitely.
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Awesome. Yeah, I'm excited for this.
Kristin Neal: Thank you. Me too. I think the timing is, it looks like it'll work well. I know they have a project lights out, but do you guys do that or is that just strictly, that must just be strictly after.
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Yeah. Yeah, it be.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. We'll go on her end and we'll get these ideas together and we'll see where we can connect them.
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): That sounds cool. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: We'll do this.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, I'm so glad everything worked out.
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, so we'll just, I guess, probably just start some emails, figure out dates and coordinate for, you the school year. And I worked the whole summer, most of the summer, and luckily I just got, a lot of my staff is working all summer, which is cool. They don't have to. balance Seamart,如一, They signed up for it and I've got most of my full-time staff here this summer so it'll actually be a really effective summer so we can like two of the full-time teachers are going to be here so we can do some planning around it with them too of like you know what they think that would look like because like logistically it's always the hardest for us versus the other schools you know so you know us kind of taking the lead on that planning will be helpful because then you know we're knowing it's fitting what we need to happen for us. So we can do some of that planning over the summer and figure out some dates and coordinate with you guys too.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Jill North - SCOE (she/her): Awesome. Cool. Well thank you guys. I look forward to it. Have a great day. You too. Have a great Happy Friday. Bye too. Bye.
[Metadata only — transcript not included in this selection]
Kristin Neal: Hello. This meeting is being recorded. Oh, is Charlie also joining? Yes, sir.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Especially since, um, Fathom is transitioning.
Quan Gan: Okay. Sounds good. I hope it doesn't feel too overwhelming for her.
Kristin Neal: We can definitely, um, alleviate her fears, you know, Fathom.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Hi, Carmee.
Carmee Sarvida: Hi.
Quan Gan: Hello.
Kristin Neal: All right, Carmee. thank you so much for meeting with us. Uh, we wanted to take a moment to, um, just relieve your mind. All right. Thank We are all here just as a way to support you. Sorry, I'm to turn this down. We want to be sure to just be here to support you. It's not overwhelming that all of us are here with you. We all have a certain aspect that we've seen your work in. Charlie recently with the marketing, Quan, of course, with the AI, and myself with the sales and partnership relations, not necessarily in your job title to build, but at least to help nurture. So with that being said, would Quan and Charlie like to say anything?
Quan Gan: No, I'm just, you know, today I'm more of a passive observer, and I might give some feedback maybe a little bit down the line, but I just want to hear from you, Carmee, you know, how it's been for... You were at ZTAG for the past, I guess, seven months now, maybe a little bit longer, yeah.
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, okay. With ZTAG, I started working with the team two months ago, March, 2 to 3 months. And I was really, really excited to work with the team because before, I only worked on my own. And I didn't have any idea what each team member actually do. But since I was plugged into the sales team, and being able to collaborate with the other members across different teams or departments, on this stop Hey. I can say that I am now getting some of the gist of what ZTAG is really doing, and specifically for my role, supporting Chris on the sales, it's really, I think for the first month or the first two weeks, it was challenging. The first month actually was challenging because I didn't have any idea of the flow, but I'm really thankful that Chris was always there answering my questions and being patient, of course, and I really appreciated that she recorded long videos for the tutorials. It was really helpful, and I think. The GitHub process was really, really helpful since that's my like the Bible of what of how I do the sales process. And yeah, I think I'm really I'm doing it's not that overwhelming for me because I have support. She guided me throughout from the start up until today. And there there will be there are some things that needs to be improved, course, but yeah, I think I really have good guidance transitioning from my role before to to the role that I have right now with sales.
Kristin Neal: Thank you for saying that, Carmee. And just to be clear, we always wanted to be part of the team like I. I. I asking you, Stan, you were meeting sometimes with us, but I think there were some meetings that you weren't going to, and it was like, can't Carmee come? So I'm grateful the intentions have aligned and gotten you connected. It feels like you just were always part of us. It was a very natural integration with you and the rest of the team, so I'm grateful for that.
Carmee Sarvida: Thank you.
Kristin Neal: Thank you, Carmee.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, and also I want to show appreciation for Carmee, because once everyone has a role, but we're just not knowing much about you, but also we just assign you a word maybe it's not you would desire for, but you're still like has a good attitude of giving your full support, even your could be not capable of just at the beginning of doing it. But I do see you like dive yourself into it in detail or. And getting to all the process to get all the email out and I would do see all the work you've been done. But I think right now it's so great of Quan and CleanSix and staff helping support, build up the system that we can get the repeatable work and give it to the AI. So now we can free part of you to be the creative side of doing some other contribution which you are good at.
Carmee Sarvida: Thank you, Charlie. That's something that also sparked my interest because you said the past meetings that we had that you understand, because they're also creative. You are also on the creative side, right? And being in the sales doesn't really feel like, doesn't equate to the fulfillment that I have if I do the designing things. But yeah, I always put my heart into my work, and I'm doing my best to really do well in whatever role that I have. Thank you, Charlie.
Kristin Neal: I think that's where my concern kind of flares up, and I'm going to be very transparent right now. That's a big concern of mine, this transition, because I just don't know where that's going to land. I don't want it to be just abandoned. Um, my role now is very clear. Um, so I need to stay to that. So seeing this kind of, um, in the hands of AI, I'm, I, I'm just going to put you through it and hope it's not abandoned on your side. And Carmee will, we'll figure it out, you know?
Carmee Sarvida: Um, yeah.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Carmee Sarvida: I, I'm still going to support you.
Kristin Neal: That's right. Please don't abandon it.
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah.
Quan Gan: I like to add something to that point. And hopefully it might, uh, in hopes of easing your mind, Chris, on that, um, you know, we still need someone to oversee those specific processes. So I, my current thought is, uh, that is something that Carmee would still oversee. And it's, um, but what we're trying to do with the automations is reduce the amount of time that it takes for her to manage that, uh, you know, with basically these draft emails. Uh, we, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh We had a couple of conversations between Carmee and Francis and I about what are the most time-consuming things. And some of that, it seems like it's researching the email thread just to make sure you have the full context of that customer before you reach back out to them. And that can largely be done by AI agents to the point where you have the draft email and Carmee is really just doing a human check to make sure that we're not sending anything out or promising anything that is completely against what our policies are. It's really the overall intention towards automation is not to say you send this completely over to AI. It's almost identical to self-driving. You've been in my car plenty of times. I still have my hands on the wheel where I'm forced to in a way, even though it's very trusting. But it's not 100%. So I, as the driver, Still have to oversee it. So it's not like I'm leaving the car and having the car drive itself. Same thing in this case, right? It's, you know, Carmee's still overseeing it, but we are trying to reduce her cognitive load so that most of that can be benefited on the design and creative aspects.
Kristin Neal: Thank you. Carmee, do you have anything else to share as far as feedback over these past six months?
Carmee Sarvida: I think I pretty much shared my journey the past two months. can't really share my, the months, previous months before I joined the team because that's the different, different workload.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah. Context, right.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. I think, Carmee, can you give us a look? Because it will be also good for us as documentation to record, you gave a brief list of what you have been done in the past couple of months, including where you work for Stan and also in the marketing team, like detail, not like it goes to detail, but like the list of what you've been done.
Kristin Neal: Make sure to include the spreadsheets.
Carmee Sarvida: Spreadsheets.
Kristin Neal: Make sure to include those, those spreadsheets that you updated.
Carmee Sarvida: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I handle his social media, creating content, and then also his calendar, adding meetings for appointments, events, and then building websites. And then yeah, that's my main task. And then starting this early this year, before he moved on, I was already supporting Chris and she gave me this spreadsheet that we have somewhat our database where all the partners or the current partners that we have in their purchases. And I've noticed that the spreadsheets are not in like uniform. So I organized it so that we have like the same format and it could be lead. I understood in just one glance, you know, organized and make sure it's clean. And Yeah, after that, I didn't expect that Stan would move on and then I started supporting the sales. So that's pretty much about it. I would Stan more on executive assistance task, administrative tasks. And I was also asked to research on newsletter and how to send newsletters. So I studied MailChimp, how to do it. I was about to suggest it, but Quan mentioned that we've been using the Zoho, the Zoho tool in sending out the emails, the campaign. That's also, I checked it and it's the same thing with MailChimp.
Quan Gan: I have a few questions on that. So, in your earlier work with Stan, are there any tools or things that you have done that you think might be useful in a more creative capacity now? Tools already?
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, I think, I haven't asked Paula if we have scheduling tools for content, posting, because before I was using Instagram and Facebook, and they really, they have this analytics where we can check if our posts are really showing up on our audience, target audience. And, yeah, analytics, they have this analytics. And for LinkedIn, I use Tapleo, where we can, it has a lot of features on how we can effectively create content and how to connect with our target. So yeah, I think those two tools, we can use it for optimizing our social media accounts.
Quan Gan: There's actually, I'll send this to you later, but there's a Zoho marketing package. I think it's already part of our Zoho one, but it may be interesting for you to explore out of those different modules, which of those might be useful. Because as I mentioned in some of our previous chats, the theme for last year was just getting our product out the door and getting shipping and everything right. But the theme for this year is we need to be able to make large-scale announcements. Previously, we've been just manually doing that email, but it's not going to scale. I think that's a pretty substantial next part to make sure that we can send reliable emails that end up exactly. And also being easily seen by our customers. I get blocked.
Kristin Neal: If I can overview that, I'm going to list off the things that it sounds like you're in charge of. I'll start off with the things that you were in charge of with Stan. So that was LinkedIn, his schedule, and social media. And then since taking over the, for the last two months, you've been in charge of research, ordering. I know you've been doing ordering, sales, spreadsheets, and marketing. There'll be a portion of that. Is there anything else that I'm missing that you're a part of?
Carmee Sarvida: First, Dan, it's the website, website development.
Kristin Neal: Website development, right now?
Carmee Sarvida: Right now, yeah, I think we already covered everything.
Quan Gan: Can you tell me a little bit more about the website? Because Stan had some other initiatives, right, where you were... Like making a completely new website or what was that?
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, completely new website. So I built three websites for him. Two for his account, Stan Luth, the professional one, and then the Stenic Surfer. And then the other one was for a non-profit organization for his daughters, Caitlin and Morgan. It's just blooming kindness. So I built a website from scratch, conceptualizing the design and the content that we will be putting there. And yeah, sorry. Most of the work is on the design, Charlie.
Quan Gan: Okay. So do you also have experience management? Are WordPress sites?
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, I use WordPress elements and building the websites.
Quan Gan: Right now, believe Clances and I are the only ones that have access to the ZTAG site, right?
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Do you have any interest in working with Clances on the site?
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, when we were assigned, Clances and I were assigned to, like, add the upcoming events to our website, I was asking her if I could do it for her so that it would be taken out of her load, but she insisted that she do it, so I did not insist anymore, but if there will be, like, any slight changes on the website, I can definitely help her with it.
Charlie Xu: Right. So eventually, I think we might need to build some individual pages. Like for if you go to camp, trade show, or after school, or different, because that is what we talked about before, we might have a specific page just for that industry, so we might need to do some like hidden page, maybe some hidden page we can work on. But also, yeah, because I'm glad to hear you also hold on to the web design skills, so definitely see if there's in the future have some related work and hand it to you.
Carmee Sarvida: Okay.
Kristin Neal: I think that was exciting. Yeah, that's very exciting, because you're getting the insight from the sales and where the demographics are coming, and then you're going to be able to connect it to the website and the events.
Quan Gan: That's very exciting. you. Thank Thank I just had a thought, and this is still, you know, half-baked, but just wanted to hear, you know, actually how all of us might feel about it, especially Carmee. So Chris and Charlie, yesterday we were talking to Steve and Eric about training and having modules for that. So today I've actually been exploring quite a few details in what kind of platform that takes to deliver the content. And so there's some additional platforms called LMS, which stands for Learning Management Systems. Carmee, do you know anything about those?
Carmee Sarvida: Before I worked with Stan, I was trained for the executive assistance role, and we were using LMS, where we can access the modules. Is that the
Quan Gan: It's basically like, think of it like a WordPress platform specifically for teaching courses, online courses. So you can plug in YouTube videos, can plug in questions, you can plug in quizzes and certifications. So they've already built out a framework. So treat it like WordPress for websites, as LMS is for learning content websites. And so, yeah, I actually think, you know, beyond Steve and Eric helping us with the actual content in it, but the actual management of that kind of site is going to scale with the number of partners we have. In fact, it might, I think it might even see more usage than our main website, mainly because our main website is kind of a landing page for new people coming in, but they're not customers, right? So they're just people kind of looking for general info, but the actual engagement. That is probably mostly going to happen on this new LMS, where you can actually track, okay, this partner got trained up to a certain level, and then we're getting them badges, which might also turn into, okay, what kind of credit do we give them, or what kind of benefits from ZTAG, or what kind of gifts we give them. So it's actually a kind of like a comprehensive program that we want to develop. So I'm just curious if that sounds interesting or aligned with some of your thoughts.
Carmee Sarvida: For the design part, for the building, the website part, not creating I guess up to the whole thing.
Quan Gan: How much of that do you like, or is it too much, or what do you think?
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, I would love it. I would love building websites, but probably not in the creating the content part, because I'm not too familiar with. you. I love it. it.
Quan Gan: The content we will provide, it's kind of like we capture the content, but it needs to be properly formatted, needs to be properly put into a certain way that is user-intuitive, and we need to design the whole entire course as far as how the flow goes, but we have to actually generate a lot of the content because it just takes us to take some video, the transcript goes in. In fact, I've already created a little module this morning just based on our current videos, so the actual generation of the words, easy, right? In this age of AI, that's all easy. It's more like how do we maintain the system and make sure it scales with our customers.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, but I just feel like seeing and because the system I've been experiencing some, it could be make very professional and have a lot of interaction. Correct. including like downloaded PDF and feedbacks. It really is adding the interaction between the end user and us and we can oversee what their progress is. But I try to see like at the beginning we just start with simple and like little by little to add on to make it more complete. But like at the beginning, I just feel like what we have right now, maybe start experimenting on this platform to see how to build up the structures and what we're lacking of. So it will guide us to intentionally collecting these if we need it. So maybe by the side of work when there's not much to do, we can start doing some research on that to see maybe we need to find out a list of what we need to prepare for fulfill the whole platform.
Kristin Neal: This is really, really inspiring, actually, Quan, because I so see it as that step counter, you know, that interaction number, you know, if it goes up to this certain number, they get, you know, they move along almost like a game.
Quan Gan: can upload their screenshots. Okay, so here, you know, yes, because our biggest pain point right now, since the beginning of the product was actually trying to get data from our customers, because they don't have access to internet oftentimes. But if we're able to now hook it to the actual partner who's doing the certification, then we can incentivize them to take screenshots of their system to show us how many steps are they doing, how many games, like, that actually closes the loop.
Charlie Xu: Or even if have a form, have them to fill in, like, every other week to fill in some data to the next page. So if you need to go to the next chapter, you need to finish this, whatever.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's so cool.
Kristin Neal: Like what's coming? I don't know, I can see like billboards.
Quan Gan: Oh, it's, I mean, basically we, oh man, okay, I'm getting, I'm getting.
Kristin Neal: I am too, sorry.
Quan Gan: Sorry, opening a can of worms. This is another layer of a real life video game because ZTAG itself is a real life video game.
Charlie Xu: Are you changing that tagline on your LinkedIn?
Quan Gan: I'm not giving that up.
Charlie Xu: Video game, really?
Quan Gan: Okay. I'm not giving that up.
Kristin Neal: Hey, what's the tagline?
Quan Gan: I said, I'm living in a video game, I'm creating a video game, and I am getting kids off of the video game. Oh, that's, you misquoted me. Oh, it's, it is, I'm in a video game, making a video game, getting kids off of video games.
Kristin Neal: I love it. I love it.
Quan Gan: That's it. Yeah, so, so this whole life, you could treat it like a video game because you're leveling up. Yeah. Right? So, so, If we can not only get the kids to level up when they're playing, but the actual instructor or the operator to also level up in terms of how many games they've hosted, we can give them badges, rewards, like, you know, like a YouTube plaque, you know, platinum plaque, right? We can get those kind of things as long as we can keep track of all that data. And the biggest pain point before was the system itself is not connected to the internet oftentimes due to their IT security. But if we have this LMS, we actually have the teachers themselves proactively put their data back in. So that, man, like, this is solving a, like, a six-year-old problem, actually.
Charlie Xu: Huge. And our, Carmee, think the idea popped in, since Quan is so emphasizing that slogan, we just turned that into the banner.
Quan Gan: What you making?
Kristin Neal: What can?
Charlie Xu: For the content.
Carmee Sarvida: Let's do it.
Charlie Xu: Everything.
Carmee Sarvida: To make it unique.
Charlie Xu: And then we find a good paragraph to describe Quan about who is him, but that turned into a slogan on the banner.
Quan Gan: I appreciate that. I've treated this whole life like a video game because everything is about earning experience and you got to level up with different bosses.
Kristin Neal: You know, you kill a small boss, gain some EXP, and then you got a bigger boss in front of you.
Charlie Xu: What do you mean you are creating? It's a little complex. You're creating a video game and your kids get off the video game. So you're creating the video game that you're not...
Quan Gan: No, it's a different video game because this game actually gets them moving. So I don't think video games is to blame. It is the way the content is being delivered and the intention behind the content. You know, and there's actually...
Charlie Xu: You're not creating a video game. The video game is confusing.
Quan Gan: Chris, you'll see this is the back and forth that I have with Charlie, because she's very much on the other side of the spectrum as far as technology goes. But video games to me, and I grew up with video games, it was actually one of the biggest things that benefited my life. Because I didn't have a close network of friends in school, but a lot of my friends were found, not found online, but I connected with remote friends through video games. And it was because of typing on video games that I learned how to type faster than most people. There's a lot of tangible skills you gain from video games, and also just becoming tech savvy to connect things. Like, that was, so, I think video games in the right dosage can actually be very, very. Beneficial. It's just, you know, you still want to socialize in person, so you don't want to, you know, overemphasize it, but video games aren't all bad.
Kristin Neal: All right, guys. Well, that was a great, great little tidbit of what's to come. I'm excited to see the collaboration with you, Carmee. At this point, I think there's actually where there would be data kind of shown, but you're doing a really good job with following up and hitting those deadlines. So I'm not too worried about that and the deadlines that would be shared. But what I would like to transition to now is what is coming. I did tell you and I told Quan yesterday what we had talked about it, the weekly sales meeting. So I'll go over right now, if that's okay, briefly what it is that we're going to start overviewing. And then we'll get Charlie and Quan's input if there's any, anything that needs to be shared. Okay. So starting on Monday, we're going to start and Clancis is working on these, these numbers. So you heard me say it in the main meeting, our goal right now for this year is 5 million. So we're, we're, we're doing a really good job. We're actually on par with, with that and surpassing it. We're even above where we were at last year, currently. So this is where we're at. And this is what we need in order to get to that goal. Here we have 32 weeks remaining. So here is our weekly goal in order to hit that. Thankfully this week we hit it. So $81,741.25. Let's see. So each week we're going to go over. The number of leads, our goal is seven leads and see how we can help with that. That'll be a great way for me especially to know so I can go after another potential lead, like another group of potential leads. Weekly goal, we do want a conversion 60% of those leads to deals so I'm glad that we have that very nice and cleared laid out that was painstakingly figured out but it was figured out and now we know that the intent right when you convert from the lead to the sale I'm sorry lead to the account it's on your dashboard so now you're able to see exactly what you need to do in order to get it to that deal. So, very grateful for that. If you have anything just jump in okay Carmee?
Carmee Sarvida: Yep.
Kristin Neal: Great. Of course, our lead response time, we're hoping for 100% of this, of new leads to be responded to within two hours. So let me, this will be overview for the week, and then we can see exactly what, if there was something else that was taking precedent, how I can support you with that. It's not as a reprimand, it's just where can I support you.
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, Chris, I have a question for this. For lead response time, since we have, like, different time zones, so when I, I'm already, like, out of work, some leads are coming in, so how are we gonna, like, respond to it within two hours?
Kristin Neal: So your, um, hours are, are very specific, Carmee, and I'm very grateful. That you're taking on probably the harder job hours. So you are actually in the block of time that most teachers are available. So that's why it's so imperative for you to be available during those times. And then after, of course, teachers understand off hours means no communication. So, yeah, I don't think your hours will change after the transition, but that might be something we can discuss later with that.
Carmee Sarvida: But will it not affect the data? Because I believe this will be, that we have analytics for this, right, the CRM on how...
Quan Gan: There might be a way to filter it so it's within business hours. Yeah. So I'll work with Clancy on this. And she did reach out to me that some of the metrics may be a little bit harder to measure. So we'll have to figure out what are the easiest ones we could put tracking on. And then the other ones... on.
Kristin Neal: we'll on. we'll what's what's next We'll find other ways. Sounds good. Even if it's a general conversation, we're okay with that too, it doesn't, I mean, until we get those things in place. Okay, any other questions?
Carmee Sarvida: No.
Kristin Neal: All right. We have total number of deals, so the number of the deals closed for the week, our goal of that is three to four. Okay, three to four deals. I have a feeling we're at one to two right now, our average. What do you think?
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, yeah, between one to two. But since we have these figures, the amount, sometimes we get, like this week, get 10 units. Are we going to count the three to four deals, or how many units we are, like? Okay. All
Quan Gan: Can I chime in on this?
Kristin Neal: Yeah, please.
Quan Gan: So from a production standpoint, it really just comes down to how many units. Because, you know, we have an average around, you know, let's just say 9K per unit, right, given a discount. So, or you can, rough ballpark, can say about 10K. Okay, so these numbers would just equate to can we effectively ship about 10 units a week? And you can kind of extrapolate that over a year, which would be, you know, about five, like four, probably about 500 units in a year is how many we want to move.
Kristin Neal: But this is going to be important data for us to kind of map how many average per deal. So, I think that is important, an important number two.
Quan Gan: Yeah, we'll need to track both.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, so on the production side, at the end of the day, we need to know just how many units actually need to go out.
Quan Gan: But also deals may potentially include your extended service plans and things like that, because that's also part of our revenue stream or things that are reoccurring. I mean, we may have courses for training eventually.
Kristin Neal: So there might be other elements of our business model later on.
Quan Gan: But right now, you know, from a growth standpoint, the biggest needle mover would be just how many units are leaving the office, because that's directly impacting the cash within the next 30 days.
Kristin Neal: So instead of just the weekly goal, we'll have a unit goal. Also, I don't think a unit goal is on here. Okay, I'll update that with that. And then great point about the extended service care.
Quan Gan: I think that may also need to integrate with Tin, because she's getting the customers after they've had the product for some time, and then if they're out of service, she needs to somehow transition that conversation over to you to be able to share that data and make that sale.
Kristin Neal: I was saying the same exact thing, that we'll need kind of one in the same on her end for the shipping. Okay. All right. Anything else, anyone? If not, we'll go on. All right. At one point, Carmee, we do want to start asking customer feedback, satisfaction questions, like a survey, after, you know, your interaction. With them, so that'll be an eventual thing. We're not doing that right now. So this 1 here, and I. We appreciated you taking that initiative, but on your emails, we've got to be careful with when you're promising a call, change the wording to where you can coordinate the call, so they don't expect to hear from you when Joe Schmo is coming, you know what mean, like, a Joe Schmo will be me, but they don't know me, you know what mean, I haven't been interacting, so let me know that you can get that worked out. So having a set number, a goal of those, I think would be good, I think that would actually show your interaction with them, you know, how much you're, because if they want to meet with you or have a call with someone that you're representing, that represents what you guys have been discussing, I think that speaks well to your engagement. And data completeness, achieve 90% data completeness for each lead and deal in CRM. So that'll be a... When we kind of just loosely hit, hopefully Clint can get that number. Is there any questions, Carmee, about what is going to be, well, we'll hit it on Monday very loosely, and hopefully we'll get in place, but how are you with that?
Charlie Xu: So I was wondering, is that we somehow can be collected in the systems for a certain period of time, because for the evaluation every Monday, Carmee has to go back to each one, or is there like, we can download it?
Quan Gan: The APIs should end up on a dashboard. Forward. I think a lot of this stuff needs to be automated so that it's not a manual thing to gather the data. So we need to be able to put in the right instrumentation into the CRM to show us exactly what those numbers are. I think that's entirely possible. I'll have to work with clients on that.
Kristin Neal: Another one that we forgot on here that I'll update with later is how long the deal is going, for how long it's in that pyramid. So you clearing out deals regularly that you asked about a few days ago is going to be imperative for that. So we'll want to track how long it's taking them to go from requesting to closing.
Quan Gan: I think part of the sales meeting, if you guys are doing this weekly, would be talking about any sales that are essentially So outside of the normal process, like if it's just going in the pipeline, you probably don't need to speak too much about it because there is a process for that. But let's say you have a certain deal is taking a little bit longer or you're not responding, then discuss those points so that you don't have to go through every single deal in the pipeline during the sales meeting. That would take too long.
Kristin Neal: Thank you. Yes. Do you have any questions about this, Carmee?
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah. I think I've already raised my concerns or questions for this document.
Kristin Neal: And we will go through this on Monday, right? Yes, ma'am. Awesome. Okay. Carmee, think that's – Juan and Charlie, do you have anything else?
Quan Gan: Yeah, I have a little bit more questions. And just on your comfort level with using the various AI tools we have now, just wondering how those have been assisting you and how often you're using it.
Carmee Sarvida: And ChatGPT, I use it all the time, drafting emails. And actually, now I'm using it to summarize email exchange that I can add to the account notes. That is really helpful. And, of course, in reaching out to our leads. Because right now I'm using a template for our boost leads. But I think it would be better if I can, I will, like, personalize it, add some details on their company and make sure that, you So there is, and we communicate to them that there is an alignment between their company and our mission. So I will start doing that for the leads that will be coming in.
Quan Gan: How often are you using the operations AI?
Carmee Sarvida: Like all the time, I use it for 90% of my work. really, really helpful.
Quan Gan: That's good to know. And then one other thing that I would suggest, and this is also to help allow you to make that transition and reduce the manual work on the sales end, is can you proactively schedule those weekly one-on-ones between you, me, and Clancy's to figure out the automation so that we keep making?
Carmee Sarvida: Okay, I like set the zoom meeting.
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah, let's set a zoom meeting. Yeah, because that one I definitely want to make sure it's continually moving forward so that we can reduce your manual workload and see and there might be new creative ways to do certain things like for example, with the templates, you can mix a template with the email transcripts, and then it could probably make a much more customized draft, right?
Carmee Sarvida: Okay. Do you have any proposed day or hour?
Quan Gan: Probably during the week, generally. Yeah, so just schedule it. I think, let's see, we have the team meetings. Do you have access to my calendar or seeing my availability?
Kristin Neal: No, okay.
Carmee Sarvida: I just have access to the ZTAG, um,
Quan Gan: It could be maybe just after the the team room for half an hour or something. I think that would be something we can do every week until we see that one day anymore.
Kristin Neal: Every day looks available for you, Quan, after that. Yeah.
Quan Gan: That's a regular. Just do a half hour snippet so we can kind of concentrate on automating more stuff.
Kristin Neal: Carmee, wanted to clarify one more thing, too, before we end. Did I hear you correctly that you said you started in March of last year?
Carmee Sarvida: No. I started August last year.
Kristin Neal: August of last year.
Carmee Sarvida: Got it. Thank you. Started March for, didn't say the same.
Quan Gan: That's got you. Okay. A new paradigm shift. Yeah. So it's technically a complete, I mean, it's basically night and day difference, right?
Carmee Sarvida: Mm-hmm.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. All right, everybody. Charlie, do you have anything else?
Charlie Xu: No. Yeah. All right. So for next week, start with next week, I still want to know how many percentage we're still like, it could be like all of a sudden shifting, right? So still, we have a very slow transition, but also because Kristen needs to, has her things going next week. So maybe, maybe Carmee can focus in on what already I sent you, but then later on, I'll further discuss what we're going to move to.
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah. Because I also want to, I understand that right now the process is being automated. And I've also like read from what, from the document that Quan shared, I think yesterday. It is a goal that the implementation of the automation will start later this year, quarter four. Is that correct, Quan?
Quan Gan: It might be AI generated if it says Q4.
Carmee Sarvida: mean, it's a complete process. Yeah, that was alarming. Yeah, six months, and I think because right now, I just want to, like, if there's any way that we can, like, set how many percent should I support the sales and also the marketing so that I can also be able to divide. my day and how I can, I make sure to accomplish the task on time and, of course, not compromising the quality just because I'm supporting two teams.
Quan Gan: Like right now, would you be able to do like a 75-25? So 75 still on the sales and 25 on the creative side? Does that seem like a realistic ask?
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Quan Gan: And hopefully in the next few weeks we can shift to like 50-50 and then eventually, I wouldn't see the sales completely diminish. You're still going to have to oversee it. So maybe we eventually settle towards like a 25-75.
Carmee Sarvida: Does that seem like a good mix? Yeah, yeah. 75-25. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. I appreciate that, Quan. Thank you. All right, everybody. Great meeting. Carmee, thank you so much for everything you're doing.
Carmee Sarvida: Keep doing it. Thank you. Thank you for all the support and for the check-ins. I appreciate it.
Kristin Neal: Thank you. We appreciate you too, Carmee. Have a great weekend. Thank Have a weekend, guys. Bye. Thank you.
Kristin Neal: Hey, Ben. This meeting is being recorded.
Quan Gan: Hey, we've got our guys in here.
Ben Delgado: Hey, Quan, how are you guys?
Quan Gan: Good to see you, Ben.
Ben Delgado: Hi, good morning.
Kristin Neal: How are you?
Ben Delgado: Good, good. Sorry, we're trying to, okay, there you go. Now we're good.
Quan Gan: Yes, okay, we're good.
Ben Delgado: Yes, happy Friday. We're excited, you know. As we mentioned to you guys, you know, over at Boost, you know, we want to purchase two sets. We would like to get two sets, you know, what would be the next steps? know, if you guys can send us an invoice. I know, Quan, you mentioned that you guys had already a large order and, you know, it might take some time. You know, for us, you know, one of the requests we were asking is if you could possibly invoice us before June 30th. You know, because of this school fiscal year, we have to, we're trying to purchase things and process payments before June 30th. You know, sort of. It's a possibility to get those invoices, you know, for the two sets, you know, as soon as possible so that we, again, submit that input processing and get payment going, you know, and then get an idea of, like, you know, by when. If we could receive the units also, you know, I mean, mid-June before, we would love to use them for our summer camp. You know, we actually have themes that are at our school sites, and they're doing, one of them is our Summer Olympics, you know, so I think it would be perfect. You know, they can use that, you know. I mean, and actually, our three sites are doing sort of competitions between, you know, different grades.
Quan Gan: That's exactly what we wanted to do.
Ben Delgado: Yes. So it would be amazing if you guys could, you know, get them to us, you know, before we start a summer camp, you know, we actually end school June 14th. 12th? 12th. June 12th is our last day of school. And then we start our summer camps on June 16th. Perfect. Yes.
Kristin Neal: Thank you so much for sharing what you need, just so I can. And make sure we have what we need. It's not a quote, it's an invoice that you need, correct? yes. Okay, we'll definitely get that to you today. Another quick question, your previous units, I believe you have several, are they already updated?
Ben Delgado: We, to be honest with you, that's a good question. We don't have it in our possession. You know, we want to say that it's over at one of our school sites. You know, they're utilized throughout the school. You know, so for us, because we run the after school, you know, and I know that sharing is caring, you but they're also always using it. You so we'd rather purchase and have our own sets. And so we will be able to honestly tell you that if they are up to date, you know, and what their schedule is to utilize them, you know.
Kristin Neal: That's really cool. That's good to know, because that's a phrase that we've heard. Usually they don't share. It's to hear that you guys are sharing. That's really cool. So thank you for sharing that. Let's definitely, we want to make sure that your units are up to date for your summer program. New units will be updated with the new games.
Quan Gan: So if there's some way you can connect us with who would know that, so we can get those, that's Maggie.
Ben Delgado: Rocha, yeah, Quan, or Rochini, you know, Quan, know you had mentioned that, I mean.
Quan Gan: I've driven down here a couple of times.
Ben Delgado: Yeah, so we can follow up with her and make sure, you know, and check in when was the last time they used them and let them know that, hey, they need to be updated.
Quan Gan: As far as I know, she may not have the latest two games, but I got it at least up to the latest version prior to that, so they were completely functional.
Ben Delgado: Okay, so how would you go about updating them? How does that, do we plug them in somewhere?
Quan Gan: Well, if she's connected to the internet, she can load in those updates and we can provide her the instructions for that. For the new units, guys are getting those, those already are updated.
Ben Delgado: Perfect, okay. We'll follow up with her.
Kristin Neal: Perfect, thank you so much, Ben. One more. One I wanted to add, too, that's different from before is we actually now have the ZTAG Extended Care.
Ben Delgado: So that is an option that is available to you guys.
Kristin Neal: Since we're at Boost, Ben, I'm grateful that you'll be able to receive that first year for free. But it goes all the way up to five-year coverage. So if that's something you want to consider, I'll send you that information on that plus the invoice so you can have that to review because it's different from last year. But at least you can have that up to five years.
Ben Delgado: So you said we'll be able to receive one year, and then there's additional fees for the remainder four years? Correct. So would you be able to send us two separate invoices, one without it and then one with it, so that then we can present this over to our supervisor and see what gets approved? At least like that, if they say yes, then we have the invoice and we can process that.
Kristin Neal: That's perfect. And the way that you can actually help that with your bosses, it sounds like you're doing events. So the five-year coverage actually covers, we send you event material to host the tablecloth, we'll send you banners, we'll send you, yeah, it's really exciting getting you guys geared up for that.
Ben Delgado: Now that you mentioned that, we actually have an event next Thursday. Can we get them then?
Kristin Neal: That's early, but I mean, that's a good challenge. Let's see.
Ben Delgado: I mean, it's our family appreciation night, actually.
Quan Gan: do have my demo stuff, so if you want to borrow mine, I think we could probably arrange that.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, that would be a really cool one, because you guys are local too, aren't you?
Ben Delgado: Yes, you guys are in Valencia?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Ben Delgado: We're right over the hill. You know, we're like 10, 15 minutes away. Yeah, it was like 25 minutes. 7,000 local.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Perfect. Okay, then let's definitely set that goal for that. All right.
Quan Gan: Do you know what our production... I think we had an update today on that, right?
Kristin Neal: Yeah, yeah, next week we're receiving units, so.
Ben Delgado: Nice.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, it looks like it's lighting up, so. Yes. Yeah, awesome. All right, was there anything else, Ben?
Ben Delgado: You know, that was it, you know, like I said, we're excited, you know, I want to play with it, honestly. I mean, I've never, I've seen it, and I've seen the video, and, you know, but I've never been able to try it, you know. So, I mean, we're looking forward, you know, I mean, if we can get those, you know, invoices, know, we can get everything going, you know, processed. mean, if you guys had them at Boost, I think we would have been able to just get in there right now. Our CEO was there, our CFO was there. could start doing everything quick, you know, but that's okay. You know, they love it, too. You know, they're aware, you know, so they're like, yes, go get some, you know. For that reason, we ended up going back to let them, hey, we want to.
Quan Gan: Oh, I got a quick question. So, who on your team will actually be directing the game? Söder again? Who on the team? Actually be running the game. So who's going to be doing the training and learning about it?
Ben Delgado: So most likely, well, well, yes, most likely it's going to be our site coordinators and our assistant site coordinators.
Quan Gan: So it's a group of six.
Ben Delgado: So they would be the ones that would get trained because they're at site most of the time. And they're the ones that set up their events. like Ben mentioned, they're the ones setting up their schedules for summer, their events for summer. So we would like for them to be trained. And then, you know, obviously implement and do the activities with the kids. Perfect. And then obviously we would be trained in case, you know, we need to step in or support in any way.
Kristin Neal: Perfect. Quan, you want to let them know about the new way we're sharing that?
Quan Gan: Yeah. So when you get the, when you make the purchase, we actually send you a link with a bunch of different videos. Simply just video modules. And if you watch through all of that, then all of your staff should be easily. Get trained up to the point of operating the games. And then the recommendation from that is try it amongst your staff first, you know, according to how the videos are demonstrating it, and then get play time. Yeah, it's pretty simple.
Ben Delgado: We might be doing that because we do have a staff PD coming up. Also, actually our last one for the school year. So we'll see we can implement it in there and have some fun.
Kristin Neal: And I know Ms.
Ben Delgado: Eunice is huge on icebreakers and having that team activity. So maybe that's something that we can try and that we can do.
Quan Gan: It would be interesting also to, I mean, once you get it, just go knock on Ms.
Kristin Neal: Rasheed's door and say, hey, look, what do you know?
Quan Gan: Can you train us?
Ben Delgado: I think having a lot of cross-pollination of ideal is probably the number one best way to really grow with this activity. Yes. Awesome. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank Thank Is there anything else we can do for you guys?
Ben Delgado: I think that's it. We'll just wait for those invoices and for, you know, let us know when we can pick them up or you guys can come down or, you know, or if we can. I might just bring down since you guys are so close. Okay. I was going to say, if you like, I can drive over, you know, over there too. You know what mean?
Quan Gan: As soon as we get it, we'll let you know.
Ben Delgado: Okay. Sounds good.
Kristin Neal: Awesome, guys. Have a great day.
Ben Delgado: Thank you so much, guys.
Kristin Neal: Bye. Have a good day. Good weekend. Have a good weekend. Bye-bye.-bye.
Quan Gan: Oh, one second.
Trevor Henson: Worst, but even more distracted.
Quan Gan: How are you doing?
Trevor Henson: A little more awake than you are. That's what you're doing.
Quan Gan: I'm pretty late.
Trevor Henson: No alarm? You're just like, ah!
Quan Gan: Yeah, pretty much.
Trevor Henson: I just passed out.
Quan Gan: Because I was in bed, like, hyping in chat to, like, midnight. We're working on some code. Yeah.
Trevor Henson: Cone? Yeah.
Quan Gan: Damn, now I can't get a hold of him.
Trevor Henson: He was saying he was having VPN issues. It seems like China's locked things down more since the tariffs, maybe? Well, happens to me sometimes, but somehow...
Quan Gan: I think he's still okay, but yeah, I don't know.
Trevor Henson: He was saying he doesn't get my messages sometimes or even emails unless he's through a certain VPN.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay. Well, you know what? Why don't we meet and then I'll forward him the message if he can't jump on. But yeah, I called him. I guess mainly it's just to kind of go over the property and, you know, like whatever some details that he's asking for about just like how things are. And I think his main question was, you know, originally we put in the money and then like there should be like return of capital by what, like three or four years or something? I don't know. Was that the original? I don't remember what the original.
Trevor Henson: Interview three. We were hoping. We were hoping to return capital to the extent that we could return capital. That's correct. We're in year two and almost a half. Okay.
Quan Gan: And so are we on track with that? Or where are we?
Trevor Henson: We are... Well, let me see. So we returned part of it. I don't know what the percentage. was like 30%. I think if you look at the distributions on the... I have the financials on my other screen. So we needed to... Instead of returning it in year three, we sped up the business plan to renovate everything by the end of year two due to the rising interest rates. And we needed to get out of the first loan and into a second loan. Weka. So... Well, we re-fired two times, right? First time out of the bridge loan, second time out into a conventional, and then third time, no, just sped up the first time. So then we re-fired, I'm sorry, we re-fired last year after, and that was a capital event. That's the money you guys are still being, it's off the books, held as a liability. You'll see it as distributions on, let's see, if have the year-end statement, say again?
Quan Gan: Are you able to screen share that?
Trevor Henson: Yeah, you want me to. I'm working off a T, laptop screen, and I have a big screen up to the left, so sorry for my friends. It's big screen, lot of you to see, so I'm looking over here. My gaming laptop's got really pretty graphics, but then... I don't know. It lacks for a larger screen. Can you see that?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Trevor Henson: Okay. So this is what you see. What we're looking at is a 12-month statement for 2024. So this is last year. This tells the tale of the past. Hard to look at a property month by month to make any sense of it. A balance sheet, whatever. You can go through all this, but what we really want is, I'll show you here, is our owner distribution. It's an owner contributions.
Quan Gan: Right there at the last line.
Trevor Henson: Oh, yeah.
Quan Gan: That's contributions. Then there's also distribution there?
Trevor Henson: That is at the end of the...
Quan Gan: There's a contribution line and then a distribution line right below it. Is that what you're talking about?
Trevor Henson: Where do you see that?
Quan Gan: Here? Yeah, the last two lines.
Trevor Henson: Oh, geez. Yeah, you're right. That's it. There we go. The distribution, it should be, I'll have them, it should be return of capital. Not distribution, but that is the... This is... So these are in... Actually, this is not property level. This is... This is property level. Yeah, there's a certain distribution. Yeah, right. So you guys have... Don't know what she's saying. can't see anything. Where our mortgage was paid off. The original mortgage... The mortgage... mortgage... You see here being paid off. This is all over refi. The reason why December looks kind of like it's escrow, property tax, and all that stuff is because we refi into a better loan at the end of last year.
Quan Gan: What's the percentage on that piece?
Trevor Henson: Six. We started at eight and a half with the hard money, and then we held the hard money until the first year, and then we refied into a Chase loan after the first year, and that was able to put us into a dimensional loan, non-recourse. So, meaning my personal house wasn't on the line anymore, and it brought our interest rates down from 8.5 to 6.5. And we were able to get more value out of it. So that was the return of capital. It happened a year earlier. So it wasn't a full return. And that's why you got, like I said, I think I told you, $30,000. That's the word. You don't see it on the balance sheet because it's booked as a. His return of capital will $30,000. You're going to both would have about $70,000 in each. Hey, there's Jerry. Hey!
Jerry: Hey! Hey!
Trevor Henson: Morning, Jerry. I need to learn some Chinese so can speak.
Quan Gan: It's okay because Jerry's got AI glasses. He'll, he'll know your translation.
Jerry: Yeah.
Quan Gan: In real time. studied up on his English.
Trevor Henson: Hey, you looking good, Jerry. You lost some weight, buddy. You're on the lockdown diet, I'm not sure.
Quan Gan: Not sure if that translates. How are you getting paid?
Jerry: He said he's also getting paid. Yeah, I was just saying that I totally passed out, and yeah, Jerry was on here for 15 minutes, too.
Trevor Henson: Yeah, we're both sitting here. Sorry.
Quan Gan: You have any specific questions? He was telling me We have a of dollars, and we a couple of dollars, and we have a new account. It's a little bit lower.
Jerry: We have two dollars.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. Okay. he said, You and I already have 3 million dollars to get back.
Jerry: Okay. Okay. Okay. So, you get to my account?
Quan Gan: Yes. It's that it's been put in the bank and it's not for the So, we need to give you some information. And this is related to money. Because I don't have any questions. It's from United States. But you have to figure out what the money going What do to do Yes, what do need to do here?
Jerry: Because I don't know do with I with my email, but don't know what to with The main question was, well, I still have to figure it out with Jerry.
Trevor Henson: What to do with the money?
Quan Gan: Yeah, what's the implication?
Trevor Henson: I mean, can we just give you a bank account and just wire it in? You could, yeah. You could. You totally could. You have the, what I don't know is what you do with your K-1.
Quan Gan: The K-1? Okay.
Trevor Henson: Because when we contributed the capital, what paperwork did you have on that part? The escrow statement on the owner and the, actually the, the biggest, the. Confirm your speaking language. Sounds like you might have switched to a different language. No, I did not speak Chinese. I did not switch to Chinese.
Quan Gan: I did with my transcription, the AI.
Trevor Henson: No, I'm English. Then you'll have my messed up translation in English. The ILC has, and I'll show you where it, you want me to bring that up, I'll start there so you can see what all of that scene looks like. Let me bring that up one sec. That'll make it a good, easier place to start perhaps. Make me work for it. Let me grab it for my drive. When are going hiking again, boys? It's summertime. Jerry, coming to visit?
Quan Gan: He's trying.
Trevor Henson: How is it, how is the visa work coming?
Quan Gan: He's waiting, he's submitted it.
Trevor Henson: For Trump to get out of office? Is that going to be a problem with Trump?
Quan Gan: I mean, it's taken away longer than expected, so we'll see.
Trevor Henson: Yeah.
Jerry: When did he say to him? One month.
Quan Gan: How long is He gave it a month ago. Gave it to the agent, so they're just, they're waiting for it to get approved.
Trevor Henson: Is there anything I can do to help? Like sponsor or like delaying my companies or something like that? Like say you're going to come work for Beachfront or might be. No.
Quan Gan: I mean, as legitimate as that would be, ZTAG or Gantem could already do that.
Trevor Henson: I didn't know if it was partnership related or if we were like, hey, he's...
Quan Gan: I mean, if anything, we have more legitimate record about him actually coming here so many times. Okay. Yeah, and we've had letters.
Trevor Henson: Just saying.
Quan Gan: If there's anything I can do, man, back in hell.
Trevor Henson: Please let me know.
Jerry: Thank you.
Trevor Henson: Another company or four other companies and say, hey, we want you over here. You can write a lot of from BTD, can write it from like Type 8, CM, and from Beachfront Property Management. We've got three companies going. Let know.
Quan Gan: Let's see. Do you any specific questions you want ask?
Jerry: Do you have any specific Do you have Do you have any specific specific specific specific specific questions?
Quan Gan: In the we were to years, so we don't know what situation is going to Okay, yeah, Jerry's just asking, according to the original agreement, what was the timeline for return of the entire sum of the capital? Because he's looking to use that money at some point.
Trevor Henson: We were anticipating before interest rates that we'd be able to refi.
Quan Gan: We were hoping to get it all back by the end of this year.
Trevor Henson: But then interest rates did what they did, and we had our first loan. We were anticipating refining at like 3% or 4% and then getting higher, what's called loan-to-value out, like 70%, which is usually typical. And then the market just kept going up, up, up. And so as interest rates went up... get back, up, up, up, back, up, up, It decreases what's called your debt coverage ratio. And banks now are only lending at like 50% of value. So when we refied in December, because we needed to refi out of the, here's this, 24, that was in 24, 5, and 22. Seems like it's been a long time. We were going to refi in three, but because rates and things were being worse, I'm glad we did do it in last year. We refied sooner, sped up the business plan. All the units have now been renovated. So we're getting double rents on where we are. We had to evict someone that kind of sucked because they just were a bad actor, and she just camped in there and played the game. There was like a five-month eviction, and that sucked. So we'd have, we would have had more distributions. And then there's nothing I could do besides hold myself back from going there and taking her front door off. Best landlord trick in the world, which would probably put me in jail, is go over there and remove someone's front door. Because what can you do after that?
Quan Gan: I would be completely against what you would say on your LinkedIn.
Trevor Henson: Don't, don't remove the door.
Quan Gan: But I was like, ah, but you could. There's an episode of that, right?
Trevor Henson: There is, right? I did not remove your, I knew a landlord who did it. was very effective. Because what do you do with no door? You can't leave.
Quan Gan: Everyone will remove.
Trevor Henson: But anyway, so. We got the change. So we could get, we, we refied out and we have money sitting here and it's $37,000. There we go. So you have $35,905 on Quan and $35,905 for Jerry. That's ready for you, for me to move it wherever it is. It's sitting in the operating account. That's your return of capital contribution. And so that keeps your equity. So you still own the same amount of the property. But this is how I worked it out. I wanted that number to be like more, but the bank only gave us 50% or 55% because of the nature of the market, unfortunately.
Quan Gan: So given the current trajectory, when would that new timeline shift to?
Trevor Henson: We are, so it's going to end up probably cash flowing more than it will be, than it wouldn't have Giving out cash because as soon as it's leased up, now released up, you'll see that once it was for a couple months, it cash flowed fine and it should cash flow now because once we have, we rented one and we got two more that were almost done and then we're done again because we had the eviction and then we had, because of the eviction, it was causing problems with the other people. It was just, this was happening in the winter. LA has gotten really, really hard to evict people. So we had to deal with that. So it sets back a bit. What do we reflect after this? We can, it's more like we're going to get distributions from this point because it will now be a refi again in like, once we, once interest rates go down again. So we got money sooner in two years. And so probably year four, watch as we watch the market is prime. Do understand prime? Jerry, there's prime and treasury bills. Those are the two market levers in America when it comes to cash. So prime is how much we pay on our credit cards. If I have an Amex card, I might be paying 10%. If prime goes up to, I might be paying 15% of the money on it. If it goes up higher, it might be 18% on that money. That's prime. And that's what I do residential loans, like houses. When that goes up, everybody puts money in what's called T-bills, treasury bills. Treasury bill rates go down. And that's what's tied to our commercial loans. That's what we have. So we have a good loan in place. It's not going to balloon. I put it as a very conservative loan. We just have to have prime pass now because we, to where the lending standards, like money, money, the Fed has money like this. It's weird here. So we just have to let, when rates get to five-ish, and rents are going to go up in the next two years, really high, because the Olympics are coming. And the Olympics are coming to Los Angeles in 28, 2028. There's no supply being delivered, no new construction, no permits being pulled. You can look those facts up online. And so we're just kind of waiting right now for the market to stop it. No one's buying, no one's selling right now. No one's doing anything. Everyone's like pencils down. And we're in a good spot once we lease these up to just send money to wherever until we can refi. Because we all want to refi. That's the goal. Refi a fourth time. Get everybody out, the rest of their money, me included. Because here's the, I'm sorry, I wasn't sharing my screen.
Quan Gan: So what's your long-term strategy? I think we're pretty much as, you know, we trust you.
Trevor Henson: So whatever. Yeah, no, because here's why you trust me, I hope. And it's going to be because I have the most money in this thing. Even with my small little transfer of money to Christina, you can see I have the biggest. You guys see what I'm saying?
Quan Gan: Okay.
Trevor Henson: Here's the amount. I have 36% in, right? Oh, wait, sorry. Here's the original one I to share. Nope, that's a K1.
Jerry: Blam.
Trevor Henson: Like the capitalistic thing, I'm sorry. Where did our doctor? Sorry. Here it is. See that. This is our guiding document. So this is our LC, Docs, this is the one we all find. There's me, Juan, and here's our initial contribution, I have 271,000 in this thing, Quan you got 174,000. 134, some change. You too, Jerry.
Quan Gan: These are the maxes, max amounts before government was going to do an inquisition on Jerry.哥哥,原来这个,其实我的这块的钱也是你出的,对不对?对对对,对啊,是啊. Total,我记得是投了三十。有三,是三十整吗?因为这个上面写的不到。不到,我可以去查一下。对对对对对对。我们现在走着牙与他们,?对对对对对对对对对对对对对对对对对对对对对对对的对对对对? Thank Yeah, so I think what, just clarifying what happened was a part of this was under my name because Jerry couldn't get to a certain number, right?
Trevor Henson: I don't remember what, well, I guess so. Yeah, if this is all from Jerry, then we had to divide it because if Jerry put in $268,000, it would trigger, I think it's over 19%. You have to fill out all the documentation, like social security number and all the background check stuff. This is what's cool about LLCs and investing in multifamily is if you're under that 19%, they're not checking where the money came from because you can be, and investors do this all the time, you can have foreign capital come in. And this is how you get foreign capital onshore, like this. And then when the distribution comes out of the American LLC, it can go to whatever American bank account or wherever it wants to go. Well, it's kind of like, well, I mean, a lot of Chinese and Japanese do the same. That's how they move money into the States is through real estate. And Saudi Arabia does it, a lot of them.
Quan Gan: So there's essentially about, you said it's like 70K sitting in the bank waiting for Jerry then.
Trevor Henson: Yeah, yeah, if you're, if you're not Quan, if this, if this amount, uh, is exactly what, right, this, these two amounts right here, okay, are waiting for you. I just need to, I didn't, didn't, I didn't, didn't, I didn't, I didn't, didn't, Can zoom in. Can you. Is it too small?
Quan Gan: I can see it, yeah.
Jerry: I can see it.
Trevor Henson: So yeah, you got a clean, waiting for you. We can go to Vegas. Put it on black. $140,000 real quick.
Quan Gan: What's the second two columns on here? Are those additional distributions?
Trevor Henson: These here?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Trevor Henson: Well, that was my accountant saying, well, it's the quarter three. Should we distribute based on when you told me to? Or since they haven't sent our W-9s, am supposed to distribute based on these dates or not? I'm like, no, we have to, by law, to keep with our own instructions. If... If one person gets distributed, it's distributions almost, and it has to be distributed 100% evenly. So when we distributed to Christina and myself and Daisy, which are these numbers here, some of them were repayments of loans. Remember that? Christina and I had to loan in money along the way to finish because of the eviction and stuff like that.
Quan Gan: We didn't ask you guys. I just loaned it in.
Trevor Henson: And those are loaned in legally from the LLC documents. It allows it to loan in at prime, which is whatever that was. So we just did it to not get – because we were pushing to get the army units turned over and re-rented at a higher price so we could get a cash-out refi event last year. So we can get money back to you guys. So yeah, $70,000 book here. $85,000 has been sent to me. This amount has been sent to Christina. This amount has been sent to us. us. As well. I had to stop time back in December, and we couldn't, this is a really long explanation of this table, but that was why we had to, it's sitting there, that's why I'm trying to get it to you, because it's not working for you, it's just kind of in purgatory, a balance sheet.
Quan Gan: So yeah, we'll provide you a bank number, and then...
Trevor Henson: It will have to come, it'll come as two, can you establish a joint account?
Quan Gan: With his name on it? Do you remember how it was wired in? Was it from two separate accounts, or... You could just put it into whatever the account was.
Trevor Henson: You sent it to escrow. Remember, because... Oh, okay. So you would set...
Quan Gan: how the escrow received it?
Trevor Henson: I can... I can... Let me... If you can bear with me a second, I can... Bring up a closing statement, and we stopped sharing.
Quan Gan: I think we'll just try to do whatever was grossed think might be able to do that.
Trevor Henson: We can maybe do that. The only thing we'll have to do is make sure we do it in two separate transactions so that it keeps it clean up, folks. Because we're always trying to fight the tax man. We don't want him. We don't want to trigger any kind of taxable event. Because remember, this money is not taxable.
Jerry: Right.
Trevor Henson: Remember that. So don't claim it as income, and whatever CPA you're using, whenever you do it, it's return of capital contribution.
Quan Gan: It's return of money. So if you loan, you have to pay a loan. So if you a loan, you have to pay Yeah. For not a If you had a private it would not be on the income. It's just going to pay for money.
Jerry: Just like this, kind of e-mail, which is a lot of Because I don't know what the US government is but it might not be the way.
Trevor Henson: so jerry just making sure that you can see me whenever you send him stuff which i believe you guys yes yes i have it set up too so that our accountant is sending us to us all at the same time you should probably receive it monthly i believe i think you received monthly or quarterly i believe okay we just got a recent statement yeah those moving forward yeah let me find i'm looking for what i'm looking for right now is our closing Which shows where the sources of money from, because it's the only place to trade.
Quan Gan: And Trevor, oh, yeah, 董哥,你说什么?就是我,我想说的是,因为我们三个人内部关系都非常好,就是像要签署什么东西的话,我们通考器就是,他这边希望我们怎么签,我们就怎么签,就配合他的工作们。我是这个意思。OK, yeah, you said,,很信任的情况下,全听他的嘛。 Because we trust you, so whatever you need us to sign, we're just going to trust you and follow those recommendations. Yeah, so I just really like that.
Trevor Henson: It is interesting, right? I wouldn't, I mean, I'm not getting out, I'm just getting 50,000 of this. $280 or $270 I have in, only because of the HELOC, which is the home equity line of credit I have on my house, that rates are still stagnant. So it's costing me more. And my budget, my household budget, Aaliyah's income, my wife's income has gone down. Because marketing and digital marketing is, we're kind of in a recessionary weird thing going in that area. So that reduces my monthly interest rate by like $500 or $800, which pays for my kids' dance pretty much. Like full transparency. I'm like, I want to pull kids out of dance, my girls, or like, can I find, you know, can I move $50,000 to somewhere else? So I called Christina and she's like, I know you're always trying to hide money. The situation is she got divorced. Did you know that? More confidential except for the freaking, obviously, the note takers. And her husband, her ex-husband, is suing her and keeps multiple lawsuits against her. So she's trying to offload cash all the time somewhere. And real estate, he can't touch because it's in an LLC. That's not hers. He can't touch it. She's like, yes, how much do you want me to buy? I'm just like, just a little bit. I just need to pay for, you know. So that was it. I'm just reducing a little bit of expense liability.
Quan Gan: I'll explain a little That was, you know what said. He's gettingł in front of his family, it. That's then, after you know, he's built. start the rent and rent again, we're not getting Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So he was gonna get the money to pay for the Okay. He put the the house, because it's a... It's a...
Jerry: It's a... a...
Quan Gan: It's a... It's a... It's not It's a... It's It's a company, so he doesn't have a... Okay.
Jerry: So he's He's a... It's not a...
Quan Gan: Trevor said, if you want to get out more money, you can also consider to the money for this woman. So, Trevor, was just saying, in case Jerry wants to pull additional funds out, we could reach out to Christina and see if she's wanting to buy more.
Trevor Henson: Yeah, 100%. Yeah, inter-member sale, I set up the LLC so we could move shares between us pretty easily. mean, through that process, I sent out with email, you send out the ballot, it allows anyone else to want to perhaps buy it. And then if you don't want to buy it, you just say no, and then Christina.
Quan Gan: So the long-term trajectory, though, I mean, do you still see it as a good investment that's going to pay? Back, or do you foresee this, you know, maybe we should shift to other properties elsewhere?
Trevor Henson: Well, we've done the work now. The thing, the business plan has been completed. So all units have been upgraded, and the rents are 50 to 70% higher. So once we have these last, not that ding, that eviction set us back, because we're owed $20,000. We're trying to collect from this woman who just paid rents and boogied. Once those are rents, it'll be stabilized, and it will throw off like a few thousand that we can hold in reserves, operating reserves for a while to make sure there's no capital event. And at the end of the year, we can see where we are. The, it may just cash flow, make sense to let it cash flow for the next two years until well, to there's capital event, have event. think have a battle Interest rates don't have to go down too much. We just have to, rents just need to go up. And they are. And then we can refi again.
Quan Gan: Are there any fundamental issues in the occupancy? No. 100%?
Trevor Henson: No? I've solved that fundamental issue. I was going to solve it one way or another, but it got legally solved. And that, the, and then we had to renovate that. We had to, we had a leak and it's all reaped. So everything is re-piped now. It's got a good hot water heater situation. The plumbing, we were going to redo all the plumbing at the very beginning, but we suddenly got a vacancy, which we had the opportunity to renovate and release. So we did that, but then a little bit last end of, well, in the last year, beginning of this year, there was like a pinhole. Leak in the hot water line that we're like, well, we refried. Let's fix this. So we replaced all the copper lines. So we almost have a new building when it comes to infrastructure. We have all new plumbing, all new sewer, all new roof. It's very sellable if we wanted to as well, but it's next year would be the year to sell. If we were going to sell this thing, we'd want to sell it in 26 or 27, leading up to the Olympics, if we really, really wanted to. We always must consider the Olympics, and that does shove rents up because people want to Airbnb stuff, people want to live here. mean, it's just, you know, they're coming to America, as Bruce Springsteen would say, right?
Quan Gan: Then what happens after the Olympics? Do you think it's going to go down or does it just stay?
Trevor Henson: Oh, no. It stays ratcheted because, I mean, the Olympics are just kind a bump of like, I was going to, there's a, I have a plan to align with our rent. I mean, we're looking to buy more buildings right now. I've been looking at buildings, other properties like right now because rents are kind of, they're not going up, but they're kind of flat. When rents start going up, so do prices. So now is actually a good time to buy. I've, I was in escrow on a nine unit in Lawndale two months ago with, um, with, um, was, uh, he's an EO member and, and one of his, um, equity partners. He has some, he's got some money guys. And we dropped out the last day, but I was in escrow. And because everyone's like, shouldn't be crazy to buy right now. Things are so hard to buy. I'm like, Zach, everything's really hard to buy, but rents aren't going up and things are hard to buy, which means it's a good time to buy because prices of buildings are tied to the amount of rent you're getting. So when rents go up, cap rate is a function of rent and interest rate of your mortgage. Okay. So we have something that we've already walked through the fire on. It just needs to sit there. Our highest and best use is let time pass and take the money, the return of capital, and then we'll just, it will be producing interest, which is, you'll see. I still tend to find the quality statement. It's named money.
Jerry: It's called calorfish. Ok, 嗯,就是我,我,我们是想知道这些钱在这个project里面赚的话,在运,运赚的话,就是都是大家的钱在里面投,然后最终的这个收益,我只,就是比如说,年的,每年的收益有多少percent,这个我不是很清楚,对.
Quan Gan: You know, once we get to normal operation, what is, like, the annual percentage of return, compared to the original capital?
Trevor Henson: RIRR will remain the same, our initial projection, which is 15 to 20% over time. Yeah, yeah, the original plan was we would get zero until year three, whereas... Plan shifted. got $70,000 in year one, two, year two. I sped up business plan because we had the opportunity to. We had some move outs. And we renovated the units to 10-year bomb-proof renovation. And so we, I renovated it to where it was. It is very, like it's hard to get mold there. It's hard for drywall because there's tile to the bathrooms, you know, everything was replaced, all the plumbing.
Jerry: It's hard to leak now because there's no, everything's been replaced. It's washer and dryers in each unit.
Trevor Henson: And it's got lights and everything all around.
Quan Gan: Security is good.
Trevor Henson: And we all have a place to stay.
Quan Gan: Right, now, I'll have to find this closing statement, because it's named something funny, to find out.
Trevor Henson: I don't know if it's even going to tell me where.
Quan Gan: Okay. Trevor, probably already covered this, but what was the original reason of speeding up the business plan?
Trevor Henson: Financing.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Trevor Henson: Financing. And we had that tenant in Unit B stopped paying rent, and so she had to get evicted. Financing. And so it was, we weren't kicking people out. It was just, she just was going to leave. And so we had to renovate two units at once.
Jerry: Yeah.
Trevor Henson: And that was, that kind of sped it up like, well, if that's happening, might as well get the last one. And the last one left for $500, which was magic. Like $500 you can get out.
Quan Gan: So I get those events, but I'm not understanding. So those seem to cost more money. So why would we be getting money out earlier?
Trevor Henson: Because the bank liked all that. Okay. And our loan was coming due. So we were on a, we were on a, we were on the hard money loan. we retired into a Chase loan. The Chase loan was a, we were in it for one year, but we had not renovated everything. So we said, call it completing the business plan, right? And what did we start out to do? Well, we started. We were going to fix the roof, fix the plumbing, and upgrade every unit, charge for parking, and install ratio utility billing systems on all the tenants. All of that happened. And if you look at the month where it was stabilized before we had to evict that bad actor from unit A, it was starting to cash flow. So you saw it on there. And because of that cash flow, were able to show, hey, look, bank, look what we did. And so then bank was like, great. Now we were going to reevaluate your property at like $2.4 million or something like that. think it was what it was. Remember, we bought it for $1.2, $1.3, and now it's worth $2.4, $2.5 as it stands. So that's what we reified into a better loan. And a better rate, because the rates had come down. That's why. And it was, we didn't know if they're to go up again, or what they're going to do, because we were at, like, we were in a seven and a half loan. So this, so we refunded three times.
Quan Gan: It was like the hard one. understanding was, the earlier happenings of, like, evictions and then the renovation caused the value of the property to go up close to double, right? So you redefined that additional sum of money. Part of that was, is basically what's returned.
Trevor Henson: A hundred percent. Yeah. Because so, yeah, they, so say they, first time they give you 50%, and let's just say it was 1 million we bought it for. So they loan us 500,000. We paid 500,000. These are just simple numbers. We do the work, complete our business plan. Bank looks at it, appraises it with an appraiser, and says, this is now worth two. So we'll pay off the 500,000 euro and give you 500,000 extra. And that's a return of, and that's, and we still own 50%, bank still owns 50%. So we still have a good equity position in this thing. We, as owners, the bank, it used to be like 70 or 80% and the bank would own that much of it. And that would be highly levered. I didn't let them go a day, a minute over 50, just because they're like, we can give you 55. I'm like, I'd like to stay 50-50 because that makes it harder for them to do anything because they're not majority owners. So we kept them in a, so our equity position is really good for future, the bank doesn't have anything on us, let's put it that way. It doesn't got much on us. We're not over levered and that's why we just have to deal with the eventualities or just, I mean, the eviction, the second eviction of that one, that one. We could, we, that was like a cost of doing business. Unfortunately, was pissed about that because that was a new tenant. She paid fine for five months and then just decided she didn't want, I guess, man. I was over there a lot. But that aside, on the long term, that's it. That's just a bump in the road. Because we have a, this thing's in a good position. I get calls from brokers like, hey, I got somebody who wants to buy that. Like, it fits the position. It's my, I'm just like, no, man, this thing's like, after we've gone through all this crap, this thing just needs to chill. Like, because we can even, we can even build ADUs on this, gentlemen, if we want to. We could build five. We could put five extra units on this thing in the future, if we ever wanted to. Because the laws changed here in California, January. And it allows us to build the same amount of units that the building has. So we could. Wipe out the parking and build five little units over there that we could all use for a dirty house.
Quan Gan: When Jerry comes over, we'll go check it out.
Trevor Henson: No, you should.
Jerry: That's right. Jerry hasn't seen it, right?
Trevor Henson: You haven't seen it.
Jerry: We could totally go see it.
Trevor Henson: I'm so proud. I'm 20 minutes from the thing.
Quan Gan: I went over there with my daughter.
Trevor Henson: I took McKenna there after that. I got that eviction and went out because the woman tore up. They tore up the floor. They caused it to damage the brand new unit. was just like, people are just gross and there's some terrible people in the world. took them over there. I'm like, why do they do that? Why? I can give you the PC answer and I can give you what's real. Stop recording. It's because they're black. Yeah, they just got entitled and no other race does that that I know of that just think they are owed something. We did everything. We weren't like, just be ready.
Jerry: Thank you.
Trevor Henson: you. Those K-1s that I sent, those are good tax credit vehicles. Because the negative K-1s, and those go right to your taxes. Because I cost, I did something in the first year called cost segregation, and we sped up the depreciation of all the work we did. That was through, and so I, this wasn't, and just so you know, I'm checking corners on this. This was my seat guided by our CPA, which is my personal CPA and my business CPA, and it's also Daisy's CPA. Okay. Daisy Jing, right? She's a member in this. I'm like, how would you structure the distribution and refine it and all the stuff we're doing and what should we do that would best help Daisy?
Jerry: That's how I asked. I'm a member too.
Trevor Henson: What would best be best for Daisy as an investor? He said, speed up the appreciation, let's do this and that. And so I'm like, all right, let's go. Because that would be best, what's best for everyone.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Trevor Henson: So those K1s are value that I sent you. When it comes to taxes here, it's $21,000 less that you have to pay in taxes or you get a credit of. You might get a tax return. I almost got some money back last year, almost. But then California decided I owed some taxes. But that's the Fed. Those are federal we get credits for. And there's new laws coming out too that Trump just put through that allows. It's bonus depreciation. So we'll probably do another, I don't know, before I talk about it, it's very technical right now. But this thing becomes like, so even when it loses money, we win because we can write it off. When we put money in it to upgrade it, it's a cap X, it's capital expenditures, we can write that money off, we win. Even if it's just the refi money we're putting back in like we did last time, we get the splits of all the tax write-off. So you can take K-1s, and that's why I'm have Jerry talk to his CPA, because there might be a way to credit that somewhere and do something with it. I imagine so, because it's 41, if you're using Jerry's, I mean, it's $42,000 worth of tax credits in the K-1s that I send. And 21 for you, Juan, and 21 for you, Jerry, because we have to spend it based on LLC's rules.
Quan Gan: Well, I mean, we have a lot of information here.
Trevor Henson: I just to make sure you guys feel comfortable with me. I'm always here. I know I don't always reach out with stuff, but I'm usually just trying to hustle this thing down. Once those two units are leased in the next couple of weeks, we're just smooth sailing, man. And if you need to move some shares over, talk to Christina, and we can facilitate. We do the same thing I did. We send out the ballots. We just have to follow the little process. It's our own process. We put it in place just so people can't just transfer money and shares around randomly. We want to be able to... That way, everyone's... It's very open and transparent, just like I did. I didn't just sell 50,000 to Christina and say, oh, yeah, by the way. No, it's like, here's the process. Here, you guys know. We can talk always. I always want to be able to... I want you guys to always be able to talk about it, even if it's...
Quan Gan: Six freaking AM, Quan sleeps in. Thanks for the grace of day.
Jerry: All right.
Quan Gan: Cool. I know we're way over the time.
Trevor Henson: Jerry and Quan for your trust. You guys, you know, you guys are my friends. You know, friends first, money second, money comes when we do good stuff, right? So, yeah, market change right after we bought it. We bought it at a good time because the interest rates went, yeah, right after that. And it's just God's time now, right? We would be, wouldn't be a good idea to sell it all because money is weird. People are like, if we sold it, we'd sell it in 27. That'd be the best time to do it if we really wanted to. But then we'd want a 1031 and something else. Otherwise, we'd pay a of tax because we paid a ton of value.
Quan Gan: And I'm here.
Trevor Henson: Yeah, Quan, when's Jerry coming back? Jerry, when are you coming out?
Quan Gan: Are you coming out summer?
Trevor Henson: Hopefully.
Jerry: Can we get a hike on calendar? Yeah, why don't we?
Trevor Henson: I would love to. It's been too many years. When do you want to go? August is good, usually.
Quan Gan: I'm back.
Trevor Henson: Well, that's when we went last time. We went in August because we go to the Sierra. We don't want it to be cold. Remember if it was August?
Quan Gan: Like a date, I think.
Trevor Henson: Is Jerry going be here?
Quan Gan: Likely. I don't know exactly August, but let's put something on the calendar.
Trevor Henson: Let's do it. I'm looking at my calendar now. We're going up again, Hufflepuffs. We're to keep you alive. Jerry doesn't take that as a vid soul, right? I'm not until Jerry's saying that, am I? Right. That's Funny, still. I don't know what it is. I don't mean it as an insult. That's like a good trail name. You get funny trail names, you know, like when you're on the trail. But every like, you know, in the sun going down, we're like, to the campground.
Quan Gan: I need to have some kind of a shoulder turret for those mischios.
Trevor Henson: The laser, man. Did you tell Jerry about your epic fail last time?
Quan Gan: I probably did.
Trevor Henson: You can ride food.
Quan Gan: I'm sick of it.
Jerry: know this is my life? You're sick of You're sick of it.
Quan Gan: I'm sick it. I'm it. I'm of it. of I'm sick of it. You just can't. What? Yes. Yes. Yes.
Jerry: Oh my god.
Trevor Henson: Yeah. I was like, Quan?
Quan Gan: I think it's a compound factor of eating the dried, freeze-dried food, but also, I think it's actually the chemicals. Because remember how you had the cheap option on the mosquito protectant.
Jerry: What?
Quan Gan: You had the most poisonous thing on you so the mosquitoes weren't getting you. They were... Getting me. And I had this organic , and I'd have to keep on like spraying myself with it. So then what happened was I decided to not wash my hands and eat the whole thing inside my tent. And so I think it's a combination of not cooking and probably some of that stuff rubbed off into my food.
Jerry: Maybe.
Trevor Henson: See, I have been warned by. All backpackers everywhere that said never eat your freeze-dried food without water in it or something bad. but I don't think that would cause food poisoning. No, it wasn't. Your bowel was up because it took all the water and sucked it into the food. You were just like, You were like green as this shirt in the morning, and I could see it by headlight. You were just like, I'm Wow, I'm feeling so good. We should get moving.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it was horrible.
Trevor Henson: All the food rehydrated in your intestines and stayed there. It expanded.
Jerry: Okay.
Trevor Henson: I've heard of that. Quan's like, nah, I'll be okay. I'm like, you shouldn't do that. I'm just saying. And he's like, ah, my mind is dumb.
Quan Gan: I learned my lesson, so.
Trevor Henson: So yeah, we should give him a good name, Jerry. Like something about food and stomach.
Quan Gan: Every person wants eat a meal.
Jerry: Okay. Okay, yeah. It's fun.
Trevor Henson: Okay. August 8th.
Quan Gan: Yeah, think, look at the weekend of August 8th. August 8th. Okay, so 9-10.
Trevor Henson: I'm open there. I'm not away. No forum retreat or anything. That would be a good time. If you guys, if Jerry's in town.
Quan Gan: Okay, I put it on the calendar.
Trevor Henson: Okay. I'll put it on mine too.
Jerry: Yeah.
Trevor Henson: Okay, and then we can confirm, we can get, so yeah, so we would go Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Okay. I think we would drive out early Saturday morning, like we did, Friday morning, like we did, I think. I'll just put a hold on here. I'll do a possible camping, Jerry.
Jerry: Okay.
Trevor Henson: Are you there? I I think it'd be a funny name, Quan. The freeze-dried champion. She's just getting better than that.
Quan Gan: Freeze-dried, Freddy. That's, um... Ask ChadGPT, I'm sure you can come up with that.
Trevor Henson: Jerry, what? How are you? How's life, Jerry? How's work? How's China? How's living over there? What's life like there now?
Jerry: Uh, this one, it's okay, but, how I say it? I'm getting fat, because I have high pressure.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I don't know how to say it.
Trevor Henson: He looks good. High blood pressure. Yeah, looks good. I think he looks good. Yeah, I can tell you lost weight. I'm like, wow, he looks good. I thought it was for the ladies.
Quan Gan: No, it's for his health.
Trevor Henson: Oh, well, good for you, man.
Jerry: Good job. Looking good, man.
Trevor Henson: And, all right, go make records and take kids to dance class, so we'll be with you, boy.
Quan Gan: All right.
Trevor Henson: me know, Quan, where to fire off funds.
Quan Gan: Correct. Yeah.
Trevor Henson: And shoot me an email on, like, because they'll want to be, like, Swift code, or if you want to, it'll come, it can be mailed, or it can wire it, so just tell me.
Jerry: Okay.
Trevor Henson: Okay. Cool. So, yeah, no, it's sitting there. It's not going to get spent. told, like, I'm like, I told my account, like, that's money over here. It's not in the operating account, so it cannot be spent because it's illegal to, like, if I just, if anyone gets money, everyone gets money. So that's why you, it's there, stuck in time for whenever you want it. But we can get it out to a, if you had a joint bank account or another bank account, that, well, actually, any bank account will accept money. fly it. I'll And Even if it's in, I can put it in the memo for Quan, for Jerry. Okay.
Quan Gan: I'll Jerry to figure out exactly where to put it.
Trevor Henson: Okay. Yeah. We just got to make sure our accounting is clean on it so that there's no, like, breach of fiduciary duty on the right side so that the check's written to two different investors. Yep.
Quan Gan: Cool.
Trevor Henson: All right.
Jerry: Thank you, Trevor.
Trevor Henson: Thank you. You're welcome, Quan. What is this? Are we all clear on everything, Quan?
Quan Gan: I just want to make sure we're... Yeah.
Trevor Henson: Thank you so much. Thanks. Good to see you, Jerry.
Jerry: Looking good, buddy. Take care of yourself over there.
Quan Gan: Thank you.
Trevor Henson: Bye. See you guys in August, I believe. Bye. See you soon. Bye. Bye.
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Vania Chen: I am playing with some email automations, but it shouldn't be triggering anything like that. Yeah, because literally at 17 minutes ago, actually.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, please share a screenshot because I want to make sure I'm not like, I am doing a whole bunch of AI agents to trigger stuff, but if it's sending stuff out, then that's not okay.
Vania Chen: Okay. Okay. I'll just, um... Michael. Hello. How's everybody going?
Quan Gan: Pretty good. Busy. Michael, why are you sideways? How many monitors do you have?
Michael Hsu: Sideways?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Michael Hsu: Oh.
Quan Gan: We get like a angled profile of you. Very handsome, though. mean, but it's more like a...
Michael Hsu: Oh, you mean, you mean not like side...
Quan Gan: Ways, but like, yeah, yeah, I mean, not too.
Vania Chen: So, well, I know, Philip, you sent out the updated plan, I think it's on Sunday, late Sunday. Okay, but we do get a, the good thing is we get a breather. We got the 90-day extensions. So I think when I talked to Lisa, Lisa's idea is we're going to do our best to restock within this time period and then get some savings in. But we don't know what's going to happen in 90 days. So the whole idea of today's meeting really is just to talk about if it does jump back after. Many days, what are some plans? And the reason why of this meeting is we want to get buying from you, Quan, first before anything. And then after all of us get into a decision or an idea, then we can talk to Charlie and Jerry mainly to whatever the decision was. So that's the whole idea of today's meeting.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Vania Chen: Am I going to talk? I think we can hand it over to Philip.
Michael Hsu: Before we hand it over to Philip to talk about this, I want to kind of give my two cents on it. Philip actually presented this, but actually I think our first conversation around TeraRef was last year. I know. Last year, that was when Philip said, hey, we got to do something about it. then at that time, we had a few ways moving forward, but we ended up not moving forward on any of them. And then fast forward to about the tariff day. I don't know what they were calling that, but anyways, in April, liberation day, deliberation day, and then, you know, all hellbrokers, everybody's going crazy. We don't even have like a tariff group going. Everybody's crying in there. We're thinking we're going to go out of business. But then the thing is, this is what I think. then, and then, and then, then, then Philip's got some ideas. And then Quan was like, hey, I can fund it. And then, and then, and then, and ZTAG fund it, and then we can fix it. And then we have this breather. And everything's different, right? Like at first, like 24, and then it's like 50, and then now it's like, and then it's like 100, 100, whatever. And then I was like, oh, back to normal. I actually had the chance to talk to this guy. Kind of, he's like a think tank. Big guy, big guy in D.C., and I had a chance to ask him this, and I agree. said Trump is not a strategist. He's very much a battle technician, right? So what that means is he's doing all these things, and what he wants is he wants wins. He wants these tweets, essentially, right? And he wants to be like, oh, look, look at me. I'm making America great again. And all these things are bringing people to the table. And I think everybody, including Trump, knows that manufacturing in the U.S. is impossible. It takes time to build factories, so on and so forth. And let's say the shortest time to build a factory is two years. The longest time is up to five years, right? And Trump is not even in office then. Who knows if the tariff is going to come? So the whole thing is like a game. Here's the issue. Meanwhile, we get screwed. Small businesses. businesses. And strategy to bet that Trump is, that everything's going to, I don't think anything is going to reverse back to before. It's like COVID, right? Nothing ever goes back to before, right? It might get better, but it won't go back to before. And with that said, think Philip had a few options. I think there are great ways moving forward, right? Forward looking. And so I'm just going to wrap this up. And I think it's very important for us to look at those options. And even if, Quan, you say, hey, I want to fund it. I think Vania put together models like, hey, if we were to fund it, here's what it looks like. Because, you know, as the navigator of the business, Vania and I, our job is to put scenarios on paper. So then we can all look into the future, or at least peek into the future and say, all right, cool. Here are Philip's plan. Here's what's going to happen. Which way are we going to go? Go. And then that's it. And if we're really smart about it, we might even say, hey, if something changes down the road, here's plan two, here's plan B, here's plan C, and then we can pivot as the situation changes. So with that, I'll give the floor to Philip in.
Philip Hernandez: I think I agree with that assessment of the situation with administration for the most part. I would say, yeah, the quick win thing. I would say that we're most likely going to lose because we don't have a lobbyist. know, the people that are going to be fine are people that, groups that have lobbying that can go there and they can change, get exemptions or any of that kind of thing. That won't be for us. But I would also say that it's not just about the administration. It's also about the, well, obviously our PE multiple is a country and our credit rating. Everything's more expensive, blah, blah, blah. But also the cash flows and the capital and the investment that's leaving the U.S. And the people, the people, the international students, the PhDs, the professors, all the technology, everything is just running away from the US as fast as they can. That's another compounding problem. You even see that with our customers, right? Abu Dhabi and London are going to be the next big project sites, not going be in the US. So that could be, like we said previously, an opportunity because basically America is a bad brand. For the first time in the history, more people want to buy from China than America because I think China is a better force for good in the world than America. So actually, it's a weird position because having the Chinese brand is actually could be an asset potentially. You don't want to buy American? That's fine. know, here, buy Chinese. We have a Chinese brand for you. So I think that could be a potential future scenario also that protects us on both fronts. If we have a US brand and we have a Chinese brand, then it doesn't matter what happens. We have a way, either way. Anyway, that's my only thing there. I don't know, what specifically do we need to, do you want me to set a context, what we've been doing at Gantom? Do you want me to refresh what I sent over to you guys, email, what do you want me to do?
Michael Hsu: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I think just so Quan have an idea of your plans, and once you have a spying example, okay, cool, that looks good, and then we can move forward on that, and then we have Quan as lobbyists for... For Jerry and Ping.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, yeah, yeah, so big picture, what we had planned to do for this year is to make the fixture system cheaper, because we want to specialize in selling fixtures, because that's what we're good at, and that's what we want to do, so we want to maintain our pricing power with our fixtures and maintain our margins on the fixtures, and we want to make our fixtures, we want to update their technology, because at this point they're very tech... Logically outdated. They're difficult to use. There's a lot of problems with the core fixtures that haven't been updated in a while. So we want to try and update that, bring it, modernize the fixtures, maintain our margin on our pricing power in them, maintain all of that, and make the system cost cheaper to drive up demand for the fixtures. That was the thesis walking into 2025. Obviously then all this tariff stuff in a way is like a distraction, right? That's like going on over here, but overall plan was like figure out a way to make sure that people can, more people can use these fixtures, they're easier to use, and the system is cheaper. That's the plan, okay? So in that regard, we have been developing the CAT system, which right now is ready. It's almost ready to deploy-ish. Like basically we're at the point now where we need to get a price from Jerry as to how much it's going to cost. Then we can run the feasibility analysis to answer the question, is this actually cheaper to do it in this system or that? Because we spent the whole, this past six months just trying to make, get to the point where we can answer. Question if it's cheaper or not. So upgrading the technology, fixing the issues with the fixtures, all that stuff is like not, I mean, we're going to get partially there with this, but there's problems in that as well that we got to address down the road. But that's like one thing at a time, right? So that's the biggest thing. So that is something we need pretty quickly. I would say like by next week, we're pushing Jared to get numbers on that, and we'll know at that point the feasibility of that. That does also help us with all this tariff nonsense because the biggest challenge that the tariffs insert into everything is uncertainty. Our customers don't like uncertainty because their projects are multi-year timelines, so they need to know how much to budget for. They can't deal with an extra 50% charge for systems or whatever. So we need to absorb some of that uncertainty, but we can't because we're too small and we have no money. So making the system cheaper helps us. It helps everybody. It helps us in all this. Plus the cable. Manufacturing cables are expensive, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Okay, so beyond that, from a large strategic standpoint, like, you part one, modernize the fixtures, focus on our key fixtures, which is the V2 and the 7 and the Gantom 1, right? Get this new system. Okay, that's like part one. Part two then would be thinking about how we take that V2 and expand the market for it. And currently what we're looking at for that is to make new housing versions of the V2. So think about this. Think about when you go into Home Depot and you can get all sorts of really cool lighting, like pucks and sconces and all that. But so, you know, end users see that, people are familiar with these type of things, but designers don't have anything like that because those products are for commercial and they don't have DMX capability. They don't have RJ45, can they build whatever. So the new product plan or the stuff that we had planned at R&D to show off this year at... LDI and IAPA were supposed to be form factors that could take what consumers are used to but make them professional. And that way designers, when designers are asked, which they get asked all the time, like why can't we just buy a sconce light from Home Depot and put it here in our installation and also make it DMX controllable, and the lighting designers have to say you can't do that because they're literally just consumer-grade lights, we can have answers for that. So that would, we were supposed to get, that was trajectory for the year, okay, like tariffs not here, that was our plan, okay. Tariffs have just come in and brought a bunch of uncertainty, but they've also outlined for us the big challenge that we never solved from COVID, which was that we're too reliant on China and on a single supply chain. So that came up in COVID, we never resolved it, we just kind of like kicked the buck down the road. And now the tariffs have just exploited that weakness in a way. And so I think we could. Wrap all of this basically into just, we could make everything fit, think, tariffs aside, into the overall plan, which was to do these two things, which we can still work on, you know, but also to diversify our supply chains. And currently, I think with the team discussion, the best way to do that is to do basically parallel manufacturing. Like we have the original Gantom brand or Gantom Global or whatever you want to call it that is done by Junitel, and that can ship and provide to the rest of the world outside the U.S. That could also help us maintain price stability in the rest of the world to help us get bids on the big projects that are going into the rest of the world. And then we would have a separate brand that is assembled or done in as many ways we can here in the U.S. And that, I think, is our – that's what the team has been working on. How far we've gotten down there is another question, right? It's like, it's so much work to even figure out how much it would cost, the feasibility, all that. But what we've decided to do is start with the small items. So what we've done so far, the best example I can share, this concrete, is that we have recreated the FA38 kit. And it's a basically high heat resistant plastic because it's 3D printed. We've found a way to make it match exactly. So it fits exactly. It has the same thickness for the honeycomb. Everything works. basically an exact copy of the aluminum version. And just to give you some data points. So we pay $40 for the aluminum kit for this FA38. And keep in mind, this is exactly what I'm talking about, okay? This is an accessory. So it's like $40 for an accessory that just like fits on top of the fixture, which when the fixture is only $250, $300, that's a huge markup on the fixture that you have to pay for this, right? So, because it Ah, sus 40, then we have to charge 100, and our margins are only 30%. So if we can make it here in the US, we can make that for $1.50 is our cost for this. So then we can still charge like even half price, 50, and it's a much more affordable accessory, and we make better margins, and we do it here. And this is what I mean, like this is like what we're looking, I mean, so it may never work to assemble the fixtures in the US, and we just don't know, because we haven't even gotten that far yet, right? But I think it's good to look at like what are the other things that are easy, low-hanging fruit, accessories, the programming adapter, because it's from, we take it from N5 and we just put the casing around it and put it there, right? Those items, I think, will help us begin the process of this dual manufacturing. And then in line with that, we also need to make sure. We can actually fulfill from Junitel, which is its own set of logistical hurdles because they're not a fulfillment center, right? So we would need to partner them with YoYo or do some deal to make sure they could fulfill. So that is kind of the route we've been working on, you know, and I think the FA38 is, we're hoping to put that into production as soon as we, we have, by next week, we'll have sample kits that we're going to send out to our key customers and have them evaluate it. But once we get all of those approvals and make any adjustments, we can start rolling that out and fixing that problem because we can't get FA38 kits, which means we can't sell products. So like we have all these backups, there's a lot of problems. But on a macro sense, I think that's what we're working on. These are the strategies like dual level, dual manufacturing, thinking about how do we diversify our supply chain and also trying to stay on our 2025 goals of figuring this out. A lot of this is also dependent on the cash, right? Like... you Right now, immediately, we need to order from Junitel so we get everything in, but how much cash do we have to be able to do that? And then how much cash would we have if we were to stock Junitel? When could we do that? And then simultaneously, we have all this R&D to do, but that also costs money. And then at some point, we need to switch over our inventory into the new RJ45 tails, right? Which I'm recommending we just do a hard cut, and then we can subsidize adapter changeovers if we need to. But I don't know if that was condensed enough. I mean, I felt like I was a little over the place, but I sent you the email out. I don't know. If anyone has questions, ask me questions, because that's where my brain's at right now.
Michael Hsu: I think real quick before, Quan, so I think two things we'll want to get out of this call, right? So as far as how much money, all of that, Vanya have modeled. You know, internally, right? If there's additional, that's outside supported from Quan, that's additional. But I think two things, right? One is, Quan, if you have any questions for Philip, as far as the strategy, all that, is it like, yes, let's do this? Or is it like, what about this, this, and that? Because that's an internal discussion. And then, and then secondly, Philip, what would you need from Quan, right, to, to kind of support all of these efforts? Is it just like, or is it more like, is it like additional financial, or is it a negotiation with Jim's health?
Philip Hernandez: So, yeah, that's a good question. I didn't even answer that. So, because I've been in like four meetings already, so I'm like, brain. So I'm already like, deep into the sauce already. So, we, and by sauce, I mean eight cups of coffee so far. So, we, what we need from Quan, I think, on a, All level, it's like there are tasks that he hasn't done, like update the UL listing update, and also the programmer software, those outputs. If those can be delegated to somebody else, I think that would be the best thing or whatever. But aside from that, the biggest thing is we know Jerry doesn't want to do any of this. At this point, Jerry is our biggest liability, which is terrible to say, but here we are. So Jerry won't tell us when he's moving or give us any plans on that, so we can't plan around how that's going to work. He also refuses to let us do anything in the U.S. So for example, the programmer, right, like the whole point of the programmer is that we need it to run our lights. Our lights cannot function without this piece of thing. So it needs to be cheap so we can give it to people, but the cost from Junitel is still, he hasn't given us a cost. He's just told us it's going to be more expensive than the old programmer. And I'm like, the whole point to doing this is to make it cheap. So basically... If we did it in the U.S. where we just printed the housing and assembled it, it would be maybe $30, $40, but if we get it from Juneteau, would be maybe $150, $200, which is crazy. And he sent a message just last night that he absolutely refuses to let us do anything, and he's prohibiting us to even consider 3D printing it anywhere else. And I'm more like, and I get the real problem. My interpretation of the problem is that Jerry needs money to run his business. And I empathize with that because we also need that. But then it's also like we're trying to run Jerry's business, and he's not helping us run his business, right? Like, it's like we need to run our business and run Junetel's, but we don't have any information about what Junetel needs to run. Like, we don't have any of that. So that's more the problem is we're just like, okay, well, so now we just can't – Like, we're not even telling Jerry about the accessory kit. I'm not even telling him. If he I'm just going to say we're buying it from a third party and reselling it. That's where we're at right now because it's like, you know, it just, it makes no sense for us to order it in the way from Junotel. It just, and more and more the problem now is that like this happening more and more and more, where we're coming to more and more problems that just be easier without Jerry. And it's really causing the morale on the team to go down because the team can, you can only be told like four times that you just have to do it this way because we need to give Jerry money because it's like a mafia. That's it. Like you can just, you can only tell that to a person so many times before we lose. Andy, we just, I just had to have a whole thing with Andy earlier because he's not sure that he wants to keep working on any of this stuff because he just keeps getting like shut down by Jerry because he just needs to get paid for everything that we do, which. Anyway, to me, that's like the biggest, one of the biggest strategies, just figuring out how that's going to work, you know, and I think the best scenario would be Jerry picks a date to move, and then that's when we really think, like, have a chance to rethink, like, what does Junitel look like if it moves somewhere else? Does it need to do all the assembly here? Can we break it up into different pieces? And I mean, you know, because at some point, he's not taking all the staff with him. At some point, he's going to have to transition. I also don't want to put all of our eggs in one basket, and then Jerry moves, and then we don't have a way to make fixtures. Like, what? Anyway, that's it. So what we need from Quan, that's the biggest thing. The other stuff that's smaller tasks, think Quan could delegate, it would be fine. The big thing is, like, what do we do about our relationship with Junitel, where we keep them in business, but also do what's, what is financially viable for Gantum? Thank you. Thank
Quan Gan: Is it my turn?
Philip Hernandez: I just need to stop talking because I'm at the ranting point, so I need to just control everything.
Quan Gan: Is it my turn?
Philip Hernandez: Yes.
Michael Hsu: It is your turn. The floor is yours, Mr.
Quan Gan: So I see first-order, second-order, and third-order effects to this. So I'll start with the big broad strokes. And I think the big broad stroke is what Philip just ended his topic on, which is the relationship with Jerry. And the two sides of the same coin is that there needs to be central leadership within Gantom that's holistic between Junitel and Gantom. Because that was actually by design in the beginning, where we are legally two entities, but we're actually one entity. But due to a whole number of From geography to culture to political climate, it has made us into two separate silos where that basically is taking away the synergy from the potential non-zero-sum game. It could have been a much more holistic thing where this had been true, I would say maybe a decade ago, where I used to go back quite a bit and integrate the two sides. But since my move over to ZTAG, that glue has gone away, and then by default, it becomes these two parties. And I basically see this relationship as essentially a microcosm between U.S. and China politics, actually, almost identical. Because from a mindset perspective, China is very analog in terms of you can't pin them to a certain answer. It's going to be... And on the day and the condition, whereas U.S. by law, it needs to be very black or white, you know, process driven. And those fundamentally just like when they come together, just becomes very difficult. And, you know, Jerry on the flip side, he, you know, so we'll go down to kind of the secondary effect, which is, you know, who's making what. But because Jerry sees himself in truth, and rightfully so, as a co-owner of Gantom and this brand, he feels that the technical output of it, you know, it's basically it has his reputation on it. And so in some ways he feels Gantom U.S. making their own product is a liability on his reputation. And where he would draw the line is there are certain competencies of production that he would allow the U.S. to do, but certain ones, as soon as you cross over to having any kind of digital system, is like an. Absolute no-no for the U.S. to do because the lack of, I wouldn't say talent, but the lack of resources overall. The entire field of production, scale, and all of that, and experience, it's just not there. So I think as far as accessories go, if it's cabling or things that are just not complex, I think he's okay with that from a cost factor. But actually going up back to the first order thing, the lack of this cohesive framework of both sides working together also makes the finances decoupled, where we may be looking at a siloed equation of making Gant a maximal profit, but it might be a zero-sum game relative to Junitel in terms of they have to give up certain margins for us to keep ours and vice versa. But there's also this first order effect where we can have a decision here on paper. That seems to check out between me, you know, everybody here. But the execution level happens on a relationship basis between my dad and Jerry, right, in terms of how much funds actually get transferred. So there's two layers here that's not being integrated. So we can have a plan and say, okay, we need x, y, z. But the actual execution level is still going to be when they, you transfer funds over there. And if somehow that gets integrated, and I don't know how right now because, you know, Jerry's visa is not, it's still pending approval. So he's kind of in limbo there. But imagine a scenario where Jerry actually spends a significant amount of time here, is integrated into the day-to-day workflow here and understands the market. There might be a situation where we needed to purchase stuff, like he could be the one loaning the money or, you know, allowing production that proceed without prepayments. But by default, he doesn't see those particular finance, financial needs. So he's going to, by default, just let Alex run things and say, okay, we've got to get payment for everything. But he shared with me multiple times that when we're making requests, many times he's proactively already buying inventory or buying samples at his expense. We never know the story of that. So it's kind of like both sides pointing at each other, blaming the other. There's a lot of resentment built up because of the disconnection on multiple layers. And yeah, so that's kind of the first order and second order effect. Third order effect, mean, if you come down to the actual M5 programmer, I think the reason why Jerry refuses to let the U.S. handle that is just because there is enough technical complexity in there. He's just not trusting the other side to handle it. And it's by no means as a diss on Andy's competence. with him. And he's But, you know, he, time and time again, he points out, you know, when Andy made a data, like this worksheet about, you know, instructing other people to put it together. Yes, it works, but in the Chinese or even the Japanese manufacturing standard, it doesn't pass Jerry's bar. So, so he's like, if given that he's already not passing my bar, then it gives him even harder heartburn to say, okay, something more complex be handed over to the Gantom US. And then also the argument for the M5 programmer, regardless of local manufacturing, or I would say local assembly would be the qualifier because that ultimate part still has it come from China.
Philip Hernandez: So, you know, you can't truly ever be decoupled from China.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so, so some of those things, I think those are more in the details, but kind of taking a whole step back, what I'm summarizing is I've been telling Jerry because He, for all the complaints that we have about him from U.S. to Junitel, there's a reciprocal one that he would say about this side, but ultimately it stems from just a lack of face-to-face connection. Because when Jerry was here last year and he and Philip, you know, had face-to-face time, a lot of these things actually got resolved and melted away. But when we're siloed, it makes it very difficult. And whatever he's complaining about, I'm like, look, you're not on this side, so there's also a vacuum. It's like if someone's not taking care of the technical and day-to-day stuff, then Philip and team by default are going to do that. So if you're not satisfied with it, well, too bad because there's nobody else doing it any differently. You know, it used to be me, but it's not. So, yeah, I kind of, I rambled a lot as well, but first, third order. later. Bye. Issues, I think.
Michael Hsu: So where do we go from here? Like, we have identified the problem, and that's half the battle. Then, now what?
Quan Gan: I mean, I'm trying as best as I can to get... You coming back and becoming the glue. I can't do that because I had ZTAG to run, and Vania knows that.
Philip Hernandez: I think, like, I agree with everything Quan said. It's really hard, though, to even explain it to the team because, like, even when you say in the secondary order that, you know, there's a lack of the technology and the knowledge and the stuff here. Like, the problem with explaining this to the team is that, like, we can make an adapter that is cheaper and better than what Jerry can make. That's where that argument falls apart. And, like, I agree with the fixtures as, like, Jerry has to... The fixtures. My idea, I was like, it would be great if Jerry could come here and bounce between here and wherever the new place is and oversee assembly in the US while he transitions to Japan. That would be great. But it's those things where you're like, well, if we can do it better than Jerry, then why are we fighting with Jerry?
Quan Gan: So let's pinpoint on that specific example and kind of extrapolate it up the chain. So yes, it may be true when you're looking at side by side two things, you can make it cheaper and more efficient locally to US. But I think that particular scenario might be A, the lack of complexity.
Philip Hernandez: Because the adapter is much less complex.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so that might be manufacturable. And I think he's willing to let that, you know, perfectly made over here because it's not a detriment to the technical brand.
Philip Hernandez: Well, he refused, but yeah.
Quan Gan: But on the other side is, he's said time and time again, when you get to something... That is actually cheaper and you still need it at a certain price to hit the market. Well, he may be willing to give a lot of concessions on his end to make it work, but he ultimately wants this thing to be a holistic equation and not say, okay, I'm going to give you these plans just so you can do it, like copy it and do it in the U.S. Because he feels like we're basically, you know, shooting our help.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, yeah.
Quan Gan: Like I'm doing the work, but ultimately for the Gantom U.S. team to steal the credit for or get the margins or something at my expense, he doesn't want to do that.
Philip Hernandez: Well, I think that brings up the same – I don't understand all of that. I think we need to find a better line than – I think we need to find a line. Like my line was always like the fixtures. I think with the programmer, it's the same – it's a similar problem because like in actuality, like what is stopping us from making the programmer here?
Quan Gan: It's me. So because it requires programming, but actually – Here's another thing I didn't get added to the Asana, but he re-engaged with a previous engineer that we worked with many years ago that actually wrote the original programmer. So he's coming in, and through their own bartering and trade, Jerry's going to take care of that. He's going to basically finish the last mile. So that will get taken care of. But, yeah, so it's on me in terms of I haven't – I'm just, like, dragging my foot because there's so many other projects I'm working on. But that will get completed probably within the next month to finish the programming.
Philip Hernandez: How do we get it – I mean, because the original goal was to make it cheaper and simpler.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and I think to get it cheaper, if Jerry were here to look at the actual books and finances of this is what the margins are, to be able to make a business-wide decision, I think he'd be willing to forego. You know, his strict margins on it. I think we just never had that level of conversation because we're saying, okay, this is the Ganta margin. You do, you, Jerry, give me your best price. But he doesn't know the whole equation is, oh, well, this is the enablement for other things. But it's hard to translate that unless he's actually seen what's happening on the day to day.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, I was going to say the other thing is the translation. Like, you would think, like, you would think in theory that, like, you know, I could write up all this into, like, our plan. Like, this is what we were thinking. Jerry, please review it and let us know. And then, you know, we have a meeting. But, like, we've tried that and it doesn't work. And I have two hypotheses. One is that, like, I feel like Jerry's a kinesthetic learner, which is odd because he's never actually, you know, like, studied lighting design. So that would, you know, I would, that's... I think that basically he's like, I need to see it. And I'm like, okay, then you need to be here. But like the second thing is there's this weird disconnect where like both Ping and Jerry, like a lot of people have all these discussions. Nobody is talking to me.
Quan Gan: Yeah, that's the secondary layer I'm talking about. We execute at this level and the actual execution happens at a different level.
Philip Hernandez: It's like politics, basically. It's like we meet every week. We make plans. We're like following the plan to correct the company. And like I try, you know, Ping is that, you know, just Ping and Jerry don't say anything. And I send plans to Jerry and he reads them and he just doesn't say anything. So I don't know.
Quan Gan: It's okay. The restaurant analogy is probably the closest I can have it. Jerry is the chef. He's blind to the end user customer. He's not coming out to greet the customer. So the customer is just talking to the wait staff or the maitre d. end user customer. He's And they're having a good rapport at that level, but the actual execution where the chef needs to make corrections or adjustments to the meal, they're not having that direct contact. I would say that a few years ago, I imagine you would agree, when Jerry was here traveling a lot more and going on site seeing things, there's been a lot more cohesion on both sides.
Philip Hernandez: I don't know. I actually don't have an answer for that because I feel like for some reason beyond that, it's gotten worse. And I'm not sure, I think if I were to put a pin on it, I would say it's not just the customer feedback because like, I think Chris has done a good job.
Quan Gan: the information. No, I'm not talking about that. It's not the, okay. Okay. so for, uh, tangent, but today I, I interviewed a, an engineer. For like three hours, so much information gets transmitted face-to-face. You're immersed in that environment. It is not just the data. The data, yes, that's important, but I think it's a tertiary order of importance versus being immersed in the environment, being immersed in the day-to-day, talking to the customers, which is part of that whole thing. He's just not, he's completely decoupled from that.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, I don't, I mean, I don't, I don't have an answer.
Quan Gan: don't have a, like, before we would take him behind the scenes, right? You have Mikey or other people, like, to tell him that it goes in here, it goes in here. Like, that, that means the world to Jerry, actually. You know, like, because he's the producer of this, to be able to see the actual impact it has on an end user, that's the motivation that really pumps him. And he'll bend over backwards to make it work. Like, he'll give it to you for free if that's. It takes, you know, but without that connection, the flexibility just kind of defaults to whatever the books show.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah. I have no response. My big takeaway so far, like how I feel currently is I feel like Jerry doesn't understand what we do as a company.
Quan Gan: And we don't understand what he does either.
Philip Hernandez: Sure. Yeah. I mean, sure. I, I guess, I mean, you know, we know that he does. I think the problem is we're doing his job also. Like we're, we're running our company and doing his job and he's coming in and being like, stop doing my job.
Quan Gan: And we're like, then do your job. And he's like, what job? You know, I could take almost the identical response and say it from his side. He's like, you're, it's like, you guys are stepping into the territory that you're not supposed to, but on your side, it's You know, you're not doing your job, but he's like, you should be doing marketing, you should be focused on that stuff, like get the stuff out there, like, you know, like, rather than meddling with my production, which is my purview, he'll say the same thing on that territory.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah. It's just, yeah, I don't know where the thing is. It's like, if we don't do it, doesn't get done. So we have no other choice. And, but it does feel like we are doing the same thing over and over. Like we are, like, I know that Jerry's, you know, like, like, that's why I'm like, no reason. I mean, we've almost got to a point where like, we don't, like, if we had to, I'm sure we could make our own version of the fixtures. Like, it would be, would be within our possibility with the vendors that we have.
Quan Gan: It sounds like it, but I think the, um.
Philip Hernandez: The reality, I'm sure, is way different. Yeah, I'm sure.
Quan Gan: But I also think that with. that perspective, the surface level is really just the. But the iceberg. And I can't convey that to someone who's not gone through manufacturing and all the all the nuances of fixing that like, basically, you don't know about the problems that we have actually avoided because of his insights. And he's not going to get any credit for that. You know, there's a whole TED talk about why we celebrate incompetent leaders is because they make the most motion, it shows you the problem, and they go and fix it. But the best leaders are the ones that actually don't cause the problem in the first place, but they're not going to get the accolades.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, I still think there's a disconnect. Maybe in the past, there was more of, I guess what I'm really trying to say is that I feel like, I don't know how to put it in a way, like if Jerry wants to be treated like, I don't know, I'm just going to say it. I feel like Jerry doesn't respect me as like the being the CEO. Like even if he were a co-owner, the owner's only decision is to fire me, get more money. They have no strategic purview. They have no day-to-day purview. So in Quan's case, we made Quan an employee. And Quan had like, you know, the humility to be like, hey, I'll let you assign me tasks so that I can be part of the company and do things. And yes, maybe sometimes it doesn't work. Like, you know, he's behind on some stats. That's fine. But like, he's in the system, right?
Quan Gan: But Jerry is like... But you know that's U.S. versus China right there fundamentally?
Philip Hernandez: It is socialism versus independence. Well, I mean, it's more like Jerry has the idea that like he knows how to run our business and is also like the king of our business. That's not like true. But like it, but then what, so, so then what happens is we're like on our end, like we're having to run the engineering of the company. And I think in the past, Quan was like the head of the engineering, right? And Jerry would listen to Quan. So like Quan was able to run engineering because Jerry would listen to him. But now we're having to do all the engineering ourselves, and Jerry's not listening. So what we're doing is we're just doing it ourselves without him.
Quan Gan: Can I present something that's on a different table? Because I think we're circling.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, this course is right. We're going in circles, yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah. If I were to look at the assets, both human capital and physical assets that we have, and rehash things, you know, with a premise that we basically have to kind of like look at this thing holistically and reset, I would present maybe Gantom US would be focused more on relationships and service, and then let the production be Junitel. circles, circles, in in and going and we're What I mean by that is, if you look at a bigger equation where ZTAG might even come into play later on, there may be large-scale projects related to theme parks or theme venues that actually need a much more of a service as like a systems integrator or a programmer or something on that service level to actualize this thing. You know, more like a production company rather than looking at it as, okay, the U.S. is competing over the same piece that Junitel, you know, any company in China fundamentally has a manufacturing advantage in the U.S. So if we're trying to fight over that, I think it's a losing battle versus if you lean into the relationships and the integration of the components, that might be what Gantom, I would say, in the future should emphasize.
Michael Hsu (2): I'm going to jump in real quick. Correct me quickly if I'm embarrassing myself here. I think, I thought, U.S. Gantom is selling and relationship and marketing. But because of the tariff, right, it's like we used to sell something for $150 that cost $100. And then now that same thing that cost $100 is going to cost us $240. So no amount of marketing, like we can't just be like, hey, it's going to be now $300 because our competitors are saying, oh, yeah, ours is going to be $160, but better. So now Philip's hand is tied. While he understands production being genital, Philip's hand. But he's also looking, as the CEO of the company, he's also looking like, how the are these guys able to sell it for 160? And then they see their strategy of, and Philip's throwing the blank here, you know better than me. And then they say, okay, maybe how come Gantom can't do that? And then he's feeling his hands are tied. And I totally see, you know, like if I, today I go in and tell Vania how to run production, she'd be like, dude, get off my shoe, right? But then now Philip is like, okay, I can sell and marketing, I can relationship and marketing to 180, but it doesn't fix the fact that my tariff is still costing 240, right? My product is still costing 240, and he's trying to close that gap. And the struggle is, and the struggle, and I have witnessed this, is he's unable to have Jerry come to the table. Like, for example, Quan, you just said like the cabling, he's like, yeah, that's okay. That part is okay, or he's willing, but I think the two of them haven't been able to. Come to that concession where, hey, Jerry, the price is $2.40. Because the last time I had a conversation with Jerry was last October or November-ish. And then Jerry was like, it's not going to go to $2.40. Trump is going to back down. And he did back down, right? And hopefully he keeps backing down. But I'm saying, well, we can't bet the strategy on the $2.40 is going to go back to $100. I'm guessing it's not going to go back to $100.
Philip Hernandez: It might go down to $150.
Michael Hsu (2): Correct. I think the conversation. So I think that's where Philip's struggle is right now. But then moving forward, we have to reestablish that better communication with Jerry. I agree with everybody at this table. But the question now is not like, oh, man, there's a lot of resentment. We don't talk to each other. And we need to talk better. But I think where we need help right now, because Quan, you were the glue. And we're not asking you to come back. right. Thank Like, perhaps spray a little lubricant and what that lubrication would look like.
Quan Gan: I mean, for one, like, if Jerry was in this meeting already, like, that would have, I think, been a better move, right? I didn't realize he wasn't on this call until I looked at the counter. I'm like, oh, , he's not in here.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, because we're talking about, you know, we're trying to talk about sensitive material where we're, like, you know.
Quan Gan: It's literally like Xi and Trump. It's, like, trying to get them into the same room, and they're sending representatives. No wonder it's not, you know, back and forth. Like, literally, we are a microcosm of China and the U.S. Like, literally. It's the identical thing. It's like, if you two just, like, sat together and worked it out, Jerry could be like, oh, , I see it's hurting. Oh, I see that this customer is selling it at this price. Like, Jerry's getting pictures of, like, oh, I see competitors coming up. Well, on your side, it'd be, yeah, no , your stuff is too expensive. So, of course, you're springing. So, like, he needs to get that immediate feedback, but if he's not, like, he can't do anything about it.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, I don't like the whole China scenario thing, because China actually didn't, hasn't done anything, you know, it's just, it's just Trump that's caused a problem and then backed off, but I also think that the, I think Michael's characterization is 100% right, but I, there's no buts, it's 100% right. I also think, though, there's this weird thing where, like, Jerry, Jerry wants to make the strategy, but doesn't ever make strategy, and doesn't have any of the data points, which is Quan's point, right, Jay doesn't have the data points, but, like, I guess there's not, like, either he's gonna trust us to make the data points, and then discuss the strategy with him, because I could flip the same, he's asking why we're not just doing the marketing and stop doing anything else, and I could ask the same thing, why aren't you just focusing on the production? And why do we have to project manage you? That's the other part of it. Like, we wouldn't have the cat system if it weren't for Andy project managing him and Andy doing the mock-ups and Andy doing all of the – I mean, Andy's doing Jerry's job. Like, so how can you say that he can manage everything? Like, he can't.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I mean, I see the superposition of both truths. So I'm not – So it's just like – and that's the thing, you know, we try to explain to Jerry.
Philip Hernandez: I don't know. I just – he's – I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, whatever. I mean, we – the strategy is as basically as Michael outlined it. Every day that we don't do something, we're just losing market share, and the company's going to become irrelevant, you by the end of the year.
Michael Hsu (2): So here's a question. And I think, Juan, you were brought on here because I – and I can only use my last reference point, which was our last discussion where everybody is. It was messy. It was a super long call. was messy. And I felt like we didn't really get anywhere. So, Quan is a lubricant. We can potentially be a lubricant, again, I think just on the language translation, right? But then we don't have the relationship lubricant, right? But here's what I'm thinking, right? Because I'm always thinking like, well, how are we going to push this forward? Obviously, we need to reassess the role and responsibility between, you know, Gantom US and Junitel, right? So, you know, Quan, is this something that you can help us? I think, again, not having you come back, but just be like, hey, sit down on the table, or either individually first, and then bringing them to the table, or we can facilitate to the rest of the ability.
Quan Gan: Ideally, this Quan, Jerry, Ping, group, and this Quan, Philip, Michael, Vania group can integrate into this one group.
Michael Hsu (2): Yes, yes, yes. So, the second thing is, so the first thing is roles and responsibility, right? Second thing is, you know, direct communication, right? Improving direct communication with exactly what you said, right? And then, and then, and then, and then, and then, then Philip's long-term strategy, I think. then, so first, roles and responsibilities. Second, the two groups, the two teams coming together, right? And then, and then third, as the two teams are together, we present the strategy, we present the numbers, and then have an agreement on, you know, how do we stay relevant and competitive in the marketplace, right? Like, who has to do what? Like, if, if Philip, if Philip, if Philip as CEO strategist, you know, the U.S. team is marketing relationship, Junitel's production, you know, Quan is finance, and maybe even Jerry is finance in there, right? We can facilitate and present in a single pane of truth, right? To be able to be like, hey, this is strategy, and let's go, because I think even when Terror, when Liberation Day, I don't know, is it Liberation Day? Whatever day. April happened, like, Philip, from his perspective, I mean, the option was like, maybe we need to shut this down. Right? So nobody wants to see that. We don't want to see that. Right? So, but I think before we get to step three, where we have that big meeting again, like we did end of last year, I think we need step two and step one, individually. And even for you, Quan, like, Vania, Michael, Quan, Philip, Quan, Ping, Jerry, right? You are that common denominator. And I think as the founder of the company, I think you're in, you of all people are in this perfect position to be able to do, you know, step one and two, and then we can breathe together. And three, and we have to do it fast. We have, we have a 90 day breathing window, which is great, but that's do it fast, maybe in the first 30 days. So then we have the next 60 days to really execute on. I mean, the execution of it. And I think that will reset, that will hard reset everything, and then we can take off. Because like I said, I said this to Philip over and over again. I'm like, it's phenomenal. Like, Gantom is doing phenomenal things, given all the environmental stuff. Now, if we can have all of that together, I think it's going to freaking take off. Does that sound like a plan? Is that something that perhaps individual, or anything, can help out and set up?
Quan Gan: So you're asking me to have another few conversations with Jerry, try to bring you guys to the same table?
Michael Hsu (2): Yeah, yeah. Because I agree, we need to get to the same table. But I think before the same table, the conversation needs to be lubricated. I don't want us to get to the same table and then be screaming at each other, right?
Quan Gan: Well, practically, that's never happened. I think things are...
Michael Hsu (2): Right, right, right. But yeah, we weren't screaming at each other, but we were... Well... We weren't getting anywhere either.
Philip Hernandez: I'm going to be seeing Jerry at the end of June in China.
Quan Gan: Okay. Well, yeah, I think it would be worthwhile for me to be there with you.
Philip Hernandez: I don't know if we can't pay for you to go, Quan, I'm kidding.
Quan Gan: Hey, mate, for myself.
Michael Hsu (2): Hey, for himself.
Philip Hernandez: I don't if I think so that could be a good, I mean, kind of, was like, well, Jerry can't come here. We need to go there, basically, is what we need to do. So I had, I haven't, I have the dates outlined.
Quan Gan: I haven't booked a ticket because it's so expensive. I have plans or I've asked Jerry multiple times, when you get your visa, you need to be living in Orlando for two months.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Like, I think that is probably the single thing that's going to move the needle and repair the relationship the most. You
Philip Hernandez: That's not like, Lisa and I aren't in Orlando, and you aren't either. I mean, Andy's there, but Chris doesn't go into the office.
Quan Gan: I think, well, so maybe a month there, a month here, or something. I it's more important that he's in Orlando, because you see the customers, you see the people talking to the customers, you see the engineering that the Orlando team is doing. That's probably going to move the needle the most, and it'll also trickle over to whatever Lisa and Kathy need to handle, too. Because if that gets lubricated, the purchasing is going to have an easier time in terms of that.
Philip Hernandez: I think even in that, there's an indicator, because I think with stuff like that, you can just ask us, what would be the best thing for Jerry to do if he were going to come in the U.S.? And I think the U.S. team could help put together, from their perspective, a plan. You know, like, you don't have to do all that yourself, right? And we could, like, we can make a list of clients that we could take them to see. You know, we could make a plan, and we could tell you if people are going to be on vacation. Like, Chris is going to be gone for two weeks.
Quan Gan: I mean, you've got to, like, I think that's also indicative of the communication thing.
Philip Hernandez: Like, and that's coming, again, from you. Like, just, like, ask the people who are.
Quan Gan: Yeah, okay.
Michael Hsu (2): Maybe the founder can sponsor a team retreat at a third location.
Philip Hernandez: I'm okay with We usually do that for IAPA, right?
Quan Gan: That's always our.
Michael Hsu (2): But like we said, because of COVID and because of all these things, you know, it hasn't happened, right? And I think, so what you guys talking about, like, when Jerry comes over, that's step two, right? Focusing on improving direct communication with Jerry and team, right? Integrating everything. But step one, I think step one is, like, reset this resentment that's been built up, and then reset this, you know, like. We assess the roles and responsibility of everybody and get everybody to buy in. I think this call was never meant to be that third call, that the third step were getting everybody together. This call was the step one of step one, which is get Quan to buy in, and then Quan can go and get people to buy in, Philip can go to their team, and then we can bring everybody together.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Michael Hsu (2): Yeah.
Quan Gan: That's good. Real quick, I got to get my son on a lesson real quick. Can you guys wait for me?
Michael Hsu (2): I'm going to take one minute.
Philip Hernandez: I'm tired, guys. I'm tired, and this week I almost flew off like five times. The fact that Ping was like, I don't know what paperwork that we need for this new employee. work. You know, like, he doesn't even want to come. Intern now, because he's like, this place seems like a show. And I'm like, yep, I have no response to that.
Michael Hsu (2): I feel you, man. I feel you.
Philip Hernandez: Like, who doesn't know, like, what employment paperwork you, I mean.
Michael Hsu (2): I feel you.
Philip Hernandez: So now I have to do that, too? While I'm also paying the taxes for the company?
Michael Hsu (2): While I'm also, yeah, anyway.
Philip Hernandez: Like, what do you guys need me to do? Do I need to, like, write up a business plan? Or do we just, do I just do nothing?
Michael Hsu (2): I don't think there's, I don't, I think, I think we, I think we, I think we, we have the three, three big directions. Right? Right. Step one, reassess roles and responsibility. Step two, like, reset the, reset the emotions on everybody. I think everybody's, like, built up, exhausted. Everybody's exhausted. Right? Then I, but I think that's mostly Quan now. I think we've done that here today. Hey, this is step one of step one, right? Step two. Because I'm improving direct communication with Jerry. So rather it's, you know, seeing Jerry in June, whatever, him coming here, whatever, right? Everything's like really plan that out. Like how are we going to achieve each one of them? these big categories are going have a smaller step, right? And then the third step is when we have one, when we reset the rules and responsibility, when we get everybody to the table, step one of step three, which is, so 3A, right? The long-term strategy is you then presenting what you have already been presenting. Be like, look, here's the competitors. Here's the numbers, right? You've already done all of that, right? And then just getting buy-ins from, because Quan campaigned for us before that, right? To Payne and to Jerry. And just be like, look, here's what it laid out. Here's my strategy. You know, this is where I need help. Either let us, like the, is it the cable? The cable, let us make the cable in the U.S. Is it, Quan said, oh, he will do concession. Maybe he will be like. Fathom, I'm not going to give you a concession. Maybe he would, right? Or Ping and Quan can be like, okay, we'll put in another 100 grand. And deepsky's job is to supply all of the numbers, right? This is the scenario, here's what it'll look like. Hey, if you put in 100 grand, this is how it's going to help us, right? If you look at the cost, here's how it's to help us. What we really have to help them understand is, again, performance, profitability, right? That $100 sales, $240 cost, right? And then timeline, cash flow. So cash flow, so Jerry, Jerry and Philip have the levers on the performance, which is sales for selling price, cost, right? And then Quan and Ping, and I don't know, maybe Jerry, have the levers on the cash flow, which is additional funding. So our job is to present the single panel truth and then facilitate the communication. So the three categories, step one, step two, step three. But then each one of them will have like 1A. So right now, after this call, I think we should put in place where it's like 1A, 1B, 1C, which is like, okay, is Quan talking to Jerry? What's Jerry going to talk about? Is Quan talking to Ping? What's Ping going to talk about? Once we reset all of that individually, then we can bring everybody together. Once we bring everybody together as a 3A, it will be that call where we're presenting the strategy with numbers and all of that.
Philip Hernandez: Okay, so I need to have a thing ready for that thing, for that time.
Michael Hsu (2): Yes, yes.
Philip Hernandez: I mean, yeah.
Vania Chen: The problem is how long is that going to take?
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, I just going to say I have literally a motivation or incentive to do this.
Michael Hsu (2): Yeah, I think we need to put a deadline on that, right? I mean, ideally, 30 days puts us at June 20th, which is very close to when you're going to China.
Vania Chen: Is it the IAPA Asia that you're going June 30th?
Philip Hernandez: Yeah. I'm leaving on June 22nd, and then I'm going to be there just through IAAPA Asia, so through July 3rd, or July 2nd, or in that.
Quan Gan: I haven't booked my plane ticket, though. Okay, because I'm in Vegas for National Yo-Yo for Jio.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, because it's IAAPA Asia.
Quan Gan: It's in Shanghai.
Vania Chen: Okay, hold on.
Quan Gan: Let me see.
Philip Hernandez: Oh, it's like literally the perfect opportunity.
Quan Gan: June, June, okay. So, what days for IAAPA?
Philip Hernandez: June 28th through July 3rd.
Quan Gan: I mean, I could theoretically fly in during the week. I'm gone for the weekend, until the 29th.
Philip Hernandez: If you want to go in early, I was going to go early anyway, so you're saying you want to come in early, like June 24th?
Quan Gan: No, no, no, not early, late.
Philip Hernandez: Oh, no, I can't.
Quan Gan: I have to be back. Let's go. go. Well, if, but you said you're there till the 3rd?
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, probably, hold on, let pull up July.
Quan Gan: So if I left on Sunday, I would get there probably the 1st.
Philip Hernandez: Why don't you just come the week before?
Quan Gan: There's a whole bunch of events leading up to it. How early are you going to be there?
Philip Hernandez: Probably like June 23rd. like, if Jerry can meet me and like, help me, you know, or he wants to hang out, I'll probably go there on the 23rd. If he doesn't, I'll go to Japan for like a few days to see the World Expo. Because supposedly we have a bunch of stuff installed there.
Quan Gan: I mean, I might be able to.
Philip Hernandez: Also, Japan's way cheaper.
Quan Gan: I may be able to squeeze in, like, if I fly to Japan first.
Philip Hernandez: to Japan on, team. by on So It's cheaper.
Quan Gan: Yeah, that week in front is also pretty impacted because I have something the week before. I was hoping that I have at least like a week and a half or something I'm going. Well, give me your exact dates and let me see if I can make something work.
Philip Hernandez: Okay.
Vania Chen: And that sounds like, Quan, you're to be in Vegas when Michael's in Vegas, too.
Quan Gan: Are you there for National Yo-Yo Week?
Michael Hsu (2): Yeah, that's exactly what I'm there for.
Quan Gan: What's the conference?
Michael Hsu (2): No, no conference.
Quan Gan: live there.
Michael Hsu (2): Oh. You couldn't know that.
Quan Gan: Oh, I didn't know that.
Michael Hsu (2): No.
Quan Gan: Yeah. I live here in by default. It's only there for conferences.
Michael Hsu (2): Yeah.
Quan Gan: Why do you live there now?
Michael Hsu (2): Cheaper. Lower taxes. Everybody's out of California. Close enough to LA where I can still go do my stuff.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, it's like an hour flight.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Michael Hsu (2): And how often are you actually there? Right now, probably only like three or four months, but I'm going to try to get that to, oh, actually, I'm going to get that to three or four months. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Cool. Yeah, so I think that's a great target. If we can do it earlier than that, if we can all come to the table earlier than that, but if we can do individual preparation, individual campaigning before June, end of like June 20th or June, whatever the conference time is. So then at that time, we can all come to the table, you know, with a fresh start, understanding roles and responsibility, you know, understanding the breakdown, understanding and agreeing on that, and then do it, and then understand, and then do a hard reset, and then we can talk about strategies and numbers. That, way.
Quan Gan: Does this, I'm sorry.
Vania Chen: Sorry, have a question. Is, is right now currently only the US manufacturing or whatever job is responsibility on the table, or is fulfillment actually? Fulfillment also on the table with this, because we're kind of in a high crunch.
Michael Hsu (2): I think it's everything that involves Philip's strategy, right? Because right now, and I guess we can articulate this a little bit better, right? Like, what is our problem, right? Our problem is that performance, that, you know, what cost is $100 is now, what used to cost $100 now is $240, you know? And then, Vania, perhaps you can put together something like, we're selling it for $150, you know? So, unless we get it down to, unless, like, we get it down to, I don't know, $120, like, there's no business here. Like, perhaps that's something that we can help illustrate. I think we illustrate what the problem is, and then it's what a solution, right? Because we have different levers to pull, right? We have the performance lever, or if we don't have the performance lever to pull, we might have the timeline lever to pull, right? So, if we're saying, like, Trump is going to be out of office in four years, okay, . Well, Let's Let's Four years, how much is that going to cost this, right?
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, because we've already lowered our margins to barely being sustainable.
Michael Hsu (2): Yeah, so I think everything is on the table.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah.
Michael Hsu (2): Everything is on the table, at least to be discussed.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, I think, tell me if you agree, Michael, would we relabel it as like, supply chain diversification is the problem? Because it all kind of goes back to that, right? Like, the reason that we are in this crunch is because of our supply chain. You know, if we had a more diverse supply chain like the other companies, we could get around the tariffs.
Michael Hsu (2): I mean, what is our problem, right? Our problem is our expenses are higher than our costs are higher than what we can sell it for. see, be And so if we expand that by selling more or decreasing cost, so we can only sell more or decrease cost by sell for more or decrease cost to remain competitive. the question is how do we remain competitive? So either make the stuff better or make the stuff cheaper. And if we have one supplier, then Junitel is our only answer. But if we have multiple suppliers, because this is very interesting, right? Because Quan alluded to this a little earlier, which was like, hey, if Junitel is the production and you, Philip, as the CEO, right? And you're not tied to a single Junitel, would you source somewhere else?
Philip Hernandez: Yes.
Vania Chen: Right.
Philip Hernandez: Like 100%. Like, yes, I'm trying to do that now, even though we are tied to them.
Michael Hsu (2): So then I think. The question then isn't like a, I think it's a very much like a, and we have this unique relationship. Yes, it feels like a handcuff right now, but I can also see as a leverage. Perhaps we come to the table as like, hey, we're buying this from Junitel for 50 bucks, but then we're going to buy this other stuff from these other guys in Vietnam, and they're selling it for 30 bucks. Maybe Jerry can look at it and be like, well, it's not apples to apples, it's apples to orange. Or maybe Jerry can look at it and be like, oh, that's awesome.
Philip Hernandez: I can do it for 30 bucks too.
Michael Hsu (2): Yeah. I don't know. Like that's beyond the scope of my work. But I think everybody has to understand that everybody has the best heart for this business. And our job right now is that our costs have, we feel like our costs have elevated to a power past what we can sell it for. And we need to reverse that. We need to reverse that equation. So, yes, supply chain, yes. Yeah, it's a chain, diversification, right? Where you're like, hey, but yeah, I mean, we can label a different thing in my brain, supply chain, but that might be too complicated for. Yeah.
Philip Hernandez: I think you, I might have overcomplicated supply chain diversification, pretty complicated, but that's essentially what it is. I think, because if we had a, again, it all boils back to that, you know, capturing the global market, we could actually lower prices for the rest of the world if we could fulfill from Junitel.
Michael Hsu (2): Yeah.
Philip Hernandez: means we could capture market share for the giant projects. Like, all the biggest projects in theme parks are not going to be in the U.S. Yeah. Yeah.
Vania Chen: I think it's actually a win-win situation for all of us. It's just that we need to get buy-ins and understanding.
Michael Hsu (2): it. Yeah. Yeah.
Philip Hernandez: So, do you, so, Do you need something from me written up? I assume we need to, like, translate it. Is anyone going to read it this time?
Quan Gan: Am I just wasting my time? I think, Phil, you and I will read all your stuff.
Philip Hernandez: Thank you, Michael.
Michael Hsu (2): And that says a lot, because I don't read most of the . But because Vania reminds me, she, like, texted me. She's like, hey, Philip said something, and I sent it to you again.
Vania Chen: Can you just, like, read it, please? I was like, okay. Meeting last night with him, I would go, remember today, 4 p.m.? I sent you an email.
Michael Hsu (2): Read it.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, it was funny, because on the call earlier, I was like, I haven't heard from Vania. And then Lisa was like, I did. I'm like, oh, good.
Vania Chen: Yeah, sorry. I was punching things in, because I also, I was talking to Charlie this morning, too. So I was trying to get things in all for everybody. So, but, but, but, but just so you know, I'll call. We'll call Ping tomorrow and see if I can get access to ADP, where I can get people set up. That's what, because right now I can't. And we do have the HR assist that we can help. They can help with that too, with all the legal stuff. But I just need, I'll talk to Ping tomorrow. I'll give him a call tomorrow morning just to get that taken care of.
Michael Hsu (2): Let's wrap this up.
Quan Gan: I have a quick request for Vania. Would you be able to just give me a quick 30-second, one-minute summary of the current relationship between ZTAG and Gantom in terms of payment schedule? Where are we on what one company owes the other? And then how is Gantom doing now that I think selectively we've reduced some of the costs?
Vania Chen: where are we? Say the last part again.
Quan Gan: With Gantom, so I think part of my salary has moved. Over to ZTAG. And then ZTAG, with some of the income, has started repaying Gantom. So I just want to understand where we are on those positions and how far to go do we have until Gantom feels like it's a pretty healthy margin company without skewing my numbers.
Vania Chen: Well, with the 90-day, it's definitely a breather. Right now, Gantom still have the cash. With ZTAG, currently, based on if we're only looking at the ZTAG portion, ZTAG still owes Gantom about $185-ish around there. I can give you the exact number. I'll put it up. But as far as the cash flow-wise, Gantom, we're still okay. We're still having a little bit over $200,000 in Gantom's overall bank. We still have money coming in. At the same time, we are repaying since we've been holding off orders. For the last couple of months because of tariff, and we are trying to restock right now. So we are actually expecting an outflow of cash pretty fast for this month and next, if anything. But as far as the cash flow at this point right now, projected-wise, if we can maintain a 2.7 overall, 2.75 overall sales for the Gantom on the trajectory with the 40% margin, we are okay. We are going to, toward the end of the year, we're going to head into negative, but we can sustain as long as we keep up the sales level.
Quan Gan: Are we still at that level where we need 200K monthly to break even, or have we reduced some of our costs where that number can come down a little bit?
Vania Chen: Right now, what I'm looking at is we need 275, well, for the 40% margin. If we're... Only getting 40% margin, we need $275,000 a month to be break-even.
Quan Gan: $275,000?
Vania Chen: Because of the margin. Because with the 40% margin, $275,000, we're really only making $110,000.
Quan Gan: Is that mainly because of tariffs?
Vania Chen: Yes. Well, the tariff on top of everything else, right? Also, you have the cogs, have the duty, have the shipping, you have everything.
Quan Gan: A few years back, was like we're trying to hit $200,000 every month because about 50% of that was cogs and 50% was basically OPEX. And I thought maybe that reducing my own salary and reducing the fact that we're paying several thousand to a developer for ZTAG, that was helping.
Vania Chen: But I guess it's basically a wash. Also, it means a lot of it is because we're dropping our margin from 60% to 40%.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah.
Vania Chen: And that actually, from 60 to 40, by itself, we dropped $55,000 in revenue a month with the same level of revenue, right? Profit, yeah. So at the end, I mean, this really does affect increased costs and all that. But it also, at the same time, because of our costs, it will affect our cells. So for all my projection, my cells actually declines. I only projected about 2.3 for Gantom for the year. And that's definitely not going to be enough. We are going into way negative toward the fourth quarter of the year, right? And because that's also a month that we don't really have that much cells. After Halloween, after, you know, we slow down for Gantom, right? So it... So in short, I mean, yeah, I don't know, but it does hit us.
Michael Hsu (2): That's a phenomenal insight, right? Because at first it was just an op-ex, right? Quan, at first you were like our biggest headache, right? But now you're not. But then the issue is now we have a bigger headache, right? So you're like, hey, I'm no longer a problem, but you were, what, $10,000 a month? Just the margin alone was $55,000. So that's just a direct translation. So now it's like, okay, great. We've saved $10,000. We just increased $45,000, net net $45,000 worse. And then because of our higher cost, that's actually reducing our future revenue. So now we're making less money on the top line, and then we're making less cents per dollar on the margins as well. So that's why we're feeling such a sweet. That's why you're like, hey, everything is better. I'm out.
Philip Hernandez: You know, Gantam has been made up. Yeah, no, we're actually, it's actually on fire. That's what I was saying earlier, where I was like, I don't think it's sustainable by the end of the year.
Quan Gan: Like, no, it's actually like on fire. we're like, we have a visual to show that those numbers to both me and Vania.
Michael Hsu (2): If you don't have it, if you have it, I can show it. If you don't have it, we can build something like that. But because I think that that's very conversational.
Vania Chen: So this is, this is, this portion is based on $2.33 million revenue projected, 40% margin overall. We do have the overhead, mainly a good chunk of overhead is payroll, tax benefits, facility professionals, right? And then, so this is, and then plus we have the investment. The investment, I make, it's marketing and travel. So I list out the, I don't know, Philip, if you're attending all of them. But these are the IAAPA event. I don't know if you're seeing entertainment. I saw one in March, but I don't know if you were attending anything else afterward. But anyway, so whatever they're like, I up the travel for those months. That's the potential investment for marketing, trade shows, and all that. And then I give a little bit of R&D. And then I saw Andy wants $5,000. And then I just give like a $2,500 for the rest of the year. So this is the estimated, very roughly estimated cost for us, right? But with the $2.33 million revenue, you'll see that we are going into negative. Because like I said, we need $275 to sustain this amount, this level of expenses, right? And this is actually a pretty minimal, because the marketing and trade show was way over last month. Last year as well, with all the traveling that we did. And then plus, as far as the cash position after the EBIT, we're still repaying loans, which is the $10,000 to PIN and $10,000 to SBA, right? So that's the loan. So our cash situation will be a negative, but we do have $224 in the bank right now. So it will, if let's say that if we don't, like with this projectory, we don't spend anything more crazy, we will have a tiny little bit of cash left in October. But I think I have a feeling PIN is going to freak out probably around this time already. So this is that. And then this is based on the current projection, right? And let's say that if we do get a China fulfillment and let's say that one third of the total. Order actually shipped directly from China that doesn't touch. So that'll go back to our 60% international margin. Then with the same amount level of sales, it's slightly better. But at the same time, we do need to spend out.
Philip Hernandez: We need to stock China.
Vania Chen: We do need to stock China. So that's the additional $150. So, but with that, it helps a little bit, but not too much. But maybe the international sales can be more because then the cost will be cheaper, right?
Philip Hernandez: I actually think our margins might be better than 60 on stuff that we ship direct from China. And we have already started doing that, by the way. I think we fulfilled maybe 400 fixtures or so direct to customers. So we could look at the margin on those and figure out, better estimate it out. Because we've basically been like... Hand-emailing lists of inventory to our international customers and being like, if you want to buy any of this, we'll give you a great deal, and this is when you can have it, and that's been working pretty well. It's just we don't have the money to invest into that anymore, and then also we don't have the staff capacity to do anything, you know, considering that we only have four employees, and they're, like, overloaded. It's like setting up a whole new fulfillment will, you know, I mean, we had to compromise on the margin in order to maintain pricing, you know, in the U.S., but we wouldn't have to compromise internationally, and then stuff like the accessory kit, like the FA-38, obviously, if we were able to procure it in the U.S. or do U.S.
Quan Gan: assembly, we could have 70% margins and still be fine.
Philip Hernandez: Or I don't even know what that margin would be, if we sold it at 50. And we cost us $5. That's more than 70% margin, but anyway.
Quan Gan: With that chart, I'm understanding it, you know, when I really spend some time on it, but I'm just wondering if there's a way to visualize that graphically a little bit better. Maybe with like a stack bar or something so we can show, you know, visually what that should actually look Or you, Vania, would do it. Okay. I appreciate it. I think I need that to paint the picture for Jerry because he's not plugged into what's going on here. Like he just, all he sees is we're getting less orders and he's complaining, why are they getting less orders? He's not seeing the pain that the U.S.
Vania Chen: side is in.
Michael Hsu (2): Vania, if you need help or you want to just like run that report by me, I have some ideas. Yeah, because I totally get it and I think I know what one wants. Two threeblind That would be helpful for Jerry. I know what would be helpful for me, so we can put that together. You already have it there. By the way, Vania, that was great. That was amazing. I'm sorry, I should have. We're a data company, and I should have led with data. I should have led you on the show and still have talked almost today.
Vania Chen: I think we got a lot of issues to resolve before anything else.
Michael Hsu (2): That's the whole idea of today, right?
Vania Chen: Now, because it's the Vania, Michael, Philip, and Quan, Quan, Ping, and Jerry, right? So now we got one person to buy into in that group, in the Quan, Jerry, and Ping group, right? And then so that was the whole idea, just to at least get the information over.
Michael Hsu (2): Yeah, and I think, Vania, I know you always take the background, but you will actually be the one that's going to help everybody come together using numbers and visuals and data. Because I think that calms everybody down to look at the reality. Now we have a single enemy, right? Now we're no longer pointing. Now we have a single enemy, which is the numbers. So I think you would really facilitate this. So that's definitely pinned down. June, I guess Philip and Quan can give us a date on when would a meeting make sense, right? That strategy makes sense. If it can happen before June, that would be great. But I think face-to-face will be super helpful. But then before then, it would just be what we talked about. The Vania will provide the numbers and the datas, you know, the clarifying the rules. Quan will help us talk to Jerry, you know, talk to Ping, right? And then Philip, you'll prepare the strategy of conversation. And then we can go from there.
Philip Hernandez: Should I be like, do we want, I guess, when do you guys want it?
Michael Hsu (2): Because we need to translate it, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So however long, so work backwards from the meeting dates, right?
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, yeah. And then we... Do you want me to make, like, infographics to Instagram or is just text?
Michael Hsu (2): Well, Vania will help with the data part, right? But I don't know what other infographics. I think you can make it on the market, on the competition, right? I think you would tell a better story from that end, right? Here's what we're coming up against.
Philip Hernandez: Well, anything can be made in infographic.
Quan Gan: How quickly can Vania, can you help me with the graphics on just the numbers? Because I'd like to have an earlier meeting with Jerry. With that, so I can already brief him. And then you guys kind of fill in the additional information. But I think the numbers is, like Michael said, it's like the single thing that we can, that both sides can tackle without any kind of resentment.
Vania Chen: Then let me ask you this. When do you want to have this meeting with Jerry?
Quan Gan: I mean, I could call him any given day, you know. So I think as soon as possible. And I think, you know, based on what Michael has asked me to do, it's like, I I... I would want to have a one-on-one with Phil. You know, we haven't seen each other in person for a couple of months already. So just, I need to establish that relationship first. But if I have the numbers, that's always going to be helpful with that conversation.
Michael Hsu (2): Okay, Vania. So, Vania, when are you done with deliveries?
Vania Chen: Which delivery?
Michael Hsu (2): All the deliveries, because I'm looking at it as the 20th, so you should be almost done, right?
Vania Chen: Oh, I'm done, yeah, I'm done.
Michael Hsu (2): Okay, well, see, that means you have some time. Vania's like, damn it, this is my break time!
Quan Gan: Don't ball and tell her what she wants.
Vania Chen: No, no, it's fine.
Michael Hsu (2): I'll work on it. Do a week?
Vania Chen: Huh?
Michael Hsu (2): A week, is that fair?
Vania Chen: Next Wednesday? Yeah, that's fair.
Quan Gan: Okay, yeah, mean, if I can get it in a week, I'll start having that conversation with Jared. Yeah, and need be, I mean, I'm willing to fly to China for a couple of days even earlier if that ends up helping the whole situation.
Philip Hernandez: We have a meeting with Jerry next week.
Quan Gan: Next week, okay.
Philip Hernandez: Is that a stream meeting? Actually a week from today at like almost the same time as this.
Michael Hsu (2): Oh, okay.
Philip Hernandez: Jerry requested it.
Quan Gan: Yeah, okay.
Philip Hernandez: He didn't tell me what it's about.
Quan Gan: I've shared with Jerry that, you know, he wants to have more control over, you know, how things are running. I'm like, well, then you have to request to be included in these things. Like passive, you're too far to be passive. And normally if you're here day to day, you're going to have a lot more engagement. But if you're just sitting back and then having the silent resentment, that's not helping anybody.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah.
Quan Gan: So. So. So. I'd ask him to be proactive.
Philip Hernandez: Well, yeah, it's just I asked him, whatever, I don't care. I mean, I asked him what he wanted to discuss and he didn't tell me.
Quan Gan: So we're just going to show up and see what he has to say. Okay.
Vania Chen: So he called up with the whole team, not just you, Ben.
Philip Hernandez: It's me and Jerry and I think Andy and Chris and Quan is supposed to be there. But I don't know if Quan is available. So if Quan cannot be there, Jason will translate.
Michael Hsu (2): Well, if Quan is going to be there in China next week.
Quan Gan: I didn't say that for sure.
Michael Hsu (2): Let me hear me out. If Quan is going to be there in China next week, I might be able to be in China too.
Vania Chen: Okay.
Michael Hsu (2): But I leave for the U.S. on June 12th. So then it will be way harder for me to get to China.
Quan Gan: I still promised my daughter a Disneyland trip for her birthday, which I delayed. So I'm going to have to squeeze that in there before I can go back to China.
Michael Hsu (2): Costco now sells a free date.
Vania Chen: Pass, that's really good. Oh, is it a three-day pass? There's a three-day pass in Costco that goes all the way through summer.
Quan Gan: Three days at Disney, that's a lot.
Vania Chen: One park a day.
Michael Hsu (2): All right, should we wrap this up? Should we put something on the calendar, or are you guys going to give me that on the calendar later?
Philip Hernandez: I guess, I don't know if we do need to have anything ready. I guess my main question was like, do we want to use that meeting that we already have with Jerry to do anything, or we just see what Jerry asks, and if he asks me a question about any of this, I'm just going to be like, eh, talk to Quan.
Quan Gan: I don't know yet about that meeting, but I want to be proactive in getting the numbers from you guys and then communicating that to Jerry as soon as possible.
Vania Chen: Okay, I will get the stuff for you for sure before that meeting, but I'll talk to Michael.
Quan Gan: And then I'll give things to you.
Philip Hernandez: Okay. It is at 3... Quan is RCP to it for next week, on next Tuesday. It is Tuesday, May 27th at 3 p.m.
Quan Gan: Pacific time. Okay. I see you.
Philip Hernandez: And generally, Jerry asks me a bunch of questions that have nothing to do with engineering. So I was thinking of sending him, like, a line, like I sent Vania before the meeting, so he, like, has it. But I don't know if that's a good idea.
Michael Hsu (2): Well, I think if Vania can get something to Quan, then before the meeting, then at the meeting that Quan is going to be, then Quan can facilitate it right there.
Philip Hernandez: Like, that could be meeting number one. Sure.
Vania Chen: Or Quan can talk to Jerry beforehand and have an idea and tell Philip what is that meeting about, so Philip can prep for it too.
Philip Hernandez: That would be preferred because then Chris and Andy are going to be there and I don't want to waste your time because all the other staff members at Yantam know everything I told you guys by heart because we talk about it every week. And so it's kind of a waste of Andy and Chris to sit there when Jerry's like, well, x, y, z, and we're like, well, that's because Jerry, x, y, z, x, y, z, and it's just like over and over and over again.
Michael Hsu (2): So Vania, so Vania, let's see if we can get something to Quan at least by Tuesday. And then you guys are going to have to, Quan, you're going to have to like, I don't know, buy Vania Sambolo or something.
Quan Gan: Sure. How do I get that to you?
Vania Chen: Hey, we'll be there to support Theo for his competition.
Michael Hsu (2): Theo's really, really good at yo-yo. I saw a video.
Quan Gan: Oh, yeah.
Vania Chen: Okay. Amazingly good.
Quan Gan: Are you going to come to Nationals?
Vania Chen: What hotel is that?
Michael Hsu (2): If it's just down the street, we can go.
Quan Gan: Hold on. Let me. National. Yo-Yo contest. The 27th to 29th. That's all I have. I think they're all day.
Michael Hsu (2): You can let us know more and then we can focus on.
Quan Gan: We'll both be in Vegas. Yeah, it's at the Westgate.
Philip Hernandez: Oh, nice.
Vania Chen: Okay.
Michael Hsu (2): Cool. So yeah, let's do that. So let's see if we can get something to Quan by maybe the latest Tuesday so he can talk to Jerry before that so then we're not wasting everybody and the staff's time on Wednesday. And then not really just like waste time, but just like, again, we always want to go into a meeting prepared, right?
Philip Hernandez: I don't think Jerry will be just a point of just, you know, because that's so it would be like Monday night, right? Because Jerry won't be awake before the meeting because it's 6 a.m.
Michael Hsu (2): The meeting is at 6 a.m. Jerry's time, so he won't be awake.
Philip Hernandez: So it would need to be like Monday night. Because China, right?
Michael Hsu (2): Now you have to buy Vania a boba.
Philip Hernandez: You don't have to have any of this discussion with Jerry. I just, you know, like Quan, if Quan called him at like noon, he wouldn't answer because he'd be asleep. I'm just saying.
Michael Hsu (2): Anyways, so yeah, let's do that. And then, but the long term, the long, the long short term, which is June and end of June when everybody get together. I think all, everyone on this call, four of us have a common goal, right? And before that, we'll help with, so Philip, my guess is if we need time to translate it, campaign it, at least one week before you show up in China, right?
Quan Gan: Or not two weeks.
Michael Hsu (2): So, but I feel like it's not like a zero to one, right? I think I spongebob give the data or we can piece it together. We might even be able to work on it together, right?
Philip Hernandez: So, you know, also, if Quan can't make it when I'm there with Jerry, I guess we. You could still do a call, and then like, like Jerry and I could call in, and you know what I mean? Like Quan could call in to Jerry and I in the same room.
Quan Gan: Well, I'm going to look at at least one of these options to go either like next week or next month, but I do have, I think I need to have a trying trip soon.
Vania Chen: Cool. Yeah. Very cool.
Michael Hsu (2): Brilliant. Longer than expected, but productive? Yeah.
Quan Gan: I think so.
Vania Chen: have steps.
Michael Hsu (2): We actually just, we just have to, we just have to push it forward, right?
Quan Gan: Finance therapy, that's what I call it.
Michael Hsu (2): It's so funny, I feel like we're changing jobs now, but it's all good.
Vania Chen: I like it. That's whatever it takes to get us to the next step, so.
Michael Hsu (2): Yeah. Got to be a surrogant. I know you guys are exhausted. It's late for you guys. I'm just starting my day, so.
Vania Chen: Adios.
Quan Gan: Thank you.
Michael Hsu (2): you. Bye-bye.-bye.
Vania Chen: Hey, guys.
Philip Hernandez: Vania, we know? I just told Lisa to proceed with ordering.
Vania Chen: Well, we have to.
Philip Hernandez: That's what I was figuring. I kind of was like, yeah, they had this conversation, but it didn't change anything.
Vania Chen: It really doesn't change.
Michael Hsu (2): It did. It did.
Philip Hernandez: Well, mean, we still have to order the product right now, so it doesn't matter, right? We have to because we're running low on stocks, so we have to. Yeah, right. So, yeah, I just wanted, yeah. It didn't change anything for the next 30 days, but it might change something for the future. Sure.
Vania Chen: Honestly, I think the fulfillment is the one that I don't think he's going to give out manufacturing, but if we can't get fulfillment out of Junitel, I think that's the next bigger step that we can take, honestly. he's give don't think after year. Um, but, I don't know.
Philip Hernandez: Well, so then, basically, just okaying Lisa to order what she needs is, that's what I'm gonna just tell her, just order what you need.
Vania Chen: I don't see that we have any other way to come with it.
Philip Hernandez: because we can't, because we were talking about it, and I was like, I think we need to order it now, because not only does Jerry need work, but also, if we wait until after 90 days, it could get worse, and then we're also out of inventory, so.
Vania Chen: Yeah, and we already, we already abandoned a shipment.
Philip Hernandez: did, abandoned another one, right?
Vania Chen: So, the good thing was, it was not all fulfilled, so it was only about $20,000 that we abandoned. Yeah, because we split it originally, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so, so, you don't want it to fulfill in between changes again, then it gets stuck again, and then just, we don't want to risk that. Yeah, so.
Philip Hernandez: If, if the terrorist, I guess. The only good news is if the tariffs go higher again, we could just leave the stuff there at Junitel instead of trying to ship it. And then we could use that as a down payment on the fulfillment for Junitel, which we talked about too. But we're hoping to get at least a few orders in before the window closes. Because Jerry still has to make stuff. That's the other thing is that it's not like we have to make stuff and it has to be shipped and it has to arrive in 90 days.
Vania Chen: That also takes, because usually it takes about average 30 to 60 days for us to get something from Junitel after order.
Philip Hernandez: That's why I told her to order like immediately. So, okay. All right. Got it. So we're just going to keep on that. And then I'm just going to tell Andy and Chris to keep making accessories.
Vania Chen: And I'll just be like, what?
Philip Hernandez: That's why I wanted to show that data. Because I was like, if we can, it costs us $5. We sell it for $50, which is half price of what it is now.
Vania Chen: Come on. And then I can't believe Jerry's just saying. Then just tell you no.
Philip Hernandez: Yeah, it's like, it's lun- I don't know. You'll understand now. I get Quan's point. Also, my team thinks it's lunacy.
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Klansys Palacio: Thank you. Hi there Paula, how are you? Good to see you. Good morning. Good morning, Tin. Good morning. Good morning, Klansys. Good to see you all. I'm not sure if Carmi will be able to join us. She was sick yesterday, so let's hope she's well. And Charlie will be joining us any minute. There she is. Hello.
Kristin Neal: Morning. Morning. Morning. Morning. All right, ladies. Thank you so much for your patience with me while I was, I've been out. Sorry, but life happened and it happened big. So we're still kind of navigating, but I'm back on as much as I possibly can. So we'll just leave it there. If they go back to where it was, we'll just keep going. We'll just keep going. So I had a really good meeting with Charlie and Quan to kind of get where we're at. Yeah. Bye. Yes, yes, yeah, it's already live, so me and Carmi is actually monitoring on the, because I am asking Carmi if she has a feedback on creating a draft email, and I actually help her as well to create She auto draft notes for every email, but she mentioned that it's not always every time you have a conversation, but there's a specific email that she was going to send and put it on the notes, so that's, I've worked on that as well, so I hope Carmi will have a feedback that she said that it's something that she can use really, but yeah, there's something error on the part of agent that I'm still working on, because it's always having this required field that needs to be fixed, so, but right now it's already working fine, so I'm doing a test as well on that, but all in all, it's working on Carmi. Okay, how about the sales meeting stats that I was hoping for? I believe Kwon said something about it being as like a dashboard. He said that he was going to be working on that with you. Have you had a chance to look at that? Let me see if I can bring it up. There you go. The weekly sales metrics and KPIs.
Klansys Palacio: That's this one.
Kristin Neal: So, we have like the, I can maybe highlight them to show you which stats we actually need, like on a weekly basis, kind of an update, but definitely like the total sales, the number of leads per week. The amount of conversion from leads to accounts. The weekly deals created or closed.
Klansys Palacio: Oh, I haven't.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, this was a big one. I know it was a big one. So this is something we definitely want to try to get in place. Kwon had suggested it being in a dashboard type. But however this information is sent to me, we can kind of gauge whatever is easiest at this point. But we do need, Charlie and I do agree that this information is important for us to know.
Klansys Palacio: I'll look into it.
Kristin Neal: Okay. I believe I sent this to you, but I will send it in case maybe I didn't. I will. Send this right to you. There you go. Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much, Klansys. This is probably working on, and you're also working on the learning platform, right, for Kwan? I'm trying to prioritize your tasks. Have you already input? I can input this in your tasks. Do you want me to assign this for you? Yeah. Okay. Got it. Is that still working for everybody? Is everyone still working on inputting tasks in CRM? Yeah. Okay. Good. That's great. All right, everybody. Thank you so much, Klansys. Charlie, did you have any feedback?
Charlie Xu: Oh, for the test, I try to remove when I'm done. I just couldn't figure out how to remove it. Like when I'm finished, am I click in there? And where should I mark I'm done?
Kristin Neal: Yeah, you're right. Oh, wait, I have a completed. I have a completed column, don't you?
Charlie Xu: Okay, let me see.
Kristin Neal: I have it right here.
Charlie Xu: Oh, maybe, maybe my screen just shows. Hold on, see. I don't know, it just, on me, it has past name, owner, and a modified time. Maybe I didn't open up. Oh, maybe I should, okay. Oh, yeah. I think I didn't turn on the modification column, the manage columns, so. Should be fine. Oh, I'll dive into that.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Okay. I think I need to dive into Klansys. I think the last we had talked, I was in, not in the right spot, right? I'm still not in the right spot, right? So like, if I create a task right here. Because you were saying that you weren't getting the notifications, right? Subject.
Klansys Palacio: I think not that we have a ZTAG task module.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Where is that one at?
Klansys Palacio: Can you click the three dots beside the documents?
Kristin Neal: Beside the documents. Over here? No. Three dots by the documents.
Klansys Palacio: I don't see it, we're, oh yeah, you can take the three dots here, um, I'm not seeing where the, up on the top? Yeah, this one, the, where the documents are, the modules, this one here on the menu.
Kristin Neal: So let's, um, let's meet after so you can show me because I don't want to waste everyone's time. Um, maybe you can show me on your end and then I'll watch what you're, what you're doing. I'm definitely not getting it. So, um, oh, I think I see what you mean. Well, we'll, we'll, um, work on that later. So I know where to, to input them correctly. All right. Thank you so much, Klansys. Who wants to go next? Or I can go next. Would you guys like it if I went next? We are planning out the playday details right now with McCann. And that is my main priority today. I'll have a few meetings today regarding that. We're working on the Ostecon details. I'll be returning that.
Charlie Xu: Email Charlie for that, getting ready for that. That's coming in two weeks.
Kristin Neal: We're meeting with Steve and Eric tonight. So Tin, if you have any support information or any support questions, let me know by the end of today so I can share that with them tonight. And I also heard that you have a phone. So that's wonderful. I'm so excited to hear about that. We're going to connect after Tin and I and kind of get that, get us both updated. The accounting for Charlie and I has been updated with Julian and has been recent and updated and recent. Is that right, Charlie? So I can email Julian. Oh, yes. I just need to get the new account accounts payable information from Juan because I think last time he sent the invoice. Or, yeah, so I just need to get the new one. Gotcha. I'll add you to it, to the email for Julian. I wonder if, because he called and asked for the new updated voice. I wonder if we just send it to him. Send it to him. Okay, yeah. Yeah, but CC me and say, Chris alerted me to the issue. Here's the updated. Okay, yeah. Yeah. And then I'll call him. I'll call. We will be beginning, hopefully, this week, maybe next. Quan will be transitioning the previous.
Charlie Xu: We had partnerships that were inquiries from professionals.
Kristin Neal: And we're going to be getting them an email to purchase the V3. So that one is coming up either this. Week or next week. But that transition email introducing them to myself and Carmi will happen from him.
Charlie Xu: And I think that's it.
Kristin Neal: The only thing I do need an update, I forgot to add to the, well, that could be for all of us, Mary Brimmage.
Charlie Xu: And I believe a few others have purchased the five-year coverage, Tin, maybe you can confirm that, for the community packs. So I know Mary Brimmage, her five community packs are pending. So those ones should be shipped to her actually by the end of June, right? No, I think their fiscal year ends at the end of May. Charlie, do have an update on that, the community packs? Could you say it again? Sorry. So Mary Brimmage, she ordered the five-year coverage, and she is subject to getting the community packs.
Kristin Neal: Oh, they want to get it, what time? That one should have been already purchased. Purchased. And sent to her by the end of this month, because that's the end of their fiscal year. So that one, that one we need to get on. So this month, you mean right now, it's kind of like end of this month. So in the system, how can we get notified? Because if like in the future, yeah, because I feel like I didn't even know that ahead of time, like what is the deadline? Because I would still feel like waiting for knowing.
Charlie Xu: So is that like every if they when they notify us or are we normally sent out automatically to them at a period, like after a period of time?
Kristin Neal: I think with with this one, it was more of it had been so long since we didn't send it that I just said, you know, let's just get it at least to you by the end of the fiscal year.
Charlie Xu: This month, there was an email that was sent and I believe it was, I can confirm if that email included you as far as like what. Do they need two kits, right? They have five.
Kristin Neal: Oh, they need five? They need five. Somehow, in my mind, I don't have a piece of memory that they just need two and the rest will be some kind of like credit or something.
Charlie Xu: Is that the same? It's the same one, but it's an email that added you on May 13th. Okay.
Kristin Neal: And it said, yeah, she said we are using two sets of ZTAG. Per site, so five. Oh, five. Oh, so they have ten, so, okay. Exactly. But are we still, like, give them credit for the rest? Because they buy all of that, right? Right. The rest of it, they wanted to ask about pizza parties for the rest of the...
Tin: yeah. Okay.
Kristin Neal: So all the shipping address is the same as the one on the invoice? Correct. Yes, it's through their warehouse. Okay. Okay, good.
Tin: Yeah, I would start arranging that.
Kristin Neal: Okay, perfect.
Tin: That one, I don't know if you need to look at it. was from Mary Brimage on May 13th, the email, if you wanted to reference that. The school is... what's the school's name?
Kristin Neal: It is... LJ. What was the LJ? Lowell Joint. No, it wasn't it? Lowell?
Tin: Yeah, Lowell. Lowell, Okay. Thank you. Tin, can you confirm if there were any other five-year coverages that were purchased? Yeah, Lowell Joint.
Charlie Xu: Okay, I will just confirm in Lowell Joint if they have five-year coverage. Is that correct? Only one. Yeah, so far I think that's actually the only account that has the five-year extended coverage. For some reason I thought we had another partner with that, but that's all that I see so far. So they're the only community pack that's needed, the five. You want me to contact them to verify?
Kristin Neal: No, no, we've got it verified.
Charlie Xu: I wanted to see if you could confirm any other schools. Yes, that correct.
Kristin Neal: But so far, on my end, all I see is just the one.
Charlie Xu: All right. Charlie, was there anything else? Oh, and I was just checking the mail notifications from the DHL shipment.
Kristin Neal: So it seems like it's already arrived. Very nice. So it might be possible to get it tomorrow. Oh. Yeah, the shipment. I'm not quite sure because it's already arrived here. Let's say maybe tomorrow.
Charlie Xu: Let's hope. So are we still on time due to some of the customer or want them?
Kristin Neal: It should be. Yeah. Yeah.
Charlie Xu: If we can get it out tomorrow, it will be. Yeah. They could probably get on the 31st. Yeah. Yeah. I'll definitely let you know. Just keep an eye on that. But I'm not sure if going to get it next Monday or tomorrow.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. Oh, okay. You're fine.
Kristin Neal: We're expecting actually this Monday, but it's like somehow it's delayed. And there's. Yeah.
Charlie Xu: You know what, Charlie?
Kristin Neal: It's actually not confirmed.
Charlie Xu: If you want to respond to that email and say, hey, can you confirm delivery by Monday is okay and the location to be sent to? Oh, okay. Which one? Let me show you. I'll just show you.
Kristin Neal: Here we go. This is the email.
Charlie Xu: So this is sent me.
Kristin Neal: 13th, here. And this is where. Oh, okay. Yeah.
Charlie Xu: Oh, so you said this is the Lowell email. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Yes. Okay.
Charlie Xu: And then confirming the address.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Oh, so is that you already sent it to them confirming? Did they reply? I never replied.
Charlie Xu: They didn't?
Kristin Neal: No. You, okay.
Charlie Xu: Launched. delivered by June. So we still have a month, right? June 30th. Good. Yes. Yes. Wonderful. Thank you, Lord. I thought it was May 30th. Good catch. All right. We're not in a rush. Yes. That is mine. Okay. Perfect. Okay. Cool. Good catch. Okay.
Kristin Neal: So that one you'll respond to then, Shirley, to confirm that? Okay. Okay. Okay.
Charlie Xu: Um, but, but if, if that, we can maybe just, so I was wondering, like, are they, what is the day actually they're off school? So it definitely is before they're get out of the school. Um, so maybe we can even like schedule that during like mid June. We don't need to wait till end of, end of, yeah.
Kristin Neal: Okay. I'll, I'll respond to her and see about an update. And if that's, uh, when they're, when they'll be there, that's a good thing.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Yeah. Cause the thing is, I want to know, like, are they, cause you already sent an email to them, the address, but they didn't expect things. So it just felt like they're not in a rush of having, or having these, but, but maybe we just tell them where we are going to send maybe mid June. Is that okay? Okay. So it's like being, um, maybe not like asking there. Yeah. would just say like, we're moving ahead, uh, moving next step, like sending. And mid-June, is that okay? Is that like they will be accepted? Okay.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Charlie Xu: Sounds good. Then I think we just like hands off, get things done.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Okay. Perfect. All right. Tin, you want to go?
Tin: Yes. For me, for my update, I've been focusing on my daily tasks in partner support. I've been helping partner with replacement, offering extended care when needed, and providing tech support. And I also sending them follow-up to ensure that all the issue is resolved. And Kwan also mentioned about the safe year. I started using it for replying in tickets and then adding notes. For me, it's been helpful so far. And also about updating the ZTAG extended care process, Kwan mentioned to me. Thank Thank That I can directly quote the partner without waiting for a quote with Karmie. So this one is to help the process more efficient. Because before even I attached the extended care and sending it to them and explaining it to them, they still are waiting for the formal quote before deciding if they want to proceed. And now I'll be the one who will be sending it to them and then sending them invoice if they decided to buy. Because before they decided to go on without waiting for formal quote, I'll be just sending an invoice. So if they request for quote, I'll be sending that also to them. And since I'm also offering the B3 for upgrade, and in that case, Akwan mentioned that I can do the sub quote. Just mention the price of the B3 and then once they decided to buy, then that's the time I can look the sales team if they want to proceed. And then Carmi also shared to me the process in creating code. So if I encountered some issue or have a question, I will just coordinate with her. And then about the, yeah, Juan gave me access about the open phone to help me, so I can help in the account receivable. So I'm just waiting for Charlie to give me information who I can contact with. So now I'm just using it to contact directly Ricardo. So he is available for pickup because he can reply as fast as in via text. And I also used that yesterday to contact UPS about the return sending, about ZTAG.
Charlie Xu: That's fun. Yeah, that's fun. So the interesting thing is because Juan is kind of like a rush, feel like it's necessary of where get more active on chasing the money back. And also, I was also like, I think two days ago, we got some payments. And so I was looking at even like the term we set for the elk, elk, elk, like the, they have net 30, but actually they pay in kind of like net 20. And some school is net 30, but they pay to have time, so they could be like net 15. And there's another school is right on time around net 30. So it's like even they're setting the net, it's still like, like could be variable from different schools. It's not like they, like some school, even like I said, net 30, they will pay maybe like earlier, a week, a week earlier. So I think that's a good thing. So it seems like people are, the school are willing to pay. A bit further, like ahead of time, he settled right on that date. But we just need to chasing, like for Julian, because I think that might be the rare case, because they're expecting us updating the number on that, but we just somehow like sales and accounts pay, like receivable has some not connect well. So I didn't know we need to update that, or then that got delayed for like another 30 days. So maybe something like the communication between two departments can be more efficient, then we can reduce issues like that. But I don't think there will be like a big demand of like a huge list of people are not paying in time. So far, it's pretty optimistic, because right now, like by my observations, schools are Or pay normally ahead of time instead of like right on time or late. So if the situations like Julianne happen, we just need to dive into it. Why cause that? There should be a reason instead of just passively waiting. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Did we ever hear from the school that had the PO, the office, emailed and said they had an outstanding PO, but they were reaching out to the school to see if they still wanted the unit?
Charlie Xu: Did that ever get resolved?
Kristin Neal: Which school? I don't remember what school it was.
Tin: It was one that said, it was just before I had to leave, but we'll have to look into that one. Tin, can you confirm that we are waiting for 33 units?
Kristin Neal: To be shipped still?
Charlie Xu: Yes, 33 units including the pickup this Friday. The pickup this Friday for... That is for next century learning. There was information here. This one is scheduled to be picked up on Friday.
Kristin Neal: For both? Yeah, both. This one, it's
Charlie Xu: It's not in the partnership 24-25, the spreadsheet that we have. So I just take note on this.
Kristin Neal: Oh, it's not in the spreadsheet?
Charlie Xu: It's in the spreadsheet. That's where I get the information. I've been to pick up the units on Friday at 11 a.m. at the office. Upward Bone Next Century Learning Center. Oh, next century learning. Vaughn, got it, Vaughn, got it. Okay, hold on, let me, okay, these are the two units. So those two units are being shipped tomorrow. Oh, no, they're being picked up. They're being picked up. So tomorrow, I'll pick up. Okay, at the...
Kristin Neal: Yes. There we go. Now, there's another order our economy are working with. It's like the Carl Gray. You guys know Carl Gray. Oh, yes. That's the high impact. High impact. Their payment is still not coming yet. maybe you can help to contact them to see if their credit card have enough amount. Because so far, our system has been pending for a couple of days.
Charlie Xu: I'm not sure.
Kristin Neal: Forever. It's been that. So yeah. Or you did send them the payment link. I do. Yeah. Yeah. Also, they do process that on our scribe system, the credit card system, but it's keep like pending. So... So... I don't know if they have enough amounts on their credit cards. Because I feel like normally...
Charlie Xu: if they can have that call, but what else do they have to schedule for today?
Kristin Neal: So if I a patient or small, maybe I would want the data to bring up, okay? I received your information, I did the day, but people like to let IDT start the next day, and I'll you on me.
Charlie Xu: Okay, so when you jump, I'm connected to for what I did today is being virtual, and I delivered new time.
Kristin Neal: So actually, UPS is cool now, so to have like four hours daily, but it's a rush, but I guess it seems doable. So sometimes it's still available because it's still difficult.
Charlie Xu: Tin, I just want make sure that when you see a deadline that's coming up or passed, let's highlight it.
Kristin Neal: Let's highlight it like a deep red, so we can see this one needs to be filled, like right away. Okay. Okay.
Paula Cia: But we add up to 19. So we still have two left. No, we're going to have – no, these two are not added. So these add up to 19. The 11, 6, and 2 add up to 19. Okay. But we still have the Yuba City. So we're going to be able to do the Yuba City, the 12 units that they still need on the next shipment because they have June 30th as their deadline. Okay, Tin, I just want to make sure that you understand that. Yes. Okay. Perfect. So we'll handle these shipments with these 19 and then the 12th with the following, which I believe is coming in the mid-June. Right, Charlie? Yeah, so I think it's – you said the vote at the next center that they can pick up the two units. Actually, in office, we have two units available. Right. So that's not included. Yeah, okay. Yeah. These ones, the 11, 6, and 17, 18, 19. Yeah, okay. Yes. Are going to be all these. Okay. Coming shipments. Okay. Anything else, Tin? No. No more update on that. Thank you so much. Your ducklings are getting so big. Oh, my goodness, Sierra. Yeah, ducklings. She even let the duck wear the dolls like a tiny doll's dress.
Charlie Xu: Ducklings are wearing the dress and she's building little house and making bed and duck poops everywhere. Oh, my goodness. Oh, poop everywhere.
Paula Cia: And they poop. They really do. My aunt had one. Oh, they're so cute. Like, when they're baby, they're so cute. Oh, they're so cute. Yeah. All right, my friend, Paula, how are you? Thanks, Chris.
Charlie Xu: So, since me and Charlie already finished the Osticon flyer, I am now focusing on my daily task, which is the social media management. So, the Facebook accounts and Instagram accounts, I've been working on that. And I've been working
Paula Cia: Interacting and then follow and then follow they follow back. So we gain followers for Instagram. And then also we've got a lot of interactions for the last post that we made. So right now I am working on our drive to dig up some old event photos that we have that I can use to repost for our social media and have it checked by Charlie. And also since already created a group chat for the dojo construction, I've been also researching about some booklet that maybe a draft booklet that we can use for that. So I'm just looking for Charlie's instruction for that and also reading about the. The link that Kwan sent for the dojo construction. So that's it for me, Chris.
Charlie Xu: Okay. So Paula, for the... So you said the need me approve is the... which part of the need me approve?
Paula Cia: That's the... like I'm digging up old event photos that we have in our drive, Charlie. So since we don't have new photos, maybe we can have a repost of the old events for our social media.
Charlie Xu: Okay. I think next post, we might focusing on highlights, Eric.
Paula Cia: Eric.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, we're being focusing on Steve.
Paula Cia: It got a lot of attention. Yeah.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. And also I do see like people are following up back and it's just beautiful like we're connected. And also I was scrolling down like what's going on. It's pretty nice for me to see what other people are doing. So yeah, it's a great platform. It feels like ZTAG is connecting with others. So I would definitely send you a link of the video we took at the booth's dinner. So Eric also gave a speech. So maybe you can extract some content from that. Maybe also we can dig back to the old posts that watch out or see like collaborating with us. So some content we might use to repost. So I would send you that. But also you mentioned that Kwan will have you dive into the learning platform. So you also mentioned is something you need to give you instruction on that. Is it style or?
Paula Cia: Yeah, I think the one that we will create. So I don't have an idea yet if it's a booklet. So I'm just looking into some design in Google.
Charlie Xu: Oh, okay. I think the system is pretty much like similar as a website. So it's kind of like keep the theme similar, like the branding are very similar looking as our website. It's the basic. So let's focusing on build up the foundation first, then later on we polish the style later. But right now, let's just like the color, like according to our branding guide, it's good to start.
Kristin Neal: She's talking about the learning platform, huh, Charlie?
Charlie Xu: Learning. Yeah, I think maybe also it could be a little bit confusing about the playbook because I assigned that to you before. I've been discussing with Quan. I think at the beginning I feel like it's two separate things, but he feels like it could be a stream. time. Same thing, it's just like one is on the platform, it's an online system, it has more motivation to go through the welcome letter, because right now the welcome letter is pretty much we give it to them, but we cannot be sure if they read through all the content, because some content are essential for them to know how to operate the system. But I don't know if either the people who purchased the device, the units, would they email to the person who exactly were using that, so is there like disconnect in between or it's fluent, so we don't know. Maybe that's why Qantas is focusing on put a QR code or something, at least have the end user can directly access to this platform, like this content we're providing. Also, the playbook, I think also will be. It's assist for whatever who are new to the system. very easy to reduce the learning stress like, oh, what is this? Looks complicated. Actually, it's super simple to use. So, but the content, I think it's the same. It's just either it's an online platform or it's like a physical thing in the hand. So even they, or maybe they can just scan a QR code, come to a page, they can read on their phone either way. So, but the content we just like need to work on, get that ready. And Steve and Eric are constantly working on that. So maybe also I can forward that to you. You can give like on the visual part, you can give some drafts to support them.
Kristin Neal: Paula, we just met with Quan and we had a discussion about this. Something that stuck to my mind that might help you is the welcome letter is the physical part or the digital part of what we're trying to achieve, like their training and things like that, creating, making them a playmaker. What you're working on now is the game version of it. So it's the active version of the welcome letter. So it's going to be in levels. So each level is going to unlock like the next level and things like that. So hopefully that'll help you a little bit with keeping that in mind.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, I think the thing is just because welcome letter is more passive, lacking of interactions. It's just like loads of information we dump to our customers. But the system we're building is kind of like divided into small sections. And after you finish one section, 90s those you're and Now And You're We might get a badge, a badge, a ticket, there's so many options. Or the resource, like in the future we might develop some curriculum downloads the teacher can use to combine with the activities of ZTAG. So the teacher has motivation, oh I want more support from ZTAG. We can download some support documents and things like we can report that to our decision makers or something like that to give them a little bit more to constantly learning, learning the system, be good at it or being creative. Yeah, so it's just like divided into small steps, kind of like baby coaching them. Exactly. Here you go, like everything, but I don't feel like people will just like so seriously spend a couple hours to watch every video. you. Please. Thank Normally, we'll probably just like when it happened, probably like issues come up and then they start digging to the supports we have.
Kristin Neal: So Paula, I'm actually curious if it would help you to kind of not necessarily divide, but maybe think about levels, start thinking about the levels and maybe creating it that way. Obviously, the first level would be like the beginner video, you know, where it's just like the very basics. So that might help you kind of wrap your head around each separate platform that you'll be working on. But we'll definitely, Quan already said that we're going to get all together. We're going to meet all together and we're going to talk this out, but at least just to start getting your brain thinking. Okay. Cool. There was, how about the LinkedIn, Charlie?
Charlie Xu: How did that go? LinkedIn is like right now. I think it's being pushed back because last week, Carmen is mostly focusing on the source team.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, that was great.
Charlie Xu: And also because this week, she's sick. So yeah, we probably just pushed back, put the parity a little bit low. But I think so far, I don't feel like either we have LinkedIn or not affects ourselves because it's like not there. So I don't feel like people are expecting to know ZTAG through LinkedIn. So yeah, let's wait a little bit till everything is back on to the, yeah, like all the automations, everything is ready. And then we'll probably have Carmen dive into that too. But also Carmen also will be in the group of building up the platform, the online learning platform.
Kristin Neal: So it's like...
Charlie Xu: Yeah. Arranging the priority a little bit.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, we'll probably start getting into, well, this, now that I'm back, we'll probably be able to start transitioning to 35% of sales and the other for the transition over to marketing. One of the things I want to capture in this meeting so that she knows, because I'll send this to her as well if you guys don't already get it sent to you. But Kwan just shared information regarding California and their funding. So that was a very big change. Their funding has actually changed to where more schools are able to access more funds. So it's a very, very good time. I'm hoping we can capitalize on this information. Hopefully tomorrow, if not on Monday, we'll work that out. Maybe we have an email. There's got to be some. Some way we can get this information to good use. So I'll definitely, we can send this maybe through AI and see what it suggests as far as that. So let me, at least so I can input, so you'll know exactly the information and we can get it rinsed. Let's see. It is. Okay, the new ELOP money, California just pumped an extra $435 million into its afterschool fund and more importantly lowered the poverty threshold a district needs to qualify. That's huge. Last year, only the very highest need districts, 80% low income, could tap the big dollars. Now that bar drops to 55%. Translation, hundreds of mid-tier districts that previously told us we have no budget suddenly now do. Each qualifying school now gets roughly $2,500 per kid to spend on a new And the rules still list physical activity programs that build social emotional skills. If you hand them a one page sheet that says buy two Zeus units, get Dojo PD hours, and check these exact budget codes, business officers can tick the compliance box in seconds. In short, the money is real, the paperwork is simple, and the buyer's risk is near zero. So aim our outreach at these newly eligible districts right away. So we'll rinse that through AI with this meeting and see what it says. All right. But that one pager, Charlie, if we go forward with that, I'll bring that to you to maybe we can get that work done.
Charlie Xu: Oh, yeah.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, definitely.
Charlie Xu: Just like finalize the content about probably like a lot of content we already have. It's just kind of like drag it here and there and make a letter to, yeah.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, there's got to be a way, especially the ones that are in the funnel, you know, the ones that already are interested, there's got to be a way that we can get this information or see how this helps them, I guess is what.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, or maybe I think it's also a great opportunity to reach out the orders were lost. So maybe because they don't have, at least they approach us, so it's potential customers. So I think, yeah, it'd be good to have either Kermit or we automate, set up automation to reach out to them. If, like, I don't know how, how accurate the announcement of California, like, funds, it will be, like, how official this is, but that's why I see the potential, like, we reach out as a first step, we reach out to people who lost, like, we lost. Because there's a big. Chunk of money there. If now they have money, why not just reach the closest resource?
Kristin Neal: That's a great point, Charlie. We can actually add wherever Kwon got this information from, we can add that link to Verify to say, look what we found. Here's a link for you to confirm with your own team. If you didn't know, maybe I'm sure they would know, but at least they know where our source is coming from.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, or maybe just like product has a new newsletter, like to all the, yeah, it's like a good news. So we're ZTAG are ready there to support.
Kristin Neal: Okay. As far as getting it out, like right now, I can see this being a template for the time being, maybe with your attached one pager. So I'll see what AI says.
Charlie Xu: We'll see what Kwon says. Yeah, maybe Chris, you and Kwon can start working a draft and Paula maybe can help. And get the template ready.
Kristin Neal: That sounds good. Paula, was there anything else on your end that you have any questions that you're waiting on or anything?
Paula Cia: That's it, Klansys.
Kristin Neal: Okay. All right, team. Thank you so much for everything you've been up to. It's been a crazy few weeks. So we'll just keep being a support to each other. Let us know.
Charlie Xu: Charlie and I know where you need the help.
Kristin Neal: Anything that is needed. Okay. Prayer. If you need prayer, let me know.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. And also, Chris, we're expecting a fun Friday meeting tomorrow. Because last Friday is quite... Korn is leading now. You know, his style is like...
Kristin Neal: You froze.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, let's add some fun to the Friday meeting.
Kristin Neal: That sounds good, Charlie. Thank you. Yeah, we'll definitely have a good... Fun meeting.
Charlie Xu: All right. Yes. Thank you. Thanks so much. Have a great day, everybody. Take care. Bye.
Malachi Burke: This is kind of casual. This is not like a requirements thing. It's just, I'm putting together my agenda for tomorrow. I like to be prepared. And it occurred to me that the bugaboo, right, the communication turnaround, that's, I think, our big situation.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: I think it requires a light touch. And so I kind of wanted your opinions on how we ought to approach that in the meeting.
Quan Gan: Okay. I mean, you need to press.
Malachi Burke: I would be pressing too. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Just having been on every side of this equation, I've been the engineer being told this. I've been the manager saying this. I've been the side manager observing this. What I've noticed is that sometimes if the team... If has the will but not the capacity, then the message just falls flat, right? And I don't know that that's the case, but I'm anticipating it might be, right?
Quan Gan: Maybe. Go ahead. Okay, so I've done some more managerial stuff, not necessarily on engineering, but they say it's three letters. It's G-W-C, get it, want it, capacity to do it, and it has to be all three. So if you're missing one of them, then this thing doesn't work. And I'm putting that out there to say we are the client, so if ultimately push-up comes to shove and they can't have those three letters, then our hands might be forced.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. I can't argue with that. I mean, that really gets to the point of it, doesn't it?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, because, you know, in business, it's nice when people are excited about it, but the real prerequisite is that you're diligent about it. That's the actual prerequisite. So that would be the want it part, right? You could go either way on that one. And then capacity is obvious, and then they get it, yeah, do they even comprehend? Okay. Fair. So what I didn't want to do is come in there and say, I mean, to be completely frank, say the bunch of baloney that some bad managers said to me, like, well, we need to do this, and you guys aren't doing it, and blah, blah, blah. That rarely motivates people that little speech, even though it's true, right? So that's why I wanted to kind of come to you, because, you know, you've been working with these guys a while.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I've had stronger feedback before. You know, think, you know, definitely compared to last time. Because, you know, you're coming on board, and then we're trying a new method. But if they're not behaving in a way that we need them to behave, then, you know, as a client, I'm more than willing to put in some firm rewards there.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Okay.
Quan Gan: And even hint at the fact that, hey, we may have to switch if we're not going to hit these targets.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. That would probably be better, is the word I'm going to use. I'm going to use a quasi-superlative than, you know, listing a bunch of, like, you better or else. Just say, no, these are the facts of the matter. We need this communication and smoothness, and if it's not happening, we're going to get it somehow, right?
Quan Gan: Right.
Malachi Burke: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah. people, you know, everybody's aware of how long this project has taken. Right. so I have to, as a, let's say if I were working for someone else, and this was a department, if I can't be reporting to my superior, I can't reporting superior. Hitting a certain target, I got to make some drastic changes.
Malachi Burke: Right. Right. Okay. Yeah.
Quan Gan: If anything, the fact that I am the owner of it, like I've been way too lenient, too. If someone else was breathing down my neck, say investors or anybody else, yeah, I would have probably pulled a chute a lot earlier, too.
Malachi Burke: Fair. And, you know, I respect that. But all I'm kind of laser focused, maybe too focused on, is what's the most effective method to encourage them to communicate more. And there might not be one. That might not actually even be an option. And I hear you loud and clear that if it isn't, I can tell you definitely we do need it.
Quan Gan: Right.
Malachi Burke: I can agree with that. And just this would be event, but it's within the professional capacity. It's a weekend and PRs are notorious for a back and forth. They're bureaucratic. PRs are bureaucratic by now. Right.
Quan Gan: Right.
Malachi Burke: But what I am accustomed to seeing is some kind of activity, something. Right. Now, it doesn't have to be much. Right. Like, oh, I hadn't thought of that or something.
Quan Gan: Right. Right.
Malachi Burke: But granted, this is the first major PR and it was over a weekend, so I'm not going to burn it all down based on this experience. But already I get a bad feeling.
Quan Gan: You know what I mean? I would also say that maybe right now is the time to ping Faisal because it's their morning and just say, look, we didn't see good results towards the end of last week. Here's today's chance for you guys to pull up.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, that's a great idea. I will. I'll do that after this conversation.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Feel free to just ping him and then I'll chime in a little bit and say, look, we we want things to turn around by the time we have our meeting in the morning.
Malachi Burke: That's a good idea. And that feels very correct as well. Okay, I will do that. And this also gives me the clues I needed for the agenda. There's not a whole lot extra I really need to say then on the agenda. Just put the message out there. This is how I want us to communicate. This is where I want us to communicate. We have to do it. And I'll leave it at that. That's all I need to say, really.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah, I appreciate it, too. So we will see you bright and early tomorrow.
Quan Gan: Okay. See you in a few hours.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Okay. All right.
Quan Gan: Okay. Is that it?
Malachi Burke: Okay. Yeah, you just like I see the connection going away. So I want to let you go.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Okay, dude. Thank you very much. Bye.
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Malachi Burke: Thank you. Hello again.
Quan Gan: Good morning again.
Malachi Burke: Good morning again. It's still morning.
Quan Gan: You're right. It's morning. Yeah. I've got so much stuff done between that and now.
Malachi Burke: Good for you.
Quan Gan: That's a good feeling. Yeah. How are you?
Malachi Burke: You know, not bad. Thank you for asking. Not bad. Yeah. I'm not exactly a morning person. But it helps to... Kind of be on board and, you know, be on board with what we're doing. That helps a lot, you know, so thank you for that.
Quan Gan: I'm glad. Yeah, I feel I felt encouraged after today's meeting, especially after you had a conversation with Faisal.
Malachi Burke: What about you? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And being the skeptic that I am, you know, we'll see how it shakes out. But even a skeptic has to admit that if you're not pointing the arrow in the right direction, you're not going to get there. And I feel like we very strongly like we're pointing the arrow in the right direction.
Quan Gan: OK. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: And by by we, I'm including the entire team in that assessment.
Quan Gan: OK, great. So, well, so here we are.
Malachi Burke: Let's get down into the nuts and bolts and see what we can do to give them assignments. Here we are. OK, great. So our first step and an ongoing. Going step, really, we'll be translating what we've got as a spec into user stories.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And like I've said a few times, the good news about that is we don't have to do all of them. We just have to do enough of them for it to be meaningful. That's it.
Quan Gan: Okay. And, of course, we'll continue to do it.
Malachi Burke: So the daunting part is the advantage of Scrum. That part's not so daunting. Still hard work. We're going to do it. So that's what I would like to start with. And I would also like to take some of this session and visit your bug observations because that's very important, too. And we'll have a look at that and see how well that meshes in.
Quan Gan: And if it doesn't, we'll make it mesh. Right. If I may also add to our agenda. So between earlier and now, I educated myself a little bit more on the different tools we potentially can select from, including the GitHub issues and projects, and then also JIRA. So I have a little bit more context and opinion on that, so I want to share.
Malachi Burke: Oh, yeah.
Quan Gan: And then the other component was, now that we do have a main branch, MVP, we'll call it MVP, I'm comparing that to what the original spec was, and I put it through AI to say, hey, look, tell me what happened, why is this thing so bloated, and what's your recommendation? And based on that, it kind of gave me some reasons of why we kind of crept to this bloated feature and some corrections. So I'd love to see if you have a similar assessment of how do we ultimately get it tightened up. Against what the original intent of that spec was.
Malachi Burke: Okay, all valid things. I would say that that last part is completely valid, but we have a lot to do before that. But it is completely valid, really. And as far as the tooling goes, that's actually extremely relevant to right now. So let's talk about your observations there.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so I checked out Jira, and in terms of size and cost, I think it's perfectly fine. In fact, I think the free version right now we can already just jump onto if we decide to. The main pro for Jira I'm learning is if we have customer support issues, that somehow that can translate into something that the engineers can chew on. Which we don't get that if we purely stay in projects. Would you say that's a strong something for it?
Malachi Burke: It's not really one or the other, actually. Jira is merely better at that use case. GitHub issues, yeah, your customers probably aren't going to touch it, but they're probably not going to be touching Jira directly either without an additional thing they call Jira support desk, which is a whole second Jira that layers on top of the first one.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and we don't have high volume of that. I think whether it's my own customer support staff, we have our own desk feature. We could possibly automate something or flip a switch saying, hey, this is a customer reported bug, and then it automatically ends up somewhere rather than me as the only tester saying, I found this bug when I tested it. We would love to have some kind of an aggregate feature of customers having either a request... Less for features or bug fixes, that somehow we can later on as an engineering team prioritize what needs to get done.
Malachi Burke: Oh, I agree. So my response is only that Jira is better at it in that use case for sure. But I wouldn't necessarily say you couldn't do it with GitHub. That's all I'm saying.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: You don't need to sell me on Jira, dude.
Quan Gan: I'm like itching to jump on it.
Malachi Burke: Like, yeah, let's do it. Here's the issue with Jira is there's a little bit of nickel and diming going on. It's not too bad, but there is some. And on the projects I've been on, pretty quickly we found ourselves in the position where the free one was not adequate and now we're paying per seat per month. And then we nickel and dime because if you're doing Jira, you probably want to do Confluence. So now the price has doubled, right? And it's not like a ton of money, but that, you know, it's adding up. Confluence. It's a tightly integrated wiki that goes along with Jira.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. Got it. I mean, I see ourselves migrating to that at some point. So it's just really, when do we do that? Because right now, I think, yeah, just to get the team off the ground without shocking them with too much change, probably projects. Because we haven't even enabled GitHub projects either. Right now, it's just a flat list of issues, right?
Malachi Burke: Right. Correct. Correct. And that was something that I was thinking of exploring. Because I don't really have a ton of experience with GitHub projects myself.
Quan Gan: It's the issues. I've seen it.
Malachi Burke: So there's a little bit of evaluation going here. But what I, yeah, so I don't want to speculate too much.
Quan Gan: The AI did the research for me, and it said the project is able to give you a Kanban, but it doesn't necessarily give you a Gantt chart or a burn down type of thing.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. And Faisal and I took a deep dive on that topic. But the short answer there is Faisal will be. Hand-creating the Gantt charts based on the GitHub issues if we use GitHub issues, right? That's what's going to be happening there. And, dude, I would love to jump on Jira. I think we should be realistic that I'm anticipating like a $50 to $100 a month overhead, you know? And if you can live with that, you should do it.
Quan Gan: Well, the overall consideration is just the cognitive load of change for the team, right? So you're a big change already, right? So I would say like my inclination right now is let's enable the project feature in GitHub, prioritize things in a certain way, and then make sure we're very active on the issues. Whereas before it was just kind of a, it was like a ghost town parking lot.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. As you already know, a little policing is required. A lot for those issues to be paid attention to. And I mean policing in the classic term, like not only to enforce, but to protect and serve also, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Okay. I hear you loud and clear. So the only real downside to doing the incremental approach is the classic incremental issue is that the transition from one to the other will be a thing. You know, you and I will probably be grinding through GitHub tasks and retyping them into JIRA when that time comes.
Quan Gan: I'm pretty sure AI can help us with that part.
Malachi Burke: Maybe it could.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: You know what? Maybe it could.
Quan Gan: Yeah. So let's go with projects for the sake of at least hitting the ground running faster than having to take several steps back just to implement JIRA.
Malachi Burke: Okay.
Quan Gan: And then, yeah, once we stabilize things and actually have something that we can launch, we might decide to switch over a little bit later.
Malachi Burke: I think that's a sound plan. And that's very aligned with the last conversation we had.
Quan Gan: But I can see you're a little more interested than you were. Yeah, I see the potential, and especially on our business end of things, we're actually creating a whole learning management platform to train our end users and hopefully get them into becoming a community where they can also report features, asks, or bugs. And somehow I want a way to automate to get that into a feature set that we can make a decision on.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, Jira excels at saying, oh, you got 30 different projects and you want a unified place to coordinate how they interdependent and where the feature requests come in. I got you. It is very good at that.
Quan Gan: Cool. We'll grow into it.
Malachi Burke: I'm looking forward to it. Now, one thing that has to be said is being that I am pretty much a newcomer to GitHub projects, like I think I've spent a total of 10 minutes of my life diddling with it. It's a little bit of a risk. To engage with it now, and it's also a risk not to engage with it, right? Because we may discover that, oh, crap, we should have used those GitHub projects features. So perhaps part of this should be a discovery phase, and we should activate GitHub projects and see how well that suits us now. What do you think?
Quan Gan: Yeah, I think it's really just clicking that one button.
Malachi Burke: Right. I mean, they got the, well, I'm going to tell you a little bit of what I saw, but really we just ought to explore it together. But what I saw is like this quasi-spreadsheet situation that it presents to you to track things that way. And let's have a look. Let's do it. I'll share my screen.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and anything we have comments about right here gets transcribed, and then I'll rinse it through AI to give us some recommendations and give us a to-do list even.
Malachi Burke: Sure. No problem. All right. So, and it looks like the projects tab is already active, but I'll share my screen. And anyhow, my computer struggles a little with Zoom, so your patience is appreciated.
Quan Gan: Oh, yeah. Did I notice you're on Debian?
Malachi Burke: I have a lot of computers, and yeah, Debian is one I use a lot, but you're seeing Windows right now.
Quan Gan: Okay. But what's your preference and why on certain platforms?
Malachi Burke: Well, Windows is because if you want the populace one where everybody's using it, and you don't want to think twice about whether the app you're installing is going to work or not, you know, I go with that. So my machines tend to boot into Windows, but then I find myself, I'm very productive code-wise in Debian, so I usually run VMs for my Debian.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: I do have, I have so many How many computers here? A bunch of them are running Debian, actually, come to think of it. Are you interested in Debian?
Quan Gan: No, I've tried. I have a Linux machine back there. Actually, I don't know if that's Debian or not. That's an AI computer. But I don't do any serious work to really ask for it. So I'm on a Mac most of the time.
Malachi Burke: Well, Macs are awesome. I bought my own first MacBook in, what, 2007 or so, when they came out with the Intel ones. I was so blown away by their choice. And I bought myself, I think, three different MacBooks since then, but they die. They're great laptops. I'm not complaining. So right now, anyway, awesome. If I had more money, I would have a Mac also. That's the moral of that story. Yeah, very good. Do you find yourself when you have to do coding tasks to be productive on your Mac?
Quan Gan: Well, so in recent years, I mean, everything has been on the Mac. The only thing that prevented me from jumping to Mac years ago was I was using SolidWorks for drafting. I don't know. I don't think even to this day if they have a Mac version, but that forced me on a Windows machine. Okay.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. No, very, very good computers for sure. Yeah. So we got this projects tab and relevant projects. So I'm going to perhaps experimenting in this repo and we'll do it. We'll experiment in this repo. It's okay. So zero close, welcome to projects, built like a spreadsheet, right? Link a project. And I think you have to, like, create a brand new one. So we'll go delete me. All All right. Okay. Nope. Let's see if that works. Nope. Couldn't find it.
Quan Gan: That's weird. Okay. Hold on. Let me see what it, let me see. I it's an admin thing is what it is. That might be it. Yeah. Cause I didn't see anything that looked like it was actionable for you.
Malachi Burke: Right. Right. I think we're on the same page.
Quan Gan: There's a projects. There's a ZTAG untitled project that I created. Okay. So let me see. Oh, okay. I do see something. but let me enable it. Yeah. I'm going to screen share if that's okay.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, please do.
Quan Gan: So I'm in projects and then I see this, um, um, a project nexus. This was for, we created a project to create that documentation.
Malachi Burke: I see. It's back. I see.
Quan Gan: And then this one, it says it's private. I don't know why. Let see what happens if I just create a new project.
Malachi Burke: Oh, that's right. I forgot the project span across repos.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. Okay. So featured, all templates.
Malachi Burke: Let's say, what do we want? Let me actually read this here. Manager Team Work, Plan Upcoming Cycles. We want the one that's more basic, whatever it is.
Quan Gan: This has Combine. Yeah, let's try that.
Malachi Burke: And let's, I like calling it Delete Me, because we're going to wipe this thing out once we're done goofing with it. Oh, cool. That's actually much cooler than I was expecting. Awesome.
Quan Gan: Team Capacity to do.
Malachi Burke: So we've got three hidden items in our to-do. Let's go have a look at what that is. See that you got zero out of five. So what are those five?
Quan Gan: Is it real? Hold on, let me see.
Malachi Burke: Interesting.
Quan Gan: Two-do, one-on. I don't get that.
Malachi Burke: Okay, yeah. Like you said, is it real? My default answer was, well, of course, but maybe not.
Quan Gan: Or does it only allow you to have five? Let's see. Start typing.
Malachi Burke: Okay, don't make a new one. Don't make a new one. We'll be able to reference an existing one. So go add item, and back that off, and type number, like the number sign, and then code three.
Quan Gan: Interesting.
Malachi Burke: Right. So let's just grab arbitrary ones. It doesn't really matter right now. Yeah, looks like it's got like a maximum number of to-dos, which is kind of peculiar, but I don't think will hurt us. Oh, I don't know why. Okay, sure.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I don't know if that's a paywall thing, or is it like a recommendation thing?
Malachi Burke: Okay. All right, I think that's plenty.
Quan Gan: Okay. And then...
Malachi Burke: Uh-huh. Okay, that's convenient. Now, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold hold on. Don't move anything.
Quan Gan: Do you want to take control? Maybe I just give it back to you now.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, I suppose I'm being very controlling, aren't I?
Quan Gan: suppose I should. But you'll need to give me permission to this.
Malachi Burke: I'm poking around. You'll need to give me some kind of permission, though.
Quan Gan: Okay, so help me figure that part out. here, like, team capacity. I think you were there before.
Malachi Burke: There was, like, a settings thing you were at. Like, the Fathom window has blocked it.
Quan Gan: Oh, hold Yeah, see this to the right there?
Malachi Burke: Settings. I think there's going to be, like, a membership or something in here.
Quan Gan: Manage access. Okay.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, there you go.
Quan Gan: Okay, and then invite. What was yours again?
Malachi Burke: That's the bottom one. Okay. Thank you. you. And before we stop sharing, let me just verify that I can see it.
Quan Gan: Admin?
Malachi Burke: Probably. I mean, if you're comfortable with it, that's the way to go. Yep. Yep. All right. I'm going to take over here.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: I'm very encouraged by what I am seeing, and I'm kind of easily amused.
Quan Gan: had very low expectations. Okay.
Malachi Burke: But still.
Quan Gan: But you know what you're looking for, so.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Yeah, I am very particular. I've been accused of that, and it is a correct assessment. So the reason I didn't want you to start shifting around too much is because you're probably adding to the activity history of each of these tasks by doing that.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. The actual things.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Yeah, which, I mean, it's okay. It's not like the end of the world, but you'd rather experiment with ones that aren't going to be appearing here.
Quan Gan: Is it audited?
Malachi Burke: To a degree. degree. I think you could probably, whatever, you could delete it.
Quan Gan: That's just my OCD popping in, but I think you share my way. Sorry, I didn't realize there's history on it.
Malachi Burke: Right, be careful. See, you wanted auditing, you wanted accountability, so be careful what you wish for.
Quan Gan: Yes. There. Now you're the bookkeeper and then going into the ledger and scratching that line off.
Malachi Burke: Right, the dubious honor.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: So, but I like what I see here because the last time I went in here, it was way more rudimentary than this.
Quan Gan: This really is, I mean, your ability to move those around, that's neat.
Malachi Burke: I don't personally need it, but it's helpful. But what I'm really looking for is like this kind of, well, what I'm hoping for is like this total backlog feature is what I'm hoping for. So let's see if we can get that.
Quan Gan: Yeah. a generate charge. Okay. Does that give you the Gantt chart?
Malachi Burke: You know? I don't see, oh, right here? Let's find out. It's a burndown, which is nice.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I mean, that's, I thought it didn't have that, okay.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, they've been busy.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: So what I'm looking for, and I don't think it's going to give it to us, is the ability to arbitrarily move these around. Well.
Quan Gan: Oh. Overwrite, okay.
Malachi Burke: Okay, so that's some, not the most comfortable activity, right? Whoops. But it has that, oh, here we go. Okay. And actually, let me grab this guy, because otherwise I'll have to scroll it myself. Okay, so we'll go over to this guy here. there. And what I'm looking for is, I'm hoping it doesn't actually show you that it changed rank, because that's going to be annoying if it does that.
Quan Gan: So let's move him all the way to the bottom.
Malachi Burke: Let's just say, well, he's the most unimportant feature of them all. We'll go over here and refresh it. Okay, now that's really good, because that's actually one of my favorite features of JIRA, that it does that. So that's a big plus.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Another feature of JIRA that I like is cross-linking the issues, and that's less of a chore, because we could put it right into the issue. This issue depends on that issue right in the description, right? So this is looking pretty nice. I mean, I'm very skeptical of things, but so far... ... ... ... ... Okay, and what we like to do is, we do like to keep this kind of small, because all the tasks are out over in this other spot, in theory, anyway.
Quan Gan: Okay, wait, status, but if you keep scrolling down.
Malachi Burke: Oh, I see. So this is all the ones that this project has been made aware of.
Quan Gan: Yeah, okay. So it doesn't automatically get every single issue from that repo. And my understanding is this project allows you to span across multiple repos, because those repos might be interdependent.
Malachi Burke: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Quan Gan: Yeah, okay, that makes sense. Because, you know, we'll get to a point where we're going to have to do the same thing with the Zeus, the same thing with the cloud architecture, and a single customer feature may require a modification to all three repos, which translate in. Into like three issues in the same project, right?
Malachi Burke: Right. I'm really liking what I'm saying.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, this is encouraging.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. This is good. So my workflow, so backlog grooming, and now I know we can do this with impunity. Backlog grooming is where technically the scrum master would go in there and start moving these things around.
Quan Gan: Because as you can imagine, this list will get pretty big, right? Yeah.
Malachi Burke: And when I was working at Majicom, I and basically the head of QA would sit down together, and an hour a week, he and I together would be moving these things around.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And it was super helpful. And we're not going to have that level of overhead, you and I. It's going to be simpler. All right, and the cross-project thing, that's helpful too. JIRA does that too, but in a very different way than this.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And I was looking at how we actually could remove it from the to-do list, because I would like to have things in here that aren't actually appearing in that list.
Quan Gan: Let me see what the AI can find. Let's see.
Malachi Burke: So I'm going to go back to the board here. You could probably add like another column is what I'm imagining here. Yeah. I don't know that that's the best way to do it. Oh, let's look at hidden columns. Okay, let's, since this is a throwaway anyway, we'll say ranking, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah, does say option one, you could create a parking lot column in the box. Board view.
Malachi Burke: You can drag things there.
Quan Gan: Or option two, can create a custom field to tag parking lot items. And in your project, add a custom single-select field. And then add an option like backlog in progress version.
Malachi Burke: So by parking lot, is it talking about an extra column like this or something else?
Quan Gan: There's two options. The first option is to create another column. Or option two is to use something like a status. And then you filter the view based on the status.
Malachi Burke: Ah, okay. I strongly prefer this custom column one because the status one is not going to give us this ranking ability, right? This is dependent on it being in a column somewhere.
Quan Gan: Okay, yeah. So that's right. So it says... But it says recommend about... Best practice is combine option one, so this column, for visual clarity with option two, custom field, for robust filtering.
Malachi Burke: Well, we'll start with the one, and I think we'll organically grow into the other. I can see the value because we talked about once the Mal philosophy of priority versus urgency versus importance. And I can, in JIRA, they have the priority field, which in my life is kind of like a clue as to its urgency, is what it is. So I could see that applying to us, like we would add a custom field for that urgency factor.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Okay, this is really encouraging. I'm really digging it. So let's save this. So then what we can do is I can move all of these, and it looks like I can multi-slide.
Quan Gan: The only thing I don't see in here is like a Fibonacci weight factor.
Malachi Burke: Right. Right. How important is that for you to see? It will be important in two or three months from now, but today it's not.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. But that's an excellent question. So I'm going to bulk move them over to, would you say that parked is like an industry term?
Quan Gan: I use that in, I think that's more of like entrepreneurial term. Yeah. Like I've learned that in a lot of business owners speak.
Malachi Burke: Yeah.
Quan Gan: I don't think it's an engineering term per se though.
Malachi Burke: Well, terminology does matter. And I think parked might be better than ranking.
Quan Gan: Can you tell me a little about what parked means? Uh. Yeah, so in our context, parking lot just means you have something there, but you're not bringing it into – you're not putting it into front of mind. So initially I thought that's what backlog would be, but is backlog more like on deck versus parked? It's like this could actually just park there indefinitely until you decide to touch it.
Malachi Burke: Backlog is the superset of both.
Quan Gan: Hmm, okay.
Malachi Burke: It's your active tasks and your inactive tasks together.
Quan Gan: Okay. And is it okay to have a backlog that's like 100 or several hundred deep?
Malachi Burke: It's a pain in the and also very typical.
Quan Gan: Okay. Because if there is already a way to manage that, then maybe we don't need parking lot. But if you feel like that's still too overwhelming, then I would create a parking lot. Column. So that's for all the nice-to-haves or future considerations when the timing is right, but we don't have to put it into the backlog.
Malachi Burke: We're converging on a very strong agreement here. Would it be okay if I named the column Parked?
Quan Gan: That's fine, yeah.
Malachi Burke: Okay. I think that's better than Ranking, because Ranking is pretty open to interpretation.
Quan Gan: Yeah, why did they call it Ranking? Was that by default?
Malachi Burke: They didn't. I did.
Quan Gan: Oh, you did. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Coming up with some name. Good conversation. This is what it does need to keep things organized, because every step of the way, if we can keep the cognitive load lower, then it's going to stack up to an overall lower cognitive load.
Quan Gan: You know how that works.
Malachi Burke: I have to remind myself that you know plenty of things. You don't need me to mansplain everything.
Quan Gan: No, it's good. I think it helps us just get on the same page of semantics and language.
Malachi Burke: Oh, good. Good. So I'm going to include him. Then we're going to go over here. I'm going to change it to Parked. I really like that term. I'm glad I learned it today. We'll say Parking Block Last Asks. Interesting, but not up for immediate consideration, right? Yep. And that's a bug. That's a feature, not a bug. Having a huge parking lot is good. That means people have had a lot of ideas. Maybe they found a lot of bugs. And they're registered and searchable and actionable if we want to.
Quan Gan: And the other question I have is with done. So as a consequence, this could have like thousands and thousands. It's just forever growing. Is that the case?
Malachi Burke: I don't know how GitHub manages that, right? Jira has, Jira just kind of keeps it all there in the day. And we actually added like a manual archive feature ourselves to Jira. So I don't know what they do in this situation.
Quan Gan: I'm going to ask. Let's see what GPT says.
Malachi Burke: Here's what I do know. Done is a different category of status than issue closed. They're parallel status. So issue closed would almost certainly remove it from this list.
Quan Gan: Interesting. Okay. So if you close it.
Malachi Burke: And while you're looking that up, I'll actually show you. In addition to this task being closed over here, it's actually got an in-progress status attached to the project that it's in over here. So it's a parallel status.
Quan Gan: Okay. So it's not. Okay. So it's. So. It doesn't automatically close it or remove it then.
Malachi Burke: You're right. I thought it did, and it doesn't.
Quan Gan: The AI says, yeah, it's closing an issue does not automatically remove it from the done column in GitHub Projects. Instead, in Projects version 2, the done column is just a column like any other. It does not track the close state automatically unless you've explicitly configured it to.
Malachi Burke: Okay.
Quan Gan: So an issue can be shown in the done column but still open or closed but still sitting in a different column.
Malachi Burke: So we could – go ahead.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so it says you have two options. You can create an automation rule, which is recommended, or you can clean it up manually.
Malachi Burke: There's a third option. So we're going to turn lemons into lemonade because the definition of done is a big thing in engineering. And oftentimes what will happen is there'll be a confusion saying, well, I finished it as a developer. It's beta quality. beta quality. Thank you. And somebody interprets that as it's ready to go out the door to the customer. So what we can do is we can leverage this weakness, I would say it's a weakness, and say, well, in reality, two different done statuses are interesting to us. One can be the beta status, and one can be an actual completed status.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. So how would you discern one from the other?
Malachi Burke: We could probably, and I'm not suggesting it, but thinking out loud, we could rename the done column to beta ready, for example.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: All right.
Quan Gan: Okay. then, and when it's beta ready, when it's actually done, then we close the issue and then manually remove it from the beta ready.
Malachi Burke: I see your point. Yeah. That would probably be it. You want to do that?
Quan Gan: I'm saying I'm okay with it if that's what you want to do.
Malachi Burke: I don't want to. I think it's our best option at the moment.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. We knew we were going to hit some crudeness with this approach, and we're hitting it. Right.
Quan Gan: Do we want to have the automation that it recommended if you want to make it so when you close it, it automatically removes it? I would say that's a yes to asterisk.
Malachi Burke: I would say we do want the automation, but if we do that now, we run the risk of not getting to our other tasks today.
Quan Gan: Right. Okay. So manual for now, and maybe we don't even have that many issues for this to be too much of a pain for now.
Malachi Burke: That's my feeling, too. Yeah. That's my feeling. So I think I'm satisfied with what I've seen that... ... ... ... The conclusion I'm drawing is we can spin up the GitHub issues just as we were thinking of doing and either backfill them in to the project of our choice or do it lockstep. It doesn't really matter is how it seems.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: So I say let's create the issues knowing that no matter what, those issues are going to be existing, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: So this is awesome. This is deeper than I ever dove on GitHub projects. I'm taking a note here. And that one feature, I know I said this already, it's just really remarkable that they did it. Our ability to do this is going to make a huge difference in our workflow.
Quan Gan: Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Because imagine when this thing gets to be about 200 items big, which it will.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Then you're like, well, where's the thing? Right?
Quan Gan: Yeah. You know, there probably will come a point where after we have our meeting, just by verbally talking about it, that an AI agent can help you re-rank all of them.
Malachi Burke: I could imagine that. Yeah. Yeah. I do have a, as you know, I'm very mistrustful of giving right access, but I can't deny that an agent would probably be very good at that. I really do agree. Yeah. Well, very good. I'm very encouraged here. So let's actually get to the hard stuff.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: So what we need to do is we need to take a look at the, I'm going to call it the hard spec. Heck, that's probably overstating things, but the capture of the specification, presumably the AI assessment. And what we're specifically going to be looking for are features that we know are required that are not yet implemented or implemented really poorly in need, right?
Quan Gan: Okay. And is that including the code structure itself or is it purely from an end-user perspective what they can observe?
Malachi Burke: Leaning heavily towards end-user, what we call functional specification.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: You are, I wouldn't call it in a unique situation, but you're just barely in the edge case where technical specs are more interesting to us because it's a useful way for the dev team to communicate to each other what is expected.
Quan Gan: My only slight hesitation of not touching too much on let's say specifically, oh, we need 300 lines of code or whatever. we 400 lines whatever? No. Is that I'm afraid the project would evolve into how it was in the legacy code to begin with, which was I gave a bunch of end user level specifications and they hit those. But later on, as I asked for more features and new games, it was unscalable because they hit those features, but it was kind of like over-constrained to those specific applications rather than having a generalized platform.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Yeah, I hear you. I hear you. In that condition, and that condition is this condition. In the condition you're describing, we need both, right? We need a functional spec and a technical spec. But technical specs have a lot of – they're high-maintenance. They're a high-maintenance situation. So for the Short-term, I think I will verbally enforce policies and tell them to look at policy documents, and hopefully, we don't need to make too many technical specs, and if we do, we will, because that is a real concern. It got out of control, right? Yeah. Yeah. But one thing's for sure, whether or not you have the technical spec, the functional spec is required.
Quan Gan: Yep.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Oh, and by the way, I don't want to get off the topic too much, but did you see my commentary in Discord about the refactoring?
Quan Gan: Yeah. Hold on. Let's see. I did see it, but let me review it again. So my idea around phase three, minor structural upgrade phase. Okay. So low-hanging fruit, mostly copy and paste. Yeah. Maybe you can just kind of go into a little bit more detail on each of these.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. So let me pull up Discord over here as well. Move this over to the other window. So we want to, we want to, so these are ordered in, in optimal chronological order.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And also complexity. They align. We want to start with one because our chances of stepping on each other's toes as the dev team is very low with that one.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Anything's possible. But if we're not even really changing the code and we're only moving it around and we're judiciously moving around the code that we know nobody's really touching, then this is about as frictionless as you're going to get.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And then we move over to two where we say, okay, we might be modifying the code a little bit, right? Not a lot, not, nothing that's. Actually, an architectural change, but, you know, some things that could be small breaking changes, but your code base is so big, there's still big chunks that you can probably just move around, and we won't step on each other's toes.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Then number three, now the chances of stepping on each other's toes really starts to go up dramatically. Exactly. So with number three, we want to be organized enough where we've got all our tasks kind of divvied out and say, okay, we don't have one and two to even think about that much anymore. Everything's kind of smoother and cleaner, and now here's a real warm spot of something that's interesting to us, and Malachi, don't touch that one, because Shan is going to be touching that for the next few days, right? Okay. And then, of course, four, I think, is self-explanatory, like your game engine idea, where that's, we'd all have to be very careful about what we're touching.
Quan Gan: I have a quick call I've got to take. Sorry.
Malachi Burke: Okay.
Quan Gan: Hey there. Hello? Yeah. Hey, Rick. It's like going through a voicemail like you need it. Oh, okay. No, no, no. Yeah, what's up? I think it's a Wi-Fi clip, but I don't know where it is. Oh, that's in a new box that just came in, and it's probably right on top of, like, right when you come in, you know, where you put the crates for Christmas. I think, the table above that. Yeah, I don't think it's open. Yeah. Okay, you got it? Okay, thanks so much. All right, bye. Yeah, we're shipping 20 units out today.
Malachi Burke: Wow, that's great.
Quan Gan: It's a backlog. We're sold out.
Malachi Burke: That's a good problem to have.
Quan Gan: Good problem to have. Also, why I went back to the factory to make sure, hey, look, you guys got to keep on it.
Malachi Burke: Right. Right. That makes sense. I had a feeling. I'm like, I don't think Quan's going there to hang out just because it's cool. You might, but I think there was a specific reason that kind of answers it.
Quan Gan: And I'm going back again next month just to keep checking.
Malachi Burke: Good for you. I mean, what a great option to have.
Quan Gan: Mm hmm. Yeah. Like you make tremendously more progress in person, just like a few hours right there would have like taken weeks back and forth.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's why I agreed like Wednesday. I'm not sure we have to meet, but let's do it because we can.
Quan Gan: It'll smooth. It's like adding oil to the machine. Yeah. Yeah. Love it.
Malachi Burke: Me too. Me too. Okay. Where were we? Oh yeah. Talking about the refactor.
Quan Gan: Mm hmm.
Malachi Burke: And so like step four, I think it's self-explanatory where it's like, well, a refactor that big is almost a new feature. And we have to be very careful about what we're touching because it's such a big change. And those will torpedo the whole project if you're not careful. So we'll be careful. We'll make sure it doesn't.
Quan Gan: Is our intention to go through one, two, three, four entirely before we consider adding a new game?
Malachi Burke: Good question. That's my default approach. And I'm willing to not go through the entire procedure, but I think we'll want to.
Quan Gan: Okay. And the other thing I want to consider on this is... So currently we have three major modalities of gameplay.
Malachi Burke: Mm-hmm.
Quan Gan: Um... And we've only made one modality in there, although this one modality is arguably the more complex of the three. So by doing this as an MVP, it should have created the conditions for the other ones to be relatively easily made. Why we have these three modalities is also to kind of allow the engineers to generalize what they're making. So that when they're making considerations, it should apply to all of these three, or at least have enough abstraction so that each of these three become like a main category. It doesn't mean that we don't have a fourth modality. Maybe we have a fifth modality we just don't even know about yet. But eventually some of these patterns may emerge that you find, okay, it's in these basic categories.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's logical. As you know, it'll take – I'm not going to call it trial and error. It takes grinding through it. It's not quite trial and error, but I think we're expecting.
Quan Gan: Have you had a chance to activate all of those eight games, or how much of the zoos have you touched so far?
Malachi Burke: Very little. I have been very focused on IR diagnostics and PR concerns – PM concerns.
Quan Gan: Okay. Can I share with you enough that makes – hopefully it touches on what might be the timing requirements on these?
Malachi Burke: Let me think about that, because we do have our work cut out for us to actually capture requirements in the tasks, and we haven't even started on that yet, so I'm a little concerned about our timing.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: If you see what I'm saying.
Quan Gan: Yeah, okay. Then that's fine. We'll leave it for another conversation.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. I suppose the question is asked, how much time do we have together today? Do you have another hour? Because I think it's going to be a minimum hour of us capturing requirements to be something actionable.
Quan Gan: Yeah. I can push things a little bit later. So yeah, I can do an hour. I have a 2 p.m. hard stop, but between now and then, yeah, I can definitely, I can meet.
Malachi Burke: So let's dedicate the next hour to purely capturing requirements into actionable tasks. And then, yeah, and then let's kind of go back to what you were talking about. Does that work?
Quan Gan: Yeah. And I think maybe in making some of these decisions, my inherent knowledge of the other ones would apply here anyways.
Malachi Burke: Good. Yeah. That would make sense. Context is king, as they say. So the first question, and I'm going to. Repeat a question I asked, are there any features, and we're going to exclude the category of a particular game at the moment, okay? Are there any features, system features, that are either not present that need to be or anemic and need attention?
Quan Gan: Well, I haven't thoroughly tested enough to know this, but one of the main things is every mode of interaction needs to have, you need to see it, hear it, and feel it.
Malachi Burke: And see it is two things.
Quan Gan: You have to have some kind of a screen reaction. You have to have some kind of a light bar reaction. Hear it means the sound needs to activate, and feel it means the haptics need to activate. And I haven't tested that on every single thing. And if it's not all abuse, then what it's showing me is they're probably still kind of... He's feeling things, which we're going to end up having the same issue I had, you know, with the current code. It's like when I ask a new feature, sometimes it has two out of the three or one out of the three. And that's not okay from a user standpoint.
Malachi Burke: Right. And that's why we're doing this exercise.
Quan Gan: This is the way in which we close that. Yeah. Because oftentimes they're like, I haven't looked enough in their game code, but I'm pretty sure they're saying, okay, activate the screen, activate the haptics, activate the sound, like explicitly versus take this action. And that action somewhere further down in the abstraction layer always handles all of the modalities.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Understood. And that's, juniors do that a lot. It's a junior characteristic. So what we, like I said earlier, what we prefer to do is steer towards functional spec. Rather than technical spec, if we can. And so I get your high-level requirement, and that does answer the question I asked, which is at a system level, right? So I need to ask another question then, because I need to get a little, we need to get a little more detailed. Is there a way we can talk about specific features of the system without it being in the context of a game? Probably not, now that I think about it.
Quan Gan: Yeah, pretty much, yeah. mean, as far as the end user wearing this, the only non-game portion of it would be any initial on-screen instructions, or like the get ready part, or the countdown part, that's not part of the game itself. But everything is pertaining to the player playing this thing. And then also the endgame states.
Malachi Burke: Oh, the endgame states are kind of universal as well?
Quan Gan: Yeah, so there's always going to be a countdown to start, and there's always going to be some kind of a closing remark and a display of your score in your rank. And then if you happen to be rank one, something flashy happens on the light bar.
Malachi Burke: Excellent. Excellent. And it's not prohibited for us to say we're going to focus on game features. I'm not prohibiting that at all. It's just starting out the process, it's easier to have a broader system situation.
Quan Gan: So that's an option.
Malachi Burke: And I did notice that you had put in an issue saying the tonality, the sound of play, it doesn't play at a constant speed, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: And I noticed that too. So that is, that's... Something worth using as an exercise now, because in this intermediate state where it's like, well, how much is really working? How much isn't working? What's the spec? Who knows? Then you get into the question of, is it a bug or a feature, right? Was there ever a stated requirement that the thing ought to be the correct speed? And it's kind of obvious that it should be, really. So I kind of lean towards bug in this one.
Quan Gan: Yes, and I'm definitely hard saying it is a bug, because based on some of my recent insights from looking at what works for video games, the startup actually has to become a synchronized ritual for this thing to have commercial success. What I mean by that is, when we do the initial 3, 2, 1, even right now, occasionally, because of MQTT or whatever the... ...you Underlying stack, you're going to get some that might be like half a second or a second out of sync. And it's like a horrible, like if Steve Jobs were looking at this thing, he would like flip out because like the pristine user state is a completely synchronous countdown and a start. And that's what's going to get the product to have commercial success.
Malachi Burke: No argument. What we have to remember, though, is that the definition of a bug does not conform to what you've described. The definition of a bug is something that didn't conform to a stated specification. And since the specification was never stated, it's hard to call it a bug, but not illegal. Right. And I think you need latitude to say this thing is irritating and it's not what anybody would expect. And I'm calling it a bug. And we need you to be able to do that. So we're going to do that. Just know that developers. Who are like swimming, like, what's the spec? I don't know. Let's try this thing. And they didn't think of that, right? They didn't think of it, or they didn't think it was important, right?
Quan Gan: I think for MVP, that's fine. I'll accept it.
Malachi Burke: Well, let me finish. Let me finish. Let me finish. It eats away at morale a little bit. Each time you call it a bug. So use bugs. Just be careful with it.
Quan Gan: Okay. Fair enough. Yeah. Point taken.
Malachi Burke: Be careful. I think this one qualifies, really. I think this qualifies. So that's why I started with, we're kind of in this in-between state where we can't call it. We don't know if we should call it a bug or feature because there was really not a spec that we're all, I mean, there is a spec, but who's actually reading it, right?
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: So, okay. I'm annoying myself with how much I'm repeating now.
Quan Gan: So thank you for listening. Okay.
Malachi Burke: All right. Much appreciated. Appreciate it. So how do we solve that big conundrum? You and I are going to go through the spec and choose some things and say, here are the things that aren't existing that need to exist, and we're going to break it down bit by bit.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, because I think they've really just been heads down trying to make it on par with the previous game, so they forgot about the spec for some months.
Malachi Burke: Right. And as you have learned, saying here's the old code base and that's the specification is just a big failure waiting to happen. You know, unfortunately, that's just how it goes. So I think the init is the low-hanging fruit. It's not our best choices. It's not our most valuable features, probably, but it's the easiest ones for you and I to start with.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: So the init code, first of all, I'm going to look at your issues, but I want to ask the question again. Pardon my repetition. Are there any mechanisms of the initialization that just aren't even really existing that ought to be, or are just so, like I said, so crude, aside from the sound playback, we've recognized that one, that should be mentioned?
Quan Gan: Yeah. So I think, well, it might be captured in the bug. Are you able to screen share?
Malachi Burke: Oh, I thought I was.
Quan Gan: Let me do it again.
Malachi Burke: It says I'm sharing, but you know how Zoom is. How's that?
Quan Gan: It's loading. Okay. Yeah. So. No, I think I put everything I needed to up here.
Malachi Burke: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Quan Gan: And you may have to correct me on this. I don't know if the way I'm calibrated. As a bug or a debt is correct.
Malachi Burke: Right, right. Oh, we'll go each by each and make the decision, okay? So let's go to the first one, which is the one we were talking about. Oh, very nice. I as a user, like the Buddha from each head. Yeah, and let me think about that. So a revision is percolating in my mind, and it's a minor one. The revision that is percolating is I as a user, end user, would like the boot sequence to be identical in timing so that that feeling of quality and solidity exists on start.
Quan Gan: Thank you. Okay.
Malachi Burke: And I don't like using emotional states as the why, but I think it's better than not saying it.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And since you're looking to me as the expert, I guess I could just make up anything.
Quan Gan: Okay, to put the why. Okay, yeah, I can add that. Are you able to hit it? Yeah, I'll do it.
Malachi Burke: However, I have to say that was actually a very good first run there. That really does get us something actionable already.
Quan Gan: Is the second piece of this necessary, or is that the right way to add in here?
Malachi Burke: Let me look at that next. I haven't looked at that yet. Okay. Thank you. you. Thanks, Thank you. You Right. And this is something that JIRA is better at, is the first area is solid. That doesn't change for the lifespan of this thing. But this is going to be sort of a status or extra criteria, and this could change as time goes on until it's done. But this is like an observation. So what I do in JIRA is I actually have a separate note section, right?
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: But what is more formal is something called acceptance criteria, which breaks down the particular behaviors that are expected or problematic. Maybe we can morph this into acceptance criteria, because that would be better.
Quan Gan: Okay. And what does that look like?
Malachi Burke: Let's put that in there. Let's give that a crack. So we would reverse what you're saying even though what you're saying is totally correct but for an acceptance criteria we say instead of what it's not doing we're going to say what it should do, right? Because So for now I think we'll be crude because this is a crude mechanism and we'll make a separate note. Okay.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And because we've got this acceptance criteria we can shrink this guy.
Quan Gan: Shrink what?
Malachi Burke: We can shrink this guy a bit.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: You know what? We don't have to. We don't have to. The idea is to make this smaller and have the big stuff down here. That's the idea. But frankly, it's good the way it is. So we'll leave it alone. Now what I do, but I think this is going to be too much. In Jira, I actually go further and I do this. You know, or Quan, whatever. But I think that's going to be really too much for people to deal with. You know, so we'll do that. That's a good compromise.
Quan Gan: So the acceptance criteria, then we also need to have the visual part of it and the haptics part of it.
Malachi Burke: We do. So those would be two other issues.
Quan Gan: These are different issues?
Malachi Burke: Mm-hmm.
Quan Gan: How so if they have to depend on each other?
Malachi Burke: Because we're talking about a functional spec, not a technical spec.
Quan Gan: Okay. It's what the user is experiencing. But the user experiences all three together, but you need to separate those out into three different channels?
Malachi Burke: Well, let's go into it to get the proper answer. So you want a haptic and a sound and lights, right?
Quan Gan: Screen, lights, haptic, sounds. So technically it's four.
Malachi Burke: Let me write this down. Screen, lights, haptic, sounds. Well, here's what's critical about this. When you saw it, did you observe that all four were lockstep going to wrong speed at the same time?
Quan Gan: I believe so, yeah.
Malachi Burke: Then it would be appropriate to put them all on the same one. Yeah. So let's do it. Good call. right. And here's, again, what is great about this approach is let's say we run into the condition where, okay, to fix all that is like this massive amount of work, right? At that point, we raise this to an epic and then break them out into bit by bit at that point.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And that's the job of us dev team more than it is for you.
Quan Gan: So the story, is that the first sentence? Is that called a story? And then epic is a whole bunch of stories together?
Malachi Burke: Yes. The epic also has its own sentence, though.
Quan Gan: Got it. Sorry, I've got to reply back to this call. I'm not going to answer, but I've got to ping him back real quick.-up. we have to go back.
Malachi Burke: Thanks on the feminine set. And then Screen, Synchronize, and you can see now that what does it mean for each of these to be synchronized could, in fact, be a whole conversation, right? Because maybe the screen flashes black, then flashes white, and it's done. And that's synchronization, right? However, we got to start somewhere, right?
Quan Gan: And is there a certain level of granularity at which you're like, okay, I'm enough typing, but the other person should get what I'm trying to do?
Malachi Burke: It's certainly an art. So yes, asterisk. Yeah, it can be really tricky to know when you've captured enough, but experience tells me that this is actually insufficient to really channel the full idea, but we're getting close. And that's the other part of the good news is we don't necessarily, if we don't expect this to be the first task they grab, well, that's obvious, right? If it's in the parking lot, it doesn't have to be as built out, right? Is this correct, by the way? I kind of presume that this is correct.
Quan Gan: Let's see. It must be identical across startups. Yes. I would say for number one, can we say across startups? Across multiple. So basically, the way I do it is I simultaneously hit the reset switch on each one, and they need to start up at the same time. Not only just their tempo needs to be the same, but also they have to boot up and start at the same time.
Malachi Burke: Yep. That's a very good revision. I'm actually going to go one step further here. Okay, but I'm running into a limitation of GitHub, so okay.
Quan Gan: What's the limit? They won't let you type anymore?
Malachi Burke: I can't do a subheading very easily under here. So instead, I'll just append it to the end. And it looks like it's... So thank you very much. And I'll mind. Thank So I guess we'll just say reserved for the moment. Right. Is that better?
Quan Gan: In fact, didn't have the timing. Oh, why is two reserved? I didn't get it.
Malachi Burke: Because GitHub is being stupid. If I do this, it doesn't renumber it. I guess I could just go in and change them, so I'll do it.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, that's fine.
Quan Gan: Okay. Does a deterministic timing for a one through four imply that it also starts up at the same time?
Malachi Burke: Only implies, and an excellent catch, right? That's a bit harder, though.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Because the, yeah, the boot up sequence, the boot up sequence itself should be. Fairly deterministic, but I guess you can't guarantee that.
Malachi Burke: Right. Well, that's why this is such a good conversation to have these requirements, because we have to ask ourselves, in the event that all the boot-up sounds are totally consistent within the device, and like three-second tone is always a three-second tone, does it matter if one boots up 0.5 seconds, does it preclude this being an interesting feature, does it all have to be true, right? And that's actually a question for you, you know?
Quan Gan: Yeah, I think for now this should be enough, because we're not starting the game at boot-up, we're just getting a consistent tone, and I think the consistent tone hopefully will force them to rework something that other things also stay consistent, like when we actually start the countdown.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Perfect. Perfect. So that means that we probably ought to make a second task that's related to this one, that says some level of synchronization for this interaction to occur in the first place. So let's do that. And I think it's that, but probably that's not quite the one. So it might be. It might actually be debt. It's just so tough to say right now, but I want to reserve debt for a special category. So for now, even though it could be, we're going to label it as something else for now.
Quan Gan: Are these standard labels that you're used to, or do they? Thank you. Did they come stock like this, or did you add it?
Malachi Burke: I added debt and refactor.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Okay, very good. So this is the kind of crap we need to do. Very good. So now we'll go over, we'll make another issue that relates to that guy, right? We'll say startup, I want to call it feedback, I'll call it that, synchronization. But we'll say what that means in the story.
Quan Gan: Okay. I'm going to move over to my chair. Okay.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. And seeing as we've agreed that this is important, but maybe less important than the other one, I'm not going to bother with the acceptance criteria right now.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: I wonder if we actually can make custom ones of these over here. That would be nice.
Quan Gan: What do you mean? The custom label or custom categories?
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Like another one over here that says relates to and have the other issue.
Quan Gan: Well, let me ask them to find out for you. Sweet.
Malachi Burke: Sweet. Sweet. You I think I've become satisfied with this. I was planning to delete it, but this proof-of-concept has really worked out well, so I think we should upgrade it.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: What are the existing projects? Well, should I call this ZTAG Team? I don't know what to call it.
Quan Gan: Yeah, sure.
Malachi Burke: ZTAG Dev Team. Yeah. Okay. Is that the proper capitalization?
Quan Gan: For this project name, though? This is either Project Nexus or ZTAG Nexus or ZTAgger code-based rewrite. right.
Malachi Burke: Oh, I see what you're saying. Let's stick to the smaller one. So if nexus works for you, let's roll with that.
Quan Gan: Okay. And then ZTAG, would either all cap or all lowercase.
Malachi Burke: Okay. How does a hyphen suit you?
Quan Gan: That's fine.
Malachi Burke: Okay. And we'll go in a little more detail here. Refactor clean from, what was the old code base called?
Quan Gan: It was called, I think, ZTAG or firmware.
Malachi Burke: Oh, boy. Did it have a different name, like a version associated?
Quan Gan: No. No, from ZTAG or firmware. Well, okay. We do have a version number. The latest would be 7.0.20. It's your saying.
Malachi Burke: Like so? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Only because firmware is what we're making now also. Good.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I don't know how we got to those numbers.
Malachi Burke: Me either. That's okay. Okay. So that means if we go back... Over here. Cool. I don't know. That looks kind of ugly. Maybe Cap's a note. Well, we can change it whenever. I'm not going to get too caught up on that.
Quan Gan: No, you go and do it. I would respect that.
Malachi Burke: I really don't even know how I feel, honestly.
Quan Gan: This is my first response. like... Okay.
Malachi Burke: I got to live with it for a little while.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Good. Good. Good. Good. So this guy is definitely a to-do. You know, we already know he belongs in there. And this guy is – actually, he's kind of – yeah, so we're immediately hitting that situation. But we'll leave him in parked for now. So parked is going to do double duty because that's not really parked, but good enough for now.
Quan Gan: Well, in the recent pull request, you didn't roll in these IR fixes yet.
Malachi Burke: Is that right? Correct.
Quan Gan: Correct.
Malachi Burke: And that's intentional because the IR code turns out to conflict with the changes that Shan made.
Quan Gan: And that's why we do this.
Malachi Burke: And so one of my steps that I'll be doing after this meeting is I'll be doing a reverse merge back from dev into my IR branch. Then I'll do some regression testing to make sure it didn't break my code.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And as we all learn to coordinate better, we'll hit less of those merge conflicts. Okay.
Quan Gan: What was that whole – you said you built something like a terminal or something into the device?
Malachi Burke: Yeah, yeah. I was going to talk about that during the meeting this morning.
Quan Gan: I totally forgot. Oh, okay. Yeah, what is that?
Malachi Burke: Well, better I show you than tell you. So let me share my other screen here. You can see it for yourself. Although we are getting off topic, but it's just too cool.
Quan Gan: I have to show it to you. Show me the cool stuff.
Malachi Burke: Right. So Espressif somewhat optimistically calls it a rebel. That's really overstating it. But it is a cool interactive feature that we've got now. So – Where do we go? So I've got, like, two of the ZTAGers sitting right next to each other on my desk. I've got a left one and a right one.
Quan Gan: Okay. And, okay, so those are just terminals for you, right?
Malachi Burke: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, right. Nothing – we're not interacting with the device just yet.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And so now what I'm going to do – let me make sure my serial ports are all correct still. Oops. Okay. So I switched my branches around, so I think it's going to need a rebuild. Okay. But it'll go pretty quick.
Quan Gan: We also still I have some warnings, like random things like this. Are these things we need to clean up eventually?
Malachi Burke: Yeah. In fact, there's already a GitHub issue starting to chip away at that. So good call. Good observation. Okay. And I'll flash the other one, too, while I'm at it.
Quan Gan: You know, for the life of me, I couldn't get this baud rate to change to something higher. Because I know in other projects, I've had it up to 1.5 megabytes.
Malachi Burke: Right. Right. Yeah, I bonked into that, too. I've changed it before on other ones, too, and it pushed back. So I'm like, well, that's a little bit annoying, but I don't think it's worth half an hour of paid work for me to do it. Okay, so the first thing you'll notice is there's less logging going on here.
Quan Gan: Okay, good.
Malachi Burke: I've got, it's dev only. I've got special dev flags that if you put it into the dev mode, it inhibits some functionality so that I can focus on my IR code. Or our IR code. But here's, check this out. So now there's an interactive console, right, where I can start, I'm actually on the device over the serial port right now, and I can start issuing commands and asking it things.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. What can you give it?
Malachi Burke: So right now, it's very minimal. I've got an IR send command, right? So I don't have to wait for a game to, I'm not interacting with the game.
Quan Gan: But this is something that you had to program in there, right?
Malachi Burke: Yes.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Yes. It's obviously a very developer-specific thing.
Quan Gan: Okay. Now, on the device side, what is it actually seeing from you, and how is it activating a particular feature when it gets IR sent?
Malachi Burke: So what's going on is there's the serial terminal, as you're accustomed to seeing. But your previous use cases were the serial terminal was read-only, right? You're like, well, I'm going to look at the serial terminal, and hopefully I see what I need to see. And if you want the device to do something, you either have to hard-code it in there, or you have to start the whole game and interaction. But now there's a third option where the serial terminal, you can write back to the device interactively and start sending human-readable commands like this.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. You So when it's taking it in, it's reading the – so you had to add in a reading of the serial port as well as like some kind of like a switch statement or something?
Malachi Burke: That's a – that's one way to think of it. So that is technically true. However, Espressif had all these layers of infrastructure to support this.
Quan Gan: I didn't make this from scratch. Oh, okay. Cool.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Years ago, 2017, I made one from scratch, but Espressif is way better.
Quan Gan: So like are you getting all of these kind of input?
Malachi Burke: I'm not quite following.
Quan Gan: Like in terms of the specific formatting and what you wanted to show you, like how – is that all baked in or you have to be like doing a lot of lifting just for this to show up this way for you?
Malachi Burke: that it wasn't A heavy lift to add the REPL, and it'll be even less of a lift for other people to use the REPL now because the infrastructure is in there. Okay.
Quan Gan: There are conditions where you want to turn off the REPL.
Malachi Burke: I don't think you'll hit them soon, but, you know, maybe you don't want a customer having access to some of these dev features, right?
Quan Gan: That kind of thing. Okay.
Malachi Burke: And as far as what it's doing is, yeah, it's a little bit hard-coded. Like, the IR signals I'm sending are largely synthetic. They're not true blue game signals. They're just my own IR signals that are using our IR code.
Quan Gan: Okay. But you could give it arguments to send in a particular IR packet, right?
Malachi Burke: Yeah. I can add some C++ code in there, layer it on top of what's in here, and then I'll have the ability to send a particular kind of IR packet.
Quan Gan: Okay. Oh, that's, yeah, that's pretty neat.
Malachi Burke: It's been critical for all kinds of diagnostics. And it helped solve. The crashing, because you were having a serious crash before sending an IRR, and I was able to reproduce it with this.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: So if I go, like, I've got three preset packets, and one of them is a null packet, so it doesn't really count. It never fails. It never passes the checksum, because it's all zeros. But if I send IR1, right, so it's like a certain command and a certain data, and the other side gets it, but critically, what I did was I've got extra data injected in my debug pack. They're way bigger. They're, like, 30 bytes big.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. Yeah. Cool.
Malachi Burke: Pretty neat, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Very neat.
Malachi Burke: Thanks for showing me. Yeah. And this does not state in any way to not do integration testing with the whole game at all, but what it does do is it says, before you get there, right? While you're just kind of building out the feature, does it work at a more granular level, right?
Quan Gan: Now, something like this, would one write a script to send it to this to automate certain tests?
Malachi Burke: Not in its current form. Oh, excuse me, I misunderstood the question.
Quan Gan: Like, for example, if you wanted to test various types of packets, you want to simulate it, is this a proper method to do it?
Malachi Burke: Ooh, that's a good question. I don't know. Because I've seen Espressif do that. They've got like a Python script that communicates over the USJ to tell it to do particular activities, just like you're saying. But I never deep dove into what they were doing there.
Quan Gan: Okay. I'm just trying to figure out. Like, you you showing me this particular feature, how far can we take it and stretch it to offload some of the more, like, compile time tests?
Malachi Burke: Well, what do you mean by compile time tests?
Quan Gan: Like, when you compile, you can give it a script saying this is the build or this is, like, a debug test or something, right?
Malachi Burke: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, bake in, like, on startup and test an extra thing or something, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah, and it's, like, kind of two complete branches of builds. One was building for production, one is building for tests, versus this one, it seems to me you could just build it for build, but leave this port open, and then I can inject tests in there.
Malachi Burke: Right, right. Now that I understand the question better, I would say your default answer is you won't need a special build.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. That's cool.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. And in the cases where you do need a special build, hopefully we'll have unit tests to cover those.
Quan Gan: Hopefully. Okay. Right. Not always. But in here, you could get some kind of script to be typing into this terminal, couldn't you?
Malachi Burke: That one, in theory, you could. I don't know how much I would trust that because this terminal still kind of suffers from glitches from time to time. Think, like, I don't know if you were using modems in the 80s, but you get line noise and stuff sometimes. But you know what? It's possible. It's doable somehow, for sure.
Quan Gan: It's doable. You know, with Cursor or any of the agentic AI, they have the ability to go into terminal and type things.
Malachi Burke: So I wonder if this could just be part of that process. It might be. It might be. We get into a different conversation conversation about... How specific the instructions are that it's following in the first place, what's the nature of the test, and how reliable is the reporting, but that's different, right? Yeah, I could see Kurser being able to feed this thing.
Quan Gan: Why not? Okay. All right. I know we spent a lot of time on this fun feature, but yeah.
Malachi Burke: It's kind of cool, right?
Quan Gan: It is. I like talking about it, but not at the sake of the work to be done today.
Malachi Burke: Right, right, right. Well, we're both on the same page.
Quan Gan: I'm glad we could take a moment on that. Yeah, thank you.
Malachi Burke: Thank you, too. Okay, so I'm going to stop sharing that. We're going to go back to the extremely fun requirements gathering. Never a grind.
Quan Gan: Oh, yeah. So I say this as a compliment, but I have a similar type of relationship with my patent agent. So he has very high quality work, but it is certainly a grind. And by the time... ... ... ... We're done. Like my brain has melted. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. I take that as a compliment because the hard work has a brain melting quality to it. Yeah. And by the way, this is part of the secret sauce to really get a project successful. And I, in my opinion, that's why a lot of projects fails because a lot of people are not up to this challenge, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I certainly can't do this on my own, so I appreciate it.
Malachi Burke: Well, I appreciate it too. And professionally speaking, I can't do it on my own either because it requires your vision input on these features to really know if we're getting it.
Quan Gan: Well, you know, it's already mapping very similar to that relationship. I'm repeating myself, but that relationship with my patent agent has been a successful one for the past many years.
Malachi Burke: Wonderful. Wonderful. So I'm standing in good company then.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: That's great. All right. Well, to be pragmatic about it, I am going to abuse the parked status for now, and I'm going to let closed issues sit in parked, which is inappropriate. But just so that we can make progress, I'm going to put them there.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And I'm going to keep – these are ones I added myself. These are kind of technical. In fact, they're probably labeled as technical requirements. And if they're not, they should be. Okay. So this is appropriate. Oh, yeah. And I put acceptance criteria on this. I mean, these are in-betweeners. And you know what? Anything that a QA could do, I kind of let it off the hook and say probably doesn't have to be – so I'll leave it alone. We don't actually go – and here's the warning one. See, we've already got one, and I'll show it to you. This one is technical. Cool, for sure. So let me make sure that's labeled as such. So we're going to create a new label. And then I'm going to edit him.
Quan Gan: Oh, random color generator. Okay, that's cute.
Malachi Burke: All right, I'm just going to be like a good Linux user and just keep randomly clicking on something until I see something I like.
Quan Gan: That's actually a good UI, rather than forcing you to pick, and that's cognitive load.
Malachi Burke: Agreed. Agreed. I mean, GitHub is pretty good, I got to say. I feel like it should be some flavor of green. I like a dark green. So actually, I will go over here now. That works for me. A little bit closer. I'm going to make it a little bit darker. Red, green, blue. So we're going to make it. Man, I am so frigging OCD. Holy crap. Okay, that's better. I even annoy myself.
Quan Gan: I think you might enjoy meeting Peter one day.
Malachi Burke: You're a patent attorney? He's not an attorney.
Quan Gan: He's an agent. But what's really awesome about Peter was he used to be a patent examiner working for the USPTO. So he knows exactly the language that someone on the other side would need to write for him to read it.
Malachi Burke: Wow. Wow. What a skill.
Quan Gan: It's excruciating long documents, but super detailed.
Malachi Burke: Wow. My kind of people. Awesome. Well, thank you for being patient there. So now. We can back out to where we were. We'll go back over here again and tag him appropriately. And it's not really the end of the world if you don't get all the tagging just right, but since we're here, right? This one is IsDat, and that one is also technical. So, yeah, I'm getting kind of crazy here, but there we go. And we...
Quan Gan: Well, aren't most things technical or what's your delineation?
Malachi Burke: My delineation is if you're talking about specific code, specific infrastructure, or specific architectural patterns, that's technical. But you're talking about things like, I want this thing to light up the yellow... Oh, and make the sound at the same time coming up. That's more of a functional spec.
Quan Gan: Okay. I'll to chew on that a little bit later.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, requirements are hard. Just are.
Quan Gan: They just are.
Malachi Burke: The crude definition is if you could explain it to an end user who is not very smart, it probably qualifies as a functional spec. But that's not great because then most things would be a technical spec. All right. Perhaps practice will make perfect. So we'll take a crack at this one, even though this seems to be kind of a game-specific one. But, you know, we've got about 20 minutes left in this, and I don't want to leave the issues you left untouched.
Quan Gan: Okay. Sounds good. Okay. All Thank you.
Malachi Burke: you. Thank you. You Oh, this is a good one. As an end user, I'm to turn it on and load it in the same game as all other ZTAggers. I see. So it's kind of a double header. Would I be right in interpreting this as, as an end user, I would like the Zeus menu to dictate what game it is and all ZTAggers to play that game?
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay, let me just read this again. And as an end user, would like to turn it on and load into the same game. Yes. So the Zeus should be making sure that all the devices sync up and load to the same game.
Malachi Burke: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Now, the reason why I wrote it this way is because we're not working on the Zeus right now. And the Zeus already satisfies that requirement for the legacy code. So there's something missing in the ZTAgger that is preventing it from. We're not It's But, It's So that's That's one's going matching that.
Malachi Burke: Fair. Fair. So this is, you've been doing good, because this was clear enough for me to interpret without even asking you a question.
Quan Gan: I'm like, okay, I think I get it. I either mistyped or mistranscribed this as mailman.
Malachi Burke: should be menu. Too funny. Good enough. So we're just going to adjust this very minor, right? Because all ZTAggers, we're going to put that in somewhere else. In fact, I'm going to keep your original version because it's good, so I'm going to use it as reference. All right.
Quan Gan: You I'm yawning because I still have some lingering jet lag.
Malachi Burke: It's all good. It's all good. It's surprising because I know grinding out requirements is the most stimulating and exciting task ever. You've surprised me, but I forgive you. So this one's going to seem obvious, but I think you're going to see the value here.
Quan Gan: So this one's You're going to see the value here. You're Hmm. Okay. Yeah. Right.
Malachi Burke: It seems obvious, but...
Quan Gan: Or stuck, left alone. That's even better. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: That's even better. Because the affirmative is always better than the negative if you can go there with a requirement. Although not alone.
Quan Gan: So that I am. Yeah. So I'm not alone.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Not alone. And actually participating with my friends.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: And now we'll put the other things in acceptance criteria.
Quan Gan: Okay. One other thing. The Zeus, ours is particular. The U is before the E. It's spelled different from the Greek god.
Malachi Burke: And you have it right there. Indeed. I thought I was copying what you typed. Thank you for the catch.
Quan Gan: It's the ZTAG Unified Edutainment System.
Malachi Burke: It's the ZU.
Quan Gan: We call it Zeus.
Malachi Burke: Good. All right. All right. That works. And I presume you have like a canonical name for a group of ZTAggers.
Quan Gan: I would just call it ZTAggers. Yeah. And I think, see, this is kind of my OCD. Like, I like it to be all caps or all lowercase. Because like ZTAgg looks great when it's, you know, all caps, but then ZTAggers, it's kind of arguably, we're kind of stretching it. But then if you add the S, I think you have to undercase the S. I don't know. What do you think?
Malachi Burke: Well, that's a hard one.
Quan Gan: Yeah, that's a hard one.
Malachi Burke: Right, because you have capitalized ZTAGers that are ahead of this task. So that tells us right away that whatever it is, it's not a technical term, because a technical term, you probably leave it lowercase, right? But we know that it's a marketing, it's the marketing name of the device.
Quan Gan: ZTAGers didn't make it look like a camel case, like iPad, right? Like a lowercase first letter, but it didn't look right.
Malachi Burke: Right, right. Well, there was that movie X to Stens, where they capitalized the X. I remember that. Because all caps is a bit much.
Quan Gan: That's a bit much.
Malachi Burke: I'm going to be a sycophant. I'm going to say whatever you like.
Quan Gan: Just keep it that way.
Malachi Burke: think it's fine. Okay, okay.
Quan Gan: As long as it's one word, like we don't put dashes in.
Malachi Burke: Okay. No dashes. So that means we should be consistent and save that as well, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Hey, man, I'm all about the bureaucracy. So if we need a policy document for this, don't just sign me up, commission me, and I will make the policy. I will be signing you up to the policy.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, that's fine. We can commission you to do that.
Malachi Burke: Okay. I would like to turn on load the game indicated by Zeus so that I'm not alone in actually practicing. That's a decent requirement. It's a big one, but it captures it.
Quan Gan: Us engineers are all about reducing entropy.
Malachi Burke: Yes, we are. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think this becomes redundant at this point. Thank you. Thank So, I would like to make mention of this ZTAG or group, and we will need to define our terms later on. What is a group, and what's a Zeus' relationship to a group? Because you said a Zeus can grab more than one batch of 24. It could grab into 48, and things like that.
Quan Gan: Yes, although group size was never defined, it could be two, or I mean, it could be one, it could be two, it could be as many as the router is reliably able to handle. So, the group of 24 just happens to be how physically they're packed into a single case, but it doesn't have any bearing on how many could connect.
Malachi Burke: Good. All right. That makes this simpler, because a group is all playing the same game in every definition of this.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Let me read this part. For now, we can put this in the acceptance criteria, but really this probably deserves its own task when we get there.
Quan Gan: Okay. And then change mailman to menu.
Malachi Burke: Are you sure? But good. We start with non-ambiguity is what we start with, right? Like you said, reduce the entropy. Hey. Okay. Thank Why are you being that way? There we go. And this is really a new feature, is what this is. Oh, no! I think that's going to be bad.
Quan Gan: Did it undo it?
Malachi Burke: Yeah, it lost our changes.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay.
Malachi Burke: Darn it. Okay. Oh, but that part saved it. Thank you, question mark, HTML. The edit box was still in the HTML memory, even though...
Quan Gan: That's weird.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Whew! Yeah. That scared me.
Quan Gan: Don't know if that was a feature or a bug.
Malachi Burke: weird. That's Yeah. What? I'm You're talking about the HTML? don't know. I don't know either. See, it's so hard to define these things.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it is.
Malachi Burke: Okay, good. Good. So I'm going to swing the other way on this one, okay? I'm going to say, let's really elevate this to an honest and goodness bug. Let's treat it as a bug all the way through.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: I have my own little deviation for bugs. I don't use story form for bugs.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And the reason I don't is because I find them hard to do. But if you're able to do story form and it works, let's do it. So I think I'll... Keep what you said, but I'll add mine as well. This is what I do.
Quan Gan: This was weird because I couldn't reproduce it. I don't know how, yeah, any insights on how we can flesh it out?
Malachi Burke: No, but I do have an opinion, which is I heard Basim talking a fair bit about like how he's kind of squished that book about the multiple balls.
Quan Gan: Yeah, this was a while back. Yeah, and it was about like having more acknowledgments or something, but still, lo and behold, yesterday it popped up once and then I couldn't get it to show up again.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Once counts. As they say, go ahead.
Quan Gan: But it, I don't know if it's also related to something else because when it popped up initially, one of the ZTAggers. It didn't have Wi-Fi connected, or it was red, right above the signal bar indicating that it didn't get MQTT. So it wasn't synced up. And the rest that were synced up, somehow this phenomenon happened. And then once I tried to start a new game and I was able to relink that disconnected ZTAgger, this problem never happened again.
Malachi Burke: All of those things, or most of those things, I'd like to capture here in the observed and expected. Because even in the event where it was a disturbance in the force, it's good to note it down just in case it isn't a disturbance in the force.
Quan Gan: Right.
Malachi Burke: So it's very valuable. So pardon me, I'm going to ask you to repeat yourself. Actually, this might be better.
Quan Gan: Would you be able to… I can do it. Edit this particular issue?
Malachi Burke: Let's do it now. If you don't mind.
Quan Gan: Okay, then let me. Okay, what was the number on this?
Malachi Burke: This is issue number 10.
Quan Gan: 10. Okay. Edit. Okay, observe.
Malachi Burke: These are really good, by the way. For somebody who never put these together before, we've created something that, as you can see, we're not really having to change them that much to turn it into what I consider to be actionable items. Pardon the corporate speak.
Quan Gan: Wednesday Tagger was not. But... Okay. Okay. Okay. I saved.
Malachi Burke: Okay, great. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. you. It works for me, thank you.
Quan Gan: Grammatically incorrect. I was definitely tired last night.
Malachi Burke: Programmers, we have that famously good reputation for spelling, grammar, and communication. It's pretty clear what you're trying to say.
Quan Gan: Probably probably. Thank you.
Malachi Burke: Thank you. Oh, I get it. So I am going to edit this around. Oops, I always do that. I always click the wrong one. But again, you've captured enough clarity that I'm going to use this as a reference. I'll just leave that out there. And there's something I want to add to that. I want to say and not feel like it's running on Windows, but I'm not going to say that.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: That's sufficient. Again, superlatives and emotions, not the best, but it's better than nothing. Acceptance. I'm going to put this in notes, right? So observed in particular, because this is when you notice this, right?
Quan Gan: Yep.
Malachi Burke: With six users huddled together between players. Well, that's implied. You can't bounce the ball back to yourself, right?
Quan Gan: Yep.
Malachi Burke: It's getting stuck for more than a second. Is that correct?
Quan Gan: Yep.
Malachi Burke: Okay. And this... Arguably, could be considered a bug, but I'm going to categorize it as a feature because I think it's easier to act on it that way.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And this is an interesting note, so I'm going to keep this in here as well.
Quan Gan: Notes.
Malachi Burke: Go ahead.
Quan Gan: Yeah, if there is typically a place for me to make a speculation on what the problem might be.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. And that gives me an idea, too, and that is a place for it. So hold on a second. Let me make a note myself.
Quan Gan: Because that would also be a feature to make sure we have the backoff algorithm.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to call it a big conversation, but it's an important topic. Notes, status, questions. I have a little convention I follow for these things, and I haven't formalized it in our policy, so I think I will. Notes. Notes. Thank So I have a thing I follow because Jira is a little weak in the same area. Jira kind of wants you to put everything in the same block the way they do, the way GitHub does. And that I find to be an incorrect way of doing things because the first line is a constant, like we spoke of before. But your notes, you might find some new piece of interesting information that you want to add to these running notes. So you want to segregate them out and say, here's the thing that once we elect to do it, that requirement is not changing, but the status changed and we learned some things, right? So the convention where I have notes, which are pretty free form, and then there's status. And I think that's self-explanatory, right? Saying, okay, this part is working and this part isn't working, et cetera. I have questions. So things that like block you or slow you down because you need help with. Thank Thank Those tend to be questions. And then I have to-do items. I don't usually use it, but sometimes I'll put a to-do section in here to help organize myself.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: So I'm not optimistic that that's going to go over well with the team. Most teams I've introduced that to don't like the idea. So we'll see. We'll see. Okay.
Quan Gan: And also just a quick note. The reason why I'm making this observation about having the back off was when we were implementing the driver code, I think this was something that we kind of like hand waved over and say, okay, we'll get to it later. So they just made sure that it could transmit and could receive, but in aggregate, they probably didn't optimize to make sure that there's any kind of protocol on there.
Malachi Burke: And- That has been one area that I've been asking about, and everything I've heard corroborates what you just said. There's one piece of bad news and two pieces of good news. The one piece of bad news is you might be in an unusually complicated acknowledgement topology. It's only a maybe. I'm not sure that you are. But the good news is the guys are already kind of aware. They were calling it, I think you were calling it this too, the three-legged acknowledgement.
Quan Gan: Like a three-way handshake or something.
Malachi Burke: And the fact that you guys are even aware that that's needed is great. That's great. You're already kind of aware of that kind of problem. So that means we might just be in a tuning situation rather than inventing something new situation.
Quan Gan: Yeah. There's... Okay, a little bit more context here. Originally, we tried to keep everything on MQTT because it had the QoS level 2 feature, which is a receive exactly once feature. So passing the ball in that situation sounded perfect for it. However, in practice, I think it was either laggy or still unreliable. So we switched back over to ESP now. But by switching over, we're basically having to write that handshake, and the handshake might be part of where things might be broken.
Malachi Burke: Right. Well, it's starting to sound like you are in that complicated, acknowledging box, which we can solve, but that would explain some of the situation. So MQTT is a point-to-point protocol. So stop me if you've heard this joke before, but if you've got 24 nodes, that means you have 24 separate, distinct status messages that are going out.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Right.
Malachi Burke: Right. But the advantage to that is that you also have 24 distinct, separate acknowledgements coming back. And you don't get confused as to which acknowledgement is which.
Quan Gan: Right.
Malachi Burke: You do a broadcast, you've reduced your collision potential by so much that it's probably more reliable. Right. But now, how do you manage acknowledgement from 24 nodes to each other or back to one? A little bit tricky. But it's a problem I've thought a lot about at Machicom because we had a similar situation where... We were going to move off of a dedicated audio bus to RTP, and RTP is not bound to TCP. It's a UDP creature, and UDP is very similar to ESP now.
Quan Gan: They're very, very similar. Right, you just send it and forget it.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, and that works great for audio packets because if you lose one one-hundredth of a second of audio, the ear doesn't care that much. But in our situation, we have mission-critical audio, and so it's appropriate to put some effort into actually acknowledging it. Anyway, point being, if we do have this broadcast act problem, we're going to try to find a crude solution first and then a correct solution later because that is a hard one.
Quan Gan: Yeah, okay.
Malachi Burke: So good to know, and I'm glad that you mentioned it there because you are probably on.
Quan Gan: And this particular paradigm is actually what we've patented. Yeah, and it's the reason why we patented it is because if you look at the trend of video games trying to become more lifelike, especially with sports, you know, the mechanism of having a ball is the center of attention.
Malachi Burke: Right.
Quan Gan: And so when we have any of our other games that don't have a ball mechanism, the attention diffuses across different players. But if you have a single virtual ball mechanism that gets passed back and forth and it's highly reliable, then we have the foundation of something that could become a sport.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, I see it.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so that's why the reliability and the responsiveness of this thing is Something that we really have to tune and lock down.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. 100% agreed. The last time we touched on this, remember I told you about how I loved the game Street Fighter 2 growing up?
Quan Gan: Okay, yeah.
Malachi Burke: And then Mortal Kombat came out and other Street Fighters came out. But there was something about Street Fighter 2 that I liked better. And I'm like, why is it? This game is lower tech, and I'm not just being old school here. There's something about it. What is it about this game? And the reason that I liked it is because the sound, the haptic, it doesn't really have haptic, but the sound and the interaction was highly timed and highly interactive. It felt like you were kind of actually hitting something. Whereas Mortal Kombat, it's all very fluid and realistic, but there's not that tactile feel.
Quan Gan: Yeah, the beat to it.
Malachi Burke: Uh-huh.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Now, there's a lot of things that you kind of find out empirically what really works.
Malachi Burke: There's we're And And I've the who's not to to is going able And I can only imagine. In this environment, you know, I can only speculate, but you've had it out in the field. You've gotten a lot of feedback. Yeah. I want to technically talk a little bit about the broadcast thing, but we should keep it small because it's not really relevant to today's task. So I will just say, imagine a scenario where the way to do the broadcast act is you have one person doing the broadcast and they do the multicast, right? One message goes out, but what they have to do is they have to know who's listening. And then they have a list, a whole act list. Okay. And if somebody, after a certain amount of time, if there's somebody not marked off on that list, they got to send that whole message multicast again.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay. No, we actually do. Do something similar on the Zeus when we start a game now, which is, well, previously before adding this feature, when we press start game, there are some people that don't even have their game started. It's still stuck on the menu, which sucks.
Malachi Burke: Right.
Quan Gan: And I realized it's because they didn't have some kind of a connection or some kind of like an act. So we had a physical act. I'm like, raise your hand if it says get ready or raise your hand if it doesn't say get ready on your thing. And then I have to come back and restart that sequence. But now they have it in the Zeus where it sends this get ready signal, but it has to get an act from every single user. And there's a tick mark off of all of them.
Malachi Burke: Great.
Quan Gan: And then when you press, they all start.
Malachi Burke: That's awesome. And I imagine MQTT works really well for that.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Well, good. Well, it's a technical problem that... I'm eager to chew on, and I won't because it's not appropriate to chew on it right now.
Quan Gan: But we'll give it to you eventually. I mean, it's something I think only a person of your caliber can really chew on it correctly.
Malachi Burke: I appreciate that. It's, yeah, I will stop now because that rabbit hole just, that's a three-hour conversation. Awesome. We've spent an hour on it, and we were going to talk about something else after the hour. And we both have to wrap it up somewhat soon. So let's switch topics, if you will. The floor is yours, my friend.
Quan Gan: What did I say I needed to talk about?
Malachi Burke: You wanted to talk about a future feature, I think?
Quan Gan: Well, we were going to talk about, I guess, how some of these pertain to other games, or how... We approached the refactor.
Malachi Burke: Is that what you're talking about? Oh boy, I don't remember either. My brain is kind of getting mushy too, got to be honest. We were talking about the refactor.
Quan Gan: Well, the main thing is just, it's not just reducing line count for the sake of reducing line count, because there's a lot of ways you can bastardize that. But it is reducing the line count so that the code becomes very reusable and generic for at least these two other modalities of play that we have.
Malachi Burke: Reasonable. So I agree with that. And the main reason to be, I think the word is parsimonious about it. The main reason to kind of break it up is so that we programmers don't step on each other's toes. And also, regressions happen. They happen. So if we break it out, we'll be able to more readily identify. By when, where the regression happened.
Quan Gan: Right. Okay. Yeah. So it's not buried so deep.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. But the overall goal of getting the code to a cleaner state, absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Here's some good news.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Some good news is I did a memory interrogation. That's one of the commands, is I can interrogate how much memory is free on the system in real time.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: And actually real time is an abused term in this space. So let me not use that term interactively. That's the word I'm going to use. And we don't have a ton left, but we have enough left to not be uncomfortable.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. And if I, if I knew the previous code, I think a lot of the memory was actually sucked up by the various graphics we had to employ.
Malachi Burke: Probably so. Probably so. Which is, you know, to call a spade a spade where you want the memory used, really. Okay. The game logic shouldn't take up that much. One more time?
Quan Gan: Because the game logic itself shouldn't actually take up that much.
Malachi Burke: Agreed. And now we run into the problem with the word should, right? You're absolutely right. And as we've already discussed, your program is very freewheeling with its dynamic allocation. And that only – mean, first of all, it's not a great practice, but it only really becomes dangerous when you're starting to run low on memory because that's when the fragmentation really becomes an issue. But you're not dangerously close to that. So we can just call it debt for the time being.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: I was actually kind of surprised. I was expecting we'd have less RAM than we did. So, you know, your team and AI did something right.
Quan Gan: Well, you know, I was pleasantly surprised that we expanded from one game to three to four and now we have eight.
Malachi Burke: you know, we're lot that
Quan Gan: It's still fitting on the same device, so.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, yeah. Well, you have a ton of flash out there. got that 16 megabyte flash, so you're good there.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Right?
Quan Gan: Yep.
Malachi Burke: I wish I could remember what – I hate interrupting people, but, you know, I'm like – we have an agenda, so you know how it is.
Quan Gan: Well, no, I think if this – okay, well, the refactor, I think that probably would benefit – it would greatly benefit the team if you're able to kind of spend a little bit of time on the current keep-away game or the ballgame.cpp and then see what are the major points that you can instruct them to do.
Malachi Burke: Okay. I don't see a problem with that. I'm taking a note. And that actually meshes well with what we already had planned, which was to talk about game transition states.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay.
Malachi Burke: So that really flows very smoothly. And you know what? Unless something has changed, I'm still expecting we'll see each other on Wednesday. That'll probably be ideal. We could even pull out a piece of paper and start drawing diagrams, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah, I expected to meet you on Wednesday. Oh, I do remember the piece that I had on refactoring. So what I did was I took the current code-based implementation and compared it to the original specification and basically just asked, where did we go wrong? Did the spec not, did we not write the spec clearly enough or is the code not high fidelity to the spec? And the response was, it was. It of a combination of both, where the spec wasn't so detailed in terms of exactly how some of the gluing pieces need to come together. And then there was kind of like a runaway on the development on the game-specific logic. So in order to refactor, they recommend having almost like another layer between, or at least a more concrete implementation of the abstract game class, to have a lot of these functional blocks to pull that out of the game itself.
Malachi Burke: It sounds like good advice. It's indeterminate to me what the perfect architecture for your games will be at this time, but the abstract game conversation fits. Neatly alongside our valid state transition conversation.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: They're friends.
Quan Gan: So would it be fair to say that, or hopefully you've resolved the IR bug, or at least in the next couple of days, that once you do the merge, then you have bandwidth to chew on this next block?
Malachi Burke: Yeah, that's fair.
Quan Gan: Okay. That's fair. And then, you know, like what I'm sharing right now is just a very quick and low-fidelity summary of what the AI has to fit back out to me. I wonder, is that information useful to you, or would you want to have an independent take and then compare it, or just throw it away entirely?
Malachi Burke: Oh, good question. Being that my preference is the topic, my preference is to... wonder... See you on Wednesday, get to know, get to feel what the game requirements are together, and then immediately see what AI had to say about it.
Quan Gan: Okay. All right, that's fair.
Malachi Burke: Because I am open to the improvements that AI can bring to the process. I have to be as a professional, and I am.
Quan Gan: Okay. No, I'm very – no, I love the fact that you're open to it. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: If there's one thing – I mean, just on a personal note, I frigging hate closed-minded people. Hate it. Hate trying to have a conversation with somebody like, nope, sky is purple, can't convince me of otherwise. I'm like, look, maybe the sky is purple, but why don't we see if it's really purple? And you know what? You know my bias, but AI – It's here to stay. And I'd be an idiot to not at least know about it. Right. Yeah. And thank you. And same goes to you. Thank you for being open to me as I have a resistance to it. And I know that's a buzzkill. It's a straight up buzzkill is what that is. So I appreciate that that doesn't upset you.
Quan Gan: That's the creative tension. So I understand it.
Malachi Burke: Good.
Quan Gan: And again, I treat you very similar to my patent agent friend who's got a ton of experience, very high output, and the AI is actually able to amplify that output.
Malachi Burke: Good. That's good. I mean, AI is a very good aggregator. It's very good at it. It's how it was born, right, as being an aggregator. where it came from. I remember in like 2008, Google was talking about, look, this is what we're doing to upgrade our search engine where the words kind of connect together in this grammatically. The accurate way to form an approximate idea so that your searches go better.
Quan Gan: I remember all those diagrams and everything. your database. Uh-huh.
Malachi Burke: Uh-huh. I'm like, it seems like a good idea to me. Anyway, yeah, thank you for just being flexible.
Quan Gan: Of course. All right. Anything else today?
Malachi Burke: Let me have a look at the state of the GitHub issues because if the guys glance at it, I don't want them to be baffled. I don't think they will be, but I just want to double check.
Quan Gan: Have we arranged it in the priority yet in which we want them to start chipping away?
Malachi Burke: We have not. And up until this meeting, it wasn't even, we weren't even sure if we could. But fortunately, that backlog feature, yeah, we are able to do that. Okay, so we only didn't get to number 12.
Quan Gan: So we don't. They did pretty good.
Malachi Burke: I would actually make an announcement to the team, but the default state is they kind of don't touch these issues anyway, so I don't think they need some kind of announcement just yet, unless you feel they should.
Quan Gan: Well, I think based on what conversation we had today with them, they're expecting some kind of directive from you tomorrow, or at least from us that comes through you.
Malachi Burke: Okay.
Quan Gan: So how would you present it? Okay.
Malachi Burke: I'm sorry. Go ahead.
Quan Gan: No, just, yeah, how would you present something so that they have from tomorrow to Thursday to work on and give us progress on?
Malachi Burke: Very good question. Fortunately, we have done some of the work needed to give them what they need. So to answer that question, I'm going to look at what's in front of me now. now. Okay. Which is the list of issues we made. And we're going to pick some particularly interesting ones. And we will be judicious about it to make sure that they're ones that don't overlap with each other. That's the key here. So the inconsistent speed would be interesting, but I think that'll shake out with some of the other stuff that is not on this list yet. And the multiple people having the ball, you said, may not even be an issue anymore. Maybe.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it's... Yeah, I only found it once.
Malachi Burke: It seems to me that some eyes on that might be interesting. That's kind of up to you if you think it's... You know, I don't know how to judge how important that is for you.
Quan Gan: I would de-escalate it until it comes back up again. And maybe when they're shifting other things around, this thing just goes away.
Malachi Burke: I don't know. Yeah.
Quan Gan: But the catch the train, to me, that seems to be a higher priority because there are ones starting up that's not working. And also the IR, but I guess that's more on your side.
Malachi Burke: That's more on me.
Quan Gan: Right. Because once those are done, then I can give this game a thorough test because I have the current products to be playing around with. And then I'm sure I can dig up some new bugs.
Malachi Burke: Then I think the catch the train would be enough for somebody to really actually chew on. That's what it sounds like. So number nine. And because we're still fleshing all this out, the refactor didn't make its way onto this list yet. But I think that would be something. I'm picturing like Sean would be working on the... ... ... ... Catch the Train, and Basim would be doing some of the simple refactoring. How does that sound?
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Although technically, if we want to do it Scrum style, they would decide who does what, technically. How does that strike you? I'm not sure if they're... Proactive?
Quan Gan: I think we need to tell them at this point.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Okay, let me make some notes here. And what I'll do, if it's okay with you, is I will say, I suggest, Sean, you work on this, and Basim, you work on this. And if you two want to coordinate and change around who does what, that's up to you. How does that sound?
Quan Gan: Okay, yeah.
Malachi Burke: Okay. And I'll, of course, be doing, as we discussed, the back merge so that we can do a PR on IR code. That won't take super long. And then I'll begin chewing on the keep away ballgame to get more of a feel of it. And I'll probably be making some more policy behind the scenes. And probably all those things will be enough to keep me busy until we see each other on Wednesday.
Quan Gan: The back merge, does that fix the compatibility issue?
Malachi Burke: It is a necessary step in this case to fix the merge conflict. Is that what you mean by compatibility?
Quan Gan: I'm talking about the backward compatibility with the existing production ZTAggers.
Malachi Burke: No, no. No, the back merge is to pull dev back into my. IIR branch, so it goes the reverse direction because...
Quan Gan: Then I think after you're able to do the merge or the back merge, the next step for that is to get the IR signal back up to the full spec, which was, you know, from the legacy code and make it backward compatible.
Malachi Burke: I see. I see. Okay, so we need to make another issue for that one as well.
Quan Gan: Do you want me to do it?
Malachi Burke: Yes, please.
Quan Gan: I can do it myself, and then when I'm done, I'll let you know.
Malachi Burke: Yes, please. Yes, please. Yeah, so my process will be that back merge to maintain compatibility with the dev branch, and it's limited in scope to that. And then I'll be doing a PR, and I'm just going through all the technical process here. I don't think we need to go through all that. You get the... Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. And at what point would we actually show the team, the Kanban that came out of this?
Malachi Burke: You're asking all the good questions. The inadequate answer is soon. But what does that mean? What that means is that more sessions like this one are needed for us to continue to flesh out the backlog more. And then subsequently, we'll have a Kanban to show them. But that's not necessary for them to get started right now.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: But to answer the question, let's say if we can have another meeting like this this week, maybe Thursday, we'd have to look at our calendars. Then I would say by Friday, the beginnings of that Kanban, I think, would be reasonable.
Quan Gan: Got it. Yeah. Given that, oh, you still have a screenshot, by the way, if you want me to see your calendar.
Malachi Burke: Oh, okay. Well, it's time to stop it anyway, so I'll stop it.
Quan Gan: And so, given that, then I will think about more things that I can load up into the issues list, even if it's not, you know, currently, I mean, it might just become a feature or something, but yeah, more things to dump on there.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Yeah. Please do. Really, it's kind of the more the merrier in there. You know, worst case scenario, they get chucked to the bottom of the parking lot, right?
Quan Gan: That's the worst case scenario. Right. Okay. Are you opposed to it feeling a little bit more AI generated if I take current examples, say I want this format, and then I just speak into the computer and have it generate these tickets for me and I paste them in?
Malachi Burke: A little bit, and maybe we can meet in the middle on that. Um... ... So when I – I've said this before. I'm not going to tell the whole story. Proofread them.
Quan Gan: Yeah, okay. I'll make sure I do that.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, proofread them. If they conform to what you saw us doing today, that'll do for now. I strongly prefer a human being involved, but we're a little bit under the gun to give the team something. So I think at the moment I should be flexible.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, I'm not going to be like blindly just, you know, having AI autopiloted, but it'll at least get me more into the mode of, you know, this proper format.
Malachi Burke: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Yeah, good questions, man.
Quan Gan: All right. Well, I'll work on that a few hours later, and I'll let you know.
Malachi Burke: Thank you. Yeah. Hit me up, and we'll review it, and we'll get this all scrubbed. Okay. Sounds good. I'll see you right, dude. Have a great day. Good session. Take care.
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Teroa Paselio: Doing well. This meeting is being recorded.
Kristin Neal: Really good, really good. So my dad is actually in the hospital. I'm not partying. Trying to find a quiet corner.
Teroa Paselio: Kind of cut out there, so we couldn't pick up what you said.
Kristin Neal: Oh, sorry. Just that my dad is in the hospital. He's doing well though, so you'll have to forgive me trying to connect through here. But I found a quiet corner. So, so nice to meet you, Teroa.
Teroa Paselio: Is that how we pronounce it, Teroa? Yes, Teroa.
Kristin Neal: Nice to meet you too.
Teroa Paselio: Hi, Quan.
Quan Gan: Hi there.
Teroa Paselio: Have we met before? I think we did a meeting with Troy, and you were on.
Quan Gan: Oh, that's why. Yeah, that's why you do look familiar.
Teroa Paselio: Good to see you.
Quan Gan: And hi, Peter.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: Hey, how are you?
Quan Gan: Doing good.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: How are you? I'm doing well. I'm just wanting to name it. I am going to have to jump a little bit. Earlier. Yeah, I can be here for the first like 15-20 minutes, then I gotta jump. We're actually doing a retreat up in Sacramento, so I got everyone over in the other room. on lunch break, so I just want to make sure can jump in before I have to get back.
Quan Gan: Yeah, well, thanks for being here and helping us with the handoff.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: Of course.
Teroa Paselio: It's nice to see you, Peter.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: Hi, Peter. It's good to see you as well. Fun fact, Taroa is, so prior to me coming to Cannes, I worked at ARC, and Taroa is one of my site coordinators who I manage. So, Taroa and I are like this.
Kristin Neal: Awesome.
Teroa Paselio: Okay.
Quan Gan: So your relationship goes way back, even though you switched jerseys.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: Yes, yes, exactly.
Teroa Paselio: That's a good way of putting it, I like that.
Kristin Neal: Well, Peter's still gonna take part in the Chula Vista site activation too, from what I understand.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: Yes, I will be there, yeah.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, yeah. Exciting. Very cool. Okay, Phil.
Teroa Paselio: No, I'm kidding. All right.
Kristin Neal: can you start us off? Yeah, tell us what you got going and how we can jump in and take time.
Teroa Paselio: I just dropped, hopefully it works, kind of the schedule. Oh, that looks so tiny, I apologize.
Quan Gan: I just dropped the schedule. Red, download it and open it.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: Yeah.
Teroa Paselio: Hopefully it works.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: It comes up here when you zoom in, too. Okay, okay.
Teroa Paselio: Okay, good. First off, ZTAG, how unique, never heard of that until Troy introduced it. Or it brought you into kind of this mix. And I immediately was like, we have to get them at play day. So, super excited that we get to connect. And essentially, kind of how it's structured and how I, Peter actually did this last year and I got the baton and got to like, kind of help lead it this year. Um, is. one. We kind of set up some rotations and would love for ZTAG to be one of those rotation stations, kind of, you know, educating our students and staff about what ZTAG is, and then ultimately maybe getting to play with our students and do ZTAG. And I wanted to kind of connect and see what kind of the needs and what that would look like for y'all, and Peter, me if I'm wrong in anything that I say. But the availability would kind of be kind of like a four and a half, five hour thing. You'd come in around 1115 for setup, and then we'll have about 100. Right now we have 122 students. And then Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that are signed up for summer, and kind of that's where, that's the ground where we're at, that's kind of like the foundation, so yeah. Awesome.
Quan Gan: Okay, but would it be okay for me to just make a quick intro on our end, and then maybe give you some feedback on that?
Teroa Paselio: Yes, please.
Quan Gan: Okay, cool. So, I'm Quan, I'm the founder, and I'm also behind a lot of the technology. I've also been hosting ZTAG since the beginning, you know, so I've encountered probably tens of thousands of kids over the years. And Kristin, she's our director of partner relations, so like this exact thing, this is her jam. She's all about how do we support, you know, our actual users of ZTAG and trying to get this out there as much as possible to engage in face-to-face play. And so like, where we kind of divvy up our task is like, anything maybe more logistical, in terms of how the game format runs, that would be on my side. And anything that's more like, as a partner, how do we continue this relationship and nurture it even further? That's on her side.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: Perfect. So just wanted to add just, you know, one or two more, like, kind of contextual pieces. So one of the things that we were looking at this year is just trying to provide a space for, like Teroa was talking about, kind of having the ability for staff to be present with students in these spaces as they're going through rotations. And I think Chris, I had kind of mentioned that to you, how we're going to kind of use it as like a, it's going to double as staff are going to get their eyes on it, get their hands on it, be able to like, kind of get a, not an in-depth training necessarily, but at least get a feel for But it is so that then, while the kids are the ones really benefiting from the play and the activity time, so I think that as you, Quan, are kind of thinking about structure and laying it out, don't necessarily cater to the staff, like cater to the kids, but in a way that the staff will be able to follow along with kind of what's going on and understanding kind of the functionality and the stuff of it. But in those 30, because I think each station we have, we have it set up towards 30 minutes. With, but we have scheduled in transitions, we have scheduled in, so hopefully it is physically a 30 minute, like everyone is there and ready to go for 30 minutes, and then at the 30 minute mark you can release them because there is a transition planned into it. It's not like where you see the schedule and the to minutes. 30 minutes back to back, and it's like actually you're getting like 20 minutes because there's no transitions built in and other things. So hopefully it's a true 30 minutes that you're getting with each group. And then we're looking at five rotations, kind of under the assumption that of the 120 students that are enrolled, we'll probably get closer to, you know, around 100 of those present on the day throughout the duration of the time. So, and then, you know, as we, if there are more, then obviously each group would have an additional five to seven students or whatever the math would break down to. So just kind of putting that in your framework, it'll be 20 to 25 probably max.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Peter, can I, since you were in the previous meeting with Troy, with Sacramento, because we just had kind of like the same meeting with Sacramento. Are we dividing it with another? Are
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: No, you would be solely, like that 30 minutes is solely to you all. With Zach, we're working on adjusting some things.
Kristin Neal: Oh, okay.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: You'll see an email from me later today with schedule and everything broken down.
Kristin Neal: If you can share that also with Quan, that would be cool.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: Yeah, I'll include Quan on that email as well.
Quan Gan: Thank you. Okay, so I have a point of clarity, and I think you already spoke to this. So if we are a station one of five, and there's, let's say, 100 to 150 kids. So you're saying at any given time, about 30 minutes, I have about 20 to 30 kids?
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and you will get a touch point with all students that are present during the day. We will have them in their groups. The Teroa has them broken up into their groups that they're in on regular day. And so she'll just assign them, group one will be here to start, and then we'll rotate them around.
Quan Gan: So it's not a single group of 150.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: All at once.
Quan Gan: No, no, no, no. In smaller groups, okay. Yes. And this is important contextually because a single system caters up to 24 players all at once. If we exceed that number, I can and could provide a second system that could link up to 48 players, but it's just a logistical consideration we have to make when we go over those numbers.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: My guess is 24 is going to be okay.
Teroa Paselio: Teroa, I will let you validate.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: Yeah.
Teroa Paselio: Right now, our largest group is 21, and so it doesn't exceed over 21, so we'll be good group-wise, and they'll be, yeah, we'll be good group-wise with that.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, and that logistically helps out a lot because when you're under the 24 number, it's a lot lighter weight in order to manage the kids because you have to put these devices on their wrists. So if you have 48, then typically that requires some additional staffing helping me..quartered. Thank That's actually what takes most of the time compared to the game. It's physically getting these on and getting them off. The actual game starts up instantly.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: Okay. Yeah, and you'll have...
Teroa Paselio: With each group, we have two kind of program staff. So you'll have two program staff to 20 students to kind of help out with, you know, those types of things.
Quan Gan: Okay. That is perfect. And also, I just wanted to respond that the system is designed... By design basically shows both the students or the players and the operators how to run it. Because it is so simple that essentially if you know how to operate an iPad, you should be able to operate this. So just by observing us and maybe helping hand out a few taggers or so, they're pretty much by default getting the education they need.
Teroa Paselio: Wow.
Quan Gan: Yeah. And we also... We also deploy the... Um... The different games in an order of sequence that is both suitable for the players to learn in a scaffolded way, but also for the operator to learn in a scaffolded way. So it's pretty much like we try to minimize the amount of cognitive load for anyone to understand this new play form.
Teroa Paselio: Awesome.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: Yeah, I think that's perfect. And that's what kind of, I have some familiarity with you all and with everything. So that was sort of my logic and my thought process as well. And then like our hope is, so we're going to have, I know Arc is going to be bringing a bunch of the site, their site coordinators, like from throughout the area for training in the morning. I'm pushing to get those 26 to be there all day so that they can get eyes on it as well. So on top of Teroa's staff being there and like her team being intimately like aware of how it works. guys. So... Hang And, you know, I want to get more eyes on it, if possible.
Kristin Neal: Thanks, Peter.
Quan Gan: Thank you. Yeah, and okay, so a few more logistical questions for a day of. What is the setting? Is it an indoor setting, outdoor setting? Where are we going to be operating?
Teroa Paselio: It'll be an outdoor setting. We have a huge space, kind of like a turf field right next to a basketball court, so it's just a huge open space. And then the layout. I don't have the map ready yet. I can send that to both of you by 350 today. But it's essentially, you know, you'll be set up with, not wattage, what it was, a plug-in, electricity, a table, a canopy, and then, I'm not sure of how much space you need. We have a lot
Quan Gan: All of that, this is great. It's a great baseline. I will also share with you, we have some of these resources ourselves, especially now. You may have been on the call when I said we have a Cybertruck now.
Teroa Paselio: ZTAG Cybertruck. wrapped? Yeah.
Quan Gan: It's not yet wrapped, it'll at least have the logo. But if it is outdoors, it might be really awesome for us to park it there and actually operate it out of the truck. We have our own canopy. It's all branded. We can put our own tables. Basically, if I could bring the truck and just put it on the field, I don't know if you'll allow to drive one. That actually makes everything pretty much turnkey. And the only thing we really need beyond that is about a 40, let's say, maybe 50 feet section.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: There's plenty of space.
Quan Gan: Yeah, maybe a larger, but we also have our own field flags and cones. But the field flags, they are staked in, so I don't know if you all know. I was to like, put a flag in to the ground. If not, I'll have to find like maybe a weight sandbag or something as an option.
Teroa Paselio: We don't, we were not allowed to do drive stakes into the turf field, or have automobiles on the turf, however, our blacktop has this like strip that goes around the turf, and I am 5000% sure that you could park the truck there, right next to the turf and then utilize, you know, it's a whole field, so.
Quan Gan: Perfect. And yeah, if you have like a satellite map of what that looks like, then we'll have a pretty good understanding of how to load in. And because if it's all contained in the truck, you know, setup is probably like, you know, like 10-15 minutes tops.
Teroa Paselio: That's awesome.
Kristin Neal: That's awesome. We'll still need a plug, right Quan?
Quan Gan: Well, actually no, the truck has plenty of power too. So, it's all self-contained now. Whereas before, I have to bring my own battery, I have to lug I gave... With, you know, carts and stuff, but if we can just park the truck in the nearest location that's right next to the play space, it makes things super easy.
Kristin Neal: Nice.
Teroa Paselio: So Teroa, no plug, no table. No plug, no table. We'll have them there just in case, but I'll confirm with, what do you want call it?
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: Admin.
Teroa Paselio: Yeah, thank you. I got you. I'll confirm with Admin, but we've had, like, rock wall trucks pull in, we've had, like, a bunch of stuff pull in automobiles, so I don't think it will be a problem at all. Okay.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: Yeah. Quan, I'm going to actually drop a satellite view in the chat.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: Because I just took a picture of it right now, so give me one second, and then you can take a look at that.
Kristin Neal: Is it a junior high or an elementary school?
Teroa Paselio: Both. Both. We go from TK to 8th.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Thank
Teroa Paselio: Nessled in a little neighborhood.
Kristin Neal: That's awesome.
Quan Gan: okay. Alright, so let's see the field. Okay, so basically you were saying the truck can pull up to the blacktop. So we're basically adjacent, or we'll have to cross over the three or four lanes of track and field, right, to get into the field?
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: It's three lanes.
Quan Gan: Three lanes, awesome.
Teroa Paselio: Yeah, so you'd bring the truck in through this basketball area, and then up to that blue tent in the back there. And you'd be able to park it there, and then that whole field, that's... And there's more field past that, so...
Quan Gan: Okay. Will there be people running on the track, like through that section that say if I have to... Okay. Because I'm just wondering if I do bring a power cord, can I run it across the track? Yes. Or the other option... Because I have a battery that comes with me onto the grass area.
Teroa Paselio: Yeah, that's totally fine.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: Okay. Yeah, you'd be able to run a court across the track, no problem.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I just don't want to trip anybody that's going to be walking or running across there.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: No, as of right now, we're looking at, like, our other stations that we're looking at potentially having, we'd have one on the basketball court, potentially another one on the field, like, way over on the other side of the field. Um, and then one is going to be, uh, on the blacktop probably as, like, a dance or a freeze dance or, or some sort of, uh, within that realm. Um, so we, we're going to be totally fine, so there, there'll be plenty of space. Okay. And no one will be actively using the track.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Would it be okay if we played music, or do you guys have music already?
Teroa Paselio: We, we are going to be playing music, but if you want to play music too, we can do that.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: It's a big space. Y'all can play your own music. If and then there could be music in other spaces, it's not going to conflict.
Teroa Paselio: Yeah, that be cool.
Quan Gan: I could remotely start. Let me try that. I'm going to test that at home and make sure it works.
Kristin Neal: Yes, yes.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: What else? In interest of time and me needing to jump, I just want to make sure, are there any other details that anyone needs from me before I jump off? Teroa, trust you to do the rest of the planning and do all the things. I just wanted to make sure I jumped in and was able to support.
Teroa Paselio: Thank you. I think we're good.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: All right, cool. Well, I will let you all... I'll leave you all to it. But I look forward to... Quan, you'll be in SAC this weekend?
Quan Gan: Yes. Cool.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: So I will see you. I will see you this weekend. Okay, wonderful.
Quan Gan: And then... We're going to take the truck up there.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: Perfect. Well, I will see you in the truck this weekend and then Teroa...
Quan Gan: I'll see. I'll talk to you next week for sure. Okay? It'll actually be me and my family. So I got two kids, so we're all gonna be participating.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: Awesome.
Quan Gan: Looking forward to it. Yep. All right.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: See you later.
Teroa Paselio: Thank you.
Peter Alton - CAN - San Diego: Bye y Thanks, Peter.
Kristin Neal: All right.
Teroa Paselio: You guys need any other kind of logistical things from me? In any way?
Quan Gan: I think I'm good. I mean, running wise, I mean, we've done so many events that this is pretty tough. So it's just really coordinating what are the assets on site. Now that we understand, I think I'm good to go. Chris, what about you?
Kristin Neal: Well, Teroa, one of the things that was really cool last year, because we did Play Day last year up in the Northern California area. And one of the things I remember the feedback was, at the very end, you're kind of like getting all the kids, the parents, you know, things like that. They're all kind of mixed in together. And one of the things that they wanted at the time over for this year, was having like a final, you know, all parents, teachers, kids, whoever wants to play to come in, so just kind of, if you want to keep that in the back of your mind, if you do want like a big event afterwards, ZTAG really is good with that, because we can offer that to parents that maybe aren't as physical, or, you know, that might not want to, you know, play, they think play is running, but we have games where they're playing, but they're not running, so just to give you that kind of understanding, what we can do, and I can also send you, I don't know if this would help you, our welcome letter, that is kind of like a, training videos, and things like that, I don't know if that would, I'd love that. Okay, perfect, so you'll kind of at least understand the, what ZTAG brings, so.
Teroa Paselio: That's awesome, I would love that.
Kristin Neal: Okay, I'll get right on that.
Teroa Paselio: Thank you so much, I'm so excited for these kids, these staff, I'm excited for everybody, I'm excited to see the truck, goodness, like, This is gonna be great. So I really do appreciate your guys's involvement, and I hope to have ZTAG around.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, right.
Teroa Paselio: Too bad we can't leave it.
Kristin Neal: I know.
Teroa Paselio: Just like sneak away. Right. If anything else, I'll kind of do a follow-up email with kind of the information that we connected about. I'll send another map as well that kind of details where things are and gates are and entrances and exits and stuff like that.
Kristin Neal: So we'll be able to have that information. Awesome. You'll get a recording of this meeting.
Teroa Paselio: So I forgot to ask you if that was okay, but I hope that you saw.
Kristin Neal: That's Okay. I saw. It'll be sent to you, so.
Teroa Paselio: I appreciate you guys. you. Thank you for connecting, and I'll see you soon. All right.
Kristin Neal: Have a good one. Thanks. Bye Have a good one. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.-bye.
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Kristin Neal: Hey, Quan. This is me.
Megan Grace Li: Quan.
Quan Gan: Thank you.
Kristin Neal: It looks like we got more of your team coming on, Megan.
Megan Grace Li: Okay, perfect.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Megan Grace Li: Thank you for standing up the meeting.
Kristin Neal: Oh, yeah, of course. I'm so sorry it took so long.
Megan Grace Li: I'm so sorry. Oh, no, no, absolutely not.
Kristin Neal: Take all the time you need.
Megan Grace Li: Thanks. We're not at a time limit, and I know you've been going through it. I hope things are going better.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, yeah. For the whole team, we're grateful.
Megan Grace Li: That's great. Hi, Cat.
Kristin Neal: Hi, there.
Cat Banach: Whoa. Nice to meet you. Oh, nice to meet you, too. Just a fair morning. My computer's been really slow, so I might have to take off my video, but I'm going to try and get through it with video. So, nice to meet you, though.
Kristin Neal: Nice to meet you. No worries. We totally understand. And here comes Natalie. Hi there, Natalie. Natalie. you. Awesome. Well, go ahead and get started. And we do have Wesley on the chat while he's in the airport. So he's just going to kind of check in and I'll watch the chat.
Megan Grace Li: So how about we go around and introduce ourselves? Would that be okay? Megan, can we start with you? Sure. Well, I'm Megan. I'm president of Exploring Your Universe. are LA County and UCLA's largest science fair. This is kind of my second job. I'm a third year PhD student at UCLA studying planetary science. And I'm really excited for EYU this year. Would love for ZTAG to somehow collaborate with us. I'll popcorn to Charlie.
Charlie Xu: Hi, everyone. I'm Charlie. work with ZTAG. So I'm in charge of marketing department. ZTAG. G.L.A Did you pick someone? You won.
Quan Gan: Oh, OK.
Kristin Neal: I didn't hear it.
Quan Gan: It was a...
Kristin Neal: OK.
Quan Gan: Hi, everybody. I'm Quan. I'm the nerd behind ZTAG, the founder and the technologist. I've been working on this for close to 10 years. It's a personal mission of mine because both Charlie and I, our backgrounds are in themed entertainment. So prior to ZTAG, we created technologies and still do in a different company for all the theme parks. So we have products that are in the Disney's and the Universals. And as we became parents, it became very apparent to us where our next generation is headed into a Ready Player One matrix-like society if we don't help it. So we wanted to apply the learnings that we had from experiential entertainment and theme parks and somehow pivot it into focusing on our next generation. And so within the past three or four years, we actually discovered the after school market. And we pivoted to projects to be specifically education focused. focused. Because that's where we feel like we can make the most impact, especially at early age, to bring kids back together face-to-face, especially after COVID. So that's the mission that we're standing on, and I think it's going to go really far, especially for this generation. Okay, I'll popcorn Natalie.
Natalie Lam: Hi. I'm Natalie. I am EYU's event coordinator, so I'll be in charge of finding venue locations that would best fit our purposes. I am also a second-year astrophysics PhD student. So yeah, I'll popcorn to Cat.
Cat Banach: Hi, I'm Cat. I'm a fifth-year PhD student in the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Department at UCLA, and I'm finance chair for EYU. So yeah, my goal is to... Kind of get us in a good position and try and grow EYU. It's been really successful, but we're in really uncertain times right now in terms of funding. So, yeah, my goal is to kind of extend where we normally go to other avenues. So, yeah, I'm excited to be here.
Kristin Neal: I'll take that last slide. Wesley, do you have anything you'd like to share that I can share on your behalf? It sounds like Wesley is going to UCLA as an undergrad electrical and computer engineering major and joined EYU to help grow the science community. Very cool, Wesley. Thank you so much. My name is Chris, Kristin, but you're welcome to call me Chris. And I've been with ZTAG over a year now, and I've loved every second with connecting kids with other kids and kids with their educators. ZTAG is a... It's whole new way of learning, it's a whole new way of connecting, so we're really grateful to have this device, and I like to call it the fruit of the spirit. It brings all those good things, so we're excited to partner and find out where exactly this new direction can. I'm excited to hear you say that. I'm intrigued, so I would love to just pass that on to you and share with us what exactly you're seeing ZTAG and how we can maybe accomplish that for you. So as far as EYU, how can ZTAG?
Megan Grace Li: Sorry, I got you. The board has just formed and we're sort of like, we haven't even had a group meeting yet. I just wanted to start looping everybody in so that they're not confused when they start seeing this. But basically, in previous years, okay, so EYU as a total cost $60,000. $40,000 of this used to come from funds that are no longer available at UCLA. So I'm thinking this year we have a lot more businesses. Yes. ... ... It's sort of like pitching just a few hundred dollars, maybe a few thousand dollars here and there, and our booths will be more business-related and more of like an advertising thing. So my idea for ZTAG would be that people could demo the VR headsets. I don't know how many we could demo at a time. We would need some space for the kids to walk around and we could just run some game. I know this zombie game was very popular. People really like something with zombies, but I'm assuming the kids do need some space to walk around. So I will show you what the map looks like. So we are very student-run. We are completely run by graduate students. And so this comes with its shares of positives and negatives. One of those negatives is that we really lack professional photography of the event and I don't really have pictures of what happens here. But we basically have over 12,000 visitors every year. These are mostly families and schools, educators, administrators from the LA area. We do specifically. We typically invite Title I schools, these are not the people that I would think are the ZTAG primary audience, they don't have the funds to buy ZTAG for their schools, but we do have, we invite the rest of the LAUSD, people come from as far as Riverside and Orange County to come see this, and that is like a lot of school teachers bringing their entire classes of kids. This is a map of what EYU looks like, so each one of these small boxes is a booth, we have some indoor booths and some outdoor booths, so everything attached to a building is an indoor booth. These people get an entire classroom. I think a classroom would be a good location for ZTAG, except that it has limited visibility as compared to the outside places. So these outdoor booths, you have some open space, it's like 20 feet by 10 feet, you get a tent. But this is where Natalie would come in and making sure that the kids are allowed to walk around that outside area. Please feel free to stop me, I'm spewing a lot of information. Every year we have something like... So each one of these lines is a different science demonstration that happened at EYU. It's a huge thing. It's over 500 volunteers. And then on the right side, we have speaker sessions.
Cat Banach: Yeah, go ahead. No, no, go ahead.
Megan Grace Li: No, no, no, go ahead. I don't I'm going to guess what you're going to say about the boots, but they're mostly run by student orgs and different lab groups around campus. This is another way that I think ZTAG could work is a lot of the boots are run by other smaller service organizations. that maybe have kids more year round. And I think ZTAG could be a really good opportunity for them. Like they could introduce ZTAG to the kids that they normally volunteer with. So, for example, FIRO is a sorority that is a service STEM sorority that the rest of the year, their goal is to do philanthropy events with other local children. And I think ZTAG could really help them. They're undergrads. They can't really teach, but they could definitely implement ZTAG into some of their smaller events. And Kat, what were you going to say?
Cat Banach: Oh. Oh. You got it. It was basically that a lot of this is student-run graduate students, but also undergrads. So it is pretty great to see so many people collaborate and, yeah, demonstrate science to kids.
Kristin Neal: Okay, so just to clarify, Megan, you guys are inviting schools specifically? Yes.
Megan Grace Li: It's more of just like an invite to the entire community. Yeah, so it's definitely an invite to the entire community, first and foremost. We get most of our foot traffic off of Eventbrite and word of mouth. So year after year, parents and children continue to come back. of have been coming for 10 years now. But invites only are for specifically Title I schools. First and foremost, this is an event to bring science and STEM to people who otherwise wouldn't have access to science. So every year we invite some number of Title I schools. Last year we invited five. All Thank Title I schools, this year I would like to invite six Title I schools. These schools get free buses, free lunch, they get a campus tour, but we also have many schools on our general email list that do show up, but they have to pay for their own buses. So those schools that I have fewer statistics on, because again, there's nobody like doing statistics, we're relatively grassroots, anecdotally I have seen them, they're there, they coordinate their own buses, and those are the people that I think I would want ZTAG to focus on.
Kristin Neal: Okay. So could expand that this year too, yeah. Oh, okay. We do, we actually do have Title I schools as partners.
Megan Grace Li: Oh, that's great.
Kristin Neal: Their funding actually kind of aligns well with ZTAG. Quan, would you be able to share, because we actually do do this for LA. Can you explain a little bit of what we have done in the past, and where that aligns with.
Quan Gan: So maybe not. Okay. Yeah. Hold on. Let me just make sure I see you guys. Okay. Yeah. So we've been, I would say, a highlight of City of STEM. Are you guys familiar with that? City of STEM or LA Maker Faire?
Megan Grace Li: No.
Quan Gan: this is actually not only LA County, but probably, I guess, Southern California-wide huge STEAM Festival. And do you guys know about the Maker Faire up in NorCal? That's up in San Francisco area? Okay. So, yeah. Like, that's kind of the big thing. Like, basically all the science, technology, arts, and, you know, all that comes together. And we run a pretty large event for them throughout the day. We take up, basically, the size of a tennis court to run our games. And I'm not sure if you had much chance to see what ZTAG is, but we're not a VR game..andreacfiresstip It's a, it's actually an anti-VR type of game.
Megan Grace Li: It's these wearable... I'm so sorry.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Megan Grace Li: I don't know why somebody, there was somebody else who was telling me about ZTAG many years ago who called it VR, but I understand it's Yeah, well, it's, I would say it's actual reality, AR.
Cat Banach: Okay, okay.
Quan Gan: And actually the, because I come from technology and I know VR because it's actually like, you know, we fight fire with fire. Like I buy the latest Oculus. I buy, you know, I have a vision pro. Like I very much know VR, but I use it to develop games to get people off the screen so that they're actually face to face. So our technology is actually all about bringing the movement, the social and the physical behavior, augmented with technology. But ZTAG is the, I would say it's the first and probably the only screen based activity where the screen is not central to the activity, but it's more of a peripheral that you wear that enhances the face to face. So in many of these events that we are asked to host, ZTAG becomes the primary event where, you know, you have kids that are lining up and not leaving, you know, after the event closes to keep playing because we tap into something fundamentally human to every single child and even adult. So that's where the unique thing is where, you know, if we are asked to host or present, we don't want to see ourselves as like a Me Too, just another vendor trying to sell something. We want to get tapped into the community and create strong partnerships. In fact, Title I schools are actually where the main meat of our business is, like, because Title I schools get access to grant funding. And we are actually, we're actually more in remote areas into, like, Shasta County or places that are, like, hundreds of miles away from the nearest office of ed compared to in LA County. So our penetration is actually way further and deeper elsewhere than we are. So, that's kind of where our DNA is. It's like we really want to be the equalizer to bring access to those students who normally don't have access. So I think in that we are aligned, but possibly like the what and the how, we might need to rejigger a little bit.
Megan Grace Li: Absolutely. It's really uplifting to hear that you guys are mostly partnering with Title I schools. think this is like really strong synergy. What I'm not sure about is how we will get a tennis court size space. How many devices are you using in the tennis court?
Kristin Neal: 24. 24 in one unit.
Megan Grace Li: Okay. Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah. So, I'll show you. mean, here's a working unit down here, but it's a system right here that's basically almost like you could say it's PE in a box where you've got 24 players. You give this out to all the kids and they're listening to the instructor. And at the press of a button, I can get 24 kids to start and stop. Coordinate all sorts of games. We have eight different activities here. So it's all about the experience. It's not me telling them what they're doing. It's like, playing.
Megan Grace Li: I can already see this getting very popular. Natalie this year is working with one of our other teammates on events that require tickets. There's three or four of them that usually happen every year. There's a planetarium, there's a lab tour, and this year we might get a boat on campus, and then the fourth one would be ZTAG. And what's great about having more of them is they all sort of, like, take the heat off each other. So we are looking for more of these, like, big ticket items that people want to get in for. Is it possible to demo a smaller version in a classroom size?
Quan Gan: It certainly doesn't transmit the right frequency, I would say. Okay, okay. Yeah, the core of the product is all about community, so the more the better.
Megan Grace Li: Yeah, okay.
Kristin Neal: We're also kind of curious if it would align with So on our end, as much as the invitations to your hopeful six schools, would that be something that we would be able to kind of have access to so we can do our own invite and say, hey, you know, your schools are coming here to the science fair and we would love to be able to share ZTAG and what our mission is. Would that be something that that you guys would consider?
Megan Grace Li: Yeah, 100%. So what happens during the day with the Title I schools is they get like a full VIP access to all the best parts of UYU. They get their own planetarium show. They come early, they get a campus tour. And so what we would do is give them a separate ZTAG demo outside of the event. So the event is 12 to 5. They go to the planetarium at like 1030, Natalie, you know? So they go like before the event has started so that they're not in line with the rest of the people. And so what we would do is work a ZTAG demo into their schedule outside of the event time so they would also go before the event. And that's 100%.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. One thing that... You noticed from the previous one, sorry to cut you off.
Megan Grace Li: No, no, you're good, you're good.
Kristin Neal: And I hate to do it because parents and families are so loving ZTAG, but it's out of their price range. It's obviously not for a single person use. So what we've seen in the past with the previous show is parents, you know, reaching out to us to host birthday parties and things like that, and that's just not kind of where our direction is. Would it be possible that we would be able to actually do those demos for those schools only? And not maybe for the entire event.
Megan Grace Li: Okay.
Kristin Neal: This might be something to go through also.
Megan Grace Li: definitely don't know. No, but I think this is a really good idea. I'm just, we haven't had anything like this before, but I'm more than happy to write that into the infrastructure. What will end up happening is this will put some pressure on the Natalies and the... Title I school people of the world, so I would need to double-check with them that they're okay with that. But I do think that this is doable. Natalie, do you have any initial thoughts?
Natalie Lam: I do think it can happen. Since, like, if we have five or six schools, they each take turns in the planetarium. So maybe we can even just, like, take them from the planetarium. directly to, like, a demo. I'll just have to think about the venue choice.
Megan Grace Li: Yeah, I think for us, the venue is going to be the biggest blocker.
Quan Gan: Okay, I would also like to add that, you know, obviously, we're throwing out a lot of new information to you guys. It might be better, rather than thinking on the fly, to kind of take a few steps back and kind of rinse this through your own internal process to see if it works. If the alignment is still there, because probably expectations are quite different in the beginning, right? I think mission-wise, we're both aligned. You know, we're trying to get access to people who normally don't have access. But how to do it and what exactly we're doing, I think that probably needs to kind of like have things kind of re-percolate through the system a little bit.
Kristin Neal: I agree, Quan, especially because there's a donation that you guys are also looking to have, correct?
Megan Grace Li: Yeah. So I think if we wanted to do this outside of the schedule thing for only Title I, we would absolutely require a donation just because this is a lot more work than you guys just hosting a booth. And again, typically we don't allow like non-student run orgs to host a booth. That does require a sponsorship. I have another idea. Are you able to ZTAG in rooms with stairs?
Quan Gan: Mm-mm.
Megan Grace Li: No. has to be flat.
Quan Gan: Yeah, because people are running and chasing.
Megan Grace Li: Okay.
Natalie Lam: Would you prefer, like, what's the minimum size?
Quan Gan: Because I'm trying to see if there's, like, a log area somewhere. 40 by 40 is kind of minimum. Yeah, 40 feet by 40 feet. And again, you know, I know you guys are, you guys have a task to do specific for this event, which is great. I would just say, look at ZTAG, potentially just, look, here's this thing, it's a different variable, and maybe the context makes sense in a different way, right? Not necessarily in this particular context, but we'd be happy to, you know, continue our engagement. And certainly don't change the DNA of what you do and have us, like, as the tail wagging the dog. We don't want that either, right? Everything needs to be aligned.
Cat Banach: I do have a quick question. Sorry, I do have a quick question. How long are the demos? Or how long are the Well, okay.
Quan Gan: So, we get invited to host a lot of. We school fundraisers, often times, and we'll crank through about 300 to 500 kids in an afternoon, roughly about 100 kids an hour, so that boils down to roughly about 10 minutes per group of 20, because we could dial up the game to be very fast-paced, and we're running through three activities, and they're basically worn out by the end of it, they need a water break and go on, and we pulse in another group.
Cat Banach: So we could do that in short, but I've also run a single game that could last, like, 10 minutes, you know, in a giant football field, so it's very flexible. Okay. Yeah, because I'm just thinking, like, if we do go that route with just the Title I schools, maybe we do that early in the morning, and then we set up for, like, booths and stuff, we can, like, section off a place in the Court of Sciences, and then, like, maybe set up for booths later, I don't know.
Quan Gan: But that's a UCLA events office question, too, because they kind of set up the whole I don't want to ask you guys to shoehorn us in, you know, just...
Megan Grace Li: to do it right like it really has to feel right on all levels if something feels there of tension I can guarantee it's going to break apart if we're forcing it yeah yeah one thing too Megan that you had mentioned um your booths are only student-led was that correct did I hear that right oh um this was news to me we're like 85% student-led and then there was a 15% of the booths that were like sponsored by outside organizations that I learned very recently that all of these booths were sponsored so when we had spoken earlier I thought that like various people could just have booths if they weren't UCLA students turns out all the non-UCLA student booths are sponsored um so I learned this very recently uh and that is the kind of route that I was originally planning to have ZTAG take before I knew about the spatial limitation yeah because the booths are too small to have a ZTAG at yeah also to kind of add on to that point um
Quan Gan: Because ZTAG is an odd bird, almost in every general sense of that, we almost never fit into anybody's cookie cutters. Unless it's an industry-specific conference where we retail buy a booth to display our product for a specific set of customers, every other thing has been through some kind of accommodation where ZTAG is a special event and it's circled around it to make it work. But currently, I don't think you guys want to do that and we don't want to try to jump in as retail and say just take such a booth because it seems like the ROI may not be there on either side.
Megan Grace Li: Yeah, we're definitely not in a position to rerun the whole event around ZTAG. I think the number for that is like 60 or 100k or something and then the event would become ZTAG's Exploring Your Universe.
Quan Gan: We're not asking you to do that and we wouldn't do that in few ways, right? yeah. know. No. No.
Megan Grace Li: Yeah, at this point I don't think that we're going to be able to find a venue to host 24 devices. So if we wanted to, if 24 is like the number and you don't want to do something smaller, I don't think we'll be able to house it.
Quan Gan: Yeah, totally understandable.
Megan Grace Li: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: But I think we've got some ideas that we can kind of bounce off of each other, maybe on your guys' end to see if that's something we can provide for the schools. I think that we are, we would definitely be aligned. And even in the planetarium, I think would be kind of cool because it's all lit up. So they actually love it in a dark room.
Megan Grace Li: Oh. Natalie, planetarium?
Kristin Neal: How big? That is just something to throw up.
Natalie Lam: Yeah, just our planetarium. It's kind of small, so. It's really mostly just like chairs.
Quan Gan: I would say my best recommendation, you know, whether you're making a decision right now or not. know, people who are I mean, Yeah. Take a look at our YouTube videos, take a look at our website, see what the gameplay actually looks like and feels like, and then you can see if maybe not in this context, but maybe some future event you guys are looking at, you know, we'd be more than happy to participate.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, but we definitely support you guys. know Quan and Charlie agree that, you know, educating science is very important, so if there's something we can donate to in lieu of maybe our participation in this one, definitely let us know if that's okay.
Megan Grace Li: I mean, obviously I would really appreciate that. Just, you know, West L.A., UCLA space is like our biggest concern 100% all the time. So I basically can't guarantee that we can't have like a tennis court size space. We can barely get this for ourselves. We have to rent the space that the booths are on for like $35,000. It's really difficult. So every booth genuinely costs that much money that's on the two sheet.
Quan Gan: I totally get the, yeah, the hard cause. In fact, my I was raised in West LA. My mom worked at UCLA. I went to Cal for my undergrad. I bleed blue like you guys, so I get it.
Megan Grace Li: That's great. So you already know that there is no space at UCLA.
Quan Gan: I totally understand.
Megan Grace Li: I've been on campus so many times.
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah.
Megan Grace Li: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Well, thank you guys.
Megan Grace Li: Yeah, thank you for meeting. If you guys are still open to donating, I would really appreciate it. Your logo would go everywhere. And obviously, Kristin and I love each other, so there's no hard feelings. I didn't realize you guys needed this much space.
Quan Gan: Yeah, totally. Okay. Yeah. So we'll definitely have a conversation afterwards and see if there's any other means that we can be a support to you guys.
Megan Grace Li: Yeah. And if... We did end up going through with the donation. I'm more than happy to share your contact info with the list of Title I schools. could even prepare some kind of short just speaking with no demo of sharing ZTAG with the schools. I think we're totally open to that.
Quan Gan: Okay. Sounds great.
Kristin Neal: Thank you. All right, everybody. Well, have a great day, everybody. Wesley, enjoy Peru.
Cat Banach: Great meeting you.
Kristin Neal: Wonderful meeting you, too. Best of luck with everything.
Quan Gan: Okay. Thanks, everybody.
Megan Grace Li: Thank you. We need it. Bye. Bye.
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Quan Gan: This meeting is being recorded. Quite a few people.
Gerald Melendez: How are you doing?
Quan Gan: Doing well, Gerald. How are you?
Gerald Melendez: Good, doing well.
Quan Gan: Good to see you. Hi, Kristen.
Kristin Neal: Hi, good afternoon. Good afternoon.
Quan Gan: The recording has stopped. There are takers in the room, and we can send it out as meeting notes afterwards. If not, we can turn them off.
Jose R. Gonzalez: Does it make a difference for us or for me?
Quan Gan: Sounds good.
Jose R. Gonzalez: Let me change my earpiece.
Quan Gan: Something's going on with it. Okay. Chris, how do you feel about leaving the meeting? I don't know if we have a particular agenda.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, absolutely. I'm so excited to hear about your guys' event. Looks like you guys have a career engagement event. That'd be great to hear. Should we introduce ourselves first?
Quan Gan: Yeah, a quick re-intro for some of us, guess. You start.
Kristin Neal: My name is Chris. I am the Director of Partner Relations. So I'm all about connecting schools with ZTAG, see if it's a great fit. But ZTAG is very, very close to my heart. We're reconnecting kids in a new way. So that's pretty much my three kids of my own. And I've been with ZTAG about over a year now. I'll popcorn to Jose.
Jose R. Gonzalez: I'm Jose Gonzalez. I'm with the CTE Division, our Career Technology Education Division here with ICO. I guess kind of responsible for kind of bringing the team together for a career engagement event. And just excited to see about the possibilities.
Quan Gan: What you popcorn?
Jose R. Gonzalez: Oh. So let's do you, since you jumped right in. Okay.
Quan Gan: All right. My name is Quan. I'm the chief nerd of ZTAG. I founded the technology company close to 10 years ago. And it's mainly because prior to this business, Charlie and I, we've been business partners and life partners for a long time. But we were working in themed entertainment, specifically theme parks. And as we became parents 10 years ago, we wanted to find a way where we don't have this future, dystopian future of Matrix or Ready Player One. And we wanted to take what we know about entertainment technology and immersive experiences and bring it to our next generation. And over the past few years, we found that the after school or even just the school market is actually really where we can make the substantial impact. Because, you know, we have a captive audience and the kids are so engaged with their devices these days that we. See ourselves as the potential antidote to those devices. And in the literal sense, you know, an antidote, you take the poison to counteract the poison. Well, in many ways, we're taking the screen as a kind of tiny little mini screen to pull them off the big screen so we can get them back into face-to-face social, physical interaction. And also, you mentioned a CTE. I actually consulted for my local district CTE a few years ago as an entrepreneur, as a stakeholder. So I know a little bit about that aspect. Awesome. I will popcorn to... How do I pronounce your name, Ms.
Jearline Dixon: Dixon? It's Jirlene.
Quan Gan: Jirlene, nice to meet you.
Jearline Dixon: Nice to meet you all. Jirlene Dixon, I'm the Project Coordinator for Career Services. I currently support CTE and also our Transition Special Needs. And this is new to me, so I'm excited to hear what you have to say and how, you know, your services can benefit our youth. So... Thank you.
Quan Gan: Thank you. All right. Who do you pick?
Jearline Dixon: I think we only have Gerald left, so I'm going to go ahead and move it over to him.
Gerald Melendez: I think we got Charlie, but I will go ahead and take this one as well. I am Gerald Melendez. I guess we have a huge CTE unit here comprised of Jose and myself. I am the other half, so it's a pleasure just to have met you, Quan, at our JSTEC conference. Just we're excited to hopefully we'll partner with you and we'll bring you into some of our sites. So not only our site admins, but our students can maybe hopefully get involved in it as well. So you're Melendez, and I'll go ahead and just just just just just just just And popcorn over to Charlie.
Charlie Xu: Nice to meet you, everyone. I'm Charlie. I joined ZTAG early this year. At the beginning, the intention to support my husband. But along the way, we're attending a lot of trade shows, even visiting our customers, go to schools to see the students. Every time we're being so welcome, like filled with so much love, kids are loving us, loving ZTAG. I just feel like we are just really on something that can make a change for the kids are being so happy. Like I can so, there's a little boy come to me, said, at the beginning, I'm not good at ZTAG. But yeah, now after a year of practice, I'm so good. Just like the kids are expressing his growth and confidence. I was deeply touched. And also along the way, by attending trade shows, there's many teachers coming by, say how much the kids love the systems and the school. Having the systems. So we really feel like there is a huge responsibility on our shoulders of like, wow, we are really doing something or being having like that much impact. We don't even expect that much impact we have, but it's just the feedback from others. It really is the motivation of keeping us moving forward. Yeah, okay. So now I'm in charge of the marketing team, but yeah, so I was so glad to meet everyone and see the great potentials we can have.
Kristin Neal: Charlie came from the Intel world, correct, Charlie?
Charlie Xu: Quan and eyeballs are used to work for Intel.
Jose R. Gonzalez: Nice.
Kristin Neal: Yes.
Quan Gan: Long time technology people, but we, you know, we don't think technology, there's anything fundamentally wrong with technology, but the intention behind it is certainly important, you know, and currently the technology is very much the intention. It's to get your attention, and we're trying to counteract that with the technology that gets you moving and socializing.
Jose R. Gonzalez: Right. Awesome.
Kristin Neal: From what I understand, we did see you at JSAG. Geraldine, it doesn't sound like you were there, and you might need a little up-to-date kind of what ZTAG is.
Jearline Dixon: Is that correct? I was at JSAG, and I did see the presentation. I think there was a piece where all the vendors came up and did a presentation piece. But as it pertains to how it would relate to our school and our students, I guess that's the piece that I would like to learn more about.
Kristin Neal: Perfect.
Jose R. Gonzalez: And before you guys jump in, I just want to make sure that, you know, this meeting hopefully serves two parts. One, I mean, Quan, we talked about, you know, doing a career engagement event, letting kids hear your story. We work with, and we'll tell a little bit more about our population and whatnot, but we service our juvenile court schools as well as some of Community schools, but mainly focusing on our juvenile court schools and just being able to hear your story, like being able to introduce them to people in the community who are doing things, maybe have a story of how you transitioned. You created technology, right? You kind of just became this entrepreneur. I think it's great for our kids to be able to see people that don't look like they're everyday people that are successful, but just say, hey, there's a variety of people out there doing a bunch of different things whenever they're inspired. So I think that's kind of what led us to this career engagement per se, but also selfishly, if it hits with our students or they like your story and they want to hear more, the idea would be that, hey, we can bring ZTAG into the LACO space as a form of not needing a lot of space for our kids to interact and have physical movement and kind of do PE because they are very restricted in the spaces that are given. But being able to create an environment that could be a little bit more interactive. But then a controlled setting, so not necessarily running out and about out in the middle of the field, but more, you know, in smaller spaces and things like that. And so the idea for me in kind of like bringing this together, this joint thing was, hey, you know, I primarily I'd love to hear your story and have the kids hear your story. But if a demonstration wanted to be done, you know, that's that's on your that's your call and saying, yeah, like that. Yeah, that would be cool. Like we'd love to be able to do some type of demonstration at one of the sites. We can make that happen to see what the feedback is and see if, you know, people and, you know, say, hey, that was pretty cool. Like we can work with this. And so I just want to make sure that, like, we have that mentality of like what we're doing here and being able to create a partnership, you know, hopefully through a story. So there's no hiding, you know, any type of like under, you know, ideas. I get you completely.
Quan Gan: And I think I'm very aligned with that. In fact, I've had previous experiences of giving these type of. Talks. Really just sharing the story of where I came from and many of the twists and turns that happened in my life that led me to where I am today.
Jose R. Gonzalez: Most of them were unconventional.
Quan Gan: So I would love to be able to connect with your students and hopefully find something we're relating to. You know, we might be in different places in life, but we're all humans fundamentally and we seek connection and bonding. So, you know, it would be something where I might just bring the case with me just to show this is what we've created. And if there is an opportunity to have some kind of interaction, we certainly can do that, but that we wouldn't leave with that.
Jose R. Gonzalez: Yeah. I mean, even if we decided to, that's just something that we'll talk about career engagement event, what the possibilities are. But I just wanted to make sure that like gathered here today, because Jarlene doesn't know about you guys as far as ZTAG, other than, you know, the little bit that we've told her about. But obviously you guys are going to be able to share that. She's our supervisor saying, hey, how could this, you know, fit in? And so she's also. Know the voice to be able to push it forward if it's something that works out.
Quan Gan: you know what mean? So just trying to be transparent, you know, with all of us being here. Absolutely.
Gerald Melendez: And I think, you know, maybe before we share a little bit about, you know, just, you know, what our career engagements, you know, look like, you know, maybe, Leen, if you wanted to share, you know, the type of population that we actually work with. Because, you know, it's just, it is, you know, just slightly different than working at regular public schools. And, you know, we want to, you know, make sure that you are aware, you know, the type of students that we work with. So prior to you guys coming into one of our facilities. So I'm going to have smoduling or, you know, we can share.
Jearline Dixon: I mean, I can share a little bit and then you guys can jump in and share a little bit more. But the majority of the youth that we serve within our local schools are youth that are within our juvenile halls, probation camps, and secure youth. And facilities. In addition to this, we have county community schools and two specialized high schools. So while, you know, some of our population is within our communities and they receive traditional, well, non-traditional school. They're still in non-traditional school settings. Let me say it that way. The majority, I would say, 85 percent of our students are incarcerated. And so we are very much limited as to what services we provide, how we provide the services and who comes in and provides those services. A lot of clearances have to be obtained through our probation counterparts. And we're really at the mercy of probation as it pertains to programming within our school settings that are in their probation settings. And so we always try to reinvent the wheel and bring in new services and introduce students and, you know, especially for career technical. It's important to connect students to industry and to bring in individuals who have had the opportunity to have experiences in life that they can share and then translate into, you know, what our students could maybe want to achieve. And so I'm glad that Jose, you know, brought you in. We love to, you know, start the conversation and to hear a little bit more. And then I'll let Gerald and Jose share a little bit more as it pertains to their interactions, the teachers that we bring in for technical education, and then the programming that we have at our sites.
Quan Gan: Can I make a quick response? Real quick. So I love that context. And actually, it's something that Kristin and I are a little bit familiar with even prior to the JSAG conference, because Dr. Velasquez, when she was asking us, you know, even about sponsorship, she... Told us, you know, what that population was and the demographics and some of the nuances we really have to consider given those situations. So we are sensitive to that. You know, by no means are we experienced with it, you know, but we are certainly sensitive to some of those things we have to specifically cater to. And, you know, we also see that almost almost like a challenge, too, because we feel like, OK, look, if we can if we could step up to the plate and meet these kids or this community where they are and somehow break through them. I think that's really even more a testament of how well the product or the program can do even for other kids. So, you know, we're actually kind of excited about, you know, taking this in head on.
Kristin Neal: I wanted to add, too, because I love how you said, Geraldine, that you're kind of pushing boundaries. It's reinventing the wheel. You're getting, you know, new people involved. So I'm very grateful for that. I'm also curious if this is something that, because ZTAG has so many facets. It's a very neat company where it's not just educational based, but it's also entrepreneur based. So if someone did, you know, want to hear how they could possibly at the end of their, I mean, we're all about rehabilitation, you know, about second chances, about, you know, getting these kids into a path of life that actually leads to thriving. So if this is something that we would be able to, you know, encourage them with, you know, you can be a ZTAG operator. We would love to also, you know, kind of discuss that and how we can do that in the safe parameters, of course, of what you guys have going.
Jearline Dixon: Thank you so much. That's exciting. That's exciting. I'll pass it on. Jose and Gerald.
Jose R. Gonzalez: I mean, I don't know if this would be a good time to maybe just explain to Jarlene a little bit about what ZTAG is. Just kind of give her a little bit of an idea if you guys, you know, want to share that. And then I can share a little bit about, Gerald and I can kind of jump in and we'll share a little bit about what a career engagement event looks like. And then just figure out real quick and it doesn't have to be anything specific and we can get as specific as we want to as far as what that would look like if we want to move forward with setting up an event or several events throughout the year to be able to expose as many students as possible.
Quan Gan: So does that work for you guys? Ready to you're ready, Quan.
Jose R. Gonzalez: Yeah, ready to go. Let's do it.
Quan Gan: Okay, without getting too much into the mechanics or the demo, I'll share with you just really what the product is intended to achieve. It's really to meet the kids where they're at in terms of having a technology-driven device. But the way this device interacts is it detects movement and interaction. So rather than a traditional screen, which would be an iPad or a phone you're staring at and working on problems or engaging with, this is the only screen-based activity that is actually a peripheral to the experience and enhancing their face-to-face social activities. So some of the basic games, it might sound very basic, but it has profound effect, is something like a simple game of red light, green light. Okay, so this is your classic schoolyard game. You're calling red or green. Yes, it sounds simple and juvenile in some sense, but what it actually solves is coordination on a large scale. So when you're usually administering this in a PE or a school setting, you have the staff calling out the rules, and then oftentimes you might get arguments or cheating or some kind of frustration that happens between the players and the staff when the rules are being enforced. This doesn't happen with ZTAG because the rules are enforced by the screen. So if you're out or if you're minusing points because you're moving when you're not supposed to, it'll say minus 10. So then very quickly, the kids know they're actually playing a live action video game and they self-correct rather than having to take that energy and channel it towards the facilitator. So that's a simple game. We have some other ones where it's actually much more collaborative and pattern-finding. So one of the games, you end up with random colors and shapes, and you're looking for another watch from another player that has the same color or same shape as you, and then now you have to link up to score points. So you're looking around, you're communicating, and you're calling out, and the numbers or the patterns change very rapidly. So it gets a little bit chaotic, but it's kind of organized chaos. There's a lot of fun. Everybody's like, you know, yelling and shouting and laughing when they're connecting. And also sometimes if you connect with the wrong one, it'll minus points, and people are like, you know, just getting very quick game-like feedback, but in a real-life sense. You know, we have some collaborative counseling. Games, some math games. Let's say if I have two plus two and someone else has four, we're connecting them together to find the answer. We have some language games where if I have the word cat and someone has the Spanish word gato, I got to go find them. So now we're incorporating the learning into the movement and the social activity. And then the last thing I'll share is the most fun game, which we have as an incentive oftentimes, is our zombie survival game, which is actually a non-contact game of make-believe tag between humans, zombies, and doctors. So it already sounds kind of like Fortnite, but they get to play in real life, which is if you're a zombie, you're trying to chase all the humans and get your watch close to them and turn them into zombies. If you do tag them, they have 10 seconds to find the doctor to save them. So it's a very interesting video game-like feel, but it's getting them moving, taking action, and having face-to-face collaboration.
Kristin Neal: I'm going to add to that because of the... You have touched on it about the behaviors and, you know, things like cheating that come up in every situation with kids. We've seen it to where the behaviors that that kind of incites, it's moderated with this. They're getting angry at the game watch. They're yelling at the game watch because it's like, I didn't move. I didn't move. But you see them actually de-escalate themselves because everyone is kind of like hands off. You know, the administrator is busy doing, you know, the game and things, and the kids are doing their own thing, too. So it definitely regulates their behaviors by this, by that technology on the wrist. And it's on the wrist. We haven't seen, I haven't personally seen any instances where they're throwing it or anything like that. It has been told, you know, before that there was an engagement where they were very upset and they threw it. But it's to the ground. So, of course, there's things that, you know, we're ready to kind of tackle. But really good training beforehand has helped immensely. So we would absolutely start with that very standard training for the kids. They understand the limits that it needs to be able to not get that frustration and things like that. And also the zombie survival, that very special SEL doctor role, you know, where you have that shy kid kind of come out in that role and they're fully engulfed in the game.
Charlie Xu: So I want to add a little on Chris talk about the ZTAG have the strengths on SEL because compared to a lot of schools are actually involving sports activity in their schools. But sports normally require a lot of practice on certain skills. But for ZTAG is we are emphasize everyone is equal footing and have a role to play. And for example, the zombie survival game, actually each game runs around three minutes. So the. The role was randomly assigned. So this time the kids will be a doctor. Next time it could be a zombie. So the first time they lose, the kids will stay in that passive emotions. Actually, he quickly move on to the next and switch to the next time could be the hero. So it's not like we're stuck into a certain emotion, but actually it's a flow. The energy is a flow. So for the kids are actually, it's like very dynamic emotions of experiencing throughout the whole game.
Jearline Dixon: Thank you so much for the explanation. Very helpful.
Gerald Melendez: Very thorough. Thank you. Yeah, I think, you know, I had one quick question since we are on this topic, you know, regarding, you know, just has it, you know, primarily been rolled out to, you know, younger students versus. You know, high school population.
Quan Gan: Chris, you can answer all ages.
Kristin Neal: It has been mostly to elementary age schools, but they are finding in junior high and high school there. The kids are coming in on their phones. We have many testimonies that the kids put down their phones and they are fully engaged and they don't want to leave. So it's fully all ages, even staff development days are being, this is being implemented in. So I would say, yes, intentionally elementary age, but all ages.
Quan Gan: I'll also like to add to that. I think the common first glance perception is that it tends towards younger. But actually, when you run it, and we've done many, many days where we've run it from as young as kindergarten going all the way up to high school and adult. You get different reactions. In fact, the young adults and adults probably are the most engaged in this game because we're giving them an excuse to be a kid again. So the kids, they're already naturally kids, but their sophistication on the game is actually rather low. They don't get very strategic. They're just kind of bumping around. But when you get into the middle schoolers and the high schoolers, it's even more engaging because now it's like a team-based, strategy-based activity. And you can start really getting into some of the nuance of the game mechanics there. So different results emerge on the different age groups.
Kristin Neal: And difficulty.
Gerald Melendez: Thank you for that.
Jose R. Gonzalez: Yeah, sounds great. So, you know, when I saw the presentation, I was like, I'm a fan. I think this could work, right? So, you know, there's definitely, you know, some challenges that we face. And my job is to deter you from saying, hey, I want to move forward. Just to give you, I mean, really, because ultimately the people that push past those barriers want to be there. And they're willing to deal with the flexibility. So, like I said, when I come with transparency, it's like. Yeah. Hey, one of our kids might break this device if you bring it. If you're cool with that, I can't say we're going to pay for it, but that could potentially happen. It could be that we set all this up, and the day of, you're already driving there.
Quan Gan: You're three quarters of the way.
Jose R. Gonzalez: You've already been on the road for two hours, and we get a phone call saying, hey, you can't come in. Or you show up at the door, and they're like, hmm, you know what? We're just, yeah, that whole unit that you were planning this whole event on, we didn't let them out of their cells, and they're not going come to class today. So the variations of the layers that we deal with, we, and I mean by we as our CTE unit, is we're very protective on bringing the right people because we don't know what we're going to expect. It could be the perfect day. Everything seems to be fine, and in a split second, it is complete chaos. It's just one of those environments that we really don't know, but on the flip side of that, what it is the perfect It's a perfect day. Like the light bulb goes on with some of these students. When the staff are all in sync, it's like these kids have an opportunity that they wouldn't normally have. I mean, and we can say that a lot of our sites are somewhat archaic in the fact of, hey, you look at other schools and they're on their laptops. They're researching all these different things. They're doing all these great field trips, doing all these wonderful projects. And our kids are still doing packets just because they're breaking laptops. They can't be trusted on the Internet. So there's all these different dynamics that we run into. And that's why we're so protective of who comes into these facilities. And are they willing to work with us? And that's and I don't mean like, hey, we're throwing you in the fight in the fire. It's, hey, we're willing to work together to figure this out for the common goal of presenting opportunities, of exposing our students, of giving them the chance to say, hey, maybe just maybe if I decide to change today. I might have a future for tomorrow. And so that's not, you know, I'm not, you know, that's been the scripted or I didn't see that in the Hallmark card. It's just where our heart lies as a CT unit. And so and that's just kind of bringing that forward.
Quan Gan: So I just wanted to make sure that we were clear with that, you know, and so I sense that completely from my heart. And I will tell you that we're going to meet that occasion. We're going to step up to the plate for you.
Jose R. Gonzalez: Well, let me give you the details.
Kristin Neal: Hold on.
Quan Gan: Like mission alignment, you know, and I shared this with Dr. Velasquez, like when we decided to go in and sponsor is because it is so important to us to make that impact.
Jose R. Gonzalez: Yeah, we'll go through it.
Quan Gan: And I was also smiling because what you said there, I mean, that's basically entrepreneurship 101. You can prep everything.
Jose R. Gonzalez: It hits the fan. I'm like, okay, keep rolling it. So yes, I get what you mean in a completely different context. But yes, that's basically life. Awesome.
Gerald Melendez: Awesome. Gerald, did want to add to that? You know, just on the flip side of that, know, just, you know, like Jose said, you know, there's all these things that can happen. But, you know, just know that, you know, just, you know, the individuals that, you know, have come out and, you know, have taken the time, you know, with our students. You know, it's just, you know, I would have to say that, you know, just our students have been really engaged, you know, because this is something that's different, you know, that they're getting, you know, from an everyday classroom, right? So if they have the time, you know, to meet with somebody and, you know, hear about something exciting, you know, just, and I'm sure, you know, gaming, you know, is like, you know, maybe high on that list, you know, for some of our students, you know, they're definitely, you know, just, you know, and more likely, you know, just to participate, to engage, to ask questions. So, but. I don't know. We want to go ahead and just talk about just what a career engagement looks like for us then, Jose. I don't to take too much time.
Jose R. Gonzalez: Yeah, we respect everyone's time. And so, yeah, so a career engagement event for us is just basically bringing out either an organization or a person to be able to share their life story and to be able engage with our students. And so we have multiple sites. We work with our site administrator to find out what's the best possible way to expose our students to some of these different things. And we primarily focus on our CTE students, but sometimes the administrators will say, hey, we want to share this with all of our students. And so we'll kind of open it up kind of like a school assembly type thing, or we might be teaching in one class and the other classes are watching virtually. So we try to get very creative on how to be able to expose our students. But the main idea is to be able to come out. And again, you're just sharing your story. It's roughly about 30 minutes. There's been people that have come out and say, hey, I want to spend the whole day, right? I want to not only share with one class, but I physically want to see each student, you know, and go to multiple classrooms. And so it really just becomes on what are the expectations for everybody, what timeframes are available. And then we really try to mold and bend to our presenters, right? We try to be there and saying, hey, whatever you need, if you can give us 10, 15 minutes and you're willing to make the drive out and do all the paperwork and get us all out there, we'll give you the 10, 15 minutes. But if you really want to see what it's about, you really want to experience the students, we can make it a whole day event where we bring out, I mean, we've had career engagement events where it's just online kind of the way we are now. And our students will talk to a professional. We use different platforms for that. could use, you know, Teams, Zoom. So we've done it this way with our students. We've done it where we've had the entire school. Guide administrators, people from our corporate office such as Dr. Velasquez and other directors that will come out, and they'll participate in the full amount. So we have anywhere from six students to maybe 40, 50, 60, 70 people participating. So there really is no limit to what we can do. It's just a matter of us organizing those events. We've also had some of our people come, and they'll do a presentation at the school and then say, hey, you know what? That was very impactful. We want them to be able to come to our business. So I'll give you an example. We had a chef come out, work on one of our kitchens when we had a culinary program, taught the students, and he's like, hey, you know what? I want them to come see my restaurant. And so he shut down his restaurant for a day. On his day off, he came on in, and he let the students go in there, prepare foods, take orders, serve the people, and just have a full-on experience as if they were working in his restaurant. And then later on, you know, offered opportunities for some of the students, you know, and just saying, hey, if you wouldn't. You get out, come talk to me, and we'll see about maybe, you know, so sky's the limit per se, right? And nothing is off limits. We just get creative on how, like Jarlene said, we just try to break down barriers and try to implement that. So does that, Gerald, did I miss anything? I mean, that's pretty much what a career engagement event could look like for us.
Gerald Melendez: Right. And, you know, I think you covered it, you know, but again, you know, just like Jarlene mentioned, it is just important, you know, to know that, you know, just, you know, we are on a probation, you know, site. So, you know, we might have, you know, all these great ideas and a lot of things can happen, you know, the day of or, you know, in terms of clearances or whatnot. So, you know, just to keep that in mind, but overall, you know, just it's, you know, worked, you know, perfectly. So, I don't know if you have any of you have any questions regarding, you know, just. Career engagements.
Quan Gan: I have a quick question just on what requirements for clearance, such as like U.S. or something else?
Gerald Melendez: No, there's usually two different forms that need to be filled out. What that consists of is a background check, and we would need a copy of a driver's license. So once, you know, once we get that, you know, we send that through probation, you know, as somebody that we work with specifically, you know, they're great, you know, at doing it, you know, fairly quickly. And once, you know, that's done, you know, just that's all we need. You know, we just need an exact date and a time, you know, start and end time that you're going to be at the facility. Once the background comes, you know, back, you know, clean, then everybody's good to go. but that's it.
Jearline Dixon: Okay. Back to that, that there's also restrictions. And what can be brought into the facility. Some facilities were not able to bring laptops in. Some facilities were not able to bring pens in. So depending on what it is that you would like to bring for demonstration purposes, we may have to seek approval through probation. So typically we would start that process about three, I'm going to say three weeks prior to.
Jose R. Gonzalez: I would say a month.
Jearline Dixon: Okay, we'll go with a month prior to the event, just to make sure that there aren't any hiccups on the day of. Like we try to get a head start on things because we just know how probation operates and how things can take, consume more time than necessary sometimes.
Quan Gan: Got it. Yeah. If we showed up, it would really just be people. And one of these cases, which has 24 of these units, which is smaller than cell phones, you know, we have a way to call them back, you know, to be. But other than that, yeah, I mean, even if they were to throw this or something, this wouldn't really break. mean, even if it did, that's fine. That's on us. But it's really just, you know, can this be thrown? That's probably about it.
Jose R. Gonzalez: So, yeah. And things like that, I mean, this is, you know, we bring this up to probation. So we work with a partnership with them. It's their house. Basically, the way you think about it, it's their house. And we have to ask for permission on what we can bring, right? And so we'll bring it to their attention. And that's our job, Gerald's and my job is to work with them and say, hey, this is what we're looking to do. This is what we need. This is what we need authorization for. And they're going to tell us, well, let me talk to Juan. Let me talk to Crystal. Let me talk to Charlie and find out more about this device. And I'd like to see a, you know, see an example of it. So I might need to drive down to you and say, hey, do you have a, you know, demo or whatever, whatever the case may be, we'll figure it out prior to that engagement event. And they might just say, no, we can't have that. And then you're like, well, then how about just me coming in as a person and being able to show videos? And so there's different. In which we can expose, you know, to that. And who knows, maybe there's enough buzz on it to where probation might say, well, you know, we can't bring that stuff in, but we're willing to take a few select students off campus for you guys to maybe do an event somewhere else. And so maybe we'll bring them here to Laco, right? Those students that have good behavior that have made progress, we might be able to bring them to Laco and say, hey, on a different day, can you guys come on in, bring this device, and let's run a program here at Laco, right? And give them that exposure of, you know, applying what was taught to them and shared with them, if that's, you know, the direction that we decide to go in.
Quan Gan: Awesome. And also, I'll one more, this is an off-minute question. So we homeschool our two kids, they're seven and ten, and we often take them with us on mini trips.
Jose R. Gonzalez: I'm just wondering if there's an opportunity for us to bring them with us. I would say not. Just because it is a lockdown facility, they are not allowed to have any type of exposure to the outside communities. Protections for everybody's protection. In addition to, we're asking for IDs because there needs to be done a background check. And so those, you know, there's certain requirements that probation will not allow.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah.
Jose R. Gonzalez: So thank you for asking that, though. Any other questions? All right. When works. Okay. So one of the things that Gerald and I try to do is we're trying to do a career-engaging event on a quarterly basis. We do have several different sites, right? And so when we say, hey, we're trying to do one each quarter, it could be, hey, we do one site one quarter, one site another quarter. But the idea for us is that we'd like to be able to have an event for each site every quarter, right? So it just really comes down to availability. So if we talk about quarters, our next, for our first quarter is going to start in July. We're pretty much done with this time, but it goes from July all the way to September is our first quarter. Our second quarter is from October. October. Okay. December, our third quarter is from January to March, and then April all the way back to June. And then that's kind of how our year runs. So it runs from July 1st to June 30th.
Quan Gan: How many sites did you say?
Jose R. Gonzalez: So currently we have seven sites, but I can tell you right now that not all seven sites, such as what Gerald said, hey, BerryJ does not allow any type of devices. So we want to kind of stay away from that. you're like, hey, we want to be able to show our students this device and kind of like along with our story, because that's part of the story we want to share, then we would stay away from BerryJ. So then we have another site that's currently being remodeled, right? If we're looking at July, more than likely that site won't be done in the month of July or August. It's probably looking more like, you know, into the second quarter that that facility will reopen. And that's on the same site as another facility. They're just split between one road. So it's the same income. They're just split between a road, and so they have one and then the other, and then they just kind of don't mix the students, or they don't have movements during a certain time.
Quan Gan: So there's different variations of what our sites look like. What about space? Do these sites have either a gymnasium or an MPR or some kind of open space for interaction?
Jose R. Gonzalez: I would say yes. Each site is different, and so it just depends on what we're looking for. have an idea of what I'm thinking about, but I saw Jalene raised her hand.
Jearline Dixon: Did you want to say something? I have a question. Would the focus be on the sites where we currently offer CTE program?
Jose R. Gonzalez: That would be the sites that we would start with, right? Yeah, so the sites that are right now in my mind, I would also do one at Aflabal, which is in the San Dimas Mountains. It's also adjacent or combined with PAGE, so that's the one that PAGE is being remodeled. We also have another one that's a mile and a half away that's considered to be Rocky, and that has a little bit younger population. They do have Jim, a little bit more flexible in how they run things. So those are also two sites that we have our CTE programs currently going, and it makes it easier for us to be able to kind of get our foot in the door, per se, because we're already there. They see us all the time. We work with their staff, so it's no big deal. But I also believe, and right now we're going through some changes, I'd love to see something at Los Padrinos, but right now students are being moved. So they're actually depopulating that site and moving students around to a lot of the other sites, which would be the San Dimas Mountains up in the – where's Barry J?
Gerald Melendez: That's in the – I always forget where it's at. Silmar.
Jose R. Gonzalez: Silmar. And so we'll probably stay away from that one. So for sure, I would love to see you guys at two of our sites to kind of just – and those I think would probably be the most fluid to kind of get into and then see where that goes, and then if you guys are interested in doing something else. So if one site only works, we'll make one site work, right? And so it really just comes down to what's your availability, what do you guys see happening, and then what would you like to do, and then we can work around that.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Jearline Dixon: Great. You were saying three sites, right, Jose?
Jose R. Gonzalez: Yeah, so the – Alphaba, and then Barry J? No, LP.
Jearline Dixon: Oh, Los Angeles, okay.
Jose R. Gonzalez: LP, yeah.
Quan Gan: I have also one additional thing to bring in, and you can share your feedback, but we actually – we've been hosting a lot of ZTAG events up and down the state as part of just a national after-school play day. We actually purchased a Cybertruck. It's kind of like a ZTAG, you know, mobile experience. I don't know if that's necessarily appropriate for you guys, but we'd be happy to bring it.
Jose R. Gonzalez: But I don't know if anybody would even get to see it. I'm going to say anything is possible. We don't know until we ask. And then once we ask, then we ask again and we keep asking and hopefully we can make some progress. The best thing I like to tell people that we bring in is that, hey, it might be a no this first time because I feel that when we did the, for example, the restaurant, there was a lot of hesitation around that. But once we were successful, they saw the students kind of progress through and their behaviors and so on and so forth. Then it was like, yeah, we need to do a field trip to this place and check out their restaurant. And then they saw how well the students did. And so we did a couple of other events there. So I'm going to say that that could be a possibility. We would just need to discuss what does that look like for you guys? Is it just to show? Is it part of the experience and the growth? You know what mean? Like I just don't know how it would be implemented because you're like, we have this box. This is the interactive part. I don't know much about the truck and what that would look like.
Quan Gan: Yeah. So if we're doing this in a typical school, the truck rolls in so all the kids get to see it, but it's the truck isn't operating the game. It's really where we. Store all of our game hosting equipment, but for something that's a little bit closer aligned to what you're expecting, it would really just be me coming in as a single person, rolling the case.
Gerald Melendez: Optionally, Charlie or someone else or Chris might be there with me.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it's just one or two humans in a box.
Jose R. Gonzalez: That's it.
Quan Gan: But we happen to be driving the Cybertruck there just because we want to represent what we're doing.
Jose R. Gonzalez: Yeah.
Gerald Melendez: Right. I mean, I think that's a great start, you know, just in like Jose said, you know, just I think, you know, once, you know, the students and, you probation ed staff, you know, sees what they're about, maybe the second go around, we can say, hey, you know, there is this, you know, Cybertruck that we want to bring in, you know, just that what's the protocol for clearing that, you know, just and move from there as opposed to, you know, just like, cool, throwing everything at one time, you know, so we don't want to see a probation.
Quan Gan: I love my team.
Jearline Dixon: They're so positive. Yeah. I don't take no for an answer. It's very hard for me to accept a no.
Jose R. Gonzalez: So we hear it a lot. We are, I can say we're somewhat successful, Julian. I guess I'm going to, you know, say, you know, we're pretty good at what we do. But it does take time, right? It just depends on who's in the leadership, what's going on at each side. And each side is so different. I wish I could, we had a cookie cutter, but there's a reason why they're so different. And so, and the people that are there are different. And so what we might have success in one, we might not see the same progress in another. And so, and people shift all the time. And so that's, that's just one of the layers that we face in the population that we deal with. But we know how to deal with it, right? It just takes time.
Quan Gan: Patience and resilience.
Jose R. Gonzalez: That's it, right? Like you said, independent entrepreneur, right?
Charlie Xu: So Jose, you said, there's a two school you are going to introduce us to. So what is the population? So when we're being introduced, is it going to be different sessions of different classroom or like will be a whole group?
Jose R. Gonzalez: So that's a great question. So the first one, let's go with Rocky. Rocky is our younger population. It's a smaller facility. They have a gym. And the director there, the administrator there is wonderful. We can pretty much go in there and do whatever we want. But the problem is she's retiring. And so come at the end of this school year, which is the next couple of days, she will be retiring and we have no idea who is going to take her place. And it could be somebody who is like, I cannot do all of that. I can, you know, we're very limited on what we can do where she would be. Let's open up the gates. Let's have the Cybertruck in. Let's make this a whole school wide event. And she has a handle on that site that knows exactly what's going on. So unless we're doing this tomorrow, I'm going to say. Probably we'd have to wait and see on what we can get on that one. At the other site, because there are two sites in one and they're receiving a lot of new students from the depopulation of Los Padrinos, any one student can derail the environment. And so it's on a day-to-day basis. So the idea is that once, say, we get a yes, hey, we can come on in. I don't believe that they have a gym at Alpha Ball, right, Gerald Jalead? I've never seen a space like a gym. I know that they have the outside courts, the basketball courts, but I've never seen the gym per se. But in that facility, what I would normally see is possibly doing a classroom at a time. So if you're only – let's just say you can only be there for an hour. Well, that would only – we would only do an activity for one classroom. But if you're like, hey, we can kind of make it, you know, let's just say three or four hours, then we Probably try to do it where we can at least affect two or three classrooms at one time and probably do the same presentation, I guess, in essence, for each individual class. If, which I don't think would happen, but if the director said, hey, we can maybe do an assembly type and have more probation, you know, presence to make sure that the students aren't engaged or going to engage in anything that's inappropriate. I think the discussion would have to be, is it just going to be a presentation or if it is interactive, we have to, they, you they had, they, they don't do PE like normal schools. They're very selective on the groups that they bring out and can interact with each other because of rivalries, because of disrespectful, you know, things and whatnot. So they have to be very careful with how they mix the students. So I wish I could give you a definitive answer. I get the best way to, and Gerald, if you might, I know I'm just running off. I'm trying to like respect everybody's time, but if like. If you guys had an idea in saying this is what we can offer, then I think as our team, our CT team, then we can say, hey, I think this is the best fit for that.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I think up to an all-day engagement, I'm more than happy to, to be accommodating. And I would say in these situations, maybe managing it to groups, because the system hosts up to 24 players all at once. But I would say maybe like a dozen or up to 20 students at once. And if there's another teacher or someone else that can facilitate the management, that helps. Because oftentimes the biggest challenge is not even administering the game. It is actually putting the devices on people, and while they're waiting, just making sure that they're ready for instruction. Because once the game starts, they're going. But leading up to it, and then debriefing after. The game, that's where it might get a little bit chaotic. So those are kind of the sensitive points. But in the game, they're locked in because they're engaged.
Jose R. Gonzalez: Okay. That's good to know. mean, Gerald and I, and maybe Jarlene, I can't necessarily count on Jarlene as far as having a specific time. She'll be there just because her schedule is more sporadic than Gerald and ours. But we will be there to support that event.
Quan Gan: So it's not like we're just going to send you guys there and then we'll get the necessary staff depending on what we want to scale out. if you guys are there, then I'm resting.
Jose R. Gonzalez: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Quan Gan: We're to leave you alone.
Jose R. Gonzalez: You the JSAG events as well, so I know I got my back. yeah. I mean, unless you completely mess it up, then we might just disappear and be like, I don't know what he was doing.
Gerald Melendez: I didn't know him. I didn't know how they got in. Who let that guy in?
Jose R. Gonzalez: So, yeah. So we'll be there supporting throughout the whole process and we'll be in constant communication. And I create an agenda for the students and the staff. We don't tell the students the day that the event's going to happen per se. We just kind of show up and then they're like, oh, like, who's this guy? And we'll talk more details about what that looks like when you first show up and how they, you know, challenge and things like that. But at the same time, we do a lot of work to make sure that it's as smooth as possible.
Quan Gan: So what I'm hearing is every one of these CT events, you guys will be there with us.
Jose R. Gonzalez: Yes. Oh, and then we're going to build a very good relationship. For sure. For sure.
Quan Gan: You're telling me we're going on tour.
Jose R. Gonzalez: I mean, if you're offering the tour mode, you know, the tour package, then let's do it.
Quan Gan: You know, we'll make it happen. Okay.
Jose R. Gonzalez: No, I'm feeling really good about that because oftentimes we get invited and we don't know who the volunteers are.
Quan Gan: And that has a little bit of friction early on. We could make or break the thing because, you know, it's like how much can they actually help versus are they just kind of, you know, body.
Jose R. Gonzalez: Right. Okay. Great. Well, mean, again, in respect, you know, for everybody's time, let me ask you guys this. Have you thought, I mean, I kind of gave you the, you know, the quarterly. of the, know, the You know, dates roughly. Is there a time or a specific, you know, date that you guys have in mind that said this would work perfect for us or generally or anything like that?
Kristin Neal: That's on my end. So, yes, if we're able to, the week in July, I'm glad to hear that, of the 20th, the Monday, the 21st, that would work. That's the second to last weekend in July. We also have, let's see, the next one being October through December, right?
Jose R. Gonzalez: Correct.
Kristin Neal: October, we're available the first two weeks in October.
Jose R. Gonzalez: Okay.
Kristin Neal: We're also available in November, except for the first week. Actually, no, I'm sorry. Available in November, except for the last two weeks.
Jose R. Gonzalez: Okay, so the first two weeks.
Kristin Neal: Yes. Okay. And then April through June. Let's see.
Jose R. Gonzalez: April through March. Yeah, you're right.
Kristin Neal: April through June. Yes. April through June. That one is next year. Looks like we're fully available in January. So far, haven't been in there.
Jearline Dixon: So go ahead. I'll just cut in really quick. For July, I don't think that the week of July 20th is going to work for us, Jose.
Jose R. Gonzalez: I agree.
Jearline Dixon: We have Learn and Earn. Learn and Earn, yeah. So possibly maybe, I don't know, August, September.
Jose R. Gonzalez: Yeah. I was going to let Chris run through the dates and then say, hey, well, I know this one won't work for us. Yeah. We're on the same page.
Kristin Neal: That first week in August, would that work by any chance?
Jose R. Gonzalez: Probably.
Charlie Xu: We'll have a travel.
Quan Gan: How about, Chris, how about we offline just re-sync because we know each other's expectations.
Kristin Neal: And we could present a whole bunch of dates.
Quan Gan: I think there's probably. More availability than, you we're presenting. But yeah, we want to be flexible with it.
Jose R. Gonzalez: Yeah. And again, if you want to do more than one, let's do that. Let's just, you know, we'll kind of convene the meeting. You guys can have a discussion about it. If there's multiple days that you would like to do, you can say, hey, we want to do, you know, one a quarter this next year. And so and you can throw out some dates and then we'll try to make it work for that. And I'll get back to you guys with that. If you're like, we just want to do one, whatever it is, we'll kind of work with it. So if you guys, we'll just kind of leave it to where you guys will send us an email or, you know, check in with us and saying, hey, Jose, what does this work for you guys? And then we'll jump on our back end and start working on those dates and see what we can we can confirm.
Quan Gan: Does that work for you guys?
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Jose R. Gonzalez: I'm so excited, you guys. Thank you so much.
Kristin Neal: Thank you so much.
Jose R. Gonzalez: Any questions before we log off?
Quan Gan: No.
Jose R. Gonzalez: All right.
Quan Gan: You guys are awesome.
Jose R. Gonzalez: Thank you so much. Thank much, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. you, Charlie. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye.
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Kristin Neal: We have to take off tomorrow. I bet. I bet. Yeah. Did you see the... meeting is being recorded. There was a few things attached for your play day?
Quan Gan: No, I haven't checked my email.
Kristin Neal: Just the spreadsheet. Just check when you got a second.
Quan Gan: Oh, it's in the spreadsheet.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Okay. Here comes Lisa Davis. Okay. Hi, Lisa. Bye-bye. Bye Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
lisadavis: Bye-bye. Bye-bye.-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye Thank you.
Kristin Neal: Lisa, you able to hear us?
lisadavis: I can hear you.
Kristin Neal: Can you hear me? Yes, ma'am.
lisadavis: We sure can. How are you? awesome.
Kristin Neal: Can you see me? I can't, unfortunately.
lisadavis: No. Okay. That's okay. Excuse me. I don't... I don't don't don't know. See I can see you.
Kristin Neal: It looks like you're trying.
lisadavis: It looks like it's trying. Okay, I don't know what's going on.
Kristin Neal: No worries. No worries.
lisadavis: No worries.
Kristin Neal: Not at all. We'll just keep it like this and we'll just go ahead and give it a few more minutes, maybe two more minutes, Quan, and then we can just get started. I told them we'll send this out to those folks and they'll just pop in.
Quan Gan: Okay. Well, the only slight hiccup is I'm just wondering if there's a way to see what you see, Lisa, because I'd like to guide you through the system. Do you happen to have it next to you?
lisadavis: Thank you. you. you. you. The whole one of those.
Quan Gan: Hang on just a second.
Kristin Neal: We're getting it in here. Okay.
lisadavis: Okay.
Quan Gan: Or maybe even try joining us on your cell phone.
lisadavis: Okay. Let me see if I can do that.
Kristin Neal: There we go.
lisadavis: I don't know how to turn it. We make him. don't know. me see. Oh, there you go. Perfect.
Quan Gan: Okay. You could probably log off of that one then.
lisadavis: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Oh, there we go. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Or you can silence it.
Kristin Neal: There we go. Now unmute, unmute.
Quan Gan: There's a button at the bottom. You'll need to unmute that. Can't hear you yet.
Kristin Neal: Thank you. Thank It's like she's coming back in.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Lisa Davis (2): Can you hear her now?
Kristin Neal: There we go.
Lisa Davis (2): Okay. We're going to see if we can get another computer, because my screen is small. Okay. It's very small. But we need, we have Googled this, and YouTube did, and we still can't figure out exactly how to get this up and running. And what, at what, well, for lack of better terms, what to do with it. You know, how to get the kids involved in it. And actually, two sets were purchased. Follow-up.-up.-up.-up. Follow We purchased two sets for our 21st Century After School program. And even, you know, a YouTube video didn't really tell us, you know, a whole lot about how to, you know, get the kids started in it.
Quan Gan: Okay, that's why we're here.
Lisa Davis (2): Awesome.
Kristin Neal: I'm you reached out, Lisa.
Quan Gan: This is perfect. So, Lisa, I have some just initial questions.
Lisa Davis (2): Yes.
Quan Gan: Were you guys able to get our welcome letter?
Lisa Davis (2): I don't know if that ever made it to you. It did. We are in the middle of, like, summer camp. And we haven't, I meant to read it, but time just kind of snuck up on us. Oh, we thought we had until 3.30 and then it was changed to 2.30. So we haven't exactly had time to read it yet.
Quan Gan: Okay. And so making sure the videos that you did see on YouTube or Google, those were not videos that were in the welcome letter, correct?
Lisa Davis (2): Oh, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. They were just people like using it and I think they compete. It looked like maybe competitions with it.
Quan Gan: Okay. Got it. Okay, so I know where you're at now and this is a perfect starting point. Essentially, a lot of the information I'll share with you can be found in the welcome letter, but I will at least verbally walk you guys through. And even the fact that the screen is very small, that's okay because mostly you'll be engaging with your Zeus unit. So I'm just going to be talking it through and then having you guys getting everything up. Okay?
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay.
Lisa Davis (2): Okay. I know.
Quan Gan: There's an echo.
Lisa Davis (2): There's echo.
Quan Gan: Okay, so if you can maybe tilt it down a little bit so I can see the Zeus in front of you, perfect.
Kristin Neal: And then I can walk you through.
Quan Gan: So you're already able to turn it on and you're at the welcome screen right now. Okay.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Are you guys ready to go? Yeah, welcome to Zeus.
Quan Gan: We charged it up yesterday and I had to get all the serial numbers off of it for inventory. Okay, this is perfect. So what I want you to do is at the very bottom there's a skip button and the only reason I'm telling you to skip is because this system will work with or without internet connection and I'm just going to Jump right in so we can actually get to the game. If later on you do want to register for future updates or anything like that, you can always have the option to actually do the registration, but you'll have to get connected to your local Wi-Fi. Okay. So for the purpose of getting to the game, you don't need it.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: In order to do that, I'm assuming that our tech people would need, since we're a public school, would our tech people need to handle that?
Quan Gan: They may, or you can optionally tether it to a hotspot on your phone if you wanted to do that directly. But those are completely optional because this is already the latest up-to-date system, so you don't need to even fiddle with it if you don't want to.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay.
Quan Gan: Okay. So now that the system is set like this, what I want you to do is take out, let's just say, six of those taggers and hold it. Okay. So just take, and you'll notice. As you unplug them, they're going to all switch off. And that's also an intentional behavior because later on, when you shut down the power to the whole system, you want them to shut off automatically too. So with these six, there's going to be a tiny little red button next to the little silver round button. That silver round button is not actually a button. It's a charging port. But this red switch is kind of hidden in there. And this is also intentional because you don't necessarily want your kids or players fiddling with it. Just tap it and let go. Don't hold it down. Just tap it and let go. And you want to wait about three seconds. The screen will then pop on. So do that for each of the six. And this way I'm showing you is you'll want to do that for as many kids as you have about to play. So take each one out, tap the red button, and then at this point you can start strapping these wrist bands. And it's on to the kids. So there are two methods for strapping this on to the kids. So typical wrist size, you bend, you know, you just loop it through here and the Velcro goes this way. But for extra small wrist, you actually go the opposite way like this.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Oh, okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah. So that gives you a lot of flexibility. You don't have to readjust it for kids. And then also something to note is some kids might have sensitive skin. So you may want to put this over their sleeve or even optionally put it on their arm. That's better. Okay. So the only thing you want to assure is they can read the signage on here right side up. So the logo needs to be facing their eyes, you know, not upside down.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. So once you have all of that, and for demo sake, you can just leave it on the table. So or you can probably hold one in your hand.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay.
Quan Gan: I'm going to walk you through probably three or four different games and then The rest, I'll leave it to you to explore because they're roughly the same, okay? But I'm going to go through the same sequence as you would introduce it to your kids because each of the games in that particular order is going to optimize the way they absorb that information and scaffold on the previous skill. If you give them just a random game for the first time, they may get lost a little bit and get frustrated, okay? So the first game I want you guys to try is Red Light, Green Light. So one of you, if you can tap that, okay? And also, every time you go into the game initially, feel free to read through those rules. But I'll just quickly go through it with you. But this game, it's going to go through Red Light or Green Light and automatically detect whether you're moving your arm or not on the red and give you minus points or eliminate you, depending on the setting, if you're moving when you're not supposed to. Okay? Okay. Okay. So you can, let's close the thing right here. Okay. And yeah, close that. Do you see there's a cog in the upper right corner? Yeah. Click on that. Click on the cog button, the settings. And there's also a little tick mark called negative scoring. I want you to check that. Yep. And then go press save. All right. So now that you have safe settings, you should see your watches are already blinking the red light, green light. So it means it's getting ready for this menu. And then on the bottom of that screen up there, there should be a sign all, right? Okay. Click on that. And what that does is it takes all of the detected taggers that are currently on and out of the charging dock and loads it into the get ready screen. So that means it have some kids you want to have a sit out for this round, then you can actually X some of those And they're basically not going to participate in the next round. But for most intents and purposes, we have everybody participate. So now you can go to the next button. So when you see that now, if you look down at your taggers, they're going to say get ready. And at this point, you want to make sure everybody is kind of ready to go. They're looking at their watches. This first game is an individual-based game. So you're not looking to interact with anybody else. You're focusing on the content on your own screen. And it's going to first do a countdown. And it might be a little startling. So before you press it, I just want to give you a fair warning. It's going to be loud. It's going to go 3, 2, 1. And then it's going to go green. As soon as it goes green, we tell the kids to act as ridiculous, as much movement as they can, jumping jacks, jumping around, running. You can even have them run between two cones back and forth. The more movement, we tell them, the better. Or we say, the more ridiculous you act, the better. I've had times where I had kids get into a circle facing each other and we say, hey, show us your most ridiculous dance moves, right? Just really, really fun reason for you to move. And then as soon as it goes red, everybody stops. Okay, so let's try this for 30 seconds or so and then you'll see what happens. Okay, go press it. Yeah, told you, it's loud. Okay, so you're basically moving around. It's really just detecting the movement of this. But the more movement you have, the higher the points you're going score on that leaderboard. Okay, but if you keep moving when it's red, you'll hear like an ah-ah kind of beep and it'll go in minus 10.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Oh, cool. It's I have a lot of things I've been watching. Okay. You only make when it's good.
Quan Gan: Okay, so this game will also get harder. So halfway through, because right now everybody is green or red in sync, but after halfway of the game, people are going to go red, some people will be green, it'll be out of sync, and the timing will actually get shorter and more random, so it's really teaching the kids to focus.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Great! Yes. great! Exactly.
Quan Gan: Okay, so you guys feel free to stop it, and then you'll see the leaderboard afterwards. Okay, so one of you, well, Lisa, she won the game for this one, yeah. Yay! After every round, we also, we always want to celebrate, you know, there's a quick little ritual, everybody is like looking at the person with the rainbow, and everybody give them a big cheer. Okay? And based on that, you can optionally give out incentives, maybe give them stickers or some kind of cards or something related to that, right, just makes them really boosted. Okay, so after this round, feel free to hit the back button. So go to back, and then I want you to go to the top left corner with the menu.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Yes, I'll be back there in just a second. The very top corner.
Quan Gan: Yes, that should back you into the main menu. Unless you're not in the... If it's not doing that, hit back again, because you might still be in the game. Is there a sign? Or did it get stuck?
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Mine is on. Was we supposed to do something to get off the window?
Quan Gan: What are the buttons here? Is it not responding to your touch?
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: It's not responding.
Quan Gan: Is there another part of the screen that you could tap on that might get it to respond? That's an unexpected behavior. That's really weird. What buttons do you see up there?
Kristin Neal: What
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: All we have is a back and a game select.
Quan Gan: Okay, yeah, so the back button's not working, huh?
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Right.
Quan Gan: That's really odd. Okay. If that's happening, worst case, I'll have to have you reset the system. But let me just check if there's some other place. Like, maybe, is there a clock button up at the top or any other place you could click on the screen?
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Hopefully you can unfreeze All we have is a – I can't tell if I've got it on the screen.
Quan Gan: That's the first time I've seen it. Okay. Yeah, if back is not doing anything, then we're going to have to shut off the system and reboot it.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: That's very rare.
Quan Gan: The worst case, that would happen. Then I would just have you click on the blue switch and turn it off and wait about five seconds, and then let's turn it back on. All Всё. All right. you. Thank you. All right. Thank you. you. Okay, go ahead. So we'll have to wait another 90 seconds or so and get everything back.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: see. Okay, you can press it. All right.
Quan Gan: Okay, and then it should turn on and then we'll wait about a minute 30 and it should light up again. Yeah, there we go. Yeah, that is very strange. I haven't seen that happen before. Okay, so let's go to skip again. And you'll want to wait a little bit. If you look at your watches, there should be a little, you see a Wi-Fi bar up in the corner next to the battery. If you don't see that. That means the taggers are not quite connected yet. Okay, so there's going to be like a signal bar next to your battery.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay, yeah, all we have right now is the battery.
Quan Gan: Okay, so you'll probably wait another 20 seconds or so, and that should eventually, you'll see signal bars. Nothing yet?
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Nothing yet.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, it might take a little bit longer. If it still doesn't work, I'll show you how to do a heart reset, which is putting all the taggers back into the case, and then we'll do a shutdown. But right now, if you look at any of the taggers in the case, do they have signal bars showing up?
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay. Yes, they do.
Quan Gan: do? Okay. Well, that's a good sign. So let's try a different game. Let's go to Pattern Match. All right. The upper corner. Do you see your watches respond?
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: No, they still have the one that won the red light, green light. have logo?
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, it's still flashing winner. Then hit OK on the screen, and then let's put these taggers back in the charging dock, and we'll take out, let's say, six – we'll take out three other ones.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay.
Quan Gan: All you got to do is place it in the same orientation back in the dock, and they should start charging themselves up again.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Did you say put all of them back?
Quan Gan: Yeah, let's just put all of them back.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: All those back.
Quan Gan: Yeah, when you reset it that way, it should also reset their Wi-Fi connection.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay. Okay, so let's take out three new ones and then you should know how to turn those on now.
Quan Gan: Now once they're on, if you wait about 30 seconds, they should load into the pattern match pregame logo and then you can press the OK. And go ahead and press OK on the Zeus screen. And then eventually those taggers should pop up in the menu. I'll give it another 15 seconds. you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. you. Are you seeing any Wi-Fi bars on them?
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: There you go.
Quan Gan: Okay, then we're going to have to do a full system shutdown.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: reset.
Quan Gan: Yeah, because I think it's just not detecting the Wi-Fi router after we did the reset earlier. Okay, sorry about that. Do you know if Lisa is coming back later?
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: She'll be right back. I'm sorry. We have some other, like she said, we're in the middle of summer camp and somebody was in another part of the building setting something up and they needed her.
Quan Gan: She'll be right back. No worries, because some of these are social, so it's definitely better.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: So we'll need both of us. Yeah, exactly. All right, so what do you need me to do here?
Quan Gan: Let's go back to the main menu. Okay, so upper corner. Okay.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: left, yeah, yeah, that app button.
Quan Gan: Okay. okay. Okay. Okay. This time it worked as intended. It should be able to bring you back to the main menu. And then up at the top, there's a little power switch. Right here? Uh-huh. Press that and then hit OK. Yeah.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: So hit shut down or reboot? shut down. Shut down.
Quan Gan: You want to shut down and then you'll wait about five seconds for that screen to fully dim. And then this time I want you to flip the red switch off.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: The red switch. Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah. And when you do that, all of the taggers should also have switched off.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Yeah, everything is off.
Quan Gan: Yeah. So we'll wait another five seconds and then you can press the switch again and put them back up fresh. Go ahead. Well, this is also good just for debugging purposes later on.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Yeah. So we'll know what to do if this happens.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. If you... If get Wi-Fi bars and you've waited more than two or three minutes, then you'll want to put everything back shut down.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay.
Quan Gan: It happens very rarely, but having that procedure just should always get it back up and running. Yeah, and this boot sequence, go ahead and press next. Overall, it's going to take about 90 seconds. So we're only about 40 seconds in since you've reset. So I would wait another 20 or 30 seconds to see if you start observing the signal bars pop up on the taggers. Yeah, and once they eventually show up, all the games will show them. So you're a minute in. So wait another 15, 20 seconds. seconds. Thank you.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: So All right, some of them are starting to pop up.
Quan Gan: Yeah, they'll come up in the next five seconds or so. So if they've already come up, feel free to take a few out again. And then switch it on. So good practice. You've already done it three rounds now. Okay, and then let's go back to Pattern Match. Okay, pass the... Yeah, let's go back. Uh-huh, yeah, press OK. And in a few seconds, those taggers should reconnect, and then you'll see them on the screen.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: tap There we go.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. So do you see all three?
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Yes, I do.
Quan Gan: Then same procedure. You're going to assign all so they all are participating and then go to the next menu. Okay. So how this game works is when it starts, everyone's going to get a random shape and color. For example, someone's going to get a blue triangle on their watch. They're going to look for someone else that either has the same color as them or the same shape as them. And they're going to want to meet their watches close together, screen to screen.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay.
Quan Gan: And it's also really important here to describe how the sensors work to the kids because this is going to essentially dictate whether they're going to damage the product or not over time. Right. Because they have to know the working mechanism of what TAG actually is. There's a little sensor window right above the logo.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Yeah. That sensor window needs to face another watch's sensor window to register. do Okay. get started. Okay.
Quan Gan: It doesn't require tapping together physically, doesn't require any kind of tackling. As long as they're facing each other within a few feet, that's how it works.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay, that was a question we had. Because we were concerned that, you know, if they had to tap their tacks together, that could lead us in damage.
Quan Gan: So it's recommended that you might even, by teaching this to your kids, maybe bring up two kids to demonstrate that all they've to do is aim it at each other. Sometimes if you're not moving and you're in an indoor setting, you could be 10 feet away and the signals will get you.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: will still pick up. Yeah.
Quan Gan: This is almost probably the most important skill to teach your kids. Because if they know that that's the distance, it's going to make the game a lot less aggressive rather than, oh, I've to just get on top of you and get my watch closed. Right. Yeah. All right. So this game, it will match, but also it can mismatch. So for example, if you, if everybody just huddles together and you get the. signal from someone that doesn't have the same pattern as you, you also get minus points. So that means you actually want the kids to strategically cover their watches so that the signal is not just blasting out at random people, right? And they're actively practicing their communication. So saying, I have a green triangle. I need green or I need triangle. And then they're walking around and talking, but also observing what colors or shapes other people have. And once they're sure that's the right connection, they'll stick out their watches and make the meaningful connection.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: I love that.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Because in the beginning, you'll get a tendency for them to huddle. And also what happens is as soon as you get a signal, it's going to register a hit and it's going to flip to a new shape very quickly.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: The more they huddle, the more overwhelming it gets because they're just getting out of the signal. So you want them to back off a little bit and practice deliberate connection. Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah. So go ahead and hit start and you'll see. For demo purposes, it's probably going to ping quite a few because they're all right next to each other right now.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Right.
Quan Gan: You see it, right? Yeah, so either shape or color will match each other. If you happen to have identical shape and color, it gives you five points instead of just one point. Okay, you can go ahead and stop it.
Kristin Neal: You can also see that scoreboard right there, okay? That scoreboard with the leaderboard on that screen.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Yeah, see that.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah. Just another thing for leaderboard, there is an HDMI port near the switches. So if you wanted to plug this into your big screen, you can get that onto a monitor and everybody could be looking at that. So that's our second game. It's a social game. It's very great for, you know, just new players trying to get to know each other. I'll have you go back and go back to the main menu again. Okay. Is it not working?
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay. No, it is.
Quan Gan: Okay. Cool. And then you see there's every time you switch menus, there is kind of like a three second kind of a timeout just to make sure that all the watches, you get enough time to switch over in sync. Right. The watches should be back in the main menu. Okay.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: They are. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah. I'll gloss over a couple of other games of this category and then we'll jump to the third one.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay.
Quan Gan: Other games like Math Match and Word Wave and then also the last one, Sequence Train, these are all matching type games.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay.
Quan Gan: You can read through the instructions on each one to see how they work. For example, Math Match. Some people are. Some questions. Some people are going to have answers. So if someone has two plus two, the other one has four, they're going to match each other. For the word wave, that's English and Spanish or English and French for now. So if someone has cat and the other one has gato, they're going to find each other to match.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: I love that.
Quan Gan: We have a sequence train game, and that's a counting game. So everyone in the group is going to get assigned a random number. And you want everybody to spread out to be in a circle facing inwards. And whoever has the lowest number, their watch is going to be flashing. And they're going to jump to the middle of the circle and call out their number. And whoever is the next person in that sequence is going to come in and join them and then tag their taggers. And they stay in the middle and the original person goes flows back. And that goal is just to see, can the whole group count as high as they can collectively and help each other out? Okay.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: All right.
Quan Gan: So those, you're going to have to get more people to demonstrate, but you can read the gist of it. And starting and loading it is identical to what I've shown you so far.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay.
Quan Gan: All right.
Kristin Neal: Each of them, too, Quan, don't forget, each of them have that cog in the top right, and you can adjust. Especially for the math match, you can have the different operations and the times for each game.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah. I definitely encourage you to explore that ahead of time, just so you see what flexibility there is. And also, playtest it among your staff before you give it to the kids.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay.
Quan Gan: Okay. So the last game I'm going to show you is the most interactive one.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: This is the zombie survival game.
Quan Gan: Okay. That's the first one, yep. And this one, yeah, go to the one with the doctor. And this one, I want you to take out maybe two or three more taggers. And kind of set them a few feet apart if you can, so they're not just all cross-linking. Thank
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Six total?
Quan Gan: Is that good? Yeah that's fine. Okay so when you're done with that I'll describe the rules to you and you can feel free to close that rules menu okay so this game people are randomly assigned to be human zombie or doctor and the proportions of which we've got a preset although you could go into the cog and change how many humans doctors and zombies you have but this is a good starting point and how this game works is most people are going to start out human and their watch is going to glow green their purpose of the game is for the The entire extent of the game, they're trying to stay away from all the zombies who are red. A zombie with a red watch, if they get close enough, remember it's the sensor to sensor. If their watch gets within a few feet to the humans, they're going to infect the human and give them about 10 seconds before they convert to a zombie. If they convert to a zombie, that means now they're a zombie role and they are going to take their signals and infect other humans. So it's an infection game. But within those 10 seconds, if the human or the infected human is able to find a doctor, they get saved and they go back to normal human status. So the doctor is pretty cool in this role because the doctor can not only can they save humans, but if they get close to a zombie, they can actually zap the zombie for five seconds and the zombies lose their power temporarily. Okay, so the doctor is a very heroic role and you can even choose to give this doctor. After roll to the child that's a little bit less engaged, shy, or even special needs. And how you do that is, you see how after every character there's an X on it?
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Yes.
Quan Gan: So you can feel free to release some of those characters by pressing X, and they're going to go back into the left side of the screen, which is basically like a loading screen. So like, let's say, yeah, a few of the taggers, click the X next to a person's name, or next to a number, and do you see how that number flows to the left side?
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Yes.
Quan Gan: That means they're unassigned right now.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay.
Quan Gan: So you can assign them manually to one of those roles.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay.
Quan Gan: And how you know who is being assigned is at the bottom of the tagger, you should see a number. So look at a ZTAG, there's usually a number on it, right?
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Yeah, that's it up.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so that means if you have Sally, you want to give her that particular role, look at the number that's on Sally's watch. And then you can assign her into a particular category.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay.
Quan Gan: Okay. But for the most part, we made it easy just to hit random assign and it will just automatically, randomly put everybody into the proper proportions.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah. One other little piece is we always want to start out with at least two zombies, maybe more. And the reason for that is a single zombie is very difficult to chase down a person and infect them because they can easily just turn their watch the other way and pivot and it's hard to tag them. But if you have two or more zombies, you could teach them teamwork to surround the person. So no matter which way they turn, the signal is going to get their watch.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah. All right. So given that, can make sure, hit random assign just to make sure all the characters are assigned in there. Yep. And then go to next. And you should see, get ready on all the watches. At this point, we tell all the players to spread out. Across your play field. And typically, I would say your play field is no bigger than a basketball court.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Sometimes even smaller half court is fine. Or even in the classroom, if you say walking only, just really be aware of the surrounding dynamics.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Right.
Quan Gan: Yeah. And the reason why we want it actually smaller rather than larger is because there's more interactions that way. Like, you know, if the kids are just running out, you know, 100 yards, everybody's getting tired. Now, we've done long 10-minute games, you know, in the middle of the woods at night. That's a completely different thing. So those are two-year options, right? You can go into the cog and change it. But for most quick games, yeah, like two minutes, keep it in a small space, and there's going to be a lot of running and, you know, pivoting and running around.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay.
Quan Gan: Okay. So go ahead and press next, and you'll see these watches wake up. Yeah, start game. Yeah. Okay, so you're holding a zombie?
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: I am.
Quan Gan: Okay, so if you get close, remember to face your watch towards them. Yeah, it'll probably... I got close to a doctor once. Yeah, exactly. Oh, did it say game over? Why did it say game over?
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Everybody's infected except for the doctor.
Quan Gan: because you were probably too I didn't get them far enough away from each other. Right. So obviously the game will be very different when you put it on people, but you get the tagging mechanics now.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Yeah, yeah.
Quan Gan: So you pretty much know everything there is to know at least at this level of operation. Do you have any questions so far?
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: I really don't. It's really... It is simple after you've explained everything.
Quan Gan: So yeah.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay. I think the kids are going to love it. yeah, the operations are really simple now that we've kind of just had a quick, you know, run through of what to do.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah. Happy to walk you through that. And I think once your kids start observing how you operate it, they'll probably teach you how to run it after.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Oh, I'm sure. They usually pick up on things really quick.
Quan Gan: Yeah. And I think this is a good starting point, but also note that there's many other things we can layer on top of this. So you guys feel free to get creative. For example, red light, green light could be easily added to a scavenger hunt or a wiener race. You could be bouncing basketballs or dancing or hula hoops while you're doing it. Right? So find other ways to spice it up. Rather than waiting for us to release a new game, get creative and find variations on the current games.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Yeah. Because that's way easier. You throw in a few extra props or something, it's a whole other game for the kids. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Quan Gan: I will share one last thing. I know there's a lot of information, but we're going to be sending you the recording anyways.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay.
Quan Gan: So you can always come back and review it. For the zombie... Survival game, that's actually a great team-based activity, and I'll share with you one of the formats. We call it Doctor Defense. So let's say you have all 24 kids. You're going to split into two teams, 12 and 12. One of the teams, you assign them completely to be zombies. The other team, you assign half humans, half doctors. So six humans and six doctors. And you can assign them by reading what's the number on the the number on the bottom, yeah. Exactly. And you can also optionally give them penny jerseys or something so they know which team they're on. And then you put all the zombies outside of the field, and all the humans and the doctor, you tell them, hey, you want to work together. So basically the doctors are like the hostage protectors to the humans almost, right? They're working in pain. And the game ends when all their humans die or get converted. So they're trying to keep them alive, right? And then when you start the game, you're going to trickle into the field every 10 seconds, one zombie. But you realize there's 12 zombies versus only six doctors to save people. So it will eventually be very hard for them to keep everybody safe. So that is a very cool way to see how well they work together.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: And then you take a time to see, did they last all three minutes?
Quan Gan: Or did they have like 40 seconds left and then everybody got infected? You stop the game and then you can manually convert the team and see if the other team, which used to be offense, now they're playing defense, can they do it better?
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Right. That's cool. Yeah. I like that too.
Quan Gan: So you can easily turn this into tournament formats. Earlier for the red light, green light, I had to turn on this negative scoring. The benefit of that is everybody stays in the game so that even if you go minus 10, you're still in it. You just lose some point. But if you want to make this a more competitive bracket, you could remove that checkmark and then you actually are out of that game. So there's a lot of flexibility on how much is at stake and you can maybe win prizes or something from that.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Yeah. Yeah. Do some incentives for them. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Especially for high schoolers. It looks like you're at a high school.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: We are actually on this campus. We're a pre-K through 12 school all on one campus. We're very, very small. And our summer program and our after school program that these were purchased for runs pre-K through eighth grade. So.
Quan Gan: But we do have two sets.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: So, you know, we could let the younger teachers take the younger kids with that set and then, you know, use one set for the older kids. So.
Quan Gan: Okay. So a few things I want to talk about. There's a few. Yeah. It brings a few things to mind.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: So. Okay.
Quan Gan: Find that the older kids, they'll. I want the additional team-based strategy and sophistication, right? Because after the novelty wears off, you've got to give them additional things for them to talk to each other, especially team-based. Now they're not really just wearing out the novelty of the game, but they're improving their own skills against other of friends, which keeps the game evergreen. So the team-based actually really works for that, whereas the little kids, they're just happy to run around and interact.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Oh, yeah.
Quan Gan: It's easy, right? The other thing you mentioned, having two kits, you have the option to link two kits all together. Oh, okay.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: A 48-player game.
Quan Gan: Now to do that, you have to keep the second kit completely shot off, but simply pull the taggers out, turn them on, and they'll link to this first kit.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Oh, okay. Oh, great.
Quan Gan: That's good to know. Yeah. Now, on the flip side of that, what you don't want to do is have two kits next to each other, both on.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Both turned on, yeah.
Quan Gan: Because then when this wakes up, it doesn't know which one to connect to.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay.
Quan Gan: They're confused. So if you happen to be running two simultaneous games, I would separate them far enough so they're not seeing each other and they link to their own respective games.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay. Thank you for telling us that.
Kristin Neal: I'm glad that got brought up. I'm so glad. Don't also forget the antenna. So there's an antenna that actually goes on the top of that. It's right there.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Yes.
Kristin Neal: If you just put those, attach those bunny ears, there's a input that you add to the back of that case. And it's very, let's see. Yeah, that's it.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Yeah.
Quan Gan: I think I actually had the one out from the other kit.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: pulled the kit that we actually had not been into as much. But yeah, that looks, that looks pretty easy to set up.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay.
Quan Gan: A little caveat to that is there's a little plastic clip that comes with it. It rests on top of the lid to, to keep this device. Yeah. It'll go behind the lid, but you'll definitely. I want to keep this Zeus in a place where kids can't run into it because if they knock this router off, that clip is probably the easiest thing to get broken.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: So just keep it. Just kind of keep it out of the line of fire then.
Quan Gan: Yeah, exactly. Because there's going to be a lot of running. So just so you know what you get yourself into for that one.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: All right.
Quan Gan: Yeah. I think that's about it. Oh, one other, this is a pro tip. You know, the charging cable that comes with it, once you put everything back, it may not neatly fit into the back wall.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay.
Quan Gan: What I actually end up doing is, I don't know if you can really see it here, but I fit it into the gap.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Oh, okay. Yeah.
Quan Gan: You have the cord and you kind of snake it through here, but maybe everything is beneath the line of the tagger. So this thing can close, but that allows you to just have a little bit of space. It's because sometimes too many things are back here, and that might impact either that clip or even the wireless antenna, you know, if it's pressed. So yeah, just snaking that through the ZTAggers will give you more space.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay.
Kristin Neal: I also double-checked one more thing. You guys do have the conference special, which is the ZTAgg Extended Care. So you are able, if there is any issue with your ZTAggers, you know, accidents happen and a screen cracks, whatever the situation, just email us at help at ZTAgg.com and give us the serial number and maybe a description of what's going on, and we'll just ship a new one right out to you, up to six per year.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Oh, fantastic.
Quan Gan: Okay. Oh, yes. Along the line of support. Let me show you where to find support, even in the system. Okay, so back off to the main menu again. Okay, and then at the... Very top, is there still a cog somewhere?
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: There is.
Quan Gan: Okay, go to the cog. And sometimes the buttons are a little bit harder to reach. Okay, so do you see a help section there?
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: I do, yes.
Quan Gan: Go to that. It should load up three QR codes.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: It does.
Quan Gan: Yeah. So those will link you back to the manual and documentation and I believe the online videos too.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Okay. Great.
Quan Gan: I think that's it.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: All right, yeah. Okay. All right, I think that's got us ready to, like you said, we'll try that with our team first and then kind of get that going with our kids then.
Quan Gan: Okay, yeah. Do take some videos or post on Instagram and tag us.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: All right.
Quan Gan: Okay, we'll do that. Okay.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: All right, thank you all so much.
Kristin Neal: Thank you.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: Thank so much.
Kristin Neal: Take care.
Annah Black and Magen Alsup, Lynn High School: All right. Bye.
Kristin Neal: Bye. And we're going to stay on because we have the open training.
Quan Gan: Yeah, okay. So we're staying on for like another hour and a half?
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Do you want to close your stuff? I can let you know if someone comes in. I'm sorry.
Quan Gan: Yeah, if you're okay with me leaving a bit.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, yeah. Of course.
Quan Gan: Bye for now.
Kristin Neal: Bye. Bye. Bye.
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Klansys Palacio: Good morning, Chris. They're on mute.
Kristin Neal: Sorry. How are you?
Klansys Palacio: Oh, good. How are you, Chris? How was your weekend?
Kristin Neal: Good. Good. Not long enough, but it was good. Yeah.
Klansys Palacio: I saw your videos and pictures.
Kristin Neal: It was really cool. Oh, thanks, girl. That was the Firefly Festival. I was able to get video for you, girls. I remember last year, was like, I wish I had gotten videos to show you.
Klansys Palacio: Do you guys have fireflies out there? Yes.
Kristin Neal: You do? Oh, cool. Okay. They don't have them out in California, so it's very rare to see them. But good morning.
Klansys Palacio: morning.
Carmee Sarvida: Good morning, everyone. Good morning.
Kristin Neal: Good morning. Good morning. You We'll get started as soon as the girls join us. We'll go over weekend updates and then we'll go over the task board. Do you girls like the task board so far? Yeah.
Klansys Palacio: Man, it helps my brain.
Kristin Neal: Like, does it help your guys' brains? Like, my brain feels so much better. There's not so many, like, details that are floating and, like, who knows what someone else knows kind of thing, you know what mean? Like, everything is, like, in that one spot. It's so nice. Klansys, you really, you really knocked it out of the park with One. Huge. Thank you. Good morning, Paula.
Klansys Palacio: Morning to you. on vacation.
Kristin Neal: I know. Except for Carmee and I. Yes. You girls look like you're enjoying your vacation. All right. Well, let's go ahead and jump in and hopefully Tin will be able to join us. I haven't heard from her, but hopefully we'll hear soon. Okay. Good morning. Happy Monday. Glad we're all back. It looks like we've got some good rest. So we're going to go over the weekend in one word and let us know how how your weekend went. So one. Oh, here comes Tin. Perfect timing Tin. This meeting is being recorded. We are kicking off our meeting with a one word about how our weekend went. I will start. My weekend was. I'll say dark. Thank Actually, from Friday, we had the Firefly Festival, so we were out in the middle of the woods, and it was completely dark. You couldn't even see in front of you, so fully dark, and then Dad ended up taking a turn, so his birthday is today, but it's just like a heavy, so it's right now it's hard with him, so. All right, I'm going to popcorn to Klansys.
Klansys Palacio: Thank you, happy birthday to your father.
Kristin Neal: Thank you.
Klansys Palacio: So, for me, my weekend, one word would be colorful. So, yeah, it was really great, especially when I celebrated my birthday. It was not that, like, something that was really special to me because I have my family, we are together celebrating it, even if even if it starts it. Full celebration, but I was really happy with what the celebration comes about. So it was really great because we had a small after-party. I'm not really, like, back then I have a drinker, but we did drink some, like, something that really I experienced again. So it was a really great experience again. So, yeah, let's go with... How about you, Chris? Hiya, you're done.
Kristin Neal: Sorry. I was the opposite of yours. Yours was colourful, mine was dark.
Klansys Palacio: Paula.
Paula Cia: Thanks, Klans. So for me, my weekend was great. I was able to celebrate my friend's master's graduation, so she already graduated. So we just celebrated it last weekend. So it was great. Next, Dean.
Tin DG: Thank you, Paula. Good morning, everyone. My weekend is productive. So even it's raining here, I just stay home and do my household chores that I didn't do last week. So I do the laundry and clean the mess on our kitchen. Okay. So for me, my weekend is productive. Next is Carmee.
Carmee Sarvida: Thanks, Dean. Happy birthday to your dad, Chris. I hope he's recovering now too. Thank you for your wishes for my dad. So my weekend, I think one word would be rested because it's the first time, I think in one month that I didn't go to, the first weekend in a month that I didn't go to the hospital. So it's It's The first weekend, so I visited my dad, and he's doing well, and then I came to church for the first time, so I was blessed, and I was able to rest well. Thank you.
Kristin Neal: That's wonderful, Carmee. Good news. That's really good news. Really happy for everyone. I'm glad it was rested, productive, great, bright. That's wonderful. Very happy. All right, team. Last week, we're getting in this groove, and I'm really grateful for it. It feels good. I just was asking Klansys and Carmee, Paula and Tin, how do you guys feel about the task board? How is that feeling for you from last week? Tin, do you want to share how has this worked out for you?
Tin DG: The task on how I do my tasks.
Kristin Neal: The whole thing, the task board, how are you, are you getting a lot from it? Is it going well for you?
Tin DG: Is it overwhelming? Yes, for me, the task board is okay because whenever I forget something, so I will just go back on it, what I miss. So yeah, so for me, it's good that we have a task board.
Kristin Neal: Perfect. Awesome. Paula? How about you? Has the task board been good for you?
Paula Cia: Yeah, same with, so actually it was like just last Friday, I was just able to receive the notifications because I'm not, I don't know if I am in the automation for the task board, but since Klansys already updated that, I was able to receive most of the notifications. Thank you. And also it's very helpful that when you added notes on the task, I can see it in the email so I can update the task immediately if there are notes. So it's really helpful.
Kristin Neal: That wonderful, Paula. I'm so glad. I'm glad you brought that up too, because that was something that like just kind of came naturally. Klansys, this one, you showed us how to do that, you know, add the, let's see, where's one? Let's check this one. Down here with the notes, the attachments, it's changing. It's changing how we work. It's been incredible, because we are able to add the notes and what needs to be added and not. So good. I'm glad that it's doing well for you guys. I'll start off with the meeting agenda tags, and then we'll go from that. We'll go into the green. And then from that, we will go into specific tasks. And I've created boards for each of you. So you'll have, at the end, you'll share like what you've got going on. We'll come. All right. Let's see. Ah, what did I do? Oh, there we go. Okay, so here's the master tasks. So meeting agenda. Here we go. So today, I'm sorry, last week on Friday was the last day for the national playday event that ZTAG has, that ZTAG took a part in. We were one of the only companies come to find out that we're at all the activation sites in California. So we were at, I believe five. I'm going to have to. To look into that, to see how many there were, because I thought there was more, but from what I understood from Juan, that it was actually, we were at all of them. So that's huge. Whether we were or not, it was huge. We went from one activation site last year to five this year. So that, that was absolutely amazing. We had an amazing time. They responded very, very graciously. Um, these are what the, the, um, Paula, you know what? I'm going to send this to you. You can use this.
Paula Cia: Yes. Yes. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. That's great. I'll, I'll definitely forward this to you. And, um, this one is the Sacramento one. See, there's Juan. Yeah. I'll see that right now. Let's see. That one was from Peter, I think. That one was Peter. Okay, forwarding this to you now. Wonderful. if you can add like a shout out, thank you so much. We, oh, okay, how can we get around that? Let's see.
Paula Cia: Um, will you be able to download the zip file for that, Chris, and just send me the zip file?
Kristin Neal: Oh, okay. So do this? Yeah. Okay. Did it do all of them or did it just?
Paula Cia: Okay, try control D.
Kristin Neal: Control D. Okay.
Paula Cia: That's which has a bookmark.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Paula Cia: Control letter. Or D, I mean D, Control Download.
Kristin Neal: Control Download. No, it's not. Download on minus for a bookmark. Let's see. What can I do? Will I have to download all of them?
Paula Cia: Yeah, I guess. So it will be downloaded as a zip file. Or you can do Control A and then right-click Download.
Kristin Neal: It's not working on my end. I'm right-clicking on Control A.
Klansys Palacio: Can you click the media? That media on the upper part of this one here?
Kristin Neal: Let's see. In the media. Right here. There we go. there we go. And Download. see. Let's Yeah, okay. Ah, there we go. Thank you. Thank you. There we go. Okay. Wonderful. Thank you, girls. Okay, Paula, will get this right over to you. Good task. I don't know where it went. Let's see. Preparing download. Clansys. is it? where it went. Still trying to download.
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, still compressing, I think.
Kristin Neal: Okay. I wonder if I should just request her to be added. A copy link? Oh, no. Can't open with the link. Hmm. What do you guys think? Oh, there we go. Looks like it's coming. While we're waiting on that, if you guys could get your own tickets out, because I have them tagged if we need a... It's so just be prepared for those. There we go. We're getting it. I can't. OK. OK, we can add it after the same thing. Well, that's for you. Here we go. It exceeds the allowed limit. OK, so I got to zip it, right? And press.
Paula Cia: I think it's already on the zip file, Chris.
Kristin Neal: So how can I get
Paula Cia: It over to you. I'm just in the email attached to me email.
Kristin Neal: Okay, let's hope it works. Good. I'm so glad you girls walked me through that. Thank you. Looks like it's going to take a minute. All right. Well, let's see if that goes. If not, I'll keep trying. Okay. All right. Thank you so much, Paula. Okay. So, yeah, really, really grateful, you guys. Thank you so much for all the support for National Play Day. It went really, really well. All right. Let's see. Is there any more? you. Clarifications. These are actually the completed ones. Okay. This one actually, this one's on the agenda, Klansys, because at the Friday meeting, we had a great discussion. Tin brought it up that when she heard about what you're doing for Carmee with sales, she loved the idea to be able to maybe implement that for tickets. So we're wondering if that's something that you guys could meet about after and see if that could be implemented for Tin. Okay. So that's a request down here in notes. So after today, if you guys can, can meet up with that. Sound good? Yeah. Thank you so much. Let's see. Okay. Do you guys have anything else for the whole team to update us? Okay, we'll go ahead and get started on the individual tasks then. We'll start with Carmee's. Now a lot of these things, I want to make sure that you understand, like, just because they're not on here doesn't mean that there's not tasks being done. And I know, Carmee, that you are working on a few emails, you know, you're getting out those things, you know, follow-ups and all that. So that is not on here. And we've also talked, I've also spoke with Carmee, any quotes that she gets out that's over 10 units, she's going to add a task here. So once we're done with this meeting, go ahead and add that task so that we're on, we can be on top of it. Okay. Carmee, is there anything else that you're able to share that you're
Carmee Sarvida: Since you've already mentioned the 10 plus units for a code, I'm going to add it to this task board. Today, I've sent out a code for 11 units requested by Angel from Learn LA. So we're hoping that they will proceed with the purchase because he mentioned that they have funds that need to be used today, Monday. So I'm on standby for whatever he, for his response and hopefully he'll move forward with it. And today I will also be going through the deals. If there are deals that I haven't reached out to or haven't sent follow-ups up, since I have already sent some follow-ups last week, I'll just make sure that there will be no deals that will be left out. So I'll work on that. And then I'm also waiting for the updates for the reach-out email for the Ostecon attendees. And I'm curious, since Paula has already sent the reach-out email and have also did follow-ups on the Ostecon needs, would it be okay if I'll be sending them another follow-up this week? Yeah, great question.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Let's strategize that a little bit more. more. Let's strategize strategize Because we don't want to flood their emails with things that they're not going be looking at. So let's really get on. I wonder if. I'll try to get on that as much as possible. The on. Yeah. Video. Because we're so that's that's something that we're stuck on. This got brought up because this is one of the tasks right now, too, because we're we're trying to get the. The. Like a landing page. Carmee for or not. Klansys for. OK, let me let me explain a little bit. Let me let me go back just a smidge. That one is for one of the tasks. I'll look into that. But there is. Here we go. This is it. OK, so in order for us to. What we're trying to do is have a video. Bye-bye. Bye Shown to all the OsteCon attendees. And in that video, we want very simple next steps. Kwon had mentioned that you guys had done this with the, I can't remember what he said. There was like a landing page that you guys had done. So we're trying to create another landing page where there is like a watch, watch this demo video. But now that I'm thinking about it, you know what, Tin, can you help me out here? Or Paula, God, please, I hope you guys have this. That you guys have a demo video of Kwon at the, at a show, not OsteCon, but at any show where he did a demo video. Paula, Tin, do you know?
Paula Cia: I think we have in the YouTube, but it's already hidden. It's already hidden? It's Because it was really old video.
Kristin Neal: Okay. No, this one was done at the NAA. And it was done by Charlie. So if not, if we can actually reach out to Charlie, because that's where I'm stuck, Klansys. I tried. I tried so hard to create a demo video, but I just couldn't. It was so hard. was taking me like 20 minutes just to get like one thing, like one little part done. So it was like, okay, that's just too overwhelming. I can't do a whole demo video. The whole demo video would have been an hour long. That's just too long. They will not pay attention. But I'm now remembering that Charlie recorded Kwan doing a demo video at the NAA. And it looked fine. So we could very easily have that video on the landing page for them to have a virtual demo. And then there's also going to be another option that they can have to. to. And we Request a pricing catalog. Now that Paula has beautifully created that, we can have all that so that Carmee is very clear. They're going to watch this video. Thank you so much for seeing us at Ozpecon from me. I can do that. That at least I can do. We hope that we'll connect with you and partner with you to get your kids moving again. Please click one of these buttons if either of these are in interest to you. One button will be virtual demo for my decision maker. The second button will be get me a quote and our pricing packages. Let's just call it a pricing package. Carmee. Okay, so then we'll know the pricing package will include the catalog, the sole source letter, the W-9, and the extended care. Okay, so that sounds good. Let's let's move forward with that because We wait on my video, we'll wait for the rest of the year. So let's move on that. Paula, can you reach out to Charlie? I'm going to add this right here. I'm actually going to add you to on this, on our task, to see if you can reach out to Charlie and get that demo video that was created. Would you be able to do that, Paula? Sure.
Paula Cia: Thank you so much. It was from NAA, you're right.
Kristin Neal: NAA, National After School Association. That one was done at Nashville. Okay. Yeah. Thank you so much, Paula. Do you want me to add, I added you to this task. Do you want me to do a different task or is this one okay? Yeah, that's fine. Okay. Thank you so much. Okay. Okay, Carmee, that'll at least get us moving. And if there's anything that, maybe you can help. Um. Ansys work on that landing page. I would say we want this to be sustainable. We want this landing page, right, to be on for any reach outs in the future. Like that to me seems like it would be amazing. So if we can get that landing page aligned with conference, conference, reach out conferences, maybe conferences. Klansys, what do you think? ZTAG.com slash conference for that landing page? Or not hidden, but.
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, I think we can ask AI.
Kristin Neal: Perfect. Perfect.
Klansys Palacio: Okay. But we do need, Paula and I will be needing a content for us to be able to do the landing page. So any content, so you can just add the content. For sections, then the fields for forms. I think you need forms for that, right, Chris, as well?
Kristin Neal: Not a form, not a form, because if they click that button, if we can somehow get that button to notify Carmee that they are requesting the pricing package, then she can just send it right to them. So do we need a form for that, or how would she be able to get that information?
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, I think we need a form that it will be a trigger for Carmee to be able to get the notifications. I think just a simple form, like a name, an email, and a message. If that will work, then Carmee will be able to get the information.
Kristin Neal: I talked to Quan last week, and he said he's trying to remove every hurdle. So is there a way that we could do it without the form? Because the form is going to be for them to fill out. But if we're sending this to their email, we already have. Your email, we already have, okay, hang on, hang on. Let's think this, sir. If they're clicking the button that they want the pricing information, the pricing package, let's not do the form. Let's just have it to where Carmee is notified through CRM that that button was clicked. Is that possible, Klansys?
Klansys Palacio: If the button will be clicked, well, it can be, but you won't be able to know which customers click the button. Just the API. Just the IP address, like who clicked it, how many times did they click it, but not the information of the user who clicked it. So that's why we need a trigger, a main trigger for that, so that Carmee will be able to identify who. It requests for that, or who clicked that bottom, so.
Kristin Neal: Okay, because it won't come from their email, huh?
Klansys Palacio: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, it won't.
Klansys Palacio: think just an email will do. If it's something that we can work on, then an agent will be able to look or find or search contacts on the CRM if it's already there, then it will automatically email to or notify Carmee for much contacts if they are able to request on that bottom. I think just an email.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Carmee, what do you think?
Carmee Sarvida: Klansys, these emails are not an OCRM because they are not leads. They are just attendees. From the OSTICON that we will be reaching out to. So they're basically not added in our CRM.
Kristin Neal: There's like 580 something of these attendees. That's a really good point. So let's go with Klansys' suggestion about the email then. Because the only way that it would be would be if it were connected to their email, like an agent added to the email. For all of those, right? And then they'd be able to extract that email and yeah, I think a form.
Klansys Palacio: Yeah. Yeah, we can do like a separate module for that if it's not leads.
Carmee Sarvida: So that it will be able for the agent to identify as well.
Klansys Palacio: So if the email, for example, if the email is not really in the CRM, so it will create a new entry. So that we do have a record for them automatically, but if the email has been added, so it will not go into duplication inside of it. So that's how we're avoiding as well, duplication. So I know how it's hard to merge contacts.
Kristin Neal: Would you girls be able to meet separately and at least maybe get some ideas going to start moving on that? And I'll work on the video portion and the email portion. Carmee, I'll bring you in in that also when it's time. But would that be something you girls could work on, the landing page between the three? Okay. Thank you so much, girls. Okay. Awesome. Here we go. Okay. Carmee, thank you so much. You're working on Ostecon. Yes. Appreciate it. I'm glad all that came from that. That's really good. All right. So Klansys, here we go. This one we talked about already. This one is for the draft emails for Tin, for support. Do you want to talk to us about the auto-quote creation?
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, for the auto-quote, so it's already been, I already updated the prompt. Carmee already checked it, but I need to test it first. So I will be going to do it live and do an email testing so that it will be able to get the right information. But the prompt has been already added and confirmed by Carmee, so we will just do a monitoring so that it will be able to create a right product inside of the contacts because the agent is actually converting leads to contacts. Based on the process that we have on the CRM. So if the email or that contact confirmed about getting the code, then the agent will automatically run it and create it for them. So you and Carmee will be notified if the agent will be able to create. So I did a separate tagging. I just added source for agent so that you will be able to get the right. Because I know CRM is notifying you with a lot of things. So that's why I just added a keyword for that so that you are able to identify where did this code came from or who did create this. Cool.
Kristin Neal: Great. Are you guys getting notified a lot through by CRM?
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, I receive a lot of notifications.
Kristin Neal: Oh, okay. Are you guys getting flooded? Because if it's getting to where you're not even looking at.
Carmee Sarvida: No, for me, it's useful. I look at them, a single one of them, just to make sure that all notifications are checked.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Paula, it looked like you were going to add something.
Paula Cia: Did you want to add something? No.
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, I do want to add something. Yes, Klansys, yes. Okay, so for the about Tin's cases about the drafting of emails, I did actually research about it when I saw your... So I tried to check if Zohodesh is capable of doing draft. So I tried to do the draft, but manually, it's not the same with the CRM, but I'm trying to have a workaround. But it is possible to create a template for her, or I think I can find a way where I can, what they call this, store. All the emails that the agent will be able to generate. So I just need, I think, a very thorough content on what agent will going to do. Same with Carmee. Carmee is actually helping me with the prompt. So yeah, that will be really helpful to create a very concise prompt for the agent to work on.
Kristin Neal: Thank That's huge, that's huge. Okay. Thank you, girls, for working on that together. I really appreciate it. So you did. So there is a way. I knew you. Find it, Klansys for Tin. That's awesome. Okay. Did we already, yeah, that one is, so are you saying that we need to move the, that task, where is it? Right here. This task, should we move it over to, you need input, or this one is for the support?
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, I think I need to create a separate, because this is for leads.
Kristin Neal: Oh, got it.
Klansys Palacio: So create a whole separate task.
Kristin Neal: Gotcha. Gotcha, gotcha. Mm-hmm. So, um, Otto. Is that right? Is that correct, Tin? Automatic. Support email template or just email?
Tin DG: Just email.
Kristin Neal: okay. Okay. We'll go until Thursday. Here we go. to pin for verification on requests. Okay. All right, Tin. So she's going to reach out to you. With updates and see how it looks on your end. Does that sound good, girls?
Tin DG: Yes. Okay. Thank you, Chris and Klansys.
Kristin Neal: Thank you both. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Awesome job. I love it. And I think that's the only thing we need to update on, Klansys. Thank you so much. Let's see. Tin. No, Paula. you. All right, you got the, were you able to get it, Paula, the images?
Paula Cia: Yeah, your notes.
Kristin Neal: Wonderful, I'm so glad, good. And then here we have, and then you got the notes for the pricing sheet?
Paula Cia: Yes.
Kristin Neal: Perfect. Awesome, that should probably be done any minute now. This one right here, I added the needs clarification because I did meet with Quan, and he did add you to the shared file, the shared Google Drive. And this is what, this is everything that's in that file. I can already see it kind of getting out of hand, because as you can see, there's several documents. Maybe you girls would know, Carmee, is there a reason why we have like a Google Doc and then a PDF? Like, can we just offer PDFs, or do we need to also offer?
Carmee Sarvida: I'm just sending out the PDF files. think Charlie added the Google Doc files for editing the versions or the files. Okay. But we will just be sending out the PDFs.
Kristin Neal: The PDFs. Is there any way, and I'll add this to the tasks, this could actually probably be like low priority for Paula and Klansys, but if you girls could actually go through this and clear out as much as you can. Like I only want the things that we send to all of our partners in here. Everything else, like we don't need the voided check. We don't need the, this one down here, where is it? The form, the 590 form. These are all 889 representative form. Those forms are only for vendor forms. So if we can somehow get. Those out of this and into its own file so that we can very clearly see, Carmee, would this be something that you'd be able to, how could I just make this as a team task? And if you're able to, in your own time, this is low priority, get this cleared out to where there's vendor forms in one spot, there's editable, I don't even know if that's a word, an editable folder for all the Google Drives of these docs. But the ZTAG shared, this only will stay with, like, the four things that we send, Carmee, and even the academic. This is definitely one that we want to keep. So it's things like that. Are there any questions? Okay. I'm going to, Carmee, I'll have this as your task owner.
Carmee Sarvida: But is that okay?
Kristin Neal: But everyone will work on this. we'll have this as our low status or priority. Not the lowest, but it'll be low. Okay. I'll set this for next Monday. You girls are working on Friday, right? Is that right? You girls don't have Friday off? Because we have Friday off for the 4th of July. This actually would be a perfect thing to work on for Friday because you won't need any of us. Okay.
Carmee Sarvida: Yes, think we also have Friday off. It's in our calendar.
Kristin Neal: What is it?
Carmee Sarvida: It's in our calendar. We have both U.S. and Philippines holidays.
Kristin Neal: Oh, I realized you had both. Okay, good. I'm glad you guys clarified. Good. All right. We're just going to put everyone in here right now, but Tin, I don't think there's anything from your, that you need to get out of it, that you need to move out. So, yeah, like sales process that can go under like staff development or things like that. Yeah, remote work submission template. The pricing catalog, let's definitely keep that in here. That'll be a good one. And I'll. I have a V3 that, Paula, maybe you can add to it when it's completely edited. You can add the things that you've created, the pricing catalogs for the V2 and the V3.
Paula Cia: Okay. Yeah. For the V3, I think one hasn't replied to any of the notes yet.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Paula Cia: I'll look at that. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Are there any questions on this one? Ladies. All right. Here we go. Let's see. There was... Um... let's stop. Let's the album on. Mint. All there. Okay. Okay, those are the only ones that I think so far were there any other suggested files? I don't think so. The legacy confidence swap letter, Tin, that one is yours. Do you want to keep that in the shared? We could probably keep that one in here. That'd be better?
Tin DG: Yes.
Kristin Neal: Okay, we'll just keep it in the ZTAG shared. Gotcha. All right, thank you everybody. Thank you, Carmee, for taking the lead on that. So Paula, we went to yours. Okay. Okay, and... Now we're going to Tin. All right. All right, Tin, go ahead and take it away for this top one, the track, the Yuba City.
Tin DG: Yes, for this one, it mentioned here that I need to update AR because I already sent the one unit and I already sent a check-in to Yuba City and they confirmed that the payment is already in process, so we should receive the payment soon. And Charlie know about it, so I don't know what is needed still to update here.
Kristin Neal: Just the missing unit, were you able to find UPS? Were they able to track down that missing unit yet?
Tin DG: The tracking number for missing unit is still in progress, so I will try to contact UPS today to get update information.
Kristin Neal: Got it. Thank you so much. Thank you, and this one, action distribution, how are you doing on that?
Tin DG: Yes, for this, Charlie already confirmed that the payment received already sent to action distribution, so I just confirmed the shipping address, and they confirmed the shipping address. I'm just waiting for Kwan about the product details to create a shipment. So once I receive it to Kwan, I will forward it to Carmee to create shipment on CRM, and then I will generate the label to ship the package.
Kristin Neal: Okay, let's go around that block because Kwan is crazy busy. He's not even in town. So reach out to Ricardo, and he has those things that we're talking about. He knows where the clip is. He knows Or the screen, the routers. He should know where all that is. The only thing that you need to tell him is what needs to be packaged so he can give you the dimensions.
Tin DG: Yes. I also asked Dr. Quan. He said he needed to update something about the package information. So, yeah. So I need also some information from him.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, I would give him an email. Add Ricardo. Like, everything that I just told you, add that in the email. And then add Quan's next steps, what you need to that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much us. There we go. Thank you so much. All right. David Speer, what did you learn from him? That's the one that has Quan's V3.
Tin DG: Yes. He confirmed that the V3 is still with him and is already done with the event. I already sent the return label. Because he already confirmed the shipping address, and I already informed him to contact me if he needed me to schedule a pickup for him, for his availability.
Kristin Neal: Good. I'm going to move this to waiting for him, so since you're waiting for him to get back to you, whether you need a pickup. Awesome job, Tim. Thank you so much. And here we go. Did you get my note on here, Tim, for the references?
Tin DG: Yes. I'm just adding information, so I will submit this later.
Kristin Neal: Perfect.
Tin DG: Awesome.
Kristin Neal: Good job, Tim. You've got a lot going on. All right. And then the tickets, I'm sure you already saw this one. There was a few. Um, um, tasks that were the same thing, and it was about the meeting on Sunday, but did you already see that I added the meeting to your, your tasks so you can review?
Tin DG: Yes, I will check it later.
Kristin Neal: Sorry guys. All right, maybe we'll it up, pick it up. Okay. It's all right. All right. Thank you so much. Um, was there anyone else that I missed? No? Okay, everybody. Close that door, please. Thank you so much.
Klansys Palacio: It's okay. Okay, I think I have one, Chris, regarding the, um, lead cards you, you've tugged it as need.
Kristin Neal: Thank you. Yes. Yes. Thank you so much. Wait. Yeah. Thank you. Yes. I also tagged that one. Yes. Thank you for reminding me, Klansys. So is that all ready to go? I think the only thing I needed was where exactly to find that module that you had sent, that you had the video on. That was the only thing.
Klansys Palacio: So for the lead card, you are only can like upload it, upload the image. That's it. Because the other part of it is an automation.
Kristin Neal: So. Yes. So where do I, where do I upload them to?
Klansys Palacio: Thank I think I just added the link on notes. Oh, please check it, Chris. Yes. Wonderful. you. Thanks. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Yes, this is the one, and the one that I did watch. I just need to know how to get to that. What's the app? Is there an app? Is it a website? Where do I reach this information? Like, where do I upload those pictures?
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, if you click the link, that would be where you were going to upload the image. Then that's it. Then it will automatically, agent will automatically generate a lead space on the image that you have already added, and it will notify you once agent will be are able to create. But don't worry, I added an error or issue so that if the issue will fired up, it will go in to notify me immediately. So I added a notifier for issues as well. So but for the successful leads created, it will notify you and will indicate that it is from the lead card.
Kristin Neal: Great, great. So where do we get, is this the only place for that link? If so, can we move it to where maybe it'll be easier to find for Carmee and I, like the ZTAG share file, the Google file, or the Google Drive, I mean, in here. Wait, where did it go? This one. Can we add it to like a PDF and just have that link available?
Klansys Palacio: Okay, great. I'll add it first.
Kristin Neal: Oh, thank you so much, Klansys. I appreciate it. It's just, we're going We lost in Carmee if we're searching through the tasks. So that'll be one spot where it'll be easy to get to. Thank you so much, Klansys. Wonderful. I will take off that. And then there was another clarification right here. Print and send invoice for Kalexico. That's for TIN and AR. I got that sent out this morning. I'll go confirm that it was picked up. But wasn't there more invoices? I feel like there was like three invoices that were supposed to be sent out manually. So if you girls can let me know. I'm going to put this under process. Okay. Thank you. All right, everybody, we have four minutes. And we'll end our meeting.
Paula Cia: Does anyone have any questions? Chris, Charity replied, and then she gave me the link for the drive with all the videos that might be useful. But Charity is asking for what is this video to be used. And then I think one is not satisfied while shooting.
Kristin Neal: Oh, wasn't. Okay. That's good to know. That's good to know. I wonder what it was. I know at one point, Pauly, he had mentioned that the background, like he didn't want anyone else to be in it.
Paula Cia: Yeah, because there was like too much in the background.
Kristin Neal: That's what Charlie said. Yeah, I agree. Is there any way that we can help with that? Because I've seen some videos that you've done and it's kind of like the background is taken out. Is that possible?
Paula Cia: I haven't been able to edit video because I think Ricardo is the one editing video for the professional use.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Then that's something that we'll have to kind of navigate. When you respond to her, say, Chris is looking for a video demo. To be able to send to the Ostecon leads. This is in relation with the reach out video that we're trying to get to all the attendees of Ostecon. Yeah, so she kind of knows the context and what we're trying to do. So it's not just an email out to them. We need to give them the next steps. And the next step is that virtual demo. Or at this point, you know, it might even just need to be here's a meeting link. So that's another another option. But to cut out the frustration and the middleman and all of that. A video demo would be huge. OK, everybody, last minute. Let's all share one word about what you're most hopeful this week. What are you most hopeful for this this week? I'll start. I am most hopeful for peace. Peace with everything that we're trying to get done. And yeah, peace. Paula, I'll popcorn to you.
Paula Cia: I am hoping for a healthier life because most of the people around me are getting sick. So I hope that they will get better soon. And also me. I hope that I'll avoid getting sick because I wanted to work and I don't want to be upset or work. Go with Klansys.
Klansys Palacio: Thanks, Paula. I think for me, hoping for a very calm week. So it's calm but productive, so it's something that I am practicing right now, being calm, because sometimes I do like panic when I felt so overwhelmed, but as time goes by, I'm trying, so yeah, I'm really hoping that this will be calm for me. Thank you.
Tin DG: Thank you, Colansys. My most hopeful this week is the UPS solve the delivery issue and send back the unit, the UbaCity unit, and the replacement for the laser tag.
Kristin Neal: So that is my most hopeful.
Tin DG: Next is Carmee.
Carmee Sarvida: Thanks, Tin. More sales. More sales for this week in the coming weeks. Bye. Back to you, Chris.
Kristin Neal: Thank you, Carmee. All right, everybody. Thank you. I hope for all those things too. Good health, wellness, calm, productive, UPS, working. Carmee, I hear your sales. Thank you all so much for your time and everything you're doing. We appreciate you. You girls have a good rest of your day, okay? Thank you so much. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thank you.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Thanks for asking.
Quan Gan: Okay. Hanging in there?
Malachi Burke: Yeah. I have a good disagreement with a co-worker in another project, but he and I are both professional, like professionals. So it was only uncomfortable. It wasn't like a problem, you know?
Quan Gan: Yeah. All good.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Things happen. So how do you feel being home?
Quan Gan: Oh, just good. Decompressing a little bit. I got a near-infrared lamp. Do you know about those?
Malachi Burke: I mean, I kind of know what an infrared lamp does, but tell me about the near-infrared lamp.
Quan Gan: Yeah. At certain wavelengths, it's supposed to penetrate deep into your body. And I've done at least some research, a lot of AI-backed, that it's shown clinically and it's not a sham. But it's supposed to stimulate mitochondria activation and giving you more ATP or something for cell repair. So I just went in front of that heat lamp for a little bit. Hopefully it helps with recovery from jet lag or workout or something.
Malachi Burke: Are you curious how that works for you?
Quan Gan: Yeah, I'll let you know. If I find a person of youth, you'll be the first one to know.
Malachi Burke: I expect nothing less. That's funny. Hello, guys.
Shan Usmani: Hi, guys. How are you?
Malachi Burke: Not bad. How are you? Just a bit sleepy, but otherwise fine. Good morning to you.
Quan Gan: Good morning.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Hey, guys.
Shan Usmani: Good night for you guys.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Hey, at least we're sleepy, too.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Good night.
Quan Gan: night. Good Good Good Thank Getting sleepy. You're getting out of it sleepy. Is Faisal joining us?
Malachi Burke: No, he wasn't able to make it today.
Shan Usmani: Okay. Yeah, he's basically the iron point maker.
Quan Gan: Okay. So since everybody's here, I actually wanted to open up with some unrelated good news.
Malachi Burke: Oh, good.
Quan Gan: So I was gone this weekend for – I don't know if you guys know, but my son's into competitive yo-yoing. So he's started competing – he's only been doing it for 14 months, but he started competing a few months ago and has been winning some titles. And let me show you this performance real quick. Hold on. You guys can hear me, right?
Malachi Burke: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.
Malachi Burke: Thank you. He's going all over the place, this guy. Oh, nice.
Quan Gan: He's got some moves. Yeah. That was a very proud moment over the weekend. And next is, we're going to Prague in a month for the world's yo-yo competition.
Malachi Burke: Congratulations.
Quan Gan: Yeah, thank you.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. He must be stoked.
Quan Gan: Thank He's pretty excited, yeah. He found his fascination.
Malachi Burke: Wow. And he kept going, too. A lot of people can yo-yo one or two moves and then bonk it on the third one, but he just kept on going.
Quan Gan: Oh, yeah. mean, that's the state of the art now. Like, kids are starting to get to this level that would have taken many years for older kids or adults. So they're really learning it young now.
Malachi Burke: Impressive.
Quan Gan: All right. Let's go back to regular schedule programming.
Shan Usmani: I like you, writer.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: That's right. Faisal won't be joining us today. Okay. So Faisal and I spoke a little bit about the structure. Thank Thank Sure of the meetings, and we agreed that the code reviews are best served in Discord. I think we have room to optimize that process, but as a general methodology, that seems to be the place to do it. So we are going to talk about code review things today, but it's going to be abbreviated. So I thought I'd give you that heads up.
Quan Gan: Sounds good.
Malachi Burke: Nice. Well, Quan, would you like to run the meeting, or shall I attempt to run the meeting?
Quan Gan: Why don't you run the meeting, but I'll screen share as needed.
Malachi Burke: Sounds good. Sounds good. Yeah, let's go ahead and navigate to that project area, although I don't know that we'll need to dig deep into it. The first thing I'm going to start with is... ... ... I just wanted to make sure, Shan and Basim, that you had seen my Discord responses.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, I just saw those. went through them briefly. I haven't gone into detail when I hit the office.
Malachi Burke: Okay, great. And one, so, Shan, you're working on, thank you, by the way. Shan, you're working on number 36 pretty religiously. So, could you give us some, you know, some kind of top-level status on how that's going?
Shan Usmani: Yeah, so, basically, we can say number 36 is almost, like, implemented completely. The main feature or the requirement that's been implemented completely now. In KConfig, there are various settings, and you can choose among those which one you want to display on the diagnostic panel. And the diagnostic panel size will adjust accordingly according to the number of settings. Now, from yesterday, I'm focusing on the improvements that you mentioned on Discord, so I did cover a few of them, one or two are still remaining, and then what we have commented now, I'll look into that as well. One point that I deliberately left out was that auto point that we discussed, I think we agreed in the last meeting that we'll let it be for a while now, but if you want, I'll take a look into that as well. So hopefully, all these things will be covered today, so I'll be moving to the next step from there, think, which is the burst cache, or I'll check, or whatever the next diagnostic antibiotic point is.
Malachi Burke: Okay, great. Thank you. Yeah, the auto one, of course, I always bring it up. We don't have to change all of them around. There's just a few choice ones. If that feels confusing, or like it impedes your progress, we... And demote it until such time where we can talk about it more freely. So I guess I will leave it to your discretion. I just want to establish that that is a practice that will bite us soon. Like I already, it already slowed me down a little bit, but I think you get the idea.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, I it. I'll look into it. One more thing was remaining was that like the frequency between the charging screen animation and the diagnostic panel. I did like a brief look on it last week, but it was causing like more troubles than the solution. I left it. I'll try to look into it today if I can solve it quickly.
Malachi Burke: Otherwise, I'll let you know. All right. That sounds reasonable. And I got a little distracted because I just noticed a behavior that maybe is a bug with the diagnostic panel. So I'm going to take a screenshot or I'm going to take a picture of it and send it out. So I got a little distracted there. I'll send it out at the end of the meeting. We don't have to talk about it right this second. All right. Thank you. So would you say that kind of covers the top level status of where the diagnostic panel's progress is?
Shan Usmani: Yeah, I think so.
Malachi Burke: All right. Thank you. Quan or Basim, did you want to add anything to that?
Quan Gan: Nothing yet, because I haven't really, I haven't had a chance to play test it, so I wouldn't be able to give any feedback.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Okay, sweet. Then I'm going to move on to the, what is it, the multiple ball one? The ball stuck one, I think it is?
Quan Gan: This one.
Malachi Burke: That looks like it. Which number is that?
Quan Gan: Number 11.
Malachi Burke: Number 11. I thought so. Why is it not on my list here? Okay. Is there any updates on this guy?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, so I do have some updates on it.
Quan Gan: But first, I would like to ask if my audio is clear.
Malachi Burke: Yes. Yes.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Okay, that's good. That's one thing. Okay, so yeah, Quan, I basically have gone through your GPT chat and it actually helped a lot. So thanks to that. I've implemented most of the things in it. You know, the contention window, the carrier sense, the retry logic as well. So basically what now we are doing in the game is before sending any tag, the device would wait and listen for 500 microseconds. And in that time, that is basically the carrier sense time. And in that time, the device will detect if the carrier is clear right now or is not busy, right? If it detects any of the messages, it would simply delay for a few times. And I've also implemented some slots delayed that you were talking about. Basically, a single time slot is basically 256 microseconds. And implementing the binary exponential backoff algorithm. So now we have when the device first detects, basically there are three retries in the game, right, in this logic. So on the very first try, when the device detects that the carrier is busy right now, it delays up to a certain random number between one and seven slots, each slot being 256 microseconds. And then if the device retries on the second try, on the second try, if the device once again detects that the carrier is busy, it But now delay for 1 to 15 slots, and then it will drive for the third one. Well, and if it could not send the packet on the third one, it will simply drop the packet. Okay, so this is what I have already implemented, and I have been testing it quite a lot. One more thing that I wanted to mention is, after implementing all of these things, it does improve a lot. The number of invalid packets that were previously received were decreased drastically. We saw very, very little ball getting struck, and it's about the maximum time that I noted was about 3 seconds before a runner loses. The ball. That was the maximum time. The worst case, right? But that was also very rare, very rare scenario. Like in 10 minutes, I've run this testing for like for 10 minutes, as you told in the chat as well. In a 10 minute game for about two, three tries and I only found it once or twice. So it is rarely happening, but it is happening. So obviously, I don't think that this issue is 100% solved. As obviously, you have cleared your expectations with it. So yeah, that's the update on it. And yeah, one more thing that yesterday, you mentioned four things in the Discord, right? So in that, when I read those four things, the first one where you said the 600 to 900 microseconds delay, it's... The Nexus Dev, yeah, just, yeah, just there. Just below there. Yeah, yeah. So that's a 600 to 900 microsecond jitter you were talking about. I discussed it with the AI and AI was not, you know, like, satisfied with it and it gives me the reason because why it thinks otherwise is because it says that we are right now trying to, you know, lower the traffic, lower the IR traffic, right? But doing such things like sending a packet twice wouldn't do much of it, wouldn't improve it. However, it will only increase the traffic. So, yeah, so that is one thing that I want to talk about and I wanted to discuss with you.
Quan Gan: Secondly, so you said you do it. You retry, but somehow it increased the traffic?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, obviously. I mean, think about it. You're saying that send the IR packet twice in a once try, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Muhammad Basim Ali: That's it, right? So obviously, if the device is sending two packets instead of one packet, and now there are six devices huddled up together, so there will be 12 packets at a time, right? Not sorry, 12. Obviously, one would be a runner, so 10 packets at a time.
Quan Gan: So you're not waiting, you're sending a second packet immediately after. So essentially, you're sending one big packet. Is that what's happening?
Muhammad Basim Ali: No, currently, we are sending one packet. The device pivots a random interval, and then it tries to send another packet. During sending another packet, obviously, it would see that backup algorithm kicks in if it detects any of the carriers.
Quan Gan: If it doesn't, it would simply send it. Yeah, I get all that part. I just don't understand why it's increasing in traffic if it's already trying to listen and back off. Because compared to before, if you didn't have a backoff algorithm and we had it say, send every 100 milliseconds plus a 50 to 70 millisecond jitter, you're doing that regardless of anybody else. So that traffic is always guaranteed to be the number of taggers multiplied by that, right?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, I'm under the impression that in that 150 or 170 milliseconds cycle, we are only sending one packet right now. But what I got from this is that you want me to send two packets in that cycle.
Quan Gan: Am I right or wrong? Or I'm getting it wrong. Um, I think you would send up to two. You wouldn't need to send two if, um, if the first time it's about to send, there is no carrier, so it knows two, it's okay to send. Right? Like, basically, if you, if you listen and there's something there, you, you, you wait, and then you listen again, you, um, you see if there's anything, and then you decide either you wait or you just don't do it for the cycle at all, and then probably wait essentially like another period, like a hundred more milliseconds or something, or maybe two hundred more milliseconds.
Malachi Burke: I think what, I, I think what Basim is asking, we see step one, it says, send IR a packet twice, so that's not to be taken literally, that's conditional, is what you're saying.
Quan Gan: I think so. Yeah, this might be, uh, like a short. This might have been an abbreviation of the discussion above, so you might have to backtrack a little bit to see what I was asking it. But I would imagine that you're sending up to two packets. But you might even want to clarify, like this is my current interpretation and it could be wrong. So I think getting the AI to clarify that based on what it knows is best practice might be helpful.
Malachi Burke: The other question I've got is I keep seeing and hearing microseconds thrown around, but our packet takes almost 50 milliseconds to send. So like to move it back and forth, some microseconds kind of make sense. But as a backoff, I don't know. That sounds too short for a backoff to me.
Quan Gan: I agree. think probably like in the single digits of milliseconds.
Malachi Burke: What do you think? Well, the code, what I read, Basim, tell me if I'm wrong, because I think we're just, we may be using accidentally the wrong term. The description I saw before suggested you had a 300 to 500 millisecond chunk for your backoff. Did I understand that right?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Microseconds, 300 to 500 microseconds, yeah.
Quan Gan: How short?
Muhammad Basim Ali: That is basically the carrier detection time. The carrier is just a single bit, is that what I'm hearing? Yeah, yes.
Malachi Burke: Okay.
Muhammad Basim Ali: It basically detects...
Shan Usmani: We can't really do like 200 to 300 millisecond time, obviously, would take a lot of delay instead of improving it. So either we keep it in like single digits for millisecond, that's what it's saying, or ideally it should be in the microseconds, otherwise there won't be any benefit from this.
Malachi Burke: Right. Right. So... Well, let's...
Quan Gan: It asks a quick point of clarification. So tell me, how are you doing the carrier sense right now in code? Is it just simply testing what the serial line is, either if it's a zero or a one? And it's normally one, I believe, right, until it gets pulled to zero. So basically, if it's at a zero value, meaning it changed, then you wait the jitter, versus if it's still at one, then you're assuming there's no carrier, and then you can go. Is that what you're doing?
Muhammad Basim Ali: No, no. Basically, what we are doing is, what listening in IR is simply receiving the IR packet, right? So, during that 500 microseconds, we are listening, oh, sorry, we are basically reading the receiving packet. Either we are receiving any IR packet or not.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Before when I was talking about the backoff, there's like two different backoffs, right? There's listing for the packet, then there's the acknowledgement backoff.
Quan Gan: So I was thinking the other one. This makes more sense to me.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Okay.
Quan Gan: What about, I want to know if this is a founded concern, which is if you're listening for the packet, you're assuming you get, or are you assuming you're getting a well-formed packet, or are you just reading the fact that there might be a non-null character? What do you do?
Muhammad Basim Ali: No, no. Well, I really don't have a clear idea about it, so I won't be telling it right now.
Quan Gan: Let me just go to office and do some research, and then I'll be telling you.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah, because I think that is important to know, because the carrier sense should not be needing to get the information.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Higher packet. It just needs to know something is riding the line.
Quan Gan: So hopefully that's really just a single, maybe not a single bit, but a single byte. Because a bit, you know, if you happen to capture it when it's high, but it's actually a high signal versus like a default high value, you got to catch it if it's zero, but you may not catch the high. So I'm thinking you'd need at least one byte.
Shan Usmani: I think looking at the actual backup timing with the microsecond, it must be looking at only one bit or just some data on the carrier type of IR receiver. Otherwise it would be waiting for a longer time to receive the whole pet bit.
Quan Gan: Right. Yeah. So I think you need to just look straight at the UART and see if there's a single character in there.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah.
Shan Usmani: One more thing here is that I think Basim did you test. We tested basically the legacy code yesterday as well, and we did saw the invalid packet issue there as well. But I think that's already so slow that it isn't really taking much effect there. But we did saw logs with the invalid packet data packet and the legacy code actually.
Malachi Burke: Interesting. Now, is that with the legacy code check enabled in kconfig, or is that just generally the legacy code in the build?
Shan Usmani: It's not this code, but just the older code base that we have that's been deployed.
Malachi Burke: Oh, okay. Not related to the new legacy code packet. Oh, okay. Never mind. I was nervous that I regressed our code. Okay. Awesome. I wanted to thank you, Basim, also. I had a kind of a misconception of what the backoff was doing. You cleared that up. Much appreciated.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Thanks. Thanks. Well, Quan, I was just yesterday discussing with Ashaan as well. Would you like to test the current status of this issue? So I was basically discussing should we just push it on the GitHub and you would just test it and give your response to that.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, I'd be happy to do that. So can you just give me instructions such as which branch it is and if any configurations I need to set?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Okay. So I'm not at the office right now.
Quan Gan: After I go to office, I'm going to sleep. So yeah.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah. Okay. I'll just mention all the details in this part.
Quan Gan: Thank you.
Malachi Burke: I have a crazy idea. You guys shoot me down if this is a bad idea. But when I was looking at all the effort we're putting into the stock ball thing, I wondered. I'm Are we doing this backwards? Would it be better to have only one ZTAgger emitting IR, and everybody will know if they're close by virtue of receiving that IR, then use ESPNow to do the tag? Is that crazy talk? You tell me.
Quan Gan: It currently sounds crazy. I don't really understand it yet.
Shan Usmani: I think that varies. This specific scenario varies from game to game and role to role. In this particular scenario, we needed all of the chasers to emit their signal and the runner to just acknowledge which signal it has received. In the other scenario, basically, if you can say only the runner is emitting the signal, everyone will get the ball. Obviously, it will be corrected, but initially, the overall visual experience will not be good.
Malachi Burke: at Let's see, see. No, that makes sense. Hear me out, which you are. So the main reason that to use IR, and it's a valid reason, is for its proximity, right?
Quan Gan: Right.
Malachi Burke: Otherwise, we'd be using ESP now and some kind of geolocation for everything. Right. So if the only purpose of the IR is proximity, we can achieve that with one transmitter if one person has the ball. Oh, multiple people have the ball. So if multiple people have the ball, then multiple people, okay. I forgot about that. You want multiple people to have the ball.
Quan Gan: Yeah, there's just a lot of different use cases that we don't want to limit game creativity. So currently, there are three major types of games. Games where it doesn't use the IR at all, simplest case. Games where it's using IR or tag of some sort. People are intentionally coming together. So you're going to have a mini-to-mini relationship most of the time. There's going to be a lot of crossover. And then the opposite to that is a game that uses TAG, whether it's IR or some other communication tech. People are trying to run away from each other or chasing each other. So in those scenarios, because the IR is not intentionally, at least by one party, trying to engage, you're going to get sparser signals. However, they need to be very, very responsive because if someone is chasing another person trying to tag them, they want to feel the instant response when they did tag them. That's like a sensory feedback loop that must be made probably within 200 milliseconds tops.
Malachi Burke: So we're saying that in the tagger game, there's multiple chasers and multiple taggers at the same time.
Quan Gan: Yes. Even if this game may not have all of those conditions, we should allow for such conditions because we haven't thought of all possible games that might be needed.
Malachi Burke: Not at the exclusion of a superior experience for one game.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: I would say if we could make one game have an amazingly better experience than the others, because we have the opportunity to do so, it should at least be discussed.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: But what I'm hearing here is because we have this condition in this game, and thank you for indulging me on this, where there could, at the same time, there's multiple chasers and multiple taggers. You can't presume that only one is going to be broadcasting and others can receive. It's a, I think I.
Quan Gan: Yeah, think regardless, the IR still has to send something, like a very minor packet, for example, because the packet's role, like you said, it is just to detect you're within proximity and you got someone's signal.
Malachi Burke: Yeah.
Quan Gan: It could be rather low bandwidth, and then the rest of the packet, as long as you could pair it up with its corresponding IR, could transmit a substantially larger amount of information from one device to the other.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Well, I think we ought to explore this more tomorrow. You guys have indulged me enough. I have ideas that this still might work, but I don't think we need to occupy this session.
Quan Gan: I'm interested. All of that stuff, this is such core technology that I really want to make sure we look for the global minima rather than a local minima.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, and I will repeat what I said, too, which is I support that, but not at the exclusion of taking advantage of a low-hanging optimization that could make one game extra good. Okay, tomorrow you can kind of fill in even more details of this gameplay, and we can either crush my idea or expand it at that time. Yeah, thank you, guys. And since I've got the floor, mention one of the most important parts of the diagnostic panel branch is I really want to make sure that back merge gets some attention. So, Shan, can I ask you, did you have any opportunity to do like a back merge from Dev, or at least a pre-merge to see how it went?
Shan Usmani: Yeah, was coming to date. No, not yet. I'll be... be... I'll So focusing on fixing all of the improvements that you mentioned, and then merge into it so we don't have to do it again. So hopefully I'll try to look into it by a different way.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Thank you. I just don't want us to be surprised by a really big conflict.
Shan Usmani: You know what I mean? Yeah. No, I'll try to. I have it on my mind.
Malachi Burke: I'll try to look into it. Okay. Thank you so much. And on the note of merging, I approved my own PR for the legacy packet code. And it dawned on me just a few minutes ago that because I just approved it, there's no way that that could have actually regressed anybody's code because nobody's got it in their code base yet. But it's there now on dev. So Quan, you could, I mean, if you check it, it's probably just going to break things because it's more of like an API level thing. But I think the best test we could do with the legacy packet code is to leave it off. And then just make. So I didn't regress anything with that code. So that would be my request, particularly if you, if you're able to do that.
Quan Gan: Just test the dev branch tomorrow?
Malachi Burke: Yes, please.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And the last thing I've got on my own agenda is I'm going to, this week I've got two things I'll be doing. I'll be taking on the upgraded, finally the upgraded packet. So first it'll be putting a Mac and kind of a quasi version header in there, like we've talked about so many times. And then the second phase will be to kind of rework the payload a little bit, just to be a little more resilient to future use cases. I don't think it'll need any major surgery. That and I'm going to be spending my time reviewing the ball game and game manager with an eye towards refactor because I keep telling everybody. Now is not the time. I keep saying that. And the time is coming real soon where we should be doing that. So I'm going to prep. And my goal is by the end of the week to have some firm understanding and recommendations for what direction we need to go in with that refactor.
Quan Gan: Sounds great.
Malachi Burke: Sweet. Sweet. That's all I got, guys.
Quan Gan: Okay. Sounds promising. I did have one question on my end. There were a couple of the issues in this project that I wasn't sure if I can go through it. Or it might be, Mal, you might have to do these because I don't know what it means or what to be looking for to make these pass.
Malachi Burke: Oh, that's true. We, um, that topic comes up a lot. Instructions for you, the tester. Right. right. So technically, I think all of these could be tested by you, but let's identify which ones are not obvious, and I'll write up some documentation for you. Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so these two, I have zero experience with KCONFIG.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Okay. So let me make a note of that, and that will be a two-parter. I'll write some documentation, but we should go through like a 10-15 minute training session as well.
Quan Gan: That would be wonderful.
Malachi Burke: Awesome. Awesome. Making some notes. And maybe Wednesday when we meet Quan, we can talk about what, if there's any way to formalize what we're just talking about, like the whole idea of documenting what to do with the feature. I don't know if there's a good way to do that, but that would be a good topic.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: But I'll definitely... We document those two, and if you want, after this meeting, if you're still awake, I can show you how to use kconfig.
Quan Gan: It's not hard. Okay. I'm a little bit cognitively spent today, so I'll decide it tomorrow.
Malachi Burke: Me too. Me too. I don't have as much energy as all you three do, so I don't know how you guys do it. All right. So you can expect that documentation as part of this week's output as well, Quan.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Thank you. Yeah.
Quan Gan: That's it for me.
Malachi Burke: Let's have a look at this QA Ready stuff to see if there's any other things we want to comment on here. Investigate misbehavior.
Quan Gan: At this one, I don't really know how to test either.
Malachi Burke: Yeah.
Quan Gan: I didn't raise this bug.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, although everybody is aware of that bug. That was the bug where things were crashing during IR communications. So if they're not crashing now, that means it probably passed the test. I would say we can be bold with this one and move it into the done column because nobody has mentioned an IR-related crash for a couple weeks now.
Quan Gan: Okay, that's good. Just like that?
Malachi Burke: Perfect. And getting state confusion on charging. I mean, let's go through these because I don't know if I can document all of them.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: This seems like something, this one seems like you could probably test this one, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah, let's see. Yeah, I can do this one.
Malachi Burke: it's Yeah. Thank All right. Well, look, let's do this because we're all kind of, I think we're all kind of saturated at the moment. I'll document those two, and I think the others you'll probably be able to do, and if not, we'll get those documented somehow. Unless you feel like we should go through them one by one now and make sure they're all understandable. I'm open to that.
Quan Gan: I just want to see if, so it shows you moved it from in-progress to QA.
Shan Usmani: So did you work on this? No, I think Basim worked on it and we discussed in the meeting and then Mal moved it to QA. So what you commented, Quan, we took care of it and then moved it again.
Quan Gan: Okay. Got it. So this is re-ready for testing. Yeah. Okay. All right.
Malachi Burke: can do that. Basim, thank you. You rescued me. I forgot about that. Next time I'm going to write that in a comment. I'm like, oh my gosh, I did move it. What did I do?
Quan Gan: Yeah, we've got to write it down otherwise.
Malachi Burke: I know, I feel embarrassed that you've got to tell me that. I'm the guy telling everybody else that. Let's click on the other since we're just doing it.
Quan Gan: Okay, which one?
Malachi Burke: Startup feedback synchronization. That's the one that the tones turn to one tone, I think.
Quan Gan: Okay, yeah.
Shan Usmani: I think it's been here since the beginning. You have already tested it. Initially, the start of the life sequence was all over the place, but then I did work on it. I think it's, you can test it. I I it's, All
Quan Gan: May I be a little nitpicky on this one?
Malachi Burke: Go for it.
Quan Gan: Okay. So originally it was like three sounds or some kind of sequence. So we can hear there's a certain rhythm or a tempo to it. And then if anything was off, then you definitely know because there's multiple notes being out of sync. But I believe recently it got reduced to a single sound, which basically solves it by not really solving it or at least not proving that it's solved it.
Malachi Burke: It's funny because it's true.
Quan Gan: Yeah. There's a Chinese saying like, okay, this guy had like a back pain or something. And then he goes to the doctor and the doctor just like jumped on it until he died.
Malachi Burke: And it's like, yeah, his back pain's gone.
Shan Usmani: I reduced the sound is because in the initial code, we didn't have like that kind of music. I initially like put that like a tune or music sound on the startup for testing when we were like starting with the code. And then I did realize that it's not like needed at that stage. And when comparing from the legacy code, the startup sound is only like a beep or a small sound.
Malachi Burke: So I made it similar to that.
Quan Gan: I think it's a, is it at least two beeps or something on the legacy code? I'll have to check, I don't remember. Okay. I think it's like a double beep in the beginning. And I would prefer that because it just sounds a little bit more intentional than some random beep that you just, you know, you have no idea what device actually made a beep. Any device can make a beep.
Shan Usmani: I'll look into it.
Malachi Burke: Okay. All right. right.
Shan Usmani: Right. All right. There were some other changes in this as well since it wasn't really like only sound related. So there were stuff related to light bar and vibration as well that I don't really recall now since it's been a month ago. But there were some other changes that like in previous land proved the whole experience.
Quan Gan: I'll look into increasing the length of sound. Okay.
Malachi Burke: All right. It sounds to me like this one ought to move back into in progress then based on that. And let's put a comment demoting why that is, please.
Quan Gan: Okay. How do I move it here?
Malachi Burke: It'll be on the previous screen to move it. It's over. There it is. This one?
Quan Gan: Uh-huh. Yeah. Put that in here.
Malachi Burke: And. Sorry. Go ahead.
Quan Gan: What should I do, right? What What What You
Malachi Burke: Well, are we agreed that it will be making two sounds instead of one beep now?
Quan Gan: I would prefer it. Is that okay, Sean?
Shan Usmani: Sorry, can you repeat?
Quan Gan: Is it okay for you to implement it to be two beeps, like a low and a high, just to make it sound more intentional?
Shan Usmani: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No issues. I'll look into that. I think I'll assign it to Basim Ali once he's done with his staff.
Malachi Burke: And just to be that guy, the pedantic approach to project management would call that a regression, you know, because we lost a feature along the way. But at the time we did it, we all kind of agreed, you know what? See It used to be working and we were all happy with it. So I don't think we have to call it a regression. But as the guy whose job it is to be nitpicky, I thought I'd say it.
Quan Gan: It would make me sound less nitpicky then.
Malachi Burke: Right. I can take some of the heat off of you.
Quan Gan: I appreciate it.
Malachi Burke: So much for the good cop, bad cop routine.
Quan Gan: Now we're both bad cops.
Malachi Burke: Thanks for nothing.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And thank you Basim and Shan for being flexible.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, no issues.
Shan Usmani: If I may say something here. If you remember I mentioned in the beginning, this is the kind of exactly the issue that I mentioned here. Where we do one task and it's not like tested properly.
Malachi Burke: comes back into the progress state.
Shan Usmani: Even though it was completed in a dead state. It but the task wasn't completed. Right. Looks like kept
Malachi Burke: And Basim, you don't know how happy I am that you brought that up because I was holding back. I was going to say, you know what, I want to say, and this is the reason we keep our project, our tasks very small in scope and don't deviate. But we've already learned that. But now that you brought it up, yes, absolutely. We've been learning that lesson and we've been heading in the right direction. So I'm glad that we can look fondly on those days of yore and say, oh, those days, everything was a mishmash. Now it's only somewhat of a mishmash instead of a complete mishmash. I hope. hope. very never happen i'm aren't will be I hope stay away. But I I can't Let And it's difficult because it's very tempting for any of us to say, you know what, let me throw in this other thing. Let me do this now. Like Shan, you and I, we had a big conversation about that with the refactor, which turns out, I looked at it, and I wouldn't actually call what you did a total refactor. wouldn't call it a upgrade. It was an upgrade. You added some things. But the fundamental framework on which it was based didn't seem to actually deviate a ton. So that was actually helpful. I'm like, okay, it hasn't actually been gutted and changed around. But the whole conversation we had where it's like, hey, man, you know, better to have a little bit of debt because you asked a very important question, Sean, when you have a choice to make, do I incur more debt to achieve the goal, right? When the charter has been, let's reduce the debt. That's tough. Right. So I'm glad you asked that. I'm glad that came up. And we'll continue to refine our process.
Quan Gan: I think we're headed in the right direction. That decision sounds like the trolley problem.
Malachi Burke: It is. It is.
Quan Gan: But fortunate for all of you, I am a ruthless guy and I know who to kill every time. Okay.
Malachi Burke: I don't know all every time, but I like to think. It is like a trolley problem, right?
Quan Gan: As long as you're a consistent trolley.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, I am a heartless dude with technical debt. Thank you guys. This is good progress.
Quan Gan: Okay. Come back here.
Malachi Burke: Oh, yeah. And that one I'll document later.
Quan Gan: And this one as well?
Malachi Burke: Uh-huh.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, that one looks pretty robust.
Quan Gan: So, you've recently updated this?
Shan Usmani: Yeah, I think Basim was looking into it, and we did discuss it as well. Like, the point where, when the MVTT was disconnecting in the code, and it was, like, getting the task stuck. in the meantime, if tag happens, the ESP now acknowledgment won't be sent back. Sorry, not the MVTT, the Wi-Fi was getting disconnected. And during the MVTT reconnection, Wi-Fi disconnected, MVTT is not connected, and the code attempts to send a message over MVTT. That was causing, like, a bit of this or the task to get stuck. In the meantime, if a tag happens, the ball won't... It won't be sent to the other tagger, so multiple taggers would have the ball at the same time, so basically I get the message, I get the ball, send an acknowledgement, it won't receive the acknowledgement, so here's the ball, I have the ball, multiple balls are zero, so we did solve this, and I think we haven't observed this for a long time.
Quan Gan: Basim, yeah, so this is you, think it should be solved. Okay, so this, I can retest again. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Excellent. This is the process we want to go through. We want to see if the tasks, if they require action, are actionable by testers, by developers, even by PMs or stakeholders, or all three or four. So, Quan, this is, I'm glad that we're going through this step by step.
Quan Gan: Yeah, this is good. Okay, I think that's it, right? Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. You Here?
Malachi Burke: I think so. I'm looking at the in progress as well.
Shan Usmani: Yeah. Yeah. I think the number 35 diagnostic protocol, can we move it to QA?
Malachi Burke: I don't know that we can because that's tied up on your branch that's still being worked on, right?
Shan Usmani: There's no PR. I'll have to read that, yeah. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: If you have any, if you want to have a conversation about any bits and pieces of that, of course, I'm always here on Discord.
Shan Usmani: And by always, I mean, not when I'm sleeping. But other times.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, I was going to make suggestions about branching and PRing, but you know what to do. So I'm here if you need me.
Quan Gan: Anything else?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, guys, I do have one question. It's basically a QA is it? I you that I'll be pushing my current code for you to test.
Quan Gan: Mal, should I raise any PR on that or should I not? I would like to put a Mal for those practices.
Malachi Burke: Right. So if I understand right, you've got a feature branch that is coming along but not fully ready, and you want Quan to be able to test that.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Is that correct? exactly. Yeah, exactly.
Malachi Burke: It's entirely appropriate for Quan for you to check out his feature branch and compile it that way. And if there is difficulties, we can make it a little more formal, but I think that will be sufficient.
Quan Gan: Okay. And if I pull that feature branch, but it's branched off of quite an earlier version of the dev branch, and several things on the dev branch have already moved on. I'm just curious what happens to my... Test validity in the context of the latest dev.
Malachi Burke: Most excellent question. We'd have to look at like the tree to really answer that conclusively. But the general idea is that if you wanted to be ultra safe, you'd flash all the devices with that same firmware. Now, don't think you have to do that. Okay. I don't think you have to do that. Because for today, the movement on the dev branch has been pretty slow. So I don't think what Basim is going to give you has deviated that much from what's on dev already. I'll look at it. You know, I'm going to look at it. It's right here. Let me look at it. Hold on a second.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, just to mention one thing. I guess I put the fresh repo from dev branch about, yeah, like last Thursday or Wednesday. So obviously it's not so old.
Quan Gan: So it will work. Most of the functionalities will work. I guess we haven't had any most of the merges on the dev as well. So, yeah, it will work. Mal, you recently just had a PR, right?
Malachi Burke: I did, and that PR is ideally completely invisible to what you need to do.
Quan Gan: Right.
Malachi Burke: Ideally. Basim, let me ask you, what's your branch?
Muhammad Basim Ali: I don't see it here on the chart. Yeah, basically, I was thinking about merging, doing the comment on this branch, but what was the name of the branch? Mal, could you just go?
Shan Usmani: It's the issue number 11, so I think it's already created there. Should be an older branch.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, we do have a branch on number 11.
Malachi Burke: I'm looking on the tree. I'm going to share my screen so you guys can see where I'm looking here.
Quan Gan: Sure, yeah. Yep.
Malachi Burke: Rather than me just... Tumbling around everywhere. can tell me where to go here. So are you seeing my Git branch view here?
Quan Gan: Yep.
Malachi Burke: So develop, here's what the develop is.
Shan Usmani: I it's an 11, 12 branch, fix random algorithm or something. Yeah, fix 11, 12 random algorithm, multiple rainbow branch names.
Malachi Burke: Why am I not seeing it? Do you see it? I don't see it.
Shan Usmani: I'm checking on this Vita directly, so I see it too.
Malachi Burke: There it is. Is this the latest one? Because that's, I thought you were still working on it.
Muhammad Basim Ali: No, no, I'm saying that, yeah, wait, I'm just saying to Amal that I'll be merging my commits in this branch. And obviously since I have... They pulled the fresh branch from last Thursday, Friday, so obviously those merges will add here as well, so.
Malachi Burke: Okay.
Shan Usmani: Basically, was an earlier issue. We looked into this and created that branch, committed a fix, and then Quan responded again that there is an issue here.
Malachi Burke: So Basim is now working on that same issue, the branch obviously is there. Okay. Where is the branch? Because this is obviously not what you've been working on lately. This is the older one.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Well, I haven't committed yet.
Malachi Burke: Once I go to the office, I will commit it. I I see. Okay. I definitely recommend you commit a little more frequently. Well, you know, maybe if you just started working on it. I'm making a presumption here. Pardon me. Have you been working? I thought you've been working on this pretty frequently. team. team. obviously, I I'm I know. Correct?
Muhammad Basim Ali: And I've been working separately, then I'll pull my changes into this branch. So that was my plan, and now I do things.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Okay, cool.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, that's the exact reason that we discussed it yesterday. We should now commit and let him test it. It's been like a few days that he's working.
Malachi Burke: Well, as a general recommendation, then, without picking on you, just a general recommendation, I would favor, as long as the code compiles, I would favor doing commits and pushes on your own branch because you have the complete freedom as a developer to say, no, no, no, no, my branch is an intermediate state, so don't be touching that. It's that way when Quan asks the question, hey, you know, can I pull the branch? You know, we at least sort of know how synchronized we all are. Or if I want to pull the branch. much. Although I shouldn't be pulling the branch if you say it's not ready. So I concede that much. Thanks, guys. And did I hear that you were going to do a back merge of dev into your work branch as well?
Muhammad Basim Ali: No, I'm not planning that thing because obviously we just need Quan to test, right?
Malachi Burke: So, yeah, I'm not planning it right now. But, yeah, we can do it if you want. Well, it kind of depends, right? So when you begin working on the code again, is it going to be directly off of this or are going to pull off of the new develop and start a fresh new 11?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Well, am thinking about, right, like after this discussion, I am thinking about pulling and, you know, committing on a different branch.
Malachi Burke: I probably would.
Shan Usmani: Basically, when he was starting looking into this issue, he pulled a fresh dev branch, and now when he'll commit, he'll basically commit a newer version of dev branch into this issue, or if you want to get a newer branch.
Malachi Burke: I see. Well, at this point, I've crossed over into micromanagement, so I'm going to stop. You guys definitely, you know, are not newcomers to get, and it sounds like you got your heads on straight. So let's get that thing underway so that Quan can test it, and at that moment, when it is committed, and we decide to merge it or not, we will know, Quan, what advice to give you as to what features to expect.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And thank you, everybody, for, you know, going down that rabbit hole with me.
Quan Gan: Yep. Thank you. Thank you. Thank Anything else?
Malachi Burke: Not from me.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, think they're too good for us.
Quan Gan: Okay, thank you.
Malachi Burke: Thanks a lot, guys. Have a good, yeah.
Quan Gan: Last procedure, we should always just confirm the next meeting.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Yeah. Well, the next meeting, I presume, I can confirm that Thursday, 6 a.m. PST meeting, I will be present, if need be, which I will be present.
Quan Gan: Okay, great. Sean, you guys are okay for that?
Shan Usmani: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Sounds good. See you Thursday.
Malachi Burke: All right, Quan, can I ask for five more minutes?
Quan Gan: Yes.
Malachi Burke: Awesome.
Shan Usmani: Thank you, guys. We'll see you, please.
Quan Gan: Bye-bye.
Malachi Burke: Take care.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Have a good night. Bye, guys.
Malachi Burke: a good day.
Quan Gan: Yep.
Malachi Burke: We'll make it short because we're both tired.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: I didn't cross. You go first. You want me to pause the recording? Yeah.
[Metadata only — transcript not included in this selection]
Kristin Neal: So what did you guys think? Kwan, you told me to write the ship, so this is the best way that I could figure it out.
Charlie Xu: This is amazing. I mean, you're doing a lot of the stuff that the book talks about anyways, so I feel like you're in your element.
Kristin Neal: It's funny. I'm reading the book. I'm on my, I can't remember what page, but I was like, yes, yes.
Charlie Xu: It feels validating, doesn't it?
Kristin Neal: Yeah, it feels good. It feels really good.
Charlie Xu: Tell me when you get to the part of the visionary and the integrator.
Kristin Neal: Got it.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, there was like, there's one page, but once you get there, I'll highlight it to you. It's like the nexus of this whole thing.
Kristin Neal: Cool, cool, cool. All right. So Charlie, you had a few questions, the invoice, right, about the, who sends the invoice. After checking the chat GPT, did you guys check it on your end?
Charlie Xu: Is that, yes.
Kristin Neal: Okay, so it says that, I think that was where the miscommunication was, because I think you were out of town. And then Carmi was gone. then Tin took it because Carmi was gone.
Charlie Xu: So that's where that.
Kristin Neal: So do you want it to be kept as invoices only sent from you?
Charlie Xu: Yeah, I want to hear the updates, right? So I think right now, what's the position of Carmi? Is she still in the sales team? Because I think I watched the summary, but not really go through the videos. So if she is right now, like, how much how many percentage is in the sales team positions or part?
Kristin Neal: I would say 65%.
Charlie Xu: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Might even be higher than that, because I'm not, I'm not even I'm not responding to the sales emails. She's she's taken late.
Charlie Xu: So that actually might be more 80%. Okay, okay. But on that side, even like, say, 80%, but I think most we are. Having the AI amplify the efficiency, so like how much actual I can have her working on sales team. So I want to know like how many is based on automation. So if it's automation, maybe like half hour can do everything. Or maybe she needs to at least add a certain every day and a couple hours to do some checkup and automation. So overall, probably we don't need to be like a traditional way. I have to sit in front of my desk for the whole day long, right? But I still want to know if like doing design or something else, how much I can rely her on like video editing or something like that. So I want to know like right now. I'd recommend having blocks. So she might have like a one or two hour sales block. And then switch over to another. For example, if you are having our due design, maybe we start with like, you know, one hour a day or something, or maybe you could even have like certain days are inserted, but they definitely should be blocks and not be switching back and forth. Yeah, context, which is very cognitively expensive. And you're wasting a lot just in trying to, you know, put down what you're currently doing and picking up something new. So they should definitely be blocked out. And I think for sales, yes, as much as we want to get the sales in, I also don't think it has to be like, reply within 15 minutes, you you could probably do like a morning session of sales emails, and then an afternoon session to close it out, like twice a day. You know, unless there's something super urgent, but even then, I think, you know, it could wait till the next day. But I think like, like the situation Mentioned today, so Carmi entering, I felt like for them, I do feel like if she can constantly check will be a good, because also it requires some of that have to require Kristin to step in, like you said, you call them directly, because they are having a rushing, have a deadline for getting that. So if it was being by end of day, and Chris not catching up, so losing another day of catching up. So I'm thinking, okay, so that would be an exception, not the rule. But the thing is, yeah, if we set the rule, I have to maybe feel a fit for a different situation. But sometimes like emergency orders like this, it might be still good for them to check or maybe like, yeah, what do you think, Chris?
Kristin Neal: I think that's exactly what's been happening. Yeah, exactly. Just kind of not putting up. Fires, but putting out things that they're requesting, yeah.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, I think maybe just we can brought up the idea of like you can set the blocks, but still I feel like we still have the expectations she can constantly check the mails because I think that's why we kept them or later you think AI can capture better. But right now I feel like it's her key to make sure. those emails come in, does she get a ticket notification? I don't know.
Kristin Neal: That's a good question. I don't know how she's notified. That's a really good question.
Charlie Xu: Maybe AI can filter that to give her like an idea how much she needs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That sounds like a Clancy's thing to do to prioritize tickets that come in because when they when they. Come in. It'll be from the web form or previous emails she sent. So it should end up in the CRM somehow. And based on that, we can have the AI look through the context of the email exchange and understand its urgency. And we can even build a model around, okay, your standard procedure is, let's say, check emails for one hour in the morning, and then one hour in the afternoon, or maybe even three sessions, like just three one-hour blocks. Hold on, let me finish. That's a default, right? That's a fallback plan. Like, that's your standard operating mode. And then when the context of the email, it's like, oh, I have approval, you know, I need it today, then the agent should be able to escalate that and say, okay, this is a fire item that you need to jump on right now. You have a default and you have a turbo mode, but you can't be in turbo. Yeah, so Chris, what is right now the working relationship between you and Carmen? How do you feel? Is the process smooth or is there anything you need to improve?
Kristin Neal: Not on the sales side. We've had open and she's jumped on when there's been things that have been needed. Support is the one that we're lagging that we need help with. Because that, I don't think she's having any kind of system.
Charlie Xu: In what sense?
Kristin Neal: Customer support or Carmen? With TIN.
Charlie Xu: With TIN.
Kristin Neal: With TIN, yeah. Sales support, seeing it take off.
Charlie Xu: Let's come back to that. But I wanted to stay on the Carmen topic too, because she's had personal stuff too. And you mentioned that. I wonder if today is a good time. Time to talk about that holistically and just understand where she is, personal and professionally, so we know what's the best way to move forward with her.
Kristin Neal: She's good. Her dad is healing. She's seeing him when she can, I believe. It's not like an everyday thing. In fact, last weekend she said that she had the best sleep she had in a long time because she was able to stay home and just rest. So it sounds like he's on the mend and she's 100% back.
Charlie Xu: But you also did mention some financial assistance she's needing, right? So what's the context of that and where is she now?
Kristin Neal: She somehow got the money. I have no idea where, but she was resolved. It sounds to me like she just has that bill that she's going to, she's just concerned about the bill. Thank you. you. Thank Thank you.
Charlie Xu: Thank you. Thank Okay, because I've workshopped this with Charlie and the AI, and the conclusion was what you saw, which was, you know, we gave her, you know, a, I don't even know what you call it, but just like a fund, right? And also, because you were taking on additional tasks, we gave you a fund, which you graciously donated it back to her, right? So there was that amount. But, you know, I've also, just to be completely transparent, my, my helper Enneagram, like I have that too, similar to you. I was like, well, why can't we just like, you know, be the person that loans her the money or something? You know, that's like my personal stuff wanting to get in there. The AI as a HR says, that's great, but it could also complicate things. Because when we make a decision. For one person, we're setting precedent for everybody else. And we have different cultural contexts and different expectations, and also great difference in wages, right? Because we live in America with American wages, they live over there. You know, and also having, let's say, even if we did put it out as a loan, it's also adding additional complexity in terms of like, you know, now we're also her bank, right? It makes things muddy, versus the AI was like, okay, if you're going to help her, just straight out help her and just like, don't even expect it to come back. Because if you, if you give her a loan, then now you're, you are liable in collecting that on a regular basis, and what happens if she's no longer employed, and you're still like, you know, contract. Exactly trying to recoup that versus it's just clean. Just say, hey, look, here's this something. It's to help you. This is a gesture and there's no expectations. But then in doing that, like, what does that mean for other people? Are we, you know, are we setting an example saying, oh, anytime you guys have some family troubles, you know, we're now a philanthropy, you know, company.
Kristin Neal: So I don't know.
Charlie Xu: What are your thoughts?
Kristin Neal: I brought it to your guys' attention only because it was, her attention was being taken away from work. It was a very, it was a huge hindrance and it was, it was, it was hard. It was really hard without her, her there and such. So for me, it was like, what is that energy exchange mentality kind of thing? Like 5,000 was worth getting her back. And her attention back to work. So that's why I suggested just to reach out to you. And I said, don't, I'm not saying that they will. I'm not saying that they won't. But at least since we know the owners, it's a different kind of context, you know, than working for a 501 or a big old company, you know. So that I mean, I was more open to just having that conversation. But now knowing where you guys stand with that, I totally agree, because it's not scalable. It's not possible. So I was even thinking of like ways outside of you guys to have that as a backup for you guys to say, no, we can't do that. But this option, this opportunity actually opened up.
Charlie Xu: So. Yeah, yeah, because like we have to, you know, if it's a friend or something, you know, just a personal relationship, we may even personally do something to help. But as a company, we want to make sure. It remains neutral, and I feel like, oh, this is a pot for anyone to just dip into if they have personal issues, because it sets a bad precedent.
Kristin Neal: So in that case, if she is overburdened by that and she can't work, where does that leave us?
Charlie Xu: I think Harmi reached out to us at that situation. She is worried about, I think as long as her intention to get the money supported on her source, but at that time, what she worried about is the money is not getting in time, so his dad cannot start doing the surgery. But I think the end of the hotel is get that process, not the hotel, the hospital, that process. And then, and also I think, and the money come in at the right time of helping her to release. So I think, I think, I think sometimes we try to help people, but, you know, like in life, sometimes they also have to, to get, get overcome a lot of challenge, putting their effort to moving forward. Um, I, I definitely see a potential if Kami working really good position of here, can rising the salary or all of that to give him the support. But I think also, you know, the world, in the world, everyone is having something going on. Like I cannot help all of them. Right. But also it's also, I think it's the universe give them a little challenge to make them stronger in their life to moving forward. So I think we can, um, support her, um, in a way, but instead of. Like at a company point, but also I felt like we would give him the grace of her time, enough time to dealing with this. We're not like, hey, you need to come back to work. We'll give him enough time to let her dealing with that and give her emotional support. So I think like the loan, if she's already get that process, I think maybe it's the thing she can, I don't know what situation or maybe like the money she earned cannot pay back. Or maybe the loan could be extended to a further so she can eventually pay it back. But I think it's just, it's a process.
Kristin Neal: Okay. So maybe meeting with her, like I'm thinking of her future because. There's going to be another time where someone is going through something and it's hurting the team. So at one point, you know, kind of getting that.
Charlie Xu: I like having this discussion because whatever we say here may also get baked into an internal HR, SOP, just so we're setting some precedent here. I wanted to express my own sentiment on just helping in general. Um, you know, my, my type two naturally wants to help because there's some kind of an ego boost in being a hero. But the shadow side of that is you're also in helping someone, you may be locking them in the victim, uh, into the hero victim model because helping is like, it boosts the ego of someone trying to, you know, like I have something of value I'm giving you. And then the other person, it's like, oh, okay, I'm receiving help.
Kristin Neal: And I stay this way where I could receive help. And I
Charlie Xu: The worst example is like, why do you have beggars out of church, outside of church, right? Because, you know, they're locked into that hero-victim mentality. If people outside of church are not giving, then the person outside there, there's no economy for that person to stay there. But, you know, it's kind of a self-feeding cycle, which I want to break. You know, I want to be able to just like the Bible, right? Like, you'd rather teach someone to fish rather than to hand them the fish. So in saying that, and I'm really just verbalizing it so it's for AI context, I think focusing on her review and how we can do to improve her performance and her equitable take-home salary, you know, that would accelerate her closer to her goal and under her own efforts.
Kristin Neal: Actually, that was how it was said, you know, that I... Yeah. Brought it to mind. I said that. I said, not as a loan. I said, as an advance of possible. I said, Carmi, we just had your six month review and it went really good. You have, and you mentioned, what do you call those? Bonuses. And I said, Juan mentioned a bonus. You can ask him maybe about an advance on that bonus. We're hitting our numbers. We're doing well on our sales. So that was exactly how I shared it with her. wasn't a loan. Yeah.
Charlie Xu: I really like that because then it's in alignment with company policy. And we're also navigating how she can earn those things. So she's strengthening her own ability to provide for her family and not rely on external assistance.
Kristin Neal: Exactly. Yeah.
Charlie Xu: On the other hand, by working with Carmi, I do see her potential. She, she is very detail oriented, oriented. A lot of things I think we, by having the systems, so maybe she's the person, yeah, we need to dive deep on like how much of the deep, like in the process, how much, like she could be the doorkeeper or something to make sure there's no mistakes, even where so much rely on AI. So she could be the observer or something. So I think we do need, some people are really at the key position of fully understanding our process, but meanwhile, she knows what is wrong, what is right. So, yeah, I do see the potential. So, so by the time where the more we tap into the cooperation between human and AI, we will eventually find more opportunities or like. Put more responsibility on each of us, but meanwhile, not overwhelming, right? It's just because we just find a way how to work with AI, but it's not a overwhelming way. You have to sit there doing this constantly. Yeah. Other repeatable things we should just get rid of. I think that's the best way we work with AI. So like the automations, the emails, you just, yeah, it's already being, you Yeah.
Kristin Neal: That sounds good to me, guys. Do you want to move on?
Charlie Xu: Well, to get specifically about Carmi, then how, how can we approve her for a higher rate or what was the last recommendation we had?
Kristin Neal: Last recommendation at her six month was that she would be qualified for a... A... A... Race at her one year. And that was something that I had sent to you guys a while back. It was Karmie's review written out. And I had her at the top. It was written out that she would be qualifying. Okay.
Charlie Xu: So I wasn't sure if you guys wanted me to send that to her or not. Do we want to move it forward a little bit earlier in some way? Because how can we, within policy, allow us to help her get closer to our goals?
Kristin Neal: I would probably say the, I don't know. We're having a good push. She even mentioned it. And she has mentioned, here it is. She even mentioned it, that she really wants to focus on sales. So I really appreciate that. So, um, If we could do like a bonus, an advanced bonus, there's her review.
Charlie Xu: This document was sent to, oh, I think we need access. Okay, can you approve the access?
Kristin Neal: Yes, where did it go? There we go.
Charlie Xu: Jimmy, come on. You're trying to do that. I might watch. Shedder Bob. Shedder be good. Trin, the, the, sides of the screen. Can you just read this real quick? What? Near Tim, what? Why am I near Tim? Did you do that to both? Charlie's translating it to Chinese.
Kristin Neal: Chinese.
Charlie Xu: Oh, good. Helps me absorb better.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. I was hitting myself for not just sharing, so I'm glad you translated.
Charlie Xu: So I was saying like, so this evaluation is for half year, but is that like for when she hit the first year, the cellar would be right? So it's like when she reached. So then what about the gap in between this, the other half year before she reached?
Kristin Neal: We only have pay raises at one year. That was what we implemented for Clancy's and Paula, mainly because it took so long for that review. But I think it's OK to keep it that way, to continue with that.
Charlie Xu: But if the rest of this year, are we still having it? So is that possible? Maybe even hit that year, I think if she has a good performance, it's still potentially giving a higher rate based on the rest of the year's performance.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, I think so. Yeah. That is something that I need from you guys, a higher date of everybody. So I can make sure that those are on time. I don't know her.
Charlie Xu: Well, you'll have to look in Ys. Oh, okay. Maybe. Okay, so what I'm hearing is we should hold the line on having a one year raise for anyone. I think that makes sense. But maybe if they're doing, they're having extra performance even before the year, that we might spot bonuses. Does that sound in alignment? Okay. Or let's do the, let's do. Let's Maybe because I think Vanya also mentioned, and maybe we can divide the bonus into seasonal.
Kristin Neal: Like quarterly? Yeah.
Charlie Xu: So I think that's not like, okay, everyone get that bonus ahead of time. Because I still feel like, why Karmie get this, Paula not get this, right? It's like not fair. But if like the evaluate, maybe we can do like 20% of overall, but gradually till the end. So they can get, all of everyone can get a little bit at the first quarter or something. Yeah, actually in, this was in a, it's called the Great Game of Business. They recommend doing something like, throughout the quarter, it is, how do you do it? like, you're right on this page. One, two. Yeah, it's. Really, 1, 2, 3, 4. Because if you add 1, 2, 3, 4, that's 10. So it's basically 10%, 20%, 30%, and 40% for each quarter. So the first quarter, you might get 10% of your end of year bonus. And then the second quarter, you get 20% of that. Third quarter, you get 30%. And then the fourth quarter, you get the bulk of it, the 40%. So it kind of ratchets up through the year, so that you're having some taste of it, but it also builds momentum towards the end of the year, trying to finish the year off.
Kristin Neal: I like that. Yeah, I like that. It's kind of based on mine, too, because mine is like that, or it can be like that.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, because yours, I think it's also looking at how you could spread it out across the year. And that helps more with cash flow, because towards the end of the year, we have the least amount of income. Yeah, if we have the most expenditure, that could be difficult for the company versus if when you have your more cash flush, being able to pay off some of, you know, let's say 60% of the bonus is actually paid up to Q3. So that's a lot more viable than, you know, paying 100% in Q4.
Kristin Neal: Smaller bite. What is their bonus based off of? Is it a percentage of their rate?
Charlie Xu: I don't have that answer. I would defer to our HR to see what they recommend. Because the bonuses should also be aligned to their own local market. We shouldn't align it to a U.S. market because we may actually like, we may distort things because we have, you know, our costs here are way more compared to what they have. So if we're paying them according to U.S. salaries, it's actually... be paying them cost of the cost of cost You Yes, it would help them, but it might also be unfair because if it distorts their perception of their reward versus their work in their local market, it may actually disrupt how they show up to their daily lives.
Kristin Neal: Absolutely. I meant like a percentage of their wage.
Charlie Xu: Sorry. Well, yeah. So I think there is something related to that. I'm not the HR person. I would ask the AI to figure the optimal numbers out.
Kristin Neal: Okay. When on this review, it said, because there was a, I did this through the HR thing and on track to level at one year level, level three core builder. So I was like, is that something that we already have in the works?
Charlie Xu: I think AI model, it, it's given different levels in there to kind of set what, what those thresholds are. And so like in having that ladder system and we've had this one. They were working at Intel. By having a ladder system, it gives you a clear expectation of what is both demanded and reciprocated at.
Kristin Neal: I agree. So I was like, if we can get this written somewhere so we can go over this, that would be great.
Charlie Xu: I think we should. Yeah. Right now, this is strictly between you, me, and Charlie in reviewing because we don't want this AI to be shared with them. But the output of the AI, let's say we want a formalized level document to show them the growth path, I think that is good. In fact, this is like the internal version of the Dojo leveling system.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, it is.
Charlie Xu: more you get trained, the more certified you are. You get these bonuses and that's what your output is.
Kristin Neal: One of the things I'm looking forward to that might be able to help with the process. That's, I guess, the process of review because there's a time when you kind of reflect about what they've done and things like that. And it would also kind of be a good way to segue into, like, the bonuses. But if you've noticed, I've gotten this All-Star tag right here, and those are staying on those that I would like to review, you know, all the tags with All-Stars and their specific ones so we can review that and then, yeah, just grow from there.
Charlie Xu: So All-Star, does that mean highest priority?
Kristin Neal: All-Star means they did really, really good work. Whoever was the lead on that, yeah.
Charlie Xu: Okay, gotcha. That's great. Yeah, I love the system. It's like, remember, before I didn't have an Excel file, I get loose of, like, tracking everything. But now, like, yeah, it's great. Thank you, Charlie.
Kristin Neal: Thank you, guys. Steve texted me right when he was at Garden Grove, and he was like, how was your day? And I was like, I just got this task board. Like, it's done. I was so like, ah.
Charlie Xu: But like this time, I feel like you're so good at it of assigning and make it. I like it. feel like these are make the management very structured. So it released the burden of I have to remind it, remember it. So I have it's like, okay, every time I tap in, it's already there. just like quickly one minute catch up.
Kristin Neal: So you know exactly what need to do. It helps with the questions, too. I noticed one of my pet peeves is repeated questions. So Carmi was doing that with me, and I was like, I've already. Answered this five times.
Charlie Xu: I have a term that I tell Gio because he does this too. I call it Dirk. Don't repeat questions. Because I want to use the shortest amount of energy to provide the same answer because of a repetition.
Kristin Neal: Dirk. Exactly. Dirk. I'm going to remember that.
Charlie Xu: Dirk.
Kristin Neal: Yes.
Charlie Xu: Oh, but because the thing is, like recently I was realizing, so everyone, the brain, the nerve system are wild differently. But we're accepting in the same way we're being educated or learning math and this, that. So somehow the more the knowledge is narrowed us down to one way of thinking. But someone could be really good at that way of thinking, but someone could be really sucks at that thinking. So the thing, the AI have that structure is helping we have a new choice. So brain that everyone aligns to, but we can still amplify the way how our brain was being wired. So I think that's why sometimes, like me, I'm the person not very organized. So I prefer like having these things. I'm more like creative, spontaneous ideas. So you are like forcing me to just being like a programmer. I will feel like feeling I was being killed. So I think these are just helping Carmen if there's something she can rely on to. She doesn't need to. It's okay for her to ask 10 times, but she just needs to go to a system instead of going to you. So it reduces your responsibility. Cognitive load. Exactly. So that's, I think, why we need to build up a very strong system. So So everyone knows where they go to.
Kristin Neal: So true, Charlie. Yeah, this needs a little bit more refining with the associated task owners and things like that. Like, yeah, it'll get better. But yeah, I think we're on a good system so far. Okay. So how are we leaving it with Kermie? Is that okay to, because Tin is due for her review this month. So we'll just kind of do the same thing with the meeting with her, talking about where we saw. Kwan, you would have been very proud of her last week. She saw how Kermie was getting the automated emails done for sale. So she said, you know what, I think that could actually work for my department too. So she is working out with Clansys. Yeah, yeah, really good.
Charlie Xu: Like that.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Charlie Xu: Okay.
Kristin Neal: So that'll be something we can talk about.
Charlie Xu: Before we jump onto Tin, I just want to make sure we capture the decision on Carmi. So will you be sending her the review? Because now Charlie and I have both seen it, and you've agreed to it, right? Yeah, yeah. Because I want to make sure, like, the most important thing here is making sure whatever you say to her that we execute on, because ultimately, Charlie needs to pay her. So you need to be in full understanding of what Chris is going to be sending them. What is the即时奖励? What is that? That's the spot bonus. Okay, so what is the spot bonus? So spot bonus would be, like, like, she did something excellent, and it's not part of her current salary. But because of this, we want to give some kind of an award. Okay. But so, but these are, it could be some random thing. So it's like, Yeah, like a gesture. Okay, so is that like every evaluation, we could have something like this? It may not even be per evaluation. So what is that structure? What is that system of that? The structure of that is so it should be very discretionary because the salary is a repeatable thing, but the spot bonus would be more like, hold on a second. Okay, Gio, you guys are being too loud. Gio, what? Okay. I think the spot bonus needs to feel like it's very discretionary and it's not necessarily predictable because anything predictable, they're going to optimize for it. They're like, oh, what can I Do to earn more spot bonus. And when things are predictable, it can also be abused if you don't have the right system. So it needs to feel like this person went above and beyond. I think it's probably like similar to maybe what you're marking as All-Star.
Kristin Neal: All-Star, I was just thinking that.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, so those things as being discretionary will make them feel like, okay, it's a little bit of random, right? Just like any of our games, Red Light, Green Light, like you put in your full effort, doesn't guarantee you're going to win the game. But occasionally you do. So it needs to have a little bit of randomness factor or more, not like, oh, every time I do this, I'm going to get a bonus.
Kristin Neal: Right.
Charlie Xu: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Would that be okay to implement the All-Star tag for that spot bonus?
Charlie Xu: I think that's a good equivalent. So we have something we know internally every time there's an All-Star, what does that mean? And even the number, like the amount of money we give. It might be a little bit discretionary, depending on how much of an impact did it make for other teammates or internally? What are we trying to encourage? Yeah, I said quite because you said, okay, based on all stars, it could be random and also the amount could be. So it adds up to, like, uncertainty. Like, I don't know, like, it's still like how you evaluate it because we're humans. We're like, you know, like this time, oh, you're so good. And, you know, that still feels not very easy to, you know, like, so maybe by like how many all stars they collect reach that state, then maybe we give them something. So you don't like, oh, like, so every because every time you could be different levels, this could be urgent and they take care or this is what they take care. So maybe at certain of start, they went. And they reach certain star, but we don't tell them about like how much you reach. But once they reach, we just give them a bonus or something.
Kristin Neal: It's simple, make it simple.
Charlie Xu: But we'll rinse this. Because one way we need to judge, okay, still take springs of like how much I need to, but what if like accumulate of how many stars they had, I think that could be... Well, I understand that you don't, like the reason why we even have a bonus structure, a structure is so it doesn't feel so at the whim of the leadership team.
Kristin Neal: Right, exactly.
Charlie Xu: Because when you think to put too much stuff on personal, then things get complicated. So there should be a structure, but that structure should be in some way flexible. So I think in just having a conversation about this... what could be already is based on if the person did a good thing. We were randomly adding an all-star in there. That's the possibility because it really depends on what things they're being doing. But what do you mean like, because I feel like it's, I just feel like making management simple. Otherwise, we need to see how much I need to give, how often I need to give, and when should I give. So this just makes it very simple. Like I'm stars along the process. But maybe after a quarter, I evaluate, or maybe we constantly, like when the person reach all-star, have a remind mail, email of like, oh, hey, she reached. I do see that whatever bonus we give people, they're going to talk, right? And then I've had multiple, at least one time where Tim was like, oh, they got a raise. Why didn't we get a raise? Or how can we get a raise? So you know they're going to talk. So I think I agree with you that having more of a struggle. I'm sure that can be transparent to them. It's also helpful.
Kristin Neal: The structure of the tag needs to be, it has to have like certain requirements for it to have that tag. So I like what you were saying, Charlie, about like, was it really quickly done? Did it take a long time? Was there a lot of team collaboration? I think there's some things that we can define in that tag. And then I love that, Charlie, about accumulating them because then it does make them want to do that. And it's less of a burden on just one person because then you guys are able to add those tags.
Charlie Xu: Well, let's rinse this transcript, put it back into the AI and see what it recommends. Yeah, for example, like if I push Paula really hard to get some sun, so I'm definitely going to give her an all-star. So it really is a very different situation. maybe on your side, clients just get something done. It's so important, big contribution to the company's structure. So it varies. So I think like as our managing level, so it could be flexible. I think that maybe that's the flexibility you want to have. But still, the structure is very important of like how they earn that stars and how the bonus being released by at one stage. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. The general sentiment, I think we all agree. I think the exact mechanism, I would refer to the AI to give us a recommendation.
Kristin Neal: That sounds good. And it sounds like it's separate from the quarterly bonus pool.
Charlie Xu: It's guys.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. All separate. So, okay. We'll wait until that and then we'll update her review accordingly. But yeah, that sounds good. Did we have anything else to go over for reviews?
Charlie Xu: Not for reviews, no.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Charlie Xu: Do you have like an overall menu of topics that we need to cover just so I...
Kristin Neal: Yeah, we have to discuss the co-op, what you were talking about with the... I'm not seeing... I guess we can go over that because I'm not seeing what you're seeing. Where is it? Is this what you're seeing on your side?
Charlie Xu: Mm-hmm.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, but... Well, you're logging at ZTAG. don't know if it shows this stuff. Okay.
Kristin Neal: So this was seven days ago. I don't have any new...
Charlie Xu: Yeah, because it's sent to my account specifically, so I don't know if it's even logged into the same thing.
Kristin Neal: Okay, yeah. There's something missing.
Charlie Xu: Um... Um... You Yeah, because I think this thing has to be my sign in because I'm the owner with, you know, the incorporation documents.
Kristin Neal: Good, good. I'm glad that they're getting into you. But we now have two, if not three, sales that are waiting on that. So that's definitely one that...
Charlie Xu: Yeah, this will be something I work on today. I can't guarantee that it'll get... Done. Yeah. That's on them, but I'll submit everything today.
Kristin Neal: Okay, perfect. The video for OssieCon Reachout is on the agenda to talk about support for the operating system for TIN and getting the playmakers, which they still haven't... Yeah. Invoice, who's sending the invoice clarification and action distribution.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Okay. The action distribution one we can talk about, it's easy. I got to disassemble two plastic covers and put it in there. We'll have it shipped out tomorrow because I have to go to the office to pack it. Yeah, think he's got, Ricardo's got all the other materials except for this.
Kristin Neal: Wonderful. Thank you so much. Does Tim need to get a label for you or anything?
Charlie Xu: By tomorrow. Yeah, once I pack this stuff in there.
Kristin Neal: Would you be able to create that task for her so she has what she needs?
Charlie Xu: Okay. I'm not very familiar with task creation. Can I just tell her?
Kristin Neal: Can you tell me so I can create the task? Okay. You really want to stick with this task board.
Charlie Xu: All right. So, yeah, she just needs to create a label for shipping her pack up tomorrow. But it's dependent on, well... I would say just add three pounds to whatever the current dimensions are.
Kristin Neal: What dimensions do you have for the box? Because that's what she was waiting for.
Charlie Xu: Ricardo already replied.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Because she actually has it on her tasks already.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, Ricardo replied somewhere. Hold on. Ricardo, yeah. So she's replied in a group chat that's between me, her, and Tin. 24.5 length. 17 inches width, 14 inches height, and it's 47.5 pounds without the lids. I would just say 51 pounds total.
Kristin Neal: It was an email between you guys?
Charlie Xu: It's a text.
Kristin Neal: For a text?
Charlie Xu: A group text. A A And then add three pounds to the weight. Okay, and then have her make the label for tomorrow pickup.
Kristin Neal: Okay, anything else?
Charlie Xu: I think that's it.
Kristin Neal: Thank you.
Charlie Xu: Oh my goodness, there's an announcement, a superhuman, our email client, just got acquired by Grammarly.
Kristin Neal: Oh.
Charlie Xu: That'll be interesting. Okay. What's that? Grammarly just acquired superhuman. Grammarly? Grammarly. It was an AI-based grammar corrector. Yeah. It bought... Bought? Yeah, superhuman. That might be an interesting combination.
Kristin Neal: I will add a tag to this, you know, I'm not going to add that. right. Okay. Okay. Eventually, the book does say that we need to all be up to date on the processes. So eventually, we'll have to know how to create the tasks and things like that. So in the meantime, if you could just give me the details so I can create those.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, and even this in itself eventually should be given to an agent because the most natural form of input is our voice. We want to be able to just talk to it. So I would love for a way, rather than me telling you in this specific meeting, I can add the hawk and say, oh, can you tell Tim or whatever to do this? And then it automatically ends up there.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Yeah. Be nice.
Charlie Xu: We're getting close to it, though.
Kristin Neal: All right. The video of OssieCon, should we talk about that? Or do you want to talk about the invoices, Charlie?
Charlie Xu: Oh, the invoices, I do check on ChatGPT. So right now, Carmi would be the person sending out the invoice.
Kristin Neal: Is that correct? No? It's not what I have in my ChatGPT. It says you will.
Charlie Xu: Really?
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Charlie Xu: No, you have to use operations. No, no, no, because I already had this. Carmi is responsible for creating and sending general product invoices, hardware, service, and initial sales. And it says, yeah, Charlie maintains final oversight of all invoices and must approve anything that's more than $2,000. Yeah, because I I think... It's a conflict, right? So what does that mean? Like responsible for creating and sending general oversight means after she creates, she need me to approve? I think you have to be the one looking at her process from time to time. But she's because remember, actually, when I was developing this SOP, I was looking for vulnerabilities. And the biggest vulnerability on this whole thing is Charlie has too many. There's too many things weighing on her to be mechanically doing. So I was systematically saying, okay, delegate this out, delegate that out to someone else. You can still oversee it because if something fails, it ultimately still falls back on you. But the actual task doing has to be given to someone else, which, you know, should be car me for that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But the thing is, I think I look back to when I was doing these invoices, I think it's valuable. it's valuable. Of understanding the whole process, so I can start asking, when should I send an invoice, do I send an invoice, so I think these are human instincts of how we need to get into taking actions or involving things or something like that. So I think the whole process is necessary. So I just want to make sure, like, right now at this stage, is there still more we need to observe and find solutions? Because if I just hand over to Kami, she might just repeat repeatedly of doing one thing, but with not a higher understanding, it might lead to something we don't know yet. So I would just, because I think collecting payment, sending out invoice collecting payment, how long it is. Or, like, it's important, right? So technically, according to that hierarchy, you should be reviewing with her on a weekly basis. Is she doing everything properly? Because you don't know, right? So she is mechanically doing it, so pretend she's an agent, right? In that sense, she's fulfilling the role of an agent. As the assigner of the agent, you have to check back in with the agent to see, is the process still happening? So that department is still you, but she's doing most of the actual doing? I think it would be good to separate the invoice sending and still, like, it's a content department.
Kristin Neal: Sales is sales department.
Charlie Xu: Otherwise, you know, like, the most important thing, just rely on one person. If you don't catch up, if there's some, like, bugs, you know, like... You have the same vulnerability because you're busy traveling and doing a lot of things. So if you don't have a default thing that keeps... running, you're actually slowing down the business. So you should be in to be able to check as often as you need, but the process should not rely on you. Okay, so... Or you hire Vanya or some... No, because I think the check, you know, like, if this task is on me, it's different versus I was just checking. Because if it's on me, I really prepare my mode of getting these things done and I would do investigations of if this is right or wrong. But I feel like, you know, I just psychologically analyze... That's the wrong way to scale. No, you have to teach that mindset to the person you're giving it to. Because if you hold on to that, you're holding back the company. ... ... He's growth, literally, because that's all nexus on to you, you like, as a CFO, this, the CFO does not actually send every single invoice for a company. That is just absurd. You have to be looking at a management process, looking at the dashboards. And if the dashboards say something that's different, then you go in and investigate or you're checking, but you can't be the person doing that. Okay, yes. But I was not major in CFO. So I feel like I built up my experience by diving into these details of understanding the teeny tiny key elements by just doing it. I'm not learning well yet. So these are saying like, I'm not there yet. I was not being put in this situation of I am a professional CFO. I would rather you pay for her to take the classes. So she's actually more advanced than you in that. No, no, no, no, no. The thing is, like, we're all building the structure. We need to know each process, what's going on. Then, on the top, you will have that intuition of what's going wrong. Otherwise, if she's doing something, I don't have that piece of knowledge. I don't even aware what's going wrong. So by the time if we don't catch that, it might be too late. Okay, this is Kai and Tin work. So everything she's doing, she's telling me and I approve it. So just have you in the loop, but you can't be blocking the process. thing is, know, like, right now we need to, so, Carmen is working with Chris. So it's in the sales team. So we need to identify, like, the meeting between department and department, right? It's just not like, oh, hey, Carmen, I pull you here because I need you to. Still, she is mainly in the sales team, but just we need to figure out, do I need to also assign her some accountant team? It's the same as team because she reached out to me, say, hey, if you want me to send out an invoice, am I also part of the accountant receivable team? So for them, it's also an evaluation of how many roles, caps they're taking on their daily job instead of like, hey, we just do this and that. So I think, first of all, right now, I'm just learning, but I'm still also a level of learning to be a bookkeeping or, you know, a country chasing. But I'm not experienced as a CFO, so I just by looking this to understand something wrong or not wrong. So that's why I'm still holding on to that because I, like before, when we're chasing money and I seen our payment got delayed, then we start looking into it to find out maybe they're not receiving it. Then I start asking, Chris, do we need to actually mail out all? So then I find out you actually used to send out all the invoice instead of just mailing. So if like for me, I just say, hey, because Carmen, she's just a person to click and send, but she is not the one overseeing the accounts receivable, seeing like, you know, like all these. So, so by the time they say, hey, we don't get money, but it might be like two months later then. So I have to have at least have someone to constantly observing just like you are doing. Peace. right You are constantly observing the up and down. But right now, we don't have an AI or someone's experience could be taking that. So I was like, I still need to be a little bit cautious. I'm not like, I was trying to not delay the whole process, but still, like, if you have a better solution, perfect. I'm happy to hand over to you. But right now, I'm handing over just to Karmie, so I'm still cautious about this movement because you rely on a big thing, just on Karmie sending out that. So I need process, so don't force that on me. I think if, like, the whole process does need Karmie to do that. And I think if we already reach a state of, reach to the state of, it's okay, just have Karmie. And we have some, some, some system can help us to understand we get the money in. What do you actually want? Give me time. Okay. Okay. Don't push that. I think give me some time to process it. So I think even because right now, as Chris said, Carmen is not doing that yet.
Kristin Neal: Right. Is she doing that? Let me, let me share with you what we've got going, what we're doing. We are using this spreadsheet for, for all the information. Carmen right now is sending the invoice and they're also creating tasks for me for when that needs to be actually mailed in the mail.
Charlie Xu: So the ones done sending the mail.
Kristin Neal: Yes. Um, I've only sent one though. Um, we're waiting on. Two others, because one is getting shipped today. So one, Tim should be creating that task for me today. One is, I don't remember to tell you the truth. She told me about two that are pending, because I was like, wait a minute, I think I have more to mail out. And they're like, no, not yet. So they have a process. So we're very, very intentional with the verbiage that we're using right now, because the performa quote is the invoice only for schools. So it does not include the payment link. So when a school is reaching out and saying, hey, we need an invoice, that's when Carmine knows that, okay, school performa quote slash invoice. With prepayment, that is something that we, that's where a hole is, because prepayment, they're getting the invoice with the payment link, like it's. Very, like I've drilled it into their head. They've got to use that term with a payment link so we know who it's going to. But the only hole that we have right now is getting information of when that payment is received. So like right now we have on Karmie's tasks on this 11 unit, which I'm like bummed about because you're not getting the notification. But like this one in the notes I added yesterday. Okay, so right here. See, I have you right here at Charlie. I need to add that actually to the notes because that's not notifying you. But we need to know when, because they already confirmed a check is being sent out.
Charlie Xu: We need to know from you when it's received. Okay. So right now, all the payment. So can you guys go check the deals? So normally when I get the payment, I move that. So instead of, I think we still need to using that system as well. Because like, for example, I recently got the payment over there.
Kristin Neal: Maybe moving around. There we go.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Yeah. So when I got the payment from SC, I will move that. So you guys will see that. And also in that partnership document. So you will go there and see. But I think this is more clear and straightforward because you don't really know what I'm updated here, what time I'm updated. It's not very visualized. But here, definitely, I don't even need to put it using the task because it takes extra effort. But these are the process I would do. I will pull whatever I receive the payment.
Kristin Neal: I will pull over here. So you guys will see it over here. Are you also needing to know what to keep your eye open for? Or are you every day looking at payment?
Charlie Xu: Right now, it's in the booking system. So it will say it's overdue, right? But also I will refer the partnership Excel file to the one I marked blue box. It's the one where we're still not getting the payment yet. Like, yeah, the bright one. So these are the ones still, like, for Ting, she needs to constantly check in.
Kristin Neal: Do they need to reach out to them? Okay. So how are we getting that information to Ting that she needs to follow up on these?
Charlie Xu: Since right now, we are still heavily relying on this form. So it's better for her to constantly check in here.
Kristin Neal: Yes.
Charlie Xu: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: And she knows that the blue is something that is for her?
Charlie Xu: I'm not clearly seeing. But I think maybe when you have a meeting with her to go over this, it will be good. And also, think, yeah, I think these are the ones definitely have to have her follow up. And also the Yuba, I think we were missing one unit. Yeah, she's on that.
Kristin Neal: She's, yeah, she's on it. I can find that on an update.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, yeah, but also I think last time, before I pull myself away, I think I want her to follow up Yuba. So I still don't know. Maybe, yeah, maybe I need to contact her. Yeah, Yuba is up there. Like, yeah.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, so they need all their units.
Charlie Xu: Also, it's a big, big money. We need to make sure they come in in time. I don't want to wait till like... But the thing is, right now it's July 1st, so I don't, because this, especially Yuba, their accounts payable is a third party, so make sure to reach out.
Kristin Neal: Okay, I'm going to check to see if they receive their one unit.
Charlie Xu: Okay. And also, I was wondering, like, for Ting, what is her working hours? Because a lot of the time, like, even, I feel like it's midnight or something, because I think most of the staff, overseas staff, offline around 3, right? But sometimes, like, even, like, 4 a.m. in the morning over there, Ting is responding to me. So I don't know, like, does everyone stay the same? Or it just depends on the...
Kristin Neal: That's a good question, Charlie, because I'm kind of doing the tasks, like, with them, we've always kind of told them that they needed to be available during the school hours here. So with Tin, I don't know why she would respond at that time.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Yeah, so, yeah, I was, like, a little bit surprised, but I, I just feel like I don't, maybe it's good to set a certain time. I don't, I don't, I feel like, yeah, just, um.
Kristin Neal: You don't want her to feel, like, obligated, maybe?
Charlie Xu: What is obligated? Yeah, yeah, I just, yeah, I just feel like maybe it will be, uh, clear to have a time. So, um, but, but, but, but, but I, I think, like, even she's off, uh, When they're on holiday, we do require some work. She is there. But some people are, when they're on holiday, you cannot reach out to them. So I do appreciate that. But I just didn't expect, like, I don't know how scheduled it is. Like, she sleep the whole date and just stay up the whole night. Because I know someone like Paula, at the 3 a.m. over there, she's really out. She's like, have to go to sleep. So it may be depends. But I think that's just their personal lifestyle. But I don't know. But maybe it's good to set, at least we set expectations of, like, when you click in and when you can.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Yeah, I totally agree. Definitely don't want them to, um, I think I can. Okay. It was received today.
Charlie Xu: Awesome. Oh, cool. Yeah, yeah, Oh, is that the one that was lost?
Kristin Neal: Yes.
Charlie Xu: Recipt the new one, right?
Kristin Neal: Yeah, it was yesterday. Oh, thank you, Lord. Oh, thank you, Lord. You just gave me a heart attack, Juan. It wasn't received today. was received yesterday and in their deadline. June 30th was their deadline.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Was this a lost unit? I'm seeing they shipped a new one.
Kristin Neal: Did we ship a new unit? We shipped a new unit and the last that we heard of the update, they can't find the missing unit.
Charlie Xu: I ran through just a cost analysis. I mean, that's probably, we lose one of those every several hundred. So we just build it into our cost model. It's actually not even worth having insurance on it unless it's like, probably. Probably. More than 3% loss. So if you shipped historically 200 units and one of these goes out, cost of the business. And what we do is just make sure we have enough allocation to say, okay, if we are importing 100, just know maybe reserve up to three of them for incidentals.
Kristin Neal: We'll have to remember that. Okay. Got it. It's cheaper for us to do the insurance than to say, okay, I'm going to add a $100 extra cost per unit.
Charlie Xu: Just to insure it for something because it's also paperwork, bunch of other stuff. Us doing the insurance because the rates, the relative failure rate is so low, it's actually more economical. But I think having team to find out what caused the loss, that's going be important. So it could be, you know, like round number or whatever.
Kristin Neal: She's been on the phone with them. She's been actually talking to UPS. But they keep, I don't know if it's because she's, I don't They just keep bouncing her around. She's been very frustrated. She's been on the phone. She's been hours with them trying to figure out. But yeah, I can definitely encourage her to continue. That's actually one of her tasks, is to find that Yuba unit.
Charlie Xu: We've had a shipment that got turned around for a month or more. It showed up back here. Really? Yeah, it got returned back to me. I hope it's any wish to intention. But also just be objective. It's a $3,000 item. You might people steal it or lose it or something. So you can't be 100% either.
Kristin Neal: That actually brought up another point. Do you mind if I switch subjects real quick?
Charlie Xu: OK.
Kristin Neal: Because this actually goes back to the team and the reviews and things I was actually kind of shocked, but understandably, the 4th of July, I was like, okay, I've got a few tasks that you guys can just focus on that day and get done since you guys are, we'll be off, but you guys will be working. And they were like, Chris, we have it off too. So I was like, is that something that maybe we can talk about in the future about realigning? I think they're perfectly fine doing tasks assigned to them on days that we have off, but they don't celebrate.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, remember that. remember that.
Kristin Neal: There were several, yeah.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, because we talked about before that, I think, when it stands here, we have agreement on the Philippine date. Yeah, like that time, I think somehow they brought up of the U.S. once, but I have that. The sense of why they celebrate American holidays because we don't work. But if if we can assign them and they can just keep working, it doesn't matter like how how much on that day, but still keep it going. I think that makes sense. But it's just like we give them celebrating their holiday. But I don't feel like they should celebrate. I don't know. Maybe that's a question. But yeah, because that might be cultural. There might be some U.S. thing that's but not all the because I think when Carmi doing that list, she put all the American there as well. So but the thing is, so I think to that, there's a lot of oh, yeah. I mean, if you if you have like, you know, four different cultures, you might be having a holiday every single day.
Kristin Neal: Woohoo!
Charlie Xu: Celebrate. That makes sense. So yeah, at least essential essential tasks. don't like maybe. We say, like, I'm not required to sit over there, but essential tasks, you need to helping us to get that solved on that day. Because it's not your holidays. We are not there. But we don't know if it's not their holiday. So we need to check it's culturally appropriate. It's all the American holidays should be their holidays. yeah. I'll ask right now.
Kristin Neal: I'm glad we...
Charlie Xu: I agree with that. Yeah, at the beginning, I feel like, um, that, that's good. Like, it's, it's just, like, I don't, I don't think American company will, like, so generous like that. Like, hey, let's...
Kristin Neal: I was so excited because I was like, oh, this is such a perfect thing for you guys to work on together for Friday. You guys have everything you need. And they were like, oh, we're off on Friday.
Charlie Xu: I was like, what? Okay, so July 4th, 1946, the United States granted full independence to the... Philippines on this day. It was known as Philippine Republic Day, or Independence Day for many years for them. So it used to be a national holiday celebrated in parallel with the U.S. Independence Day. But today, they've shifted their Independence Day to June 12th. So July 4th was then rebranded to be Philippine-American Friendship Day. So let me see. Are they on the list? think they have a holiday list. Carmen shared before here. No, July 4th is not on there. I think probably because they're adding the extra 10 U.S. holidays. this list is not saying it's collectively everybody is off. It just means those 20 days. Maybe they misunderstanding of their. They don't get a, yeah, they don't get 31 days of break. Yeah, they don't get the 20. Yeah, so I think. You have to clarify that. It's important.
Kristin Neal: That's why I was like, dang, okay.
Charlie Xu: Even like tomorrow on the meeting, we should clarify that too. So it's, yeah.
Kristin Neal: Or we could wait till Monday. It's up to you guys if you want to tackle it for Fridays. It's up to you guys.
Charlie Xu: I think you said if there's things we need to get done on their end, then, yeah, we should assign that and clarify that.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. Okay.
Kristin Neal: I'll add that to the tasks. Will you guys be at the meeting tomorrow?
Charlie Xu: I will be. I will not be. No, I have an engineering meeting.
Kristin Neal: So clarify. Do you want to go over that, Quan, another day?
Charlie Xu: Which one? Maybe it's uncertain. Maybe uncertain. I didn't hear the topic. Go over holidays. Holidays, yeah, okay. That's fine.
Kristin Neal: On Thursday?
Charlie Xu: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Got it.
Charlie Xu: I still have a few tasks to share, so I don't know if you're done with your list yet.
Kristin Neal: Operating support for TIN and getting the support needed for DC. That still hasn't been given.
Charlie Xu: Okay.
Kristin Neal: So what I was thinking, so I'm looking at a big picture. Okay, let's see a partner, any partner needs help right then and there. Is it something that we can put on the website? Can we have, like, support forms so that they can explain their situation, upload their video, send it to TIN? TIN can email them back. Here's Steve and, actually, just Steve. Here's Steve. He's able to assist.
Charlie Xu: Right. So. So. There's a layered approach to this because what we do today is simply capturing our current customers in their communication style because you only have connections to the administrators. We don't yet have direct connections to the playmakers. Eventually, all the units coming out today from the factory have labels and stickers like QR codes on the unit itself. So if something fails there, them scanning that will get them connected to us much more efficiently.
Kristin Neal: Isn't that just for training videos and the welcome letter?
Charlie Xu: Yeah, so if they start there, then they'll get properly educated on the proper procedures to contact us. But that's kind of like going into the future. Right now, we're dealing with people who are, you know, like the smoke issue.
Kristin Neal: Something happened, they had to report it up.
Charlie Xu: It had to be serious enough. For them to report it up to get to us. There's plenty of issues I can guarantee that they just don't even bother talking to us. So right now we're capturing the customers. Remember how I was showing you the visual of that long tail? Like we could fix things. Like we could fix things today, but you're going to still experience the unfixedness of it for like three or four years because you have customers.
Kristin Neal: That's why I want to get this figured out. Like an actual OS on this.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. So I'm just saying that we have to have a process to capture this long tail because even though today we have a new process, that benefit is not going to be fully capturing everything for at least a few years. So for the example of DC, any existing pre-V3, so all the V2s, if something happens to the screen, it should come back to me from now on. example of-V3s, happens come to me from now on. DC, of-V3s, We can't send them a new screen and expect them to be savvy enough to replace it. It's too involved.
Kristin Neal: And it's not even guaranteeing success either.
Charlie Xu: So we could just bake it into the cost. If something happens, it needs to land back here. A different layer to that is, well, who's covering the cost? Do we cover the cost as a goodwill, or do we use it as a way to show the benefits of extended care? Saying, hey, look, this thing broke. We want to support you, but here's the value of the extended care.
Kristin Neal: Right.
Charlie Xu: So there's that balance. We shouldn't be overextending ourselves and saying, okay, every time it breaks and maybe they did something wrong with it, that it's on us. Because the shipping back and forth, that's already $200.
Kristin Neal: Exactly.
Charlie Xu: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: That's right. Matt, so that's why I'm trying to get, I'm to clear the road for them to get us the information of what the issue is.
Charlie Xu: So I saw it. The screen doesn't turn on, so it needs to come back to me. But we just need to figure out who's paying for it.
Kristin Neal: But it's already gone through like three different levels of having to get to you to get that information to send back. And even that, there's not really a clear process. Like, yes, we should definitely offer the extended care, even though it actually goes even further than this, because we never reached out to all the partners and said, hey, this ZTAG extended care is how you can get support moving forward. None of you guys, none so far in July are qualified for additional support. This is how you can get that. We haven't done that. So it's almost like we've tied their hands, it feels like.
Charlie Xu: Who owns that process? It never got figured out.
Kristin Neal: We kept going back and forth with how to send it out. It was always like, well, we got to do a campaign. We got to send it individually. We can't do a mass email. It was never figured out.
Charlie Xu: Is that sentiment before our transition or even after? Or we just haven't talked about it after Stan left?
Kristin Neal: It after. It was after. Because I think you wanted us to go one by one. And then we were trying. Remember, that's what the email tin was working on. And we were going back and forth with her forever with the offering of the ZTAG and Sendicare.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Well, what is the simplest thing that's going to move the needle the most for us?
Kristin Neal: Is it a email blast? Yeah. An email blast to everybody offering the ZTAG extended care. For this one in particular, saying, I don't even know, for this one time we'll waive it, but for future issues, definitely consider the ZTAG extended care for, I keep saying those words.
Charlie Xu: Because I think, especially institutional customers, they're probably okay with paying for a process. They're probably less, they probably take it less personally than a private operator. It's like, oh, I used this once and it's broken, you know. Yeah, so I think showing the extended care, I think it's in alignment with what they're expecting too.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, I agree. But I'll bring it for the coverage for the first one and then offer it. But then after the mass email. So... After that mass email, then everybody is at least knowledged, right?
Charlie Xu: So is that something that you have all the resources to make that happen? Or is there something else you still need to be involved with?
Kristin Neal: I don't think so. I might just need approval for the mass email. Okay. Okay, then yeah, write it out.
Charlie Xu: And then I think we need to make sure Clancy's knows the best way to send that out. I'm still unsure if we should use campaigns because campaigns end up kind of, it may show up as spam or marketing in their email filters versus if you were to be able to go to each individual account and send it out. And there's going to be a few hundred, but let's say you pace yourself like, you know, 20 a day or 50 a day. You should be able to finish that in a few weeks.
Kristin Neal: So not through campaigns.
Charlie Xu: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Got it. I'll create that task. That kind of leads me to my next issue. Is that okay? Do you remember when you sent that video for me and Carmi while we were trying to get the OsteCon leads?
Charlie Xu: Okay. The limited videos?
Kristin Neal: Yes. We were trying to create all those videos and get all of that. So I agree. I liked your take on it better than what we had started to do, you know, just like individual. Can you please just hear me out? No. Sorry. That's fine. That's what it is. Is there... SendSpark. I couldn't remember the company name, but through SendSpark, where it's the video, it's whatever, even if it's a me video. Thank you so much. We loved meeting you at Ostecon. Click below. So after reading this, you want them to keep clicking, right? You want them to keep going in. So the next thing after that video, which I can create very easily, is that landing page that you showed me that you did with the swap. I think it was the legacy swap. I agree with that. But where I was stuck at, and it took me like forever just to get a video demo of five minutes. It's so hard. It's so hard to do a video. Like I can't. It gives me the worst anxiety. I have come to find out. So instead of having them be able to click that next, yes, give me a video demo, because that is a roadblock for people. They don't want to meet for 30 minutes and me going over everything. Can we just have the video demo of you at the NA? NAA on that landing page.
Charlie Xu: Sure. NAA? Was it something that you guys had already recorded?
Kristin Neal: Something you and Charlie recorded. Paula pushed back on it saying...
Charlie Xu: was ZTAG, right?
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Charlie Xu: But Paula is not quite satisfied with the background because remember we're doing that with a very weird angle so all the other vendors are at the background.
Kristin Neal: Okay. But I can MVP it.
Charlie Xu: mean, if that's all you have, then it's fine.
Kristin Neal: It's either that or you're going to wait 10 hours for me to do one on my own. Just do what's good enough, okay, for that one.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, but I think it covers... Yeah, if I covered everything, then just put it in there. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Charlie, you sent that to Paula, right?
Charlie Xu: Can I send it to Paula? Did you see?
Kristin Neal: She didn't share it with me, so I'll reach out to her for that.
Charlie Xu: Oh, because I definitely have her to verify with you is the one. And you are asking for it because she said, Chris is asking me for this and that. So, yeah, I think it's, yeah, it's good to. So are you having her to make a page or something?
Kristin Neal: Yes, Charlie. Thank you so much. It's a landing page for the conferences. We're sending out, we got the attendees list for OSDCON, all 582. Instead of doing an individual video, reaching out to each of them, it took me forever. It took me hours to do 30 of them. Kwan suggested going through this SendSpark thing that I can do one video. I say, hi, watermelon. Thank you so much for seeing us at OSDCON. I can't wait to connect again. But in that watermelon whatever, it goes and it changes to each individual name. And then in that video or in that email, it's my video. And then we would love to, there's two things, buttons that they can. Like, send me a video demo, send me the pricing list, the pricing catalog, and maybe even get a quote. I don't know. Or maybe meet with us. Whatever.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think it makes much more sense because I do see like you are putting effort to make videos for each, but it's still, I don't.
Kristin Neal: It's a lot of work. Yeah, it is.
Charlie Xu: I wanted to cry. That's the most unscalable thing ever. You should have set Chris into an AI figure, you know, like have your voice and that's something we can do. But instead of like you really physically record a hundred times, seriously, I'm going to to 30. By next year, that's going to be a lot easier. But this year, it still looks fake enough where once people see it, they'll actually find it insincere versus, you know, you're actually doing a real video. know, it, it. you. The sincerity is reciprocated.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, I get it. Or grace, because they know that everyone is busy. Right?
Charlie Xu: If everyone is doing that.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Okay, so I can move forward with that. Awesome. Is there any way, because you remember how Eric's video, Charlie, at the end, at the back of it, it kind of was like, really cool. Do you remember that filter that he used? So would that be able to help his background in that video?
Charlie Xu: No, I try. I try to do it. So right now, the technology is not processing the background too well, because there's a lot of elements back there. So even you extract, because it's such a long video, maybe if it's like 10 seconds, it would do a good job. But since it's a long video and the moving angles, it's really hard for AI to capture. So sometimes... sometimes... sometimes... Could be here, this second, this five seconds, it's clear. The background is clear, but next second, some will pop up. So it looks messy.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Charlie Xu: Really nasty. So I'd rather just keep it like that way, or maybe next time we just record a new one. Okay. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: The one that you recorded of me, have you reviewed that one by chance? That one's a lot shorter.
Charlie Xu: I think also, is that the background is the same or we did? It's different.
Kristin Neal: It's, it was, it wasn't Boost, but it was the other Palm Springs.
Charlie Xu: Okay. I would go double check.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. It was the Q.
Charlie Xu: Q, okay.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. It was March 20th.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: That one might be better for, at least just because it's so short, but okay. All right.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, also, maybe you could also could be the, um, I think that's fun to watch instead of you are just approaching a sales pitch. If it's someone just interviewing you, it's a different angle of why they want to know what is ZTAG. You know, like I think that interaction attracts people.
Kristin Neal: I think that has more value too. Yeah, that's so true.
Charlie Xu: That one to put into it. So yeah, let's review the content for that interview. But yeah, I think that one could be even shorter. But I think in that moment, you are trying to explain what is ZTAG as clear, as simple as possible. So what do you think?
Kristin Neal: I think that's good. Yeah, that sounds like a good, at least we can get some momentum on that.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because, yeah. You can. You You could use the AI to guide you with the strategy. So you can say, these are the assets we have, and here's what I'm thinking as a way to catch your attention in a post-conference email, like three weeks after the fact, just so we stand out. And here are the assets. We have a demo video, we have some testimonial video, or we have this interview video. I would use the O3 model because it does more thinking. And just what do you think is the biggest, or what is the best strategy that's going to help our customers pick this email out of the tons of other emails that they have to make this stand out and ultimately connect with us? And based on that, it could give you the reasoning for which videos might play better, and then you can make that final decision. Okay. I think it's really, if you If you want to dive deep, you have to really dive into the psychological part of what attracts people's attention. So it's not just generally asking. You need to give a little foundation of which theory based on what principle of attracting people's attention. So you might get into like giving a little direction instead of like just a general like how. Well, I can. I'll take this transcript and I'll rinse it myself and then I'll give you a framework to start with based on. So can you tell me what videos we currently have? We have some demo videos from conferences.
Kristin Neal: There's one video I would love to include in it. It's a behavior video where it actually shows the kid having a behavior and him de-escalating on his own. So it's a great SEL example.
Charlie Xu: Did you send us that?
Kristin Neal: It's in your thing. But yeah, I could send you that. It's in the.
Charlie Xu: That. in That. Um. Yeah. So being able to just capture an inventory of what we have and then the AI can optimize, but also know what time of day you're sending this because teachers have certain rhythms when they come in and they actually check their email. So there's an optimized time for it. There's a optimized mindset, like maybe certain days of the week, the teachers might be more receptive to getting emails.
Kristin Neal: I noticed it's actually in the middle of the night. got the best review, email reviews.
Charlie Xu: So those, yeah, we got to find like kind of the random times that align with people. Yeah, because, you know, even like yesterday, you know about Geo's win, right? Right. Like I sent out a press release and the AI strategize exactly when to send it, who to send it to, what to say in there. So like it can do a lot of that once you put in the. Audience, and you know, okay, this is a site coordinator, or this is an administrator, what they care about.
Kristin Neal: One second.
Charlie Xu: I know it's a lot, but I'll rinse it, and I'll give you a framework to start.
Kristin Neal: Okay. I don't see the video on the welcome page, so I'll send it in the click.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Yeah. But after this, yeah, be sure to copy your Fathom, or share your Fathom notes to me, because I don't have my AI in there.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. So, I'm on you. So, I'm on you. So,
Charlie Xu: So Chris, Paula working with clients right now to bring up all the content for that page? Is it something they're working on right now?
Kristin Neal: it's something they're working on. They're waiting for my direction, though, because the last that they heard from me, that video wasn't authorized. So now that I can go back and say, we can use it. But so now they'll have something to start. Trying to find that video.
Charlie Xu: Gio ended up on TV.
Kristin Neal: Did he? That's awesome.
Charlie Xu: This is KTLA.
Kristin Neal: KTLA. Oh, my goodness. That is so cool. Wow. I can't believe it, kiddo.
Charlie Xu: That is so cool. Yeah. And it's all AI.
Kristin Neal: AI told me what to do. I love it.
Charlie Xu: I love it.
Kristin Neal: love it. Oh, my gosh.
Charlie Xu: Yesterday morning, I'm like, okay, we have this news. How do we get it out to people? And it's like, got to do step one, two, three, four, write this press release, blah, blah, blah.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, it was. Oh, that's so cool. Oh, my gosh.
Charlie Xu: And also, he get all the content ready. So for the media, think they just check if it meets their standard.
Kristin Neal: Oh, perfect.
Charlie Xu: So it reduced their work. Yeah, they didn't even reply back.
Kristin Neal: They just started using it. I'm like, okay. Perfect.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, I think nowadays, this is how you're using AI to amplify.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, right. Not just the business, but personally, yeah, absolutely. I'm going to have to look for this video, guys.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Okay. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: We have it on here.
Charlie Xu: You said the de-escalation. Was that when we went out with Julian and you were there with me?
Kristin Neal: Yes.
Charlie Xu: So that's earlier. That's like last year.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Charlie Xu: It's probably still somewhere on your phone.
Kristin Neal: That's what I'm looking. I'm looking at my phone to...
Charlie Xu: Do you need to know that date?
Kristin Neal: I have it. December 13th.
Charlie Xu: Oh, okay.
Kristin Neal: I'm looking through my videos and I'm not seeing it. It's so weird. But I saw it on here.
Charlie Xu: Did you use my phone to capture it?
Kristin Neal: Oh, maybe that's what it was.
Charlie Xu: You said it's December what?
Kristin Neal: 13th, 2024.
Charlie Xu: Hold on.
Kristin Neal: And it shows me right underneath the goalpost. It's like that view.
Charlie Xu: So I have a bunch of...
Kristin Neal: Yeah, yeah. Yep. Those are unchecked. What's 411 one? Nope.
Charlie Xu: So was it a group of kids?
Kristin Neal: Yeah, it was that group of kids. We're definitely in the right spot. But we need to find where I'm underneath the goalpost, or whatever you call it, the goal.
Charlie Xu: Okay, I'll have Charlie review all of these. There's quite a... So, Chris, what is the angle you want to highlight? Because as Quan said, you need to review these videos. But like, what is the highlight you want? SEL.
Kristin Neal: SEL.
Charlie Xu: SEL. Someone got upset, but they de-escalated it. Okay, so first the ops got upset during the game. And then... A behavior issue.
Kristin Neal: You've got to use that special terminology, yeah.
Charlie Xu: And then I think maybe also including the teacher, you know, like the teacher testimonials of the SEL part. I think there is a really good testimonials related. So combine these two are like a solid evidence of like proving not only you up, you seeing the situation, but also from a mouth of teacher also saying a word.
Kristin Neal: So I love Charlie. Yes.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. Maybe having, having the team find, find link that one too. I think that she's a, it's like another lady in pink, think during a certain, which, which, which conference, but she.
Kristin Neal: I remember that one was, that one was at the one in Florida. That one. Yeah. I remember cause she was talking. About behaviors, right?
Charlie Xu: Like she was the counselor? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.
Kristin Neal: People's control?
Charlie Xu: Yeah, yeah, The executive function. Yeah, yeah, Oh, yeah, definitely. Put that one over there, yeah, on the list.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Charlie Xu: I think it's like when we're doing marketing on Gio of like promoting his success in Yoyo. Also remind me why the media are like reaching out to us because it fits what they're, the content they're looking for. There's also like the hosts are saying, oh, the kids, now the kids need to move, right? So it's a content they can put the expectation of, hey, we do want more kids like Gio move, get to play Yoyo or go outside or something. So they need the content. So one has. The desire to finding this content, and when we're meeting this, it claps with each other. So it's like when we're doing ZTAG, it's the same too. We're providing problem solutions to people who are looking for solutions.
Kristin Neal: Exactly. Like specific.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kristin Neal: Specific. That's huge. I think I might have found it. So I'm still reviewing, but it looks like it's the right one. So, Quan, did you want to talk about something?
Charlie Xu: Because I think I know what you want to talk about. A couple of things. We need to send out invoices for the legacy swan. So that, there's a form that's already filled out. So I don't know if that's Charlie to make the invoices or who, but there's like probably 30 units that we need to have invoices for and collect payments. to be. Yeah, you have to create it. Someone has to create those things for those customers. I think it's still the same CRM process, right? So once it's created in CRM, it's linked to... Well, it's not in CRM. I have a separate form that collected all the information. So someone needs to transfer that information. But I still feel like it needs to be in the CRM. So it's still like the regular sales process and eventually gets into the Zoho book. So it should not just be separate. Okay, but we have to create a new line item for the swap. So who's doing that? What do you mean line item? There needs to be a new item name for the swap that's costing $2,000. I mean, you want me to just create a new product? Well, you can, but should you? I need to know who in this process, right? Because this whole process may happen again. We have to create a new product. What is our... A process for creating new products so that we can invoice it. Is that typically you?
Kristin Neal: Yeah, typically me that I create the products. I don't think it should be them. Okay.
Charlie Xu: So if you're doing that, then I need to give you also the, do you want access to that form so you know who it's going to be for?
Kristin Neal: Well, then they would just, I would give them the form and then they would just go into their account and create. A quote, invoice, all of that process, right?
Charlie Xu: Yes. Okay. The emails might be different from whatever we have in the CRM, so that just needs to get updated.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Charlie Xu: There will also be new accounts that needs to be added. For example, if it's like a game truck or something, we don't have all their information. It just needs to be up to date.
Kristin Neal: Thank you. Thank you. Did you already add that list to the task so Tim can cross-reference for those game trucks?
Charlie Xu: I have not yet. So I wanted to take this opportunity to just first talk to you about what that looks like. Chris, have you actually seen the swap email?
Kristin Neal: No.
Charlie Xu: No? Okay. Let me...
Kristin Neal: I'm trying to watch the video. I'm trying to see where that video is. Sorry. to watch the I'm trying to... Do you have a communicator? Do you have a What? Thank you.
Charlie Xu: Okay, so, legacy. Okay. Okay. Okay. I'm posting it in here, so you can put it.
Kristin Neal: Okie dokie.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, so this is the landing page that they get to from my email, and once they go to the very bottom, that's weird, why is it? Are you getting an error when you click on the bottom link? Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.
Kristin Neal: No, it goes through. It goes through a Zoho form? Yes.
Charlie Xu: So something is wrong with this computer. Yeah, so they fill that out, and towards the end, they also checkmark a few things saying they have to return the system. Or actually, can you just fill out a few blank things? You don't have to submit it, but just go towards the end so you can see the whole process. Yeah, that's weird. My internet is not allowing me to go to that form.
Kristin Neal: That's weird.
Charlie Xu: Do you mind screen sharing?
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Charlie Xu: Okay, great. Yeah, just add some random stuff in there.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Oh, so you have this information for me.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. So all of this is already captured. And some of them, like KidsQuest, they put in, like, I think 13 or something, or maybe even more, how many systems.
Kristin Neal: I was just thinking, wait, why doesn't this say original purchase date, but you have it up here?
Charlie Xu: Oh, yeah, because they might not know. You know, it's been so long.
Kristin Neal: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, just punch in a few more things, and let's get to the next one. You might even give it some, just fill in the ones that are starting. So put like zero and then, yeah, you may have to upload a nonsensical file, yeah, just, yeah, just something, okay, and then go to next, okay, so that's what they're confirming.
Kristin Neal: Oh, good, if I choose not to participate, I understand that my legacy system will no longer be supported, warrantied, or eligible for future ZTAG. That's huge.
Charlie Xu: This was all based on our rinsing.
Kristin Neal: Why didn't you have that checkable?
Charlie Xu: Let's see. Oh, because, well, by default, they're not participating. If they're not participating, they're just not even going to fill out the form.
Kristin Neal: But then they can say, well, I never got it.
Charlie Xu: There's also something. you. I don't think we have any people on that edge case right now, because if they're checking it, it's assuming they're participating. So, you know, if they're not participating, they wouldn't even bother going to this page or, you know, filling anything out.
Kristin Neal: Well, I'm just saying, like, next year when their ZTAG goes out, oh, man, I really should have swapped that. Well, that's okay. Maybe they'll still let me in.
Charlie Xu: We sent it to every person, so if that still happens, then we already know that we have it. Okay. Well, I think we can make good on it. I'm not too worried about the cost of that. You know, it might be a few. Incidentally, if they're still griping about it, then, you know, we'll figure it out as we go. Okay. Okay. You Yeah, you don't have to submit it, but I just wanted to give you context of that's what they sign up for and all their information gets stored on a form now. That form is not necessarily linked back to CRM. So someone, I guess it seems like it would be Karmie, needs to update that back into the CRM, right, and then create an invoice, or how does that work?
Kristin Neal: Like upload it to, like all, if you have like a spreadsheet of this, of all these forms, then she would need to create, make sure that their information is correct in the CRM, and then each one go through, create the quote, go through the whole process.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, I could share that form with her so it could be exported as a spreadsheet or however she needs it.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Okay. Yeah, it can also be automated, but I don't know if it's worth it. It's not that many entries. It's like probably 10 or 15 entries.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Yeah.
Charlie Xu: But the process here is that we're going to approve everybody who has filled out the form, send them the invoice, all except for one or two people where they don't want to pay $2,000 up front due to cash flow. They'd rather pay for it when the product is ready in September. So we may just have an outstanding invoice with them. Was that on here somewhere that they needed that? Okay. So that's an exception I personally made because here it's like you're supposed to pay as soon as you get the invoice.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Charlie Xu: But I'm also understanding the nuance for some of these operators. They're cash flow tight right now. And what we need... What did as a manufacturer was have enough commitment and cash flow to pay for at least a decent amount of V3 purchases, right? So if all but one or two people are willing to pay upfront, and most of them are, that gives us enough cash flow to even buy a few extra inventory to say, okay, when you're ready, you know, in September, we're here to do the swap, now pay the $2,000, and we're going to collect their system in September. It may actually happen after September, too, because some of these people, they don't want to have too much downtime, so they're waiting for their off-season, and they'll send in their unit, we check to make sure we got it, and then we send a new unit back out.
Kristin Neal: Who's verifying the upload proof of purchase?
Charlie Xu: Basically, I am. I'm looking through this, and I haven't seen anyone that I'm disapproving of, so all of that is...
Kristin Neal: So the ones that you send will already be approved? Perfect.
Charlie Xu: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Cool. Yeah, I can get her on this.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, that's probably the biggest thing because July 1st, officially, you know, this form has closed. So now we're going to be sending out invoices to say, okay, we've approved your legacy SWAT, paid this invoice, and we're going to get this into production. We've already gotten into production, but we want to tell them, okay, because you're paying this invoice, you're reserving your spot on the assembly line for a V3 to come in in September.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Cool. Yeah, the sooner you can send that list.
Charlie Xu: So are you sending the emails or is Tim sending the emails? I was sending the emails for these because this required a very personal touch. I reached out to like 20 or 30 people. And had multiple meetings to get them to the table.
Kristin Neal: Okay, then definitely take, for some reason, I thought Tim was sending these out. So definitely, please take a look at that task.
Charlie Xu: I told Tim that I'm doing this, but I didn't want to CC her until the personal relationship is reestablished to send them back into the process. A lot of it, like, hey, here, I'm the owner. You know, a lot of transitions have happened. And there was a lot of contextually specific information. It's not, you know, I don't want them to feel like, oh, this is just a mass email blast from the founder to every single customer. It's like, no, I'm talking to you because this is what happened.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Charlie Xu: So what is the ticket that I need to look at?
Kristin Neal: That one, I'm trying to. Yeah. It's a location. you. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay, here we go. That one is email clarification for Tin. Please check the attached list for GameShark operators and confirm they've been reached out. Quan, do you have a list of the operators that she can cross-reference?
Charlie Xu: I'll be doing that.
Kristin Neal: The list is right here.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Yeah, there's definitely people that I don't know.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Can you reach out then to the ones that you didn't?
Charlie Xu: I can, yeah.
Kristin Neal: Especially since it's already past the deadline. If you want to mention that, thank you so much for your patience. Maybe you've heard, but we are swapping out. So, Okay. Thank We're offering to swap out, because they're talking to each other, the operators.
Charlie Xu: Well, okay. To be fair, I first sent it to Stacy and Scott.
Kristin Neal: So, and it's specifically said to disseminate this into your network. It did?
Charlie Xu: I think so. I'm pretty sure this was like to... Well, I sent it to them like, look, this is for you guys to review. Let's see. What does it say?
Kristin Neal: Before we start notifying individual.
Charlie Xu: Well, I wanted... Maybe I didn't say that, did I? Mm-mm. Okay. Well, I'd appreciate your thoughts or best ways to coordinate this within your network. Alright. You see that? Like, it's the last long paragraph. I'd appreciate your thoughts on the best way to coordinate this with your network, whether it's a centralized rollout, a webinar. Like, they were supposed to send this out for me, but that didn't happen. So that's why I individually reached out, but I didn't have that list from her. If I had that list, so it's like, if she just sent me that list, we wouldn't have this problem. So they didn't even, like, send it out, and then they were kind of blocking it from happening, too. So they shouldn't be blaming me for sending it out asymmetrically, because I'm doing the best I can.
Kristin Neal: Well, that was probably my fault, because she actually did send the list back in March, but I forgot to give it to Tim or give it to somebody.
Charlie Xu: I didn't have it, so all I could go off of is, like, old support tickets.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, yeah, so.
Charlie Xu: Okay. I'll go back then. Why don't you forward that to my click, and I'll send it out.
Kristin Neal: The email or the task?
Charlie Xu: The list.
Kristin Neal: The list, gotcha.
Charlie Xu: Does she still need me to give her a list, or it's better that I just use her list and I execute on it?
Kristin Neal: I'll just execute on it. She wants to – she emailed yesterday and wanted to verify – what did she say? Thank you for helping get Joe moved forward. There was another owner who wasn't sent an email, and I wanted to confirm with you that everyone we have on the ZTAG owner list received Kwon's email. Will you share the list he used to send that email?
Charlie Xu: All right. I'll give her the email, and I'll cross-reference it to this.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Oh, so you can show her the ones that we still need to reach out to?
Charlie Xu: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Gotcha. All right. I will update her on that.
Charlie Xu: Do you want me to update her on that, or you want to just – No, I'll Do it in the next hour.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Let me put it in the click. Okay.
Charlie Xu: Thank you.
Kristin Neal: Anything else?
Charlie Xu: Yes, Charlie. Okay. Oh, so Chris, I have a task to assign you. So Kristen can put it on there. We need to get the Cybertruck wrap. Okay. I've been complaining about it for a whole month.
Kristin Neal: We need to get this done.
Charlie Xu: And actually, it's very important that there needs to be kids on this. Because what I'm noticing is without it, if it's just a logo on a car, the adults, when they look at it, some like on the road, they're like this or looking at it with interest.
Kristin Neal: Some people are doing this because it's political. Why is political? Well, Elon and Ted.
Charlie Xu: I don't know if you know anything about the car.
Kristin Neal: Oh, geez.
Charlie Xu: Yes. So what we need to do is envelop it in something that shows, look, what we're about is not politics. We're going to break through that. There's images of like kids coordinating, you know, following our certain brand guide. It shouldn't just look like a random spaceship with a logo on it because then people could assume the worst.
Kristin Neal: I told you that. Remember, I said we need to do something.
Charlie Xu: But she didn't agree with this. And I'm leaning into like, I want to do it. No, I didn't say agree with that. I also brought that to you. Like by the time we place the order for ZTAG, the very next day, I have that thought of, hey, Elon Musk are going crazy. Yeah, so we need to diffuse it. So you need to know here we're in California. You could be if the people are in the education, they are not on this side. Because, you know, like last time we are when we are meeting that lady. She doesn't like Trump, right? So I think in the education side, be a strong opinion about it, but since when we brought Cybertruck into school, the kids love it, and also the young teachers, they think it's a cool thing to bring this inside. But maybe some people, I feel like maybe older people will have some strong opinion about, you know, like they will put their own political opinion on these things. But the thing is, Quan said, the rap, we need to put the kids face to, using kids face to blocking the arrow. That's the thing I'm not agree with. Maybe that's not the right intention, the way to say it, but it needs to be diffusing. The intention to be like, look, this is actually something about a kid's program to getting people face to face. If it's just purely a stylistic truck, like here, I'll show you on the app. You can make the truck look like different shapes, but just something stylistic like this. Yeah, it's cool, but people are still going to have their political framing on this thing. So you really need to have the ZTAG, like the come and play, you know, like basically what we have on all of our marketing material baked into this car.
Kristin Neal: Did you see what I had suggested to Danielle? Remember, did you get that email? It's Region 6, the event that we've already agreed to. It's an invitational and it is... Here we go. Here we use... These are very interesting. Term. on. My response. Okay. And yes, Juan wasn't joking. We really do have the ZTAG Cybertruck. Maybe we should start calling it the Play Learning Vehicle because that's what they're using as their Play Learning Vehicle.
Charlie Xu: That's great.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Charlie Xu: We need to repopulate the concept of this vehicle. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Look, it's right here. Let me show you real quick. This is where it came from. It's here somewhere. Hang on. Play Learning.
Charlie Xu: It's so small.
Kristin Neal: We see. I know, right? Play Learning Vehicle.
Charlie Xu: I don't see it.
Kristin Neal: I don't see it either. I know I got it from here. I know I got it from here.
Charlie Xu: It looks like, it looks like. And then we need to have an intentional design about it. It's not just something that looks cool, but really have our play DNA built in.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Charlie Xu: And so when you look at it, it's not even just a Cybertruck with full wrap, but something that's much more higher consciousness.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. I don't know. I don't mind the play learning. I don't know where I got it from. There was somewhere it was in this, but kind of like that.
Charlie Xu: Harley, can you and Paula work on this design? What is the next play thing?
Kristin Neal: Let me get into that because I also need to talk to you guys about that one. Let's see. So it'll be Paula and Clances that you'll need to work with on this, Charlie. Is that right?
Charlie Xu: Why Clances? Oh, you mean for... For which one?
Kristin Neal: This is the ZTAG Cybertruck.
Charlie Xu: why does Clancy need to be in there?
Kristin Neal: Perfect. I was just making sure.
Charlie Xu: Unless it needs to land on a landing page. Actually, yes, Clancy, because it needs to land on a landing page. There needs to be a QR code on there. And so if people are scanning this, you want it to land on a specific general public landing page. Landing page, is that a website? Yes. Okay, so I think Paula can get that done. Because for the flyer, there's a QR code that goes to the No, but it's not just who's making the page. Oh, so you're going make another page? There has to be a landing page. They can't just go to ZTAG.com. There needs to be, like, if you're scanning it from the Cybertruck, we need to know what is the Cybertruck generating? Who's actually scanning it? Like, there's so much more insight. Yeah, this is a big total deal. So, so Chris... So can you, because I think I haven't also catch up with Paula, do you know what she is currently working on besides the social media posts?
Kristin Neal: Let me check. Let's see.
Charlie Xu: So is there anything you assign on your site? you know, I remember there's this transition that she's helping Karmie, and right after we just started traveling. So I'm not really catching up with her.
Kristin Neal: So, Charlie, if you ever have that question, I'm so glad. Just come right up here to their name. Like if you go and do a new custom view on your side, you can do a custom view to where you can see exactly what every single one of them are working on. So I have mine on Paula's, and right now she did update for the Playday photo media. She's working on those Instagram shoots, and she's also created. Getting the pricing sheet, the pricing catalogs.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, I think she's uploading.
Kristin Neal: That's great. So after the meeting, she's already upgrading the tasks. Yeah, she did. Yeah, she did. Yeah, it's really cool. I'm glad she did that. That's all she's working on, though, Charlie.
Charlie Xu: Okay, okay. So for the events that TSP attend, are we constantly also having any follow-up with them after the event? So maybe like the media or feedback, do we have anything?
Kristin Neal: That's what she's supposed to be doing.
Charlie Xu: She will be the person, so okay.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, that's what she's supposed to be doing.
Charlie Xu: Let's see what... Does she know? Does she know she needs to maybe reach out to them or...
Kristin Neal: That was done. That was set up. In the meeting this morning?
Charlie Xu: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Let's see.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, I just want to make sure it's clear instead of just collecting, maybe also involving email sending. So like just follow up. But I think it will be, yeah, I just try to make it clear.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. That's why these notes have been amazing. So for every activation site, please reach out to each contact for media and feedback.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Perfect.
Kristin Neal: Cool. Um, please. Can she update you?
Charlie Xu: Hmm, maybe forward, if they have that email forward to us. So at least we know the status.
Kristin Neal: To Charlie.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Oh, maybe CC. So, so, so not forward, maybe just CC. So, oh, oh, maybe, yeah, I think forward is good. Sometimes even where CC, when they reply, they could just skip us and just directly reply. I think it's good. Good.
Kristin Neal: Good.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. But I think because you, you're adding, adding that in Napa play. So maybe you need to copy paste in. I put for every activation site, but I think she could be like if she's working on others who are not seeing it.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Charlie Xu: Okay, so when you add, she will see it, right?
Kristin Neal: Yes.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Okay. Okay. You can try it yourself. Then I'm impressed. Okay. Okay. And this one we are going to be talking about Charlie Xu, and And this one we already got the media. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's okay. Oh, okay. So you have conversations over here.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Charlie Xu: Great.
Kristin Neal: Okay. She said that she heard in the meeting earlier that Quan will be the one to reach out to him. And Quan did say that.
Charlie Xu: Yes. For what? For reaching out to the lady that she used to, yeah, giving us feedback. So. Just shoot a quick message.
Kristin Neal: Is that for all of them or is that just for...
Charlie Xu: No, no, just for that. Just for that. Yes, because she brought it up to give us feedback. So it was just a follow-up. Yeah, because at that time, but before we're leaving, she giving her observations are so accurate. It shows she's saying, like, everyone is aware, like, how engaged the ZTAG brought to their kids. They see the huge difference. So, yeah, so I think it's good, too. Yeah, and also I think their school probably will also purchase one system, too. Okay, so Chris, I was wondering, like, because now it's by... By the end of... Oh, it's the beginning of July. So, as you said, there's some others, they want to spend... Their money as quick as possible, but since the school are ending, how does that work? So is the school still running or the accounts payable department still running or how does that work?
Kristin Neal: Yes, their accounts payable. They're there for like the summer school. There's several that are open for that. And then remember, someone had said that they have like a specific summer budget. So, and even another partner, they said that they were working through the summer.
Charlie Xu: So it sounds like they all differentiate. They're all different. They got you.
Kristin Neal: Was there anything else on the tasks, Charlie?
Charlie Xu: No, good.
Kristin Neal: Is Quan within earshot? Unknown caller.
Charlie Xu: What's up?
Kristin Neal: I got your email last night about, or that you sent last night about the yo-yo.
Charlie Xu: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: yo-yo world champion. Do you want to offer that? Do you want to see if he would be available to go to the one with Danielle? When is that? That one is... Sorry. Let's see. So it's number eight.
Charlie Xu: Yep.
Kristin Neal: From 8.30 to 3.30.
Charlie Xu: No, I think he's free up a little. Oh, I mentioned before he was going clean. Right. Yeah, that would be good. September.
Kristin Neal: Okay. All right.
Charlie Xu: More time to plan for it. Yeah. I think Geo would be pretty excited about that.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Charlie Xu: And also, so... It's so interesting. I also... During the... For the competition, I met a lady, she is major in education, and her son is diagnosed ADHD, and he is so happy of finding this community. So it's such a highlight for his son's life. So, but we had a really good and deep conversation, it just, now a day, I think a lot of kids are, don't have that way to address, because you know, like, also I work with occupational therapists, it seems like the rate of the kids have at least ADD or ADHD is going up. And also this yo-yo community is that a lot of kids are due on a special need. So... I think introduce this into the school, like somehow we're on a very similar path. Kids, maybe ADD is because kids are designed to be just kids and not be forced on sit all day long and put out all the knowledge that really not connect with them. But have running, face-to-face connections, all that authentic connections is really helping them to grow. So I think maybe there's cross-cooperations with the international champion, if it's something you really want to tap into. But also, there are so many resources in this community, like young adults. They might, you know, it could be their career if we have this structure. And, yeah, so, yeah.
Kristin Neal: That's cool, Charlie. Yeah, that'd be great if they can get it aligned. Yeah, for sure. Okay. I think that's it on my list.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Okay. Yeah, it's a long meeting. Yes, finally, catch up.
Kristin Neal: If you asked for a 15-minute quick-up, I was like, I wouldn't even know where to start with 15 minutes.
Charlie Xu: Sorry.
Kristin Neal: All right. Well, if you need me, let me know. Okay. All right, Charlie. Thanks so much, you guys. Bye, guys.
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Quan Gan: Automatic. Yeah, I use it too.
Mia Tagano: Yeah, I got your note and then I started thinking, oh, I never, I never send a note to people, you know, record. Is it okay?
Quan Gan: Yeah, I don't mind.
Mia Tagano: But I never have, I've been using ChatGPT a lot.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Mia Tagano: And I take the recordings from my, you know, groups or whoever I'm working with. And then I have questions and I'll say, answer these questions based on our session or, you know, and it's wonderful.
Quan Gan: Oh, love it. Yeah. For those who have already gotten a taste of the benefits. Yeah. It'll just blossom from there.
Mia Tagano: Yeah. It's been so, I mean, I spent in the beginning, I spent many hours just asking questions and trying to figure it out.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Mia Tagano: So I never took a class, but I think that's helped me because I'm able to find things or. Uh. Yeah. Figure out some talks, for instance, on these EO talks, because people are using them all the time. But how do we bring it back to the human voice?
Quan Gan: Well, there is no class on this. It's really your own experience.
Mia Tagano: It's like, how can someone teach you how to be you? Oh, well, on that, yeah. But people, I was getting so many ads for, do you want to learn chat GPT?
Quan Gan: Well, that's the latest froth, anyways. But really, what I'm finding is your relationship with GPT is a very personal one. Yeah, and no amount of classes from anyone else is going to make it relevant to yourself.
Mia Tagano: That's a good point. I don't know all the GPTs, though. Every time I try to get into that, it's too overwhelming.
Quan Gan: Well, it's, and it doesn't need to be, because, like, for what you're doing, I think it's more than enough. You know, for what I'm doing, there's things, it's a little bit more. Like, I have to stay on top of it because it's my subject, but also I'm using it for coding, which is a completely different element and different metrics compared to human language.
Mia Tagano: And that's a language I know nothing about, coding.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and so you don't need it. And I think ChatGPT and the other ones, it's really, it's almost like kind of pick your cable provider. They do the same thing. However, you'll probably find over time, though, ChatGPT's answers might be a little bit more like PC-filtered and less opinionated on purpose because it is the biggest company, so it's got the biggest target on its back for any kind of backlash. Perhaps some of the other AIs, they're willing to be a little bit more assertive in opinions, but then you just have to realize, you know, whose bias is it? So. So.
Mia Tagano: That's such an interesting, because sometimes I would get angry, well, angry at the chat, and I'd say, what about this controversy? I'd come back with a question, and I'd say, oh, well, there's that.
Quan Gan: Yeah. I think Grok, which is Elon Musk's company, G-R-O-K, that one will give you more opinionated things. Anthropic Claude might give you a little bit, but definitely ChatGPTs, unless you're willing to assert that it needs to assert itself, it's going to, by default, give you very vanilla answers.
Mia Tagano: That's what it was doing, and then I kept probing. But I don't know enough about everything.
Quan Gan: know, if anything, the people of today with Chat, if you have language background, it actually gives you a fundamental advantage over the technical people. Because the A AI models are trained on human language, so those who actually have a better grasp of human language can actually navigate it as if it were a person. So you can do things like gaslight it or interrogate it in certain ways. If you know how to manipulate people with human language, you're actually at a better position as a prompt engineer than a person who's coding all the time. Because they're fixing a certain, like, I program you to do this, why do you give me all these wiggly, soft answers?
Mia Tagano: Yeah, that's interesting. I never thought of myself as having an advantage.
Quan Gan: You actually do, yeah. I would say linguists and psychologists actually fundamentally have an advantage with AI than the computer scientists.
Mia Tagano: Oh, that's crazy. I love going back and forth with it. Yeah. I feel like I'm learning a lot. Yeah. I do see a lot of people who are using it, not just for EO.
Quan Gan: I think it's probably a low mixture of own insights and an over reliance on the model, basically, just like, you know, you could immediately tell a good response from a bad response. From the user. So what most kids or even adults probably do is like write me an essay about blah, blah, blah, right? And it's like a small and in engineering, they call it garbage in garbage out. So if your request is so remedial, you're not going to you're gonna you're going to only have a vanilla answer. But if the way you prompt it has a lot of your own personal insights, that has its own signature or fingerprint, if you will.
Mia Tagano: Hmm.
Quan Gan: Hmm. That will actually potentially get amplified by the AI.
Mia Tagano: I've been dictating into it.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Mia Tagano: And then I'll also say, forget it.
Quan Gan: I'm going to do it myself.
Mia Tagano: I said that to it.
Quan Gan: It will do that because it'll vanilla wash everything.
Mia Tagano: Yeah. And it sounds good at first. You think, oh, wow, I sound pretty smart. And then it just, you know, yeah, it doesn't sound interesting. Speaking of kids, what's up with this Geo doing this competitive yo-yo?
Quan Gan: That is so cool. I got to show you. We were.
Mia Tagano: Oh, my gosh.
Quan Gan: We were on TV this morning. You were? Oh, my goodness. We were back a set. But here, I'll show you. Hey, Cal9.
Mia Tagano: That is so cool. Look at him. I met him on Zoom and he was little.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Mia Tagano: Yeah. then he got up and he's like, demoing. Were they able to do it?
Quan Gan: No. And they weren't expecting to, but yeah, it was just, yeah, kind of one thing led to another. And it's interesting to look at it in hindsight because there's certain symbols or things that I feel like it's got to be destined or fate or whatever, but it's kind of weird. So the three letters in his name are all spirals.
Mia Tagano: Oh, yeah.
Quan Gan: Oh, right. It's literally the same shape, just slightly different variations. And he's been fascinated with things that spin since age two.
Mia Tagano: Wow.
Quan Gan: So it's not like the yo-yo was something that he's newly just practiced and got, but it was like there's something about him and spinning things. In fact, I joke and I told his classroom about this on his birthday, even when he sleeps, he spins throughout the night. Like he'll actually be in a different clock position.
Mia Tagano: It shouldn't, depending on the hour. Oh, that's amazing. And he's so, when I was watching him on the Instagram, it's almost like breathing. Like nothing's happening. Like for me, I'd be like, you know, he's just like.
Quan Gan: Yeah. It's something just kind of wired in him. So I feel like there's something by cosmic order. I can't explain.
Mia Tagano: That's just him. Yeah, for sure. That's amazing. Are there other things that does he juggle?
Quan Gan: Or I guess that's not circular, but. Well, so in the beginning, he got fascinated with a motorized fan, a little USB fan that you plug into your computer.
Mia Tagano: You mean.
Quan Gan: then. Yeah. So this was at age two. And then we gave him a screwdriver. And so the next couple of years, he proceeded to take apart every single electronics that we have with a motor in it. And so he was fascinated with that for quite some time. And then he got into this lightsaber phase. So he started spinning lightsabers probably. Around six or seven, he did pretty good with that. Let me see if I can find a video. And then he got into like real swords. Like he was actually started to learn how to blacksmith swords.
Mia Tagano: Wow.
Quan Gan: So he's always been very mechanically inclined. And then, yeah, and then he discovered yo-yo last year.
Mia Tagano: only a year.
Quan Gan: year?
Mia Tagano: Yeah. Oh, my gosh.
Quan Gan: I made this little.
Mia Tagano: That was great.
Quan Gan: Yeah. This is at age six.
Mia Tagano: I mean, he's already.
Quan Gan: What?
Mia Tagano: Oh, my goodness. That's six years old?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Mia Tagano: He's amazing.
Quan Gan: Wow. Yeah.
Mia Tagano: Yeah. He's touched by some kind of higher power or something.
Quan Gan: Yeah. It's just like.
Mia Tagano: Cosmic.
Quan Gan: Something. I also think at the same time, it's like us as parents. We try to support whatever. whatever. in Those signals are, and also just stay out of his way, but we probably, as parents, in general, probably do more damage than good to the kids.
Mia Tagano: I mean, I love that you're the only parents I know who gave their kid a, what did you say, a screwdriver?
Quan Gan: Screwdriver, yeah.
Mia Tagano: At what, three?
Quan Gan: Yeah, two or three. And there's this whole concept we learned from Maker Faire up in the Bay Area called a take-a-party.
Mia Tagano: Huh.
Quan Gan: Like a party, but it's take-a-part, right? So you, rather than gifting something new, the take-a-party is like, hey, bring up, bring all your used appliances, things you're trying to get rid of, and then we'll take everything apart.
Mia Tagano: That is so cool. Is that like connected to STEM or something in the school halls?
Quan Gan: Yeah, it was, I mean, this was something that I only got exposed to when I was in college, they, they had a class where every week. You have some, like, printer or some other office appliance, and you would take it apart and see what are all the electronic components. But to do it as a kid, I mean, yeah, that's them exploring the real world.
Mia Tagano: That's amazing. It's like us, when I was growing up, dissecting a frog or, you know, how it worked. I'd rather the printer sometimes. So, last time I saw you, were talking about Vipassana, and since then, you did it.
Quan Gan: Yeah, have we not connected since then?
Mia Tagano: No, I don't think so.
Quan Gan: Wow.
Mia Tagano: Yeah, because I don't think you did it. I know, so much.
Quan Gan: I remember you told me that everyone was going to have a thing, like something that bothers you, right? And it's going to ride out for the 10 days.
Mia Tagano: Didn't you tell me something about that? I may have. I mean, I had my thing, and I was dying, most of it, and going through menopause and all this stuff.
Quan Gan: You also mentioned to me that you wanted to take it hardcore, so you had like no cushion, right?
Mia Tagano: Yeah, no, I didn't do any of the cushion.
Quan Gan: Yeah, because some people like basically built a fort out of it. Exactly. Well, my conclusion through that was no matter how you want to build your fortress, the pain is still going to be there.
Mia Tagano: Yeah, well, I guess, yeah.
Quan Gan: And it just creeps up on you, because I realize it's probably not just an item of comfort, really. It's like once your body settles, the pain just comes back no matter what. It was brutal, but let's see, what can I?
Mia Tagano: Wait, where did you do it?
Quan Gan: I did it in Palm Springs.
Mia Tagano: Oh, Joshua Tree?
Quan Gan: Or is that Joshua Tree? Yeah, I think it's Joshua Tree, yeah.
Mia Tagano: I heard that one's beautiful. And you have your own individual spaces where you live.
Quan Gan: Especially post- COVID, they, they made sure everybody was like, separated, because my room had two beds, but I had my own, like, there was not a second person in that room.
Mia Tagano: Oh, okay. So it could have been before COVID, you'd share with someone?
Quan Gan: Yeah, it would have been shared. But yeah, like they, they really try to space everybody out. But it was still, I think, 70 or 80 people. So half women, half men.
Mia Tagano: Yeah. It is something though, when you, because I've done a few different ones, when someone's in that room with you, going through whatever they're going through.
Quan Gan: Oh, I didn't have that. But I had such a distorted sense of time. I would, I had some of the craziest dreams. And then it felt like at least hours or possibly even days.
Mia Tagano: And then I wake up and it's like not even 15 minutes have passed. Hmm. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Um, this, this one thing that, you know how you're not supposed to write anything. I think I ended up trying to scratch it somewhere because it was such a profound statement that it's still with me today, but there was this one time that I remember this very timid or frail little girl in my dream and somehow was so traumatized by whatever is happening on the outside that she she proceeded to like, like she bit off her own nipple. It's like a little girl is like the most grotesque thing I could think of like she just self just mutilated herself in front of me. And all I can remember, in that dream was like, with full compassion, I just embraced her and the only thing I said to her was, my child, you are born of this world, yet you do not have to be deceived.
Mia Tagano: hmm hmm
Quan Gan: And what I was getting from that was this kind of realizing what the original sin was. Like symbolically, the original sin is like, well, the fact that you're passed down through generations, like whatever Adam and Eve did, like you carry that burden. But I also think mechanically, it's like, you're entangled with society, your parents and all of the expectations, and whatever those, you know, traditions or cultures are. And many of them actually get twisted into ways that are not helpful to the to the actual human spirit.
Mia Tagano: Hmm.
Quan Gan: And so in realizing that it kind of like it freed me into realizing, okay, well, yeah, there's a lot of that we're just like born into. But if you see through it, then you can actually transcend it and not be nearly as affected by it as by default.
Mia Tagano: Hmm. That's so interesting. Yeah. When you went into the Vipassi, have you just done the 10-day?
Quan Gan: Have you done other like three-day sits? So I did that 10-day. And then as soon as I came back home, my wife had another Qigong retreat.
Mia Tagano: Oh, uh-huh.
Quan Gan: And then, so I just from one retreat into the next. And then after that, it was like a 108-day fast. Like, not total, but like a cleanse. And I was like down to like bare bones by the end of it.
Mia Tagano: So it was like really intense four months of- Wow. When did you do that?
Quan Gan: This was a little over a year ago.
Mia Tagano: Hmm.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Mia Tagano: So, 2023?
Quan Gan: So many things have happened that I felt like it's a lifetime ago.
Mia Tagano: Yeah. And so you've shifted so much of your work?
Quan Gan: So let's see, how can I fast forward you to today? There's been so many like, pendulum swings. So after that, very kind of unplugged from three dimensional, you know, life happenings. But now I'm almost the polar opposite, because four months ago, I had a falling out with my business, former business partner. So we, we left on amicable terms, but it was also like the most turbulent thing to go through. And I just confidentially, you know, we, we found out he was, he took money inappropriately from the company. But we had to part ways. But so I, yeah, so, but you know, the silver lining behind it was Charlie and I actually took charge. So And we rebuilt the company from the ground up to today. It's 180 degrees compared to where it was, you know, when this thing happened.
Mia Tagano: Wow.
Quan Gan: And so the theme in my life right now is like I'm fully injected back into the company, very three dimensional. But I feel like there is a much closer to my own source rather than, you some surface level thing that might be swayed by external circumstances.
Mia Tagano: Yeah. I think Vipassana helps with that. I don't continue Vipassana, but I still am. It's the teaching still remain.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah. I definitely felt it was, you know, the intention going in was like a total mental cleanse. You do a mental cleanse. And then afterwards I had a physical cleanse because like, you know, the food intake was very different. Right. But, you know, there was this kind of a paradox, but. know, it's Okay. Well go. Bye. Learning to live with it is things became so meaningless after Vipassana. It's like, well, what happens if anything happens? Are you not supposed to have any desire or fear? So there was that element. But then simultaneously, the thought of just how cosmically improbable it is for us to even exist in this universe, there's certainly some magic there. And so even if this is meaningless or just a cosmic theater, I'm going to, you know, might as well do the best thing I can as an actor in it.
Mia Tagano: I agree. I agree. Some of my friends who I have a lot of friends who do Vipassana. I also have a friend who's a teacher. And I think that it's missing. So a lot of friends have done 30 day, 45 day sits. But I feel like it it's a little overkill. And I feel like sometimes as far as communication, it's less dynamic. And I feel like. Thank Then it could be because there's a feeling like it's non-reaction, so they're so steady, but then I'm thinking, come on, look at nature, nature has, and animals, they have their steady, they have also the dynamic. Well, have the rest of eternity after you die to deal with that part. Yes, exactly. I'm one of those people who, I'm not a rule follower, so I had a little bit of a notebook, and I was working on something.
Quan Gan: Oh, you're one of them.
Mia Tagano: Yeah, even on Vision Quest, I've done four where they said, no busy work, you just stay, I've done prayer ties, I've done journal, and it didn't hurt me.
Quan Gan: Yeah. It didn't actually hurt. I will tell you, in all of that emptiness, came the day to go and scrub the toilet, oh man, was I like the best cleaner. Like, someone complimented me on the way, I was like,
Mia Tagano: That's so funny. I went back and did a nine-day service and it was for teachers. And they're so loud. You wouldn't believe they're loud and they're opinionated and they were a high maintenance. It was very funny because you think, you know, oh, they're going to be, but no, they were loud and they were needing a lot of things in the kitchen.
Quan Gan: I mean, that it's, you know, the universe throws at you all these curve balls to teach you something.
Mia Tagano: Yeah. And I think a lot of the teachers, it's about losing whatever's sticking onto them. So it's a lifetime of that suffering. And I feel like, yeah, I don't know if you really need to go through all that because there'll be other things that'll come at you. But we did a lot of cleaning and we did, I was very lucky because the women who ran kind of the, the kitchen. We're Asian. I think they might've been Vietnamese. Oh, nice. It was like, and they would get up at like four. And so then I felt like I had to get up with them because they're, you know, my elders. I wasn't planning on that, but I loved it.
Quan Gan: Well, you know, the thing that I really appreciated about the whole thing was just how well run and clean the whole thing is. It's like, you don't even see that in for-profit companies.
Mia Tagano: Oh, well, yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Their whole model is so interesting. Yeah. Yeah. It's just something out of this world that I still aspire to, to have. But, um, yeah, when I came back, my wife was like, yeah, you've definitely changed. Cause like, I'd never do any housework. So I started like scrubbing the sink and stuff. That only lasted for like a few weeks. That's funny. Sometimes he gets on my case.
Mia Tagano: He's like, where was that guy that came out of the pocket? Yeah.
Quan Gan: I'm like, sorry. I'm buried knee deep in work right now. Yeah.
Mia Tagano: We're back to 3D, honey. I know, yeah.
Quan Gan: We are very much enjoying the three-dimensional life. It's been very interesting, to say the least, in the past year. So there's just a lot of good things coming out of it, despite the turbulence.
Mia Tagano: Yeah. What about, Charlie, is the Qigong in the garden or the farm?
Quan Gan: She's still into that. She probably practices the Qigong less, but in the farm, the farm is thriving. She's, mean, there's just so many foods out there that can be had.
Mia Tagano: Yeah. It's abundant full. What's in your, what is in your farm?
Quan Gan: The recent biggest thing was mulberries. We have like five mulberry trees.
Mia Tagano: Wow.
Quan Gan: The actual trees? Yeah. Have you had mulberries?
Mia Tagano: I don't, I think I've had mulberry pie, but in Ohio, and I guess I thought it was a bush.
Quan Gan: I've never picked it. Yeah. They're, they're big trees, but the only reason you wouldn't get them. To intellectually with farm, What's unpreserved, if you were to buy them, is because they're so soft, they don't transport, or you have to process it, like turn into jam or dehydrate it or something because they'll just get smushed.
Mia Tagano: Does that have a lot of the nutrition in it?
Quan Gan: Is that why you have? Yeah. I mean, they're basically like, like longer versions of raspberries, but probably even softer and more delicate than raspberries.
Mia Tagano: Huh. Yeah. I don't think I've had a lot of, I, I recognize the name and everything, but I don't know that I've had a lot of mulberry.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Unless you personally grow it, you wouldn't be able to interact with it, buying it, because they just can't put it into a bag and give it to you. It'll be like all water at the bottom.
Mia Tagano: But they're trees.
Quan Gan: They're proper trees. Yeah. They're, they're trees. They're like, I mean, the tallest one we have is probably 30 feet high.
Mia Tagano: Really?
Quan Gan: I got to look this up.
Mia Tagano: This sounds. What? You. Like you're making it up.
Quan Gan: I know you're not, but they're big. Yeah. In fact, the first mulberry we've ever tasted was in Ohio.
Mia Tagano: Oh, really?
Quan Gan: Yeah. Do you know, do you know the downtown area in Columbus?
Mia Tagano: Yeah. Well, I went to Ohio State for my undergrad, so I used to know it, but you know, the downtown area, there's a convention center and there's a railroad track behind it.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay. So you go over the railroad track. know this so like, so vividly because that's our first interaction with mulberries. Over the, there's a, next to the train track, there's actually a tree that grew so tall that you can actually touch it from the bridge that's over it. So that's already pretty tall.
Mia Tagano: Oh my gosh.
Quan Gan: Yeah. This is like right behind the convention center and it was like maybe about three feet away from you. So if you grab a far, one of the branches and you just shake it into resonance, eventually you can grab almost the whole tree. And we ended up this one time, like probably harvested. see you next in this Good. Three or four pounds of it.
Mia Tagano: Oh, my gosh. I'm going back in to Ohio in August.
Quan Gan: OK, so there hopefully it's still there because I know I'm going to look at it, still there, I'll send you a picture. Take a photo of it. It's the best thing.
Mia Tagano: It's right behind the convention center. Oh, my gosh. By the railroad track. How's your back and everything?
Quan Gan: Is that still you're all good still? Oh, yeah. So I've healed myself. I had 22 days of skiing this year.
Mia Tagano: Wow.
Quan Gan: Obviously, my back's not.
Mia Tagano: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Um, there will be occasional back spasms, like if I take a tumble or something, but it's not the it's not mechanically what happened before. It's I think it's probably just latent muscle memory of how it protects itself. Hmm. So my relationship with it is I kind of treat it like a cold, you know, it's like, oh. You're out for a few days, just lay down. Your body's telling you to take a rest. But I'm not fighting it anymore. And it's not, you know, it's not affecting my quality of life as long as I'm not resisting having to go through it.
Mia Tagano: Yeah. And so when you did that, you did 20 days to 10 day consecutive?
Quan Gan: You mean for skiing?
Mia Tagano: No, for Vipassana.
Quan Gan: Did you do 20 days? No, just one 10 day.
Mia Tagano: Oh, just one 10 day. I thought Charlie came home and you did another something.
Quan Gan: No, we've gone to a Dr.
Mia Tagano: Joe event together. Oh, you did?
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. Yeah. So we have each personally done a seven day retreat ourselves. And then we went to a advanced follow up. That's a three day or four day event. And then she, she's actually going on an ayahuasca journey, like in, in a few days.
Mia Tagano: Oh my gosh, you two are just so interesting.
Quan Gan: don't you Thank you. Thank
Mia Tagano: So sitting that time didn't, it didn't exacerbate your back issues or anything.
Quan Gan: Oh, fortunately not. It was actually, my leg was the thing that was killing me. Um, yeah, it's like, no matter how you sit, eventually my leg felt like it was going to fall off. Um, you know, I could try different, uh, different types of, um, lotus positions or half lotus or just crisscross applesauce. But it, it always felt like by the, probably the last 20 minutes, the thing's going to just fall off. But I remember, uh, I think the third day when he teaches you to like scan from the top all the way to the bottom, it was like one moment, probably, I don't know how long it lasted. Um, but like the pain was so bad that I felt like it was even worse than my back pain at its height. But somehow when the scanning went there, it just dissipated for like a split second. I'm like, Oh my God. do Over the Thank Is that, like, is this thing actually just all in my mind? And then the pain came rushing back and it was like harder than ever, but it was like, I just got a little taste of it.
Mia Tagano: I'm like, Oh my God, is that what the Buddha might have felt or something? It's possible.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah. And then after that session, for some reason, it was just so much pent up energy. I went into my room and just like screamed and cried into my pillow for like a solid five minutes.
Mia Tagano: Well, yeah, it's, it shifts you in so many different ways. Yeah. Did you have anyone who had to leave?
Quan Gan: There were two people that at some point, we just realized their seats were empty for the rest of the thing. I heard one of them, probably some medical issue or something they couldn't last through.
Mia Tagano: Oh.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Oh, actually, there was a funny, okay. Okay. So I'm like, kind of. Okay. Okay. Thank On this and towards the middle aisle, where, you know, on the other side is the women, there was this one lady, she's in a mask, Chinese lady, and I don't know how she was okay with this, but when she farts, she'll fart, she'll actually like lean forward and tip, and then you hear it.
Mia Tagano: No!
Quan Gan: And that was like the entire time.
Mia Tagano: And she kept doing it?
Quan Gan: Get it, yeah. Like, I mean, every day, you know, after the meals, you just hear, like, there's like, this whole routine of just like, she just leans forward so you can see it.
Mia Tagano: Right? I can't even.
Quan Gan: So, so that's, that's fine. The worst part of this thing was, on the last day, once you break your silence.
Mia Tagano: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Like, and then we started talking about this thing, and then there was like one extra session afterwards. Like, when, when she did it, I just look over and then. Not Thank We basically had an eye communication. I was like, this is going to be the end of me, like trying to hold my laughter now that someone else built this channel finally.
Mia Tagano: Oh, my God.
Quan Gan: I'm like, I've held it for nine days, not speaking. I'm just going to bust out laughter.
Mia Tagano: I would have lost it on that day, not during.
Quan Gan: But yeah, it was like, everybody knew this lady. She's like, just.
Mia Tagano: Is she old? Was she old?
Quan Gan: No, she was like a middle-aged woman, but she's probably just, she's, she's very Chinese. She's not, she didn't carry herself like an American Chinese. I know, maybe some things she doesn't care about, but yeah, it was like.
Mia Tagano: That's so funny. Some people don't care. My partner doesn't. He's older though. He doesn't care.
Quan Gan: And it's so hard for me because I could never just fart, right? Well, okay, here's the other. The woman behind her and next to her all had face masks on too.
Mia Tagano: So I'm like, yes, you probably need to because I can't imagine what they had to survive through because I'm at least across the aisle. Oh my gosh, I couldn't have been. I don't know what I would have done. I'd have to leave or meet to the other somewhere because I'm laughing. I'm a laugher.
Quan Gan: I had and there's this guy behind me that would keep making this like big old sigh sound. He's like several times throughout the session. So in my mind, it's just going crazy. I just call him like a big old oaf or something, you know, just yeah, it's just like you end up like having these spin out stories of people because you don't communicate. So it's crazy to realize how how wild people's imaginations are if they're not grounded on that communication.
Mia Tagano: I'm I'm bartenders interaction Judi of Thank Oh, for sure. And also the non-Americans, they have their own cultures, different cultures. So like I had Russian ladies who were trying to talk to me during the, you know, the breakfast, and I'm like, we're not supposed to talk, you're to get me in trouble. You know, I was one of my forties, but I was going to ask you about this. Oh, when I did it, it was wintertime. So everybody was like coughing, but more on the men's side, just coughing and like hacking it up before COVID. Yeah. So what time of the year was yours?
Quan Gan: This is January.
Mia Tagano: Oh, was also, oh, with yourself.
Quan Gan: But it's, but it's probably not, not freezing. Yeah, we had snow. Yeah, we didn't have any snow. It got cold, but we actually throughout the week experienced all forms of weather. Like there was strong wind. They're in, in. I think it rained one day, and it was also, like, blasting hot one day, and it was like, yeah, just every season.
Mia Tagano: I want to go to Joshua Tree someday, but I'd have to re-up my meditation. I like walking meditation more, but I think it's so important. I love when people have had the 10-day. I love talking to people who have done that, like you. just shifts them. It shifts people.
Quan Gan: When you were at yours, like, on the break if you're outside, is there any semblance of real civilization outside that you can see, or are you, like, fully engulfed in a forest?
Mia Tagano: Oh, well, this is a Yosemite area. Yeah. So it's, I mean, you are in mountains and trees. There's field.
Quan Gan: You see cars or other civilizations?
Mia Tagano: No, you don't. I don't think you see cars. Although, yeah, you're not really, yeah, I don't think you see cars.
Quan Gan: Joshua Tree is flat, so I could see the highway several miles away and then pass by, and I could see other houses, they turn on their lights, turn off their lights.
Mia Tagano: Oh yeah, no, no, it was more in the woods.
Quan Gan: That kind of led me to a panic attack on the second day, because I see this and I was like, this is pretty much like a Truman Show. As far as I'm aware, that could be a giant screen. I can't really know if it's real or not, because I can't get access to it. And then the one night, because your sleep patterns are all up from just meditating, I couldn't fall back asleep. And my mind went into this downward spiral because I'm like, okay, according to quantum physics, if you haven't observed it, then the possibility is there. So I'm like, I could come back and not have a family. I don't even know if my wife is even reading. So I realized that is a possible truth, probably because I haven't observed it. And then it started just spinning. like, oh, what happens to this? What happens to this? All this stuff. And then I started asking myself, well, then why am I suffering? And from the teaching, it's like suffering stems from craving and aversion fundamentally. And I finally realized it's not even that I care about my wife or my child. It is that I'm grasping onto this reflection of my own identity, that I'm a husband with a wife. I'm a father with a child. I'm like, it's actually the suffering is, is me. It has nothing to do with him. I don't even love him.
Mia Tagano: It's like I love my own self image.
Quan Gan: And once I came to that conclusion, that's when things started melting away. I'm like, okay, now I can let go. It's not even it has nothing to do with them. It's just my own ego. We were trying to stay alive.
Mia Tagano: Yeah. I guess because I don't, I'm not married. I don't have children. I didn't have a sense of my, what is my title? Because it's always just a mix of things. I didn't have that. I felt, I also didn't do, you know, when you'd have to go in your room or in the morning, you have your meditation, you can do it privately.
Quan Gan: I just slept. You slept? Okay. I slept a few times, but yeah.
Mia Tagano: I got such a good sleep, at least the first time. then when I did three days, it was a little different. It was nice to have, I think I did two or three. My favorite was the service though. I love that because the women were so wonderful and I love working. I'd rather work and do than have to sit.
Quan Gan: I feel called to go back and serve at some point. Three-dimensional calling. It's kind of precluded that recently, but I do see myself doing that at some point.
Mia Tagano: Yeah, it's, there's so much joy in it. also, there's, it's, first, the people who are there, I mean, also, there, if I did it again, I would do the all Asian groups, just because.
Quan Gan: Do they have them? I didn't even know they had them.
Mia Tagano: Well, they'll be like the Burmese, I feel like I might have been at one of those. Or just thought about it, because the, the energetic, it's so different when it's the Asians, and I know that's bias or whatever.
Quan Gan: I don't even care what part of Asia, just something different. A certain frequency to the Asian. Yeah.
Mia Tagano: Well, I think so. I've got all my doctors are Asian. All my people are Asian. I don't even speak any other language, but English, but I just feel better.
Quan Gan: There was this one guy, he was Asian. Right in front of me. And he was like a really broad-shouldered guy. He wasn't too tall, but when he's walking around, he's kind of like hunched over a little bit. And in my mind, I'm like, he's got to be a boxer. He's got to be a boxer. You know, he's like an MMA fighter or something. And it took until the last day to talk to him. And I come to find out, yes, he's fit because he used to play football, but his back was just killing him for 10 days.
Mia Tagano: And that's why he's also hunched over. I feel so bad. He's like, it has nothing to do with my athleticism. Did you ever talk to the teachers?
Quan Gan: I did. I went in a couple of days, probably two or three sessions, mainly just kind of figuring out like, are those panic attacks normal? And they're like, yeah, it's pretty normal. You know, and then the other one was like, just what's the meaning of this? think so. I Anyways, like, you know, I just feel like I shouldn't even have any goals. And they're like, no, it means you can have goals, just just stay unattached to the outcome.
Mia Tagano: Hmm. Yeah, I went in to say, am I going to die? I feel like I'm going to die out there. Shouldn't this pain feels like abnormal?
Quan Gan: And they're like, no, it's painful. Yeah, everybody has like this one lady. She felt like and I only heard her story on the way out. She's like, yeah, first couple of days, I was like in absolute heaven and bliss. And then I guess I got too attached to it. And then the next eight days, I've been like being choked by a demon for eight solid days.
Mia Tagano: No, well, I'm glad I didn't have that. Yeah. Oh, my God. I felt like it eased up.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Mia Tagano: And what about you when you?
Quan Gan: Yeah, you know, there's man, now I'm just kind of bringing this back into memory. Towards the end. end. And because every day, you know, he, he, he has the talks towards the end, I think the last two days, he started revealing a little bit more about his business side, how he came about to, you know, taking in this practice and how it was his own personal pain, you know, his own, I forgot what he had, like some headache or something that wouldn't go away.
Mia Tagano: Yeah, he had something, I couldn't remember, I can't remember, but, and so it wasn't that he even wanted to do this, he just got called to it.
Quan Gan: I was, I felt so resonant with that message, because I'm like, I'm an entrepreneur. And I didn't volunteer myself to do this.
Mia Tagano: It's like just circumstances put me here. Yeah, there's something about him. And when I tried to listen to those videos before doing the Vipassana, I thought, what is this? This is so slow. What's he talking about?
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Man, it's like the hour you're just waiting for his voice to come back, like, how starving are you, you know?
Mia Tagano: I know, I was so happy to hear him every night.
Quan Gan: They're the crazy, like, the coarse voice, you know? But yeah, and I would, like, start tearing up when I hear the chants of the other recording of other people in the background starting to do the song at the end, I would tear up every time.
Mia Tagano: It's so beautiful. was such a beautiful gift, really, to get to do that, I think. And then you did this 109-day fasting.
Quan Gan: What was that for, and what is it? That was part of the Qigong practice, where, yeah, it's basically, like, extreme veganism. Just no grains is actually the key thing. Definitely no animals, right? So no animal or an animal byproduct, but on top of that, no grains. So you have very little bits of actual... Three dimensional energy to, to keep yourself sustained. I mean, you're probably living off of like 500 calories a day, 109 days, 108, because 108 is like a thing in Chinese numerology.
Mia Tagano: Oh, multiples of nine.
Quan Gan: So 108, and you're supposed to, through the Qigong practice, energizing yourself that way.
Mia Tagano: Hmm. So you did it together or no?
Quan Gan: Oh, yeah, we did it together. You know, you're basically taking in tea every day, and then having very light bite sized meals. Yeah, I shriveled up. So like, right now I'm 145, but I was like down to 115.
Mia Tagano: Wow. Wow. What about the kids?
Quan Gan: Did they? No, they're not required to do that. They, you know, we still give them their normal food.
Mia Tagano: So. So. They're getting normal food, and what about those days when you're like, I'm so hungry, or did you have that?
Quan Gan: You do it. mean, you feel like a refugee or something. I don't know, just constant hunger became a thing. I think afterwards, though, I kind of got resentful of the whole thing, because the 10-day retreat from Vipassana, I selected for. The other thing I felt like I got railroaded onto, because as soon as I came home, our home was this retreat place, and then the Grand Master basically wrote me in and said, hey, you're helping, because anything happens here, it's your responsibility. I'm like, okay, fine, and just kind of got dragged in there. And then afterwards, he's like, you're going to do 108 days, right? To this day, I still have very mixed feelings about the whole practice. Because it felt like it just came to me without
Mia Tagano: And so I started just eating a lot afterwards.
Quan Gan: like, this practice. I'm getting whatever I want now. Gain all the weight back pretty quick.
Mia Tagano: Well, it's interesting because you're at a point now that you are really choosing what you want to do.
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah. Now it's, yeah, I'm a lot more intentional. And to this day, like, we see learnings that really benefit where we are based on these practices. But there's also times I'm like, you know, was that a cult? You know, did we get brainwashed or gaslighted?
Mia Tagano: You know, like, how did that happen? It's just weird. Yeah. So they stayed at your place?
Quan Gan: Yeah, there was quite a few people that stayed over. But, you know, things that I've learned also from it is, they would, so when we have the retreat, like... All of our own personal effects, like any memorabilia, photos, or things that we would hang on the wall, we would take down and store it, and then we would put Grandmaster's stuff on there all over it. So there would be her articles, pictures, all of this stuff. So it's almost like a shrine. And so you can look at anything from both sides of the coin. It looks very worshipy or cult-like for one person. But I'm also understanding that in setting or creating this setting, you have to get other people's buy-in with their frequencies. They have to be like, oh, this is official. It's not just some happenstance thing that we're popping up. And I'm taking that into business. If you want to show people that this thing is legitimate, you have to surround it with an environment to support it. Just like, let's say you go shopping, and they have All the clothes line up to each other. It looks gorgeous when it's there, you take it off the rack, but the moment you take it back home and it's like blending in with your own closet, it's like, this doesn't look like the thing I bought.
Mia Tagano: Yeah, I've had that.
Quan Gan: Or pictures like in a gallery because the surrounding environment creates the field in which it supports it. Yeah. You pull it out, it's in a different field and it just feels out of place.
Mia Tagano: Are you still doing ZTAG?
Quan Gan: Is that the main business? Yes. Yes. Actually, it is the main business now. We're in over 300 schools.
Mia Tagano: Oh, wow. So you've gone into the high school or middle school?
Quan Gan: Elementary, actually. Elementary.
Mia Tagano: And how's that been after COVID?
Quan Gan: That seems like a great thing for them. In America, there's over 100,000 public schools and we're only in 300. So, we're barely touching the Yeah, is the tip of the iceberg. However, in these 300, we're getting overwhelmingly positive reviews. And through word of mouth, business is growing every single month.
Mia Tagano: That is so great. I love that because they're moving and they're using the computer.
Quan Gan: Yeah. I think we've kind of tapped into the magic formula because we're giving the kids exactly what they want. It's their language because it's digital. It's technology. But we're also bringing them back into movement and social and face to face activity. And the kids love it. The adults love it. Not only because, you know, the kids are managing this way, but it actually solves several of their problems all at once. Because, you know, as a, as someone, if you're an adult running a date, an after school program.
Mia Tagano: Yeah.
Quan Gan: We wasn't with, And all sorts of different kids and different backgrounds. And trying to involve all of them together is a very difficult thing. Like you might have one thing, but half the kids might not like it. This is the one thing that at the press of a button, everybody comes in place.
Mia Tagano: I love that so much. I was a teaching artist, so I did work with kids. I did after school and during school. But after school, I said, at some point, I said, too old for this. You need to bring in a 20 something year old because they're too crazy. You know, it's not their fault, but they're just, you know, minds going and body needs movement.
Quan Gan: I would love it if you can come join us for one of our upcoming events.
Mia Tagano: Oh, I'd love to. Do you come this way?
Quan Gan: you come? We come up north a lot, actually.
Mia Tagano: do. Oh, I'd love to see it.
Quan Gan: Last time we were in Sacramento, we go as far up as Shasta County.
Mia Tagano: Oh, you do? Yeah.
Quan Gan: Oh, my gosh. go way up there. There's... But yeah, there's actually a lot of opportunity because we actually, we bought a Cybertruck and we're going to wrap it into ZTAG gear.
Mia Tagano: Oh, cool.
Quan Gan: So we're taking this almost like, you know, back in the day, they had the Red Bull van or the Red Bull, right? But we're trying to go to different schools to run ZTAG games to promote it. And yeah, the kids just flip out and the teachers just see like for the first time that all the kids are moving and interacting, their eyes glow.
Mia Tagano: That's amazing. I love that. Have you ever thought, it just made me think, because up the street, we have this, I think girls ranch or I don't know if it's boys and girls, but juvenile delinquent.
Quan Gan: I'm not sure if that's. They were working with them.
Mia Tagano: You are. I love that because this would be perfect.
Quan Gan: So this is still a very early stage thing, but we actually took our first steps. There's this organization called JSAC. Have you heard of it? Uh-uh.-uh. Uh It's a long acronym, but it's Juvenile Court and Alternative Education. Basically, like every school district, they'll have a department like this for the kids that fall through the cracks, and they have to still give them something. And it ranges from, you know, just a class session to these are kids in prison. Like, and so we actually attended a conference and started making some relationships with these schools. I'm being invited to go and guest speak in probably in the next two months or something.
Mia Tagano: Wow. Where is this?
Quan Gan: This engagement is actually in L.A. County.
Mia Tagano: So it's, yeah, L.A.
Quan Gan: County Board of, or Office of Education. But I think if we can create some traction there, we might be able to have some more NorCal events. But definitely, feel like this is probably the toughest nut to crack. And if we're able to reach out to them and show efficacy, then it could probably go anywhere.
Mia Tagano: Oh, I love that so much. So remind me, there's strategy in this?
Quan Gan: There's a lot. Actually, you got to just see the game. I mean, there's so many things that's evolved since we probably worked together.
Mia Tagano: Yeah, because it's been a long time since I saw something on it.
Quan Gan: We have simple games like Red Light, Green Light. So if this thing goes red and you keep moving, it'll minus 10 points from you. But normally, you would be arguing against the instructor saying, no, I didn't move. Why did you put me out? You can't argue against the screen. So you see the child self-correct their own frustration because the machine just dissipates it. There's other games where you're finding matching patterns. So we're matching colors or matching shapes together.
Mia Tagano: So it's actively getting people to come and find each other's pairs. So you're running around going.
Quan Gan: And yeah, you're like.
Mia Tagano: It's so fun.
Quan Gan: Like a green triangle, green triangle.
Mia Tagano: Someone's like, oh, I got a triangle. Okay, they're going to match. So they're using their voice, too. I love that.
Quan Gan: Moving your whole body while you're doing it. We have matching English and Spanish.
Mia Tagano: So if I have a cat, you have gato. We've got to come find each other. That's so cool.
Quan Gan: Fath problems.
Mia Tagano: Two plus two looks for four. Oh, my gosh. That's so, yeah, this is really advanced, hasn't it?
Quan Gan: Yeah. So right now we want to create all these new games. And I think you would be great in involving in some of the future stuff where, let's say this has like some kind of a symbol or a word, and you have to act it out. Totally do like theatrical stuff, right?
Mia Tagano: So you have to tell a joke or something.
Quan Gan: There's just so many things in context.
Mia Tagano: Oh, that's so great. So this, it's always on the wrist or currently.
Quan Gan: Yeah. I mean, it's by default, it's on the wrist. But people can even hold it. We have ways to strap it to your chest. And even for some kids, if they're disabled, we can strap it to their wheelchair or even their crutches or something.
Mia Tagano: Oh, I love that. That's so great. Oh, my gosh. I've been a little sad and worried for kids these days because of, well, there's the ramifications of the COVID. Some kids who were during elementary, more behavior in middle school, you know, it just goes down the line. And so I love that. And movement is key. Movement is key. And so I love what you're doing.
Quan Gan: We're making the impact where I think it counts because most of our sales actually go to Title I schools. And these are actually in some of the furthest reaches of the of the Board of Education, because some of these schools that have deployed ZTAG. Let's Here. It's like two hours away from the closest other, like, office.
Mia Tagano: So Title I is usually grants that are paying for them?
Quan Gan: Yes, especially in California. The California budget for after-school education is probably more than all the other states combined.
Mia Tagano: It's $4 billion annually. Wow, and that will stay?
Quan Gan: At least for the next couple of years, yeah. It's actually, this program has grown from about $5 million in the 90s to $4 billion per year. Wow. Yeah, so it's huge. And we kind of just tapped into this market only about three years ago.
Mia Tagano: Hmm. I don't know if I ever told you that my partner, John, ran a school for at-risk youth for 30 years.
Quan Gan: Wow, okay.
Mia Tagano: And then worked in middle schools. And these are all, he's a counselor, but he created circles and different things. And then he was with middle schools, five different middle schools for 13 years and then but one of there's a school that we are connected with, which is a middle school, but they're all mostly Spanish speaking families coming in.
Quan Gan: That's actually, that's, that's great. I'll give you a recent anecdote. So I, I took this system out to Detroit, Michigan.
Mia Tagano: Yeah, and I was, we were playing the game at a park just with people that we knew and this is a predominantly white family.
Quan Gan: And then over there, like there's a lot of contention that I learned after the fact between the white community and the Muslim groups.
Mia Tagano: No.
Quan Gan: And even in school, while they, they co attend the same school, they just basically don't, don't mix. But when we were playing the game, there were some of the kids from. some as in we're supposed You know, the other culture, they were curious, and then immediately afterwards, you know, our group just invited them over, and everybody started playing. I didn't think of anything different, because I see kids of all colors play together, but it was after the fact that they told me how significant that is, because, like, these kids never mixed together, and the fact that they were all able to come and play, it broke all of these barriers.
Mia Tagano: That's beautiful. That's so beautiful. Yeah, that is key to peace, and it's starting with the young ones, because the adults are going to do what they're going to do, but the young ones are coming up, and they are going to model or reflect what they're already seeing, which is divisiveness, or, like, you just were part of bringing them together.
Quan Gan: I love that. You know, my mission for this is if we can get at least one unit into every single school in America, we have the ability to reprogram. I I Thank
Mia Tagano: I love that. What a beautiful goal. Wow. Thank you.
Quan Gan: And I also wanted to just re-express my appreciation for you because, Mia, you had helped me finally come out of my shell to be able to speak that story to others.
Mia Tagano: Oh, it was a joy to get to work with you. I'm going to cry because I'm so happy for you.
Quan Gan: Yeah. And just, you know, being able to, you gave me some pointers back then to, like, how to really channel my own truth rather than speaking what I think other people would respond to. That really carried forward. so, you know, within the past four or five years, there's been just numerous engagements where I'm out there. And people are asking me, and that story has just like, it's shifted, but it's also solidified in some sense that there's a confidence that I have, because I've told it so many times, I don't really have to prepare for it anymore.
Mia Tagano: I love that so much. Yeah, it's, it's like, for me, I'm not doing too much. I'm just reflecting back something or honoring your voice, you know, and, and so but I love that. That was what happened. And you want it, you want it to shift that way. That was your doing. I just got to be part of the journey at that point.
Quan Gan: I appreciate you being part of my journey.
Mia Tagano: Yeah, I'm so grateful I was. Wow. Well, thank you for making time today just to talk to me. I was so curious. I've been thinking about you. wondered how you were doing. And it sounds like you're good.
Quan Gan: Sounds like you're really good.
Mia Tagano: And let me post it on where you go. And if you If up this way, I'd love to see.
Quan Gan: Okay, definitely. Yeah, I'll definitely keep you posted. Yeah, there's going to be probably several events towards the end of this year or early next year. So if I'm up there, I'd definitely like to see you in person again.
Mia Tagano: Yeah, and if you ever want to go to that school, that's called Sunrise.
Quan Gan: That's a middle school, though. Well, actually, we are in middle schools as well. But I would say even before that, I would just love to invite you and John to come and witness what it is first.
Mia Tagano: I would love to, yeah. And John, I can't speak for him, but I'm sure he's dealing right now. He's got a support group that he runs tonight, but his sister's got dementia. So he's there twice a week and overnights. So he's always a little discombobulated these days, not fully, but I have more control of my schedule.
Quan Gan: Okay, for sure. Bye-bye.-bye. Yeah, I really appreciate you reaching out. I told you that I left EO, right, last year?
Mia Tagano: Yes, you did. Yeah. Oh, and that must be so liberating in some ways.
Quan Gan: It's very different just because the amount of travel and work commitment that I have would make it not sustainable to also have an EO commitment. But I've also shared with those that I got connected through EO, the people important to me in my life, they'll still stay around even if the titles change.
Mia Tagano: Yeah, I agree. The person that I was meeting, don't, I think it's okay.
Quan Gan: Takeshi, you know, Takeshi? I know the name, but I don't know him.
Mia Tagano: Oh, he, I'm sure, or was it Takeshi or someone else recently? Just here and there, I've been doing outside of EO's talks as far as working with EO members, but I feel like I, oh yeah, no, Takeshi's from LA. And I said, he thought I lived in
Quan Gan: I didn't understand how I didn't know Andy, because Andy had recommended him to me, and I said, no, I've never met him.
Mia Tagano: I go, no, I've only met Quan and his family, and he goes, oh, Quan, but he's not in EO here, he's in the other EO, and I go, and so he didn't know, you know, but that makes sense if you're not really that close. But that's why I called, contacted, I was like, oh, I want to see how he's doing.
Quan Gan: Oh, I'm glad that that conversation brought us together again.
Mia Tagano: Yeah, me too, me too, I mean, I think about you, in fact, that San Carlos market, today, a friend of ours goes there every Sunday and gets us strawberries, and then I clean them today for the group that's tonight, but I haven't gone since I met you all there.
Quan Gan: That's a long time ago.
Mia Tagano: No, but we always get things from that market, but I'll go, I'll go at some point, but yeah. Maybe we'll do it again together. Yeah. Maybe you guys come, then I'll go. All right, we'll say hi to Charlie, and I'll continue to be a fan of Gio anyway.
Quan Gan: All right, you take care. Nice chatting. Bye.
[Metadata only — transcript not included in this selection]
Kristin Neal: Here they come.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Good morning. Danielle. Good morning. Good morning. It's so good to see you.
Danielle Jones: Oh, good to see you. For sure. Hello, Quan. Hi.
Quan Gan: Happy Friday. are you?
Danielle Jones: Yes, there we go. Or as Diego would say, happy little Friday.
Quan Gan: Little Friday? Okay. Friday. I've heard some people call it like Friday Eve.
Kristin Neal: Friday Eve.
Danielle Jones: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: I love it.
Danielle Jones: It's how we get from, I'm like trying to figure out how we got from January to July. Because I keep saying, because I have a camp that I'm going to, both Erikka and I are taking some time off in July. And I'm like, and in July, I'm taking some time.
Kristin Neal: I'm like, oh, that's now. Yeah.
Danielle Jones: So I blank, January to July. July. And now it's like, it was much Monday, just a minute ago, I swear.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, it's blur.
Quan Gan: it too.
Kristin Neal: Yep.
Danielle Jones: I was like, oh, today's Thursday.
Kristin Neal: That's right.
Danielle Jones: Yeah, all right. It's Thursday. Right. It's all good, right? It helps me to practice staying in the moment.
Kristin Neal: So true. So true. Yes.
Danielle Jones: So I'm going to put myself on mute because this is Erica's, I'm going to say baby, right? This is her, her, like, I mean, we talked about it, but she's super excited about this. And she has a vision specifically for our vendors who have committed to helping us play at this event. And there's some logistical things. She's coordinated several, like, big events, like student events and stuff like that, that we've used this space and facilities. So she's got the knowledge to how things kind of all fit together and work. Thank you. And so I'm putting my mute on and turning the mic over to Erica.
Erikka Perry: All right. Well, good morning. It's so nice to meet you both. And we are super grateful that you are willing to participate in this event. So it is scheduled for September 8th from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. I have a very draft, still-in-progress flyer that I'll share with you. We're still working on finalizing some stuff, so it's not quite ready to be public yet. But it's very close, but I think it will kind of help give you an idea of the vision for the day, like Danielle said. So really, the intent of the event is to create a space where the districts in our region, so Stanislaus, San Joaquin, Calaveras, Tuolumne, and Amador, can come to see what great resources, like what's possible for their expanded learning programs. As you know, in addition to offering a program on every school day, they also are required to offer 30 non-school days of expanded learning programs. And because there's not instructional minutes during those non-school days, they have to fill an entire nine hours of programming for kiddos, grades TK through six, so quite a large age span also. And so nine hours, like what do you do all day, right? And so Danielle and I are really passionate about this concept of like bringing back play and really seeing expanded learning as an opportunity for play to happen, right? Like we know during the traditional school day, there are just limitations. They have standards they have to meet and goals they have to accomplish. But and even though expanded learning can be a space for a little bit of academic recovery and academic interventions when appropriate, we really want to emphasize like kids learn through play-based learning, right? And really the education code that was written when the legislator implemented the ELOP funding was that the activities be engaging and hands-on, right? So it really like underscores that. That whole concept of play-based learning. So we're really encouraging our districts to make their programs engaging and hands-on, especially every day, right? Whether it's a school day or a non-school day, but especially on those nine-hour non-school days, which typically take place during the summer, as well as like maybe a winter intercession break. The districts have the ability to choose when they offer their 30 non-school days, but for the most part, the bulk of it is during the summer and then a handful of days here and there throughout the year. So that's really the intention behind the event. And so what we were envisioning is we are going to have a series of breakout sessions in the morning where some vendors who are working directly with our expanded learning programs on some curriculum-type stuff are going to kind of co-present together on what those products and curriculums look like in an expanded learning setting. And then we're also going to have some time set aside just for typical tabling, right, for attendees to go to table vendors. Right. But in the spirit of play, and what we automatically thought of ZTAG for, was we wanted to create during the lunchtime play experiences for the adults, right? We want the adults who are attending to reconnect with the power of play, to experience that firsthand. So we were envisioning inviting you folks out, as well as a couple of other different vendors that have very, like, fun and interactive movement-type things to offer, is having these play experiences. So we would love to look at logistically what it would look like to potentially bring out ZTAG and give the adults the opportunity to actually play, right? And so you might have a traditional table, right, where you have just information and resources like you would at a traditional vendor event, vendor tabling event, but that we would also facilitate this lunch play experience. And we're kind of envisioning that they would have their choice between several different, so we're looking at inviting out the Fab Lab. Which has some STEAM activities kind of on wheels from SJCOE. California Adventure Camps is looking into some of their exhibits and what might be logistically feasible to bring out. And then the walking classroom. So attendees would have kind of a choice, like what play experience do you want to engage in? And then there'll be another opportunity in the afternoon. Again, just the traditional tabling, vendor tabling exploration. And then again, we'll have some breakout sessions in the afternoon and then close with a drum circle. So that's kind of the intention behind the event, what we're envisioning, and then kind of agenda-wise, where we see you fitting in. So any thoughts or questions? And we're holding the event, if logistics start coming to mind, at our Peterson Event Center, which is downtown Modesto. There is a large indoor space, but we're also going to be having like the keynote and the opening session in that space. We also have a... Like a back parking lot and side parking lot that we can talk to our facilities team.
Quan Gan: were kind of envisioning the lunch experiences being outside in those parking lots that we would rope them off so they weren't right, right, traffic can't come through. And that we would kind of set up those lunch experiences in those outdoor areas, if that's helpful.
Danielle Jones: And I'm also curious, how big is your van, bus? Is it like a food truck? Is it like an RV?
Quan Gan: Like, what's the size? And sorry, Quan, I totally interrupted you.
Danielle Jones: Sounded like you had a question, but that's my curiosity. So you can ask your question and then let us know.
Kristin Neal: Kris, you want to go? I'm excited to share. It's a Tesla truck.
Erikka Perry: It's the... Oh, wow.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, the cyber truck. Yes, the cyber truck. So it's super exciting. And then, Quan, did you have a question?
Quan Gan: Because I did have a question, but I can hold off. Yeah, just general logistics would be how many people are you planning to expect? And also, do you possibly have a gym? We could certainly do outdoors, but if you have a gym setting, that might also be interesting.
Erikka Perry: Yeah, yeah. So we really don't know what to anticipate. Like, we're inviting all of our program directors across the region. So Stanislaw, San Joaquin, Tuolumne, and Amador, we're encouraging them to bring a team. But we are, at the same time, kind of inviting the people who have, like, the buying power, right? Like, don't want to invite a bunch of staff, and they get excited, and they go back, and they don't have the power and the authority to bring these programs back. So it is more of a limited audience in that sense. So we're hoping for between 50 and 100 is kind of what we're thinking, somewhere within there. So if I can, let me reshare a different screen so you can kind of get an idea. I have a Google map here pulled up. So this is our Martin Peterson Event Center here, right off of 12th Street, where you see that red.
Danielle Jones: Thank you. you. Oh, there we go.
Erikka Perry: There we go. Did it come up?
Danielle Jones: Yeah, it was like it wasn't showing yet, but yeah, it just did. Right when I went, it's not showing, it popped up on the screen.
Erikka Perry: Okay, okay. And so we have like the parking lot behind it, which we can rope off, and then this kind of side parking lot or adjacent parking lot. So there's a possibility we might be able to use the indoor space. My only concern, it will kind of depend on how many people register to attend, how many chairs we have to set up in that room for the morning session. And then how much room do we have remaining kind of in the back of the room of the event center, but it's possible. So I think we would just kind of need a plan A, plan B. Like if plan A was, hey, if we only have, you know, if we're able to fit 100 chairs comfortably in that room and have a large amount of open space still in the back, it could be feasible to do it inside. But if not, we get say 100 people register. Space-wise, it doesn't work out. Would it be feasible to do it in one of those parking lot areas?
Danielle Jones: If it's roped off. So Quan, you and you attended our fall conference. So you were one of our vendors, I think it's three years ago now.
Quan Gan: So that's the event center. Okay.
Danielle Jones: And then what, Erikka, we're looking at the map, what Erikka is suggesting is that, so you see the pin, to the right of the pin, there's a parking lot there. So we could put the truck there, or right behind it, where she's pointing now, there wouldn't be any cars there, and we could have that space as well.
Quan Gan: So you have a visual of what the event center looks like. Oh, yeah.
Danielle Jones: Now, we had it set for our fall conference, because I think we had over 100, and so we pretty much had tables all the ways, not to the back, to the back, but we pretty much used that entire space for round tables. And then our, if you remember, we had all of you, all our exhibitors on the outside wall, because this is a little different, because instead of doing a training and an exhibitor fair, this is just only an exhibitor fair. So we could probably, Erika, set it up, I think you said this, theater style, because we don't necessarily need the tables, although depending on the weather, we might want to have some tables for like lunch, I don't know. Those are the kind of logistical things that we can talk through once we have a better idea of how many people are going to be there. But you now, so you remember what that space, it's a pretty good sized space.
Quan Gan: Yes. Yeah, actually, I think the indoor area, I mean, even last time with those tables, we were able to even do a demonstration and play.
Danielle Jones: I feel like we had a, because we had vendors. Up by the stage, I feel like we had an empty space in the front, but that's where we did the play. We played with the, with the, Yeah, of set back from wherever the speaker would be in the center stage.
Quan Gan: We just played in that open area, and that's more than enough. The reason why I say I prefer indoors, especially if it's, you know, during the middle of the day, is because the ZTAGGERS, they have screens and LEDs on them, it's easier to see. Your visuals that way when it's indoors. It still works outdoors. It's just, you know, it's, it looks less interactive.
Erikka Perry: And if you were to turn off the lights, then it looks really cool. Ah, okay, okay, good deal. So we will definitely keep it a priority when we're doing our planning and looking at all of the things that are taking place throughout the day to see if we can set aside space in the back of the room. That will be our first priority for sure.
Danielle Jones: And remind me, Erica, our... Other presentations that we have going on, they're going to go on in the, and I don't know why I'm pointing to the right, like, you know, in the main building, right? Like, so the, what we have in the event center is the opening, lunch, closing, and then if. No, there'll also be sessions in there. But, but in the event, in the one, so we are going to do a session in the main room.
Erikka Perry: I think we're going to have to, yes.
Danielle Jones: Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah.
Erikka Perry: Yeah, okay.
Danielle Jones: going to utilize all the spaces. But Lunch, there won't be a session.
Erikka Perry: We could serve lunch outside. That's what I'm thinking as we're talking, like, we could serve lunch outside, and then have the ZTAG inside, and then we may have to have the ZTAG. I haven't reached out to Gopher yet, but I was considering reaching out to Gopher and seeing if they would bring their Gaga, is that what it's called, the Gaga Walk?
Danielle Jones: Gaga Pits.
Kristin Neal: Gaga Pits.
Erikka Perry: It's a mosh, it's basically a mosh pit. basically a mosh pit. It's a thing. The kids are losing their minds for it.
Danielle Jones: But in a safe way.
Erikka Perry: In a safe way. It's not like free It's dodgeball, but it's scary.
Danielle Jones: And what was it? You said, Erica, yesterday you were sharing, you were at a program.
Erikka Perry: What was their dodgeball? Oh, yes. It's not that.
Danielle Jones: Yes, Slaughterball. I went to a site where they called it Slaughterball, and I was so scared.
Quan Gan: was like, as if dodgeball as a child wasn't scary enough, they called it Okay, we got zombies. I know.
Erikka Perry: There you go, right?
Danielle Jones: But in a very fun and exciting way, your zombies are not zombies. Yes.
Erikka Perry: So we may have one other activity in there also, and so that's something we can think about. So just all the things, all the logistics.
Danielle Jones: But hey, Erica, do we have access to, what might be kind of fun, do we have access to the stand tables, right? Like the, I would call them cocktail.
Erikka Perry: They would be at a cocktail bar instead of the traditional round ones. They belong to admin, and I don't know. So we'd have to reach out.
Danielle Jones: Okay. I think that's. Kind of hit and miss who they loan them to. Well, if we invite them, then we'll just.
Erikka Perry: Well, there you go. Sorry, that was totally logistics on our end. Didn't need to be a part of this conversation. Now that you said that it's a Tesla truck, I'm really curious about what that, what the experience looks like.
Danielle Jones: But, Kris, I think you had a question. So once you get your questions out, if you can tell me what that experience looks like.
Kristin Neal: Well, Erika actually.
Danielle Jones: us.
Kristin Neal: Erika answered it. was curious who the attendees would be. Another question would be if it would be possible. So I'm glad that you mentioned, Erika, about, you know, who they are. They might not be the decision maker. So we want to make it as easy a transition. If they do enjoy ZTAG, we would love to get that kind of like a bundle package to them so that they could take two there. But if we could get the names of those registered, that would be really cool, too. I love personalizing them. I if that's possible.
Danielle Jones: Yeah, typically at events, we don't give out the names, but we do encourage our vendors to have some type of sign-in or something like that so they can gather. Only because we really kind of take us, like for us, we can't promote any one vendor. As you know, I've shared this with all of you before. And we also, not that you, the two of you are amazing. And I've been around long enough to know how you operate. It's just we set a standard that if you want to gather information, because I know I get a little annoyed when I sign up for a conference and then I get spammed by vendors because our information was sold. Not sold, but given out, right? So that's kind of something that we don't typically do and encourage our vendors. Just make sure you have a sign-in so that that way, whoever comes to your booth, whoever comes to you says, yes, right? Like, I'm interested in getting.
Kristin Neal: Okay, so it's okay then to hand over a package for them, those who ask.
Danielle Jones: Absolutely, and we will have, because we're encouraging LEAs to, because we have districts, but we also have charters as well, and so we're encouraging them to bring a team so they could easily bring their, what I'm going to call a site coordinator. Every LEA has a different name for their, really it's kind of the principal of the after-school program, they serve as an administrator, but if somebody's sick, they also are the direct service providers, because we think it's important to have the individual there that has the buying power, which is usually a district-level person, and to have somebody there that does have direct access to kiddos, so they can say, yes, this is something that we're interested in. So we're hoping that LEAs will bring more. More than one person, and maybe even some of the district, like their chief business officers. We had a site visit yesterday.
Kristin Neal: I think, Kris, I told you we were going out to Linden.
Danielle Jones: We got to see, yes, we got to see it in action, ZTAG in action with the littles and the olders. They actually, with the, I think it was TKK, could have been first graders too, inside. And then they also were doing it outside with the older students. So that was a lot of fun. I took some pictures and some videos. If I can get it up into a, I don't know why I'm doing this, into a Google folder. I'll show the Google folder with you so you can see the fun that was happening. So that was a lot of, yeah, anyways, so it's cool. And I've experienced ZTAG personally because I did it at our event.
Kristin Neal: And then your dinner at Boost, we did it in a very confined, we didn't really get to.
Danielle Jones: We're like, there wasn't a whole lot of running at that restaurant, which is probably safer for me anyways. Yeah, so, but that was, it was really cool. And so, but like, let's say you talk to somebody at a district and you know the district, we'd be happy to make that connection, right? Like, let's say, oh, I talked to Araceli with Modesto City Schools, I forgot to get her information. We'd be happy to make that, you know, virtual introduction kind of thing.
Kristin Neal: Thank you. Okay.
Danielle Jones: Yeah, for sure. Because I know that's not, that's not your style. You don't do that. I just, we just want to honor and protect our, yeah. Yeah. You've probably had that happen too. You go somewhere and you're like, okay, who sold my information?
Kristin Neal: Right? Yeah, no, no, no. It's actually more to just write their district name on like a beautiful folder.
Danielle Jones: But yes, I totally get that. Yes. Yes. Oh.
Kristin Neal: Oh, I see what you're saying.
Danielle Jones: We could probably give you districts.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, we could do that. Absolutely, that we could do. I'll just write it on their pretty folder. Yes, that we could do.
Danielle Jones: We could let you know what districts are attending.
Kristin Neal: Thank you so much.
Danielle Jones: I have another question.
Quan Gan: I noticed on the flyer that, Erica, you shared earlier, there was a cost per attendee. I'm just curious, you know, what do those costs cover for them?
Erikka Perry: Yes. So really, it's to cover just food, to be honest, and materials. And we don't really have a plan for extravagant materials. We just wanted to make sure that we were able to cover our cost. So yeah, really just, we're going to do a very light breakfast, just like continental items, and then provide lunch also.
Danielle Jones: Okay. And that's for everybody. That's all attendees, including our vendors, because we want to make sure we can provide lunch.
Erikka Perry: I'm we can feed Jeff.
Danielle Jones: Our, like, our organization has kind of set a standard that's no food, right? So, and the only way. We can provide food as if that we, you know, we charge because we don't have budgets like our regional budget doesn't allow us to pay for food. And we figure if we keep we're keeping you there all day, we figure if it's a couple hour, we can get away with granola bars and some fruit and stuff like that. But if we keep you there all day, we want to make sure that we're feeding you because we want your brain to be open to the learning.
Quan Gan: Food's a big deal. Chris is probably also thinking what I'm thinking, which is can ZTAG somehow contribute to that?
Danielle Jones: So I will let Erica give her opinion as well. So what you can contribute and what we've asked for in the past is we'll likely have a drawing at the end. And so if there are some things you can donate to that, that would be fabulous. If you have something in my just memory of. Working with all of you and being a part of, you know, different things that you've been involved in. We will be giving out bags. So if there's like a flyer or maybe a little tchotchke that you want to put in the bags, we could absolutely do that. We've kind of decided not to do sponsorship because we want to be true to just really providing a space where all that, all, and we're saying vendors forward-facing because we feel that that's a word that our LEAs understand, but really we see you as partners and part of the family, right?
Quan Gan: And so we want to make sure that we're being equitable.
Danielle Jones: And then if we do a sponsorship, it's like, then we kind of feel like we got to give you more space, but we appreciate the offer. So something for the drawing, yes. And I know you, Quan, you were so gracious and shoot, I think you did like two kits or something like that. I mean, you were very, very generous. So whatever you're willing to donate for that. And then if there's something that you'd like in the bag, I don't know why I'm doing this, but anyway, something you'd like us to place in the bag, we can do that as well.
Quan Gan: And what do you think, Erica?
Danielle Jones: Anything else that should be shared with that in that particular? Yeah, no, I think if something for a potential raffle at the end would be great, like tchotchkes, because we're not able to purchase those things, that's fantastic. And we did, like Danielle shared, we thought about sponsorships because we were hoping to make it free for our attendees, but like she shared, if we're going to be providing lunch, then we have to charge a fee.
Erikka Perry: But we just, we do that delicate dance in our role in providing like regional TA as a county office where we can't like endorse one product over another. We can simply just curate resources and like here's a variety of vendors for you to choose from. And so we thought staying away from the sponsorship model would be the best way to do that. But yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. And every region does it differently.
Erikka Perry: So in region six, that's.
Danielle Jones: That's of how we decide to show up, because everybody's part of the family.
Quan Gan: My one question to that is, would having a $30 ticket, would that possibly reduce the number of people attending, or is that usually not in consideration?
Erikka Perry: So we actually find sometimes that when we have events that are completely free, and then people tend to no-show more because there's no buy-in. So we've actually found that if we have a very small, minimal registration fee where we're providing lunch, it's really just covering the expense that people actually are more likely to follow through.
Quan Gan: But that's been our experience, yeah.
Danielle Jones: And I would say if there was somebody who came to us and said, hey, we just don't have the funds, we don't ever want money to be a barrier. We just don't advertise that. Scholarships are available on an ask, right, like kind of first come, first serve. for Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Kind of thing. We would never want that to be a barrier for anybody, but I agree with Erica. Even if it's just $10, for some reason, the free, people are like, oh, I didn't pay anything. Yeah, there's no commitment.
Quan Gan: No, I totally understand. And I'm thinking maybe along the dimensions of, we're actually providing school supplies for some other resource fair, I think. So those things that we can, you know, provide you guys and they can take back to their students. Perfect.
Danielle Jones: Yeah. Okay. So what's the experience in the Tesla truck?
Quan Gan: The Cybertruck is really just our road vehicle to bring ZTAG to wherever, because historically I had to store this in, you know, like the rooftop box of my car and it's just took a lot of management. But now we're going to be wrapping the Cybertruck in ZTAG. Nice.
Danielle Jones: Yeah.
Quan Gan: So it's going to be fully branded. So it'll be a presence, you know, wherever we go. I love it. We have pretty much all the equipment be able to just pop out from it. So if we were running it outdoors, well, you know, that's going to be kind of in the background. But if we're running indoors, it's really just for us to easily load in and get everything running.
Danielle Jones: Perfect, perfect. And Erica, because she has two little ones, Quan's background, he might still work with them, worked with Walt Disney. So she has two littles, and they just went to Disneyland, which they loved.
Erikka Perry: I don't know that Erica loved it as much, but her kids did.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so I have a second company that serves all of the theme parks. So we provide lighting equipment that goes into the Disney and Universal rides. So yeah, if you're into theme entertainment, that's a whole other life that I have.
Kristin Neal: Tiana is right, right? Wasn't that one?
Quan Gan: Tiana is one of the newer ones. I think in... Universal, quite a bit in Super Mario Land.
Danielle Jones: And we're also in Epic Universe in Orlando right now. That is so cool.
Kristin Neal: It is. Yes, it is. Thank you both so much for everything you guys are doing. It sounds, I love your flyer. That's a great flyer. That's all Erica.
Danielle Jones: Awesome.
Erikka Perry: So yeah, we'll plan on creating a space inside for the ZTAG for you. We'll consider you in, yes, September 8th. that work for your calendar? Okay, very good. And then, so I know you're going to have the truck. So we also need to plan a space probably for the truck and the table, I would assume.
Quan Gan: Well, the truck will probably just park where everybody else is parking. Okay.
Erikka Perry: Do you plan to have, I guess, what I'm thinking is, so people like, you know, they play the ZTAG and they're like, I love this.
Quan Gan: Is there going to be, do you plan to also have a table where they could get more information?
Erikka Perry: Okay.
Quan Gan: In fact, if, if it's like what we had before where you. If had the vendors around the outside perimeter, that's actually the easiest because we'll just have the system on the table and it could actually operate the game that's in the same room.
Erikka Perry: And so that's what we're still working out. We may have the vendor tables in a separate space.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay.
Erikka Perry: So in the event that it's a separate space. Yeah, we'll have two systems. I'll just roll that.
Quan Gan: I'll roll a second system and we can set up anyway.
Erikka Perry: Okay. Okay. So I will send you a link. We're having all of our table vendors fill out an application just because it helps us to keep everyone listed in one space. If you could note in like the other things you may need section, how many tables you think you would need if you have a need for more than one, that would be helpful.
Danielle Jones: But I will see. it says, it's the last question.
Erikka Perry: Anything else? Yes. Anything else you need?
Quan Gan: I think our standard table is fine. We even have our own table from the truck. It's got plenty of gear we'll bring. So we can also do audibles. Last minute changes. Yeah, we're fully geared. All right.
Erikka Perry: Fantastic. Okay.
Kristin Neal: One more. Yeah.
Erikka Perry: I'm so sorry.
Kristin Neal: Only because it had gotten brought up this past week with Quan, and he had actually met through his son, who's also a yo-yo champion. He just won. was so cool. But the world champion of yo-yo. And we're trying to synergy, you know, create synergy around that. And it was so neat seeing him do what he's doing playing ZTAG. Would that be something that we'd be able to invite him to? Would that be okay? Or do you not think it would Oh, Erika, what do you think?
Danielle Jones: So, sorry.
Erikka Perry: I cut out a little bit my audio. Can you repeat the question?
Quan Gan: Yeah, no worries.
Kristin Neal: Can I describe it?
Quan Gan: Please. So, I don't know if you know, but my son is a professional yo-yo player now. He's been doing it for about a year. He recently just won the national title.
Erikka Perry: He was on the news a couple days ago. my gosh. So, he'll probably be there, and he's going to be there anyways.
Quan Gan: But he's also, he's befriended Along with me, a former world champion for yo-yo. And this guy, his name is Gentry Stein. I am trying to get him into the after-school space because it's also a very off-screen activity. I have a emerging or re-emerging activity to get kids much more coordinated motor skills, social skills. And so he also has his own story behind that. So I wanted to see if there's an opportunity to invite him, possibly to even give a little talk about his journey. And also just kind of seeing the after-school space because we might be able to turn that into, you know, something to get into schools too.
Erikka Perry: Is it something that he has like a program that's like that would districts could? And that's the thing.
Quan Gan: He's like ZTAG like four years ago before you guys invited us, right? So he's a friend that I wanted to just show him there's this space that, you know, kids are just building. But eager to do something tactile.
Erikka Perry: Yeah, yeah. So how would you see him participating? Would you see him having like a table or more observing?
Quan Gan: Like literally just like getting an idea? I think that dial can switch. And I'm going to ask him too, because I think initially he's probably going to just shadow us and be kind of observing. But if you guys have something in the programming where he can actually do like a three-minute demo on stage or something, he could do a routine.
Erikka Perry: That would be amazing. That would be so fun. I think right now our challenge is time.
Danielle Jones: I was like, yes. And then I was like, oh, I keep telling Erica, stop saying yes.
Erikka Perry: We can't say yes saying yes. And then we're both like someone else meeting someone else.
Danielle Jones: And we're like, oh. Yes.
Erikka Perry: Just kidding. I know. I think for sure coming with you. For sure. Be part of your vendor team.
Danielle Jones: Absolutely.
Erikka Perry: He could observe.
Danielle Jones: He could, if he felt comfortable, he could have conversations. He could do it there. ahead. Go Go And then... If there's an opportunity to plug him in at some point to do a really quick demonstration, you to figure out how that would look. And then also, throughout the year, we do virtual. That's not as ideal, but we do virtual what we call partner calls. We'll invite partners to come, and then we just put the invite out to the region. Again, I know that's not as ideal, because, you know, virtual versus in-person. So that's a possibility as well.
Quan Gan: Okay. That sounds great.
Danielle Jones: And I keep interrupting you. I'm sorry, Quan. I don't know. This is great.
Quan Gan: I think, yeah, what we'll do is we'll invite Gentry to come along. And by default, he's just, you know, kind of shadowing us. And then if there's that opportunity for him to just show off on stage, I think everybody would really like it, too. And I know you're working really consistently.
Danielle Jones: Thank you. With Sargina, and you may have already mentioned this, Sargina, obviously, I am not the boss of Sargina, she's a very, like, she has her own mind, but you might want to mention it to her, because she might think it's pretty cool, we do come from, I grew up, grew up in the era where yo-yos were a thing, and clearly they still are, if there's a championship, right, I fondly remember yo-yos, right, so, it's either making its way back, or it's always been a thing, and I just got older, and that's why we need play.
Erikka Perry: And it really, it's, it's funny that you said it's, you know, a non-screen thing, because our superintendent's initiative this year is all about that, like, getting away from the screens, right, and so he's actually going to speak at the beginning of our event, at the beginning of our event, about his initiative, because really, it ties in perfectly to what we're doing, because play is the antidote, right, instead of being on screens, get out and play, and so I think the yo-yo thing is beautiful, and that's exactly, Danielle and I were in, like, a brainstorming. With our communications team about the new initiative, and we were literally talking about, we need to bring back the nostalgic things that we used to do, right? Like yo-yos. And so I think it fits in so beautifully.
Danielle Jones: And I think there will be a time and a space for it.
Erikka Perry: And so we will noodle on that. If it's not this event, maybe a different event, but if we could just keep it in your parking lot. Yeah, for sure.
Quan Gan: Because we have that thread pretty well connected over the past year. So if and when we need to call on any top player, we can get them to come show up.
Danielle Jones: So we can share this with, because it really is a new initiative that's coming through our office. So we can also, there might be other spaces outside of Expanded Learning that we can share this resource as well.
Quan Gan: Okay, wonderful. Yeah, yeah.
Erikka Perry: I'm excited.
Quan Gan: Yeah, awesome.
Erikka Perry: All right. Well, we will be in touch as we get closer with more details and the immediate, I will definitely. I have Kristen's email. So I'll send you the link for the vendor application.
Danielle Jones: And I do want to say, oh, thank you. Thank you for your patience. Because I went back to the email. I'm like, dude, it was all on me.
Kristin Neal: I was supposed to send out a Zoom link.
Danielle Jones: So anyways, thank you for your kindness and your patience and your grace. They're like, yeah, we haven't gotten an invite.
Kristin Neal: Oh, that's because I was supposed to send it. So thank you. And again, I interrupted you, Kristen. No, I totally get it. Thank you so much. I should have just taken it from you. But when you said you would do it, I was like, OK, I should have just taken it. But that's OK. One more quick question only from our social media. Is that OK if we, like on social media, let them know that we're heading to you guys? Yeah, no, for sure.
Erikka Perry: Right now, our flyer isn't ready to be public. We're still finalizing a lot of details.
Kristin Neal: But for sure. And once it is finalized, yes. Awesome. Thank you so much.
Erikka Perry: Awesome. Awesome.
Kristin Neal: We're super excited.
Erikka Perry: Yeah, we're so excited that you're, you're able to play with us.
Kristin Neal: Come play with us. Oh, I love that. Yeah, we're coming to play.
Erikka Perry: All right. I love it. All right. it'll be in no time.
Quan Gan: What's that?
Erikka Perry: It'll be September in no time. I know. It really will be, which gives me all the anxiety because I still have to figure out all the logistics.
Kristin Neal: So, yes. Thank you both. Happy, all right. Happy mini Friday. Bye.
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Quan Gan: Oh, see Eric coming in? All right.
Eric’s iPhone: Hey. Hey, Eric.
Quan Gan: How's it going?
Eric’s iPhone: Good, good.
Quan Gan: Yeah, thanks for waiting. I had to jump into the office.
Eric’s iPhone: No worries.
Quan Gan: We got a few days, like, well, exactly a week before execution. So I'm pretty excited, but also, yeah, just, like, kind of trying to figure out how to piece everything together and make this a splash.
Eric’s iPhone: Yeah, I mean, it's one of those, like, you know, first to those unknowns, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah. And I think we have a, you know, a decent amount of experience between all of us. So as long as we each focus on our part, I think this is going to do pretty well. here. later. All Bye. Yeah, I'm excited to hear how it goes.
Eric’s iPhone: I got a thing next Tuesday, and I think with my older group, I might test out kind of what we're trying, this tournament mode, that Mario Kart-like aspect.
Quan Gan: Okay. So yeah, we'll see too how it goes.
Eric’s iPhone: Can you walk us through?
Quan Gan: Because I know that we've exchanged a whole bunch of AI-generated stuff, so I'd love to just hear it from you and just try to get a visual for how everything comes together.
Eric’s iPhone: Okay, so my brain was kind of, we got 108 participants, and I got thinking, like, if you broke them up into different groups, so, you know, 8 to 10 or whatever, you have two Zeus's. Now, do you know if you have two kind of playing areas?
Quan Gan: No, it's one playing area.
Eric’s iPhone: One playing area. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Last time, I had two, and we've had games of more than 24 people, so we could do that, but I'd like to make it so there's a decent amount of spectatorship and cheering. While the other people are actually in play.
Eric’s iPhone: Then that's perfect. So what I would do is, you know, get them into the divided teams, however many you want to make, and then just kind of have like pools. Like, okay, pool one is team A, B, and C. You're all playing, so they all play. And you can play it almost like an Olympic-like version where you're playing all the games. You know, you could do it where, okay, we're going to play red light, green light, and then we're going to do rock, paper, scissors for this round one. Everyone plays that, and then the next group plays that, and the next group plays that, if you have three big groups. And then the scoring basically goes down to, like, individuals. So you'll see the format, you know, red light, green light, your top ten, you know, each position is awarded points. So let's say the top three, Johnny was on red team, okay, he earned ten points for red team. Player number two came in. I can play eight points for blue team, et cetera, all the way down through the top ten, and then you bring in the next pool. Same process. Oh, you scored this many points for your team, and then once everyone has played red light, green light, and your second game, whatever you choose, you then start back over, but now we're playing, you know, keep away. All right? So a work-to-style point, right.
Long Island Laser Tag: All right, so a field-based style for schools, right? That's what we're thinking about.
Quan Gan: Yeah, Now, to implement that, do you need some form of, like, a registration or maybe, like, a spreadsheet to tally? How do you, how do you really support me?
Long Island Laser Tag: You'll need some recording.
Eric’s iPhone: Yeah, someone's just recording. That way, you can facilitate the games, and someone else just needs to record the top ten when it comes to the games that do that. So, like, if you play rock, paper, scissors, you're going to have to base it Off of tags. The amount of tags someone got, that's how you're rewarded. Same thing with zombie tag with the doctor. Zombies score by the amount of tags they get. That way it's motivating. If you're a zombie, you want to do well, regardless of what team you're on. And then obviously you're trying not to tag your own teammates. And then humans get a point or a certain amount of points for surviving the round. And don't worry about giving like individual points or who it was. You just need to know what team they're on.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay, yeah. That way it's way easier to score. Yeah, because we're looking at separating them either by pinny jerseys or like glow necklaces or something.
Eric’s iPhone: Just so they're different colors. Yeah. Once you have the soccer, the soccer like quick jerseys.
Quan Gan: Like those little like, I don't know, the mesh ones.
Long Island Laser Tag: Are they called meshes?
Quan Gan: I don't even know what they're called. pinnies, right?
Eric’s iPhone: Pinnies, yeah. Do you have retail wristbands?
Quan Gan: I think we ran out of them. So yeah, we actually gave them a win. We went to this group last time, so I don't even know how many we still have left.
Eric’s iPhone: Yeah, so like in the future, you could do it based off your pennies, based off your wristband. Now you have a little more comfortable way of also identifying teams. It's also your brand.
Quan Gan: Yeah, exactly. Everything ZTAGG. That would be ideal. Yeah, so right now, we're just going to be working with whatever other signifier. But okay, and throughout this whole process, are you ever changing the name on the ZTAGG, or just keep the numbers?
Eric’s iPhone: Numbers. Just keep it as simple as possible. You just need to know, hey, if you're number one, they should self-report, kind of. Like, hey, if you're not in the top ten, you guys can go put your watches down or get ready for the next game. You know, because if you're doing two games before you cycle in a new group, I see that being efficient. And yeah, as long as you have someone that can score track, keep track of the scores, and maybe someone else can then take that score sheet and then add. Those points to the team, that should be, I feel like it should be relatively easy, like a simplified version tournament, and then like periodically you can do a point check, like, all right, here's our standings, we have Team Red with this many points, know, blah, blah, blah, giving them a breakdown to see, hey, we got this much time left, we gotta, you know, pick it up.
Quan Gan: Okay, okay. Let's see, they said they wanted to break it down into six teams initially, but I don't know if that's the best way to do it. I mean, if it's 108 people, six teams would be, what, like roughly, like 20, 16 people on a team.
Eric’s iPhone: Yeah, I think be, I think that'd be a hard rule, six teams, 20, 40, that might be, so like, ideally, how big was the playing space, about gym size?
Quan Gan: Oh, it's a whole gym, yeah, like your gym, yeah. Okay.
Eric’s iPhone: I'd say, ideally, you probably don't want to get anywhere, like, more than 35 playing at a time. That could be very, especially with the competitiveness now, like, just too easy for them to run into each other.
Quan Gan: Right, right. So maybe, like, teams at 10. Yeah.
Eric’s iPhone: Right?
Quan Gan: That would be 10, 20, 30.
Eric’s iPhone: have 30 kids in. That's plenty. Everyone's playing. Everyone's got a role. Everyone's got a chance to help their team, you know, score points. No one's got to sit unless you're waiting for that game. Because, yeah, the worst thing is to have a team of 20, and only 10 get to play, and 10 are sitting for a pretty long time. And, you know, it just gets messy.
Quan Gan: A lot more organizing than having to manage. Okay. Okay. Yeah, because also, you know, I want this to not only be something we use for this church group, but if we can turn this into a sanctioned official format, then that scales. So, considering, like, what's the easiest, you know, like, what's an official? For example, soccer, got 10v10, or basketball 5v5. Does ZTAG want to be 10v10, or do we want to do 8v8? What do you think would be an ideal number based on what you've seen?
Eric’s iPhone: You know, an ideal number, I feel like, is almost like a basketball game, 5v5.
Quan Gan: And then you have substitutions.
Eric’s iPhone: Then you get into the whole strategy aspect. Hey, we got five people. Who should we put in now? During this time of the game, you know, it's getting down to the end. Or, hey, so-and-so is fatigued, you know? So, yeah, I think a 5v5 format.
Quan Gan: Why do you say 5v5? I mean, especially in a larger court where we can put more people. Is there a particular reason 5v works better than more?
Eric’s iPhone: I think just organizational-wise, like when you think about it, most people are just one or two people facilitating it. So, you want it to be manageable and easy, both safety-wise. And game-wise, right? Because kids are going to bicker about cheating, so you want to be able to manage that aspect and not be like, oh, I didn't see it, you know, type of thing. So it's just management-wise easier. I can see a 10v10 going all right with this format. You know, it all depends on kind of like, we got a couple different ways we can take this when it comes to either making it like a sport versus this Olympic-style large group tournament style. So I can't, I guess it's kind of the...
Long Island Laser Tag: All right, jump in and ask a question. Eric, I think you're considering the longevity of the sport because once you get to higher numbers of team involvement, the breakdown can just almost be exclusively exponential. Like once you reach 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 people, then it becomes, okay, 12v12, how do we do this? 10v10, okay, what if three of the kids can't make it? Now we're like three men down, so I think for... The longevity of success, keeping the team numbers down, might be something that we want to consider for an official format. For this format, I think the only way it's going to work out is in teams of, like, 10, because you have to have a lot of 10 left.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, that's an interesting constraint to consider. I mean, what if we did something like either a 6v6 or 8v8? Yeah, those numbers, I think, are definitely manageable. Okay.
Eric’s iPhone: Because that also, then, when you get into games where it's based on tagging, so, like, zombie tag and rock, paper, scissors, you know, you need someone on your team to be a tagger. And, you know, if you don't have enough people, then it's kind of like, ooh, it's tricky. So, yeah, 6v6, you know, one person each team, like, when you get into a zombie tag for this tournament mode, each team should have someone that's a tag. ZTAGGER and someone that's a doctor, and they try to tag the other team's humans while avoiding theirs, but hey, I love the fact, like, what is that, Friendly Fire?
Quan Gan: Friendly Fire, that that could happen, but they've to be aware of that.
Eric’s iPhone: And they can also accidentally save someone, you know, if their doctor needs to pay attention.
Quan Gan: So there's a lot of strategy aspect to it. Okay.
Eric’s iPhone: But yeah, I think, you know, if we focus just on this group right now, the bigger team aspect is going to work really well with Mario Kart-like scoring.
Quan Gan: Okay. I think it should be efficient, easy to manage, and fun for the kids. And when you say Mario Kart-like scoring, you mean basically as a team, you're getting scored on the performance of that round, right? Right.
Eric’s iPhone: So it's Mario Kart-like just for, so we can get more kids involved in scoring, right? So when you play Mario Kart Grand Prix, I think they only give points in the top five, but they show everyone.
Quan Gan: Okay. But if you give everyone...
Eric’s iPhone: Everyone points, you know, the top 10, and then you move on to the next game, and you can still score points in the next game. It allows you to showcase all of ZTAG's games rather than just focusing it on, like, zombie tag. So there's kind of like two versions you can play. Hey, I think the more sport way is the zombie tag game, and you have this way that showcases every single game of ZTAG. Hmm.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, I can get behind that. I like what you're talking about is having a dedicated scorekeeper. So that's probably someone I'm going to definitely involve on. What other roles do you think we need to just keep this smooth flowing?
Eric’s iPhone: You know, a ref. Someone that can just manage, you know, watch guarding. Just reminders that, hey, keep the watch out. Make sure no one's putting it above people's heads, you know.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Eric’s iPhone: Use your speed. I always tell them speed, agility, and awareness. Those are the three things. Things you can use to avoid being tagged, because I feel like that's my, whenever I play something more competitive, that's where they get really picky on, hey, are you covering your watch, or like, you know. Okay, got it.
Quan Gan: Are there any other major pointers, like, it might be intuitive for you, but possibly not for new people that you think you want to emphasize for this format?
Eric’s iPhone: Um, you know, without really running it, I mean, I've had this in the back of my mind, like a turnstile for this Mario Kart style for a while, but not doing it, I'm not quite, you know, 100% sure on things that, you know, common misconceptions that might be there, or.
Quan Gan: Okay, well, let's just say, take a step back then, just your kids, you know, your kids in school right now. What are some of the first things you share with them? I mean, obviously the safety factors, and those are.
Eric’s iPhone: I think the safety factors and just watch-guarding, you know, people do, they get, you know, you're going to get those kids that get really clever and they stand right next to the wall. They're not watch-guarding, but they have the watch basically by the wall. So most gyms, they have, you know, the basketball outline. So I tell the kids, you have to stay inside of that. Like, if you strategically align yourself right by that line, but usually there's at least a foot or two before the wall, if not more. that allows kids to reach around if they need it.
Quan Gan: cartons.
Eric’s iPhone: Yeah. But yeah. Do we want to implement that?
Quan Gan: Like, you know, have some disincentives?
Eric’s iPhone: Hey, I mean, so here's the other thing. Okay, this brings me to the reffing part. If I was ever to do this, I'd want pennies with numbers, and the number has to match the ZTAGGER watch. Because then you can ref it without even telling, without really. Saying, hey, what number are you? If I see jersey number 10 doing something they're not supposed to, pause. Their watch is now like, it's almost like a penalty box in hockey. You have a 30, you have a 30, or because the game's really many, you have a 5, 6 I wonder if I can get that before next week, just have all the number jerseys ordered. Amazon has jerseys with numbers.
Quan Gan: Now, I'm not sure if they go 1 through 24 or how that works.
Eric’s iPhone: But that would definitely help you make it more, yeah, official, and you could sit right there and be like, oh, I see number 10 is not playing the way I want him to. And you could pause it. And you could let them know ahead of time, like, hey, we have the ability to pause your watches for a penalty break if we see you doing things unsafe, unkind, you know, however you want to watch it.
Quan Gan: Hmm, okay. That's good. Okay. Steve, you have anything to add or add?
Long Island Laser Tag: No, I was just thinking about the penalty system, the carding system, but Eric basically went right above that and said, don't even need that. As long as you have numbers, matching numbers, you can basically implement the disincentive.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Eric’s iPhone: And that will also make it easy for one person if they, you know, they, like, I'm by myself right now, so I always try to think of, like, how can I do this by myself? And with the numbers, I could sit there and ref from the system. I could, you know, it's easy. I like that.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Eric’s iPhone: And then once we get that master watch, eventually, we can, we can be in the game and be revving. Okay.
Quan Gan: I'm going to get with Ricardo tomorrow to figure out good camera shots. Can you guys think of, like, if we wanted to live stream this, at what angles do you want to see?
Eric’s iPhone: Man, I think of, like, that 360 camera, and Steve mentioned the drone one. I mean, you put that up and able to see the whole course. Yeah. And watching, because there's going to be so much action, you almost need, like, you need that, not bird's eye view, but you need to be able to see it from a distance. And then if, yeah, if the technology was there to be able to jump to a certain kid that has, you know, a point of view camera, you know, something like that. But I think most people are going to want to see it from above or from a side angle so you can see the whole core.
Quan Gan: Okay, so maybe like an Insta on a boom or something.
Eric’s iPhone: And you could, you know, if you could catch something or whoever's manning the camera happens to see, you know, a good little battle happening over here, you know, you kind of cycle in, kind of like they do with where the football is or where the basketball is.
Quan Gan: Right, okay. Okay, I'm going to see about how we can get a telescopic view. Okay.
Long Island Laser Tag: You could get the selfie extender and invert it so that the camera is down like a boom, as you said, and then you would just basically have a. Follow-Me style, Cam. think doing a Follow-Me, where it's like right behind the kid, like think about a third-person video game action share, right? Like an over-the-shoulder view, where you can see most of what they're seeing on the right side, but you can't see the left, or vice versa. That would be really cool to me. That's the shot that I always go for when I'm at the events.
Quan Gan: Have we ever had any safety issues with that boom getting in the way of other people?
Long Island Laser Tag: don't anticipate the issues. That's why a selfie stick is probably the most beneficial, because the selfie stick is only going to be, what, four feet, three feet backs in front, and that's a pretty safe enough distance for any adult to be reasonably self-aware about distance.
Quan Gan: So you're having the camera operator hold it?
Long Island Laser Tag: Correct. Okay, not strapped to the back of a kid.
Quan Gan: Correct.
Long Island Laser Tag: No, no shot.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Eric’s iPhone: It would be too, like, you know, on a kid might be too shifty. Even though it's stabilized, it still probably moves too fast. So if the person... You can just, yeah, catch it, you know, just from a, yeah, third-person point of view. And those 360 cameras, if you...
Long Island Laser Tag: Wait, okay.
Quan Gan: Can we incentivize the doctor role or some less agile role to be holding the stick?
Long Island Laser Tag: You want these kids who are not very hand-eye coordinated to be holding on to a... All right. That, that, it's a good question, but no. No, well, it's a, it's an action cam, right?
Quan Gan: So I'm just wondering, can we make it robust enough that, like, the role, if your doctor is to be holding the selfie stick and seeing people and going up and healing people?
Eric’s iPhone: I think that falls into when you have those kids that maybe they, they want to participate, not participate. You let them do that. Like, and then they're learning some videography. Yeah, they're learning, you know, different aspects. They all want to be YouTubers. Bye. Bye. And if you share that, hey, this is going to be part of our YouTube channel, like, I think they get geeked about just that in general.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah, I'd have to see how robust Insta360 is. Did you guys already order it? No, I was kind of waiting on you, because me and Steven were bouncing some accessories back and forth, like what we think is actually useful. Okay.
Eric’s iPhone: But that, you know, gets costly, so I think we wanted to agree on something that we both thought was going to be beneficial for the both of us, and then bring it to you.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I'm going to, I would say at least, well, get the basic camera setup just so you start playing with it and getting familiar with it. I'm going to probably get our stuff the next couple of days, you know, they'll get overnighted. So at least don't have the camera hold you back. Get that just so you can start playing with it and, you know, getting it connected and check the settings. But then accessories, yeah, as needed, we can.
Eric’s iPhone: So Steve, do you think, like, camera, we need the memory card, do we do the ultimate, they have like an ultimate bundle, creator bundle? Yeah, I don't think we need that.
Long Island Laser Tag: I think realistically, the core is going to be a 256 card, probably two spare batteries, because the runtime at 4K at 60 frames is going to be sub-30 minutes on recording. So you're going to need two spares at least. So three batteries all together, a 256 card. And then as far as the attachments go, the only one I think we really need right now is going to be like the chest mount and selfie stick. Like, I think the wrist mount, can kind of, I don't know if we necessarily need that, but it would just be those two. But the Essentials card, two extra batteries, that's absolutely essential.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Eric’s iPhone: So you think the drone, the drone stick, Steve?
Long Island Laser Tag: The three meter stick is something that can be explored in the future. In future, don't think it's necessary for our function. There's a hundred bucks. One meter is like 90 bucks. Okay.
Quan Gan: Well, how about one of you guys get it and then play with it? If it works out, we can get another one. I appreciate you guys, you know, being budget sensitive on it. At the same time, I'm like, look, these are experiments. So if we end up getting something good out of it, it's definitely worth the cost.
Long Island Laser Tag: Sure. Okay. We want them right. And the mic, yeah. mic is going to be important because you're going to want to have that, like, audio matched up with that sprint of, like, that, I don't know, the exhale. I feel like hearing the exhale and the run is a really important factor of, like, a sensory element to it.
Eric’s iPhone: Yes.
Quan Gan: Like, knowing that you're running and hearing the jingling of your clothes and, like, the... So are you putting the mic on the person's shirt?
Eric’s iPhone: Well, that's something that we can explore. I think we can. It's just thinking. was like, that'd be great.
Long Island Laser Tag: We asked one kid and then we followed. That kid for that action cam of 30 seconds, and then we have all the footage of their audio queued up to them with the 360 cam, we can just get as much footage as we need for four minutes, and then we can give it to another kid, and then we can give it to another kid, where everybody has this opportunity. You might not even need to really be following that kid either.
Eric’s iPhone: mean, think about just hearing what they're saying while we're playing, and you might be filming the whole group, and then just be able to hear the conversations. It's like live testimonials without having to get, you know.
Long Island Laser Tag: Yeah, we want to get a mic sessions. The mic'd up umpires, where you hear them, like, talking crap.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I'd to turn this into a whole video production pipeline. You know, we'll start basic, but then eventually it needs to be automated, and that might also be part of our core technology, is just how to live stream all the ZTAG content.
Long Island Laser Tag: Yeah.
Eric’s iPhone: Yeah, if you get the camera before your event next Thursday, know, maybe don't worry so much on the live stream, because it's so fresh and new right now.
Quan Gan: know, like, hmm. Hmm. Broadcast it, or produce it, get the footage, produce it, and then once we produce it and we see what we like, then we just have to try and mimic that. Now, this is how we want it to go.
Eric’s iPhone: Now, what can we do to make it like this next time, so that it's like that from the get-go? Okay.
Quan Gan: No, that's cool. Yeah, because the live stream, that creates a whole other set of animals. Yeah, that's another beast. But yeah, at least capture, I like where you're going with that. Just capture the footage and then we'll see what to do with it afterwards.
Eric’s iPhone: Yeah. Because then we might get new ideas that are like, oh, that sounded good, but it wasn't good. So let's, once we get it where we want, then, and we're comfortable running it, it's like, then yeah, live stream that. And then you get people watching, you know, you can give updates when we're going to live stream type stuff.
Quan Gan: So yeah, it's definitely up to that.
Eric’s iPhone: I think it's the right target.
Quan Gan: Okay, great. Anything else we need to cover?
Eric’s iPhone: I feel good about this. I'm excited. Like I said, I got a thing on Tuesday. I have two groups, one with 30, one with 44, and I'm going to test it out a little bit.
Quan Gan: Okay. Well, actually, the thing I wanted to get into a little bit more is, let's say we don't do every single game, but we have a strong emphasis on zombies. Are there, you know, variations, like, for example, the Doctor Defense version, or are there some other formats that you came up with that you think it's more sport-like that we could just do just that game? Yeah, so you could.
Eric’s iPhone: I mean, I've ran a solid hour, solid half hour in times where I just used Zombie Tag Survivor, and it was five versus five, and that worked fine. So basically, it's a round where each team gets a turn doing a zombie and a human. So if it was Steve's team against your team, for one minute, Steve's team is trying to tag and eliminate. I your players. give each player two lives, and then I take the conversion time, and I put it to the max. So they're eliminated once they lose that second life. Their watch is going to stay in that conversion time, because by the time they lose two lives, it's past 30 seconds. Unless it happens right away. Because you don't want them to turn into zombies to infect themselves. Correct. So what happens is, as soon as they lose their second life, you tell them where the out space is, and then they're eliminated. So let's say Steve gets four of your players out. Steve's team now has four points. Now it's your team's turn to try and tag Steve's team. If you beat them, your team wins the round. If you tie, you guys just move on to second round. Same cycle.
Quan Gan: You know, I really like that. That seems straightforward. Rather than having to, like, shuffle through all different formats, they stay with us.
Eric’s iPhone: And it will work. I just wasn't sure if you wanted to showcase all the other games. So that's where I can... Kind of came up with the Mario Kart. You could run, I mean, just that.
Quan Gan: Well, I would probably, so the hybrid version would be to have them warm up with the other games, right? Just, you know, and maybe we give them some points, but then ultimately the focus is on getting them into doing the zombie tag.
Eric’s iPhone: I think that's great, too, because it also gives them practice on the equipment. I know some of them have played before, but, you know, get their hiccups out of the way and, yeah, learn the game, have fun without even to worry about a competition. Yet, and then, all right, Z-League time, like, this is how it goes. And my five versus five does work, and then I got thinking, kind of like World Chase Tag, it could, and then also more strategy, you could go, the tagging team is only two people, two zombies versus five humans. So now you strategize into who do you want to be the taggers, who do you want to be the humans? But I did make a rule, like, everyone's got to play one of the jobs once. Before you start playing two people the same time.
Quan Gan: When you had 5v5, so it was just humans versus zombies, right?
Eric’s iPhone: Correct. And did that turn out to be too quick? No, because it's only a minute. Oh, it's only a minute.
Quan Gan: I only played for a minute. Okay.
Eric’s iPhone: So way it's intense, it's fast, keeps their attention. Okay. It went well. A minute was good.
Quan Gan: And when that happens, if they don't all get eliminated, then how do you score?
Eric’s iPhone: It's just zero. So like if your team doesn't eliminate anyone, well, you scored a zero for that round. And now if the other team doesn't score, get anyone, it's zero, zero. Next round.
Quan Gan: Okay. So you have to fully eliminate the whole team? No. Each player you eliminate.
Long Island Laser Tag: It's as many people as they can get in the round. And then that's the number that they match against the other team. So if they get six eliminations and six people got eliminated, the next team got seven eliminations. And seven beats six, so seven would get the point for that round.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. Okay.
Eric’s iPhone: You could have that be their point system, but again, me being by myself, I was just like, hey, we got more, one point, bam, you win.
Quan Gan: Okay. You got the, and then... I like that because that's kind of more like the tennis thing.
Eric’s iPhone: Yes. And then, because then, you know, depending on how much time, it could, if you only have a half hour, okay, it's the best of five type of thing, or best of seven, or hey, we're going until the end.
Quan Gan: I really like that because now we can focus on one single game and see how they can strategize and perfect it. And if it's five-v-five, just, you know, a low number versus low number, afterwards, the watches are already done. They can just hand it off to the next group, and you can repeat.
Eric’s iPhone: Yep. And what I do with the watches is I change the name to the color. So blue team and orange team. That way, it's so much easier to manage. I don't have to be like, hey, what number are you? Okay.
Quan Gan: Okay. And that's where the two versus five gets a little easier, too, because then you're not searching for so many watches. Right, right, right. Okay. Yes.
Eric’s iPhone: If you have the teams identified on the watches, that's all you need. They manage the substitution amongst each other.
Quan Gan: So when you did that, then let's just say blue team versus red team, are there any numbers at all, or are they all the same?
Eric’s iPhone: I didn't put any numbers. So it was just like five of them were all blue, and five of them all just put blue, blue, blue, orange, orange, orange, then I just made, okay, blue team, you're the zombies, you're the humans.
Quan Gan: All right, three, two, one, go. Did the kids complain about, oh, I don't know which number I am on that side?
Eric’s iPhone: Nope. They just knew I was blue or I was orange.
Quan Gan: Okay. I was a tagger or I'm not a tagger. Because I'm curious if there's any benefit of doing like a blue one, blue two.
Eric’s iPhone: So there would be if Survivor kept track of tags. Sorry..활al. I'm wish otherjektions. I'm Survivor, it's just either zombie or human. doesn't track their tags. So if we track tags in Survivor, then yeah, because then they can see, hey, I took this many people's lives. Because it won't tell them that they're zombified because they stay in the conversion time.
Quan Gan: Right.
Eric’s iPhone: So in the future, if there was a way to track tags.
Quan Gan: Okay. So right now, just no numbers. It's okay that you're all the same as long as you're doing it for the team. So it's more team. Yeah. So it's a lot more team emphasis. I'm okay with that.
Eric’s iPhone: And then, you know, as rounds go on, you could up it to the two versus five. Like, hey, all right, now we're going two versus five. And then you can even get down. I know you have a lot of participants, so you probably wouldn't want this. But you can do one V one and you make it like World Chase Tag. 30 seconds, one life or two lives, go for it. Okay. You can do tiebreakers that way.
Long Island Laser Tag: It's the format, I feel. That is the format. I don't feel like there's any other way for it to successfully run, because at max, you're going to run into one round only being 10 minutes with, like, a swap. So two teams can finish a round in 10 minutes, and if you're doing teams of 10, what do we have, 108, you said, I believe, Quan? Yeah, 108. All right, so, what, 11 teams all together, and then one team gets a bye for one round? So each round only taking 10 minutes maximum, I feel like that's the quickest way to get seeds done and have an actual bracket where you're not doing a single elimination bracket, because that's going to be a deterrent from even playing, right? Like, you didn't do well, and now you're not going to play at all?
Eric’s iPhone: Right, like, there needs to be at least a double or triple elimination bracket seed.
Quan Gan: Yeah, okay. Now, logistically, what about, like, this? If we had, let's say, five blue. 5-A, and 5-Blue-B, and then also 5-Red-A, 5-Red-B, and A and B being, let's say right now there's a group actually in play, that's group A versus A, but then you got group B already wearing their taggers, they're basically on deck, so I don't load them into the game, but they're just on the side. And that way, you know, you always have the other team that's already putting it on, they just haven't started their game yet.
Eric’s iPhone: It could work, I just worry about like accidental clicks on the wrong watch, and all of a sudden you're pausing to get kids back, or you start the game, they've already made tags, and then you realize, oh no. So that, I mean, I see it being, it helps cycle through bigger groups faster.
Quan Gan: Okay. But you would probably just stay in the manual way, and just, as soon as they get off, give their taggers to the next group, right? Just have them load up? Okay.
Eric’s iPhone: Yeah. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah, that would be a good practice. Like, I take mine off, I put it on you.
Eric’s iPhone: Yeah, and then, yeah, they're getting that practice, putting it on and off. But, almost like, you know, with the bigger teams, make pools, and, okay, this group's playing first. They're going to play, you know, do like a best of three, maybe. That way it's three rounds. Well, it'd be six, because this team needs to play humans, this team needs to play zombies.
Quan Gan: Okay. For a minute.
Eric’s iPhone: It should be doable.
Quan Gan: Okay, I'm going to back-calculate this, you know, after. I mean, just right now, I'm capturing all of this stuff. This is really good information, and I can come up with the actual format.
Eric’s iPhone: Yeah, I threw it in the chat, GBT, once you gave me the three hours, and it kind of broke them down into teams. And I had, like, 15 minutes, maybe, of a game play. But, yeah, the chat GBT will get you figured out for, hey, how long should our games be to fit in this three-hour window? So, um, well, I think I...
Quan Gan: I have enough to work with. I may need you, again, for another quick meeting afterwards, but this gives me enough to chew on for today, definitely.
Eric’s iPhone: Yeah, absolutely. Give us a call, text, whatever, man. I'm excited. Yeah, me too.
Quan Gan: I wish I could be there.
Eric’s iPhone: was like, oh!
Quan Gan: Like, oh! Yeah. I'm finishing up our camera. Next time, I'm going to try to give you guys a little bit more head start. You know, everything is still last minute these days. Fathom, man.
Eric’s iPhone: Yeah.
Long Island Laser Tag: I love the proverbial question of, hey, guys, theoretically, there's seven days before this is happening. What are the logistics and percent chance of you guys being able to make your way across the country? It would have been so cool.
Quan Gan: Hey, for me, I've gone somewhere on a dime, like, the next day. I'm like, okay, I'm there. Oh, believe me.
Long Island Laser Tag: I know. It's just a very new world for us, so we're like, oh, okay, all right, let's see how we can make this happen. What puzzle pieces can we move?
Quan Gan: I was throwing so many ideas in my head, so I'm like, okay, if I do this and this and this, can maybe get back and take the camper.
Eric’s iPhone: What if I drop the camper off first, and then I just meet them the next day, but I was like, ah, it's not Just get used to it, because that morning, I'm actually in San Diego giving a demo, and then I'm back and running the game. What time is the camp?
Quan Gan: Well, the camp is all day, but I think they're designing this to start in the evening. And they're probably, they're going to do UV lights, and yeah, it's going to be a whole thing.
Eric’s iPhone: That's going to be neat, man.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. And Steve, so when would you be able to tell us if you can actually come and do this?
Long Island Laser Tag: Within the next 48 hours, I just need to make sure that I have reliable people to handle what I am not going be here for.
Quan Gan: Okay, let me know. You know, again, this is last minute, so don't, don't stress if you can't, I could definitely take care of it. And having more boots on the ground definitely helps. For sure.
Long Island Laser Tag: Will do. I got to jump, guys. I got to set up for this event. We'll talk soon. Yeah, let's chat. Yeah, let's definitely talk later tonight at some point. Okay.
Quan Gan: Sounds good. Take care. All right.
Long Island Laser Tag: Thanks, Steve.
Quan Gan: Thanks, Eric. I think I'm doing good now, too. All right. For sure. Anything comes up, let me know.
Eric’s iPhone: Okay. Later.
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Quan Gan: One of my staff from Indiana, she just flew in. We're going to do our annual summit, inaugural annual summit tomorrow.
Malachi Burke: First inaugural.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay.
Malachi Burke: The beginning of many.
Quan Gan: Yep.
Malachi Burke: Is that for the lighting company?
Quan Gan: No, for ZTAG, just to go into some long-term strategy, because, well, you know, we had some major leadership transitions in the past few months. And since then, it was really just kind of scrambling to get through this sales season. And I think we're kind of beyond that now, and we actually need to get back into strategy. So kind of like what we're doing for the company rather than the code.
Malachi Burke: Makes a lot of sense. Makes a lot of sense. It's imperative to get help in these areas.
Quan Gan: Yep.
Malachi Burke: Right on.
Quan Gan: And how are you?
Malachi Burke: Oh, I'm good. Pretty worn out already. But, you know, it was good to see my father. You know, yeah. We understand one another well.
Quan Gan: So you went, you traveled north?
Malachi Burke: Usually that's what happens, but this time he traveled to LA.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. Cool.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. We went to Angeles Crest most of the day Saturday, and then went to Santa Monica most of the day Sunday.
Quan Gan: Okay. Cool. Is he back?
Malachi Burke: Yeah, he went back home this morning.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: So I'm emotionally refreshed, but physically kind of worn out. Yeah. I'll take it.
Quan Gan: That's good.
Malachi Burke: Thanks for asking.
Quan Gan: So how's everything, I guess, code-wise or, you know, progress-wise on our stuff?
Malachi Burke: Mostly good. Code-wise is a bummer. Because I never have time to work on the code, which is starting to depress me. But DevOps and PM-wise, you know, we're taking bites out of that elephant. You know, we're taking bites out of it. And the guys, I checked our PRs today, and the quality of the PRs is better. It's heading in a better direction. And part of that is they're tightening the scope on what they're doing in the PRs. And as you know, and most people wouldn't know, but you know, that seems like it would be a simple thing. Oh, yeah, shrink the size of the scope. Easy. Now your merges are simpler. But how many weeks, months, years, I don't know, did it take to be able to actually have a machine that would start to produce that?
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay. Well, I can appreciate that.
Malachi Burke: I figured you could. Um... Yeah, mostly code review, APR-related things. I began the process of doing the AI review of what you captured last week, and I spent about just a little under 30 minutes on it, and I only got through to Section 2.2. So I have some commentary, and I figured that was kind of directly relevant to what we'd be talking about today.
Quan Gan: Sure, yeah. Do you want to dive into that?
Malachi Burke: Yes, Asterisk. Were there other ideas that you wanted to explore before diving into that?
Quan Gan: I think mainly just checking in with you on this week's schedule, because we have, on Wednesday, I have three, maybe four people slated for interviews, half-hour blocks. And then on Friday, I think one person, but that person is at... Yeah.
Malachi Burke: 3 p.m.
Quan Gan: Yeah, 3 p.m. instead of the original block that we had set.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Well, schedule-wise, we're solid.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And plan-wise, being that we're not planning to directly pull them in, like you were alluding to earlier, a 15-30 minute, not casual, but not an extensive. Interview is expected. Yeah. So, being that there's so much that happens on this project, the way I take my notes, I'm probably not going to come up with a bunch of questions today, because they'll get lost. Well, not lost, but they'll get backed up in my notes. I don't anticipate the questions being a difficulty.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, I think really just it's a first-order pass on these guys. Bye Bye-bye. You know, we didn't set the scope with them even of exactly when things would start either. Or if they would start, it's really just kind of seeing, do we see a potential fit? And then based on those signals from this week, we can reevaluate.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Yeah. We dangle the carrot and see if we, you know, get a diamond in the rough or something like that.
Quan Gan: Yeah. And there are plenty of directions I can take this. You know, there's not, you know, the blessing and I guess, yeah, it is a blessing. We don't have a direct competitor that's like, you know, chomping at us, right? So like we could take things methodically and slow and then grow internally. At the same time, of course, I would like to, you know, get this vision actualized so I feel like I can get to a place where I can be. At the creative level, and think of new games, and start testing them, too.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. No, what you mentioned last week about perhaps treating Code 3 as like a Phase 2 proof of concept, to paraphrase, right? But a much stronger one. There's a lot of utility to that, and it also relieves the pressure a little bit to get everything perfect in Code 3. And we already knew it wouldn't be, but that might give us a little more shoulder room to, you know, try some things.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah, and, you know, as we're looking at onboarding sooner or later, a much more professional team stateside, I certainly don't want to be burning the bridge as we cross it, right? So, like, I want to make sure, you know, our current products are still well-maintained and those are serviced. But I do want I want to get to a, you know, an A-tier or S-tier level of perfection towards the next thing that we start working on. And so hopefully, you know, when we have enough mindshare, both at the expertise level, but also like just the sheer number of hours that we can start spending on it, you know, that we'll be able to hit that stride.
Malachi Burke: I share your goal. I'm even a little bummed out that we're not, you know, there now. But that's what we're here to do, to try to get us there.
Quan Gan: Yeah. So other than that, no, I don't have any other things that's relevant to the project at hand.
Malachi Burke: Okay. And kind of a incidental question then, how's working out with Ryan?
Quan Gan: I think the first week has been good. I mean, he's still very much just drinking from the fire hose. I don't know if you had a chance to meet him at all at Starbucks.
Malachi Burke: Just a time.
Quan Gan: Any bit, just a tiny bit. Yeah, so I think he's just going through a lot of the early stage of learning, because I'm just getting him to work out basic IR transmission, and he's going to hit roadblocks there. He doesn't know what the IR protocols are, all of those very basic things, but between my feedback and then having the AI guide him on certain things, he's learning quickly. So I see it's promising, but it might well take more than the eight weeks allotted to get him to be somewhere where he can be actively contributing to what we have, because there's just so much context to learn.
Malachi Burke: Right. Okay.
Quan Gan: Although there is a, there's a fun thing that I like to give him as a project once he's, you know, let's say maybe another week into this, which is, I'm involved with a... We a Sheriff Station Haunted House that they're putting together in October, and we're looking to use these devices to custom program like a radiation meter as you're going through a zombie apocalypse type of That's pretty cool. Yeah, so it'll have like a real-world, you know, consequential application that we can just put that project on him, and then he'll get the whole thing of like programming to something that people are actually going to be physically using at scale.
Malachi Burke: Okay. That sounds like a fun game.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and it's really simple. It's just going to be like you walk in with, you know, zero radiation, and then when you go through certain rooms, other people are going to have infected ones get close to you, and then you just see how much radiation you have by the end of it. And then probably the accelerometer, if you move it around a lot, then you can reduce your radiation, and you're kind of like working it off.
Malachi Burke: Nice. I'm taking some notes here. I couldn't remember this weekend if our device had an accelerometer or not. Oh, yeah.
Quan Gan: It has a full IMU with gyro.
Malachi Burke: Nice. So there's a little bit of dead reckoning possibilities there as well.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Cool.
Quan Gan: Yeah, mean, for a long time, I wanted to do this, but, and I think we're right at the edge of it being possible, is to train certain motions, like throwing fireballs or casting wand spells or things like that, and then having it recognized at, you know, hopefully a 98% plus correct recognition rate, and then people could be, like, running around and, yeah, like, throwing magical spells at each other.
Malachi Burke: That would be cool. cool. That would be cool. It seems plausible. The ESP32 probably would be up at the edge of its processing, but it could probably do it. But the S3, I'm certain, could do it.
Quan Gan: Yeah. And it really comes down to having good data capture. And I found a company last year, I forget the name, but they had a whole web stack that allowed you to tap into the ESP32, collect the data, and it will run its own AI training cloud side. And then you just basically download the inference model afterwards.
Malachi Burke: That's great.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it'll do all the labeling for you.
Malachi Burke: That's great. Do you know if they integrated with the ESPML library they did, the expressive people?
Quan Gan: That, I'm not sure. I know they just, they had a ESP32 target, so at some point I did get this working. Where I was capturing a bunch of data, but it wasn't, I didn't play with it deep enough to figure out how accurate it was yet.
Malachi Burke: Oh, no worries. All right. Well, good to know. On a distantly related note, the topic came up with my dad about our IR collisions. And he's like an expert and stuff like that, you know. So he was sharing all his thoughts and things. And at the end, you know, it, he had additional thoughts, but he kind of, he and I both agreed we were on vacation. So we were going to go too far into it. But he also said that, you know, he's happy to share little tidbits here and there. You know, he enjoys that kind of thing.
Quan Gan: So I'm going to be talking to him more about that. Okay. Sounds good.
Malachi Burke: What? What he kind of has done in similar situations, but we both agreed it may or may not fit, but it was thought-provoking, was he does kind of a round-robin interpretation of TDM.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And he does this a lot with things like the CAN bus, but he's done it with RF too, where everybody goes in a sequence, and they only begin their transmission once they see somebody else's transmission complete, and they go in a circle.
Quan Gan: Okay. But I think in that circumstance, your premise is that everyone is connected to the channel, and not constantly logging in, logging out of that channel. Whereas ours, if people are running around, let's say you have 24 devices, and you're doing round-robin, but really just you have like maybe five or six taggers in a huddle. So if you're waiting for the other 18 to finish their time slot, then you're actually delaying.
Malachi Burke: If that's the way it worked, yeah. He accounted for that. And there are delays there. And that's part of what makes it a little tricky. And that's part of why we said, yeah, this isn't really perhaps the entire solution. But it's worth it. Well, I don't know if it's worth exploring right now, but it was thought-provoking because it's in between, in theory, the back-off that we're doing now in a TDM. It's right in the middle of those kind of solutions. And that's compelling because we both agree, in theory, TDM would be great, right? So if we can get closer to TDM, that might be nice to reduce our collisions by a lot. But like you said, knowing who's actually in that huddle is kind of important given our limited bandwidth, right?
Quan Gan: Yep. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, it'll be even more important once you're If we implement the lightning and thunder, at that point, you will kind of have an idea of who's in the vicinity.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Yeah. And he already, I didn't even mention that to him. He already started going down that path. He goes, well, you can put like a little reflector in front of an ultrasonic speaker and microphone so you can have an omnidirectional beacon. And I'm like, yeah, you know, Quan's got, he's kind of going down a path like that himself already, you know? Yeah. Okay. I thought I'd mention it. Now, the AI doc had some bits of usefulness and some bits of less than usefulness.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: So I'm not really sure what to suggest yet, but we could grind through it, you know, if you like.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I think that would be good. So if you just screen share, or I screen share that last piece and just verbally give the feedback. I mean, that allows us to do at least another rinse.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Then that's what we'll do. I wanted to present that option. I'm going to share my screen here. Since it's just you, I don't mind that my computer's slow.
Quan Gan: It's not like there's 20 people waiting. Okay. All good.
Malachi Burke: So can you see this guy here?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Awesome. So I'll roll through my notes.
Quan Gan: got up to Section 2.2.
Malachi Burke: Okay. And then at that point, we'll just kind of grind through it together.
Quan Gan: Mal, real quick, and just for the sake of AI, since it's better at audio, like when they're describing things, it would be great if you could just like name the heading or whatever we're talking about and then respond to it.
Malachi Burke: You got it.
Quan Gan: Thanks.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, you got it. All right. So here we go. Well, not quite yet. All right. Here we go. So right at the top of the section, ZTAG Functional Design FDD version 0.2, a minor con, this is addressable, is that this isn't shaped like our policy tells us to shape documents, but it's close. So that just has to be mentioned.
Quan Gan: What is the shape that it needs to take, or how do I reference it?
Malachi Burke: Well, the shape, I'll show you how to reference it, and then I'll talk about the shape.
Quan Gan: Okay, it's in our confluence.
Malachi Burke: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay, great.
Malachi Burke: Awesome. And frankly, the design document has a slightly different audience and new concepts that don't tend to go into technical documents, so I am flexible. I'm not going to take out the, you know. The crucible and form liquid metal and force it into this shape, but I find this works, so I wanted to point that out.
Quan Gan: Okay, I'll reference that afterwards.
Malachi Burke: Nice, thank you. So, starting with that, its description of TDD is appropriate but misguided. It is true. The technical how details, in fact, are sequestered in parallel design documents. Absolutely. However, the presence of technical design documents is incidental to the major design document. The main reason we would have those is to further clarify what the design document wants from us. So, there would be, in theory, huge gaps in our TDDs because those are not the critical part.
Quan Gan: of this. Okay. Okay, so we have in parallel FDD or TDD, but FDD, you would say we're spending most of our time, or most of the specification is in the FDD, and then TDD is more of a supplemental document.
Malachi Burke: That's precisely right. Yeah, that's the best way to put it, I've heard. Okay, thank you. And let me look at my next note. This draft weighs conversation, intentions, social through game playing, multi-sensory responsiveness against objectives. I personally find that to be a pretty unhelpful sentence, but I think it's okay in there. You know, does that feel like it, to you, does that feel like it actually contributes to the understanding of the purpose of
Quan Gan: Not necessarily, we could remove it.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Okay. Awesome. Moving forward, Document Objectives provides a storytelling blueprint for ZTAG user experiences. Yeah, fair. Prioritize features using Moscow to manage scope in this large-scale gaming education project. mean, that's kind of repeating itself. I think it's just that. Just prioritize features using Moscow to manage scope. We don't need to back ourselves up that much.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Ensure narrative flow while being actionable for stakeholders. And I'm going to complain about this a lot. This floats into marketing speak a little bit. Okay. And I'm going to accept it. I'm not going to kick any of it out. But in the future, if we can reduce. You know, those kind of, that kind of wording.
Quan Gan: You mentioned superlatives, right?
Malachi Burke: I did mention that, and to be fair, that's not here, to be fair. And it's actually, you we're human beings. It's difficult to omit these words, but I put a little list of them down at the bottom. Words like foster, enable, ensure, provide, things like this.
Quan Gan: Those are very AI-y, so we can, yeah.
Malachi Burke: yes, go ahead.
Quan Gan: I didn't mean to interrupt you. It's just general training, because that's kind of what is seen as professional, I guess. So it'll probably go on that by default. But if we want it to be a little bit more, what's the term? I don't know, more signal-to-noise ratio. Yeah. And then we can reduce some of that.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, okay, wonderful. And let me complain a little more, and it's not about AI. Actually, there's a plethora. A poorly written technical documentation that relies on words like this that has nothing to do with AI. And I'm sure that AI stumbled or took a look at that plethora of poorly written documentation and said, oh, that's how technical documentation ought to be written, right? A reasonable conclusion, right? So I was trained by a technical writer how to do technical writing. And so we favor the imperative form, give instructions rather than soften. You don't need to soften it, you know? Sweet. I can't promise that will be the last time I complain about it during this session.
Quan Gan: Okay. Hopefully it gets better because you're complaining about it becomes part of the feedback in the loop.
Malachi Burke: I'm sincerely curious how well AI will be able to internalize that message. We'll see. Okay, thank you. So moving forward. forward. This sentence is miscategorized. This is not a document objective. The document objective is to talk about things that would describe this. So this can just be removed or moved somewhere else.
Quan Gan: The last piece, align with vision, bridge digital gaming, countering screen addiction. Okay, so where would you put that, if at all?
Malachi Burke: Well, the crude place to put it would be one section below under the high-level vision, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: And I think the high-level vision actually covers that exact idea already. Yeah. Well, maybe not the screen addiction. So that's important to mention.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. Moving it to the vision, I would agree with that.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Awesome. Moving on to section one. So I would recommend this be swapped, right? You'd have the scope. Okay. You know, document scope over here and then high-level vision, you know, down below it. That's what I would say.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: But otherwise, a high-level vision is located where it needs to be. And I think this paragraph suited me fine. ZTAG is a wearable gaming platform that transforms physical spaces into interactive educational environments. At first, I was like, hey, where's our supporting evidence? But later on, it provides that. So I think that's a good sentence. It bridges video game excitement with real-world movement and social interaction, targeting education sectors to replace desk chairs with dynamic embodied learning. I'll give the marketing speak a pass because it does nail it. This is our vision. So that's good, too. Scope includes core gameplay mechanics. I like that. I don't favor bullet points for... Narrative-style design documents, but I think if it reads well, it's good. That's what I think. Multi-sensory feedback for inclusive play? Sure. Support for group experience, up to 48 players per session. Out-of-scope, non-gaming applications, pure fitness tracking, advanced VR integration. Seems like this needs to be another bullet pull-up, right? Like, down below. Seems like it's different one.
Quan Gan: Yeah, that's right.
Malachi Burke: And then cross-reference TDD section one for hardware-software boundaries. Sure, why not, right? Why not? And then goals-objectives. And in my world, scope and goals-objectives are kind of the same section, but we can break them out. Why not? Primary goal, enable education through play. There's that word again. By fostering, there's that word again. Social, social, physical, Interactions that embody learning, and I like this because now we get a concrete example of your vision here. I like that. That answered my question from before. What kind of education are we talking about? So that kind of ties it together, right? Let me find my place in my notes. I lost my place.
Quan Gan: I may even add some more examples because this history reenactment, we don't even have that as a current product. We have math games, have language games.
Malachi Burke: Those are a lot more concrete. Okay. Okay. I personally was tickled by the idea of a history reenactment game.
Quan Gan: That sounded very fun to me. Yeah, it makes it feel a lot more versatile than what it currently is, which is essentially a glorified flashcard.
Malachi Burke: It's fair. Fair, if somewhat unkind, assessment.
Quan Gan: Of my own product. It's okay. can be self-deprecating.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, between us chickens, right? Okay, cool. I lost my place. Give me a second here. Oh, I had a thought that really this should be reversed. You know, you kind of want to lead with the particular ideas that you already have. That's what I think.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: That's a minor detail.
Quan Gan: So what is reversed?
Malachi Burke: You know, if it was me, I would say a high-level vision. People can IR tag each other, and then they can match, and they can run around and score. And then in parentheses, you know, core gameplay mechanics. Yeah, I suppose this is better. Now that I think. Think about it, because the scope of the document of your high-level vision covers core gameplay mechanics. Okay. So I'm glad we talked that through. And this all looks pretty good. I'll go through it because I want to point out what I liked as well. Where's the success metric part? Oh, that's down there. I mean, my comment to my notes is the wording here is weak, but this is useful the way it is. Because I really think you should mention these. I just feel like it just kind of waters down the excitement of your idea, but whatever, still captures the idea. Ensure inclusivity for diverse abilities. And this, I'm not going to say go ahead and change this, but this is like an example of imperative form. You don't need to say ensure you're objective. Active is inclusivity for diverse abilities, not ensuring it, you know, you don't need to say that. That looks fine. None of these actually have to change. Scaffold skills progressively. That took me a moment to understand, but I eventually remembered what you said, where tutorials are less needed because the games stack up to build your skills. And then I figured out that's what this is talking about.
Quan Gan: Yeah, like, for example, red light, green light comes first, then pattern match, and then we go into TAG because they have to intuitively understand how the sensors work.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Which I think is a great idea. So the only, I would adjust this, and I would mention in parentheses, displace as a tutorial, right?
Quan Gan: Okay, yeah.
Malachi Burke: Okay, and achieve minimal disruption, graceful air recovery to maintain group floor. Okay. Okay. I You don't need the word achieve, but that captures also an important design goal, right?
Quan Gan: Your edge cases are gracefully handled.
Malachi Burke: So overall, it did a pretty decent job there. Success metrics, high user smiles, shared experiences. We do need to mention that, so I'm glad it did. It's odd that it kind of crammed these three different metrics together, because one of them is super soft and squishy, right? The other one is a hard number. So, and then I said to myself, well, this is a summary, is what this is. So this is appropriate for a summary. It just kind of struck me as odd when I first read it. And then intent checks aligns with conversation's emphasis on countering digital immersion with human-centric play while prioritizing shared embodied experience. That would be distracting to anybody who read this talk. You know, that's, that's like a, I think that was a note for you to prompt her more than going in the document.
Quan Gan: So I, I would yank that out.
Malachi Burke: Hope you're okay with me just, you know, shooting holes in this thing.
Quan Gan: That's fine.
Malachi Burke: That's the whole intention. Sweet.
Quan Gan: Sweet. Sweet. As you're shooting holes, it's kind of, I see it as a mutual attractor because the document gets rinsed again to align further to you. But as you're getting feedback, it's activating certain neurons that you have to align to the objective as well.
Malachi Burke: True. True. So moving forward, the ZTAG experience, um, I, I like that it named the section, that heading, I believe we concluded that's what section two ought to be called.
Quan Gan: Yep.
Malachi Burke: Um, this section narrates the end user journey. Bye. me. Focusing on how ZTAG feels and functions in real scenarios. That's very well put. Absolutely. Features are drawn from conversation examples. Again, I don't know that it's helpful to readers of this to know that a conversation begat this document.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay.
Malachi Burke: And then prioritize via Moscow to handle scope. I like that we mentioned that, but again, we don't need the supporting argument, ensuring focus to essentials while allowing flexibility. You and I made our case to each other. That's kind of in the way, in my opinion. Okay. If we did want to mention advocacy for Moscow, I'd put it in its own section and go, here's the rules by which we prioritize things, Moscow. Here's why we chose it, right? Formalize that. Okay. Okay. Mentioned that. Moving on to section 2.1, game. I like the initial paragraph. Games are the core of ZTAG. Absolutely. Designed as orthogonal mechanics, individual movements, seeking, matching, chasing, absolutely, that combine infinitely, you know, okay, yeah, that's the vision. Good job, AI. They emphasize collective excitement, okay, a little hard to quantify, but that is the vision. With simple indicators, absolutely, and we tell later on what simple indicators are, so I like that, to keep focus on physical social play. Okay, very good. That's a good paragraph. Zombie Game, Section 2.1.1. The premise is acceptable. Players are randomly assigned roles, human, zombie, doctor, inner survival scenario, humans evade zombies, zombies infect, doctors save, stun. Again, I prefer a little bit more of a narrative form, but arguably this might be better, you know. Could be better having bullet points. So I'm going to say we can accept this. Experience is the same kind of thing. Starts with anticipation. Roles revealed post-countdown for surprise. I like that it supports how the anticipation is built. That's good. Humans glow green, evade. Zombies red. Chase infect via proximity. Doctors blue, save via proximity. Limited uses. We're painting a picture in the reader's mind. That's good. So that's good too. Infection triggers, 10-second incubation. Find doctor or convert. Very clear. Balance. Doctors convert to humans. If saves, deplete. Optional extra lives for humans. That last one gets a little vague, but it paints a clear picture in the mind, in my opinion. What do you think?
Quan Gan: Overall good. There's some minor details they've missed. So doctors are actually white in this instance. And then the incubation and some of these other settings are things that are adjustable.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Okay. Important details to clarify. The end one I didn't like. In my opinion, was overly vague and redundant. You know, game ends on time as opposed to what? You know, most games end on time, right? And winners based on Survivor's conversions, that's good. You know, that's clear. And then with shared celebration, well, that's a nice idea, but how do you achieve that, right?
Quan Gan: So, yeah, I'd like to just add a few things of clarity here. So the game will end either when the timer runs out or when there are no more humans on the playing field.
Malachi Burke: They've all been converted to zombies. Yes.
Quan Gan: And if the former is achieved, the game time has run out, then whoever is still a surviving human, at the end, they're watching. Which is, we'll glow rainbow color or some kind of a celebration color or a chime to indicate that they've won.
Malachi Burke: See, that's great. I even smiled hearing it, envisioning a little rotating rainbow on their screen.
Quan Gan: That would be very fun.
Malachi Burke: Okay.
Quan Gan: And that in particular is kind of baked into the mechanics of most games.
Malachi Burke: So by the end, we always want to have some kind of a celebration. Okay. Okay. That would bear repetition then. I would say, make enough of a mention of it here so that they get the idea. then maybe later on say this game feel would include this celebratory moment. And this is what that is, right? Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay, go ahead. So the common denominator here for pretty much any game, on a similar level, how I said later, before that, we have to bake in every interaction having something you can. See, feel, and hear. On that same level of like a doctrine, would be you have this anticipation in the countdown, that sense of excitement during the countdown, and when you wrap up, there's a celebration of what was achieved.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, makes a lot of sense.
Quan Gan: And also showing the players how well did they do. Because, for example, a zombie will show, okay, you were able to tag or infect X number of people. Doctor will say, were able to heal this number of people. And then humans will say, you are one out of ten survivors.
Malachi Burke: I was thinking about a bunch of things at once there, so I didn't internalize all that. Sorry. I'm sorry about that.
Quan Gan: At least it's captured here. But yeah, there's very intentional end results to show people how they performed in the game.
Malachi Burke: It sounds like it. It sounds like it. And I... And I think we're both on the same page here that that must be explicitly mentioned here.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: One thing that was distracting me is I would benefit if you could please share the JPEG of the whiteboard photo you took.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. Where's my phone? Can you give me one minute?
Malachi Burke: I'm going to go find my phone. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Thank you. Okay, um, I think I have it here. Okay, do you see it?
Malachi Burke: I do. I'm gonna download this sucker. Yeah, and put it into, come on.
Quan Gan: I may have to embrace it by tomorrow. It's still on there, huh? Yeah.
Malachi Burke: I won't be the least bit offended. Come on. Oh, here we go. And then, then, design doc template one. That'll do. And then let me just double check that I can find it again. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Good. Thank you, sir.
Quan Gan: Sure.
Malachi Burke: So I'm looking at the JPEG right now. So it decided to – I'm going to jump ahead slightly. It decided to call Physical Development Section 2.2 when I called it Physicality.
Quan Gan: Okay. It probably didn't read it correctly.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. And that's okay because, honestly, I didn't love Physicality either. But I got kind of confused when I saw Physical Development.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: So I don't know what to suggest there.
Quan Gan: Well, real quick, prior to that lower section, I would say in the games, it's probably important for me to capture some of the other games, and especially in alignment with how the scaffolding works. It's like we teach the Red Light, Green Light first, which is the movement. in the last cl� It's Then we teach the pattern match, which is the matching, and then the zombie game is the tagging.
Malachi Burke: I think that's a great idea. And not only that, I would double down on that and feel free to get into some extra details, like you were starting to with the doctor being white. But really, go ahead and get into it. And if it starts getting big, we'll call out to a specific game document to really capture the extra details.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Because that stuff, I have plenty of time to just go on a monologue and capture. So it's not a lack of that. It's more like you tell me the time and when, in place to put that.
Malachi Burke: And I could certainly dump that somewhere. Well, I love the willingness. Yeah. I love the eagerness and I love the energy. These are, as I always say, generally the things missing.
Quan Gan: process.
Malachi Burke: And I will put out there a minor task. It's not even a problem or a challenge. A task is that we'll want to homogenize the format of the game documents themselves.
Quan Gan: I would like that.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Awesome.
Quan Gan: Because that also helps with eventually turning that into, what do they call it, DSL, domain-specific language.
Malachi Burke: Ah. Yeah. Because in the condition, see how I'm choosing my words specifically, in the condition where AI is able to read these documents, why not help it along? Right? And even if it's not AI, why not help the humans?
Quan Gan: Yeah, I agree.
Malachi Burke: Okay. But in the meantime, I'll go on the record and say, don't let that lack of formality in the game. Document Structure Format stop you from starting a new game document.
Quan Gan: Sure. Now, do you have some kind of a thought as to what that format is? Or do you want me to go ahead and try one and then you give feedback on that?
Malachi Burke: I do have some thoughts. They're not completely well thought through, but it feels like it fits my technical documentation approach pretty closely.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Which I somewhat capture in our document policy.
Quan Gan: So shall we take a right turn into that for a moment? Yeah, let's look at it. So I'll have an idea of how to spec it.
Malachi Burke: Okay. So I tend to, as a habit, but not as a hard rule, have a Section 2 infrastructure here. And the Section 1 scope is more of a rule here. It is indicated. Okay. Okay. Thank you. So I start with scope and infrastructure most of the time. And for ballgame or for the games, that's going to make a lot of sense because even though all of them are ZTAGGER units, not all games are going to use all the features of all the equipment. So that's your golden opportunity to say, well, the IR is the headliner technology being used in this thing, whereas sound and whatever is the head, et cetera. But that being said, I don't expect infrastructure to be a major deep dive in the document. And what I do is my section three tends to be opinions and observations, and I would deviate from that because your vision is very well thought out. It's not really a pack of opinions, you know, so I don't have a specific recommendation for further sections. But terminology is an open conversation because I can never decide if I want each document to have its own terminology section or a unified terminology section that everybody refers to, right?
Quan Gan: But doesn't the latter seem to make more sense?
Malachi Burke: Yes. It makes more logical sense, but sometimes humans prefer the terminology to be right there in the document, right? But I think we can – I think we both can feel that a specific terminology document works for us.
Quan Gan: Okay. What is this 3.2.5?
Malachi Burke: I've never seen it before. Yes. I'm glad you asked that. And I've written, as you might have imagined, I've written a policy policy many, many times over the years. And what I like to do is I actually like to give an example so that that is not so confusing, but I didn't get around to it. Let me show So RFC specs, you know, the internet specs for things like TCP and co-op and MQTT, they tend to use this form to describe the technical layout of protocols and parsers and basically anything where everything has to appear under certain validation rules and in a certain order.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And they have a good example with an address in here. So let's go find the address. Right. So this is a nice exam. So they, the upside to ABNF is you can start with what amounts to kind of like define names, right? That are very readable. So it's like, okay, we know a postal address is coming and that's got a name, a street, and a zip for that.
Quan Gan: Let me. Makes a lot of sense, right?
Malachi Burke: And then the name, it breaks down to these mnemonics, so it's kind of like its own schema of a sort. And the asterisk is very grep-like, so it's many characters, and like alpha is alphanumeric, and then you can say it's got to be one of these quoted things, and that's it. And actually, I can even show you a more pertinent example, because I did it for our SDLC document, so let me go there. And I'm not going to do that one, because the release, we haven't gotten to that, but. So like the naming of our branches. You know, we've got lowercase characters, which unfortunately, A, B, and F, well, actually, I think I got that wrong. I think they do have a lowercase number. see of post Yeah, anyway, so lowercase, you put the hex-dasky codes in there to say here's the lowercase character range, then here's a valid character, is it any lowercase character plus a dash, and then you can have up to 30 characters, and that's just summary. And then the summary is what is used down here in your branch name.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: So it's not casual reading at all.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: So I don't know that you'll actually be needing to use that specifically, but it's like having one of those Torx screwdrivers.
Quan Gan: You don't really use it that often, but the moment you do, only that tool will do. I get it. I mean, isn't this something that's related to search patterns or something? I forget what that's called. I But like you, right?
Malachi Burke: There's an overlap.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: There's an overlap, I would say.
Quan Gan: And is the intention behind it is just to be super specific in how we name things and how, like whatever the nomenclature needs to be?
Malachi Burke: Our usage of it favors that interpretation.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And I think it's important to say it's more core purpose is to say, okay, we've got a protocol like co-op because I've, I use it a lot with co-op and they did too. And in co-op, bit number one is always set and bit two through three is the version number and bits, you know, four through eight are your token length. And it goes through this and it uses the ABNF to designate the order and everything in there.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: For your... Shh. Shh. Stories about the games, it's unlikely you'll need it. I'm not picturing you needing that.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: The only time I think you would use that in your description is like if you said, and like the player's name really has to appear a certain way for it to really land, right? You might use it that way. As you know, I always advocate for RFC terminology. I don't think I need to sell you on that at this point.
Quan Gan: Yep.
Malachi Burke: And I think that's most of it. In my technical documentation, I have an opinions and then a conclusions. For you, like I said, the opinions are, you know, they're kind of worked out in your vision. And conclusions is too technical. So you would have scope, would have infrastructure, those would be valid. I might start with game vision for the next section, right? Say like, you know, this is the idea of the game, and then maybe do, you have the option then of doing another section, game details, or you could do subsections, right? How does that sound?
Quan Gan: Yeah, I think that's fine.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Sweet. All right, I'm going to back up to section 2.2 again over here. Actually, I almost skipped this guy. Let's not skip him. Capture Runner sub-mechanic in games like Zombie. That implies that that's a mechanic we'll be seeing frequently, the Capture Runner mechanic. That's Actually, I'll I'll I'm I'm Would you say that's a true statement?
Quan Gan: Sorry, I was reading up a definition real quick. Okay, coming back to you.
Malachi Burke: No worries. This title, Capture Running Submechanic in Games Like Zombie, strongly suggests that this is a repeating mechanic in other games as well.
Quan Gan: Yes. This is a key mechanic to any type of tag game. Any of the more competitive sport-like games will have a, what do we call it? Well, the UTF team calls it a runner and a chaser. Yeah, runner and a chaser.
Malachi Burke: Fair. So that gives us a bit of an opportunity with the game detail document that we just discussed. We don't have to change anything, but because we are enjoying a formality to the document format, you can find your simplest game, your simplest runner-tagger game, break down exactly that mechanic there, and then cross-reference from your other games back to that and say, you want a full description of the tagging mechanism conformed to this thing.
Quan Gan: What's your opinion on runner versus chaser, runner and chaser versus, they have it here, evader versus chaser?
Malachi Burke: Right. I have a biased opinion, but I think you'll like the bias, because my father and I were talking about this particular game mechanic. And he used to work for Lockheed back in the day. And they had hunter-prey as their terminology.
Quan Gan: Right.
Malachi Burke: And I thought, it's a little harsh, but it's very accurate.
Quan Gan: Yes. However, mean, just like how in Git, they don't have master-slave or master-branches anymore. Right. You know, like, some of those terms are not as to-date anymore. Right. So, yeah, I agree with you. But just like other parts of language, kind of have to shift a little bit.
Malachi Burke: I'm sensitive to that. I am sensitive to that. So I'll ask you a question, and this is a professional question, it's not a criticism, is, do we feel that hunter-prey in context of a design document is too harsh of language?
Quan Gan: I think it may be because that will, maybe portions of that, whether intentionally or not, may trickle over to what teachers and students might see at some point.
Malachi Burke: Bingo. Bingo. Bingo. Bingo. Bingo. Bingo. Bingo. I am persuaded. Simple as that. Okay. It's an excellent line of questions, because what we want to do, ideally, is have a core set of terminology that cross-cuts any of these games and means the same thing, but have the freedom to have the games have their own terminology layer on top of them.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and in me asking this, I'll share with you my slight preference for the word evader, because it seems to describe the motivation more, because a runner could just be running for the sake of running. Like, red light, green light, you could be running, but you're not running away from something, so the act of evasion is more descriptive.
Malachi Burke: I follow. I am imagining a situation where between you and I will use hunter-prey. I am imagining a situation where the hunter, the prey may not be evading the hunter, but that's kind of, when I say it, doesn't sound right.
Quan Gan: I can give you an exact case. So we have a game of rock, paper, scissor, which is circular tag. Every hunter is also a prey, essentially a circle of life. So one color will eat and convert the other color, which converts the third color, which converts the first color.
Malachi Burke: Okay, thank you. You saved me, because I wasn't able to come up with an example. I appreciate that.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so in that sense, you have to describe them in different contexts, because like a single character has both roles. There's also instances where, in the case of passing the virtual focal point, you may not want an opponent to tag you to take the ball away, but you may take Intentionally point your tagger at someone on your team to pass the ball away. And in our team, we actually have both mechanisms of passing and stealing.
Malachi Burke: Well, given all of that, I have a recommendation.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: In hard drive subsystems, you have the terminology target and initiator.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And that feels pretty cross-cutting.
Quan Gan: Target and initiator. So can you be both the target and the initiator?
Malachi Burke: You can.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Like SPI can do that. And it's just who's doing what at what given time.
Quan Gan: can switch around. Okay. I'm open to it. It hasn't landed with me yet, but I think the more I see it, I'll need to do my own research to build my neurons around it, but I'm not opposed to it.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Okay. Okay. Hey, let me... We're going rattle around, and whatever we do, we'll be keeping the existing game terminology, too, and ideally, there are redefinitions of a core set of words. Yeah. No hunter-prey. No master-slave either. Yeah, that one is obvious, right? That one is obvious. Like, as an engineer, I don't give a damn, but you know what?
Quan Gan: Neither do I, but yeah.
Malachi Burke: But I could just see the, you know, the playmaker slash teacher's aide telling all the kids that they are a prey. Yeah, that would not be good. Say no more. Okay, so Capture Runner, and we satisfactorily covered the cross-cutting concern of that sub-mechanic. Um, runners evade captors. Uh-huh. Fair. Captors. Chase via Proximity Tagging, nice and descriptive feedback, immediate multisensory cues. I personally will put feedback on another bullet point, but, you know, that's whatever.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And I find immediate redundant, yet still you're being emphatic that that's a feature of the system, right?
Quan Gan: Yes. And I think that has some real hard consequences, meaning that it needs to land within 300 milliseconds.
Malachi Burke: Absolutely. Absolutely. Which we both agreed, numbers like that do need to be captured somewhere in this suite of documents. Okay.
Quan Gan: This suite or this particular document, or not yet?
Malachi Burke: I'm calling it the suite because it might cascade its way down into, like, a support document somewhere. So, maybe. So Section 2.2, Physicality, Physical Development. I still haven't figured out what I'd prefer this thing to be called. Little Tech. Is that like an official industry term?
Quan Gan: No, this was a misinterpretation of what you had wrote here.
Malachi Burke: Oh, I see.
Quan Gan: I think you had wrote Tech Light or something. And then it thought it was Little Tech. Okay. Yeah, I think it was supposed to be Tech Light.
Malachi Burke: I see slightly technical. Where is Tech Light? I don't see it.
Quan Gan: You might have erased it or something.
Malachi Burke: Okay, I eliminated the evidence.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: All right. I mean, like, well, I'm actually not against that term, but is it actually an official term?
Quan Gan: That's all. No, at the malterm.
Malachi Burke: Oh, I see how it is.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay, see, look, hold on, hold on. No, it does say little tech.
Malachi Burke: Little tech, little tech, let me in. Yeah, it sure looks like that's what I wrote.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I think what we meant by that was the tech is supposed to feel almost transparent.
Malachi Burke: Which, go ahead, sorry.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and emphasizing the face-to-face interaction rather than you're buried into the screen, as opposed to VR or AR.
Malachi Burke: Certainly that is an intent. Can you show me the picture you've got again?
Quan Gan: Because I think I know what happened here. Oh, okay. Because this is an earlier, another picture.
Malachi Burke: I could send this one to you, too. Keep it there. Keep it there. Yeah, okay. Thanks. Thank you. I think you're right.
Quan Gan: What am I right about?
Malachi Burke: You're right that that sure looks like I wrote it and that we probably were talking about de-emphasizing gluing to the screen and keeping it all kind of small from an emotional, well, small in that context.
Quan Gan: And a better term, a more Shakespearean wordcrafted term.
Malachi Burke: I might be okay with little tech. I don't know. You know, it, that's kind of why I was asking, because like, is that a term we want to formalize? Is it already a formalized term?
Quan Gan: Because maybe, maybe that works for us. Okay.
Malachi Burke: Because it's a, it's a, a design goal feature of your system. a, small, Enough technology to be compelling and gluey, but not so much that you're just, you know, fall into it like a pit.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and that was really the original philosophy. was initially, it was kind of a limitation or not so much to be a bug, but it became a feature, which was, you know, in the very beginning, I told you we had a tiny LED badge. And it didn't have any other sensory input other than a single RGB LED. But what it proved was just the notion that that dumb blinking light can change a color gave enough motivation for people to start running around across a convention hall and screaming at each other.
Malachi Burke: Right. Right. Just enough stimulation to get them going, but not so much that they get lost in it.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah. then later on, it was also... You know, I can't have resources to build hyper-realistic graphics into here, but we didn't. You know, at first I was like, oh, maybe the UI needs to look really, really nice and clean with all sorts of icons. I didn't have time for it, so I just put big blank, you know, words and labels, but hey, it still got the game across.
Malachi Burke: And I agree with your assessment. Not only got it across, but got it away with personality and boldness and attention getting gusto without sending them down that rabbit hole. I want to call it 8-bit philosophy.
Quan Gan: Yeah, like the 8-bit feel because that's also, from a core brand identity, it's like this future retro that we're trying to hit.
Malachi Burke: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, I feel that. Okay, well, to be concerned. Continued, because some term would be nifty to toss around to capture that ZTAG design aesthetic. So we'll roll with little tech for now. Why not? So ZTAG promotes little tech philosophy, and then it goes on to pretty well capture the idea. Minimalist hardware UI to maximize physical social focus. Yeah, absolutely. Wearables provide just enough cues,.g. color changes for roles without distracting from movement. Yeah, definitely. You know, well done. Experience, devices feel like extension of the body. Sure. I mean, this is a vision design document, so that's important to capture. Vibrate on interactions, glow for status, encourages embodied learning. Running to seek matches, teaches coordination. Yeah, that one doesn't gel for me, that last sentence. Does it gel for you?
Quan Gan: I don't think we need it there. It'll probably probably be... be explained by me going into a little bit more detail on some of the games above it.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Okay. And I'm anticipating that this, and let me look at the whiteboard. Taste, that's what we called it. Let me see if it actually decided to use that. It did. I have a feeling as we build things out, physical development is going to lean slightly more technical, and taste is going to capture what the non-technical aspects of that would be.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And this is bugging me, so let's think about a better title for that. Physicality. I mean, I don't hate physicality. It just feels vague.
Quan Gan: So it's talking about, I mean, why not just call it hardware?
Malachi Burke: That might work. Normally, hardware gets technical real fast, but this is pronounced right from the beginning as a functional design document.
Quan Gan: Or just, how about just user hardware?
Malachi Burke: I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about it.
Quan Gan: For equipment?
Malachi Burke: Better. I would like some inclination of the interaction. Obviously, taste is where that really lives, right? But hardware and equipment, I'm open to it.
Quan Gan: I'm open. What about wearable or wearable equipment?
Malachi Burke: Something about wearable is hitting me probably. Positively, because that's more well capturing your goals, right? Well, I am open. I'm open to hardware. I'm open to equipment. And you could have wearable under that. Oh, yeah, we're not mentioning Zeus here anyway.
Quan Gan: So that would go directly into the ZTAGGER. Right. Wearable function?
Malachi Burke: I'm thinking about it.
Quan Gan: Or wearable functionality?
Malachi Burke: I'm thinking about it. Let's keep it simple. Hardware. Let's go with your hardware recommendation.
Quan Gan: Okay. So 2.2 will become hardware. Yeah. But why not wearable then? Because you seem to be positively responding to that.
Malachi Burke: I do. I'm thinking about it. Yep, either one. Either one works for me. Hardware feels more scientifically correct, and wearable feels more design correct. So they both work for me.
Quan Gan: would lean towards wearable then, so as to not confuse it with the actual hardware like ESP32.
Malachi Burke: Works for me. Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah. The 2.2 becomes wearable.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Awesome. And that's as far as I got in my notes.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: So how about we spend another 15 minutes grinding through the rest of this, and then we'll call it a day into... Pilar, 9 p.m.
Quan Gan: How does that sound to you? Sounds good to me.
Malachi Burke: Awesome. 2.3 Administration, The Playmaker, I like that it's mentioned in my name. Very good. ZJ, ZTAG DJ, I like that it captures that too. Seems to me, based on my conversation with you, that ZJ, ZTAG DJ should be the leading one and Playmaker should be in parentheses.
Quan Gan: The ZJ, I've rarely used, but it's kind of a way for me to describe it to people, because it has, the DJ reference is kind of a shortcut to know, okay, this person needs to know the vibe of the crowd, but the official term, we call them Playmakers.
Malachi Burke: Okay, then this is correct as is. Okay. Good to know. Orchestrates experiences, reading, audience, age. Group Dynamics to Select Sequence Games. Yeah, that's great. Experience, simple UI on ZEUS. It's acceptable to make incidental mentions of ZEUS here. Obviously, it got the spelling wrong, but I'm sure you're accustomed to that.
Quan Gan: I know. I hadn't made that choice a long time ago.
Malachi Burke: Central Hub, View Connected Players, Select Games Teams, Start With Sync Countdown, Post Games, Scoreboards, Foster, Group, Reflection. Right. It's a little interesting here because there may be no direct PlayMaker ZTAGGER device experience, right?
Quan Gan: What do you mean?
Malachi Burke: Well, the PlayMaker doesn't wear a ZTAGGER device, doesn't interact with a ZTAGGER device, doesn't use a ZTAGGER device, right?
Quan Gan: That's for the kids. Correct. I mean, they may. I mean, I would say... They, most likely, they may have at least once tried it as a person experiencing it before they became the playmaker.
Malachi Burke: Right. But at the moment that they were using it, they were not the playmaker specifically, right? They were as a player at that time.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: I could picture games where you would need, like, a playmaker doing things to the game.
Quan Gan: I could picture that. But this isn't talking about that. There is a request from some of our users that rather than being behind the Zeus and pressing buttons, that we would eventually turn one of these into, like, a special host ZTAGGER that they can go in the field and affect change.
Malachi Burke: That would be an awesome feature. So, the question for you is, do you see that as a valuable part of the vision?
Quan Gan: I do see it as a valuable part, yes. It wasn't something that I thought of until only recently because it felt like an obvious layer of separation, but in practice, once I'm on the field and trying to coordinate people, it would be so much more convenient if at the press of a button here I can stop and start things.
Malachi Burke: Makes sense to me. And probably fun for the playmaker, too. Probably more fun for them.
Quan Gan: want to be mixed in there. And then also, it's like, ZTAG, okay, so this is kind of another capture. It's, the overall system intends to give a single playmaker the most amount of agency over the largest number of people. Because normally, in any other thing where that's... Try to coordinate 20 people all at once, like 40 or 60, right? So if at the press of a button, I can start and stop all these games, but even right now, you're going to need other people like, you know, helping you put the taggers on if there's a lot of people or keeping them within a certain corral. But if this person could actually run in the field and say, I'm going to pause your game, or you get a yellow card, and basically be also the ref as well as the person who starts to stop the game, you've given him additional power, which increases that KPI of agency towards larger numbers of people.
Malachi Burke: I see it. I see it. You know, when you see that ref run out onto the field and blow the whistle and point at somebody, you know, that's different than hearing the announcer say, oh, you know, that guy's, you know, has to stop now, right?
Quan Gan: Exactly.
Malachi Burke: And you know that some of those refs are having a good time when they do it, too.
Quan Gan: Oh, yeah.
Malachi Burke: They get the spotlight. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay. So that would be valuable to mention, even though it's not on our immediate agenda, to capture that in this vision.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. I'll massage it in here somehow after this.
Malachi Burke: Awesome. Don't forget to use the hot oils when you do that. Massage that in there. Here's kind of a higher-level, almost technical question. In a lot of systems, a coordinator role, a – what do they call that with forums? Man, come on, brain. I have many hours left of work to do today.
Quan Gan: Moderator?
Malachi Burke: Moderator, thank you. That's the one. The moderator role. They're not administrators, right? They're like an administrator. So the question needs to be asked, is there an honest-to-goodness administrator role for the Zeus versus a player?
Quan Gan: For now, I think they're synonymous. I would say an actual admin might be more at the district level and administering in terms of deploying these systems to the various schools, and then hopefully getting a semi-annual report or something on the play metrics. So for reporting purposes, but not really much beyond that, versus the playmakers in the day-to-day and helping capture such data.
Malachi Burke: Good to know. That gives us a little latitude, because if there's no ambiguity, we can keep calling it administration for the time being, safely. Because it doesn't feel right to say Section 2.3 is playmaker. Something feels like it's being excluded when I say that. I like playmaker being mentioned. Under a section somewhere.
Quan Gan: Well, so I think maybe if there were other sections in here in administration, there might be things related to the maintenance of the ZEUS, not only the ZEUS, but also the firmware on these devices, because you're going to get updates. You're going to get updates and trying to make that as streamlined as possible.
Malachi Burke: Right. Good point. For example, the new factory test stuff we're putting in there.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Excellent point. So abstractly, 2.3 is seen as non-player roles.
Quan Gan: Right.
Malachi Burke: And that could be either a straight-up administrator, like you said, who's flashing new firmware, doing a factory test, or a playmaker, playmaker, playmaker. Who may never do any of those things. Although probably it'll be the same person, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah, and that's kind of a matter of our training eventually. It's like we want to get them up to a certain level of competence where they could do the updates themselves.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. So to self-regulate my rabbit hole tendencies, we'll just keep calling it administration, even though I think you and I agree there's actually a subtlety to these roles that goes beyond that. Mm-hmm. So then the only thing missing would be to mention that nifty idea about a playmaker being out there in the field interacting that way. That would be great to put that in here.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I like that.
Malachi Burke: Awesome. And I'm just fine leaving a casual mention of Zeus in here. Because this is an audience of humans trying to paint a picture, it's valid to say... Well, this is a thing outside the scope of the ZTAGGER, but we already know that. It's the Zeus. It's over there.
Quan Gan: It's just like, just so you know, this other stuff goes on. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Sweet. There's that word again, foster.
Quan Gan: Foster, kids?
Malachi Burke: Foster. I hadn't thought of that. I hadn't thought of that. Technical features, and this is one of those awkward, but probably necessary things. I mean, certainly I've got it in this list here, although AI misinterpreted it. That's actually supposed to be section four.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: So we want to move that kind of out of section. Well, you already understand. So let's see what the content says. User-facing features like offline play, quick... Think, and Paging Loss Devices Ensure Seamless Flow. Okay. None of those strike me specifically as a technical feature.
Quan Gan: Yeah, like, it has to support those, yes. Maybe it doesn't find itself in this section. And it's just allowing graceful recovery of various almost guaranteed uncertainties, you know, ranging from devices losing connection to something completely going offline, I don't know, or just a device resetting. Like, it has to have graceful ways to get back in somehow.
Malachi Burke: I agree completely. And as technical as those things sound, they can be largely described with the user. Experience of like, well, I went out of range. When I go out of range, I want this thing to pause and show me a little icon, et cetera, right?
Quan Gan: So sometimes there are games where you expect them to go out of range. So you can imagine starting a game locally and then actually sending them on a citywide scavenger hunt where they're completely offline. But the games are captured locally to their edge devices, and then when they come back, it gets re-synchronized.
Malachi Burke: Right. Right. So my thought for this is I think it extrapolated in the wrong direction for this one. Okay. Let me see what it has to say about the experience. Devices auto-sync on reconnect after wandering. So that's slightly technical. I'll give it that. Playmaker pages stragglers with buzzes. Yeah. That doesn't have to be technical.
Quan Gan: I feel like they're separate. Those should be like separate bullet points, I think. They're not really interrelated.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Yeah. And really, most of this really ought to just be moved somewhere else completely. So I think what I'm feeling about technical features is it's largely an official place to say, look in this other place for technical things.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: So I don't want to beleaguer the point, so I'm going to move forward to the next section, if that's okay with you.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: I loved that we arrived at taste. I felt that was kind of a minor victory.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: So ZTAG's flavor, you know, I like that word flavor when I'm coding, is modern novelty with intrinsic human elements. That is so frigging vague. I do not like that. Okay. Good. Exciting, Responsive, Inclusive, well, yes, that's a little better. Responsiveness, Experience Interactions, Feel Instant, okay, grew less than 300 millisecond, it's appropriate to get a little technical here, I like it. For example, Tag Triggers, See, Hear, Feel, Feedback, you were adamant on that one, I'm glad it captured that. Builds Trust Dopamine from Physical Actions, it almost captured it, it got so close to capturing the idea. Okay, okay, so before I come at you with my opinions, why don't you share how you feel about what it's described here?
Quan Gan: The word taste is still something I like, but the way it's describing it, I mean, then it's just saying flavor, it changed it. So I wouldn't even use flavor. Yes, fair. I think for me, the taste is actually a little bit more to what I was saying, this future retro feel of the game. It needs to have this synergy between something that is modern day today, but it has this kind of a throwback to an 80s or 90s era device. And has kind of the, you know, yeah, actually really the 8-bit captures it quite well. You know, this 8-bit feel where the technology limitation is also what makes it so endearing.
Malachi Burke: Right.
Quan Gan: Rather than here today, you got so overpowered with GPUs that we're kind of making Minecraft to make, you know, look like it.
Malachi Burke: Right, right. And because you're talking to an engineer, technically we're talking about... 16-bit games, but 8-bit is the terminology that rings the bell, right? Because you don't think of the original Wolfenstein, you think of Super Mario, right? Right. But I, and this is really critical stuff, because this is the thing AI is going to struggle with the most, is that really specific human inspiration you had for the feel of the game.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it's the, they call it the je ne sais quoi.
Malachi Burke: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
Quan Gan: Yeah, can't play in the words, yeah.
Malachi Burke: But we can, because we're good at it. Yeah. You know, when I was in a band, capturing the song could be very hard, because you get this inspiration for a song, then the song has a feel, okay? But as you know, the more time you spend analyzing anything, the more the feel kind of drifts away, and it turns into a math problem. Mm-hmm. So the trick with the song was to capture enough of the song, even in a crude fashion, so that- That feel lived on as you actually edited it and smoothed it out. And fortunately, you've got an intense enough vision that we're not beholden to that decaying feel effect. We can keep coming back and trying to capture it again. So that's why I think we're on the same page here. I'm like, yeah, this really tried. You can tell it really tried to capture your vibe. But I agree, like flavor is cute, but actually distracts from the point. Right. Perhaps the taste itself might require your handwriting, you know?
Quan Gan: Okay. I'll dig into that.
Malachi Burke: Okay. At least it captured the see, hear, feel thing.
Quan Gan: Mm-hmm.
Malachi Burke: Okay. And we're at the six o'clock marker.
Quan Gan: Yep.
Malachi Burke: Awesome.
Quan Gan: How much further down is there even?
Malachi Burke: Let's have a look here. So we're at 2.6. Let's go. You It looks like we got a solid halfway through it, maybe a little over halfway.
Quan Gan: Do you want me to do anything with this first capture and change the top section, or would you rather us do the rest at another session and then I do it once completely through?
Malachi Burke: I feel like you should do something with the first top capture. Okay. Strike while the iron is hot.
Quan Gan: Sure. I'll do that, and then it may be a subsequent document in this thread.
Malachi Burke: Is that okay? With your guidance. I'll probably need you to guide me through it, and yes.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Awesome, dude. Well done.
Quan Gan: Okay. I know you're probably, you're fried.
Malachi Burke: You know what? On a personal note, I am less fried. Spending time with my dad and immense supporting emotional force in my life. He, he... He... He's just a great guy to have around. I'm a little emotionally rejuvenated that way.
Quan Gan: That's great.
Malachi Burke: So my stopping now is to make sure I don't get fried.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, because I'll see you in three hours.
Malachi Burke: Absolutely. Well, I look forward to it. Good work today.
Quan Gan: Cool. Same here. Thank you. Bye.
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Malachi Burke: I understand. You know, it's one of those things where you know you went over the limit a little and you're not suffering, but if you push it harder, then you'll be in a bad way.
Quan Gan: Yeah, exactly.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. I wish I didn't understand that so well, but I do.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Unfortunately, we can commiserate. Yeah. Well, that's what happens when you don't end up killing yourself by accident as a 20- or 30-year-old is you end up like, oh, well, now I've lived long enough for these other things to start happening.
Quan Gan: Yeah, that's right. Well, anyways, I saw the interview test you just sent over. Right.
Malachi Burke: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Right. You want to go over that?
Malachi Burke: We can. It was, I didn't share it right away, not because it was any secret or anything, but just because it was in my... It was like personal notes that I'm like, well, this isn't a wiki, you'll see it, whatever. But then it occurred to me, well, just because I made the document doesn't mean that you actually knew it existed. That only occurred to me a couple of minutes ago, so I thought I'd share it.
Quan Gan: Sounds good. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, we can go over this. This is only, of course, the technical part.
Quan Gan: Right.
Malachi Burke: And again, these are more notes for us, although it's kind of constructed in a way where I guess we could turn it into a PDF and share it with them if we wanted to.
Quan Gan: I would, I mean, based on this, I would probably just share it right during the meeting.
Malachi Burke: Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Well, because I kind of touched on this a little bit. But, like, I do want to see how much AI they can use, but I think these things is fairly simple for the AI to set up, so I almost don't want them to use the AI.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Okay. Yeah, that was kind of my concern, was that, you know, being that we're not going to be watching them, really, they could use AI to answer this whole thing, whether they know it or not.
Quan Gan: Right.
Malachi Burke: But I thought of that, and today I added a couple more things that I'm pretty sure AI would struggle with.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And this will be good to ask you if you think it'll struggle with them, too.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: So all the things that are called AP are code for AI proofing.
Quan Gan: What does that mean?
Malachi Burke: That's my own term I invented so that nobody can deduce, except for you, that it's supposed to be hard. Okay. That way we can share it as a PDF and we can just, you know, say, oh, that's just kind of a company term.
Quan Gan: We don't have to tell them what that means. Okay.
Malachi Burke: So section 3.2, one of the bonuses is put this. It's all in a Git Repo and share it.
Quan Gan: Right.
Malachi Burke: And my experience is that AI has a rough idea of how to do that, but it'll probably get the Git Ignore a little bit wrong and things like that and might start adding extra bits and pieces that you wouldn't normally do.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: You know, AI might be able to pull it off, frankly, but we'll see.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And then the other bonus is performing GPIO input from ISR. the reason I think AI is going to have a little bit of a hard time with this is the way by which you create and configure in ISR has changed over the years for the different versions of ESPIDF. And I've noticed that, and you've noticed this too, where AI kind of just kind of mushes it all together. It thinks there's kind of like one meta API.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. The AI may, by default, look for the... And I know this only because Quincy and Ryan were bumping around and they reached that hurdle on IDF and it kind of took them a while to figure out. Right. So if you potentially say we want you to use a certain IDF version or I don't know, are we going to force them to do this on IDF or something else?
Malachi Burke: Well, excellent line of thoughts. First of all, I like the idea of specifying a particular IDF. And yes, I do want to do this on IDF. That being said, that would not be fair to throw at them at the last minute to suddenly have a different version of IDF than what they've got installed.
Quan Gan: Right. Well, I didn't actually tell them what their dev environment is to be at.
Malachi Burke: I simply told them to buy this thing. Right. Right. Okay.
Quan Gan: So do we ask them to show us how to install IDF?
Malachi Burke: That is probably a pretty brutal test. Let's email out tonight. I know it's a little late, but I don't think it's rude for us to specify tonight that we do expect them to have ESB IDF installed.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. Now, typically, with ESB IDF, it might already come with like a Hello World Blink type of thing. Right. So do we want them to at least get that up and running?
Malachi Burke: That's an interesting idea. I would make that a soft recommendation. Because if these guys, I know I keep saying this, if these people consider this a little senior in the embedded space, doing a test for the native SDK, and they haven't the slightest clue how to blink an LED, yeah, you might not be a senior. As in, if it didn't even occur to you, you know what I mean?
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: So it's kind of a test in and of itself, whether they even did that.
Quan Gan: to, like, basically, like, SATs at least fill in your name for 200 points.
Malachi Burke: Yes. Yes, exactly. We're not going to tell you you failed the test if you didn't put in your name, but it's going to be a lot harder to succeed.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: But I'm not against a gentle suggestion.
Quan Gan: Maybe I should just tell them that right now.
Malachi Burke: Okay.
Quan Gan: Well, it's not... not... Well, It's too late?
Malachi Burke: Hold on. Okay.
Quan Gan: Let's see. Okay. talk. Can we do the same version we're using? What was it, 5.3.2 or something?
Malachi Burke: Oh, that's a good point. Being that they are new to it, I would be easy on them and just let them install whatever version the thing wants to install. But I would, again, I would make the soft recommendation to install the 5.3. I run 5.3.3 on mine, but 5.3.2, 5.3.3, yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay, I'll do 5.3.3 because I think that's the latest, or that's a stable official.
Malachi Burke: No, the Stable Efficient one is 5.5 now.
Quan Gan: What I mean is closest to the 5.3 ones, 5.3 is what's on the documentation versus 5.3.2 is deprecated.
Malachi Burke: I see what you mean. And we'll probably want to move off 5.3.3 ourselves relatively soon, but that's incidental.
Quan Gan: So I'm going to say, would you be able to install ESP-IDF version 5.3.3 and get a simple hello world going before the interview tomorrow? This would give us a good starting.
Malachi Burke: And my recommendation is to mandate the ESP-IDF and suggest the hello world. That's what I recommend.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. Okay.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, because anybody using Windows is going to have to jump through some extra hoops to get that thing running.
Quan Gan: Okay. Let's see. Okay. So I'm saying, hello, would you be able to install ESP-IDF version 5.3.5 or 5.3.3 and then parentheses prerequisite for the test. End parentheses. And get a simple Hello World suggested going before the interview tomorrow. This would give us a good starting point. Thank you. Is that okay?
Malachi Burke: It sure sounds like we're mandating to do the Hello World from what I heard.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: But you know what? I've made my point. So it's not the end of the world.
Quan Gan: They really ought to do a Hello World. Okay. I'm going to fire away.
Malachi Burke: Okay.
Quan Gan: Thank you. Okay. I'm going to fire. fire. I'm going fire. I'm going to I'm going to I'm I'm going to I'm I'm going Okay. I shot it off for four people.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Awesome. Yeah. We did them a favor. Yeah. The last time I tried to bring it up under Windows, it took me about an hour.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. It could be even harder without the AI helping, because I kind of rely on the AI these days.
Malachi Burke: Right. You know what? In that regard, as I always say, their documentation is really pretty good. So in this unique case, I think they'll be okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay. For the Blink LED, how are you going to test the quality of their code?
Malachi Burke: Okay. Well, I'm going to eyeball it, right? I'm going to look at it. Because it's going to be easier to see their code than the actual LED blinking.
Quan Gan: Right. Yeah. So I'm just wondering, is it... Just purely looking at how their code is written or have some kind of serial output with timing.
Malachi Burke: My plan was to evaluate their code directly.
Quan Gan: Okay. That's fine.
Malachi Burke: And what do you think of that bonus task of putting it into a Git repo?
Quan Gan: I think that's important.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Okay. And I was kind of kicking around what you were already saying, which is like, well, I don't even know if we actually have to do 3.1. Maybe not. Maybe we can jump to 3.2.
Quan Gan: Let me see if I can take what you've put and just – I'm going to rinse it through AI and see if it can come up with some other tests too. And then we can throw it out, but at least, you know, just get some other brainstorming ideas. Okay.
Malachi Burke: So do we plan on On just turning off the screen for 20 minutes and letting them do their thing? Are we going to watch over their shoulder? What do you think we should do there?
Quan Gan: I'm thinking we turn off our screen and we watch them.
Malachi Burke: All right. So we're just kind of like a Yenta, just poking our nose in as they code. That's – yeah.
Quan Gan: Watch them sweat. Right. Let's see. Hold on. Let's – Okay. It gave me quite a bit. You want me to just jump through some of the bullets, and then you can tell me about it?
Malachi Burke: Maybe share your screen so we can look at them together.
Quan Gan: Okay. I'm on my phone, though, so I can share my phone. Yeah, it'll be small. Do you see this?
Malachi Burke: I do. Power Management is sleep. Okay, let me read this. Require user sleep. don't have a cannon, CPR, wake up, configure it, bonus, optimize, wake up, latency. I mean, we're only giving them about 30 minutes to do the test. That would be pretty hard for them to get that right in 30 minutes. They could do it, but it'd be a little harder.
Quan Gan: Okay, you want me to – let me just say They only have 30 minutes.
Malachi Burke: Yeah.
Quan Gan: 30. Give me tests. Whoops.
Malachi Burke: Well, 3.5 is not bad.
Quan Gan: Reasonable for senior dev and high signal. Okay. A button to toggle the blinking on and off. Hmm.
Malachi Burke: I mean, that's kind of, it echoed back what I wrote.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: I liked its I2C idea. I hadn't thought of that, partially because I rarely use I2C.
Quan Gan: Okay. Where do we have it?
Malachi Burke: Up here?
Quan Gan: wow, it's got a whole bunch of them. Okay. It was a lot.
Malachi Burke: Where was the ITC? 3.5, right. Because that M5 part does have some I2C peripherals on it.
Quan Gan: Oh, yeah, that's right.
Malachi Burke: I would struggle to judge their correctness on that one, but it would be a good test, so I'll add it. Let me take a note here. What's it have for the 3.6 and the 3.7 and stuff? Okay. 3.7. Introduce a similar multiple task exchange messages, event groups, eye-conditioning. Yeah, I mean, that is a good one. I'm going to make that a non-bonus thing. That's a good one. So I'm going to say add cur handling. Yeah. And the state machine, I'm not going to have the mad hair handling to that because state machine is kind of their own creature.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, no OTA.
Quan Gan: Let's skip that one. That's too hard.
Malachi Burke: Okay. What else does it say on two down here at the bottom? Does it have any others? Why this compressive signal is here. Right. Right. Short discussion. Okay, let's see what it says about these questions. You need to persist the LED state across reboots. That's a good question, although that's pretty hard to actually answer in a way that you could say that's anything other than right. You know, it's like, yeah, we'd put it in the NBS. Well, yeah, obviously. But it's a good discussion. Well, let's bring that up. And then what's your approach, race conditions? A good conversation. I don't think any of the candidates we talked to is going to be able to answer that. Honestly, I think we're going to probably run out of time anyway. Okay. So I think, I mean, how much time did you anticipate for the actual coding portion? much time did did to how think it's Oh, 30 minutes, right? Or is there more?
Quan Gan: Yeah, 30. 30 minutes. Oh, hey, Mal, can I call you right back?
Malachi Burke: My wife is actually calling me.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay, I'll be right back.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Welcome back.
Quan Gan: Welcome.
Malachi Burke: I'm turning on my video. No worries.
Quan Gan: Okay. I'm on my video.
Malachi Burke: I'm on my video.
Quan Gan: You've got to be comfortable. She's okay.
Malachi Burke: I told you where she went, right? I don't recall. She's in Costa Rica doing an ayahuasca journey. Oh, that's right.
Quan Gan: I was like, okay, you're still alive.
Malachi Burke: Good. Wow. Is she getting something out of that?
Quan Gan: I'm sure. Good. I was like, okay, I'll call you back in like half an hour as long as nothing life-free. She's She's like, okay, it's fine. That's pretty awesome that she's doing that. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Do I still have screen share or is it gone?
Malachi Burke: It went away. Let's bring it back, please.
Quan Gan: One second. Okay. You see it?
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Yeah. So I'm going to scroll up a little so I can see the discussion points are brought up. Those are interesting ones. We'll bring it up. How would you persist? I mean, you wouldn't want to persist LED state, but what would we persist that would be more interesting? Maybe like a counter? Oh, the state machine state.
Quan Gan: That would be good. Okay. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: And it's better to leave that open because there's actually two different ways to do that.
Quan Gan: So it would be interesting to hear which one they chose. Okay.
Malachi Burke: What's your approach for avoiding race conditions or deadlocks at the system scales to four or five interacting tasks?
Quan Gan: That's actually pretty good verbatim. So I'm just going to transcribe that.
Malachi Burke: Okay. What's your approach for avoiding? You're not talking about right now. Thank That's a really open-ended question, too. And then, how would you structure OTA? Yeah, I don't know. We'll leave that one for another time.
Quan Gan: The first question touches on something that we've experienced, which was on a regular basis, maybe like every 10 seconds or so, we write to MVS our latest state. But during that time, it actually causes a noticeable pause in the game fluidity.
Malachi Burke: Right. Right.
Quan Gan: So I'm curious how you would solve it and how they might solve it, talk about solving that.
Malachi Burke: Well, let's take five minutes and talk about that.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: First of all, that's... It's a terrible idea, firstly. And the reason is because even with tiny, tiny, tiny little bits of data, you're going to wear out your MVS doing that.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Even if they're, like, over time, they're moving it to different locations?
Malachi Burke: I revised my statement, right. The ESPIDF MVS Wrapper API, there's a high-level API and a low-level API. Indubitably, you're using the high-level one. It does do wear leveling. So I retract my statement. However, you still do run into the other thing, right? And if memory serves, it'll only block the task, not the whole CPU. Okay. So as long as you make sure that that particular task, or I mean core, it might block the whole core. pace for I think – Blocks the whole core. So you have to be sure that you have like a lower priority core happening at that time. It might only block the task, though. That might be the case. So I would look into that. But really, I wouldn't do either of those things because for that frequency, you'd probably rather use RTC anyway.
Quan Gan: What is that, the real-time clock?
Malachi Burke: Yeah, and it's a euphemism because in the Espressif world, they call the battery-backed RAM that the real-time clock uses RTC RAM. Okay.
Quan Gan: And there's a – go ahead. Do you know if we have that? Do we have that in the M5 right now?
Malachi Burke: Pretty sure we do.
Quan Gan: There's an actual battery? I don't know of like a button cell battery in there, though.
Malachi Burke: So pretty sure that as long – right, I see where you're going with this. Let me think about that. How does that work in my world? world? Right, because you pull the power, and the battery's not even powering the thing up when you pull the power. So that would be the thing is, I'm used to using it in sleep mode, because it stays alive when your device is asleep.
Quan Gan: Right, yeah, we pull the power, and I think the reason why we decided MBS was, the ZTAGGERS are considered expendables or consumables over time. so even if under the wear leveling, if it can last anywhere more than three years, we call it good.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, understand. Makes sense. So it comes down to the slightly better way would be to use RTC, but only slightly. But in order to achieve that, you'd have to rework your power management, and you already have that on the dock. It's kind of a big, long journey. So that's not a good short-term solution. So then we'd go down the other path, which is, what is the nature of the blocking? Is it a core-level block? It's not going to be a dual-core-level block, almost for sure. Or is it a task-level block?
Quan Gan: And figure out how to manage it from there. Yeah, because we really just want to just very quick store the game state, so that if and when the device resets in between the period, it at least doesn't wipe out too much of its progress, and it can get somewhat back to where it needs to be, especially if it's in-game.
Malachi Burke: Right. Well, keep in mind, if it actually resets, the RTC RAM will be intact.
Quan Gan: Why is that?
Malachi Burke: Because the RTC RAM, it's battery-backed RAM, but in the case of a reset, you always had battery power.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. Yeah, I don't think we've ever explored that, so I wouldn't be able to speak on it.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, no worries. You could do a combo, right? You could do RTC every five seconds. You could do NBS every other minute or something. That's getting exotic. The way you're doing it, if we can mitigate the slowdown, I think NBS is fine. Okay. Honestly. Because what is it, like 100 bytes or something that you're writing?
Quan Gan: Probably way less than that.
Malachi Burke: Right. There's a shitload of flash on there, so it's going to have a lot to wear level through. I think you'll be all right. Yeah. They're good questions. And that will be the kind of thing that I hope they would talk about, too, without prompting.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And I wanted to, so if they've got 30 minutes, and then that leaves 25 minutes for the other things, which feels pretty comfortable. kind thing thing And So And I think we both agree we've learned that we actually have to be a little bit enforcing about those last few minutes because they tend to get away from us.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: And you've done a pretty good job there.
Quan Gan: Okay. So, well, right now, the only thing I have is the previous agenda, which was 60 to 75 minutes. So what about that do we want to shrink down?
Malachi Burke: Right. Well, let's look at this. So the introduction and agenda makes sense given that we've already done an introduction, so we don't need a big one now.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: And let me look at this technical system. We might give them a blurb about our system, something that doesn't require an NDA.
Quan Gan: Right.
Malachi Burke: So maybe five or ten minute blurb about
Quan Gan: Do you want to talk about that?
Malachi Burke: Yeah, I think we both should. Okay. I think we should just kind of tag team them on that one.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And it says 15 minutes hands-on coding or code review. Feels like that ought to be expanded a little bit.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Because probably they'll only have a – with 15 minutes, I don't think they'll get past just one of these.
Quan Gan: And it would be nice if they could do 3.2 and 3.3.
Malachi Burke: Okay. I don't think they'll be able to do it. That's pretty aggressive to do both of them.
Quan Gan: Okay. So is the 35-minute one, the second bullet, going to be drastically reduced then? I feel like it will be. Okay. So like no more than 10 minutes on that?
Malachi Burke: I feel like no more than 10 And so that puts that at 15 minutes. And that gives us 10 minutes left of non-coding time, according to the current plan. Because we have a total of 55 minutes in the meeting, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: So I'm thinking really we only do one of these questions. But I guess we could give them both, right? Say, you know, do as much of these as you can, right?
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Does that seem too aggressive to you?
Quan Gan: No. think let's just see how many they can power through it. Okay. Yeah. And should – yeah, so I would ask that they screen share. And we just – we turn off our cameras and then just see them work through it.
Malachi Burke: I think that's reasonable. It's little bit high pressure, but it's reasonable, right? I I mean – It is an interview, after all. Yeah. I just know that I would hate it if somebody interviewed me that way.
Quan Gan: Okay. Well, what were the interviews for you like?
Malachi Burke: You know, I didn't get a lot of virtual hands-on coding tests. But frankly, my interviews have been pretty anemic. I think I've only had like nine in the last three years. Nobody responded, which is kind of sad. So perhaps that happens more often. But in the past, it would be on a whiteboard, is what would happen.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Let's do it. Let's do it. It's 2025. Let's try this modern approach.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And I do want that last 10 minutes so that you have a comfort zone, you know, wrapping it up as a human that you've been trying to do. I think that's a really good idea.
Quan Gan: Okay. Sounds good. Okay. Anything you think I'm...
Malachi Burke: Yes. It's not related to interviews, though.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Two people who are important in my life have expressed interest in your project.
Quan Gan: Oh, interesting. Okay. Should I stop share for now? Yeah. Okay.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. So one of them is my dad.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: His ears perked up, and he's kind of curious about some of the problems we're trying to solve.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And the other interested party is a buddy of mine, Joe Osgood, who I used to tutor like years and years ago, but he was already a good programmer. He wanted to expand his knowledge into other areas, and we became good friends. And he has also expressed an interest. He heard me talking about some of the C++ things I'm working on. And he's kind of like, oh, that's kind of neat that you're...
Quan Gan: Working on that.
Malachi Burke: And I was wondering if you were open to just a dinky smattering of hours for individuals such as these.
Quan Gan: I'm certainly open to it, but I want to ask you a few questions. Yeah. So technically, where do you think they stand relative to these people we're hiring? Or I don't know if that's even the right question to ask, which is, are they kind of orthogonal to these people, or might they actually do what these people would be doing?
Malachi Burke: Right. Excellent question. Starting with how they compare, I would say Joe would be right in between my level and who we're interviewing. He's right in the middle between them. So he's probably a lot more qualified. Then they are outside of the embedded thing. So that's the thing he wouldn't be more qualified in. But his language, Command of the Language, is very, very strong. He's a killer communicator. But like River, River is a great communicator too. So there's that. As far as my dad goes, well, he's about as more capable in the embedded space compared to me as I am to the guys you've got now.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. I mean, that's certainly interesting. So in your opinion, where would they fit in?
Malachi Burke: In my opinion, Joe would be tantamount to moral support for me. I would expect about five hours a week from him to come in and look over my shoulder and pair program with me once in a while.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And my dad would be good for like, we're having this conversation about IR. I brought it up to him. He goes, oh, yeah. He goes, when I worked for Citibank, we had... We an IR system, and we had to do this and do time division, but it didn't work because of that. And then we had to do it. I'm like, holy . But I don't know how much participation or where in the team would be comfortable to put my dad. I'm sure we'd find a spot. Whereas Joe, I know exactly where he would slot in.
Quan Gan: Okay. Now, do you see it as something small that can grow, or do you see them as kind of like a hired gun for a particular snippet or some kind of defined scope?
Malachi Burke: I see them as the latter. I would not preclude the former, but it's not the way I'm picturing.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: My dad is going to end up retiring at some point. Right. And Joe, I don't know what his goal is, frankly, other than... I know that he has limited time to contribute at this time.
Quan Gan: they both? Well, your dad's not quite local, right? And what about Joe?
Malachi Burke: You know, ironically, they're both not local, but they're close to each other, which is kind of funny.
Quan Gan: Okay. So how would they actually contribute? Would you give them a few of your devices and then just see if they can work independently or what?
Malachi Burke: Yes, asterisk. Yes, asterisk. Asterisk being my dad's got plenty of devices already, so I wouldn't have to give them any. Joe, I'd give a few.
Quan Gan: Okay. And do you think your dad would be able to solve whatever we're trying to solve with his platform, even if it's not identical to ours?
Malachi Burke: He would want the exact. I see what you're saying. I didn't understand the question. We would send him some ZTAggers. He would have some on hand. But knowing my dad, he'd buy a bunch of M5-stack stuff too, knowing him. Okay. So it's not a hard sale. You know, I've been hesitant to bring it up because we're pretty overwhelmed already. I don't want to overwhelm us more, but it's been in my mind, and I wanted to bring it up.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I mean, my general direction is the more people that we can help hour-wise, the better. But I'm also mindful that managing them might be additional overhead for you. So I'm just looking at the net gain or if there's diminishing returns. But if you think they are able to help, I'll defer to your best judgment, and then we can allocate funds slash whatever that scope needs to be.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Well, I mean, that sounds awesome. And you and I are thinking the same thing. Like, that's part of my hesitation. I'm like, man, I am maxed out. Um, but, um, let me reflect on that, and I really appreciate your openness to it.
Quan Gan: Yeah, okay. Sounds good.
Malachi Burke: Awesome. And that's all I've got.
Quan Gan: Okay. Well then, um, if that's all, then I will see you tomorrow. Let's see what time. Uh, our first one, our first one's at 10.30.
Malachi Burke: Are you okay with that? Yes.
Quan Gan: Okay. And then also, uh, you've confirmed that, uh, Arun accepted for 5 p.m., so you're okay with 5 to 6? Yes. Okay.
Malachi Burke: It's actually better for me.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and we get a little bit of break in between instead of four hours continuous.
Malachi Burke: That would be pretty painful.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah. But at least we do get everything done tomorrow.
Malachi Burke: We do. Yeah. And you have a habit of getting, uh, things done, and I respect the hell out of that.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: you. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Awesome, dude.
Quan Gan: See you tomorrow.
Malachi Burke: I'm going to log off and call my wife back. Okay. Well, best wishes. Feel better. And I hope her spiritual journey is full of enlightenment and joy. Oh, thank you so much. All right. See you. See you later, dude. Bye.
Quan Gan: Hey, good to see you.
Malachi Burke: I didn't expect to talk to you until tomorrow. Oh, okay.
Quan Gan: No, I, yeah.
Malachi Burke: Hmm. Hate it when that happens. I'm going to check my own ping, make sure I'm not a Yeah, my ping seems to be okay.
Quan Gan: Wait, can you see me now, again?
Malachi Burke: Hmm, yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, think my laptop ran out of batteries, and I think it was underpowered.
Malachi Burke: Wow. That makes sense. Yeah, I was just working on the IR code, just bits and pieces here and there. I figure, you know, we take this opportunity to do it sort of right. I'm not going to be, like, ultra-perfectionist about it, but it kind of makes sense because as I, quote-unquote, do it right, I get to learn about this.
Quan Gan: Adjacent Pieces as I go. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: And the downside is it violates the policy. don't really want to be off on like some branch forever. It's, you know, it's bad for progress, but I know how to mitigate that. So I'm being careful.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Hey, Basim. Hey, Basim.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Hey, guys. Hey.
Quan Gan: Will Sean join us soon?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Let me just call him and remind him.
Malachi Burke: And Quan, you'll like this. There's a unofficial feature, but it's kind of like a little chunk is carved out for it of what I call an abbreviated packet.
Quan Gan: Abbreviated packet?
Malachi Burke: Okay. And the abbreviated packet, I haven't identified specific use cases for it yet, but it was easy. It was easy to toss it in there. there.
Quan Gan: And an abbreviated packet is four bytes total. Oh, that's cool.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. It's got the ZT to consistently have that. It's got a version indicator, and then it's got a mini hash in there, and then it's got one byte of actual data.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: So it seems to me we might have like some advanced backoff, which might do some specialized announcements that could, maybe that'll benefit from that.
Quan Gan: Yeah. I do see the need for a more robust mesh network. Yeah. Probably sooner rather than later. Okay. In hosting the games yesterday, I realized the V3, because the antennas are actually internal to the lid rather than being exposed, we might have some reduction in range.
Malachi Burke: Mm-hmm.
Quan Gan: I want to see how we can mitigate with... Having the ZTAGGERS build their own mesh and repeat the signals out.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Well, as you well know, on one hand, that is non-trivial. On the other, I am fully up to the task. Absolutely. And I almost look forward to it because I've had a couple of my own projects that I wanted to mesh just like what you need, and I just, you know, didn't do it.
Quan Gan: Yeah, that sounds exciting. I know you can do it.
Malachi Burke: Thank you. Thank you for your confidence. The project that I was going to do was I used to ride in a club with a bunch of other bikers, and occasionally we'd lose somebody. We'd take a turn and they'd be gone. And so I wanted to do a Laura mesh.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: But as you would imagine, by its very nature, it needs to be a highly self-healing network because you never know which one of them is going to.
Quan Gan: Drop Off, right?
Malachi Burke: Right. And I immediately ran into the same problem you did. Well, I was like, yeah, they say they're self-healing, but it's kind of a lie.
Quan Gan: Right. Hmm. So how far did you get with that project?
Malachi Burke: I didn't get far with the IR part. focused, or not the IR part, the radio part. Okay. Because I'm like, I had this idea that, no, I'm just not understanding mesh well enough. Somebody has got this problem solved, so I'm not going to try to solve that. So I focused on battery uptime and the app that ran on Android is what I focused on.
Quan Gan: Well, I think as an entryway, AI can certainly give us existing best practices in several fields that we're curious about, just kind of like a quick download. And if it gives us a lay of the land, we could probably work with it to come up with a protocol that we think is at least reasonable to test.
Malachi Burke: I'll think about about it. I'll think about it. One thing we should absolutely ask is if there is a mesh standard that does this now. That we should definitely see. There was one that began with a 7, which said it did something like this. But yeah, anyway, that's my take. That's where I'm coming from.
Quan Gan: You know, this and kind of touching upon motion capture, which I have a project. don't know if you see the cameras in my background, but those are all high-speed mo-cap cameras. With the future vision of what we want to do, there's not enough mainstream applications currently to push a lot of these necessities into being, because it's a little bit too niche at this moment. So the pressure... For those type of nice, low-latency, fast healing features, there's not enough pressure yet.
Malachi Burke: I'm just so, you're probably right, but I just, it's hard for me to believe it. Does that make sense? I'm not actually arguing, I think you're right, just wow.
Quan Gan: Well, I mean, that was my same sentiment, at least when I did my research a few years ago. It could be overcome, definitely, but when I did my first scope, to get to this, yeah, I had the same reactions. Like, I can't believe no one else has, right. Because, okay, for like motion capture, you want low latency is not a huge thing, because most of it is actually for broadcast-ready type of applications, so they can add 30 seconds or remove the latency in post. It's not like, live is not even considered super live.
Malachi Burke: Right.
Quan Gan: Until you're trying to do... AR or VR, right? Like where you're live in the loop. But yeah, this fast healing. I mean, in most of ESP32's market, let's just say it's IoT, these are stationary objects that you move occasionally. Right.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Right.
Quan Gan: Right. So who on this planet, other than ZTAG, really needs like fast tracking of highly mobile assets?
Malachi Burke: I would conjecture many, but I'd be wrong, apparently. Yeah, I know. Like my dad wanted something like that, too. He was, my dad's such a nut. He had all these motorized robots, you know, to play soccer with each other on a field. And it's just the robots playing. It's very similar to what you're doing. And he's like, he had this whole Wi-Fi mess problem.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Well, sounds like something, I would give it a. There's 10%, 20% chance that it's something we might end up doing a patent on.
Quan Gan: I think there's definitely that possibility, yes.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. And I look forward, that would be so, I've been wanting to do that for a long time. Here's a good opportunity.
Quan Gan: This is awesome. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Sean.
Shan Usmani: Hi, guys.
Malachi Burke: How are you? Good. How are you?
Shan Usmani: Yeah, good as well.
Malachi Burke: Faisal, we don't get to talk to him anymore.
Shan Usmani: Where is he?
Malachi Burke: My buddy.
Shan Usmani: He's actually traveling for like a couple of days now, or at least it's a week now. So he'll most probably be coming back, I think, tomorrow. So he might be joining in the next meeting.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Sweet. Sweet.
Shan Usmani: Okay, think we can begin. Basim, have you provided the update?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Not yet, Sean.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, so I'll just provide my update. So I've been a bit occupied on some personal things this week. So I did not spend a lot of time. But yeah, I did a bit of work. So I did make the commits that I did before yesterday. And then I started looking into the unit tests as well. I was able to get them running. So I think, yeah, there were 15 or 17 tests were being running. So not much detail right now. But I'll share more when I'm able to. But yeah, I think I was able to get the unit tests running.
Malachi Burke: Oh, that's great.
Shan Usmani: changes required in the middleware. There were some errors. But yeah, I was able to fix those. So, yeah. That's the update on my end, Basim.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, so, Mal, I've seen that you have approved the Phase 3 PR, so that's good. And I've also committed the Phase 4, like yesterday, but I hadn't created the PR because, you know, they are both linked, the 83 branch and 85 branch. So I'll raise the PR, if you wanted, I could like raise the PR right now or after this meeting. And then, so the Phase 4 is complete, the speaker test is complete. And I'll be now moving towards the IMU test, the X-Romirant Gyroscope test. So, yeah, I've been working, like, I'll start working on it after, like, today. So, hopefully, that would be completed by, I guess, Monday. Yeah, and afterwards, then, I had some other things, like, battery management. Like a battery test, just let me pull out my notes, where are them, yeah, so what was left, it's power IC, com check, and Wi-Fi scan, so after the IMU test, these two tests would be left, and then like this, you know, factory test would be complete. Obviously, we would have other iterations as well, but yeah, that's it from my side.
Malachi Burke: Very nice. Thank you, Basim. Well, that's great. And IR crawls along over here. It's been over the hump for a little while now, and the compilation can be switched into one of three modes. It's the legacy modes. The which was there before, the mode we've got now, which I'm calling V1 packet, and then the mode that I'm working on, which is V2 packet. So you can flip a switch to go to either of them. And that's a little excessive. In the end, we're not going to need that. But in the short term, to get the testing really rigorously correct, it's nice to be able to switch between the V1 and the V2 to make sure that we didn't lose something along the way. And in addition to that, little by little, although the ZEUS is still in a closed box, the synthetic ZEUS, that's what I'm calling it, where I'm running the Node.js on my local box, with the help of Shan and Basim, is working pretty well now. So that's pretty nice as well. So little by little, I've got various different ways that I can be flexing this IR code to make sure it's really... Really doing what it's supposed to be doing. And a technical detail that we really don't need to go into too much, but it's kind of fun, is that one of the things that the existing IR code does is it spins up and spins down your decoder and allocates and deallocates the buffer memory for every send. And, you know, the ESP is quick and we've got a lot of RAM, so it's not killing us, but I don't think that's necessary. So I'm kind of baking in kind of an optimization along the way that we don't, I'm going to avoid spinning that up and spinning it down. It might be that we have to for some reason, and if we do, you know, that won't be hard to back off. But it's kind of neat, you know, here's an opportunity to reduce our load a little bit. And that's really the entirety of my IR packet status update. And dude, that's, I'm excited about the unit test, Sean. I'm really looking forward to that. That's another, any way, any facet by which we can test things is going to speed up and isolate issue finding so much better. So really, thank you for doing that.
Quan Gan: Mal, could you give me a quick rundown on what the approach for unit tests are?
Malachi Burke: Unit tests are, you can think of them, if you're thinking about it in context of a QA person, unit tests are low-level engineer-only tests that are automatable. And so what that means is frequently teams don't get around to fully automating them, but by design, they're supposed to be something that can run per commit or something like that. And... And... At a minimum, they run more or less like a whole suite of them at once. And what they do is they, you can think of it as, think of all the code, and it kind of is this way, it's like this interweaving web of logic. And the more unit tests you have, the easier it is to figure out if one kind of broke something touching some other part. Although technically that's what we call an integration test, but they tend to fall into unit tests as well.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. So that makes sense. I'm just curious, what's the current directive with our code? What unit tests are we adding?
Malachi Burke: Oh, I don't know. There are some existing unit tests that have been dormant, it appears, for some time. So what those are, I couldn't say. The general policy, which I'm going to recommend, but it's not active right now, is... ... So it's like a should write a unit test for every piece of code that you write, but it's not a must. There are all kinds of conditions where maybe you wouldn't. For example, unit testing a UI doesn't really make a lot of sense usually.
Quan Gan: Okay. So like for Sean, what sections was he completing?
Malachi Burke: Sean was rescuing the unit test. They were broken. As in, they wouldn't even build properly. It looked like just some what we call code rot, where it's fine code, but it was meant for an earlier version of whatever.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Is that what you ran into, Sean, or was it something else?
Shan Usmani: No, yeah, that's exactly what it's happening. So initially when tried to build it, there were some errors. But after a while, I was able to get them working. So I'll share a screenshot as well. So I think there are a total 17 unit tests. Right now, but out of those 15 are working and two are, I think, failing or something, I don't exactly remember. But yeah, now we can compile the code and run those.
Malachi Burke: Great. Great. And unit testing and automated testing in embedded space is always kind of nuanced. When you're in like a desktop space or server space, unit tests are like a slam dunk. You just write them for everything. But in embedded space, when you've got like a, let's say you've got a thermometer on there, it's like, well, how do you unit test what happens when you hit 90 degrees if nothing's generating 90 degrees? So you get what you call mocking, where you pretend to generate the signal, but then you need a mocking system. And it gets, so we have a gentle touch with unit tests in embedded, but we do need to do them.
Quan Gan: Right. Makes sense.
Malachi Burke: And the last thing I will say about that is for that, for the. The reason of that nuance, that's why I like to have what I call a dev tool, which is an additional firmware. So we're going to have a unit test firmware, our application firmware, then a dev tool is like a sliced down version of our app that is only for testing purposes. So it comes up quicker, it's got less functionality, and it's tuned for like a very advanced field tester or one of us. That comes later. I'm excited about the unit test. Like, anyway, I said that was the last thing I was going to say, and I'm not going to lie. So I'm done. Thank you, Sean.
Quan Gan: Sean, Fathom, what do you guys have planned next?
Shan Usmani: Yeah, on my end, basically, I'll continue looking into the unit test for now. Mel, if there is anything else, you can let me know. I Yeah. I VASIM, I think he's going to complete his phases for the factory test.
Muhammad Basim Ali: VASIM, how much is remaining right now? Yeah, Shan. So QuanWeb basically broke the factory test into seven phases, and out of those seven, four are completed, and three are already merged into develop. So there's only three left that I had to work on.
Quan Gan: Okay. Now, what's your recommendation?
Malachi Burke: Well, everything appears to be on track, what I'm hearing. It would be nice to have an additional thing for Shan to chew on, but I don't know what it would be at this time. I do have my agenda, but that's kind of looking backwards, not looking forwards, if that makes sense.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Let me look at our issues, see if there's anything in here.
Quan Gan: Do we want to... want I'm look Work through your agenda first, and then we can come back to it?
Malachi Burke: Either way. Either way.
Quan Gan: Yeah, how about let's switch gears and do that, and then maybe through that conversation we can figure out next steps too.
Malachi Burke: Sure, okay.
Quan Gan: Thank you.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, thank you. So I'll start with PR number 71, the Small Diagnostic Panel Fonts, and that's had a bit of a journey, but it's pretty good at this time. And I would like to direct everybody to Discord, because that's where I put my notes on that one. And this is actually pretty technical, but I think we can get through it pretty quickly. So it's in the Nexus dev, and Sean, let me know when you're there in Discord, please.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, I'm there.
Malachi Burke: Okay, great. So the first thing I want to say is it's approved and it could be merged now. so go. so let's Okay, Thank So it's okay. But with that said, I'm holding off on the merge because I'd like you to look at that feature, Small Diagnostic Panel Fonts Proposed. Made a small change because the code that you've got for the standard string is doing a little bit of a fancy thing with the standard move. And I don't think we need to be quite that fancy, so I did a minor change to kind of not use standard move.
Quan Gan: I don't have my place. Could you tell me which message it's pertaining to?
Malachi Burke: Sorry. Yeah, under Nexus Dev, it's at 6.20 p.m.
Quan Gan: yesterday. Okay, let's see. Quite a few dollars. Okay, got it.
Malachi Burke: Thank you. Yeah. And other things to note, the commit convention, again, we want lowercase for the scope. Some Pascal case made its way in there. And we've got the line buffer variable, and because you've value initialized, you know, null initialized the line buffer, that result pointer equals zero was kind of unnecessary, but it all works, you know, it all looks like it works to me. So this is just kind of stuff for next time. And my last comment here is, yeah, the code comment for character pointer value, let me go see what that actually was. I'm going to have to go open it in the proper spot here. So if I go to alt, I pick on code comments a lot. It's just a thing, because my philosophy is a bad code comment is going to be worse than no comment, you know, and if you want no comment, you could have saved the time and not really. in the comment at all. Although, with that said, I like to have good comments. So I'm looking for, okay, and I'm in the right spot. Let me just go find it. I'm just going to read off the comment rather than making everybody go to the code. So let me go there. Okay. So the comment says safety wrapper for non-const strings, which is not bad. You know, that's not bad. I would only, I would augment that to say what the use case really is. Non-const is probably clear enough. That's why it's not bad. But you probably want to say, for example, a character bracket 10 or something. Just because this is kind of an odd, hard to understand use case possibly. But it's good. You know, it's a good comment overall. That's why I just approved the thing. So, Sean, I request have a look at the proposed one, and if it looks good to you, maybe you merge that. It'll be a fast-forward into yours, and it'll be pretty clean. And if there's something you think, you know, is not so great about it, let's talk about it, okay?
Shan Usmani: Okay, Mal, so I don't see any comment on GitHub, or did you, like, push the code on the branch?
Malachi Burke: So how do I check it? I pushed it onto a separate branch that branched off of your branch.
Shan Usmani: Okay, what's the name?
Malachi Burke: It's called Feature Slash Small Diagnostic Panel Fonts Proposed.
Shan Usmani: Okay, got it.
Malachi Burke: It rolls off the tongue. It's a song lyric. Let me make sure I actually pushed it. I usually do, but I'm going to double-check here one second. back in the So Hmm. Did I not push it? I'm sure I did. Let me go triple check here.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, I can see that proposed grunge.
Malachi Burke: Okay, great. Great. And is everybody here familiar with what a get fast forward is?
Quan Gan: Can you describe it?
Malachi Burke: Yeah. It's a special variety of merge where Git has noticed that no complicated merge really needs to happen. That instead, if it pretty much updates to the newest thing, then all the merge changes will happen smoothly. So it doesn't do a typical merge. It just kind of looks like a regular commit. And it's a nice clean way to do things when you can. And that isn't all the time. But in this case, if Shan likes what's on that big long branch name, he can do a merge onto his branch and it'll automatically do a fast forward and it'll be super clean.
Quan Gan: Okay. I'm just curious, what would it be as opposed to, or what's the contrast?
Malachi Burke: The contrast is a typical merge where a typical merge is actually two commits. It's like a commit registering that you actually pulled it off of a different branch.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. Got it.
Shan Usmani: So, Mal, in case I like the code, what I do is like, can you repeat that?
Malachi Burke: Yeah. So if you like the code, what you'll do is you'll be on your branch, Small Diagnostic Panel Fonts. And from Bash or similar, you will type Git Merge Feature Small Diagnostic Panel Fonts. much. Thank Thank Proposed, and unless you've got something configured a little bit off the normal beaten path, it will notice that that merge really wants to be a fast-forward, and it'll do it that way.
Shan Usmani: So basically, it will automatically handle it.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can give you a little demonstration right now, if you'd like.
Quan Gan: Sure.
Malachi Burke: All right. Uh-huh. So sharing my screen. I worked, I've worked, you know, I'm going to, I was going to tell a bad story about people who did fast-forwards wrong, but I'm not going to tell that story today. Screw that. So I'm just going to pull. And then. to Bye. Bye. Right. And let me close out some windows so it's a little more apparent what is actually going on here. Let's close out all these things. Okay. Over here. So you can see we're down here, right? And you see my proposed branch is sitting right above them. A little newer. And this is what I consider like a polite coding thing to do where it's like I was pretty confident that you're going to like it, but rather than just force it into your branch, you know, and then force your PR to be updated, this is more polite where I'm like, yeah, you know, I think you'll like it. Let's see if you do. And then you can merge it. So here's what the merge looks like. Let me shrink this down a little bit. Man, this is really making me work for it. All right. Go back over here. here. So, you'll type git space merge, and you'll probably need to put origin in front of it, because you'd have to do it, that's just what I recommend you do. And you'll have to do a git fetch first, like I did, you know, or a git pull. But that's typical fare for merges, right? I think we're accustomed to that. Merge origin, and then small diagnostic, oh, right, feature, excuse me, like that. And then you put proposed, and then it's, you see that? It's going to do a fast-forward. And what will happen over here is now my local branch is going to be perfectly aligned with the proposed one. They're just going to overlap on top of each other, you see? So, So about 20% of the time when we're doing merges, we get to do that, and it's nice, nice and clean. But PRs have their own value because you get the paper trail of where the PR came from, where this one, you don't get that paper trail. Then I'm going to do something a little bit fancy here. Nope, that was the wrong one. Well, I'll fix my branch later, rather than embarrassing myself in of everybody. I'm kind of curious why that didn't work, though. Oh, it did work. Duh. Yeah. Good. So if I refresh this, it ought to be back to where it was. Yeah. Awesome. Shall we move on to the rest of the agenda?
Quan Gan: Yes, please.
Malachi Burke: Awesome. Moving on to PR number 84. That one I didn't put in the Discord comments. Um, so, um, as Sean already mentioned, that one is, uh, closed and merged. Um, and just some minor comments on that one. Um, Sean, I really, no, excuse me, Basim, I really appreciate that you, uh, did fix for the comment repairs, but, because I feel like they're that important, but technically that's a docs type, not a fix. Yes.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Okay. So, like, uh, I should, uh, mention that doc in the commit, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. But, yeah, thanks, Malachi. Because, you know, when you review things, you do it, like, quite detailed. So it's obviously, I guess, it's important. And I see there, like, it makes sense when I was editing that and, you know, doing the changes you request. So, like, it's, I guess it's necessary. So thank you for, you know, keeping a close eye on it.
Malachi Burke: Oh, thank you. You know, you're welcome. Not every, I always say, I always say this to Quan, not everybody appreciates how detailed I am, but that's how we do it. And I, I'm glad that you're getting some out of it. Thank you. Yeah, and this is looking good. And I wanted to mention kind of a side note also, which is, our policy does call for camel case for variables, but I don't like it. And being that our code is kind of a mixed bag of... Snake Case and Camel Case anyway, perhaps we should revise our policy and go over to Snake Case, but I wanted to ask the rest of the team, because if you two prefer Camel Case, then we're good the way we are. What do you think? Do you have a preference?
Quan Gan: I think we had AI pick for us back then.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. And if you did, it's making the right choice, because you're feeding it from the policy, and I'm pretty sure the policy says Camel Case. But the code base is a mixed bag. Sometimes it's Camel Case, sometimes it's Snake Case.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, I think let's stick with what we currently have, because then we'll move to the Camel Case. We'll start having the trouble with the other one as well. So, we'll try to make sure to follow the policy document. But, yeah, so let's not make it more confusing again.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Roger that. Glad we talked about that. Okay, back onto the PR again. Just wanted to make that side note. We talked about this already. As you know, I'm not a fan of saying new this, that, or the other in comments. And you took that to heart, but one of them kind of made its way through. But that's okay. I'm not going to kick back the PR for that. I know you intended to get rid of that guy. I will say, if it is important to say, at this time, this thing happened, which that is important sometimes. Instead of using new, use that date convention that's in our policy. And say, on this date, you know, and put your initials there. That, I find to be useful.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Sure, Mel. Yeah. Next time, I'll make sure of that.
Malachi Burke: Sweet. Sweet. But this one, I think, was just an honest, like, whoops. That's how it looked to me. Awesome. And as we already know, this PR is actually closed and good to go. You can see it's actually merged up to develop here. So thank you, Basim, for that. And I wanted to mention this, too. I'm going to go over here. I just want to say, this is looking real good. This is shaping up. This is how we want our user stories to look. We've got who's doing it, what they're doing, and why they're doing it. And then the acceptance criteria is also clear. It's like... When the button is pressed, the speaker plays a tone. I mean, this is a good one. So well done, everybody. It took us a while to get here, but we're starting to materialize some real stable-looking user stories. And that is my entire agenda.
Quan Gan: Thank you, Mel.
Malachi Burke: Welcome.
Quan Gan: Shall we look at things on the Kanban?
Malachi Burke: Yeah, let's go look.
Quan Gan: And also, I just wanted to notify everybody that I will be traveling for the entire next week. So it's possible I'll be missing the meetings. I may join if I am available, but I'll... I'll Actually be in, be abroad. So I'll have to check the timing and everything.
Malachi Burke: For that. Well, firstly, this is in progress. Let me do that, that over there. And we have a, a bunch of these suckers in QA ready. So, Quan, I know you've been pretty slammed.
Quan Gan: Yeah, maybe, maybe this weekend. Can we go through just each one real quick, just to make sure I have the resources to test it?
Malachi Burke: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. So, can we go to the bottom if there's anything else here? Okay. Okay. Sean, were there any further changes on this, and what branch would I test this on?
Shan Usmani: I think this was the, I don't remember, Basim?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, same, same, I really don't remember.
Shan Usmani: It's been some time, so it's been solved for like a lot of time now, so I don't really remember the branch, but it should be marginally developed, so you can check in to develop as well.
Malachi Burke: Right, go ahead.
Quan Gan: Real quick, so I mean, this is kind of the perfect case in point. If we have some stale tickets, and we don't know, say a month or two later, exactly what it pertained to, how do we solve that with best practice going forward?
Malachi Burke: This, I would say, isn't exactly that, but the best practice that I think you're asking about is ... ... ... So we're diligent about using this development guy because this we can link directly to the branch.
Quan Gan: Okay, got it.
Malachi Burke: And the last time we talked about this, I'm going to say it again because I kind of forget, but oh, here it is. And you can also, when you start development, you can do this, you can create a branch. This is really clumsy, but this will also automatically link it.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: But we have one more thing. Sorry to interrupt you. have one more thing, which is I verbally put out the policy that we've been following, that actually the PRs do mention the number up here, which is not as airtight as the other thing, but it gives us some kind of path, right?
Quan Gan: But that's a one-way reference, right?
Malachi Burke: That's a one-way reference.
Quan Gan: Yeah. You wouldn't know which PR actually references.
Malachi Burke: That is true. So it's not perfect. It's just something. Yeah. But why don't we do this? Since we're here and talking about it, we can sort of correlate it by date, you know, because chances are we closed it right about the time that the PR got approved. So why don't we look at things that are approved right about that time? Let's go look multiple people have the ball. This looks like it.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And I am glad you brought that up, because, yeah, I don't do it either. I forget. But if we can be diligent to do this, this is going to help. And this has been merged to dev, so we're good to go.
Quan Gan: Okay. Thank you for answering that.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Yeah. You're welcome. And just since I'm here, let's glue them together. Okay.
Quan Gan: Okay. And have we roughly adopted this new SOP going forward from maybe like last week or something?
Malachi Burke: Well, we haven't made it formal policy, and we should, so I think I will. me make a to-do item. That's not what you asked, but give me a moment here.
Quan Gan: Sean and Basim, is that okay for you guys to follow this new SOP?
Shan Usmani: Yeah, no, we have no issue with it. It will take some time to get me used to, but yeah, since it's not really a habit right now, but we'll manage.
Quan Gan: Okay, thank you.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Right. See. And now that he's glued together, if we go back to the other guy, he'll be there.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I've used systems where it was less clunky than that, and it's – what Sean is saying is absolutely true. We're all willing to do it. We're just going to make a bunch of mistakes along the way.
Quan Gan: As long as we're making the effort, it'll be better than no effort.
Malachi Burke: Indeed. Indeed. That is nice and clean, though, isn't it? It's kind of cool. So we got him. And for you, Quan, the procedure is that we're not – QA-ready implies that it's in the develop branch.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And we've deviated from that once or twice, probably in one of these, but that – if you have to make a presumption, that's the presumption to make.
Quan Gan: it. Okay. Thank Okay.
Malachi Burke: Why don't we see if we can, I remember one of these for a long time wasn't in develop, but I think they all are now. Well, let's presume that they are because it would probably take us a fair bit of time to glue them all back together again.
Quan Gan: Okay, and then I'll just work on the develop branch and test all of these there.
Malachi Burke: Most excellent.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Most excellent.
Quan Gan: I would assume now, by now, that the develop branch already has the multiple USB flashing tool?
Malachi Burke: Yes.
Quan Gan: Yes, it does. Great.
Malachi Burke: Yes, it does.
Quan Gan: Prior to me doing that, I would have to, like, create a separate folder and then drop it in every time.
Malachi Burke: Oh, yeah. Like it's 1999 all over again.
Quan Gan: Okay. So now that it's there by default. default. Well, that makes things so much easier.
Malachi Burke: Thank you. You're welcome. And I want the warm fuzzy of actually checking it myself because I don't want to be a liar here. Yeah, scripts. That doesn't look like it. Let me check out develop. Because that was a feature branch that I was on. Yeah, you can see it right there. I checked it out. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And a snapshot of what's to come is after a while, we're going to get enough feature depth and momentum where developers are going to be moving a lot. So then we're going to get into tagging and actual honest-to-goodness releases, even though they're internal, so that Quan, the thing you're testing, isn't just moving target all the time.
Quan Gan: All right. Okay. Yeah. Testing it to You got a fixed release.
Malachi Burke: Yep. Yep. Yep. So we'll get there.
Quan Gan: Looking forward to that.
Malachi Burke: Me too. I love that determinism. Now that is a relevant thing, but it doesn't really answer the other question of like upcoming stuff. So let's look over here. And Sean is already working on this, so I'm going to put this over here. And as you can see, our to-do backlog isn't super long at the moment. So I suppose, I mean, this one's always like a grab bag one, like, well, you know, if there's nothing else to work on, we can just reduce the amount of warnings that are getting emitted from the thing, because there is value in reducing that cognitive load. So, Sean, I suppose if you do get out from what you're working on, you could grab. Grab this guy. How's that sound?
Shan Usmani: Sure, sure.
Malachi Burke: Okay.
Shan Usmani: With the two of the tasks, I think diagnostic panel, total status limit has been merged back into develop.
Malachi Burke: Oh, over here?
Shan Usmani: Into the QA already.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Thank you.
Shan Usmani: For the multiple winners, I'll have to create a PR and then...
Malachi Burke: Okay. Awesome. This is looking pretty organized, guys.
Quan Gan: That looks good.
Malachi Burke: Great. Probably this is a won't do at this point. You blew right past that. And I don't miss it. Jake, yeah. If you didn't need to go through that... Step, that's just fine. So I'm just going to do a won't do on this guy. Let's clean up our backlog a little bit. All right. How are we feeling?
Quan Gan: Do we have enough for them to chew until Monday?
Malachi Burke: Basim, Shan, what do you think? Do you have enough in your workload?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, guys, the factory test issues aren't here. They're in the to-do's or in progress right now. So I guess they should be over in here, but they aren't.
Malachi Burke: right.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Let's fix that. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Let's fix that.
Shan Usmani: Good call. You might have to assign them the project Basim.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Basim, when you make them, just go ahead and click on this guy. Put it over there. And probably do the parent issue, too. Just like the other thing, it's easy to miss. A lot of bits and pieces. They did a really good job with these GitHub issues, but it's still, you know, a little clunky. You do this stuff in JIRA, it's a little more end-to-end, except for this part in JIRA. It's actually worse. Let's go back over here. Good call, everybody. Where was I? Oh, I guess. I just went away from that screen. I'll just go back then. Whoops. Yeah. And then there's that. So that's a little clunky also.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Well, Mal, the Face-to-Face-P are already merged into develop. So yeah, it's smooth and curated. Okay. Roger that.
Malachi Burke: That's great. See, Quan, you have like this literally itemized list of things. Love it. Thank you. Fun fact. ESPIDF seems to have a bug where even though this is commented out in the K-Config, it still warns. It's About the thing.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: So it's, I don't know, it's just funny, it doesn't hurt anything. Like, Sean, you took a little sniper rifle and knocked it out, and one of your feature brands are like, yeah, get rid of that thing! But it's still complaining. It's funny. Espressif usually does better than, gotta say. What are you guys doing? All right, enough of that. So how are we looking here?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Mal, one more thing. The issue number 64 is also in the, like, I guess, backlog, or where is it? Yeah, it's in ToDo. So just move it to the QWERTY as well.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Thank you. Yeah, I forgot about him.
Quan Gan: And if this passes my test, do I need to make comments, or I simply just move it to done?
Malachi Burke: Oh, can move it, simply. to Done, if you like, no problem. And at a soon future date, we'll have to figure out how we want to archive these guys. But for the time being, even though it's clunky, it's kind of nice to see all these things done. Right on, guys. Well, I think that's everything.
Quan Gan: What do you think? That's good. Thank you.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Thank you. All right. So is that it? Are we wrapping it up tonight, guys? Sean, Basim, you have anything else to add before we finish up our meeting?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Nope. Nothing from my side.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, I think we can wrap it up now.
Malachi Burke: Awesome.
Quan Gan: Awesome.
Malachi Burke: All right. Thanks a lot. Have a good night, everybody.
Quan Gan: Good night. Mal, I'm going to step off as well because I have an early morning tomorrow.
Malachi Burke: bet you do.
Quan Gan: And then we got the rest of the day. I bet you I know. We're going to knock it out. You sleep well, dude. Thanks. Good night. Good night. See you guys. guys. Bye.
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Dennis: Hello there. Hi, Quan.
Malachi Burke: Hey, Quan.
Quan Gan: Hello.
Malachi Burke: Thank you both for making the time. meeting is being recorded. We're all very busy. You've heard each other, hear about each other from me. So finally, you get to meet. Quan, this is my dad. You might surmise I've known him for quite some time. And then, dad, this is Quan. And Quan's got this very impressive vision you've been hearing about. And I'm looking forward to you two getting to know each other more.
Dennis: So welcome. Thank you.
Quan Gan: Thank you. I look forward to that. And just first things first, how may I respectfully address your dad?
Dennis: Just Dennis is good.
Quan Gan: Dennis? Oh, I appreciate it.
Malachi Burke: I was required in my youth to call him a grand poobah of all things engineering. But as we've grown older, we've dropped away that formality.
Dennis: Yeah. I moved on to Master of the, I'm sorry, Emperor of the Known Universe.
Malachi Burke: I preferred that title. Good. It was quite an upgrade.
Dennis: Yes, it was.
Quan Gan: And I am also curious, is there a webcam that I could see or maybe another time?
Dennis: Yeah, another time. There isn't one on this computer, and I didn't feel like switching over to the laptop. I was busy poking around on other problems.
Quan Gan: Okay, no worries.
Dennis: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so Mal, how do you suggest we start the topic? I don't know how much you've shared and what our current recommendations are.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, great question. So I'll just kind of share broadly things that we all already know, but to set some context. And then after that, I'd like to hand it off to you, Quan, to kind of go deeper into some of the things I might
Quan Gan: Okay, sounds good.
Malachi Burke: So, yeah, we have these, you know, let grab one of them, you know, these smartwatch-looking things. They're about twice the size of a smartwatch, and a lot of buttons and feedback mechanisms on them, and Quan's got this really cool vision to utilize this particular technology to get kids out on the playground, to get them playing and have electronics kind of do a reversal of the role and help them play with each other with the assistance of electronics rather than play with electronics with the assistance of people. And we've been getting deep into the thick of things. We've got a team of quasi-number-of-five developers, two or three of which are active at this time, and we hit a lot of technical challenges here and there, and we're making progress in other areas. So that's kind of the backdrop. we've from And then I'll just mention a little bit that, Quan, as I've already said to you, my dad's got a real deep, deep level of knowledge with firmware, deep to the point where he touches out on the hardware issues with just experience, even though I don't think I'm speaking out of turn when I don't, when, Dad, don't think you consider yourself an E.E., but you know E.E. things better than a lot of other E.E.s do, just because of your depth of knowledge.
Dennis: Yeah, I've been doing this for a long time, you know, a very long time, you know, so yeah, I don't have an actual E.E. degree, but I designed my first digital circuit in 1963 to play tic-tac-toe with me, and I was only 13 at the time, you know, and it's only gotten worse.
Malachi Burke: How many E.E.s can you, do you meet that can claim that?
Quan Gan: Yeah, no, I. You can only imagine tic-tac-toe. I mean, is that like wire wrapping to make it happen?
Dennis: No, this was before wire wrap.
Quan Gan: was diodes, transistors, and before LEDs, just little indicator lights. Okay.
Dennis: Yeah. So, you know, I put all the logic into just the diodes for the most part.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. mean, that's quite significant to be able to get that down to the transistor level and be able to scale up to – I mean, tic-tac-toe is already – like, I actually programmed that in C or C++, like, in high school. But to do it from circuits, mean, that's basically the entire abstraction stack up to that point.
Dennis: Yeah, no, I got carried away.
Malachi Burke: I thought I could solve chess the same way.
Quan Gan: Well, okay. So, I am curious for tic-tac-toe. I mean, that is kind of a solved problem that you have to be the – The first player, don't you?
Dennis: And there's like an optimal move? Well, if you want it to win, it helps to be the first player. It doesn't really, I mean, the thing is, it's just whether or not you're making a legal move and what do you need to do to stop the other person. So, you know, it's a very constrained problem, okay? So it wasn't really that difficult to make it so that whether I started or the electronics started, it would still play the game.
Quan Gan: Right. And remind me of, like, if I'm wrong, but I remember if you start first, you at least, if you play optimally, you can't lose. Is that right?
Dennis: Yeah, you can't lose if you start. Well, actually, you can lose in any case. Like, let's say you start in the center. Somebody can still create scenarios where you can't win.
Quan Gan: You can't win, but you won't lose if you're playing opposite.
Dennis: Exactly. If you start, you can set it up so that you will never lose. Right. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I remember that logic distinctly. Basically, you start in the center, and then the optimal counter move is to block one of the corners, but if you don't, see their loss.
Dennis: Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, again, it was one of those things where I realized just simple logic would get you to the whole solution. I was able to make a circuit that would tell you whether or not your moves were legal in chess, but that's kind of where I gave up was like, there's no way this was ever going to play the game. It could just identify whether or not you were under threat and whether or not your move, what were your legal moves. So, know, you'd touch the square that your piece was on, and it would light up the squares that you could go to.
Quan Gan: Got it. Now, Dennis, I'm curious what your thoughts are in the AI space where we've kind And shift it away from having to calculate a optimal move based on logic, but basically just like throw enough data at it and allow these weights and biases to kind of emerge itself.
Dennis: My experience with AI has been that it doesn't have any imagination. It just hallucinates. So if it doesn't know something, it'll make something up. It's not like it comes up with very many useful scenarios. That's like your old genetic algorithms. Now we're just going to fracture everything, and maybe some of those pieces are good, but most of them are going to die. You know, and AI is still at that point, in my opinion, where it's not, you know, it's really good at digesting information and presenting information, but it's not very good at extrapolating that into something new. So, you know, it can help you understand things, which is very useful, but given, like, if you're really rigorous. useful. Constraining the way you ask it questions, it can be helpful to you. But if you understand the problem well enough so that you can constrain it so that the AI is going to give you useful information, you probably didn't need the AI in the first place. That's all going to change, but when does it change? I mean, 10 years ago, if you were talking about AI, you would be talking about expert systems for the most part, where it was just running off of canned data. And although you could say that we're running off of canned data, the inferences between those is so much broader than what we had with the canned system. Anyway, I'm skeptical of trying to get much more done with AI at the moment. But I keep poking at it because when that day comes, you don't want it to be a shock to you.
Quan Gan: Okay, so I can see where you and Malachi share that similar frequency, whereas I'm probably a little bit more off And optimistic that it could be applied now, with certain constraints, of course.
Dennis: Yeah, that's the trick. Like, if you are trying to get it to solve a problem that you're not familiar with, and you haven't figured out what the constraints are, a lot of what it sends back sounds very reasonable, because it's within your constraints. It's, you know, so you have to understand the problem domain well enough that you can see where, well, that's a dead end, or other potential problems.
Malachi Burke: Let me interject for a moment here. Quan has this idea that, I'm going to jump the shark a little, because I don't know if we were even going to talk about this in this session. But I think the most interesting AI idea you've got, Quan, is once we stabilize our API, surfaces, plural, we're optimistic that to make a simple game, and I know that's a loaded work, the word in engineering, you know, it's a danger word. But Let's roll with it. To make a simple game with an established API, I share Quan's optimism we might be able to generate a simple game from AI if it knows about our APIs. That's my hope.
Dennis: Again, you have already provided constraints.
Malachi Burke: Yeah.
Dennis: And a lot of times, the constraints that you think you're providing aren't adequate. But I see where, you know, this narrows it down where you should at least easily be able to recognize whether or not the results of your query are barking up the right to tree.
Quan Gan: Yeah, absolutely.
Malachi Burke: I'm proud of that aspect. That kind of nails it is we'll know success more clearly in that domain than other domains.
Quan Gan: So I want to share that, like, I have essentially two insights based on just the couple of years that I've spent. right. Okay. Okay. Talking to it almost infinitely more than humans these days, just, you know, from philosophy all the way to code. And I find it, when, I find it a lot of times actually limited by the human's ability to understand and basically sniff out the . Because if it's a domain that you know, then I find myself kind of using it as a thought partner just to check or to kind of eventually have it agree with me or to find blind spots. But it's at least a domain that I know. But if it's a domain that I don't know, then, you know, it's basically kind of like blind leading the blind because its answers sound good, but I wouldn't be intelligent enough where I don't have the domain expertise to sniff out the BS, at which point it might actually completely lead me astray. And, you know, which is kind of the current situation we've gotten. The code base where my naivety kind of led me to think, okay, if we can generate code that's decently based on best practice without as much constraint that I realized I needed, that it could eventually just convert spec into code. And at least since the models last year, that it ended up not working. And that's where Mal and I are doing the cleanup work at this point.
Malachi Burke: Right. And the good news, and Quan, know you're tired of hearing this, but it is comforting to you, I know, and it's true. It's not as bad as it could be. I've seen worse, really. You know, it's serviceable.
Quan Gan: Well, yeah, I think I, you know, I would say I'm part of the, what do they call that, the hype cycle, where as soon as you see something, you're like, oh, yeah, I overproject what I can do. to you. Until you go through the trough of disillusionment, because last year, based on the trajectory, I was like, oh, by the end of this year, we should be able to write itself, and it should be better than the current engineers that I have overseas, but, you know, and it could spew out large quantities of code, but they couldn't even really understand it.
Malachi Burke: Well, at the risk of being unkind, we interviewed an engineer where your AI probably would do better than that particular guy we talked to. But look, let me make a recommendation. AI is a sprawling topic that we will continue to talk about, but perhaps we should get to your vision, Quan, and the state of the team now, and what you're thinking about.
Quan Gan: Yeah, okay. So, I mean, right now, we're kind of straddling a couple of engineering slash business constraints. You know, we have an existing product that's out in the field with several hundred of these units. So, you know, Deployed across schools. And the current project, works, but the code is just simply brittle to the point that I don't want to spend too much time creating new features or new games on it at the risk of breaking, but at least it's selling, right? So that's actually what's keeping the lights on. All the while, we are attempting to completely rewrite the code base with all of our previous wisdom that we've gained over the years. And the goal for this is to properly constrain the code base, almost like, I don't know if this is a proper analogy, but looking at the human genome, if between all the different billions of humans, really maybe 1% of the DNA is actually different, whereas 99% is more or less defined. That's what I hope we can get out of this code base where most of the... The foundational code can remain fixed, and new games are essentially generated from domain-specific language or an API that shouldn't be more than essentially like 300 lines of code. That's the ideal. How we get there, you know, we're definitely going to need experts to make sure the API is so well-defined that once you give it a few examples to the AI, then it can infer these other rules based on state machine or other type of ways to condense the information down to just what's different rather than having to, you know, rewrite a new game every single time.
Dennis: Yeah, this is one of these classic things where, you know, the description is very likely to be feasible, but what it actually ends up being could be, you know, more or less. I'm sorry, I'm going to kind of pick like a rough example, like in Python, because there's so... So underneath the hood, it doesn't take very many lines of code to do something pretty useful. And you're trying to get your API into a state where it kind of gives you a Python-esque realm.
Quan Gan: Possibly even higher abstraction, because the goal is eventually for kids to just speak from natural language, and that converts into a newly compiled game that they can run on their system. So hopefully they don't even have to see the code. All they have to do is say a couple of sentences, and then the AI through proper examples of things that work and the domain-specific language can make that conversion. And anything beneath that guarantees that it will compile.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, it's something that remains to be proven, but I think is, that could be more... More attainable of a goal than maybe some other AI things. And my mind always goes to MicroPython in this space as well, but that's not a firm commitment. It's just kind of like, in the meantime, right, that would be something pretty good. But we're back to that goal again. I kind of want – anyway, that's my commentary.
Quan Gan: Well, one thing to add to this is we do have currently, based on the many years I've run these games, essentially three orthogonal game types that could form almost like a basis where if you have a proper mix of these types, then you can essentially generate an infinite amount of game variations. And the orthogonal types are essentially a game where you're completely just competing against your own based on movement. So we have a red light, green light game where this watch will go either red or green and detect your movement. So it has no interaction with others. A second type game where one device will seek out another device and they create a matching pair. So for example, if one device shows two plus two and someone else has four, by matching, that's how you earn the points. And then the third type, which is actually an asymmetric chasing tag game where one person is trying to run away and the other person is trying to capture them with a tag. So these are essentially the three major types of games that we've evolved into. But you can easily create logic that says, okay, maybe you start with a certain type and then after some conditions happen, you might switch to a different type. And then after some other conditions, you might switch to another type. So it's not like infinite variables, but within these three types of games, you can kind of dial up or down. on. I don't know say the And... The combination. Does that make sense?
Dennis: No, it does. You know, you have basic patterns that the game system wants, and then you have the facilities available in your hardware to, you know, implement those.
Quan Gan: It's pretty clean. Yeah. Yeah, so that's kind of our current goal. But between – we have kind of a – you had an orthogonal goal to this, which is directly related to the business right now, which is actually related to the network. Mal, did you share that much with Dennis?
Malachi Burke: We didn't talk a ton about the networking, but it was – we talked about meshing and self-healing a little bit, you know. Why don't we go into that a little bit?
Quan Gan: Okay, yeah. So this is completely – Independent, but it's actually a core function right now where most of the games happen in a basketball court-sized play area, but we try to make the range go up to a football field. So, you know, it would be like 50 yards radius, essentially. But right now, we're also in the process of switching our hardware from an external antenna to an internal one that's completely embedded into the lid of this system, just from an ease-of-use standpoint, just to make it completely like you don't have to put rabbit ears every single time. And in doing so, obviously, it's cutting down our range, because right now we just have a Wi-Fi router that's just broadcasting it out, and it's an outdoor-rated antenna that's supposed to give us decent range. But once the antenna has been buried in... Yeah, and I've personally played with it enough to know that the range can be there. You know, I have a pretty decent-sized yard, and I've run it across at least probably 50 yards, maybe 100 yards even, and it can work if there is line of sight. But hopefully, yeah, like if we have like one or two hops, it can cover pretty much all practical distances that we need.
Dennis: Yeah, mean, when you get into meshing, that'll get you more distance. But I start to wonder, in gameplay, how much complexity is turning that into a mesh going to be? Like, I understand that you may have more than one team playing in the same space.
Quan Gan: Yeah, have, well, currently, the system should support up to about 48 players, because our system... Sometimes get sold in sets of 24, but sometimes they link them together. Oftentimes there might be scenarios where people are ducking behind obstacles or going behind trees. And so obviously just the star pit topology of the single router reaching them, that may not work because if they go behind a building, then their connection is lost. So if we can improve onto some kind of a mesh topology and also make it quickly recoverable, that would be promising. Although we haven't found anything that's currently off the shelf that ESP publishes that have a healing latency down to what we needed, which is less than a second. Whereas theirs is on the order of maybe several seconds or more because these are designed for stationary IoT applications rather than people running around and chasing.
Malachi Burke: I have a lot of technical feedback on that, but I'm going to hold back a little bit. Well, all I'm going to say without going super deep is, yes, I corroborate that story. And in the Arduino world, there's this tech they use called Mesh-tastic that they're very fond of. But as is typical in the embedded space, it's like hardwired to LoRa. You know, there's no cross-platform to anything else. But it's the only mesh that came to my research so far that heals as quickly as we would like it. So I'm starting to look into that a little bit. We'd have to re-implement it. But better, we were talking about re-implementing a mesh anyway. So that's a quasi-standard to start from. I'm sure that's not the only fast-healing game in town.
Dennis: Sure. No, I just want to say ESPNOW is not really a mesh, and low-ROS typically 900 MHz. So I think you should be able to get there with the ESPNOW, but not today.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah, so we're thinking of putting an application layer to handle the mesh above the ESPNOW, because it seems like a pretty good hardware-ready layer. And from what I know in LoRa, is it – well, actually, no, it might be a subset of LoRa. So I fly FPV, it's a radio-controlled drones, and they have a system I believe is based on LoRa, and all of them tend to have some kind of ESP chip driving it, but it's driving a LoRa-specific transponder, I think, or transceiver. But they do Do like frequency hopping. I forget the exact thing, but it was like frequency hopping multiple, I forget the name, but it spreads it across many frequencies.
Dennis: Yeah, it's a spread spectrum. Okay, yeah. Yeah, it's not frequency hopping and spread spectrum are cousins, but they're not the same thing.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I mean, they, it's quite robust in the drone space because at any given time, you know, you can have a hundred, yeah, actually I've seen a, not for drones, but RC airplanes where they've had like two or three hundred planes up in the air, foam planes and purposely trying to collide each other. They do this kind of extravaganza in Ohio every year. So I know that many devices at least can get off the ground literally and run with low latency.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, which is, go ahead.
Dennis: No, which is well beyond what you're trying to do.
Quan Gan: Yeah. I've seen some form of it possible. So we just need to figure out what is the least resistance way for us to achieve something similar.
Malachi Burke: I wanted to bring up kind of a parallel topic, which was we've, I don't know that struggled is the right word, but we've been putting a lot of effort into IR. code. Dad, I know you've got more than a little experience with IR also. I'm wondering if there's some topic to be discussed there.
Quan Gan: Yes, actually, I'll share with this, especially since I believe we've actually filed a patent for this recently. It's, um, so things that you get for free in a video game, such as... They call it a collision sphere or a collision bubble or collision surface, which is when two objects get within some range of each other and you can have this virtual bubble around it. As soon as it crosses, you could trigger some kind of event to happen. Are you familiar with that concept?
Dennis: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yes. Yeah. So you get that for free in a 3D engine, but that is a non-trivial problem in physical reality where I want to get within, let's say, X feet to you and trigger some kind of logic. And right now, the closest thing we've seen off the shelf, which would be like an Apple AirTag using UWB, you get about a decimeter accuracy with fairly low latency, but the hardware is very expensive. And so we've actually patented a way to use a time of flight difference between sending a radio packet. Through ESPNOW, and a audio that's like near, it's near audible range, like kind of on the high pitch, but we're using standard speakers to create a chirp, and that chirp and the radio signal are synchronized by like an ID or something, like a timestamp. So when a receiving device gets it, we literally call it lightning and thunder, it'll receive the RF packet first, and then count a number of milliseconds difference before it hears it on the mic. And based on that, it can infer a fairly accurate decimeter resolution distance between one device and the other. So that, we've actually gotten to work as a proof of concept, but it hasn't been well integrated into our code, because it actually performed worse once we implement. Probably just because the old code was so brittle, but that is something that we're trying to implement to get over the fact that IR has a lot of noise issues, especially in outdoors. If you're playing this game in the sunlight, there's no way for me to accurately detect, did you tag me at two feet, or were you actually 15 feet away and your blaster just happened to get the signal through? So that's why we actually jumped over to this lightning and thunder method so that we can get around light noise.
Dennis: Yeah, I played with something a little bit similar many years ago, never really completely implemented, but I wanted to make soccer-playing robots. And the advantage that I had there was that the robots were all pretty much the same size, and they weren't then going to occlude any of the audio signals. That were coming. When you have people running around, they can absorb that signal, you know, if they're close enough to the emitter that you're interested in.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Dennis: But I still think that this is a really interesting approach. With the soccer robots, what I was looking at was, I know how long I think it took for that signal to get to me. So in sort of the ESP Now sense of things, I would broadcast a packet that would tell you how far away I thought you were. So everybody who is in your group would then say how far they were from you. could triangulate where your team is so that your captain in my application could start giving instructions to the different robots without having to have a camera looking at them.
Quan Gan: You know, this is almost exactly what I had in mind at some point. I've had a dream about this. So maybe you're the person that's to help me implement it, which is, you know, without... Any camera system, we have a bunch of devices roaming around in a soccer field, and essentially using these point-to-point relationships, you're kind of dead reckoning all of them and creating a virtual map with very low latency and high accuracy of how they're all, you know, positioned around the field, but not needing any anchors to do it.
Dennis: Right, right. Go ahead. So, yeah, we're looking at a similar problem space, if you will.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, if we can do that, that would be beautiful, because one of the biggest business constraints of this is the product needs to be so dead simple to deploy that any non-technical person, and when I say non-technical, I, like, you would have to basically say it has to be, like, like a teenage stoner, you know, just not. About anything, open it up and like fall into success and still get it to work because the people that are operating these devices, you know, they, they're, first of all, they're, they're wrangling cats, which are, you know, like 20, 30 kids at a time. And these kids have a lot of behavior issues. Oftentimes they have broken families. come from, you know, very poor neighborhoods. So it's, the, the, the facilitator is already under a high stress situation. So they're not going to be technically focused or even have read the manual. All they got to do is turn this on and then press a button to press play to get the kids to run. So this thing has to be so reliable without having to do any kind of setup that requires their expertise.
Dennis: Yeah. No, it's, it's all making sense to me. Another reason that I think having the ESP as your underlying engine comes in pretty handy because you have Bluetooth.
Quan Gan: You so if you wanted to configure these things, you'd just have a laptop and just swipe them near it and get that done. Yeah, there's a lot of other things we wanted to use maybe with a Bluetooth, because right now we have a Raspberry Pi that is transmitting our main command signal through Wi-Fi router. But ideally, if this whole thing, the command could be run off of a smartphone app where you just like start game, then this product can instantly become a consumer version of a product. Like where, let's say you buy six of these little Tagger devices that we have cost engineered down from Target for 50 bucks, and then they just need to download an app. Then we can create something that's potentially even bigger than Pokemon Go and get people much more active rather than staring at their phone crossing. Thank Best treat it, getting hit by a car.
Dennis: Yeah, I don't want that getting hit by a car to be part of the game. Well, no, I think, again, you're barking up a good tree here. For example, you could go to, you know, Costco and buy half a dozen of these things and go off as a family and play them wherever you are, you know, using your phone.
Quan Gan: Yeah, that's definitely a future endeavor that we've thought about for a long time because right now the reason why we're selling directly to schools and institutions is because, well, this is a high ticket item with enough margin that covers our cost of development and training to make sure they can operate it right. And hopefully in the next few years, if we do what we do well, we'll have amassed several million end users by then, maybe even tens of millions served through the school system. And by then the brand. ZTAG would be strong enough that if we were to release a consumer brand that ends up, you know, in a big box retailer, then we have a pretty quick way to deploy it rather than having to educate customers exactly what this thing is.
Dennis: No, that all sounds good and doable. I'm kind of stuck on the, you're changing the antenna.
Malachi Burke: Let me interject on that one. Two different antenna situations in this system. The onboard antenna on the little watch units themselves, there is no big change planned for that anytime soon. The antenna that Quan is talking about is on this Raspberry Pi base station, because at the moment, as you may have deduced, there's no real mesh. Everybody's got a Wi-Fi connection back to that main guy. That main guy antenna is the antenna that Quan was talking about.
Dennis: Okay, yeah.
Quan Gan: This is an external, outer-rated antenna with two rabid ears sticking out. But the fact that it has to be taken out of the case every time, and there's little 3D printed clips that keeps breaking, that they have to mount it to the back of the lid, that's just user friction for this iteration of the hardware. So the next version we have, the antennas have been actually disassembled into just the raw PCB and inserted into the lid of the ZU's case. And then we're wiring two antennas internal to the case, but it's plastic, to hopefully get at least similar range. I mean, obviously you're going to get some decibel reduction, but hopefully it's not so bad that it's unusable. But so far, we're kind of right at that borderline, so I'm still having our factory see if there's any better antenna configurations that would help us. So at the same time, we're trying to see if there might be a backup plan where maybe we don't only use Wi-Fi. We might be using ESPNOW or some other thing to supplement the signal if our current Wi-Fi range is no longer enough.
Dennis: So I've been playing in radio space in a lot of different ways, but I'm a big fan of the heliocole antennas.
Quan Gan: Have you played with those at all? Can you explain?
Dennis: Well, it's a type of antenna. If you looked at it, it would look like a little stub, like your thumb or something. And inside that, it's a coil around a cylinder.
Quan Gan: It's a heliocole antenna. Oh, I haven't seen that for this particular... I particular... Frequency, although I know for FPV, they use a lot of mushroom-shaped antennas, which actually have like three or four cloverleafs in there.
Dennis: Yeah, that's true. And similar frequency range. The thing is, the helical, I've usually used that with GPS.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Dennis: Which is not exactly the same frequency range. It's a little higher.
Quan Gan: Yeah, we're using 2.4 specifically for what we're doing right now.
Dennis: Yeah, the normal Wi-Fi stuff.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Dennis: Yeah.
Quan Gan: But do you think it's possible that we can keep our Wi-Fi, but have a supplemental layer of ESP now that can help us get further range? Or do we potentially even just drop the Wi-Fi and just go full ESP? No.
Dennis: Well, I know if you're going to stay on the basketball side of field, you could get ESP now to work.
Quan Gan: But if you're going to get bigger than that, I don't think it's going to work. Our top end of the space requirement would be a soccer field. And currently, because the hardware is already pretty much into production, so we can't really tell them to not, like, you know, change anything related to the Wi-Fi. So we have that. I'm just trying to see if maybe we can use Wi-Fi to link to the nearest few ZTAGGERS, because you know for sure they have the signal, and then use the ZTAGGERS then to repeat their equivalent signal via ESP now to some of the ones that are further out in the range.
Dennis: Oh, yeah. I see that's going to have...
Quan Gan: Some issues.
Dennis: First off, ESP now, right now, is not a mesh. So you're adding the latency to pick a packet and decide to re-forward it because you've now become an agent. The other thing is you don't really escape the distances. Like if all the players decided to run to one side of the field and somebody else decides they want the goal at the other end, and they're far enough away, they could drop out of your mesh. You know, so it's a trick that goes back to the antennas, but it also begs the question, can you get rid of the router, right? If you're going to have those kind of distances involved, can you reliably get rid of the router? Like your existing thing, you could just take it and put people into that space and have them running around and tell you if somebody dropped off. If you've got 24 people out there and if you don't have 24 all the time, you Then you're going to have to figure out what you got to do to keep track of the people. How did they get out of range? You know, so, you know, you could just do that experiment. You don't have to have 24 people to do it. You know, you can just say, I'm going to get this far. But the advantage of having more people is the people become part of the attenuators, you know, that they're going to automatically impact the distance that they can have if there's a cluster of people.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, like, my thought is the Wi-Fi would kind of give us a base coverage. Let's just say, you know, it's got a, you know, for argument's sake, a 50-foot radius. So it's not that large. But anybody within the 50 feet, you can assume they'll have a pretty strong signal. But then you're looking at the edge cases where people are in the corner of the room, maybe they're 60 or 70 feet away. But hopefully within ESP now range from that edge case. To someone that's within the Wi-Fi signal, they would have gotten a repeated signal that brings them back into the world.
Malachi Burke: I'd like to interject in here. I've been thinking about this here and there, Quan, and I think I've come up with kind of an idealized version of how to do this. We start with LoRaWAN. I mean, we're not going to use LoRaWAN, but we start with the idea of LoRaWAN. And the difference between LoRaWAN and LoRaWAN is LoRaWAN is an IP layer on top of LoRa. And it's one of those slow self, maybe even non-self-healing mesh of IP-based networking on top of LoRa. But what's compelling about it is it knows how to reach to an IP network. That's what's interesting. It is not really an IP network. It is, but it knows how to reach to one. And I was inspired by that, and I thought, what we really ought to do, and you had mentioned some things like this also. Quan is flip it on its head, reverse the whole equation. ESP now is the central now, that these devices are all playing with each other, and I think we're going to need some kind of mesh, some rapid self-healing mesh, so that if somebody runs off behind a tree, they're still in range of that closest person, and that hopefully mitigates that furthest away person situation a bit. And all of that can operate offline for a while from the ZOOS, from the main base station. But then opportunistically, when anybody gets in range of that ZOOS, then those synchronizations start to occur up to the main unit. That's the way I envision it.
Quan Gan: Okay. Well, there's another thought that might augment to this, which is, if our intention is to have the lightning and thunder working between the taggers, let's just say we switch off of our entire hard, it's Really, if we're tagging and it's all lightning and thunder, those RF packets to determine the distance are inherently being broadcasted by every single device at all times anyways. So maybe we just take what is already being broadcasted on that channel and encode additional information that allows us to turn that into a mesh.
Malachi Burke: I'd keep the problems parallelized, aware of each other. They're both complicated enough problems that I don't think you'd want to intermingle them and solve them at the same time.
Quan Gan: But you wouldn't want to be sending two separate ESPNow packets, would you?
Malachi Burke: We don't know. I mean, we'd like to avoid it, but the information in the packet, for example, the mesh is going to need all this addressing information. And probably it's going to need some nearest neighbor information as well. But lightning and thunder doesn't need any of that, right? It needs... Needs a more abbreviated ID to really do what it needs to do. So probably, but, you know.
Quan Gan: So part of the inspiration I have for this would be from the Apple Find My Network. What I mean by that is you only need to know your own devices, those AirTags that are registered to you using UWB. But the way a lot of these devices are triangulated and show up on your device is because it has a lower layer that is Apple globally available. So that your network is actually helping someone else find their device too. And so I'm wondering if we're already having to send lightning and thunder and every device is doing it and having these different layers of authorization. Or visibility, in a way, allows you to use that just to carry the information you need, but maybe for Lightning and Thunder specifically, you're not exposing that. But for the mesh, it's helping the whole thing reinforce itself.
Malachi Burke: Well, I get the idea. I think it's kind of a, we don't know the answer yet, right? We don't know if it's appropriate to combine those or not. It might be, right? But when I say combine those, I only mean like at the packet level. There's enough complexity in each problem domain that I'm going to stand by it. Like when Apple developed it, they didn't, I don't think they said, well, you know, let's only develop this location thing. We'll develop a network part later. Well, that's actually what you're arguing, right? You're arguing they develop them the same, right? I would say we do need to keep them as parallel tracks, but not... in have I've been talking some Unaware parallel tracks. We ought to have crosstalk between them to see if there are opportunities to do what you're saying to reuse elements of each.
Quan Gan: Okay. So your recommendation is to have them both use ESP now, but different signal types for now, and then see if there are opportunities to combine them later, but at least the experiments are independent of each other.
Malachi Burke: Yes, asterisk. That is what I'm saying, and I'm open to, as we do the discovery, to peer over the fence to see, hey, what's gone on over there? Is that similar? Is that relevant? And keep them separate, but notate that in each of the silos to kind of morph the direction that each silos goes so that they can converge.
Quan Gan: Okay. I mean, based on how fast the signals are and how many devices we have, does it seem conceivable that both can run completely in parallel without impacting performance?
Malachi Burke: At a human detectable level. It's conceivable. Okay. Because ESP now, it's like any long-range radio system. You can dial down the speed or dial up the speed depending on how much distance you want. And it will talk really quick if you are under 100 meters. It'll go pretty fast. But of course, we have to do some real-world testing with the antennas we're using. But my gut feeling is that we'll have plenty of bandwidth to do the things we want to do.
Dennis: I concur because you can keep your packet size pretty small. You know, there's no reason for you to be sending video.
Quan Gan: Not at moment. And I think the word small is very relative because our IR packets are very, very small.
Malachi Burke: It's on the order of like how many bytes can we send. yeah.
Dennis: Yeah. Well, they need to be small because it's not... The frequency they operate at, it's the frequency that they modulate at.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: I'm going look it up right now, the speeds that they advertise for ESP now. Because it's using the Wi-Fi radio equipment to do other things, which is pretty fast already.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I mean, your gigahertz compared to our 2400 baud for IR.
Malachi Burke: So here's the numbers straight from Espresso. They say around 214 kilobit in an opened environment, and then 555 kilobit in a shielding box.
Quan Gan: Yeah, okay. Yeah, it's order of magnitudes more than what we currently have.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. And I'm not against optimizing it up to actually share some packet load. It's not only conceivable, it's probably likely at some point that the... ... Yeah. Dead Reckoning System you're talking about could piggyback on top of the other thing. Yeah, I love the idea of using ESPNOW. It's such a convenient thing to use in this chip. And I'm excited to do the mesh stuff, you know, but if there was an off-the-shelf solution, I would show restraint and use that, but there doesn't appear to be one.
Quan Gan: For ESPNOW, would we have to use a similar listen first and then speak, like a back-off algorithm for it, if every single device is potentially spewing information?
Malachi Burke: Probably.
Dennis: Go ahead. Yeah, I'm sorry. You just have the potential to step on somebody else's transmission, so you have to make sure that you know that that's happened, so you do retransmit. But that's all there is as far as I see with ESPNOW is, like, you can... Broadcast when you want, which gets back to something else that Malachi and I were musing about a couple of weeks ago was how could you actually do a time division, you know, so that you would reduce the ability to step on somebody, which is, you know, as long as you've got control of the playing field and the other RF emitters that are in your realm, then you can actually pull that off. But that means that everybody has to know who they are.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Dennis: And there are two ways to make that work. You can do like a token ring where you hear number five transmits, so you're number six and now you transmit. But that means if you don't hear number five, that you just have to assume it didn't transmit and wait one transmission delay and then you transmit. So that's like your token ring network. The other thing you can do is just say, we're going to say the, in a tag game, you can make a good analogy where it's like the prey becomes the timer when you get the thing. From Prey, you know how far you are from it, and at that point now, you've already been assigned a slot, you know, which player you are, which is something that you're probably not actually doing now, but if you could say you're player 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, then they would just rotate through there. Whether or not they heard, they would have their hold-off times based on their player number.
Quan Gan: For ESP now, is there an equivalent of a carrier sense like we're doing in IR, or that's not available?
Malachi Burke: Well, no, you go ahead, Malachi. I will say briefly that we're doing the carrier sense pretty manually, right? We have an interrupt, which notices IR activity, and then flips a bit. That's our carrier sense. And ESP now, you could do that in ESP.
Quan Gan: You can? Okay. You can just say, do I hear something? Like, is there something actually loaded into my read buffer?
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Yeah. And I don't I don't want to interrupt Dad's answer also. Why don't you take it away if you have some thoughts?
Dennis: Well, I haven't played with the ESP now yet, but I know that the radio is capable of noticing that it didn't receive or, you know, that its transmission failed. And I don't know exactly how it does that, but I would imagine that's still part of the ESP now. We should read that spec more and say, like, if you're just emitter, you know, and somebody steps on your packet, do you know?
Malachi Burke: Right. Kind of Canva style almost.
Dennis: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: I hadn't thought of that. Because we're doing it one level higher where we get an operating system notification that a signal is coming in. And you're speaking about a level lower, which that would be much better if that was available.
Dennis: Yeah, because the problem is, you know, did your transmission succeed? Yeah. Not did you receive something, but were you successful in transmitting it? And a lot of protocols, you get an acknowledge saying, I saw your packet.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I mean, that would be great to not have to write that layer.
Dennis: Yeah, well, again, I haven't had a chance to really play with it, but it looks like, of course, it uses the same radio that would have that capability, but I think it just transmits. It's it just sends packets, you know, at some frequency, and you get to get these updates on your end. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, I mean, this would be something I'll rinse through AI and do some research and see what it finds for us.
Dennis: Yeah. Then that's the basic question. Does ESP now know when its transmission fail?
Malachi Burke: I'm pretty sure the answer is no.
Dennis: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: But there is hope because that is a. Deep Firmware Support thing. They wrote it from top to bottom, the whole radio stack. So it might be in there. I'm just not super optimistic about it. I will say this. ESPNOW, and this is good to get out there now. Pardon the pun. ESPNOW has two different flavors. Espressif is usually really good about this. They're really good about making things clear and documented, but they kind of screwed up. There's two different ESPNOWs. One of them is this semi-alpha layer on top of the core ESPNOW that's baked into the radio. And the quasi-upper layer actually has things like guaranteed delivery in it. But you don't want to touch that thing with a 10-foot pole.
Quan Gan: You don't want that one. Okay, why not?
Malachi Burke: Because it and one or two other, like the ADF, their audio framework, they're wiggly. They haven't nailed down the version. bottom left the apocalypse? The quality control is not as good. When I used those, it was really obnoxious. So I'm like, screw this. So we do want to use the lower level one, but that means we are on the hook for acknowledgments, which, Quan, you've already noticed, right?
Quan Gan: But conceivably, that might get solved in the near future if we just wait long enough or no?
Malachi Burke: No, no, because there's a difference between avoiding a collision and guaranteeing a delivery.
Dennis: Yes.
Malachi Burke: Similar, overlapping concerns, but different concerns.
Quan Gan: But you don't think ESP will have solved this issue, or it doesn't seem like it's on its priority? No. No. No confidence.
Dennis: Got it. Well, it just gets into RF communication protocols writ large, that ESP doesn't escape the laws of physics and the rule of time. You know, there's only so much that they can do. For example, when you're transmitting, your receiver is going to be swamped if you try to actually listen to your own transmission. And because your signal is so much stronger, even if somebody else stepped on it so nobody else saw it, you wouldn't have seen that.
Quan Gan: You just can't escape that physical reality. That makes sense. Yeah, I mean, we have that same thing in IR. Like when we're sending, you can be sure that our receiver sees exactly what we're sending out.
Malachi Burke: But in the, it's a feature, not a bug category, you know, at a certain level, all networking has to deal with this broadcasting retry thing. Like Laura is the same way. It makes no guarantees as to whether you get the packet got out there or not. So no minus points on ESPNOW for that from me. And in the further thought of it's a feature, not a bug, something like... Mesh-tastic, at a protocol level, acknowledges this. It's designed to work on those raw kind of radios, so that it actually has broadcast-esque level, you know, guaranteed deliveries, and, of course, the meshing and the recovery, all tuned for a broadcast radio, which ESPNow is. So, I'm kind of going off on a mesh-tastic advocacy now, but backing it up a little, ESPNow is no worse than any other broadcast radio, I think.
Quan Gan: Okay. Well, so, where do we go from here?
Dennis: Well, I think trying to figure out if there's a rock-solid way for us to provide time slicing so that we can reduce the number of opportunities to step on each other. And if you have more than one team playing on the same field, they have to... And register into that time slice as well. So that's a superset of how you try to use this stuff right now. You know, like if it's just you and another small group of people and you're all playing the same game and you're not playing on the same playing field with anybody else, that's not so much of a problem. But I'm also very interested in not just this RF solution, but even more so the thunder side. You know, I'm not exactly answering the question, but going with where my thinking is going. I'm going to wave, but you can't see me. Hey there.
Malachi Burke: Hello there.
Quan Gan: He's getting ready for his competition starting tomorrow.
Malachi Burke: Are you pumped?
Quan Gan: What?
Malachi Burke: Are you pumped?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, awesome. Awesome.
Quan Gan: Are you about to... Are you sleeping, or what's going on? Has everybody gone to sleep? Basically not. Okay. I think everybody's trying to, they're jet-lagged and trying to rest for tomorrow.
Dennis: It's a big day.
Quan Gan: We'll try to wrap it up in a few minutes. One application thing I do want to share is, currently, you can assume that one school is using, like, only playing one game at a time. But, eventually, a single school might have multiple systems, and, you know, it could be one classroom right next to another, running multiple networks. So, there eventually will have to be crossover and compatibility so that you're not mixing the taggers and getting them confused.
Dennis: Well, having somebody in a different physical space, you've got a wall between them. So your Thunder isn't going to go through that, and your IR isn't going to go through that.
Quan Gan: So you only have to worry about the RF component.
Dennis: Right. And we could probably cook up some things in the protocol that would allow us to recognize that there's somebody else playing a game and communicate in some manner how to time shift things. But I don't know, you know, this is all based on this thing in my head about being able to do some time division multiplexing to assign slots to the different players. And right now, all the players are the same, right?
Quan Gan: When you say the same, at which layer are they the same?
Dennis: Yeah, so let's pick the chase game. So you have one person who's the prey, and then you have all the people chasing after that. Okay, so all the people chasing after it don't have any unique identification.
Quan Gan: That's not correct.
Dennis: They do. Oh, good.
Quan Gan: Yeah, because we want to give them rankings. want to be able to search. They all have different IDs.
Dennis: That's great. So is that built into the hardware, or is that assigned when they start the game?
Quan Gan: It's essentially written into NBS, so that when they boot up, they'll have their own names assigned to them. And that's being assigned by the ZEUS, which is the answer, and it says, okay, this MAC address has this particular string for its name.
Dennis: Got it. Now, this is good. Then there's already, for obvious reasons, ways of differentiating, and having a mechanism to differentiate allows us to issue instructions that are specific.
Quan Gan: Yes, yes. And also, I'll share our current method of trying to give us future compatibility, because... They're all connected to Wi-Fi, but the Wi-Fi router is actually the same SSID regardless of router. So how do you keep one from confusing, okay, I'm supposed to hook up to this router versus the other? We actually, you could say a factory fresh ZTAgger is agnostic to which router it links to for the first time. So when it does link and it sees multiple SSIDs that are the same, it'll pick the one that has the stronger RSSI, assuming that's something that's physically closer. And then it will remember that Mac into its MBS so that next time if it sees multiple SSIDs and one of them happens to be on its preference list, it'll link to that unless you clear it.
Dennis: Right, like logging into your known networks. Yeah. No, that makes sense. And that's all for you. Encouraging. A lot of things that I didn't know that you already had in place that need to be in place for some of the TDM things that I think we want to get into. Now, I don't want to drill too much deeper into that right now, because I know you kind of need to wind down so you'll be ready for tomorrow.
Quan Gan: Okay. Well, I think, you know, less about the technical part, but more logistical. What are our next steps to see how, Dennis, you might be able to help and engage with us?
Dennis: Yeah, I'm, like, my interest was peaked initially based off of what you call the thunder side of this. But the ESP now is probably going to be a pretty critical part going forward as well. I don't have... I don't have... I don't that I could play with for any sound-based stuff, but I do have some ESP things that I could reprogram for ESP now and experiment with range and occlusion problems.
Quan Gan: more than happy to send you hardware.
Dennis: Yeah, so that we have plenty of. Yeah, well, I think you need three pieces of hardware as a minimum.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I mean, you know, when I was basically Geo's age in the 90s, I had this dream or this future thought. It's like, I love computers so much that I want to get a new computer every single day.
Dennis: And obviously back then we didn't have the resources to, but I didn't realize that I literally have fulfilled that dream now to the point that I'm like choking on ESP32.
Quan Gan: Because these are like the same. Level as the 486s. Be careful what you wish for.
Dennis: Exactly. You stole the word self right out of my mouth. Well, so, yeah, having the hardware to play with would be really handy. The one other piece of this puzzle is it has to lock to a router, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Dennis: I could provide that.
Quan Gan: mean, in fact, I could provide the entire station if you're not space-limited like that.
Dennis: Well, I'm not exactly space-limited, but I'm sort of pack-rat space-limited. But, no, I've got room for something like a Raspberry Pi in a couple of these units, no doubt.
Quan Gan: Does this thing come in a Pelican case if you want the full unit as is commercially?
Dennis: Yeah. So, inside… That Pelican case, you get the Raspberry Pi base station, and how many units?
Quan Gan: 24 taggers, if you want me to populate all of them, and a 12-inch touchscreen.
Dennis: So four tags, the base station, and a touchscreen.
Quan Gan: What is this? 24.
Dennis: 24. No, I don't need 24.
Malachi Burke: How about this? Between the team and I, we have what I call the synthetic Zeus. Which works pretty well at this point. So what that means is, I can guide you through bringing up the Raspberry Pi portion without even a Raspberry Pi. You can run it on any Linux machine.
Dennis: Yeah, but I mean, I have four Raspberry Pis sitting within arm's length in me right now.
Malachi Burke: That works too. Yeah. So I can guide you through that. And the Zeus, the full unit, I do think will be valuable. But perhaps in the short term, we can start.
Dennis: Yeah, exactly. know, three or four ZTAGG watches and one of my Raspberry Pis configured to play the necessary role, we'd be good to go.
Malachi Burke: I think so. That's been working for me so far.
Quan Gan: Okay, great. All right. One last set of questions before I retire, but more from a, I guess, a corporate policy standpoint. One is, Dennis, would you be okay to sign an NDA with us? And two, do you have any expectations as for a compensation?
Dennis: Well, first off, no problem with the NDA. And secondly, I'm kind of still in the brain-picking mode, so compensation isn't at the top of my mind, you know, depending upon the complexity and the length of the contract I've been running. Recently, the $50 to $80 an hour range. But because of the high interest that I have in seeing if we can make something like this work, because I tried to do something less before, we're going to be running on the lower end of that.
Quan Gan: Okay, fair. All right, thank you so much.
Dennis: You're welcome.
Malachi Burke: Thank you, Quan. Thank you both for making all this time. Really interesting conversation.
Quan Gan: Well, thank you, Mal, for bringing us together.
Dennis: I look forward to actually seeing Dennis at some point. Me too. Yeah, really.
Malachi Burke: Be careful what you wish for.
Quan Gan: And the thing that's really missing right now is having both of you guys actually seen the game in person.
Malachi Burke: It would translate so much more information.
Dennis: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, it's great talking to you.
Quan Gan: Good luck to your son tomorrow. Yeah, thanks so much. So, good night for now, or good morning over there.
Dennis: Good day, eh? Good day, yes.
Malachi Burke: We'll see you later.
Quan Gan: All right. We'll reconnect soon.
Dennis: Bye. Bye.
Malachi Burke: You want to stay on the line?
Dennis: Yeah, let's do that for a minute or two. Yeah, because setting up a Raspberry Pi to do the base station, since I'm not pushing the range as much at this point, I don't think I'm going to have a problem. Yeah.
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Quan Gan: It didn't, had nothing to do with yo-yoing at all, but did you know, like, the fire right now is right next to my house?
Malachi Burke: No.
Quan Gan: Did you know there's a fire?
Malachi Burke: No.
Quan Gan: Okay, yeah, it's like, it's about like a quarter mile away from my house on the other side of the hill. Yeah, like, it's been burning all night.
Malachi Burke: That's discomforting.
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah, my, so that, that was crazy, because I, yeah, like, my wife went to work yesterday, and on the way back, they had already evacuated, so she wasn't allowed to get back onto the property, and we still have our animals and everything. So, like, they just, she finally got in this morning, and I think they restored power. But, yeah, it's like, if I showed you a map, like, the neighborhood's here, and there's fire, like, all around.
Malachi Burke: Oh, boy.
Quan Gan: Like, in three directions, yeah.
Malachi Burke: Oh, boy. Okay. Wow.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: thoughts and prayers, you know. Yeah. As in every positive vibe I can put into the universe, Quan's a good guy, leave his house alone.
Quan Gan: So, so far, so good. Yeah, they, they've actually, like, they held the line, and I think it's starting to recede. So, yeah, that, and I was, you know, holding that back from telling my son, because he was, like, practicing all day. Yeah. No, actually, I let him sleep as late as he could, because he was, like, crashed out and, you know, still jet-lagged. And fortunately, the, the actual event for him was end of the day. And so he slept till noon. He had, like, 12 hours of sleep, and then about three hours of practice. And, and also, he got really lucky, because there's, so, he's competing up to 16-year-olds. So he's 10. So there are people that are. Up to 16 that are competing in this thing. Many of them with technically better skill than him, but they all made major deductions, and so he ended up getting on podium.
Malachi Burke: What happens with the deductions?
Quan Gan: How did that come about? It's almost like, okay, I don't know serendipity or what, but it's almost identical to how our red light, green light game works. Because you can do higher, harder tricks, and if you hit those, you get more points. Similar to red light, green light, if you're moving more during green, you get more points. But if you miss, you actually get a deduction that was like, you get negative points. So rather than getting the positive, you lose that and you get negative. And so it's high risk and high reward if they hit it, but a lot of them miss their hardest tricks. And so... Yeah. Kind of the hare and the tortoise. You know, my son's level is not as hard, but he just, you know, more stable.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, almost like a quality versus quantity argument.
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah, certainly.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Well, it seems to me it was more than luck that got him that position. That's awesome for him.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it was also an effort because he is so hyper-focused to the point that he'll burn himself out without even realizing it, and then he gets, like, so bad that it's delusional. Like, we have to remind him to eat and, like, shove food in his mouth.
Malachi Burke: Right.
Quan Gan: But that's why, yeah, I, yeah, like, in the morning, I couldn't sleep, but I'm like, look, I'm not going to wake him up and, like, interfere with that, so... The longer he can sleep, the better, so I don't have to keep, you know, like, holding it back.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, yeah. Well, good on I think that was the right call. It's not even like a white lie in this case, because it's like, well, he's so hyper-focused, there's a lot of information you're not giving him. And, you know, this is critical information, but still, I might have done what you did.
Quan Gan: Yeah, we're completely helpless to it. All I could do is watch on my phone, like, how close it is.
Malachi Burke: Right. You want to get some information on a thing that you can do nothing about, but it'll ruin your day?
Quan Gan: Let me show you. I know. Yeah. What a day. I am utterly exhausted. Wow.
Malachi Burke: I can only imagine. And that's such an up and a down in the same day, too.
Quan Gan: Yeah. This is that rollercoaster of life we're going through.
Malachi Burke: No joke about that. You know, I've been through, in my dating life, I've been through some incredible ups and some incredible downs. Who hasn't? But it's almost. It's like when you're younger, you don't anticipate that the ups and downs are going to be that big. You anticipate some, but you don't expect that. And life is, like you said, life is that way, man.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Getting through it makes us better, as long as you're alive, right?
Malachi Burke: That's what I keep telling myself.
Quan Gan: I tell myself that, too.
Malachi Burke: That's what I keep telling myself. I was reminded of something really wonderful by a good friend of mine. And he said, well, he goes, one thing that he takes comfort in, and he finds, and he gave me a nice compliment, but he said that sometimes when you have a particular purpose in your life that you know you're good at and you know you can do, you can get a lot of satisfaction just out of that. And he says, you know, people like you and I, one of our purposes is to help raise others in certain areas, help them out, educate them, but not torture them, but, you know, bring them up. And we do that. And, uh, But you do that, and that is a good feeling.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Very, very proud dad to be here and to see him through. And I think also the placement that he got, I think it was also perfect because he almost didn't make it, and there's plenty of people that he recognized were better than him. So it's not going to his head and also shows that there's plenty of work to do.
Malachi Burke: Right on. Right on. But third is no joke in the world as well, so it does underscore that, yeah, you can't get first without a little bit of good fortune on your side, right? Yeah. But like if he didn't rank at all, that would be kind of, well, it wouldn't be depressing.
Quan Gan: That's how competition goes. But it's nice. Yeah, I mean, we weren't even expecting it, right? So because this is the second round, like there's a qualifying round. In qualifying, he got six. So, you know, it's like... That maps onto this. He did get a three-person boost.
Malachi Burke: Wow. Well, congratulations to you and your son and your whole family. That is really, what a feather in your cap.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah. It's quite sweet. So now I can relax for the next few days because it has nothing to do with him anymore.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Will he relax is the question.
Quan Gan: He'll keep practicing and playing because he's among his favorite people. Like these are his influencers that are on the world stage. So he's just like, what do they call it?
Malachi Burke: Like a pig rolling in . Wow. Good for him. That is so exciting. Yeah. Like a dream come true almost.
Quan Gan: Oh, literally is because last year he barely picked up the yo-yo. So these people he's just like watching on YouTube and now they're watching him. Wow.
Malachi Burke: What a great feeling. Yeah. What a great feeling. Huh. Too cool. I'm reminded of a ton of stories, but I will abstain because you're probably – you'd probably like to get some rest at some point soon, so I won't – We'll do it in person. How's that? We'll do it in person, yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. I appreciate it. Well, also, I thank you for your flexibility. So, yeah, if we can get even a little bit of stuff done, super appreciative that you're available.
Malachi Burke: Well, Well, you would do the same for me.
Quan Gan: I would.
Malachi Burke: Well, I want to jump right into it then. I'll talk a little bit about our meeting last night. If we're okay with this being kind of a status and overall meeting and not only a requirements meeting. If we want it to only be requirements, I'm open to that too.
Quan Gan: Let's do both. Was it last night for you or – Okay. Yeah. It felt like a week ago.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Yeah. I imagine there's a lot of time dilation going on for you right about now.
Quan Gan: Yes. Okay. So let's do a hybrid, and then, yeah, let's go.
Malachi Burke: Okay. So this meeting was a little clunky, this last one. I wouldn't call it uncomfortable. And I think I was just kind of tired as well, so that contributed to it. But you can see in the transcript, it just kind of went on for a while. Oh, okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you did share that with me. And... you did share that with me. did Thank That's a whole philosophical conversation that I would actually like to have. But again, time is too limited for that. So I noted that, then I'm like, you know what? I'm not the manager. I don't want to be the manager. So I'll relay my concern to you, and I'll let you shoulder that.
Quan Gan: I will. Okay. So he was 15 minutes late? Approximately. Okay.
Malachi Burke: And I wasn't offended. I wasn't even really that irritated. It was just that Basim and I were there, and like, well, what are we going to talk about? Are we going to repeat what we're talking about?
Quan Gan: You know the truth.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. You've been in meetings.
Quan Gan: Right.
Malachi Burke: So I've done my duty. I've tattled. So now that I've tattled. So it went okay. And noteworthy is that the unit tests that Sean worked on are, I'm choosing my words carefully because we're being transcribed, and I don't want. You know, I don't want to be politically incorrect. Let's just say 100% misguided were the unit tests.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And it doesn't appear to be Sean's fault directly because his quasi-predecessor wrote them a certain way and he merely did it the way his quasi-predecessor did. Okay. But the trouble with the way the unit tests are done is that they're 0% effective. Okay. And that's obviously not a favorable number. So they use this technique called mocking. And mocking, should I tell you what mocking is or are familiar with what mock it is?
Quan Gan: How about I'll state it and then you can correct me if I'm wrong. Especially for a hardware component, since you don't have actual input, then you're going to have some kind of a mocking thing to simulate that input to basically, like, mocking thing. Okay. Poke at it in a certain way?
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Okay. That's a fair characterization. So mocking is fine. When we can actually practically use it, that's the big qualifier. We like them. We like mocking. But the practicality of it falls apart pretty fast sometimes. Okay. But not even that was the specific issue here. So there was tons of mock interfaces done in the unit tests. The thing about it, though, is that they had 0% overlap with the non-mocked ones, meaning they weren't spliced in and they're not spliceable. So we can't take like, let's say we mock, and they did this. Let's say we've got a mock of the accelerometer. Okay. In order for that mock to work, that mock has to be able to, you have to be able to slide that into non-mock code. Right? Right. Like the actual code with the UI. Right. Yeah. But this code was so divergent, there was no chance of it being slid into the non-lock area.
Quan Gan: Okay, so it's useless.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, it's like a demo is what it is.
Quan Gan: Is it because as we're progressing with this particular main dev branch that this thing is so old and stale that it's just irrelevant now?
Malachi Burke: That's a good question. My gut response is no, but I'll have to think about that more. My gut response is it was always 0%.
Quan Gan: Okay. I will admit or shoulder some of that blame to myself and a couple of other factors. I don't think any of us in this context had much experience with unit testing at all. Maybe the other team had a little bit. bit, but also we relied on AI to recommend. And What kind of unit test to have in there? Like, we basically knew what the buzzwords were, but then beyond that, we had no personal experience, so we just kind of, like, blind leading the blind.
Malachi Burke: Right. And that story is corroborated by the conversation with Sean, where it was honest and not blamey at all. It was very professional. And he said, well, he goes, to paraphrase him, frankly, I don't even know what a good unit test is.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: And I proceeded to try to explain it, but I was tired, and I think he was kind of exhausted from hearing me speak. So I wasn't able to really relay the idea correctly. But our strategy is, and this is our strategy, I said, burn it to the ground. All those mocks, I haven't found a single one that has any use, not even if you upgraded them, you know. Okay. So wipe them out, but keep the unit test boilerplate, because... I I can... don't don't have because... I I want to start fresh and start putting in bit by bit real, useful unit tests. And at that time, you will see with your own eyes what a good unit test looks like.
Quan Gan: Yeah. So you're teaching all of us zero to one at this point. So at least we know what the thing, like we know of it, but we don't know it. So just treat us like babies.
Malachi Burke: And it's – I'm becoming more comfortable with that because the last thing I want to do is come in and scold people and say, you did all this wrong. I don't like that, but that is my job too, right?
Quan Gan: Well, there's also this other major pain point that I think if – I'm hoping – you'll have to tell me if this is a false hope or not. But one of the biggest pain points before was just how time-consuming their manual tests were. So they would make some code and then they have like, I don't know, like 100 – I think I We're in a 200-point checklist that takes forever for it to go through. So I don't know if it's a combination of this plus CICD principles would actually be able to reduce that load.
Malachi Burke: Yes, asterisk. Yes, and other SDLC concerns that will be a part of a whole cycle that will reduce that checklist.
Quan Gan: Okay. So would you say the fact that they had this very painful checklist before was because they didn't understand these methods?
Malachi Burke: No, I wouldn't. As strange as that answer sounds, given the previous answer. the reason is because at some level, QA somewhere needs that exhaustive checklist.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Right. So it has use in that for that audience. But even as QA, I've never, I always qualify. I've never been QA. But if I was QA, and I've been doing this with dev tests as well. If I was QA, I'd have this exhaustive list, and then I'd have what I call cell. Volvo tests, 10 different tests, which when you overlay them all together, they create a completion.
Quan Gan: Okay, okay. Well, then, would it be fair to say that, let's say the previous way, every time we made a minor change, they had to go through this exhaustive list, which was very time-consuming because it scales linearly, versus now, if we have these adopted best practices, all of these things, then the quality going in will probably allow us to maybe rely on, on the big test less, because there's more things that's already gone right before you send it?
Malachi Burke: That's precisely correct.
Quan Gan: Okay. Great. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. And to paint the picture, it starts with, of course, the coder watching it run on his computer. Is it working?
Quan Gan: That's the first test.
Malachi Burke: Then the second test is the unit test.
Quan Gan: And unit tests are tiny, isolated tests.
Malachi Burke: That's what they're called, unit tests. Right. So, the last thing they are is any kind of proof that the whole system Nope, not at all. But then after that, you get into integration testing and then systems integration testing, which are the big bugaboos for any system. Those are a little bit harder, but we'll do those two. After that, you get into acceptance testing where you look at it. You're not even running in QA, right? You're just looking at it. You're going, well, I'm a stakeholder. That doesn't look right. What's going on there?
Quan Gan: That's an acceptance test, right? Yeah. But all of those things are even before QA happens. Right. And hopefully the QA person is just generally seeing a higher level of quality on the output than what I've seen.
Malachi Burke: And as a quasi-computer scientist, we can elevate that and say they will see it. We don't even have to hope. They will be seeing higher quality.
Quan Gan: Okay. Well, got to eat our vegetables and work out.
Malachi Burke: Even, even, what was that?
Quan Gan: Eat our vegetables and work out.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Yeah. I'd make a joke about you being RFK Jr., but that would be unkind, so I won't do it.
Quan Gan: Actually, I don't mind the guy. Okay.
Malachi Burke: Okay.
Quan Gan: I've heard of some of his assertions, so like, yeah. We don't have to go political, but I don't actually see him as a negative.
Malachi Burke: Okay, good. I can respect that, actually. We'll see. That'll be part two of our follow-up conversation.
Quan Gan: Sounds good.
Malachi Burke: Good. So all that is mostly up back on the rails. Again, was going off the rails. And another reason it went off the rails was kind of a bifurcated situation where I verbally told Sean, get this thing building. That's the main thing. Implementing more unit tests, that's not the priority. Getting this thing to build. But he kind of took the initiative and started adding more unit tests anyway.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank
Malachi Burke: And that was a shared thing, and I learned from that that I've been doing pretty well, in my own estimation, of making clear issues, but this one could have been clearer. It could have been more clear to him what the scope of the issue is.
Quan Gan: Okay. I mean, to me, that sounds like a similar thing that I would deal with, even with my AI agent, because I'll say something, and then I realize I didn't tell it to not do something, and it might do that as well, including committing before I review anything, committing and pushing. Ouch.
Malachi Burke: Ouch. Like, well, I guess we're literally committed.
Quan Gan: It takes an extra mile, so.
Malachi Burke: Ah, too funny. And I hold myself back because I never want to scold somebody for taking the initiative. I never want to do that. Right. And they do. So. Moving on, the commit thing reminds me, yeah, the format of the PRs are getting a little better. They're definitely just tossing in some AI-generated things, and I've noticed that when it comes to generating the verbiage of the PR, the AI doesn't do a bad job overall, so I'm okay with that, but it's throwing in things like, you know, stuff that only belongs in the commit, because they're kind of copy-pasting what's in the commit into the PR, and that's, yeah. so those are a little fine details. We don't have to go into that right now. Okay. Any questions on that? I'm kind of going off a rabbit hole here.
Quan Gan: We're good.
Malachi Burke: Okay. And I've been progressing on the IRV2 code, and I've discovered, so I, there's a piece of code that does the RX noticing, you know, through the serial port, as you know, and they augmented that to have the carrier detect a little more, so that, you The CSMA could do its thing. And I've long, from the very first time I saw that Rx code, I'm like, I don't know, man, that probably needs to be like a state machine because it's kind of sitting there waiting for a particular block of data to show up. And if it's not just that, it gets mad and says, screw you next time. But it turned out that worked okay. So I left it alone. But now for the V2 packet, the V2 packet, one of its features is depending on the situation, the packet can be a different size.
Quan Gan: You know, we can shrink it down to optimize or expand if it needs to be big. Cool.
Malachi Burke: But the existing Rx code is very like, no, this packet takes this long to appear, and that's how long I'm waiting. And if it takes too long, screw you.
Quan Gan: Okay. No, that makes sense. I like your better approach because I can see use cases where you're not in a huddle trying to pass a ball, which is actually a very extreme case where you do need short packets to keep the link. But there might be a situation where you walk up to a kiosk and you want to download an image or something, and you're only interfacing with this kiosk.
Malachi Burke: The packet could get a lot bigger. It's not the first thing we want to do, but that's an example. And the example I think of is the reverse, where there's a world, and we spoke about this before, there's a world where we have a more advanced CSMA round robin, where we're emitting tiny little packets, just saying, I'm here, I'm here.
Quan Gan: Not even who I am, just I'm here, right?
Malachi Burke: And that would be the abbreviated packet, which can be like four bytes long, right? Anyway, your example works and my example works. So, it wasn't too hard. It's not quite done, but I've got an upgraded V2 RX as well. And that's coming along pretty well.
Quan Gan: Okay. That sounds hopeful.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, I'm hopeful about it. And I'm refactoring the CSMA, but that's a gentle, that's not a big refactor. I'm just moving the code around is what I'm doing. And this is actually going to be the first probably hands-on example of unit testing. Because with the refactor, we can actually unit test the CSMA algorithm. Okay.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, that's great. So, you know, essentially behind the black box, doesn't matter what you change, but at the interface level, it's still the same.
Malachi Burke: It's still the same. And that way, if we can test, as you would expect from a unit test, we can test that without any IR hardware at all. But we can tell if our timeouts are still correct or if we introduce a bug, if we upgrade our CSMA.
Quan Gan: And just these tests, are they things that would just mimic, like, signals or random spacing or corrupted packets or things like that?
Malachi Burke: That would be an, what do they call that, one order over it, like, that would be more like an integration test.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay.
Malachi Burke: The unit test would be like, okay, here's your random number, here's how many backoffs you've tried, I expect this new backoff number based on that, and if the wrong backoff number comes out, then you've got a bug in your algorithm.
Quan Gan: Okay, way more granular, got it.
Malachi Burke: But the integration test would do what you're talking about. Well, let's simulate three packets showed up and interfered with this one, no IRs here, but we'll just kind of preload them, shove that into the CSMA as a bundle, and we'll get to that too.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Good questions. Is there anything else I wanted to bring up about yesterday's meeting?
Quan Gan: I think that's most of it. Okay.
Malachi Burke: Let me look up my notes. Their PR quality is improving.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. Promising.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's enough about that. I'm going to move on to another thing I wanted to talk to you about. Coming real soon, we're going to be at a pain point if we don't have version stamping in our firmware. I think you're aware of this already. Like, and so achieving that is not some monumental task, not too brutal, but in order to really achieve it, you and I have to kind of lock down what the version numbering scheme is even really going to be.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And if I recall correctly, 7.4 is like the legacy code version you got to. Is that right?
Quan Gan: For, you mean the production version of the ZTAG firmware?
Malachi Burke: Mm-hmm.
Quan Gan: It's actually 7.4. 7.0.26.
Malachi Burke: 7.0.26. Okay. Okay.
Quan Gan: And it's pretty meaningless. I think the only meaningful thing is the 2.6 is not 2.5 or 2.4.
Malachi Burke: The joys of version schemes, man. That's what we're going to try to avoid with this new version scheme. That's why we're having this conversation, so that the versions mean something. So first of all, Semver, the scheme that we are adopting wholeheartedly, now I'm going to add an asterisk to the wholeheartedly. So Semver tells us that when you have a major system change, then the major portion, being the first number, gets bumped up. Okay. So that would be an 8.0.0 would be our starting point.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Now here's the, like. The Jerky Boy said, here's the problem, Jerky, you know, it's that we're not at production level yet.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: And how many 8.0.0s do we really want in the meantime? So there's an awkwardness there. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to bend the rules of Semver. I'm proposing to bend the rules and let's do like a 7.1 or something, which is not reflective of a major upgrade, as it should be, but moves us out of the version space of the old firmware and into a new higher version space. And then when we're approaching actual release for real, then we'll put an 8.0 stamp on there.
Quan Gan: Okay. Oh, can you compare what it would be like if we just completely ditched the current scheme and just say we're starting, you know, 0.1 or something?
Malachi Burke: I don't So to compare that, the experience for your field people could be, well, I was seeing 7.0 point something, and now it's 0.1, so I'm confused.
Quan Gan: Did we go backwards or forwards? Is this an internal number or an external number of both?
Malachi Burke: Remains to be decided, right? But I do have a feeling end users, if they look hard enough, will see it on the device. If they look hard enough, they'll find it. Because it shouldn't be a secret exactly.
Quan Gan: Right. But we might tuck it away in like the factory test screen. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: How about this? It may or may not be an internal number, but for this conversation, we can absolutely treat it that way. Okay. Because what we don't want to do is treat the firmware version number as the universal product version number. We don't want to do that.
Quan Gan: Well, there's a kind of a quasi, like kind of best of both worlds thing where Tesla's firmware actually has the year on it. I think the year and the month. So it's more of a timestamp rather than this is a particular thing. So could we consider that as the marketing one? It's like this version is, you know, released at what date? And then internally, we just, you know, wipe it back to, you know, our early version and just say this is not even like alpha yet. So it shouldn't even be 1.0.
Malachi Burke: Well, the first part is tractable. And the second part is a conversation.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Marketing versioning, sky's the limit. We can do whatever the... ... How are we, really?
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: As far as the firmware versioning goes, it comes back to the earlier thing. If customers have seen 7.0 somewhere in the firmware or associated with the firmware, there's the potential for confusion.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Well, there's a few ways that we've – it's been messy, but we've mitigated it before. Because in what's available to them, what shows up on their thing is strictly what we check out. So other than what's installed on their system, if they see a different number, it's only because we allowed them to see it. And it could be such a different numbering scheme or so off from 7.0 or whatever that they know this is – we're no longer following the original naming conventions.
Malachi Burke: Well, can we get some data on that right now? Can we look at the current versioning scheme to get a feel for that?
Quan Gan: Like, what do you want to see?
Malachi Burke: Well, the suggestion is perhaps the old versioning scheme is so different in appearance than the new versioning scheme that there'd be no confusion. So let's look at the old versioning scheme.
Quan Gan: And their experiments are just – it's all over the place. There was no convention, so it's – I'll screen share, but it's very ugly. So hold your latches, please.
Malachi Burke: You know what? I'm accustomed to it at this point.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so these are the file names. But Sean may have done some cleanup before, but look, we've had, you know, all over the map. Oh, boy. Right. But these are not – see, it has zero – I think these are just internal things they've done. We've gone through so many. I think 6.something is what customers have seen before.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Okay. So customers haven't even seen a 7.0 is what I'm hearing.
Quan Gan: 7.0, they've seen a 7.0.26. Okay. They haven't seen a 7.0.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Okay. A greater than or equal to 7.1.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Like currently, I mean, you see, they even went to like 8.1, but these are not released to customers. Released to customers, you're going to have to see things like not just UTF, like, yeah, Zeus users.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Yeah. And it's as much a question for you, too, is do you feel... We feel there's even a risk that customers will get confused if we change the versioning around. Are they just going to go like, hey, I'm just going to do what ZTAG tells me to do?
Quan Gan: Um, we hope to very soon onboard someone that will basically spoon feed them exactly what version or updates they need. Because part of the business and the new business process we're trying to bring up is to mandate a 30 minute training session. And at that point, we can certainly have our staff handhold them through, get it to this version.
Malachi Burke: Okay. So we're, sounds to me like we're, um, leaning on the side of if we have to confuse a customer, we're a little bit okay with that because we plan to be able to train them anyway and lead them through it.
Quan Gan: I'd say so. Yeah. If that helps us adopt a much more unified naming version and convention.
Malachi Burke: And I see, I saw a 1.0 and like an 8.1, but none of them have seen those, I presume.
Quan Gan: Yeah, they haven't seen those. And it's actually meaningless, probably both to me and the dev team, because it's been so long ago that they probably should just wipe it out. Okay. So conceivably, we might just leave the two firmwares that are currently available to any customers, and then wipe out everything else.
Malachi Burke: All right. So what I'm hearing then is we have the option of doing a 7.1 or a 0.1. We could go either way for internal type of things. I'm still going to favor 7.1.
Quan Gan: My personal preference is for wiping, because I don't feel pretty much to think. This was ever a 7.8 anything. was like, it was so arbitrary that I feel ashamed that it's trying to call itself 7.
Malachi Burke: Right on, right on. I, you know what, I know how that goes. I hate it when it's like, oh, I'm using version 11 of this thing, and every version before it was pretty bad, and this one is pretty bad too. Why do they even change these version numbers? How about this then? Leaning more towards what you're talking about, can we conceptually think of this as Mark II ZTAG firmware, version 1.0?
Quan Gan: Like, we're not actually going to say Mark II to anybody, right? Okay, but what is Mark II?
Malachi Burke: I visualize in my mind, okay, that, I don't know if this is true at all, that the military in the 60s are coming out with different jets, right? So they had the F4 Phantom Mark I, right? And it's like the F4 Phantom does all the . then they come out with like a minor upgrade to it. So that's a version 1.1, but it's still a Mark I Phantom. But then in 1970, they're like, you know what, we need a new Phantom, but we want the same plane, but we're going to redo the whole thing. So it looks mostly like an F-4. So they call it the F-4 Mark II.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. Got it.
Malachi Burke: And it's internal. We don't really have to say that to people unless we want to.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I'm okay with that.
Malachi Burke: Okay. So that's where my brain goes. So, all right. Then by that measurement, we could start at a version 0.1.0 or what have you.
Quan Gan: We can do that.
Malachi Burke: And then it will eventually reach a 1.0 on production, which of course is very appealing in its own way.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: And we still have that kind of, I'm going to ask the question one more time. I know I keep repeating this, but when the customers today with the production firmware hold the device in their hand, is there any...
Quan Gan: It's that it's a 7.0 on that device. Yes, it will say that. And we always ask them for it from customer service. What number do you have if they have any issues?
Malachi Burke: Okay.
Quan Gan: Well, if you are comfortable overcoming the customer support challenge that that presents, going backwards on your version of numbers, then I won't fight it. But it may be something where we have a signifier to show that this is a completely different naming convention. Like, I would not be opposed to saying, like, this is M2-0.1 or something, right? I see.
Malachi Burke: I see. I see. And this is a good conversation. And perhaps all of this can be can It's in the marketing versioning bubble as well.
Quan Gan: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: All right. I just want to get this right because once we're committed to it, you know how it is wiggling around on that one.
Quan Gan: You don't want to do it. Yeah, it would be very painful, but, you know, we need to. I mean, I'm even happy to, after this transcript, have the AI give us any other suggestions just to make sure we cover our blind spots, and then we can decide on it.
Malachi Burke: All right. This is important enough that it's prudent to ask a third party, and AI can qualify in this case. So let's do that.
Quan Gan: Sounds good. And, you know, GPD5 came out yesterday?
Malachi Burke: I heard about that. I heard it's – no, go ahead.
Quan Gan: I heard about that. I haven't tested it enough to say how good technically it is. I mean, it's giving me fast human language responses, but I haven't really put it through its real paces yet.
Malachi Burke: I saw just a Funny statistic that it said GPT-5 is 20% higher version number than GPT-4 was. No, but I'm sure it's better. I presume you're already subscribed and have access to those things.
Quan Gan: I do, yeah. But yeah, I just haven't tested it.
Malachi Burke: Well, I'm kind of excited about being able to do these version numbers because I asked the guys to do a soft regression test on my partial PR. did a partial PR for the IRV2 code because I've said it a lot on Discord, but just to kind of restate it, long-running branches. We all know we don't want those, but the IRV2 has become that. So what I've done is a partial PR to mitigate that so that we can keep the code bases from splitting apart too far. And it's a trick I picked up from my... Microsoft, because they would do this with Windows, where they're like, well, these features are underway, so what we'll do is we'll disable them. They'll be in the code, but when you compile it, they won't actually be active, and we have to turn on a feature flag for that to even be present, and that way the code can kind of sort of stay aligned still.
Quan Gan: Okay. Sounds good.
Malachi Burke: So I've asked them to do that, and I put some limits on there, because, you know, that can be a pretty daunting task to be testing somebody else's code. So I said, spend, please just spend, you know, 15 minutes glancing at the code and 10 minutes regressing, testing the code, and no more, you don't have to do any more than that. Just whatever you find is what you find. But here's where the versioning came, because they need to compare it against regressions against the current dev branch, right? But my code doesn't have the current dev branch. It's come from an older. And we don't have versioning, so I can't tell them, oh, check it against version 0.5 compatibility. So it became a little bit awkward.
Quan Gan: I had to give them a date.
Malachi Burke: So fortunately, that's the first time the dev team has really bonked into that. So we're doing okay there. That's my little version story. That's it.
Quan Gan: Sounds good.
Malachi Burke: And then the last item is a tiny one that I've got on my list, and then we can go to the other thing. The calendar invite worked great, but Google decided that your Zoom link was a location. And then when I click on it, it tries to navigate me in Google Maps to the Zoom, and it can't – it screws up.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. Good note for myself, because I could put it in different places, but I thought it would be smart enough to discern that this is a Zoom link rather than a GPS coordinate. But I'll put it in the notes section next time.
Malachi Burke: time. time. And And And And I think it used to be a few years ago. I think it got dumber because I've made, I've done that too.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Obviously, I still found the link.
Quan Gan: wasn't that hard. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: All right. Thanks for indulging me. Those are all the items that I needed to get through.
Quan Gan: Okay. So shall we move on to this FDD?
Malachi Burke: Let's do it.
Quan Gan: Okay. Now, I want to hear your preference because what I had done was made a few relatively minor adjustments to the last thing that you and I worked on in person. But also, because we had a pretty lengthy conversation and a lot more context, we were talking about social-emotional learning and some other games that I had to further just talk about. So it, I asked the question. Question to the AI that based on all this new information, would you recommend essentially having a refactor of the table? Because it may not actually be fully considering the entire content now. And that's where it said absolutely yes, and I trusted it. But rather than completely just taking the incremental change and making a whole bunch of changes where it's hard to track, I created a new branch off of that last point, but also tried to make it a few different commits at a time so you're not seeing huge churn. I guess that would be churn, right? Because we're basically deleting a huge block and then creating a whole new one.
Malachi Burke: Undecided what the term would be. This is kind of a new world with AI, but we'll go for it. Churn or slop, right?
Quan Gan: It's a complete rewrite, and upon initial glance, I thought it did a good job, but, you know, my level of scrutiny is certainly not yours.
Malachi Burke: I am infamous for it. Just ask my ex-girlfriends. I think the prudent thing to do, then, would be to at least do an overview look at both new branches.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And starting with the newer one, because if there's anything glaring, it'll be glaring.
Quan Gan: We'll see it right away, right? Okay. Yeah. Then let's look at that, and then, like, if it's so disgusting to you, just bat it back, and then it will jump to the older brain.
Malachi Burke: I have to confess, I did feel some anxiety there, as you already read.
Quan Gan: I'm like, man, we spent a lot of time on that structure. Express it, I know.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. We'll look at it.
Quan Gan: I've also put into the AI, it's Like, Mal really doesn't want churn, so we got to, like, be very careful, and you have to fully justify everything you've changed. Are you sure these changes are justified?
Malachi Burke: And it said yes. Okay, well, you know, that's encouraging, you know, that's encouraging. And, see, I don't want to call, it might be churn, right? We don't know yet. My anxiety with AI in this area is twofold. First of all, there's obvious, you know, slop. That's an established thing, so I don't need to talk about that. But the second thing is, I get nervous that AI is going to remove a bunch of things that we really liked, and we won't know it, because we're so overwhelmed with the other thing. That makes me really nervous. I don't know whether to call that churn or not, maybe, right? So, with that being said, let's have a look at the new one.
Quan Gan: Okay, great. And I did... Also say like, you know, your preference is for, you know, shorter, not shorter, but like high signal information, like no marketing fluff, right? So there might be some words that you'd rather just not use. So it made those adjustments, hopefully.
Malachi Burke: Okay, good. Good. And I have a really very good reason for that in this context, is that this document is going to be hard for anybody to get. And marketing fluff has, actually has a lot of value.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Speaking of AI, my Google is talking to me and interrupted me. But there's just so much for people to get through that we need to keep the verbiage as tidy as possible.
Quan Gan: Now, looking through this, do you want to see the blame or the diff, or do you want to just read it through?
Malachi Burke: Let's read it through. And I presume this is the bigger.
Quan Gan: Let's And then, yeah, I will preemptively say it decided to put this as definitive. So if not, we'll have to remove that. And it also did automatically bump the version up to 0.6.
Malachi Burke: Well, you know, you know me well. You're anticipating what I'm going to whine about. Yeah. What I'm going to do, this is perfect. What I'm going to do is I'm going to pull up the other one on my side so I can literally see them on both of my screens. Give me a second here. Give me a second here. Okay. And let me shrink down my window so I can see them both correctly. God, I wish I had three or four monitors.
Quan Gan: Just two as I'm cutting it anymore. Well, eventually, if you're on the Vision Pro or some kind of AR, you can have Unlimited.
Malachi Burke: I'm open to that. I'm a little worried about eye strain, but it sure sounds compelling.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I have a Vision Pro. Actually, Jerry took it back to China because I stopped using it. The main complaint is it's heavy, but, boy, is the UI very interesting. Like, if it weren't that heavy, having as many panels as you want just by looking around is quite convenient.
Malachi Burke: Sounds cool. Yeah.
Quan Gan: I'm not going to lie. Stock traders, can imagine why.
Malachi Burke: I, you know, that makes sense. Okay, I'm all good to go.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: So. Plus one for AI right away. It put everything in the scope, just the way I like it. I was willing to accept that there was a kind of a purpose and relationship to other docs preamble before. I was like, I didn't like it, but you know what? It's okay. But I like this better. So, all right. Thank you, AI. Why? This document elucidates Quan's vision for ZTAG experience through functional design principles, describing what the system does and why it does it from a user's point of view. I like it. And you know what? I'm looking at the wrong version of the FTD on my side.
Quan Gan: So give me a moment.
Malachi Burke: Okay. get the right one over here. Let me get the right one over here. Okay, I'm looking at the AUG 1 version, AUG 1, which I haven't actually totally looked at yet, but it looks, that's the incremental one, so I think this is a good comparison. So I'll be looking at that fresh as well. Okay, this document elucidates Quan's vision for ZTAG experience through functional design principles, describing what this system does and why it does it from a user's point of view. All implementation specifics live in the parallel technical design document and its sub-specs. That's not true. Implementation specifics minus all. There's many, your default is that the specifics won't be in there. They're incidental.
Quan Gan: Okay. Wait, so I don't understand the difference. Okay, so all implementation live in the... Okay, so what do we actually want to change this to?
Malachi Burke: Remove the word all.
Quan Gan: All, okay. Got it. Remove all.
Malachi Burke: ZTAG Vision Summary, and this is looking almost identical to the incremental one so far. ZTAG Vision, a wearable gaming platform that turns any physical space into an interactive learning arena. Yeah. I like that it's a fun learning arena. I know that's a little marketing speak, but let's talk about... Let's read more. Built on Social, Emotional Learning Principles. That's cool. I like that we're mentioning that. Injects video game thrills into real-world movement, face-to-face social play, replacing passive desk time with embodied group experiences that develop social skills through play. Yeah. Works for me. Appropriate usage of marketing speak. Mm-hmm. Good. On document coverage, core user experience and game mechanics, yes. Multi-sensory accessibility considerations, yes. And this was in the previous one. Playmaker roles in administration, yes. For a while that was in question, but I think for the ZTAG ecosystem, Playmaker is this huge umbrella. That makes sense. Explicitly outside this vision, while we acknowledge these possibilities exist, this document specifically excludes pure fitness tracking applications, full VRA, our overlays, and corporate training. These remain on our radar for future, but are not part of the current vision. Yeah, and that sounds like the literal words we used. Okay, high-level vision. I would scroll up, and I would say, Ironically, even though those are literally the words that you and I used, I feel like those could be tidied up, shrunken down.
Quan Gan: Okay. Before the outside, this vision?
Malachi Burke: Okay. The things that are said are correct, but perhaps something like acknowledging these possibilities, this document excludes, you know, these are on our radar, but are not part of the vision. You know what I mean? Just kind of tidy it up. Sure. But it's correct. High-level vision. So let me scroll over here. And as you know, I always kind of wanted this under the scope. But it's okay that they put it out into its own session. That's all right. ZTAG uses technology as an antidote to technology itself. You know, that kind of, that's a good tagline that you've been saying. That works. Built fundamentally on the SEL principle. So this is good. This is expanding on the scope. It's kind of like the scope is a summary, and this is more the detail. Delivers interpersonal skill development, emotional awareness, and collateral problem-solving through embodied play experiences. This platform creates visceral excitement by... Face-to-Face engagement, rather than isolated digital consumption, using technology specifically to amplify human connection. I think we've overstated our case a little bit, because I think you made that case in scope. What do you think?
Quan Gan: Like, how would you have shrunken this down?
Malachi Burke: Well, let me look at the one in scope here. What I don't want is I don't want the eyes-glaze-over effects for our readers. That's all. So comparing those, first I'm going to be looking for physical space mentions, and it doesn't, so no overlap there. Social-emotional learning principles, that bears repetition, so that's fine. Video Game Thrills. The Platform Creates Visibility Rather Than Isolated Digital Consumption. I'm going to roll with it. I'm going to roll with it. I feel like we might run into an Overwhelm, but I think it's better to have it than not at this point.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Documentary reports that make ZTAG compelling come specifically through direct human interaction. Interesting. That hadn't actually occurred to me. I thought it was a combo of the game and the human interaction, like the electronics. But this is your focus. Works for me. All right? So this is good, right? I'm learning something about your vision myself reading this document. Perfect.
Quan Gan: Well, were – I think part of this difference is because you've mentioned in the previous version some of the assertions may not be saying goodbye. We're Bye. Bye. It's that they're true, and we'd have to prove it.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like it. I like it. I like what I'm seeing so far. Every time two players make contact through their devices, there's an immediate multi-sensory feedback loop. They see the lights, feel the vibration, hear the sound, and most importantly, they see each other's reactions. Huh. Yeah. Yeah, that kind of ties it all together. This creates a cascade of social reinforcement that develops core SEL competencies, self-awareness, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. We track these interactions as a key metric because they directly correlate with both engagement and measurable social skill developed. I'm going to back up a sentence. This creates a cascade of social reinforcement that develops core SEL competencies, self-awareness, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. So it seems like we ought to at least casually mention that electronic feedback, that amplifier of these things.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so this whole paragraph doesn't really talk about the digital part of it anymore.
Malachi Burke: It does. They see the lights, they feel the vibration, they hear the sound. And I would not go deep into it in that last sentence, but I might swap out one of those because we only, you know, we have a conceptual limited space for people to pay attention. And I might swap out one of those with like, you know, AR, I don't know what the term would be. I want to say AR style feedback, but that's not quite right, right?
Quan Gan: You mean, you mean here?
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Not changing, not changing that.
Quan Gan: Are you talking about removing or swapping?
Malachi Burke: I'm thinking of swapping one of those potentially, not that any one of them have a problem, but what I would swap it for would be something like, this creates a cascade of social reinforcement that...
Quan Gan: Because SEL, I believe it's a defined term, I have to look at it. So these might be core tenets of it.
Malachi Burke: Right. And I'm sensitive to that as well. The English is such that the first part creates a cascade of social reinforcement, is a little more open to other things, but then you qualify for SEL competencies. Okay. So if we want to be super accurate, which I do, I feel like on one hand, there's kind of a missed opportunity to say, and all of that is amplified because it's shaking and making sounds, but that's not really necessary to say. Not really. So let's...
Quan Gan: You know what? It's good.
Malachi Burke: I am persuaded. We track these interactions as a key metric because they directly correlate with both engagement and measurable social skill development. And I have mixed feelings about that one. We absolutely should do that, and we absolutely should mention that we're doing that. But I wouldn't call that a particularly visionary thing, right? Anybody who's anybody is doing metrics tracking in their applications.
Quan Gan: Yes, but the face-to-face interaction is the unique metric or the unique KPI that only ZTAG has captured.
Malachi Burke: Right. No argument. So let me reread this again knowing that, but perhaps we can tune the verbiage to underscore that these particular unique things are tracked. We track these interactions as a key metric because they directly correlate. correlate. Okay. I was being too critical. That reads just as you want it to, so let's leave that.
Quan Gan: Okay. I think there's a mistake coming up because I looked at my own document, which I have not pushed again, but this might actually be a more fuller paragraph.
Malachi Burke: Oh. That makes sense because that's an important part of your vision, that humanitarian aspect, like we're using a screen to pull them off of a screen. That does deserve some commentary.
Quan Gan: Would you like to look at what I have on my working sample? Yeah. Okay. Let me stop share real quick. Find the right document. Oh, okay. I found it. Okay. You see the green?
Malachi Burke: That's what it should be. Okay. So keep that there, and please swap out and pull up the scope from the new document. I want to compare them a little bit.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Okay. Now please swap back to the other one. What I'm identifying here is whether the repetition of your scope is warranted and useful, as you are repeating it. And I think it may be. I think it may be, because you're giving greater context to the scope, but you've got to talk about what you're giving context to, right?
Quan Gan: Right. And the opportunity that you said we missed about amplifying, I believe it talks about in this part.
Malachi Burke: A little bit, but there, yes. But what that doesn't say is that it's actually amplifying your opportunity to gather SEL metrics.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: But I think you, I still feel like I wish there was a better way to kind of drive that point home, but you do actually say it. So I think this is good. Yeah. I'm here for this.
Quan Gan: Is your feedback just now worth another... Rinse in this section, or you would leave it?
Malachi Burke: Oh, like talking to AI right now and having it do a rinse at this moment?
Quan Gan: I'm thinking of doing a rinse after the whole meeting, but would you want to re-rinse this one, or is it good enough?
Malachi Burke: I can only think of a flippant answer, so let me think of the professional answer before I give you my flippant answer. I don't know that it's warranted yet, but by the end of the session it will be.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: That's my professional answer. My flippant answer is I never want an AI. But professionally speaking, I do think it will be valuable, yes.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And let's go back. Yeah, thank you. And I want to re-read your high-level vision again. And I'm going to pick on that last sentence one more time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank Yeah, I can't put my finger on it. My English teacher is coming out for that one, but I cannot put my finger on what an improvement would be. Great. So I like the verbiage that you've proposed for replacing the selected area, so why don't we move forward to the next thing?
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: All right. I still am very much not a fan of just a table in a section, but let's read the content of the table. Deliver education through play, history, role play. This looks the same as what we had before. Uh-huh. Support Diverse Abilities, that looks, so that's a little bit different, Multi-Sensory Feedback Channels, that makes, kind of makes sense, Customizable Interaction Patterns. So what I'm inferring from this is like if somebody's very audio-oriented like myself, those Multi-Sensory Feedback Channels are already established to include audio, so there'll be that human connection that way. That's what I'm reading out of that.
Quan Gan: Yes, and the customizable interaction patterns may include accessibility features or even just ability adjustments, because some people may, like levels of math or levels of language, you may dial that up or down, depending on what grade you're teaching.
Malachi Burke: Oh, okay. So ability, go ahead.
Quan Gan: And also even like adjusting for colorblindness or, you know, they might not be able to recognize certain things.
Malachi Burke: So we might remove that out of the selection patterns. Yeah. So I think we have an ambiguity with the term ability, because ability is referring to two things at the same time. It's referring to how well you can see or hear, and it's also referring to your intellectual capacity for history or math. So we might consider splitting that out into two things. But, you know, but it's not, I wouldn't pick on it for being combined, but that was not obvious to me. Yeah, interesting. And my mind did go directly to the AV part. I went directly to like, well, if somebody is slightly vision, you know, maybe they're vision impaired a little bit, you're going to have the screen flash a little more with more bright colors. You know, you can make that customization for the game, right? Right. Um, progressively scaffold skills. So this one continues to, you know, poke me in the side, continues to be the same thing. I still say for the new reader who is not a scholastic person, that might be a little bit vague for them.
Quan Gan: Okay. I may have done some modification on this. Um, but let me see if there was something here. Oh, yeah. Okay. Check this part out.
Malachi Burke: Improved. Um, you've made the cardinal sin of using the word you're defining in the definition. You always want to avoid that. But, but it is improved. So I would just change that. To Adaptable Interactions for, and let me think of a better word, because that is the word that comes to mind, abilities. Varied, I don't want to say varied senses, right? Because that's kind of a little hippie, you know, varied. Maybe we can flip it around the other way. Support, diverse.
Quan Gan: Players?
Malachi Burke: Interesting.
Quan Gan: Support diverse participants?
Malachi Burke: I don't know that I'm sold on player or participant at this time. We're varied. I don't I'm or participant time. on or participant at Question for you, for the second usage of the word abilities, would it be too squishy and woke to say sensitivities? Probably would be, I think.
Quan Gan: Yeah, a little bit.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, because what I want to capture is that somebody has really good hearing or really bad eyesight, you know, and that be an interesting thing you can tune for. Oh, but you're saying it with multi-sensory feedback channels.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Okay, you know what? I am going to stand by my criticism of abilities and abilities, but this is clear enough, I think.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Perhaps just say varied backgrounds and skill levels, because we already know that abilities are involved, right?
Quan Gan: Okay, so just remove this part. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Thank you for being patient as I pick apart every single pixel on your screen. That pixel's the wrong color up there.
Quan Gan: If that's what you're doing for the rest of the code, I actually feel more at ease.
Malachi Burke: I am. I am. And I felt really guilty because those mocks slid by. I didn't even look at them. And in my defense, spent like 30 minutes on the code review already, and I didn't even get to that part. But I feel, I'm like, man, how could I have missed an obvious, anyway. So thank you for being patient. All right. Looking good. Let's flip back to the other one. And you know me, I, I, there are certain words that I just find useless. So I don't think we need. The word insure there. Your objective is robust and responsive experience. You don't need to say insure. Get that out of there. Just waste of space.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Yes. Thank you. And seamless offline capability is an interesting one because that's normally something you kind of mention more in a technical area, but it's kind of such a big bugaboo for modern apps, whether they even operate, that I think it's good to mention it right up here front and center.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, because we do have situations where this is designed to go completely offline relative to the zoos. For example... It's a city-wide scavenger hunt, which arguably you can have GPS or some other thing keeping it online or at least getting data. But a more extreme example is actually on a cruise ship where you're in a giant hunk of metal with so many doors. And if there are even just a few chambers down, they're completely isolated.
Malachi Burke: Right. Right. Right. Right. No, I think it's a critical feature. Belongs in the vision. I'm with you. So I think I like what it's saying there. As always, I'm not going to say we shouldn't have a table because it's a good table. I don't like not having a narrative in a section, though. It feels like a narrative needs to go here.
Quan Gan: Can it be an introduction, one or two sentences above the table?
Malachi Burke: Yeah.
Quan Gan: You don't necessarily want to come... Do this table into paragraphs?
Malachi Burke: No, I don't. I do think there's use value as a table.
Quan Gan: So, let me just make a note here.
Malachi Burke: Thank you. Let's scroll so that Section 3 fills the screen. Okay, good. So, this is where it really decided to start refactoring things, I can see. It's compelling that it's put the hardware ecosystem there. I don't think it belongs there, but it's thought-provoking. I'm open to thinking about it. So, I'm going to read the first. Before detailing specific gameplay, it's essential to understand the physical components, the fundamental user journey, and the core design. Principles that shape the entire ZTAG experience. Well, it's justifying its decision. All right. Respect. I just don't think it's correct. I think it's useful to understand the physical components, but not essential. Because the game of TAG, anyway, but we're going to roll with it. I'm going to evaluate. ZTAG ecosystem consists of three core hardware components that mirror the fundamental elements of all multiplayer games. ZTAgger, and I think we actually had this later on, right?
Quan Gan: We put this. Somehow the, yeah, I did ask it, but it found that this was a better place for it earlier on.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. And I'm looking for that table. Or. That mentioned in the incremental rinsed one. And so far, I'm not finding it.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Oh, there it is. Hardware Ecosystem.
Quan Gan: Quite a ways down.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. So here's why it's wrong. Okay. When was the last time you turned on a ZStation?
Quan Gan: Like, at least a year ago.
Malachi Burke: So absolutely, that is not essential.
Quan Gan: Well, it's not essential for now, but it is at a detriment of the games that we are able to play. There are plenty of games that I am so eager to play that we're not able to do today. So we're actually highly limiting ourselves.
Malachi Burke: All right.
Quan Gan: Like, for example, we want to play scoring games where there are stations on the opposite ends of the field that you can get access to. Right now, what we have to do is make a custom firmware that turns a ZTAGGER effectively into a ZStation and it happens to a pole. So actually, we're kind of like making a mock ZStation already.
Malachi Burke: Fair response. Okay. All right. Then I'm just going to take it as face value and see how it sits with me. After all this, I don't want to get lost in the rabbit hole of picking apart little bits and pieces. Let me get the whole vibe. Hardware ecosystem consists of three core hardware components that mirror the fundamental elements of all multiplayer games. So it pretty much moved the whole section. There's nothing really new other than the position.
Quan Gan: Right.
Malachi Burke: Which is fine, because the old section, I think, read pretty well. Game-equivalent players, environment, rules, game logic coordinating, rule enforcement. And I think we had a discussion about the rules part that I think we need to continue, but not right now. I want to focus on its layout decisions. So granting that that is an adequate table as is, I'll move forward to life cycle. So that also wasn't there before. So let me compare that to what was there before. Lobby ready, playing sync countdown. I might be open to that being there. I'm thinking about it. Where was it before?
Quan Gan: Let me know when you finish reading here, because I have some feedback for it, too. Okay.
Malachi Burke: I really don't think the life cycle belongs there, because... Let me actually read it first, before I criticize it. Give me a second. Lobby ready. So this is a movement, what used to be Section 3.6. So I'll say my piece, and then let's talk about what you've got in mind. Life cycle doesn't belong here, because as technically relevant as a life cycle is, highly relevant, as functionally relevant as a life cycle is, highly relevant, it's not more relevant than the idea that a game exists. That's what we need to start with, is that games exist. And we haven't even established that yet. So what's this a life cycle of? You know? And then it goes into, anyway.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: That's my point. You know, that's my point. So what did you want to say?
Quan Gan: There might be additional states in here. For example, there could be a pause game between in-game and post-game. And actually, technically, there's not a shutdown. That is part of the life cycle. Although, like, some of this stuff, like in-between, could be done over and over again. You know, it's not a one-shot through. It could be a looping between lobby and post-game. And then eventually, you might dock it. But, um, and the shutdown, actually... So this is currently achieved by the ZEUS flipping its off switch, and you're cutting power to it. But future versions with S3 and such, it could be a software shutdown. And then I don't know if we need to have other life cycles like here, like before it even gets into the lobby, you know, opposite of shutdown. You need to turn it on. You need to turn it on, and then it has to wait for Wi-Fi or just establish connection to the ZEUS. I don't know if that needs to be written in here.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, right. Excellent talking points all. So I want to address it by saying, firstly, this document captures your vision, right? That's the charter of this document. And right on the heels of In support of that, it's a functional design spec, right? Therefore, we have the latitude to omit certain things. As long as we're capturing your vision correctly, if things like pause aren't mentioned, it's not the end of the world. That being said, yeah, I would like to see that in there, right? I think it should go in there, but it's okay if it's not.
Quan Gan: We can manage, right? Now, do those things end up in some sub-document?
Malachi Burke: Well, at a minimum, they'll be specified someday in a user requirement. And probably a sub-document if we, I don't know. I don't know the answer to that right now, actually.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Because it's a compelling, what you're really asking. thinking is, shouldn't we formally capture all those lifecycle steps, is what you're really asking, right? And the answer is, at some level, yes, right? But where? Good question. Before we move away, I need to mention something else.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: To acknowledge that this is not a conclusive or exhaustive list, I would get rid of the clear six-step journey commentary, because that implies that there are no other steps.
Quan Gan: Right. Okay. So let me do that here.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, I think there would be, can we multitask? I mentioned some commentary while you're typing. Right. I think we would have a support functional document whose only job in life, and this is a functional doc, would be to elucidate all the difference. Different life cycle steps and probably even a bunch of arrows pointing to which is valid for which situations. And it would be a pretty big document. And I do think there would be a useful application of such a document. Like when I've been talking about refactoring the game state machine, you've heard me frequently say, well, is there a conclusive place we can look for all the different state transitions, which you've given me good answers for. You said, well, I've got these PDFs. But this would be like a hard functional spec to glue to that kind of thing. So good thinking.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah, there's even things like maybe we want to put instructions. Well, OK. So here, playmaker instructions is actually incorrect. It's instructions for the players potentially. Although the playmaker instructions end up on the Zeus when they first load any game.
Malachi Burke: Agreed. Good catch. And what does plain logo even mean?
Quan Gan: Oh, that just means that's all you're saying on the screen is the ZTAGG. Yeah, because we don't want the players tampering with the device, so it can't indicate there's any kind of functional interaction at that point.
Malachi Burke: Right. Well, in a surprise turn of events, I'm going to advocate marketing speak here, I'm going to say, don't use plain, say ZTAGG.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, and I'll share with you a current pain point. We just haven't gotten around to it. When you load a game, so actually here it doesn't even describe it. When you load a game, let's say a red light, green light, we have a little title screen that literally goes red and green, like red light, green light, to show you this is the game that you're about to play. But that actually throws people. People off because they think they're actually in the game already.
Malachi Burke: Oh, yeah.
Quan Gan: The first time around, they didn't realize they were supposed to wait for a countdown. They're like, oh, I'm playing the game. I've had times where I have a zombie logo, and it's got a yellow background. And then I'm first describing, okay, we're playing zombies, and you're either like human, zombie, or doctor with these three colors. They're like, what does yellow mean? What am I? You know, like the kids just want to yell stuff out. So we might need to like dumb down the logo even to be like really bland.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. I follow you. And I was wrong then because it's not a ZTAG logo. It's like the game logo in particular, right?
Quan Gan: Well, not exactly wrong because when we are in the main menu of the ZOOS, it should show a ZTAG logo. But only after we selected a game, we're in the lobby of the game. going going to We're that It displays whatever the game logo should be. So maybe I just add ZTAGG logo, game logo, game logo, and then...
Malachi Burke: It feels like we ought to split that into two steps, right? Because you're not going to show the ZTAGG logo and the game logo on the same step, right?
Quan Gan: Okay, so even here, so ready and lobby, oh, hold on. Well, then there's even more then.
Malachi Burke: Then there would be arguably, you know, like... Well, hold on, hold on, hold on. I'm to stop you. I'm only saying split it out because plain logo is really ambiguous. And game logo, ZTAGG logo together is ambiguous too. But that's all the only reason I want to split it out. Now you do you.
Quan Gan: Okay. Well, there's a bunch of steps in here. I'm just wondering if we should bother even... Like, it's like as soon as you split... If this out, then I would say at that level of granularity, then it bears to remind ourselves that there's other things. But if you are okay with keeping it ambiguous, then we don't have to split them out.
Malachi Burke: I follow your point. Let's keep it with the change you've made.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Perhaps get rid of that first semicolon, change it to OR.
Quan Gan: Yeah, play instruction. Or just instructions.
Malachi Burke: Makes sense to me.
Quan Gan: And I would just make this lowercase.
Malachi Burke: Thank you. See? We share a level of detail appreciation.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Okay, this has improved. And I'm really glad we covered this because it went from an ambiguous... Ambiguous question in my mind, like, well, where the heck would we put all these lifecycle things to upgrading that to, no, that deserves its own functional design document that this will link to, this will connect to it, that'll have all the game states that you can move through and win, and that is going to be really useful, so that's a very productive conversation we had.
Quan Gan: Now, um, I added a exclamation, I don't know if you, I don't mind, like, because in the actual game, we do have it say go, I don't mind, put it in there, but if I put it up in here, then I'll probably have to, uh, find all the other instances, there might be a, I won't hold your feet to the fire, I don't I can be flexible. Um, I'll, I'll do it later, but I, Because I think that makes it accurate to what it is.
Malachi Burke: Great. Great. And I'll repeat what I said earlier. My guiding priorities here are firstly, we clearly capture your vision. And right after that, it's not like low priority, but right after that is the specification.
Quan Gan: Right.
Malachi Burke: And this kind of plays into that. like, well, you know, Go is like almost a branding thing with the exclamation mark. Awesome. Shall we go back to the rendered version? Yeah. So my, my recommendation is this not come before mentioning games at all.
Quan Gan: I would, I would put this down below. Curious. Okay. So games are here. I mean, the games are a very long section now.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, they are.
Quan Gan: I can see that. that. Yeah, and then I also wonder if the 3-1, 3-2, 3-3 may potentially need to get inverted. Maybe we start with taste, then life cycle, and then the hard work?
Malachi Burke: Taste makes a lot of sense to start with, and I think life cycle belongs way at the end, like we used to have it. And I will be flexible to hardware ecosystem. It still rubs me the wrong way, but the logic does track that. It's kind of hard to visualize what all that is even up to if you don't kind of visualize some of the hardware that's being used.
Quan Gan: Would we want to flip these, so ZTAG principles and ecosystem?
Malachi Burke: I'm okay with that title, really.
Quan Gan: I'm just saying, like, okay, did you like or dislike flipping these three upside down, so taste comes first? This comes second in the hardware. So it's, you know, from higher level to lower level versus this from low level to high level.
Malachi Burke: So I like it with the caveat that I don't want 3.2 lifecycle in there at all.
Quan Gan: Okay. So where, I guess we'll have to look, where is there a vacancy for this orphan now if you don't like it?
Malachi Burke: I would put it where we used to have it, at the end of the game section.
Quan Gan: At the end of the game section. Okay. Okay. Let's, let me see here. Cross-cutting concerns, wearable. Would it be a subsection to game?
Malachi Burke: It would be. And maybe I don't want it at the end of the game section, but I do want games to get mentioned before the lifecycle.
Quan Gan: Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Can we read through these part and then make a decision where it would fit better? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. The way I taste.
Malachi Burke: Okay. So let me go to that on the old document. Come on, taste. Where'd you go? There you are.
Quan Gan: Where is taste in the old document?
Malachi Burke: Section 3.5. Okay. The feel is it emerges from obsessive attention to the micro moments that create trust between humans and technology. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Every interaction must feel immediate, intentional, and satisfying. The digital equivalent of a perfectly weighted game controller, right, or the crisp. Snap of a Mechanical Keyboard Switch, which are as much a simile as they are a metaphor in this case. Responsiveness, so, good. Responsiveness defines the foundation of trust. Hmm, I never really thought of it that way.
Quan Gan: So, this was baked from a thought process I had where our trust that this physical reality is even real is the fact that as soon as I touch a cup, I can feel it. Yeah. And this consistent level of trust. That if somehow I magically touched something and my hand went through it, instantly it would shatter, like literally shatter my reality. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Now, on one hand, it's not a universal view that I feel comfortable adopting, but it's It is a correct and useful way to describe things, because my universe view is there's a deeper feeling than even trust a natural fear, right?
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And I'm not going to actually argue that we should change this, just from where I'm coming from. Like, if I go to grab a hot iron pan, my hand's going to recoil back, even though I probably shouldn't have trusted that thing was cold or hot or whatever, because there's a natural response. But this is very actionable, too, because you do want people to expect, to develop the expectation that when they press a button, the sound is going to happen. You want that.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: So this works for me.
Quan Gan: In many ways, we are inventing a new interaction paradigm, similar to us being trained all along that clicking a mouse actually has a click to begin with. Or the keyboard click. Like, imagine the keyboard or the mouse before it was invented, and you're just trying to, like, you know, move something on your monitor, but over time, like, every single device, there's a click, to the point that, like, humans just absolutely expect, you know, when you're navigating a cursor, there's a click with it.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. I don't believe we're inventing a new paradigm, but what I do think we're doing is we're rediscovering a paradigm that is atrophied, is what we're doing.
Quan Gan: Yeah, right.
Malachi Burke: There was a time where electronic interactions were as very feedback and tactile, and that is not so much the case, and you're bringing that back.
Quan Gan: I agree with that, and I think it's also reinforcing a, it's a... A... A... A... Yeah, I wouldn't say inventing, but reinforcing a certain expectation that within the ZTAG game, when you do this, you're going to expect something that's, you know, cross-cutting across, you know, all games are going to give you that. Just like if I have a button in front of you, then it would invite you to go click or interact with it.
Malachi Burke: I'm here for it, 100%. In fact, maybe over 100%, because I get a strong emotional response, both as a game player and as an engineer, when I know that when you press that button, you're going to get some feedback from that. Yeah. I love that.
Quan Gan: Yeah. And when, you know, the other side of that argument is, like, when that doesn't happen, there's some kind of a, I don't know, like, a little piece of you dies or something that I, I want to make sure that no one... Thank Breaks that law.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Yeah. 100% agreed.
Quan Gan: And this is consistently why we keep breaking the law, and I get so pissed off, because they miss it. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Yeah. Right. There's a side conversation to be had about the limits of what can be expected with a junior team. But we've had that conversation before.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: We'll steer it away, but yes, you and I, we agree on this. At the risk of offending someone, that's all I will say. Yeah. But agreed. Agreed. In fact, like I said, I agree too much. I get lost in rabbit holes trying to get tactile responses on the things, because I just, I need it.
Quan Gan: I want it.
Malachi Burke: Okay, good. So moving forward, when players point their devices at each other and make contact, the feedback loop must complete within 300 milliliters. So The threshold represents the boundary between instant and delayed in human perception. Exceed it and players begin to doubt whether their action is registered. Maintain it and interactions feel like natural extensions of physical touch. Yeah, I'm here for all of that. I would like to rinse that to tidy it down, but every point you've made, yes.
Quan Gan: Okay. So I'll put a note here that, let's see, response to this.
Malachi Burke: I used to play Battlefield games back before I decided electronic arts were jerks, and I never wanted to do business with them again. But before those days, one of my favorite things to do was to fly the helicopters around. The reason I like to do it is actually in this bizarre reversal. Of what you've described here, because helicopters, they respond very slowly.
Quan Gan: They're horrible. It's an unstable system.
Malachi Burke: So that means you have to develop this additional layer of skill to even fly the darn thing. And I found that a wonderful challenge. I loved swooping in and picking up troops and dropping them off and being able to fly through tight spaces. Knowing how to do that was so fun.
Quan Gan: So, you know, my focus in college is feedback control.
Malachi Burke: So I have math that actually backs that very thing, why it sucks so bad and how much skill it takes to build it.
Quan Gan: And also as a drone pilot, the latency from early on drones was so bad that it felt like a helicopter or worse, that it took a lot of time. But you're able to get better skilled pilots today because that latency has gone reduced to, like, very, very quick.
Malachi Burke: Right. And to be pedantic. Right. Right. Right. We're talking not better skilled pilots, but more capable pilots, because the skill level is probably the same, but what they're driving is more responsive.
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah, it's incredible. I mean, now, I don't know if you've seen what a highly skilled FPV pilot would look like, but it would feel like you're riding a fly.
Malachi Burke: Wow. I do get that impression, looking at them. That's interesting. My ex-girlfriend picked up a Jaguar SUV all those years ago, and I'm not a big SUV guy. I know I drive a Jeep, but I'm not really an SUV guy. But we test drove it, and I drove that thing, and she drove it too, obviously, but I test drove it also. And I'm like, this thing tracks like a frigging sports car. We're talking 4,000 plus pounds, bulky, looks high-centered, but the thing tracks pretty well. This responsiveness is like a miracle of engineering. Right. One? You guys pulled off. So that responsiveness is directly connected to quality, right? And probably fun, I would say. Well, not probably.
Quan Gan: Absolutely fun. Exactly.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. All right. So let's move on to the next one. The anticipation action celebration rhythm governs every game experience. This is appropriate for taste. We're kind of pushing the boundaries of taste, but it's in there. Players first build excitement through countdown sequences and role reveals, anticipation. Uh-huh. Yeah. Good. Then engage in movement and interaction. Action. All right. And finally experience group recognition through light, sounds, and shared statistics. Celebration. This three-phase structure mirrors the reward cycles that make video games compelling while grounding them in physical, social interaction. All right. All good points. If there's something kind of feeling redundant. redundant. Here, let me read it again. Governs every game experience. Here's build excitement through countdown sequences and role reveals, anticipation, and nothing redundant there. Then engage in movement and interaction, action. That's relevant. Okay, not redundant. And finally, experience group recognition through lights, sounds, and shared statistics. Celebration. How about light, sound, and score, scoring?
Quan Gan: Okay. I'm okay with it. The only thing I would say for stats is it may not necessarily be score. It might even be showing them how many steps they've made. And showing them, you know, how many interactions.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. How quickly they did this, or the other.
Quan Gan: Right.
Malachi Burke: Okay. I'm persuaded. Here's why I resisted. Because I'm picturing a kid, right? I'm picturing a kid playing it.
Quan Gan: Let me read your verbiage. Where is it?
Malachi Burke: I'm picturing a kid. Okay, hold on. I got to read it again. Where'd it go? Okay. I'm picturing a kid playing it at the very end. It's Celebration Town.
Quan Gan: Look at all the lights. Look at all the sounds. Look at all the shared statistics.
Malachi Burke: It's like, no, kid's not going to shout that out. But that's, you're not, this, children are not the audience of this document.
Quan Gan: So it's okay. Well, there's, the stats is a general term because it might also be what the teacher needs to show their principal when the principal walks in.
Malachi Burke: Understood. That part would not be germane to the Celebration conversation, though.
Quan Gan: Yeah, that's right. That's right. So I'm good with it as it is.
Malachi Burke: We might consider mentioning what some of those interesting statistics might be to paint the picture, but I'm good with this.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. Well, there are stats. In Zombies, it will tell you you are one of three survivors. So it's not a score per se. It doesn't say, oh, you got 10,000 points. It says how many survivors. And then some, like zombies, well, that's a human, right? For the zombie, it will say you tagged or you infected three people, three humans. And then the doctor will say you healed three people.
Malachi Burke: I understood. Makes sense. I'd like to change the subject a bit now, if I may.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: So I'm experiencing a little anxiety and discomfort again, because this has all been good, and we haven't yet concluded whether we really... I like the new document structure or not yet. It's leaning like we might, you know, it's leaning maybe, but now I have a discomfort because which branch do we update with your new things? We don't have a clear destination at this time. We'll put it into the, we're obviously, you're already underway, changing the feature FDD one, so probably you'll put it there. But you see my, that discomfort, right?
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. Sure. Okay, well then, we, well, reading this particular branch and making the commentary on it.
Malachi Burke: That's true.
Quan Gan: Yeah, if you, if it were the other branch, then it'd be what you're reading, you know, on your other screen. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. So, I, yeah, that's, that's just my, you know, that echoes that discomfort. I'm I mentioned about an hour ago, which is just, are we losing something, et cetera. But I think we're doing the best we can. You're already updating this particular branch. I think we should continue and just do that, the best option I think we have.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: But being that I have just experienced that wave of emotion, I would like to take a broader look at the structure that it's given us.
Quan Gan: Sure. You want to scroll through this? Yes, please.
Malachi Burke: Okay. good. Core experience. Let me compare it to the other one. So we put that in three before. So already there's kind of a strangeness for me. Let's go to section three. Okay. I see. So three no longer talks about the experience. And that's a little bit odd to mention taste and not mention the experience to me. But I suppose it covered its by calling it principles. for yourself. I Right. I think that's a dodge, because it's more of an experience than a principle, but I'll give it. Okay, we can call it a principle. Why not? So, okay, please, let's go back to section four again. The core experience. I do like that it put games at the top. Good. Core elements of active play. Share mechanics and key human roles. Okay. And I have a little side question, which I don't want to pursue, but the core experience implies there's some other experience that it's talking about as well. Right.
Quan Gan: Okay. I mean, it could be the OTA experience.
Malachi Burke: Right. And you know what? That's actually a valid example. No. But it might be better as the play experience. I don't want to get caught up on that.
Quan Gan: That's just a side thought. Yeah. It be the OTA experience, it could be the factory test experience.
Malachi Burke: Well, it's more like the player experience, the playmaker experience is really kind of the delineator, right?
Quan Gan: But then you would also have the factory tester then.
Malachi Burke: You would, you would, you're right. Although, who cares what their experience is, right? This is your vision. Okay. All right, 4.1 games. The ZTAG game collection follows a carefully designed scaffold, there's that word again, that, but I think, oh, but it tells us right there. Good. That builds player skills progressively. Okay. Rather than overwhelming newcomers with complex mechanics, we guide them through three functional experiences that each teach.
Quan Gan: A foundational. You said functional.
Malachi Burke: Oh, thank you. Three foundational experiences that each teach essential interaction patterns. These games work as both standalone experiences and as an integrated tutorial system that. It prepares players for increasingly sophisticated multiplayer dynamics. I still don't like leading with the tutorial. I like leading with the game because I think the tutorial scaffold is an important part of your vision. But is that more important than the game experience?
Quan Gan: I don't think it is.
Malachi Burke: I think that's...
Quan Gan: For newcomers, it's actually, I think it's quite important. And every time I go and train people on ZTAG, I have to show them these three in this particular sequence before we're even allowed to try other games.
Malachi Burke: I get it. But let me argue with you a little bit. I'm not saying it's unimportant. What I'm saying is the way project management priority would work, right, is you'd say, well, if we had to give up one of these to give it to market, which one would we give up? Would we give up all the games or would we... Give up the scaffolding. Which one? What's more important? And obviously we'd give up the scaffolding, right? Because the game has to be there before the scaffolding makes sense.
Quan Gan: Okay. I mean, you're not wrong. I think it was, well, okay. No, you are right. I think the scaffolding was something that I've... The scaffolding emerged after I created a bunch of games. So I just got on the whiteboard and just started thinking about different games we could play out of it. And this three-part pattern emerged that you want to teach it in this particular order to make sure that the most complex one doesn't overwhelm them and they actually play it well. way You don't there There
Malachi Burke: Right. And you're making a case for game scaffolding, which nobody's arguing against.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Game scaffolding must be mentioned in this vision document. The argument I'm making is technically 4.1 games is mislabeled. It should be game scaffolding, because that's what we're talking about. And then there'd be another section, games, but then that doesn't work, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah, so, okay.
Malachi Burke: So let's go down and see if there's a game scaffolding section, where it actually goes further into how that works.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so I think this is that, maybe, and then it gets into the actual game itself in the table, I think. But you want to just read it, then?
Malachi Burke: What I'd like to do is satisfy my curiosity. Let's see if it actually talks—oh, I see. You've answered my question. This is where it talks about the scaffolding. That's where we get it.
Quan Gan: I got it.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't like it. What I would prefer is for you have a very brief blurb at the, you know, not at the very top, but let's go to the top for a moment. So games, you'd have a very brief, the first thing you would say is ZTAG consists of lots of different games that engage the players with aforementioned taste, you know, all that kind of junk. And then you'd have a brief blurb that says these games are arranged in a scaffolded way to, to make training approachable. See section X, Y, Z for how that works. Right. So we mentioned the scaffolding, but this is not the place, you know, they first got to know what the, well, I, I am also following your point that the scaffolding is so important. It's not like it should, it just automatically should get brushed aside either. I get that.
Quan Gan: Yeah. So I think the, the history of the development. And why we're doing this is kind of a, well, it is a major refactor, but the history was I didn't think, I didn't know about scaffolding in the first place. I just created a bunch of games. And then the scaffolding emerged to the point that I want to adopt it as canon, and that's why it ended up in the way right now, that it's a much more intentional scaffolding. In fact, the order in which the icons display on the Zeus don't have the scaffolding. It has zombies first, because that's the first game we invented, but it was too hard for people to just immediately get. Although it doesn't completely fail, but the experience is certainly lacking. So then I would say if we were to completely rewrite this, then these three games, Red Light, Green Light, Pattern, Match, Zombie Survival, would actually come in this order.
Malachi Burke: And I have no resistance to presenting the games. In any order you would like, you know, I would certainly not resist that. Here's the way I'm thinking of it. Scaffolding is not core to your vision for this game. It's not. Or for this system. What it is is a very important functional feature of the system. But the core vision is that interaction between the kids. And I grant that if they can't be trained, if they don't know how to play the game, yes, that's a problem. But the true vision, the genius of this is that FaceTime interactivity, not the scaffold.
Quan Gan: Okay. Do you think the scaffolding might sit better in the future Zeus version of the FDD?
Malachi Burke: Well, there's an interesting question.
Quan Gan: I'm going I'm I'm
Malachi Burke: I don't know. That's a really interesting question. I think no. think gently we prefer it here, because it's clearly an equally shared responsibility between the two devices, is what it really is. So I'd be open to putting it in the ZU.S., but my gut says, yeah, it still belongs in the ZTAGGER spec.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Perhaps something we need to ponder a little more.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: I don't mean to be so pushy. I just have a strong opinion about it.
Quan Gan: These are good things to wrestle through, because we can even get more intentional about certain metrics that games hit. But, oh, man, if I can find the… Oh, The flyer. want to show you a flyer. Oh, shoot. Okay. I'm going to stop sharing. I think it's important for me to show you, though. Hopefully I can find it.
Malachi Burke: I think I'm starting to be softer to your point of view because the ZTAG experience is not just what the kids are experiencing. It's also what the playmaker is experiencing. And that is a noteworthy experience that the playmaker has a smooth path to training the kids how to use this thing. It is noteworthy. I still am going to resist, but I'm kind of understanding a little what you're coming from.
Quan Gan: Okay. Oh, I'm find this.
Malachi Burke: And can we multitask, or do you need to focus?
Quan Gan: No, we can. I did find it.
Malachi Burke: All right, let's see.
Quan Gan: Okay. So we actually have these three metrics that we show different games have different levels of focus. So zombie survival is definitely more active play, and then kind of an equal part, social and learning, versus math would have a much stronger learning component and a lower active play component. So I don't know if it completely relates to here, but it's more like the games might even need to support in them little labels saying what each of these metrics are. Within that game, almost like an app rating or something.
Malachi Burke: No, that's a really compelling idea where maybe two or three years down the line, you have like 100 games and AI can auto-select which of these you ought to play next. It's an interesting idea.
Quan Gan: Yeah. So I don't know if that's also a shared responsibility between the ZTAGGER and the ZUS. I would think so.
Malachi Burke: I would think the ZUS would be the leader of the decision maker in that respect.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay. And probably also shared with the cloud because the cloud is going to be managing the actual games.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. I can't hear the word cloud without thinking of Thomas.
Quan Gan: What? Wait. Why?
Malachi Burke: Why? We asked them about limitations or opportunities with our system and every answer was the cloud.
Quan Gan: Yes. Yes.
Malachi Burke: can't the I can't I can't can't can't thinking can't can't I can't I I propose this. Highlight and dig deep into the scaffolding thing. Merely mention it after you talk about the games and their characteristics.
Quan Gan: Okay. So put the scaffolding lower, but front up and center is these. Well, are we teaching, are we showing these three games as purely just these are orthogonal categories of games and giving three examples?
Malachi Burke: More or less. At the beginning. then later on, you mentioned, well, they're not quite orthogonal, right? Because actually, they have this implicit tutorial thing. Okay. And in that regard, I don't know that you even have to call them orthogonal at that moment, because it's kind of immaterial how related they are when you're just talking about how much fun it is to play each game, right?
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Okay, let's scroll down through some of the other sections, please. Okay. Okay, let's look at these tables, and you already know what I'm going to say about these sections. Entry game, I like that. You know, so that's implying the scaffolding without banging you on the head about it. That's nice. Objective, master movement control and device responsiveness, your individual skill building. So that's leaning a little more heavily into the scaffolding, but I'll not get too caught up on that. Mechanics, accelerator, accelerometer detects motion, players must freeze during red light phases. Sure. Variables, motion, movement, sensitivity thresholds, red-green duration, elimination versus negative scoring. Uh-huh. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. And then sensory design, audio, loud state change sounds for red-green transition. Warning button. is for Near Violations, Negative Tones for Interactions, Visuals. What's that? Infractions. Infractions, right. Let me zoom in a little bit and also take more time when I read this. Visual, Screen Color Changes Plus Side LED Bars Visible from All Angles to Prevent Arm Twisting. Oh, I see. I see. I was interpreting arm twisting as coercion.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I would probably change that term as well. But what ends up happening is they might be flailing their arms and then the screen is opposite from their face, like they're blocked by their arms. So the mere twisting of their arms to see their screen ends up causing them to lose.
Malachi Burke: I see. I see. So to almost to overcome arm twisting or to mitigate.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Hmm. Hmm. Haptic. Vibration. Impulse with Each State Change, Stronger Buzz for Violations, Elimination State, Muted Visuals with Simple Game Over Indicators. Not sure how to visualize muted visuals, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah, so it would be for us, like, it would be black or white. You know, very simple game over text. Next, you would, well, yeah, the next sentence is, turn off LEDs to show that you're no longer playing the game.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Seems to me muted visuals ought to be either removed or expanded.
Quan Gan: Okay. Because the reader's not going to know what that means. Okay.
Malachi Burke: And I would expand it. Expand it, okay. That's what I would do.
Quan Gan: Okay. I'll put a note here.
Malachi Burke: Thank you. And again, I'm really focused on the structure, so let's scroll to 413, okay? So then 4-2, let's see how that compares to the old one. Give me a second. Where'd the old one go? Come on, this thing is flipping out. Okay, so the old one doesn't have – okay, the old one doesn't even mention cross-cutting concerns. We did talk about it. So do I like that at 4.2? Let's scroll up a little bit, please. So it's good that it's – well, I mean, really – is that like a sub-element of games? No, I like it adjacent the way it did it. I do. It used to be a sub-element of games, but even though it is kind of a sub-element of games, it would be better to call it like games colon cross-cutting concerns. It just feels more natural as a separate section like it did it. I like that.
Quan Gan: So just to repeat, you want it as this?
Malachi Burke: I want it like that. And I would merely change the title to say Games, Colon, Cross-Cutting Concern. Yeah. But I think it made the right call there. And let's go back. Thank you. And sync countdown ritual. Sure. Evader, Chaser, Mechanic. Sure. Post-game celebration. Sure. Yeah. That looks, I'm not reading, I'm just looking at document structure. That looks right. Wearable, that's part of the core experience. Yes, it is. And then it decided to put Playmaker as part of the core experience, which I'm going to poke it about. It's not really wrong, but now what we're really talking about is the whole experience. Okay. But that's okay. Okay. Um. It's a little awkward to have PlayMaker and games at the same level as part of the experience, right? Because a game is this abstract concept and a PlayMaker is a human.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and this straddles ZTAGGER and Zeus. The ZTAGGER is the – what would you call it? It would be the actuator of the game. Yeah. But you would actually – you would apply your settings or selections through the Zeus for it to actuate onto the ZTAGGERs.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. And we hit this last time too. And we – I believe we concluded – perhaps only I concluded and didn't communicate it, but I believe we concluded. Eventually, we do want a ZOOS FDD like this and have this exact thing in the ZOOS FDD, but for the time being, will tolerate a little bit of incorrectness, so that at least it gets mentioned. And I'm willing to be a little flexible, even though PlayMaker and games don't really belong at the same sub-level under the experience. Not really. I don't know that we have to split it out to that level of hierarchical specificity. I think we humans can figure out that it's okay, that PlayMakers are not anything other than human beings, and these are the roles they're taking on. So, okay. Moving forward, let's go to see what the next section is. Interesting choice that it made there. Okay. That bears additional looking, but my first goal is to get an overall architecture of the document picture, so let's move forward.
Quan Gan: Yeah, think this was added because I had griped about a bunch of things that didn't work, but it was between Zeus and ZTAGGER.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. It looks like it could be very useful. Firmware update process, I see. And does that comfortably live under the Playmaker? Not necessarily, but maybe we can let it slide.
Quan Gan: We would say that Playmakers are the only ones qualified to do such update, though.
Malachi Burke: Yes. Yes, no argument. I was picturing where somebody who is not the Playmaker may actually be witnessing it on their device, but that's probably an irrelevant use case.
Quan Gan: Yeah, typically wouldn't happen. It would be docked, and the Playmaker will make the adjustment. In the original design, you were forced to have all the ZTAGGERS charging on the dock for the firmware update to kick in. But then I realized we became too strict with that because, you know, you can't even guarantee that they're all seeded properly. So it might not be charging even though it's seeded in the dock, and then you start and then realize a minute later that you didn't update every single one, and then you have to go back just to update that one. But by doing that, you might as well just update everything again. So we... We relaxed the requirement of it having to sit in the dock, at which point you could theoretically have it worn on your hand, and we can update it.
Malachi Burke: Fair. Fair. Okay. All that being said, the wearing on your hand and witnessing it being updated, while a valid use case is not the expected use case, and certainly not one we care about what the kids think when it happens. Okay. I'm still a little on the fence whether I like all these under the PlayMaker heading, but that could be immaterial because I am okay with the PlayMaker heading, and I'm looking at overall document structure. Okay. This stuff feels like it probably ought to be broken out to a sub-document.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: But I'm okay with that. Okay, let's move on to the edge case handling. So I decided edge case handling was not part of the core experience. Which I can see. I it said that, but I don't know that I agree with that.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: It must gracefully handle the unpredictable nature of active play environments. Connectivity loss. Yeah, and that's an incongruity with how it's laid out the document, because it's stated that, correctly so, that one of our primary headliner objectives was offline operations.
Quan Gan: Right, okay.
Malachi Burke: And then it excludes offline operation from the ZTAG core experience, puts it down here. So that doesn't add up for me.
Quan Gan: Okay, fair. That's logical.
Malachi Burke: I believe edge case handling is part of the ZTAG experience. And I do think that my initial complaint, that core experience is just kind of not really...
Quan Gan: Right.
Malachi Burke: It's just the ZTAG experience.
Quan Gan: Okay, so let's see. ZTAG experience, and then are you suggesting to make this five, like a four-point, four-point-five?
Malachi Burke: Yeah, that's what I'm suggesting. Don't forget your prepending pound sign.
Quan Gan: Oh, yes. You know that more than I do.
Malachi Burke: I don't know my markdown as well. You know.
Quan Gan: You're just being humble. You're just being humble.
Malachi Burke: Thank you. Let's go back to the formatted flavor. And it looks like it left kind of Moscow the same as what it was before, which is fine. User Profiles and Key Needs. Interesting. This is new. Oh, it used to be Audience Snapshots. I see. ZTAG Designed for User Profiles, Each Specific Needs. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that this is mentioned. And this was mentioned before. It's a little smaller now. So am I comfortable with User Profiles and Key Needs being this top-level section? It's certainly not something we want to talk about directly in the ZTAG experience. It doesn't seem to make sense there. So I think this is okay. Yeah. And then looking at Nomenclature, right? Okay. That's more or less what we had before. And then Glossary. And I'm a bit of a weirdo. I like to not include a section number on Glossary. That's just me. We can have a Section 9 if we really want to.
Quan Gan: I mean, would you rather make this Appendix A and then this Appendix B?
Malachi Burke: No, because Glossary or Terminology does have a very strong descriptive element to it. I like that. I would just not.
Quan Gan: What I mean is the section is Appendix A. Like, have Glossary pre-pend it with...... ... ... ... Appendix A and Appendix B.
Malachi Burke: Personally, no. Personally, I would like a freestanding section.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: If that bothers you, I'm flexible. We can keep a section number on it. Up to you.
Quan Gan: Well, my default is just keeping it as is, but you suggested removing it. But then, right, if you remove the number, does that make it incongruent to the fact that this has another prepending thing?
Malachi Burke: I don't think so. Because Appendix A is also incongruous with the section numbering we did before, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah, I'm okay with removing it. And I think the numbering after the five has to change anyway, so this isn't a new five. That's six. Seven, and then you would just remove it. Yep. Okay.
Malachi Burke: And let me make the logical case, even though you've been very affable and agreed to my demands, but the logical case is that section numbers are so frigging useful for cross-reference. Indispensable.
Quan Gan: Right.
Malachi Burke: But when it comes to a glossary, you can say, as referenced in the glossary of this document.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. Yeah, and then you wouldn't need to, if we decided to add or subtract a heading, it wouldn't affect the glossary. Right.
Malachi Burke: Well, I am somewhat surprised and definitely relieved to say that I have much less anxiety about this deeper refactor.
Quan Gan: Okay. Much less anxiety. is. You I am. have.
Malachi Burke: Less anxiety, that you have less anxiety. I hate it when that happens, when it's like you make somebody else anxious about something that they're not even directly worried about.
Quan Gan: Well, today's theme has been me being helpless to whatever external circumstances and just sitting through it.
Malachi Burke: True story. Some positive, fortunately. Yes. Some positive. No, I was anticipating a greater and less comprehensive refactor. And by greater, I mean more extensive. But what it really seemed to do is it seemed to split our experience section into two is what it really seemed to do. And I can not only live with that. Well, I can live with that. I don't know that that really had to happen, but I was persuaded that mentioning the hardware, at least on some level in the beginning, is just so important. . For context that, yeah, okay, took some persuasion, but I'm there. So, you know what? I think this is something that we can declare as our, where we're going forward from.
Quan Gan: Yay! I will also share that this time I didn't use Grok. I went back to the tried and true Claude 4, which is actually great for coding. Up until, I don't know, GPT-5, you know, the verdict's still out, but this is strong. And I'm actually growing less and less trusting of Grok in recent times. So, yeah.
Malachi Burke: Interesting. Interesting. So I still want to establish that I have that general fear of what did we throw out in the process. That still hangs over me a little bit like a cloud. Okay. But that being said, we're only two people with divided time, and it seems to me we've... Move the ball forward here, is what it seems like.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and me reading this through with you, I'm not really feeling there's points that I need to mention in addition much. It's more like you needed some clarity on stuff that I'm like, oh, okay, by the way. But it's like, oh, it's not like we missed a complete section, whereas the previous few rinses, there were times you're like, oh, we need to capture that.
Malachi Burke: Right. Okay, good. Good. Which, in a distant sense, allays my concern, because you are the SME here, and if something did get omitted that was important, you probably would have noticed it in this exercise.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Oh, I feel relieved.
Quan Gan: All right. I feel relieved, too.
Malachi Burke: Pretty much like the second happy thing for today. No, this is good. This is good. If I were of the drinking sort, I'd be having myself.
Quan Gan: For whiskey right now, but I'm just not drinking that much lately. Okay. I think I'll just make a cheese sandwich or something. If I were back in California, I would take a puff at this point.
Malachi Burke: Oh, very good.
Quan Gan: Well, are you okay with this 0.6?
Malachi Burke: I'm not going to lie.
Quan Gan: I kind of hate it.
Malachi Burke: Okay. But at this point, it would be uncomfortable to change it to a 0.5 at this point. Okay. So let's – what do I want to do about this? What do I want to do about this? 0.6. And what happened – well, you told me what happened to 0.5 already. I'll live with it, and if you feel it's appropriate to change the 0.7, I'm open to that as well. That's my response. you. We don't necessarily have to keep a changelog here because it's in Git.
Quan Gan: Okay. Changing it to 0.7, is that suggesting that you feel this document is further along than what it's presenting itself as?
Malachi Burke: You know, that would suggest that, and I don't know if I actually mean that.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, let's keep it at 0.6.
Quan Gan: Okay. All right. So, given I make the little adjustments we've mentioned, what is the next step to move the ball forward on this whole project?
Malachi Burke: Well, we're getting, thinking out loud, we're getting really close now on this document. Well, I don't know that we're really close, but we're a lot closer to this being an actionable document.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: But we're not there yet. So, what's the intermediate step? thecendo. Certainly to commit your changes, push it. Seems to me this can be liberated off the feature branch you made. You did that. I appreciate you did that. And I think we can accept that this is the, what do they call that? Not the main branch, main line. This is headed for main line. That's what the Linux kernel developers say. This is a feature that's going into the main branch. This is a main line feature, right?
Quan Gan: Okay. I feel quite accomplished then.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Me too. Me too. Like I said, this has allayed some concerns. And I think we might want to merge this to a developed branch, acknowledging that while it's not the published thing yet, it's well on its way.
Quan Gan: Okay. Is that through a PR?
Malachi Burke: We can forego the formality of the PR for the short term, I think. Okay. We could do a direct merge. Okay. To develop branch, if you're comfortable with that. I can do that if you want.
Quan Gan: I would rather you do that. So I'll push it to this once I've made the updates, and then you can, yeah, merge it back into the main.
Malachi Burke: Develop.
Quan Gan: Oh, yeah. Develop. Yes, that's what I meant.
Malachi Burke: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Okay, good. I love doing a PR, but you and I are literally doing this all together.
Quan Gan: So who's our audience that's going to be reading the PR, right? Okay. And then I don't think I heard your final verdict on the entire sectioning. Is it okay, or is there something that you still want to shift? I think it was felt somewhere in the games area.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Let's give the summary of that. Let's go all the way to section three. So section three. Three, I agree with you that we could swap taste and hardware ecosystem subsections. That works for me. I'm also flexible with keeping 3.1 as a leader. I'll be flexible. And 3.2 needs to be moved near the end of Section 4. So that would be like a 4.6 or something.
Quan Gan: Okay. Got it. 4.6. Okay. So at the very end of this. Well, I think edge case handling is 4.6 now.
Malachi Burke: Well, 4.5 technically.
Quan Gan: Okay. Is it before or after that?
Malachi Burke: After? I'm open to either. Whichever, you know, we could put it before the edge case handling. Edge case handling feels a little more natural. It's the very last thing somehow.
Quan Gan: Okay. So let me make a note of this. Yes. Here. What am I looking at now? Was it three? It was in three. Okay, this life cycle, right? So move to four point. Near the end. Yeah, right. And before edge near end of section four. Okay. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: And as you already know, because we talked about it so much, it's appropriate to split games and game scaffolding into their own sections.
Quan Gan: Okay, where was that?
Malachi Burke: That's section four point one.
Quan Gan: Four point one. Games and scaffolding. Okay. Help clarify that again. Yeah, it's kind of, I've paged out.
Malachi Burke: No worries. I'm pretty, like, spent myself. I'm right there with you. 4.1, theoretically, ought to become 4.1 and 4.2. So 4.1 stays games.
Quan Gan: That is correct, to lead with games.
Malachi Burke: Something like a 4.2 would be games, colon, scaffolding. And you would talk about a very special approach to teaching there.
Quan Gan: Okay, okay. So 4.1. So games, and then it would be somewhere down here. Okay, so it would come before the cross-cutting concerns.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Well, for me, it wouldn't. Because I don't think it's as important. But it could. It could be a 4.1. True. I'd be okay with that.
Quan Gan: Let me see what's... I would agree with you on this and put it, insert it here.
Malachi Burke: Okay.
Quan Gan: 4.3. So I'm going to have to change that in subsequent ones later. But this one would be, is it Games Scaffolding?
Malachi Burke: Mm-hmm.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yes, because up here, even the 4.2 is very much tied into the game feel. Right. Right.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Right. I could be open to either one there because the counter-argument would be the cross-cutting concerns are almost an edge case. They're not. They're not an edge case, but they're incidental to The game experience, really. So that's why I'm flexible, but I like putting it where you put it, really.
Quan Gan: All right. Lots of work done.
Malachi Burke: Lots of work done. And remotely, on a very intense day for you. So well done.
Quan Gan: Thank you. I will give myself a pat on the back.
Malachi Burke: You deserve it. You deserve it.
Quan Gan: Okay. Well, I'll make these changes probably in the next – I don't want to promise anything, but I'll make these changes, and I'll probably later on ask you what are the next steps, but I won't do that at this point.
Malachi Burke: Excellent. Excellent. I'll make a note to be watching out for your changes and do the merge at that time.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Perhaps – let me make the note first. Hold on. Hold on. Okay. Hold And if I recall what you just said, you're saying when you make the changes, you'll indicate to me that you've made the changes.
Quan Gan: Yes.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Then once I see that, I'll do the merge.
Quan Gan: Perfect. Sounds good.
Malachi Burke: Great. Very good. I saw the light. It was actually light out when we started, and now it's dark.
Quan Gan: Oh, yeah.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. You transitioned. What time is it for you there?
Quan Gan: 10.20.
Malachi Burke: Ooh. Yeah. I bet you were up early, too.
Quan Gan: Not today. I slept. Well, I got up once around nine, had breakfast, and came back to sleep till noon because jet lag is a .
Malachi Burke: That sounds kind of nice, though.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: That sounds kind of nice. I'm a little bit jealous.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Today's activities. Today's Didn't have anything to do until, like, 4 p.m. So, yeah. I basically got up and then I had lunch. So, like, I slept between breakfast and lunch.
Malachi Burke: If you subtract all the things that happened for the rest of the day and yesterday, that was a very nice morning you had.
Quan Gan: It was, yeah. And then, yeah, I mean, I basically made up the sleep that I lost the past few days.
Malachi Burke: Nice. I look forward to doing that tomorrow.
Quan Gan: So, well, awesome, dude. Well, good work. Thank you. You too. Well, thanks for all your very scrutinized feedback and it's exactly what we need.
Malachi Burke: I'm glad to hear it. And I got more coming.
Quan Gan: I got more where that came from. All right, dude. Have a good night. Okay. Good night. Or good midday. See you later. See you later. Bye.
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Ashley: Hey, long time no see.
Quan Gan: Yeah, how's it going? Good.
Ashley: Are you sleeping well? Yeah, I I feel like we didn't really have too much jet lag. You guys too bad with it?
Quan Gan: I think coming back is a lot easier.
Ashley: Yeah, mean, that's like, Grayson was up Wednesday morning at like 5.30ish and, you know, like, ready to go, but yeah, it wasn't too bad.
Quan Gan: Yeah, that's good. Yeah, it's just, it's a whole other world. I'm still kind of sleepy today because usually, yeah, I think, yeah, it's a little off, but no, it's way easier than going the other way.
Ashley: I know Hunter said he was up at like 5. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Did you guys do anything afterwards?
Ashley: No, we did.
Quan Gan: No, I mean, like, that night, we left out the next day, and then we just sat in JFK forever. Okay. So we had like a four-hour sit in JFK.
Ashley: But Grayson, he slept probably half the flight. Is he up right now?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Ashley: Yeah, they're all, I think they're funny because they're like, who do you have a meeting with this morning? And I was like, Yoko parents.
Quan Gan: Also, it's like, it's not a meeting meeting.
Ashley: like, if you guys need something, like come in. Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah, because J.O. was like, oh, can I talk to Grayson later?
Ashley: I'm like, maybe later. they're like, what are you doing?
Quan Gan: Yo-yo parents.
Ashley: It's all good.
Quan Gan: Okay. Well, so I've taken a look and a couple, like a last-minute rinse. Still editing it a little bit. But maybe it would be good for me to just screen share and then we just talk through the points.
Ashley: Yeah, that's fine.
Quan Gan: But I took what you gave me along with some previous input, like including the current status of the Yo-yo industry, and then also kind of mixing in the spectatorship and making it really, like, fun and entertainment value. Like something to build the culture. Yeah, and then also just, like, having a nod at the current, I guess, friction points or social, you know, dynamics between people. Like, how do we keep it neutral, right? So those are the points. And then, do you know a book called Traction?
Ashley: No. Traction.
Quan Gan: This is, like, what a lot of businesses operate on. It's almost like a business bible. And it has something called a Vision Traction Organizer, which is essentially, like, some – it's just a framework that you would go through that would give you a, you know, your core values, your core market. And then all the way down to – this is the accountability chart of who needs to fill in. And then you'll also have like a 10-year, three-year, one-year target. And then it boils it down to what you need to do quarterly. To meet all the... Yeah, yeah. So kind of like the business blueprints and like developing the ideal customer and like all of them. Essentially, yeah, there's probably plenty of books similar, but yeah, some framework, right? So that's what I created a draft on. And a lot of these things typically you wouldn't do until, you know, several years into the company once you've found product market fit.
Ashley: Yeah.
Quan Gan: We kind of have to project a little bit and say, okay, this is what I speculate. And I kind of work the equation backwards and then, yeah, it'll be a living document.
Ashley: Yeah. Okay.
Quan Gan: So I'm going to share that. Let's see. Can you see my screen? Yep, you're good. And just kind of don't mind this like coding looking thing because I actually use my VS code, which is actually what developers use for code.
Ashley: But... Mm-hmm.
Quan Gan: Or Documents is great because you could do version control and, you know, make little adjustments. And also you can upload it online so that we have a common repository that we can come back to.
Ashley: Okay. Yeah.
Quan Gan: It's easier to share than ChatGPT.
Ashley: Well, I know. That's why I was like, wait, I can't share, like, all of the different, like, chat. Like, I have to go through each one individually, like, share over.
Quan Gan: Okay. So do you want to just, like, you know, take a moment to read through this and then just, you can verbally just, you know, have it.
Ashley: Yeah, you're good. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah.
Ashley: Yeah. like the core values. I like having. Yeah, like the mentorship and then the certification throughout it. Okay.
Quan Gan: Where is the certification?
Ashley: It's like the stewardship and safety. Okay. Because I think that's something that you hear of, you know, like, so what makes someone able to judge? What makes, you know, like, what makes someone able to do this? Like, what is the certification? What is the background? What, you know, like.
Quan Gan: Okay. One thing I will say when we've developed the core values is probably less is more. right now this is kind of leaning a little bit on the heavier side with eight. Because we did put in a lot of ingredients, right? So it's trying to satisfy all of them. But I wonder if there's anything that you think maybe.
Ashley: I mean, I think we can consolidate it down. Because if you have Play With Purpose. I think that. And that can also incorporate that radical sportsmanship, where it's that joy, discipline, fun, and we could also put in there, you know, like, celebrating everyone's efforts, like, to just kind of tie that in with sportsmanship. I mean, I think a lot of them we could probably consolidate, you know, two into one.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Ashley: Like, I think leaving psychological safety and safeguarding alone, but even stewardship and safety, could incorporate in with that. Okay. Because they kind of speak on the same things of, you know, safety, clear codes of conduct, certification. Okay.
Quan Gan: Risk management. Yep. Sounds good. Yeah, the great thing is, you know, just, like, we'll take our transcript here. I'll rinse it back through later on, and then it'll probably automatically make some of those adjustments.
Ashley: Yeah. Take them through. Okay.
Quan Gan: Anything else that stands out to you?
Ashley: No. mean, those kind of cover everything that we want in building it. Okay.
Quan Gan: So then our core focus. Yeah. I don't know if I would call it craft. That's what it came up with. Portable art.
Ashley: I mean, I think if we kept it with like art, then it's going to cover into, for schools and stuff, that whole, the STEM, you know, like.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I like the word art better. Oops. Hold on. It took it to the code side. So it's actually.
Ashley: Here we go. But, yeah, I mean, I think that's good for our purpose, cause, passion, you know, like, yeah, I mean, think the core focus is good.
Quan Gan: Okay. The niche?
Ashley: And then the niche, yeah, like, we're looking for community, you know, like community engagement, after school stuff, yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Ashley: It's crazy, like, 10-year target, I know, it's like, thinking of, like, numbers, like.
Quan Gan: Yeah, you gotta see the real numbers to see if. Yeah, I know, yeah, like.
Ashley: Feasible.
Quan Gan: I think in 10 years, it could be more than that.
Ashley: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, especially you figure, like, if it's a worldwide, like, effort, like, which, you know, is something that's worldwide, it's just.
Quan Gan: Yeah, there's, just for some stats, there's roughly about 4 million people per age in the United States.
Ashley: That's crazy.
Quan Gan: And that holds up to maybe about age 60 or something, but roughly 4 million.
Ashley: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think that's good, like, for your targets, and then marketing. Yeah.
Quan Gan: What is MWR?
Ashley: Um, the Military Wellness Readiness. So it's, um, MWR is what, on the military bases, they handle all of, like, sometimes they call them the family readiness workstations. Yeah. But, yeah, that's your military wellness readiness. Well, so we actually, ZTAG sells to the military.
Quan Gan: We've, we've gotten a few, probably working with those kind of places.
Ashley: Yeah. Yeah. So, like, um, and it depends on the state. mean, like, California, because you have all the bases there, but, like, Michigan doesn't really have large ones. South Carolina has a large one, they're integrated into the schools, too. So they have, like, an NWR ambassador at the local schools down here, so that when families PCS in and, you know, change bases and stuff, they help with transitions and any issues that may Rides that are military-specific.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Three uniques. Turnkey.
Ashley: Yeah, I mean, the marketing strategies, like, targeting them through. I think those are good. And I think even starting it out, if we do, like, the exhibitions and trick battles to really, like, raise the awareness and the engagement the first couple of years, like, that would build the visibility and stuff first and then lead naturally to everything else.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Ashley: Three-year picture? Okay. Trick Battle Championship with a live stream that works.
Quan Gan: Yeah, totally. These numbers seem realistic, but we could probably exceed it.
Ashley: Yeah, I mean, when you think, like, I mean, it seems like a lot, but then at the same time, you're like, well, is it really that much, you know, like, compared to what we have and everything? Yeah. Transparent judging. Paid officials. What? Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Ashley: And Like, the SMART goals? Mm-hmm.
Quan Gan: SMART goals. Out of you, me, and Joan, would Joan be the one to get sponsors, you think?
Ashley: Um, I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I think she would have some connections that she could get sponsors. I don't know how much lifting she wants to do, like. Okay.
Quan Gan: Well, you know, when we sat on the plane together for that one hour, she was, she was actually considering quitting her job. How many years? all. She's kind of tired of it after 25 years and starts something off on her own. So she's like, should I do this?
Ashley: Should you?
Quan Gan: You're like, I don't know.
Ashley: Like, if not, when?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Ashley: Yes, I mean, yeah, I think if she has the time and everything, like, she could do sponsorships.
Quan Gan: I really think if, okay, part of this thing is like, how do we transform it to be as popular, if not more, than skateboarding? Yeah. Part of that culture is the apparel.
Ashley: Mm-hmm. Like, you got all sorts of, like, black apparel that's, like, you know, trendy or whatever. That was, like, after we did Worlds last year, like, driving back from Ohio, that was one of George's things. He was, like, like, it's yo-yo. It's not, you know, like, when you think about it, it's not cool and everyone looks like they're, like, hiding in a basement and unfitted and stuff. He's like, you guys need something where it's like, okay, this is the cool shirt. This is the The cool backpack, you know, like.
Quan Gan: Yeah, exactly. He actually, he aligned it with, you know, skateboarding and everything, like the whole culture of, you know. It totally feels like it's just small. Yeah. Yeah.
Ashley: Yeah, the backpack, the yo-yo backpack, right? Yeah. I've been talking about that.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Ashley: Yeah, how do you make it, you know, cool with, all right, this is the logo for yo-yo and, you know, like, like, curly and I don't even know all the skater brands. Oh, and then.
Quan Gan: Okay, so. If you were to make them, like, teams, then the yo-yo colorways could be team colors.
Ashley: Yeah. I mean, you could go through and have stuff where.
Quan Gan: Yeah. This is the cool yo-yo stuff. Mm-hmm. All right, so quarterly.
Ashley: Yeah.
Quan Gan: So, do you know the term rocks?
Ashley: I've heard that, yeah. Okay.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Ashley: Let's do Issue list, yeah. You're good.
Quan Gan: Do you know what IDS means?
Ashley: No, but. Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so this is in VTO speak. It's called Identify, just hold on, let's see. I think it's Identify, Decide, and Solve. So basically, like, they have these L10 meetings, like once a week, and then you go through IDS, which is like you identify what the issues are, and then you just, I guess you decide on the priority.
Ashley: Okay. Okay. And then you solve it. Solve the issues. Yeah.
Quan Gan: And then that becomes to-do items for people to disseminate down.
Ashley: Okay.
Quan Gan: Oh, discuss. Yeah. Identify, discuss, solve. I don't know what IRB is. Do you?
Ashley: Um, I've heard that before, but I think it's, you can Google it real quick. Institutional Review Board. Yeah, was going to say, that's probably where I've heard it. Like, so protect the rights and welfare of, um, any sort of, like They're an independent oversight community, so that's probably why it's there with, like, ethics.
Quan Gan: Okay. So it's just...
Ashley: Yeah, so I mean... Standing count on floors. Yeah. Okay. Awesome. Thank you. I like the playbook.
Quan Gan: Yeah, okay. Yeah, because I put in some of the current context and we try to carve lanes out.
Ashley: That trick battle nights? Mm-hmm. Flash Spin Mops. I like the name of that, Flash Spin Mops.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Mm-hmm. And we can get the MC from PNWRN Nationals to come to these events.
Ashley: Hips for you. I like the meme engine, clip booths and everything, like.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah, we've got to really leverage the technology to blow up.
Ashley: Yeah, that's cool. I think so. Glow tips.
Quan Gan: I guess AI doesn't know how yo-yo strings come, so I'll edit that, like, probably get one of the main, like, OT or something. Yeah.
Ashley: Yeah, like that with the glow party. That'd be cool.
Quan Gan: Mm-hmm. Okay.
Ashley: Yeah, mean, you think about it, like, with just reading about, like, that glow. So you think of how the bowling has, like, the glow nights and, you know, like, birthday parties now do.
Quan Gan: Yeah, totally. Yeah, the Nerf stuff and everything, like. Yeah, cosmic yo-yoing. Mm-hmm.
Ashley: All right, scorecards.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so this would be, like, weekly metrics that we're actually tapping into to see how we're doing.
Ashley: Mm-hmm. Mm Mm-hmm. So then our 30, 60, 90 execution. Yeah. Thank you.
Quan Gan: Okay, so this one's a beast, but I think I had it, oh, why is it not broken down? Should have been, hold on, let's see. Yeah, there we go. That's updated. I put your name in there already. I know.
Ashley: I saw. I was just like, I'm just giving people their jobs. We have our program directors. All right. And then what is the bottom of it? It's our events. And the Ops and Grants. And safety advisory. I agree. Thank you. All right, and then our open questions are – all right, is that all you got?
Quan Gan: What's that? I said, is that all of it? So far, but while you were reading here, I had it basically spin up who stakeholders are, and then give from each stakeholder a critical – Perspective of this whole thing, just to cover blind spots, and then, so it created a new document right here, so, live. But I want to read this, let's save it real quick, a keyboard, and, oh, whoops, not here, preview. I haven't read this, though. There's something Gentry did tell me, because he's on, I think he's on the National Yo-Yo Board, and it's like, chronically, they just can't have a decision made, just because there's just so much entrenchment.
Ashley: Well, and I think, too, they have so many advisors and everything on the board.
Quan Gan: How many do they have?
Ashley: You go to the website. Yeah. Unbiped. It's this We'll Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. They have, I mean, the way the website is laid out, it doesn't list, like, who does what, you know? Okay. It's just the National Daily League Board, so they have one, two, three, four, five, six, 12. 12, and then they have six committees. But out of those people, you can never get an answer. Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah, they're probably just paralyzed. Because it seems like each person I've spoken to seems, you know, interested by the idea. But then once it goes in for a rinse, nothing comes out of it.
Ashley: Yeah. Okay.
Quan Gan: This is a pretty lengthy document. I don't feel like reading through the whole thing, but I'm having the AI just take in all of this and then give me recommendations on if there's anything to the VTO we might need to adjust. Unless you want to read through all of it.
Ashley: I'm good right now. Yeah.
Quan Gan: It's pretty long. Because the stakeholders, quite a few, right? So. Okay.
Ashley: So do you think, though, that in starting up, we're better to just focus, like, year one on doing kind of the trick battles and, like, events workshops? And that will allow more input from the community, too, where you might be able to attract more pros and just kind of, like, for those ambassador roles and everything, like, so that when it comes to the schools, we're able to really answer out with community-type engagement of, okay, yeah, we have these pros, these people.
Quan Gan: Well, I think we need to start looking at where do we already have resources. So if if any of us already have local access to a school where there's kind of, like, having a fledgling yo-yo club, that's probably the starting point. And then seeing if there's a way to to foster that into this new direction, rather than just It's one-dimensionally practicing yo-yo. Because now you already have a group of kids that would be interested in trying a new format. At the same time, you know, we should start figuring out, like, what does the product package look like so that it could be sold? And, but I don't know if that's something, like, are we, are we selling it? Or are we recommending potentially, like, you know, like Gentry's company or some other company to be selling it? I don't know that yet.
Ashley: That's what, I mean, I'm just thinking, like, of, of the lift of, okay, if we go out saying, all right, we're going to create a product, we're going to do this, you know, like, we're going to have X, Y, Z. And then it's too much of a lift for what we have now with balancing the kids with their competitions. you. Thank you.
Quan Gan: Yeah, think we, you know, we're more like the coordinator role and then feeding it to a company that already has resources. I think that might align better. But I think we have to have that careful balance where, you know, Gentry is probably his company is the most well positioned for it. So he would fit that box. But as our organization, like we should be agnostic to which vendor, but there just happened to be one vendor, right?
Ashley: It's like other vendors can't apply. Because Yo-Yo Factory, like I was looking at their website earlier today, and they have like trick list and stuff for beginners.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Ashley: So, I mean, it's something that maybe, you know, like you have Chris and them on Yo-Yo Factory too. So if they want to put together.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so we could probably at least start with a curated list. Of the tricks, because those, yeah, fundamentally you still have to learn. And probably you could pull in, you know, the information from Yo-Yo Factory or even Andre's.
Ashley: Yeah, the trick experts or whatever, like them.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and then put apps. So, like, just having a list of resources to start with.
Ashley: Like a curated list of safe tricks that you can go. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah, already built something, right? Yeah, Grayson has.
Ashley: Okay. Like in the YouTube channel with, you know, like six tricks or whatever, you know, like.
Quan Gan: Okay. The other thought I had was, like, this document we're working on, do we potentially want this to be a public document? Or is it something strictly internal?
Ashley: I I think we can can eventually. sleep. Especially if we're going to be a non-profit, like having it as a public document, I think gives credibility, that whole transparency and everything of, okay, these are our goals. This is what, you know, like we want. So, I mean, I think the final version could probably be public of, all right, this is the goals. These are core values.
Quan Gan: This is, you know, like. Any thoughts on the name?
Ashley: No. Okay.
Quan Gan: I'd have to look at, like, what all the suggestions were that AI came up. It said the Spin Forward Foundation.
Ashley: Yeah. I mean, I do like that.
Quan Gan: SFF. Spin to win.
Ashley: You know, like. The what?
Quan Gan: Spin to win.
Ashley: Spin to win.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Ashley: I mean, just kind of winning in life, winning in, you know, like, habit training. I mean, you can take that and everything, kind of how Gentry has that yo-yo champion. Okay.
Quan Gan: Hey. Hmm. It's a mindset, but...
Ashley: Okay.
Quan Gan: Let me see what the AI can give us as well. Let's see. Oh, well, here. Let's come back to this and see if you agree to any of this stuff. So it gave us some recommendations based on the gaps. Let's just look at that. Explicit accessibility commitments. Interesting. Universal Access and Accommodation. Okay.
Ashley: I'll say one thing I see a lot, I don't know if you see it, like, within the homeschool groups by you, but parents are looking for... for... for... or Or the accessibility being like with dealing with autistic kids and stuff like that, neurodivergence.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah.
Ashley: So I mean, that would be something that I think in dealing with, like if we're going to deal with schools, we'd have to ensure that the adults that are going out there, you know, are able to handle that.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. That's important. Data privacy. see. I'm not sure how much COPA and all that apply to us yet. Because hopefully there's nothing identifiable about the player unless we start tracking players.
Ashley: Well, and I think that too, I think in the beginning, like, like, that's one of those things things things where. where. think think I don't think it's a concern, probably for the first year or two, unless, you know, once we grow, if we're going to have, like, player profiles and teams where we're taking their data and stuff, but, and just getting yo-yos in people's hands and outreach out there, I don't think.
Quan Gan: Okay. Kit storage, security, okay. Yeah, so, mean, how, how do you deal with the, the eventual of, . . He swung a yo-yo and hit me or something. What would you do?
Ashley: That could sound cool. No, I mean, like, what we do with our club and everything is that we have everyone, like, when they join the club, we give, like, a safety briefing at the beginning of each club, just kind of make sure that, you know, you are arm's distance away. And then we tell the parents that, you know, like, they're in charge of watching their kids, too. And if someone is swinging yo-yos erratically, we take the yo-yo. But, you know, that's just, like, club where it's all no money is being exchanged. And, yeah.
Quan Gan: But in a, an after-school setting, then it's usually one adult per several kids. about It could be a dozen kids or even more.
Ashley: I mean, I think it becomes the same thing as, like, when they have Frisbees or baseball bats or anything, you know, like, we could probably, I'm sure there's some sort of, I'd have to look, but I'm sure just like with horses, there's the whole equine liability policy of, you know, like, you're taking part in this activity, you understand X, Y, give them all the Duncan, the Cushioned Responsive Yo-Yo. you seen that one? Which one? Duncan has, like, a soft rubber. Oh, they do?
Quan Gan: Yeah, for, like, toddlers.
Ashley: Okay.
Quan Gan: It's hard plastic.
Ashley: It's a rubber yo-yo.
Quan Gan: Okay. Vendor Neutrality, okay. Vendor Rotation Requirements, interesting. I don't know if we can rotate any vendors yet.
Ashley: I mean, and the thing is that even though there's multiple vendors, all carry the same yo-yos, you know, like Snapbacks or Spinsters.
Quan Gan: Yeah. There's success at home.
Ashley: Have you done grant writing?
Quan Gan: Only with AI, I have. Not been successful, but I think that might be because for some of these grants, you need a lot of pre-established connections to them.
Ashley: I know, I always hear that it's a pain.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I mean, it's a lot, but I think AI solves most of those problems, actually. Like in the...
Ashley: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so I wouldn't say I'm successful, but the methodology for me now is like, if you know what their criteria is, and write to it, I can use AI to work through it. Yeah, I think there might even be... There potential to get some kind of SBIR, Phase I grant, if we have the right people. Yeah, there might be. I'll look into it. Well, so this budget is definitely going beyond what we were scoping initially.
Ashley: I think that's because it's taking into a lot of accounts, like, if we're having kids at schools, like, their information and stuff, too. Like, yeah, I'm probably...
Quan Gan: They want to figure out how to lean it down so it's not so overwhelming in the beginning and then allowing this to.
Ashley: Well, I think if we start on a smaller scale and setting it up, set it up that we have the pipelines to sell, hit all those other branches, but maybe see if we rinse it through as. How can we do this with the, like, lower lift of building the culture and then building the rest of it, like, as it grows? Yeah.
Quan Gan: I don't know if that makes sense or if AI would make sense with that, but. I think so. I want to show you some other thing real quick. Let me stop share. But I'll show you an opportunity. Opportunity, though, it's probably one of our biggest impact shows every year. Let's see, Cannes Symposium. Okay, you see my screen?
Ashley: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay, so this is basically the most impact we can make earlier in the year. There's two main shows in California. One is this one, and these site coordinators are the actual people. People with boots on the ground at the various schools. they come to the symposium to get trained, and there are a lot of speaking opportunities you can have. can create workshops.
Ashley: You could actually do a yo-yo club in a workshop.
Quan Gan: And then they have recommendation ability to their principals or higher up at the district office, and that turns into sales. so if you look at registration, details, partners, let's see. Yeah, so this is California Afterschool Network. Yeah, this just shows you the tiers. For ZTAG, we're most likely going to be a presenting sponsor. Okay. But, you know, you can, at $3,000, just... We have a booth already and do demos, but really what we were doing was sponsored workshops. Yeah, so that's why we paid this much, so we can actually do sponsored workshops. But I think as a nonprofit, though, you could probably just get them to approve a workshop. I could probably even just talk to the people organizing it. It's like, hey, we want to do this. Do you think we can actually get into a workshop without having to pay for it? This is, you know, much more like sponsored content. We're done.
Ashley: Yeah.
Quan Gan: But yeah, this, I think, would be kind of like the first thing you would check out to see if there's any signal. Like, if this is a flop, then, you know, you really have to go back to the drawing board. But I think this would, if we put this on our radar and say, okay, this is. What it's going to look like in February. It might even be potentially two organizations, like our nonprofit and the side-by-side with, you know, a Gentry's company or something.
Ashley: And getting, seeing what the school's reaction to it is.
Quan Gan: Yeah. So I think by then, we'll have to clearly define that relationship. It's like, what do we do as this organization to maintain neutrality but bridge that gap? And then how do the vendors show up so that they're speaking the right language and then providing exactly, you know, if we make that connection? And then Like, they need to show up in the way that we promised to.
Ashley: I wonder, have you, I mean, I know you said you talked to Ben, like, with the school stuff. Like, I wonder if that's something that he ever considered with the other factory team, like?
Quan Gan: Oh, he only knows that it's a blank slate, but he doesn't really know the first thing about it. He's like, oh, yeah, I think we might have, like, a school up in Oregon or something. But it's not something they actively pursued. Yeah, so really, yo-yo, it's just a product. And that product has so far been very much entrenched in the current ways. But they never really thought of, like, how do you package it for schools?
Ashley: I'm thinking.
Quan Gan: I'll send you this link. this link. Or here. Let me just put it here, and you can save it. And this year, I think this year, yeah, it's down in Long Beach, which is great. Like, that's actually closer to us now. The past two years, it's been, like, Central California and Northern California. And then, let's see, there's other resources here, too. So, again, I just think the focus on California is huge, because their budget, like, outweighs, I think, pretty much all the other states combined. There's some kind of publication they've had. Is it this one? Yeah. I'm not looking for the state. They actually have this whole thing about what is expanded learning. Let's see. Yeah, okay. Yes. This. I'll give you this link as well. Where's the actual document? Oh, yeah. Here's a document. Yeah, it's a very comprehensive document of, like, what...
Ashley: What it is.
Quan Gan: Yeah, what the actual target outcomes are. It's a lot. So we can even take this and rinse it through to say, okay, just going to align with this. Yeah, let me just see what I can do here. Thank you. A lot of, like, initial content that makes it look legitimate rather than just an idea. Okay, that'll take a little bit. I'll let you know when it's done. I'm going to ask ChatGPT how long it takes to register.org. Thank you. Oh, okay. I guess you can just register .org just like .com now. It's not restricted. That's easy. Okay. see.
Ashley: Yeah, I mean, I think. Let me see. Let's go.
Quan Gan: It says, 11 of the 12 standards show strong to moderate alignment with current BTO. So, it's really just updating some of the language. Keeping that. Okay, so, let me see here. I need to save this real quick. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, it's updating the VTO to online language.
Ashley: Now, all right, here's me just thinking. What about if we built a nonprofit? We planned, like... What's happening? How We or five events for next year, like the trick battle workshop type thing and everything. We pulled in money for sponsorships for that. And we saw how that, like, played out with people attending, like, the reception to it. Um, and I wonder if, so the way National Yo-Yo League is structured, the state contest, I don't know if they fall under, like, the National Yo-Yo League, like,
Quan Gan: Yeah, don't think the regionals.
Ashley: like the regionals are ran by National Yogi League because they seed, but the state contests don't seed into anything. And it seems like each state contest is run so differently.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Ashley: But Dano, who runs like Florida State and I think it is Illinois. Okay. He seems very receptive to crazy ideas. So even like if at those events or something, if we could do like a little offshoot to see how the current culture of yo-yos like respond to this idea. Okay.
Quan Gan: That'd be interesting. Yeah. Almost like an incubator.
Ashley: Right, right.
Quan Gan: Or the business idea of like. Okay. And I don't know.
Ashley: Like I said, this is just me thinking as I'm like sitting. It makes sense.
Quan Gan: We don't want to reinvent the wheel. I think the core starts with having yo-yo players to begin with.
Ashley: Yeah. That's what I'm saying. So then if we have where just naturally you have these players where it's like Chris, Thomas, James, they're like, hey, this is cool doing these battles or whatever. What else are you guys doing with this? It's like, yeah. So you have this group that is willing to go out there and like share it.
Quan Gan: Do we have a schedule of all of those statewide ones?
Ashley: And yes and no, because how yo-yo contests are.
Quan Gan: Yeah, right. They're pretty last minute.
Ashley: Everything's last minute. I mean, like, I know like Ben, like they run Arizona State, you know, like, so they would probably. Are willing to let us?
Quan Gan: Yeah, so let's start with the closest people in mind, right? So people that are already having this interest. So maybe for, okay, I'm thinking, yeah, the carve out would be let the yo-yo manufacturers or the brands continue to provide the equipment. But for us, we're proposing a new format of yo-yo participation, and through that format, make it much more spectator-friendly, and then use that as a way to pull in sponsors.
Ashley: And pull in, like, other, you know, like other players, like newer players and stuff that maybe they're intimidated by the thought of going up and doing a one-minute routine, three-minute routine, you know, but by being able to. You use these formats of team competitions or, you know, like beginner trick battles.
Quan Gan: Yeah, sponsored teams, yeah.
Ashley: It's modern and fun to them, where even, you know, like the team battles can be, okay, like you meet up at the yo-yo contest, this is everyone, you know, like make friends and whatnot.
Quan Gan: Yeah, okay, I like that. Almost like, what is the game?
Ashley: Like kickball. Yeah, let's not try to like completely reinvent something, like use what's already available and just shift it.
Quan Gan: And then our presence there is really as the guiding principles on this new low lift, right?
Ashley: And we can market it amongst our communities by being like, hey, you know, like at this yo-yo club, we're going to have this, you know, like event to get it out and about and, you know, like getting voices. We can do that with our.
Quan Gan: Your local one, too.
Ashley: And that's what I'm saying. know, like, DXL, you can, you know, like.
Quan Gan: Yeah, Michelle's open to that. Like, yeah, we've done ZTAG at the events, too.
Ashley: But we can use, with the nonprofit, the nonprofit can be like, hey, you know, like, we're doing this with Yo-Yo, you know, like, as community-sponsored and awareness and whatnot. Just like how she, like, DXL did the parade and stuff, you know, like.
Quan Gan: Like she does what? That didn't DXL do, like, a parade or something? A parade? Oh, yeah, she got involved in that. Yeah, yeah.
Ashley: But as a nonprofit group, we're getting involved in these sort of things, you know, like bring Yo-Yo out and about into the community. Yeah, okay.
Quan Gan: And kind of see what the reception is. Yeah. Amongst everyone. Okay. Real quick, I'll screen share again. Yeah.
Ashley: Because I think, hey, actually, I think, I think one of, like, Virginia State or something, I think they did, like, trick battles or something.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Ashley: I don't know if it was Virginia or, but it was somewhere on the East Coast. And I just remember Joan saying it was really cool, you know, like, how they kind of had this other, like, fun thing at the contest. I was like, oh.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah, definitely, we should be leveraging existing resources rather than reinventing it. So this, in green, so red is what it removed and green is what it added. Obviously, it's much more verbose than the other stuff, but this is specific to how it aligns to California standards.
Ashley: Okay. Yeah, I like this.
Quan Gan: I like this because this puts the actual work or the doing on the kids.
Ashley: And then we're really just guiding it. Exactly. I it's kind of like how Hunter's spotlight contract is, you know, he'll provide the hours and stuff, but you have to put in the work. Yeah, I like those. I like the core focus. Yeah.
Quan Gan: You know, one thing I can actually find is a close friend of ours is a occupational therapist. So she works with a lot of neurodivergent kids. And she's seen Gio take off with yo-yoing. So maybe we can make a more concerted effort to do it that way.
Ashley: Actually, I just saw a post in our homeschool group about, you know, like someone was looking for a dance studio that has, you know, like training with autistic kids.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Ashley: And that's, you know, like, she's like, you know, I have no. So, The finding thing I've just heard from, you know, oh yeah, we'll patient with them, but she's like, want something with actual, like, tangible training of you understand what it is and how to go through that. Yeah, I'll message her.
Quan Gan: Let's see if there's anything else. Okay, this one. I think a yo-yo community is pretty diverse to begin with.
Ashley: It's just getting people to be involved, which is going to be the hard part. It's always the hard part.
Quan Gan: Scorecard. Okay. It adjusted some of these. Yeah, I don't know, a chunk right here. And the California Standard Compliance.
Ashley: California Quality Indicators.
Quan Gan: Yeah, that's the end of it. Oh, let me see on this side here. I think it came up with a few names. See if you're liking some of these.
Ashley: I think it's a forward. Spin forward?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Ashley: It's probably my favorite out of them. Okay, let me see.
Quan Gan: Right. I like the kids would, you know, like. I feel like it's taken, but let's spinforward.us, okay.
Ashley: Take it. Wait, hold on.
Quan Gan: Yeah, you don't want things with dashes. Those are. Yeah. Okay, how about this? I'll do some more research afterwards and see which names have both a .org and is available. Okay. Okay. I actually got to hop off for another meeting soon.
Ashley: No, you're good. But is there...
Quan Gan: Yeah, any final thoughts?
Ashley: No, man, I think it's good. think it's a good starting point. together, like a starting, yeah, you know, like, it's just trying to figure it out and get everyone on board, you know, get a team built and together. Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah, great. So, yeah, I'll summarize this meeting. I'll send you the meeting notes, then I'll take that and then do another couple of rinses into the AI, and then we can regroup again sometime next week. All right, sounds good. All right, thanks. All right, we'll see you. Bye. Bye.
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Mateo Elvira: This meeting is being recorded. How is my, what? Is your home safe?
Charlie Xu: Are you guys safe now? gosh. Hold on. There's a lot of proof I need to go through.
Mateo Elvira: Yeah, all of our note takers on this call, huh?
Kris Neal: Hey, y'all.
Charlie Xu: Hey.
Mateo Elvira: Hey, Kris, how are you?
Kris Neal: Good to see you.
Charlie Xu: How are you? Yeah, okay. So the house, we're so lucky. The fire just literally stopped at the street right near our neighborhood. The very, like, it stopped at the place that the first house normally would pick up the mail. It just crossed the street. There's, like, all the, a whole hill was burned out.
Mateo Elvira: Jeez. Yeah. So would have put it out that same day, or how long were you, like, evacuated for?
Charlie Xu: Well, so last, like, like last time when I was kind of. At the beginning, would still feel like, okay, let's just keep talking. And by the end, I feel like, well, I might need to do something. But when I'm getting to the, there's a road close to the house, and there's a police officer, have two police cars stopped there. Literally, they say, hey, nobody's going to enter in there. I said like, hey, I have animals, I need to feed them, you know, like, and I cannot just not go and visit. Okay, that, that, that's not negotiable. Only firefighters can go through that place. So I was literally like being blocking out outside of my, that neighborhood. So I have to stay with my, my friend. Next day morning, I went home. They, luckily, they let us in with a proven ID. So you're, if you're the resident over there. So, yeah, everything is okay. Hey, animals are fine.
Mateo Elvira: And And them.
Charlie Xu: And I do see a bunch of neighborhood, that night they just stay. Even the fire is so close, they can just see it so close, they stay.
Mateo Elvira: Geez, I'm glad they took it out though, that was scary. A lot going on that day.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, I know, it's a little bit, but yeah, we're so blessed.
Mateo Elvira: Is Quan back from the trip, or are they still out there?
Charlie Xu: He is, he is right now in the meet, I think in a quick meeting. He said he's going to join us soon, so maybe start a little bit. Yeah, I think he's in the meeting, but he should be joining us in a few minutes.
Mateo Elvira: Sounds good.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, okay, and also here, Paula, she's also in our marketing team. She's helping us to... Do graphic designs, a lot of time, like, I will assign her helping us do some trade show, trade show planning.
Mateo Elvira: Sweet, nice to meet you, Paula.
Paula Cia: Hi, Mateo.
Mateo Elvira: I didn't see all the note takers were, like, hiding me on my Zoom. I can see you were tucked away in there.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, so, when is the first day you start posting, like, promoting the ads?
Mateo Elvira: I think it was last week. Must have been, like, seven days ago, maybe six days ago.
Charlie Xu: Okay.
Mateo Elvira: Yeah, did you want me to, like, go through some of that stuff with you right now, or you want me to wait for Quan?
Charlie Xu: Let me, maybe let me go check. Oh, let me, let me go check to see if he's. Ready or not? If not, why don't we just start? Yeah, let me, let me go check one second.
Mateo Elvira: that's fine. Are you, I'm assuming you're, are you going be calling these leads, Kristen, or is it going to be like a mixture of like you and Juan, or just so I know, just so I can, if it's going to be you, I can just tailor it to like what you need too.
Kris Neal: Actually, there's another girl on the team, her name is Carmi. She'll be the one that's reaching out to them, and she actually started this morning. Carmi? Carmi, yes, C-A-R-M-E-E, yes.
Mateo Elvira: Okay, new, new sales rep, or?
Kris Neal: No, she's been on the team for almost a year now.
Mateo Elvira: Okay, she did handle sales exclusive stuff, or? Mm-hmm. Okay, she wasn't at the trade show, though, when you were, when you were out in LA, right?
Kris Neal: No, I'm kind of, I lead the sales team, but she helps me with those kinds of things, reaching out and getting them the things that they need, so.
Mateo Elvira: So, is California not your territory then, usually, or?
Kris Neal: No. Everywhere is my territory. We're doing it all right now, R&I.
Mateo Elvira: Oh, man. Yeah, I mean, these are pretty warm leads. These are, like, people that are just, like, opting in for a free demo. So we just got to, like, call and just get something on the calendar.
Kris Neal: Well, that was something we had actually brought up. But in the meantime, like, we don't have, we didn't want the lead to go cold trying to get that figured out. So we're just sending them as many videos as we can, kind of going that route.
Mateo Elvira: mean, I don't want to waste time with getting things in line.
Kris Neal: Eventually, I would love to have the church in Valencia that Juan has the connection with. Eventually, it would be nice to have a contact over there, hey, someone's interested in seeing it being played out, and then getting them connected that route. Okay.
Mateo Elvira: How are things going with you? Okay?
Kris Neal: You feel good to be home now, or what? Oh, feels so good.
Mateo Elvira: Yeah. Maybe you've been on the road for a while, huh?
Kris Neal: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, this is, I think, one of the longest I've stayed home. It's a good, yeah.
Mateo Elvira: You normally do a lot of traveling for ZTAG, or not really?
Kris Neal: For ZTAG, yes. That's the only travel I do.
Mateo Elvira: Yeah. Like, they're long sprints, though. are long stories to be away from home.
Kris Neal: Yeah. Yeah. They are. They are. But it always worked out. It's always been really good for the family, for me, for some years.
Charlie Xu: Good. Okay. So, Quan will join us in about 15 minutes. So maybe, maybe, Mattel, can go, help go through that. So if Quan needs to know that, he can just go back to the videos.
Mateo Elvira: Yeah, sure. Can you guys see my screen okay?
Kris Neal: Yes, sir. Oh. No. There we go. We got it.
Mateo Elvira: Nice. So I'll try to, like, just at a high-level explain. What's, I think, relevant and contextual, but right now I just created a new lead campaign. So the goal for, so these are all the campaign objectives that you can do in Instagram and Facebook. Right now I'm just focusing on leads, so that just gives us, like, contact info that we're collecting, which I think is the most valuable. Obviously, we could, like, drive awareness to our, you know, our page for, like, video views and, you know, Instagram profile visits. I think there's value in that, but, you know, I just want to collect leads for us to call. So we're doing a leads campaign. So that's what you're seeing here, and I called it California ELOP K-12. And so within here, I've just, I started with three different creatives in this, in this campaign. One of them being, like, the standard middle school. I think this is just, like, a clip of, of, of, you know, I think. I this is a testimonial, actually, from one of the people that demoed it. I know you can't hear it, but there's audio on here. And this video right here has gotten us 14 leads. So this tells me that, and you can see that right here, 14 leads. So you could see, like, this particular creative, for whatever reason, is, like, the algorithm likes it because it's showing it to more people. It's seeing us get the most leads. So you can actually see that compared to this Kimberly Matza video, which I would think, I think I mentioned this to you, Charlie, what we think would do well often, like, doesn't do well. Not that this isn't a bad video or we can't get leads from it, but clearly that first video with 14 leads is just resonating more to the point where people are taking action. So when that happens, the algorithm tends to prioritize and use that video more than perhaps the other. Videos just because it's finding success with it, right? And so Instagram and Facebook makes money when we keep our card on here and we keep getting leads because we see the value, right? So we want meta and we want them to see what a good lead looks like so we can keep it rolling, right? And so right now the cost per lead is $4.21 and that's just total amount spent on the ad spend divided by, you know, total number of leads and that's what like the cost per lead is, right? It's just the basic formula. I know Quan, I know you guys mentioned to me something that you're not seeing is, so let me just walk you through, I guess, a little bit of the ad. So this right here, I apologize, give me a sec here. So this right here is the form. So let's say somebody clicks on the video that you see here, right, they click learn more, they immediately get taken to this form. So it's a series of questions. These are just questions that I generated. We could totally, like, customize them, tweak them. In fact, I'll probably add a new one, which is school name, which is one that we don't have right now. This is another, I like this question a lot because it just forces people to give us an answer. Like, yeah, I want to see it in action. Maybe send me more info.
Kris Neal: We're not right now. We're a little worried about that one.
Mateo Elvira: And then, how many students participate in your after-school program? So this is, like, an actual, like, open text feel.
Charlie Xu: Okay. So I think maybe here, so are we being able to access this content? Because I feel like maybe if, for example, the question about after-school, it probably just narrowed us down to, okay, we're only sales tube after-school, but, but, because also we have... We have customers or entertainment facilities or parks and recs, so am I some of the questions we might like adjusting the content for a little?
Kris Neal: Charlie, I would agree with that, but I remember from our meeting with Mateo, we wanted him to focus on schools, and that was amazing, especially in our VTO, we're trying to focus only on schools. I would say yes, but I would say until after IAAPA.
Charlie Xu: Oh, okay. Yeah, or maybe we'd do separately.
Kris Neal: Some is just targeting for entertainment. There we go.
Mateo Elvira: Yeah. this campaign, right, all the creative, all the messaging, it's geared towards expanded learning, right? So, like, to answer your question, I could create a separate lead campaign with different messaging and a different video that is maybe speaking to somebody beyond expanded learning. But I think the reason why we're getting success with this is because it's speaking to a specific persona.
Charlie Xu: you.
Mateo Elvira: All right, it's speaking to an expanded learning professional in California, and that's how you get success on this is when it's relevant, when it's contextual. So if we were to change this to like our, you know, a laser tag coordinator part, so it might confuse the audience, right? Because this is very much so geared towards it, but we can't create a new campaign with different form questions. So all of it's customizable. Right now, this campaign, obviously, is just focused on like the K-12 market and school leans, but, you know, we can generate other campaigns that speak to like other, so like the headlines, use ELOP fonts for maximum use. it's just speaking to that persona. know, but like I can totally like just duplicate this form here, questions, and I can add another question here that's like, what is your. Your School Name. So now in this form, they now have to answer that. So would you guys want this as like a question on here, or do you want to remove any of these? So far, since we're finding success, I really don't want to like touch or change things because adding a question or removing something could totally like disrupt the flow of it, you know? So like we're already getting leads, so if you feel like the leads are good, I wouldn't like tweak anything too much. I think we could leave this as an optional question, but I mean, you tell me like I can adjust this to whatever you guys want, but we're getting leads. So I think that's a good sign that like it's working, right?
Kris Neal: So I would actually, you're probably right, at least Charlie, you told me, but I would leave it and then have, now that I've seen what your questions are, Carmi can actually look at this video and look how to, you know, get that email. Ask that question, because I didn't realize you were asking them if they wanted an in-school demo. That's a really big one, because we're not able to actually honor that. As great as Quan is, he's one-man show in California.
Charlie Xu: Oh, in-person. Oh, okay. So is that the, yeah, how many, okay. Oh, what is that question? So are you interested in schedule or in-person?
Kris Neal: Okay. A free in-person.
Charlie Xu: What is, okay.
Kris Neal: Because from what Karmie is responding to, yes, I want to see it in action. She's just sending the videos. So we're probably going to have to change that, Mateo, at least for, we probably can get the four or five, however many that she got that want that, kind of scheduled for Quan to do, but we need to re-frame that.
Charlie Xu: Maybe remove, so, so just in case. It's just online, Zoom meeting, it's virtual. In person, yeah, so maybe, yeah, kind of like at the beginning, we just feel each other.
Kris Neal: I would take out free too, yeah.
Charlie Xu: Yeah.
Kris Neal: I would even remove for your site. Are you, I would say even seeing, sorry, seeing a virtual demo. And then if it's possible, well, Carmen will be able to actually send my meeting link, so I can do that.
Mateo Elvira: Yeah, so this is kind of the flow of the forum, so at the end, so I know Quan told me, like, some people are scheduling, like, so it's funny, he's like, people are scheduling on my calendar, that means people are going through this whole flow of all these questions, and then at the end, they're actually booking a Zoom with him. So, that's actually a good sign that tells me, like, the Intent is there. Now, you tell me, like, right now it's linked to, like, this Calendly, but I could link it to, like, I could link it to anything, or I could link it to the phone number, but yeah, if you have a Calendly link for making these calls, or if you want to just drive people to schedule on a specific calendar link, I can totally just plop it in here.
Kris Neal: I do, but if Quan wants him to do the demo, that's fine, so if that's where he wants to go.
Charlie Xu: I don't think Quan wants to, he's just, like, it's weird, he's just, like, random people start.
Mateo Elvira: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, was confused, like, these leads were booking on his calendar, and he had no idea, like, who these leads were, you know?
Charlie Xu: Yeah, so, isn't we have a schedule, or not like, oh, maybe that's a book asking for a quote. Do we have a, like, asking for a demo button, button, um, for the. Flyers, normally when we're going to trade show, is there access to any of that, like, schedule? Yeah, they're going to just directly get a quote.
Kris Neal: No, there is. We usually have that QR code that is connected to my Calendly. And then even online, they have it book a demo option that's also connected to. The link is in the chat, Mateo, if you...
Mateo Elvira: Yeah, are you cool with me just dropping this Calendly, this new Calendly link in here?
Kris Neal: As long as it's okay with Quan.
Mateo Elvira: I think, look, these are leads that are literally put, like, they want to book a time with you. So, like, if they want to speak with you, I think it's ideal to reduce the friction. But, yeah, I mean, you can obviously drive it to, like, a quote page. But, again, if people would want to book a time with you, like, let them, right? So, if you're perfect for that, I would say, yeah, I just... Yeah, people want to, we want to make it easier for people to, like, book a demo after seeing the ad, so, yeah, if you're cool with this, I'm down with it.
Charlie Xu: 100%. Is this link direct to Quan's calendar, or? No, I just updated it. Oh, okay. So, Chris was seeing their booking.
Mateo Elvira: Oh, okay. I think this is, yeah, this is your guys' calendar, right? Yeah, let's stick to this one. And that way, like, if somebody books a meeting, like, you don't, like, Quan doesn't have to, like, chase you down, oh, can you do this?
Kris Neal: Like, it's already on your calendar. You know what, let me actually get you another link, because that one has Quan in, also in it, so let me get you this one, sorry.
Mateo Elvira: Yeah, that's fine.
Kris Neal: This one is just mine, but it's a 15-minute, I think that'll be fine. Make it real quick.
Mateo Elvira: Cool, cool, cool. And then I'll show you as well, like, it looks like we got a few more leads. It's yesterday, so I can just do. Do another export.
Kris Neal: Oh, cool.
Mateo Elvira: All right. So I'm going to update the form. So I'll update the ad with the new form here. So, by the way, Charlie, anytime you're in the ads manager, you can just, you can always download it here.
Charlie Xu: So you see how 14 leads? I could just click down.
Mateo Elvira: You could use CSV or Excel export. Okay. You could do, like, the last 90 days. And I believe when I sent it to you yesterday, there was 12.
Kris Neal: So I do believe that there's two more leads in here.
Charlie Xu: That's great. So, so, so, so far, how, how's the integration with the leads? So, so, so, so, cause I think Quan is mentioned about how to make the whole thing more smooth and we can somehow, maybe our system can catch it. So, so, so, so, mentioned some How you also can have the CRM have these leads, somehow will be linked to your CRM, something you mentioned?
Kris Neal: Yeah. That was what something Clancy needed to know yesterday. She was wondering about the form, because we were kind of thinking, we already have a form online, so could the form online be the form that you're using, so it automatically goes into our CRM? Or if it's possible for her to have, I'm thinking the link, is that what she needed? The link to the form, so she can attach it to the campaigns in CRM?
Mateo Elvira: Yeah, so I think we can connect the meta ads directly to your CRM, and just the integration has to be done. And so either, yeah, whoever has access to the CRM just needs to come in here and basically connect the two.
Kris Neal: Okay.
Charlie Xu: So I don't Quan is in a group.
Quan Gan: Hello. Sorry.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Yeah.
Quan Gan: This is a, okay, I want to ask you a few questions. So right now, our leads come in from our website, and it goes into our CRM, and we have, we could do API access to things, or we can even use Zapier to connect things. So I really just need to know on the meta side, what are the endpoints to integrate, and then we can just pull in that data and have it drop into our leads.
Mateo Elvira: That'd probably be ideal. I know meta can easily integrate with Zapier. So if you guys have Zapier, then I can set that up for you guys.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. So that's probably the easiest way. I think that the way that would make it the smoothest workflow is if whatever you're collecting data-wise is similar to what we have on our very simple. A call-to-action form on our website. Let's just see that. get a quote. Yeah, so we don't require everything. So if you're able to get at least some of this, and what ends up happening is once it drops into our leads funnel, we have an AI that actually takes their email and their name and whatever things they've done to basically stour the internet for additional enrichment data. And that allows Kris or Kami to reach out to them.
Mateo Elvira: For sure.
Charlie Xu: So I was wondering, what if we just directly, like, direct them to get a quote page? Is that, like, too?
Quan Gan: Probably losing some metrics, though.
Mateo Elvira: I think there's benefits, right? I think it makes it easier for you. But these are instant forms, right? So this is something that meta-developed that... That's native to the Instagram and Facebook experience so that people can answer these questions and then remain in the app without drop-off, right? So I can make it so that when somebody clicks on the ad, learn more, that it gets taken to this, get a quote page. But in marketing, right, you tend to see like more drop-off when, let's say, there's another step involved or there's like an additional question, right? So right now we're getting, I think, like 12 leads, right? Maybe now you will see like less leads, right? Because let's say there's like an additional step and now there's like, you know, how many required fields here? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, right? So then you go from four required questions here on the forum to now 11, right? So, you know, not to say that... It wouldn't work, or that somebody that's interested wouldn't go through that whole process. But the value of capturing leads here in meta is, like, we might not get everything, but you're getting, like, name and a little bit of pain points and, like, after-school size, right? So we're getting a little bit of information that's enough for us to, like, make an initial call, right? So we can obviously split test that if you want, but I think we're, like I said, we're already getting leads and success with what we're doing. So I wouldn't, like, want to change too much unless you feel like the quality of leads is, like, poor, right?
Quan Gan: If you feel like... I agree with you. I just want to check a few things on your current questions. Are they mandatory, or how many of these are optional?
Mateo Elvira: Right now, these are all required questions, but these are, some of these are, like, multiple choice, right? So, like, like this one, they just have to, like, choose that.
Quan Gan: Can we see on our current leads? So what is the data that we have so far?
Mateo Elvira: Sure.
Quan Gan: Yeah, based on that, I could probably make a decision on, like, is that enough for the AI to do its enrichment?
Kris Neal: Quan, there's also a few things we need to work out as far as one of those questions.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay.
Kris Neal: What the questions are?
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. So, okay, we have that full name. Is there an actual school name associated with this?
Mateo Elvira: So, in this previous form, I didn't have a school name question. I just, before you joined here, I just updated our current form to reflect it. So moving forward, we will be able to collect that. All these previous leads, unfortunately, no. Okay. But, you know, I could easily, to be honest with you, if you Google these names, and you do, like, expanded learning or after school, like, I, you could find these people, or I It you know, even help you find some LinkedIn URLs, but yeah, so to answer your question, no, but yes.
Quan Gan: Okay, yeah, then I think that's fine. So we'll do the work with, you know, these existing, but yeah, going forward, basically, if we know what their organization is, that's probably the biggest missing piece. And then the AI can actually do a lot of the background research and enrichment. So by the time our own staff reaches out, they'll have a lot more background. And things like, you know, the email that has their specific .org, those are much more helpful than an AOL or, yeah, you know? And there, this has a lot of personal emails.
Charlie Xu: So, and also the thing is, we want to kind of like testing the whole flow, how, like how many leads we get and what, what is the percentage of the, the leads we really turn into a good connections and moving forward.
Quan Gan: I think that's an internal thing we need to get. So like once we integrate, then every one of those that's through the integration, we could put a specific label on it. And then based on that label, Kris, you can make sure that label is on the deals. And then when it converts later, you'll know, okay, well, that came from Facebook.
Mateo Elvira: It's just you need to tag it as like the source of this lead converts, you know, like it came in as a, you know. By the way, this guy's, this is one of the new leads, but yeah, he runs Boys and Girls Club, 60-plus students. So I'm sure they have expanded learning. he's in Texas, I think. Oh, no, Banning, California. Yeah, I'm sure they have expanded learning funds. So, mean, these are good, I mean, I'll be honest, like maybe some of these are probably like site leads. So maybe like they're not a decision maker, but it's not worth, you know, these leads needs to convert just to make it worthwhile, right? You're getting like $5 leads, which is insane. So. I'm excited for it to keep ripping for you guys. But, yeah, let me work on that Zapier integration into your CRM. Okay. Yeah, I just added the company name or the school name field. So moving forward, we could collect that. But as of right now, yeah, you guys are getting leads. So if you need help calling these or just getting LinkedIn URLs or work emails, just let me know. I can help you too.
Quan Gan: Well, I think for the Zapier integration, we probably just need whatever the access account is because Clancy's will connect that internally for us. Okay. We need to know, like, is there an API key or something that we need to access this? And then once it's on the other end, you know, she'll take care of the CRM and internal stuff.
Mateo Elvira: Yeah, can I – I have a buddy who basically does all that. So can I sync with him and get back to you as far as – Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah, we just need to make the endpoints meet up. So – So, because Clancy knows Zapier pretty well now, so it's really just needing to know how to get access to this data internally.
Mateo Elvira: Okay. Yeah, it can be done. I just need to figure out what I need to supply your guy.
Quan Gan: Okay. Sounds good. Okay. One other thing I wanted to bring up is the leads are great. I want to make sure we also have a filter just to set the right expectations that a end user is not the one qualified to punch in the leads. So there might be, you know, like a, I don't know, like a mom that wants a birthday party for their kids or something, right? So we wanted to make sure that as they're answering the questions, that that kind of like hints to them that they're probably not the right fit and we don't want them to end up in our bucket.
Kris Neal: Yeah, there's some conditional logic I can use on the forum. I will say.
Mateo Elvira: Like, you know, the copy and everything is geared towards, like, expanded learning.
Quan Gan: Okay, great.
Mateo Elvira: Like, I mean, you know, there's a chance that a parent could come in through here, but, you know, based off of the questions and the content, it's supposed to speak to...
Quan Gan: Okay, then I feel pretty comfortable that, you know, at least they're getting the right context before it lands in a bucket. So, yeah, it seems like if you're asking these questions, those are the right filters for it by the time it comes to us, we see that as a, like, a high signal.
Mateo Elvira: I mean, yeah, even if it's, like, an expanded learning coordinator, like, that's still valuable for you guys to connect, right? Even if it's not, like, a superintendent, all right?
Quan Gan: Right.
Mateo Elvira: No, that's fine. Anybody in the expanded learning arena is, like, an ideal fit, right?
Quan Gan: Or at least a decent lead, right? Yeah, pretty much, like, any of the people that fit the persona of that event you just attended with us, any of them grabbing a flyer from us, sending it to someone. Anyone else could potentially turn into a sale.
Mateo Elvira: Okay. So that's kind of, yeah, I'm just focusing specifically on, like, expanded learning messages and persona for these ads.
Quan Gan: Perfect.
Mateo Elvira: So, yeah, right now we just got to let the algorithm cook because right now it's really finding those after school and boys and girls clubs. So, yeah, you just got to let it cook a little bit now. But, yeah, should be fun.
Charlie Xu: Okay. So, Mateo, I do see you've been posting three testing videos into the system. But so far, like, the other two are not really taking any leads. So is it normally we just let them sit there to waiting for leads or is it possible, like, adding new photos, new content and remove this?
Mateo Elvira: Yeah, so right now, as you can see, this ad-only... Yeah, just anything that you think we could test. best analogy for ads is like fishing, right? Like this is, we found a good bait and a good pole, and we're finding success. So now it's like, how can we introduce other bait and poles into the mix, right? So if you have videos or other creatives that you think you want to add into the mix, obviously right now, like, you always want to just pull from where you get success. And so whatever happened, whatever was said in this video or the visuals here really resonated with people. So I always like to just draw from what's working, too. So anything that's, I guess, similar to this or messaging-wise or, like, time-wise, it's like less than 60 seconds. So, like, I may want to just do more, use more of her testimonials and create other variations of this based off of, like, the success, right?
Charlie Xu: Okay. And also, I think... In the content I'm provided, there is Eric, which school is? So he is a PE teacher. I think also that could be potentially a huge market for us because we've been to trade shows. A lot of people mentioned, like even at the beginning, we think PE doesn't have budget, but they do. is like, yeah, so maybe also we can have a lead targeting into PE area. Yeah, definitely looking to, what is his school?
Quan Gan: Eric from Parkside.
Charlie Xu: He has a lot Parkside, yes. Parkside, yeah, this one.
Mateo Elvira: Okay. All right, let me make an ad or let me make an edit with Eric. Yeah, let's see how- Another ad.
Quan Gan: What do you think? He's a slightly different breed, just to- Set the right context.
Mateo Elvira: My name's Eric Justin Young.
Quan Gan: He saw the right potential, but he actually spent his own money to buy it and bring it to his school.
Mateo Elvira: No way. That's actually a good – then he might be a really good case study, because why else would a team send something out of pocket if they didn't believe in it, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah, he believed in it, and he's taken it beyond his community. That was the main reason. It's not just school property. It's something that he's able to affect his community.
Kris Neal: It's his own business.
Quan Gan: It's his own business now. Yeah.
Mateo Elvira: I think – yes, having some more B-roll to this would make it a little bit more.
Charlie Xu: Oh, there's a B-roll. It's a folder. There's a folder up here. Yeah, I picked some good contents. Oh, sweet.
Mateo Elvira: absolutely, really good. Thank you. Sorry, I was complaining before I even saw the folder, huh?
Charlie Xu: Okay, yeah, so that's why we need have a meeting. And also for sure, because like Paula here, she's pretty familiar with all our content. So if you have any needs, like, for example, you want something, a particular content, you may need, you can contact Paula. She can help you find whatever the content we have.
Mateo Elvira: For sure. No, I mean, you guys already have a lot to work with. So you guys just point me in the direction of, like, specific testimonials or things that I can, like, basically turn into an ad.
Charlie Xu: So I'll work on that this week.
Mateo Elvira: I'll turn this into another kind of, like, style like this, like, standard middle, and then let's just run it as an ad and see and maybe speak to. So here's the other thing. Right now, this campaign is only showing it to people in California. So we haven't even ran a national campaign, right? So if you want, we could test a national campaign speaking to, like, P.E. teacher using his testimonial. If you're... We're open to it, but yeah, I guess for context, like this ad right now is only being served to people in California, right, speaking to California Expanded Learning. So for something like this, it probably would be a national audience, right, national P.E. So that's another thing to keep in mind, too, as well.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. And also maybe like the video I upload this morning, send it to you, also from Eric, because also his side job, he is doing his business, bringing ZTAG to the communities. So I think in that video, I feel like it has a good, like even have the notes of what is this system about, like a short message of go through what is ZTAG. So maybe that's also something we can. Just put there, you don't need to add it too much on that one.
Mateo Elvira: Yeah, so I guess just to clarify, like, would it be cool if I advertised to an audience beyond California Expanded Learning? Like, do we want to?
Quan Gan: I want to kind of add to this context to answer that question. So, over the weekend, we were talking to Eric and Steve, who are both, you know, teachers who have purchased our product to actually run a business. And they shared that there is a persona out there, perhaps, of teachers who are generally underpaid, but with a lot of passion, and they want to make impact, that they might actually want to see this as a side gig or, like, a weekend business that can generate additional income. So, that's a completely different professional play that we want to share with them, that, you know, they can invest in themselves.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, that's another thing I actually is collecting. The bureaus from Eric and Steve, I'm going to provide you later. But that could be more focusing on libraries because we see huge potentials of library, our potential customer for these individual event posters to bring ZTAG to them. So we want to encourage like young entrepreneur want to direct to this directions to see the possibility. Hey, there's a need and there's a business you can go. So and also there's success structures already have people test it out. So that could be another lead going national wide, just let people know, oh, wow, this could be turning into a business.
Mateo Elvira: Totally. Yeah, I mean, as long as we're cool with just, yeah, because I know like the main focus of what I've done so far has been like, like school in California, but we can. We We can reach those personas in that audience. It would just be, you know, another campaign for us to, you know, focus on, right? So if you guys are cool with it, I'm cool with it. But yeah, that's just like another persona, right? That's kind of that education entrepreneur that's in the United States, right? So who would typically like be fielding those kinds of like opportunities or leads? Would it be more so like you, Quan?
Quan Gan: So Chris, Chris and Carmi, yeah, because we have two lanes, I mean, but they're equally similar value sales. We just have to set the expectation that if they're here as a professional operator, it's a different price point on the product because they put it through harsher use cases. They have more service and warranty requirements from us. But at the end of the day, they're making money off that product.
Kris Neal: We... Going that route before IAPA, Quan, or should we wait for IAPA to open that door?
Quan Gan: No, you're right.
Kris Neal: Well, let's see. If we're going based on the VTO, our focus is schools, and I think we want to hit schools as much as we can, so.
Quan Gan: Yeah, the V3 would be probably like an interest form that we could probably invite them to. Well, let me see. I mean, we're technically taking pre-orders, aren't we?
Kris Neal: Oh, we can?
Quan Gan: We can take pre-orders, right? We can see this is the pre-launch, pre-order, and you're getting the 30% off. So we can sell it at the same price as our V2 and say that this price is going to go up to retail $3,000 more and later.
Kris Neal: I'm a little hesitant to open that door all the way to the 30%, but it's up to you.
Quan Gan: I mean, yeah, we could put it.
Kris Neal: It's different price point on it.
Quan Gan: So let's rinse out what the discount needs to be. But yeah, like if we're able to take pre-orders and say delivery.
Kris Neal: I would just say pre-orders, yeah. And then the selected ones that we see like having potential who are really excited, then maybe saying, you know what, we can actually get it to you a little bit faster. Okay. So not opening that door, but having it, you know.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I just need to also kind of set the expectations on the V3 because we kind of went back to the drawing board on the antenna design because last time when we went out to the school, we realized it wasn't reaching where we needed. So we may need to push it back by about three weeks on the delivery. So that's why I'm flying out to China next week to double check on this thing.
Kris Neal: Okay. October. Can you confirm with me next week?
Quan Gan: Yeah, I will.
Kris Neal: Thank you.
Mateo Elvira: What is that show that you keep referencing, Kristen?
Kris Neal: Sorry. Sorry.
Quan Gan: I just don't remember what it stands for. it stands for the International Attractions Amusement Park Association.
Kris Neal: So type it out, I-A-A-P-A dot org.
Quan Gan: Yeah, this trade show is the size of 20 football fields, and you're buying anything from popcorn to roller coasters. And everything in between. Yeah, like you have bounce houses, family fun centers, you know, arcades, museums, any kind of public-facing entertainment venue will show up here. You know, from mom-and-pop, you know, tiny little stores, escape rooms, to haunted houses, to bowling alleys, to, you know, all the way to like Six Flags, Disney, Universal.
Mateo Elvira: Right, who are you guys hoping to connect with out here?
Quan Gan: These are professional operators. So we're looking at mobile games. Operators, like people who run game trucks, or they have a van, they want to start a little side business. know, their main party hosts, the main thing that attracts them is high ROI, right? So they're very money-driven compared to education. They just want to know, okay, if I spend $13,000 on this, and that's our retail for the V3, if they spend $13,000 on this, how quickly can they get their investment back? And anything under six months is actually a no-brainer for them. Yeah, and the market rate for hosting a ZTAG event is about $500, $500 per event. And so that's like, what, 13 weeks if you're doing two events a week, right? So it should be... Pretty quick ROI if they're doing their job.
Mateo Elvira: What's the addressable market in the United States for these mobile game operators and party hosts?
Quan Gan: I'll do an AI search for you. They're in the, I would say they're probably in the thousands, maybe high thousands, four digits, probably less than 10,000. I think that was the last time I checked. That fits their persona.
Kris Neal: But Mateo, too, you want to keep in mind, like, it's not our focus. It's, schools are our focus. As much as these mobile operators are, you know, are kind of the, not our breeding ground, but our testing ground for the, that's our main focus.
Quan Gan: Yeah, they're probably, like, 10% of the overall market that we want to serve. But the reason why we do still stick with them, like Chris says, they're our testing ground because they are the harshest customers. Basically, they send these to new kids that don't care. And the fact that they're... they're... they're know. It's They paid for your service. They're a lot more entitled. So the kids do a lot more damage to the product. And so when we launch it to this segment, if the product can survive that, it necessarily can survive schools.
Mateo Elvira: Sure. Okay.
Quan Gan: So we treated it kind of like subsidized beta testing, if you will.
Mateo Elvira: Okay. Yeah, I mean, I think we could definitely attack that audience through ads. It sounds like our focus really should be just schools right now. But, you know, I do think that if you guys want to get more of those leads, I think using the ads and speaking to that persona could be another avenue if you guys want. But, yeah, I know our main focus for what you guys brought me on was for schools. So, yeah, just know that we could totally, you know, create a campaign that's dedicated to those mobile game operators, too, if you guys want. So, So, yeah.
Kris Neal: I'm excited to get that next step for the V3 because we haven't had that pre-order. So now we can generate the excitement, invite them, see if they're going to IAPA, get that connection going. So if we could, yes. And then that call to action being pre-order yours today.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Charlie Xu: I was also wondering, would that be even better to having that on the LinkedIn? LinkedIn? Or is the LinkedIn is more for kind of like professional teacher or like for entertainment business owner? they, are they normal?
Quan Gan: There are some, but really the, the mobile operators, I think they're mostly on Facebook.
Charlie Xu: Facebook. Okay. Okay.
Mateo Elvira: I see what mean. You could say like in a post, like, hey, ZTAG is going to be at IAPA, looking forward to connecting with mobile game operators and party hosts. You know, you could just make a post about it. IAAPA has, I'm sure IAAPA has a LinkedIn. Let's see. So you could, like, tag them. You could even see, like, sometimes they make posts, and people that are going to the conference use, like, a hashtag. And then you can just, like, find posts with that hashtag. So right now, these are all the posts with hashtag IAAPA. I could even filter, like, 24 hours. So IAAPA posted this, like, four hours ago. Here's somebody else. You could, like, engage with content from people that are, like, posting about IAAPA. You know, so this guy's the, this person's the CEO of IAAPA. This person's the senior vice president of the American Dream.
Quan Gan: So, mean, well, yeah. I know him, but he's more at the theme park level. So kind of, I'll tell you, the mobile operators are kind of like the red-haired stepchild of IAPA. They're more like the Carnies, like very marginalized relative to the whole thing. These are professionals that are more like, you know, IAPA is almost like Oscars. Like they are the ones that are in black tie and get invited to these large ceremonies. Whereas the mobile operators are very much like Carnies.
Mateo Elvira: Yeah. Oh, for sure. Well, maybe we can think about that profile and start building some content around that profile and then test getting leads in that profile. But I would say the main focus should just be like just keeping the door open for school leads. So that's my thought process.
Quan Gan: What do you guys think?
Kris Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Sounds good.
Kris Neal: We have the question taken out or edited to where it's not going to be in-person demos. Quan, there's four that came through that now are expecting those in-person demos. Okay, yeah, let's do that. Yeah, yeah, we took that out, but we're going to try to move those four into working with Steve when he comes out in a few weeks. Hopefully, I don't know if you guys are going to be doing those shows by yourself, but I might be able to fix that, Mateo. We're going to try.
Mateo Elvira: You're good, yeah, and honestly, even if they put on that form, like, yes, I want to see, like, some people forget to, like, I would just, I don't think they're going to, like, if you call them, be like, are you coming out next week? Because I hit the yes on that instant metaphor, you know, I would just call them and just.
Kris Neal: would have, I would have been like, where is it?
Mateo Elvira: Where are you? Some people, like, I call, they're like, oh, yeah, what's up? And then you're just, oh, so it's just, just use it as, like, it's just a trigger to, like, reach out to somebody is how I see it. Hey, somebody opted in, you know, even if it, they just blindly filled out this form, but, hey, they are. Opted in, right? So I'm going to call them and just figure out like what got their attention. Tell me about your program, right? Just to start the conversation, right? Hey, I saw that you opted into our meta ad. Do you have a few minutes to chat about your after-school program? Where are you seeing like engagement? You know, what are you guys using? So you just use it as like a reason for your call really. Hey, the reason for my call is you opted into my ad form. Do you have a few minutes to chat about your programs, right? So it's really just gives you a reason for your call, to be honest with you. don't think like they're going to hold you to like all the little things that you made them fill out. They're just going to be, oh yeah. Oh yeah, I remember ZTAG. You know, that's kind of like the flow of when I reached out to like these leads. So, but yeah, let me know if you need any help with scripts too. But just leaning into like, hey, saw you filled out our form on Instagram. Do you have a few minutes to chat? You know, that usually is. Kind of my script, just keep it simple, so.
Charlie Xu: Cool, okay. So, yeah, I think, Mateo, we've been talking about for a month, so, like, what day you start the project for ZTAG, so we still have time, like, for, so I need to know a little bit, like, the schedule of how we need to get this done, get things done in these months. So, I think we've been talking about the Facebook and Instagram ads, I know that's what you mainly focus right now, and also been talking about Instagram, LinkedIn, so maybe something is that Paula can support as a slide, so if you have a strategic planning, like, hey, the very first post, I want to do this, the second I want to do this, maybe... Thank you. And some of that work, we can support you to save time, so we can do it at the same time to try to make sure we get a lot of things done, but not like overwhelm you at the same time. So is that something you think it would be possible to maybe just have a plan, like a doc or something? Hey, let's post this or that, and then we can support.
Mateo Elvira: Yeah, I mean, I think I have that tool, Plannable, that I upload content for your approval, and then we just post it out. Yeah, I think, you know, the deliverables right now is like eight clips a month. So, I mean, she could help, like, me post stuff. I mean, that's part of the scope of work, of what you kind of pay me for, for me to post it. But yeah, mean, whatever help, some resources you guys have, you know, whatever, I'm happy to use them and leverage them. So, I mean, you just tell me where, like, is it more of maybe she's... Posting stuff, and I'm just like creating the content, you know, but yeah, I mean, I can kind of do it all, I guess, right? Like create it, post it for you as part of like, I guess, the scope of work.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, the thing is, I feel like maybe at the beginning, because maybe you're planning for, for example, hey, we're going to plan 10 posts throughout the month, but we need to get that ahead of time to prepare the content. So maybe you give Paula a list of what you want, so she can dive into our library to find all the things you need. And based on that, you can start creating content to highlight the words and get the B-roll or whatever you need.
Mateo Elvira: So it's just like plan that ahead of time so we can, our team can start supporting you. Yeah, I mean, that doc that you made for me with like, hey, use, use, make this clip with this link, like that, that's helpful, right? Because then I could just make the content and then post it. So yeah, if she could maybe help. Source certain things like that. Just say, hey, make a clip with this, and here's the footage. know, that's really helpful. That would save me a lot of time.
Charlie Xu: So for LinkedIn, do you have a marketing feeling of what kind of post will be better? Because we were talking about it's more like problem-solving type of thing. So will you give her a guidance of what kind of content or you think it will be good for her to collect whatever we think could be good and you just pick and select through that list?
Mateo Elvira: I mean, the bulk of the content that we think is what we create and post is going to be video content. So like just posting any of the video content that we make on there would probably be like the first recommendation. But yeah, like written content, so I can certainly like generate some, you know, themes or like post ideas. bit. It's about ideas. 배seys. Yeah, guess, like, how much of it does she want to do versus, like, you want me to do, right? So I think that's, like, another thing, right? Like, does she want to run with creating written content?
Quan Gan: I just give her ideas, so. Can I propose something? Yeah, go ahead. I think, so Paula's been working with us for several years, so she has a very inherent knowledge of, like, the content and, you know, where everything is. And also, as we are going out to these various events and capturing data, she's kind of, like, the database of all that content. So I think maybe if you can share with her just kind of strategically what kind of content, right, she can curate that for you and basically create an active pipeline that as we're intaking the content, it gets curated and probably put into the right bucket so that you can immediately execute on it.
Mateo Elvira: yeah, maybe we can coordinate a call with her and I directly because I have. I don't think I've even had a chance to meet with her one-on-one, so maybe we schedule something like that, and then that way we can build some kind of flow.
Quan Gan: Exactly. Yeah, because we really want everybody with their expertise to be maximized so that your time is valued at your strategy and how to post it, but Paula, she really knows where all the information is, and so if you give her some direction there, that curation process, I think she can really help you with.
Kris Neal: With your written content, you want Mateo, though, to kind of generate that, though.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yes. Okay.
Mateo Elvira: Sound cool. Yeah, just let me, Paula, you let me know when you have a few minutes to connect, and we can just make something happen here.
Kris Neal: I added her email in the chat. I hope you don't mind, Paula. Maybe you guys can coordinate. And then, Mateo, I have your starting date July 30th. That was the very first day that you joined us at the Standard Show. Is that correct? Is that right to count that as your first day?
Mateo Elvira: Yeah, I would say so.
Kris Neal: Cool.
Mateo Elvira: Okay. Sweet. You guys need anything else?
Kris Neal: I'll work on...
Mateo Elvira: Yeah, go ahead.
Kris Neal: Yeah, one more thing, because we had Bruno Pozo request access to Charlie's images. Yeah, he's one of my editors.
Mateo Elvira: If you could help just grant him access to those files, that way he can just pull and edit that.
Kris Neal: That'd be awesome.
Mateo Elvira: Perfect. Yeah, he should be with Elvira Media Domain, so it's not like...
Kris Neal: I just saw they were questioning it, and then I just saw it right now, so I was like, okay, let me just make sure.
Mateo Elvira: Thank you, yeah.
Kris Neal: I think that's it. Yeah, anything else? I think we got a good running start. You guys will meet Paula, Mateo, to kind of coordinate the next 30 days of content through the month, and then I'll work. Gone, getting those leads reached out. Charlie, you're going to keep giving us those leads until that's automated with ClanSys. Quan, you're going to get her that information after Mateo gets you the information of how to connect those.
Charlie Xu: Awesome.
Kris Neal: That was good.
Mateo Elvira: Awesome.
Kris Neal: Thank you. Thanks, team.
Charlie Xu: Thank you, everyone.
Kris Neal: Have a great day. Bye, Mateo.
Mateo Elvira: See you, Charlie.
Quan Gan: And if it doesn't work, okay, so I do have a number. It's a 323 number. So let's wait like two minutes, and if it doesn't show up, I'll call the number.
Kris Neal: Okay. Yeah. Good. I'll get the things ready to kind of go over.
Quan Gan: Yeah. I gave Steve a new email. It'll be Steven at ZTAG. But I also gave him three alternative IDs. One is Steven, or Steve, there's Mario, and Playmaker.
Kris Neal: I love it.
Quan Gan: I love it. As in case he shows up in costume and someone just starts emailing Mario.
Kris Neal: Yeah. Right? That'll be easier to remember.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Kris Neal: Oh, that's so funny.
Quan Gan: Yeah. I'm going to use a restroom real quick.
Kris Neal: Cool. Thank you.
Quan Gan: I don't see him on here, so I'm going to give him a call. Okay. Thank you. Not picking up. Please leave your message for Michael Fulcher. Hi, Michael. This is Quan calling from ZTAG. We had a 1 p.m. meeting just to go over the system with you. Just wondering if this is still a good time. I'm also going to shoot you a text with a link to the Zoom if you're still available. Thank you. Thank you. Well, let's just hang out for another five minutes.
Kris Neal: Okay.
Quan Gan: Hey, Quan. Hey, Michael.
Michael: How are you? I'm good.
Quan Gan: How are you? Good. Are we able to see you at all, or this is fine if we can't? No, no. I'll turn it on. Okay.
Michael: I'm in the world.
Quan Gan: I'm on the planet.
Michael: Awesome.
Quan Gan: And where are you located?
Michael: I live in Claremont.
Kris Neal: Oh, okay.
Michael: Oh, Claremont. Yes.
Kris Neal: love Claremont.
Michael: My dad went to college out there.
Kris Neal: Oh, cool.
Michael: Yeah.
Kris Neal: The campuses are gorgeous. Yes.
Michael: Yes, they are. That is absolutely true. Yeah. Ever-expanding.
Kris Neal: Are they really?
Michael: Oh, yeah.
Kris Neal: Oh, yeah. Oh, very cool. Very cool. And the Arboretum there, yeah, we love it there.
Michael: Oh, awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. I was raised in Pomona, though, but I went to Claremont school. So... From middle school and high school.
Kris Neal: We're like seriously neighbors. I grew up in Pomona, Diamond Bar, Chino Hills area, that entire little pocket right there.
Michael: Oh, wow.
Kris Neal: Small world. Yes, that is true. It is very true.
Michael: I forgot. I thought it was going to be 1.30, but it's 1 o'clock.
Quan Gan: My bad. Okay. So is this time still okay for you?
Michael: Yeah, yeah.
Quan Gan: This is fine. Okay, perfect. Well, thank you for joining us. Just a quick intro. My name is Quan.
Michael: I'm the founder of ZTAG.
Quan Gan: And Kris, she's our director of partner relations. And I just wanted to kind of hear a little bit more about you and how did our path come to cross? So let them know more.
Michael: Well, I saw the video on Facebook.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Michael: Which video was And myself, like, hey, that would be really cool if I had – this came earlier. That would be really cool for my students of my previous job that I had. But I was a – Okay. Let's see. My school closed down.
Kris Neal: They had the self-close.
Michael: That's a whole different ball of wax.
Quan Gan: We don't want get into it.
Michael: So I'm on the hunt to look for a job. So like I said, I had at my school, let's give you a little background. My school, we, each teacher has a house. And the house goes like this. From ninth grade through the end of, through graduation of twelfth grade year, you have a bunch of students that you are accountable for. Mentoring, guiding, shepherding, you know, making sure that they're in class, making sure that they're being respectful to teachers, et cetera, et cetera. Make sure they're on time, you know, that type of thing. They're following through on their grades, sticking with their classes, teaching them how to advocate, become young adults. Along with... Am I teaching duties of physical education for 9th and 10th graders for high school? I saw that, the video, and I'm like, oh, my kids would have a kick out of this. We'd have a blast just playing, running through the place, trying to fire the person that you need to connect with. I thought that would be a good way of having them connect and get outside the box. Because that's one thing that I was trying to do with my students is get them to connect, get real-world situations, conversation going, that type of thing. Yeah. Sorry, that was a long speech. But that's basically what I was thinking about using it for.
Quan Gan: I was even thinking about using it for even family functions to, you know, if we all, me and my 30 cousins, we all get together with our children. It would be something to, you know, do for an hour and have fun with it. Got it. And so, Michael, could you tell us what is your current capacity and how do you connect back to your community?
Michael: Right now, I am on the hunt for a job. It's been very, what's the word, frustrating because, you know, in California, not many PE teaching jobs and things are closing up as far as job applications. But they might open up in about two months. So there's a good possibility of getting a job there. I'm giving back to my community because I'm going to volunteer coach at my son's school to help pay his tuition while I look for a job, if I can be open and honest. Yes, I'm a volunteer and coach girls basketball, junior varsity, and I'm going to coach their track and field team.
Quan Gan: Amazing. Kris, maybe you can chime in.
Kris Neal: Thank you so much. Yeah, Michael, I love hearing this school that you're talking about. My gosh, I'm fascinated. That's really cool that you were able to kind of give that guidance to the kids. As far as the job search, I could totally understand what that feels like, believe me.
Michael: So keep strong, keep the faith.
Kris Neal: It'll absolutely come when it comes. And who knows, Michael, it might be right now.
Michael: We don't really know.
Kris Neal: But there is an option that we can give you as far as a job that actually might align with some of your strengths. I'm hearing a lot of strengths with kind of helping kids thrive and helping kids grow, which absolutely aligns with ZTAG.
Michael: We are all about doing that for kids.
Kris Neal: And the ad that you saw was particularly for school, for school use.
Michael: Yes.
Kris Neal: Yeah. It's interesting that you mentioned needing a Because I was like, gosh, I wonder if this would work. But ZTAG is also being purchased by individuals themselves to be able to go out into the community and offer those services as a third-party, like, rental.
Michael: Like, they're buying it, yes.
Kris Neal: And then they're going and they're advertising.
Michael: They're starting their own business, and they're using this as, like, a mobile operating.
Kris Neal: We have a few actual partners. If you wanted to look on, like, Instagram, there's one called Watch Out. He's actually based in Wisconsin. And he was actually a teacher, kind of the same scenario as you, interestingly enough. He was a teacher. Well, actually, no, he still is a teacher. But he's doing this on the side. Oh, okay. Yeah, and interesting enough, there is also another alignment here because we do have what you saw was the V2. Those are only available for schools, but we do have the V3 that's coming out at the end of this year. And that we're actually offering, we would have a little bit longer discussion, Michael, but if you were aligned, if you're ready to kind of follow this path, there is some discount available, we would need feedback kind of thing. We're unveiling this new V3 unit in November at IAAPA, which is a really big trade show in Florida, so we're really hoping. If you want to jump on the wagon now, I mean, I don't know, Quan, what do you think?
Quan Gan: All of the above, you know, our primary mission is to serve kids and get more of that moving and active and engage in face-to-face interaction. Absolutely. Right, that's our primary focus. Now, how we achieve that, I think we're relatively flexible as long as there's mission alignment between our company and whoever it is that we're serving.
Michael: And, you know, based on what you've shared so far, it seems like there's some initial alignment.
Quan Gan: There might be some details we have to work out, but there might be ways that we can work together where, you know, you're having a system and being able to provide it as a source of income to you, you know, to reach out to your community. And even, you know, maybe in the capacity that you already bring, going to schools and volunteering, like bringing that system to share with them.
Michael: Oh, cool. I would love to continue the conversation about it. Yes. Yes, I would. To get a little bit better understanding on what it is. You know, because the commercial I saw didn't really, it didn't, it showed people interacting, but it didn't really say what they were interacting about. That was my, that was my little bit of my concern.
Kris Neal: It's like, okay, why are they having these devices on their arm? What are they looking at?
Michael: at? You know, what, what, I mean, is it, is it, are you just looking for a person and has the same color on the screen that you see? What, what really is the process?
Quan Gan: That's, that's one thing I was thinking.
Kris Neal: I'll hand it to you for that. That is the start. We are the antidote of the main screen. We love screens, of course, but we're getting blinded by them. We're getting kids lost to them. So we do, everything is on the screen, and we are playing a game all together, all 24 kids all at once. So simple games like Red Light, Green Light, where you would think it's so simple, but it's actually like, it's kind of like an In-N-Out burger where, like, you can get it plain, but then add all these extras to it, which just, like, blow your mind. So it's kind of like that. You'd think the Red Light, Green Light is super simple, but because the kids are engaging by themselves with that watch, the watch is individual and connected to that big Zeus unit that you see. So it's the watch that tells them to move, to go. to connect with. they will be connecting patterns, colors, and math problems.
Michael: Half the kids will have the problems, the other half will have the solution.
Kris Neal: They're trying to find who their match is, Spanish speakers with English speakers. So it's definitely something you got to see in person, Michael. It's pretty unbelievable. But once you see it, once you see the kids go in that are, you know, shy and timid and don't want to participate to not leaving, they don't want to leave after they play this, you'll see, yeah. I agree. It's your magic.
Michael: I have plenty of games that I teach students in PE that they don't want to leave PE. No, no, you got to go. You have another class to go to. I have another class I have to go to. I have other things I have to do. But no, I just thought it was unique. I just thought I liked the fact that, like I said, the movement. And yes, you had to pay attention because you had to go to, like you said, a certain thing. Combination. Oh, wait, who has this answer? I got to do the math. I got to figure out where that question, what question is that? Or how is that, you know, number or letter developed? That sounds awesome. And if it incorporates a lot more facts and a lot more situations, I think it's going to be a huge hit as far as with kids. Especially with kids and adults that need, you know, hey, ZTAG, 30 minutes.
Kris Neal: I can see that I lost you. Let's go do something else.
Michael: Move the desk, move the chairs, get your watch, let's go.
Quan Gan: That's actually our ultimate. Oh, funny. It's like if we can remove the desk and the chairs out of every single classroom and have the kids teach each other, I think we've accomplished the goals.
Kris Neal: Funny you said that, yeah.
Michael: So 24 could play at a time.
Kris Neal: Yes. All at once. Actually up to 48.
Michael: We can connect two units.
Kris Neal: okay. Yeah. So we... can get a real party going. One thing I did want to make sure that is understood, the two gentlemen that I was, or the one I was speaking of, the way he does give back is actually hosting the events at libraries and things like that. So there is, like, we want to continue that mission of helping our communities, too. So it sounds like you're doing all that with your coaching already, so that's also mine.
Michael: Yes.
Kris Neal: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Volunteering is hard.
Michael: Yeah, a little bit, a little bit. It's a little difficult, but it's for my son. So, you know, it's the sky's the limit. Like, I talked to him yesterday about it, the sky's the limit. I'm like, no, I'm not doing this for any other reason, because I would prefer to get paid, but this is for you to go to school. So if I'm doing this for you to go to school, you've got to do your part on that end.
Quan Gan: We're all parents here, so we...
Michael: We're clear on that motivation.
Kris Neal: Whatever works.
Michael: Whatever works. Okay. So how do we go about this on either direction? Let's say I do get a job in the next couple months. How do we get it at the school that I'm at? Or how do I get this if I want to promote myself and start doing ZTAG events in Claremont?
Kris Neal: Actually, Michael, we have someone that is coming on board that has done – it's exactly in your shoes like 10 years ago, I think. His name is Steve, and he's getting on board, and he should be like up and running next week. Would it be okay if I kind of sent you over some things that you can kind of review, see the price of the V3? Because it is an investment, we're not going to lie. The ROI is – I think we measured it earlier. It was like 13 weeks. So there are some financial things that we kind of can get into play. I can offer something that we can maybe work on together. We're doing like a pre-order for the V3s where we are offering a special discount at that cost before IAPA's reveal. So, but it's also kind of attached to feedback that's needed and things like that.
Michael: It's got to be an equal energy exchange.
Kris Neal: But if I'll forward you that, if that's okay. And then we'll, I'll give your number to Steve to reach out to you next week, if that's all right.
Michael: That is perfect. Networking is great. I can do that.
Quan Gan: I can do that. Also, to add, like, it's kind of, from our company, there's kind of two branches, right? There's the professional branch, which Chris just shared with you. At the same time, the main core, the core of our business is actually selling to after-school programs. Okay. And that's a different. It's system, and it's also a slightly different price point, but it's geared towards the after-school programs and how they get their funding, typically. A lot of it comes from the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program in California. So typically, if you're in a teaching capacity, we would give you some of the marketing materials that you could certainly send up the chain. And, yeah, if we do some demos or things like that, usually it gets approved, you know, within a few months.
Michael: Okay. Because what I can do is, if you guys don't mind, I'll send whatever you send to me. Send me, like I said, send me both, because I have some teacher friends that teach in high school, and I think this would be something that both of them, well, they're at different high schools. We were all together at one high school last year, but we're at different high schools. I think they would love something like this. Like I said. Thank Break the classroom up, you know, surprise them. Nope, I want you to do your warm-up. Ten minutes goes by. Everybody's done with the warm-up.
Kris Neal: Okay, here, put these bands on.
Michael: And then the last, you know, next 40 minutes of class is playing ZTAG. Now, I think, again, it would be something to do to incorporate differentiated, I think that's the word I want to say, learning.
Quan Gan: And the more kids can learn in different ways, we know the more positive this world is going to be. Yeah, and actually, along those lines, the differentiation, especially in the school setting, is we see increased engagement and attendance, which is one of the key metrics that the schools care about. You know, they use this as an incentive for better behavior throughout the week, and then they bring this out. So, we've seen this time and time again, and we have many tests.
Michael: testimonials on our website reflecting that. Okay. All right. Cool. Very cool. I don't have any other questions, unless you guys have questions about me or for me.
Kris Neal: How old is your son?
Michael: My son is 16.
Quan Gan: That's actually a perfect age, especially for playing this.
Michael: Well, I mean, we can move stuff here.
Quan Gan: We've even considered the possibilities of having leadership roles for the students and teach them how to run it. And imagine, you know, back in the days, they probably still do it now. You have weekend DJ gigs, right? People are, you know, putting music out there. But we actually want to call it ZJ. So ZTAG DJ. So they actually go out to the community, host events, and actually make money off of it. And you're teaching entrepreneurship and leadership.
Michael: There you go. That's a That's way of doing that. I like that. Yeah.
Quan Gan: And so it's a handheld device that's connected to a bigger device. Yes. Let me see if I have one in the background.
Michael: me.
Kris Neal: Okay. You do need a plug, Michael. That's the only thing. But everything is in this one case right here.
Michael: Do you need Wi-Fi?
Kris Neal: No Wi-Fi.
Michael: No Wi-Fi is needed.
Kris Neal: The Wi-Fi is built into that unit right there. There's 24 of those wristbands. Again, we can connect two.
Michael: So you can get 48. And it's as simple as hitting an iPad screen. Oh, wow.
Quan Gan: Okay. So this unit is not plugged in, but you see it's a standard case that you roll around. Yeah. This is actually small enough to be a carry-on for flights. Oh, wow. And there's going to be 24 of these watches that dock into here. So basically, all you got to do is roll up to. Okay. An event, as long as you have power, whether that's an extension cord or a battery bank, you power this unit up, and within 90 seconds, everything's connected, and you can start deploying this to the kids. In fact, the most time-consuming thing is having people wear this. It's not so much the system getting set up, it's making sure everybody puts it on properly. That might take a minute or two, and within five minutes, you can start playing your first game.
Michael: Oh, wow. Okay. Wow. Awesome. That is very awesome to hear. Thank you, Quan.
Kris Neal: Thank you. Everything is also in that watch sensor-based, so there's no physical tagging, actually. Everything is just connected with there's some sensors and things like that, but so non-contact. It's huge.
Michael: Now let's ask the wonderful question that we have these tech-savvy kids. They're very tech-savvy. What's to – this is where my mind is because I try to be What's to prevent some kids from having to put something else on it or put something else system-wise in it? I don't know.
Kris Neal: You know when children are very tech-savvy nowadays, and they can change your phone and change where your direction is, or I don't know.
Quan Gan: Well, I guess the honest answer is you can't prevent that, but we try to mitigate that as much as possible. So, for example, the buttons, they get locked out, so there's no functionality. It's only whoever is pressing the screen. So the person who is touching the screen has full control over everyone's devices. And that could be an instructor or you can teach leadership and have a kid do it. Because some of our programs, we do empower the kids who are responsible to be operating and taking good care of the product.
Michael: Yes, yes. No, just said throw that out there because I know some of the students with their Chromebooks and stuff like
Quan Gan: They were on sites that they weren't supposed to be on, and I'm like, hey, come here. Yeah, so actually this, it's application-specific, meaning they won't really be able to get access to things outside of this sandbox that we've created. Okay. Unless they're really, like, I would hire them to figure that out, you know?
Kris Neal: Seriously.
Quan Gan: I doubt they have the capacity to do that initially, otherwise they'd be interning for us. But beyond that, it is also simple enough that if anyone knows how to operate an iPad, they can easily, within 10 minutes of training, get, you know, a whole group of people to start engaging. So it's a balance, right? We want to give them the flexibility. At the same time, we don't want to give them unlimited access to things that they're not supposed to do.
Michael: There you go. Yeah, no, I agree. I totally agree. So- There Does this system incorporate, you said, language, history, social study, English?
Quan Gan: Not yet. We have some simple math and counting games, and then some Spanish and English or French and English matching games currently, but we're also working on new titles in the coming year, so it's going to be constantly expanding.
Michael: Okay. Oh, awesome. That's awesome. Oh, wow. This would be a great way of teaching sign language, too.
Quan Gan: Oh, yes. We've had that idea for some time. Yes, because actually speaking of that, equitable access is actually another key component of what we have, is we want to make sure that the product is accessible for all of all abilities, meaning that every single engagement that happens here, you can see it, hear it, and feel it, so anyone who has, you know, They have sensory difficulties in one channel or the other. There's enough feedback in here that is always giving them engagement.
Michael: Okay. So let's say I do the entrepreneurial myself and go to events. What's the length of time do I have to charge it? My brain just started pulling me questions.
Quan Gan: hour to charge, and it will do up to four hours of continuous gameplay that's considering you're not charging it again. But most times when you're operating, you'll have some in-between time between sessions or groups that you could place it back on the dock, and it just tops off.
Michael: Okay. And since we're not doing – I know some kids that love to touch each other, love to tackle each other, things like that. How – How durable?
Quan Gan: Impact. Impact.
Michael: Yeah.
Quan Gan: How impact are they? These have – These have rubber sleeves on it. It is droppable.
Michael: People have dropped this and fell on it.
Quan Gan: We have had historically cracked screens because if there's a sharp object that hits it, that could break it. But I'll hand it over to Kris to share with you.
Michael: We have an extended care plan that's also built on top of it.
Kris Neal: All right. We do have a one-year manufacturer's warranty that does come with the unit. After that, you're welcome to extend that. That's a ZTAG extended care. The first year, there's either a first, a three, or a five-year plan. And I can send you over that information, but I have it right here. Let me show you real quick. This is what I'll be sending. This is the extended care. So this is what you'll be getting with your purchase. And then down here are the different coverages.
Quan Gan: Kris, can be able to zoom in a little bit?
Kris Neal: Yeah. Oh, I love that.
Michael: Is that better? Yes.
Kris Neal: Yes. Okay. Okay. Great. So we have the one, the three, and the five-year offer. The five-year coverage, if you purchase this one, this one would actually come with the Community Launch Pack, and that is down here where you will get a banner, you'll get a standee sign, and you get a tablecloth that says ZTAG. So everything will be ZTAG, and you're also able to customize the banners for your business. So you're able to play with that. But yeah, I can send you over this so you can get more info. And then you do have access to our logo files, branding guidelines, things like that, if you want to just do that on your own. Okay. But this also includes, so six ZTAG replacements in a year. That's what each of the cares come with.
Michael: So after six have been broken, you're paying... mean, somewhat full price.
Kris Neal: Nope, nope. Full price is $300. If you have the extended care, the first three are $100. After that, they're $150 for replacements. But it really is, we're trying not to, you know, make it hard for you guys, but it's really all about training the kids. There's videos that will show you how to train them to where they see that it's like a remote control. Like, you just aim it, and you're able to tag someone. So training the kids really helps with damage control.
Michael: Okay. And then you, I can, I'm just envisioning all this in my head. So you would, after you find the person, everybody has to wait for the next prompt, correct?
Quan Gan: Nope.
Kris Neal: Actually, it's a continuous.
Michael: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a continuous prompt?
Kris Neal: Oh, yeah. Every, like, 15 seconds, the answer to the question will change.
Michael: So if you don't find the, let's say you don't find the, I'm just sorry, you didn't catch up. So if I don't find, let's say, Quan, who has the answer to my math question, within that 15 seconds, I go to the next question.
Kris Neal: It will go to the next, and there are several Quans in the vicinity. So there'll be several with the answer that you're looking for, so it doesn't get too difficult.
Michael: Okay. And then does it keep score? It sure does.
Quan Gan: Yeah, that's what the system back here is for.
Michael: There's a leaderboard.
Quan Gan: In fact, you can hook that up to a large TV screen or a projector, and everybody can see their leaderboard status, which is oftentimes what they spend doing, you know, as soon as they finish the game, they want to compare how they did.
Michael: Yes. Yeah, I know.
Quan Gan: I want to be first.
Michael: At least we're in the top ten.
Kris Neal: Exactly.
Quan Gan: Exactly. We designed the game to be as continuous play as possible, so that there's minimum... Time where someone is out or waiting, so the game will keep on progressing, even if someone may not be completely engaged, or maybe they don't even know how the rules work, at least the entire game is still functioning.
Michael: Okay. Oh, awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for showing. Thank you for meeting with me. My mind has been opened now to something different.
Kris Neal: You never know, Michael. Honestly, you never know what comes along and what might be just what you needed.
Michael: So.
Kris Neal: Yes. Let's hope this works out.
Michael: I hope it does, too. I would love to really sit and delve into this. And, yeah, I'm interested. I'm fully interested.
Kris Neal: Very cool. Then I'm going to send you this information for you to do kind of some research, look into things. I'll connect you with Steve next week and see if you're ready to move forward.
Michael: Okay. Okay. Thank you.
Quan Gan: Awesome. Thank you. I also recommend. Michael, I recommend checking out our website, checking out our YouTube, checking out our Instagram. We have plenty of content there. And then maybe, Kris, you can also send Michael some of the other Instagram links from, let's see, Watch Out or Long Island, right?
Michael: So you can see how they're operating.
Quan Gan: Yeah, definitely we encourage you to do your own research so you feel comfortable with any kind of commitment.
Michael: Yes, okay.
Kris Neal: Thank you. this as both for you and your son. I don't know why. I'm just seeing this be something really cool for you guys to do together, business together. So let's hope.
Michael: I think he would have a good time.
Kris Neal: I think so too.
Michael: He'd have a good time doing something like this.
Kris Neal: Especially if he's an athlete, yeah.
Michael: Yeah, he is. He pretty much is every day.
Quan Gan: He's got his weights in his room and he's working out. Maybe the Shasta County video from that one.
Kris Neal: One kid. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Michael: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah.
Kris Neal: Thank you, guys. Thank you, Chris. Thank you. course. Our pleasure, Michael.
Michael: Very nice to meet you. Very nice to meet you as well. And through the power of technology.
Kris Neal: Thank you.
Quan Gan: Yeah, right.
Kris Neal: Thank you. You have a wonderful day now. All right. You too. All right. Bye.
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Quan Gan: Well, Quan, good to talk to you again. This meeting is being recorded. Is it Joseph or Joe?
Joseph Osgood: Call me Joe.
Quan Gan: Hey, Joe.
Joseph Osgood: How's it going? So far, so good.
Quan Gan: Awesome.
Joseph Osgood: Life is going all right. Things are getting better.
Quan Gan: Good to hear. And I'm just curious, do you happen to have a webcam?
Joseph Osgood: Is it not on?
Quan Gan: It's not on.
Joseph Osgood: Oh, my goodness. I tried it earlier, and it was, do I have to do something, view profile, start video?
Quan Gan: There you go.
Joseph Osgood: Ah, okay.
Malachi Burke: There we are.
Joseph Osgood: There we are.
Quan Gan: you above here.
Malachi Burke: Well, I had to pick something, and the Aurora Borealis did not appeal to me, so I did this.
Quan Gan: They're all equal choices.
Malachi Burke: I'm glad you two are finally able to meet. I've been telling each other. We've each other for quite some time, and I'm optimistic that some smooth paths forward can be found here.
Quan Gan: That's great. Well, I'm optimistic that you're optimistic.
Malachi Burke: And I'm optimistic that you're—I'm going to stop.
Quan Gan: That can go on forever. That's a wild one.
Malachi Burke: Infinite recursion.
Joseph Osgood: Well, as long as it's right-hand recursion, not left recursion, because left recursion is just going down a rabbit hole.
Malachi Burke: I join you in that sentiment.
Quan Gan: You guys are going to start like, okay, that's beyond my programming capacity. It's a software guy joke.
Malachi Burke: I know.
Quan Gan: Immediately, it kind of weeds me out, because I'm good enough to be dangerous, but definitely not deep in the weeds.
Joseph Osgood: But I appreciate it. Well, that's good. That's good. I like— Thank you already.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it's good vibes. So, Mal, can you maybe just give us a quick, like a brief or something on how you might think things might shape up?
Malachi Burke: Absolutely. So, I am heavy betting on the pair programming paradigm. And that's clearly not a slam dunk for every situation. But Joe and I have enough traction and previous cooperation that that barrier is removed for those reasons. And furthermore, as I mentioned to Joe, sometimes I'm struggling to get into the zone a little bit because, you we're juggling a lot of things. And Joe can potentially be focused and help in that area kind of re-point the arrow when the time comes for us to pair programming, pair program. Okay. That's a summary. I could go as deep dive as we want to on there.
Quan Gan: Does that answer the question? Yeah, and I'd love to just hear from Joe. What are your experiences and expertise and your interests?
Joseph Osgood: Well, I'm basically a software developer. I've done management as well. I can do either. I prefer programming. Actually, my favorite job ever was one where I did management and ran projects at the same time. That was fun. That kept me occupied.
Quan Gan: Okay. What aspect of that really stood out compared to other things?
Joseph Osgood: I like bringing order to chaos.
Quan Gan: Okay. I mean, that's pretty much the title here.
Malachi Burke: Trying to reduce entropy.
Joseph Osgood: Exactly. Yes. So, one of the things that... So I had a question for you. So what problem would you like to have solved?
Quan Gan: Wow, that's such a broad question.
Joseph Osgood: Yes, is. Well, hopefully it's one that I have some expertise in.
Quan Gan: Because if you really ask that at the foundational level of our company, it's if people, if kids, if we didn't have screens to begin with, then we wouldn't need to be here because our problem is solved. You know, ZTAG exists to get kids off of screens so they're back outside engaging face-to-face. That's the core premise. But if they're already in nature and running around, like, naked and climbing trees, I think we've already solved that problem.
Joseph Osgood: That is a really good answer, and it's earlier than I was trying to ask, but I really appreciate that answer because it tells me you're looking to do good in the world.
Quan Gan: Yes, and that's a, you know, that's the fact. Foundational why. It's something that I've been seeking for probably two decades, and only in the past decade have I really found the mission and the purpose. And it's also been the thing that fuels my persistence, despite the challenges that we're faced on a day-to-day basis. So I always start with the why.
Joseph Osgood: Yes, yes. It's so good to be motivated in that way. overcomes so much of the opposition, and it keeps your morale up and gives you reason to fight for things. And yes, you get my support on that. I was, you're welcome. I was actually asking a different question. In generally the area that Malachi is in, maybe surrounding areas somehow, There are various things, I'm sure, that are great, and you'd like to get some of them fixed. And if you were to pick one, what might that one be?
Quan Gan: Okay, so, and Joe, just to help me frame my answer with the right calibration, how much of the existing project are you aware about, and what our pacing or the current progress is? Do you know about that?
Joseph Osgood: My understanding is vanishingly small.
Quan Gan: Okay, so, high-level picture. We have existing product with legacy code base that is very brittle. Brittle to the point that I don't want to add any new features, let alone games, to it. Yeah, it's going to break other things. And so, we've gotten it to a semi to we've gotten semi A stable state of eight games that are already engaging our current customers quite well, and there's plenty of new customers to be had even with these eight games.
Joseph Osgood: So that's kind of currently working, but the next generation, we want to get to a point where we can have infinite number of games.
Quan Gan: You know, we want to basically be creating an SDK with a very well-defined API that you can essentially give to an AI model at that point and say, okay, here's a description of the game, but can you actually turn that into domain-specific language that then really just gets the core of the game engine running? So the analogy I use, and it may not be the most proper, but it's kind of like the human genome is essentially mapped. So even between all of us and the billions of different people, it's probably a very small. Small bit of change in the DNA sequence that allows us to have all of these different expressions. So we want to get to a point in this code base where it has mapped out, hopefully, the 99% that's relatively stable, and then all you've got to do is tweak a tiny little bit, and you can, from it, define all sorts of unlimited games from what we do.
Joseph Osgood: That is an excellent vision, and you've painted it well. Thank you. That gives me some idea of what's facing you. So you basically are blocked from expanding your offerings right now. You simply don't trust the stability of the code.
Quan Gan: Correct. And we are reworking this, slowly but surely, and we've also taken many windy paths to get to where we are today. And part of that was, I didn't have Malachi before.
Joseph Osgood: Yeah.
Quan Gan: So a good The highest level of technical expertise was my own, and that's actually, that's a bug, not a feature. And so I'm leading other, like basically the blind leading the blind and accelerated by AI, so you can imagine that it's actually going many meandering directions. Oh, yeah. And so Mal has been trying to tighten that back down and sniff out the in what the AI generates because it doesn't have a lot of this domain expertise. So we're straddling that, and we're making progress on a new rewrite, which still has, you know, some challenges, but it's certainly already a better foundation than the previous one.
Joseph Osgood: So you're thinking then that you'll hold the line here with your current code base and that a rewrite will be something you can build future on.
Quan Gan: Correct. And even this current rewrite, we're still not sold that this is the final. It might just be an intermediary that then gets rinsed in again for yet another rewrite.
Joseph Osgood: That has danger of being an infinite recursion.
Quan Gan: Yes. Well, provided we set a threshold for what is acceptable from a market standpoint.
Joseph Osgood: Engineers like to be purists.
Malachi Burke: Being one, I understand this.
Quan Gan: And so I have to kind of context switch between being the business owner and figuring out what the product market fit is and what's acceptable. And it's an interesting calibration because from a technology standpoint, yes, you want it to be at the highest level of performance. But there are certain constraints that we might have to be willing to relax just for the product to Even work in the market to at least even get our MVP feedback.
Joseph Osgood: Okay. From talking to Malachi, I get the idea that it's hard for him to really focus on the high-level work that he needs to do, that there's a lot of other stuff he has to cope with. Is that accurate?
Quan Gan: There's a lot of moving parts, yes. A lot.
Malachi Burke: And I would augment that and say, I'm here for all the challenges, but it is true, what Joe said, yes.
Quan Gan: And I don't know if Mal has shared, but I'll happily share this. Like, I would have hired him full-time in a heartbeat. But, you know, he's got other engagements that I can't poach him from.
Malachi Burke: So, you know, we needed him yesterday full-time. A testament to Quan's patience in humanism.
Joseph Osgood: Thank you for that. Well, and Malachi is one of the best I have met in a long career.
Malachi Burke: Thank you, Joe.
Joseph Osgood: That is the truth.
Malachi Burke: Thank you, Joe.
Joseph Osgood: So you're better at this than I am, and I think I'm pretty good.
Malachi Burke: You are pretty good. And you two I hold in very high regard also, obviously, because here I am expecting you two will get along, and here you are. So thank you both for being present for this.
Joseph Osgood: Here we are, and we're getting along. So I like that.
Malachi Burke: A technical aspect that I just want to interject, this is not a critical talking point, but Quan is also kind of digging into the QA area in parallel to what we're doing in development, and those wheels are moving too. So that SEL. CLC Cycle, as a picture, is shaping up in addition to just our code base.
Joseph Osgood: Well, that's good. If you've got a process you can follow and one that works for you, that's a big step. You bring up QA. What kind of testing are you doing? Is it unit? Is it system? What?
Quan Gan: It's a combination of many. But I will also add in here that I am, frankly, the bottleneck in a lot of these because I'm often traveling and dealing with business requirements beyond the current product scope. We are onboarding someone who has substantial usage experience of the product that may help take on some of the QA. And so currently the QA has been really to – well, we have our existing – So we know that's how it should at least function at a minimum bar. And this rewrite is an attempt to at least hit that par. And there's still a lot of gaps between what it's currently producing versus what par it needs to be. We have to first get to par before we can even exceed it. So the QA is more like, okay, is this even functioning anywhere close to what our expectations are on the current product?
Joseph Osgood: Yeah, and the rewrite won't be there for a while, probably. It makes sense. Yeah. But you have something to shoot for. You have a target. And you can compare and make decisions on stuff that's worth doing or not worth doing. Yeah. So you're not flying blind. That makes a lot of sense. Yep. Do you have a requirements document?
Malachi Burke: Okay.
Quan Gan: QA has...
Malachi Burke: QA has... We've been putting in serious effort. Quan and I have been putting in major effort to get one underway. And that's my interruption.
Quan Gan: Please continue, Quan. We do have an earlier version that got us to our current code base, which this is pre-MAL. And it was me with my junior developers with the assistance of AI basically coming up with a, this is a monster spec document. That the initial intention was to verbally spec out everything and the AI would organize it to the point that we would have a, like, pseudocode for every single, every single file that then the AI would go and convert. I see. But, you know, that had a lot of shortcomings because we didn't have the expertise to sniff out where things will break.
Joseph Osgood: That makes sense. That's, yeah, the, the key thing. These kinds of things, I believe, is to have achievable targets that you can specify. You know, you don't try to do everything all at once. You do some subset and get that together. Otherwise, you can spread out so far you become ineffective. But it sounds to me like you've got your arms around you.
Quan Gan: know what you're doing.
Joseph Osgood: Coming back. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Yeah.
Joseph Osgood: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So from my side, so you have some idea of who I am. So I worked with Malachi before for a brief time. The position started off being a C++ position and converted to Python. And I don't have Python, so I had to go. But that was okay. I made some friends. web page. I I Now, can I never I My longest recent stay was a 12-year stay at Volcano. Volcano is a medical device company bought by Philips, and so now they're part of Philips.
Quan Gan: It doesn't happen to be the Volcano we know for weed, do we?
Joseph Osgood: No, no, not at all. No, this is a medical device.
Quan Gan: Well, that could be a medical device, too.
Joseph Osgood: It depends on your point of view.
Quan Gan: Yes, indeed. Are you familiar with the weed volcano?
Joseph Osgood: No, not at all.
Quan Gan: Okay, it's like supposedly the granddaddy of vaporizers, where it's shaped like a volcano, and it takes a vapor, fills it up in a giant plastic bag, in which you would inhale.
Joseph Osgood: Oh, my goodness.
Quan Gan: The only volcano I know about.
Joseph Osgood: Oh, no, no, no. Well, no, this was intravascular imaging. Oh, okay. So, a doctor who would fix vasculature or blood vessels. would use this, put a camera down the blood vessel, see what it looks like, measure things, find out where the problem is, locate it so he knows where to do it, use his other equipment to place a stent, expand it, he's trying to hold the...
Quan Gan: Okay. So these are rather large blood vessels, like near the heart?
Joseph Osgood: Yeah. Aortes and major vessels, yeah. The capillaries and small vessels, they're just too small. And then you'd go in afterwards to inspect to see whether the piece that you put in to make the blood vessel stronger is correctly placed, expanded correctly. Uh, can you say that, yes, this is done right? Um, so it's... You know, it's something that has to be done right. It's medical gear. Lives can be at stake. And I enjoyed that. I was involved with the SDLC, with requirements. I've started the original testing group that we had. grew into its own area. I've done coding. I've done testing. I've, I don't know, I'm souped to nuts, basically. So I can do a lot of stuff. I'm pretty versatile. And if you see fit to bring me on board, it seems to me that the place that I can perhaps do the most good is to pull away from Malachi some of the less technical, you don't have to know everything about the product to handle. I don't tasks to free him so he can focus. That might be a good place for me to start. I really like the idea of working paired with him on doing code reviews, maybe some pair programming even. That would give me a chance to learn the technology that you're using, how the application is built, to get that gestalt understanding that you actually need to be able to think with it. Yeah. That would be, that's my thought, based on talking to Malachi. You may have other thoughts.
Quan Gan: I think that's in alignment.
Malachi Burke: And, you know, I would defer to the experts to figure out what we need. Let me call them up real quick.
Quan Gan: I'm the patient here, so you guys are the doctors. You tell me what it takes to help me get to those goals.
Malachi Burke: I concur, Joe, with your assessment, and it had casually occurred to me, your assistance with code reviews per se, but thinking about it more, that is a deep value area that you could provide, I am sure of as well. And I have a question, maybe the most important question, and I can't believe I'd never thought of this. When you were at Volcano, did anybody ever ask you about Joe vs.
Joseph Osgood: the Volcano? Actually, it did get brought up. And I said, I never watched that movie. I don't know a thing.
Malachi Burke: Correct answer. What I wanted to say is, Joe, in addition to that, is that one, there was a project that I was working with a group called ReClip, Wonderful Guys, and I had to take on some other responsibilities, and it was all very amicable. And, um... Joe filled in my shoes, and he inherited the C-Sharp code base. And what I always found remarkable in a funny but good way is the conversations Joe and I had about the architectural choices I had made. In particular, there's this – Mecca, Joe already knows where I'm going with this. There's this thing called Async Await in C-Sharp, which is a beautiful and ugly, at the same time, technology. It is gorgeous in what you can achieve, but its syntax is off-putting, to say the least. And Joe, he had inherited the responsibility of that, and he would tease me correctly about my extreme Kool-Aid consumption in that department. And we had wonderful conversations where he made some great points about its usage and its appropriateness. And we agreed, and that kind of already underscored to me that And we had a good thing going on there.
Joseph Osgood: So I thought I'd share that. Well, I appreciate you bringing that up.
Malachi Burke: That was good.
Joseph Osgood: I did enjoy that. Yes. Yes, you drank the Kool-Aid.
Malachi Burke: That's a good way to say it.
Joseph Osgood: Oh, yeah.
Malachi Burke: Oh, yeah. And I'll stand by my delicious decision, but I definitely did. Yeah, yeah. And Joe correctly. It did. And Joe correctly, as a senior level guy, called out the design decision. In a correct way, you said, you know, this looks like it works, but tell me about what we were actually getting out of this very committed decision that you have made. And it was awesome. So that kind of sealed the deal for me, those conversations.
Joseph Osgood: That's good.
Malachi Burke: Thank you.
Quan Gan: That's great. I also want to share something with Joe that I've shared with Mal several times already. And I really value developers with... Thank Thank 90s experience. And the reason being is what we're developing today on a USP32 is probably similar in computing capacity as a 486. And so I'm actually less trustful of new programmers who basically had plenty of resources to work with, and they might make design decisions that are only at high level, but they don't really understand the underpinnings of the hardware. So anyone who has, you know, tried and true 90s experiences, you know, that's very valuable in my book.
Joseph Osgood: Let me give you a sales pitch then.
Malachi Burke: Okay.
Joseph Osgood: So in the 80s and 90s, a friend of mine and I operated a small shop where we built equipment that was controlled by a Z80, a Z80 and a printed circuit board that he designed. And so we did machine tools. We did a, well, the machine tools were just, I really liked them, because you know that there it is, this, this drill is going in, or this cutter is going in, your code, your, the code in the Z80 is following instructions, and it, with great aplomb, just goes into the, in the metal with great assurance, and it comes out right. I mean, it's just a wonderful thing to, to watch. We made a D-Gator. Did you ever do, as a kid, did you make model cars or model airplanes or anything? Mm-hmm, yep. You tear those pieces off of a frame, right? Yeah. Well, that, the piece is on a frame, it's attached by. What's called a gate. And you cut that. Yeah, it's injection. Exactly right. So a company that made these kinds of parts wanted a machine made to cut these production speeds. And so we built a two-nest machine where there's a circular mount, and the operator could put a full gate into the nest, hit two buttons, it spins around to the cutting area, where there's a knife that's going da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, right? Meanwhile, the operator is taking out the old gate, putting in a new one, when it's ready, hits it again, right? So you have all these gates in the frame. And what the operator had to do to set it up was to teach us where those gates were, and how does the knife work? Position, Rotation-Wise. Just teach us all those gates, and then the code, this is Z80 code, would figure out the path. The rule was, it didn't have to be the optimum path, but it had to be one that you had to think for a while before you could think of a better one. It wasn't obvious. I had six or seven rules, was rules-based code, and you would da-da-da-da-da, thinking, thinking, okay, I'm ready, hit the button, and then blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah. It's just very cool to do, you know, traveling salesman problem-like thing, not that I solved that problem, I didn't, but I had an approximation, and that was good enough. It was a fun project. We did a project on the Sunset Strip. Used to be there was an advertisement that was an all-brow man. That's long. But we put a, basically a PC there at the Marlboro Man, along with one of our systems, and then the billboards on the Sunset Strip that that company owned, we would then control those, and we would, using a model airplane radio, and something similar to the Aloha Protocol, not the same, but it's similar, relay down the street from one billboard to the next, and get the data back. We could control, say, to turn the lights on at this time, get status on the light bulbs out, is the paper peeling, it was paper in those days. And it worked. It was just a great thing. I loved it. Projects like that were really fun. I enjoyed doing them. It was mostly Assembly C, later C++. And that's my background. That's my sales pitch.
Quan Gan: Wonderful. And I think a lot of that does have relevance today because, you know, most IoT applications use a very small subset of the CPU's capabilities. They tend to be very application-specific. But our endeavor in creating essentially a game engine means we need to use it in its full capacity and really be able to handle the multi-threaded nature and asynchronous nature of just human-to-human gameplay. So that theme is almost like a, you know, like a John Carr. Our Mac or Tim Sweeney having to reinvent, you know, Doom of that era, like really pushing the PC to its boundaries. We want to be pushing these devices to its boundaries in today's era.
Joseph Osgood: And that makes sense. Vital question, how much memory do you have?
Quan Gan: Mal, you're probably better off answering that.
Malachi Burke: These devices for the embedded space are pretty generous. We have nearly 400K of memory to start with, and we end up with about 100K once all our extremely lightweight and optimized stuff is done allocating. I see.
Joseph Osgood: But it is allocating.
Malachi Burke: It's not static. More or less.
Joseph Osgood: More or less. Okay.
Malachi Burke: All right. In the defense.
Quan Gan: There's also external chips that can be connected. I believe this one might even have like either an 8 or a 16 megabyte external memory.
Malachi Burke: I don't think it does. I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah, I looked into it, and that one has external ROM, is what it's got. It's got a lot of ROM space for one of these devices. And I would be happy to be wrong, but when I did the tests for the SPI RAM, which is the external RAM, it died.
Quan Gan: versus ROM, yeah. I think it's, like, you could probably load, I mean, we've loaded images and things on it, but that would be ROM, right?
Malachi Burke: Yeah, yeah. The good news is, professionally speaking, we have enough space that we're not up against a wall today or tomorrow. And when the refactoring, let's just say, by the time our code is scrubbed, we'll probably have no less RAM available than we've got now free RAM. So we're not up against a wall. But Joe, your point is well taken. How's our RAM situation, right?
Joseph Osgood: Yeah, okay. Well, that's good news. We're free to move, and, you know, we're not... Immediately handcuffed in some way. That's very, very good.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Which is often the case.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Joe, are you familiar with the era of Nintendo where they came out with these game cartridges that easily loaded up like 300?
Joseph Osgood: I remember those, yeah.
Quan Gan: 300 to 500 games, not just a single Mario title, right? Yeah. So I think that's a similar analogy of what we want to achieve today, where there's basically a couple of fundamental game plays, but we like to come up with so many different variations, but that variation is at a very low memory cost.
Joseph Osgood: It's really just switching a couple of variables. I think that's a good way to try to go. I think you're pushing the right buttons. Yes. This sounds good to me. I think you've got something viable. I'm glad you're doing it, too. I. Watch some of the stuff that you have on the website. That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool.
Quan Gan: Yeah. You should check out some of the testimonial videos if you haven't yet.
Joseph Osgood: I will do that.
Quan Gan: Yeah, that really speaks from the customer standpoint what impact we're making for them.
Joseph Osgood: You're doing good in the world.
Malachi Burke: What can I say? And I can tell you, Quan is a busy friggin' bee when it comes to promoting and making sure that the partners know what's going on. And thank you, Quan, for that because that's not a job I want.
Quan Gan: So thank you. My goal is to bring all the right people in the right seats. Yeah. So next steps. I guess, Joe, what is your What is your bandwidth these days?
Joseph Osgood: Well, it's increased recently. When Malachi and I were talking about this originally, I've been my wife's caretaker for a few years now, and it's an interrupt-driven situation. And so I said, you know, we should start off with something small, you know, five hours a week or something, and see how it works. I don't want to commit to a lot that I can't, you know, follow through with. And, you know, it's a bad thing, but a good thing also. Last Friday, my wife passed. So, and I do miss her, and I'm dealing with that. But it means that I have a lot more availability now than I did when we started talking.
Quan Gan: Okay. Well, first off, I'm...
Joseph Osgood: I'm sorry for your loss. Thank you. She was a wonderful individual. I hope I deserved her.
Malachi Burke: You get my vote.
Joseph Osgood: Okay, that's good. Yes, I was putting my hand up for a vote.
Malachi Burke: You got it.
Joseph Osgood: Well, thank you.
Malachi Burke: So you mentioned more availability. Is that a number we want to explore right now?
Joseph Osgood: Sure, why not? So I am acting as her executor as well, but that's not a full-time job. It stretches out over months, and it's hit and miss. You want to go for 20?
Malachi Burke: I'm sorry, Quan, you first.
Quan Gan: I was saying that that's currently your You're following? capacity as well.
Joseph Osgood: Yeah, yeah. Okay.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Well, we'll just make one person. It's not a lever I need to push very hard, just it comes up in conversation. Here's what I'm going to propose, is that we default to the five number knowing that we're going to expect to see higher numbers. Well, expecting we probably will. Because, because I want to be respectful of all the, the things you still need to handle on your side as well.
Joseph Osgood: Well, I've made some good progress. The spare room, which was where we threw everything that we didn't know what to do with, uh, is now almost empty. Impressive. A few thousand dollars worth, uh, at, at retail prices of stuff has gone to a donation site. Zu SEL.E.S at Thank I just want it out of my life. So that's what we did. I got some help, and we moved it.
Quan Gan: Change is the only constant.
Joseph Osgood: Yes, that's right. The more things stay the same, the more they change. I can't say that in French.
Malachi Burke: Me either. My son is French for years.
Joseph Osgood: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Would it be appropriate to discuss compensation?
Joseph Osgood: Sure, why not?
Quan Gan: Joe, what are your expectations?
Joseph Osgood: I am open. I don't need to work. I'm okay. The website said during an evaluation sprint, it's 55 to 90. I'm fine in there. Pick something. I don't really care all that much. Something is not an insult, and I'll be happy.
Quan Gan: Okay. Sounds good. I'll consult with Mal after the fact.
Joseph Osgood: Sure. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. Is there anything else we need to discuss for today?
Joseph Osgood: I'm glad to have met you.
Quan Gan: Likewise.
Joseph Osgood: Me too. Thank you.
Malachi Burke: I brought up my Joe versus the volcano concern, so I'm good.
Quan Gan: Great. All right, then. Yeah, we'll reconvene, and then Joe, hoping to have you on board and helping with us.
Joseph Osgood: Sounds good to me. That's what I want.
Malachi Burke: Thanks, Joe, for making the time.
Joseph Osgood: Thank you.
Malachi Burke: Okay.
Quan Gan: See you later.
Malachi Burke: See you. That's very good. One moment. Yep. One moment.
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Quan Gan: How's it going, man? Good to see you. Doing well.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Been a while.
Quan Gan: How are you?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Those are cool busts behind you.
Quan Gan: What are those? These are from the Halloween industry. They're silicone rubber. And this is actually what I wore as my mascot in the haunted house.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Oh, my God.
Quan Gan: Damn, that's so cool. People rob banks with these. Yeah, it actually did end up on the news because somebody did rob a bank with it. That's how I know.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Dude, that's cool, but it's kind of messed up at the same time.
Quan Gan: Yeah, all of these are Halloween relics. This is a BB gun, but they put it into a case.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah. Man, I would love to go through one of your haunted houses, man.
Quan Gan: Well, it's no longer there, but I'd be happy to take you to some Halloween stuff, this Halloween, if you want to go.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: I'm down. Yeah, if you know something that's really good or well done, I would love to go.
Quan Gan: Yeah, let's see, the one that I would be going to is in Bakersfield, so I don't know if you want to go out there, but yeah.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, if I can make the baby, you know, handle the trip.
Quan Gan: That's a whole other thing. You look well, though. I mean, you've got good skin color and everything.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: I don't know how much of it is in the camera, but yeah. Probably a good amount on the camera, but I've been, like, trying to swim and stuff and just, you know.
Quan Gan: Healthy? Keeping good health?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, yeah. Like, I have to. I'm not going to let what happened to my friends happen to me.
Quan Gan: Yeah. I went back to the gym in the past month and a half, so it's, yeah, it's helping.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: How's that?
Quan Gan: Yeah, it's good. I think changing environment for a dedicated purpose is very important. How's that? How's How's How's How's Like, whether that's having an office or a gym or, you know, a bedroom that's just for sleep. Like, the environment, I think, changes your mindset, so you're actually more dedicated towards it.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Did you, I don't know who told me, I think maybe Roman or someone told me that you gave up your house and, like, you're just letting go of everything. No?
Quan Gan: No? Gave up my house?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: No? That's what I thought.
Quan Gan: I was like, there's no way, dude. Although my house did almost burn down two weeks ago. I mean, yeah, maybe in an alternative universe. Because the fire, it went, like, got to the mailbox down the street.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: It was pretty, pretty crazy. Yeah. Oh, my God. At that point, did just turn on the sprinklers and hope for the best?
Quan Gan: No, no, no. I was out of the country. I had no control. I had no internet access because they cut off power. Was that right, right? So he's actually installing my solar right now, so I'm still waiting on him to finish. Me too, by the way.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Is he doing your solar?
Quan Gan: Yeah. So he's got a couple of projects.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Maybe he's working on yours before he's working on mine. I don't know. We haven't made any moves.
Quan Gan: We started months ago. We haven't done anything. Well, just to give you some perspective, ours has been close to two years now, and it still hasn't finished. Well, it hasn't finished this year, or else you're going to be in trouble with the credit. Yeah, so he's going to hopefully finish within the next two weeks. It was a lot of on and off in the early days, just from the permits. I think that took like a year or something, and I was also out of the country and traveling. But they actually poured concrete and installed all the posts. So my stuff is complex because it's not on the roof.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: You know, it's like 200 feet off the property on a hill, and they have to run that.
Quan Gan: And the lines and cut through the ground and everything.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: It's crazy. I wish I could do that.
Quan Gan: No, it's like, I wish I don't have to do that. But the thing is, I have trees over my house. That's why it has to be a remote install. But yeah, so he's working on some other stuff. And then hopefully they'll start installing the actual panels and the electricals next week.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Wow. Matt, I hope it goes well.
Quan Gan: I know. But all that to say is, like, if I'm off-grid and they don't cut the power, you know, I have access to power on the internet, then I could potentially remotely turn on sprinklers.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: But yeah, really close.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: It's funny. Oh, man. Yeah, I'm on battery anyway, just because my server rack is on battery.
Quan Gan: Oh, that's good.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah. So let's dig into, okay, so I normally run this a couple different ways. One, I have like a million questions I could ask you to kind of dig in. To what your needs are.
Quan Gan: But from our last call, I got really, I feel like you were pretty clear on what your needs were.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So I kind of want to just dig into those specifically and just make sure, A, I want to make sure that we're going to be a perfect fit for you guys. And then B, figure out like the game plan, how we're going to execute this stuff.
Quan Gan: Okay, sounds good.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah. So I'll start off with a few of these questions. Basically, what, are you also hoping to have like help desk support? Is that part of your vision?
Quan Gan: Oh, what do you define as help desk support?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah. Like one of your users, for whatever reason, like can't log into their email or they get like a weird email and they're like, is this phishing?
Quan Gan: I don't know. I should send this to an expert. Not necessarily. I think we're pretty self-sufficient with that. It's more uncovering our blind spots in terms of like, have we set up the right permissions for everybody? And have we talked? How everybody best practices what to look for. I think you've even, like, I don't know if you said or someone else said, like, intentionally send some spam and see if people click it, right? And then, like, pop up and say, look, ah, you failed or something.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yep. Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah. And that's, like, stuff that we set up. There's a company called Breach Secure Now that makes what I think is the best product. Know Before is the other competitor. They're also good, but this one's, like, really good. So, okay. With the auditing, let's talk through your systems. Are you guys hosting anything local at all?
Quan Gan: What does local mean physically on a local computer?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Either on a local computer or maybe you have a server somewhere or maybe you have, like, a virtual private server and you guys are, like, keeping development code there.
Quan Gan: No, everything is usually cloud service-based. Anyways, I'd rather pay for that reliability. Yeah. Just maintain it. I have a single Ali cloud thing that is just my personal stuff that has nothing to do with the company, and even that, sometimes I don't maintain it, so I'm like, it's completely separate.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yep, got it. Okay, yeah, and if we work together, and if you want to, I can help you migrate that stuff out to like a proper cloud place, because you're totally right, you absolutely want to pay for like actual cloud enterprise software.
Quan Gan: Sure.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah. Okay. One of the first things that you want to do is, it sounds like, is the user training and permissions, like going through and making sure we have principle of least privilege, which is the concept that like, for any one function in your company, that person has exactly the data they need to be able to do their job and not one byte more. Right. So that's, that's the goal. Have you ever heard of top-level permissions, like declaring your stuff that way? Right. You These are on Google, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah, our main infrastructure would be Google and Zoho. Yeah. Yeah, and then a bunch of other SaaS, but the main two things are Google and Zoho.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Are your company files Google Drive?
Quan Gan: Yes.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Perfect. And are you guys using the shared Teams, like Teams folders, or are you guys kind of like sharing directly from your My Drives?
Quan Gan: We might be doing the latter. I don't know if we have a formal process for that. One thing that I am also working on is a lot of our documents are in GitHub, in a private repo. But the problem with that is it's easily accessible to me because I'm a programmer, but not to the rest of the team. So a lot of that needs to get exported out into like a Word doc or something, or a Google Docs, and then shared on the drive.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: used be used used to Got it. Okay. You know, when we spoke last time, you really liked how clear the change logging is with GitHub. I agree with you. It's like crystal clear. You won't get that granularity with Google Drive. It's good. You'll be able to tell what people change, but it summarizes.
Quan Gan: It doesn't show you every perfect change. Yeah. Okay. Because kind of what, I use GitHub as the single source of truth, and then what ends up happening is when it does get updated, I re-export that thing back into the drive.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Oh, interesting.
Quan Gan: Manually. Yeah, or manually. mean, I'd like to automate that eventually, but, you know, there's a few process documents, but most of it is, it's either, it's shared in the drive, but the other reason for... In the drive, GPT has access to it. So we have a lot of things that have connector access so that when they're asking questions, the AI has the context.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Got it. You know, ZTAG has a GitHub connector as well.
Quan Gan: It does, yeah. But I'm not sure if the permissions are across the company or is it just my own permissions to it?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're right. You can't share connector permissions. Oh, you might be able to share connector permissions in the team account. I actually haven't tested it. Okay. All right. That's interesting. What kind of data is on Zoho?
Quan Gan: CRM, books, all the desk tickets, some forms. Yeah, some forms. Let's see what else. Click, that's the messaging app. On there. I think. Those are the primary drivers.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: And do you have someone like internal or external that's like managing it?
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah. So there's one staff. She's a Filipino staff that does all the integrations. She's kind of learning this as she goes. So I don't think she necessarily has best practice in security. Yeah. In security. So she's probably just following AI to say plug this in.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. No problem. So we'll want to do a.
Quan Gan: Oh, Zapier is another thing. That's.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, that's probably. Yeah. Tell me about Zapier. What do you have? What are your Zaps? Or like specifically, but like what are the connectors?
Quan Gan: Yeah, probably things like email or inquiry on the website comes in. Oh, yeah. So we have WordPress running that. And then that probably connects to either a Zap or a Zoho flow to get it into our CRM. And then there's probably. Like a bunch of either Zapps or Zoho Flow. I think we might do Zoho Flow by default if it's internal to Zoho. We might have, I have a bunch of like random Zapps I don't even remember. I have some AI automation where, this is a fun one, there's some agents where if I have like some events in my email, I just got to forward it to a specific email and then it populates it onto my calendar.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Anything like really critical to the business?
Quan Gan: Like in what way?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Like if the Zapps suddenly stopped working, you'd be like, oh , we're in trouble.
Quan Gan: If it stops working, I mean, we will probably notice and we can mitigate it, but nothing so mission critical.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Let me see, what would be the worst thing that can happen? The main reason I ask is because it's a regular thing that I see that. Zap, stop working. And for some companies, that's like a huge deal for them.
Quan Gan: For some other companies... not a huge deal because I get those warnings all the time. And I think, yeah, we've either overcome it or ignored it.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: It hasn't been mission critical. Okay. Do you have any workflow challenges with like Google Workspace, calendars, email? Are there like any persistent issues within the company that you're like, oh yeah, it would have been, it'd be great to fix this, but whatever. It's like not a big enough deal. Any infrastructure things?
Quan Gan: The main pain point is actually just how dynamic the company is. So we're constantly changing. So nothing actually stays painful long enough because we're, yeah, it'll probably just get fixed or that issue might become irrelevant in next quarter.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah. Okay. So I've got Google Zoho. Zapp, GitHub, any other mission-critical pieces of software?
Quan Gan: Well, just making sure, Zoho encompasses quite a few things, right? So those are actually the main mission-critical things. It's CRM. If CRM stopped working one day, like, that is mission-critical. If Zoho Books stopped syncing, then we can't get paid and things like that.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: That's mission-critical.
Quan Gan: Oh, there is a, we work with a third-party fulfillment company for all the UPS pickups. So I don't think there's an integration yet, because we just hired them about a month or two ago, and they haven't given us clarity on the API yet. So right now, we're literally just, like, sending them an email saying there's a pickup, or going into their SaaS and then scheduling something internally. So that's kind of a manual process.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Okay. Okay, yeah. I mean, it sounds like your infrastructure is actually super simple. Everything cloud-based. Yeah, and it's designed to be that way because we only have one SKU, essentially.
Quan Gan: Like, I've tried to optimize the out of this compared to Gantum, which is like, you know, a whole bunch of SKUs, different customizations, every customer is different.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so you're right. Like, the tech stack is simple, but then so is the business, which is really cool. How many employees?
Quan Gan: So, employees proper, like, U.S.-based employees is four, but there's four additional remote staff from Philippines. Yeah, so I think that's eight or nine. Well, and then if you're counting other consultants, probably 10.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: People that have, like, a ZTAG email. Probably 10-ish. 10-ish, okay. Wow. Yeah. Normally these calls are like way more in-depth because most companies are just so much more complicated. Given your infrastructure, I kind of think a couple of things jump to mind. First, the cybersecurity stuff, like, yeah, I think you'll need this and it'll be great. I might have to find a way to deviate from our standard pricing because our standard pricing might not be appropriate for what you're set up. Like, so our standard pricing is really simple. 300 per user per month, 10 user minimum. It's literally our normal engagement. So it's 3K, right? 3K month. The problem with it is that that's, like, expecting that we have all the work and effort that we have to put into a company that's, like, got mixed computer environment, have to build out, like, a lot of stuff, move things to the cloud. Like, there's all these, like, pending projects and you built it from the ground up the way, like, We might have built it, which means that, like, I wouldn't feel great with a 3K contract for something that's so easy.
Quan Gan: You know what I'm saying? So let me try to figure that out.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: I'm confident I'll be able to figure something out that's simple. One only challenge I have on my side, which is really easy, my team, I make deals with my friends from time to time to work with them. And my team's like, what the hell? We're supposed to do all this work for this little money?
Quan Gan: What are you doing?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Well, yeah, and, you know, this is also to make sure that we are also the right fit.
Quan Gan: Or you could tell us, you know, maybe for now we can get along with some, you know, some other means to achieve what we want. And then maybe when we're a little bit bigger, you know, at scale, then we engage.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, mean, truthfully, one thing I'm thinking as well, if I don't want to deal with the heat from my team, Yeah. I might just come over and, like, spend a day with you and just, like, get a bunch of stuff done, show you how I would tighten everything up. And we could tighten a bunch of stuff up, too, together. And then, like, you could feed me.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I think that would be way beyond feeding you. But, like, sure, we can engage just Quan and Ashkaan, right? You come in as a consultant, and I'll probably just AI record you and get a checklist of things that we need to tidy it up internally, and then I'm sure we can do that as well.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, I'm kind of leaning towards that because unless you tell me otherwise, I don't think your 10 users are, like, are going to get a whole lot of value from us. Like, your typical, like, law firm, for example, they're kind of a perfect fit for us because all of the users are, like, the second something goes wrong, we solve problems, this is broken, I need this fixed right now. And, like, they get a ton of value from our being responsive in that way. I get the sense that you don't have a whole lot of that.
Quan Gan: Yeah, usually it could wait. Yeah, at least for now it can, but you never know.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, yeah.
Quan Gan: Hold on, real quick, though. What about on the product end? Like, if we have a product that is eventually deployed to the cloud and, you know, across hundreds of users and we're collecting data, right, like AWS, is that something that would also be within your scope?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So, no. That's the other challenge is that a product that you guys have built is considered development. And so you have, like, your own infrastructure team that would be handling that. Our team is just, we do really two things. We're, like, outside consultants where we're, like, oh, that looks bad. You guys should fix this. That's a problem. And we have a massive, you know, checklist and all of I'll happily give you to go through all of that stuff. The other thing that we do is co-manage deals. So an organization that's got like 500 users, they have their internal IT department.
Quan Gan: They have a whole department just to support the product that they sell.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: We don't touch any of that. We're looking at their internal infrastructure and then managing their internal IT team. Those are the two ways that companies typically work with us. Yeah, and in neither case do we ever like support their product. There have been a couple of times where a customer has like built something. They barely have like one person on staff that like kind of manages it. And we help them hire and fill up that department. Because we can manage departments. That's super easy. We do operations work as well. But the actual like supporting your end user, no. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's why I'm thinking like I don't. Know that this is the best fit, because I don't think I'm going to be able to deliver enough value for you, for that amount.
Quan Gan: Okay, fair enough.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, yeah. Dude, by month four, we would have done a bunch of stuff, and you'd probably be like, wow, this has been great. And then by month eight, I'd be like, oh man, I'm collecting these checks, and I don't know if we're really bringing value. So why don't we do this? Maybe we can just crack open our calendars, and just see when it makes sense for us to spend maybe a day together.
Quan Gan: Yeah, how much time do you think an entire day?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So here's what I'd love to accomplish. Number one, I'd love to set you up with your employee training.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: It's super fast. That will not take more than an hour for us to talk through, plan it, figure out how we want to do it, show you the software, set up the software. It's like all. Well, that should be an hour. The next thing is, are you guys using a password manager?
Quan Gan: We have Zoho Vault. That's for the team. Although, I use Keeper on my own phone for everything. Yeah. Zoho Vault, I've had people lock themselves out of Zoho Vault and I had to reset it before. But yeah, we'd probably share only like a dozen passwords in there or something.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Okay. Keeper's good, by the way. It's not my favorite, but it's good. I would say, would you be open to migrating your team to Keeper?
Quan Gan: All of them to Keeper?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Uh-huh.
Quan Gan: I'm open to that. Why is that?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, so, um, Zoho Vault is, is, like. It checks the boxes. It's not functionally tested in, like, enterprise. So there are a handful of products that have been. Bitwarden, Keeper, 1Password, those are pretty much the three. Even Okta's struggling in that, and everyone's heard of Okta. There's not something great. Well, 1Password's great. Keeper and Bitwarden are both pretty good. Everything else, like, really sucks. Like, LastPass, all of them, they're terrible for some good reason.
Quan Gan: Are these top because they've gained enough traction that it's basically red-teamed enough?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: It's because they've become big enough targets and haven't been hit. Like, all three of them are now so big that, like, we would have expected breaches by now. Where Zoho is, like, tiny, tiny, tiny. Zoho Vault is, like, very tiny market share. LastPass is, like, half. Half of any of these, and they've been hit, like, three times.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So, yeah, it's just track record. But arguably, what I like about 1Password is that they're really good at autofill. They're, like, better than the others at autofill. So, I don't know, that's, like, a small feature, but it's important to some users. It's typically best to have your team all on a single platform, not a split platform. And if your users are getting locked out of Zoho Vault, it's either a misconfiguration or there's a problem with, like, the product itself.
Quan Gan: Okay. I think maybe they – well, the thing with any of these, you still have to remember that one single password, right?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Oh, is it just that?
Quan Gan: They're just literally forgetting their one – Yeah, they probably forgot their master password and just – Yeah, I had to reset it.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Okay. Okay.
Quan Gan: It might just be that we don't have too many passwords where they have to go in and check, so they haven't used it for, like, a month.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Got it. Uh. Okay. Then at the very least, we'll want to make sure that Zoho Vault is MFA'd in some way. And I really like circular MFAs. So like Zoho Vault being the MFA for Zoho Vault.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah. Because then when a user locks themselves out, bad guys and good guys can't get it.
Quan Gan: It's perfect. Okay.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Okay. So the second thing I'd love to do with you is do like a whole MFA suite.
Quan Gan: We're going to really make sure you're an MFA master.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah. And then I want to go through your Google Workspace settings. And we're going to, so I'm going to just take some quick notes actually. I won't forget all this good stuff. Okay. So number one, we secure now. Number two, MFA audit. Number three, Google audit, which will include top level permissions. So we'll, I'll show you the shared drives and how you guys should be storing data in Google Drive. There is a correct, according to Google, way to do it. The way that they do it is so dope.
Quan Gan: This is great to share with Kristen on our team. So she's stepping into the integrator role.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Oh, you know what, then? If you'll have her join, we can do a remote, and we can just host a nice four-hour block remotely. Have her come in, and we're to do a bunch of screen shares, and I'll just take you guys through everything.
Quan Gan: Okay. I mean, I'd much rather see you in person.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: I know. Well, we can go get dinner after, but I think when it's multiple people, unless, because if it's multiple people, it's kind of hard for everyone to huddle around the same monitors and stuff.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, she's in Indiana, so we went out to Zoom, yeah.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So we want to do top level permissions and principle of least privilege. And then, like... So as far as, so that's, that'll take us through a bunch of, oh, and I want to do a domain sweep as well. Domain sweep, okay, cool. That'll get you, so I always tell people, cybersecurity is like climbing a tree, and the higher you go, low-hanging fruit, you get it. That'll get you like already 95% of the tree. And we'll, and then you can like rest assured, like, dude, there's, it's going to be hard for you guys to have, at least some kind of a bad actor situation. And then we'll talk about possible future things that you could do, one of those being MDM. And that's mobile device management, that's, that's where you have a complete lock on your, on your company's data. Because there's always the internal bad actor, too, that we, you know, keep, it's hard to anticipate.
Quan Gan: Yeah, right now our, we don't have a policy on whose PC and what they're installing on their own PC. It might be personal and business.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, and with a fully cloud company, it's so easy to lock down. The only problem is when you go into that MDM world, you're going to have to ship out computers to people. That's the downside. And very likely, you'll be shipping out, like, these super locked down Macs that, like, can only do the things that they're supposed to do for their job.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, and then if and when they're ever terminated, like, the Mac just locks, and they're logged out of everything.
Quan Gan: Okay, so you recommend Mac over a PC on that?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: A million percent. Okay. Like, whatever your workflow is, I guarantee you it's very possible and probably even better on Mac.
Quan Gan: Okay. For Macs, I'm using Mac, but, like, do you need to install antivirus or anything like that, or is it?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, so if you go the full MDM path, what we'll do is we'll set up bunch of policies. One of them will be to install antivirus. The best one is called Jamf Protect. And yeah, I know everyone says there's no virus on that. So not true. There's like so many things that like browser injectors can do. it's almost as loud as Windows.
Quan Gan: Almost.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: The only problem is it's not target as much because typically Mac users are more savvy and don't screw up. Where Windows users, you think of like the random like, you know, 60-year-old account, like that's the target. They're loving those people. So yeah, you would still have the antivirus. You'll have all these policies that enable encryption and do it in a certain way. Standard users, not admins, that kind of stuff. Because you don't need admin access when you are just using cloud-based services.
Quan Gan: So during your call, will you be able to go into our Zoho One account and just audit our permissions for everybody?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah.
Quan Gan: I expect to do that.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Okay. Yeah. And what it'll probably look like is I'll have someone who has, like, admin access. either you or your integrator share your screen, give me remote access to move the mouse and stuff, and then I'll, like, dig in and start to click through. I might even ask you guys, too, because I don't use Zoho regularly. Like, I'm definitely not a Zoho expert. I'm more of an infrastructure guy. But I'll ask you guys, okay, show me where, like, the permissions for these are. And then once I see it, I'll be like, okay, cool. I get this.
Quan Gan: At least you know what you're looking for, right?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, exactly. I just don't know the UI very well. So, yeah, we'll go through Zoho. I'm actually more, I'm a little bit more concerned about Google. I want to do a full Google sweep where it's going to include making sure that you guys have spoofing protection on, policies for everyone that makes sense, that are locked down, and then the top-level permissions, I think it's going to be.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I'm the Google admin, and I know I'm pretty blind into, like, how I'm. Actually managing everybody's access, yeah.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, I bet the Google admin is going to be eye-opening, and I think the domain sweep is going to be interesting for you to see.
Quan Gan: Okay, and what is that?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: That's basically, so it's looking at the ZTAG domain and trying to find all the ways where a bad guy can do something really bad, like take over your email completely.
Quan Gan: Yeah, we want to know that, definitely.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: We're going to be MFA masters, that's easy, you know how that goes. And then if we can set up ReachSecure now, that would be awesome, because then it's like, you'll have this annual cybersecurity awareness training that then comes with these weekly, like one-minute, two-minute videos that have like tests, and you can see where people are scoring, and it's really great. It takes so little time. It's literally two minutes a week for my team out of their 40-hour week. And, yeah, we... It's turned into a competition, and for literally all of our clients, it's usually like the top half of the company, they're competing, and you can see it, and the bottom half of the company are like just staying above the threshold number that they're supposed to have to essentially not get in trouble.
Quan Gan: What is that called again?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Breach Secure Now.
Quan Gan: Breach Secure Now, okay.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Breach and you know, I don't even know if it's, I'll find out if it's publicly available, or if like you have to be distributed, if you have to be a distributor, I'll just, I'll just buy it for you guys, and you can possibly send you an invoice for 60 bucks or whatever it's called, whatever it is, but it's a, it's a, it's the best one. It's like really cool, and it sends out those phishing simulators too, so like, you know, you'll get to tell who your weakest link is like right away, it's great. Breach Secure we, we punk each other a lot. So, yeah, we'll do that, and then, and then if. If we have time, I'd love to hear about the workflow, any workflow challenges. dude, we can do this, like, multiple times. I owe you, like, so much for getting me out of Accelerator. You have no idea. Like, if we did 10 of these, I owe you another 10.
Quan Gan: I appreciate it.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: I appreciate it. So we can keep meeting and just kind of keep it informal and just kind of go through whatever the pain points are. But I do want to get through my checklist stuff. That feels important because it's hard for me to describe to you, like, all the little – and literally, I'm going to have the checklist and be like, oh, right, okay, all right, we've to look at this.
Quan Gan: And, like, I'll even be, you know, because that's just how it goes.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: There's just so many things. Thank you. Yeah, of course. So why don't we calendar that, like, now? Admittedly, for the next few weeks, my calendar is, like, really rough.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: It it – it – It calms down starting September 22nd.
Quan Gan: Okay, that's fine. Let's see, September, September. What about the week of the 29th? Oh, hold on. The 22nd is what? Okay, yeah. So, like, Monday or Tuesday?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah. Monday is better for me than Tuesday.
Quan Gan: Tuesday is my L10 and a bunch of other. Okay, yeah. Let's tentatively do Monday the 29th. I got to check with Kristen, but, yeah, I think she could probably make it.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Cool. Any chance we could do 11 to 3?
Quan Gan: Probably.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Okay.
Quan Gan: I'll lock it up now. Yeah. And what do you want to call this event?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Um, Security Sweep, IT Boost, anything you want.
Quan Gan: ZTAG Security, or ZTAG IT Security Sweep.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah.
Quan Gan: And I'll add. Is there any limit on number of people?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: No, bring everyone.
Quan Gan: Okay, then I'm going to bring our leadership team all in.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: The only thing I will warn you is that, um, while screen sharing, we're going to see tons of sensitive information.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So, like, for example, when we go through top-level permissions, I'm going to ask probably maybe awkward questions. Like, okay, what's this person's role, and what are they supposed to see? And, like, that person might be on the call.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay, okay. Um, I'm generally okay with these people. Well, so, it would be me, my wife. So, obviously. Anything we have is transparent. then Kristen, she's the integrator, so she should know everybody's mission. Steven is new. However, he's essentially on the leadership team, so he should know these things as well. These are the people that would show up to the L10, which is just our leadership. And then the day-to-day staff actually has their info disseminated from Kristen.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Got it.
Quan Gan: Okay. Does that seem fair?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Oh, yeah. That's fine. Yeah. And look, if there's any point where there is this, like, we start to, we all kind of, or even like you notice or I notice that there's this sensitive thing. Like, I could text you on the side and be like, hey, I think, I think we should do this, like, maybe an hour at the end of, near the end of the call, where there's an hour left, we can have some people drop off and then do like a private session.
Quan Gan: That's good. Yeah, I think. Yeah, This makes sense. Okay. So, and then can I, should I add you to it?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Please. Yeah. Do you, are you going to use Zoom? Yes. Is that okay? Yeah, that's ideal. Zoom, Zoom screen sharing is great.
Quan Gan: The others are not. Okay. Yeah. What's your email?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: A at wesolve, W-E-S-O-L-V-E dot T-E-C-H.
Quan Gan: Okay. And then I'll put a, I'll just use my personal Zoom link here. Okay. So, the 29th from 11 to 3.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Perfect.
Quan Gan: I'm going send it right now. All right. Thank you.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah. Yeah. look forward to it. It'll be fun. And
Quan Gan: New on Code 3, creating more games now, or is it like refactor type of user stories? I'm just wondering, like, those stories that were supposed to come out, like, how does that team end up taking action that is useful versus they're just kind of churning and they eventually were going to wipe it out anyways?
Malachi Burke: Well, three different things. The last one I would disagree with. The first one, user story, describes any piece of functionality that the user is aware of.
Quan Gan: Right.
Malachi Burke: Anything. From the color of the charging LED to the behavior of a ballgame.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay. So let's just say the current keep away I'm happy with. Okay. So let's just say, like, if that maybe functionally as an MVP, maybe it's already good enough.
Malachi Burke: Uh-huh.
Quan Gan: So if I'm not considering the fact that we're... After kind of redoing our architecture, having this much longer art discussion, I would be telling them, oh, well then make a second game, and then make a third game, fourth game. Like, that stuff I can easily generate just based on all the previous stuff that I've already, you know, like I've documented. I could turn those into user stories, but is it actually going to be helpful for us?
Malachi Burke: Yes. First of all, would be good practice, because it takes practice to write good user stories.
Quan Gan: That's not a good enough reason to do it by itself, though.
Malachi Burke: The other one is where we started. The question being, what does the junior team work on, right? User stories dictate that to us. That's part of the process. Right now, we have a grab bag of technical tasks, which are really not ideal. So, that's the value there. And that also answers the question number two, which is, how do we... Shuffle that into people's labs so that they know what to work on. That's part of a whole bigger conversation about Scrum, Backlog Grooming, prioritization, choices of which story to work on, that kind of thing.
Quan Gan: I think if I'm completely opaque to our architectural discussion, then I personally think, you know, myself, with the help of AI, I could probably generate quite a few user stories for all the other games right now. Like, I could probably do that in this afternoon.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, well, we've talked about that before.
Quan Gan: You know, because that information exists, whether it's in my head or all the previous games that we've already talked about, like, in the diagrams. Like, from that, we can definitely triangulate to usable user stories that can get put into the background. But if they're taking that and applying it to Code 3, then the brittleness of it or the clunkiness of it will probably, you know, they're going to hit walls on that. And then we're having to add additional things just to fix that.
Malachi Burke: Well, firstly, I'm on the record as saying it's extremely worrisome to have AI generate the user stories. I really think it's a very bad idea. And secondly, we already tried that, and it just did kind of an okay job, right?
Quan Gan: Is it that the user stories you necessarily have to be in the loop for?
Malachi Burke: Ideally, you and I sit down and do them together, ideally. In theory, you could do them without my help, in theory. And in theory, once I or somebody like Steve knows the product well enough, I could do it. We could do it without your help, theoretically speaking.
Quan Gan: Okay, but at this point, it's you and I having to be working on it, and then we're building the institutional knowledge.
Malachi Burke: Probably, that's correct.
Quan Gan: Okay, so that thread is still in alignment with currently, I mean, what did we spend the earlier part of the day doing? Is you and I both going over the previous documents we've created to see if anything of value there can turn into future user stories?
Malachi Burke: I would agree.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And it must be mentioned that the path we're taking with FDD does not need to be a blocker on the user stories. It's maybe implicitly become that, but even in the event where the FDD was moving along at top speed. Which I think we both agree it is not. But let's say it was. It's still, the FDD main goal is so that you don't have to be in the loop when the user stories get made. Because we can reference your mind capturing the FDD. So the only point I'm making there is we could parallelize that. And of course, it would slow down the FDD even more probably. But there's not a specific barrier other than humans to making the user stories. So a ray of hope, perhaps.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: I want to address the other one. In the event that you grab a ZTAG or running Code 3, and you say, all of this is perfect. This is exactly what I want. I don't want you to do anything to Code 3. Yeah, we don't need any more user stories for Code 3. But I don't think we're at that point. I think we, when we grab Code 3. 3. Thank We were like, well, these things, they're not quite right. I would like them to be adjusted.
Quan Gan: Maybe I'm wrong about that. Okay. I haven't tested within the last week, so I will do that. But I'm willing to bet that maybe 80% or 90% of the MVP just hitting par with keep away is probably there.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Well, that's significant.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Right. Being able to play the game, pause the game, all of that should already be there. So my next logical thing would be like, then create me another game.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. And the guys, yes. And what will happen next is the guys will say, well, do we want to wait on that game manager refactor? Right. And we don't have to wait on the game manager refactor, really, especially if we've got a code four in mind. Probably be good to do it, but okay. Okay. All right, I follow.
Quan Gan: Okay, so if, let's say KeepAway I'm happy with right now, would you want to go with me to create additional user stories with new games?
Malachi Burke: Yeah, I would. I would.
Quan Gan: And then those user stories, will we retain for Code 4 anyways?
Malachi Burke: It's a yes asterisk. So probably, there's not a guarantee that it's going to be a one-to-one transition, but it would be shocking if you didn't get to copy a bunch of them over, right? It would be kind of a surprise. And I would speculate that if we couldn't copy them over, then we probably didn't write them as well as we could have. Because if you exclude the technical... What's to stop the same ballgame rules from applying to code three and code four, right?
Quan Gan: Right. Okay. The other thought I had was, well, if we are stalling on giving them stuff, like, can we have user stories around diagnostic tools that could possibly transfer to the new code?
Malachi Burke: Yeah. The factory test ideas. I was hoping that the mini FDD, we'll call it the auxiliary FDD, that you were doing for that. I was hoping that would be a straighter arrow for us to FDD stamp, make some user stories out of that as like a mini example of what we're going for with the big one. And, you know, we didn't get there yet, and that's okay. So that's the long answer of, yeah, totally a factory. I assume you're talking about the factory test screens.
Quan Gan: Not just that. Well, it's, you haven't gotten into it, I don't think. But it's what I posted there, which is looking at like certain diagnostic tools for maybe measuring latency or responsiveness of certain things, or maybe test, like, I don't know if it's right to call it the mocks or a certain unit test or something that could, even if we have a new set of code, it would still test against this set of code that's just strictly for tests.
Malachi Burke: It feels like we're reaching a bit.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: I could see use for the first test you mentioned, like a latency test. Yeah. How usable is that really for us? Really?
Quan Gan: Let me just high-level talk about this then. Yeah, I was saying, like, a tag path profiler. So it was just, like, checking if the LED defaulted. Or the audio, are these all coming in at a certain time? And so it would be a tool that later on, if you're adding new games, you could regression test, is it actually hitting those metrics?
Malachi Burke: It's a good idea in theory. I think you'd hit a lot of issues with that. It's not because it's a bad idea, just because it's so particular to the code flow. So it's kind of, it's almost like, well, we got a bunch of clunky code, so let's write a test to make sure it doesn't get more clunky. But to test the clunky code, it has to mate to the clunky code. So then once you fix the code, you got to change the test, and we're going to be making less clunky code for code 4 anyway. So it's like, yeah, you know, okay.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay, so then I can generally nix that direction. But it seems like out of all of these suboptimal choices, would the better suboptimal... Is choice just to have them start creating some new games right now?
Malachi Burke: I suppose so. suppose doing that would implicitly say we're not doing the game manager refactor, is what that implicitly says. And that's not the end of the world, really.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: So I guess so. So I am a little surprised to hear that Ballgame and the surrounding startup and shutdown and all that operate at an acceptable MVP level. That's good news. I just, I didn't expect to hear that.
Quan Gan: Okay. I'll test it again. But I mean, if it was passing like what it was before, then, and then like some of these connectivity issues are supposedly solved, then other than maybe the logo needs to match what keep away needs to look like. I think it probably has that. There might be some small things like the shape of the batteries or some charging screens. Those are kind of surface-level type of things.
Malachi Burke: Valid. If it matters to you, it's valid. And that's the other thing about the user stories in the backlog to go into project management ideology here, is it's supposed to be a place where features that you're not doing yet also reside, so that you get kind of an idea of what things you would like to happen in the future. And I agree with you that in the Code 3 base, there's a little bit of a built-in resistance to that. I agree. But with the other side of that being, if the user stories really are what I expect them to be somewhat transferable, then we get value in Code 4, right?
Quan Gan: We have some user stories ready to go. Okay. Okay.
Malachi Burke: And I am happy to write them with you. In fact, I want to, you know, honestly.
Quan Gan: Okay. The user story. Okay, so help me understand this, because we have not written user stories about the actual game yet. Because, like, for example, Keepaway was, we started it before you. And so they simply knew, okay, we're just trying to meet par. With a game that they've already previously developed. So I never had to write a user story. just said, okay, match it. Right. So if I'm making the next game, which would probably be the zombie game, as you say, or pattern match, that's an easier one. And is my user story just match the other game? Or do I have to spell out the logic?
Malachi Burke: At what level of granularity does that user story come in? Well, to be pedantic, pedantic mode would be you spell out every interaction. And non-pedantically, saying match the behavior of some other thing is really a poor idea. So I definitely do not recommend you do that. But there's a third option, which is if your team is super intimately aware, like they haven't memorized how this game is supposed to work, I suppose we could ease off the gas a little bit on the user stories. I don't recommend it because I'm a process guy, but that has to be considered.
Quan Gan: Okay. And let's just say on the pedantic side, we want to get into detail. Is the game logic a single user story or does that get broken down into like how granular is a single user story?
Malachi Burke: Pretty granular, you know, on the granular side, it's inconceivable to me that it would be one user story.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. Okay. So, for example, Pattern Match, you know, it generates a random shape and color, and then you need to meet someone, and then you get a score, whether it's, you know, a matching color, matching shape, or both. You break that down into, like, every potential color, or you break that down, or is that, like, one, like, I don't know how to break that down.
Malachi Burke: Right. It's a good question. So, no, we wouldn't break it up into individual color. I hope you're relieved to hear that. Like, which screens are present would probably be a good starting point for your user stories, and this is why it'd be good for me to see it in action, so I can capture it, you know, with you. And that's, I think, why we're hitting a... A tension point. I wouldn't call it a pain point exactly, but it's a tension point because you're creating these things like are these good user stories, but I have to kind of see the game in action to really rubber stamp it, right? To say, oh, that's really describing the thing, or we left out something, or whatever.
Quan Gan: Okay, okay. So I'm identifying bottleneck as you have to go experience the game.
Malachi Burke: Well, I could do it with you in the office, but yeah.
Quan Gan: That's not enough. We need to actually come out and run a game.
Malachi Burke: Okay.
Quan Gan: That's a strong signal for me.
Malachi Burke: Thank you. You're welcome.
Quan Gan: Something else that I think it might be of value just to give you a quick peek at, because if you haven't seen something, then I guess your scope is unlimited.
Malachi Burke: It could be like, this is a huge thing versus a little thing, right?
Quan Gan: So I wanted to show you a state table that I created for a zombie tag, which It's actually the most complicated game we've ever made to this point. So just consider that as a worst-case scenario, and that could actually get boiled down to very basic, even just like a JSON list of transitions. But I wanted to show you this table so you know kind of the order of magnitude of what I'm talking about.
Malachi Burke: All right.
Quan Gan: Let's see. I'll show you the table, but then also over here there's an actual memory diagram that I converted from this. So these are essentially various states. Okay, so there's like a total of 16 states or so. The ones in color are basically the main states that they kind of come back into, whether you're a human, you're going to to-4-4-8 So And pretty going good This is a human that got infected and then a zombie. And then these things describe, you know, what the states do, but some of these are transition states. So it might just be, you know, it's like a transition for showing a certain type of flash or acknowledgement, like a visual acknowledgement.
Malachi Burke: And then it's going to, after five seconds, it's going to go back to some other state.
Quan Gan: And then here is merely just output, like what's going to happen. So this was a very old product that I have where it's not an M5. It was like an LED badge. So it just had an LED here. But you can imagine alongside with it, it could be like a beep or a motor, you know. So just consider this like three things in one. Yeah. And then this is a particular type of IR signal we're emitting. Okay. Okay. Some of these, since they're automatic states, when the duration... Timer goes to zero. just tells you, okay, you go to that new state.
Malachi Burke: Okay. I like this.
Quan Gan: Yeah. So it's very well-defined here and fairly deterministic. Yeah. And these are the various signals that could potentially input with it. And anything that is blank just means it completely ignores. It's not a valid input of transition.
Malachi Burke: Well, this is good.
Quan Gan: And so this is, again, so far the most complex game we've created.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. See, with something like this, we could start, not that I recommend it now, but that's the kind of information that would help us chip away at some actual user stories.
Quan Gan: Okay. So that state machine I've built, and I just use AI to take that state machine, I literally copy and paste it to a GPT and turn it into a mermaid diagram. Okay. gives you this, which is roughly correct to how things work. So you have a doctor mode, you have a healthy human mode, and you have a zombie mode. And then when they get certain – okay, so for example, a human gets healed by a doctor, so it goes into this like full health transition acknowledgement, and then it goes – let's see. Oh, okay. Well, if it gets infected, it's getting sick, transitions into getting sick, and then it gets healed by a doctor, so then it goes back up here.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Okay. Yeah, it's very logical.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: If I were to recommend a state structure, I might recommend state and sub-state, but I don't think you actually need that here. So the state and sub-state would be kind of like – anyway, I don't want to get caught up in something that's not. Immediately important.
Quan Gan: This makes sense. So given that, you know, kind of a worst case, this is what was recommended as like this essentially captures all of that information. You know, so it's a combination of, you know, your transitions, your timers for the various states. But it's not a whole lot of information, actually. And so the architecture, when we talk about themes, we're kind of like if you have a zombie type of game, you might say, oh, it's going to have a certain color theme already. So you don't even have to dictate that within here. You know, it's like any kind of benefit to you, like a beneficial state would be green. Any kind of harmful state would be red. So it's kind of like already implied in our, in our theme. So that the actual game, you're really just giving it a couple of definitions like this, and it should just run.
Malachi Burke: Well, most times I've seen people try to do something like this, it fell apart really horribly. But we should, I'll keep an open mind about it.
Quan Gan: Yeah, the whole, the intention to show you this is to kind of limit the scope of what you might think is unlimited, right? Because you haven't seen the game, right? I'm trying to show you the most complex game so far. Because the complexity doesn't emerge from how complex the states are. actually emerges from the human interactions because of the simplicity of the game. Okay. So like, so like Pattern Match, the state machine is way simpler. It's like, generate a random shape and color. Did you get a signal? If you did, if it's a match, then do one thing. If it's not a match, do another thing, go back to the same state again.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, there is pretty much, and this gives me good context, and for the record, it would have to be a pretty seriously heavy-duty state machine for me to start getting worried. This is nowhere near the level of complexity. So I agree with that. And let's go back to the JSON again. My criticism was only with the JSON itself, not with the state machine. And that's all. And for what I will call simple situations, JSON probably can cut it. And that's a trouble as simple as frequently you get out of that. But for example, let's flip between this tab and your state machine. In chart, table.
Quan Gan: Table, okay.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. And let's go back good. And so the duration, so you've got one second, five second, and let's scroll down a bit. You got three seconds. Okay, so you've got those. Now let's go back to the JSON. And how does the JSON know to do one second, five seconds, or three seconds?
Quan Gan: I think it's, let's see, does it encode it here? I don't know if this is comprehensive, so that could be a hallucination.
Malachi Burke: My point being that for simple use cases, the JSON is going to work well. So I wouldn't throw it out necessarily. I'm super skeptical, but just want you to know, don't expect too much from that part.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Okay, thanks. And let's go back to the diagram, please. Now, when capturing these in user stories, the technical state names would only be incidental, only because it's a user story, not a technical description, but we're not prohibited from casually mentioning it later. So the user story would be like, you know, game starts, and users in one of three states, doctor, normal, right, or zombie, and then the acceptance criteria would be, they know this because it's going to be blue, green, or red, whatever. But then we'd have three different user stories for this is, okay, now that you're a doctor, these are your options, and you start saying, okay, you can, if there's something to click on, like you can click on this, and then that would take you to this other situation, then we'd link to another. So it would follow the state machine. It wouldn't be the state machine, but it would kind of mirror it a little bit.
Quan Gan: Okay. So, like, right now, yeah, I'm just trying to see the value of rewriting or codifying this in this particular format where both myself and the UTF team have, like, spent five years knowing exactly how these games work.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Well, perhaps none. I suppose the question must be asked, if you are able to separate the general difficulties we had with Code 3 with the challenge of writing the ballgame in particular, how difficult was it for them to write the ballgame?
Quan Gan: Wait, ask again, please.
Malachi Burke: If one is able to separate the difficulty of Code 3 in general versus the challenge that they had writing ballgame all by itself, how challenging was it for them to write ballgame? Because they really didn't have user stories to write the ballgame.
Quan Gan: So asking in a different way, are you basically asking how challenging was the game logic versus all the drivers?
Malachi Burke: No, not exactly. What I'm asking is, how smoothly did it go, their creation of ballgame in Code 3?
Quan Gan: I mean, not smoothly because there's a lot of clunkiness in Code 3.
Malachi Burke: Indeed. So probably the question can't really be asked, separating the clunkiness from just the ballgame challenge, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Because I'd imagine right now, without the refactor, if they were to write the next game, let's just say Pattern Match, it's probably a little bit easier. They should be fairly quick in getting that up and running. Or any of the other games, they might be able to get up and running pretty quickly. Like Red Light, Green Light, that's super easy. Because there's not even any IR.
Malachi Burke: There will be penalties for bypassing process. Even if they know how to do it. Let's say a bug comes up. What do we attach that bug report to?
Quan Gan: Right. Well, okay, so I'm asking, can we potentially have a boilerplate? We're don't know. I don't I'm I So use your story to say, okay, make red light, green light. Boiler play saying make the pattern match game. And then if there is a bug, then we'll attach it to that particular thing, and then we can generate additional user stories that would fix it.
Malachi Burke: It's a violating process. I mean, we could do it, and they could probably write the game based on what I'm hearing. So we will be foregoing some process benefits and also foregoing process overhead. Right.
Quan Gan: Well, what's your take on it?
Malachi Burke: Well, I have a flippant attitude that I need to kind of smooth out, be less rebellious about. but my flippant attitude is user stories are some of the... Relatively easiest requirements one can write. And if we – I'm going to say it, and it's not professional, okay? If we can't be bothered to write a user story for five minutes, how can we expect a programmer to spend three days on it? That's the flippant version. The more professional version is we always want a firm spec to hang things off of. And you've done a shitload of work trying to shore some specs together, and it's hard to draw a straight line through them all the way down to a task for somebody to work on and draw that line all the way through. And a user story is the minimum viable requirement.
Quan Gan: Okay. Now, given that they roughly know the game, and I know the game. game. Let's Let's Would you feel comfortable with me at least taking a first stab at writing such user stories, and are you reviewing it, or do we have to do it together?
Malachi Burke: We do not have to do it together. I do stand by the Quan has to be involved at this time. You have to touch it. But I'd be more than happy to review, and I think you've got a pretty good idea, so I don't think that'll be too hard.
Quan Gan: Okay. Are we in agreement that maybe for the time being, since we're trying to give them something usable to do, that they can actually skip the refactoring process and just have them start making essentially MVP equivalents of the other games? Because there's actually eight games total.
Malachi Burke: We are. It makes me sad and uncomfortable, and that's probably our best option. And I'm even flexible to say... We do need to be making some user stories, but tonight, I don't think it's reasonable to expect any. I don't think that's a reasonable expectation.
Quan Gan: What if I squeeze out a few?
Malachi Burke: You can, and then I might go, but we have to change them. So you'll like where this is going. So I think given the best of all bad options is to say, go ahead and work without even any stories on this one game that you guys are all super familiar with and is doable. And we don't even have to make a user story for it because we're up against that wall, right?
Quan Gan: Now, what happens if, given that requirement, and then they're making new stuff that they're like, oh, well, I'm making this one and I realize I'm boilerplating or suboptimally just doing stuff that's clunky and they want to fix some other part of the code that's at lower level, will we allow them to write a user? User story to track that and fix it?
Malachi Burke: Yeah, that would usually be more of a technical thing, but in a broader scope, yes. The team, anybody on the team is permitted to write a user story. It's merely that you are the authority on how the game really ought to operate.
Quan Gan: That's all. Okay. Because, yeah, I feel like if, like, not because of the clunkiness of Code 3, but just me as an end user looking at KeepAway, it's pretty close to my MVP acceptance of that particular game. So my logical next step is just make the other game.
Malachi Burke: I mean, that's actually good news. We accomplished something. Good. I mean, that means the KPI is adequate, right? So then I would only urge you that, you know, a number of things have changed in that IR. Code change is coming, which might cause regressions. But that doesn't really invalidate what you said. I just want you to be aware some things might poke and prod at that a little bit. And you know what? I shouldn't ever try to talk you out of writing user stories. So I apologize for that. Go ahead and give them a crack. And the worst case scenario, we're like, we're still working on those. Best case scenario, they can pick some of them up tonight.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: I hope I wasn't too harsh about all that.
Quan Gan: No, no, no. I'm just trying to, like, I'm trying to pinpoint the pain, pinpoint the pain point.
Malachi Burke: Pinpoint.
Quan Gan: I like that.
Malachi Burke: I really, really like that.
Quan Gan: Yeah. And I want them to do something that's of value. I think creating, creating additional games, there is value in that, that they're probably, as they're doing it, they'll probably find ways to maybe optimize the abstract game class or something.
Malachi Burke: Okay. So it's a little. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's very possible. And that will obviate some of the R&D I've done, but that can't be helped. That's just the way things are. So I think that's a good idea.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. And then that buys us time to take our time and do it right for Code 4.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. And I, yeah. Yes.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Agreed. And I wanted to paint a picture here in case the picture hasn't been painted already, where on the flip side, as the engineer consuming the user stories, our ideal circumstance is there's a backlog of like, let's say, 100 items. And that somebody, some unnamed altruistic soul has been sorting them according to what it's important to the stakeholders. So that by the time it comes for the sprint planning meeting. Which happens only occasionally for us developers to grab the most important, valuable tasks that we think are doable. And then we spend the next X amount of time just on those tasks. Because anything else is feature creep. And then we do those tasks. We're focused, and it's well-defined. We know what to work on. And then we reach a target timeline, which is only like two to four weeks out. That's the timeline. At which point we do canonically a mini demo and say, here it is. Here's the stuff. It's like a soft QA. It's a demo. It's a soft QA. That's the ideal circumstance that we're kind of shooting for here.
Quan Gan: Would you be okay if we hit this hypothetical end result that even on code 3, as clunky as it might be, we actually... you. Meet and or exceed the current production code quality.
Malachi Burke: I'm not against it. I know you're tired of hearing me say this. jury's still out on how much we can squeeze out of Code 3 without it being extremely painful, but maybe. Yeah, it might be okay.
Quan Gan: Because they were, I mean, the proof is they've made eight games even on the legacy code, which is way less modular. So if we just have them make the new games right now and match, get to par, it should at least structurally be better than the previous code.
Malachi Burke: I couldn't comment. I'll take your word for it. And maybe in the meantime, they can feed my notes through AI for the game refactor and do a game refactor phase themselves. Before it even begins. Maybe that would be a good thing to do, too.
Quan Gan: Okay. What were your notes?
Malachi Burke: They're in a GitHub, not GitHub. They're in a wiki page, and it's just a whole bunch of running law. You saw them. I'll share them with you again.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Can you please share it tonight? Yeah, I'll share it.
Quan Gan: Well, I'll share it right now, if you don't mind. Sounds good.
Malachi Burke: I've been doing this a long time, as you know, and it is expected that research gets interrupted. So that's part of the reason I just take all these rolling notes so that I can pick it back up. But it also helps expose my thought process, which we're about to do. No, I don't want to activate all these extra features. Thanks, but not right now. No. Okay, one second. No. No, thank you. So are you seeing my ballgame game manager refactor screen? Great. So it's not done, right? I hadn't finished analyzing it, but there are some conclusions. So I've got, let me go up here. I've got my rolling notes here, just a journal.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: And then after you get through the journal stuff, you get into what's called general right now, which is not a good name. And then I will have conclusions, but that's not formalized enough to have that yet. So it's not done, but these are semi-conclusions. So I have said, okay, now that I've taken these notes, here's some actual concrete, actionable things like do change this and don't change that type of a situation.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And so we talk about things like ballgame reuse. It seems code reuse of existing abstract game capability was largely ignored. So there's all these doubling up copy-pastes going on.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Oh, and oftentimes that's just cognitive load. But in your case, it could cause bugs the way it was done.
Quan Gan: So these kind of things, do they just go in and fix as a branch? Or does there need to be a corresponding project issue?
Malachi Burke: And I think there is one, GitHub number 44.
Quan Gan: Okay. Oh, okay. Yeah. But let's say along the way they discover other things that they could be fixing, how do they log it?
Malachi Burke: Log it, you say?
Quan Gan: Yeah, is that basically they have to raise an issue and then resolve it in that issue? Is that the process?
Malachi Burke: Yeah. So for a big refactor, that's why I like the seniors to do it. What you have, it's not a one-size-fits-all answer. But in this case, what I would do is I would try to keep the scope not much bigger than this thing because it's already big enough to keep somebody occupied. And I would make a phase two, see I anticipated this, and I'd make a phase two and start taking the additional notes for the additional changes you want to make for the phase two so that you don't have this refactor branch out there for like a month or two.
Quan Gan: Okay. All right. Well, I think I have something to work with. Hopefully I can deliver something in the next couple of hours.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Okay. I would. I wouldn't break your back over it, you know. It seems like the guys can manage, at least for today, without them. But I really applaud your willingness to go in there and do the heavy lift.
Quan Gan: Okay. Sounds good. Thank you. I'm good for now.
Malachi Burke: Thank Do we agree, then, that we want to potentially recommend they do this refactor task as well? Or do you want to save that for me doing it later?
Quan Gan: Can we leave it to them to decide?
Malachi Burke: That's a great idea. We can involve them in the decision. Awesome. Thank you, sir. See you in a couple hours. See you soon. Bye. Bye.
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Melissa Bradex: This meeting is being recorded.
Steven Hanna: Hello.
Melissa Bradex: Hi, Steven.
Steven Hanna: Hello, Melissa, and I'm sorry, I do not know your name on the side.
Melissa Bradex: It's all right, it's Marco.
Steven Hanna: Marco, okay, you were in the emails, but I'm sorry, names and faces. I appreciate you guys bearing with me. Thank you, I appreciate you being here right after the holiday weekend. I'll try not to take up too much of your time. But basically, my name is Steve. I'm one of the Playmaker certifiers, and I'm in charge of recertifying you folks for your system, providing you with some supports, providing you with some guidance. Basically, here to just check in with you, see how things are with the system, see if there's anything we might be able to improve on, while also providing you with some best practices at the same time. So, I have kind of a few questions here, but I kind of wanted it to be an open-ended start to this. So, do you guys have any questions for me? Let before we start, for anything ZTAGG-related.
Melissa Bradex: When we were trying to connect with the Wi-Fi, sometimes we have difficulty that it keeps saying that it's not connected, but it is. And it's just, I don't know if it's just unconnecting and reconnecting constantly when we were trying to do the troubleshooting with it.
Steven Hanna: When you say Wi-Fi, do you mean specifically like firmware Wi-Fi, or do you mean like Tagger's connecting to the system?
Melissa Bradex: For the yellow box connecting to our Wi-Fi to do the updates.
Steven Hanna: Are you guys doing these updates in a school?
Melissa Bradex: Um, well, not on school grounds in the tech department. And our... VLAN is like unrestricted.
Steven Hanna: Okay, so I was going to say it might be a tech-related issue with your school, specifically blocking a connection port with the system. So that would be the first thing I would ask them to try and diagnose if they can unrestrict the ZTAG box for the Wi-Fi connection.
Melissa Bradex: Yeah, when it's in our tech office, it connects to the VLAN that's not restricted. So it's no problem when we try it over here.
Steven Hanna: Okay, then if you're saying that it is happening sometimes, but you have 100% success rate in the tech office? No, it happens in the tech office. Oh, it happens in the tech office. Okay, so the opposite. Have you ever taken the system outside of the school or tech office to update?
Melissa Bradex: To like the other sites that do have a restricted connection?
Steven Hanna: Or just anywhere outside where you might be able to test if it's specifically that?
Melissa Bradex: We haven't been able to know.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Okay. So, do you have the system in front of you?
Melissa Bradex: We have the broken one, just so I can have a reference to look and touch, but we do not have an active one working.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
Melissa Bradex: But that's something I can test at a site when I go there tomorrow morning.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Because there's going to be... I just need to know what firmware you guys are running to see if it's the most up-to-date. That would be... I don't know if you might know off-hand.
Melissa Bradex: I see Marco's brain, like, cogs turning. 24, 25?
Steven Hanna: 24, 25. Let me see what the most up-to-date one is.
Melissa Bradex: think it was 20. So we just did it a few weeks ago, didn't we? Yeah. We just recently updated most of them. Except for this one, that wouldn't turn off. Wow.
Steven Hanna: So we have... And how many systems do you have at those sites?
Melissa Bradex: Is it 1%? Two, so we have 12.
Steven Hanna: Okay, me see what the newest would be. In any event, I would say try a different area connection for it. If that doesn't work and you guys are not up to date, which is going to be with 7.0.26. If those numbers sound familiar or 2.6 sounds familiar, great. We're just going to verify that you can get them up to date on another connection, whether that be outside of that initial tech spot, if you can take that unit to another site, something to just update it outside of your initial setting.
Melissa Bradex: Yeah, we were able to update all of them, but what Melissa is talking about is that you'll go to the Wi-Fi area, you'd connect it to the Wi-Fi that we... We have it, like, set up for, and then you'll go to a different page, like, to update.
Steven Hanna: You'll get the little pop-up that says it's not available, right? Correct. Yeah, it's kind of like this fake little message if you, yeah, it's a pseudo message. I don't know why they have that on the system. It's a failing a check, but the check is not actually failing. So you'll still be able to update, you'll still be able to navigate through. It's It's just a weird little glitch, and I, for the life of me, I can't personally figure it out because I'm not that tech-savvy behind it, even though I have been trying to. Any other questions before I kind of ask you about the system?
Melissa Bradex: The actual, these little, these little guys, the little blue ones? Mm-hmm. We were trying to update these as well, and on one of the boxes, all of them kept failing the update.
Steven Hanna: All of them kept failing the update. Was this a box that... Yes. Was experiencing the connectivity issue?
Melissa Bradex: Yes.
Steven Hanna: And that was the only one?
Melissa Bradex: Yes.
Steven Hanna: Would you be able to send me an email with the serial number of that system when you have an opportunity to?
Melissa Bradex: Yes. Oh, okay.
Steven Hanna: If you remember which site it's in, I don't know if...
Melissa Bradex: I do. I do remember which one.
Steven Hanna: All right. If you can send us a serial number with that, and is that the one that they're going to be replacing for you guys?
Melissa Bradex: Oh, no, that's a different one.
Steven Hanna: Okay. All right. I don't have an actual answer for you right now in regards to that. Okay. That is something that I will reach out to the team and ask about. Uh... Tin might...
Melissa Bradex: Reach out to you with some troubleshooting steps for that. Because on that one, we were able to update the firmware on the actual unit itself. But once we go to update the taggers themselves, they all fail.
Steven Hanna: And you're strictly going through the settings to download whatever the bin file is. I believe it's 2.8.0 right now. And then when you restart the system, you should be able to push it.
Melissa Bradex: Correct.
Steven Hanna: So you have to do a system restart and push it, and it still is not succeeding with any of that.
Melissa Bradex: Correct. Correct. We've tried doing a single one at a time, and then it failed as well.
Steven Hanna: Any chance that you might be able to take that system off-site, try and connect it to another set of Wi-Fi and update?
Melissa Bradex: Yes. could connect it to a hotspot. Or could we try just using Palms? Palms what? Palms Wi-Fi that it's connected to? No, because that's still technically... That's still... It still fails. Okay, I can bring it back.
Steven Hanna: Now, my follow-up question would be, there any opportunity for one of you to take the system off-site to update, or is that going to be an issue for your team?
Melissa Bradex: You think you can smuggle it?
Steven Hanna: Just put it on a backpack, you look like the hunchback of Notre Dame, just 40 extra pounds on your back as you're walking out on a Friday afternoon.
Melissa Bradex: No, no, no, pay no attention to me. I could do that.
Steven Hanna: I would say let's try that first, because that'll be the most optimal and quickest route to get it updated. So, off-site update, let's try that first. And if that doesn't work, just get right back to Tyn or myself. After this, you guys are going to have personal access to my phone number, so you can pretty much contact me at any time. Any other questions before I start grilling you guys on the system?
Melissa Bradex: Is it okay if we, these, I don't know, magnetic ports or something? Sometimes know. I don't When we bring them out, this is still in the case.
Steven Hanna: Stuck in the dock on the magnetic charger, correct?
Melissa Bradex: Yes. So can we glue it?
Steven Hanna: Can we, I Can you look on the side of that specific little one, and there's a QR code? Can you just read the number off to me? Is it a 23?
Melissa Bradex: Does it start with two, three? Yes. Two, three.
Steven Hanna: How many of those devices do you have that are doing that? Or is it, you would have to go to each site and figure out how many?
Melissa Bradex: Yeah, I would have to go to each site, because it's random. Sometimes, oh, it's still there. So we haven't noted. But I can have them start keeping an inventory of the ones that do come off.
Steven Hanna: Is the number 2306?
Melissa Bradex: No, this one says 2305.
Steven Hanna: Okay, perfect. That's right before 2306. And there The reason why I ask that is because that's the model that I specifically ran into an issue with, 2306 and 2305 is the month of production right before my issue. So if you can just start keeping track of how many of those you guys have that are inactive or defective in that way, that would be something that we might be able to work on with the extended care warranty to see if we can get a few extra over to you. Any other questions? Before I start my cross-interrogation.
Melissa Bradex: Oh, okay, one more. Shoot.
Steven Hanna: No, this is what we want.
Melissa Bradex: Ask as many as possible. Sometimes the rabbit ears. Can you tell us? Yes, thank you. They are wobbly, and they look like they're about to come off, but we can't unscrew it to then carefully put it back into the case. Because they're not stiff. Does that make sense?
Steven Hanna: So when you're trying to unscrew them to put that back in, It doesn't come off. They do not unscrew.
Melissa Bradex: Correct. Because it's loose. So I'm sure they did something The actual gold part is loose? It might be the threading, Marco. Okay.
Steven Hanna: That's what I'm thinking. If it's a little wobbly and it's hard to, like, do you have to press down on it, like push it in to turn it to get it out, if that makes sense?
Melissa Bradex: No, I haven't been able to get it out. So we've just put it in, back in the case just like that because we can't unscrew it off.
Steven Hanna: Okay. If you look at the little gold on the top of the router where the antennas screw into, can you just take a quick peek at that? And see if there... If is any scratches along the inclined plane, there should be a little screw surface that you tighten it into. Can you just see if that's intact?
Melissa Bradex: It's not this unit right here. It's another unit. So I would have to find that unit. But you'd have to take the antenna off first in order to see that?
Steven Hanna: I thought it was the one you were referring to.
Melissa Bradex: We broke it off and this is as is now.
Steven Hanna: No. Okay. So that has a permanent antenna fixture in that one at this moment in time?
Melissa Bradex: Like the antennas are permanently attached to it? Yes.
Steven Hanna: Yes. Okay. And how are you storing that in the system? By the sheer willpower of force?
Melissa Bradex: As carefully as we can. We empty everything out, put the antenna in, and then start putting the things inside.
Steven Hanna: Okay. I'm also going to reach out to the... Team for that to see if there's a replacement on the antenna that they might be able to provide or a replacement on the router where it's a quick unplug. I know that you may run into issues right now with the system if you unplug that router and try and swap it for a different router because there are specific settings on the case that it needs to be plugged into and formatted for. I don't know the exact specifics of it, but I do remember that was something that I was made aware of.
Melissa Bradex: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Any other questions about systems, fixes, stuff like that?
Melissa Bradex: Nope, I think I'm finally done.
Steven Hanna: It's okay. No, listen, and interrupt me at any point. you have questions, please, this is my whole function is to answer questions and just get you guys up to speed on how to best run these events. So I do have a few questions. I'm just kind of going to go through it. I'm going to pull it up over here and I'm going to start with, how many events have you guys ran on these systems? Because if you're running 12 sites, I'm going to assume this is probably ran at least once a week. Does that sound correct?
Melissa Bradex: Yeah, and some sites actually do it more than others.
Steven Hanna: Okay, so on average, we're looking at 12 systems, and we can say one event a week or less?
Melissa Bradex: Okay, just average, give or take. Average, yes.
Steven Hanna: Okay, so you guys are doing 31 events per, or more than 31 events per year, easily.
Melissa Bradex: Oh, yeah.
Steven Hanna: Okay, and how many players are you folks averaging with this system? Is it just kind of like an open-ended thing, or do you have Unit A's from this time to this time?
Melissa Bradex: How are your events kind of structured? There is no assignment with the units. It's, they grab the first one that they see.
Steven Hanna: Okay, and do you use all 24 for these?
Melissa Bradex: Or is it like half in, half out? Sometimes, yes. And so we've gotten to a point to where I've shown them how to re-sync them to where they can use both of them so they can have more, and they use like a case and a half at the same time.
Steven Hanna: Gotcha. Okay. So averaging probably 20 plus, would you say?
Melissa Bradex: Yes, easily.
Steven Hanna: All right. Cool. With that, how long are you running the system for each group?
Melissa Bradex: About 20 minutes. No more than 30.
Steven Hanna: No more than 30. Okay, cool. What is the most frequently played game? This can be anecdotal at the moment.
Melissa Bradex: I have an idea, but I won't.
Steven Hanna: Zombies. Okay. With the Doctor. With Doctor. Okay. Nice. What would you say is the second most played?
Melissa Bradex: The Shapes and Colors.
Steven Hanna: And is that due to how you structure the script of what's played, or do you have a script on how to play, or is it just whatever they decide to play?
Melissa Bradex: It's whatever they decide to play, but those are requested from the students.
Steven Hanna: Requested to. Okay. Great. How often. Do you need to perform system troubleshooting or a diagnostic during an event? Basically, do you run into any tech issues during the event? And if so, is it a one-off, like, okay, I know how to solve this one, hey, it's just this, or are they recurring?
Melissa Bradex: I think the most common problem that happens, and if it happens, is in the beginning to connect to the Wi-Fi.
Steven Hanna: Okay, now when you say connect to the Wi-Fi, do you mean the taggers to the system? Like, individual watches have trouble connecting to the box for the games, or do you mean the box to?
Melissa Bradex: The box to our Wi-Fi.
Steven Hanna: Okay, you don't need Wi-Fi to run, just so that you know. No matter where you are, you'll never need Wi-Fi to run. Wi-Fi is only going to be for you to update your firmware and update the watch. Devices as well. So don't ever worry about Wi-Fi. You're totally gold. You can run without it. You don't need it. You could go out into fields, wherever. Wi-Fi is okay. Firmware update. Cool. Connect, update. We're running without Wi-Fi for X amount of time until the new update comes in.
Melissa Bradex: Okay. So we've been thinking about this wrong. So the only thing we really need to make sure is that we have an extension cord.
Steven Hanna: Access to power. Yep. Access to power. And I can also recommend a solar rechargeable brick that can get you portable access and you can move it pretty much anywhere. That's what I use for my events out in New York.
Melissa Bradex: So they're only, they're not expensive.
Steven Hanna: They're like sub $300 and the rechargeable energy and renewable energy is free. So nice sunny day. Just plug it in, put the thing outside the window and recharge the brick. You'll probably get about five hours of running.
Melissa Bradex: Time on it.
Steven Hanna: If your events are sub-30 minutes and you're just kind of rotating groups in and out, whoever comes in, whoever comes out, less than an hour, you could probably get about a week, a little less than a week off of one charge on this, and you can change your play environment up. So I'll send you an email with the Amazon stuff for that, and you can, you know, if you've got your own volition, check that out. Other than that, any tech issues that you encountered during events? Are they frequent? Are they kind of one-offs? Anything that maybe you need to make us aware about that we might be able to improve on?
Melissa Bradex: No, I think it's more user error with the, what are these, the Tigers themselves, because when we have the two boxes and we have two teachers that are running them, so they could cross each other. So like we might have two 43s or two 20s. So the kids are, who won, me or him? They're not quite sure. So that's the only other issue, if they're ran at the same time.
Steven Hanna: Gotcha.
Melissa Bradex: Okay. By two different teachers.
Steven Hanna: Right. Yeah, I can see how that can be a little challenging. I don't have, I don't have one for that. That is your zero, like you said. So have you ever reassigned the numbers in the system?
Melissa Bradex: That's, I guess, a good, okay.
Steven Hanna: You have. How often do you do that?
Melissa Bradex: Not very often.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Does it make sense to do it, or is it just, we're high volume, they got to get out, I don't really, I don't really care specifically about the number, that type of thing?
Melissa Bradex: Um, no, only if I see duplicates. Then we try to... Redo it. Otherwise, it doesn't matter if they have 75 because the kids can read it. When I'm number 75, oh, that's me. So, yeah, it doesn't matter what number. Okay. Just duplicates.
Steven Hanna: How often would those duplicates come up, would you say?
Melissa Bradex: Not often enough to really make a notice.
Steven Hanna: How often are you folks charging the system?
Melissa Bradex: Charging it?
Steven Hanna: Is it after each use or, like, when you're done with it, you're like, ah, plug it in for an hour, shut it off, use it whenever we use it next?
Melissa Bradex: Oh, so the TGGERS themselves can be charged?
Steven Hanna: Right. So when I say charge the unit, I mean, how often are you plugging in all the 24 TGGERS to do a recharge?
Melissa Bradex: Like, do you have to recharge it after every event? Are you recharging it once a week? Oh, we turn it on and we make sure that they're all green, ready to go before we start the event.
Steven Hanna: Right. So you... Do have a pre-event set up with this? Yes. Okay. Can you walk me through a little bit of what that is, besides just testing it just like that?
Melissa Bradex: Or if that's it, that's totally fine? Just plugging it in, making sure the game choices are up there and that they're all green.
Steven Hanna: Okay, cool. That's exactly mine as well. I just wanted to compare. That question's irrelevant. Any connectivity drops during game play?
Melissa Bradex: Have you noticed that? Have you got any complaints? Mm-hmm. No? Honestly, the only time we get called out for the ZTAGs is in the very beginning to get them connected. Sometimes, for whatever reason, it won't pick up any of the SFIDs. So then we just restart it and then connect it and then they're good to go. But like you said, we don't even have to do that, apparently. Yeah, I would say...
Steven Hanna: Don't even worry about it now.
Melissa Bradex: You're good.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Any other tech issues that we should know about mid-game play before, post, any other issues besides the little magnetic drop charge that we kind of went over?
Melissa Bradex: Not that I can think of right now, no.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Out of the suggested, or out of the highlighted games that everybody asks for, they're mostly asking for zombie tag?
Melissa Bradex: Yes.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Are they asking for With the Doctor?
Melissa Bradex: Yes.
Steven Hanna: Have you ever adjusted the settings in any of the games?
Melissa Bradex: Yes.
Steven Hanna: Which ones?
Melissa Bradex: The time.
Steven Hanna: Okay. And is that across the board kind of standard? You've adjusted time and depend on... All games or specific games?
Melissa Bradex: Just specific games, whatever we're playing.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Have you ever changed the sound settings?
Melissa Bradex: No, I didn't feel a need to.
Steven Hanna: This is kind of a wonky question, but have the kids ever provided you folks with feedback on games? Have they said, hey, I have ideas on this game, or provided input on how to make the games better?
Melissa Bradex: In any sort of way? No.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Do you ever check your event data?
Melissa Bradex: No.
Steven Hanna: This might be something that would be worthwhile for your school to produce numbers for funding for, or your whatever entity you guys are a part of. Having numbers behind the ZTAG system to validate the purchase and how much it gets people to move. is a really valuable resource. It's also something that's valuable to us personally because we do like to know, you know, where systems are. So one thing that I would ask after this is, you know, are you folks okay if I personally reach out again to get a quick picture of the settings menu just so that we can see how much runtime the system has and stuff like that? It wouldn't be anything more than like, hey, can you send over a quick snapshot of this settings tab for us? Because we could always remote in, but we're not like that. We don't invade privacy unless we have to fix your system. So if I can ask for that, that's something that it would really help us and we can put that data together for you and kind of put together a nice little sheet that says, hey, across your systems and across this, these are the numbers. Over two years, I've got like 39 hours on a system with 1.7 million steps. And. And. We 73,000 interactions. So we're doing like fun stuff where we're trying to figure out what's the average number of interactions per blah, blah, blah, per this, per this. And it's worthwhile to just get that data back. So if that's something that I can ask you guys to help us out with, I would be happy to, you know, get you guys something back that is a deliverable to say, this is your data and this is what it looks like.
Melissa Bradex: Yes.
Steven Hanna: Yes.
Melissa Bradex: I'm going to two school sites tomorrow so I can check their ZTAG boxes.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
Melissa Bradex: And elementary and middle school.
Steven Hanna: So what breakdown of your sites is elementary versus middle versus junior versus high school?
Melissa Bradex: Elementary is K-5. Okay.
Steven Hanna: And the middle school is 6-8. Okay. And the breakdown of your 12 sites is half and half?
Melissa Bradex: What's the distribution? 6 sites. Okay. 2 boxes for each site.
Steven Hanna: Right.
Melissa Bradex: 12 units, six. And four elementary.
Steven Hanna: Okay. And just population size roughly, if you know it.
Melissa Bradex: 3,653.
Steven Hanna: Wow.
Melissa Bradex: Okay. I have to deal with the data with the students quite a bit.
Steven Hanna: Okay. So then you'll have fun with what I send back. You'll be like, all right, this is enjoyable to at least look at and see what's going on here. Yes. Wow. Okay. Specific on the numbers. I love it. So then I'll reach back out for the specific numbers. It's kind of just asking about steps and asking the interactions from here. It's not anything more than that. I can always provide you guys with best practices, but it seems like you guys have gotten it pretty much handled from here. There's nothing that I can say that you guys haven't encountered or don't already do between you and your staff. So if there's anything that I can provide. can't. Yeah. it. As far as input for events or support to you in any sort of way, please let me know. I'm going to get you guys a nice little recertification certificate. Yep, exactly. And that will be forwarded over to our support department where they'll get you that extended care extension too. I really appreciate you folks taking the time for me on this one.
Melissa Bradex: I know it's kind of like this weird arbitrary thing where you're like, who's this weird certification trainer?
Steven Hanna: Why do I have to talk to them? We just want to make sure that you folks are satisfied basically with everything you guys are doing. And if there's any way we can help, that's what this is for. So if there's any other questions, please fire away at me. I personally am done with my questions. And like I said, there's no need for me to give you advice you already know.
Melissa Bradex: The extended warranty, how long will that be for?
Steven Hanna: That will be for a full year. So that will be extended to you folks. And then you also can go through. You're another recertification at the end of that year where they will offer you a discount on another year, basically. So we have another quick conversation like this, quick 30 minutes, go through the system, I check in with you, and then you're recertified for another year.
Melissa Bradex: Okay.
Steven Hanna: With that, we're trying to get a Playmaker community together where we are opening up discussions on how to best run the systems, and we are going to be inviting a bunch of people, including yourselves, to meetings every month. It's basically a quick 30-minute meeting where you can meet other people who have ZTAG systems, and you guys can share best practices and fun stuff that might assist you guys. It's totally optional. If you want to, come join us. We're fun. We've got cookies, but not here. That's pretty much it for my side. Thank you again. And if you guys have any questions, please let me know. You can... Reach out to me. I'm going to send a follow-up email. You'll have my phone number from here on out as well, and you're more than welcome to distribute that to your staff members for your sites if they should need any on-site support at any time.
Melissa Bradex: That's an emergency. Great.
Steven Hanna: Thank you, Steven. You got it. Have a wonderful day, wherever you guys are.
Melissa Bradex: Thank you, you too.
Steven Hanna: Thank you. Bye. Take care. Bye-bye.
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Mr. Pannell: This meeting is being recorded.
Steven Hanna: Hello?
Mr. Pannell: Hello. Can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you. Awesome. Awesome.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
Mr. Pannell: Sweet.
Steven Hanna: Sweet. I appreciate the beard.
Mr. Pannell: Yeah. I should just cut about four inches off of it.
Steven Hanna: I had to do the trip myself for the trip that we're out for. We're actually actually in a conference for ZTAG right now. So I'm happy that I'm able to do the training with you because we're in the mindset of it. And I know that you guys just basically got your system. So yeah, we did. How do you guys feel about it? Have you seen it before?
Mr. Pannell: Is this like your first time seeing it? Well, I seen it at the Mozak Conference last year.
Steven Hanna: It wasn't the Mozak Conference, but it was a conference in Nashville.
Mr. Pannell: Okay. And my director and me, we fell in love with it the moment we saw it. And we just now got the grant. And we were able to get it. And last week, I opened it up and played with it. I did have a little trouble connecting. The watches weren't connecting to the ZEUS at first. Okay. But then, I did some troubleshooting and read it, and all I did was end up having to turn it off and back on, and it worked just fine.
Steven Hanna: Okay. I was going to say, if you run into issues with connectivity, nine times out of ten, a quick reset on the side is going to be your quickest troubleshooting. And nine out of ten times, like I said, it will reconnect to that perfectly.
Mr. Pannell: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: So that's great that you guys have the system now in your hands. It's exciting to use. You've had an opportunity to utilize it a little bit. You said you played around. You ran into that little connectivity issue.
Mr. Pannell: Have you played around in any of the other sections? The only thing that I have is it pops up into the ZTAG where it's got the main screen, where it's got the games. That's the only thing we've ever played around with.
Steven Hanna: Okay, cool. Have you guys registered the system yet?
Mr. Pannell: I believe I did register it, yes.
Steven Hanna: Awesome, sweet. All right, then you seem pretty tech savvy, so we can kind of go straight through this and have some fun with it. Yeah. My name is Steve. I'm basically one of the Playmaker developers that is here to support you throughout your entire ZTAG journey. You and anybody else who may come in contact with your system, I'm here to make sure that you guys basically have a good time with it. If something's wrong or something's out of whack, I'm kind of the person that is the go-to quick response. We do have a support team. They are always in play. However, if it's, you know, logistic-based, you need assistance right now, we have an event coming up and nothing's happening, I'm kind of the point of contact for that. As far as the training goes for this, it's a quick 40-minute training. It's basically best practices, how to utilize the system in the most efficient ways possible for your use cases. going ask a few questions just about. You and your use cases specifically.
Mr. Pannell: The first one being, what grades are you servicing with the system, give or take? Well, as of last week, we were going to use it mainly for elementary and ended up using it for elementary all the up to high school because we're wanting to jump on the bag wagon and they were playing with it too. So, I mean, our after school program services K through 12, so, and they just happened to be out on the field and we pulled it out and was just trying it out, which was a nice day and they happened to be outside because it was nice and they're like, hey, can we try? I'm like, here you go. Here's a little watch.
Steven Hanna: Here's the rules of the game.
Mr. Pannell: For sure. They're like, right on. Like some of the older ones, like we did the zombies, I made the older ones the doctors. So I'm like, okay, I want to get the older ones to be the doctors because if I make them zombies, they're going to, someone's going to cry.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, that's the roles are a little bit challenging with the youngers and the olders, but it seems like you've got a pretty good handle on it. So are you a phys ed teacher or what, what, what domain are you within? STEAM, STEM. All right, cool.
Mr. Pannell: STEM, I, I just picked up, we just picked up U.S. Legends Soccer Drones. Oh, no. Drone Soccer, if you've ever heard of that.
Steven Hanna: I have, I have.
Mr. Pannell: So we just picked that up and we're waiting, we're waiting for the arena to get in here so we can get some more PD on the arena so we can actually like get registered and actually maybe get a, get a team going and actually go to events and start.
Steven Hanna: Go some conferences, get, get them out there.
Mr. Pannell: That'd be cool. They're really cool.
Steven Hanna: Nice, man. Excellent. Excellent. Um, all right. So do you have the system in front of you currently?
Mr. Pannell: It's right over there plugged in. I had, had actually plugged it in just in case. Like, let me turn it on and plug it in and get everything turned on just in case he wants to, to do something with it.
Steven Hanna: But yeah, here, I can take that over there. Well, just so that you have access with it.
Mr. Pannell: Yeah, it's right there in front of me. Let me just walk over here too.
Steven Hanna: No worries. You can probably listen. And then I'm going to just walk you through the settings tabs and all that good stuff.
Mr. Pannell: I'm right next to it now.
Steven Hanna: All right, cool. So the home screen that you see right now, you should have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight games.
Mr. Pannell: Is that correct?
Steven Hanna: Yeah. Okay, perfect. In that settings tab in the top right corner, that little gear icon, if you can go into that for me.
Mr. Pannell: Okay.
Steven Hanna: On the left-hand side of the screen, you're going to have a bunch of different tabs. We're just going to kind of walk you through each one. So what's the first one on your left-hand side? Connection. Okay. If you tap on that, that's basically your Wi-Fi connectivity for any of the firmware updates that you'll have in the future. The system itself, by default, does not require Wi-Fi to run. So if you're ever encountering a connectivity issue and somebody's saying, hey, it's a Wi-Fi thing, the first thing that you're going to say is the system doesn't need Wi-Fi to run.
Mr. Pannell: Right. was going that little packet that when we first got it, I read it, it doesn't require Wi-Fi.
Steven Hanna: It doesn't require local connectivity. So I was like, cool. That's cool. cool. That's Yep, all you need is that little white router, and that's going to be your main source of the local area connection.
Mr. Pannell: creates that entire thing for you.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. So the only thing that you're...
Mr. Pannell: very impressive, actually.
Steven Hanna: I have to say, we're pretty impressed on the range on that.
Mr. Pannell: Oh, They were able to go on the bigger soccer field and go the whole soccer field pretty much.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, I was going to say, you'll probably have indirect sunlight about 80 to 85 yards.
Mr. Pannell: Yeah, pretty good.
Steven Hanna: If you're at dusk when the interference is a little bit less, you can get almost a full football field, end zone to end zone. That's pretty good. Yeah, it's pretty remarkable.
Mr. Pannell: And that's in 360 degrees, too. that's not just...
Steven Hanna: degrees. Yeah, that's not just a linear out towards...
Mr. Pannell: That's something to think about. Maybe I'll put it out in the middle of the soccer field next time, and it'll... Oh, totally. You can definitely do that.
Steven Hanna: It's fun. Set it up in the middle. You'll have range on both goal ends, and it'll be a pretty nifty experience for them.
Mr. Pannell: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: So underneath the connections tab, what's the next tab that you have?
Mr. Pannell: We've got a count.
Steven Hanna: Okay. If you click on this tab, you'll see that all the devices are labeled Z1 through 24. Is that correct?
Mr. Pannell: Yes. Well, no.
Steven Hanna: be out of order, or they may...
Mr. Pannell: They're out of We've got like 25 to 48, I believe.
Steven Hanna: Okay. You have one or two ZTAG units.
Mr. Pannell: One.
Steven Hanna: Okay. So, with this one specifically, there's a little button that you're going to press that says Reset Devices.
Mr. Pannell: Do you see that? I thought I saw that, and I was afraid to do that.
Steven Hanna: I I better not push that button. Don't be afraid.
Mr. Pannell: I will remove all two.
Steven Hanna: We're going to press it right now and take the adventure to get it.
Mr. Pannell: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Are sure you want to reset the devices?
Mr. Pannell: you do. Yes, I do. All right. There it goes. Now it's resetting 1 to 23.
Steven Hanna: So, now this will reset your device IDs to make them linear in that sequence.
Mr. Pannell: Okay.
Steven Hanna: One thing that we did... What go over before we started was a startup sequence on this. As you said, you kind of went through it, but I do want to walk through that because there is a specific startup sequence that you should follow and a shutdown sequence. So before we go through any of the further tabs, I'm just going to remove, I'm going to remove one step and take it back to the startup sequence. When you do start up your ZEUS unit, it's really important that your power is connected first and you follow the correct order of start. From the bottom up, what I like to say is when you're starting, start from the bottom up, you need your power cord plugged in, then you're going to press that red button. Just like me, yeah. Then you're going to press the blue button.
Mr. Pannell: It just makes sense to go in order. You plug your power in, you get your main power switch, and then you turn the actual power.
Steven Hanna: Yep. You're a STEM guy, so you understand the exact prerequisite components of power being active. So that's kind of the startup sequence. And the shutdown sequence, it's
Mr. Pannell: Actually, they're reversed.
Steven Hanna: So you work from your top down. The one thing you're going to do is remove that little white device.
Mr. Pannell: you have a little white device on top?
Steven Hanna: The antenna?
Mr. Pannell: Mm-hmm.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, yeah. Okay. So you're going to remove that first. You're going to unscrew those little antennas from the router. You're going to place that nicely into the case. Then you're going to work your way down on the power switches from there. You're going to go with that blue power button. That's the first one from the top down. Then you're going to go to your red power button, and then you're going to go with the unplug on the power source itself. But before you do a shutdown, you have to hit the power shutdown sequence in the system.
Mr. Pannell: yeah, shut down on the system itself.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, yeah. Right. So it's system, top, down. That's the shutdown sequence. And I know we did it a little bit out of order, but I appreciate you working with me on that. Back to our tabs. When we're going through that device tab, if at any point in time you get another Some of these devices, they double up on the numeric numbers, like Z8 might show up a few times. You can always put them right into the box itself and reset the devices from this tab.
Mr. Pannell: This will get them back in numeric order from 1 through 24. Now, can this device only read the 24 devices at once? No. I noticed that there's two extra devices that came with the ZTAG case itself.
Steven Hanna: So you could actually add those in for gameplay if you wanted. I personally recommend running your events at 20 players, allowing for four extras just in case.
Mr. Pannell: There's always going to be a few add-ins.
Steven Hanna: Some people show up a little bit late. It gives them the opportunity to jump in. So 20 is a good starting number with that. You can go up to 26. If you had a second system, you could go up to 48 and link two systems to it.
Mr. Pannell: Jeez. I'm talking to boss about getting a second one. Hey, boss, man.
Steven Hanna: They're fun. We've... I've a few events where they do a double system link on a football field with zombie tag, and it is an intense, like, two minutes of people running around.
Mr. Pannell: I bet.
Steven Hanna: I bet. For sure. So this is the device tab. What do you have next on that? Firmware. So your firmware. If you click on this, you should have a drop-down for the firmware. Is that correct?
Mr. Pannell: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: When a new update is released, you and your administration will be notified of these new updates. It is basically an over-the-air update where it's Wi-Fi connected, and you are able to update your firmware and push that update to the system. Okay. At another point in time when we do have an update, I'll be able to show you how to physically do that step-by-step, but your system is going to be at the most up-to-date that it currently is, and I believe that is at 2.8.0. Is Does sound correct?
Mr. Pannell: No.
Steven Hanna: Okay, what does it say?
Mr. Pannell: ZTAG version 7.0.26.
Steven Hanna: Okay, 7.0.26 is the tagger version, and then there's another firmware version that's 2.8.0. What's the next tab on the left?
Mr. Pannell: Games.
Steven Hanna: You can go ahead and click on the games tab.
Mr. Pannell: Okay.
Steven Hanna: And here you can actually see which games you would want accessible.
Mr. Pannell: Also, I can turn off the games, like the word match. Nobody got that one, the word wave, because we don't have very many. We have a couple of Spanish-speaking kids in the school, but they're the only ones that would benefit from it, so.
Steven Hanna: You'd be surprised. It's actually a pretty interesting game. But yeah, if you needed to turn off any of the games, or if somebody else is using the system, and you would only want them to have access... To like two or three games, this is where you would do that.
Mr. Pannell: Like say like first or second grade is going to borrow it when you only want them doing like rock, paper, scissors, red light, green light, zombie tag maybe.
Steven Hanna: Perfect, yeah.
Mr. Pannell: They're not going to want to do the math match because they're not going to be able to do that.
Steven Hanna: Right, I mean it's always good to have it on the screen in case you would like to do it. But if this is like a specific use case of, you know, you're sending someone in your administration to just play zombie tag.
Mr. Pannell: You can make it so that zombie tag is the only thing on the system. only thing available.
Steven Hanna: That's right. And then the next tab down on the left.
Mr. Pannell: System Info.
Steven Hanna: So if you click on System Info, this is where you should see that update, that 2.8 something.
Mr. Pannell: Again, System Info says total hours played, games played, most popular.
Steven Hanna: Oh, right.
Mr. Pannell: Step count.
Steven Hanna: So this is where you can get your system stats from. And what are your current system stats out of curiosity if you ran it already?
Mr. Pannell: Last five games. Game Sessions. Let's see.
Steven Hanna: How many steps does it say?
Mr. Pannell: Total? Where did it go? I lost it. Total step count is only 37,708.
Steven Hanna: 37,708?
Mr. Pannell: What's the interactions? 1,271.
Steven Hanna: One, two, seven, one.
Mr. Pannell: And this is one hour of gameplay. Yeah, it was 38 games played total. There was a couple games in there that I canceled.
Steven Hanna: Okay. So, and the reason why I ask is because what we'll, what we'd like to do in the future is collect more data and give you guys a nice little sheet that says your data over time. It's a nice little deliverable if you guys need to produce anything to say, hey, the validity of this system is valid because of reasons A, B, and C proven by data. It's this, this, and this. So it's a nice little thing that we like to do, and that's a voluntary data thing. At another point in time, I may ask you, you know, reach out, say, hey, could you just give us your system data?
Mr. Pannell: That's totally voluntary. You don't have to do it. Okay. Yeah, I don't really have a problem with that.
Steven Hanna: I mean, because that helps you guys out, so. Well, it also helps.
Mr. Pannell: It helps everybody, honestly. Yeah, it helps everybody, yeah.
Steven Hanna: It's just a great way to say, hey, the reason this works is because of this, and it's seen in this environment, and it's tried and tested.
Mr. Pannell: I mean, the day after that, I pulled it out. The very next day, when I came in, immediately, as soon as one of the students saw me, hey, are we going to get that ZTAG out?
Steven Hanna: We're going to do the ZTAG? I'm like, I'll try it out today, guys. Use it sparingly as a behavior modification tool as well. Yeah. I would say the sparing use comes in the, if you guys want to play ZTAG, you're going to have to be on your best behavior for this, or you're going to have to, you know, there's a, there's a bargain here between us, you know. Right. You all will have to contribute in some sort of way to the betterment of your class, and as a reward, we all get to enjoy this real fun experience. Yeah, totally. So using it as a carrot, right, as, you know, that reward to work towards.
Mr. Pannell: Right. It's a tangible reward that they can see, and they know, and they like, and they've seen it, and they want more of it, so. Yep.
Steven Hanna: On the next tab down, what do you have?
Mr. Pannell: Help.
Steven Hanna: If you click on Help, there should be a few QR codes that come up in that section, correct?
Mr. Pannell: I guess some of them, yeah.
Steven Hanna: Perfect. This is going to be your go-to resource on the fly if you are ever encountering a quick issue. In addition to myself, these resources are just quick start guides to get you right back up to the position you need to be at as far as operation.
Mr. Pannell: Yeah, I think I watched all three of them as soon as I first turned it on, and actually had a QR code on a piece of paper, and I did that.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, perfect.
Mr. Pannell: All right.
Steven Hanna: right. So I don't, are there any more tabs on the left?
Mr. Pannell: might be a bout.
Steven Hanna: The only thing I got is a bout. Okay, if you hit about, on the bottom side, there should be a firmware.
Mr. Pannell: Software current 2.8.0.
Steven Hanna: Perfect. That's the thing I was mentioning before. So the 2.8.0 is the prerequisite update so that you can make the taggers go to 7.0.26. Okay. So when we update the system, and I'll give you a quick guide on this as well, it's in the support stuff, you'll go into these tabs, you'll download the new firmware version, and then you'll restart the system and update it. Yeah, force it. Yeah, force an update, basically. Yeah. There shouldn't be any more tabs on the settings side. No. Do have any questions on the tabs that we've gone through thus far?
Mr. Pannell: Not pretty self-explanatory.
Steven Hanna: Cool. From there, I'm going to say head back to our home screen. There should be a little house icon or back.
Mr. Pannell: Let's see.
Steven Hanna: I got it. Oh, the ZTAG icon in the top left.
Mr. Pannell: Yeah, ZTAG. Yeah, that's right. I remember that last week, like, well, how do I get back?
Steven Hanna: I always do that for a second. I'm like, there's a back button. No, it's the button in the settings. I remember this one. So from here, I'm just going to take you through kind of the games themselves and just walk you through some of the best practices. It's not going to be a too in-depth thing. This is more of a dynamic approach that we take to this, where your needs and your group needs will be catered to, depending on how you set the games up. You've turned the taggers on before. What I'm going to ask you to do is take out two or three of those taggers for me and just take a look at the left side and turn on that red button or press that red button to turn it on. Now, as these are loading up, if you take a look at the screen, you're going to notice. There's a boot-up sequence with this where the ZTAG logo is going to appear. And if you pay attention to above that logo, where like similar to a phone on the taskbar in the top, there will be a little sequence of numbers and letters that appear. If that sequence of numbers and letters appear, it should be like 6BE something or some variation.
Mr. Pannell: 6BBC with almost like a little digital battery display, like a self-signal.
Steven Hanna: 6BBC Those letters indicate that you are connected to the local area network via the router. So as long as you see those numbers, that's an indicator that that unit is connected to the main ZOOS.
Mr. Pannell: Yep.
Steven Hanna: The obvious battery bar is right next to it. And then on the left-hand side, I can't remember specifically if there's two things, but the most important things that you'll be paying attention to, if you ever have to troubleshoot, are one, is it connected to the main unit? can't remember. because With that little EBBC number? And two, do I have enough battery to run the damn thing for, you know? Those are the two main focuses on that. There is two different ways to shut, well, there's one way to shut down the unit, and there is a second way to restart the unit. If you need to quickly restart the unit, obviously you've already went through that in your troubleshooting, just tap it one that's on the red, and just hold it near the Zeus unit and have it reconnect. Yep. If you need to shut down the unit, there are two ways to do that. The first way to do it is a manual shutdown where you double tap the red, and that shuts it down on the system. Shuts it down? Yep. The second way to do it is just plug it right into the charging dock, and it will automatically shut the device down and begin the charging sequence. Right. So two ways for a shutdown on that.
Mr. Pannell: And that's typically the second way, that's typically how I've been doing it. I've been putting it, when I give them in the hand and back to me, I don't let them put it in the dock. I put all of I'm going to dock myself, and I'll sit there and verify that the screen turns off, and then it starts giving me a little charge, and I'll go to the next one.
Steven Hanna: Yep, that's a perfect way to do it. I think that's a smart way to make sure everything comes back and that you're comfortable with the way that it's being stored. Yeah. So with these devices, they can take a fair amount of abuse, but I will let you know that if this is spiked like a football celebration, if this is thrown at, you know, a high-speed velocity, it's a, it, it, like a phone, it will break.
Mr. Pannell: Yeah. We've already, we've already just, like, with the kids, I told them strict, if it comes off the wrist, you can go ahead and just give it, give it to me, and go ahead and sit out for a couple rounds. Yep, there's no reason. We're not going to abuse it.
Steven Hanna: There's reason to take it off. Yep, exactly. Okay, I'm going to take you through these games. The first game that I like to always go through is Red Light, Green Light. So if you want to tap on a Red Light, Green Light. It should come up. With this nice little instructional, you know, little bullet-pointed instructions as to how to play Red Light, Green Light, you can say these instructions however you would like. This is more of a guide, more than how you actually describe it. What we like to do with this, and I personally like to do, is I like to play Red Light, Green Light in two ways. For my youngers, I remove the ability to be eliminated. So if you go into your Settings tab, in our top little icon for Red Light, Green Light, there should be three settings. There should be a time setting, there should be a sensitivity setting, and there should be a negative scoring setting, correct?
Mr. Pannell: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Yep. Okay. For time, I always like to do a 60-second warm-up with Red Light, Green Light. It's a lot, it's a lot of running, and 60 seconds is way more than you would expect if you're running at full speed. So 60 seconds is a good starting point for this. For the sensitivity, this is where I say it's dynamic and up to you as an operator, because you'll know based on the cognitive level of your student. And who you're working with, who's capable of stopping based on hand-eye coordination.
Mr. Pannell: I see. Now that you mention something like that, I noticed Friday when I had all the grades playing red light, green light, all of my younger kids were almost immediately, all of them were eliminated. They're not really moving, but if they move that wrist and it fills it, it's going to kick them.
Steven Hanna: Yep. So there's a way that we modify the settings on this. For the youngers, for K-5, what I like to say is, put the checkmark for negative scoring.
Mr. Pannell: Okay.
Steven Hanna: And that makes it so that if they get caught on red, they'll only lose 10 points. They'll still be in the game. They can still participate. back to zero. Correct. They'll just go back to zero points and they can earn more points. They will not be eliminated. So this is a very valuable setting that you might want to change frequently depending on who you're operating with.
Mr. Pannell: Okay.
Steven Hanna: That's good to know. Yep. So 60 seconds on this one. I like to keep it. Short and sweet. I like to run it a few times just to make sure that everybody understands how the watches operate and how the detection system works on them. And it's up to you to decide what sensitivity you would like. For the older kids and the more competitive kids, I like to put a high sensitivity, and I like to take off negative scoring, meaning the eliminations are there. For the younger kids, what I prefer to do is keep it on a medium sensitivity and turn on negative scoring so they do understand that there is a consequence for being caught.
Mr. Pannell: Yeah, because they were all just dropped out. Like, well, you've to wait. And I kind of felt kind of bad. like, where's there a way to keep you in there? Just like some kind of negative, but not just completely tag you out.
Steven Hanna: Yes, there is. And it is on the system.
Mr. Pannell: That is the specific setting that you will use for that. Good deal.
Steven Hanna: As far as starting up a game, what I always like to do is do a countdown sequence with the kids. You know for a fact that each of the games starts in a 3-2-1 sequence. So if you time yourself and you say, all right, we're starting up in 5, 4, press the button 3. That's a good one. Two, one, that countdown sequence just makes it a little bit more comprehensible for them, where they're not like, oh, jeez, I'm starting right now, I need to play.
Mr. Pannell: Oh, yeah, oh, no, yeah. exactly.
Steven Hanna: So starting a countdown sequence with them just assists them in, you know, facilitating the start of the game.
Mr. Pannell: Right, gotcha.
Steven Hanna: That's kind of red light, green light, and it just, I always like to scaffold these, and every skill set that we teach, I scaffold out a little bit for each game. That's why each game I run is 60 seconds long. So, however you want to utilize and set up the skills to learn is up to you. That's red light, green light. If you want to go back to our game screen and go into, I believe the next game should be to the right of that.
Mr. Pannell: Rock, paper, scissors?
Steven Hanna: You can go into rock, paper, scissors. And in the same way, you can go into the settings. I believe this one only has time settings. I don't think there are any other settings for this.
Mr. Pannell: Yeah, it's just a time setting.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Rock, paper, scissors is a nice icebreaker game that you can use for kids. It doesn't need to be played in typical rock, paper, scissors fashion. It's something that I like to say, hey, all you have to do in this game is go up to somebody, link your watches together, and see what color you get to. So everybody wants to be on the same color, and we want to solve the puzzle together. So go up to somebody and tag their watch, and whichever color you guys become, go up to someone else and find them and tag their watch. And whatever colors you guys become, just keep going around and tagging people. So it's a nice little icebreaker game.
Mr. Pannell: You can also make it a very competitive game with the older students, where it's team-based tech. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. So rock, paper, scissors is a little bit more of an intricate one, where you can scale it to the higher level. Any questions on this one?
Mr. Pannell: No. Actually, I actually like this one, because it's funny you said that you could scale it, and I most definitely did that Friday, when all the ones were playing. Just a zombie tag, and I was like, I need something a little more competitive, and I had like a group of like, I had five or six of them, and they started to team up against each other, and you could see them actually start working together to try to get the other teams locked out.
Steven Hanna: It's always fun when they start collaborating, and you can see it working, the gears are turning, and you're like, you guys actually figured this one out.
Mr. Pannell: That's pretty nice.
Steven Hanna: Sweet. Rock, paper, scissors, like I said, scalable to any level that you would like. If you go back to our game screen, to the right of rock, paper, scissors, I believe is going to be Shape Match, Pattern Match? Pattern Match, yes. Okay. This is the game that I like to utilize the most, and teach people how to tag with, because it's a simple way to get them to learn how proximity works. For Color Match, Pattern Match, and Shape Match, I like to relate the game to Uno, to the kids. Because it's something that most of them have either seen or played before, where they have to match a color or a number in UNO. In our version, it's a color or a shape. So I set this game in the settings for 60 seconds, and if you go into the settings on this, you'll see a variety of different, you know, fun things. there's a whole bunch of shapes and stuff over here. Yep. You can change up the shapes, increase the cognitive load on everybody, change up the colors. There's, you know, some kids might be colorblind, so you might have to adjust some of the colors in this game, and it's not for that exact reason. So the accessibility options for this game are there. What I like to do with this game is 60 seconds. I do red, blue, yellow, and green. And I choose squares, stars, circles, and another easy shape in there. can't remember another one. Triangle?
Mr. Pannell: Yeah, triangle. Triangle, yeah, triangle.
Steven Hanna: I tell the kids for each game, our first game today, we're going to be learning how to link our watches together. To do so, What you will be doing is calling out a color. Whatever color you see on your watch, you're going to have to call out to your group and find somebody with the same color and link your watch together. How do you link your watch together? Simply by doing this. It doesn't have to be a direct contact because it's a no-contact thing, but you give them and basically mold this entire interaction of you're not going to run into each other. You're just tapping the taggers at like two feet.
Mr. Pannell: Yeah, that's of like, just kind of do this with your taggers, just kind of close to each other. Exactly.
Steven Hanna: So I do one round of colors, I do one round of shapes, and then I do one round of colors and shapes. So all together, it's about four minutes of this game, but it sets it up where it's much easier to teach the true tagging games after, where there's a chase component involved. Right. So color match and shape match is a great icebreaker game as well. You have your settings in there that you can change as needed for your scale.
Mr. Pannell: What is that continuous mode?
Steven Hanna: Continuous is no time.
Mr. Pannell: It'll just keep going.
Steven Hanna: Keep matching, keep matching, keep matching. I always prefer to have an end to the game. That's kind of my preference. Right.
Mr. Pannell: I mean, that kind of gets old pretty quick.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, and the negative scoring on this, you can take points away, but I personally don't like to do that in this game.
Mr. Pannell: It's a little challenging because they group up and sometimes the signals cross over. They're tagging each other.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. Right. So some, like a triangle trying to match with a triangle will hit a square, you know, a foot away because they were just too close.
Mr. Pannell: They were just too close, yeah.
Steven Hanna: Right. So one good rule of thumb with this and a best practice is to say, after you do get a tag and match up with a partner, take one step back from that person and find a new partner.
Mr. Pannell: Yeah. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, so that's color match, pattern match, and shape match. Which, if we go back to our home screen and we go to our next game.
Mr. Pannell: Math Match.
Steven Hanna: Will you be playing this game?
Mr. Pannell: I play it with, I have middle schoolers that I like to, like, third, fourth, and fifth graders that kind of let them play it out.
Steven Hanna: It is a great game to slow the pace of the entire group down. If things do start getting a little bit out of hand, I like to say that ZTAG is Controlled Chaos, and if you allow that chaos to become uncontrollable, then it will become a little bit challenging for you to re-navigate and realign it.
Mr. Pannell: I think within the first five minutes of playing ZTAG, they were starting to get a little crazy, and I looked over the screen, because they weren't listening to me, I looked over the screen, lo and behold, there's a pause button.
Steven Hanna: Yep.
Mr. Pannell: Yep.
Steven Hanna: it right For that exact reason.
Mr. Pannell: It's all dead immediately, they all looked at me, it's like, all right, let's all come back to the center, because we obviously forgot the rules within 30 seconds.
Steven Hanna: Yep. So I always am a firm believer in just full stop, like you said, you know, if it's getting out of hand and you can recognize that, that exact feature was built in for this. So if it does become out of hand, you can always realign it. The two rules that I always like to personally give with my events are our first rule is that there's no contact, no pushing, pulling, kicking, fighting, any sort of physical presence in each other. No, it doesn't work. Our second rule is if somebody falls down, we help them up. Those are my two rules that we have today. We help and we wait. We don't hurt anybody. Math match is a great game. It's like pattern match and shape match. If you go into that real quick, I'm just going to take you through the settings on this because there's a few different ways you can focus in on the scale of this. So depending on the grade level that kids are going through, they're focusing on different operands at different grade levels. You can hone in on two operands specifically in each. So if you just wanted, yeah, you can also change your ranges on the numbers, the ranges for your single digits and your double digits. If you would like to keep it on a low range for your K through, you know, third who are getting those math skills down and really reinforcing them, you can do that. If you wanted to make this, you know, a high value, get the question wrong, unfortunately, you know, you're losing points thing, you can do that as well. So is a great game to slow everything down. They're still going to want to play because they still have the adrenaline from the round before, but they have to outlet it in some sort of way. So this is the way that I personally like to say, OK, I know that you got the energy. I'm going to burn it out in the teacher method way that I know how.
Mr. Pannell: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: So that's math match. If we go into our bottom row in the bottom left, I believe we have zombie tag.
Mr. Pannell: My zombie tag is the very top one.
Steven Hanna: Oh, OK, so we have zombie tag. If you want to go into that, I can take it. Through the settings on that, because this one is a little bit more intricate.
Mr. Pannell: I got a zombie tag, and a zombie tag with doctor.
Steven Hanna: We'll go with regular zombie tag first, and then we'll do the doctor second.
Mr. Pannell: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So, for zombie tag, depending on how you want to structure this game, there are a few different rule sets that you can have. If you are operating in an area with a lot of space, you are going to want a higher number of zombies at the start. If you are operating in an area with a smaller space, you are going to want a smaller or lower amount of zombies for the start.
Mr. Pannell: I found that out quick, because the first time we did this, we had it on the soccer field, and then Friday, we were in the gym. Yep. And I was having four zombies every time I started, and I started with four zombies in the gym, and that was the quickest round of zombies that we had ever.
Steven Hanna: Yep. So, there are ways to mitigate this. I like to use that general framework just because it helps me on a fundamental level. Okay, more space, more zone. Less space, less zombies. All right, that makes sense. You can actually select the amount of lives that the humans have. So if you go into your settings tab, and this is where I'll give you my secret settings for my events that work really well. 120 seconds on your timer.
Mr. Pannell: Okay, 120.
Steven Hanna: Depending on your space, if you're working in a football field, you're going to be starting with five zombies.
Mr. Pannell: If you're working in a gym, you're going to be starting with two zombies.
Steven Hanna: Everybody gets two tags before infection.
Mr. Pannell: Two tags.
Steven Hanna: So that's the equivalent of how many lives you have.
Mr. Pannell: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Then I believe there's a second. Infection duration? duration. This is how much time it takes for them to become a zombie. You could keep this at 10 seconds. It's pretty irrelevant for this one.
Mr. Pannell: That's how long they're within tagging distance within the zombie human. Right.
Steven Hanna: No, it's more... So they get tagged, there's like a little timer that starts that turns them into a zombie.
Mr. Pannell: So their watch is going to start flashing. Right. So it'll take 10 seconds to transform. So the human guys can run away from them.
Steven Hanna: Right. Like they'll see that, you know, John just got tagged.
Mr. Pannell: Yeah, I've seen the tag. Yeah, I've seen the thing flashing.
Steven Hanna: So they'll know it and they'll be like, oh my goodness, John's a zombie now, run.
Mr. Pannell: And while he's turning, know, they'll see the flashing.
Steven Hanna: So it is the indicator to everybody else that they're turning.
Mr. Pannell: Okay. And I believe that should be it on the settings for that, correct? Yes.
Steven Hanna: Okay. So with zombie tag, you can run this in many, many different ways and different variants. And I'm sure that you're going to come up with your own variant of your own. However, you know, there are certain things that you can do where there can be X amount of zombies and it's a speed round where you're only doing one minute, you know, with five zombies and five humans. And it's almost like a one-on-one situation. Right. Where it's like. Like, okay, I'm matched with one zombie. I have to avoid him for one minute. And you can do these speed round kind of elimination rounds, too. We also have a few other things and variants where we're actually going go into that. So if you go back to our home screen and go into ZTAG with Doctor, you're going to see a few more settings. So the same exact process we just did, go back into ZTAG with Doctor, though, and then just hit that settings icon and change up to 120 seconds. ZTAG, many zombies you feel is preferential. ZTAG, before infection, I like to always keep it as two.
Mr. Pannell: Yeah, two.
Steven Hanna: And this is the infection duration. If you want to give the doctor more of an opportunity to come back and, you know, make sure they're safe, you can increase this to 15 seconds, 20 seconds.
Mr. Pannell: So we can go back and save the infected from changing completely.
Steven Hanna: Correct. So you'll then see number of tags actually just walk.
Mr. Pannell: back and number I got the Time Limit, Zombies, Doctor Random, Number of Tags, Infection Duration, and then Doctor Heal Limit.
Steven Hanna: So the Doctor Heal Limit, this is actually a new feature that they've added in recently because there was some camping going on.
Mr. Pannell: I don't know if you're like a video game guy or anything, but they just kind of sit, you know, next to a zombie and the zombies just getting everybody. Yeah, they keep stunning the zombies. I noticed that Friday they kept stunning the zombies.
Steven Hanna: Yep. So there's actually two things that the Doctor can do here. And one is they can stun the zombies as well. So you can have an offensive doctor and a defensive doctor. And in addition to that, you can also have the Doctor have a heal limit where after X amount of heals, they turn back into a human. So it'll be slightly imbalanced at the start. of the game and skewed towards a human victory, but the second the doctor's taken away, you know, the scale kind of eases out.
Mr. Pannell: just back over, yeah. Exactly.
Steven Hanna: So it's a nice way to add a cool layer of complexity to the game, and you can select how many times the doctor can heal somebody.
Mr. Pannell: So I like to have it at usually six or seven, because they're pretty... It was at ten, I don't think they ever ran out of heals.
Steven Hanna: No, I would set it at six or seven, and just know that the more doctors you add, the more time you need to add to the game.
Mr. Pannell: Okay, yeah, yeah.
Steven Hanna: Like, just think about how to balance it a little bit, like, all right, if I'm adding four doctors, I need to have... Maybe they can only save two people each, right? Right. So there's a balance act that you're going to have to work on based on your experiences, and it's kind of cool because you'd cater it based on the needs of your group. Right. it can be totally different with every group.
Mr. Pannell: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: So that's zombie tag with doctor. If we go back out of that... And I'll take you quickly through these newer games that we have, just because they're probably not going to be more played than the other ones, but they're still good to know that they exist on the system and how to run them. So we have WordWave, correct. That's going to be the Spanish to English or French to English and vice versa. In this game, similar to Pattern Match and Shape Match, you'll be given a color, not a color, one word in English and one word in the target language.
Mr. Pannell: Spanish or French.
Steven Hanna: Exactly. And those people will have to match and link up those words together to earn points. So similar to the Math Match game, except we're using language as our, you know, mechanism in this one. I was just going to say, we're actually going to set something up in the future where you can import a target list and your original word list, and you'll be able to select which words you're going to use for that lesson. So if there's a specific lesson on, you know, verbs and... Spanish that you want to focus on, you can select those verbs in Spanish off of your computer, put it on this.
Mr. Pannell: So if the Spanish teacher says, oh, we're struggling with these kids and learning these Spanish words, their sight words for Spanish, I'm like, well, hey, I got this thing where I can make them play tag with their sight words.
Steven Hanna: We can disguise them learning language.
Mr. Pannell: Yeah, I like that.
Steven Hanna: Exactly that. So this is kind of one of those games where it might not be your cup of tea, per se, but the use of it can be so versatile.
Mr. Pannell: Yeah, that's very cool. That's pretty cool.
Steven Hanna: And then if you go back to the home screen, you're going to take a look at our last game, and that's going to be WordWave. WordWave is actually a pretty fun game if you can get it working in the right way with the kids. In WordWave, you can select the counting sequence, and it's a puzzle.
Mr. Pannell: You mean sequence train?
Steven Hanna: Sequence train, yes, sorry. I said WordWave. In sequence train, you can select the exact sequence they have. We to count by numerically. They will have to figure out what the pattern is. They have to figure out what the pattern is. The next person with that correct number has to tag their watch, and then they keep going down the sequence, and they have to solve the puzzle together as a group. So it's a puzzle. Exactly. And there is a really, really fun way to do this where we actually had a PE teacher set it up where they put a cone in the middle and had people circle around the person in the center. And the person in the center had their watch, and it would say, you know, whatever the number is in the sequence, it's 10. Right. Everybody around them has, you know, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60. Whoever has 20 tags in the middle and jumps in. And then the next 30 person, they'll look around. Whoever comes into the circle tags that person, and now they're in the middle.
Mr. Pannell: Gotcha.
Steven Hanna: Okay. So it's fun little variations on it where if you use a little bit of creativity, you could probably come up. With five or six different ways to play each game.
Mr. Pannell: Yeah, yeah.
Steven Hanna: On that one, I believe that's it as far as the games go. Those are the eight games. I did want to walk you through a little bit of the hardware, but you've gone through everything already on your own. I did go over that. They do have a magnetic lock. The second you put it in, it'll automatically shut down this device. You'll have about four hours of continuous runtime on a full charge on the devices, and it takes about 45 minutes to an hour to recharge fully on each thing. You said earlier you might, you'd probably just put it into the dock to charge. There will be some times where you just want to turn it off and keep it right next to you. So that's why I taught you that, like, double tap method. Right. More often than not, I'll put it on to charge, and within, like, eight seconds, I'll have another kid come out of the bathroom that I forgot. Forgot about for a second, who's like, hey, can I play again?
Mr. Pannell: I'm like, oh, jeez.
Steven Hanna: Let me start this whole boot sequence up, take it out on, you know, it just becomes a little bit of a hassle.
Mr. Pannell: Yeah, yeah.
Steven Hanna: I think that's pretty much it as far as the games and settings, Zahar. Do you have any questions on the games or settings thus far?
Mr. Pannell: I don't. Okay. I don't. It's actually pretty straightforward, real simple.
Steven Hanna: All right, cool.
Mr. Pannell: And I guess... Yeah, mean, you answered everything, like, for, like, all those patterns and the math. I didn't like it. I'm glad that you said something, because I would have never thought it would go into settings, because I thought it was, like, the settings in that corner was, like, settings. I just didn't touch it, because I figured it was system settings and not the actual settings for the game.
Steven Hanna: Not at all. There's a lot of maneuverability with settings here. And the scalability is, this is a system that can be utilized for K through 12 and beyond, or even TK.
Mr. Pannell: Yeah, well, we even pushed around that idea. Yeah. Yeah, maybe using this on a professional development day. Oh, absolutely.
Steven Hanna: I would say you should.
Mr. Pannell: You guys would have more fun than you think. Oh, yeah.
Steven Hanna: When we get a group of teachers playing this game, I actually, we're in the conference center now, and we just had a group of teachers playing it. But when you see the teachers play, it's the classic case of, oh, this looks ridiculous. And then they start playing, and they're like, wait a second, why am I laughing like a kid having a great time? What's going on here?
Mr. Pannell: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: So it's a definitely versatile system, and these settings will help you, you know, that versatility wherever you need. Nice. All right. I think that was, let me go through my last thing here, see if I missed anything for you. Sound settings, right. So if you go to that home screen, you'll have a little sound setting in the top right corner. If you have any sensory sensitive students, this is where this is going to help out. Yes. You can... Literally change that slider up and down.
Mr. Pannell: you're in a small space with acoustics that are overbearing. I think I had the sound at eight when they were out in the field. Yep. And I didn't change it until the first beep in the gym. I was like, I'm changing that right now. Yep.
Steven Hanna: It so loud. You realize it, and you'll see the kids start to put their fingers.
Mr. Pannell: Yeah. When you got 20, you got about 20 watches beeping at the same time with the high-pitched thing in a little gym.
Steven Hanna: So, it's not a very big gym, though. A hundred percent. But the sound settings are obviously something that you can change depending on where you're going with the system.
Mr. Pannell: Right.
Steven Hanna: I actually do some library events where I'm at. So, we put it at volume two, and it works in the library. On the field, it's at volume 10.
Mr. Pannell: In a gym, it's probably at volume three or four. Right. I think that's where I ended up putting it. I think I ended up putting it on three. That's where I had it was three. Yeah. It was plenty loud.
Steven Hanna: For I'm Thank Hey. Hey. Bye. For And you said you already tested the range of the system.
Mr. Pannell: You've already ran like a mock event, basically. Yeah, we were out last week, the very first day. I just, I have middle schoolers that I teach on the after school. There's somebody watching my class right now. But I was like, hey, I just, we got this. I did the little PD thing on it. I got it registered and it's been plugged in. Everything's charged. I'm like, let's go outside.
Steven Hanna: It's nice.
Mr. Pannell: Let's see what this thing can do.
Steven Hanna: Let's fire this bad boy up and see what it does.
Mr. Pannell: Took it down to the field and we were playing. I stayed out there the whole time for the after school program. We ended up having, I had 5th and 6th and 7th graders. ended up with 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th. Oh, we have some high schoolers coming down. Oh, excellent.
Steven Hanna: It was awesome. crowd.
Mr. Pannell: It drew the crowd for sure. Yeah, sure did.
Steven Hanna: All right. Well, then with that being said, I'm just going to take you through a quick shutdown sequence to know that you're comfortable with the shutdown.
Mr. Pannell: All right.
Steven Hanna: All This is the way the system should be shut down all the time, and I tell people, please save your data and save your system from eventually becoming, you know, something that's not usable.
Mr. Pannell: Right, yeah.
Steven Hanna: The shutdown sequence is pretty important on this, similar to a regular computer. If you just start pulling that cord out, you may be losing data over time, and you may be corrupting the system.
Mr. Pannell: And I'm corrupting the system over time, and sometimes it won't even work because it's just too corrupted.
Steven Hanna: Exactly. So the first step that you're going to do is to remove the antenna and remove that little black clip that goes on to it. I recommend you get a little Ziploc bag. My wife told me that I needed to get a shaving bag to protect it, and that worked really well. Yeah. Any sort of protective cover, just so that you can put it over the top of the router.
Mr. Pannell: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Now you'll notice, there's a little slot where all of the cables were originally, between the...
Mr. Pannell: Yeah, a little square down.
Steven Hanna: Right. So what you're going to want to do is keep that router as close to the top right corner as possible.
Mr. Pannell: That's what I have. I haven't even taken the twisties off. I'm not going to take the twisties off. There's no need for that cable.
Steven Hanna: I'm not taking the twisties off. I told everybody, do not take the twisties off the wire. Leave it alone. I have mine from three and a half years ago still on, so I'm in the same boat.
Mr. Pannell: If you have any troubles with it, just come and get me. Don't take the twisties off the wire because I hate when all the wires go everywhere.
Steven Hanna: Yep.
Mr. Pannell: So from there, you're going to put the router in that little top right seated corner.
Steven Hanna: You're going to be taking, and I use a little Ziploc bag. I put the two little antennas down, and then I... Yeah, I got the Ziploc bag from when it was shipped, so... Perfect. Then just kind of keep it in that, and you're going to seat the antennas down on the bottom side of the case. Yeah.
Mr. Pannell: After that... next little keyboard thing that was in there.
Steven Hanna: You can actually... Probably remove that if you need extra space. that out? Yeah.
Mr. Pannell: It's not something that's the same. Okay. Good deal. Yeah, it's like, it's there in case you need it.
Steven Hanna: I'm like, I don't think we're going to need it. It's more for like very heavy tech. Yeah, I would say very heavy tech-based issues if we need to like type things in specifically.
Mr. Pannell: That's what that would be for.
Steven Hanna: But it's not needed for everyday use. And if you need the extra storage space, this is the way to go with it.
Mr. Pannell: I'm just throw this away. Throw it away. Put it away in the filing cabinet with all my other extra tech stuff to set to the side so I know where it's at.
Steven Hanna: Just label it with, get some painter's tape and just write ZTAG mouse keyboard on it. keyboard, yeah.
Mr. Pannell: I won't even take the little dongle out.
Steven Hanna: I'm just going leave the little dongle plugged in here. That's fine. In your top right corner on the LCD screen, there should be a power button indicator. Yep. Just tap that for me and you should see reboot or shutdown depending on. first there's Your needs, nine out of ten times, it's going to be a shutdown.
Mr. Pannell: Shutdown, yeah.
Steven Hanna: Tap that shutdown. You should see the LCD monitor go black. Mm-hmm. Give it about ten seconds. Then you're going to tap that blue button, and remember, you're going to be working from that top-down sequence. So we already did our router. Now we're going to be working on that blue power button. You press that. Now that that's off, we're going to be giving it another ten seconds, and then you're going to be hitting that red power button. After that, you're going to be free to remove the power cord from the female end inside the system.
Mr. Pannell: Wow. And then you can obviously unplug it from the other side. Yep.
Steven Hanna: And you're going to coil this up in the nicest way that you see fit for what your function will be in that system case.
Mr. Pannell: Which is exactly how you guys gave it to me. Yep. I'm pretty – I take a picture when I get it. I just need to know exactly how – yeah, exactly. I'm going to wrap it up just the way it does, just like that.
Steven Hanna: I still got the little twisty tie right here for it and everything. You know it, man. You know it.
Mr. Pannell: Well, I I hate it because, like, I would hate for somebody to come behind me if I'm like – if I have a copstick and had plans for this and they're like, oh, they open it up and it's just a bunch of tangled stuff. I'm going to be like – I would be mad if I opened it up and it was all tangled up in a mess.
Steven Hanna: It's like somebody using your car and leaving garbage in it and you go, really?
Mr. Pannell: Yeah. Come on, man.
Steven Hanna: This is the condition that we leave this in? This is a nice thing. Let's treat it nicely.
Mr. Pannell: Exactly.
Steven Hanna: And in your case, as you close it, you should have the following contents. You should have the power cable. That black power cable is one. You should have two antennas for your router. You should have the router itself and you should have a little black clip for the router to mount on top of the system.
Mr. Pannell: Yep.
Steven Hanna: With that that being said – You're more than welcome to close your case. Just remember, if your case is not closing, please reseed it. Don't try and jam it.
Mr. Pannell: I don't know why you would do that, because that means that you're probably going to miss another router. Exactly. Or a cable.
Steven Hanna: You're going to fix the cable in half. And there is just one last thing I do want to mention to you in regards to the charging capabilities. While you are charging, lift that lid a little bit for some heat dissipation.
Mr. Pannell: You're going to need a little bit. I keep it at about a 45-degree angle.
Steven Hanna: Perfect.
Mr. Pannell: Because I didn't notice, like, because it did say on there, keep lifting, because it gets warm. And I noticed even with it fully open, it still gets warm down in there.
Steven Hanna: It does get a little toasty. And if you can make sure that they're a little bit easier on the coolness, you'll have a great experience. That's pretty much it for the training, Chris. Do you have any questions for me in regards to anything at all?
Mr. Pannell: No, it's pretty cut, dry, pretty straightforward, pretty easy stuff. That's pretty cool. The really, the two times that we've played it, like I said, it's only been an hour, 30 minutes each time. That's been great.
Steven Hanna: Cool, man. Very cool. You're also going to get a copy of this training sent to your email. So whatever you signed up with for the Calendly link, it's going to get shot straight over to your email. On our side, basically what happens here is you're certified as a playmaker through me, which means that any support level that you need, you basically have through the entire ZTAG community. But if there's a deeper level of support that you might need, I'm here for you. In addition to that, we may invite you to a few meetings in the future to meet some other ZTAG operators to share some best practices where you guys can share a ideas on how to best operate the system. That's like a once-a-month thing, and it's not mandatory, obviously, if you have some time and want to spend it talking to some people.
Mr. Pannell: Yeah, mean, if I have time, most definitely I would love to do that.
Steven Hanna: For sure, man. And you'll just get a follow-up email with this exact training. So if you ever need to refer to it, you'll have access to this email, the PlayMaker certification, and you'll have access to this training that we just went through.
Mr. Pannell: Okay, sounds great.
Steven Hanna: All right. Any other questions before we jump off?
Mr. Pannell: No, Steven, that's it, man.
Steven Hanna: All right. Take care, and I'm super excited to welcome you on to the ZTAG team, and if you ever need anything, we're all here to support. All right, I appreciate it. Have a wonderful day. Take care. You too.
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Steven Hanna: This meeting is being recorded. Good morning, Syra. Syra, are you there? Syra, Syra, are there? Syra, there? Syracism Syracism has been selected. ...
Lunden Dueñas: Good morning.
Steven Hanna: morning.
Lunden Dueñas: How are you? Better yourself?
Steven Hanna: Doing well, doing well. about that. No, no worries. I understand. Tech issues. I gotcha.
Lunden Dueñas: That was the first time I was going use this, so I don't know how everything works.
Steven Hanna: No worries. New experience. So, how are you, first off? How do you like the system besides the tech issues?
Lunden Dueñas: Good. actually, it's, like, my second week with this department. So, I'm brand new, brand new. So, I haven't really got, you know, able to try it out or anything like that. But, in our first meeting, like, last week or two weeks ago, some of them picked it up, but they're saying they're having issues with it.
Steven Hanna: So, I'm just trying to see how we can help them. Okay. Do you have the system in front of you?
Lunden Dueñas: No, unfortunately, another one brought it back.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Then, this might be a little bit challenging if they didn't bring the systems back, but I can give you a quick run-through on how to start up. System, and I can also send you the Quick Start Training Guide. That's probably going to be the most beneficial thing, is that people watch that. So when you're first starting the system up and you open the case, the first thing that you're going to do is remove the router.
Lunden Dueñas: Okay.
Steven Hanna: And you're going to screw on the little antennas to that.
Lunden Dueñas: Okay.
Steven Hanna: There's a little black clip that it's like a little U-hook. That attaches to the back of the router that you can mount it to the top of the system with.
Lunden Dueñas: Oh, okay.
Steven Hanna: So you're going to mount it to the top. And all of this is going to be really clear in the video once you see it. And you'll also have this video sent over to you.
Lunden Dueñas: So if you don't want to take notes, you're totally fine. Oh, okay.
Steven Hanna: I'm just like writing it down. Don't even worry about it. Just kind of visualize it because you'll have all the notes in this cool little fancy note table.
Lunden Dueñas: send it back to you. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Sounds good. Okay. So... When you first start the system, like we said, you take the router out, you're going to remove that, put that to the side, screw on the two little antennas, take the little black mounting piece, and put that onto the router, mount it onto the system itself. From there, you're going to take the black power cable and plug that into your power source. The system lid should be completely open at this point to access this. So, once you plug the black power cable in, right above the black power cable, there is a little orange or red power button, you're going to press that, and that's going to turn the system on. You're going to wait about 10 seconds, you're going to hear a beep on all of the devices, indicating that they're turned on, and there's going to be a red charging indicator on the side of each device. So, when you hit that red power button, after that 10 seconds, hit the blue power, or the. Silver power button right above it. It will turn blue, indicating that it is on. You're going to have to wait about a minute and a half for the system to turn on and go through.
Lunden Dueñas: It's like a computer.
Steven Hanna: If you turn it on, it takes a minute to get to the home screen, that type of thing. Think of it like that. Just be a little bit patient with it. Give it about a minute, minute and a half. The system will turn on.
Lunden Dueñas: Okay.
Steven Hanna: After that, you're going to open up that little plexiglass lid, and you're going to take the device out of the magnetic charger dock. On the left-hand side of the device, there's a red power button. Press it once.
Lunden Dueñas: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Give it a few seconds. It'll turn on, make a beep. Do you need to jump to do something, or do you...?
Lunden Dueñas: Well, I think she got my computer going.
Steven Hanna: No, you're fine. Keep going on with your computer. Yeah, okay. No worries. So, on the left side of the little watch, there's going to be a red power button. You're going to tap that once to turn it on. Give it about 10 seconds and the device should turn on. While it's turning on and you're looking at the screen, the ZTAG logo is going to appear. In the top right corner, you know how we have our battery indicators on our phones in the taskbar? Same area, there's going to be two things that you're going to look for. The first thing is that the battery indicator is there, indicating that there is charge. Each of the little bars is about one hour of charge. So you'll have four hours of continuous use before you need to recharge. The second thing you're going to look for is a sequence of a few letters and numbers right next to the battery. Yeah. If you see that little sequence of letters and numbers, that means that the watch is communicating with the main system. From there, you can go into your games. So you should have straight access once you turn it on and get to the home screen. You should should Should be able to go right into your games and just tap screen from there. Have you seen the home screen before?
Lunden Dueñas: No, like I said, unfortunately, they picked them up that day that we had it, and I think that was like my first day.
Steven Hanna: Okay. That's kind of the startup sequence with it. As far as the games go, we should probably schedule a training with who's going to be using the system so that we can just give them like a quick rundown on, hey, this is how to use your system in the best way possible. Okay.
Lunden Dueñas: Maybe most of them do know, like, because I think most of the providers have been providers for a while, so they might have already kind of, because some of them have an idea, it's just they're just having those issues.
Steven Hanna: Okay. It's kind of just troubleshooting it and just going from the ground up with it. But if most of them are, what I'm hearing is it might be a connection Wi-Fi issue, but you don't need... Wi-Fi to connect, necessarily. The system runs without Wi-Fi.
Lunden Dueñas: Wi-Fi is actually only needed to update.
Steven Hanna: Okay. So, if people are saying it's not connecting to Wi-Fi, that's actually fine.
Lunden Dueñas: Oh, okay. Okay. That makes sense. And I think that was the biggest issue, was not connecting to Wi-Fi, and then the other one was not charging, I think.
Steven Hanna: So, for the charging, just make sure that they're really seated well inside of the device. It is a magnetic lock, but you may have to just shimmy it a little bit, just to get it perfectly seated, so it starts the charge process.
Lunden Dueñas: Okay. Yes, and this recording would be good, because that way I can share it with them. And then, you know, try it, and for whatever reason, they still have an issue, and I can reach back out to you. And then, you can set up something where they are present. It's just, unfortunately, some of them weren't responding, so we couldn't all get on the same page.
Steven Hanna: It's the start of the school year. I know what's going on. There's a lot of... We shuffling around. Don't worry about it. But if you ever need support, you'll have my email. can pretty much contact me if it's like day of logistics, like, oh my goodness, we need to get this running right now. Yeah. But I'll also send over the video resources for just starting up the devices, starting up the system itself. I think it would be wise that they just, they're like two minutes long.
Lunden Dueñas: It doesn't, it's not going to. No, that'll be great. Anything that you can send my way that I can share with them, that'll be amazing.
Steven Hanna: Okay, cool. Then, if it's more than likely the Wi-Fi stuff that they're complaining about, I'm just going to reinforce, it's not needed to play. Okay. It's just needed to update the system, and we'll notify you when an update is available.
Lunden Dueñas: Okay, sounds good then.
Steven Hanna: I will shoot you over this recording. I will send you over the video resources. And is there anything else you might need for me before we jump off?
Lunden Dueñas: Um, no, I think that'd be all for now, but I can always email you. Yep, have Tin's email, you've got my email, and I'm going to get this stuff your way in probably 10 minutes or so. Okay, sounds good.
Steven Hanna: Perfect. Thank you. All right, Saira.
Lunden Dueñas: Have a wonderful day. nice meeting you.
Steven Hanna: You as well.
Lunden Dueñas: Take care. Thanks, Saira.
Steven Hanna: This meeting is being recorded. Morning.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Hey, good morning.
Steven Hanna: How are you?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): I'm doing good.
Steven Hanna: How about yourself? Doing all right. Doing all right. Mali, right?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Mali.
Steven Hanna: Mali? Okay. How's it going, dude? My name is Steve. Thank you for taking the time to meet with me today for some ZTAG stuff. Do you have any questions about ZTAG, the system, or anything before we kind of jump in?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): I've been playing it a lot with my students in my program, so me and my staff have been enjoying ZTAG. Only a few things probably just came up. Some of the bands don't connect, so it's like a connecting issue. It's probably like one or two. So I do have two different crates. I brought one to one of my staff meetings yesterday, and it was just like one band didn't connect. So I've been struggling trying to figure out how to get it to connect.
Steven Hanna: Connect to the main server. Okay. Are they consistently the same two, or is it random?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Yeah, for the main box that I've been using with my students, it's been like the number seven, the band seven.
Steven Hanna: seven. Okay. So maybe that's something on a device level that we may need to take a quick look at. And this is consistent, you said, right?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Yeah, so we just don't even use the seven one, or band seven, or Zagger seven. And I was just wondering if there was like a way to reprogram it, or if there's a way to connect it.
Steven Hanna: So we can actually try something right now.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Do you have the system in front of you? Yeah, I have it over here. I don't have it plugged up or anything.
Steven Hanna: Okay. If you want to just get it plugged in while I'm just kind of working through it so that we can see if we could troubleshoot it, we'll start there. That would be a good first step for us. So you've obviously used the system many times before, and this is kind of just a quick overview of, do you need anything for support from us?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Yeah, I use it a lot. The kids like it. At my site, we do a lot of, like, class challenges and stuff, so they win points. So that was one of the main reasons I wanted ZTAG. I got to use it in Palm Springs two years ago. Cool. So I've been asking the Elf Grove District, hey, let me get them, ZTAG. So they finally got it for me, so I've been having a lot of fun with it.
Steven Hanna: That's awesome, man. Glad to hear, glad to hear. In addition to that just little connectivity problem, were there any other issues that arose that maybe we need to work through?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): So far, no. I haven't played, like, a big class game with the 24 bands that we got. But, um, so I'll kind of have, like, a couple kids at a time, maybe, like, 10. And, um, I tried... Zombie Tag once, which was pretty fun. I was a little worried because the kids are, like, looking at the van, and then there's other kids trying to tag them. So I'm like, I hope nobody gets punched in the face.
Steven Hanna: That is a concern.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Yeah, for the most part, they're pretty safe, so I haven't had any injuries or anything. Yeah, so I like the games a lot. But we mostly play the Red Light, Green Light, and then Pattern Natch.
Steven Hanna: Yes.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Those are probably the two popular games that we do here. The kids really want to do ZTAG, but I was like, we'll wait for a day when we don't have, like, the blacktop or the cafeteria, and we'll do ZTAG on the field. That way they have, like, a bigger area to run on. But for the most part, the kids have been loving it.
Steven Hanna: Cool. All right. If the system's kind of turned on, the first thing that I'm going to do is ask... For Numbers 7, while it's in the dock right now, does it show a little, does it show like a Wi-Fi bar on it?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Let me plug it up now.
Steven Hanna: Okay. And have you encountered any things that are like, yeah, this is kind of bogus, I don't really feel great about. Or is it kind of just working through it, and as it arises, you'll kind of say, like, oh, okay, that's that.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): No, I think for the most part, we all have been enjoying the game, are enjoying the system. So I just kind of like trying to maneuver into, like, how to utilize it in a program. So sometimes I might do, like, 10 players at a time and then have kids swap off. Because I have a big program, I have, like, 200 kids. So I would do, like, primary groups first, first kinder to third grade, and then I'll call a couple kids up at a time, and then they'll play the game. And then they'll swap bands with another student as the team leaders would, like, swap them in and out. So I've just been kind of modifying it. I did give, like, some of the team leaders the option if they want to just take their class for, like, the 20 students that they have, and then do it as, like, an activity. So I did have one class take the system. that. let me To play it with their class, which I think that's a little bit better for some of the kids because they all get to just play at the same time instead of like watching other kids go and then waiting for their turn. So we just been utilizing it in different ways in the program.
Steven Hanna: Cool. All right. That's great to hear because I can give you a bunch of settings and stuff to maybe assist a little bit in refining some of the games for you guys to give you guys more ideas. That's something like we have a bunch of game settings on there that I want to kind of go through and just give you a little bit of the best practices on since you've already operated the system. And, you know, realistically, the training on this for you is best practices on how to take it to the next level almost because you already know how to utilize, turn on, turn off, start a game, end a game, you know, get the taggers on. And so for for your group in your classes, you said that you separated out into primaries and then secondaries.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Yeah. So we have intermediate groups.
Steven Hanna: So for. Okay.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): But I kind of always split them up, and we always do, like, class games on Wednesdays and Fridays. Cool. So I've just kind of been throwing ZTAG in there for some of those days. I don't want it to get too old fast. And then so when the kids do get a chance to play, they're really, like, hyped for it. Okay. Do you know if there's a way that we can, like, I don't know if there's, like, more games that's going to come out?
Steven Hanna: How many games do you have on your system right now?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): I have six or eight.
Steven Hanna: Six. have six, I think. Cool. Do you want to update with me today, and I'll get you two more?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Oh, yeah, yeah.
Steven Hanna: Okay. So the first thing that we'll do is once you turn the system on.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Actually, I have eight.
Steven Hanna: Sorry. Eight. Okay. Then you're golden. We got two newest games. We're going to come up with a few new things in the next year or two where you'll actually have more control and customization of your games. And there may be an opportunity in the future where it's almost like... Thank you. An open source where you can create your own game depending on what you want to do. So that's kind of like in the pipeline where custom design games is going to be in your hand. So you can decide how you're making it depending on what you need.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): I'm going to suggest we can do like the odd one out type of game.
Steven Hanna: Well, tell me about it.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Tell me a little bit more about it. So like when I do my class challenges, it'll be pretty cool to have like if it's like a four player game or 10 player game. But if it's just four or four people playing, I don't know if you ever heard of the game Fusey Francis from like the old Xbox. Tell me, man. Tell me. You had a game on there. It like odd one out. So you have one person that's like kind of somewhat it. And then you have the timer go down and they have like 15 seconds to try to tag another band. So it's like one person that's odd. And then you got the other three that's trying to get away from that one person. And then once the 10 seconds is over, whoever is it is. Eliminate it, and then the game will select another person to be the odd one out.
Steven Hanna: I like that. That is a cool idea, man.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Yeah, I was like, yeah, that would be a pretty cool game. And then I know it's not the full 24 bands, but you can still make it like you have a bunch of people, that's it, trying to get somebody before the timer goes out. And then once that timer goes out, a bunch of people get eliminated.
Steven Hanna: I think they actually have something, which I can walk you through in our settings, because this is what this training is going to be, is just, let's get you to the next level on the games. Let's go into Red Light, Green Light first, because I want to show you a few settings here where you can either make it super competitive or reduce it down to casual, depending on primary or intermediate.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Okay.
Steven Hanna: So if you hit that little, if you go into Red Light, Green Light, and hit the little settings tab, what you'll find is there's three settings for Red Light, Green Light. You'll have time, you'll have sensitivity. my this video and we'll And then you'll have negative scoring, correct?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Okay. So with the time, I always like to set it as 60 seconds. Red light, green light is a pretty quick game. And you can probably run it two or three times in that 60-second timer. On the sensitivity, depending on your primaries or intermediates, for your intermediates, you're going to be looking at medium to high sensitivity. And you're going to have zero negative scoring. So that checkmark box, it unchecked. So negative scoring is basically, are you going to get eliminated in this round? Or are you going to get caught on red, but you could still play the whole round and earn those points back?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Okay.
Steven Hanna: So this is one thing that if you needed to separate it out for a little bit of a competition and those older students who are a little bit more cognitively, you know, readily available to utilize their brain, you will have this cool distinction between... Incompetitive Nature of the Secondaries, and then Casual Nature of the Youngers Learning and Reinforcing the Skills. So, changing the sensitivity on these, really great way to do it. And negative scoring checked means they'll lose a few points if they get caught on red. If it's unchecked, it means they get eliminated.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Okay.
Steven Hanna: So that's the first thing that I would say in red light, green light. Check out those settings, and you can scaffold it in a way where, like what I like to do personally with my groups, I do the first game is 60 seconds with negative scoring. Then the second game is 60 seconds elimination. And then the third game is 30 seconds elimination. So we do this three-game sequence in our script, and that gets them, you know, blood pumping, gets their, you know, heart rate up a little bit for the next games. From that, you can probably jump into pattern match, because the sequencing of the skills that we try to teach as developers is, you want to get them understanding rather... Like Greenlight first, moving into the tagging component. Take your time, dude. You're good.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): No, you're good. Yeah, I got it all pulled up here, so I didn't even know about the settings right there, because I was wondering if I can change the time limit.
Steven Hanna: Yes, absolutely you can. We're going to go through the settings on each of these, just so I can give you the best practices, because like I said, you already know how to utilize the system, and all I would be doing is redundant information to you. And I would want to give you the stuff to take you to the next level. So, jump into pattern match for me. And go into the settings in the top right. So, when you notice on this settings screen, you'll see a variety of different shapes and a variety of different colors you'll be able to select from, depending on what you're trying to teach. Sides of a shape, that's something that just came up this week, where you can isolate. The sides of the shape that you want to teach. If you wanted to teach squares, pentahoe, hectah, sectah, things like that. So you have the ability to do that in this section here and also change up the colors. If you do continuous mode, it is always going to be moving. No timer. It'll just continuously go. What I like to do with pattern match and shape match is I like to ask the kids if they've ever played a game like Uno before. Because this is like matching an Uno where it's instead of a number, it's a shape, but you're matching the color. So the same concept. You can start this off by saying, has anybody ever played Uno before? And they have. You'll have one student who has. You can then ask them for a call and an answer response of, okay, can you help me out? What's one way we can match an Uno? And they'll give you color or shape. Great. What's the second way? And then they'll give you color or shape. What you can then do with that information is say one. Wonderful. For our game today, we're going to be focusing our first game on colors only. Whatever you see on your watch, you are going to call out and match with a partner with the same color, focusing on that. The second game, you're only going to be focusing on shape. So you're only focusing on the shape and saying, I have a square, I have a triangle, I have a star. The third game, since you've scaffolded the color and the shape, you combine the two for colors and shape matching. So for time on this, I like to keep it as 90 seconds. It's a nice, nice, happy medium for a minute and a half. It starts to get a little bit redundant around the two minute mark. So if you can kind of call it before that and then restart it, you'll have a really good way to keep the sequence going. And like if you're trying to do one game a day almost, which it sounds like that's kind of aligned with it, you can structure it where you're only focusing on colors for the first three games. You're only focusing on shapes for the Now you're only going to be focusing on warm colors, so reds, yellows, oranges. Now we're focusing on cool colors, blues, purples, those types of things. So there's a lot of variety in how you can take it and the direction you can take it in. That's kind of color match, shape match, pattern match. Any questions on that one?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): No, that was pretty cool. Yeah, I definitely would try to implement that. then now that I got the timer, too, because I've noticed when I did play with the half the program, you would see a bunch of kids like huddling up and they're like talking while the other kids are watching. So I think now that I can adjust the time and make the game move a little bit quicker so we can get more people getting, you know, getting the turn with the band.
Steven Hanna: So yeah, that's pretty cool. What's the next game you want to exploit? Just pull up a game, tell me what we're in, and then we'll go through settings.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Um, I haven't played, um, Keep Away yet. Um, but when I push the, um, the open up the game, it doesn't have, like, the directions that come up for Keep Away. Um, so I haven't got a chance to see what that one was about yet.
Steven Hanna: So, there's two fun things we can do with Keep Away. The first thing that we can do is we play it as Keep Away, where one person has the watch with the ball, so to say, and they run away from everybody else. Sometimes that gets a little bit too intense with the spotlight effect on kids, and they're, like, running away from a crowd of kids chasing them. So, what I do is I reverse it, and it's not Keep Away, it's TAG, where instead of you trying to hold on to the ball, you want to give it away. It's hot potato, basically. You don't want that ball at all. The more time you have, that means the hotter the potato you are, basically. So, with the TAG version, instead of 15 trying to grab the ball from one, that one is now going after the 15. And it reduces that, you know, you had mentioned that you didn't want the kids bumping into each other. It reduces that by a lot. Instead of 15 going after one, having one reverse to 15, it changes up the mindset of group attack versus group scatter. So it's just a different mindset. In this, you can also select how many people have the ball or how many people are taggers. So what I like to do for my groups is start out with one, one person, one tagger, one minute on the game. The next game, I go, perfect. You guys all did great with one. What if we do two? And I throw two people in as the taggers. And then after another minute, I'm like, great. What about four? And then we make four people in the taggers. And the game keeps expanding and expanding from there. So keep away. I like to reverse it, as I said, turn it into a tag game. And what you're going to mention to everybody is that this is not a physical contact sport, right? This is. something that you can do from a distance with each other, and you can do that by showing them how to tag in PatternMatch. So we went through Red Light, Green Light. They have the sensor understanding of how the watch picks them up. We then went through PatternMatch, where you can teach them how to tag. Now we're moving into our Chase Tag games, which are going to be Keep Away, Zombie Tag. Those are the two where both of these skill sets kind of need to be at the foundation before you can have a great game for Zombie Tag. So you kind of said, I'm hesitant to do Zombie Tag with them because I know how they'll react to it. If you structure it in a way where you teach them Red Light, Green Light, PatternMatch, and then offer them the opportunity to play Zombie Tag, I think you'll be in a much better spot. With Zombie Tag, if you want to jump into that, I'll show you some fun settings on that where you can basically skew it in a direction that you needed to move towards. So you have ZTAG with Doctor, ZTAG without, whichever one you want to go into first.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): We can do it without. I played ZTAG with the Doctors, with the students. They really liked that one. Nice. Yeah. Right now I'm on the settings for the one without the Doctor.
Steven Hanna: So you should have time, right?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): You should have number of tags before infection. Does that sound right? Yep.
Steven Hanna: What other settings do you have?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Zombie on randomized and then infection direction. Yeah, direction.
Steven Hanna: Okay. So the zombies on randomized, that's basically saying how many people are going to be randomized as a zombie at the start. You can change this depending on your room size. What we recommend is always having two zombies at the start. But if it's a small... If room, you may want to make it one. If it's a larger room, you may want to make it three. The infection duration is the amount of time it takes for them to turn into a zombie. So there should be something called number of tags before infection as well.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Yeah.
Steven Hanna: So that setting is how many lives each person has before they become a zombie. So on the green team as a human, they have like one heart usually. You can actually change that to two, three, four, five, six, depending on how you want the program to run. So if it's a small area, what we recommend is to give them a few more lives because they'll lose them. If it's a larger area, we recommend to reduce the amount of lives because we want to make it a little bit more easier for the zombies to make the game even. If you want to jump out of that and go into zombie tech with Doctor, there's two or three more settings that I just want to go over with you before we go into the next game. Thank you. So there should be two or three new settings here. One is going to be Doctor Heal Limit in the top right corner. That's basically how many times the Doctor can save people before they turn back into a human. So you can select them, hey, you can only save five people in this round. And after that, they turn back into a human, and the Zombies have a higher chance of at least evening out the game. Hmm. The, what's the next setting in the bottom left?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): So the Doctor, the Randomizer, the Doctor.
Steven Hanna: So you can also select how many Zombies, Humans, and Doctors you have at the start by changing those values there. With more Doctors, you're going to want to increase the time on the game. With less Doctors, you're going to decrease the time on the game. There should be. ZTA Doctor Heal Limit. We went over that. You can save five people. The infection duration here, this is when the humans can find the doctor and become saved, right? So they'll have that 10-second timer to find a doctor. You can change those settings depending on what you're trying to accomplish with your group as well. So if you needed it to be a few seconds lower, go ahead, change it. That's pretty much ZTAG with doctor. What you'll find is that your kids will probably hover around the Zeus unit to see who they are. You can let them, and that's fine, and then just hit random five times when they walk away, and it's, you know, as if they never saw them. So ZTAG with doctor. Have you had the opportunity to go through the new games, the Sequence Train and WordWave yet? They're in the bottom right corner. They're the last two.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): I think I did the WordWave. We haven't did the training one yet.
Steven Hanna: Okay. How did WordWave work for you?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): I did that one with my staff, so it was pretty fun.
Steven Hanna: Cool. Anything that didn't go great on that one or decent?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): I think they were just more into, like, the zombie tag, so they wanted to play, like, the games where you get to run around, like, a lot. Gotcha. But for the most part, they enjoyed almost every game. I just, I didn't do keep away with them, so that was, like, probably, like, the only game that I didn't play.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): But for the most part, I think we dabbled in almost all the other games. Yeah. I don't think we did the training one either, so.
Steven Hanna: Okay. For these two new ones, I kind of want to take you through how to play them. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Word wave game, you're going to separate out into English to Spanish or English to French words, and there's going to be two separate teams. The purple team and the green team, they have to match the words to the other color. So a green team has to find a purple team member with the word match. They can't match word to word, like green to green or purple to purple. It has to be opposite language. So when you're setting that one up, just reinforce the fact that if you're on the green team, try and find someone on the purple team with that same word. If you're on the purple team, find someone on the green team. With Sequence Train, there's a really nice way to set it up where you'll have a group kind of in a circle, and it's called a tag-in, where the person in the middle has the flashing watch. And they'll say, I have a number one, who's got number two? And outside of the circle, whoever has number two will tag into the middle of the circle. circle. be So that number two is in the middle and goes, okay, who's got number three? Whoever's number three from the outside of the circle will come and tag in, and they'll remain on the inside. So it's kind of this game of everybody tags in and out, where if you have the next number in the sequence, you're in the middle of the circle. It's a little bit challenging over Zoom to describe. You'd have to kind of like see it in action, because a little bit challenging.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Yeah, I'm picturing it. I think that would probably be a cool class challenge if I have my, say if I'm doing intermediate, got fourth graders, they come up, they select their six players, and then I will have them do the game, and then see who can complete it faster, and then I'll have the fifth grade class come in, and then they'll select their five players, and then we'll see, and I'll have a timer to see who completes the sequence the quickest.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, that's awesome. It's like a competitive counting team almost.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Yeah. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: That would be cool. Then you just get their high scores, like what number did your group get up to? And then you can rank them on a leaderboard and be like, the fourth grade class got up to 120. Can you guys do that? You can also set what the pattern is. So if you want it to go up by tens, by fives, by odds, evens, prime, real numbers, you have a lot of versatility in the options here to focus on specific number sequences. And then our last game that I do want to go over is going to be Math Match, I believe.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): We didn't touch up on that one. Oh, yeah, yeah. We did that one, too.
Steven Hanna: I just want you to jump into the settings on this because if you need to hone in and focus on specific operands, like addition and subtraction or multiplication and division, you can actually select them.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Oh, yeah. Yeah, I see it right here.
Steven Hanna: Yep, so this is a really good way if you needed to incorporate that, you know, counting element. Again, where we're working on multiplication or division, what age group are you mostly working with? The intermediates or the primaries?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): I've been letting both groups play. So when I have the days, I even had kindergartners playing the red light, green light. I didn't know about the sensitivity, but I had a few of them that got up to like 200 points, and I was like, oh, wow.
Steven Hanna: That's impressive.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): It was, and they were kind of still moving, and I was like, why they ain't out yet? So, but yeah, I had a few of them that did really good with it. I think the red light, green light has been like the easiest one to teach with the students. So like kindergartners are playing it, and I have TK in my program too, so they're like four-year-olds that's, you know, able to play that game, and they understand to go when it's green and then stop when it's red. So now that I know that I can change the settings, I can make the game a little bit more easier. Easier for them, but for the most part, I played the games equally about the same amount of time for both age groups.
Steven Hanna: Cool. Okay. Nice. One thing that I do want to ask is, can you go into your system setting itself? I'm just curious to see how much time you guys have on your system so far. Okay. Do you know how to get to the little setting in the top right, the cog, and it'll bring up the tabs on the left?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Yeah, it probably can, but we can bring you down here.
Steven Hanna: Thank you. Yeah. So in that top right corner, you're going to have a little cog. Yep, there you go. Have you been in this section at all?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): I was messing around with it when I was trying to figure out how to get the band to connect, but I didn't want to touch too much. Okay.
Steven Hanna: So I'm actually going to take you... I'm this because it's beneficial for you to know how to navigate this section. We're just going to go tab by tab with it. So your connection tab is going to be your Wi-Fi tab. You don't need Wi-Fi to run the system.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): I do want to stress that.
Steven Hanna: You can run it without Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi is for updating the system when those updates roll out. So you're more than likely on the most recent version, which is 2.8.0 and 7.0.26 on the watches itself. When you do need to connect to Wi-Fi, sometimes your school or community center might have an issue with our system connecting in. You may have to connect to Wi-Fi at the home front to update if you run into that issue, or we can work with your IT department to potentially get that fixed.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): In the device tab, if you click on that, you'll have one through, what does that say, 24 or 26? Uh, 24.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Okay. It's at this point you can reset your device numbers. If you had multiple systems that you were using, some of them may have duplicated in a number, and you may just, your brain might not be able to sequence that 1 through 24 if they're dupes. So when the devices are all in the charge dock, if you hit the reset device button, it'll reassign them all 1 through 24.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Okay. Do you want me to hit that now?
Steven Hanna: If you want to try it, go for it.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): I got 21 now.
Steven Hanna: Are all of the devices in the dock with a red charger?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): I have one that's red, but...
Steven Hanna: Rest are green?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Yeah, got two that's not green.
Steven Hanna: But all of them are charging or charged?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Yeah.
Steven Hanna: And it's only coming up with 21 devices.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): So there's a few that weren't lighting up, so let me try to readjust.
Steven Hanna: just re-seat them, and then they should actually pop up.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): So everything's lighting up now. Should I hit it again?
Steven Hanna: Yeah, we can try that.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): It says 22.
Steven Hanna: That number 7 that we were talking about before, is that? Oh, now it's 20.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Now it's 24.
Steven Hanna: All right. Okay. On the next tab down, you're going to have firmware, if you could tap on that. So you should have 7.0.26.bin, correct?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Yeah.
Steven Hanna: So that means that you're fully updated to the most current system. And... And... So this is going to be the area once you go and get the firmware, this is how you push it to the device, to the individual devices. So I'm actually going to have you go to the About section and skip a few tabs. What I'm going to ask you to do after is register your system too. Can you go to Help? Left tab. Oh, yep. This is going to be your QR code start guide for some resources that you may need in the future. Go back down to About. That's interesting. Tom. You. Could he be in a perpetual road loop if he's not fredged? It looks like maybe a port block. Okay. So you're at your school or community center right now?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Yeah, I'm at the school right now.
Steven Hanna: Okay. You might actually be running into, like, a little bit of an internet connectivity issue with us and the Zeus end. We're to this for an update. So you may have to take this off-site for an over-the-air update, or if that's not an option and your community center says, no, that's not happening, we could probably, when we do release an update, send you a little SD card, which you can pop right in.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Okay. I can probably see if I can connect, take it home and try to connect it.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, or even a hotspot. If you've got a phone hotspot, that would... We don't have to do it now for time constraint in your day, but it is something that you're going to want to do in the future.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Okay. Is this this white, the little white modem thing that's not a Wi-Fi connector?
Steven Hanna: So that's kind of creating the local connection so that you can play ZTAG. There's actually, the Wi-Fi itself is inside of the box.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Okay.
Steven Hanna: Right, the receiver for that. If you go into System Info. Right. should be saying the same thing. Okay. So in your System Info, theoretically, this is where you'll find all of your system data and stats from, the thing I was just asking you about. But you're going to have to register the system. And with the Wi-Fi conflict, you're just, it's not going to be possible at the moment. Um, I'll reach out to you in an email and I'll just kind of walk you through this. Steps on the tabs on updating after, just because it's not going to be easy to visualize unless you can see the screen.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Okay.
Steven Hanna: Video. And we also have a video that I'll send your way as well on how to access it.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): All right, for sure.
Steven Hanna: If you hit the little ZTAG logo in the top left, this will take you back to your home screen. Do you have any questions regarding the games? One thing that we didn't go over was red light, green light, right?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): I think we did with the settings.
Steven Hanna: I'm sorry, rock, paper, scissors, excuse me.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Oh, yeah, yeah, my fault. Yeah, we didn't cover that one.
Steven Hanna: Okay. So I do want to let you know that there are a few ways to play this, and the way that I like to play this is more of a puzzle game, and it's a collaborative puzzle game. In rock, paper, scissors, rock beats scissors, scissors beats paper, paper beats rock. What you can do with this... Is, since everybody is going be on rock, paper, or scissors at the start of the game, it's a social icebreaker game where everybody is just going to go around and try and get on the same color team. Everybody wins by getting on the same team. If there are a few people who are on different teams at the end, everybody loses. So it's kind of like a beat-the-computer collaborative game.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Okay.
Steven Hanna: That's kind of an easy way to go through this one. You can always play the more competitive games where it's actually rock, paper, scissors, but you might find that the collaborative approach is a little bit more effective for your primaries versus your interns.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Yeah, think that would probably help it out. Yeah, because we played this a few times, so yeah, the kids were, I think they were, like I was telling them for the colors, so what color you are is like green for paper. They're trying to figure out how to do it. But I think being able to collaborate will probably work a little bit better for all. So I'll definitely try that one.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, and in the settings on this one, I believe it's only time, so there's not much to change on that. Yeah. Okay. Any questions regarding the games? Because we walked through each one individually with better settings. Any structure settings on games?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Any feedback? I'm definitely interested to try some of the new settings that you just showed me. But for the most part, yeah, I think I got it pretty much covered.
Steven Hanna: Okay. And then you'll also get a recording of this training, too, where if you need to refer to it at any point, you can. One thing that I do want to stress on the system shutdown is that you go through the proper shutdown sequence like any computer. If you decide to pull power. Or immediately cut power without the proper shutdown, there is a chance that it can corrupt over time. So there may be a day where the system may decide to not turn on. So always work from the top down, taking the router down, then working your way through the power button in the top on the screen, shut down. Then you're going to go through that silver power button, push that. Then you're going to wait five seconds, then turn the red power button off. So top down to take everything out and shut it down. And then when you start it up, you work from the bottom up. So power cable is the first and last thing you will do.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Yeah, I know Union House, they got it too. So I was telling them just be careful how you power it up and power it down. So when I did my training with the staff, I was just telling them kind of you work up and then just remember to work down.
Steven Hanna: Yep, perfect. So you already know. Yeah, cool, man. That's that's cool. Cool. How many systems does your site have?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): I have two. Yeah, so I have one that's like for the classes to use if they want to, and then it's like one for me just to do what my class challenge is for the bigger program. So I have two here.
Steven Hanna: All right. Nice. What I'll ask you to do is just if you have the opportunity to register those systems, it's really valuable. And then from here, what I will do is send you over your Playmaker certification, a nice little email. And then if you could, you know, if I reach out to you and ask you for data over time, if you could share that with us because it helps us formulate things on how to structure games. And we'll also be able to provide you with a nice deliverable at the end on, hey, this is what your system did over this amount of time with you as an operator. So it's a cool little like badge of honor to put yourself up on a leaderboard for and say, my primaries in this have. X amount of steps and X amount of tags in this amount of time.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Like, it's nice little metrics for us. Okay, cool, cool. I for sure would do that. I'll try to get signed into the system today. And if y'all ever want to do, like, a site visit or something, just feel free to reach out.
Steven Hanna: Oh, cool, man. would probably love to.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): in Sacramento. I'm not sure where y'all located at, but yeah, if y'all want to pop in and do a site visit and maybe run some games with the kids, too, or see how we're utilizing it, feel free.
Steven Hanna: We would be very interested in that.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Okay, and then we can probably even get some opt-out forums from parents if y'all want to record videos and stuff, so.
Steven Hanna: Okay, cool. Yeah, well, definitely we'll look forward to setting it up, and I will shoot you over an email after this with the recording, the Playmaker Certificate, and just kind of like a thank you. Appreciate you being a part of the Z-Tag community. And welcome to the Playmakers.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): All right, cool, cool. I was asking for it for like two years, and I finally got it. So I went over the summer. I was like a coordinator. So I was bouncing around from site to site. And then I seen that one of the other schools had it. And I was like, wait, y'all got this? And then they were like, we don't even know what this is. I said, oh, no, I ain't no way. So I went to the district a day.
Steven Hanna: So you FOMOed out on it?
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Yeah, I was like, y'all don't even know what y'all got. All right, so I've been showing them how to use it and stuff. But the district ended up getting you on, too.
Steven Hanna: I was like, all cool. Well, if at any point you need a PD, we also are going to be offering those in the future for any staff members that are using the system. And we could come by and just teach them basically what we did with you and then have them play and understand it in a live setting on how it's applied.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Yeah, I think the district, they might be interested in it. They might be using my site to see if they want to probably get. The other sites to do it, so I told them I'll have them visit here and there, so I think the plan is they, I showed a lot of the site coordinators the system yesterday for our staff meeting, and a lot of them were, like, asking if they can borrow minds, so.
Steven Hanna: Say yes, but there's a favor involved.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): That's that, as long as I go over there, um, and then I'll just run it for, for their team, but, um, but for the most part, um, it'll probably grow a little bit more in Elf Grove, um, and then, you know, I'll just keep trying to, like, connect with the district and just, like, showing them what we're doing with the system, so, I was pretty happy to get it.
Steven Hanna: That, that sounds awesome, and, and we're really excited and eager to see, you know, what you do with it. It's, it's cool to see how everybody makes it their own in, in a really unique way, so we, we love to get your feedback and input, and if at any point you have things that you want to share with us as the team. Team, because we're very receptive to feedback. So if there's something that you see that is working or not working on your system use, you know, we would love to at least ask you about that. And maybe you could provide us with an avenue to either enhance it, optimize it, or provide us with feedback that brings us back and says, OK, we need to reevaluate these things.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Yeah, I'll just say, see if y'all can make the odd one out game. And then the way my brain works, I'll just be thinking of a bunch of different games. But continue to think and please share.
Steven Hanna: That's that's a very valuable thing to us because it helps us see what you're looking for. And your brain thinking that way means that there are others that are going to be thinking this way, too.
Mali Caldwell (Sacramento Chinese Community Service Center (The Center)): Mm hmm. All right. Well, it was nice meeting you. You as well.
Steven Hanna: Thank you so much. And I appreciate it. And we will be in contact soon, Molly. All right, for sure. You have a good one. Take care. All right, thank you. All right.
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Amanda: I can hear you. This meeting is being recorded.
Steven Hanna: Okay. I'm also going to record our training session so we can send it your way after so you don't have to take any notes or anything. This is going to get, you know, sent right over your way with a little brief overview of it.
Amanda: Perfect.
Steven Hanna: Thank you. You got it. So, first off, congratulations and awesome job on getting your ZTAG unit.
Amanda: Yeah, they've been fun.
Steven Hanna: Have you had the opportunity to try it out just yet?
Amanda: Yes, a few times. Let's see. We used them. We received them in the mail maybe like in May or April. And so we actually have a summer program here and we had some classes that were on campus test them out in June just because we wanted to see it in action right away. And the kids had a blast. And then we used it in August. All of our teaching staff came back and we did some breakout sessions. teaching came back sessions. students. And some of those teachers who tested it in June did a little breakout session on the ZTAGs and taught teachers how to use them and what they are, and they played some games. So that was really fun. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Cool. Well, thank you for, you know, sharing that. The system's being used, and we appreciate everybody kind of getting their hands on it and seeing how it can be utilized in all the other areas. This training, since you kind of already have an overview of the system, is kind of just going to be, let's dive a little bit deeper into the settings and talk about how you can utilize the system for different audience ranges based on different settings. We're going to kind of dive quickly into how to update your system. Okay. Do you have the system in front of you at all?
Amanda: No.
Steven Hanna: Should I get one? If you have access to one, that would be great. get one. Okay. So with the new updates that we have, if you remember off the top of your head, do you know how many?
Amanda: Any games you have on your system? I want to say there's like five or six maybe, and then I think the ones in beta mode might be on there.
Steven Hanna: Okay, cool. So you're more than likely updated to the most recent version. I just want to make sure, because if you have six games, I want to make sure that we get you the two new games today. Okay. I was going to show you how to do that. So once you're able to get the system and turn it on, we'll just verify on the home screen that type of deal.
Amanda: I just want somebody to go grab one. Michelle Crippen, I think, is the one who you scheduled the meeting with.
Steven Hanna: I don't think she's going to be able to attend, but I work alongside her, so I'll just take – I don't know if she had any specific questions for you, but I'll make sure.
Amanda: No problem.
Steven Hanna: And then even after this, you'll have my phone number and email. So if you guys need to reach out to me for anything, that's always there for you guys, too. Okay, perfect. This will also get sent to her email as well, like our session right here. Anybody who's signed up for this, they'll have I have an email for this. They can view the link. They can look at the transcript.
Amanda: They can, you know, go through the entire training.
Steven Hanna: Okay. is the ZTAG?
Amanda: I see the eyes of, like, yes, it's We got it. It's coming in, the whole case.
Steven Hanna: Let me see. Whoever's behind on the other side, your wavelength with Amanda is, like, very matched. Yeah, this is Davina.
Amanda: She's our instructional coach.
Steven Hanna: I saw, like, the eye look up, and I was like, oh, man, they just had a whole conversation behind that screen.
Amanda: So, apparently, I learned it has wheels.
Steven Hanna: It does have wheels, yes, and it has a fun little area where you can pull the little handle up and roll it.
Amanda: Yeah, like a carry-on.
Steven Hanna: Exactly. I do recommend that you use that indoors, using that on the blacktop or concrete. The bouncing of the system over and over might move around some wires on the inside. So, just bear in mind, if you are doing that, flat surface. Surface, Smooth Surface, Best Surface. So when you turn your system on, what I tell everybody is start from the bottom up with your power cord, then your red button, wait a second or two, then your blue button.
Amanda: You know, I usually just never really done this myself. usually call IT and they just have it.
Steven Hanna: Well, now we're doing it.
Amanda: You're in it now. You have to know. Yes, no, this is good.
Steven Hanna: This is good. I am forcing you to know.
Amanda: So far, pretty easy. Okay.
Steven Hanna: So we're going to start with that power cable plugged in. Then there's that little red or orange button. Push that on and you should hear the devices beep and then they'll all be red and charging.
Amanda: Yep.
Steven Hanna: Yes. Okay. From there, there's a silver button above the red button.
Amanda: Is it blue right now? Blue.
Steven Hanna: Is it blue or is it silver?
Amanda: It's blue.
Steven Hanna: Okay. So the screen should be on, correct?
Amanda: It's black.
Steven Hanna: Okay, give it a half a Oh, it's coming on. It just came on. Yeah, give it a half a second. So similar to a regular computer, it's going to take about a minute and a half to two minutes for this full cycle to start out. From there, do you have your little white router, like in that pocket of the system? Yes. Cool. You can take that out for me. And there should be two antennas. And there should be a little black router mount clip. If you look in the top right pocket area, there should be a little cutout for it. Top right corner?
Amanda: In that little pocket where you just got the router. Oh, yeah.
Steven Hanna: Yes, perfect. On the back of that, there's a fat wider side. You're going to hook that in to the back. Yep, perfect. From the bottom up.
Amanda: This is the bottom. Oh, gosh. IT's coming to left at me. That's actually right.
Steven Hanna: We're on a call. No, you're good.
Amanda: You got it.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. And then you're going to mount that so that the white router is on the outside of the system.
Amanda: On the outside.
Steven Hanna: Right. So, like, the antennas are facing the kids or facing the field.
Amanda: Okay. We have to just undo our coin. Oh, we must have not used this one. I think that is. Sorry, it's all wrapped up.
Steven Hanna: All right. Cool. So, now that you have that, what we're going to do is take a look at your home screen. On your home screen, how many games do you have?
Amanda: Well, first it says welcome. going what to Can to Can tell you you In just a few steps, can register and set up, continue or skip for now. So we're going to register your system, actually.
Steven Hanna: So you're going to hit register, and it's going to ask you to connect to Wi-Fi.
Amanda: Now, should we be doing, we have six of these. We have two at each of our schools, so that we only have access to two right now where we're sitting.
Steven Hanna: I can schedule training with them, or we can send them this video.
Amanda: Okay, that's fine.
Steven Hanna: I think just sending them this video might be the easiest for you guys. Yeah, all right. But more than happy to walk them through this as well.
Amanda: All right, we're on Wi-Fi. Continue.
Steven Hanna: Then you might need to use your phone for the QR code on this.
Amanda: Hmm.
Steven Hanna: So by registering registering this. This also helps us provide you with kind of data at the end of the year of use. We kind of can send you a fun little packet that says, over the year of your ZTAG system use, this is the amount of steps you guys had, this is the amount of playtime, this is the amount of interactions you've had, nice little stuff like that. It also makes you eligible for any of the future updates that we have with the game releases, so I just want to make sure that all the systems are registered and in. So this is of value for you folks to do.
Amanda: It's like circling, please wait.
Steven Hanna: Okay, if it's circling, please wait.
Amanda: What's more than likely happening, you're at school right now, right?
Steven Hanna: Yes. Okay. Your IT guy will probably know this, one of the ports is being blocked, and it's okay. Okay. If you can take the system off-site or use a mobile hotspot, you'll get around that. So... So, if at some point you're able to do that, great. I'm not going to hold you up and tie you up on that today. Okay. We're going to skip this for now. So hit the back button or back arrow.
Amanda: And just skip the whole Wi-Fi parent?
Steven Hanna: Right.
Amanda: We're just going to hit skip for now on the home Okay. That's the beginning.
Steven Hanna: And you should be seeing all of the games now at the home screen, correct?
Amanda: Yes. Yes. Okay.
Steven Hanna: How many games do you have on that? Eight. Excellent. And if you take a look at the little ZTAG watches inside the yellow case, there should be a number. It says 7.0 point something. What's the number on the LCD screen of that watch?
Amanda: Like, just pick up any watch?
Steven Hanna: You can actually look at it from the case on the side. You don't have to take them out. They'll actually have like a number on the side on the screen.
Amanda: On the screen. Oh. Oh, like with the QR code?
Steven Hanna: Take a look down at the watches. Uh-huh. And do you see how all of them have like a little charger, like a red charger on the face of the battery?
Amanda: Uh-huh.
Steven Hanna: There should be a number above that or below it. It starts with a 7. What's that number?
Amanda: All I see is like it says M5?
Steven Hanna: 7.026. 7.0.26? Yes. Okay, then you are on the most updated version of the software and firmware, so you should be good.
Amanda: Oh, oh, it's on the face. I got you. Okay. Okay. We have the most recent, so.
Steven Hanna: Charlie, did you need me to turn? Okay, so you're on the most firmware and your most recent firmware on the most recent hardware with it. So, you can, from there, take a quick peek at anything. Any of those games. And in the top left corner, we should see Red Light, Green Light, correct?
Amanda: Mm-hmm.
Steven Hanna: Perfect. That means we're in the correct sequence, too.
Amanda: Well, no, technically it's top left says Zombie Survival and then Red Light, Green Light.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Top left is Zombie Survival, then Red Light, Green Light. Okay. But there are eight games. Yes. Okay. Then the order is not essential for that. The first thing that we're going to do is walk through the actual system settings. And in the top right corner, you're going to see a little gear icon, similar to the gear icon for settings on your phone. If you tap that, you'll go into your system settings. On the left-hand side, the first tab should say... Connection. Connection. Okay. One thing that I would like to stress with the system is that you do not need Wi-Fi to run it. So if you're trying to connect the system to Wi-Fi and it's saying that you are unable to connect to Wi-Fi, you're still able to run the system. That's the built... That's Featured with this is that it does not require Wi-Fi.
Amanda: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So as long as you follow the steps that we went through to turn the system on with that router, and you place that correctly, and just be a little bit patient with the system, about two minutes for that turn-on sequence, everything will be okay. The Wi-Fi does not matter on that side.
Amanda: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Some people may say, oh, the Wi-Fi is not working and I can't play. That is a misconception.
Amanda: You can. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Underneath the connection tab, you can go to the next one.
Amanda: It says account?
Steven Hanna: Mm-hmm. Once you register your system, this is where that information will show up. If we ever need to ask you for sometimes we might have to remove remote access into your system to fix something should anything, you know, go awry, we might ask for that account so that we can help out and assist in that type of way. It's also for you to understand where your systems are. You said you had a few accrued. So this will assist you if one unit goes to one site and needs to be moved to another site, you'll know where that unit should go back to.
Amanda: Oh, okay. We've labeled them on the outside so far with the label maker for a reason to help. Perfect.
Steven Hanna: Perfect. I also recommend that you throw an error tag in those. There is not necessarily a feature built in for theft with this. So we always recommend that you at least try and keep the incentive for the system to survive by knowing where it is. An error tag is definitely a cheap, very, very effective way to make sure you know where the system's at. Okay. The next tab on the left side.
Amanda: Devices.
Steven Hanna: In the device tab, this is going to show you how many of your devices are connected. You should have one through 24. Is that correct?
Amanda: Uh, they're all in.
Steven Hanna: Random order. Okay. So what I'd like you to do is in the top right corner, there's a reset device little button. If you could press that and then go through the next one and hit confirm.
Amanda: And this is going to reset all of the devices and make it nice and sequential for you.
Steven Hanna: So if you're ever running two units, and I know you said you had multiple sites. If you are running two of these at the same time, sometimes these signals might get crossed up, and one unit will say, hey, these taggers are on mine. And then a kid gets in range and it goes, those taggers are also mine, too. So you may have one through 27, one through 30. This is the way to quickly reset that and make sure you're back at one to 24.
Amanda: Okay. Yeah, we did have, we've had a teacher because, oh, it did do something. We had a teacher who's been using it a lot at this school, and she's been using two cases and syncing them up because it's not enough for one class. So when we opened it up, it said. said.
Steven Hanna: There was like 48. Like 40, yeah. So this is a way to reset that back to a 1 to 24, just to make it a little bit more cleaner for organization purpose for your sake.
Amanda: So we click reset, and it's showing that there's 22.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Are there two of them that are not charging at the moment?
Amanda: Maybe they're not red?
Steven Hanna: Yes. Okay. Let's reseat those in the magnetic charging dock and make sure that they start to charge. And you'll hear a little beep, and then you'll see the light come up on the side. And if it's a little funky, what you can do is try another one and put it into the funky dock and see if it's the dock or see if it's the watch.
Amanda: Okay. Hmm. Okay, that worked.
Steven Hanna: They're good now. Okay. So those two should automatically appear in a few seconds.
Amanda: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Okay. They may be out of order since we didn't re-sync them in that last time. So if you wanted to re-sync them, that's up to you. But you know that there are 24 in that because you can see 1 through 24 or the sequence in four rows and columns.
Amanda: Yes, it's good now.
Steven Hanna: Okay. If you would like to go in the next tab on the left side and just keep going down and let me know where we're at. Firmware. In your firmware, there should be 7.0.26. You see that? And it should be a push button on the right-hand side. Yes. Okay. This is basically where you're going to go. If you go into the About section, I'm going to have you skip a few tabs on the bottom left.
Amanda: Mm-hmm.
Steven Hanna: You should see a drop-down for, um... firmware, current system, current thing, something current, does it say that?
Amanda: Well, when I click about, it's prompting me to sign up, sign in, or sign up for my account.
Steven Hanna: Is there another tab on the left side below that?
Amanda: There's game system info, help, and about.
Steven Hanna: Okay, so.
Amanda: Are we supposed to be in firmware?
Steven Hanna: Firmware was where we get the update and send it out, but there's another section that I wanted to walk you through. Once you sign up for the registration, it'll basically unlock this little area where you can get the updates. And this is why we say once you register the system, it, like, opens up this area. So we don't have to focus on that for now. What we will do is we'll send you a quick video on how to update. And if you need, like, five or ten minutes with me to go through it, I'm more than happy to go through it with
Amanda: You too.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Under that firmware tab, we're going to go back up a little bit. Mm-hmm.
Amanda: Where are we at?
Steven Hanna: Games. Under the games, this is where you'll be able to select the specific games you may or may not want played for the day. Say you're trying to focus on, you know, just Math Match, just this game, just that game, you can make it so that only that game is available on the screen.
Amanda: Oh, okay.
Steven Hanna: So I don't really use this setting. It's, it's personally just, if you have youngers and they understand all the games and you need to take it off of the screen and just make it inaccessible, this is where you would go to do that.
Amanda: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Underneath that tab.
Amanda: And just to clarify, like, our teachers are checking this out. They're setting it up in their classroom and handing out this, I mean, they can essentially go on to the games, the same thing I'm doing.
Steven Hanna: They have full access to everything that you and I are doing right now. So every tab that we click on, every area that we access, they're able to access the same information.
Amanda: Okay. Okay, and then it's system info?
Steven Hanna: System info, you might not have this yet. This is where all of your steps, your interactions, your games played, and your tags are going to be within. So once you register your system, this is where you can see your system time.
Amanda: Does it say that on the screen right now?
Steven Hanna: It's saying sign into your account. Okay. Once you sign into the account, it should zero out. But after your sign-in and registration, this is where you can go into your system stats and see steps, tags, games played, the most frequently played game. And it's a little bit of a better way to get stats on the system if you need to produce a deliverable to someone and say, no, this is the session today and this is what They did.
Amanda: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So that's that section. Underneath that, we have...
Amanda: Help.
Steven Hanna: Help. You're going to have three QR codes in there for basic support. Should anyone need quick on-the-fly support, they can just go and QR code this.
Amanda: Oh, yeah, I see that.
Steven Hanna: And then underneath that, it would be the About section, but we don't have access to that. But once we register, we will have access to it. Okay. So from here in the top left corner, there's going to be that little ZTAG logo. I would like you to press that for me. And we should be back at our home screen.
Amanda: I'm like, maybe we'll stop. Yeah. Well, we still have this covering, so...
Steven Hanna: Listen, I still have mine on from three and a half years ago. And my kids are like, why do you still have this? And I go, I'd just like to protect it from you, honestly. If you want the reality. The of this is protection from your greasy little Cheeto fingers.
Amanda: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Yep. So you should be back at the home screen, right? Okay. At this point, I'm going to take you through the watch and devices so you can take two or three of them out and just pull them right off of the magnetic lock. And if you're holding them in your hand, looking directly down at the watch, on the left-hand side, there's a little red power button. Press that power button for me. Give it approximately five seconds. You'll hear a little beep. And you should see the screen turn on. You don't have to hold it down. It's just like one quick press. Yeah. If you hold it down, you'll actually prevent it from, like, turning on. You'll keep resetting it. It's okay.
Amanda: That's good. You're coming on.
Steven Hanna: Okay. So one quick press on the side. Okay. There's two things that you would like to pay attention to with the watches when you're looking at them at this point. In the top right corner, similar to your cell phone, you'll notice a battery indicator. And to the left of that, there should be a series of weird numbers and letters.
Amanda: Is that correct?
Steven Hanna: Mm-hmm. That series of numbers and letters indicates that that watch is speaking to the big computer. Okay. So the two things that you want to focus on are, is there enough battery? And is that talking to the main computer? Okay. If those are good, what we're going to do next is click on the red light, green light game. And now if you look down at your watch, you should see it flashing red and green, correct? Mm-hmm. Yep. If you look straight forward at your screen, you should see the directions of the game.
Amanda: Mm-hmm.
Steven Hanna: What I'm going to do is show you a quick setting because it looks like you're in an office, and if I allow you to do this, it would just be horrible of me to have it be beeping this loud. In the top right corner there
Amanda: There's a little volume icon.
Steven Hanna: Tap on that and take it from 10 down to about 3 to 2.
Amanda: Oh, wait. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Put it at like 2 or 3.
Amanda: Oh, my God. I went too far. went to 0. Okay. That too.
Steven Hanna: So if you look down at the watch, there should be a number with a little speaker on it. Oh, yeah. And that should also reflect the change on that as well. So this is a very important sensory setting that I share with everybody to just please be aware that you might have sensory sensitive students or kids in your room. And the higher the volume, the more potential for an issue with that. So just be aware of who those students might be and know that you can change the volume on a global level of the system.
Amanda: go. Okay. Thank Okay.
Steven Hanna: From here, there's a few things that we do with Red Light, Green Light. You can select it and have it so that the game is a competitive, highly competitive, upper-level grade class game by going into the settings in the top right corner.
Amanda: Okay.
Steven Hanna: And there's going to be three different settings here. You're going to see time, you're going to see sensitivity, and you're going to see negative scoring.
Amanda: Correct?
Steven Hanna: Mm-hmm. For time, what I like to say is keep this at 60 seconds. Red Light, Green Light is a very quick, intense game, and you could probably run it three times at 60 seconds without fail. Mm-hmm. For the sensitivity, for your youngers, what I recommend is you change that to low or medium. Oh, yeah. For your uppers, I recommend you change that to medium or high. The last setting is probably the most important setting that I would like to share with you. And that is negative scoring. If this box is checked off, that means if anybody is caught on a red light, they will only lose points. So they'll stay in the game, but they'll lose a few points.
Amanda: Oh, that's nice because when we played in a training and people got out and they just stood on the side and we were literally saying out loud, like, man, that's great. You want someone to win, but then like in class.
Steven Hanna: But you're totally demotivated once you're out.
Amanda: You're like, I have no interest. Yeah, and then the rest of the class is just horsing around.
Steven Hanna: So this is why I say it's one of the most important settings, because it can change that entire mindset of, well, this kind of sucks, to, all right, I'm still in the game. I got to pick up the pace a little bit. So I recommend that you scaffold the skills in this one, where the first game is medium settings, negative scoring enabled. The second game is high sensitivity. Negative Scoring Enabled. And the last game is High Sensitivity, No Negative Scoring, where it's an Elimination Round. So everything is in threes with kind of the script that I kind of teach everybody. Have you seen Red Light, Green Light in action? Yes. Okay.
Amanda: Do you want to play it or do you want to move on to the next game? We're okay, I think. Okay, perfect.
Steven Hanna: I'm just going to walk you through the settings on most of these then because there are things that you might have not seen before like this. Okay. Go back to the home screen and you can pick any game that you would like next. We can go completely out of order. But I will say the script that I tell everybody is Red Light, Green Light into Pattern Match.
Amanda: Okay.
Steven Hanna: And the reason that I do that is as a teacher, I need to scaffold the skills of you need to understand what the watch is and then you need to know how to tag. I'm not just going to send you off trying to tag somebody without you not knowing what it is or knowing how to use it.
Amanda: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So with this one, what I like to do is reverse and ask the students or kids, has anybody played UNO before? And I actually use this as a co-teaching, co-learning experience for them where they will say, yes, I've played UNO before. You match with a color, you match with a number. And then you can say, perfect, in our version today, we're actually going to be matching the same color concept, but we're switching it up a little bit, and we're going to be matching shapes today too. So with this game, I scaffold it in a three-set where the first game that we play is focusing solely on colors, the second game that we play focuses solely on shapes, and the third game is a combination of the two. Okay. This is the first game where they'll interact and actually learn a tagging component, and it's very important that you model this before they play. So what I like to do is have two players come up to each other and just walk towards each other. Until their watches start beeping and going off, so that everybody sees how far away you can be for it to work. So you don't want the hand clanking like that. You don't want to see the taggers bumping into each other. The higher frequency of that, the higher chance of that tagger having a problem with it in the future, and we want you to hold on to this as long as possible. So modeling it really, really will prevent long-term abuse, and once they understand how far away they can tag, it'll set you up for a much, much better session. Okay. In the settings on this side, if you want to hit the little cog setting, you'll notice that there is a bunch of different shapes and a bunch of different colors that you can change this to depending on the cognitive load that you're trying to apply. With your youngers, keep it simple. I like to say my grandfather always said, keep it simple, stupid, and I use that here all the time. I don't need to cognitively... Load this and make it an unenjoyable experience. For my older kids, if they feel more cocky, for the second round, I'll throw in a bunch of random shapes, I'll throw in a bunch of random colors that they've not experienced in the first round. So there's a very dynamic element to this. Any questions on the settings here?
Amanda: There should be something called Continuous Mode.
Steven Hanna: Is that?
Amanda: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Yes. So if you just want the game to go on without the timer ending, that's what you would select. Okay. I personally have never used this setting in almost three and a half years of using ZTAG. I've maybe used it once.
Amanda: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Negative scoring, same concept. I actually like to keep this off because I don't want there to be a disincentive for matching the wrong thing. You can only earn points is my perspective with this.
Amanda: Mm-hmm.
Steven Hanna: That's pattern match. Any questions on these settings?
Amanda: Any No, I don't think so.
Steven Hanna: Okay, we can go back out and go into our next game, which is going to be what I structure and format as Keepaway.
Amanda: Oh, I see it.
Steven Hanna: So there's two ways that we play Keepaway. The first way that we play Keepaway is a traditional way, where people are chasing after one person. I actually like to reverse that because I don't like bumps, and I like to play it as TAG, where instead of 15, 14 people looking for one person with the ball to take it from them, that person is giving it away as a hot potato. So it's one going after everybody versus 15 going after one. If you go into the settings on this one, you can actually select how many people have the ball or how many people are the taggers. So, I always start this game off with one tagger for 30, 40 seconds, and then the kids go, oh, that was boring, I didn't really do anything. And then I straight up...
Amanda: Increase it to four.
Steven Hanna: And I amp it up and go, perfect, now you're cocky and you think that you're going to be doing really great. I'm making it four taggers now, good luck. And I immediately start it up and don't give them any time to process it. So all of a sudden, the controlled chaos element of this is, I had the prior knowledge of this game, is this, and you've immediately flipped the script in 40 seconds and I now no longer know what's going on. So it's a fun way to play. I recommend you play it as a tag game. Those little balls, you can select who is the ball holder and you can also randomize it. I always randomize it. don't try and, you know, select anyone specifically for it. Okay. That's KeepAway. Any questions on KeepAway?
Amanda: No, I think we're good.
Steven Hanna: Okay. What I like to do from here is go into zombie tag and we'll go into zombie tag with doctor because that includes all the base settings plus a few. So this is going to be the game that everybody wants to play.
Amanda: Yeah, ZTAG with Doctor.
Steven Hanna: This is going to be the game that everybody wants to play. Yeah, it's probably the most frequently played game. Everybody knows it as, oh, we're playing the zombie game. This is what they associate with the watches. In Zombie Tech, there are two teams, but you can add a third team called the Doctors. The two main teams are the zombies and the humans. If you're on the zombie team, it's red. If you're on the human team, it's green. If you go into the settings on this one, you'll see that there are a variety of things with this. I will say the caveat of this. Depending on the space you're working in, you can change these settings to skew it evenly, skew it towards a human win, skew it towards a zombie win. With a higher number of doctors, you are going to naturally increase the time. With a higher or larger volume of space, you want to increase the amount of zombies. So can you just take me through the top left side and just tell me what you see as the first setting?
Amanda: Mm-hmm. Time limit is 180 seconds. Zombies on randomized, two. Doctors on randomized, one. Number of tags before infection, one. Infection duration, 10 seconds. And then on the other side, it says doctor heal limit, 10.
Steven Hanna: Okay. So from the left side down, the time limit, you're basically always going to keep this under three minutes, or it gets a little bit tough. It is a very run-intensive game, and this is where I say please be considerate of how hot it is and where you are with your students and kids. Offering water breaks during this time is a very nice thing to do, and you should. So you're going to keep it under three minutes. The number of zombies on randomize is basically how many zombies at the start on the random press. The number of doctors on randomize is the same thing. There should be a... what was the next setting on the left side?
Amanda: Number of tags before infection.
Steven Hanna: So that's the number of lives that the humans have before they turn into a zombie. What I like to do is set this to a minimum of two. The reason why is the first one is basically, all right, that's your freebie.
Amanda: No problem.
Steven Hanna: The second one is you got caught.
Amanda: There's no dispute.
Steven Hanna: So you can change that depending on where you are. If you're working in a smaller area, what I recommend is increasing the amount of lives. If you're working in a larger area, decrease the amount of lives. Okay. Underneath that, we should have...
Amanda: Infection duration.
Steven Hanna: When a zombie tags a human and takes all... Well, their lives. The human's watch is going to start to flash red and green. This is how long it takes for them to morph into a zombie.
Amanda: So think like, all right, you remember the movies where somebody gets bit by a zombie, they turn into a zombie in X amount of time.
Steven Hanna: This is the equivalent of that. Gotcha. If they find the doctor within those 10 seconds, they're saved.
Amanda: Okay, okay.
Steven Hanna: So the doctor heal limit in the top right, you can select how many times the doctor can heal them, or the doctor turns back into a human.
Amanda: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So this is why I say you can skew the game depending on what you're trying to do. Yeah. The other game is Zombie Survival Without Doctor, and it's kind of the precursor to this, but all of the settings are the same. I'm just showing you the one with the doctor. Okay. Then you can select the amount of doctors, et cetera, so on and so forth.
Amanda: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Any questions on this?
Amanda: No.
Steven Hanna: Oh, I don't think so. Okay. There are also some alternative games with this where you can, we have a game called like Protect, you know, Protect the Person, where you have one or two people as the humans, and then you have a team of doctors, and then you have one zombie try and go through the team of doctors to get to the human at the end. And you give the doctors like two saves, and after two saves, a doctor can then go on to the zombie team. And then they have to protect them for a long period of time.
Amanda: you have these like, like these suggestions on how to like skew the numbers written down somewhere?
Steven Hanna: Yes, actually I do. We, I can get you a script after with kind of my personal settings, but you'll find that that will change depending on where you are. I'll give you my generalized good settings, and then you can warp and twist depending on what you need.
Amanda: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Let me also just write down, get you the settings. Let me get the settings. Thank That's pretty much it on the zombie tag side.
Amanda: Any questions on this one? No.
Steven Hanna: Okay. The next game that I'll take you through is going to be Math Match, because it's a pretty quick one. If you go to the home screen and hit the bottom left corner, believe Math Match will be located there. For Math Match, this is a game that's similar to Pattern Match and Shape Match, except instead of matching a shape and a color, or you're matching a math problem to an answer. So half of the kids can be put on the answer team, half of the kids can be put on the problem team or question team. And when you start this game, you can select the operands that you would like to use. So if you're in the settings, you can see that you can select addition and subtraction. You can also select multiplication and division. You can change that depending on what you're trying to work with and who you're working with. You can also change your low and high range of numbers depending on... On what number range you would like to work with as well. So if you're trying to focus on one through four, that's fine. If you're trying to focus on one through nines, great. Questions on Math Match?
Amanda: No, I don't think so.
Steven Hanna: Okay. I personally like to use this game as a cooldown for an energetic group. If it's starting to look like kids are bumping and there's a little bit of physical contact, I use this as a cooldown game to catch their breath and slow it down a little bit.
Amanda: Okay.
Steven Hanna: The next game, in the bottom right corner, we have the two beta games. Whichever game you would like to go into first, we can explore.
Amanda: Okay, we'll do Word Wave.
Steven Hanna: Word Wave is similar to Pattern Match, similar to Math Match. Instead of a math problem or a color or a shape, you're now matching an English word to a target word in another language. So our current two languages are... Spanish and French, and there will be two different teams, a green team and a purple team. The green team has to match their word to the purple team in the opposite language.
Amanda: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So one word that we have is manzana in Spanish, translating to apple in English. So apple is on the green team and manzana is on the purple team. They have to find each other and link their watch together to earn points.
Amanda: Okay.
Steven Hanna: That's WordWave. If you want to go back, we'll jump into Sequence Train. Sequence Train is a collaborative game where everybody needs to figure out what the numbers sequence is and then tag in that order.
Amanda: So we have a few different sequences on here. Real numbers.
Steven Hanna: Going up by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Mm-hmm. And everybody in your group is going to get a number at the start. Their goal is to find the next person with the next number in the sequence and tag that watch. How we like to play this game is we need to structure it a little bit where we have the tagger, the person with the flashing watch, is in the middle. And then we form a circle around that person. And what I like to do is do a tag-in mechanism. So the person with the flashing watch is in the middle, they have number one. There's going to be one person in that outside circle who has number two. There might be two people with number two. There might be three people with number two. It's their goal to tag into the middle so that they get the next number in the sequence and that they have to say, I need number three.
Amanda: And they're looking around in the circle for number three.
Steven Hanna: So the next person on the outside of the circle who has number three tags in, and now number three is in the middle going, I need number four. Who's got number four? Who's number four? And what you'll notice is multiple people will have the number, but they're trying to get into the middle as quick as possible.
Amanda: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So it's a little bit challenging to describe, but we have a teacher out in Wisconsin who made this model of it, and he's got a really great video. I'm going to see if I can get that from him, and I'll send it your Oh, that would be awesome. Because it's a really great collaborative game. And that's pretty much it on Sequence Train. Any questions on this one? No. Okay. The last game that we have is Rock, Paper, Scissors. This is a game that I personally don't play as often as I should. I've actually come up with a variant of it that I feel is a little bit more effective than the original game that they made. So in Rock, Paper, Scissors, you can play this in two ways, basically. A little bit of... The competitive way, where you explain the rules of rock, paper, scissors, and you ask in a call-and-answer response to, has anybody played rock, paper, scissors before? And they're going to go, yes. And you're going to go, perfect. I'm going to ask you a series of questions. Everybody call out the answer. First thing that you say is, in rock, paper, scissors, rock beats, and they're going to go, paper, and get it wrong on the first one. And then you're going to have to reassess this two more times, because this is the rule of threes that my wife has taught me. After the third time, they'll understand that rock beats scissors. That scissors beats paper. That paper beats rock. This is a very cognitively loading game. I like to reduce and take out the competitive element of this and make it a collaborative puzzle-solving game. It's an icebreaker game. I don't care what team you're on at the start. Your goal is to link a watch with somebody so that you're both on the same team. Everybody's goal in this game is to get on the same color team. If we have two different color teams at the end of the game, everybody loses. If we have three different color teams at the end of the game, everybody loses. So it's a prompted social game versus a competitive figure-it-out type of game. And I feel like it's much more well-received in that regard, but that's my own personal preference. So you can cognitively load it as rock, paper, scissors. For the older kids, it's a great game. They love team tag, and it works. For the younger kids, it's a very challenging game to explain, because once you start to explain rock, paper, scissors, they're gone right after they hear rock. So collaborative puzzle solving is, and this is what ZTAG is, it's more of a collaborative game than it is a competitive game. If you frame it as that, and go forth with the mentality of this is all a collaborative game. Your operators will have a much better experience, too.
Amanda: Okay.
Steven Hanna: That's rock, paper, scissors. The settings on this one, I think it's only time. You're more than welcome to check it out, but that should be it. One thing that your kids will do is they will start to learn about the sequence of the taps on the screen, and they will stand next to you and try and figure out who they are and what games. I say let them, because once they leave, you're going to hit random five more times. And then just hit start game. There is one other thing that I would like to share in the countdown element of this. Most people get a little bit startled when their watch says 3, 2, 1, go. You know the countdown sequence of this, and if you can give a 10-second countdown, and as you say the number 3, perfect example, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, press the button on the screen, it will be a lot more efficient for you to do it this way. And see controlled chaos rather than uncontrolled chaos at the start of your games.
Amanda: Yeah, we've seen it with adults. Yes.
Steven Hanna: A best practice with Red Light, Green Light, what I like to do over in New York is I like to place these two cones at one side, I place two cones at the other side, and I have a target run-to location. Once they reach the end of the cones, they turn around and head back towards the other side. It is a hand-eye coordination-based game, so the other thing that I tell them with Red Light, Green Light is to please keep your eyes up. We are not bumping into our friends when we turn around, so no bumps is my number one rule. I have a second rule, but that's more of a formality.
Amanda: The second rule is if somebody falls down, we help them up. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: We don't try and zombie, I mean, they always try and zombify them, but we'll help them up.
Amanda: Okay.
Steven Hanna: That's kind of the best practices that I put forth. I'll send you back a script on how I... How long are your sessions, roughly? Are they, like, 30, 40 an We did this in August.
Amanda: It was about 45 minutes. And we were able – they were small sessions, so they probably – it was, like, 25 people in a session. Teachers. These are teachers going in. So we have close to 150 elementary school teachers between three schools and then a high school. So some of them got exposure to this.
Steven Hanna: Not everybody has. Okay. Do you think it would be beneficial for, like, a PD or something with it?
Amanda: It might be nice. Okay. Cool. I don't know what was included in – when we purchased all of this, if there was any PD sessions included in that or – but possibly.
Steven Hanna: Cool. Any questions on the system, games, my personal settings, what I've done with the system?
Amanda: Thank – And. Anything at all? No, I don't think so. Yeah, that was good.
Steven Hanna: Okay. What I'm going to do from here, like I said before, is I'm going to get you kind of that script that I had, and I'm also going to get you the kind of settings that I utilize for each game. I'll separate it, trying to do youngers and olders. I don't know. Like you said, it's kind of scattered as far as grade ranges go. Yeah. So I'll try and put something in for youngers and olders as far as the best settings go.
Amanda: Oh, that would be awesome. And then if we do want to reach out about scheduling like a PD for teachers, what's the best way to do that?
Steven Hanna: I'll include Chris in our email thread for you.
Amanda: And if that's something that you guys are interested in, you can reach out to her.
Steven Hanna: We actually just ran our first one out like two days ago, and we had 22 teachers from the Bay Area come. lot lot lot And They all left with their systems knowing fully how to play. Okay. In full transparency, like, it's not your standard PD.
Amanda: Like, you're not just getting a packet and filling it out and having a deliverable. It's fun.
Steven Hanna: Our PD is you play every single game, and by the end of it, your staff knows how to play every single game and knows the same settings that you do.
Amanda: Yeah. Perfect. I think for teachers to know, I think it's, like, to get on and actually be the one controlling is a little intimidating without watching somebody doing it or, like, having someone do it alongside you.
Steven Hanna: So, I think if there's some of that, that could be helpful. Yeah. And, you know, even like this, if they individually would like to schedule a meeting with me, this is pretty much offered as part of the package. So, if any of them would like individual time to go over settings, even just chat about development things and what they see is feedback, that's That's that we always want to, you know, get. So if anybody has feedback or if you folks see ways that the games could be made better or more efficient for your grade ranges, that's something that we always want to know about.
Amanda: Okay. Do you foresee more games coming out?
Steven Hanna: Oh, absolutely. Okay. One thing that we actually have in the pipeline is for you to be able to create your own games with the system. And I would be giving an incorrect timeline because that timeline has changed a few times, so I don't want to say when that would be, but that is something that we are working on. And I personally cannot wait for that thing. Like, if we can start making our own games as teachers for this type of thing, and I can disguise learning through gameplay, and I can do that every day, and my kids feel like my class is not a class, and it's fun, all right. games teachers of it's Yeah, yeah, that's, that's worth my prep time. I think I'll take some prep time on that for me. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Cool, okay, so were there any things that you wanted to go over as far as the system, anything else before we close out today?
Amanda: I don't think so.
Steven Hanna: I think we're good. Okay, I do want to walk you through the shutdown cycle on the system. This is probably one of the more crucial components of this. So when we started up the system, we started from the bottom up. We're going to work our way from the top down. So the first thing that we're going to do is take the router off of the top. And we're going to unscrew the antennas. You're going to take that little router black clip, and you're going to put it in its little slot in that pouch. Then you're going to coil up that router. Just not on the actual router.
Amanda: Yeah, like you said, I was already coiled. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Stick with that coil. And you're going to try and place the router in the top right little section. And then put the little white coil as close to that black mesh wire as possible.
Amanda: Okay.
Steven Hanna: You'll also notice that there is a little mouse and keyboard with a USB thing in there.
Amanda: Do you see that?
Steven Hanna: Yes. Okay. You do not need to keep this in your system. This is a backup mechanism in case your system does need support at some point where you can access it or we might be able to access it. So what I recommend is if you need the space in there, take that out, put it in a drawer, and label it with a piece of tape on the back.
Amanda: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So after you get the router in and that little router clip is in, you can put the two white router antennas on the upper. Upper left-hand side of the, uh, yep. Okay. You're going to look at the screen, and in the top right corner, you should see a power button. Mm-hmm. You're going to tap that, and there should be a shutdown option.
Amanda: Mm-hmm.
Steven Hanna: You're going to press that, and you're going to see the screen go dark. You're going to wait about 10 seconds from when the screen goes dark, and you're going to look at that silver button that has that blue ring. After about 10 seconds, which has been just right now, you can hit that blue-silver button, and it should turn off, correct?
Amanda: Mm-hmm. So when we opened this and turned it on, that was already pressed, so the teachers who are using this probably are not shutting it down correctly.
Steven Hanna: Correct, and that's why we're going over this, and this is going to be the thing where it's like, if you don't watch till the end, everybody. Yeah. Like, you need to know the ending of this, too. Wow. Okay. Okay, so after that little circle, silver circle with the blue ring. Okay. You're going to press the red button, power button, and that'll turn off the bottom portion of the charging dock.
Amanda: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So those ZTAGGERS that you had out before, are they still out?
Amanda: I put them back away.
Steven Hanna: Okay, perfect. So that's one way to shut them down. The other way is to double tap the side of the red button.
Amanda: Okay.
Steven Hanna: On the watch. Yep, on the watch. And in the bottom right corner, if the power button is off and all the power is off, you can take out that black power cable. And then you're going to take it out from the wall socket as well. Okay. And then right on top of those antennas, you can coil that and keep that basically underneath the lid line. Because when you close the case, you need a little bit of space so that it can close.
Amanda: Okay, there's also these other cords.
Steven Hanna: You can take... Take those out. Those are the little USBs for the keyboard.
Amanda: Oh, okay.
Steven Hanna: So in that little storage container, you should have a few things. The first thing, you're going to look in the left side, there should be those two antennas, correct? Yep. On top of that, there should be the black power cable, correct?
Amanda: Yes.
Steven Hanna: On the right-hand side, we put the clip right into its little seated location first, correct?
Amanda: Yes.
Steven Hanna: And now we have the router on top of that, correct?
Amanda: Yes.
Steven Hanna: Your system is now okay to close. Close the lid gently. When you clip it down, it should be easy to clip. It should not be a challenging process. If it is a challenging process, that means that one of those wires is crimped somewhere.
Amanda: Yeah. Okay.
Steven Hanna: So once you close both of those down, you are golden.
Amanda: Okay. you. Thank Okay, perfect.
Steven Hanna: Thank you. I'm sorry.
Amanda: took 10 extra minutes of your time, and I know you're a teacher. No, it's fine. It was totally fine.
Steven Hanna: All righty. From here, I'll shoot you over a quick Playmaker Certificate, and can I also have the name of your cohort who is sitting next to you, the Wizard of Oz?
Amanda: Davina. I don't know where the chat is, but...
Steven Hanna: What's Davina's last name?
Amanda: I'm Laura, L-A-R-A. I just put it in the chat.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, look at that. And your last name, Amanda?
Amanda: Sam, D-A-M-M. Two M's. Yeah. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Since both of you have gone through the training, you're both certified Playmakers. What that means is that you guys, basically, once you register your system, you'll have access to those updates, and I am kind of an extra layer of support for you guys whenever you need. If you have logistical questions at any point in time about your operations or in events about... If to start, and it's what I like to call an OS moment, and you can interpret what that is, you can basically contact me on the spot and I will be available to you. So it's a kind of nice little neat layer of support. You do have eight systems, so I recommend you inform your teams to register that as soon as possible so that they can have access to those kind of tabs on the left-hand side. What I'll also kind of do periodically is I'll reach out and just see and ask about your system data, where it's like what your stats are. What we like to do, like I said at the beginning, is just offer you data analytics towards the end of the year, where we can provide a deliverable to you to say to your administration, no, this is the efficacy of it. It's proven here. So it's a nice little way to say thank you for you guys, and it's also great where we can kind of formulate how to best design games in the future.
Amanda: Okay. Alrighty.
Steven Hanna: Other than that, thank you so much.
Amanda: I appreciate it.
Steven Hanna: Thank you. a wonderful day. Take care. You do. safe wherever you guys are getting home to.
Amanda: All right.
Steven Hanna: Thank you. Bye. You'll get an email with this entire thing at the end as well.
Amanda: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Perfect. Thank you. Bye-bye.
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Steven Hanna: This meeting is being recorded. Hello, good morning.
Krystal Wilson: Hello.
Steven Hanna: Krystal, we've spoken before.
Krystal Wilson: I remember you. Yeah, I was like, I don't know if I need to do the training, because it said, like, if you don't do it, your warranty is voided.
Steven Hanna: And I was like, I've kind of done the training. No, no, you're good. But this is, it's like this thing we want to make sure that everybody who has a system just knows how to use it. You know how to use your system. You've personally spent time with me talking about this. We have gone over it. So instead of burning your time, I'm just going to ask you, do you have any questions about the system? And then I'll just walk through secret things for, like, 10 minutes.
Krystal Wilson: Yeah, that sounds great. I think, you know, we're using it. We've done the zombie tag. We've done the zombie tag with the doctor. We've done the red light, green light. And the shape matching, so those have been successfully navigated, even with our little kindergartner kids, so like, they're doing great on that side, so they're hilarious. Some of them are, like, the pre-K kids are like, I don't want to be a zombie, I'm like, you're, it's, you're gonna be fine.
Steven Hanna: But it's fun, and they're like, no, I'm always the zombie.
Krystal Wilson: So it was so funny, because they're, I was just like, you're, you're fine. Um, and then they, like, run, like, like, they gotta run.
Steven Hanna: their wrist out, and they run forward.
Krystal Wilson: Okay, and then a couple of them, as soon as they turn into a zombie, like, when it flashes, they're hilarious, because they're, like, waiting, they won't move. And then they start, like, walking, like, it's hilarious.
Steven Hanna: like a zombie, right?
Krystal Wilson: They crack me up, but, uh.
Steven Hanna: They're, like, almost turning into a zombie in those 10 seconds, standing still, and then, like, oh, wait, now have to walk like a zombie.
Krystal Wilson: That's, that's pretty great. So, so that's what we've been using it for, um.
Steven Hanna: But, yeah, if there's any additional tips or tricks, that would be good. Yeah, so I noticed that you said you used four main games. Did you have an opportunity to check out the settings in those at all to change them up?
Krystal Wilson: So we changed up the settings a little bit. I think we did that on the call to make sure we had, like, the time correct to make sure that, like, you could turn it off of, like, the sensitivity. So that's what we kind of did in our call. And then once we've kind of set it, we've kind of kept it consistent so that the kids kind of know what to expect.
Steven Hanna: to expect, right. Okay. I mean, you've pretty much gotten them done. On yours, you have a pretty good idea on how to run the system. And the settings, as you said, you change it, and it's pretty much standard expectation of what they can know and love. So, with those games, have you gone into all the settings in them or just zombies?
Krystal Wilson: Okay. into all if you're go. go. I want to say we changed the settings on the sensitivity for red light, green light.
Steven Hanna: In red light, green light, there's also one more for you for negative scoring.
Krystal Wilson: Yeah, we did the negative scoring so that they're not just out. Perfect.
Steven Hanna: As I say, with the pre-case, you might want that. Yep, exactly. Okay.
Krystal Wilson: Then they complain and argue. They're like, I was still. I'm like, evidently, the computer did not think you were.
Steven Hanna: The computer doesn't lie. I may lie to you, but the computer will not lie to you.
Krystal Wilson: It's funny.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Have you played Rock, Paper, Scissors at all?
Krystal Wilson: We have not. That one seemed to have a lot more.
Steven Hanna: Cognitive loading?
Krystal Wilson: Moving parts. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Totally cognitive loading.
Krystal Wilson: We started with the ones that kids would be familiar with, could create that connection. You know, with the tag, I mean, or red light, green light, they understand that. So we've started on that side. started started But we haven't ventured into the Rock, Paper, Scissors or the other games that were on the bottom of the...
Steven Hanna: Okay. I can give you a quick way to make Rock, Paper, Scissors work for pre-K because my wife showed it to me and it worked. Instead of playing it like Rock, Paper, Scissors, if you make it a group puzzle-solving game where they all have to be the same color, it doesn't matter who you tag. But you all just have to be at the same color at the end of the game. That makes it so much more open-ended and more of an icebreaker where kids are just going to interact rather than have a structured guideline on how to play.
Krystal Wilson: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So reduce all the cognitive loading. You have to go after you. You have to go after you. Nope. Doesn't matter. Find anybody who's a different color and tag your watches together.
Krystal Wilson: That's it. Okay.
Steven Hanna: If you're all on the same team at the end of the game, we all beat the computer.
Krystal Wilson: Okay.
Steven Hanna: If a few of you are on red, a few of you are on green, and a few of you are on blue, we're going to try and beat the computer again.
Krystal Wilson: Okay.
Steven Hanna: That way worked really, really well for my groups, and it's not going to work how you think it will the first one, even though you gave them the rules. After the first modeling of it, of just find somebody and tag watch, it works. Because they'll find their friends, and then those friends are going to find their friends, and then their friends are finding more friends.
Krystal Wilson: And basically, everybody's finding their friend. Okay.
Steven Hanna: So it's a nice little way for rock, paper, scissors to work out. Math match, depending on your needs for that one, there are settings in there, but that's, you know, you can explore that, different operands, different ranges. I use that as a slowdown game if the group is a little too energetic. We'll just, you know, do addiction and subtraction for a game or two. And we only do that for one minute, just as a kind of reset. We'll with with with just just go We'll go We'll just go Do you have eight games or six games on your system?
Krystal Wilson: So, there are eight icons on the system. don't know how you count, like, because it's Zombietag and then Zombietag.
Steven Hanna: That's okay.
Krystal Wilson: You said eight. That is perfect.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
Krystal Wilson: I was like, there's four and four. So, but I'm just trying to make sure that I've got the right icon.
Steven Hanna: You're good. Good mindset. You got it. So, have you had the opportunity to play those two new games in the bottom right yet?
Krystal Wilson: We haven't played those. We've literally stuck with Zombie Tag, With and Without the Doctor, and Red Light, Green Light. And the matching game.
Steven Hanna: Okay. How long are your classes?
Krystal Wilson: So, we start kids in after school. So, we run from like 3.30 to 6 every day. Typically, our rotations are like 45-minute rotations.
Steven Hanna: Okay. I'm going to give you a script that I use for a 45-minute. Five-minute class, and the settings that I use for each game on that, and I'll give you kind of like two or three sentences on just how to run it, and then you guys can adapt it depending on what your needs are. That might help you a little bit more for using more games inside of your sessions, because I know those three are like really cool, but you could probably like trickle one out each week just as a trial and be like, hey, we got a new one this week. So I'll send that over to you after this. Do you have the system in front of you at all?
Krystal Wilson: I do not.
Steven Hanna: It's on campus. Okay. When you do have an opportunity, one thing that I'm going to ask is to quickly check your system settings and look at your data.
Krystal Wilson: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Because you've had your system for a little while now. want to say over two months. Is that correct? Perfect.
Krystal Wilson: We got them right before teacher in service.
Steven Hanna: So at the beginning of August, a month and a half.-ish days. All right. Okay.
Krystal Wilson: But we didn't start using that with kids. Like we didn't start using with kids until like September 1st.
Steven Hanna: Okay. So we're fresh like two weeks just using. Okay. If you haven't registered the system, I highly recommend that you do that first. When you start the system up, there's going to be like a home screen and it should say, welcome to Zeus.
Krystal Wilson: Register your system now. Skip for now.
Steven Hanna: If you guys are hitting skip for now, that's totally fine. But when you do register, make sure it's on an administrator account so that it's not tied to any of like the teacher operators or someone who may have a turnover. in the next few years, just be considered a lab. Okay. With the data. When you go into that little cog icon in the top right corner for settings on the main system, you're going to hit that. And then you'll come to a section on the left-hand side where there's a bunch of different tabs. It should be System Info. If you just go through the left side, you'll come to a data tab that says how many steps, how many times people tagged each other, what the most popular game is, how many hours your system has of use. What we would like to actually start doing is ask you periodically for that information because it will help us create new games. So if I could reach out every now and then and just ask for a quick picture of that at your convenience, that would actually help us out in a different sort of way. But it's also really important for you guys to know where this is because if you need a deliverable to any sort of... Administrator, anybody who needs to be shown the validity and efficacy of ZTAG, this is the exact section that you will go into to say, you want to know what it does? Tap, take a look. Your entire story is on one screen, and it tells itself. So with that, there are a bunch of different tabs once you go into the settings and register the systems. If you only wanted to make it so that there are four games, the main four that you play, you can actually take away access to the games on the home screen. So it'll only be those four games, like Zombie Tech, Red Light, Green Light, Pattern Match, and then Zombie with Doctor if you want. So there's a few different settings in there. Last thing that I'm going to walk you through on the settings side is going to be the volume, because you can change the volume.
Krystal Wilson: We did that!
Steven Hanna: That's like the number one thing that I always have people say, why didn't I know about this before? And I go... But did you try to do that in a very small space? And you're like, yes.
Krystal Wilson: Do you remember that's what happened when you were telling me, like, just get everything turned on, and then it all went insane in here. And it was so loud. was like, oh, my gosh.
Steven Hanna: So we changed the volume.
Krystal Wilson: But yes. Yes.
Steven Hanna: Okay. With that, your router is the, your startup sequence and shutdown sequence are the only two main things that I'm going to go over with you. Because the settings in each game without it in front of you, it's going to be a little challenging, and you can use the script that I sent you. Okay. So your startup sequence, you do need to start and shut it down correctly every single time, or you will run the risk of the system becoming corrupted. If the system does become corrupted, there is a chance that it may need to be sent back for repair, or we might have to send you something, in which case you'll still be down on access for the system. So. So. you. Starting it up and shutting it down the correct way are very important. I'm going to copy and paste the sequence. You look very stressed right now, Krystal.
Krystal Wilson: No, I'm just, um, it's been a long week. Okay. It's been a long week.
Steven Hanna: I'm sorry that we're doing this on a Friday. I'm not stealing all of your time.
Krystal Wilson: It's good.
Steven Hanna: I will make sure that I get you out at least 20 minutes early so you can decompress and do what you need. I'm just going to pull up the startup and shutdown sequence and copy and paste that to you.
Krystal Wilson: Okay.
Steven Hanna: And then we'll just go through it because you are an intelligent person and I don't need to read things to you. You can read them on your own and you can ask me a question.
Krystal Wilson: So we did have one of the wrist things that, um, like the screen busted. Like there's, it's still working, but the screen busted.
Steven Hanna: Screen is not turning on, but the watch is still tagging, still communicating.
Krystal Wilson: The screen's turning on.
Steven Hanna: It's just cracked.
Krystal Wilson: Cracked.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
Krystal Wilson: So it's like a teenager's phone, okay?
Steven Hanna: It still works, but it's all cracked up. All right. Fair enough. Do you have a spare ZTAGGER in your kit?
Krystal Wilson: You should have received two extras. Okay.
Steven Hanna: If you want, what you can do is you can run that phone into the ground like I would tell my kids at school to do. Or if you wanted to swap it out, that'll be up to you. The swap is very simple. Take the new one, plug it into the dock when it's on. It'll automatically sync up with the ZEUS. Okay. only thing you'll need to do is make sure that they're connected to the same firmware.
Krystal Wilson: Okay.
Steven Hanna: For updates. That's why you need to register your system.
Krystal Wilson: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So at that point, I will give you another link after this on how to register your system.
Krystal Wilson: And it's like a two-minute guide, and you can do that as well. Perfect. But is that covered under warranty? Does that go back?
Steven Hanna: What happens with the... You can run that into the ground however you would like. If you are going down and you're beyond those two taggers and you need it replaced, just reach out to us.
Krystal Wilson: Okay.
Steven Hanna: We're pretty quick on the repairs. You shouldn't need that one to be replaced as of yet since you have two spares. But if you wanted it to, we could, you know, take a look at it. No need at this moment in time is what I'm trying to get at.
Krystal Wilson: Okay.
Steven Hanna: And then let me get you the quick start guide. I'm going to paste that into our chat. Okay. We'll just visualize. If you open the latches, the first thing you're going to do is take out that router, that white attachment. You're going to then take those two little antennas, screw them onto that router. There's a little black hook clip that goes into the back of the router that you attach to the system. From there, you take your black power cable, you plug that right in, turn the orange power button on. Now, you're going to wait about 10 seconds for that little beep, and then you should see that power battery indicator on each of the little ZTAGers. From that, you're going to press the silver switch right above that little orange power button, and it'll turn blue. Give it about a minute, minute and a half, the system will turn on. So, to turn on your watches, since you've already done it, you just press that little red button to turn them. camerarolling window now, Off. Two ways to turn them off. This is the thing you might not know about with them. You can double tap them twice on the red button to turn them off, or you can put them right on the dock and they automatically turn off.
Krystal Wilson: You're probably putting them right on the dock and they automatically turn off.
Steven Hanna: If you did not want to do that, like, maybe putting it back on charge is going to be a pain because, you know, the kid just went to grab a water break real quick or something and the watch isn't going get turned off. You can just double tap it on the side and wait for them to come back. Turn it right back on, press it once. The shutdown sequence of this. This is the crucial, important part that we'll go over and probably where I'll leave you off because we're at the 15-minute mark. It is important that you go and work from the top down. Take the router off, then you're going to go to the LCD screen in the top right corner, press the power button, then the shutdown icon should appear. The will go black. You're going to wait 10 seconds. You're going to remove the router clip, the antennas. You're going to press the silver button first. That shuts down the main screen on the top. The blue little ring around that silver button should be off now. You shouldn't see that. Wait 10 seconds. Press the red button. That powers down the lower portion of the system. Wait 5 seconds. Take out the cables. Boil them up and put them away. That's the shutdown sequence. Questions on startup or shutdown?
Krystal Wilson: No. It's all... I'm just going to send this to my staff so that they've got...
Steven Hanna: And they'll also have our meeting together as well. And if they want an individual one-on-one, they can schedule that with me too.
Krystal Wilson: Okay.
Steven Hanna: All right. What was the last thing that I wanted to go over with you before we scoot out of here? I think that was pretty much it. You guys know that you don't need Wi-Fi to run the system. You can run it anywhere. Have you guys looked into any solar battery packs to fully move yourselves around with the unit?
Krystal Wilson: No. I mean, we do it either in the gym. Then we've done it out, like the junior high has done it out on the, like, lawn area, but it's close to the building, so it's still easy to plug in to an exterior building plug.
Steven Hanna: Okay. If you had needed to move it out to a field for something else, I'd give you a link to an Amazon power brick. There's really not much more that I can share with you that you didn't already know, other than... So do you have any specific questions on this, how to operate? I'm going to give you specific settings to walk through each game with. But other than that, I would say if you have specific staff that's going to be using it, and they're probably not as familiar with it as you because you've had your hands on it a few times now, so you could probably have them just schedule a training with me for 45 minutes, and I'll make sure I walk through, like, the top down on it so you don't have to. Up to you.
Krystal Wilson: Okay. Well, I'll double check with them. I know, like, we met, and then I met with my team, and then we kind of went through all the things that we discussed, that you and I discussed before. And so we'll just make sure that everybody's doing the startup and shutdown correctly, and then if they want additional, because, you know, we went through and just set up the settings on the, on the. Devices, and then on the device, and then kind of it was set. So I'll see if they would like to do training on the additional games, and then that way they've got that information as well.
Steven Hanna: Sounds good. All right, so I'm going to shoot you over a script for 45 minutes. I'm going to give you settings that I use on pretty much every one of my games.
Krystal Wilson: I'll separate it out for you for your youngers and your olders.
Steven Hanna: Perfect. And the only thing I'm going to ask you to do is make sure that those systems get registered so that you guys can start looking at your data. Okay. Any questions before we jump off?
Krystal Wilson: I think I'm good. I still have you on my phone, you know.
Steven Hanna: Good.
Krystal Wilson: Text me if you need.
Steven Hanna: I'm here.
Krystal Wilson: That's good.
Steven Hanna: Now I'm like legitimately part of their team, so.
Krystal Wilson: Oh, that's good. That's good.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, I've taken a step back from teaching, and now I'm teaching you guys.
Krystal Wilson: There you go. There you go. All right. Well, thank you for your time.
Steven Hanna: You got it.
Krystal Wilson: And I'll reach out, definitely reach out if we have, you know, questions or issues, concerns, or just need a tip or trick to facilitate, though.
Steven Hanna: Yep. You've got my phone number. You've got my email. I'll send this follow-up stuff your way probably about, give me an hour.
Krystal Wilson: Perfect. Thanks so much.
Steven Hanna: Take care. Have a wonderful day, Krystal. You too. Bye-bye.
Steven Hanna: This meeting is being recorded. Good afternoon. I'm just going to give a few minutes for a few more to get in. I'm not going to wait too long. It's a Friday. I appreciate you guys being here for us.
Matthew Hale: Say this though, please. Okay, yeah. Are you able to hear me? Yes.
Steven Hanna: If you folks have access to your ZTAG units, you should probably grab those. If not, I'm going to get one of my ZTAG units ready with a different camera setup so you can follow along. right. On a somewhat simulated screen up until I get a more professional setup, and then I can get you.
Alli Hale - Garner ISD: Okay, Steve, I apologize. We don't have access to our units today. I kind of told my staff that they could just hop on this training from wherever they were.
Steven Hanna: That's okay. Not a problem. I can adapt it for, like, a quick 15-minuter, just so I could walk everybody through the system. And then, if anything, if you want to reconnect and get a more one-on-one formal, we can, you know, spend another 10 minutes. It's a pretty quick walkthrough. So I'm not gonna take a lot of your time. I know it's a Friday. And we'll try and kind of just jump right into it. So I'm going to get my other camera set up on the ZTAG unit so that you can see what I'm going to be talking about. I'll right back. back. I'll be right back. I'll right back. Bye. Thank All righty. So, let's see if there's anyone else waiting to get into the room. Yes. Okay. Okay. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . All righty. So I think I'm going to kind of start this up. I want to say thank you guys for being here on a Friday. I know you guys are teachers, educators, and everything in between, classified as. So thank you. I'm not going to try and take up too much of your time today, but I do want to walk you through how to use your ZTAG Zeus units because they are really, really amazing. units that are very versatile, and you can apply a lot of theory to depending on what you're trying to do. So to give you a little bit of context about myself, my name is Steve or Steven. I'm one of the Playmaker developers over at ZTAG. I am a former middle school teacher over in New York. I taught for about three years, and then I was drawn to use my teacher ability elsewhere, and it just so happened to land with ZTAG. So I went from teaching Earth Science 7-12 to teaching teachers how to use ZTAG and apply a few different methodologies that I've seen work in my time. Before we begin, I've kind of set up an additional camera looking directly at a ZTAG unit. This is kind of going to be stock. Like, I've had this unit, this is my first unit, I've had this one for three and a half years, and I still have cellophane wrapping on it. And, I mean, I'll show you how much use I have on that. But, do we have any questions before we begin as far as who I am, what ZTAG is? I'll kind of get into the nitty-gritty on what ZTAG actually is. But, does anyone have any specific questions before I get into the real deal? No? Okay, cool. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to jump off of this computer, move on over to my other camera setup where I have the ZTAG monitor right over there, and this meeting is going to be recorded for everybody as well. So you will be able to look directly at this, share it with anybody who might need it. We're going to be walking through basic system setup, how to take things out of the box, what should be in the box at the start, and then we're going to go through a few different settings on how to differentiate the system based on the skill set that you'll be working with. I'm going to briefly walk you through how to cognitively load some of the games and how to reduce that cognitive load and scaffold the skills necessary to move into the more challenging games. We do have a few of the more casual games and we have a few of the more competitive games that have unique settings that you can change depending on who you're working with and the group that you have. So without further further ado, I'm going to scoot on. Run over to the other camera setup, and I'll be right back. All right, sorry about that, tech stuff, 30 seconds. All right,
Steve K: All right, folks. So the first thing that you will encounter with your system is going to be a closed lid. So I'm going to simulate that as such. Two latches on both sides, one latch here, one latch here. You can label yours with any sort of labeling system that you would like. I've labeled mine with number one, a dot. I know those little colored sticker circles work really well. When you open your system up, you're going to have a few different things. Mine is a little... It's little bit different because I have misorganized myself over the use of this system. So, the first thing and the most important aspect of this is that you take your router and just place it on the side for now. You will have two antennas for that. Ah, sorry. You will have two antennas. I put them in a Ziploc bag. You can put them wherever you would like. Take your antennas out. And this black clip right here, this is your router clip. You're going... To look at the back of your router, and the fat end clips directly into it, just like that. You can then screw on the antennas. And if a clip is looking just like this right on the back, sturdy, I'm not holding it at all, you can... Go ahead and place that on the top of the system, just like that. So, it should be flush right against the top of that system, just like so. This is going to be your step one here. Your step two is going to be to take your power cord, and uncoil that, plug the connector... Factor in on one side, and I'm using something that is a little bit unconventional, but for your use, you'll be using any sort of wall outlet. I have a solar power brick because I need to be a little bit more modular with my use, so sometimes I'll be out in the field. I used to be out in the field with some classes. Sometimes I would be in a gym where I didn't want to run, you know, 150-foot power cable or an extension cord. So we're going to simulate that you're actually just plugging right into a wall. And your startup sequence is as follows. Once that black power cable is in, you're going to press the red power button. That should go on. You will hear your ZTAGGERS beep, and you will see this cool light sequence. time. I recommend Then you lift the lid just a little bit so you can allow some of that heat to dissipate out as opposed to being trapped just like that. On your ZTAG, there should be a little yellow strip indicator here that says, please open lid while charging. So please just remember to allow these ZTAGGERS to maintain their life cycle as long as possible. You want to allow a little bit of heat dissipation. After those ZTAGGERS turn on, you're going to press the silver button, and it's going to turn blue. Your screen will flicker. As you can see, it just changed slightly, indicating that the system is on. Yep, there it is. So, once you see that flicker, you're going to wait about a minute. Now, while the system is loading up, the screen is going to go black a few... A times, and there should be another clicker. Perfect. And after about a minute, you'll be right at your loading home screen, I should say. So, a few things that I want to draw your attention to before we get into any of these games are the settings over here in our top. So, on our left-hand side, we have a volume indicator, which you can change the volume of the devices with. There's a recall button, which we'll go over later at the end of our training. If there are any devices that are not coming back to you at the end on their own, you might need to send a little recall, let everybody know that they do need to come back. The third icon is going to be the settings gear icon, and the fourth icon is going to be the power icon. We're going to go right into our settings first. We're Let's We're One great thing about ZTAG is that you don't actually need Wi-Fi to run. So all of my Wi-Fi settings here, that little pop-up that came up that indicated that I couldn't connect to Wi-Fi, that's okay. I can still run the system and I can still play games without Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi is merely to update your system, and you'll be notified of when those updates come out. We'll basically share with you how to get them over the air, or if you don't have access to get on your school's Wi-Fi, you can just let us know and we'll send you a little SD card. The SD card is right in there, on the top right. So you just have to pop that one out and then pop the new one in that you would get. While we're in our settings, we have a few different tabs. We have our connection tab, which you can go into for your Wi-Fi settings. We have our account tab, which you can see your account with. We have our devices, which I'm actually going to do something fun and reset these because I ran a double system event where I linked two of these systems together, and we had like 40 plus people playing. We have our firmware, where we're going to have to update. We have our games, which if you are looking for a specific game to not be on the home screen, we can take that away. You can select or deselect those games which you would like in this screen. Our system info. This is where your data will be held, and if you ever need to show anybody the efficacy and ability of ZTAG, this is a great screen to go to because it tells its own story. We're going to go through these one by one. And I'm actually going to ask you guys to periodically just report back some of these numbers so that we can better organize games and structure the future development of games in a more data-driven fashion, I should say. So, on your system info, you're going to have the total playtime. Excuse me. The total playtime. That is the amount of time that this system is running a game for, not however long it is idle for. I can tell you right now the system probably has about double that in idle time just in the charging mechanisms alone. We have our game plays. How many games have been played in a lifespan of this system? We have our most popular game, which is ZS, standing for Zombie Survival. We have our step count as 1,434,267. And we have our top. Total Interactions, and this is the amount of tags that occur. If you hit more, you have a further in-depth display of your last five games that you've played. If you need to see exactly what's going on in those games, you can see the steps, the interactions, how long the game is for, and the amount of players. On the Help tab, you will have three different QR codes. This is a really great area to explore for quick support. You will always have access to me as well if you need. I'm here to ensure that you guys are basically, you know, connected, done with training, set up for success, and whatever you might need me for logistic-wise, I'm here for. Under the About section, this is where we're going to actually update. In the future, and I actually do need to update. So maybe I'll walk through that with you guys if we have time, but it's a Friday. I'm not trying to kill all of your time. So, quickly, once more, under the connection tab, this is going to be where you figure out your Wi-Fi for updates only. You do not need Wi-Fi to play the games. Under the account tab, this is where you'll see these accounts. This is where you will set up your account and register your system. Under the device tab, once all of your ZTAGGERS are in the system and connected, once they're done charging, they'll appear as green. It's about a one-hour charge time for four hours of gameplay, for reference. And, to charge, there is a little magnetic dock inside. There is a magnetic charge dock, charge port, on the left hand. The side of this, right below the power button, seed it right into the magnetic charger, you'll hear a little beep, and the light will go on indicating that the charge sequence has been started. To turn, eh, we'll go into that in one second. We're gonna reset our devices and get our 24 back. I don't like it out of order. Some OCD within me. It appears... Need to reseat that. If they do go out of the little seeding area, they will stop the charge sequence and appear as gray, like that. So it only picked up 23 on a reset. When I hit reset on this time, it should pick up 24. Perfect. Our time... The top left little ZTAG icon will bring us to our home screen. I want to share with you the structure that I run games in because it scaffolds the skills necessary for the more cognitively loading games. We're going to start out with a game called Red Light, Green Light. But before we do that, I'm going to turn on a ZTAG. So I've just taken this one out of the charge dock from the spot that we just worked with, or the one next to it I should say. If you're looking at your ZTAgger, on the left-hand side, there's that little red button. Press that red button and give it about five seconds for the little ZTAG icon to appear. In your top right corner, that little battery icon is the first thing you'll see, followed by a bar or a set of numbers and random letters where those little... Yeah. Yeah. Signal Bars are. If those signal bars are there, that indicates that this ZTAGGER is talking with this main system and will receive any of the TAP messages you send to it. So the first one that I would like to take you through, since I'm upstairs in a little bit of an enclosed area, is our volume setting. Tap the volume, and you will have an indicator on a volume slider of how loud your system will beep. You can drag that up and down. I'm going to set it at 1, since I'm in an enclosed area. For larger areas, you're going to want that to be at 10, but for now, it's going to be at 1. And you can see that updated in the watch, right there, in the top left corner. When you are ready to go into a game, the first game that we're going to start with is Red Light, Green Light. Sweet. Yet. Sweet. The game rules and instructions will be at the start all the time. You can go over this on your own. What I like to do is turn this around into a co-teaching and co-learning environment where I ask anybody if they've played Red Light, Green Light before. And everybody will usually say it. Eh, I wouldn't say everybody. We'll go with 80 to 90% of the participants will say yes. And then I have them try and explain the rules of Red Light, Green Light. We're going to be playing with one watch today. I do want to show you the settings. First thing that we need to do, since the watch is available, we need to add it to the playing tagger section. We're going to hit that little red button and move it over. Now that we've done that, I want to show you the settings of this. Red Light, Green Light can be changed up and loaded cognitively, depending on who you're playing with. For younger students and younger kids, I recommend the time limit. service. back. It's Change to 60 seconds. It's the first thing you're going to change. The sensitivity is the second thing you're going to change. We're going to go to a medium sensitivity. The third thing that you're going to want to enable or disable is negative scoring. Negative scoring is the ability to lose points when you're caught on red versus elimination on red. So with negative scoring enabled, that means your players will merely lose points. I recommend this for most of your games. Unless you have older students and older kids playing, you would be changing this a different way. We're going to hit the save setting button. Now that we've saved those settings and we're set to explore this game, we hit next. The ZTAGGER should say get ready. What I like to do here is offer a countdown to your students and kids and say okay. Everybody pay attention. We're going to start the countdown from 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. So on the ZTAGGER device, what they will see is the watch changing from red to green and green to red, back and forth. On the operator screen, this is what you will be seeing. You have the timer going down, you have the score, and the ZTAGGER. I'm going to simulate this ZTAGGER being caught on red on the next sequence. So we'll pretend that they're running. And they just got caught on red, minus 10 points. So they're put back to zero, but they can continue playing. If they're caught again on red, if this will catch, there is a little bit of forgiveness on it.
Matthew Hale: Hey, Steve.
Steve K: Hey, Steve. Hey, Hey, Yes.
Matthew Hale: We had another staff member join a little bit late. Would you be able to let her in? Christy in the writing room?
Steve K: Absolutely. Okay. Welcome, Christy. At the end of the game, you will have this cool little rainbow sequence going off on the side of the watch. What I like to do is highlight this for a moment. Don't draw too much attention to it, but just, you know, look around and say, does anybody have a rainbow color sequence going flashing on the side of their watch?
christy: And somebody will say, I do, and ask them to hold their hand up so that they can see it. Okay, perfect.
Steve K: The winner will be indicated by this little flashing sequence. I do want to show you. magic one. be be Yeah. If we turn off negative scoring and put that sensitivity on high, what this would look like. So we're going to simulate that countdown again, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, tap on 3, 2, 1, game starts, they're running. And they're going to get caught on red, and it'll give you some warning. If they continue to move, they'll say, you're out, game over. So that's what the elimination setting on. We don't have many other players. So we're just going to be going with your operator screen. We'll have the end leaderboard with red being the people who are eliminated. And if there is anybody alive or that survived the red light green light sequence, they will have this little rainbow sequence. Excuse me. get Let's begin. Erector, One thing that I will mention with this is as the game progresses your watches will go out of sequence. So what I'll actually do is I'm gonna add a few more of these in and turn them on. So Christy, you just got here. What we're doing is we're playing a game of red light green light and we're gonna be turning on our ZTAGG. So there's a little red button on the left hand side. If you're looking directly at it, look to left, and you're just gonna press that. There's two things that you gotta quickly pay attention to when this turns on. One is gonna be that little battery indicator in the top right. And the second thing is gonna be the set of signal bars. If they're not signal bars, they're gonna be a set of random letters and numbers. That indicates this system is talking with the watch and the watch is communicating with the system. So what I'm What to do is set up Red Light, Green Light one more time, and the reason we start with Red Light, Green Light folks is because we want to scaffold the skills necessary for the more cognitively challenging games. We're going to add our available players over. We can also hit Assign All, and we're going to hit Next. All of your devices and ZTAGGERS should say get ready. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And these are all going to start off as Red at the same time and Green at the same time. However, that will change depending on the timer. So I can't speed this up, unfortunately, but you'll have a pretty good idea on who's going to earn a few points here. We got that one eliminated. So now we have a one versus one, and they should start going. They're out of sequence now, unless they're on an AA, but red and green should be delayed a little bit, and this is to prevent people from cheating off of each other. So you'll notice that, yes, exactly, the sequence is starting to change up, and that's with about 30 seconds or less. So we have one that looks like they're eliminated, and two more that'll still be playing. You can always stop the match as well, at any point in time. Your winner will be indicated by that. That's Red Light, Green Light. Any questions on Red Light, Green Light so far? If not, we're going to go into Pattern Match. Pattern Match is a game that's similar to UNO, and I start to ask the group that we're always going to play with, has anybody played UNO before? Can you give me one or two ways that we match? They're going to say number and color. For our game game- We're going to be matching a color and a shape. For this game, quick settings. Depending on what you're trying to teach and what you're trying to work with here, your time limit is going to be your time limit. Continuous mode means that the time limit does not matter. Negative scoring means that people will lose points for getting the wrong match. I don't like that. For this game, I keep that disabled. For our shapes, depending on what you're trying to teach and who you're working with, you can cognitively load it or you can keep it a little bit more casual. Colors, same exact thing. You can go primaries, you can go off colors, you can go cool colors, you can go warm colors. You can do whatever you would like with these colors. We're going to keep that as those settings for now. We're going to assign all of our ZTAGGERS to play. And I would like to show you how this game works. At the start of this game, everybody will be scattered throughout the play area. And what I like to say is don't stand next to your partner at the start Start. If you stand next to your partner, they might, you know, not get you the right points because they're matching the wrong color or shape. These two watches are going to be technically standing next to each other. This watch is going to be somewhere else off to the side, simulating another player. We're going to start the game, and these watches are automatically going to start to connect with each other. And this game is to learn about the tagging sequence and how we link our watches together. So, if I take these watches away from each other, and we're just looking at this watch. This watch is not connecting with anything. However, the second I move another watch closer, they automatically connect. And I'm going to move this watch further and further away so you have an idea on how far they can basically be. This is about a foot away from each other. And this is based on proximity. I do want to mention, if you are in an indoors environment, the watches will have slightly more range. If you are in an outdoor sunny environment, the watches will not have as much range. Same thing as always with the winning watch having this rainbow LED sequence on the side. What I like to do with pattern match and shape match is focus this into three parts of a game. Each game is going to be one minute long. So we are going to change that to 60 seconds, and we are going to hit save. The first game that I like to play is just with colors only. We focus on matching colors. The second game that we play is matching shapes only. The third game is a combination of the two. So you are building up the skill set for tagging. Once you are done with this game, you will move into the more chase oriented games. ... ... ... Any questions on Pattern Match, Shape Match? Okay. Our next game that we're going to walk through is a game called Rock, Paper, Scissors. This game can be played in one of two ways. You can play this the traditional way where rock chases after scissor, scissor chases after paper, paper chases after rock. I actually don't like that. I like to do it in a little bit of a different way. I prefer this to be a more social game where it's a collaborative effort to all get on the same team. So you'll notice that our watches, ZTAG, excuse me, will be flashing at the start of this game. It's everybody's goal to get put on the same team. And how you do that is by linking your watch to anyone else. It doesn't matter who they are. Just make sure you're the same color. So we're all going to have 60 seconds to do that because it'll automatically change. left screen. So we screen, how So, new What I'm going to do is start this game up, and these two watches will start off on different teams, but immediately go to one or the other. So rock, beat, scissors. On our screen, we have one paper, and we have two rocks. So if paper comes over and turns those into the green team on paper, everybody wins together because we're all on the green team. So this is more of a collaborative game. It's more of an icebreaker game, and it's a really good way to just have kids and students interact with one another as opposed to be more competitive with one another. Any questions on rock, paper, scissors? You can also run this in the competitive style. I just don't prefer it in that way because theory versus application, collaboration works way better than competition. Any questions on Rock, Paper, Scissors? If not, we're going to go into Keep Away. Keep Away can also be played in one of two ways. The first way that you can be playing Keep Away is with one person as the ball. That person has to keep the ball away from everyone else. Random assign, random assign, start match. Random going to take these two away. So... This device has the ball. It is now transferring it to our other two devices. For this game, it is a chase-oriented game. People will have to get within proximity of one another to steal the ball. I actually prefer to reverse this. We're gonna hit stop match. I'm gonna add, I'm not gonna add anything. We're gonna keep it as one ball, but we're gonna say instead of keep away, it's now hot potato or tag. You don't want the ball, so you're gonna have to give the ball away. Instead of people chasing one person with the ball, this now reverses it, and that one person is chasing after others. There are a few different ways that you can add variance to this. One is by adding more taggers and more balls. If you need to disperse it a little bit, you can add more taggers slash balls. With that, I will say this. In a smaller area, you want to keep a smaller amount of balls or taggers. In a larger area, you would like to have a larger amount of taggers. So, So, thinking of a field, think about four of those people tagging. Thinking of a cafeteria, maybe you want one or two. Any questions on KeepAway? Okay. Our next game that I like to walk through is actually a game where we slow it down a little bit, and that's called Math Match. In Math Match, similar to Pattern Match or Shape Match, we're going to have a set of questions and answers on our watches. You can decide who these are. I'm going to start the match. I did not see who I had as what. So, the same exact matching sequence for... Pattern and Shape Match is how you would play Math Match. With Math Match, there are a variety of different settings that you can select, such as our low and high range, our negative scoring for incorrect matches, and our specific operators. If you're working with youngers, can do addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. I like to just keep it set to two of those to keep it, you know, a little cognitively light for everybody. Math Match is a great game to slow things down with. Our next set of games that we like to introduce everyone to is a game called Word Wave. In Word Wave, you can select an English language word moving to a target language of Spanish or French. We'll start with Spanish. I'm just going to show you what this looks One team will be in green, on the green team, and one team will be on the purple team. Similar to Pattern Match and Math Match, each of these players will be given a color for their team and a word. It is their goal to match with the other color team and get those words correct. Any questions on word weights? Our newest game is a game called Sequence Train. In this game, each player will have to figure out what the next correct number in the sequence is. Let's go by natural numbers, which are going to be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. One of these watches will start off with a flashing number. How I like to play this game is that it's a tag-in game. We'll simulate these as players, there's going to be a circle of players around the person who's it. The next person has to tag in and go to the middle, and then the next person also tags in. So that person is one, that person is two, they'll move here, and I'll just show you. So we're going to pretend that everybody is in a circle around our number one tagger, which is not going to be this one in my 33% chance course. So, this is the tag in and tag out sequence. So, we're going up by one each time. Seven to eight. Eight to nine. And with more players. You'll be tagged. In and out of a circle. little hard to show from here though. That's sequence train. So if you have a cone in the center of everybody and everybody is forming a circle around the cone, you'll be able to do that game a little bit more effectively and we'll have a video out on that in the future. The last game that I want to take you through is a game called Zombie Survival, which is the probable most engaging, most fun, yet the most cognitively challenging. We have Zombie Survival and we also have Zombie Survival with Doctor. We're going to jump right into the Doctor game mode. I'm going to add a few more of these devices in just to show you how the zombie infection spreads. But, at the start of this, since we've only got about five minutes left... As you turn these devices on, they'll automatically add themselves... So, we've got one, two, three, four, five people in this game. You can decide who goes where. You can also just hit random assign. For our settings in Zombie Tag, we have our time limit, which is what I like to say, if you have a larger area, increase the time. Smaller area, decrease the time. We'll go with 60 seconds. Zombies on Randomize, we'll go with one. Well, not 117. Doctors on Randomize, we'll go with one. Number of tags before infection, that's the amount of lives that they have before they turn into a zombie, how many times they can get tagged. We'll say that that's four lives. The infection duration, this happens when a zombie takes all of the lives away. It's how the doctor can... How many seconds that the human has until they can find the doctor and be healed. The doctor heal limit is how many times the doctor can heal someone in our game. So I'm going to save that and hit random assign again. If the taggers aren't popping up on the left side of the screen or during any of the games, the first thing you're going to do is take a quick look at the side and hit that power button. This should restart that sequence. You'll also see that little connectivity icon go red. Perfect question, actually. And then once it reconnects and resyncs with the system, it'll go green. Now, we're going to start this and I don't know if this one will actually get added in. And it looks like it won't. So this is our doctor. you. What I would like to do is just show you this for now, how many lives are being taken with the infection. On your operator screen you'll see these as red as they occur. The game ends once the entire human team is turned into zombies or the humans survive for the time limit. We're actually going to go back because that watch that wasn't connected before is now connected. So, we'll highlight this again. One cool thing about the doctor is that they can also stun a zombie to prevent camping. So there is a built-in mechanism for the doctor to stun a zombie. And that's what the stun looks like. So this is what the doctor looks like. That's what a human looks like. And this is going to be what a zombie looks like. All right. So I've got two minutes left. I'm going to go quickly through a shutdown sequence with anybody and take like two minutes of questions because I know it's a Friday and you're trying to scoot to wherever you got to go. A shutdown sequence for our ZTAGGERS. The first thing that you can do, we're only going to turn one of these off. I'll turn those off after. Two ways to turn them off. First way, two tap on the red. That'll shut it down. If you one tap on the red, that restarts them. It's going to be your number one troubleshooting step. Just try and restart it. Once this turns back on and says ZTAGG, I'm going to put it right into the dock because that is the second way to turn it off. It automatically turns off once you put in the charge dock and it starts the charge sequence. We worked from our top up for our startup. For our shutdown, we're going to work from our bottom up for our startup. We're going to work from our top down for our shutdown. So we're going to take off our antenna and router. You're going to unscrew those. Place them gently in the back of your case. And there is storage in the back of your case, folks. If you have a little USB mouse or keyboard, you can take that out. So you can drop that right in there. You're going to take that clip off and put it on that side as well. I've put an AirTag inside of this just in case. Your router goes in that top right corner, next step, shut down power icon, tap that and hit shut down Zeus, your screen will flicker, it'll turn off, next step, five seconds, click that silver button, wait another five seconds, hit the red button, last step, unplug your power, take it out, coil it up, and I can't coil it right now, I'm gonna lazily put this in, because I'm one hand in this, and don't worry, there will be a better setup in the future, we promise. Thank you. Remember to have your router, your power cable, your two white router antennas, and your router clip. Close your ZTAG case. Clip. Clip. Easily shuts down. Any questions on the case? Also, I do want to inform you folks, I'm gonna lift this guy up. On the back side here, if you need to roll it, there's a little release right here. Pop that, and lift. It's got wheels. Take it everywhere. I'm gonna jump back right on over to the other computer, and I'll get you guys out of here.
Steven Hanna: Questions? Comments? Concerns? I know it's a lot. However, I am here to support you in whatever you need. You'll be getting my email and my phone number from here on out, and you can contact me and ZTAGG for anything. There is one thing that I do want to inform everybody of, and that is to register your systems. Once you start your systems up for the first time, you will be met with a registration screen. It is important that you do that so that we can start collecting some of these step counts and all of that to, you know, formulate some games and structure our new games better. That's pretty much my spiel. I've spoken a lot. Any questions, comments, concerns?
Matthew Hale: Gerardo, I know you're the best with technology. Do you have any questions about any of the operations that he showed you? you.
Steven Hanna: And you'll also get this training sent to your emails if you accept it. It's getting sent out. If you folks need anything from ZTAG from this point, please reach out. We're here to try and support you guys and make sure that you have everything you need for your students, kids, and however you'd like to utilize ZTAG. So I would like to thank you all for being here on a Friday, and I know I'm three minutes over. So with that, have a great weekend. Enjoy. Spend time with your families. Thank you, everybody. I'm going to end this meeting.
Matthew Hale: Thank you, Steven.
Carmee Sarvida: How many are they, yeah, how many are training at you? Thank you.
Kristin Neal: Hello. Hi.
Jorge Monroy: How are you?
Kristin Neal: Hello, Jorge. How are you?
Jorge Monroy: I'm good. How are you? Good, good.
Kristin Neal: Did I say that correctly?
Jorge Monroy: Yeah, yeah, that's fine. I'm bilingual, so I'm Jorge and Jorge. Usually go by Jorge, but my family calls me Jorge. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Awesome. Awesome. Very nice to meet you, Jorge. I'll wave. There we go.
mledezma: Hello there. Good morning. Good morning. Hello.
Kristin Neal: And how, what was your first name?
mledezma: Hi, my name is Mark Ledezma. I got you, Mark.
Kristin Neal: Thank you so much, Mark and Jorge. Carmee, go ahead. Introduce yourself. Yeah.
Jorge Monroy: Yeah, thank you so much. Hi.
Carmee Sarvida: Hi, Jorge and Mark. I'm Carmee. I'm with M-Cruise in the sales department. I'm good to see you all. Oh, good morning.
Kristin Neal: Good morning. Nice to meet you.
Jorge Monroy: Nice to meet you guys.
Kristin Neal: Thank you so much for joining us. My name is Kris. I'm the Partner Relations Director here at ZTAG. I've been here about a year and a half, about the same, almost the same as you, Carmee, but we appreciate this time with you. The City of Lancaster, we're very excited to hear more. So we'll just be very upfront. I'm not in sales. I'm just here to see how we can best serve the City of Lancaster. See if what your goals kind of align with ZTAG. I've seen it in action. Cities are really doing amazing things. So I'm excited to just see if that's something that you guys want to partner with us with. So I'll have like a short video. I'll go over like the unit, the pricing and coverage. If you guys are up to that and it's not mandatory, the coverage, but it. You know, it just helps, peace of mind. Okay. How much time do we have about you guys?
Jorge Monroy: I think that this is, this meeting, I'm seeing it's half an hour.
Kristin Neal: Is that okay? I just want to make sure that that was okay.
Jorge Monroy: Yeah, absolutely. Awesome.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Thank you so much. And we'll just jump in. I would, how about you guys? We would love to hear the city of Lancaster. What are you guys up to? We hear there's some incredible, I saw the Poppy Festival. You guys have a Fall Carnival Festival. I love it.
Jorge Monroy: Yeah, yeah. No, thank you so much for making time for us today. We're part of the Parks Department, and specifically, we oversee youth services, where we think this would be great. And we also oversee senior services. So, you know, very diverse range of individuals and folks that come out to our programs. So, I am the supervisor in the department, and then Marcus. He's our coordinator, and so he has more direct impact with those programs. We have some after-school programs, and we have day camps. We do a summer, spring, and a winter day camp. And then on top of that, we do many, many trainings with staff. And so, you know, I was looking online over the weekend, and actually my wife is a PE coach and has been looking into possibly bringing your services to her programs as well. And so she shared it, and I looked you guys up, and I thought it was, it seemed like a really neat, you know, product. So, you know, I, all this happened over the weekend, and a surprise, Mark, thank you for joining. Mark's like, hey, you know, tell me more about this. I'm like, you'll learn, you'll hear a little bit more there. So, go ahead, Mark. So, yeah, George pretty much wrapped.
mledezma: I explained everything that is that we do here. I work directly under George as a coordinator, so I do city after-school programs. We have some that are at cost at some school sites, but we have more that are free to the community, that we offer services at our community center, at certain parks around the city, so that way a lot of our kids can enjoy that programming. And then, yes, from kids to senior citizens, we have programs for them to go and have a walking club, so every Wednesday we go out and have our little walk with them. We're creating, we're building more on our senior programming to have excursions where we go every other month on field trips. They call them excursions. I love calling them field trips because I've always worked with kids.
Kristin Neal: And then also trying to bring AI to seniors, so it's been keeping us busy trying to see how we could involve our senior community with the city. I love that, Mark. You guys are giving me goosebumps because I'm so excited to have seniors and kids in the same conversation. It's so, it's rare that you get to have that, that immersion. And I'm happy. Taking the unit to a school that we actually have a club that we're able to do. It's our Christian club that we're able to go into the school. And the two gentlemen that are in their 80s and 90s are playing the games with these kids. And I'm just like blown away.
Jorge Monroy: I'm like, what is going on?
Kristin Neal: You would never expect like an 80 or 90-year-old playing like a physical game, but they're able to just at least move their arms. And that's exactly where you see that magic just happen, like a new level of bonding. It's really neat. Really just neat that we get to see that. So let me jump in. I'm excited, too, because you said something about staff, like staff developments. And we love staff developments. So I have a video here of our last one. This was just done maybe, I think, last month. It might have been six weeks ago. This was up north. Here we go. Let me share my screen. And this was up in Standard. This was very exciting, and I actually quite encourage it, because even me as a kid, very competitive, even a little bit, you know, hyped up. So I think it creates an avenue for them to direct their energy, right? Instead of, like, I've been pent up from all these school hours, now I have to do this curriculum, now they have something to look forward to, but also, like, waste their energy, but in a positive way, in a fun way. This was very exciting. That was the PD day, so we were out there having fun, playing all the games, the staff were just, we were just collaborating, really. It was just an opportunity to collaborate with everyone and get on to that level of just play and learning those simple things that ZTAG really has that platform for. So here is our welcome letter, and this is what is sent to you after purchase. This is kind of like your training, you all, I'll also go over what the training also includes, but this is our ZTAG unit right down here. So all in a Very durable case. It has wheels. It also has a handle. We use this as our carry-on for our flights. It has 24 player capabilities. These are 24 game watches. There's eight games total right now, but we like to really layer these into something maybe you already have, like that Poppy Festival or the Fall Festival that you're describing in October. We have a zombie survival game that you could easily go into, like a corn maze or, you know, things that maybe you already have, or an obstacle course. It's lot of fun in an obstacle course. No Wi-Fi is needed. It has its own built-in Wi-Fi. So all you need is a plug right here. And if you have a generator, that works too. So you can literally roll this out into the middle of the woods or the desert, and you can play at night. It is the coolest experience. And you're also, there's an HDMI plug up here that you can play. Again, and it can go onto a big screen. So if you have one of those big screens in your gyms, perfect. Oh, great.
Jorge Monroy: Thank you. I was wondering about that, too. Oh, good.
Kristin Neal: Good, good. Yeah, every game ends with, well, it has a leaderboard. So every game you see who's winning, and it's all anonymous. It all goes based on the ZTAGGER that you're wearing. So, yeah, instead of the kids kind of bundling up around here, you're able to. So each game is also editable, I guess you could say. You're able to change the settings on each of the games. You're able to change the volume. It goes into the area of a football field. That's the coverage. You get to play for three to four hours with one hour of charge time. And if you just have, after about 10 minutes, the kids need a little break. They need a little water break. So you just, just, like. Go back and forth and plug the ZTAGERS back in their chargers, and you can play all day doing that. Just pop them back in to top off the charge. So this is also the charging port. And this is your touchscreen right here. Do you guys have any questions about the unit itself?
Jorge Monroy: So when you said the charging port is for the case in its entirety, when you put the watches into those slots, they automatically charge? Yes.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Jorge Monroy: Yes.
Kristin Neal: You just make sure that it's plugged, and yes, it automatically starts charging.
Jorge Monroy: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Any other questions, Mark?
mledezma: No, that was going to be my question as well. And also, does it have like a shutoff to where when it reaches 100% battery, it shuts off and it's not still trying to power it to where it's going to burn?
Kristin Neal: It it out? It doesn't burn it out. I've had it, they've tested it, and it does not burn out. But if you just have it running, it's perfectly fine. There's no burnout, or like a burn screen or anything like that.
mledezma: Okay.
Jorge Monroy: And so obviously kids, things happen, you know, I'm assuming that they're pretty heavy duty on their wrists for being active and all of that. Do you guys have, if one of them did get broken, do you guys have replacements for?
Kristin Neal: Yes. Okay.
Jorge Monroy: Yes, absolutely.
Kristin Neal: That is the coverage that's optional. Let me go into what we do provide for the ZTAGERS, because we totally get, you know, kids are physical. And even though this is not a physical game, everything is actually sensor-based. So it's more like a remote control sensor. And having the kids trained first to show. So you don't need to be so close, it really helps with them playing after, so they don't have to get, yeah, we definitely want no touching. Everything here is Velcro right here, so it also fits small and large wrists. It's also double-screened on the screen, but it has this rubber guard around the entire thing. And then these buttons, they can't touch. It also has lights and sound, and it vibrates, so it's like a full immersion of their sights, feel, touch, sound. It goes, it counts down, right, Carmee? goes three, two, one, and it makes the kids like, oh my gosh, like. Any questions on the ZTAGGER itself?
mledezma: Is it water-resistant?
Kristin Neal: Sweat Water-resistant, yes, but not water-resistant. Yeah, good question. What we like to tell the kids, actually, and it actually helps you guys, too, with kind of like the sanitary, I guess, like just to try to help it, put a sweatband, and then put this on top of the sweatband, and it really helps. Okay.
Jorge Monroy: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Because the kids get nice and sweaty running around with the games. So we have some training videos here for your team, how to register your unit. Again, Wi-Fi is not needed for this, so when you first open and play, it'll say, do you want to register your unit? There's a skip for now. If you just need to get into play, you just skip for now.
Jorge Monroy: Okay. Oh, okay. I'll wait for this part, the games. Okay, awesome.
Kristin Neal: Here we have the eight games. We like to go in this order because Red Light, Green Light, your classic game. But this has the digital referee, so there's no arguing, no fighting. If it says that you're out, it's because it moved all the sensors. But you can actually change the settings to where it minuses points. So the kids are playing at all times. There's no one out. Everybody keeps playing, and I even tell them, it's okay, you can still win it. So it really keeps them engaged. This is where you can have them run back and forth.
Jorge Monroy: Fantastic. Run back and forth as animals.
Kristin Neal: It's a lot of fun, this one. Pattern match, this is where we're showing the kids to connect, that the watches actually can connect and talk to each other. So you'll be calling out blue square, blue square, and you're looking in this group of people, anyone that has a blue or a square, and connecting and then getting more points. And then it switches. The pattern and the colors keep switching. And all of these, again, you're able to change it. Timing on those. Maths match is the same concept of pattern match where we're matching to each other. But this one, half the people have the problems, the other half will have the solution, and then they got to find each other. So I'll have a two plus two, and I'm reading that, and I'm saying, I need a four, I need a four. And then someone that has a four, that's a different color, too. So it's not just what they're reading. It's also saying all the problems are green, and then all the problems are purple. So you know you got to go to a purple, and then we're connecting. And then again, we're just keep moving, keep moving. And we have our, this is our rock, paper, scissor. This one is more of like a natural, it's hard to describe, because it's very, like, you see, like, the cycles of, it's, everyone starts off as a rock, a paper, or a scissor. It's not something that you actually physically do. But after you match with someone, you tell the kids, match with a different color, match with a different color. And then you'll see which group actually, because you know that rock defeats scissors, you know. So at the end of it, you'll see, okay, who took that around? And then the kids eventually will like strategize. Oh no, I got to actually wait to get. It's a really interesting game and it gets the kids to really collaborate together. That's for sure. Keep Away is our digital ball game. So this has three digital balls. And the kid that has, or the person that has the virtual ball, the longest, wins. And I'll come back to Zombie Survival. Our Word Wave, super fun. This is one of our newest games. Half the kids will have Spanish or French, and the other half will have English. And then they got to find each other.
Jorge Monroy: Yeah, great, great game.
Kristin Neal: We also have our sequence train. That's our last one here. And the kids, you have the kids, our folks stand in a corner. And you have the option of going like natural numbers, odds, evens, tens, and fives. And you'll jump in. So like the very first person will have a five. They're jumping in the center and you're calling it out five. And then everyone's looking. What comes next? Ten. So the ten jumps in the center. And then you're trying to get as high as you can as a group. And I'll tell you, it's right. It's funny because you're like, kids, what happened? You know how to count in fives. The very first time they do it, it's really not good. But it builds. It builds and it gets better and better. So it's like, it's okay. We only got to 20. Let's see how much higher we can go. So zombie survival. That one is the kid's favorite. We love schools using it as an incentive for Fridays. The kids will be either a human, a zombie, or a very special feature with a doctor element. Now, that one is our very, it's like an SEL motivator because the kid that's maybe shy or special needs, broken leg. You actually put them in that role. And all the kids come to them to get healed. So I like to tell them, it's okay, you don't have to do anything. You just stand there and hold it, or you can even add it to their, you know, put it on their crutch or their wheelchair, and they're fully part of the game. It's really neat. Or the 90-year-old grandma that maybe is, you know, not able to move around as much. Put her in it, and she's fully, fully immersed. It's so neat seeing it. Did you guys have any questions on the games?
Jorge Monroy: No, those all seem really, really neat. So you said this doesn't need Wi-Fi or anything like that, that everything comes in it. Do you guys do updates too? Are there updates that happen, you know, if new games come out? This is a great amount of games, but do you guys have updates? It's like if there's changes in games or if new ones come
Kristin Neal: Yes, yes. Thank you so much, Jorge. Yes, I will absolutely get to that. Let me show you that one, this next one. That's, I'm going to go over that in that next part, but that's perfect. Was there any other questions on the games? Because that's, I guess I'll add on to that, like, if you guys have, like, an app store where we can purchase different games and things like that, but I'm sure you'll go over that soon. Thank you, Mark. Yeah, I wish. An app store is coming, actually. An app store is coming. But for right now, what we're offering is right here. And just like an optional offline update, it's only because we have found that you guys have a hard time going with over-the-air updates. So that's how we update. That's the only time that you'll need Wi-Fi. So if you're having an issue with breaking the, a lot of times there's an issue with going past the, your guys' security, you know, your IT security. This is where we can send you an SD card, but for right now, it would just be, and it's a good question mark, because we are in the works of that. Like, that's our goal, is to have that kind of library, an app library. But as for right now, this is the only way we're able to do updates. And it's not, we had one update last year, so it's more of like, it's not on a schedule. But we're continuously working on those. Any questions about the updates?
mledezma: No. Okay.
Kristin Neal: That one is right here. You're going to get access to the ZTAG Educator Resources and Digital Artwork. You also have the manufacturer's warranty. That's for the 12 months.
mledezma: Oh, say, for example, if we purchase two of them, would both boxes be compatible to each other?
Kristin Neal: Yes, yes, thank you. That's great question, Yes, you can. You can actually combine them for a 48 total.
mledezma: Okay. Wow.
Jorge Monroy: Yes.
Kristin Neal: Yes. Thank you, Mark. Great. You also have Complimentary Playmaker Virtual Training. City of Lancaster, that's close enough to our founder. He might want to go out to you guys personally. And would you guys want to do an in-person, or would you rather a virtual training?
Jorge Monroy: In-person would be fun.
mledezma: That would be fun.
Jorge Monroy: Where is your founder?
Kristin Neal: He's over in, right by, oh gosh, Magic Mountain. Oh, okay.
Jorge Monroy: So, Valencia.
Kristin Neal: Yes, Valencia. That's where the- Yeah, okay. Yes. Yes, yes. He's right over there. Oh, wow. You guys are very, really close then. Yeah, I was going to say, I think you guys are like super, yeah.
Jorge Monroy: Yeah, yeah. Half an hour away.
Kristin Neal: Oh, yes. He would definitely, yes. He would probably just bring them with him.
Jorge Monroy: know. Bring your units with them.
Kristin Neal: Very cool. Okay. Well, then that works out perfect. Yeah.
Jorge Monroy: Have you guys been, have you guys tapped into schools around the area? Santa Clarita, Pondo, Lancaster?
Kristin Neal: Not in Lancaster, no. But we are in a little bit more North Sacramento area, Riverbank area, Bakery.
Jorge Monroy: Bakersfield.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Bakersfield just, just partnered with us. Yeah.
Jorge Monroy: Very cool. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: I'm going to send you this. Well, this is where kind of Carmee is, is such a big help. That's why I really wanted her here, just so that you guys know, like, she is fully on board to get you guys everything you need. I'm, I stumble, I fumble, I'm sorry, I'm kind of like, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it's just showing you guys what ZTAG is. It's, it really is. Because we see in the, we see the. Kids just flourish. It really is. And we have this extended care pack that we can send you to look over because there's a one, a three, and a five-year coverage that is available. It's for six ZTAGGERS a year to be covered, and then there's these goodies that each one include. This one right here is the best value, I think, because this one includes a community pack. So with that five-year coverage, you get this right here. So when you do your community events, everything is ready to go. We can actually make this, you know, City of Lancaster.
Jorge Monroy: Have that.
Kristin Neal: Oh, wow.
Jorge Monroy: Okay.
Kristin Neal: And here we have return policy for replacement equipment. Yeah, very, very thorough. I mean, I know you mentioned there's not a sales pitch, but are you going to mention pricings for it? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Here we go. Yes, will forward you this too. Again, yeah, I never know how you guys, this is just an investment. There we go. That's all I can say. This is an investment. You get the one-year coverage with that. Here is priced individually, so you see where your investment is going.
Jorge Monroy: So we're looking at $9,700 for one unit.
mledezma: And one unit you said includes $24, right?
Kristin Neal: Correct. Do you guys have a non-profit number by chance? Mm-mm-mm.
Jorge Monroy: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Here's our volume discounts down here.
Jorge Monroy: Okay. And our payment in terms.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Improve POs, okay. Yep, yep, we take POs. We take the net 30 for schools. Shipping is included in that cost or delivery. We'll be included. The training, let's see. Carmee, am I forgetting anything else?
Carmee Sarvida: I think of the old Lucas and training.
Kristin Neal: We have the sole source letter also. Sole source.
Carmee Sarvida: and W94. Thank you.
Kristin Neal: Yes, yes. There's also funding that might be associated with this unit because we also, in this right here, there's a cog up here that shows the unit and how many steps. It counts the total amount of steps that your kids do.
Jorge Monroy: Oh, that's incredible.
Kristin Neal: It also does the total number of interactions, which we're the only company that counts. I'm so excited because every time a kid connects watch-to-watch, it makes that interaction go up. Yeah. All right. How is it? How about it, guys? you guys have any questions? Would you like, Carmee, to start a quote for those two units?
Jorge Monroy: Yeah, no, that would be great if we can get a quote. So next steps would be you guys would quote us, and then obviously we would go through that. You mentioned that the training is included with our purchase. So obviously going through payment, and then after that you guys would follow up with scheduling someone to come out, or prefer Lee come out? Okay. Unless you know of a date now.
Kristin Neal: If you had kind of a date in mind, I can already start getting that in place. Are we talking about like by the end of the year, or like before Halloween? Like, what is your guys' vision of using this? Like, I know.
Jorge Monroy: Well, yeah, I guess there really isn't one. would So we have a staff training coming up, too, and we thought that would be a great way to maybe pilot the program before we have, you know, before we distribute them to our school sites.
Kristin Neal: That way, you know, we have an understanding.
Jorge Monroy: And again, I have to show Mark some of the videos that I was seeing, and it just looked like a lot of fun. But that training takes place in October. So I was, you know. We could totally do it by October.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Oh, okay.
Jorge Monroy: Yeah, absolutely.
Kristin Neal: We can. And if, what day is your training?
Jorge Monroy: Let me just make sure. It's more of a team meeting. The whole parks department gets together. And so we go over updates and just anything. Like that, I thought that'd be a great.
mledezma: George, I was thinking the same thing. I was like, are you talking about what I'm thinking about?
Jorge Monroy: Yeah, uh-huh. Our parks team meetings. Yes.
mledezma: Let me see.
Kristin Neal: When was the last one, Mark?
Jorge Monroy: was last Thursday.
mledezma: Last Thursday.
Jorge Monroy: Okay, let me see. So that would have been the 18th.
mledezma: So then.
Jorge Monroy: Okay, I don't see it on calendar. But it would probably be either the 16th or the 23rd of October.
mledezma: It's actually the 23rd, George.
Jorge Monroy: Oh, is it? monthly meeting.
mledezma: Yeah, the 23rd. Oh, there it is.
Jorge Monroy: Great. Thank you.
Kristin Neal: That works out even more perfect. Okay, good. Good, good, good. Yeah. I was like, 16th might be tight. Like, we might. I would have, we would have figured out a way.
mledezma: I was going to sneak it in to see if, could we test it out for that? But George beat me to it.
Jorge Monroy: Thank Thank Oh, George P., too.
Kristin Neal: Good. Well, you guys are on the same thinking wavelength.
Jorge Monroy: That's good. That's good.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, George. All right. As soon as you're able to get that PO, we can absolutely get that set up. And I'll already let Quan know that the 23rd will be kind of set aside. But yeah, let us know. Carmee, we'll send over this information, the pricing, the coverage. We'll hold off on the welcome letter. We'll wait to see where that kind of falls, unless you guys need it. If you guys need it for showing anyone, we have no problem. But we don't want to overwhelm you guys either.
Jorge Monroy: Yeah, no, absolutely. We'll need a W-9. And then we'll need a, I'm not sure if you've had to do it with any other cities that you've worked with, but we have what's called the Levine Act Statement. Okay. The Levine Act?
Kristin Neal: No, we've only done the vendor forms.
Jorge Monroy: So the Levine Act Statement is... Something that the City of Lancaster pushes out to vendors whenever we purchase anything, whenever we purchase over the amount of $2,000. And so basically what that says is that you're not trying to get any political help from us, and we're not receiving any funds from you in order to grant political favors, basically. So yeah, all I can send that over, guys can read it through, and then all we need is a signature and, you know, check the no box. You got it.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, absolutely. Is there a vendor form too besides that? Like to be a vendor in your city?
Jorge Monroy: I'm sure there is. So we're part of community services. That would, and then that would probably be a recreation division because, so for vendor form, we would be purchasing this. Right. It's not something that you guys like lease out to us. This is this would be our property.
Kristin Neal: Right. Okay. Full blown. Full blown. Yes. And there's no subscription, which I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you.
Jorge Monroy: Oh, great. Yeah. So in that case, I don't think that we'll need to go through a vendor form. It'll just be a quote, the Levine Act Statement. And then after the quote is approved, then we would just need the invoice as a follow up from ZTAG. Perfect.
Kristin Neal: Perfect. Perfect. Carmee is ready to do exactly that. That sounds good. All right.
Carmee Sarvida: For the code, Jorge, how many units should I include in there?
Jorge Monroy: Can we see one for now? Because it's the one, it's 24 units, the 9,700. And then we do have a pretty big parks department. So I definitely, uh, if there is a change with that, I'll follow up and see. See if, you know, if it's within our budget to get two units at this point, because, you know, we have our maintenance guys, and we have recreation, we have the arts with us too, so we're a pretty big department. So, but I'll follow up and let you know if there's any wiggle room where we can, you know, possibly explore getting a second option. But at the time, at the moment, one.
Carmee Sarvida: Cool, okay, yeah, thanks for clarifying that for me.
Kristin Neal: All right, gentlemen, it looks like we ended right on the dot, if there's nothing else.
Jorge Monroy: Excellent, no, thank you so much. We definitely appreciate it. We look forward to receiving those forms from you. Thank you both so much. Have a wonderful day. You too, Thank you. Thank you.
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Quan Gan: At the stop, random, like, Lost Hills or something. Okay, yeah.
Sarah Hartono: So, were we stopped? Were we charging? Or you saw us on the road? No, you were, like, driving out of the stop area, and we were just pulling in, so we couldn't, like, stop you or anything. But Sophia was like, is that ZTAGG? And I was like, no, there's no way. But they are driving back today, and then we, like, see the side of the car, we're like, wait, actually?
Quan Gan: That's pretty cool. Yeah, I mean, what are the chances, right?
Sarah Hartono: That's so random. That's so random that you guys have a cyber trunk.
Quan Gan: Yeah, well, that, um, that just got done, uh, the week before. The Friday before, yeah. So, what you saw was, like, like, brand new.
Sarah Hartono: Yeah. Love it.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Sarah Hartono: I've lost storage, too.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it's, it's really, it's useful. Um, at least for, for a company use. Yeah.
Sarah Hartono: That's good.
Quan Gan: Hey, Senna. Oh, you're muted.
Sena Lee: I said hi.
Quan Gan: Hi. Yeah, I need to also apologize to you. This was like the one meeting I had, and it slipped because I had an educational opportunity with my son, and it took a little bit longer. So we were right in the middle of it and didn't, yeah, totally forgot that, yeah, we had this meeting. Even though the entire day I was like, okay, this is the one thing that I have to be on time for.
Sarah Hartono: No, you're good, you're good.
Sena Lee: A teaching moment?
Quan Gan: Teaching moment, yeah. mean, you know, corrective behavior and stuff like that. So, I mean, there are times where I can be, like, you know, quick to just say, okay, do this, do that. But sometimes if he doesn't listen, then I basically take that opportunity to stop everything and just, like, I'll lecture the hell out of him until he learns. Yeah. How are you guys doing?
Sarah Hartono: Good.
Sena Lee: We're doing good. Just back, back, back back today. Okay. But we were really looking forward to meeting with you, and we can always schedule part two, so if you need to attend to something, Quan.
Quan Gan: No, no, no, we're good. The issue has been resolved, at least for now.
Sena Lee: That's awesome.
Quan Gan: Is this your home office? Yeah, it's my home office.
Sena Lee: Hold on one second. Definitely looks like an office. Well, actually, no, this is my office office.
Quan Gan: I have a home office. This is my office office. But it's shared with my lighting company, although that's more of a shell now, because all the fulfillment is in Orlando. So we have an office over there. So this is really just to kind of hold the legal entity so we can get mail. Yeah, but ZTAG's occupied it. So I usually just come here to get out of the house and focus on things that I need to do here.
Sena Lee: And a little safe space for yourself as well.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I do have a home office, but, you know, like when you're there, People can knock on the door and stuff, and it's like, you're not actually, even though you're not supposed to be answering, but, you it's just the fact that you're in proximity, you're kind of entangled.
Sena Lee: Yeah, and you don't want to ignore it. It's fun because we passed you guys at the gas station.
Sarah Hartono: Yeah, I heard.
Quan Gan: Yeah, the car was, the car's brand new, and we wanted to do that because, you know, like you guys were really trying to engage with California after school. And if we can show up in a big way, kind of like the Red Bull cars in the back of the day, I don't know if you guys remember that.
Sarah Hartono: They still have it.
Quan Gan: still have it.
Sarah Hartono: Really?
Quan Gan: I haven't seen it, but yeah, it's like, I want the brand to be something that's like very visible. And when the kids come, you know, they're excited. Yeah. Tech forward. Yeah. And also, you know, like, yes, you can just have a truck, but then, you know, it got politicized. This is in recent times. So I was like, if you wrap it with kids, they can't really say anything.
Sarah Hartono: Oh, that makes sense.
Quan Gan: Yeah, from a branding perspective. So it was like, we really need to just, when people see it, like, it needs to look really fun.
Sena Lee: Yes. It looks really fun.
Quan Gan: Yeah, absolutely. Well, anyways, enough about what we're doing, but love to hear, you know, what's your progress and how can I be of maximal help to you guys?
Sena Lee: I think for us right now, we've been diving into the after-school space for the last two years. We've originally wanted to be B2C, direct to families. Yeah. Kids are highly interactive amongst adults and kids. That's the whole thing. So our original design is for, you know, just like what you're doing, Quan, to have those teaching moments, but to have space for parents to have those touch points, especially busy working families. Because immigrants, Immigrants, I'm sure... Immigrants, sure... For you two, like our parents didn't have the luxury of feeling emotions or didn't have other resources.
Quan Gan: It wasn't that language, yeah.
Sena Lee: That language, but they wanted us to connect, but kind of left it to the school to do that. Totally, yeah.
Quan Gan: And I think that worked last generation, but it's not going to work this gen.
Sena Lee: Oh, it's definitely not. And so, yeah, that's where milieu kind of was birthed is like, how do you get families to pass on intergenerational wisdom, things we wish we knew when we were younger? It really just added that story. And then we pivoted into after school, which was really cool for our company because it gave us a real beta testing and use case testimonial. So, the majority of our actual sales came from that pivot early on.
Quan Gan: And when was that pivot?
Sena Lee: It was 2002?
Sarah Hartono: 24. Sorry, 2024. It's 2000, yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Sarah Hartono: Yeah, like January, February.
Sena Lee: Yes. Yes. So we went headfirst into afterschool because we learned about grants, and at that moment, we were still, you know, we were in a couple of accelerator programs, and they were like, you want to be investment back? And we're like, no, we want to bootstrap. Are you guys still bootstrapped?
Quan Gan: We're still bootstrapped. Great. Hold on to that as long as you can.
Sena Lee: Yeah, it's hard. We're We're trying. Come on, help us. So that's what happened. And now what we're realizing, just even recently, and have been planning for years, but more urgency is, hey, now that we, because, you know, you work on something for eight months, however it takes to nurture a school deal, and it's in the six years, versus going B2C on an e-commerce game, that's another business model where it's like a lot of ad push, a lot of direct, it's a different ballpark. So for us, it seemed so good to be able to nurture, get close to the customer, get inside of schools, really understand, but now what we are playing with the idea of How do we go from B2B to B2C again? Because the infrastructure of, you know, government grants, education is just really difficult, you know, budgeting.
Quan Gan: Difficult in what way?
Sena Lee: I think for us, it's more just like we really care to solve problems, but then there's fundamental problems that we haven't cracked for in the after-school space, like with budgeting. So with that, staffing issues, SEL being really even implemented, because they most, at the bare minimum, just need the kids to be busy and protected and safe. Right. What we're trying to bring in is layers deep of social-emotional character development with what has been successful, the districts that have been successful are those that have it unlocked already operationally. They have all their staffing. They have how to invest into their teachers. They want to continue a culture versus some majority schools are still getting their bearings and even getting staffing straight. And so, yeah, those are. Fundamental Problems, where it makes us think, do we, yeah, of course, have this after-school line and nurture it, but is that our main play, or do we go into B2C?
Quan Gan: Okay. You want me to give you feedback on that?
Sena Lee: A hundred percent.
Quan Gan: Okay. Well, obviously, I'll preface everything with take it with a grain of salt, because what works for me is not necessarily for you guys. I've always been B2B. I don't know if that was necessarily intentional in the beginning, or that's just what we ended up finding that works. So, again, take it with a grain of salt, because I'm sure someone who's very successful B2C might say the opposite. So, but also, like, even after this, I encourage you to take the AI transcription, you know, and rinse it through your own GPT and AI models to give you your pros and cons. But I'll be pretty opinionated for the pro. of B2B. It is a slower burn, but it will be a lot more stable because it's kind of like a bigger rock, right? It's going to have more inertia once you've built that flywheel. And that's worked for us significantly because B2C is very expensive. And that's also why they need venture-backed companies because you're just throwing a lot of money and burning cash to put it in front of people. Consumers are very fickle because if you think about your own behavior, you're flipping through social, right? Like it's nothing, right? People are even dating just flipping through this.
Sena Lee: So like there's very low commitment.
Quan Gan: So yes, you get the benefit of high volume, but people are so fickle that in a snap, like your business could be gone, right? So it's very turbulent in that sense. Whereas historically, like my lighting company, we've kind of grown like this. Let's say it just plateaued at two and a half every year, but it's almost like clockwork. It's like it's repeatable. So at that point, I just need to figure out how to optimize and increase our margins. But almost every year, it's like you could predict that. Consumers, I graduated from the Bay Area, so I know that in that kind of atmosphere, it feels like everybody's trying to chase VC funds and become the next, you know, $100 billion company, unicorn, right? But that type of like shininess, I think it's kind of self-promoted because there's so much money. So obviously, they're going to get the FaceTime and the newsreel to make it sound really glamorous. But that's basically like a LeBron James compared to an average basketball player. Like if you're aspiring as a business owner, it's like you as a business owner looking at a VC fund of unicorn is no different from the... A little kid in elementary school seeing a LeBron James saying, hey, I'm going to go become a pro basketball player. Most sports stars are starving, probably. Well, not even stars. Most athletes are kind of starving day by day, and probably only like 1% or 2% of them actually get it to LeBron level. So I'm here to tell you the reality of the successful businesses don't even make it to the news, but they're generating great profit, great lifestyles, and it's stable. And you have these long-term relationships that's not really up to a customer flip, you know, swiping left versus right on you.
Sena Lee: Yeah. No, we completely agree. We've been a part of like four to five incubator accelerators, and all of them, we've stayed strong in not being that.
Quan Gan: We know that there's a hustle culture, there's a glamorization, and that all has crumbled in the last year, actually, even. Yeah, no, I'm actually, it might sound kind of mean, but I'm kind of happy that it's doing that.
Sena Lee: Because I think it's right-sizing.
Quan Gan: There's just too much, it's too much of froth. Like, even like, frankly speaking, my company cannot hire someone with my degree, you know, in terms of coming from Berkeley and Stanford. I can't afford myself, right? Because Silicon Valley has made it so that any developer, you're demanding like $200,000 minimum. Like, that's just absurd. So the fact that Silicon Valley has created the AI tools to collapse their own pay structure, I am so happy for it, actually.
Sena Lee: That's a good way to put it, actually.
Quan Gan: That's really quite interesting. Yeah. Like, I'll pay $25 an hour for a top-level engineer overseas rather than anyone here that's just not worth it.
Sena Lee: Yeah, we totally agree with you. Maybe some of the questions then is like, what are our barriers in the B2B?
Quan Gan: And how can we really build a strong foundation without completely going all in?
Sena Lee: Because I would say our product within itself, it had to change. A lot to match B2B, and we love it.
Quan Gan: Like, we love B2B, honestly.
Sena Lee: We love the people. We love the community. I think your product within itself needs multiple players, and it's a perfect fit for B2B. And our company, our product isn't for the masses, but we made it for that. As in, like, you need, it was made for a family unit, so it's four people at max, four, two people.
Quan Gan: But we've made it so that it fits into the schools, and so each kid gets a kick. I don't see that as a barrier. I see that as a, okay, so it's probably easier to see, okay, there's all these opportunities. But once you actually engage with those opportunities, you still have to build momentum with it. And my own thinking of, like, whenever there's a barrier, if I can overcome this barrier, that barrier becomes my asset. Because it's the moat against my competitors. It means... I overcame this, and if they're going to come in, they're going to have to overcome this. So the more of those barriers that you figure out how to overcome in a smaller niche space, you basically become competitor-less. And also just to give you a little bit of more encouragement, the day before you guys saw us on the road, we spent the whole afternoon with Sargina and team. You know, I don't know if she shared with you, but you guys are on her very, very short list. She really likes you guys. And, like, she has nothing but incredible things to say about you. And based on hearing that, and, you know, she's very selective because she's been around for, like, 20-plus years. Those are really good internal signals to say that you struck a chord. And if you're just there as good human beings and making a good product, sooner or later, that traction is going to take hold. And so... So don't stop when, you know, there's a saying when it's like you're three feet from gold, you know, you just got to keep digging and then build that momentum over time. And it's going to, it's going to pan out.
Sena Lee: Quan, I really appreciate your heart. You feel like a bro to us already, like a big brother, because you could easily, like you're encouraging us to stay in the game in the same game as you are.
Quan Gan: we're not competitors, but we're like, you're good. There's, there's, okay, like, I'm always looking at non-zero sum here. Because also, like, we would not be as successful as we are today if we didn't get a couple of pointers early on, too. Right? So, so we're very much in the essence of pay it forward if we can. So I don't expect anything from you guys. You know, like the karma would generate itself. So to me, it's more of a, it's a matter of karma and physics. It's not anything different. And I say physics, because when you like, I actually use a lot of physics analogies for things like. I created a term called social mass, which is like, you know, a massive object has momentum, right? And it's hard to start, but it's also hard to stop once it gains traction. So in us being in like a positive vibration in the same space, it generates that karma that actually creates more social mass, and we end up helping each other. And this, yeah, and the momentum is not going to just build on our own companies, but as a collective, where we're all aligned to the same mission of helping our kids. I love that. Yeah, so I don't want you to leave.
Sena Lee: I want you to keep doing what you're doing. It's so sweet the way that you come up, because you're so powerful, but it's very sweet. Your heart is so genuine. I think for us then, and Sarah, you can add on, because I know I've been chatting a lot, is I think the real problem, well, thank you for sharing this Arjuna story. We have a lot of really cool interactions with people where they meet us, and they're like... How do we get you guys?
Quan Gan: You guys have an energy field around you that I don't know if you're aware, but it attracts the right people.
Sena Lee: I love that. But we don't know how to utilize that because to get from that where we have like at Boost, we generate 300 leads.
Quan Gan: Like we have 300 emails leading Boost.
Sena Lee: So then getting from that from April to then following up through sequences, phone calls, and then what actually closes is such a big difference. That's where we get a little like, can we utilize, what are we doing wrong?
Quan Gan: How many booths have you been to?
Sena Lee: We've vendored up two booths.
Quan Gan: And what's the differential between one year and the next?
Sarah Hartono: Both years, we got 300 leads.
Quan Gan: Okay. All right. But in terms of conversions, has it increased hopefully this year?
Sena Lee: We, so if we want to be transparent, last year, our first one, we got our first unified school district. We're so new to the game. So we got LMSV. ahead yeah. We're We're video? And then this year, we had six to eight proposals out.
Sarah Hartono: No. Okay, so this is a funnel breakdown. Last year, 2024, basically, like, four to five proposals out, one school district closed. This year, 16, 17 proposals out. Way more demos than last year. Everything's, like, going down. And then July, like, with all the funding, a lot of them didn't receive their funding, so it's, like, pushed off. So then we're trying to follow up. And really, the same thing, only one secured. So we're like, oh, man, like, we put, like, double the amount of investment into the use itself. We saw, like, 4x the amount of results in terms of demos booked and proposals sent. But then, like, how come the result is, like, the same? And we're, like, just a bit defeated as well with, like, the budget cuts.
Quan Gan: We're, like, okay, so tell me about the budget cuts. Is this specifically California or outside of California? A mix, a mix. California, I mean, are you guys tapping into their ELOP funds, or is it categorized for something else?
Sena Lee: We can go under ASUS, ELOP, 21st Century.
Quan Gan: Okay, yeah, same as us, but I haven't seen any dip in California.
Sena Lee: The ones that we call, the ones that we used to demo with, they've been struggling with either budgeting cuts or withheld.
Sarah Hartono: I'm not exactly sure what funds they're talking about when they say it got cut, but it is a mix of like, there's one in Montana, one in Wyoming, and then two.
Quan Gan: Well, in other states, I'm sure that's, yeah, you know, that's a federal thing, but California, as far as I know, is fairly insulated. So it'd be interesting to dig in and figure out, you know, specifics.
Sarah Hartono: Yes, one of the issues there is that our deal size can get pretty high up there. How big, if you don't mind me asking. How Yeah, some of them, like, one district closed at, like, $270,000, $270,000. Oh, okay.
Quan Gan: But one of the others, they have, like, a limit, like, the bidding, until you go to... Oh, okay. All right, so tell me, yeah, tell me the product costs and, you know, the unit economics on that.
Sena Lee: I'm also trying to raise it, but our product costs, our kids, and this is a package deal usually, our kids are $40 a child. That's seven sessions, so that's seven weeks' worth of curriculum. Okay. And on top of that, every group leader gets a facilitator's guide because of turnover rate, and it's just a step-by-step guide, which has 25 additional SEL. So with the kit, that takes it to five months of curriculum, and then we do professional development.
Quan Gan: So those three things... Wow, okay. All right, immediately, I think you're biting off way too much that you're able to chew. Maybe that's why, because, I mean, I'll tell you my numbers, like, we, you know, a single system is about $10,000, but we don't require the district to buy it for every single school. So it's like a $10,000 consideration over like a six-figure consideration.
Sena Lee: Part of a six-figure.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so what can you do to reduce your spend so that it's like $5,000 to $10,000?
Sena Lee: Per school?
Quan Gan: I don't know. Yeah, maybe to start. Yeah, something super low and it doesn't have, like, the benefit of our stuff, even though it is for a lot of kids, is, you know, it is expensive as a single unit, right? But you're able to extend that, like, by spending the $10,000, you're using, you're able to use this thing for, you know, three to five years. Do you have a licensing year? Currently not. We're kind of like the Tesla business model where I want to deploy the hardware first and then I can rearrange the software later on. So the hardware is really just for us to sow the seeds. And then later on, as we develop new software, we can... I that.
Sena Lee: I appreciate that. So can I ask you then? Because, yeah, our numbers are crazy, right? You just said, as soon as...
Quan Gan: Yeah, that's like, wait, like, we don't have any proposals. Well, some can get into the six figures, but that's a rare case. Most of our deals are, you know, selling like one or two systems at a time.
Sena Lee: And I know it's a mix, right? But do you tackle unified school districts or do you tackle them school site by site?
Quan Gan: Site by site, yeah. Like, it's, well, kind of like, it's both, right? So we go to, you know, the Cannes Symposium. So you're going to get boots on the ground, people saying, oh, this is something I could bring into my school. And it doesn't seem like it's a huge ticket item because, you know, relative to other things, it's a single-time purchase. It's up front, but they can last for a long time. And if they buy one, we give them a lot of excuse about, oh, could share this, right? This is super portable. You could take it from site to site and just... Use it as like your trial. And if it works well for you, then we'll let the product sell itself.
Sena Lee: You have reusability. That's why.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so how does that differ with yours?
Sena Lee: You can't reuse ours because your kit you own.
Quan Gan: So you actually fill in the workbooks.
Sena Lee: The things that can be reusable are the 25 additional SELs as a menu. But the actual kit is per kit.
Quan Gan: Can the kit be printed by them instead? Or can you reduce it to a set where it's kind of like bring your own printer and then reduce it? Because I also know from a school standpoint, you know, there's kind of like an $1,000 barrier, a $5,000 barrier, a $10,000 barrier, and then like way higher. Right? It goes through more approval.
Sena Lee: So, Quan, I think this is where I would love to pick your brain. You do, so what it seems like is you do low price point, high quantity. price point, quality. seems point, high quality. We'll We do high price point, low quantity, where we're a premium to get the full package because we can only service maybe four to maybe three districts, meaning 17 schools a district. So throughout that whole year, three times 17 is how many schools that we can service if we're doing the whole package. But for you, you're a low price point, but you're pushing that.
Quan Gan: You know, it's quite interesting because I would have thought the opposite because I look at the unit economics is you've got a $40 kit. I have a $10,000 kit, but you're treating, you're not selling a single kit ever, right? You're selling it as a whole package, which we don't do.
Sena Lee: So that's an interesting like a flip, right?
Quan Gan: Because I would have totally thought your stuff should be like selling like hotcakes. But can you?
Sena Lee: I don't know your product enough to know. That's the B2C play. The single unit is the B2C play. So we don't want to get out of the B2B game, but that's where the B2C play comes in. So you can see the purchase of the unit.
Quan Gan: Yeah, that's a weird one. I haven't thought of it that way because I always thought our stuff was like the top end of expense.
Sena Lee: Quan, you also get us going in site by site.
Quan Gan: And if we were to really give you the download of what we do and how we position ourselves, it is quite interesting.
Sena Lee: And that's probably why we have the problem we do because we go in and not only do we go in site by site per district, so we visit all 17.
Quan Gan: When you say go in, you're physically going there.
Sarah Hartono: Not just to train them on how to use a product, but we equip them on social-emotional skills so they become the leaders.
Sena Lee: Wow, okay. We train the trainer.
Quan Gan: It's not direct service to the kid, but we've... I get it. That's really hard early on. Just to give you some comparison, we only started... That week with Steve, like that was his first week on the job with us to train the trainer. And we're like seven years into our business, you know, so.
Sarah Hartono: Oh, see what you're saying. You introduced that to your business way later.
Quan Gan: Way later, because like this pattern is starting to form stronger for me just based on, you know, our initial conversation. It feels like you're putting the cart before the horse right now and trying to do, like, come in and say, hey, we're a giant program for you. And like very high touch, which sounds great, but what it would be missing is, I mean, yeah, if they're spending six figures, they need to know that you've been around, you have all this certification or a lot of the, like, your creds, right? Like, credibility means not just whatever credentials, but how long you've been in business. So for us, we've had seven or eight years, but we're not, like. And only now are we starting to sell into, you know, up to six figures. But prior to that was like, I'm only selling a single unit here or there. And we designed our product to be very low touch, which meant I'll ship you this box. And even if you're brain dead, just as long as you know how to operate an iPad, like basically you turn on the system, you press a few buttons, something's going to work. So it works despite not having any training. So yours is almost like completely flipped where it's a low cost kit, but in order to deploy it, there's a lot of hands on.
Sena Lee: You don't need the kit. So I think we're trying to solve two different problems.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Sena Lee: For you guys, it's like exactly what they need. That's why you're doing so great. It's like, even if you're brain dead, the kids need to move.
Quan Gan: They need to be busy, but safe, but also have fun and learn.
Sena Lee: And then from there, you can even make some games out of it that has SEL, different stuff in ZTAG. It gives. Reason to be having fun and getting up.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Sena Lee: We are focusing on SEL to kids. The problem about true impact of SEL is if the adults don't know how to know what SEL is, it's hard to teach the kids. So for us, it's not about pushing the kid, which we could change our mind about that and just be product driven. But first, we're trying to solve the problem of how do we get the kids to understand what it looks like to have these good tenets of character? How do we train the educators to know how to do that even when we're not there, to fully understand their role, and be equipped as an educator?
Quan Gan: So you have to teach them how to model that behavior so that they can share it. That's a tough one, because I'm pretty jaded about changing adults' minds in the first place. And that's why we're targeting the kids, because, you know, like, they're very mouthful. Palliable in their formative years, but adults are pretty set in their ways.
Sena Lee: I know, that's why, Quan. So let us know, and we love her opinion. Let me speak to the credibility part. Yeah. That's where it gets interesting, Quan, because we early on had an opportunity and someone that believed in us, and we kind of knocked it out of the park there, that we had testimonials, pre and post surveys, and actual growth that stood as the credibility. And now, even if you see one of our workshops, where sometimes we'll do it for free, sometimes we'll do it for cheap, they see us at Cannes. Literally, there's so many people, even at Modesto, one of the girls came because she was like, I was in your workshop, and I need my program director to purchase this. And I brought seven other site leads so that we can convince her, because your workshop, whatever you did in the workshop, we need that. It speaks for itself where I don't need a PhD. I have a literal impact report that says we took Downey.
Quan Gan: Seventeen schools, 200 educators, from 54% confidence in SEL to 94% confidence. Oh, okay.
Sena Lee: So we have the sauce that works. Maybe we're too much than we chew. Maybe we're too expensive. Maybe this is too big. But that's what we're...
Quan Gan: Okay. And is it... How many people are your team right now?
Sena Lee: So we have a total of six, but only full-time is me and Sarah. Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Sena Lee: Got it. Rest are contractors. We even try to hire more trainers, but this year, we're going to have three more. But then one of the biggest school-sized San Jose went from 33 contracts to 10 schools. Three-day-day schools to 10 schools. Okay. And we're like, we don't need that. And we're too young to like...
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah.
Sena Lee: On our sales funnel.
Quan Gan: Okay. Just say like a random curveball, but have you guys considered corporate training?
Sarah Hartono: Yes.
Quan Gan: Love to. Like... I love... Or no, do you know that market?
Sarah Hartono: Like, do you mean speaking to employee resource groups and? Yeah, HR or go to, yeah, like have companies hire you guys. That's always been a dream.
Sena Lee: I think we are building the credibility to do that because beyond after school, I think the corporate one is where we would need more certifications and stuff like that, actually.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, I don't know that space well, but it just seems to me that there's an opportunity for that if no one's touching on it. So within EO, you guys know there's a lot of learning events, right? And we bring in facilitators. So that's, and many of those facilitators, they'll charge a few thousand dollars, you know, to show up. but I think there's also opportunities for much larger things at that scale.
Sarah Hartono: Do you charge for your trainings when you show people how to use the?
Quan Gan: Currently not, but I think eventually. Potentially we may, like the way that it works out financially for us is every system, obviously there's margin built in, but also there's kind of a pre-considered shrinkage cost, which is like basically like products breaking and then we have to warranty, things like that, right? And then if they have any product issues, that's additional time on our customer service that they have to serve. So it is in our best interest to go train them, even if it's free, right? Because now they'll deliver a higher experience, which will generate better word of mouth and lower product failures because they're educated on the product. So I think later on we might change to having them pay for training if it's like, let's say we have new software and they're part of some kind of like an extended agreement, that's fine. But when you're buying the system... So first time, I need to make it so sweet of a deal that you're not going to skip training.
Sena Lee: How many trainers do you have, Quan?
Quan Gan: Just Steve. Just Steve.
Sena Lee: Good old Steve. Quan, how many, like what's an average client a year for you guys?
Quan Gan: Like different schools?
Sena Lee: On a regular year basis, how many clients do you?
Quan Gan: It's growing. mean, we're probably per year, I don't know, like a hundred or something. Or low, yeah.
Sena Lee: A hundred schools.
Quan Gan: I think schools, yeah. Schools, not districts. Yeah, like I really don't know the numbers. All I know is like per year, we're deploying several hundred systems.
Sena Lee: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah. But you know, in the beginning, like before we got into this industry, I'd be lucky to sell more than 10 units a year.
Sena Lee: Well, yeah,
Quan Gan: And also part of it was there's a pre-COVID ZTAG and a post-COVID ZTAG. Pre-COVID ZTAG, I'm basically like preaching to empty pews, you know, like your kids are going to get damaged through social media and all this stuff. Like I knew this was coming. And then after COVID and all the kids are just like completely up now.
Sena Lee: They're like, oh, my God, we need this. Yeah, is a great product that really matches the need of our generation and time. And you've merged tech with being able to utilize that to go outside. So it's not alienating tech at all, but literally having a fun way. It's like what everyone wanted to do. That's why you did birthdays, right? It's like getting your own like laser tag, but it's a So I think it's a big thing, especially for right now. That's quite interesting. What I'm hearing is that our price points are quite high.
Quan Gan: It's high despite the low unit economics.
Sarah Hartono: Okay, that's why it's very surprising to me. It's because it's like 2,000 students.
Quan Gan: Yeah, but do you have to provide it to, well, okay, 2,000 students is what, across a whole district or?
Sarah Hartono: Like 17 schools, 2,000 students, so 2,000 times 40.
Quan Gan: But you're selling to, but you're already just going right up to sell to the district. mean, have you sold a single school at a time or is it not worth your while?
Sena Lee: So we have, and then you're like, what's the ladder? Okay, now it's school district. So why nurture and take that long to do that? And it's not like we're isolating them. We're just spending more time at the higher level.
Sarah Hartono: Oh, well, the interesting thing is, and why I think you thought of corporate trainings and why we thought of that too, is we transform the program culture because we unify them around the language of superpowers. And they all understand what SEL is. They all care. And that's why we traveled a lot for back-to-school kickoffs because they're like, hey, can you be the speaker for our back-to-school training? Because you're really inspiring. It's $5,000.
Quan Gan: Is that good? No, I mean, like, the unit economics is not bad. Like, $5,000 for a single school, I think it's fine. But to me, it sounds like you're still, what?
Sena Lee: One kickoff training is $5,000 for 200 staff.
Quan Gan: For 200 staff?
Sarah Hartono: Yep.
Quan Gan: For two hours. I think that sounds fine. You know, maybe, for two hours, I mean, maybe, yeah. I mean, that's, like, anything under $10,000. And this is what I heard from Sargina. was, like, $5,000 and lower for PD is, you know, acceptable. You guys probably asked GPT what the optimal sweet spot is. And, you know, they want to make sure you're considering, okay, what's the cost of travel, hotel, and all that stuff is baked in? Is it one person? Is it two people? What kind of hard cost do you have that you're providing? But to me, you know, let's just say, you know, two companies, you're in your second or third year doing this. ZTAG, relatively to you guys, is probably only have like one or two extra years in the same sector. And our second year or so, yeah, we're still selling to single schools, not to the whole district. You know, there might be one or twos that happen.
Sarah Hartono: You guys could, right?
Quan Gan: We just, like, our thing is so organic in our sales. Like, we haven't even turned on advertising or sales funnel until, like, last month. Prior to this, oh, just like Instagram kind of things like that. We've never had, like, formal sales. It was really just show up to trade shows. But we're very happy to just talk to a single school, one at a time, and make sure we deliver the value to them. And then over time, that seed will germinate, and they'll start sharing how good the product is. And organically, the district will come to us and say, okay. Okay, what is it going to take if we get, you know, get it from more schools? So we try to make sure that the product is so good that the ideal case is the different sites will fight over it. Once they fight over it, then it's like, okay, it's already proven they want more.
Sena Lee: I think one thing about us is we love single sites. We don't not talk.
Quan Gan: We do anybody and everyone. We're like, yes.
Sena Lee: I think the problem then lies because our team is so limited and we're so high touchpoint.
Quan Gan: We cannot open to everyone. So we have our own barrier, which is a high price point exists. Okay.
Sena Lee: Which. Yeah, go ahead, Sarah.
Sarah Hartono: Well, I just really appreciate this reframing because we are creative problem solvers. So if we're aiming for one school site to cost like $5,000 total, what are ways to rethink the product in an easier lift way? I like that.
Quan Gan: You know, yeah, back into it. Back into it. You know they have somewhere in the $5,000 to $10,000 to spend, right, and back into it and figure out what your margins need to be, how much is it going to cost, like, you know, what you have with you as the essence that doesn't need to change is you have you two. You guys have great energy and the essence, right, but the product, how it manifests as a product, that could be a variable.
Sarah Hartono: Right, doesn't have to be a kit.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Sena Lee: I like that, Quan. Do you suggest we go to OS? I know you keep talking about it. What's OS?
Quan Gan: Sorry.
Sarah Hartono: Oh, EO?
Quan Gan: EO.
Sarah Hartono: EO. Accelerator, though, because we're under one mil.
Quan Gan: Well, there's an accelerator program. It is good for companies. It is also a pretty big time commitment because you're going to be going to a lot of events, and if you guys are, like, really in the mode of doing the work and you haven't figured out exactly what your product market fits, like, It could also be kind of a distraction. I've seen people fall out of it, but I've also seen people succeed. But usually the people that I've seen graduate into EO proper, meaning they broke the one-mil barrier, is they figured out exactly what the formula is, and then they just, you know, need to do more of it.
Sena Lee: That's good.
Quan Gan: I like that.
Sena Lee: Yeah. Even in the short time, Quan, thank you so much for sharing, like, your knowledge and your experience, because I think we've identified some key areas or even ways to think differently. Like Sarah was just saying, how do we bring our product, but in a different form that can actually go to scale and be affordable? Yeah. Because maybe we've created the barrier of it being a premium product at a premium price, where it doesn't need to be that high of a touchpoint.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Well, did you know that engineers are some of the laziest people alive?
Sena Lee: Why?
Quan Gan: Because we'll over-engineer something just like...
Sarah Hartono: But we'll never have to do it again.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it's like a low touch point. Yeah, so this is my third business, and I've gone through like every iteration to make it even lower touch point than before. My first business with my wife, I don't know if we shared, was a haunted house in China. What? It was a Halloween haunted attraction. mean, that's why you see like, you know.
Sarah Hartono: Oh, I was wondering about that.
Quan Gan: was like, that's kind of scary. When we have, like, everything's all decked out. Like, we got, like, beware of zombies.
Sarah Hartono: You can make an escape room now.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I know. Like, we're, my lighting company is in a lot of escape rooms.
Sarah Hartono: Oh, that makes sense.
Quan Gan: Right. You see, this is what we were doing before.
Sarah Hartono: Oh, my gosh. This is so fun.
Quan Gan: So, that was very high touch point. I mean, it's like, full of experience, and we, you know, a conga line of people. And it was consumer, right? It was like, people were paying, it was kind of like a Broadway show, but in China. And we had up to eight hour lines. was crazy. And we had people wanting to invest in us and scale to different parts. I'm like, it's so tiring because it's like a high-touch restaurant. In order to guarantee the quality, you've got to be there every single day and making sure every guest is having that good experience. So it wasn't scalable. The second business was a lighting company that lit up haunted houses that eventually scaled into lighting up theme parks. And we realized, okay, we solved the problem from the first one. We made a product. Rather than, you know, in a gold rush, they say the people who actually made the money aren't the people getting the gold, right? Only a few people. It's the person making the jeans and the axe and picks. So we decided to create a tool for other people in the industry to use. And that scaled and got into theme parks. But even then, were like, theme parks, there's not that many. So the entire industry is kind of capped for that niche, especially with what we do. Then I looked Look, okay, like, if we're doing entertainment, well, kids like to run and chase. That's a much bigger scalable problem.
Sena Lee: Interesting.
Quan Gan: But I don't, and I want to take the things we learn from experiential entertainment, which is haunted houses and theme parks, bring it into every day. But in that sense, I don't want to be serving every single parent and their kids individually. That's too much lift. So by going into the schools, you know, you sell to a single school, they're going to be infecting hundreds of kids per year. And that's a much easier leverage point.
Sena Lee: So every iteration, I'm getting lazier in one day. I like that. fascinating because we pride ourselves in being an immersive. And so it's interesting because that's where your background is from. It's like, how do we make the most immersive, like, scary haunted house ever? And then to see your process, because I think for us, that's where we're caught up in is like, how do we make it more immersive, more immersive, which makes it more high touch point, more high touch point.
Quan Gan: Thank you. It's, yeah, like, you can deliver the experience, but maybe through technology or other means, you can scale it better.
Sarah Hartono: That's good. That's really good. It's making me think more creatively.
Sena Lee: Yeah, this is very illuminating.
Quan Gan: Sometimes we get too much, like, stuck in a rut, and it's hard to, like, back out and look at the problem from a different dimension. Different dimension.
Sena Lee: Yeah.
Sarah Hartono: I will also say, like, what you said about how to, that the value of this market is also the deep relationships that we get to build.
Quan Gan: Like, it's genuinely been so enjoyable. And, like, my heart is, like, so fulfilled because it's very energizing.
Sarah Hartono: Yeah, these people are literally, like, giving up everything to pour into these families and strengthen their community. And, like, I just love that. Like, it's really cool. And I really want to be part of, like, building the ecosystem, not just, like, building milieu, you know?
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah. You guys truly are in something special, you know, especially like me looking at this after the different sectors I've been in. This is my favorite sector by far. The people in it, they're genuinely there to help others, you know, so trying to figure out the business model of it, it's almost the easier part. It's like you love the people you're working with. All the other, you know, whether it's Halloween or the lighting, like, I don't really like some of the people that I work with, know, and so it's kind of a drag because to them, it's really just another day. It's a business. They're there for ROI. But here, it's really the investment on your impact.
Sena Lee: I think what this is also illuminating after what you're saying right now is that we feel this urge to want to create, help them and create impact. So that's why we're like, train your staff so that you don't have to put out these fires X, Y, and Z. And some of them work.
Quan Gan: Like that, like some have a budget, some need that.
Sena Lee: The majority to help them would actually be to lower the entry to barrier, which means lowering the touch point, because that's just what they need to even get started.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Sena Lee: Kind of taking away.
Quan Gan: There's another thing I'll throw at you. This is like a pretty big thing that I got out of EO as a resource. Have you guys done this workbook called The Unique Abilities? Unique Abilities 2.0. That, to me, was probably like one of the biggest aha moments, because it showed me how, it allowed me to take inventory of my time and categorize the type of things I'm spending time on, and what things energize me versus what things drain me.
Sena Lee: Yeah, Sarah's a pro at that.
Sarah Hartono: Okay. You need to do that again right now.
Quan Gan: Yeah, because that I didn't figure out until a few years Probably like five or six years into being a business owner, and I was just getting so burned out to the point that I hated sales. I'm like, okay, they're asking me to send them a quote. I'm like, they're trying to give me money, and I'm feeling like a drag. I don't want to send quotes, right? Because I suck at doing repetitive stuff. And so I feel like the business model might take care of itself or something will come in front of you, and you're like, okay, aha, that's it. But it's so much more important to do some soul-searching and figure out, you know, Sarah, what are your unique abilities? And Sena, what are your unique abilities? And channel that so that even if the finances aren't fully aligned, but every day you wake up and you're just completely jazzed and energized to do it again.
Sena Lee: That's good.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Sarah Hartono: Wow, thank you.
Sena Lee: Thank you, Quan. I know Sarah's silly, but this has been so, really, in a short amount of time, I feel like.
Quan Gan: Oh, yeah, no, I'm. I'm happy to, you know, share with you. Like, I'm no longer in EO. I've been, I did it for about nine years, but it was, that's the last chapter for me. So I'm happy to just, you know, extend a open invitation that you have my link. So anytime you have questions, just book something. Happy to share with you.
Sena Lee: You know, and I'll treat it kind of like, like an accelerator group or something.
Quan Gan: So whether you decide to do EO or not, I think that's besides the point.
Sena Lee: I'm happy to just, you know, share any experience with you. Oh, we appreciate that. We, we know, we don't take that lightly. We really are grateful and we will take you up on that.
Quan Gan: We won't bother you too much, but we'll definitely want to glean from you, Quan. Well, when you guys are successful with it, like, I, I feel energized. So I want to hear about those things. Okay. Right. So don't, seriously, don't, don't be shy, you know, and everyone on my team, including my wife, she's sitting in the other room.
Sena Lee: Like, we, we really like you guys.
Sarah Hartono: Oh, yeah, we have to come meet her too.
Quan Gan: Yeah, for sure.
Sena Lee: We appreciate that. Thank you so much, Quan. Okay.
Quan Gan: Any other? Ask questions.
Sarah Hartono: It's good for me. I'm going to be bernading on this.
Quan Gan: I'm to be cooking some things up. All right. And afterwards, I'll send you the meeting notes.
Sarah Hartono: I'll give you a link. Oh, Perfect. I'd love to. Yeah, I started making the AI model based on what you said. So there's a milieu sales assistant now that everyone on the team is like, okay, how to respond, and what's the playbook in the SOP?
Quan Gan: Oh, sweet. Okay. Do you guys know what GitHub is? Yeah. Do you use it?
Sarah Hartono: I don't code or anything.
Quan Gan: Well, here's the thing. Like, everybody should be a coder in that sense, where your operational manual should be in GitHub as a repo, like in a private repository. So that way, when you update your processes, then you'll have version tracking on it. I would ask that you take ChatGPT and have it teach you how to use GitHub and Cursor, which is dedicated for programmers to type code. But you just have your AI agent. Yeah. I type you a markdown file, so it's human-readable, but it's version-tracked, and you can create, like, different branches of, like, experiments. You know, I use that to generate our EOS VTO, and then once we...
Sarah Hartono: Oh, we need our VTO.
Quan Gan: All of that stuff, right? Like, because code is just language for computers, but that's still text, so that text editor is super powerful for version tracking and everything.
Sarah Hartono: So... That's good.
Sena Lee: I want to take that. Okay, I'm going to geek out on that today.
Quan Gan: That's our little homework room.
Sena Lee: Yeah. Thank you, Quan.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Sarah Hartono: Awesome.
Quan Gan: Thank you, Quan. Of course. I'll see you guys next time. And family for us. All right, we'll All right, take care. Bye. Thank you.
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Kristin Neal: Hi there. Hi, Kris.
Tausha Brown-Evans: How are you? I'm good, Tasha.
Kristin Neal: Very nice to meet you. Very nice to meet you. Thank you for meeting me, even in your car. That's awesome. Listen, I had to get out of the gym.
Tausha Brown-Evans: I recently tore my Achilles in PE. Oh, my goodness.
Kristin Neal: I'm so sorry to hear that. That must have been so painful. Oh, my gosh.
Tausha Brown-Evans: And so, basically, I just get to sit in the gym. And so, anytime that I can get out of there, I'm getting out of there. Good, good.
Kristin Neal: I'm glad to hear that, Tasha. I hope they'll find you a seat somewhere while that heals. Yes. Definitely hope for that. Well, thank you again for meeting me. I'm so grateful. You just made this, right, this demo, this appointment. I don't even know how to describe this meeting. There we go, meeting.
Tausha Brown-Evans: You just made it. Thank you so much.
Kristin Neal: How did you... What hear about ZTAG? Where did you hear about us?
Tausha Brown-Evans: I kept seeing you pop up on my Facebook.
Kristin Neal: Okay, okay, good, good, good, good. Yeah, they're working. We're glad they got your attention because it's huge. Yeah, especially for you in the situation you're in because at the touch of a button, you're getting all the kids to play all at once. So it's really a neat, neat game. This little meeting that I have, it's just very natural. I'm not a salesperson. I'm not. I'm actually the partner relations director. So I just get to see if it's a good match for you because we would absolutely love to be part of your PE class and there's funding that could possibly help you. It really is like how you're able to get that, how you're able to navigate. So I'm going to be able to show you everything so you can take to maybe your PTA, your principal, your admins, because there is funding for this. So, and this is also.
Tausha Brown-Evans: This is being recorded and will be sent to you after, if that's okay. Okay, great. Perfect.
Kristin Neal: So are we talking about impacting your P.E. classes for you, Tasha? Where are you envisioning where ZTAG could be?
Tausha Brown-Evans: Yes, my P.E. I'm currently at a school, it's called Tallahassee School of Math and Science. It's K through 8. And so the crazy thing, my kids, for the most part, elementary gets about two days a week in the gym, but they do get recess every day. But in the gym, P.E. wise, they get it at least two days a week. And middle school gets P.E. every day. Oh, cool.
Kristin Neal: Very cool. That's great. That's a great time to get that social bonding. Amazing. That's exactly what ZTAG is trying to make it a natural place for the kids to do that, especially junior high, because they all love their phones or they're glued to them. But this. This is a way we're getting them off of those screens, back to this screen on their watches, and then they're intentionally connecting face-to-face with their peers. So they're looking for answers, they're looking for solutions matching foreign language. There's a game that they have matching Spanish words with English words. So it's really impactful, and I love that they all have the opportunity for that. But another good way that you might be able to get this and maybe partner with your after-school care. Now, they have a lot of funding pouring into that right now. I'm only sharing this to help you. This isn't like, you know, you got to do this, you got to, but I'm just trying to share where I've seen it kind of be able to help you, and especially the PE classes. So using the unit for them after school, but not during school hours, you get it during school hours. That might be some way that you can partner and get dual funding for that. So I'm going to jump in. Is that okay for, do you have about 30 minutes?
Tausha Brown-Evans: 30 minutes? Can you go through this? Okay, perfect.
Kristin Neal: I'm going to share my screen, and we'll go over the unit, like exactly what this right here is, the welcome letter, our digital welcome letter. So everything, training, everything that you need to know is off of this link, okay? So I'm just going to kind of walk you through it a little bit. This is our ZUS unit. This is ZTAG, and it's in a carrying case. It's like a Pelican case. So it's very strong, durable. It has wheels, a handle. We literally take this on flights with us. So yeah, it's all-in-one, basically. All you need is this plug right here. That plug, and I'm getting my notes real quick. I'm sorry. I just want to make sure I get you all the information.
Tausha Brown-Evans: No, no, no problem. No problem. It's like I had to write it down just to make sure.
Kristin Neal: So there we go. 24 players. You are able to play with 24 players at once, but the kids, they get worn out after 10 minutes. So we love just rotating kids in and out and getting them all up in place. Playing. The Pelican Breeze case, yeah, one hour to charge. It takes one hour to charge, and then you get three hours of play, okay? So, but again, if you just rotate the kids in and out, the batteries will last all day. Gotcha. The football field range, you're able to go into the size of a football range front and back, so it's that large. Everything here is by touchscreen, so we even encourage the kids to have, like, their own club. There's a school up north, we love it, that they have their own tech team, and someone has put, I believe he's, like, about 12, 13-year-old gentleman in charge of this. So, very, very easy. Touchscreen, customizable, too. There's games, each game has customizable things on that game, okay? And there are those eight games currently, but we're working on more. There's not a continuous, like, a schedule, but we're definitely working on those. Mm-hmm. No Wi-Fi is needed either, Tasha. No Wi-Fi is needed. Everything is built in. So the watches, they connect to the Wi-Fi that's built in. So it's, you don't have to worry about, worry about that. Kim, just that plug, which you can even go off of a generator. So you can literally take this in the middle of the woods and you can play it out there too. So it's so much fun because everything lights up so you can really see it. Yeah. So if you have like special events, like I know like a lot of schools have the Fall Carnival. All my kids' schools had that and they have like a fundraiser, you know, that's a big fundraising night. Use this as a fundraiser because parents can play too. Parents, grandmas, there's a very special element that we can include them to play. Yeah. It's a lot of fun. So let's see. There is a USB port right back here. So you just plug that into like your, your big screen and you're able to have the. Leaderboard, huge, huge leaderboard. Each game has the leaderboard that it shows you. The games are customizable. Game update. This is the only time that you will need Wi-Fi. You can go on your school's hotspot or you can go on your own phone hotspot. It needs to be registered. So when you do get it, you register under like a general email and then you're able to get those updates. Gotcha.
Tausha Brown-Evans: There's also no subscription, Tasha.
Kristin Neal: Once you purchase it, like I said, it is an investment, but it's not an investment that you have to keep pouring money into. You buy it, you own it, you can do what you want with it. That's why so many teachers, even teachers, have actually said, you know what, I'm going to buy one myself and host birthday parties. So, yeah, we have a PE teacher in Wisconsin that's doing Doing that. So it's really neat. Do you have any questions on the unit itself? No, I do not.
Tausha Brown-Evans: Okay, perfect.
Kristin Neal: These are the game watches right here that you'll get 24 plus. You'll get two additional just in case, you know, for backup. But they're all lit up with colors, sound, it vibrates. So the kids get that full experience right here on their wrist.
Tausha Brown-Evans: Two units, by the way, you're able to connect two units together.
Kristin Neal: So you're able to have 48 player game. We definitely recommend having more staff if you're going to have that many kids. It's all sensor based right here in that window. So you show the kids. It doesn't have to be physical. You don't have to get close. We really encourage training them first so that they see it's like a remote control, you know, like that laser that comes out of the remote controls. So they're able to aim like their game watches. Okay. And it lights up. It sounds, vibrates, double-screen protection right here on that. It has a rubber guard on that, and there's coverage also that is available if you want to fully cover the unit. But it does come with a one-year manufacturer's warranty. There is that strap right there, that Velcro strap that's good for adult sizes and kid sizes by just turning it over.
Tausha Brown-Evans: Okay. Yeah. Super cool.
Kristin Neal: Do you have any questions on the ZTAGGERS themselves? No? Okay. Awesome. Here you have videos on how to set up ZTAGGERS, how to register the unit. All these are very quick and easy training videos. This is how to play the game. Each of these you can click to watch the video, and it shows you instructions on how to do that. However, that also is included in each purchase. about first It's So each purchase, you get a training with our playmaker, Steve. So it's a Zoom call. He's awesome. He's actually a teacher that turned into an operator. So he really knows the game, the full, everything that you guys are going through, he knows what you're going through. So he's going to be able to show you exactly how to connect your needs with what we can help you with. Okay. Yeah. Super, super cool guy. So this is the coverage that I was telling you about. Sorry. There you go. This is our ZTAG Extended Care Pack. This very first page, I'm going to send this to you for you to look through a little bit more in detail. But at least you'll see this very first page is everything that the unit comes with. So it'll come with that manufacturer's warranty. This is the things that are not covered under that. And then you have the program resources and branding support. So on that welcome letter I was showing.
Tausha Brown-Evans: Down here, you get those things right here.
Kristin Neal: So you have the logos, the branding, how other schools are using ZTAG. So you're going to be able to kind of collaborate and work with this too. We would love to see how you're doing it. We had one teacher that we'll be getting on soon, the red light, green light. She's having the kids run across the court as an animal, as just an animal, like play like your favorite animal. And it's just like a simple twist to the game. That's what's so neat about these games is you add it to whatever you're doing. You add it to a basketball game, the red light, green light. You add it to, I don't know if you have those wheeled, like things that you sit on. The scooters. Yes, the scooters. Yes, yes. That's the, this game right here. Let me show you the, where did it go? There we go. This game right here. Keep Away. That's the virtual ball. So that's. That's what they use that on. The zombie survival, that's where you can get the adults playing with the kids, because this has the special element where the kids are divided into either a zombie, a human, or you can add one or two doctors. So if you add the 100-year-old grandma to that game, and all you have to tell the grandma is, just hold it. All you got to do is just hold it, or that kid that's shy, that doesn't want to play, it's okay. And then they're fully part of the game. Everybody has to come to them to get healed. So that's very simple, but it's impactful. After that, I've seen it with my own eyes. This little girl came in with her hair in her face. She just didn't want to be there. But I couldn't get her to stop playing. She was just thoroughly enjoying it, smile from head to toe, and so sweaty. I loved it. It was so, so that's, it's really, really cool. But this is what. The ZTAG comes with, and then that's that virtual training that I was showing you, or telling you. This is the extended care plan, so this is what I was talking about with coverage, if that would help your guys' communities, you know, that peace of mind. We have the one, the three, and the five-year coverage. Here are the prices. Start at about $1,000, and then go up to $4,000, and there's six ZTAGERS covered. And then there's other features down here. My favorite one that I want to point out, though, is that this one does come with the Community Launch Pack. This is a way for us to be able to just ensure that you guys have everything you need to launch a successful event, especially at schools, you know, for those things. And here we have, that is down here, where you'll see that. So this is our Community Pack. Okay, so you'll get the banners, the tablecloth, the A-frame. we'll see that now. Yeah. And all these details right here. Oh, yeah.
Tausha Brown-Evans: I will send.
Kristin Neal: Do you need to head on out? No, no, no.
Tausha Brown-Evans: That was my watch. Okay, cool.
Kristin Neal: Cool, cool, cool. And then down here again, I said I'm not sales, so I'm so awkward with this, but the cost for the unit, for the 24 players, the coverage, the training you get, that manufacturer's warranty, that is $9,700 for that one unit. And then you're able to look through this a little bit more clearly with very clear upfront pricing, the coverage. And then if you'd like, if your school would like to partner and get a volume discount, we definitely encourage that, that those discounts start at five units, and then they go up to 12% off. If you guys are a nonprofit, that's another way to maybe partner. there. With the YMCA, things like that, 10% off, or the Boys and Girls Club. Boys and Girls Club also is in schools, I believe. All right, here's our payment in terms. Did you have any questions on this part? Oh, no, no, no.
Tausha Brown-Evans: Coverage, okay. I would just pass that on to my boss.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, yeah, that's what we're hoping to just like equip you to, if you see this really being great for your school, I really hope that we can share that with you to share with them, support you with that. So, is there any other thing that you have questions? We have a sole source letter that also shows that we are the only source of this technology, and we can also send you our W-9. Do you think that would help send that package over to you?
Tausha Brown-Evans: Yes, because we're trying to, they wanted to bring in some new ideas. With the PE department, and that was one of the things they mentioned to me, so I've been trying to find other things that will work, like the games that we play now, mainly for our younger kids, they work, but I don't want to lose the older kids, because they are into technology and all they want to do is be on their phone, so if I can get them up and moving a little bit more with technology, then that's something. Tasha, right now, Carmee is coming in, and she is our sales support.
Kristin Neal: Hi, Carmee, good morning. Hi, Kris. Hi, Tasha. Hi, girl.
Carmee Sarvida: Tasha. Good morning.
Kristin Neal: Sorry for the day. Like three minutes before the meeting, are you able to jump in? But the point is, Carmee is here, because I wanted you to just see her face. She is ready to help support you in any way. Carmee, Tasha is fabulous. I'm so excited to hear. She's got junior high kids, elementary kids in it. PE class, but I was telling her we're able to kind of, if she's able to partner with after school care, that's where a lot of funding is. So we're going to get her everything that she needs for her bosses to be able to make that impact. And it sounds like they're ready to maybe use some new technology. So I'm really excited. We're going to send her that everything I just shared with her. And especially, I think that video on Julian, there's a gentleman in Sacramento area that shares exactly his junior high students, the impact that it's making on them. So we'll send that video for her bosses for sure. Yeah. All right, Tausha, if there's nothing else, I thank you so much for your time.
Tausha Brown-Evans: Thank you, Kris. Thank you. Have a wonderful day and heal that Achilles heel, please. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. take care.
Kristin Neal: Take care, Tausha.
Carmee Sarvida: All right, bye-bye.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: And then I got old.
Quan Gan: Hey, that's no excuse. People say you got to ski your age. So how many years old are you guys to have that many days for skiing?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: I think I'm like done. The last time I went skiing, you know, well, first of all, I don't like cold, but I was cold and my like knees felt weird. And I was like, you know, why am I doing this? I'm like not enjoying myself right now.
Quan Gan: Well, I'm the opposite. I like the cold. Oh, okay.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Charlie Xu: Charlie is more like you.
Quan Gan: You guys met last time, right?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah. Oh, yeah. We've been at a few different events. How are you?
Charlie Xu: Good. How are you? I like your meeting in the motion mode.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: You know, it's funny. It started from I used to have like really challenging conversations and I like I would like to pace during those conversations. So I'd go pace and I'm on the phone and it helped me kind of think. And then I thought. You know what? It's like getting older. I'm gaining some pounds I don't prefer. And so I was like, let me get a treadmill and see if works. And oh my God, it's great. I could be laser focused on what I'm doing. And then I look down, I'm like, oh my God, I did 24,000 steps.
Charlie Xu: I better stop. Oh, that's awesome. That's good.
Quan Gan: Yeah. I think I can do that if I'm having a conversation, but if I need to be like writing code or something, it's a little bit distracting.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Oh, I actually love it. Although I found the right speed to make sure that it's not distracting. Like, you know, I'm doing 2.4 miles an hour. That's like 2.5 is just a little too much. So thanks for joining me for the better part of your day. Of course.
Quan Gan: Yeah. And I think we might have a few. Well, I think we should have at least two more people joining us.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: I was going to say, I did see a few more people on the invite.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. Let me chime them.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: My wife, Jess, was really inspired by the way that you guys are approaching parenthood, and I think she wants to homeschool. So we might bug you guys as the time comes. Our baby's only a few months old.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, we still have plenty of time. No rush, no school, no school until seven, let's say.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Wow, wow, okay, yeah, we definitely need to pick your brain.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it's, well, yeah, it's kind of like free form, but you take them wherever you go. So they just learn by osmosis. Yeah. You know, and I try to, I try to verbalize the things that I'm I'm doing so that they kind of internalize what that is and see it.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, I feel like parenting, we're to emphasize learning, teaching. When we have kids, I feel like everything around us is pushing us like, hey, raising your child is such a big thing. But I feel like when we're living on our own, we're modeling, learning all the time. They're just constantly learning.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah. Morning, Chris.
Quan Gan: Oh, I can't hear you.
Kris Neal: Hello, hello. wasn't sure if could get into a meeting already. Hi, everybody.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Hi. How are you?
Quan Gan: Yeah, so I'd like to introduce you to Ashkaan. Ashkaan is actually, we know each other through EO. And you said you're the president now? About to be, yeah.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Oh, about to be. Yeah, president-elect this year and then follow up.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so he, I've known him for a couple of of years. Yeah. Thank EO, I was an accelerator coach in his group, and so I watched his company grow and flourish, and now he's going to be the president of the chapter, which is, you know, it's huge. It's huge.
Kris Neal: Nice to meet you, Ashkaan. Very nice.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Kris on our team, she's basically the mama of the company. You know, like a back-end integrator role, although that's shifting a little bit, but it's, you she's very organized, and she's also overseeing all of our customers, and so she pretty much knows everybody by name, and really there to create a deep, long-lasting relationship with every single account.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Ah, that's really wonderful.
Quan Gan: Yeah. And then we do have Steven joining us, but he might be Be in the middle of something. He's called our Playmaker Developer, which is, well, actually, kind of to take a step back. So Kris works at the account level, which would usually be like a district level or higher or region. And then they purchase the product, but then it ends up in individual hands, which we call Playmakers. Those are the people actually deploying and hosting the games for the kids. So Steve is our Playmaker Developer, meaning he trains those people to make sure that they have the best practice for the kids. So Kris's relationship is at the higher district regional level. And then Stephen will be like boots on the ground with all the individual people.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Cool. Okay. Yeah. Well, we can get started if you guys want.
Quan Gan: And it's quite a long session.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So first of all, thanks for giving me a better part of your day. Okay. This is. This will be very informal. We can take breaks when you guys are ready, too. We can kind of just, as you guys have questions, like, stop me. Like, this will be very interactive, so I'm going to be asking you guys a million questions.
Quan Gan: Ashkaan, also one thing, I probably need to do a quick brief to the team. I've mentioned it before, but also to set the context, you know, which is, you know, as our company is growing, we really need to make sure each of the key leaders know about IT security and best practices, especially in the age of AI. A lot of scams that can happen. So Ashkaan is here to, you know, make sure we know, you know, what those best practices are, and we're actively engaging in that. And he might even have some methods to, like, to insert kind of almost like a secret shopper kind of thing to see, are we doing it against best practices? Yeah. So, hey, Steve. Yeah. I'll make a quick intro to you and Ashkaan. Ashkaan's been a longtime friend of mine from EO. He's grown his company tremendously over the past few years, and they focus on IT security. We're good friends because we were part of the same EO group, so we know each other pretty well. And we're going to go to dinner tonight after this. So, yeah. And then I've already introduced what your role is to Ashkaan. And so the whole purpose of this meeting today is really to kind of take inventory of what we're currently doing throughout our process. And Ashkaan and I were under NDA already. So we want to kind of show them what our whole process is, and then he'll point out what are the potential security risks and how do we mitigate that as we grow. And yeah. So without further ado, I'll it back to you. Yeah.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Cool. Yeah. Steven, nice to meet you. So, yeah, this will be, first of all, a very long but informal meeting. We can take breaks and just stop me when you have questions. This will be a loose, so I'll give you a sense of what I'm looking for as you guys are taking me through your apps and your processes and the things that you guys have. If there's a point where I feel like, oh, hey, there's a whole audit string that we can talk about for this one thing, I will pause you guys. We'll go through my audit string and then we'll continue. Here's a loose version of the audit string, just so you guys have a sense of what I'm thinking about and what I'm worried about. Quan mentioned it earlier, but thanks to AI, cyberattacks have gotten a lot. They're not more sophisticated, but what they are is they're more complete. They're more holistic. So they think about everything all at once and they attack a lot of different angles all at once. This is unprecedented. We've never seen something quite like this. And the good news is that if you are aware of all of the entry points, then you can put reasonable measures across the board on every entry point. And the way that I like to describe cybersecurity is it's like climbing a tree. The higher you climb up the tree, the more things that you do, the less likely the bad guys will get to you because they are, in fact, looking for the low-hanging fruit. They don't want to invest a lot of time, effort, and resources into a company that's very well locked down, even if they're not perfectly locked down. So a company that's like 90% protected is actually extremely unlikely to even get an attack to begin with. And when the few attacks fail from the 90%, they don't pursue the last 10% that's very challenging. So we want to just go as high up the tree as we possibly can. Here are the different areas that I think that I'm going to focus on today. Number one, I want to make sure your domain is secure. So that's having the right DNS entries. That's having the right security settings as well. I know you guys are on Google, so I want to make sure your Google email side is totally secure. There are a bunch of things that we can do, and we'll go through that when we get to the Google stuff. Google Drive, same deal. If you guys are utilizing Google Drive heavily, which I hope that you are because it's a phenomenal platform, there are a handful of things that we can do that elevate it from the consumer-grade Google Drive that everyone's used to to an enterprise level that actually has proper protections in place. Next, we want to get into Zoho, and that's, I think, an area we're probably going spend the most amount of time because I know you guys are so invested in Zoho and the different apps. Admittedly, and I mentioned this to Quan, I don't work on Zoho regularly, but the same principles apply. So as I see things, we may fumble a little bit through the settings and trying to find the right thing we're looking for, but ultimately I feel confident we'll be able to. Thank To protect it in the same way that we can with other apps. And then finally, we talked about security awareness training, and there's a popular application called Breach Secure Now that does this training. It's got these weekly modules. It's a phenomenal platform. It also does dark web searches for you. So it's something that we'll dig into at the end here. But so before we get into any of this fun stuff, I'd love for you guys to just kind of take me very generally and briefly through the different things that you guys are using and doing, and then we can dive in one by one.
Quan Gan: Who wants to go first?
Kris Neal: Sure. We're using Google Drive for sales to transmit information to partners. Spreadsheets a lot, Google Sheets. Yeah. What else? I'm trying to think. Payments. As far as for sales, there's payments going through Zoho. I'm trying to think. Like the Stripe, I guess.
Quan Gan: Yep, so you're using invoicing.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Are you guys storing data on Zoho? Which I assume you are. But it's a starter into what kind of data and what modules.
Kris Neal: Yeah, we've got data for the, on my end, the staff, tasks, yes. WorkDrive?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: WorkDrive.
Kris Neal: Right, Steve?
Quan Gan: Yeah, we don't use WorkDrive. Well, we don't.
Steven Hanna: Not a OneDrive.
Quan Gan: Yeah, we don't use Google. We don't use Zoho WorkDrive. I mean, I have some legacy stuff on there, but I touch it like maybe once a year.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Okay, that's good. Because one of the checks that we want to do is we want to make sure that you have a single source of truth for your files level data. going going going to that you And if you're using Google Drive, it's, first of all, superior to WorkDrive. And so we would love to see everything in Google Drive rather than, you know, WorkDrive, Dropbox, Box, and a bunch of other places.
Kris Neal: GitHub, right? Is that something that...
Quan Gan: I use GitHub to host our SOPs. GitHub repo for that.
Kris Neal: Which is connected to the GPT, which we use daily.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so our ChatGPT is pretty integrated into a lot of these things.
Steven Hanna: So are you asking for a concept map of everything that we're using and how it integrates with one another?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Is that what you're kind of alluding to? That's exactly right. I think we can spend maybe a few minutes on that. Just so that we have the landscape worked out. And then I'd love to actually go bit by bit through the terrain.
Quan Gan: I'm to draw that out.
Steven Hanna: Don't worry. I'll draw that out while you...
Quan Gan: People nerd out with you.
Kris Neal: Like, Steve, please, I'm drowning.
Steven Hanna: No, listen, I just... I needed a little more translatable language to use. I got you.
Kris Neal: Don't worry.
Steven Hanna: I'll draw this out while we start talking.
Kris Neal: No, that actually worked out. I'll jump in, and then you save me. Thank you.
Charlie Xu: And also, so our main team is four people as we will be presenting here, but also we have four overseeing, not employees, but work people are overseeing in Philippine. So there also is the person would be access to our Zoho system, CRM systems, email system, Google Drive systems.
Quan Gan: And Zoho Books. Our books is in Zoho too.
Charlie Xu: So these are also, so, so we, we hire them. It's. How to say that the hiring, but if I want to be transparent, it's not like under oversee ZTAG company over there hiring them. So it could be somehow like, these employees are great people, but maybe potentially, you know, like, because they can access to all our documents. Yeah, no problem.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: I think for the purpose of just security, the way that we like to think about overseas folks is that they're essentially remote workers that are here with a couple of legal challenges, one of which is that we don't have recourse. So if we don't have recourse over them, have to just think that through and see, are there ways of limiting their data? Yeah. There's a principle called the principle of least privilege. And what that states is that for any given role in the company, that person should have the bare minimum, absolute bare minimum to be able to perform their function. It's perfectly without being hindered, but nothing more, not a single bit of data more. And that's very challenging to do because it's not like, you know, most companies, they don't have their data bifurcated so sharply and so perfectly that they can then allocate, hey, you get access to this drive, and this drive has not one file more than you need. But that is ultimately the goal, and we'll probably spend a good amount of time talking about that today.
Charlie Xu: So, Kris, maybe on your side, Kermi is the one who can access all the customers and has to, like, also access. So maybe on your perspective, like, the work we assign to her, yeah, I feel like it's a little bit hard to identify what is the limit is, because we do assign them a lot of work to cover our, yeah. Yeah.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: And it's okay if in order for them to do their job, they need a wide breadth of data. That's not a problem. It's just about recognizing it, being aware of it, and then thinking that through if and when there's ever a challenge. Like, oh gosh, it looks like this person might not be working out. They've made a few threats or whatever. Like, am I very clear on their data and what I need to lock down if I need to lock it down in an instant or during a bad conversation? So those are the kind of things that we'll dig into that as well. So it's more just a proactive approach to attempted retaliation. So that's basically the name of the game for cybersecurity. Very generally, I think you summed it so well. It's proactively trying to preempt danger to the business. And that danger could be, you know, so many things. Steve, while you're kind of mapping things out, there is a topic. Thank you. you. That we can dig into, which is the domain itself. So a lot of attacks do really clever things to spoof the domain, make it look like they're part of ZTAG when they're not. And there are some things that we can do to mitigate that. Who has administrative login access to the domain? Okay, cool. So maybe it makes sense, Quan, for you and I to play with that while Steve's kind of still mapping things out. And there are certain things that I'm going to be looking for that we can talk through to make sure that they're there. And we can do kind of a screen share and make sure that I can actually see these things. Again, a little bit like a secret shopper, but not so secret because I'm here.
Quan Gan: Sounds good. Yeah, let me know what you want to see and I'll bring it up.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Cool. So which platform are you using, by the way?
Quan Gan: To host the actual domain name?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, to park it. So who are you paying?
Quan Gan: Go down. Great.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So yeah, please go ahead and pull up the DNS dashboard for GoDaddy that shows the DNS entrance for that domain.
Quan Gan: I think it's also possible that the actual DNS may have been assigned to something else.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Like Cloudflare?
Quan Gan: It's possible. It depends on the website, maybe, because I think we might have put it on the thing that's hosting our web.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: This will be really critical, because there's one control that we want to make sure is in play called DNSSEC, short for DNS security. And what that is, is it's a record that proves that this DNS record is supposed to be with this parking institution. It's a lot easier when they're the same, because it's usually like one click and you're done. When they're different, there's sometimes weird things, and sometimes it's impossible. terrible. Yeah, Um, but we'll, we'll, we'll see. We'll see what that looks like.
Quan Gan: Okay. Let me.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Very loosely, I will recommend that if you ever do want to move the parking over somewhere else or the DNS somewhere else, sort of the best for all cybersecurity web hosting for, for really every purpose is a company called Cloudflare.
Quan Gan: Cloudflare. I've heard of them. Yeah. Um, and we might use part of that on Gantam, but this is, is what I have so far.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Cool. Um, and if it's okay with you, I'll request control, just like, and poke around, but you'll get, you'll kind of see what I'm clicking on and doing.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Perfect.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So I'll start with the name servers. Um, name servers. Okay. So, okay. So you're using, uh, in motion, um, haven't used it in motion myself, but I bet it's not really challenging. Uh, so I think that's actually probably the next place we need to go. And just before we leave here. Yeah. Okay. So there's no way to do a. Okay. DS signature here, because we need the, it would have had to be in the same place. yeah, if you don't mind, please take us to InMotion and get us to the same DNS page there, and we'll dig in. Okay, that one's a little bit more involved.
Quan Gan: Let me see here.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Hopefully, you're on top of that B2 cloud login that is on the dark web.
Quan Gan: What is that? Oh, your new tab popped up a warning and said, hey, one of your passwords is on the dark web. Oh, okay. And was legit.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: was from Safari.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. So, I got my two-factor here.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Hold on. Excellent. I love to see that. Meanwhile, I'm frantically tapping you. The do you The one thing I like about-
Quan Gan: Max, is I could open up my password, find the phone, and then press copy, and then it'll show up here. But I don't know, is that, supposedly that should be secure, right?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yes, it's extremely secure. It's actually like, it's so secure, but a bunch of times it won't work because it's missing something. Okay, cool. So somewhere here, we should see DNS settings. I suspect in the second box, yep. Often it's inside of CD, oh, there it is, that's the one. Let's do that. Cool.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and this stuff probably has a bunch of records that are not even applicable anymore.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Sure, yeah, I'm only going to focus on the things that are critical. It's actually not necessarily a bad thing to have, like, bloated DNS. Because it, funny enough, it throws off the bad guys. They see a bunch of, like, records that aren't really in use, but they don't know that. And so they're like, oh, we got to attack this, we got to attack that. Oh, it's too much. Let's go move on to the next company. It's ridiculous.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Okay, so DMARC record has one issue so far. So basically, a DMARC record tells the world, if this email didn't come from one of my approved senders that I have listed right here in DNS, you need to mark it as spam. Right now, the setting is none, which means when you've detected that my email didn't match one of the criteria, do nothing about it. Deliver it to the inbox anyway. So long as you're not giving an email, are you doing any email marketing on this domain, or are you doing it on GoZTAG?
Quan Gan: We don't have anything on GoZTAG. It's just, everything's... It's from ZTAG.com, but we have not sent, we've not done any like mass campaign emails. It's mostly Chris or someone else on our team individually sending follow-up emails. Got it.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Okay. If and when you're ready to do mass emails, just as a business, you'll want to use a different domain. Even though we're going to follow all the right rules and we're going to do everything perfectly, it's still, there's still a chance to get blacklisted because of some angry users or something silly. So very common is that people will use their Go. Like the fact that you have that, I just assumed, because normally it's like Go app is normally their marketing. And then the app itself is internal and customer facing.
Quan Gan: Interesting. Okay.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So, all right. So, yeah.
Quan Gan: So probably Stan has set that up previously.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: I didn't even know he bought it, but okay. I suspect Fathom is going to take this down, but if anyone wants to do any manual notes. This is one of those items. I would say upgrade your DMARC record to be a quarantine setting, and you can have ChatGPT update this for you, and it'll be perfect. It doesn't miss on stuff like that. So you just want to change the none to quarantine, and then do some testing and make sure you don't end up in spam. But that's the first thing right off the bat.
Quan Gan: And then is it okay that it has this clances at ZTAG.com? That's one of our remote workers.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, that's totally fine. Basically, what this is saying is if and when there's... So there's two kinds of errors that can happen, and I can't remember exactly what these stand for, but when this error happens, it'll email this person, and when that kind of error happens, it'll email this same person, which is perfectly fine.
Quan Gan: Are these settings exposed to the public?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: They are. Yes, this is completely public-facing. Everyone can see this email. It's really common to instead make this DMARC at ZTAG as The group, and then add this person in that group.
Quan Gan: Got it. That's kind of my favorite way of doing that.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: But actually, everything here is completely public-facing, which is why we're starting here, because this is the first thing that bad guys see. They're looking through all of these and trying to figure out, oh, they're using C-Panel. Ah, they're on InMotion. Okay, let's try to get in their account. Luckily, you have MFA, and you have it through an Authenticator app. Good luck getting in. Okay, let's see what else is going on here. Oh, lots of stuff, lots of stuff. Looks like maybe you had Microsoft at some point. Glad that you don't. Okay, this DKIM record might not, I've never seen a space in a DMARC record before. I mean, in a DKIM record before. So, I suspect this might have been a copy and paste error. So, let's come, I'm going to just make a note to myself. Test in Google Admin. So, we're going to run a test in Google Admin to make sure this is working. Admin. to All right, what else do we have? Let's see. It's another DKIM. Oh, I see. Okay, so this is the DKIM for this subdomain. Also has a space, maybe copy and paste there. Maybe not. Maybe that's just how InMotion shows. I've never used InMotion before. This is for Go, ZTAG. I haven't seen your main DKIM yet. Oh, here we go. Nope, that's another one. Education, DKIM. Okay, yeah, so given that there's a space in every one of these, I'm very curious to see what Google has to say.
Quan Gan: MX records look good.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Great. This looks like it was for a marketing campaign of some kind. So... to to have Yeah. take Yeah, but that's good because it actually looks great. doesn't have a weird space in the middle. So that one looks great. Yeah, which whatever this one is.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: What about the next one?
Quan Gan: There's still a space there. So yeah, so this one has the space.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: And then this one also, oh, you know, this actually could be Zoho, by the way. Are you sending emails through Zoho?
Quan Gan: We would be, yeah.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So very likely this is the Zoho one. I'm willing to bet because I think I've seen this before in Zoho. like a, like a, some string of numbers.
Quan Gan: Okay. This is your main Google one.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Again, there's a space I'm not expecting to see. So I hit edit.
Quan Gan: Why is there two sections?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah. You know, it's possible that this platform in motion doesn't support such a long key. And so you literally have to create multiple sections and that actually might work fine. Like it might just be that the UI is showing it separately, but when you actually do the query. It comes out full.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Here's another DKIM for, I'm guessing, another product. So you may be sending, you should get really clear on where you're sending emails from. As far as your SPF is concerned, you are telling the world, I'm only sending emails from Google or Zoho. If it's something else, you should market spam, essentially what you're doing here, which, by the way, this record looks absolutely perfect. It's beautiful. So, okay, cool. We've got that. The one thing I didn't see is DNS set, which I think, unless they support it, won't be possible. I'm going to find out right now. I'm ChatGBTing as we're going here. Settings. There's supposed to be a settings button here for each of these, according to ChatGBT. We all know how that goes. I appreciate Um... For yourthen Yikes. They don't even have a DNSSEC. Okay.
Quan Gan: So should we be putting the DNS management back onto GoDaddy?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: If I were you guys, I would actually move it to Cloudflare.
Quan Gan: Cloudflare? Okay.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: It's by far the most superior DNS editor. It doesn't have any weird issues with, like, spaces and stuff. And when you migrate it, it'll actually automatically pull all of these records for you, although you should double-check them. I've never seen it miss, but it's something you ought to do. Just double-check, make sure everything lands. And it's really easy to set up. And the cool thing about Cloudflare is it has these one-button solutions to the things I'm talking about today.
Quan Gan: Okay. And is there any reason to not move our hosting to Cloudflare as well?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: No, actually. So me personally, I actually do all of my – but by hosting, I think you mean domain parking. Right. Not your website hosting.
Quan Gan: What did you mean website hosting? Originally, I meant website because this InMotion was just for the website. I got it.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Okay. So Cloudflare, their web hosting is extremely complicated and requires like a lot of coding. They don't have a consumer-facing product for this, so I wouldn't recommend it. I'm sure this InMotion company is fine for hosting. It's not a terribly challenging thing, as long as you have the right security features, which we'll talk about in a sec. So I don't have a feeling about that, although GoDaddy, funny enough, has a great hosting product, and they might be a fit. it?
Quan Gan: I think, well, GoDaddy is the default you start with, and I think maybe for whatever reason, when we try to host somewhere, it wanted to be the DNS record or something.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Hmm. then we gave it up, and just host, and then...
Quan Gan: They forwarded it over to this one.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So GoDaddy is your domain parking company. They register your domain, and they're who it's parked with. I suspect they probably have nothing to do with this hosting here. This is probably just totally separate. Is it a WordPress site?
Quan Gan: It's a WordPress, yeah.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Okay. There are two companies that I think are really good for WordPress hosting. One is called WP Engine. It's a little bit of controversy with them because they raise their rates and piss people off. The product itself is fantastic, and there's another one called Flywheel, and that's the one I use, and it's a clone of WordPress Engine. So those two are like the best hosting companies. What I would do is I would move parking and DNS to Cloudflare, and I'd probably move the hosting to WP Engine or Flywheel. Not urgent at all. I don't think it's a big deal. It's all about bandwidth. Like if someone has bandwidth for... We're like, hey, it's time to optimize our website. I would do that, but I wouldn't kill yourselves over this. What I do want, though, is for sure we need to make sure the DKIM records are good with these spaces in it. And then DNSSEC is not possible with this. I just got confirmation with this company, InMotion. So that's one good reason to at least move the DNS to Cloudflare. You can keep the hosting on InMotion and still have the DNS on Cloudflare. And Cloudflare will able to do everything.
Quan Gan: Okay. So what I'm hearing, there's three separate things. There's the domain parking, the DNS, and then the hosting. Perfect. And right now, the parking is on GoDaddy, and the hosting and the DNS is here. You want the DNS to be on Cloudflare. Perfect.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yes. Okay. And the biggest reason for that is that... Number one, they support all kinds of DKIM strings. So even if this works with the space, it's not going to trip up like another security expert or when you're trying to audit your own stuff. But two, they'll support DNSSEC, which is a security that I think you guys do need. It's fairly important because you can, with enough time and effort, I can spoof your ZTAG and email people perfectly with no spam or anything because I've spoofed the domain itself. So DNSSEC prevents that.
Quan Gan: Why not just consolidate that to the GoDaddy?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So do mean put all three on GoDaddy, the hosting, parking, and the DNS?
Quan Gan: Or the hosting being here, but then the parking and the DNS still on GoDaddy.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, so GoDaddy's fine, actually. GoDaddy supports all of these settings that I'm talking about. It's just not as easy as Cloudflare. But Cloudflare is like, it pops up and says, hey, you need. These things, press this one button and I'll write it for you. That's why. That's all.
Quan Gan: We were going to move it over to that. Got it.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah. So go down and be perfectly acceptable. No complaints. But what we do want to make sure we do when you move is two things. You're going to enable DNSSEC and you're going to enable a CAA certificate. The CAA certificate basically makes it so that there's an attack where people make, they'll send a bad email. They'll put a link to your website. It's the exact correct URL. When you click the link because they've encoded it slightly differently with what's called DNS injection, it'll actually take you to their site even though your browser thinks it's your site. So the CAA basically blocks that and says, wait, the cryptography of this certificate doesn't match the cryptography of the certificate of the real website. This is fake. Don't go here.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So those two got to add this. Okay, so that's really all I care about with the domain.
Quan Gan: So we'll do a DKIM test.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: And actually, I guess we could do it right now. If you don't mind, go ahead and go into your Google Workspace Admin. Perfect.
Quan Gan: So interesting enough, there's no two-factor authentication by Google, is there?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: There is. There is?
Quan Gan: Okay.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So, you know, Steve, I'm sorry to keep you on edge here, but maybe we actually, oh, yeah, right here. So we're going to have to turn this on. Before we do, though, I want to just cover one other thing. So I'm going to kind of go in a funny order. I want to make sure your DKIM authentication is authenticating. Okay, cool. So that's the status I wanted to see. And it looks like, yeah, that's the only domain that's here. But it, so even with that weird space, it does actually work. There's no problem. That's with the DKIM.
Quan Gan: I'm happy on the DKIM side. But why did it say authenticating versus authenticated? Yes, good question.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: It means that basically every email that you guys send has a new key that when decoded takes you back to this record. So it's generating keys on every single email so that it can be really sure you're not going to get spoofed. This is the number one best way to secure your email. And so it is consistently authenticating current and future emails with DKIM. Got it.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: That's a great question. So cool. Okay. So DKIM is good. Then the only thing to wrap up, I know I repeat myself a lot. They say you have to hear something like seven times for it to sink in. So I like to repeat myself a lot. DNSSEC and CAA. That's what we need for DNS. And then otherwise your DNS looks good.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay, cool.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So let's, since we're already here in front of Google Workspace, why don't we dig into some of the Google Workspace stuff?
Quan Gan: Okay.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: First things first, we want to make sure that everyone is being forced to utilize two-step verification. When we turn this on, one of two things is going to happen, and it's really annoying because it shouldn't work this way, but it does. Option A, we'll turn it on, hit apply, and every user is immediately going to get, like, knocked out, and it's going to say, hey, in order to continue using Google, I need you to first verify your password one more time to, like, really prove that you're still you, and I need you to set up an MFA on this account right now before I let you proceed. And that's what we wish would happen. That's ideal. I have seen a bug more than once where some users will get that, and other users will get nothing at all. know? You And they will continue working and everything is fine. And then randomly, the next day they come to work, they like open up the browser or whatever they do or the refresh. It says, you are out of alignment with your 2FA policy. Speak to your admin, you're locked out. And then you or an admin have to like work with the user to get them back in their account and then set up their MFA, get that working again, and then they're fine after that. But I have seen that quite a few times, and it's really, really freaking annoying. So I would suggest that we do this at a time and place that that is an acceptable thing to happen so that you guys are prepared for it and can solve that problem. And I'm not going to hit apply, but I want to show you the settings that we need. And ideally, you can take a screenshot once I'm done.
Steven Hanna: Hit apply. Force it. Force it now.
Quan Gan: Do it. Security. I'm okay with forcing it.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: I mean, if you guys are, I'm down too. So here's what I really like to see.
Quan Gan: Charlie, you had something? Oh, you're muted.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So, yeah, I have a question here.
Charlie Xu: So for all the files we share with random people out there, are they or will be not accessed to our Google Drive anymore and they have to redo the same thing? Because we do share these PDFs to our customer a lot through Google Drive link, right? I don't know if we set it to public yet. So is everyone who have access to our Google Drive files while being forced to do all of this?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Good question. No. This is just for the users that are specifically enumerated here under your users directory, which I'll open in a new tab. So it's like literally just these people. That it happens to. Including any service accounts that aren't real people. So, yeah, Steve, your face tells me we should probably hang on for a sec before we do this.
Steven Hanna: You definitely should, because those aren't going to have MFA on them since they're automated accounts.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, they will need MFA, and there is an answer to that problem that's probably very easy. But nothing should stop you from turning this on as long as you're prepared to do the work to fix whatever the robot MFA needs to be. There's not a world where you just can't have MFA on a service account. That's actually the most dangerous thing you can do, because service accounts are what they target, because people have that misconception. There's an answer. And actually, I'd love to talk about it today. So, like, just since we're on the subject, what's authenticating to this right now?
Quan Gan: Oh, what do you mean?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Like, what what is currently... what currently... Like, Using this to send emails.
Quan Gan: Oh, this is a, this is connected to our ZTAG registration API. So it's a, it's a third-party app. If someone registers, it uses this account to send them a confirmation email. Oh, okay.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: And what app sends that? Is that Zoho?
Quan Gan: I'd have to check. No, it's not Zoho. I think it's some just custom build web app.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Got it. Okay. So, um, in the worst case, if your web app just does not support some kind of a modern authentication, it's no big deal. You can, you can manually MFA this account on like an in-private browser. Then you can create an app password for this one function. And you'll use that special app password that circumvents the MFA. But at least the account generally, when the robots and bad guys are trying to get to it, will be MFA'd unless they have that one password. you. So it's not perfect, but it's the easiest way to solve your problem.
Quan Gan: Okay. I mean, I have access to that account, so should I just go in and authenticate it?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: If you do, I just want you guys to be prepared for that to not work until you get the web app working properly.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So I would recommend doing it at a time when you're like, I've got all day. If this, if this, I know, I know we all have those days where we have all day with nothing to do. If this web app stops working, can I fix it? Do I have the hours to fix it? Or it could be minutes. And it could be as simple as, hey, this is the code for this thing that I developed. Hey, Claude or ChatGPT, we just enforced MFA on this Google account. What needs to change here? Can we use Modern Auth?
Quan Gan: I'll ask my developer for that then.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Perfect. Yeah, that's perfect. And if it can use Modern Auth, use that. Straight up, that's way better.
Quan Gan: What do you call it?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Modern Auth. It's a common name for essentially token-based authentication rather than credential-based. And then you can MFA it, literally throw away the key, because who cares, you're an admin, you can get back in later. And if you've thrown away the key, there's no way a bad guy's getting in, which is critical.
Quan Gan: But Ashkaan, could you just give us non-technical, a reason for what MFA actually does compared to not having it?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah. So in the dark web, your username and passwords are being bought and sold. Sort of like, it's like the Costco of like evil internet. And when we get to Breach Secure Now, we'll actually do a scan of your domain and see what passwords are floating out there. But you'll be surprised. And the challenge is that it's not for the really savvy folks who are auto-generating passwords, changing them off. And on top of their security, it's not really for them. It's for your weakest link. Your weakest link uses grandma123 for everything. And they'll tell you they're not, but they are. We've seen it. And so if they get the password to like their home Yahoo account that has the same credential as your business account, they'll get in, they'll get files, they'll start to email people from this person. It's going to be a nightmare. And so what MFA does is that it's asking you to prove yourself in one more additional way beyond your username and password. And so normally, you can use one of many methods, including a text message that goes to your phone, and a Google Authenticator app where the code changes every 30 seconds, and many more, by the way. There's so many ways to do this additional type of authentication. Google has a bit of a misnomer. They call it two-step verification. also that can abouturable Well, Thank They're the only company to call it this. It's really three-step. There's a username, there's a password, and then this third step. So more, I don't know, companies that I think have it right are calling it MFA, multi-factor authentication, because it's a multiple, it's some multiple, it's some polynomial. Now, a challenge is that text messages and phone calls are actually really insecure third ways of authenticating. Because SIM jacking is really common, and although hopefully no one on this phone has ever been, on this call has ever been SIM jacked before, but it is devastating when it happens. And it's way easier to do than you think. So we like to exclude those two as options, and leave only the other 50 options.
Quan Gan: I watched a Veritasium video where they were able to just basically spoof someone's cell phone. So, like, if you're supposed to... If to get the text of the six numbers or whatever, even for your bank, that number could go to someone else and you don't even receive it.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And very fast. It's such a great channel. I watch every episode. So, yeah. So this is the ideal configuration. So we're basically enforcing it company-wide. We're giving people one week to get their act together. Now, this is one week from the time they start. So all of you guys, it'll trigger instantly. You don't get one week like you do a new person. This is fine. Basically, what it is, is once it gets the crypto key that it's happy with, it's just saying it's not going to force the user to do this all the time, which is perfectly fine. And then the methods, we want to turn off everything and we want to leave on everything except for anything related to their phone. And that's it. And this would be an ideal configuration.
Quan Gan: Wait, go back to the bottom part again. Okay, so... so... so... so... Okay, Thank You don't want to keep it like only security key or something?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Correct. Yeah. So security keys, they're great, but they actually have interesting flaws. Security key is typically a physical.
Quan Gan: Oh, physical. Yeah, typically.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: You actually can have a digital one, but that's actually very complicated and hard for your users to manage. It will be hard. There's an easier version called task keys that have been very popular lately. It reduces the amount of steps you need to do to authenticate something because it already has the key built in. It's considered secure by most cybersecurity experts, but there's still quite a bit of debate about this. I believe it's perfectly secure. It's a little too convenient, but it's perfectly secure. And that is included in this second section. So that's one of the ways that people can do it is with a pass key. Quick question.
Steven Hanna: Would the primary way that our coworkers be doing this? would be through the Google Authenticator app download and then going with that key to multi-factor in.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So app-based Authenticator is my favorite way. However, in a perfect, perfect world, you guys would be using a unified password manager. There's one called 1Password that's particularly good. They have a business edition that's ideal. And they would be using that as the Authenticator. And it works just like Google Authenticator. You do the QR code, and then once it saves it, it's got the rolling code. It's great. So that's the perfect, but the next best, everyone uses their own Google Authenticator We were talking about that last time, whether it's like, because I use Keeper out of habit, and I share that with other people.
Quan Gan: Although within the company, we have Zoho Vault, although you said that's less tested. So I'm wondering, is there enough of a benefit to go from Keeper to OnePass, or are we just a settle on Keeper?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Keeper is fine. I will note that one... While you logged in as the admin here, I didn't want you to use Keeper.
Quan Gan: Okay. Why?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So it's either in policy or in function, it's failing you somehow.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. So I was supposed to. Okay. So yeah, the thing is on my Mac right now, everything is just with my fingerprint.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Well, so you have stored your company's credentials in your personal iCloud. That's kind of the challenge. Which, as the owner, it's like, okay, fine. But you don't want anyone else to really be doing that.
Quan Gan: Okay. Does make sense? So should I set up a new corporate one-pass account?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: That's what I would do, 100%. I wouldn't hesitate on that. That's an easy win. And then as a company directives and employee policy and contractor policy, anyone who works for you, they have to keep all business credentials within one password.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: And And you may end up liking it a lot. It is, like in my opinion, it's superior to everything. It does the fingerprint thing that your Apple passwords does. It's fantastic.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it's just, you know, Keeper, there's just so much momentum. Like even years ago, I was like, okay, I want to find a new password thing. But it was, because there was this one quirk I don't like about it. But every time I go on a password, I add more to it. I'm like, okay, to migrate this over, it's just going to be a pain.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So do they have easy migration? They do. I don't know if they have a Keeper one. know, Keeper is not, like in most core environments, we haven't migrated from Keeper. But let me just see how to migrate. But I'm okay with having two password managers, you know, one being company specific and one for personal. So the cool thing about 1Password Business Edition is it actually gives every user two accounts, a personal and a business. Oh, okay. So I'd recommend, I'd recommend just, and it's also really nice to have all of your stuff. think of your in one place. So But it is truly bifurcated between accounts and email addresses.
Quan Gan: It's really nice. Okay. All right.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: We're getting one password for everybody. Awesome. That's great news. It's a great product. Okay. So we've talked about MFA and that this is the ideal configuration that we're going to do. And we've talked about the method. We want to make sure that no one is using text or phone calls for their MFA. Cool. All right. Next. We've to take a look at your roles really quickly and just see, yeah, we're going to leave the page because we're not saving that setting, even though it's good. We just want to make sure you've limited your number of super admins here. So you've got two folks that are full-blown super admins. Now, it's a little awkward to talk about on this call with everyone here, but the gist of this is you want to make sure that really trusted folks are on this list. And she does back end.
Quan Gan: So probably she needs to be deep. Uh, You, you. De-prioritize from here. Yeah.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: It's highly unlikely that this person needs this exact role. What I would recommend instead is if they do need certain functions, see if one of the built-in ones, there's lots of different roles, see if one of those, you know, perform the function that this person needs. Very likely user management, guessing we need to add a little of users, probably. So that's probably a better fit. Or maybe groups, if they need to, you know, play with groups. Or you build one. You can create your own role that's really specifically says what this person can and can't do.
Quan Gan: Okay. Cool.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: The next thing with the roles is that anyone who has super admin privileges, like the highest level, they really shouldn't be setting this permission on their personal, like their own individual daily driver account.
Quan Gan: Oh, it should be a separate account.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah. Okay. So there should be a separate admin, separately MFA'd, you know, all of that. Different password, of course.
Quan Gan: We have that for Dantam, Dantam, but... Okay, that's good to know. That's good practice. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Someone else set that up.
Quan Gan: Yeah, perfect.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: I already like that person.
Quan Gan: Okay, cool.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Next, there's some really basic things that sound like they're not a big deal, but you'd be surprised how many attacks they actually prevent. And it's this spoofing protection that's built in. So let's see here. Okay, so basically what we want to do for most of it, first of all, we want to turn on every protection there is. And because Google's actually done a very good job of researching and figuring out which protections actually make impactful, meaningful changes. And there's some choices we can make about different things. I actually, I'm on the less conservative side, and I actually prefer to keep the email in the inbox, but show a warning. Do you guys ever see those ugly yellow warnings in Google while you're in Gmail? And yeah, we want as many of those as possible. We want to be warned about everything. It should be like a rare email that comes in that's just white and has no errors or anything. It's like, oh, I can totally trust this email.
Quan Gan: So, Ashkaan, most of us are using Superhuman for sending emails rather than Gmail. Okay.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Superhuman circumvents a lot of the cool protections that Gmail has built in.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: I have found personally, I use Superhuman for a long time. Not a long time, six months. That feels like forever for me because I try new apps every week. So, Superhuman is cool. I get why people might want to use it. If you were to memorize and get really good at the default Gmail shortcuts, I'd be surprised if you were slower in Gmail once you got attuned and once you got, like, used to it.
Quan Gan: Okay. So, do you think Gmail over the past three years, because I haven't touched Gmail for three years. Has it gotten up to par where superhuman is less useful?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So this is, we're going to delve into opinion territory really fast. My opinion is that Gmail is totally hideous. It's just an ugly UI. It's my personal opinion, whatever. I think it's just ugly. But I have never seen a more useful, utile system. I assume nobody here is into Outlook. We can move, we can like, we don't have to touch that. Okay, great. So superhuman is cool because they sort of funnel you into forcing you to use some of the more advanced features of Gmail that's there, but no one ever uses because it's advanced. And it's like, Gmail is like trying to welcome everyone. You know, it's everyone come to the party. You don't need to learn a lot. Superhuman is kind of like, wait, before you get in the door, I need to show you like 10 really important things. And so those habits will make you better. Straight up. They're good habits. And they're absolutely correct. They're not wrong. But you can do all of those things in Gmail. And when you use the native platform, you'll have less issues. Like, for example, I don't know if you guys get this, but I used to have issues in superhuman where, and this was a while ago, but when you would boomerang a message back or snooze something back, sometimes they just wouldn't come back. It's like a weird bug. I've never had that once with the Gmail built-in same function, same snooze function. So my preference is to go try Gmail out again. Having gotten really used to superhuman, it'll suck because you're so used to it. It's like breaking any habit, especially if it's been doing it for three years. That's tough. But if you power through and you build your filters really nicely, because the big sell of Gmail is it's got easy and great and you can make very complicated filters that make your life easy. I genuinely only get emails from my inbox. that I should get. Everything else is filtered somewhere else. And that's just, that takes a lot of time and effort.
Quan Gan: Chris, you have an epiphany you want to share? We can't hear you. I thought you were actually crying.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: I was like, oh my God, I think I triggered her. I feel horrible.
Kris Neal: I am, and I'm excited to look into that. Yes, thank you.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Okay. Yeah. I mean, I can make you a promise. It's going to suck for like three weeks because you're going to be like, oh, I'm used to that function. And I can't, and then you have to chat to you. How can I do this function? And it's going to suck, but you can do everything. I don't believe there's any exclusive features to Superhuman and the UI is better, which sucks. I hate that about it.
Steven Hanna: I think it's just learning those shortcuts. It's like the equivalent of using a mouse and keyboard and then using a controller. Like just adapt the head, know that C is V instead of that. head, know And you could even change that if you want.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: That's right. You could change it if you want. But yeah. So anyway, I do recommend using the default client. It's really darn good. Really, really darn good.
Quan Gan: Even on the phone?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. The phone client, again, God, they missed on the UI. I wish I could run Google. But yeah. Well, look, we're going to turn on these protections anyway. And I'm just going to set them to still show in the inbox, but give a warning to the user. And actually, you already had most of them. You had three out of four. So great. Save those. And we're going to move on to more. There's more protections on this page. So this is really great. This is very rare. I don't think this is like even an attack that happens anymore. But why not? Yeah. I don't. Thank It just prevents really silly auto-mapping of your account. These are all on, so that's great. These are mostly on. Let's see what's not on. Yeah, unauthenticated. Perfect. So, yeah, you definitely don't want these in your inbox normally. However, because we're still learning, and I don't want to make any game-breaking changes here, I'm just going to at least just show a warning. And then same thing here. And you guys can dig into these at any time, but these are just, they're just going to be pop-ups, nothing more. Some companies have really strict requirements where they actually have those things, not just moved to spam, but quarantined out to a separate app, which is like a whole other process. So, anyway, so that's that. The next thing is I want to make sure that we have good malware protection. Oh, did I miss the setting? think it was in the same place. No, it wasn't. Okay. Here it is. Very simple. One box, turn this on, and basically what it does is it's the same kind of thing. It'll prevent your user from installing or opening something that has malware, but with enough prompting, they can get past it if it's really legit. I strongly recommend keeping this on. If any user has a problem or you run into something, there are ways around it. It's not a big deal, but I strongly suggest enabling this. Because there's also a lot of Mac-based malware here these days, so we don't want to run into that. Now, if you guys were a bit more extreme, I don't recommend this today, but you could actually enable a security sandbox.
Quan Gan: Oh, to run it.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: The only con for this is that it'll take a significantly longer time for you to receive emails. It's like, I'm talking like over a minute. So that's the only... Con for this. The pros are great. It sandboxes up. It opens things for you. It tests the malware. It's a really cool thing. We enable it our company. We don't mind the delay, but that's just something to think about. And then you don't need do any advance rules for that if you do enable it, and the rest of this looks really good. Okay, cool. Malware, spoofing. Okay, so that rounds out Gmail itself. We covered so little, but that is the 98%. That gets you so high up the tree, you're highly likely not going to run into a problem. Any questions about Gmail?
Quan Gan: Nope. Okay, okay, great.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: I am going to touch on something Charlie brought up earlier, which is what happened? Chris has one.
Steven Hanna: Sorry, I have a quick question about the Gmail.
Kris Neal: You clicked off that button that it was not a text or a call. What's another way that it will authenticate?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, so there are actually many, many. But here are the most popular. One is an Authenticator app, and that's my favorite. So what that means is that you'll use a QR code on your screen to set up like Google Authenticator or 1Password maybe in a few weeks or so when you guys have it.
Kris Neal: I have that for CRM, so that would be connected with Gmail too.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Exactly, yes.
Kris Neal: So just sync them together, gotcha.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, you'll configure it independently, but so for example, I'm guessing you'll probably use the Zoho One app or something to authenticate?
Kris Neal: Yeah, no, it's a...
Quan Gan: Yeah, it's called One-Off.
Kris Neal: One-Off, that's what it's called, yes, yes.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Okay, so One-Off, and this could be my not having played with it much. I have seen One-Off ask a yes or no question to the authentication, which is a huge no-no. In cybersecurity, because someone moving quickly, someone who has a lot of stuff to do, which I'm sure everyone on this call has too many things to do. And one day, you might be working on something, you might need to get past something, and your phone buzzes and pops up and says, hey, was this you, yes or no? And you might just be quick to say, yeah, I have to get moving. I opened my phone to look for something in Zoho, and it popped up. Yes, it's me. Obviously, it's me. I'm holding my phone. And before you know it, you just let someone in from Germany or wherever. It needs to be a number game. So we'll check the Zoho settings to see if they have that function. If they don't, then we'll want to migrate your MFA from the Zoho one-off app to one-tap story, where it doesn't have that problem.
Kris Neal: We're kind of in a pickle with that one, Quan, because that's the one-off that is connected to my getting into CRM through the work phone, but we don't have the work phone anymore. So now I've taken off everything so I can authenticate it through my one-off. you. No pickle at all.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: It's actually no big deal. So if you guys decide to move away from the Zoho one-off app, and that's, by the way, only if they don't have the function that I'm looking for. We'll find out on today's call. Migrating it to one password is actually very easy. It's no big deal, and it won't be paid for. Cool. Okay. So that's Gmail. Again, and Steve, I know you're dying to tell me about your map, but since we're not dying.
Steven Hanna: Don't worry.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Okay. Take as much time as you want. Since we're already here, and we're already in the Admin Console, we can talk about Google Drive. And so Charlie brought up a really good point earlier about sharing files. Sometimes you need to share them with external parties, and you need to make it easy because it's sales-related. Can't have any friction. So because of that, we have to be really careful what we do in the next section. And so we'll talk it through really carefully. We probably- And Thank Hopefully we won't make any changes today, but I want to talk through all of the options so you guys get a sense of what's popular for security, what you ought to do, and if we need this exception for the sales department, how will we build that exception? Because there is a way to build it. It's just how much effort do we want to put in is the question. And so we'll see. We'll get clarity on all of that. So let's jump into Drive. And it all starts with, well, actually, before we even get here, so are we all aligned that all of your files, so that's PDFs, you know, computer files, the stuff that we all know and think of as files, are they all on Google Drive, or might there be files in any other locations?
Quan Gan: Like I said, on the legacy, there's some stuff on WorkDrive, but I don't think, other than me, anybody else touches it. There might be random Dropbox things, but that's not used within the company. I think it's more just, I might have a Dropbox.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Okay. I would urge that at some point, with all the ample time that we all have, you may want to migrate those two things over to Google Drive. Because we just did a bunch of work together to lock down the Google accounts so that we're not worried that someone's getting into a Google account. I don't feel that way about any other platform at this moment. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Also, just to note, Quan, it's probably good to have an SOP created for future work that anyone does, just to have it go straight into a Google Drive. So now that this is set up in a secure way, it's probably worthwhile, even if there's a file on someone's computer, just throw it in.
Kris Neal: That's what I was just going to ask, because I have it in my computer drive. I have it in my Google Docs.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So, yeah.
Steven Hanna: SOP is standard for all file hosting, and now that it's secure on Google, as you just did, I would advocate it stays on Google.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah. Yes, I would as well. Thank you, Steve. So basically, the goal here is to push out an employee practice that 100% of your work and work products must be in Google Drive. You cannot store stuff locally on your personal computers for many reasons that we can dig into if you want. But essentially, we need to make sure that they're all on Google Drive. Now, Kris, I heard you say that your files are on Google Docs. Good news. Because Google Docs is one application in the Google Drive family. So if you're opening applications with the application called Google Docs, your files are in Google Drive. Now, the trick is making sure that it's under the correct account. So you've got to make sure that they're under the ZTAG account, of course, like your ZTAG account. And there's actually something we can do one step further than what we're talking about right now. In order to make sure that we have locked down the permissions of the company data in such a way that That people only have access to the things that they need in order to do their function. We really need to be using what they call team shares. These are kind of like, I don't know if you guys remember, but like 100 years ago when people were using Windows, they would actually use these drive letters. The accounting drive, the marketing drive, admin, so on and so forth. This is the modern version of that. And you can actually create as many of these as you want. There's no limits. It's very easy. And all of the companies should actually be there and not leaving in people's own My Drive. So when you go to Google Drive, you'll probably see the My Drive and the shared team drives. Only if you have a shared team drive, of course, which we can make our first one today, if you guys would like. And we want to essentially get everything out of the My Drive because files in My Drive are owned. Owned by the person that that MyDrive is attached to. So, Kris, when you make a document and you have it in MyDrive, you own that file. But in a perfect world, the company should own that file. There shouldn't be ownership. And the permissions should be automatic. You shouldn't be manually saying, I need this file to go to Sarah, Bob, and Steve. know, like, it should all be automated. And the way to do that is actually not hard at all. We can design a system of folders that bifurcate the data in such a way that we name who is supposed to be on these folders. And then every file has a home in one of these folders. And that's a great way to organize your data. From a workflow perspective, I haven't even touched security, but also from a cybersecurity perspective, because you're also limiting who has access to what. And you have pre-declared. Who is going to have access to what files before the file is even generated, which means that you're working on policy rather than on instinct, gut, or otherwise. Does any of that land for you guys?
Quan Gan: Yeah, my one question is, what if you're working on a draft or something that you're not ready to release to anyone?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, that's a very common question. So one of two things. What I normally recommend is that the user generate the file in the final location, in the proper final location, unless it's customer-facing, which is a whole other topic, but if it's internal, and just make it clear with the file name, work in progress. And that lets everyone know, do not rely on this document. It's a work in progress. When that flag is removed, great. And you can use tags. You can literally just put WIP in front of the file name, anything you want. That's the... Ideal setup. Less ideal is that you hoard the information on your own, my drive, work on it, forget to put it in the right place later, and run into a data problem down the line.
Quan Gan: Okay. So I think the biggest distinction, or what you're asserting, is there's no such thing as a private file then.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Correct. And by the way, we have circumstances where, for example, 50-person company, there's the CEO who happens to be the 100% owner of the company, wants a private location to put their files, but it should still be company-owned. So what they do is they create a team share where they are the only individual on that team share, call it executive, call it chief executive, whatever you want, and they store all of their stuff there. And that's the quote-unquote correct IT way to handle that problem.
Quan Gan: But in practice, how many people actually adopt full?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Oh, well, 100% of our clients, yeah, we've been able to convince everyone. It's not that hard once you show them, it's the same.
Quan Gan: Well, okay, just like my scenario, I have a whole bunch of code that's not related to the rest of the company, and a lot of it is like a scratch pad.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So code that's not related to the company, I'd argue, should go into like your personal Google Drive. Like your straight up like Gmail account, whatever personal like accounts you use. Yeah, I keep separate accounts for separate businesses, essentially. And so if it doesn't relate to the business, it's...
Quan Gan: Well, it's related to the business, but not to the rest of the operations. It's more for like GitHub and code. And I need to do a bunch of scratch before I find a version. And that is good enough to be released.
Steven Hanna: So could he theoretically set up a team share with just himself for the time being and then add users to that team share at the appropriate times?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, so you might want like an R&D share that you store that kind of stuff in. And believe it or not, you'll end up actually really appreciating that it's there because you'll start to overly organize even your own scratch stuff, which can be extremely helpful in development.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, that's a major shift in my own workflow, but I'll absorb that.
Steven Hanna: So is it basically setting the permissions once on the team share of who should have access to it at all times, and then you can edit the users within that team share as needed?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Correct. Okay. And with really large organizations, they have an additional new rule that you can adopt in a small organization too. My company. And does it where you actually declare the permissions on a group basis. So you create a Google group called sales. Let's say there's like a sales folder and it's perfectly not only acceptable, but necessary for all salespeople to see all of the stuff inside of the sales team share. You create a group, Google group called sales. You put the users in there. And when you go to declare the permissions on the share, you declare the sales group and nothing more. And as you onboard people and off-board people, they come in and out of those drafts.
Kris Neal: Can that be both internal and customer-facing?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Okay. So, yeah, great question. Yes, 100%. But we'll have to talk through a ton of nuance there. We probably have 45 minutes worth of stuff to talk about in that one question, which we will get to because that's actually – it alludes to something Charlie said earlier. And it's how we choose to configure our top-level permissions to be able to still satisfy our customers.
Kris Neal: soon Thank properly. It just came up today, so I'm glad you'll go into it.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Thank you. Yeah, of course.
Steven Hanna: Quan, it's not a major shift to your workflow. It's basically pretending that your shared team share is your personal, and then adding people to that.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, yeah, essentially.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: And one objection that I haven't heard yet from you guys, but that I get really often is if we're setting up top-level permissions so that we're declaring all the people at the top level, but let's say, you know, and here's a silly example. Under sales, there are sales material, and there are pending sales documents, and there are closed sales documents. And let's say for whatever reason, those closed sales documents are like really sensitive legal documents, like, you know, agreements, that maybe only the legal team should have and not the salespeople. Like once they get it through the door, it should disappear, essentially. In that circumstance, you'll actually want to bifurcate that. And have two shares, sales, and then sales, like closed deals, for example. You can name them however you'd like. But there's a bifurcation that needs to happen with each change of who is supposed to be able to see this document. And in some organizations, it's really granular to the point where they have literally hundreds of team shares. And so then the next objection is, well, if we have hundreds of team shares, it's going to get really hard for people to tell where things are. And it's going to be cluttered for them. thankfully, that's not the case. Your users, including yourselves, only see what you are specifically added to. And then I get the objection, well, the owner or the CEO is going to see everything and be completely frustrated by how many shares there are. And in my company, I only focus on a handful of areas of the company. I actually don't have access to the vast majority of my company's data. Now, with my non-daily driver admin account, I I can always go in and add myself temporarily, but I don't really want to be cluttered with all of that. My team's got it covered. I don't need to get involved. And so that's an easy way to deal with that objection.
Steven Hanna: Can I ask one question and interject just because I'm getting a little lost and I want to pull it back. So the sharing options, the buy, what did you just refer to them as?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: When you buy for Kate. Buy for Kate.
Steven Hanna: So are those essentially new checkpoints to where it's routing? To which team has access at which levels?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, essentially. Yeah. So let's say you have a project folder for a specific project. And inside of that, there are some executive level documents that you don't want everyone to see that's involved in that project. There should be two folders for that project. The regular one and the executive level.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Thank you.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yep. So then, you know, you'll be assigned to, let's say, four projects. And if you're not on the executive team, you'll have the four. If you're on the executive team and working on those four projects, you'll have eight. Cool. Yeah, okay. So that gives you just some, that's like literally all of that was just foundation. didn't even get into the settings yet. That is just so you guys can understand the two big concepts here. One of them is principle of least privilege. We want to focus what we have access to. And the second is top-level permissions, which is declaring at the top level so that further down the chain of folders, you don't have random shares out to random people and a potential data leak. With those, let's dig in and see how things are configured and talk through the different settings. Okay, so right off the bat, you guys have it set up so that essentially anyone in the world could be added to a team share. And that's totally fine. Fine. No big deal. But that does mean that when we are designing them, we'll want to design which ones are external allowed and which ones are not external allowed. And so that'll be like, for example, if you have a finance drive, and let's say your finances are done internally, or at least by a contractor who has a username at ZTAG, because that's all that really matters, then it should be internal only and set not to be able to be viewed by anyone. But right now, you're allowing that, and that's okay. It doesn't necessarily mean that all of the files are exposed to everyone. The permissions that you see on Google are accurate. There's nothing weird going on. But in theory, you could share with anyone. Now, the next section here, right here, this sentence here, it says, when sharing outside of ZTAG is allowed, users in ZTAG can make file and public web content visible to anyone with a link. We normally strongly recommend turning that off. And that is the thing that you were talking about earlier, Charlie, which is like, hey, I just need to send a file to someone. They need to be able to see it. I don't want any friction. That's that button. And generally, we do have companies turn that off because you ought to have internal clarity about who is accessing what. So, for example, in my company, when we are, we have a lot of clients and when we share documents with a client, we make a team share for that client. We declare the people in the share and then we send a link. And to the user, they don't really notice a difference. They're just like, oh, cool, I can open the file. But really on the back end, they were declared. And the only time.
Quan Gan: Sorry. For example, this is a common file that we share. This is an operations manual. It is external, but it's on our Google Drive. So, how does that apply to this?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah. So, this is a great example. So, if you were to open this. If in an in-private browser, it would still come up, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So this is the perfect example of what I'm talking about. This file has been set so that anyone in the world can see it. On its face, that's not a great security policy. What you ideally would want is one of two things. One, I'd say if this is truly public info, I'd put it on the website and give people a link. Beautiful page on the website. Boom. They have the data they need. The second possibility is if they really need to have this specific PDF, you might need an operations manual team share that allows external parties and that you have enumerated all million people that need access to it, which is not ideal because that's insane. Like, who would want to do that? So in this particular case, I would say the website is probably a more appropriate place for this data. But maybe... maybe... you. The way that you guys are operating, it's really necessary for you to be able to spin up these anyone links for many documents and just go fast. And maybe that's better for the business. You know, all cybersecurity is, it's like a risk tolerance, you know, and we want to, we're on the two sides. One is, you know, business flexibility and speed, and on the other side is protection. And maybe you're not so worried about certain kinds of documents, and maybe that's okay.
Quan Gan: What might be some risk that this exposes? mean...
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah. So this document, nothing. And that's why I would argue this should be on your website. You might be in a circumstance where you have, you know, a frustrated employee, let's say. And they have like a spreadsheet that says, this client is a jerk, this client smells, this client's weird. And they send that, and they publicly make that available. That's the kind of thing that I don't want to see happen. Now, on the flip side of this. I'm Security is only as good as locking a convertible. Like someone could just take their phone and take pictures of, you know, documents that they have access to and share them that way. So none of this stuff is perfect, but it's the same as locking your convertible. It's like one more social step of like, please don't do this bad thing.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. So for example, the manual and a bunch of other documents, we only share as part of our sales process. So it is technically publicly available, but it's not something we're going to, you know, we don't want Google to be scraping that data, such as like our, you know, sole source letters or standards alignment, because that could be used by competitors potentially. Yes, that's a good argument. Right. But it is something that once we send it out, the people within those organizations, we want them to be able to properly share with whoever without friction.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Okay, so my only concern there would be is if you are worried about competitors getting the data, you know, people often vet multiple firms at the same time, multiple products at the same time. And I've seen it firsthand where someone has shared a document that like I've, like, you know, for example, a sales proposal to a client with another competitor. Hey, this company was, said they offered this extra stuff that you don't. Here's their proposal. So, I mean, that kind of stuff happens. And turning this setting off would reduce that likelihood quite a bit. It's not perfect because they can copy and paste and take screenshots, but it reduces it. So, at the end of the day, it's a kind of a bit that this one's a business choice. It's not something that we feel terribly strongly about. We start as a default of like, can we turn it off? Is it going to break anything? Is it going to kill sales? And if the team is like, oh, we don't mind at all. Our sales are really, you know, focused and it's usually talking to the same people or whatever. And we can just declare those people. Great. Thank Let's turn it off. If it's more challenging the way that I think I've heard it on this call, probably doesn't make business sense.
Quan Gan: I appreciate it. Thank you.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah. So let's slide back to that, though, because we do want to be careful about when we... Perfect. Thank you. So we want to be careful about when we deploy this then. So here are some more questions that will help us. So the access checker is basically something that even if you've allowed certain people, anyone at all, it'll check to see if they have the correct access. When you turn this off, which we're not doing, you typically want to set this to recipients only. And what this means is that only the people that you name will have access to this document rather than other people that, you know, could be outside. And, for example, this is allowing that this anyone link can be anyone, including the public. So it's just another... One that I don't think we need to adjust, but I want to explain it as we go through.
Quan Gan: Yeah, because typically, Kris may send it to her initial contact, and then they take that link and they send it up the chain, so it's not people that we have direct access to.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, yeah. That's a good reason to not want to restrict it. And actually, speaking of that, that goes to this. Who should be able to distribute the content? And any named person can then send it up the chain to another person the way that you have it configured today. Yeah. Again, that's fine, but just something to be aware of, of how this is configured. There are still ways to mitigate your internal data despite all of the settings you have here, so it's not a big deal. Okay. And we'll get to that in a moment. Okay. Forms are fine. Again, the target audience is a weird setting that I don't think anyone uses. We'll move Move forward down to here, shared drive. Okay, so this is where the meat of top-level commissions really lives. So number one, right off the bat, do we want to prevent normal users from being able to create brand new shared drives? I typically set that setting so that users aren't just spinning up shared drives willy-nilly and then sharing those with random people. This is the first step in preventing the data loss. So I would recommend ticking this box. There's a huge caveat to ticking the box. You have to set up your drives, then tick the box, because even you then can't create the additional drives.
Quan Gan: Okay. Well, then, when you do want to set up drives again, do you have to... Untick the box, yeah.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: You untick the box, you hit save, you set up the drive, you come back here, tick the box.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: It's surprising that Google didn't have something that's like, these users can create shared drives and other users can't. I suspect it's coming, but yeah, it's the most silly thing ever.
Kris Neal: Quick question on that. Didn't you say that you create in your company a new drive for each customer?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yes, that's correct.
Kris Neal: So you would have to do that every single time if we're creating, like if I have three meetings a day, I would have to go three times to create? With all the information that I need to send to him?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: No, you wouldn't have access to this to even do that. So it'd be impossible for you to do it. The idea here is that if you were going to not have those, you know, anyone links, which you do have. So we've sidestepped the issue. Then you would have to create shared drives for those individual companies and then, you know, manually put in those people's names. And some admin in your company would be handling that. Someone. Who doesn't have access to this page? But that's not something to worry about because we're not doing that. You could just have a sales documents folder. All of the things in there are set to anyone. And then you guys can use those links willy-nilly, no problem. And the company will retain ownership of those documents. So it's kind of a best of both for you guys.
Kris Neal: Perfect. So keep doing what we're doing then. Perfect. No, well, no, no, sorry.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: My bad. But what I'm suggesting is we would create a brand new shared drive to put all of those sales documents into it. I think that's what we currently have. Oh, do you? Okay. It's a shared drive.
Kris Neal: not a new one.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: It's but yes, it is a shared drive. Yes. Perfect. Okay. I want to take a close look at that drive settings, and we'll do that in a minute.
Charlie Xu: I have a question here. So I noticed when we're having the sales emails, sometimes these sales documents will be... We attach as attachment. So do we normally, you prefer we send as a link for them to download or, because attachment is normally a very traditional way we're doing it.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah. So for the purpose of sales and outside of communication, attachments are perfectly fine. There's no problem. So we do prefer that internal communications, you guys use links, because, number one, anyone internal, we already have set up their permissions with shared drives. So they should, they either have or do not have permission to it. And you want the link to be the arbiter of that. You don't want to just add as an attachment this private file to then, oops, I sent it to the wrong, the wrong Steven. My bad. We have a different Steven in the company and I used the wrong one. But with the link, they'll click on it and be like, hey, I can't get this file. I sent it to the wrong person. Sorry about that. So the link is better for many reasons. Also, save. It on storage and makes things faster, and there's a whole lot of other less important reasons why you ought to do it. Cool. Okay, so I would recommend locking down the creation of future shared drives and then unlocking it when you guys are ready to make them. This next section is a function you're not using. Basically, in Google Workspace, you can create organizational units to give different groups of people different settings. It's how, it's one way that you could actually set this up, this prevent users. You can make another OU that only some people are in and remove that, and they can make shared drives all day. That's an option. Still don't recommend that. The process of coming here and turning it on and off makes it really real and big. So you're not really using this function, so nothing to worry about here. But here's where it gets really interesting. Okay, so the first setting says, allow members and managers with access to override the settings below. You don't want anyone to... I permission settings at all in the company. I would strongly recommend removing that. Only the people who have initially set up the share, the administrator, who had to climb to this page and press this button and go and deal with it, you want them to be the ones declaring these things. And if something has to change, it needs to go up the ladder properly. So I would highly recommend removing this set because that pretty much just opens things right up. Next, allow users outside of ZTAG to access files. This is relevant when, now by the way, this is the default. These are the default settings for your future shares. So I would recommend turning this off and then only having the manager turn this setting on when that share is supposed to be external. So that the default behavior is that it's an internal share. So I would recommend turning that one off as well. And then finally, the biggest, most important setting. Thank you. And probably in your entire Google Workspace, maybe second to two-step verification is this one right here. Allow people who aren't declared on the shared drive as members to be added to files. If you turn this off, you will fix that problem where some file down the folder chain is shared off someone who wasn't even declared on the shared drive to begin with. So I strongly recommend disabling all three of these to have a much more secure setup, and it will not cause friction with your customers who have a shared drive that are already set to anyone can access. This is just, it just locks down the settings. So, for example, if anyone has access to the file, then unchecking this box won't change anything for them, because there is no one in the world who's not set and not shared drive. So they can still perfectly access that file. So I would recommend unchecking all of those. Download, print, and copy. This one's polarizing. A lot of IT people think it's not a big deal. A lot of them think it's a big deal. Basically, what this means is that you're choosing who is allowed to download, print, and copy files. I don't believe in restricting this personally, so I'm going to give you this. This just my opinion. I think if someone really wanted the file, you're not really preventing them from having it by turning off the download, print, or copy buttons. They can just take screenshots. So it doesn't really prevent a whole lot. It actually just ends up off a handful of people that really do need to make print it because they're an old-school company and need to take it to their manager's office by hand. So I would recommend leaving that, frankly. But that's a polarizing opinion.
Quan Gan: With all these settings, what prevents us from just clicking them right now? What are the blockers or what should I do, first of all, before doing this?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah. So basically, we want to make sure that by making changes to the Admin Console, we're not breaking workflow. We're not messing things up for people. So I actually want to check out your shared drives and especially the one that has those documents for your prospective clients to make sure that when we make these changes, we're not breaking something. I would hate for us to have this session and talk about all these great things about security. And then like one of your customers recently or potential customers even worse says, hey, I tried to open a file. He said something about the Admin. Like, man, what's wrong with your tech? I can't get through. That'd be a nightmare. So we want to go really slow.
Quan Gan: Can we take a quick five-minute break? Yes, let's do so.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Okay.
Quan Gan: I'm sure everybody needs Yeah, sorry.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: I can just keep going.
Quan Gan: Okay. I appreciate it. I got to use the bathroom too. Let's reconvene at 45.
Steven Hanna: Does eight sound okay for everybody? Give everyone a few extra minutes. Water up, grab some snack. Okay, excellent. Thank you.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Thank you.
Kris Neal: How long have you been doing this, Ashkan, right?
Quan Gan: you.
Kris Neal: Ashkaan. Ashkaan.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: I've been like almost, I think, 15 years. Oh, wow. Yeah. Before AI, right? That's right. Before AI.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah. My job used to be a lot harder. But AI is like, makes it significantly easier now. Good. Good. How long have you been with ZTAG?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: About a year and a half. Oh, fun. Yeah. Yeah. Lots of fun. The last year and a half, though, my technical side of my brain has grown like I never thought. I wasn't even able to do spreadsheets before.
Quan Gan: Now I can. I'm getting there. Yeah. Quan and I, when we met, we nerded out about all this fun tech that we're into immediately. So I imagine you guys are very tech forward. Fascinating. Yeah. Sometime probably too. I don't know. I certainly have never heard of a company hosting their SOPs on GitHub.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: That's a very clever idea. I've never heard of it. I kind of figured everything first principles is just text. So if I want to version track and have experimental branches, why not do that with text compared to code? Yeah, like the way that GitHub works, that is a very clever way to do that. We use Notion, which does something similar, but it's not quite as exacting as GitHub.
Quan Gan: Yeah, the only challenge is I'm the only person who has access to the GitHub, or at least they do have access to it, but they're probably not using it as a daily thing to reference. And then so what I do is just use that as a kind of a... It's a source of original truth, and then I use that and copy it back out into a Word doc or something. Got it. Got it. Okay. Have you played with N8N at all? I've heard of it. It's some automation thing, right?
Charlie Xu: It's kind of like Zapier.
Quan Gan: If Zapier works way more reliably. And you can do stuff like that where, like, as soon as there's a commit, then it drafts a new Word document, it formats it this way, and it overwrites the old version. And, like, you can do fun stuff like that. Yeah, there's a lot of things I want to do in concept, but since we haven't figured out our workflow exactly, like, building the automation around it feels, like, a little bit premature. So I'm still working that out. The one thing I really do like about GitHub is it has natively... ... ...
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: It can render Mermaid Diagrams. Are you familiar with Mermaid? No.
Quan Gan: So Mermaid is basically coded flowcharts. So you type in a markdown exactly how, or you can have AI generate. I'm Kim Mazza, and I am from Stockton, Cal. Hold on. Sorry. Oh, Charlie, is that you?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Okay. So you can put into markdown like A points to B, B points to C, or however you want things to go. And AI can understand that perfectly. And then when you put it into the renderer, it will show humans exactly what those boxes look like, like all the arrows, without you having to turn that into like a drawing or something, because that could be wrong. That's incredible. I'm actually going to play with that. That sounds awesome. It sounds like... Yeah, Mermaid is really good. There's an app that doesn't do So for example, the other way around? Yeah. Well, basically, it's human and machine readable. And one of the things we would do is, let's say we have a talk about here. And then later on, can have this whole conversation into a process workflow. And there'll be a Mermaid diagram. And then you can immediately visualize it. That's so cool. Yeah, there's a popular tool called Node Red. And you create the diagrams, and it turns it into code. Okay, cool.
Quan Gan: Well, thanks for sticking with me, guys. I know it's a lot of content, a lot of stuff today. We're actually making great progress.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So we very likely won't go all the way to the very end. So we'll all get some time back. But we were on the cusp of... right of the We'll We'll Talking through the anonymous link thing, talking through how you're currently sharing out those documents in the shared drive. So, Quan, if you don't mind taking me right back to where we were with the admin console, and I'll continue, and I'll jump over to the shared drives, and I kind of want to talk through how they're configured and how they ought to be configured.
Quan Gan: Let me request control. Okay, cool. So, we've talked through the settings here, and we'll come back to this too if we want to make some actual changes on this call, but we'll go to Manage Share Drives, and I'll let you do this.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So, if I had TFA here, it would have asked me to punch in a number? Actually, you would have only had to do it one time during this session, and one time for anything that requires elevation.,班 forgive me bit of access this. Thank So kind of like how Windows pops up with like that UAC, hey, you need admin. So there's some pages that they've put that on, but this wouldn't have been one of those. Okay. So I'm guessing maybe the share, you guys tell me, where are you guys keeping those SOPs that you're sharing with folks? Well, the SOPs, okay, let me try to define that. So SOPs are actually more probably internal here.
Kris Neal: And then, let's see, legal might just be a few people, maybe me and Charlie. And then I think ZTAG Shared is probably most of our documents. Okay, cool.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So let's take a quick look at its settings. So, okay. So basically what this allows is any manager can modify the settings here, these settings right here for this particular share. People outside are allowed access, that's okay, that's no big deal. later. So take quick look at Bye.
Quan Gan: So take
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: This one is the top-level one, so this basically says, allow anyone who's not declared on the shared drive as members to access files, okay? Since we're doing the anyone links, we'll leave that for now. Content managers share folder, so that means down the roll, someone who's labeled as a content manager can then share other things out to people, and then, yep, and then the download question, okay, great. So now I have a sense of what that is, and then how do we have the members structured? Comments and views, they can do that? Is that what I just saw? That last one? Yeah, comments and... Oh, yes. People that have commentator or viewing-only access are still allowed to download, copy, and print the data. Okay. Again, from my perspective, it's not a big deal, but that is widely disputed between IT folks. I think it took a few seconds. you. Yeah. Okay, cool. Okay, cool. So we've got some really clearly defined roles. So like, for example, you know, Kris, you're a manager. That's the highest role for these shares. And then everyone else is a content manager, but content managers are still able to share out various folders. The way that you guys use this folder, I would argue that the settings are close. So let's take a quick, one more look now. So if I open up the settings more time. Take a sec.
Quan Gan: Okay. So first things first, I would say, you don't want, like, we on this call ought to make the decisions about what happens on the share. So I would turn off the managers can make changes on the fly.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Next, we do want people outside. And we do want people that aren't shared members, because that's the only way we're going to find that view anyone link. So no problem there. So This one I would probably turn off because I think we should, as administrators of this company and like stewards, should decide which of the folders are supposed to be shared, set those settings on those folders, and then not touch this again. So that's kind of the difference in mindset for these. This allows infinite flexibility.
Quan Gan: Anyone can do anything.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: What I'm suggesting is you guys should have a dedicated time and space where you're saying, this file, this folder, these should be how these are done. Lock them and, you know, only return when necessary. Okay, so quick question about this particular window.
Quan Gan: Is it applicable to just that particular folder? And then what you're looking at here, these are for like subfolders of that folder?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, so good question. So, so yeah, this is, this is just for the top folder and I'm not going to hit save, but when we turn, oh God, it instantly saves.
Quan Gan: My goodness. There, it's, it's back.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: forgot that this, there's like some windows that instantly save and some that have a save, and Google's very inconsistent, I apologize.
Quan Gan: When we disable this, that basically makes it so that these settings apply all the way down the chain. When that setting is enabled, it's anyone's guess, because we're setting these settings, and we're like, cool, we did the thing, but then there could be folders underneath that are set up completely differently.
Steven Hanna: Okay. So this button conforms this to the top level. Now, because of course everything was already permissive, it didn't change anything when I clicked it, but it could have if, like for example, we had disabled some of these. Those would have trickled down.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Should we go to the actual folder and just kind of get some contextual information? Yeah, yeah.
Steven Hanna: I'd love to. If I go up here to the dial pad and hit drive, it'll take me to your MyDrive, and I don't know if there's anything sensitive you want to maybe look at first on another screen, make sure it's good, and then go to the share button.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: take look. Probably not. Yeah. But, yeah. It's a good practice. Yeah. Yeah, these are all pretty. Yeah, I'm fine with it.
Quan Gan: Even where are you that you're cold?
Kris Neal: Air conditioner is 64 degrees right next to me.
Charlie Xu: It is so humid in Long Island.
Quan Gan: It's 79 degrees, but it feels like it's about 90 because of the island effect that we get.
Charlie Xu: So it's just this disgusting swamp. It's the equivalent of Louisiana in the Northeast.
Steven Hanna: I don't understand, but I do.
Quan Gan: Wow. Okay.
Steven Hanna: I'm just going to request control again. I'd rather be extremely frigid than sweating my bald head off.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Something, something, something about not having a sweat trap with my hair and everything falling into my eyes. then, ah, my eyes. I'm blind. That's funny. That's We're definitely opposites. I'd rather be roasting. Okay. So this is how you guys have configured this folder. Looks fairly, looks like it makes a lot of sense. I can already see. is this one? Is that I supposed to be here? Yeah, good question.
Quan Gan: No, it's not. I don't know where that came from. I think I added it. Maybe because I have both company accounts.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Be careful.
Quan Gan: Save it over here. Yeah.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Okay, I'll start working on remote dialing later. All right, let's not put our head on the chopping block, everybody. Let's, come on. This is a learning experience. Yeah, it's supposed to be a clean folder.
Quan Gan: Relax, it'll get there. We're working on it.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So, yeah, no. And this is, it's good to just look at your data from time to time and realize these kinds of things. Another good reason why. And make. Makes sense to have a lot of different shares is because it's more predictable what's in those shares. So you'll be able to catch stuff like this really fast. So I'll go back to this, and I assume under one of these is this operations manual, is that right? Maybe, actually. I'm not sure. I think I'd probably have to search for it.
Quan Gan: And if I click it, how do you actually just, like...
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, so actually, we could have done it on the other page.
Kris Neal: So on this other page, we should be able to click on this, and it'll tell us where it is. So right now, it's in this manual folder. Oh, okay. The media. Which, okay, so now this was shared with you.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So you, so right now, Quan, you have no, what, it looks like your picture, but it was shared with you. This is really strange. So it's this folder. This looks like it's owned by you, but that you also shared it with yourself. We'll find out right now.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, it's definitely your ZTAG account. It's not a different account. I suspect this might actually be in your MyDrive.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Okay. Let's see. I didn't see it. Didn't it say Media Assets?
Charlie Xu: Isn't that what you said?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Oh, did it? Yeah, it was down there. Where? In here? Yeah, down. Down. Down. It was down there. Yeah, right there, Media Assets Official. Okay. That was a link. Okay, so this is really strange. The funny thing, though, is that with all of this stuff... ... ... ... ... ... And it says that the owners are these various folks. I wonder, let's take a quick look over here at, back to our shared drive. And would this be a reason to have that team share that you were discussing earlier, where everything is kind of owned across the board by admin organization? Okay. Yep, exactly. Yeah, so when a file is owned by the company, it shows owned by ZTAG like this. This is all owned by different people, it looks like. And so in a perfect world, everyone would come together, go to the things that they own, and manually put them into this shared drive. And it's so easy to do. Like, for example, if there's something in your My Drive, you just, you simply go to here, and you, like, drag, you can just drag stuff right in. It's very easy to do on the web interface. I will admit, like all of Google. will time Do Web Interfaces, this interface kind of sucks too, and it's just very slow and clunky and weird, but this would be probably the best way to do it. And once you try to move something, it'll even pause and say, hey, there's a couple of things I got to let you know about. Number one, you're going to not be the owner of this. ZTAG is to be the owner of this moving forward. Number two, are you cool with this place dictating the permissions, like no longer, you know, whatever permission scheme you set up, this new place will now set the permissions. And then you'll have to hit OK twice. And once you do, it will convert those files over to being owned by ZTAG, it'll be in the proper share, and it'll follow the instructions that are within the share. Does that all make sense? Yeah. Cool. So yeah, so this is a good opportunity to like restructure the data of the company into various shared drives and putting them all in the right places that you want them to go.
Kris Neal: And then from the share drive, you know, like one.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: One good practice that a lot of companies do is that if there's something external facing, they'll actually rename it. I'm not going to hit save. This time there really is a save button right here in the corner. But they'll do something like that to make it really clear this is one of those drives that has an external property.
Kris Neal: And when they set that, they make sure to also go into the share drive settings.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: And I'm not going to press it because there's no save button. But disable the button that says allow people outside. The one that's highlighted right now with a circle, allow people outside. You'll basically turn that off for all the other ones that don't have this external tag. And that really locks down the data in a phenomenal way, in a way that makes it so much harder for someone, some bad actor or silly actor who's just making a mistake, send the data to the wrong person.
Quan Gan: But in like a month when we make that full transition, so we don't. Thank Lock everyone out. Yeah. Not today. This will be a very careful process that I think you guys should go a few folders at a time, make sure things are working well, no complaints, and move a few folders at a time and kind of do this very carefully.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: I just talked to Karmie about having that external folder. So this is a perfect time to start that, Charlie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because look, like even just in this one folder, this one BDS, there's so much here. And I suspect each one of these even have their own shared permissions. So if I go to share, it should bring up this same members menu. And yeah, there are like all these different people. And you can see that like Paula is the owner of this folder.
Steven Hanna: And again, in a perfect world, the company would be the owner, not any individual.
Quan Gan: Oh, yeah.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Something you'll notice here, and this might be more of a convenience factor for us.
Charlie Xu: So Charlie and I, we both have personal. we call it And other company accounts that were sometimes locked into on Google. So that's why it's got these shared. So that would basically prevent this from happening, right? That would have probably prevented the Gantum file from ending up in ZTAG files. Yeah. You know, the apps are really well made for multiple users. Like the Google Drive app on the iPhone, all of these apps. multiple users is not really an issue. And even the syncing to your computer. So a lot of people use the Google Drive app to sync.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: You can have multiple companies. There's no, I don't think there's a great reason for doing this. I didn't catch it until you mentioned it. Set up another team with your, what I'm hearing here is just set up the right teams and you're not going to have these issues. Right. That's right. Yeah. Because the problem for me over here is, oh, I literally open. But in these three accounts at the same time, working on different things. So when I'm working on my drive, I think it's on my drive. But it's just somehow like it goes here and there. like, yeah, I don't even know how does that happen. So now I was trying to have different desktops and each desktops, because the Apple, you can shift between the desktops. So I try to just separate them with each one, and each one has its own browsers. And yeah, otherwise, it's just nightmares. Yeah, yeah, totally. And by the way, like, so Google Chrome, the pretty popular browser, they have different profiles that you can use. Apple recently also created a profile system. It's not quite as good as the Google one, but it's still pretty good. You can still accomplish the same thing.
Quan Gan: But what's really neat about the Google one is that I think, Charlie, I'm guessing all three of those accounts are Google accounts. Is that right? Yes. So you can actually set a separate profile for each one of those accounts.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So there's three windows, tint them different colors, so they have different themes, and then it's like you're moving fast between your different workspaces, and it's great. Okay, yeah, yeah, thank you. Yeah, so yeah, this I hope illuminates like where we ought to go from a data standpoint.
Charlie Xu: Do you guys have any questions about like this, and as you, and by the way, as you guys start to make these adjustments, like I'm totally available, I'd be happy to jump on a call with you and kind of go through like any weird things that are happening, questions, or hey, we moved forward and now this thing isn't working, like help us. I'm so happy to help with that kind of stuff. So we can talk through those as you guys go, but do you guys have a general sense of what has to happen here, or should we dig in a little bit more? No, I think, I think we understand. And I mean, even, yeah, probably, do you think it might be? It easier to just create new folders and then migrate these things over rather than change favorite. That's my favorite idea. Okay. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And even just like the fact that they all say ZTAG, that's kind of meaningless. That's right.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: 100%. Yeah. What do mean? We love her. And that was probably very helpful for Charlie because like when she has this mixed data and she's looking at everything and she sees links to stuff, all the ZTAG stuff was probably organized beautifully on her side. Yeah. I'm guessing that's where it came from, but. Yeah. I think that the organizing, like literally like computer organizing is really, I'm not good at it, but there's a structure and very clear where should I put. Because also there's another, the media assets. Right now it's flat. It's like the table. It's when we're doing like designers where like everything's on there. can see it, but, but, but that probably not the best structures for organizing. into... that sicken up. And as I the security size of it. So when we're recreating this, do you have a recommendation structure we will like having us to put in there layer by layers? Definitely. It's a little, so there's an exercise that we like to do, but it's a little, I swear, it just annoys people. I don't know why this exercise annoys people, but it's going to annoy you guys.
Kris Neal: We're going to try it anyway.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So my company, we follow a framework called EOS. It's a very popular like business framework. Yeah, we do too. Okay, great. So we start with the very top. So we go, okay, there's four like roles at the very top. There's the integrator and visionary.
Quan Gan: don't really care about because they're off in the clouds, but integrator, sales.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: I know, me too, me too. I am too. Sales, operations, and finance. So we start there. We have four already right off the bat. But then. then. And this is part of the exercise.
Quan Gan: You start to think about breaking, like, all right, well, who needs, first of all, what kind of data does the integrator need? Who else needs that kind of data? Like, what's in there? And we just have to break things out.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: The really easy one to start with is finance, because finance is so simple. A timeout was called by Chris for a moment.
Steven Hanna: Hold on. I'm sorry. Can I be excused for 10 minutes?
Quan Gan: I got to go take my kids somewhere.
Steven Hanna: Please. Thanks, guys. I'll be right back. And actually, what might make sense is I'm actually going to create, like, white. I never really do this, but this might actually help.
Quan Gan: I'll make a whiteboard for us.
Steven Hanna: Let's see if it'll let me.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Do I stop share?
Quan Gan: You know what?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: You might have to stop share. Sometimes there's a setting where you can have multiple shares at once, but. Oh, okay. Oh, sweet. Okay, cool. So you guys see the whiteboard. Right. Yeah. Cool. All right. So. No, we can all draw stuff. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. Feel free. I never really use this. So bear with me. It's not any perfect. As a former teacher, this is giving me PTSD, literal PTSD of like doing a shared Zoom whiteboard.
Steven Hanna: And you can imagine the things that middle school kids are drawing on these. Yeah. Oh, let me help you. Oh, God.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Oh, hey, that didn't look veiny enough.
Steven Hanna: Hold on.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: So my favorite thing to start with is finance because it's so easy.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Within finance, there's really like three main big buckets and it's going to be legal, HR and accounting.
Steven Hanna: Right. So now, now that we know. We can forget about finance. Unless there's something else you guys can think about. I can't. Great. We have three. But then we're like, okay, actually within legal, we have these kind of contracts where the salespeople need access to them. They need to see the old contracts to be able to tell how we're doing stuff. And then there are these other contracts, like maybe with our vendors that are private and that they don't need to be seen.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So then we break it out again.
Steven Hanna: And sorry, it's so ugly, but I just, this was the fastest tool.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: This leading us to believe that we should take this EOS framework and apply our systems and permissions sharing based on our roles. Isn't that crazy? What a concept, you know? Crazy concept. I love where you're going with this. Sorry to interrupt, but please tell me more. No, this is it. So, and maybe there's one more. And I know this is getting really obvious for Steven, but like, let's say. It's, it's not that it's, you are so descript and I. I your explanation of things. The translation will get lost at some points because of cognitive loading. So that's why I need to slow it down. And I need to throw in my comedy here because I literally need to slow it down for all of our brains to say, wait a second, is that actually what's happening? Yeah, yeah. So I'm sorry if I interrupt and sound like a stooge, but I'm helping in a way. No, no, I so appreciate it. Totally right. Yeah, let's say we can break legal into like these three. And let's just say for the sake of argument, there's nothing else. Great.
Quan Gan: We now know what three of them are going to be. We have another one that's four, another one that's five. And we keep playing this game over and over and over again. Do we need to break this up or does this make sense? Does every person that we're going to add on this need every single thing in here? They do?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Great. We've done our job.
Quan Gan: We now have our five for these, and then we still have these to break up.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So in just a matter of moments, we already have eight shares that make a lot of sense. But you dig in, and you keep playing, and you keep breaking up until you have all of them. And if that means you have 50, totally fine. That's completely acceptable. At my company, my company is tiny. We're a six-person company, and we have something like 40, roughly. Top-level shares. For six people, because we're bifurcating our data that much. Okay. Question then, just to make sure I'm understanding this process.
Quan Gan: So you start with the EOS framework, and you're looking at the accountability chart, and it fans out. You're basically going to each individual module and try to fan it out further until it won't fan out anymore.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: And then you're counting all the leaves.
Quan Gan: leaves of this entire thing, and each of those leaves become a folder? Exactly. You nailed it.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: That's exactly right.
Quan Gan: And the framework isn't too hard. It's like, first, fan everything out, the way you said it, right?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Gosh, this is not real. Okay. Wow, that was nice.
Steven Hanna: For each leaf, make sure that every person you plan to declare needs every single thing in that folder. If they don't, repeat that. Okay, so your criteria is actually number two, because if the person needs some,
Quan Gan: But not others, that means you haven't, yeah, you haven't made it granular enough.
Steven Hanna: Yep. Okay.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah. Tough exercise.
Charlie Xu: As a programmer, I can understand that.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: I feel like it's another language for me. Yeah, that's, that's, that's, you, you're not alone. I like this. I mean, this is concrete.
Charlie Xu: Okay, Charlie, here's what it is. Figure out the roles, and then we decide what their responsibilities are, and what access to what documents they need. For each of those roles, we make a new folder. Within that new folder, we say, okay, are there any new positions in here? Do they need access to things?
Quan Gan: Then make a new folder for them. And we keep branching out with that lineage. So straight down the line. New folder, new access. New folder, new access. New folder, new access. Yeah. But, sorry, one question, though, is... ...
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Is this going to be a nested tree, or what you have here is all flat? Is that the top of the team share? Exactly. These are all flat. You're creating your top-level flat folders, which, again, if you do this exercise really well, you will have a lot of them, and that's perfectly okay. And that's going to come down to then naming them in a way that's not going to drive everyone crazy.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, because I do appreciate it going out, because I don't remember what it's under. So if it's something that might bury too deep, I don't even know if the folders exist over there. So I'd rather whatever is on the table, so I can, like, go into that particular folder. Okay, but also, these being top-level, you can still have nested folders in there, it's just those will have the same permissions as whoever is in that.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: folder, in that master folder. Yep. So, and if you name them while keeping the original, like, earlier titles together, it actually can make it really useful. Okay. So the team share. samples of things that are really popular.
Charlie Xu: Okay. So, like, a team share at the top would be for legal.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Well, then you'd have all these folders for legal disputes, legal vendors, legal sales.
Quan Gan: Then within those, legal contracts, legal disputed contracts, legal vendor contracts, and it would just keep following lineage down.
Steven Hanna: But the team share is that blanket to say, okay, these four people are always going to have access to this lineage down. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Now So this will be a very challenging but fruitful exercise for you guys. And it's all time-consuming and sucks, but when you get through it, it will make your lives better, not from, again, not just the cybersecurity, but just from an organization standpoint. And then you get the cybersecurity benefit on top of it. Okay. So that was Google Drive. How are we feeling? Good. All right. Who is the one going to do in the work? I can make the folder structures. Like, that's not bad. Quan, you're going to have two and a half days of making these folders.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: By the end of day one, you're going to be in F this mode, and you're going to be questioning whether or not you're going to be following the lineage down. Look, I'm going to be using ChatGP to tell me the folder.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, but you're going to have to polish it, and then the polishing, you're going to get to the end. FU point and just decide, are we going to do it that way or not? Because if we do it this way, we have to have the SOP that this is how things are going to happen. And we have to make sure that all the other team members are following that lineage of data input, file input, because all those files that they create are on Company Dime.
Quan Gan: That's yours. So it sounds great to us as a leadership team because it sounds easy to us right now.
Charlie Xu: But the implementation and application of this is going to be a long time, and it requires a lot of input from you. I'm saying that right now, knowing how long it'll take. Yeah. Okay. And I completely concur with what you're saying. You're absolutely right. This is, there's nothing easy about this. This is a make the decision and dive in and decide to deal with your short-term pain, which you've already.
Steven Hanna: We decided to accept. You're not going to deal with the long-term suffering. You're dealing with the short-term suffering of it, and we're all going to have to do the work. But if we're doing it, you are making the decision for all of us. This is your top-down decision of all data entry and file inputting for all future ZTAG-related things. Okay. Well, we'll take this transcript, we'll rinse it and figure out what the optimal path forward is, and then it's not something we're going to do with a flip of a switch. I was wondering, maybe it's like each department can be in charge of what sections, for example, for sales, where we're marketing, and Paula and I will be familiar with the content.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So once the structure is set up, we can fill it up with the files we're familiar with. Then maybe, yeah, maybe each team can focus in. Yes, I think that comes in stage two with refinement. After Quan gets all the folders set up, because we're not going to see what permission, we're actually going to have pitfalls, and we're not going to know what permissions need to be shared until a team member says, hey, we need this. And we're all going to go, ah, crap, right, okay, let's figure that out.
Steven Hanna: So the first initial is going to be Quan, and then all of our teams are going to be that one-to-one that we had, where like, I'll work with Tin, Kris can work, and you can work with Paula and Carmi, and we can each individualize the folders. But I think this is more, just apply it, because they're going to come up naturally of where pitfalls are missing, and people will bring them up, because they need access.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: It's not like they're going to say no, they're going to bring it to our attention. And one more note on that, so, yes, there's no question you're probably going to underestimate what people need, but if you ask them, they will overestimate what they need, and you'll end up not really protecting your company well.
Quan Gan: If you just listen to Whatever they say. Because, you you ask a salesperson, what do mean, actually, they're to be like, everything. I need everything. I need to operate. I need this. I need that. And they're like, you don't really need all that to do your job. That'll be an organic sharing.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Like, it'll be totally organic the way that people figure out permissions. We'll give as many as we can identify on our own because we've already identified them. But after that, it's just like that 98%, 99%, right? We're going to get that last 1% to 2% through the natural organic pathway of this.
Quan Gan: Cool.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Okay. So, I think you guys are really clear on Google Drive. One last thing on Google Drive before we move on. If you've done a good job of making Google Drive your single source of truth, then good IT, you know, protection is to ensure that it's backed up properly. Do you guys have in place or have thought about a Google backup at all? Oh, I have something. something. It was, it's in place, but I kind of forgot about it. something I did around February when, you know, you and I were talking about the previous transition. Okay. There are, there are, there are quite a few, I think there are quite a few good solutions. Okay. Here are three that I like.
Quan Gan: Um, DropSuite, it's like a online app. Okay. Synology is a physical box in your house.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: And Qt Backup, um, app that you host. Those are like the top three Google backups. They're each very good. There's many more, by the way. There's lots of good ones. These are ones that I see pretty commonly. Um, yeah. If you go, if you go with any one of those, DropSuite's kind of the best. But it's also the most expensive. If you go with any of those, you should be in good shape. But I do strongly recommend backing up Google Drive. Not because I think tomorrow Google Drive will go down, because that would be unprecedented. But actually, it's for the other reason where someone, you know, on one of the teams somewhere is like, yeah, I was working on this file, but then we didn't need any more because we made that decision. So I deleted it. And it's like, wait, we needed that. And we're past the 30-day retention where we can pull it out of Google Drive. Is there, what is this risk, or if any, that somehow you have a hacker come in and they just encrypt all your files? Pretty low. Pretty low, low risk. A couple reasons why.
Quan Gan: Number one, Google Drive on the back end has a, what's it called, crypto, I forget, it's been so long since I've dealt with one of these. It's crypto hijacking, whatever it is where they encrypt all of your data. They actually have protection against that, and they'll detect it and email you when it's happening, and they'll let it happen so that the hacker thinks that they've done the thing, and then there's a button on the admin side where you can undo it and just get all your stuff back immediately.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So you shouldn't see this, but just in case something like that did happen and it was successful and Google's system wasn't smart enough to pick it up for whatever reason, you could just go into the shared drive retention for each of these shared drives and pull data out and restore old versions. So you really shouldn't be in trouble if that happened. I'm more worried about a user making a big, big mistake and then not catching it within the 30-day retention where it then actually disappears. Oh, okay. Okay, so then the other question I had was probably 10 plus years ago, we used to even download our data, physically store it on a physical drive, and just kind of... Lock it up somewhere. Is that still the recommended practice, or has it been mostly mitigated? So the classic, the answer to your question is, it depends who you ask. The classic framework is Backup321, must be in three locations total. So one production, which is Google Drive, and two backup, needs to be in two medium. So like two different formats. So your two backups are not exactly the same. And one off-site, separate from the production. So this was, this used to be the big role, and I don't know how to spell, but they used to be the big role, and although that framework is still very popular, and I'd say probably half of IT people. would tell you, oh yeah, you got to do 3-2-1. That's what I learned in school. That's what you're supposed to do. In a world where everything's in the cloud, I think the rules have changed a bit. There are a growing number of IT firms that are just recommending a single off-site backup, and that's been sufficient for them. And in most applications, I'd argue that's probably right. It does depend on your own risk tolerance. I can tell you for my company, we believe in just a single off-site. But just so I can assuage my own IT brain, I do actually do 3-2-1 myself.
Quan Gan: But as far as my team knows, we're just simply using DropSuite. And we signed up for DropSuite, we connected it. It satisfies the off-site right away because it's separate from Google.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: It does not satisfy the middle one, which is really one of the biggest problems. It's not two different type backup mediums. It is stored, obviously, production in Google Drive in its medium, and it's a different medium in the back. The spirit of this rule is supposed to be that the two separate backups are different mediums, and then it's supposed to be one production, two backups. We're doing one production, one backup. So by signing up for any one of these, you're essentially just doing backup 2-1-1. In today's world, most IT companies will tell you that that's perfectly sufficient. And there's a bunch that will tell you it's not, and there's a few of those that are just trying to make money with extra backups and stuff. But some of them legitimately believe that 3-2-1 is still a thing. And I'm not going to say they're wrong, but the most modern IT firms don't really. Is there a recommended tool for doing a download and put it on a SSD or something?
Quan Gan: So the tool that converts the data the best is the Google Drive app itself.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: There are actually many tools that convert Google Drive files to. Quote, unquote, Microsoft Word Files, which is really the only way that you can pull them out and keep them. That conversion comes with a cost. And it's often a cost to formatting.
Steven Hanna: It's a cost to how the permissions were set up. You lose a ton of metadata doing it that way. So if you didn't want to do that, that's definitely a way to go.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: You could just use Google Drive to connect it, put heads on your desktop, and literally copy and paste over. Or use an app like Copy Cloner to kind of clone everything to your drive. I definitely recommend using one of these solutions because these are actually like, they read the Google Drive files as they are with their permissions, with their metadata, and save all of that information. So when you restore them, they restore properly. Okay. So, yeah. Any other questions about backups? No, thank you. Okay. Okay.
Quan Gan: I think since we've just now rounded out the Google stuff and meeting Google Admin, Steve, we could finally get back to your map and to talk through some of the things that you were starting to organize.
Kris Neal: You got most of them. I was going to say, you're hitting the map.
Steven Hanna: So whatever you don't brush up on, you could just look there and just touch up on them.
Kris Neal: Sure, sure.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
Kris Neal: Then it sounds like we probably should hit up Zoho next.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: There are only really a few things I'm thinking about with Zoho that I'm most concerned about. And that's because Zoho is such a beast. It's so configurable. It's so customizable. Your biggest danger with Zoho is just making sure that you got your permissions really tight. I am not a Zoho expert by any means.
Quan Gan: I understand the principles that we want to follow, but I have no idea where the buttons are.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So you guys might actually end up helping me find my way through Zoho. I'll stop the whiteboard. Quan, if you want to take a picture of it.
Quan Gan: I don't know. I think this is your Zoom, so you'll probably have. A copy of this, maybe. well, me, let me take a photo of it. Okay. Steve, is that your drawing?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: No.
Quan Gan: I drew the TS. I got, I got credit for that right there. TS. Team share, baby. Okay, cool. So, Kwon, can probably take me into the, um, Soho, uh, admin, and we'll, we'll dig in there.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Sounds good.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Um, again, I, I've prefaced it a couple of times. I have no idea what I'm doing, but we're going to figure it out together. Okay. So I think the first thing we need to get very clear about is which modules you are using in Soho. Um, is there really a clear place to see that? Yeah. All right. So different people. So it's enabled, but I don't think anybody's using it, though. I figured because it was pinned, it was something you're using a lot. No, I think I'd probably go in there to dig up some really legacy documents. Let me see. Directory. These are the ones that are enabled for us. And then across different users, if you click on them, yeah, it'll tell you what applications they're using. Oh, that's amazing. It also tells you what level they're at with each application. So you can see it says user, standard user, admin, member. This is really great. So this actually will make this way easier. You're the only full-blown admin. You are using a daily driver as your admin, although I think in Zoho's case, it's not really a big deal. We're really mostly worried about email for that. The reason is because email is your gateway into everything else. If they get your email, they literally get everything else because they can reset passwords. Oh, wow. These are really useful pages. I'm really impressed with Zoho. Yeah. at that. I can see that. So you can see right off the bat what the access is. So I think this can actually be really simple. I can't believe how great this is. Wow. Very impressed with Zoho.
Quan Gan: I thought Zoho was not quite as mature as I'm seeing that it is. So the same game that we played earlier, Steve, with the bifurcating of data and saying, you know, what roles are supposed to have access to what, you can play the same game here. And you want to go through each thing. And again, principle of least privilege. What is the bare minimum someone needs to do their job? Do they need to be admins of this particular module?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Do they need those functions? What are the functions? Is it that they can do X, Y, and Z?
Quan Gan: Do they need to do X, Y, and Z?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: These are the kinds of things we want to go through.
Quan Gan: through.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: And I have a feeling you guys would probably be able to do that really well internally with just knowing that your goal here is just to minimize access. That's all. So I would just go through with the users, see A, what apps they have access to, and B, what level within each app, and is that appropriate? And that's it. Is there an MFA setting within Zoho? There should. Well, once we've decided what things people have access to, then we just want to make sure that they are, in fact, the people that are accessing those things. The MFA, I believe, is through that, the one-off. So I don't know how to get access to that part. You know, on the left-hand side, there's a security section. I wonder if it's in there. Where do you see it? Oh, just under controls here, I can... I've got one in your drive. Oh, here we go. Okay, yeah. So this is your default pulse. Let's take a look at it. Blah, blah. So, okay, right off the bat, no excluded users. Fantastic. Great. Password strength.
Kris Neal: Modern IT, we're not too worried as long as it's over 12 because 12 and more is really hard to guess, and it's exponential.
Steven Hanna: So 10, I would recommend upping this. That's great.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: That's great. Great. Okay, great.
Steven Hanna: So otherwise, pretty good. I bet you could also just click one of these defaults, good or strong, and that would be just fine.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Let's see what's up with the MFA. So allow pass for assignment. Okay. It's fine. So, okay, a couple small things here. Because Soho's MFA doesn't give you the choice. To turn off the yes or no question. It doesn't let you do, because usually most of these MFA apps, they ask you, do you want to do it as a yes or no? Do you want to do it as a number game where it pops up like, you know, a number and says, press this number on your phone. That's, you really want to do the number game. That's a good one. I think it does. Oh, it does do that? Yeah, that's how I. I have biometric 60-day authentication. That's totally fine. 180, whatever it is.
Quan Gan: So, you guys aren't getting a yes or no?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Because that's how it works.
Quan Gan: I'm getting an allow or deny.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: When I remember specifically, I had a binary yes or no. It wasn't specific wording to yes or no.
Quan Gan: was allow or deny. Yeah, that binary is the problem.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: We want to lose that. So, if I were you guys, and one challenge with Zoho, too, is that they keep trying to push their authenticator, even if you have a different authenticator.
Kris Neal: I've seen this before.
Quan Gan: It's really annoying.
Kris Neal: So I might just try to disable it and see how frustrating or annoying it is.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: But in a perfect world, you would allow OTP authentication, which is kind of the best. That's app-based.
Quan Gan: That's kind of like Google Authenticator. It's 1Password.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: It's letting 1Password be the authenticator. That's OTP. One-time passcode is what it's called. YubiKeys are fine, but I would disable it. I would just conform everyone to 1Lane and just say, hey, everyone, we're setting up 1Password for everyone. Is that a physical key? It's a physical. YubiKeys is a physical key. Just remove it. Yeah. And then SMS, I would remove right now without any concern. Well, actually, with Kris, is that going to lock you out?
Quan Gan: It will. According to Chatt2BG, it's going to pop up and have that person either set up an OTP or the Zoho Authenticator app. But I don't have the phone anymore. Yeah, she lost the phone. This was bound to. Work phone. Oh, okay. And we don't have access to the phone.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Sorry. That's okay. I'm sure there's... Why don't we do this? Once you guys get 1Password, why don't you guys then disable this and we can migrate your MFA to 1Password. Okay. And that's very easy to do. Like, you and I could do that in, like, 15 minutes on a quick call. You know, once you have your 1Password already set up, I'll show you how to basically... You'll go into your Zoho account. You'll go to your security settings. You'll replace your authenticator with 1Password. And then once you're good and can log in consistently on an in-private browser, then you're good to go. Do we need to recover that phone? Because that's still on my to-do list.
Quan Gan: It was something that Stan had bought with his cell service. And that phone is gone. But...
Kris Neal: We could port that number over to a new phone service.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So in theory, here, I'm going to just kick it out of this for a sec.
Kris Neal: There should be some way to just reset the MFA app right there.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So if we press this button, that should just set her up like from scratch where she'll have the opportunity to then install the, you know, Zoho app or 1Password or do something fresh.
Kris Neal: So that's the button you want to press.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: We could even do that right now if you guys want to.
Kris Neal: totally up to you. Kris, do you want to try it?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Please. I'm always so scared it's not working. yeah. So don't close your current browser.
Kris Neal: Just open a brand new incognito browser or in private browser.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: You know how to do that? I was going to say, okay, give me a second.
Quan Gan: I think it's like a shift command new or control shift.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: I think Control-Shift-N when you have a browser.
Quan Gan: Okay, got it. Okay, cool. So now go ahead and log into Zoho just from scratch. Got it.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Like from one of my checklists, right? No. Just go to like crm.zoho.com.
Kris Neal: Yeah, perfect.
Quan Gan: And then just try to log in manually with your password. And at some point, it'll pop up and say, hey, we need your old phone.
Kris Neal: And as soon as you see that screen, let us know.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Okay, I see it. Sign in.
Quan Gan: So you're at that page where it wants to send a code to the old phone?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Or if you don't mind, maybe share your screen just so we can see together. Yeah, it's asking me to do the number. That's why I was like, it always has to do the number. Okay, cool. So now, Quan, go ahead and push the reset MFA button on her.
Kris Neal: Okay. Yeah. So it's reset. Perfect. Perfect. Now... Chris, go ahead and refresh this page. Wait, hold on, hold on.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: It's asking me to verify, so. Oh, okay. Okay. Once Quan finishes verifying, then Chris will have you log in one more time, but this time it'll let us configure MFA from scratch. Go ahead. It's weird. Did it, did you, did, um, Quan, did you also reset the password or no? I did not reset the password. you need me to? No, but it's, it's interesting that her password didn't, didn't work. And you're sure that's the right password, Chris? Yeah. Okay, cool. Then let's, let's, let's also reset the password too. Um, that, that never hurts. Cause it's also ideal, Chris, for you to have a password that's auto-generated rather than like something that, you know, you have in your brain. Okay, so I have a question with that because like a lot of times it doesn't automatically come up. Okay. Thank So how do I remember all those letters? You don't. You're not supposed to. So if it's not automatically coming up, and you're having a very serious malfunction, you should probably, we've got a fix. So I'd love to see that problem. It doesn't happen all the time, though. That's the weirdest thing.
Quan Gan: So it looks like maybe you're using Google as your password manager? I think, yeah. Okay, cool. Or the one-off. It's the one-off. So I think you're using one-off for the MFA, but you're using Google for your password.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So if there's a little key on the top right of your address bar there, if you click that key, it'll tell us.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so that's the Google. So it looks like you have two different passwords saved for this website.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Do you have two accounts? No, I shouldn't. Okay, click on manage passwords. can probably clean this up. Great.
Quan Gan: So now, at the very top of the page, it says search password. Just type in Zoho. Cool.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Click on that. And this is your computer painted.
Kris Neal: Yeah, perfect.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So yeah, it looks like you've got two accounts set up here.
Quan Gan: I'm guessing the bottom one is the correct one. Yes. So we can probably delete the above, the top one. Wait, hold on a second.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: The one above is for Vault. So that's a Zoho account manager.
Quan Gan: So if you delete that and she can't get in, then she won't have... Isn't the Zoho account on the bottom for all Zoho apps?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Actually, I think Vault might be a separate one. And we've had people lock themselves out at Vault. Okay, no problem. And by the way, because we have admin access, we can delete these willy-nilly and create new ones. But yes, let's read it for a second.
Kris Neal: Quan, go ahead and do the password reset for her as well. Okay. And also, there's a checkmark saying clear mobile sessions and API tokens. Should I?
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So wait, we lost that phone, right? Yes. Okay, then yes, go ahead and do that, because we don't want that phone to be able to authenticate either. Okay, it gave me a one-time password for Kris. Oh, cool, okay. Go ahead and put that in the Zoom chat, and then Kris can copy and paste it.
Quan Gan: Okay. Let's see, I'll send it just to Kris, then.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Oh, yeah, good call. Okay. Yeah, before we're done here, Kris, you'll be in good shape. You won't have any more authentication issues. I hope so. And then you guys also don't have to track down that old phone or care about it anymore. Yes.
Quan Gan: Okay, so it's getting me to...
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: To do a new password. Cool.
Quan Gan: So now if you click on it, Chrome should ask you to create one that's automated.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: I don't see that here. Let me see. I think we may have to clear the other ones, but if you want, you can also... Let me see how you can generate one without a password manager. Bear with me. Okay. What about the Manage Passwords? If you click on that, would it allow you to do that?
Quan Gan: It's just going to be the same page.
Kris Neal: Oh, yeah, but yeah, so go ahead and type in Zoho, and let's see if we can generate one. And then click Edit to the bottom one, since the bottom one is the one I think we're ultimately going to keep.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: No, there's no Generate here. Okay. Password. What about if you go back, and there was an add, so maybe just add another one. And it's not called Zoho.
Quan Gan: Oh, that's a good call.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Right there. Oh, but it doesn't generate for you either. Well, you know what? That's okay.
Quan Gan: We'll put in Zoho.com and then click the password field. I just want to see if it even offers. It doesn't even offer. That's wild. Okay. This is a really good reason to have a password manager, like 1Password or Keeper.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: I don't know if it's working or not. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Do you want me to log into that one? I repel all this stuff. I'm sorry. That's okay. No worries. We're here to clean this up. So one option is for you to log into Keeper. can generate something there. Another option is Quan, if you want... You can use your Keeper to generate a password, or I can. Send that to Kris, and we'll put that in, and we'll update her Google password. And then once you guys actually fully deploy one password, we can do a migration. Okay, let me do that then. I will generate one.
Quan Gan: way.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yep. Okay, create new record.
Kris Neal: Chris, if you don't mind, go to the three dots on the top right next to New Chrome Available.
Quan Gan: It's way on the top right corner. New Chrome. Yep, right there. And hit Settings.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: It's like near the bottom. Yep, perfect. Perfect.
Quan Gan: And then at the top of the page where it says Search Settings, type in Strong Passwords.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Huh, okay, not what I expected. If you click Autofill and Passwords on the left-hand side, And it's the second option. Yep, perfect. And then Enhanced Autofill. Click on that, the fourth option down.
Quan Gan: Nope, not what I was looking Okay, sorry. I wanted to check something and see if there was some way to help you for the future. But I think OnePass was going to be a better solution anyway. Kris, can you try logging into Keeper? Yes. So with any of these, Ashkaan, you still have to memorize one kind of long- password, right? Yes. So that's the gimmick with the brand of OnePassword.
Steven Hanna: They're saying this is the one password you have to remember, but you don't have to remember any others beyond that one. Oh, yes. I do have that written somewhere. Yeah. I remember it saying that. And ideally, once you are totally invested in a password system, you guys won't be writing passwords anywhere.
Kris Neal: You won't be saving them on Google Drive, Notes, Apple Notes, anywhere.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: They should all be, you know, as a company policy and practice.
Quan Gan: Yeah, because also, you guys know, now that Meta just released their glasses, AR and VR headsets are going to be, you know, a lot more standard.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: So most people are going to have, or I wouldn't say most, but within the next five years, people will be wearing cameras on their faces, like as a default, just so you know. So, like, just assume that about society, that anything written down will be captured. Yep, that's definitely the case. Just pretend I'm a teacher again. Everybody's always looking. Somebody's always recording. Everything that you do, say, type, look at, think about, recording. Ah, there we go, it expired, okay. So, yeah, the, um, how about this, uh, Quan, for the sake of just kind of pushing forward, I, I might, I might just generate one really quickly. Oh, I'll send it to her. Okay. Um, there you go. Kris, see it? So, Kris, In the chat? You can, yeah, copy and paste that password into the, uh, the new password field for, for Zoho. And then I think Google will ask you and say, hey, do you want me to save this? But even if it doesn't, we can actually manually save it into the Google, uh, password field. Perfect. Cool. So, yeah, Google didn't pop up. Yeah, Google. Google Password is not a very good password manager, as we're all seeing.
Charlie Xu: So now, real quick, Kris, before you continue, go to that other Google page that you have open for the passwords. Yep, perfect.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: One tab to the left on the very top.
Kris Neal: Yep, perfect. Now type in Google Password Manager.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Click on that top options. Out of the four options, yep, perfect. Click on that. Now type in Zoho. Great, click there. And we're going to edit the bottom entry. And you'll paste the password into the password field there, and hit save. Oh, yep, great. Okay, cool. So now, let's come back to your incognito and try to log in with that account and make sure that that works.
Kris Neal: Good to Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Hmm. Try pasting it right here.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Charlie, you're saying something?
Kris Neal: It might come up to password, because you saved two, so maybe choose the password, the longer one. I don't know. Is it this? Yeah, the other one. Yeah. So that's not the one we just updated, though, which is weird. Yeah, skip it. Just whatever you pasted.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Copy and paste, too. Okay. So now you have the opportunity to set up Zoho One-Off on your device from scratch, which is great.
Kris Neal: Perfect. And if you had this disabled, then it would still pop up the QR code, but it would be doing a one-time passcode, which you would use for Keeper or 1Password.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: They both work fine. Sweet. Mabel. After you sign in, enable it. So I think it's telling you to enable it on your phone. There you go. Got it. Great. As a next step, so it's going to download backup verification codes.
Kris Neal: You actually don't need these because we have administrative access, but it won't let us move forward, so go ahead and click Generate New Codes. It says Enable App Lock on my phone.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: App Lock? Yeah. Should I just keep going forward on the computer? Let me see really quickly what that is. It says Enable App Lock and Ensure that only you can access these codes. Sorry, I'm reading really quickly what that is. Oh, they're just encrypting your... Oh, I see. Yes. Okay, that's great. So basically all it does is it sets up biometrics. for the app on your phone, which is ideal. That's an extra, extra move. So yeah, definitely go with that.
Kris Neal: Perfect.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah, your iPhone 15 will probably do Face ID, and that's great. Okay, perfect.
Quan Gan: Cool. generate new codes. Yep, and then just hit Copy. That puts it in the clipboard, but we don't really need it, so now hit Continue to Sign In.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Okay, cool. So now the second question, is the vault.zoho.com the same login or not? So now open a new tab and go to vault.zoho.com, and we'll find out right now.
Kris Neal: Now, it does seem like Google didn't save the password, even though we didn't. we'll we'll find out. You We've that password in the password manager. I don't think this is going to work. You may have to copy it from the Zoom chat one more time. We'll fix that problem next, but I just want to get really clear about this.
Quan Gan: The Zoho master or the Vault master password, I believe, is not what we just set up. So it's not the same as their... Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's an entirely different thing. Got Got it. Then what we'll want to do is we'll want to edit that password field to remove the account.zoho, like the other Zoho one, so that one is just Vault and one is just for the account.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Do want me to still copy and paste that one? Please, just so we can cross that off the experiment list.
Kris Neal: I just had it.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Sorry guys, I just had it. Oh, it won't let you paste, huh? No, okay, I'm like, I'm going crazy. No, it's not letting me copy and paste. are, yeah. It's like, I know. That's one of those infuriating security measures, too. That's really funny. Okay. I have to type everyone I was in. Oh, I have to type. Oh, I really do. Okay, got it. Sorry. But I don't think it's, yeah, I don't think it's good. So then, yeah, now I'm pretty confident it's not that password. I think you're right, Quan. In that case, what we can do is you can actually, will it let you autofill? Autofill? No. No. No? Yeah, it is. Okay. So, you know, that second one that I stopped you from using, why don't you try that and see if it works? it's... this? Yeah. don't Oh, actually, so now it's the top one. Now it's the top one. It flipped. So it finally updated to the other password, which is cool, but... Okay, cool. Quan, you were right. We now have clarity on this. So if you don't mind, go back to the Google Password tab that you had before. I think it's on the other window, the other Chrome window. Yep, perfect.
Kris Neal: Okay, it timed out after five minutes. Fine.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Let's, I guess, refresh maybe so that we can get back into it. Okay, cool. And then hit Zoho.com. Okay, cool. And we're going to edit the top one now. So go ahead and hit edit. And there's no way to edit the sites. Wow. I am officially going to tell everyone to stop using Google Passwords forever. This is not a good password manager. Okay. There is no way to turn off... Yeah. This password for, like, I basically want to delete the accounts of that in Zoho so that it's not confusing the next time you're going to log in to Zoho, but we can't do that, so we'll just wait until we have a password manager. Okay, well, at least we now solved the issue with the old phone. is now logged out. We don't have to worry about it anymore. You now have the new password. If you ever need to see the password, you can come here and actually hit the View button and see the password just in case you ever need it. It is here and safe and sound. And it was under this, the plain one, this one right here. Exactly, the plain one, that's right. Yep, yep, that top one is only for vault, which is really annoying. Yeah, yeah, good point. All right. So that was a fun exercise. Do you guys have any questions about, so we only really touched on two things for Zoho. One of them is just making sure that we do an audit of the permissions and the admin.
Quan Gan: what One of is of So Level that each user has and really double check and make sure that they really need that for their role. So I would do that as a first step. And then as a second step, I would probably ultimately, again, once you've deployed one password or something similar, remove Zoho as even an MFA option, remove texting, and probably remove the YubiKey.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: I don't think that's, there's a lot of debate about whether that's secure or not. If you lose the YubiKey, that's a big mess. It's generally better to just use a password manager. And so OTP will be the password manager, and you guys will have to change your MFA, and it'll be a little bit painful. But I also recommend that you, like Quan, since you're the admin, before flipping the switch and turning off Zoho 1, I would make sure that on your account, you've already switched to one password, which I can help you do in a few minutes.
Kris Neal: Then we know we can test it in a private browser, works great, and then go from there.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: And then you you can change everyone's and see how that goes. Okay. Cool.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I think some of the deployment to the rest of the team, we could probably wait until everybody is ready.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: But for me, I'm happy to even just get one password right now, and then you tell me what options those are, and then I can start getting my stuff prepped. Yeah, cool. And the one password that I would get is the business edition, which is $7 or $8 a month. That's the correct level. And that will get you all the great controls and granular settings and all the things you need. Okay. Cool. Okay. The last, first of all, any questions about anything? Because I only have one more topic left. So for every password, it's best to go through the password keeper.
Quan Gan: Don't ever manually input, don't ever, but always go through that. Okay. Yeah, so yeah, and I think in the future it's going to become 1Password, so that'll be the new app that you'll use. It looks like.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: You want to have like a phone app, and then probably, there's a desktop version of it, right, or an extension. there's a phone app, a desktop app, and then a desktop extension, and the extension and desktop app work together, they're great, and they basically, you can, you use the desktop app to like edit things and make changes, and then use the extension to just autofill and do all, you know, all that stuff really fast. And what's really cool about the extension is, like, for example, today, you had that QR code. You had to pick up your phone and use your phone's camera, no longer with 1Password. The extension can read QR codes on the screen and apply the code directly to your account, so you don't even have to use your phone. So there's some neat features. Keeper does the same thing, by the way. Yeah, mean, ideally, no one should ever have to. Other than your master password, you shouldn't have to memorize any other password because memorizing passwords make you a liability. Exactly. It makes you a liability. And it takes up unnecessary brain space. Who wants to memorize passwords? That's crazy. Cool. Okay. And so then the last topic I have for today is doing some kind of security awareness training for your team. There are some great products out there. There's one that I particularly like. It's fairly inexpensive. And what I like about it is that it does three things really well. So it puts your team into like this cadence of this annual training. And the annual training is really easy. It's like one hour, but it's really memorable because it looks like an episode of like CSI. Like it's entertaining. It's actually kind of funny. It's like really engaging.
Quan Gan: Like people really like it.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: You guys don't believe me. Wait till you watch it. You'll see. And it has this engaging story with this great, tells you about something that's like happening this year, like a fairly recent kind of attack or set of attacks, and then asks you questions and you have to pass the test. Everyone will have to do this. But separate from that, it does these quick little one-minute videos once a week with four quick questions about it. So if you get your team to kind of get enrolled in that, there's a really fun leaderboard where people can then compete and see like who knows their stuff more. And I think on its face, if you ask anyone like, hey, you know, who in your company is like the best at cyberscale? Like no one's going to care. It's just not interesting to a lot of people. But with this app, once it's deployed and people see the leaderboard, something changes in their brain. Something in their brain chemistry completely changes. And now everyone cares because there's a number to your name. I can't describe what's happening, but there's a psychological thing that happens. And you'll notice some people who you might not. don't even have ever guessed. ...will start crushing the leaderboard. And it's just, it's one, it takes a minute. It takes one minute, asks a couple questions, real quick, like, the whole thing takes like a minute and a half, once a week. And like on my team, the person who was least tech savvy ended up becoming the person with the highest score. She just got really into it, and it surprised everyone. And that's happened consistently with every client we've pushed this out on. So the first thing it does is it engages your team with cybersecurity. It tells them about what's happening. I think, Quan, I was telling you when I met with you the other week, we got a ticket, I think, that day or the Friday before, for something that was literally on the video two weeks before that. So there was a one-minute video that talked about the thing that someone sent a ticket in for. I like, help, this thing happened. What's going on? And I'm like, you know, my need, obviously, like, just kidding. But I was like, yeah, well, did you watch the video? Did you?
Quan Gan: Because that's literally what it says. You just got tricked in the exact way that the...
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: The video says not to get tricked. So that's number one. The second thing that it does is that they have spiders that comb the dark web, and they pull any passwords from your organization with your domain. Very useful, because if, for example, you know, Steve pops up on the list, Steve's now unnoticed. Oh, crap, I got to change my password for that thing. And then you go and you change your password and you're good. So it's got that, which is really awesome. And the third thing that it does that is probably everyone's favorite thing about it is that it does these phishing simulations. So it will send fake, fake emails to your team, and you can start to see who the weakest links are, who's clicking these fake emails. Yeah, yeah, it's as funny as it looks. And it's a great opportunity, too, to be able to grab your coworker and say, like, hey, look, you fell for this thing. Ha ha, no big deal. But you get to do the training again. Ha ha, no no no no big deal. You know? So it's a great product. I can't recommend it enough. And it's fairly easy to deploy, too. The setup is weirdly long, but I mean, once you get through the setup, it's a strong product. Does everyone need to set it up or just I set it up? Just you. Just one admin sets it up, and then you actually can connect it to your Google. It pulls your user list. And then when you onboard a new person, it auto-sends an email out to them, too. So it's a great app. This one that I like, it's called Breach Secure Now. I don't know if it's just easily available to the public, so try to set it up and try to get it. If you have any trouble, let me know. We're also a reseller, so I can set up your account for you and stuff and send you the credentials. But the other one that's way more, it's way more popular because they were the 50-pound gorilla before this other one came and competed with them. And it's called KnowBefore. It's very popular also. But their videos aren't funny.
Quan Gan: So they're not... Not memorable. Like, it's a huge difference.
Steven Hanna: I genuinely think it's like... funny videos. Yeah, I genuinely think meeting it funny really makes the difference. Especially this person on my team who, like, really is good at... She knows cybersecurity better than, like, some of my experts, which is crazy. And I think it's because she finds them funny.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: She's like, oh, they made, you know, they made this character look really silly and whatever, and now I remember the thing. So that's really the last thing. I was just going to make a strong recommendation for doing so.
Kris Neal: If you guys at some point get to the scale where you're thinking about cybersecurity insurance and, like, other things like that, it actually... Just for having cybersecurity awareness as a thing in your company, and you can check off that everyone has done it, which you can see on the dashboard really easily if they have or haven't, you'll actually get a discount on your cybersecurity insurance as well.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Okay. I've completed my agenda. What do you guys have? This is great. Thank you. An empty cup of coffee. I mean, I'll get more of that in a few minutes because I owe Charlie work. But no, you have been phenomenal. And thank you so much for sharing this information. I am sure that we will be reaching back out for at least clarification on one thing or guidance on another if we can't rinse it through AI and do it ourselves. Yeah. Yeah, please. Feel free to lean on me. Lean on AI first and then feel free to lean on me. And I'm sure we can get through anything that you're running into. I have a quick question because you just put a good point on that, Steve, because I'll go through GPT and I'll share, like, I'll go on my phone and say, like, okay, help me navigate this. That's probably not good with trying to navigate passwords or is that okay? Oh, okay. Great question. You know, we probably should dig into chat GPT a bit. And Quan, you mentioned this early on the call, too.
Quan Gan: So you guys ought to have an AI policy. Like, as a company.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: They're pretty popular and common. I can actually say... And you guys, one that we share with our clients, they're, they basically, they basically say this, make sure that one, you're using the AI tools that your company has like approved. So you don't want to use some like weird one that hasn't been approved. There may or may not be good precedent for that. It's all debatable. This is all such new technology. It's like, there aren't really clear guidelines in my industry about this. But the big one is that they, you want to put, do a risk analysis when you're about to put actual data in. So on it, with my company, we have a strict, absolutely no, under no circumstances, can you put actual client PII into, into any kind of AI. And we have a clever ways of doing this. So like if, for example, we want to like, there's like. Yeah, I'm only identifying information. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Yes. Yes. So something that can, that can help. Someone identify who this company is or the people are. So I will normally say person X, person B, person C, company X, company Y, company Z. It's that simple. But it's a habit. You have to get in the habit of doing that. And you also like, sometimes chat TV is kind of funny where it will memorize things like that. So they'll be like, oh, but last week you told me company X was doing this. I like, no, it's a different company X. Just kidding. New variable, new company. So you might have those small issues from time to time, but it's worth it to not be feeding your actual customer data into this. Unless you're in an industry that's not terribly restricted. Like for us, for cybersecurity, it's a big deal. I'm not even allowed to tell you guys who we work with. It's that strict. But for you guys, might not be the same thing.
Quan Gan: I'm the chair of an after-school program, it's like a non-profit, and they work with lots of schools. And for them, because it's all public, everything is public info, they actually have none of these requirements. And they're like, oh. Oh. AI, like, doesn't matter. Like, everyone knows we work with so-and-so. So they're dumping all kinds of weird data into AI without really thinking about it too much because they don't really have to. So I would make that assessment, you know, like, what do you really not want us to have in AI and what do you not care? Like, I'll tell you guys, like, my finances are all in AI. All of my finances, all our company finances, P&L, all of it. It's just the value that I get from it is too great.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: It outweighs the minor risks or concerns that I have about the data. So just make an assessment about that before you're dumping stuff in.
Quan Gan: But one thing that I would recommend is obfuscating, like, client information. Just company-wide, company-A, B, C, you know, that's it. Yeah, for us, you know, we're generally selling to the public sector. You know, and we don't have, we don't sign NDAs with any of our customers. And also the product, it has been intentionally designed to not collect. Not individually identifying the information, because these watches are agnostic to whoever's wearing it. So it'll collect numbers in aggregate, so there's nothing there that's sensitive.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: The thing that's probably customer-related that goes through AI is when they have an inquiry, there's an AI agent that will enrich the data, but that's pretty standard practice. Totally, yeah, like a LEM list or something like that, yeah. Cool. One other thing I wanted to just share with the rest of the team is, you know, the intention for this, obviously, is for our company use, but it's really also to raise everyone's security awareness, even for your personal use, and share that with your family, your kids, your parents, right? Like, those are actually some of the highest risk vectors.
Quan Gan: So I...
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: I've like hand slapped my dad so many times about like, why is your password saved in a spreadsheet or written somewhere? Like, no, just stop it. Like, we have to be the ones to tell them that. Yeah. Oh, and I forgot one more point. Charlie, brought up the question about overseas folks. I did want to address this really quickly. The best practice for this is that when you are using any contractors that are just doing part work, but they need to access your Google Drive data.
Quan Gan: Like, that's the kind of the critical question. Do they have to access the Google Drive data? If it's feasible, I would actually prefer that you guys create them a ZTAG email address.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Having a ZTAG email address doesn't mean you're a full-time employee. doesn't mean that you're in the States even. It just means that you now have an authentication metric to getting into the data there.
Quan Gan: And so if that's feasible for you guys and you can turn on and off these email addresses, that's actually the best That's how we do it right now. Oh, perfect. Yeah, they're all ZTAG.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Then, yeah, then you're doing great. So many companies don't do that. It's wild.
Kris Neal: And that's because a lot of times they hire like a freelancer and the freelancer is like, yeah, you know, Aaron Smith, photography, like it's got to be that.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: And they're like, okay, cool, Aaron, we're going to make you your own email.
Steven Hanna: Like, no, I don't want to manage you. And they have a big problem with it.
Kris Neal: You can just say it's company policy.
Steven Hanna: Sorry. You want to work with us? You have to do everything through our email.
Kris Neal: Okay. So it's more of the external contractors that we work regularly with and need access to certain data that you want to give them an at ZTAG.
Steven Hanna: But make it clear, it's not employment.
Kris Neal: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Hopefully that doesn't, no one thinks just by having an email they're employed, but yes, it doesn't hurt to mention that. I am a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer, but that is good legal advice. I have to say that. Okay. Any other questions? Cool. I'm so glad I had this opportunity to overwhelm you guys.
Quan Gan: I hope you have a very, very challenging day ahead of you because of all the data I gave you. I'd like to hear from any of you guys, all of you who at least understand him. You're talking Chinese to me right now.
Kris Neal: We'll chunk it. We'll make it digestible.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: One of my worst teachers said there's only one way to make Brussels sprouts, and then I looked at him and I said, you just don't know how to cook. Thank God you're a teacher, Steven. Woo-hoo! Well, I mean, all I'm doing is translating. He's the teacher. I mean, I don't which direction I'm going to. He's the teacher. I'm just a person who can translate a little bit. That's all. He's a great teacher. Great information, and thank you so much for sharing it. I'd say I've learned quite a few new things.
Steven Hanna: A few things that about myself, I've been like, wow, I've been raw dog. think he's Thank ZTAG and password security for a minute here.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Okay, let me make sure I'm protected. Well, same as most people, though. Most people are doing that. And so the Ashkaan's analogy, I use the bear analogy. It's like when a bear's chasing 10 people, you don't have to be the fastest. You just can't be the slowest.
Quan Gan: Definitely right.
Ashkaan Hassan, Esq: Yeah. Now, one challenge to that is that in this landscape of AI, they're moving so much faster.
Kris Neal: And sometimes they can, like, clone themselves in mid-run. So sometimes they can create, like, 100 bears are running after 10 people. And it's like, dude, you've got to still be fast.
[Metadata only — transcript not included in this selection]
Steven Hanna: Hey there. Okay.
Jeffrey Warren: How are you? Well, how are you?
Steven Hanna: I'm good. Turn this up a little bit. No worries. So how did you find us? So we're actually working in conjunction with a variety of educators, and they've been just mentioning your conference over and over. One of our contacts over in Wisconsin had mentioned that he's been to you guys, I believe, in the past once or twice, and he said that it's a very worthwhile conference to be at for physical education. And, yeah, pretty much word of mouth. Okay. No, that's great. So have you been able to work with any of our state affiliates then? I'm unsure if we have. I'm relatively new to the ZTAG conference scene, so I'm just coming in, learning about all the shows, and kind of getting it on their radar, and getting the information integrated for them. So. I'm unsure if we have. I probably have, just without knowing. Okay.
Jeffrey Warren: No, whether you have or not, mean, there's other outlets, too, beyond our annual convention. The annual convention is going to get you access to, like, the largest group nationwide, whereas, like, the regional ones are going to be concentrated, obviously, more in their local areas. So there's different ways of increasing your business plan. Okay. So you were initially asking about, a 10 by 20 spot.
Steven Hanna: Correct.
Jeffrey Warren: And we can definitely do that.
Steven Hanna: We can open up the floor plan. I can walk you through a couple options there.
Jeffrey Warren: If we can do that this week, I can still honor the early bird pricing, because it is kind of a significant jump without that discount.
Steven Hanna: So as long as we can finalize it this week, I'm happy to have it next. you. And that early bird pricing for you. Appreciate it.
Jeffrey Warren: Did you want to take a gander at the floor plan now just to get an idea of where we could put you?
Steven Hanna: I think if you want to take the time for it, we can. If not, we could probably, you could send me some pictures later by email. Okay. As long as there's an interactive floor plan map that I could look at at some point, I'm going on that. Okay. All right.
Jeffrey Warren: Yeah, in a way, we'll do it that way, and I'll send you a link to the floor Because it is live and interactive. Every spot is designated as a 10 by 10, so you would just choose two spots that are connected, and then on the back end, I'll merge them before sending out your confirmation.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
Jeffrey Warren: Awesome.
Steven Hanna: Sweet. And I appreciate the extension on the early bird discount. That was one thing that they asked if we jump on this within the next, you know, four or five days, if that was something. So I could tell that yes. Okay. Yeah.
Jeffrey Warren: And I'll follow it all up with an email as well. I appreciate that. And then you had a question about sponsorships?
Steven Hanna: Yeah, we saw a few different levels and a few different areas that we might be able to sponsor. And so I was just hoping that you might be able to walk me through that, if you don't mind. I know it's pretty straightforward on the sheet that I'm looking at, but if there was anything that you saw that you could share that I didn't read, that would be great. Okay.
Jeffrey Warren: Now, can you let me know which ones you were interested in? Yes.
Steven Hanna: So we were looking at the, I believe it was one of the gym sessions where we get access to the gym for one of the 13 sessions. I forgot what it was specifically called. Okay. Yeah, that's called a Power and Play session. Right. All right.
Jeffrey Warren: And that would be $1,500. That's a 50-minute session that's led on the exhibit floor as a session. $1 that that,500,,500,,000, that $1,000, And you'll have full access. We'll provide, like, any kind of base AV, like, you'll provide a laptop if you have a presentation that you want to do, or if you don't need AV, it's totally fine, too. It's just the room is set for it.
Steven Hanna: It's a build-out room, so it's not, just so you know, it's a build-out room, so it's not going to have any ceiling to it.
Jeffrey Warren: It'll just have three standing walls to separate the area. Okay, and what is the size of that area? That is, one second. So, it's a 50 by 60 spot, so about...
Steven Hanna: is, ... ...
Jeffrey Warren: 300 square feet. Okay. Something like that.
Steven Hanna: All right. Because we do have a little exercise type of thing with our laser tag system that we play in a small area. We just need floor space. We don't really need any AV stuff. It's just right there. As long as we have access to the floor and I know how large it is, I can work with that. Okay. All right. Perfect. Cool. And then I think that was it on the play. If we do more than one session, is there any incentive for a discount on more than one session or is it just flat out at that? Yeah, it would just be flat out.
Jeffrey Warren: Yeah, we wouldn't have had a discount for multiple sessions. I'll just, to be fair and transparent, we've never had any group do more. More than one session, I would be hesitant on it only because I feel like the second session is what you're going to remember the best, and it's going to be lower attendance because everybody went to the first one.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Now, my next question would be if we're going to try and open this up as far as exposure goes. In full transparency with you, we're not really looking to sell at the show. We're looking to just start our roots in the PE environment and just get our names out there. Okay. So there's no real back line here for us to make a profit margin. Yeah. The only goal here is to share this system and what we have. And if so, be it four years down the line, we come back to Shape America 2028, 209, 30, and people are like, wow, we've heard about this. We've seen it the last few years. That's kind of what we're trying to do. So as far as money goes, we're not... We're not financially driven. We're more community growth driven for this. And if there are any sponsorships or any ways that you can see that we could best do that, I'm just going to ask for your personal opinion on this one. Just, you if you could just say, hey, this is a really good session to consider at this time on this day for that type of thing. We would really just appreciate that because we're just trying to get exposure. Okay.
Jeffrey Warren: Well, one of the things I would recommend off the bat is with the booth space, so the $3,900 is our basic package.
Steven Hanna: That's just renting the space. You could add a $500 enhanced, would call it, I would change it to call an enhanced package. That includes some advertising outlets, complimentary then. And one of the key parts of it is, or two of the key parts, one is there's a game that we play in the exhibit hall where all the attendees have like a game card. They visit participating exhibitors, do a little action or question-answer period with the exhibitor. They give them a sticker. They can win a prize.
Jeffrey Warren: In addition to that, we also would, the enhanced package has a Q&A.
Steven Hanna: It's an introductory kind of thing, so we'll provide you, like, 12 or 13 different questions. You choose two or three that you want to answer, and then we publish it on our website. So that's an immediate, like, introduction to ZTAG for our people. So I would recommend something like that. There are other ways to get your name out there, but at minimum, it's looking like it would be a minimum of $2,700 additional investment on it. But I can outline some things in an email for you just so you have some ideas there and which ones could be. I would really appreciate that. That would be wonderful. Yeah, I think that they're, like I said, looking more to just get the exposure out on this and get the name. So if that's aligned with what you're saying and I can share that with them, they would be more than likely to look at that. Just so that I can think about numbers real quick for them, the two 10x10s that come to a 10x20, just off the top of your head, what does that look like? $3,900.
Jeffrey Warren: It's $3,900 if we do it this week. If it ends up going past this week, it's going to be $4,800. They will do it this week, I know.
Steven Hanna: Like if I say, hey, we have a grace period of 72 hours for this, they'll go, we'll do it within 48. So they're pretty quick to jump on the ball with that. And then the Power and Play sessions, those are $1,500 each. Also, this is Chris, my partner, who works with me on the shows. Chris, Jeff, Jeff has been taking me through all the wonderful sponsorship information, background info that we might need. We're just going over the 10x20 booth, the PowerPlay sponsorship, and then the enhanced package where there's a few extra gamification elements to sponsorship. So, we have our 10x20 coming in at just the $3,900, you said, with the Early Bird Special. We have the PowerPlay at $1,500 per session. We're only going to be looking at one of those. And then the enhanced package is $2,700 as well. No, the enhanced package is an additional $500. Okay.
Jeffrey Warren: So then your booth space goes from $3,900 to $4,300. $4,400.
Steven Hanna: $4,400. $4 $4,400. That was pretty much it as far as booth. Questions go. As far as additional sponsorships and additional things, what can we look at in regards to that? Do you guys have any things the day before, reception sessions that we could consider?
Jeffrey Warren: Yeah, so that 2700 number that you were just mentioning, that was what I was indicating would be like the minimum threshold for a sponsorship. So, and I was going to send you a list of different sponsorships, their price points, and what, how they could work best for you.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Excellent. Chris, I know you're kind of coming in late, but was there anything that you wanted to ask, Jeff? No, I'm just grateful for the opportunity.
Kris Neal: This will be our first time. So, we're excited to make a splash. Yeah, good. For sure.
Steven Hanna: For I think that was it. In to the booth and those questions, you hit everything, and I appreciate you taking the time. Did you have any questions for us in regards to what we do, how we operate, and who we are? No, I'm very familiar with your website, so I did some research for you.
Jeffrey Warren: So I will promise to get this over to you today so everything is still in motion for you. So I'm talking about the list of different sponsorship opportunities, but also a link to the floor plan, some recommendations there as well. Sounds good.
Steven Hanna: And while we're looking at the interactive, if we decide to do the 10 by 10, I'll just shoot you a quick email and say, hey, on your back end, if you could combine these. Yep. All right. All right. Sounds good. Appreciate it, Jeff. All right. No problem. I'll talk to you soon. Thank you. care. Have a wonderful day.
Kris Neal: Bye-bye.
[No transcript available]
Vania Chen: Here we go. Okay, hi.
Charlie Xu: How are you?
Vania Chen: Good, how are you?
Charlie Xu: Busy?
Vania Chen: Still quite busy? Yeah, so I was playing in the Zoho, and then I was like, okay. And all of a sudden, I heard a text message. I think probably you texted me.
Charlie Xu: I was like, holy crap, what time is it? I know, recently, for me, too, I just feel like time just flies away so quickly without, like, being noticed. I set a, like, a task I need to do, but I just literally missed it. Like, I know I'm going to miss it, I miss it. Just, like, yeah, I don't know, like, maybe too overloaded. I don't know, it's just, it's weird recently.
Vania Chen: How are you? Are you okay?
Charlie Xu: Okay. Yeah, yeah, doing, I think, just trying to find, find the rhythms, because, like, before, I felt like I'm super overwhelmed with family, both companies, and also, for Gantam, like, since Jerry requires me for him to do the communications to kind of, like, build up the bridge, but, but I, like, last time I, I have a little conflict with Kwan, so, so, because, Phil is a little bit, like, complaining, Jerry and I is not knowing the systems, and so, we're kind of, like, dragging down the team, so, I, I feel like, hey, I, like, I was a little, feel, um, offended, because I felt like, okay, Kwan, Kwan, Kwan, Kwan is in the room, said, he said, I'm not a little bit, I'm a lot of, feeling offended, so, I just sent a message to Phil, is that, like, because they just had a meeting, and they, they're saying, like, Phil is complaining about, it's like the overall, the whole process, I was trying to make the, fill up the gap, right? Just helping the communication, literally like, and also the communication is based on mutual respect, but Phil on one side, he is complaining, like there's a lot of, so through the meeting, everyone is polite. But he is saying, like, a lot of times the employees are sending messages, are complaining Jerry this and complaining Jerry that. So I was like, hey, in the company culture, we cannot speak other people's bad words behind other people's back. We can confront it, right? So if you think there's a, employee are not knowing certain things, you need to say that. We don't even know you feel like we are not, and we're new to this, but. Well, on the other side, we have something we are, we have the strengths. Like for Jerry, he has his strengths of doing certain things. So we cannot using a sort of company standard or like this to say, hey, you're not matching this part because you never do this part or like you don't have this piece of knowledge. Then I, yeah, so, so I'm just emphasizing like everyone needs to respect everyone's professions, right? And, and if there's a conflict, bring to the table, don't speak behind other people's back.
Vania Chen: So it's just, you know, basically the reason, well, I think it's, it's obvious the reason why I asked is that I had a, I had a conversation because of Orlando lease, the whole lease portion. So I had a conversation with Philip and then Philip brought it up because literally I was like, I called him and I was like, oh, by the way, I, I.
Charlie Xu: What is the leasing office one, blah, blah, blah. And all of a sudden, I got on an hour-long phone call with Philip, right?
Vania Chen: And then I think the conflict that started, this is the information I got from his side, right? He literally started off of Jerry want to fire Andy, right? So that was the first initial, like, it feels like the trigger, right? And he's very protective of the employee, Ganta employees, and Ganta employees are very loyal to him, right? Which is a good thing. Don't get me wrong. It's a great thing that employees are loyal to the CEO, right? So then that's how the whole thing got triggered. And then he said that he has conflict with you. And then he talked to Kwon, and then, you know, that was just like, and then keep going on. And then, so I talked to him yesterday. Actually, yesterday, I had a phone call because we're... Finalizing the lease, we're renewing the Orlando, whatever, and then we're providing the information needed, like all the stuff, like I'm working with the leasing agent with that. And then, and when we're dealing with that, I asked Phillip, and then he's like, he's, he's like giving a time to calm down, let everybody calm down right now. And then, so, but I think the, which is actually a, it might not be a bad thing. It's a time that I think what he really wanted is to have a very clear roles of who plays what in, in Ganto, right? Because I think the, the, the roles, your role is a little mixed up right now. I think you, you probably got brought in, like, unintentionally, and then it's not really, because at first is Ping wanted to retire, right? Ping wanted to retire, so he brought you in. He kind of pulled you in, into the financials. And then the bookkeeping side, right? And then Jerry pull you in into the production and then the factory side, right? Wanting to, so, but, but I mean, I'm also helping on designing, designing on the website and, and, and the flyers. You weren't the designer for Gantam before, right? The whole time you were the designer for Gantam, like the, the, the website designer, the pamphlet, the whatever designer, like you were the designer that for, for Gantam for the longest time, right? So then you have your existing role, you have the rule, new, new roles that got pulled in. And then right now, because there is not a, I don't even know if that's what you wanted to do. Like, what do you actually wanted to do for Gantam? Like, it's, it's anything.
Charlie Xu: I don't want to do anything, seriously. Like, if, if, like, Jerry and Quan and Phil can handle, I don't want. I don't want to step in of that. I feel like if there's a mess, you guys clean it up. I don't want to help on that. I have so many things to handle, ZTAG and kids and my own things. Yeah. the thing is, because Payne told me to do, and that's just a repeatable thing. It's like 10 minutes a day. It doesn't matter. But for Jerry, I feel like I really honor him, his loyalty to being in company with us for such a long time. And now I feel like because Quan is pulling him out, more focusing on ZTAG, and a lot of things is on Jerry's shoulder. But like on the other hand, I don't feel like USA is seeing his values up there and not showing respect. And I pissed off, seriously, because I don't feel like, hey. You can have great, great sales team, but if the product sucks, you will not have a good market. It's Jerry's essence of keeping the really good quality, and all the designers are buying to Jerry's essence. So you're not, whatever you do, you decide, sure, you have a great team, but if you don't show respect to Jerry, I feel like I'm, I just, I don't feel like he's doing the hardest thing, but he's there, and also not feeling being respected from the U.S. team, since U.S., we have a sort of CEO, and, you know, like, and all the employees are so, so, you know, listen to CEO, but I was, like, emphasized to Phil, we're on the same boat, okay, so we're not, like, fighting and make the turbulence of that. Everyone is on the same boat.
Vania Chen: Yeah. And then from the U.S. team's perspective, the one that, the perspective that I'm getting is that right now, they're also getting a lot of stress from Jerry, right? And at the same time, because one of the things that they mentioned, they keep mentioning, Jerry actually won $100,000 in order every month.
Charlie Xu: Okay.
Vania Chen: Right. And that's just not a, that's just not a, the, the, the quantity or a, a, a, a, a volume that Gantam is able to swallow right now, right? And that's why we keep having the, because Jerry won this minimum quantity because he has a factory to run over there, right? And at the same time, Gantam is like, we never really require $100,000 a month. And plus everything is prepaid. We don't have any terms. Then we, we, we simply can't. Right. And then at the same time, there's a difficulties in communications in the whole, like the, I know it was the, the, the, the, the testing. I think it was like a testing report that triggers this thing.
Charlie Xu: Right.
Vania Chen: And then there's like question and Andy's and then whatever. And then, so, so I think it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, and honestly, I really don't think that the team really doesn't respect Jerry. They know that Jerry's the, they, they, he made the product. He's the only reason why, he and Quan is the only reason why Gantem exists. Right. Without this product, Gantem doesn't exist. And then this product has been what, five years, 10 years. Like it's, it's been the same thing for about five years. And then we're still good in the market.
Charlie Xu: Right.
Vania Chen: Maybe update the connection, like the whole Ethernet, Kevillink, or whatever it is. Right. So then that's just how good the product is. And I think everybody knows. What was that? And then right now, it's just that there is a glitch in the whole communication. I think either you can say the working style or the weight of communications, whatever it is, it feels like U.S. team is hating on Jerry's team, and Jerry's team is hating on U.S. team, right? But I'm sure, I'm actually thinking that that's probably not the case. It's just that there is a glitch in the middle. Like, it just feels like, because now U.S. team feels like you're giving us all these requirements that you have that we cannot hit, and then what are we going to do? You don't understand us, right? Like, you don't understand our difficulties, like where our hands are tied. And same thing to Jerry is that, you know, I'm doing all these things, and then, like, you can't even give me the minimum quantity. How am I supposed to run my factory and keep my people and order my supplies?
Charlie Xu: Because I'm going to be the one that's like, you know. footing for all the bills and all the whatever, right? I know, but the thing is, isn't right now we're way better than before? Like, how we survived before? Like, right now, I think the situation is getting better while we're still, like, on this. We are actually a lot better.
Vania Chen: I don't know if you're familiar with the... You know, Gantam owes Jerry a crap load of money, right? So, starting from 20... I think 2018 was the one year. Like, started to... Jerry go, no, no, no, we gotta... I gotta get paid, right? I gotta get paid. Back then, we owe him almost two... Plus, two million dollar plus. And then, as of last year, we're... Everything is prepaid. So, for the last couple of years, we not only... Not... So we always prepay for every inventory, plus we pay, cleared out the debt for Jerry. So we pay, like, yes, the order that we got from Jerry was, you know, was, let's say, like a million dollars, two million dollars a year or something. But we actually pay probably double that in the last couple of years. And that's basically literally where all the cash went. We just keep, but we're clear with Junotel right now. Like, we have zero, well, we have $100,000 in terms right now, but everything else is cleared out. That's how far Gantum had gone. And that was, that was, it was, it was great. But then, yes, and then we always run into the same issue. We always run into, like, before, end of the year, we have usually fourth quarter is slow, so we don't have cash. But then we have to order a pre-order for Chinese New Year because Jerry want to ramp up production. For the Chinese New Year, so then people come back and all that, all that, right? So then to make sure that they have enough work, so the workers will come back. And then that's the time that we're just like, hell, we're out of cash, we don't have cash, right? And then that's usually the November meeting, December meeting, it's kind of like, just like, okay, we don't have cash, we need terms, or we need pins to give us more money, or we need quons to loan us more money, you know, we need ZTAG to pay us back, you know, we need any sort of cash back then, right? So, and then the question always goes, where did all the cash go? Cash all went to repayment for all the loans. We've been, we pay, we pay Junitel first, Junitel now is cleared, then we pay the California Bank and Trust, and so that loan is cleared out, and then we've been paying pin back. So now that whatever we pay for Junitel, now we're paying ping, we start getting those loan back out. So Gantem have been playing catch-up for the cash-old for the last however many years. So for the employees, they feel it because they're like, okay, we worked so hard, the Gantem's obviously making money. We can see it. They can see it, right? They know what's the expense, you know, but they're not getting raised. They're not getting the raise that they want. They're not really, they feel like we always talk about running out of cash.
Charlie Xu: And then, you know, to them, it's like, it doesn't make sense.
Vania Chen: And which it's true because, you know, it doesn't make sense, right? So, I don't know. Well, like right now, I think defining, I think the most important part right now is we need to define Ping's role, we need to define your role, we need to define Andy's role, Chris's role, Phillip's role, Jerry's role, everybody's role, and then once we draw out the map, we know who's specifically responsible for what, then we'll like, all right, you know, this is how we're going to work, right? This is how we're going to work with each other, this is how we're going to, language-wise, barrier-wise, I mean, communication-wise, we have to find a way that works, because the team is not changing, right? Unless you say that, unless, let's say, like, Phillip Quick and took away a bunch of people, right, then yes, then there's going to be issues where we're going to have to replenish our team, but we know that you're not changing, Quanta's not changing, Jerry's not changing, right? So these people, like the executive, we're not changing, like, and then Jerry is the main manufacturer, Jerry has the sole manufacturing right for Gantum product. Right. So then we know Jerry's not going anywhere. We have to work with Jerry because he's the only one that can manufacture Gantem's light. Right. So so then how do we how do we, you know, build it up? Because without without the clear defined roles, in a way, whoever, even if we have hire a brand new team, it's probably going to run into the same issues. Unless you go, all right, we're going to hire a full Chinese team. Then everybody wouldn't have any communication issue with Jerry and, you know, we'll run the Chinese way, which I don't even know if that's something Kwon will want to do either, because this is a U.S. company. You're dealing with U.S. customers. So to a certain point, you want kind of want that as well in the U.S. Right. You want that president. You want that the American way in the U
Charlie Xu: Yeah, because maybe I want to explain a little bit why Phil said Jerry won't Andy, not just because not like taking his job, but pretty much because I feel like when we are hiding, when we are hiding Andy is to fill up Lucas's work before we have Lucas. And also Andy's background is designer and engineering. So more is, Phil want to have a separate American production line here. But for Jerry, he feels like, because he has so many experience on the detail, focusing on the detail of like, you know, he is very extreme on the details of the product quality. So he is extremely emphasized because he is exempt by Andy giving back. And the sheet, which is Junitel made an example for the U.S. team to just follow. But just even by observing what they've done, there's so many mistakes on that. So he kind of like questioned if Andy be able to capture if there's any quality issues on the production line. So because Phil has emphasized Andy is super professional here and there, but on his way, like Jerry's way of observe how Andy like present his work, he feels like he's not professional at all. So he is rather all stop all the product line, even like right now we have working on the 3D printed parts. Used to, they want to have local people and end up the quality is not as good as Chinese, the price is way higher than U.S. than China. And Jerry take on that responsibility and get a really good quality, and the U.S. team's really satisfied with that. So all this process, like Jerry said, hey, if you want to have a product line, you need to have exact the same procedure, the documentations on the lines. But he doesn't feel like envious the person will be able to do that.
Vania Chen: So, yeah, so that's, yeah. That's why also the one thing I keep hearing from Phillip is that, well, he doesn't do it right because that's not his job. So that's why I questioned. was like, so it's actually very important to know what is exactly what everybody's job. Like today, if that's not Andy's job, let's just make Andy do his job. Let's not make him do anything else, right? So then this way, you can judge him by his job performance instead of just like he asked him to do something and then. Like. I'm like. Come back and go, well, it's messed up because it's not his job. He's not supposed to know that. It's not his job, right? So then that's why, and I think that's not fair to Jerry, that's not fair to Phillip, and that's not fair to Andy either, right? Because one, like he, right now, maybe it's not his job, and then he's getting all these disapproval from Jerry, and so he already lost credibility from Jerry, right? Now Jerry is like, okay, so, because people, human are like that. Like today, if I work with you, and then you, and then I work for you, and I make all the mistakes, and all, like, I made a mistake here, I made a mistake there, there, and then you're going to start questioning everything I do, right? So there's that, okay, it's your quality.
Charlie Xu: I kind of lose the confidence for Jerry on the U.S.
Vania Chen: team, so it will be like putting his angle more judgmental than the strategy. Exactly. So then it's very easy to lose trust, right? Trust is very hard to build, but very easy. So then I think focusing on letting employees do exactly what they're hired to do and judge them by the performance is right now the next steps that we really have to take for granted. So then nobody can say that, okay, it's unfair, right? So today, if we're going to fire Andy, we're going to fire Andy for things that supposedly his job, but he didn't do right. Right? It's not something that we tell him to, you know, just wing it, and then he didn't do it right, and then we fire him for it. Then that's not fair to him.
Charlie Xu: Right?
Vania Chen: So I think that's the next big key point that we need to actually define what everybody does. And if there's hole in the middle, like saying that, okay, so Andy's supposed to do A, B, C, D, but then he's been doing A, B, C, D, E, F. And then who's going to do that E and F? Is a joke. joke. Are we going to do it? Or do we need to hire somebody else? Or is it Chris? Or is it Philip? It's whoever is going to do that ENF, right? And then we can define, all right, so then if ENF is going to be Jerry, then Jerry, this is what we're going to, like, then every enduring, like, weekly meeting, then you need to help us with this point E and point F, right? So I think that's, that's, that's going to help, and that's going to help with the conflict right now in between, like, right now because everybody is tensed, and everybody's, like, a little bit on the edge, and I heard, like, the last couple of meetings is, like, five hours and plus.
Charlie Xu: That's not normal. Well, know, yeah, because of the testing still have issues, so, so we have, that's actually very valuable catch-up, because, like, there's details end up, like, some product. Verifying there's some wrong pictures in there, and they said, oh, I have a long time ago, I've been updating these documents, but why the photo is still showing the old product? So we have to figure out, like, how they pull out the inventory sent to the lab and test it, and end up, like, that we find out this batch hasn't been sold out yet to having the new batch come in. So, like, if we don't dig that, easily we'll blame, oh, it's Andy's fault, or someone's fault, but we have to, using these, like, what really happened, to rebuild, you know, like, still the trust of what's going on. So, at the beginning, it's, it's, it's necessary of, like, like, finding it out what's happened, like, kind of like right now, I feel like every team people are traumatized because the conflict in between, but now. We have to train ourselves to really looking at the scene itself, to not adding up emotions and this and that. Yeah, so maybe the structure is necessary, like, hey, let's just, like, I do exactly what I'm asking for to do. If there's need to be shift, you might base on agreement on doing a shift.
Vania Chen: Yeah, exactly, and I think one of the most important is we need to define your role, because you are actually pulled in by multiple different threads, and then so your roles and responsibility in Gantam is actually kind of blurry right now, so then that's why you're doing, you feel like you're doing, you know, it's a double negative right now. It's like, you, you feel like you're putting your extra personal time, I'm doing all these things for you, right, and, and I am, I don't have to do this, I don't need to do this, this is, you know, this is not, not, not, you're. Wasting my time for this, and I'm, like, incurring all these, like, negative energy that you're making me do, right? But at the same time, the team was like, but...
Charlie Xu: I wanted to interrupt. I'm not, like, sending out negative information. At the very beginning, I'm very positive. I feel like I'm really doing my best to bring these two teams together. But, like, since Quan is saying, Phil is saying something behind me of something, then I feel like I need to confront him of, if you don't appreciate it, I'm telling you, I don't, rather, I'm not one to do this job. But, and I try my best. I try my best to set up the trust from each side. I feel like, you don't appreciate me, it's fine. But if you are still at the back, and if this is company culture of doing that, I doubt. Like, I'm trying to build friendship or whatever in between both sides, right? I honor what he's doing. But I know he is also frustrating to be as a role in their CEO. have so many people telling him this and that. I fully understand. But I feel like, hey, maybe we need to just have a solid foundation. Based on that, we can build up more trust. I'm not the one pouring negative things. I see a lot of people are, I see there's a lot of negative emotions.
Vania Chen: Yeah, I'm not the one wanting to pour more over there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, what I mean is like you started feeling grudges too because then you feel like you did all this time, but then you got blamed for it. You spend all the time and energy doing what you think is, you know, you're helping, right? But then you're getting blamed for things that you're like, what the hell, right? So, so it's, that's why, that's why I say that it's important to define. And then I think that's the next step that we're gonna, we're gonna actually. Draft it out. know Philip is drafting out. He's in Detroit right now, but he said he's going to draft out the employees' duties and whatever. Everybody basically rules and duty and whatever. And then we're going to define, we're also going to define you, define Kwon, define Jerry. So then we're going to start listing everything out. So we're like, all right, so this is what we're going to do. So that would be a good start. think, I'm hoping that would be a good restart. And then we can go, all right, so, and then everybody will just, you know, basically just really just judge by their own, like what they're supposed to do. Not like extra stuff like that, that. And like you said, I mean, it's not, it's not fair to you. It's not fair to, to Jerry. It's not fair to the team. It's not fair. Like, and I just, right now, all, a lot of these are not, I feel like a lot of the emotions are not necessary right now. And. But it's easier said than done, obviously, because, you know, it's people, it's human, it's just, it's natural. And then I, and then the thing is also, I, this is something that I feel like it can be resolved, and it really shouldn't affect you and Kuang. Right, so I don't know what happened, but I, I know that there's probably conflict because, you know, Philip is telling Kuang things, and then Philip is telling you things. And then, and then it was, and you and Kuang are, you know, you guys are very close. And obviously, you guys also have working two business together, plus you guys have kids and families together, right? So it's, it's a very, because Michael and I went through the same thing, and it's, it's a difficult position. Overall, it's very tiring and stressful for you, and for Kuang as well, I think. So that, I'm just, that's why I'm like, I, I wanted to, I wanted to make sure that you're okay with this whole thing, because I know it's. It's, there's probably conflicts, and it's not, it's not easy, especially between, like, for, between you and Kwon right now, and then it's, it's, yeah, but, but it's nothing, nothing is more important. Business is business, honestly, like, just, like, literally, you can, today, if you, let's say that, walking away, you know, if you just walk away, no, nothing is gonna get hurt, like, it's business, everything is replaceable, right? But families, it's not, so just, just, you know, just, I just want to make sure you're okay, that's why, that's why, that's the only, that's the only thing.
Charlie Xu: I know, yes, yes, yes, really appreciate it. Yeah, definitely, I, I'm also adjusting my roles, like, my kids are complaining, can quiet, can, can my dad, can dad find another partner? Like, they want to present myself as a, a mom, instead of, like, hey, I'm sitting in front of the computer, I'm doing this and that, I was busy, yeah, but, also. So I like, on the other side, I also just like JHO完美. I always spend a lot of time just doing the things like done. It's hard, yeah.
Vania Chen: That's the same thing, it's the same thing, it's the same thing, it's going to be cheaper, it's going to be easier, it's going to be faster, right? So then that's how we get dragged in in the first place, because you know what's in his head, and you can pull out what's in his head, you know, you can, you understand the stress, you understand how you can help, and then it's cheap, it's cheaper, because you, like, we don't take. salaries before, right? We don't take salaries, we're getting paid, like you're getting minimum pay, right? You're getting minimum pay, you finally, we're just raising you a little bit right now, but at the same time, like literally, you're just like minimum pay, right? So many, so many, so many job roles on my head, like each other, the cheapest labor, right? We're the cheapest labor, right? For them, and then it's a very good labor, because you can, you understand, you, you can relieve, and you know, it's the thing, but at the same time, 当 business进到, relationship里面的时候, it gets hard too, because there are times that, at the end of the day, he's the boss, right? He's my boss, right? He's my boss, but we're, we have a relationship together, so it gets more hurtful sometimes, you know? That's why, it's more easily get affected, and all that, so, so that's why, and at the end, At of the day, it's actually, it's not the business, but then we choose that, you know, it's easier for us to be friends. And it actually worked out for us.
Charlie Xu: Give me more respect and give you said more.
Vania Chen: It's a difficult role. It's actually a very difficult role. Like, for me, honestly, it's actually kind of funny. For me and him, we're fine. Like, for, like, right now, because before him, we're kind of, this is kind of our relationship already, right? So we still work with each other and all that. But it's hard for our families to understand. It's hard for our friends to understand. It's hard for my boyfriend to understand, right? And his girlfriend, right? It's just a tricky relationship, right? So it's, it's, it's, so I get it. That's why I get it. And, um, and you, and then it's messier for you too, because, messier for you because you have kids. You have kids together, right? So not, not just. The wife and the partner, have your mom, too. So it's harder for you. Complicated. Very complicated, yes. And then so you took on a lot. People might not see it, but the stress for you is actually just multi-layers for you. So just, you know, but just understand, you know, everything in business, you can walk away. Don't worry about it.
Charlie Xu: You can walk away. away. can walk away. You it's your life.
Vania Chen: worry. let him spend money. You can walk away. Now, it's because he gives you, he thinks he's paying you, but all the money is going into the family anyway. So it's all going to a joint pool. So he earns his salary versus, it's just in his world, or in Gantum or ZTAG of the world, it's just from one to two. That's it. And then, the next one. one. So, but nothing is not let, everything can be let go. So, yeah, so, so it's really, it'll be easier than you think to be replaced. And, um, that's why at the end, I walked away from the business for a couple, couple years. And it might not be a bad thing, you know, I don't know why I walked back, but, you know. But, you know, it's a, it's a, so, so, yeah. So, so, you know, it's okay. I just, I think, I think with the Phillip thing, we'll, we'll get it resolved. We'll line up roles and responsibility. We have a meeting set up in November. Everybody's going to sit down. Everybody's going to discuss. In the meantime, I'm going to walk, I'm going to work with Lisa and Jerry to see if we can figure out this $100,000 a month inventory thing.
Charlie Xu: Because we. I think it's so negotiable. I don't feel like Jerry is.
Vania Chen: Like, super harsh on the team, because before we've been doing so hard, like working so hard to reach today, and以前困難的日子都已经过来了, I don't feel like it's think now, because Gantum, in terms of Gantum, perspective, Gantum is three four years ago, same product is So, you know, a little of a new product, and then Gantum has been cruising for the last couple of years, right? So, know, it's a big change in and have products haven't been changing in So, same concept. all know, it's almost 2 to 2.5 million. Right, and then you have an change in of Gantum's like it's like, just差不多, just so much, that's we're going do. going to a in the product, We didn't have money to do website design, product renewal, all of those, marketing. Our marketing is Tray Show, but we don't anything else. Tray Show is bare minimum, right? Tray Show is bare minimum, just from IAAPA and the big ones. Phillip is doing Phillip's thing, right? He still has a lot of That's how Gantum still get all the business. It's all the relationships, right? It's not really necessary any of the marketing money that we spent. It's all the relationship that pull all the business in, right? So Gantum's been cruising for the last couple of years. And then so, 对于 Gantum 的 Team 来讲, 你其实有点那种就是我们其实一直都是这样,一直都不错. It's doing good, it's not great, but it's not, you know, we're not falling,
Charlie Xu: We're not dropping, we're just kind of cruising, right?
Vania Chen: Now the boat is rocking, because we wanted to do new things, want to, because,其实 product也到时间点说,也该更新了,因为现在外面的东西越来越一直都在更新嘛,再加上China-U.S. relationship, right?所以你这个Fulfillment Center又pop up了,你这个International,这个China,这个Tariff,这些有些东西开始慢慢的开始在rocking the boat, rocking the steadiness of the Gantum, right?所以现在才会有这种,这种,这种, like, wave coming up, like, there's little ripples coming up, right?所以那,那,那,那,其实我觉得怎么样去把Tim稳住,怎么样去把Jerry稳住,其实稳住了以后,我们之后要怎么去,那我们现在再差不多都还清了,我们之后要怎么样把这个,而且ZTAG现在也是self-sustain了,而且ZTAG现在就是making money now.ZTAG预定是 We're making more money than Gantem, right? since we're going to use the Gantem 3.0, because it was the 2.0, the 1.0 got us to a point, but we have a lot of debt. The 2.0, we clear out a lot of the debt, right? What is 3.0 going to look like? What is 3.0? Who's going to bring us the 3.0 Gantem, right? That's just something that, you know, I guess eventually we'll have to figure out, and that it's all, like, kind of the rope right now. It's just shaky, but we're going. We're getting there. We're getting there.
Charlie Xu: You know, but also, I think also the other part is Quan, he realizing he can still step back Gantem a little bit to giving a little feedback. I feel like, yeah. I I Ganton still, because it's very, it's also technical, a technical background. So like if Kwan fully step away, it will slow down the new products that still, yeah. So, and also the customer relationships. So sometimes maybe once a while, if Kwan's happy to, you know, go with Jerry to maintain this customer relationship or whatever, I feel like it's, we need to think the business, when it grows, it's not a burden, but it's still fun. And there's passion in leading this company forward. Yeah. it's not the same. So, so like for me, I work with Kwan on ZTAG. I still, like, I'm also just try to position my, my role in this company, but I do also see a lot of growth opportunity for me. So many things I haven't learned. And. How to working with team, other team, how to form a culture. I feel like these are also something like way beyond just being a mom, being a housewife. So I do see there's a lot of personal growth for me in there. So I think that's why I have the motivations. Like even I'm complaining of this and that, also I just try to balance myself, like these roles. How I can do it efficiently. I'm not there yet, but I do feel like it's all about mindfulness and being efficient and how to manage my time and how to create the lifestyle which is adapt to us. So we are homeschooling this year, so we're not busy with sending kids to school and bring them back and this and that. I feel like actually doubt. We diluted the family time, but now, like, even they get up early, I get up early, and the kids are wake up a little bit late, so I have time to do the work. So we try to find ways to, right now it's live, and hope in the future can thrive with a good home system, home business system.
Vania Chen: Wait, Tio's homeschooled too?
Charlie Xu: Yeah. Wait, what, I thought he's, uh, what's, what grade was he? He's fifth grade, fifth grade.
Vania Chen: Oh, you can homeschool fifth grade?
Charlie Xu: You can homeschool till, um, high school.
Vania Chen: Oh, really?
Charlie Xu: So, yeah, um, but he goes to a local, uh, learning center once a week, Sierra too. Um, besides, like, yeah, yeah, he's learning tricks, he's playing with, doing, like, a chip. Um, In the lightsabers, doing some programming. I feel like he will always find his interest on working on something. Yeah, so even in the future, a friend say, are they going to go to university or high school? It's too far to think that far yet. Maybe he will start a business, right? Maybe he wanted to do something on his own. We are all very open. It's okay. It's totally fine. It doesn't, there's only one way to reach, yeah, not only just through education. So let's see.
Vania Chen: It's everything is very open. So you even not necessarily let him go through like all the school, basically. It's, to you, it's fine. Like if you want to start, because I know he's very, like, ever since he was a kid, I heard that he take out, break it. But all the電器, just because he's to keep the Right? And then, then, then, then you pin the top. Right? So And then going into different things, you guys are always very supportive of Fathom. Yeah. he not go traditional education roles for him. May May, May?
Charlie Xu: For May I know? she go to college, but now I don't know. I think she was best be able to study my books. And I think she can study much more. 但是我覺得妹妹我太早送到學校我看到她我覺得她有一種就是純真的東西 但我覺得太早送到學校裡那種東西很快就會被磨掉 所以我就覺得有點希望能讓她在我身邊時間久一點的那個更solid一點 因為我覺得美國的小孩都很raw的就是很多那種尤其小女孩之間那種很trauma 就是I don't know too much那種電視裡看到的卡通片裡面的那種東西我不喜歡
Vania Chen: 我觉得就是小孩子一定要让他有他自己最本真最纯真的东西给稳住,然后你再去那你的这个你的这个本性的东西就会是你真正的发光闪亮的东西吗?但是现在大家都是就是很被磨掉,太早就被磨掉了,就很可惜吗?其实其实因为美眉,其实学校的前几年啊,学校前面几年的学校基本上就是Social Skill, Human Interaction and Social Skill,你说你真的学到什么东西,这些东西家长是都能教的,这个没有什么大,说实在没有什么大不了的东西,那那美眉就是,可是美眉他反正每次都跟哥哥出去比赛啊,去搞这个啊,跟他,我看他每次去玩悠悠,美眉也都在旁边晃,都在旁边跑来,所以Social Skill来讲,他应该是没有什么问题的,可能就是,如果整哪天真的要回到学校,他第一年第二年可能比较辛苦 就是要感应一下之前其他的,就是foundation的东西,因为学校本来就是从小就开始,foundation的东西开始build up,除非你们这样子很,一样都是叫他,还是要让他过去的话,or else she's,可能就是一二年会比较,比较辛苦一点,剩其他的话,我觉得他的social skill应该是没有太大问题的,我觉得也蛮大方的跑来跑去的每次都看到,这两个小野孩子,还好吧,反正我也不知道,我觉得现在也倒没有怎么真的去,很系统的教,我觉得有可能会,可能会考虑以后,google老师啊,就是能够系统的给他们再补一下,就我觉得我在这方面很不擅长,但是我觉得可能找一个老师能够很系统的去把这个东西给拎回来,我觉得还是需要的。多多少少过程,如果是有想要要回学校的话,那可能真的对他来讲,要不然的话,怕他说就是第一年回去
Charlie Xu: 太反感,因为就是突然一下只有他不会,你们都叫她孩子就搞了变成只有她不会,她反而我觉得可能会比较,会反而会排斥。对对对,我 eh", less a liberal sunshine, rồiので …然后她们小孩,现在三个小孩都回到学,原来是home school,后来回到学校系统,然后就是那个小女孩现在两年级,就是两年级是很focusing on reading,嘛', And his mother said that he had a little confidence in confidence, because he he couldn't accept that his children are better me.
Vania Chen: Yeah, it's just that he didn't get mad at Why did he always say that didn't get He would think that he was a mad at But it's not, it's not true. It's just that he didn't get into the past few years. Literally. Yeah, so... But anyways, okay, cool, very cool. Alright, so, so, ah, anyways, sorry, we're like, wait, wait. Tangen, but, yeah,给你update兩個東西,我今天我進去把你的那個Wescom修好了,那主要是幾個,就是,Wescom有幾個之前幾個東西,就是你中間有幾個transaction的interest跟principal搞錯了,所以有兩三個,沒有很多,只有兩三個,还有几个我看到里面就是它有一些其他的交易就是什么因为你们又借了6000块钱出来Solar Panel然后还有一些你们那个好像另外有一个你们是不是有个Account就是有Share Account就是有另外一个Investment Account那可能在那个里面会有进进出出的有一点点小小的什么Dividend啊什么Reinvest这种东西进去所以它有些交易是没有包含在就是你们的Payment里面的那我把这些调整了一下调完了以后然后最后
Charlie Xu: was transfer of 7,000,000.
Vania Chen: It was manual input versus pull-in the product. The product I would have to fix it, and that is 0. The debt's over. The account becomes closed, and alright. I will find that other other's then can get to do it. The is over. As you the payment is same. That's okay. Also, I know you said before there was big thing that was to simplify the chart of account, right? Simplify the chart of account, I'll give you a look at it. Now, I think my is this. Let's help you put it in... Because in Zoho, if you want to the chart of account, if you if you to chart of account, you can see... can see how many ... Right? 我有这么多 Marketing,可是我里面只要有数字,就是从以前到现在,只要有数字,我这个交易就删不掉。我这个交易就删不掉,我一定要说,我一定就是,除非我把所有的,之前的交易都移到其他的交易,我这个交易才能删掉。 Okay. That I was thinking about I don't know if you want to put the previous all of them to do you think about this is 2025 or all of the it is it is because we are doing this today to make a simple simple simple and you you will not put this as you just like printing printing printing printing printing and you have Conference of Printing, and the Travel, Conference Travel, and the Travel, and the Travel, the Travel. is all I have to put in chart of account, and let you see, and put any other things in. That I just need to change. Then I should the plan, then I will change plan change The beginning of time, 2023, 2022, 2022, 2020, 2020, all of the transactions, I need to change this account, for the other account to change the I can say, you can't put in archive. Right. that I don't know if you are you willing to this because there's a lot because I don't know if you want to do it don't know if you want it way to do it 全部做成 subaccounts,全部做成 subaccounts以后呢,我们report就是看大象,这个report看大象的话,就是GNA Payroll Benefit,那如果真的要打开来是可以,再把它打开来,要不然就是这个marketing,全部关起来以后,其实你marketing,如果我们再多设几个,就是把它,全部都并进去,并进去,并进去,你至少在report里面,你看到的东西,而且在dashboard的话, dashboard的话,其实你可以,因为你不是在你的home这边,会有那个dashboard吗,那不是有什么expense啊,什么东西,你其实在,你是可以在,这个chart of account里面,chart of account里面,去选择说,我这个东西要不要放在我 The dashboard, right? Now,假如說,假如說我們那個,我們可以直接就是,我不放細項,我就是放這個marketing expense,所有的marketing expense,我變成放這一個數字在我的dashboard裡面,那我是不是看dashboard的時候就可以知道說,我的,我就不看細項,我就只看說全部的,那如果真的哪天說,哦,我不知道是什麼東西,那我再到這個profit and large下面,再看那個細項,是嗎?對,再看細項,嗯,OK我是不知道說是這樣,要不然就是,要不然,就是我們進去移,我們進去把,該移的移掉,就是說,假如說,你今天跟我講說,Lodge transportation,這個,Milson Entertainment Lodge transportation,這三個,除了這三個以外,我其他都不要,那我就把所有的東西就是,因為我還有這個,confessed attending the Lodge,confessed attending the transportation, Right, and Conference Transportation, Transportation, and Meals. That I was saying, I want to put these three things in transportation, Lodge. This thing you want put in marketing, or you want to put in travel. This thing you want decide. If you decide, then we will put in different parts.
Charlie Xu: The first thing you want to if you only have transportation, or large, you can put it in a market cost. If you to in cost. The first thing you to if we want to go to the market for a year, then you can have transportation. Some of lot of So this is the marketing part the part But if it's done with it, it won't be done with the marketing part
Vania Chen: 除了Marketing之外,你还有什么Transportation跟Lodge?好像按道理就是比较少了,就是可能,对,变成是自己,可能就是Owner自己出来的,Owner自己出来的Lodge,一般来讲,我们这边的,我们这边的客人的做法是这样子,我的所有的Transportation,我都,如果说我所有Assuming Transportation,全部都是,都是那个的话,我会放在Transportation,我不会特别分出来说Marketing,什么东西的,可是,可是你要知道,基本上你公务的Travel,在你们在ZTAG里面,基本上都是Marketing,都是Marketing,或是Either是你的Production,反正就是你的,你的公式上面的Travel,可是你如果今天你知道说,你今天会想要分开来,是因为你想要知道说,我公式vs私事,我很公式vs私事。我公式vs私事,我公式vs私事。马lk比上去好多东西。我公式vs私事。可能 The Traveler, like, okay, we're to China, we're to China, and this trip is more for family visit, and this what we're going put in the employee benefit, right? This is a owner benefit, or employee benefit, right? That you know, because this thing is in grouping, you will know that you know that this actually is not a company, that if not a company, then we will simplify it. In the benefit, there will be a other benefit. You can add a other benefit, right? Other benefit is the owner benefit. It's not a there is no can add some categories. Okay. It's not a it's not a There's more for family It's want to buy some of things. It's not the name? a 就是你可能你刷卡的时候,甚至你只是刷错了,刷成公司卡, right?你刷错刷成公司卡,或者是你用了只是去travel啊什么东西,那你今天可能就是你这整个trip都是business,可是你中间跑到另外一个城市去玩,所以有个hotel,这个城市这几天的hotel其实是私人的,不是公司的,那这个东西的话,我就会觉得说你所有的,以简单的程度来讲,你只要看到车子就是transportation,看到hotel就是logic,可是你只要不是公司 related,就放到employee benefit,你这样子的话,你其实就很一目了然,就说,你就不用说,你就不用说每一次这样子,因为其实你放,讲实在话,因为每个会计,每个accountant,都会跟你讲一套不一样的, right?那以我们的,我们一直这边deep side的做法,就是说,travel is travel, right? Transportation,你车子,你车子有钱就是有钱, right?你,你,你,你不管是marketing travel,R&D travel,什么travel, It's your company's travel, right? company's travel is just one thing. should tell me how many travel is to go year, and then you need go to four or four or five lines, and I use marketing travel, and R&D, and cost of goods sold travel, and you need need go to a business That's a very complicated one. It's simple Business travel versus personal travel. Personal travel is a business benefit.因為這就是owner benefit.我公司幫我owner付的錢, right? travel就是 business travel.那我想問,如果是這個 Uhder benefit,那等於是裡面就是所有乱七八糟就全部都在裡面了,也不管.不管要分什麼類,就都在裡面就OK了.今天如果那那還有一個就是說,今天這個 honor benefit的話,就變成說 OK,我所有東西 owner benefit,就是這就是我所謂的 owner piggy bank, right?那你今天說如果說這個數字越變越大,越來越大 Right? You're going to bigger and bigger. You'll have to think about it.
Charlie Xu: That's I'm not to be to able able Right?
Vania Chen: is your decision. Right? Right? this owner benefit, a lot of times, the only one the most painful things is your tax. If you're saying this category too big, If you're in this category, you're a few thousand. You have to send million dollars revenue. and then no one will ask you this and then you will through it but today if you're saying if you're saying this account because there's lot of so I'm telling you it will be a few million dollars a month this time we will start thinking I'm not going to this thing out of here because this thing is you have too much piggy bank that we need to do because in Deep Sky in Deep Sky Deep Sky Michael actually no money Michael no money that the expense that is the piggy bank Right? That the P.E.Bank, we have be divided by benefits. We have to be divided by benefits, expenses, fitness expenses, meals, entertainment, whatever. Right? We have be divided by This is his money. So we need to know what he wants to know. This is We have to divided by We have on to take care of ourselves. If they are taking the cost. So expenses, can be the power of As long owner benefits as those types of have to divided by Not much big data, or when is a dental part, it just says you can care the and just go ahead and go out.
Charlie Xu: Okay, okay.
Vania Chen: Right? So this is just to look at... Many of the charter account It's not really... 一定要怎么样,那你看到我这边,我这边加了一个 account code,这个 account code也是,也是,我也没有就是,我只是要加大的 code,就是大的 category,因为我想要排,把它排到一个,因为你Zoho里面比较麻烦,就是它的,它的,你没有办法去说,哦,我marketing drag到上面,什么东西 drag到下面,我只能用,我现在只能用 account code来 line up,就说,OK,我要,我要,我要, payroll first,然后benefit下一个,然后再来是marketing,再来facility,再来professional,再来other expenses,这样子,所以除了这样子,我,我,除了用 account code,我没有办法,其他的方法去排,那,所以才会有这个,那这个 account code,其实也都可以改,也都可以改,那就是看你们,你们想要说,怎么样去,怎么样去,去,去,去,去,去,去,去group,怎么样去搞这个东西,怎么样去,比较觉得说,对于你们来说,对于你们来说, 怎么看比较简单,是你们想要看到的,那我们就怎么样去group这个东西,那我觉得像我讲的,就是你可以,比如说这个number是你add it进去的,就是你想要一个什么,对对,这个其实要改很好改,那我,因为你如果到accounting,然后chart of account的话,那,那你看他这个,他这个好处是他会跟你讲说,OK,你看这一个,这个所谓的parent category,跟subcategory, right,travel entertainment,这个就是大的category,那我就把你所有的,我把所有的那个travel,都把它放到这下面,我还没有把marketing move过来,因为我不知道你们是想要,要不要分,以我的做法,我会分过去,OK,那那个,那个,可是问题是这个,这个东西,那这边这样点进去的时候,你就可以,他其实就是,你如果要把它改subaccount code,就是,这边改了 And this is a big account. This is a parent account. And if you say today, you want to put marketing transportation, I want to put in transportation. If look at transportation, if look at the subcategory, it's in conference accounting. But if you to put to travel and entertainment, then my grouping, my travel, this thing, I just want to put it the subcategory. So actually, these things can be changed, and it's pretty good to change. Just when you report out, you want to put where to how to look. Just when you at subcategory. Just 3 years ago.
Charlie Xu: Travel and Meals Entertainment. That meal is it's in the bottom of the section. It's weird.
Vania Chen: There are some things that going to about. travel meal is not supposed to the bottom of You can't have to say that not supposed to be marketing conference travel. It's the category is in the travel entertainment section. So you even just changed the mills entertainment Meals entertainment That means it'll become mills entertainment Marketing and event meals This means we just to travel So can be平行了 But this is we are looking for 就是說你今天在report的時候呢 你這個東西就變成說是 停一下好了 因為我現在把它放到Meals下面嘛 那我的Meals Entertainment就變成有一個細項在裡面了。 我的Meals Entertainment就變成有個細項,那我可以把它關掉說那就兩個碰碰是這個,或者是我把它分開來就是有一個Meals Entertainment 和一個Conference Meals, right? 那如果是擺在Travel 跟Entertainment下面的話 那我就會有一個Meals Entertainment Line, 然後有一個Marketing Event Meals Entertainment Line, right? so this is to at you decide to put it where to where to to subcategory then you then set up and give you a total that overall is to look how to how to how to mill I think mill or that it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it Category Booking的时候,我就是看email,哪个mail跳出来,我就选那个,就现在好像so far一个是什么叫onsite mail,还是一个什么category叫onsite mail,一个是tracial时候的这个mail。其实mails呢,其实这个是我们的,我分的这个teammail and onsitemail,mails其实分三种,其实我们会要分这三个,一个是因为是owner purposes,他要知道说,你这个这一餐是吃什么嘛,再来一个就是tax purposes,因为最大的difference就是说,你的team event,so called team meal,team event,跟你的travel的时候的,你的meal是100% deductible,可是你的meal is entertainment,你就是所谓出去socializing,去跟客人吃饭的话,IRS的意思就是说,你自己这一份不是deductible,因为你也要吃饭,是你请客人的才是, So, by average, Males Entertainment is only 50% deductible. So,基本上,我们的 Males,我们这边的做法是,我们的 Males 是会分成三种。一种是,我们叫 Team Males,一种,也就是所谓的 Team Event 跟 On-site Males,另外一个是 Males Entertainment,就像你那个,然后再来一个就是所谓的 Per-diam, Per-diam的意思就是,你如果在 Travel 中间,所以你如果在飞啊,什么东西,最常看到 Per-diam是什么,是 Hudson News,你知道在机场里面的那个 Hudson News啊,买个饮料,买个 Sandwich,买个什么东西,或是在那个机场吃饭啊,这种东西的,或是甚至就是你可能开车路上,开车加油站买个饮料,买个什么东西,就是小小,就是所谓,你知道 you're on the road, Per-diam,通常都是, Per-diam都小小的,基本上都是小小的,来都不会有大的尿,然后再来,什么下面呢,那个一般是在什么 Calgary 下面,在 Travel Per Diem is in travel.
Charlie Xu: Oh, okay, okay.
Vania Chen: And that is part of the travel expenses. Okay. So it's 100% deductible, right? It's a part of the travel expenses, right? And another one is team mail. So the team mail is your team event. Now, many times we have categorized, We have to the office, we office We have to at the Because of we have office space. space is not the same, because there are many we can know that fees are So from deep sky to we can't make a at the one, at for is the best have So we have look office space space space. Just if I see that in the office space space, it's 15-20 miles area. It's about 15 all know where to go Like Gantum is in Valencia Or Orlando Orlando附近吃的大概就是可能150块钱以下的东西,我们的 threshold 好像是150,应该是150,我要看一下我们的wiki,你们自己也可以设一个threshold,可能在办公室附近,就是你们的Valencia附近的,或者是你整个LA的,你150块钱以下呢,是不是就是全部都是team,等于就是你跟你自己,可能就是中间大家一起去吃个午饭啊,带小朋友出去吃个午饭啊,这算是team的,right?那你如果真的要specific的话,那就是说,ok,如果是跟小朋友的,那就是去benefit,那如果是跟矿,或者是跟那个,如果Chris is in town,然后你们去吃个饭啊,或者是什么东西的这种,或者Chris说需要去跟饭,anyways,你们现在不是有一个California多个人吗?那个叫什么名字啊?忘记了,Jordan? No, I forgot,anyways.Talifornia,New York,New York,okay,所以也不是local,反正就是这种东西就是可能就中间去吃, We put in a meal right? Just you can go to the meal, right? I don't it's too much to say that it's not a big deal. Right? And then, other thing is, to ask the customers to eat. To ask the customers to eat what's going to ask the customers to eat what's going on, to ask team, to see the team park, to do some things, to introduce them. You just need be with the customers. The meal and entertainment. Entertainment also includes that. Maybe they have a theme park ticket, to them to showcase, or maybe they have a theme park. This is the meal and entertainment. goes to the M&E. Right? That's the meal. The meal is the three. We usually just have three. We the things. We have all the things to be grouped. The three. You don't there. You So we details of the company and mail. We usually have an office, the company the house. If we have a team of 1-800-800-800-800-800-800-800-800-800-800-800-800-800-800-800-800-800-800 we will decide to take Team一起 to go lunch, or take the team to dinner, or take the team to lunch. That's right. Actually, in the financial life, expense is expense. You're not going to create a big deal. I want to change my agenda. But in your place to put in category, it becomes a lot of So it's like this, it's like This is 150 yen yen, or is it just this? Oh, 以下, 那在 Office 附近, 还是没有在 Office 附近, 那就很快了, 那就一个就进 Per Dam, 一个就进 Team, 那150块钱以上呢, 就是哦, 那这是跟谁吃的, 跟谁吃, 那如果是跟 Team 吃, 那还是进 Team, 如果不是跟 Team 吃, 就是 Meals & Entertainment, 就这个决策就变得很快, 而且你也不容易去搞混, 那你之后很容易, 人家如果人家问你说, 哎, 你这里面都是什么东西, 你就讲说哦, 150块钱以上, 然后跟客人吃饭的,就是全部都是 Meals & Entertainment, Right, 就变得很, 很 clean cut, 你只要, 只要每个 category 有这种很 clean cut 的 definition 的话, 其实就不容易弄混, 那不容易弄混的话, 你什么东西都进同一个, 那其实之后你就算要去 clean out, 你就算要去再多分出来的话, 也很容易再去多分, Right, 那所以我会觉得说, 那所以也不需要去分说什么你的 travel, 我觉得车子就是车子, 你所有的充电的钱, 你充电的钱, 你充电的钱, 你 我觉得你还不需要来, 我觉得是给你做两个月, 你呢, What do you All in transportation. That if go to the you can say, the plane is something for me or for my company. If you go to the plane, it's all in transportation. You don't have say marketing, R&D, Costaga, and don't have to This is the plane, the plane is expense.
Charlie Xu: We use transportation to be as much as You just said that there are some mills deductible 100 Is there a that have a list of what is deductible 100 or 50 Is there a standard or something?
Vania Chen: Actually, the mills of entertainment is 50% The other thing is 100% And there is another one Because you have Tesla truck Cybertruck Vehicle Expense, so that's when I was talking about, was about Patrick to talk about this.IRS to buy a car, they will take care it a little more. I was thinking about what's going on, what's going on, what's on, what's going what's on, what's on, what's on.道理说,我所了解的就是你给这个客人的责任, anything只能 deduct 25 块, anything over 25 块钱其实是 not deductible, right?可是你会,一个是客人的责任,一个是你买车子的钱,一个就是所谓的 Mills Entertainment,就是基本上你要想到就是在这责任上面,什么比较有可能存在个人的东西?基本上就是IRS就是一个很概括的想要抓你说大部分的owner都是在哪里去把自己的交易,不是非 The related transactions should pad to where to. That's basically this kind of thing. You say this gift, we also put in marketing, we call client relations. You buy a lot of things like printing, promotion gift, conference, this is 100%. The one is 100% of the Tesla truck. The other is that Milson Retainment. The other is all... I think there aren't any other things.
Charlie Xu: The other is 100%.
Vania Chen: If they have any new tax updates. I didn't keep up with taxes. I don't keep up with taxes. don't I don't want to follow them I don't want to do it again. So maybe there are new updates. Especially as Trump administration Trump administration. There are several... The tax reform, that this is I don't know, but generally, it's mostly about Males Entertainment. So, many times, you file tax returns, the company will ask you, what's meal, what's meal, what's meal. They will ask you, it's 50% and 100%. But there are no other ones.
Charlie Xu: Okay, okay. Males Entertainment, okay. Actually, like, you said, Males Entertainment, it's quite small. It's just a little bit more. We have a client with a... Actually, we...
Vania Chen: Because, know, don't have to go on-site to do training.
Charlie Xu: Oh, right.
Vania Chen: So, you know, will go on-site to do training. So, you know, per diem will be more. Because it will have travel expenses. to you soon. Here's Bye. Thank So it's a travel expense, it's a pre-term, you might just have to lunch with a lunch, which is a pre So it's a travel expense, and travel It's not a pre-term expense, it's not pre-term expense. 可能走了就不会像是其他多公司 就是哦那你们下午来我们一起吃个饭 这样或是你们中午来一起吃个饭 学校比较少这种 所以会比较少 所以你们的这个应该会还好 可能你们的team 因为你们的员工如果变多 你们如果每年有那种什么就是 你们team meal啊这种可能 可能team benefit可能会稍微变多一点 可是 因为你们都 对啊因为你们都学校 学校好像没有这种 不能说就是哦大家一起去吃个饭 So the Milt's Entertainment, the the Milt's the And like you said, that you you went to Vegas, all the time to eat food, this is called Milt's Entertainment. Any other way, even if you and Jerry are eating food, actually according to you is Milt's Entertainment.
Charlie Xu: OK.
Vania Chen: So the Milt's your store, stock store, R&D, it's your store, Just like with a vendor and what to eat, it's a little entertainment.
Charlie Xu: Do you know the term per diem?
Vania Chen: T-I-E-M Actually, in the Travel Account, it's a per diem.
Charlie Xu: T-I-A-M? Oh, D-I-E-M, okay. Travel per diem. Okay, because I don't know the word, so I don't to this.
Vania Chen: Actually, travel per diem is like like travel in the incidental. 就是你想说你的Travel,除了,除了,你就想说那个Travel,Travel里面Incidental,就是可能就是,哦,你晚上不舒服去买个药啊,或是口渴去买瓶水啊,然后路上肚子饿了买包零食啊,买个热狗啊,买个汉堡啊,这种东西,就是所谓的Travel Incidental,其实就是所谓的Predem,会用Predem这个字,其实就像是那种很多公司,就是有Predem Policy,就是说我公司,就是我Either,很多公司的Predem,就是走两种路线嘛,时报时销,就是你Travel的路上的,你今天,讲说我今天是Travel Day,我今天的这些,有的没有的Expense,我公司给你报时报时销,要不然就是,其实IRS有一个,有一个Rule,就说,因为其实你们现在会有Traveling Employee,其实这个东西也可以去搞一下,也可以去想一下,就是我一天就是给你50块,因为每个,每个,每个地区,讲说可能我今天要到Arkansas,或是我今天要到New York,,或许多宗监uru。 IN POLICY, INCIDENTAL的这些东西,嗯,那这些其实都应该要算在TRAVEL下面,嗯,嗯,OK,对,那其实我像,比如说像Starbucks这种的就是,其实可能就像Per Dem,这样的,对,对,TRAVEL Per Dem,那很多时候,要不然就是你们,如果Starbucks都是,都是在家里附近,就是你们也有习惯,就是天天买一杯的话,那那其实也可以放在TEAM里面,嗯,所以全看,那很多时候我们就是看城市,就像你讲,我们在,我们在去,去,我们Deep Sight去,去,去,去Groop的时候,就是,我今天看,我的,价钱嘛,我就变成我的Question,我的Question,就是一,你可能甚至你觉得150块钱太高,那就是100块钱,100块钱以下,我说100块钱以下,我就纯粹看城市,嗯,嗯,在家附近的就是,就是挺,在家以外,我就算是同一个Starbucks,我只要不是在LA,我都是算,可是我,,就是这么多的地方。想法,是什么神秘国的小型战友,其实,是我们的缘子对了 If it's in LA, I'm to be team, so that's one, that's 100.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000.000. The thresholds is in where? Is it to ask people to it okay? Do you is what is You must say thought the person is think this is the of Like 30050.000.000.000.000.000 what's right. You may have to strategy.
Charlie Xu: Did you it after that? 会不会有一个就是调整完的一个list可能比如说像比如说我可以打赢出来的一个list就是很直观那我可以get used to这个新的一个框架
Vania Chen: 这样的话,我可能知道哪个是,就是都有一些什么,因为我觉得现在好像可能并不是我知道所有的这个框架,所以我只是会放我所知道的,但是可能这里面好像可能都知是零,因为我从来都没有用过。OK,可以啊,那我们就是把我们把你现有的chart of account弄出来,然后我们选几个就是把整个category,那你以后就只book这几个,这样子也可以,我们可以这样子做法,那我们慢慢慢慢的就可以把剩下的移掉,移到这几个大项里面,我们就可以把它慢慢清掉,那可是主要还有一个就是你们,你们要确定说,我今天,今天我今天没有不改,想去动的就是因为,纯粹就是因为说,如果我改了,以后,我把它全部移了,改了,换了category以后,我之前的history会,没有,会消失掉。 You know, I'm just putting in marketing event meal, if put in entertainment, meals entertainment, I'll go back to 2022, maybe there's so much time. Because I want to put it the same place, I put it the I put it same place, I put in same place. same place, put in place, so I put in same place. I don't know if you will take it in Like for me, I think it's fine.
Charlie Xu: But... You say that you have to what the Is it...
Vania Chen: ... ... ... ...
Charlie Xu: ... ...
Vania Chen: ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Some things are going to be different, right? Travel, Mils & Entertainment, especially your marketing, really, especially your marketing. Actually, marketing, we should still have a conference event. Conference event, for me, think it's just one. All conference event I put in there. For me, if conference event is big event, I think it's a booth and ticket. And all attending costs. Just one booth, one ticket. Because you travel all the time travel. And there's your promotional items. These things, you find out. Advertising, general, is your agency. If you have to ask marketing agency, Or you have to ask some things. This, you can find out. Sponsorships, you can find out. After I剩下的东西, If I剩下的东西, If I just thinking of printing, and the printing, And the printing. Thank you. 對,對,對我來講其實是一樣的,那我是不是應該是全部東西都Merge 掉以後,我其他的都刪掉,對,嗯哼,呀,而且我覺得那個所謂的Marketing General,既然因為我已經都細分了,我就想這個 General 都應該可能,要麼就是,就是 Printing,就是現在感覺有好多類,對,可是 General,有時候有一個 General 也好,也有好處的,就是說,你,你知道,有一個 Agency,你有個 Agency,你要放哪,你是不是還要再,搞一條出來,為什麼今天會有這麼多,Category,就是當,在做的那時候,Stan,或是誰在做的時候呢,他看到這個東西,他覺得說,哦,沒有一個,可以放進去,那我再加一行,那你,他在加一行的時候,這個可能就用這幾次,之後就不用,然後就卡在這邊,然後就一直就用,Right,像你這個 Conference Shipping,到現在,來 都是你2024年有,那表示STAN會用,可是2025年這就表示你就沒有再用這一塊,就沒有再用這個,因為你除了Conference Shipping 以外,你還有其他的 Shipping Costs,我就是GENERAL的 Shipping and Postage,反正我都會就放在那個裡面了,所以會變成說,那我們是不是乾脆就是,你很多東西就是,為什麼有時候GENERAL會有這種好,就是因為像你的Agency,你的有很多東西,你的One-Time,就是你不知道,像是你如果有一個One-Time的Web Design的Contractor,或是他只是進去幫你修一個,那個,什麼 Terraform啊,什麼東西,只是幫你修一個,修一個這個,那種 WooCommerce,什麼,任何的一個,一個小東西,那這個One-Time,你是要再Create一個Marketing Web呢,還是就可以放到GENERAL裡面去,GENERAL,我們的想法就是,不要常放,可是如果真的有你放不進去其他東西, Other,又确定在Marketing的,那就放到General裡面去,會變成是有種這種,就有點像Other Miscellaneous一樣,可是我們會希望說這個裡面Account越少越好,就是這種,就是所謂的General跟Others這種idea裡面,Other Account就是越少越好,可是真的有必要的時候,你還是放進去,Instead of Create一個新的Account,你還不如就放進去,那可能就是,如果你這個就像Benefit一樣,當你這個Account越來越好,越來越大,越來越大,越來越大,越來越大的時候,你就變成要進去說,我是不是有東西需要分出來了,為什麼我這個數字會越來越大, right?那就表示真的,那我們可能要需要,到了一定程度,我們就需要去開另外一個Line,去把這些東西再放進來,這樣子,所以,那也是會是一個很好的,就是你不需要什麼東西都,再多一條線,什麼東西再多一條Line,什麼東西再多一條Line,這些真的就是,純粹就是之前的,每次覺得有什麼不夠, to,h你再多一條Line We to line. We need to line, and need to test the line.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Okay. Okay. I think there are not to say that big, but I think there are Some people who need to they need test Then there are some that to test it. to marketing in order to be to I think these are slightly more additional controls. But I think really a big thing, but I think it's a bit thing. I think a lot of these things are really good, but sometimes there are them that just don't need to be in the so a of parts that do print. I think we can be compared to some of in marketing, the printing job, that就可以了 You don't have trade, I think marketing is a one. It's a marketing, and then there's marketing.
Vania Chen: You can't print it. The expo material supply is one. Printing is one. Shipping is one. Merchandise and marketing printing is one. You can't you have a printing and shipping. This is a printing and postage. So you don't to pay You don't know where put that one. You can put this one. This this one. So you can put one. And you don't know where to go. This is a bad place. But why do you exist? That means you have to use. You have to do it before You have to it before So it becomes Okay Create this thing. You have to create create this You have create this to create this thing. But you are just thinking about it. don't have to create So now we can do this. I'm going to all your account. I account. I will send video account.
Charlie Xu: I will send the description.
Vania Chen: will send it to you. If give to me, you After look after, we will decide what to leave, what to leave in the middle. We will just put it in the middle. Just like this. What is completely not necessary. We can do it any other. We it to Just like this. Can you do with me? I think this will be more useful. It will be more useful It more useful Yeah. I know, I'm to look at the CC Accounting Feet, Payment Processing Feet, and Bank Feet.
Charlie Xu: I can be in the middle. No, you have a Bank Feet.
Vania Chen: Okay. So, this is case. So, you have to use That means, that's other, we might need pin it, and that their credit card charges, can one be able to pin, pin it one, I think that's list. Like, Stripe Feet, we don't what, will need pin it.
Charlie Xu: a Stripe Feet through the which is Stripe Feet with the credit card fee?
Vania Chen: Do not, just it's Around the a list It's a list of you're one. debit fees. You're just one. You're just one. You're just bank fee Just you, those are charge of your 就是 Fee,需不需要分开?Five 或者什么的,我觉得就都在一起,不需要了。OK,好,我们这个步骤是这样,你知道矿有决定,你记得那个时候问他几个KPI吗?Dashboard的KPI,他有选好说要看哪几个。你问爸爸在哪里?OK,没关系,可以问,因为今天其实已经有一个半小时了,你不要帮我问他吗?我们那个不是好像要弄这个KPI的东西?就是我这边还有几个问题,还有一个就是我的那个,就是我的这个, salary rise,然后就是每次会有这个automation,那这个automation的这个是在哪里? 你把这个稍微改掉,哦,我是这个bill,对对对对,忘记了,等一下,ok,这边,你到purchases的话,这个bills,你到recurring bills,哦,ok,因为我想要让你用match最基本的,那因为你现在要改了嘛,那其实就是改这个15号跟30号这个, Oh, this is manually加进去的是吗? manually加, because Gusto doesn't sync, because Gusto doesn't sync, so I manually加了一个就是说, so it's just you have a big frame, it's the That because now that you're going to you just want to 15th and the 30th of this, it's it's same thing, it's the same thing That's the thing, you just want to change the tax, okay, that's the same Recruiting But you don't need to, you just to say that we're just going to create, I don't need this, then you just want to tax
Charlie Xu: Okay, Vania問你,你上次問到想要哪些 KPI,就是能夠,嗯,你要不要做,你要不要,說一下,他問你有沒有選,就是當時,我不知道你記不記得,我們那時候聊的,哈嘍,好久不見,好久不見,好久不見。 Yeah, okay, so for ZTAG, KPIs? Mm-hmm. Mainly, I think quotes at what stage and a lead conversion into next steps. Because right now, Charlie is doing a lot of social media campaigns. And, wait, hold on a second. You know, I'm thinking about, yeah, okay. Um, the biggest unknown right now is, we're trying to... See if there's ways to fan additional sales outside of the school academic season because that tends to happen right in the middle of the year and then it tapers out towards the end. So she's doing a lot of online campaigns, but the problem with the online campaigns is these leads coming in are fundamentally at a different stage of the pipeline compared to your trade show. Because if you're thinking about a trade show, these people have blocked out several days of their careers, right, to fly out, to go there, to attend the conference, and to see a demo. So they're like way further down in the pipeline versus someone just casually flipping through Instagram. It's like, oh, that looks interesting, right? And so we can't treat these two types of leads as the same, so they need to be segmented. And I want to know these newer leads, what is that percentage conversion, at least into them wanting? to get a quote versus us just, you know, sending them the same treatment because it's going to fall off. It's like, it's like someone just wanted to go get a drink and then now you're trying to marry them, you know? It's like, it's big of a step. It's like, they're just hanging out at the bar, barely doing anything, versus here, you want to get married.
Vania Chen: But there's a different, there's a different stages of conversion for this one, like, right? Is it, is it from co-lead, basically from, from leads to actual appointment, from appointment to, or, or actual conversation, from conversation to actually placing, like, what's the, like, when you talk about conversion, when you talk about, from, because that's co-lead, right?
Charlie Xu: From, from, from ad campaign. Yeah, I would, it, it's kind of weird because almost, Gantam and ZTAG has never had co-leads until now. So, it's, it's like, we, by DNA, almost don't know how to deal with it. And, and we're still sending them the same form and process we would have done. And with a much warmer lead, you know, like, we call, like, warm leads someone who has already, like, seen the product, played with it, or happy with it, takes some flyers back, and they're, like, willing to engage. Versus someone who's just, oh, flipping, okay, I'm going to send in a little letter, right? And then we're putting them through the same process, but it's scaring them away, or it's not even relevant yet. You got to, like, kind of, because they're so cold, you got to, like, start, probably only ask one question at a time until they're, like, oh, yeah, I'm committed. Almost to the point where, like, four years ago, before we had a decent website, like, we made people work to actually make a sale. Like, they had to work to convince us that we want to sell to them. But now it's, like, she's sending these Instagram ads, and they're coming in, but we're treating them the same way. And, like, we did get one sale from, which is great, but... I don't know how repeatable that is. And if we can get some kind of a better metric about how many of these can we actually have more than just, we send them an email and then they just ghost us. You know, that's kind of the typical thing right now. It's like probably nine out of 10 will just ghost us.
Vania Chen: Yeah, well, that's the, so, so, so, yeah. So that's why I say that when you say KPI conversion, like, because this is a multiple, like you said, it's multiple steps, right? It's from a call to actually a cell. There's so many steps in there. What's a successful conversion to you to actually get to a cell or to just, oh, they, they actually talk to us. And then the rest is based on cell's ability.
Charlie Xu: I think at the least right now, if we can get them to just reply to more than one email, that's already better. Because right now we're like sending them back the same email we would send a much warmer lead. I don't know how repeatable that is. And if we can get some kind of a better metric about how many of these can we actually have more than just, we send them an email and then they just ghost us. You know, that's kind of the typical thing right now. It's like probably nine out of 10 will just ghost us.
Vania Chen: Yeah, well, that's the, so, so, so, yeah. So that's why I say that when you say KPI conversion, like, because this is a multiple, like you said, it's multiple steps, right?
Charlie Xu: It's from a call to actually a cell. There's so many steps in there. What's a successful conversion to you to actually get to a cell or to just, oh, they, they actually talk to us. And then the rest is based on cell's ability. I think at the least right now, if we can get them to just reply to more than one email, that's already better. Because right now we're like sending them back the same email we would send a much warmer lead. And then we're kind of, and it's basically kind of tanking the conversion because those warmer leads are a lot more engaged versus this one. They're like, what did I get myself into? It's not like it takes much effort on our side because it's just an automation, but that automation is on, it's on the wrong pipeline. You basically have to build a separate campaign just for all the cool lead right now, basically. Exactly. I think once we get that, like the volume of people coming in as an inquiry has increased significantly. Like we're getting probably, you know, five new leads a day. But I would say, you know, one out of 10 actually even responds to the first email. So I think we're doing it wrong. Like we should at least be just asking like a simple one sentence question or something first. Okay. Yeah. Um, yeah. Yeah, so it's just hard, like, when you look into the CRM right now, the deals, it's really hard for me to know actually how healthy it is, because it's mixed now. Yeah. Oh, there's actually something else I just built this morning I want to show you. This is kind of fun. Let's see. It's the first time I've been able to visualize our customer. Hold on, let me see where it go. It's loading. Okay. You may have shared screen. Oh, yeah. I have to load it. Okay. Share screen. Okay. Yeah, built this with AI this morning. So... You could look at, you know, just obviously California has most of the deals, and there's some in the East Coast, but they kind of centralize, you know, in these areas. And then here's another, this is a fun coverage map.
Vania Chen: I took AI to look at what the county lines are, and how many schools are in each county, and just do an approximation of penetration.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, school coverage, that's cool. Yeah, so, you know, there's so much untapped territory, right?
Vania Chen: Yeah. I mean, even just California alone, it's like 10 times bigger than anybody else.
Charlie Xu: Yeah.
Vania Chen: And I want to be able to show, like, are we making progress on this coverage?
Charlie Xu: So I don't know exactly how that converts to KPI yet. But at least, you know, things like this. Macroscopically, is helpful. What are you building this on? I wouldn't even know. I just asked AI to build it for me. Yeah, all I did was I took the export of our accounts, leads, and deals as a CSV. And then asked AI to build a map for you then?
Vania Chen: Yeah. Okay. What AI are you using? I'm using, I use all of them. Well, this is using Cursor with Codex, OpenAI Codex. It's specifically for developers. Okay. Yeah.
Charlie Xu: So when you ask me what did I build it with, other than the AI I can name, like the actual packages inside, it's beyond me. Okay. Got it. Got it. Got it. Okay. But this is, you know, kind of outside of ZTAG, though. So it is a...
Vania Chen: It's long-term trend that SaaS will probably go away in the near future, or not near, maybe in like two or three years, because things like this, you won't need to buy software. You will have it generated on demand. Yeah. Yeah, you basically just give AI, oh, here's my data. Give me an app that shows it to me the way I want it. Yeah. Or you pay that, or right now it's going to be mostly, right now it's a lot of basically app build with AI automations, so then people kind of just one click and everything's set up, and then basically the ongoing pools through APIs and dashboards.
Charlie Xu: That seems like the trend right now.
Vania Chen: The reason why OpenAI or any of these companies are evaluated at billions or trillions of dollars is because they're not competing with a single app company, they're competing with the entire SaaS as a whole. Because they'll just replace them.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. OpenAI is, yeah, it's crazy right now. Because literally, I have the next office, they're talking about platforms, AI platform right now. Like literally, like there's one meeting I know it's about the, what was that, Snapchat's chatbot there? And then there's like a, and also like another fricking developer, AI platform. Where are you? You're in Vegas right now. Yeah, I'm Vegas, yeah.
Vania Chen: Are they building a server farm there?
Charlie Xu: No, it's just projects. Projects after projects. Everybody want to build an AI platform, basically. Yeah. So, yeah. But anyways, yeah. But this is, as for now, this is not automated. You put in the, and basically what you can do is you literally import by times and then. We can track it by time with it. Yeah, yeah. I think for me, high level, we're just looking at what, being as leading, indicating as possible, like predicting what is coming down the pipeline and how to schedule factory orders. That's probably a very important one. The other thing is we are converting from version 2 to version 3 hardware. We just have 30 units. You know about the recall we did, right? No. Oh, okay. Well, we have customers 2023 and prior, they have hardware issues that are kind of fundamentally unsolvable. So we're basically recalling all of those products and then having them pay $2,000, which is even below our cost, to upgrade it to our version 3. let's quickly finish. Thank
Vania Chen: So basically, rather than penalizing them for being first adopters, we're going to lower than cost sell them this new system that's even – so they are early adopters, again, in this new generation. That's even better than the V2.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, so we just shipped 30. I think we have probably another dozen or so to ship. And the V3 is going to be first sold to the IAPA customers, the entertainment, because they're kind of like – they're a rougher customer for the product.
Vania Chen: They use them in harsher settings.
Charlie Xu: So we're kind of using it as like a subsidized trial. And once that works, we're going to taper out of all the V2s for educational setting and then move it over to education.
Vania Chen: And also, the cost on them is about the same from our standpoint. But for the entertainment customers, We them $3,000 more because they're harder. And then for the education customers, we're still going to keep it at $9,700.
Charlie Xu: Got it. Got it. What's the use case in entertainment? Oh, like birthday parties, events, or they go out and host it at schools. So sometimes, you know, a school, they may not be committed to buying the equipment yet, but they want to do some kind of a, like an assembly or some kind of a fun Friday event. So they'll hire our customer to go out and host it for them. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Kind of like an event rental type. Yeah. Yeah. It's like you can, you can either have the bounce house person drop a bounce house and use it, or you could just buy the bounce house if you're going to use it every day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. Okay. So, okay. And, and, sorry, I'm going to backtrack a little bit. I'm going to ask one more. Yeah. Thank So you guys are doing online campaign, and then obviously you want to do the percentage increase on the map. Where is the online campaign focus? What's the area that you guys are focusing on? Okay, so right now we're doing the Facebook meta business ads. So I set a target of each day, like $10, but it just scatters out the bait to whatever interests it, and also I can set the category. So recently I do set an audience towards PE teachers, so a lot of school PE teachers, whoever marked their position as a PE teacher could be our potential customers. So recently we've been having more than 50 different PE teachers reaching out to us to get more information for ZTAG.
Vania Chen: But also, like, I'm testing out different, like, individual entertainment party hosts or whatever, or something is an after-school program. So if principals can see, you know, every people are scrolling.
Charlie Xu: And this platform are, like, getting smarter and smarter, and they're really targeting well for these business people who are, want their customers through these screens. So these are something we're trying right now. It's more profile-based, but not location-based, then. Well, you can do location as well. Even, like, if you want to do based on just California, you can just do this area more towards people living in California. And let's say if want to do New York, you can particularly do the same ads, but select. Like the location in New York. So you can. But then right now, your setup, like the one that you're testing out right now, it's more profile-based. You didn't really do specifically, we want to grow California, or we want to grow New York, or we want to grow East Coast. There's no. I've tried different ones.
Vania Chen: tried, like after school, I tried just focusing on California. But PE, I just choose United States. It's just so, you know, we have people, PE teacher from Alaska, just sign up. So I just don't know, like, I feel like social media sometimes are interesting. They just find who are interested because they also want to earn money from business who are invested. So, yeah, but you can select even your city, like very specific area. So, yeah, it's kind of interesting, but the thing is, a lot of people show interest, but how many are really? It turned into sales, I doubt, but I feel like it's just a good way of even marketing, you know, like marketing to this PE teacher, hey, there's this provider, and people are going to talk about it. So I just more see it as a marketing instead of really like trying to make sales. Okay.
Charlie Xu: Yeah.
Vania Chen: Okay.
Charlie Xu: Because that's actually, I don't know if that's something that you guys are tracking, because we're going to track online campaign conversions. Online campaign conversion, and then you have your percentage map throughout the United States right now, right?
Vania Chen: So if it's an area that we're focusing target ads on, then does that increase the conversion of that state? Does that increase whichever specific county? I don't know if that's something that is, but, but, but, but I mean, right now, I think we might be a little early for that, but I think online conversion, then the first thing is to probably just open rate.
Charlie Xu: Either open rate or actually like how if it actually get moved to from a interest to a conversation to conversion. So there's just different stages of conversion. And then it sounds like right now we're just doing the open rate or we're just doing the conversation conversion. Yeah, I would just appreciate if they can at least do a single reply. And, you know, versus then it's just into the ether. Because even if they say this is too expensive, that's good information. Now we know. I'd rather get it rather than just sending it out and nothing. Yeah, but that's the thing with cold campaign though. Cold ad though, cold outreach is usually like huge percentage is going to be like nothing. Yeah, yeah. There's going be a lot of nothing. That's why doing cold calls, it takes a certain personality to do cold calls. Because you get. It's not in our DNA to do cold anything.
Vania Chen: but I think social media ads are way easier.
Charlie Xu: Just click some buttons and set some settings and just doing its own thing. get it. How instead of that, do you guys have like a landing page so they can just buy it? No, I don't think they would just buy it. Well, right now when they click on it, does that submit the quote form or do they have to go onto our website? No, no, no. I direct them either go to like testimonial page or website. Okay, so those quotes, they did type themselves. Like the quote reference. they do take actions to put their information.
Vania Chen: Yeah, so tiny bit of action, but still I think the difference between how we're operating versus how we need to know is there's still a huge gap between them sending a quote to, or a quote. Interest Form to us even quoting them.
Charlie Xu: There's probably needs to be five other email exchanges. there needs a little bit more hand-holding, literally, in between. They sent a form, and then we just sent them, boom, this long letter with three different templates in there. I've been discussing with Chris.
Vania Chen: We tried to tamp down a little bit. No, no, no, it's not enough.
Charlie Xu: Hold on, hold on. Let me show you what I mean by that. Because I made a GPT to tell you guys what should be the right one. I'm still sharing it. Not yet. Let me find it. So, Vania, we don't mean to keep you on the meeting for so long. It's already two hours. Well, I have to run soon, but it's fine right now. I still have some time. It's fine. I still have, like, a bow. I have to go in, like, a bow. I have to.
Vania Chen: An hour, I think. Okay, okay, I'll be here quick. Yeah, let me just. Okay, so. I think Kwan, he's playing with some gadgets. Maybe he can give you some ideas of integrating your business. He's like, always have something new going on.
Charlie Xu: Okay, so this is like, let's say, a low commitment thing. I created a GPT sales coach.
Vania Chen: Yeah. And this. Okay. This should be the reply. Hmm. Okay, not like a whole paragraph with attachments.
Charlie Xu: So, should we turn off the automation? Because right now, it's an automation email tied to when they submit. So, it's just a trigger of automation. Oh, I don't know. Yeah, probably. I thought Chris was sending the email with these long templates. No, it's automation.
Vania Chen: Well, then the automation should be there. Or either turn all the work into a video or something. People are not going to read a long email.
Charlie Xu: just don't. small bullet points with some pictures and maybe a video and some music, whatever, then people might see it. But then long email, usually they don't look at it.
Vania Chen: They'll read the long email once they're committed because they're like, oh, I got to cross the T's.
Charlie Xu: to read through it. We got to make sure everything, cross all the T's and make sure that it works.
Vania Chen: But then the first one is like, all right, so what exactly does it do? And just key points.
Charlie Xu: Or else I would close it too. Yeah, then, you know, you ask me. See, you just direct them to this. I gave them the GPT today.
Vania Chen: Like, if the customer, if you have a page on website, there is a somehow, there's a... Oh, yeah, we could put that on the website right now. Yeah. Yeah. Then I feel like they will be talking to That's what they're doing.
Charlie Xu: Like a website chat bot within the internal manual that gives, answer all the questions and give them like the little key points. That's literally what everybody's building right now.
Vania Chen: The only, my only hesitation on the website is they might be able to extract too much information without actually engaging with us. So I'd like to pull it in and we own that conversation. Yeah. Wait, but is that a bad thing though?
Charlie Xu: It could be. mean, there might just be competitors doing that too. That's true.
Vania Chen: That is true. You guys have competitors?
Charlie Xu: Not yet. No, not direct competitors, but we don't want to give everybody the playbook. Yeah. Not like, I don't fear them, but certainly you don't want to be fueling that. Yeah. Okay. Okay. All right. So you have the conversion. You have the V2, V3. Basically entertainment versus school. What else? What The other KPI, and Steven, who joined us, he's doing this, which is just number of trainings he's completing. We were, okay, do you know about his onboarding? Yeah. Well, I know he's now, he's basically taking the part of the job from Chris and then become, going on site and train and teach people how to work it. Yeah, Chris's relationship is at the district and region level. His is at the individual facilitator level. And we were able to deliver the best end-to-end sales experience within a week of him onboarded, which was, what was it, Bay Area Community Resource. They bought 18 systems, and the systems were still in the crate, and four days later, we were there on a site visit. To do the training for, like, 20-plus of their facilitators. And we spent 90 minutes. They got all jazzed up and happy, and they were able to unbox all their stuff and take it out of the facility. So we know, like, this is going to be, like, the highest impact. That's the first one we've done.
Vania Chen: Like, all of the sales up to this point, they've just been reading manuals or maybe some incremental online training. But we have no idea on the quality they're delivering. So when Steve is on board, and let's say we fast forward to a year, you'll have 300 to 500 more customers that are properly trained. And I think that's going to generate, actually, the biggest long-term word of mouth for us. Okay. And then this KPI, are you talking about his client satisfaction?
Charlie Xu: Are you talking about recurring from the people he trained? Or what kind of? I think I'd have to look at his contract. But we've rinsed some KPIs out of it, which is like. Probably like 90% of the sales have been trained, are certified within 30 days or something like that. Yeah, because the long-term thought is better training will lead to overall better customer experience and less technical support. Okay. Okay. So your KPI would be he actually get a really good coverage on the percentage of sales that people need to be trained, right? And are we, like right now, how does, because he need to, so basically his job is to facilitate with the customer within 30 days of the purchase that he's going to, or 30 days of the delivery of the product that he's going to go on site and train them. Not necessarily on site.
Vania Chen: Some are done online, which is, which is going to be a different experience, although we're not going to say it's subpar.
Charlie Xu: In person. It's definitely awesome, right? Because they actually get to see it and you feel their reactions.
Vania Chen: But he's buying a whole podcast setup to make his streaming platform look really professional. So he can even potentially deliver a better online experience to even more people because then they can have different camera angles zoom in when he's operating with his hands versus, you in a big group, not everybody can huddle right over the machine.
Charlie Xu: So he's doing that both in person and online. I think if we have a sale that's like more than 100,000, then he'll go on site.
Vania Chen: But anything less than that will default to online. And he's also playing catch up with all the old customers and getting them recertified. And how are you tracking that right now?
Charlie Xu: How are you knowing that who he trained and not? He's got a spreadsheet somewhere. So I... I haven't seen it yet, but I know from just, you know, working with him in the past two, three weeks that he's on top of it. That's his primary job. Okay. Okay. So, all right. So this KPI has to basically, right now, currently is on his spreadsheet, pretty much. Okay. What else? think that's about it. You know, it's really just tracking leading indicators. Are we training people properly? Are we at least having more than a single conversation with people? Okay. Okay. So right now, your KPI doesn't really involve in expenses and category or whatever are those? Expenses? mean, I would like to have an overall number.
Vania Chen: I our burn rate is.
Charlie Xu: I know what our costs are, but I don't know what our burn rate is. Right now, this is supposed to be coming towards the lower part of the season.
Vania Chen: I just need to know, do we have enough cash? And when do I need to tap into our line? Versus when do we just keep that fully paid off?
Charlie Xu: Okay. So you still need the burn and cash runway, basically. That's the basic.
Vania Chen: Yeah. I haven't increased too much on staffing, although, you know, there's that intern, he'll probably turn to full-time soon. Okay. Then there's a couple of people on Upwork that we've added. So there's some additional engineering pressure, but not too bad, I think. Okay. So the engineering is more on the R&D or on the current product improvement or, you know, what's the... Maybe it's on new product. Oh, hold on. Build a new product, and then you're still building that platform, right? I've been just staring at the screen for like probably 80 hours a week trying to rebuild the whole thing.
Charlie Xu: Trust me, I know.
Vania Chen: I get it. I get it. Well, I don't know if you know my boyfriend, he's a DevOps engineer, and he's doing software development right now. He's DevOps? Can we hire him? We need DevOps. He's a, he's a, he, he, he actually, he built a AI platform that he wanted to go live October 1st. That's why literally for the last two months, like you said, like every day, like he just, all he does, multiple monitor. Why are spreading my ? You know, don't say hi, they want to hire you. That's what I'm doing. This is, this is, this is Charlie.
Charlie Xu: Charlie, they are my client ZTAGG, and then he's, he's also, they, you want to do your own intro?
Vania Chen: So, no, he's, they're also, they're a heavy AI utilizing, utilizing, he's building his own stuff, and then he's, ZTAG. Coding or bi-coding?
Charlie Xu: Huh? Bi-coding? Bi-coding, I give you a lot of props for that. That's what I do.
Vania Chen: Yeah, I've, I, I mean, I'm 25 years experience in IT and DevOps, and over now eight years in cloud engineering. Um, so, software development is not new to me. Um, so, and I know a lot about the infrastructure, security, software development life cycle, as well as, um, front-end UX, UI. So, for me, AI just, like, supercharges me, where I'm, like, 10 hours of meeting with AI is, like, 40 to 50 hours. Dude, I, I cranked out about 30,000 lines of code in, in, like, a week and a half, you know? Oh, yeah. That was, like. Like, probably something that took, like, three years of, like, a team of six to do. I went through one million tokens in four days.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, yeah. I know what you mean.
Vania Chen: So you, have you tried, they just released Claude 4.5 yesterday. I actually use Claude, Windsurf, Cursor, OpenAI, Gemini. But I actually have it set up where I use Terminal IDE terminals, as well as I use IDEs with VS Code. I also am a very early adopter of Copilot, so I actually code and tab completely.
Charlie Xu: So right now, my workflow is in Cursor, but I actually customized this, so I injected Claude Code's terminal window inside there, so I can brainstorm and ask and deploy, and do my, like, product requirement.
Vania Chen: Documents, and Execute in Cloud Code, and View in ID. I think we're doing very similar things, and we're speaking the same way. Yeah, I know for her, it's like, woo!
Charlie Xu: Same thing, yes. We should have a screen capture, I don't know if you guys are talking. Oh, when you look at my screen, I threw Mars, it looks like the damn Matrix. Yeah, pretty much.
Vania Chen: If you go to Mars, it's the same. Because he said that he's been staring at this, literally, this screen for the last 40 hours, whatever.
Charlie Xu: We're re-architected, like, I'm rewriting our complete architecture again. Okay. So what are you guys doing?
Vania Chen: What's that? What do you guys do? We make interactive game design and get kids off of phones. It's basically a wearable computing device. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, it's all IoT on ESP32, and we're basically, like, imagine trying to write iOS onto an ESP32 so you can spin up new.
Charlie Xu: Okay. So I just finished my iOS app.
Vania Chen: I just got my developer account, and I was working with Xcode Cloud with TestFlight and App Store Connect. So I just wired all that up, too. Sounds fun. Well, we should meet at some point. It's very rare to actually meet someone that in-depth with the tools. Unless they're online. I spend a lot of research, and I actually don't just do one tool. Like, I've jumped to tools, and at certain times, I look at which one gives me the best velocity. I use it like the stock market. You basically day-treat the tools. Yeah, because some tools are great in certain things. Like, WindSurf is phenomenal in UX, UI. Cursor is very good at, like, troubleshooting small snippets features and code creation from scratch from PRD documents. And then Cursor is very good for IDE tag completions and complete cohesiveness. How about AIT? So basically, I appreciate this, because now she won't think I'm crazy, and probably Vania won't think you're crazy, so.
Charlie Xu: Oh, she already knows I'm crazy. Like, literally, like, I will be sleeping with the dogs, and then he literally walks, because he doesn't sleep now. He just doesn't sleep right now.
Vania Chen: Yeah, that's basically me. He come in and start, like, giving me all these jargions about things. I'm like, you guys don't understand that. I just stay away from her. I'm in my own room, and I end up just sleeping with my laptop next to me. We're about to, I'm going to launch it, actually, tonight, or tomorrow, but I'll give Vania the link, you know, I'll give you a thing, so you can try our platform.
Charlie Xu: It's an incident, do you guys use Slack?
Vania Chen: We use Click, but it's similar to Slack. Never mind it. So, ours is an incident response bot with AI assistance inside Slack. Oh, We do a lot of integrations. It's more tailored to DevOps and IT and SRE teams, but like you can integrate CloudWatch, Google, Azure. What about Discord? Can you integrate with Discord?
Charlie Xu: That's actually our next integration, yeah.
Vania Chen: Because we're, yeah, we, our dev team is on Discord. Okay, yeah, so this would be great for them because you know how you have to monitor logs or troubleshoot issues. This actually uses an OpenAI agent to go and do contextual caching, element, similar element embeddings, and over time, you build your own context library for your incidents.
Charlie Xu: So over time, you can mediate and auto-heal. harder. Yeah. Yeah. I have about 39 or 29 integrations right now. Discord's the next platform integration, and then Teams will be the next one after that. it'll be Slack, Teams, Discord, where the bots live. But then you can integrate all different tooling outside. Very cool. Well, they both have the deer in the headlights there now. Oh, know. Where are you at anyways? Are you in Vegas or are you elsewhere? We're in LA.
Vania Chen: Oh, we go to Cali all the damn time, so. Stop by. Stop by. Stop by, yeah. Or if you're in Vegas, you should stop by, too. Yeah. But pleasure to meet you. Yeah, we can chat more later. Oh, my goodness. They're like, oh, my God, there's two of them now. Oh, my Yeah. Well, that's what I was like. I get it. I get it. go back to my computer then, too. Yeah. Mania, have two little questions. Maybe if we don't solve today, or maybe just give me an idea. Because also, Quan pulled out $47,000 from ZTAG account to our personal. So. So. So. How do we categorize that? Because he feels like our personal account is super low. He's trying to make a benefit. I don't even know. I just leave it there. I don't know how to categorize this. The account that actually I was using for that, because similar with the solar panel loan that I pull out, that put it in, I actually put it in the Kwon's Funds Investment Account. There is a balance sheet in your equity, basically. It's as if you put, Kwon put additional money into the business, then that's a Kwon investment. investment, or if you pull money out of the business, that could be the investment. Basically, it's similar to a distribution account. Or if you want to expense it out because you have enough, then put it in the benefit as a part of the benefit, because he's not really getting paid from the company, right? So then maybe an owner benefit.
Charlie Xu: Then create a line for owner benefit and then put that in benefit. So depending on how you want to treat it, like if you put it in the fund investment, that means that, okay, so it tracks how much money he put into the company, how much money he pulled out of the company right now. And right now the account is in negative, wait, actually it's in positive right now.
Vania Chen: So that means he still put in all this money that he technically, it become a tax-free draw for him as well as a, it's not a deduction for the company as well either, because then it's basically just saying that, oh, I'm paying back the owner, paying back the investment that he put. Or you put it as his benefit, then it become part of the company expenses, so-called, where it's all right, it's part of the payout that we have to give out, part of the salary type. So depending on how you guys want to treat that $47,000. So is that, is that these are, so because, because I have no idea, because I know like Quan, and there's a big chunk of money tied to Quan's loans actually is, is towards Gentem.
Charlie Xu: So is there, also there's a chunk is his personal investment into ZTAG? There's actually a, he's Quan, there's a Quan Fund Investment and Quan Inventory Contributions.
Vania Chen: These two are the money that, it's under equity, it's not under loans, so it's part of his contribution to the, to the company, his shares of the company in a way. So that was how it was set up, so the, it is still positive, that means it's still 30, like he's still like about $50,000, like the, the, the company still kind of, like he put in that, he hasn't taken out from the company pretty much. yeah, it could be, it could be just from that, and then you kind of draw out that equity, but if you. Don't want to lower that equity, then you can make it like either make it a loan that the company loan out to owner or just make it as part of the benefit where the company pays out to the owners. Either way, there's no right way or wrong way to do this. It's just as unless you can explain what it is. Okay, so the categorized is that it's a loan or it's expense? Like, how should I care? This is how I would do it. If you wanted to make it like as of additional benefit that company pays out to Kuang and substitution of his salary, then it's an expense and it goes to owner benefit. Like owner benefit as of I will create a chart of account line under employee benefits and just call it like a benefit others or something or owner reimbursement or something like that. Then I would would put... That and then that will that will become an expense and become an expense of the company, meaning that it's just it's kind of like a substitution of his salary like that. Or you want to make it a loan that company loan out to Kuang, then it can go into it can go into there's a Kuang loan to a loan one is your Westcom. You know, it's your line of credit. There is a Kuang loan too that you're not using. You can actually change the name of that and just go like an owner loan, like Kuang loan or owner loan or whatever, right?
Charlie Xu: Then that will be the amount that then eventually it'll sit on your balance sheet as a liability that, you know, the well, actually, no, it will sit as an asset account because then Kuang owes that $47,000 to the company, right? It was it will show that eventually Kuang will have to pay it back with that, right? And then or you just do say that, oh, because Kuang. Kwon Loan, put in the investment of the, of the, the, the, the, put in the investment at the beginning of time, right now, he's getting paid back from that, that's part of the equity. So then when you are categorizing it as part of equity, and the line account is called Kwon, Kwon, Kwon-Fund Investment.
Vania Chen: And then if you look into that, then you can put it under that, and then literally, it will just treat it as of, oh, the company, the, the, owner just getting a distribution from previous investment that he put in to the company. So there's the three item, three ways that we can treat it. Okay. Okay. But you said Kwon's funds and investment, this account has already in there, right? And also. It's in there. It's in your equity account. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I'll take a look. Um, probably, maybe, maybe if it's, these are, there's a balance in there, so I might just using. Over there. But is that also categorized as expense? That would be expense. It would be equity. Yeah, that be equity. Oh, okay, okay. Okay. Is there any related to if it's equity or loan or something tied to the tax we need to pay? Anything that has any tax effect is if it's an expense, right? If it's a loan, if it's an equity, if it's a loan. The difference between equity and loan is that, let's say, in a scenario where if you sell the company, right, the debtor get paid out first, right? So, in a case of, if it's something that the owner loans. To the company, so then when company gets sold, the loan needs to get paid out first before anything else is concluded. Equity, equity meaning is just really the basis of an owner-half in a company.
Charlie Xu: So how much you put in, how much you take out, that has nothing to do with taxes, but it does affect your tax base. So then let's say that when you sell the company, have to claim a earn, like a total capital gain on the sell of the company, right? What's your base? How much you can deduct out as your base? That's the whole equity session of it.
Vania Chen: So really, if you were just talking about like annual income taxes, then really only expenses will affect. That anything sitting on balance sheet, it's a tracking of your company's health, but it doesn't actually have any tax effect until a real-life transaction happens. Which means that if something gets cashed out, either a company bankrupt, either a company were sold, or a company were transferred, or they're breakout, whatever, there's an actual M&A transactions that's happened, then that's going to get cashed out that have tax effect. But before that, usually it's just the expenses. Okay, got you. Let me see, and there's another one. Oh, and before, think we're being discussing in the account of interest expense, there's like a $60,000, and I saw the EU are removed to them. I want to know, like, where are they, which category you put them, and what is that, like, what is the investigation on that part? Actually, I adjust it, move it back.
Charlie Xu: So, right now, if you look at January 1st, there is a chunk of the, because that's what, what happened, that, what happened to that is to adjust your Westcom. Oh, that was the. That's literally because before we didn't actually deduct any interest expenses on those. We're just putting everything in principle. That's why when we take out everything, there's a big negative balances, right? Because before, everything goes to principle, nothing goes to interest. That means that in the past years, haven't deduct all these interest expenses that you're supposed to deduct. So what this does is that it actually added to January 1st, so you can actually deduct everything in this year's tax return as part of the interest expenses.
Vania Chen: That's what the adjustment was for. So now if you look at it, I think I adjusted, like I modified it so then it matched with your statement. I think the total became like $62,000 or something like that. So then now that one is in there. So you'll see it in interest expense January 1st of 2025. Oh, okay. Yeah.
Charlie Xu: Thank you. Yeah. Also, I think we before mentioned that when we are setting quen xian, when employees are seeing that we need to categorize into a chunk, but in the Gusto bills, actually it's a separate, I do see each name is on that bill. So, is that something we need to adjusting when I'm categorizing them or the bill or adjusting on the bill? We can adjust on the bill if you don't want them to see it. Oh, okay.
Vania Chen: What happened is then, because we still need to separate our quen and yours because it's a, as long as it's a separate account, we need to do different lines. But if it's merged together, like if, like, like right now, if we're putting yours and Chris's together. I can say Chris, Steve, everyone's name is on there, so. It's like, because I think you're like, when I sees it, like, oh, this is too obvious, but I'm not like, but as you said, it's better, just, just don't, yeah, but, yeah, I think, like everyone, are they gonna see it though, are they gonna, I don't know, I don't know, yeah, but, but Qantas is the one is saying, hey, open book, and this and that, but we recently just have booked the IT, um, professional people of, hey, you need to set limit, you know, like, you need to protect yourself, so, like, on, on the other side, like, hey, open book is a good idea, like, there's many good ideas there, but when you tap in there, we still, I need to still set some boundaries of, like, right, so. The information usually are more sensitive, that's why a lot of the time, as much as open book that we do, like, when you're, like, I don't know if they will actually log into Soho, or, because in their gusto, they don't see it, you only, you see, because I think they're in ZOHO, but I don't, so far I don't know like how much they can see, they cannot generate reports, but I don't know if they can go to bills, and so I don't know. Because for the ease of it, if you can keep the bill separate line, that's the easiest for you, because then you can check immediately and see like if it's wrong or whatever, or however, whatever you need to change, right? So that's, we keep it separate, so then it's easy for you. But let's say that if you actually, they can go in and see everything and you don't want them to, then we'll merge the bills, and then the line will have to be just like everybody in the same category just will just be one line. And then for you, you'll just know that, all right, so that line is going to be $20,000 instead of everybody's like $5,000, $3,000, $3,000, $20,000 all.
Charlie Xu: So then, then it's a, it's, it's a hard, it makes your job slightly harder, you just have to look at the. Maybe punch some calculator on the side, but it will create a little better.
Vania Chen: But the best way is to make sure that when they go into Zoho, they only see what they need to see. They shouldn't be able to generate rapport. They shouldn't be able to poke around and see however much credit card expenses that you have, because in a way, that's an owner information. Like if they go in, they look at invoices, they should only be able to look at invoices. They should only be able to look at this and that. So I don't know how much Zoho can allow or customize each person's assets, but then I know there's some sort of a limitation that you can set there. But yeah, I would definitely look into each person's assets. If they can poke around, then we might need to start thinking about merging the bills. Okay, okay, yeah, definitely sit down and take a look.
Charlie Xu: But as you said, you said Kwon and my seller need to be separate from others. I'm not an officer, so is that Kwon will be the one as an officer? I think when I said it, I haven't looked at Steve's stuff. I never set up Steve's one. But then for right now, it's Kwon is one and you and Chris is one. So most likely it's going to be, or if you want to do, you and Kwon being one and then Chris and Steve being one.
Vania Chen: Okay, because I don't know, like for you, you can be as, you can be counted as executive. Because you are, right?
Charlie Xu: So then maybe merging yours and Kwon's will be better because then they don't know, they just know that it's a combined line.
Vania Chen: So they don't know how much both you and Kwon make, right? Maybe combining the two of you might be better and combining all the, like, all the employees will be better. Okay, but these are required, right? The executive and the employee. Can I just make a big chunk? Or, I can?
Charlie Xu: Can just make a big chunk? Because I think, like, if I want to get a report, I can get a report from Augusto. But maybe, like, in Zoho, just a big chunk of, like, this is the tax, this is the salary. I don't know. then, are you, do you want to put it, so, so, we're not separating, it's, then, it's just going to be one line, salary, right?
Vania Chen: Yeah. There's no officer salary or employee salary, admin, sales, whatever, it's just. don't know, Mike, do you think it's necessary of separating them? Or is it, maybe not only, like, a big company, they have to separate them, because otherwise, it's just big mess. A of a lot of times, they will ask for the officer's salary, like, tax, they want to know officer's salaries. But it's not a hard thing. Support from Gusto as well, but does it benefit you to know? If it doesn't benefit you to know, it doesn't matter, then everything can be just one line, can be just salary. Okay, yeah, I just want to say, like, if when we're giving the report, if they need to specifically know there's a separation from the officers and employees, then we might just keep this same structure. But if, like, when we're doing all the legal reports, it doesn't matter, then I'm fine with just a big chunk, because I can go through Gusto to get the report. Yeah, or if you want, I mean, depending on how, if they cannot view, and it's something that you export out for them to view, for the whole open book policy, then maybe just close the group.
Charlie Xu: Like, still book it, officer, still book it, admin, sales, whatever, however you want to see, you close out the group and then just show the total. So then, then you will have... Have it for the professional, the tax people, for your own viewership, your own benefit.
Vania Chen: And then for the employee, they can only look at the closed collapsed-up account. That's all pathetic, right? could be, oh, okay, gotcha. It's just different ways to do it. So really depending on if you want to keep that detail for your benefit or not, if you think that it doesn't matter, then yeah, because you really just need to pull it from Gusto. So you just pull Kwon's W-2, and you know exactly how much he's paid for the year. So either way, mean, it's not a big deal either way. It's just, do you want it in the book for your viewing purposes? Does it matter to you to know?
Charlie Xu: Okay, yeah. Okay, I don't have more.
Vania Chen: Okay, I'm sorry. I do have to run. Thank you so much. Come on, it's really, really amazing. Yeah, it takes you forever. Yeah, no, my homework is to export out the chart of account, and I'll give you my write-up, and then my suggestion on that, and then after that, take a look at it, and then we'll do the next step. I am traveling this week. I'm flying out Thursday night. I won't be back till Monday night, so then I'll be kind of out for a little bit. But either way, we can regroup. I probably need a little bit. If you don't mind, if we can regroup maybe around the week of the 14th, that will probably be easier for me. Yeah, of course.
Charlie Xu: The 14th and 14th, and then we can regroup that, and then we can, yeah, and then we'll finalize it with the chart of account.
Vania Chen: Yeah, yeah, Okay. Enjoy your trip.
Charlie Xu: Thank you.
Vania Chen: It's actually a client event.
Charlie Xu: It's a, it's a, we got, it got invited. It's to an event that's in Puerto Rico. So that is so far.
Vania Chen: Oh my god. I didn't, I very happily agreed to it until I realized how far it is. Like, I looked it up on the map.
James’s iPhone: Download on my phone real quick. Is it working?
Kristin Neal: Hi. Oh, there we go. James, can you hear me?
James’s iPhone: Yes, can you hear me?
Kristin Neal: I can hear you now. Sorry about that. How are you today?
James’s iPhone: Doing well. Sorry, I had to download the app on my phone.
Kristin Neal: Oh, I hate My computer.
James’s iPhone: My computer didn't work. Anyways, how are you doing?
Kristin Neal: I'm so sorry about that. Good, good, James. Thank you so much for going through all that and for meeting with me today. Gosh, that's great. Where did you hear from us? Where are you coming from? I believe I found an ad on Instagram.
James’s iPhone: I have a mobile enrichment program. So the algorithm sends me tons of programs, games. So you guys were one of them and looked interesting. So I wanted to learn more.
Kristin Neal: That's great, James. Thank you. So, well, my name is Chris. Let me introduce myself first. My name is Chris. I'm actually the Partner Relations Director. I'm not sales at all. So this is just a very casual. If you have 30 minutes for me to just kind of go over what we offer, and I would love to hear from you about the programs you have.
James’s iPhone: Does that sound about okay? Sounds great. Yes.
Kristin Neal: And then just let me know if after I hear about your programs, there's about three things that will kind of cover the unit itself, the coverage that we offer, and then pricing at the end. But if you want me to, like, kind of zero in on any of those things, just let me know.
James’s iPhone: No, it's cool. I'm open.
Kristin Neal: Cool, James. So tell me, you said you were in enrichment programs.
James’s iPhone: What is that? So I have a mobile enrichment program that offers classes to schools, homeschool kids, and then just independently run classes through parks. I do mix games, sports. So it's called Play Scholars. It's... Um, introductory to sports and really just creating opportunities for kids to play with each other. Most of my classes are designed for to be very inclusive, to have all skill levels. Um, so it's giving that sports practice experience for the kids that are not into sports necessarily.
Kristin Neal: Yes.
James’s iPhone: Um, so, you know, and then occasionally I do camps and, um, other random classes. I'll, I'll think of a class and then, you know, uh, set up an eight-week course and then see if anybody wants to sign up. So I'm also always experimenting with different, uh, curriculums and stuff.
Kristin Neal: So you think outside the box too, it sounds like.
James’s iPhone: Yeah, everything is outside the box, so.
Kristin Neal: Oh, love it, yes.
James’s iPhone: Yeah. And I have some.
Kristin Neal: Absolutely see ZTAG fitting in perfectly with everything you discussed. Quick question, so are you a certified, did I understand that right, that you're a teacher, like a certified teacher that has kind of branched off and doing your own?
James’s iPhone: No, I'm not a certified teacher. After college, this was 20 years ago now, I had majored in psychology and there just wasn't a lot of good job opportunities with that major. So I decided to start a mobile program, just offering, you know, kind of like a more fun PE class. And surprisingly, schools signed up. And so I'm kind of self-taught. Okay, I love it, James.
Kristin Neal: Well, I think psychology and active, you know, that activeness for kids go together. So it sounds like a match, like, right, the more we get out those endorphins.
James’s iPhone: So very cool. Well, you so much for sharing that.
Kristin Neal: Again, I'm so excited to share with you. So I'm going to jump in right here. I'm going to share my screen. This right here is our welcome letter, James. It's everything you need to be able to start all in one spot. So you'll have like your training videos, and we'll go step-by-step through that. So can you see the screen okay?
James’s iPhone: Yes. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: To make it bigger or anything? It's all good.
James’s iPhone: Thank you.
Kristin Neal: Awesome. Awesome. This here is our ZTAG unit. We call it the ZEUS. That stands for ZTAG. Hang on. I have it here. I can never remember. ZTAG Unified Edutainment System. And this here is a very sturdy, like Pelican-type case. There's wheels and there's handles. We even use this for our carry-on on flights. It takes one hour to charge, and you play for three to four hours. So all of these right here, these are game watches. Okay, there's 24 players in this one kit right here. So the touch of a... You're playing, you're starting a whole game with 24 kids. That goes nonstop. There's games, and I'll go into that later, where everybody plays no matter what. So that's a very unique feature. The range on this goes to a football field. So you put this in the center of a football field, and you have the football field going both ways. Wow. Yeah, very, and there's no Wi-Fi either. The Wi-Fi is actually built into the system. So you just literally plug and play. You can play within two minutes of receiving. Okay, and this is a touchscreen right here. So it's super simple. Each of the games are customizable. There's a cog up here that you can also, there's a place you can do step counters. A lot of schools have, like, goals that they want for that. So there's step counters. And there's also, we're the only ones that do interaction. Every time the kids match the game watch to game watch, it counts that. So... That's ... Okay. We're the only company that actually counts that. And, yeah, no plug needed. A generator. You could do a generator so you can take this out to the middle of the woods and play it. Awesome. And there is a USB port right up here that you can add the big screen to. So you can have every game has a leaderboard. So it's really neat seeing all the kids. They kind of either come huddle around the case to see who won or they can. They love seeing it on the big screen. Sweet.
James’s iPhone: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Game updates. So we currently have eight games, which I'll, again, go later. But that's the only time that you'll need Wi-Fi is when you need to do the over-the-air updates. That's the only time. you don't need to keep it out of school. So just do it off your hotspot. Yeah.
James’s iPhone: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: There's also no subscription, James.
James’s iPhone: Oh, okay. Yeah, that was a big question I had.
Kristin Neal: Mm-hmm. Once Once you... Purchase it, it is yours, and you're doing exactly what some teachers have actually done. They just purchase it for themselves, and then they use it for school during the week, and then they actually use it as a side business on the weekends.
James’s iPhone: So that's pretty cool.
Kristin Neal: All right, that's pretty much it about the case itself. I'm going to start going into the game watches, but before that, do you have any questions on the case?
James’s iPhone: No.
Kristin Neal: Okay, awesome. So these are the game watches, we call them ZTAggers, and they're full immersion. They actually light up, they have vibrating, and they also have the sound that you can adjust. Some kids might not appreciate the loud sound, but there's also a guard right here, a rubber guard, and it's double screen protected. Let's see. And it's all sensor-based, so everything right here comes out of that window. So we're all about non-contact. And it's... How do you train the kids? We've noticed when you show the kids, you have two come up, and you show them that you can actually aim with your game watch. It helps, you know, any kind of...
James’s iPhone: Spatial awareness.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So it's one of those, like, things that we're teaching the kids without even having to, like, put a name to it. Yeah, very important. Yeah. There's also, we have 24 of these in the case. But you can actually connect two cases, so you can have a 48-player game going, and everyone would just play off of this Wi-Fi. And you'll also get two additional ZTAGGERS as backup. Okay. Let's see. The Velcro strap right here, that is good for adult sizes and kid sizes, because you can go backwards with the Velcro, and then it, if it's little bitty, I've had it as little as, like, two or three they were playing. It's the sweetest thing.
James’s iPhone: Oh, wow. Oh, it's so
Kristin Neal: So sweet. And the parents are playing with it.
James’s iPhone: Wow. Okay, so a three-year-old could play.
Kristin Neal: Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. It's adorable.
James’s iPhone: It's adorable. Wow. That's awesome.
Kristin Neal: It is so awesome, because you get the whole family, the grandma, the mom, and the kids.
James’s iPhone: Yeah, no contact, too, so it's safe.
Kristin Neal: Exactly. Exactly. You'll see there's games that are both individual games and then the group games. So, yeah. All right. So was there any questions on the ZTAGGER itself?
James’s iPhone: No. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Awesome. So here you get the training videos of how to set up ZTAGGERS. If you need, like, a replacement, you know, that's how you're checking to just add it to your unit. Here's how to register your unit. Again, it only is two minutes to play, so when you first get it, it's going to say, do you want to register this unit? There's a little button down here that says skip. You can just skip it for then just to play, but we do recommend going through that registration. And then these are the games that we... So, we have the Red Light, Green Light. This is the game that I was talking about that's individual. So, on the game launch, do you want me to show you? Do you have time for me to show you a few?
James’s iPhone: Yeah, sure. Whatever you feel.
Kristin Neal: Perfect. I'm going to do Red Light, Green Light. That's the first game I typically introduce new players to. I press Assign All, and that moves all the available ZTAG to the playing ZTAG, and then I press Next. And during this time, the system is sending a Get Ready signal to all the ZTAGers, and you'll see on your wristband here, it says Get Ready. Once it says Get Ready, and you see there are green check marks on all of them, that means the system is ready to start the game. And you just have to press Start Match, and this will go. Okay, so this game, whenever it's green, you want to have the people move around in shape. And whenever it goes red, and if you keep moving, you'll see that it says you're out. When you're green, and as soon as it's red, you've got to stop. This one, he has it. There's a cog again, you can customize it. This one has it to where they're out, but you can change it to where they just get deducted points. So that's why it's so good with the little ones, because they're focusing on movement, you know, just move, move, move, move, and then freeze. So it's really, really sweet.
James’s iPhone: Oh, yeah, that's great.
Kristin Neal: And if I didn't stop in time, you saw that it has a warning signal. Right now, move when it's green, and as soon as it's red, so I stopped. So you mentioned that you like to think outside the box. Think about, like, there's a PE teacher in Wisconsin that is the exact same way. He is adding this to obstacle courses. He's adding this to team playing where they have, like, this obstacle course, and then they have to answer a math problem. There's so many ways that you can do this one. Bouncing a ball. There's all kinds of things that you can add this to, something that you're already playing.
James’s iPhone: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I can imagine.
Kristin Neal: So you kind of get the gym. That's of the red light, green light, right?
James’s iPhone: Yeah, absolutely. Perfect.
Kristin Neal: That's the very first one, because that's showing the kids how to move, how the game watch really works. After that, we want to make sure that the kids know how to communicate between the two watches. So we're going to show Pattern Match. Okay, so the next game, I'm going to show a few more taggers here. Actually, let's just have three for now. I'll turn this on. We're going to do Pattern Match. And I'm showing you the games in the order that I would introduce it to your players. The reason why I'm showing you red light, green light first is because this game is an intro game, and it just requires a player to look at their own ZTAGGERS. It doesn't require them to look at anybody else, so it's an individual game. And it shows the players that this device is actually tracking your own movement and your own performance, and that you have to interact with it. And then beyond that, we're going to go to Pattern Match, which is the next game. And this is going to show how your taggers are going to be interacting with other people. And so in this game, the goal is to find another player that has either the same color or the same shape as you, and you want to have your taggers link up by getting within a DoFeet, Sensor-to-Sensor, or Screen-to-Screen. The sensors are actually right up here on top of the taggers, and you want them to be facing each other in order for them to register. And so there's a few implications to the sensors. Now, if you have a bunch of people with signals, and they're all just, let's say, huddled around like this, you're going to get random signals crossing over, even with people that you may not want to. And in this game, we might also have negative scoring set up, which means if you get the wrong match, you'll also get minus points, which cancels out your progress. And that means people have to be very deliberate in how they interact with each other. If everybody just bunches up, you're most likely going to get the wrong signals, and that's going to cause negative scoring. So usually we recommend to have the players take a few steps back and call out what they have and then do the match. Oh yeah, that's great. And we even have suggest that they actually cover their sensors and then very intentionally, you know. Right.
James’s iPhone: And they have to use their words and stuff.
Kristin Neal: And yes, they're working on them to communicate. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. And they have them to where the very first round, you'll start with the... The shape. And then the second round, just the color. And then the third round, combine them both.
James’s iPhone: Okay. Cool. Very cool.
Kristin Neal: Awesome. Did you want to see how this one kind of worked?
James’s iPhone: I got the gist of that one. You can move on. Sounds good.
Kristin Neal: I'm already excited about that feature. That's sweet. And I haven't even gotten to the rest of it. I'm so excited. Let's see. So you get the concept of the Game Watch is matching. It's the same concept with a math match. So if you have like a tutoring time or things like that, it's perfect because half the kids will have the problem. The other half will have the solution.
James’s iPhone: And then they got to find each other. So we're getting up and moving and working all those neurons for them to get that. We have the paper rock scissor.
Kristin Neal: This is one. It's a little confusing because it's more of like, it's not like a literally paper rock scissor. But we already know that paper beats, what is that? Rock and rock.
James’s iPhone: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Rock beats scissor.
James’s iPhone: So we just tell the kids, like, go and just match any other color.
Kristin Neal: But you'll see that they start understanding, like, there's a, it clicks in their mind. It doesn't click in my mind, but it clicks in their mind when they realize that they actually have to work together to get that, the win for that. Right. I hope you understand that. Oh, yeah.
James’s iPhone: No, totally. Totally.
Kristin Neal: Here we have Keepaways. This is the virtual game, the virtual ball game. Super fun. In the entire group, three people will have, and you can have just one ball if you have, like, a smaller group. But can go up to three balls. And each of the players, it just randomly shines their game watch all white. And whoever has it the longest for that round wins.
James’s iPhone: Word Wave, it's the same concept as Pattern Match.
Kristin Neal: We're still matching. This one is Spanish or French words with English words.
James’s iPhone: So you're going to be calling out, I need water. I need water. And mine says, agua. And there we go.
Kristin Neal: So that one's a lot of fun, because the Spanish speakers, you know, they're usually maybe uncomfortable or shy. It really makes sense.
James’s iPhone: I'm in California, so.
Kristin Neal: Yes, you know, I meant to ask you.
James’s iPhone: Yeah, tons of Spanish speakers. Yes, exactly. And it is always good, especially if you have, you know, students that they're just learning English and they're shy. And then as the school year goes by, all of sudden you realize, like, oh, look at the personality in there.
Kristin Neal: They start getting comfortable, you know. Exactly. They start coming out of their shell.
James’s iPhone: Yeah, that's great. Yeah, that's huge.
Kristin Neal: Now, this game right here is actually my favorite. It is the sequence train, because the kids are horrible at it. But I love that they get better, because the very first time, you have everybody get in a circle. And we're going to go, you can do odds, evens, natural numbers, tens, fives, those types of numbers, sequences. So I'll start with fives. So the very first person. That will jump in as a five. Whoever's got it, they jump in. And then we all got to count together. It's a group counting game. And the higher you get, it's a timed game. So the higher you get, that's like, you want to beat that. Okay. So you want to keep getting better and better. The very first time, the kids are horrible at it. They can get to like 20. Typically, it's been 15 or 20. But it's okay, guys. Let's do it again. We're going to get better and better. So it's really encouraging, too. Nice.
James’s iPhone: The kids love Zombie Survival.
Kristin Neal: This is all the kids' favorite. Libraries love it. We have operators that do that specifically, and it's doing amazing things. This game, I'm going to show you this game so you get the flow. And then in this game of Zombie Survival, we have three roles. We're going to have the humans, who are green, zombies, who are red, and the doctors, who are going to be white. And we can randomly assign them. Actually, I'm going to take a few more taggers out, just for demo, and I'm turning them on with the rest of it right here, and wait a few seconds for them to load up and put them into random. Also, while we're waiting for that, we can go into the settings to see some of the parameters you can adjust. For example, you can change the total time on this game. You can also change how many zombies or doctors you'll put into the game. But let me first show you how the rules work. So we randomly assign people to be humans, zombies, or doctors. The humans, they're trying to just stay away from the zombies and not attack. The zombies are trying to get close to the humans by getting their screen linked to a human screen and convert the human into a zombie. Now, if a zombie gets close enough to a human, the human gets infected and has about 10 seconds to go find a doctor to get saved and become human again. If they can't find a doctor in 10 seconds, then they become a zombie and they can start trying to attack other humans to turn them into zombies. The amount of time that someone stays in transition or infected mode is dependent on what you write here. So you can change the infection duration to be 10 seconds or longer depending on the game. But for most of our games, pretty quick pace, 10 seconds is a good amount. And then also the doctor, this is a really key role. If you give this to a player who might be a little shy or possibly special needs, this is a great way to- Everyone who gets infected by zombies- Yeah, this game is it. It is. It really is. To assign someone manually, the doctor, let's say you want this tagger to be a doctor, you'll find that they're number 18, go in here. Yeah, because this game, when you can incite that excitement of a chase, without making physical contact. Yes. And it's all skills. It's all skills. Like, you see every skill just absorbed. And then when you have multiple roles, where you can put that special needs kid in there, I mean, it's amazing.
James’s iPhone: The kids in wheelchairs are even playing. Oh, yeah. Because they're just adding it to their wheelchair.
Kristin Neal: It's like, so awesome.
James’s iPhone: It really is.
Kristin Neal: It really is. Good. I'm glad that you see it. So you see how they're affecting the doctors. The doctor will only play one person. Yeah.
James’s iPhone: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: That's so great.
James’s iPhone: There's schools where they've banned dodgeball and stuff that I'm into. So it's like, for all those soft schools, this would be good.
Kristin Neal: They've even banned, on the East Coast, they've also banned guns from the school, obviously.
James’s iPhone: Oh, Nerf gun type stuff.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, Nerf gun, laser gun. This is laser tag without the gun. This is how you market it to the schools. Kids love laser tag.
James’s iPhone: They use this huge for incentive Fridays.
Kristin Neal: We had a school that just won attendance, perfect attendance for Fridays. And it's like, they save zombie survival for Fridays.
James’s iPhone: This is their Friday activity.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, kids don't want to miss that. Exactly, exactly. And that was their big problem, was missing so many days on a Friday.
James’s iPhone: Yeah, because that is the thing I'm always trying to figure that out, because the shooting games, those are the kids' favorite. It is. They love it, because you can get that tag excitement without the effort. You don't to run and tag somebody. can just shoot them from over.
Kristin Neal: So we're adding videos to this. This all has been brand new, to be honest. The last six months, we've just revamped everything. And now we're putting the community together. So we're growing this with videos of what people are doing in their schools. We just got told by a teacher that she's using the red light, green light, having the kids run across the courts, but as an animal, as their favorite type of animal. Right.
James’s iPhone: It's just those little bitty.
Kristin Neal: Oh, yeah.
James’s iPhone: Yeah, absolutely.
Kristin Neal: Those little game variations that see the Rocket League with the ball, the math match with obstacle. That's the one I was telling you about.
James’s iPhone: Right. So, yeah.
Kristin Neal: Oh, yeah.
James’s iPhone: It looks like a great, great tool. It's huge.
Kristin Neal: It's definitely making an impact.
James’s iPhone: And if you can ever give a kid something to hold on to, it's like holding a drink at a party. It's like gives you a... A little bit of coziness, you know, a little thing to be focused on. Yeah, I never thought of that.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, it's like a little comfort, maybe.
James’s iPhone: Yeah, like my little kid classes. Sometimes I'll just give them a little fidget thing just so they don't bug each other, you know.
Kristin Neal: Yes, yes. Good point. Good point. I love it. Well, James, you, this right here, I'm going to be sending you, including our pricing. Interesting. You actually would qualify, since you're an owner-operator, you would actually be going for the V3. So I'll have to send you that. I can get you the pricing on that. But it's a little bit more, but it is a completely module system, meaning that the screen, if it needs replacement, we can actually just send you the screen. And we no longer have to, it's much easier for infield fixes and things like that. It has the same games. It has the same concept. There are cooling fans underneath. And the... The Wi-Fi actually is a little bit bigger range. Okay, so those are just a few of the...
James’s iPhone: Oh, you guys are based in Valencia?
Kristin Neal: Yeah, we're right here. Oh, sweet.
James’s iPhone: Yeah, where are you at in California? I'm in Camarillo right now, Ventura.
Kristin Neal: Okay, okay.
James’s iPhone: But my classes and stuff are in Santa Monica. So I'm starting my program here in Ventura County right now.
Kristin Neal: Okay, okay. So, and it is a mobile, so that's even better. Yeah, it's super small and compact. Yeah, super sweet.
James’s iPhone: That's perfect.
Kristin Neal: So this very first page right here, James, is what every single ZTAG unit comes with. Everything passes is optional. So I'll go over briefly with it. Definitely take a look and see what works best for you. And then I'll, again, send over the pricing. But you do get the 12-month manufacturer's warranty with every unit purchase. That does not include these things. And then those... What I was showing you in that community, these are the digital artwork, branding, things like that. And you also get the complimentary Playmaker Virtual Training. That is with our ZTAG's Playmaker, Steve. And he'll just go through with a Zoom session on you and make sure you are 100% ready. And he was a teacher. He kind of has the same story a little bit like you. He was a teacher, and now he's an owner-operator. And now he works for ZTAG.
James’s iPhone: Nice. Yeah, really, really great.
Kristin Neal: Let me get the pricing for the V3 real quick. We are looking into like the 12.7 range for the V3. And that one is actually, have you ever heard of IAPA?
James’s iPhone: No.
Kristin Neal: That one is a showdown in, it's like, I forgot what it's called, but it's like an entertainment. It's a big trade show, I guess. You could say an entertainment trade show, but we're unveiling it then, but you can order it now.
James’s iPhone: Interesting. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Sorry about that. Let me just find this guy.
James’s iPhone: Yeah, I feel like I should know that. Viapa, you said. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: I-A-A-P-A.
James’s iPhone: I-A.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, definitely check it out. It's pretty cool. I-A-A-P-A. There's two A's. Actually, three A's.
James’s iPhone: I-A-A-P-A? Mm-hmm.
Kristin Neal: I can send you the link, too, if you'd like. Let me put it in there.
James’s iPhone: Oh, yeah. I see. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Okay, cool.
James’s iPhone: Sweet.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. All right. Let me get this shared. We'll go over this real quick, see if you have any questions. All right. So here's our pricing catalog. So for the V3... ... ... It is $12,700. That's the cost of that. Again, the one-year warranty, hardware warranty is included. And here we have our, what each individual. So these are replacements. Yeah. Like if you were to just purchase.
James’s iPhone: Full 24 kit is 13, well, rounding up. About 13, yes.
Kristin Neal: Okay, cool.
James’s iPhone: And then when it breaks down, does it break down in price? Like to what it actually is or, or when you buy it all together, it's, it's cheaper. When you buy it all together, it's cheaper. Yes. Okay. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Definitely don't want to get it all individually. Yeah.
James’s iPhone: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Because each of the ZTAGGERS themselves are 300. So that's just one.
James’s iPhone: Right. Definitely cheaper. that makes sense. Get the full.
Kristin Neal: Mm-hmm. And then these are the extended care coverage. Again, not mandatory, but they are optional. And it might be peace of mind.
James’s iPhone: Right. Okay.
Kristin Neal: On this one, though, the five-year coverage, we do offer the Community Launch Pack. And that one you will find down here. These are the one, three, and five, and what each of them come with. And the Community Launch Pack is right here. So you can have, and you can have your own company name, too.
James’s iPhone: Nice. Have you guys sold a lot of these in Southern California?
Kristin Neal: We, like, these kids? The systems?
James’s iPhone: Yeah. systems?
Kristin Neal: Oh, yeah. Yeah, we're booming in California. Yeah. Wow.
James’s iPhone: Yeah, it's...
Kristin Neal: That's amazing. We've been in business for 10 years. I think we've just finally hit our time. To be honest, like, it feels like everything is coming together right now. So this started off as a name badge, the ZTAG unit. It started off as a name badge. ZTAG, which is like simple lights, and then it has morphed into this in the last 10 years, but they have been just doing amazing things.
James’s iPhone: Wow. Yeah, it's really taking off.
Kristin Neal: Here is the volume in the nonprofit discounts. Let's start at five units and then go up to 10.
James’s iPhone: I'm a for-profit, so.
Kristin Neal: Okay, yeah. And then the payments and terms, you're welcome to take a look at. We are also the sole source, so you won't find this anywhere else, and we can have, here's a letter if you need that. And I think that's it.
James’s iPhone: Wow. Well, thank you so much for showing me.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, no problem, James. Thank you so much for letting me take up your time. Did you have any questions on anything before I send?
James’s iPhone: No, no questions. I think I got it.
Kristin Neal: Okay. We do take, well, okay, so for the V3, just so you know, it's about a six-week turnover right now. Um. Um. So we would be able to get that to you, I believe, in November. Yeah, in November.
James’s iPhone: Okay, yeah, because I, yeah, these sessions, I wouldn't be considering it. would be next year, for sure.
Kristin Neal: Okay, good to know, good to know. Then I'll just send over for you, and then we'll just touch bases when you guys are. Okay, sweet. Awesome. Okay, James, have a great day. All right, you too. Thank you. Thanks. Bye-bye.
Kristin Neal: Hi, Karen. Karen, hi, how are you? Good, how are you?
KarynPowell: Hey, great, can you hear me okay?
Kristin Neal: Yes, can you hear me okay?
KarynPowell: Yes, ma'am, I sure can.
Kristin Neal: Great to meet you. Good to meet you. Oh, sorry, my video was off.
KarynPowell: Sorry. No worries, no worries.
Kristin Neal: I never know, like, we get people all over.
KarynPowell: How are you today, Karen?
Kristin Neal: I'm good, how are you?
KarynPowell: I'm good, thank you so much.
Kristin Neal: Thank you for taking this time out, for just connecting, and I would love to hear from you, and hear where you're from, and where you heard about us. It looks like maybe social media?
KarynPowell: Actually, I heard from you guys on the ACA website, under some of their, like, tools. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, for camps.
KarynPowell: For the camps, yes, yes, okay.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Yes, now it's all coming back to me.
KarynPowell: We were in Texas last year at the ACA. Okay. There we go.
Kristin Neal: Now it's all coming back to me. Well, thank you so much for finding us, Karen, again. My name is Kris. I'm actually the Partner Relations Director, and it's just to hear from you. It's not a sales pitch at all. It's just to hear from you if ZTAGG is actually just comparable to what you guys are doing and if it would be a good partnership for both of us. So no pressure. I'm going to explain to you, Karen, after I hear from you and what your camp kind of specializes in. But we'll go over kind of the unit itself, the coverage that is offered, but it's not mandatory, and then pricing. But I'll be honest, I'm really bad with pricing, so I'm just going to kind of briefly show you, and then I'll hand you over if you'd like to move forward to Carmi. And then she'll just kind of get you whatever you need and see where we could just support you. Okay, perfect. But please feel free at any time to say, let's zoom in on just this or just that, and we can just go from there. So tell me, what is your camp? What do they do? I would love to hear it.
KarynPowell: We are Camp Hertko Hollow, and we are a diabetic camp for kids ages between five or six up until 17. Awesome. So, and we're just trying to, we're doing some, we go to a Y camp, we rent our space from a Y camp. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Um, and we have been doing their programming from basically since day one. Okay.
KarynPowell: Um, and we're looking at to potentially do some of our own programming, like in the evenings. So, and we're looking for like team building, community, um, stuff to get the kids more involved, yet have some structured, some basically some structured free time. Perfect.
Kristin Neal: You know what mean? Like, yes.
KarynPowell: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Not running amok, but at least some sort of, yes. Yes.
KarynPowell: Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. Perfect.
Kristin Neal: So it sounds to me, Karen, like. So are going both into the community and you're going to be hosting events at your particular location. Okay, very cool. Well, I'm so excited because definitely see ZTAG as kind of being the answer to that because it is so compact and easy to move around. So I'm going to jump right in. I'm going to share my screen. I have a few things ready. This here is our ZTAG unit. I'm actually going to go over, though, on this side. This is our welcome letter. This is exactly what you're going to get when you purchase your ZTAG unit so that everything you need to operate is in one place. Okay. So I'm just going to go over these real quick. Here we are at our ZTAG unit. This is a durable Pelican-type case. has wheels. It has a handle. So it's very, very portable. You actually, you can carry it on an AirFlight. Super durable. Mm-hmm.
KarynPowell: There's 24 players here.
Kristin Neal: These are the Game Watches. you. And all you need is a plug. So we recommend even you can take a generator and plug that in and you can take it to the middle of the woods. So it's great for rural areas. If you're in a rural, it does not need Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi is actually built in. So you literally can just plug and play. Yeah, no issue about needing to get on their hotspot or anything. The only time that you will need Wi-Fi is when you download new games and over-the-air updates. Okay. Well, you can actually even just go off your hotspot for that. Okay. I just want to make sure I'm getting everything for the unit. Okay. So it takes one hour to charge and you play for three hours. This is also the charging dock right here. So the ZTAGERS themselves are getting charged through this. Okay.
KarynPowell: Okay.
Kristin Neal: There's a football field range. So he's. I just putting it right in the center of that football field, and then it's a whole 360 experience. Perfect.
KarynPowell: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Here is the touchscreen right there. Very simple. Kids as young, we've had them as young as eight operating these. Okay.
KarynPowell: So very user-friendly. Very user-friendly.
Kristin Neal: Yes. Okay. Yes.
KarynPowell: If I can do it, believe me. It's friendly. Believe me.
Kristin Neal: There is a USB port right here. So if you have any locations that might have, like, that big screen in their gyms, awesome, because each game has a leadership board. So the kids, they'll either huddle around this, or they're all immersed in that leaderboard.
KarynPowell: Okay. Yeah. All anonymous, too.
Kristin Neal: So they'll see themselves what their ZTAG number is and where they're at.
KarynPowell: So it's all anonymous. Okay. Perfect. Yeah. I love that part.
Kristin Neal: It's like a little touch.
KarynPowell: Yes. There's also no subscription to this, Karen.
Kristin Neal: Once you purchase this unit, you are fully owner-operator of it. So we... We've even had teachers purchase it for just themselves, and then they use it for their school, and then they use it to do rentals during the weekend.
KarynPowell: Oh, okay. Okay. That's really neat.
Kristin Neal: And I think that's it. Yeah, I let you know that no Wi-Fi is needed. Did you have any questions, Karen, on the unit, this whole unit? I did.
KarynPowell: It was, no, not on the unit. No. Okay, perfect.
Kristin Neal: We are going to get to the game watches. These are what are in this case right here. These are the ZTAGGERS. And this one, they're all, well, first, you're able to actually connect two units together. So you can have a massive game of 48 players.
KarynPowell: Okay. Just having a little bit more support.
Kristin Neal: But that's the first thing you should know. The second is everything is no contact. So right here, these little windows right here, that's where the sensors come out. So it's more like a remote control that you're aiming at. It's really, really neat, especially if you train the kids to show them that. And they get it. They don't have to be. So close. Okay.
KarynPowell: Yeah, super cool.
Kristin Neal: It lights up, it vibrates, the sound, the sound is customizable, so if you have any kids that are sensitive to loud noises, can drop that all the way down, but yeah, it's full immersion, so the kids are really, it does like a countdown, three, two, one, and the kids are like, oh, and they start going, so it's really fun. There is a double screen protection on this, and there is a rubber guard on here, and again, we have been in business for 10 years. Actually, I'm not sure if I mentioned that. We have been in business for 10 years, so Quan actually came from the park entertainment background. He had things in Disneyland, Nasbury Farm, so he knows that how, what is needed for use, you know what mean? And like, this is not cheap stuff. This is absolutely entertainment grade. Yes. Very cool. Let's see. I think that's it. The Velcro strap right here. It's good for adults and kids. Kids, I've had them as young as three years old playing.
KarynPowell: Okay. Turn that little strap around and it fits them perfect.
Kristin Neal: Awesome.
KarynPowell: Okay. And I think that's it.
Kristin Neal: Anything else on this one?
KarynPowell: Mm-mm. Okay.
Kristin Neal: You got it. Here's more videos on how to set up the ZTAGERS if you need a replacement. Here's how to register the unit. Again, you do not need Wi-Fi. So when you first get it, it's going to come up and say, and it'll say, do you want to register your unit? You're welcome to. We suggest it because then you're able to get the OTA, the updates. Okay. But you don't have to.
KarynPowell: There's a button down here that says skip for now.
Kristin Neal: Just skip for now and just get to playing if you need to.
KarynPowell: Okay. Okay. Here are the games that we have offered right now.
Kristin Neal: We do suggest going in a certain order because it shows the kids how to play the game and how to know how the game watches work. Um, Steve, our playmaker, actually does a... Full training with every unit that is purchased. So he goes into depth about how to play the games, what customizations each use. It's a really great opportunity for your whole team, your entire team, to come together and learn. Okay.
KarynPowell: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: But the Red Light, Green Light is a super popular one. This is the one where the kids that are three and even older, we love this game for our really young and our very old, because all you have to do is move your arms. And they're playing the game. So, or moving their bodies. It is so much fun seeing a little three-year-old, you know, playing with the mom, you know, move, move, move. And then when it turns red, they're freezing. Same as grandma and grandpa. The pattern match, this one we like because it connects the kids together. This is showing them that the game watches actually do connect.
KarynPowell: So it's not individual. It's more one-to-one. Okay.
Kristin Neal: So the pattern on the game watch will show a shape and a color, the shape in a color. And you're calling out blue. And Blue blue triangle, and then whoever has a blue triangle, you're connecting.
KarynPowell: Okay. Okay.
Kristin Neal: And then that's how it builds on the leaderboard. Okay. to suggest going the first round, just matching colors, the second round, just matching shapes, and then the third, just matching both.
KarynPowell: Matching both. Okay. Awesome.
Kristin Neal: That's the same kind of concept for our math match. Super fun for like a tutor time, things like that. But this one has the kids divided into the problems, and then the others into solutions.
KarynPowell: Okay. they've to find each other.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
KarynPowell: Two plus two, he's calling out, I need a four, I need a four.
Kristin Neal: And the four is here.
KarynPowell: Right, right. It's really cool. It's really neat.
Kristin Neal: And it goes up to double digit division on that one.
KarynPowell: Okay. Okay. Again, customizable, so you can make it lower or higher.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
KarynPowell: Then we have our red, this one is our rock, paper, scissor.
Kristin Neal: This is more of like an eco kind of game where you don't actually play the rock. Rock, paper, scissor, but you'll see the same game dynamics, and you'll see when the game, when the team understands that, and then they know who to, to, to be. they're, they'll know that they need to go look for scissors, you know what mean?
KarynPowell: Oh, yeah.
Kristin Neal: And very team-based. Okay.
KarynPowell: Keep Away right here is our virtual ball game.
Kristin Neal: This one has, it's basically timed whoever has that virtual ball. It's a typical tag game. They're the winners of that round. Okay.
KarynPowell: Zombie Survival, I'm going to get back to, because this one is a very special one.
Kristin Neal: But our two newest games, Word Wave, the same concept with, as a math match, but half the kids will have Spanish or French, and the other kids will have English, and then they got to find each other. Okay. That one's a lot of fun.
KarynPowell: Oh, that's kind of cool. It's really cool.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, really cool. And we're working on being able to upload your own. So if you're working on German, here you go. Here's the way. Okay. Sequence Train, super fun, because the kids all stand in a circle, and you can go by fives, tens, odds, evens, and natural numbers. We like to start with fives. The five will jump in, because their game watch lights up. And then the next one, ten. So it's a group counting game in a certain amount of time. So it's challenging them to get to the highest number that they all can get to.
KarynPowell: Okay. It's really a lot of fun.
Kristin Neal: That one, they don't do too well the first couple rounds, but then once they get it, then it's like, it's a challenge for them. Okay.
KarynPowell: All fun.
Kristin Neal: Any questions on the game so far? No.
KarynPowell: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Awesome, Karen. Here we have videos on how to shut down those ZEUS units, the operations manual. Down here we have, these are our ZTAG logo files and branding guidelines and digital artwork. I'll get more to this later, but this just kind of gives you another example of our support. So we have... have... Anything that you need, we found out that there's a lot of, like, your own printing, so we have those things available for you guys to do in the Educator Library video, video library, this one. Okay. We'll show you how other, how they're playing ZTAG in other ways. So if you have these, like, scooters, they're playing the Rocket League. If you do obstacle courses, you can have a math match obstacle course. We just had a teacher say that she does the red light, green light, with kids running across the gym as her favorite animal. So it's, like, little things like that, the variations, that ZTAG really, there's, the sky's the limit.
KarynPowell: Okay.
Kristin Neal: And that was it for the training. That was, that website. This is the coverage. So I'm going to go over briefly the coverage and the pricing catalog. Again, I'll send both of them over to you so you can take a closer look.
KarynPowell: Okay. This very first page that I want to make, uh...
Kristin Neal: Make note that this is what every single ZTAG unit comes with. Everything after this is optional. So this very first one, the manufacturer's warranty is available for 12 months. That comes with every unit. It does not cover these things unless something further is purchased. And that's where those digital guidelines, digital artwork comes in. That's where on that community page. And this is that training that I was telling you about with Steve, our Playmaker.
KarynPowell: Okay.
Kristin Neal: So he will walk your team through. Great guy. He's an owner-operator and for, so he knows, and a teacher. That's what I was going to say. A teacher and an owner-operator. So his wealth of knowledge is really exciting.
KarynPowell: Okay. These are the coverage plans.
Kristin Neal: We have the one-year at 930, three-year at 2,500, and we have the five-year coverage at 4,000. And here are the different... different... are different... area. So are the the some... different Things that we offer with each. This one, however, I want to make sure you notice that it also comes with a free community launch pack. So you have everything that you need to launch an event in your city. So we can even customize these with your city names. Oh, okay. Yeah, to get all the kids together. Okay.
KarynPowell: And I think that's it for the coverage.
Kristin Neal: All right. Did you have any questions on the coverage?
KarynPowell: Yeah. If you could, like, what, um, towards the top where you had the different options, um, it says six ZTAGGERS per year. What does that mean?
Kristin Neal: Those are replacements. Those. Oh, okay.
KarynPowell: Yes. Okay.
Kristin Neal: The game watches. Okay. Okay.
KarynPowell: Yes.
Kristin Neal: These guys. Perfect. Okay. Yeah.
KarynPowell: Great question. Anything, any other question? Uh, no, no. If you're going to send this information, then I can look over it. Like, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome.
Kristin Neal: Well, Karen, it sounded like you might have been a non-profit. Are you a non-profit by chance?
KarynPowell: Yes, ma'am. Awesome. Wonderful.
Kristin Neal: If you could send me over that letter, that number, we can get you 10% off. Okay. Okay. We also have the one that would be over is if you purchase 10 plus units, we can offer 12% off.
KarynPowell: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Purchase the one unit system for the 24 ZTAGGERS is $9,700. Okay. And then this is the price for the ZTAGGERS individually, individually, again, for the command center, just the base by itself without the ZTAGGERS. Here's very clear about the coverage. And here's that quantity discount. Okay. And here's your discount down here for the 501C form. Okay. Yeah.
KarynPowell: And here's our payments and terms down here, if you'd like to take a look at those. Okay. We're also, we have a sole source also.
Kristin Neal: We can provide a sole source letter. Hopefully that will help with funding. Are you, speaking of funding, is this something that you see as, that would align with that? How, how is the funding? Is there something that we could do, help you with support in that?
KarynPowell: Um, at the, I'm not sure at this point. Um, I am one of the program coordinators. So this is like the information that I get from here.
Kristin Neal: I'm going to have to talk to my executive director. Perfect. Um, so then, and then we would go from there, just so you're aware.
KarynPowell: Thank you so much.
Kristin Neal: Yes, that makes it easier to know where, where, how, how I can support you. So would it be helpful if I kind of got like a little overview of our meeting and just said like, this is what Z tag is.
KarynPowell: It's almost like a, a quote proposition. Sure, yeah, that'd be great. Okay, perfect, perfect.
Kristin Neal: So you do see this as working out in your camp. Yes. You do?
KarynPowell: Okay, good.
Kristin Neal: That was, I was like, wait, I should ask you that. Okay, so you do see ZTAG as beneficial for your camp. Yes.
KarynPowell: Okay, very cool.
Kristin Neal: Then let me get working on that, Karen, and I'll send you these things so you can forward to your camp director.
KarynPowell: Okay. your camp is in California, you said? No, we're in Iowa. Iowa, oh my goodness, okay. I'm in Indiana, so I'm here and near you.
Kristin Neal: Very cool, very cool. All right. Well, thank you again for your time. Let me know if there's anything else we can send you, support. Karmie, I'm going to add to the email so you know, like, she'll just jump in and help you get whatever you need, okay?
KarynPowell: Okay. Okay. And then you said you, I mean, if the funds and everything are there. Okay. And the potential is there, like, can we, we can only do, run two of them at a time, like on the same game? Is that what you said earlier?
Kristin Neal: Yes, ma'am. Okay. All right.
KarynPowell: Two on the same.
Kristin Neal: But there is, I can connect you with our, our playmaker because he's a little bit more aware of the range between them. So if you have like a space between different games, you might be able to do that. Oh, okay.
KarynPowell: Okay. Yeah, got you. Okay. So just because, like, we have, our camp usually runs right around 200 kids.
Kristin Neal: Okay. For a week session.
KarynPowell: But then we do some family weekends that we can bring this to also. Because we, you know, we've done some other things, you know, like silent disco. We've done like that. We've done scavenger hunts. You know what mean? Just something different for the families that they can. And so then they're also able to see how, you know, how things are run and what we do at camp for the kids. of But then. And then, And this would definitely benefit, like, some of the younger, like, 8 to 11-year-olds to kind of build that, like, friendship, build the community, not only during their week at camp, but then also it would help families get involved. Like, yeah, so, like, during family camps, so. That's huge, Karen.
Kristin Neal: I've even seen it to where in, they used it specifically for that night where the junior hires move up to the high school age. So they were like, oh, we gotta, like, it really just naturally happened that way. But what we saw was so neat because we saw the junior hires win these games against the high school, and you would have thought they had won, like, the Olympics. But they were instantly connected, like, they were welcomed into that environment, so.
KarynPowell: Okay. And then, because, like, it is, it ranges for age, right? Like, okay, because, like, we have, like I said, because we go all the way up to. The age of 17. And this could be like a team-building effect also for like our training days, for orientation.
Kristin Neal: Very much so. And because it's in contact, it really does work with bringing that, no matter the age, all together. Okay.
KarynPowell: Yeah, hugely so.
Kristin Neal: Every single skill.
KarynPowell: Okay, awesome. Awesome. It really is.
Kristin Neal: Karen, how about you send me over, if you can, that number, so I can just add that to your file real quick, and then we can get it.
KarynPowell: I will have to, it's in one of my files. Let me. Yeah, no worries. Believe me, I get it.
Kristin Neal: Let me take a minute and think of where that's at. Let's see.
KarynPowell: Give me one second here. Yeah, no worries.
Kristin Neal: Thank you.
KarynPowell: I just messaged my executive director. She will probably know that right offhand because I don't...
Kristin Neal: Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
KarynPowell: She usually handles a majority of that stuff. I know I have it somewhere. I just don't know where.
Kristin Neal: I totally hear you. Yes. Karyn, I just realized I forgot to even go back to the zombie survival. I forgot the kid's favorite game. forgot to explain that to you. So do you have just like two more? yeah, yeah.
KarynPowell: Oh, yeah. Go ahead. Yes.
Kristin Neal: This one is the fun one because this one, again, has that element for all ages. But this... I'll send you a video for sure, but I hope I can kind of encompass it. When you're playing this game, you're either going to be a zombie, a human, or a doctor. Okay. That added doctor element. You don't have to add the doctor, but we do suggest using it in case... We have kids that are really shy or special needs, okay? Because if the zombies, you'll have like two zombies getting everyone else, trying to infect everybody else, right?
KarynPowell: Sure. So high energy, a lot of fun.
Kristin Neal: The kids are just their favorite. Once they get infected, they have to go to the doctor. They have to run to them. So that's why that kid that's shy totally feels engaged, fully like ready to jump in. And then the special needs kids, there's camps that are actually special needs that I'll have to show you the testimony of this one. But they said they're adding it to the wheelchairs and they're adding it to their, what they need. And it fully, fully, everybody is included. It's so neat.
KarynPowell: That's awesome. I had to just share that.
Kristin Neal: That one is the most important game.
KarynPowell: Okay. And it's favorite, so.
Kristin Neal: Okay, good.
KarynPowell: Okay. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: All right, Karen. I think that's it unless you have any other questions.
KarynPowell: Um, no, I don't, but I do have the number.
Kristin Neal: Oh, great. Okay. Do you want to put that in the chat?
KarynPowell: Yes. Give me one second here. I told you she would know exactly where it is.
Kristin Neal: Got it. There you go.
KarynPowell: All right.
Kristin Neal: And your camp name was, what was it again?
KarynPowell: so sorry. Camp Hertko Hollow. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Oh, I appreciate it. Thank you. Yes. Do you want our address or anything also?
KarynPowell: Do you want me to start with a quote?
Kristin Neal: Do you want me to just get that kind of moving?
KarynPowell: Yeah. Why? Yeah. Just because then at least we'll know exactly like, we'll know exactly everything. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: And then it's still valid. Like it'll still be valid if, when you guys are ready to, to move forward.
KarynPowell: Oh, okay. Perfect. I'll honor it.
Kristin Neal: Um, let's see. Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much. Yes.
KarynPowell: And then I can give you my phone number. I have a cell phone number. And then I can give you, like, we have, like, Matt. He is the guy that, like, he is the one that's posted in our Des Moines office.
Kristin Neal: Okay. So I can give you my phone number, and then I can give you his.
KarynPowell: I will have to look his up here for, in a second. Because...
Kristin Neal: He just comes up in my phone as, you know what mean?
KarynPowell: Like, I don't know.
Kristin Neal: Oh, yeah. I don't even know my kids, it's horrible to say, but... Right. All right, Karyn, whenever you're ready, I'm ready for your number.
KarynPowell: Mine is... It's 515-805. Oh, God. Hold on. Because I'm mixing it up. I'm mixing mine up with my daughter's. What do want to do that?
Kristin Neal: 8-9-3-6.
KarynPowell: 9-8-9-3-6.
Kristin Neal: You got it.
KarynPowell: Sorry, because my daughter's is 3-7-4-8. So I just, it, yes.
Kristin Neal: But you said I'm going to have to walk around with it written on my hand.
KarynPowell: know. I know. I totally get it.
Kristin Neal: And then Matt's, that's the Iowa campus, Iowa contact. Yes. And his number later? I can do it right now if you want.
KarynPowell: Yeah, I'm ready. Okay, that, his is 515-443-5085. 515-45.-485-5. 515
Kristin Neal: And he's the one that we should connect with for this quote, or should we add him to the email?
KarynPowell: You can add him, I, well, then our, Matt is like, he's the program director. I'm, I'm, and then there's Ashley. She is our executive director.
Kristin Neal: Okay, Ashley.
KarynPowell: Yeah, Ashley is the executive director.
Kristin Neal: Thank you so much. You should, I add her to the, the email?
KarynPowell: Yes, yes. And it will just, it will be, what, because my email is Karen, or Karen at campherkohollowed.com. Yes, yes.
Kristin Neal: And then Ashley's is Ashley.
KarynPowell: Perfect.
Kristin Neal: And H-L-E-Y is Matt the same way?
KarynPowell: Yep, and it's, I'm pretty sure his is just Matt, but give me a second here.
Kristin Neal: right. Okay. Perfect.
KarynPowell: Instead of, because his name is Matthew, but I, um, yeah, Matt, M-A-T-T, at campherkohollow.com.
Kristin Neal: Perfect. Awesome. Oh my goodness, Karen, thank you so much for this great conversation. I appreciate help getting all that situated, and we'll just get everything ready for you.
KarynPowell: Oh yeah, for sure. Okay, that's awesome. Yeah, I can't wait.
Kristin Neal: Yes.
KarynPowell: For your camp.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
KarynPowell: All right, Karen, well, thank you again.
Kristin Neal: You have a great day. We'll talk to you.
KarynPowell: Okay, sounds good. Thank you so much for the, for the meeting. I really do appreciate it. Appreciate it too, Karen. Thanks. thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
Trisha Mason - AUSD: Hello.
Jesus Cervantes: Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello.
Steven Hanna: Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. I'm just going to give it like another two or three minutes to make sure I'm getting a sense.
Trisha Mason - AUSD: Perfect. Thank you. I just have my site coordinators and myself with our two of our resource teachers. We just want to make sure since we'll be implementing it at all sites.
Steven Hanna: Awesome. And do you have your units with you?
Trisha Mason - AUSD: Yes, I do.
Viridiana Hernandez-SV: have it right next to me.
Steven Hanna: All right. Well, we're kind of all waiting for everybody. You can just get your units in front of you at some... ...pointer somewhere if you have them. If not, I'm going to be turning on the radio camera, and you can follow along with what I'm doing on my assistance.
Trisha Mason - AUSD: Okay. Okay. All right. right. All right. right. right. right. All right. You Thank you very much.
Steven Hanna: I'm going to try and be super quick, because I know you're all at school sites, and it is kind of getting close to end of day, depending on where you are or midday. So I've got 40 minutes, and I'm going to try and be super quick on it. If we do need extra time, we can always book more time with me individually, and I'm more than happy to take you through on a one-on-one if you need. So don't feel like you're going to lose out with this. This is kind of just an all-around overview of the system. Just understand what you're working with, how to turn it on, how to change some of the settings. It around to best accommodate your groups. I do quickly want to introduce myself. My name is Steven. I'm one of the Playmaker developers for ZTAG. What that roughly translates to is I am a former teacher. I taught middle school seven through 12 earth science and advanced science classes, and I'm over in New York. So I got out of the teaching traditional environment, and I moved towards teaching the teachers. And those people are you now. So I went from seven through 12. My wife teaches K through six. Between the two of us, she's got K through six. I've got seven through 12. And we try and keep it pretty well-rounded. I'm going to be giving you folks a lot of best practice tips. This is going to be a pretty informal training. And when I mean training, it's literally, I'm going to show you how to turn the system on. I'm going to show you the actual tech side of it, which is super quick and simple. The games and how you change the settings. show games will are what's really of value to you. There are unique settings for each game to differentiate gameplay, and I'll start off by saying don't take any notes. I've got a note taker in here that's AI, it's getting everything for you. Just focus on being here and being present. It's the end of the day, I don't know where, or middle day, I don't know. But notes are being given to you, and this is also pre-recorded, so it will also be sent to you after this. Don't worry about notes. The tech side of this is pretty simple. The case itself has everything built into it. I have my other little camera over there, which is my phone, and you can kind of see the right side of your case. I'm going to move over to that, and I'm going to start talking on that. If somebody is waiting to get in, just stop me, because my back has turned where I'm at in my room, and I can't really see if somebody's waiting to get in. So, give me two seconds. I'm going to go over to that system. If you have your system with you, do it with And walk along. If not, just quickly pay attention, and then do it on your own at some point in time.
Steve K: All right. So, I do apologize. I do have a dog with me, and she is a little bit annoying. She's getting used to being next to me. But, if it gets too overbearing, we will cut it off. So, the first thing that I'm going to do is show you what your case looks like. Springbeam, Google Stop. Her name is Springbeam. From the get-go, your case will have two latches, just like this. All you're going to do is unlatch those. And your screen goes up. In the back corner of your case, you have this little storage. like out? How Thank Section where you're going to have a variety of different things. You should have a white router, two white antennas, a power cable that I took out already, and there should also be a little mouse, like a USB mouse keyboard, with two USB chargers. The main things you need to function in this unit are the power cable, the router, the two antennas, and there's actually another piece in the top right corner. There's the router clip. So, the first thing that I tell everybody to do is to get your router ready. The system doesn't have to be on just yet. What you can do is take your clip. There's a fat side and a skinny side to that clip. And you're going to take the fat side and put it under. And also, I'm just going to... Reset that. From there, you're going to plug your two antennas in, screw them on, I should say. And your router should look just like this, clip on the back, antennas on the top, you will then take that and place it, just like so on the system. That's the first step, is your router. The second step that I walk everybody through is your power. On the right side of your system, you should have these fun little sections of power. There's going to be... We unique areas, your actual power to your outlet, your charging dock outlet, and the computer outlet. We start from the bottom up. You're going to take your black power cable, the female end, plug it into the Zeus kit. And I have with me a solar power brick, which will act as my power source today. We'll pretend that this is the wall outlet. This is actually a really great unit. It's a sub $400 unit that will allow you to take ZTAG and anything with you wherever you need to go. So we plug that right on in. We're plugged in there. First step is to hit that red button. And the entire system will flicker on. Your top screen will flicker blue and your bottom over here will be all red and you'll hear that beep. Thank you. That's the charging indicator. Red equals charging. You'll see that each of them is flickering to a certain little level, like this one is almost at the top, but there is a flicker. That's about an 80% charge. So as long as you look at these, you can kind of get a visualization and representation of the charge from afar. The one thing I will tell you with your unit is that you should open this slightly, just so that the heat can rise and that these chargers don't burn out a battery over time. For the longevity of your system, just make sure this is up when you're charging. It is about a 40 minute charge from zero on all of these, and it takes about four hours to run them and drain them from a full battery. So four hours of gameplay for 40 minutes of charge time. After that red power button goes on and you have identified these are charging, press the silver button and it should turn blue. everyone. Thanks, you. You Your screen up top will flicker just like that. I'm going to set the camera up just so that you can see what the screen looks like as it flickers on. The ZTAG logo will flicker. You'll see my nice reflection for a moment. And it should take about a minute to a minute and a half for the entire system to turn on. So this is the startup boot up sequence that you'll see. This is the home screen of ZTAG. You may not have this screen when you start your system up. You may have a different screen that says, Hi, welcome to Zeus. Please register your system. I am going to encourage you to all register your system. What registering your system does is it basically enables data tracking on your system for you if you need a deliverable and efficacy meter to ... ... ... ... Basically show someone that ZTAG is doing its job, you can start tracking all of the one, steps, two, interactive tags, three, your most played game, four, oh man, how many games over time you have, five, how many hours of gameplay the system has, and you can get an even further in-depth stat check with the last five games. So registering your system is kind of important for just you guys to, one, know where your systems are in your sites, and two, begin your data tracking with that. It also helps us to start to develop games in a little bit of a different way. What we're going to start to do is develop a leaderboard for everybody that has ZTAG, and it'll be anonymized to a certain extent where your district will basically be put up against other districts and stats for steps and like all this movement-based stuff. And we're kind of just giving out prizes and cool things to the people who are at the top. So the more you use ZTAG, the more fun stuff, et cetera, et cetera. If you do hit skip registration, you will be at your home screen. Your home screen is going to have eight different games at the start. There are a few things that I want to draw your attention to in the top right corner. We have these four different icons. Our first icon is going to be the sound icon. This is how loud the ZTAGGERS are. This little backwards arrow is the recall icon. If a ZTAGGER is not coming back at the end of your session or end of class and you need to know where it is, tap that thing and it's basically like a fire alarm going off on the ZTAGGER. Anybody who has it in their pocket, anybody who has it in their hands, anybody who's forgotten it on a table, you will hear this giant blaring beeping and the ZTAGGER will say, please return your ZTAGGER. So that's a nice way to find your watches or ZTAGGERS at the end. Your settings tab, which we're going to walk through, and your power icon, which we'll go through at the end of the day. First thing we're going to do is go into our settings with our new system. The important thing I want What to stress with ZTAG and Zeus is that you do not need Wi-Fi to run your system. If you are met with a Wi-Fi error, that is okay. You can still run your system. At no point in time, if someone says to you, oh, we can't play ZTAG because we don't have Wi-Fi, you will know they actually didn't even try. So, you can run this without Wi-Fi. have to stress that like 15 times so that the auto, the AI just basically says this is like red highlight to you. On our left side of the screen, we have a few different tabs. I'm going to take you through the connection. The connection tab up here is where you'll go through your Wi-Fi settings. You'll connect to Wi-Fi or ask to be connected to Wi-Fi, and this is a touch screen where you can tap your password in. Your Wi-Fi is going to be used for updates. We will release updates periodically throughout the year, and we will contact you and let you know that those are out. And we will. It even help walk you through how to get them, but I do want to show you how to do it right now, just if you're tech savvy and you can do it on the side. Under your account, you're going to see where you've registered your account. This is under a different account before I joined the ZTAG team, so that's, you know, the account that I registered this system on. Your device tab is where you will be seeing all of your ZTAggers. This is a nice visual representation of what's in your doc. You should have one through 24. If you have multiple ZTAG units being used at one site, some of this may get switched around a little bit. So, you might have one through 48 or random numbers. If you have OCD like me, you're going to hit the reset device button at every start of your event, and you're going to hit yes. And everything on our doc right now is just reappearing in numeric order. I do want to draw your attention. I'm going down here because I want to make sure that you see what the full charge icon or full charge looks like on the devices. That green is an indicator of a full charge. We have one that's not fully charged. We have most of them that are fully charged. We're going to show you how to take those out and turn them on in a second. Under our firmware, this is where we're going to be basically pushing our updates from. There is something that we have to do before we do this, and I actually do need to update this so I can show you how to update it. But I'm going to move on to games. Our games tab is where you can select which games are available to you and your students or group throughout the day. But if you want to take away certain games and make them inaccessible because, hey, maybe it's just a high energy group and you know for a fact that you just don't even want them to see the game on the screen, you can do that. So you can check. Check and uncheck these boxes here if you want them on the home screen. On the system info, this is where all of your stats are going to come into play. I've had this system for about 2024 is when I registered it, but I actually started using it in late 23. So I've had this system for just under two and a half years. This is what your stats will look like over time. For me, I've got 40 hours of play time, and that's not standby idle time on the system. That's actual game. So that's 40 hours of everybody actually moving and running around. Our games played are 1,563, and we've got 1 million or just 1.4 million steps in about two and a half years. So it's kind of great to see these over time, and you can actually do the math per session. We're going to be coming out with something in the future, hopefully, where you can create a session and just do your data for that session. got join me today There is right to 40 minutes of like, hey, I just want to know how much they ran in 40 minutes. Start. And then you can end the session and it'll give you a full data overview. So we're going to be working on that, but this is our way to do it for now. The total interactions, and those are the tags. When the watches get close enough to each other and automatically ping, that's what that is representing. You can also go into your last five games, and this is a much better visual representation of the breakdown of everything. You have your steps, interactions, how long the game lasted for, and how many players were in the game with a pie chart breakdown and visual representation. Great deliverable section if you need to show efficacy of ZTAG in action to anyone who's really looking for it. On the help, you're going to have three great QR codes that you can scan if you ever need assistance, but by doing this training with me, you basically all get access to me right after this. So if there's anything that comes up of the moment, you'll have my email, phone number, and basically the ability to schedule a quick 15 minutes. with me to get over any humps that you need to get over, and speed bumps. Under the About, this is where, if you are connected to Wi-Fi, you will be updating your system from. So, I need to update my system from 2.7.3. If I go into my available versions, you'll see the most recent updated version is at the top. 2.8.0. And now I'm going to press Update. I'm going to have a secondary prompt. Yes. I want to update. And this is going to be on Wi-Fi. So, this is where you'll actually require Wi-Fi, but if you do not have access to Wi-Fi, we are also able to send you an SD card with the update that you can just pop right into a slot. So, there are multiple ways to get these updates. The update themselves... It's about five minutes to do, but it is important that you know how to do them moving forward. Any questions so far? That was a basic quick overview of settings, updating, and what the system looks like when you start it up. Okay, while that's going, I do want to show you, on the bottom over here, what the ZTAGG case has on the bottom side. This little dock has a magnetic charger built into it. Once you place the ZTAGGER device back on it, it will automatically start the charge process. You'll hear a beep. And you'll see that light come on. Once you hear that beep and the light comes on, you know that that is charging. You will also be able to see, it's a little bit tough to see with the camera. here the of I'm But, there is a little charging LCD screen indicator. On this side, if it's charging, it'll look red with that little battery, and fully charged is green like that. So we're just about 20% through. It'll be about another minute or so on that. I'll show you the ZTAGGER itself while we're waiting. When you take your ZTAGGER out, on the left-hand side of your device, there is a red button. That is your power button. Press that button once and give it about five seconds. In the top right corner, you have your battery indicator. Right next to that are your signal bars. Those are the two big components that you need to pay attention to on your device when you turn it on. If those are there, that means that one, you have battery, and two, this device that What I'm holding in my hand is communicating with the main device, or main computer, should say. Two ways to turn them off. First way, double tap red, one, two, turns off the device. Second way, I'm going to turn it back on again. Second way, right back into the charge dock. And that light will come right back on. The SD card slot that I was telling you about before, if you're unable to do an over-the-air Wi-Fi update, is right here. And that's where we'll be able to send you a little SD card, and you can just pop it right in the slot. You'll also notice that there's an HDMI plug-in here. If you need... To show this screen to your class, you can HDMI that to another monitor or a larger screen. So it'll be a pure one-to-one on this screen to whatever is showing there to the bigger screen. Now, sorry, I thought this update would be quicker, but we'll be okay. I'll just cancel it. We're going to go back to our home screen, and what I'm going to do is I'm going to actually take a few of these out, turn them on, and we're going to simulate a few players today. So we'll have four players. I'm also going to teach you the script that I normally run games in for about a 42-minute period. I don't know how long your classes are if they're in that range, but you can scale it up or down depending on that. And I'll also give you the settings for each game after this in an email. At your start screen, or home screen I could say, the first game that I always like to play is Red Light, Green Light. When you tap on a game, you'll notice that settings come up for that game, or game rules I should say. This is a quick little overview on how to play Red Light, Green Light. What I prefer to do, and I recommend that you do, is turn this around into a co-teaching and co-learning environment, and ask them if they've ever played the game of Red Light, Green Light before. I guarantee you, 70% of them will have played, or at least heard of it. Have one student provide you how they have played Red Light, Green Light. They will probably give you 50% correct or more, align the rules a little bit, and you have your entire instructions for Red Light, Green Light given to you and brought to you in part by your students. You basically guided them to the entire experience. Let's thank Thank you. Thank Thank Perfect. Yeah. We're When you start Red Light, Green Light, there is a home screen on the ZTAGGER that looks like this. Consider this the teaser to the game for your kids. At each start game, they'll have a little home screen that's flashing or an indicator of what's going to be played. I will recommend, if you are indoors, you reduce the volume in your top right corner. If this will start moving... Oh my goodness, that's terrible. Alright, there we go. Since we're indoors, I'm going to keep this at like 1 or 2. If you're outdoors, you can raise that up to about 10. Within your settings, you're going to be able to differentiate how you run this game for younger students and older students. For younger students, what I... So recommend is you go straight to low sensitivity, and negative scoring is enabled. Negative scoring enabled means that if you're caught on red, you merely lose points as opposed to getting kicked out of the game. So what I like to do is do this in set of three. First game that you play, and I'll show you what this looks like. When you start each game, countdown from 10, it's just a good practice to do 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, on 3 is when you start the game, because it's a 3-2-1 countdown. And you'll see that everybody will be running around and moving. And then somebody will get caught on red, and they'll get minus 10 points. So they'll keep running around, moving, earning as many points as possible. . . . . . Thank It's on low sensitivity, so it might not catch it. But, as you can see, the sequence changes fairly frequently. Halfway through the game, it actually starts to go out of time sequence from each other, meaning these will not be green and red at the same time. They'll start to change. Some will be red, and some will be green, so that they can't cheat off of each other. So you'll see it's, like, delayed by a half a second. At the end of each game, the winning watch will have an LED sequence on the side. This cool little fun LED sequence will be played on the side. What I like to do is say, whoever has the rainbow watch, please hold your hand up so that we can see what that looks like. I model what it looks like so that everybody else understands it. And then I actually say, all right, that was a quick practice round. Are you guys ready for the real round? And we go right back into a second game. The second game that I like to play, I usually bump up the sensitivity. We're going to skip that. We're going to pretend that we have a group of 8th graders or 9th graders who are very, very competitive. They are extremely, I want to say, arrogant about their ability to play red light, green light, and we're going to create the hardest version of red light, green light for them. So we're changing the sensitivity to high, and we're taking off negative scoring. Now, when this watch gets, when this ZTAGGER gets caught on red, there will be a warning, and then the second catch is you're out. So this is the more competitive way to play red light, green light with your group. I don't recommend you have eliminations with your younger groups because they would just be more confused than anything, and it'll cost Cognitively load them to the point where it just doesn't work. Any questions? On, Red Light, Green Light. Okay. The second game that I like to play is a game called Pattern Match. This is where I also turn it around for co-teaching and co-learning and ask, has anybody ever played UNO before? If you've played UNO, you know how to play this game. Instead of a number, you're given a shape. Same color matching, but now you're matching a shape. What I like to do for this is go right into our settings and take a look at what we have. We have a bunch of different colors and a bunch of different shapes and a bunch of different settings. The easiest shapes will be a triangle, a square, a star, and a circle. As far as your colors go, that's up to you and depending on what you're trying to do. For the first game, I keep it as 60 seconds, and I have my students only focus on the color. You have to match the same color for the first game. How they match that color, I'll show you. Six and three. Three. Two. So, six and three are going to be our two players in the game. The second the game starts, I'm going to turn these watches towards each other, and they're going to automatically start linking up and sequencing and earning points. So these are going to continuously go off. You can probably imagine there's going to be 14, 15, 16 people calling out a color and trying to find each other. These watches will communicate from about indoors with no direct sunlight. They'll communicate eight feet away from each other. So this is a very no contact game. The entirety of ZTAG is no contact. As far as getting the watches close to each other, you can see that these are going off. I don't have a good half point five on this to show you. I don't far away they'll go, but you'll have to take my word in understanding that they can reach about seven feet indoors without direct sunlight. If you're in sunlight, it's going to be a little bit reduced range to about three feet. But it's still a fairly lengthy distance where no one has to touch each other and no one has to get close to each other where they're grabbing. Now, in practice, good luck. And the good luck comes from this game generates a lot of excitement. And as many guidelines as you try to provide, they will get excited and they will, you know, at some point bump into one of each other. But it's not an intentional bump and it's a redirected bump. My thing is, I always like to say I have two rules. Our first rule is there's no bumps today. And our second rule is if anybody does fall down, we help them up. So, that's what I do. Any questions on pattern match? Okay. Similar to... We have Math Match. If I have a very energetic group, I like to slow things down and say, great, you guys aren't able to pay attention to instructions. Now we're playing a game called Math Match. Math teachers hate me because I use it as punishment. Every other teacher likes me because they understand it, depending on who you are. We're going to assign all of our taggers to playing. One team will have the questions and one team will have the answers. So, for this game, same concept as before in matching, except it sounds like the New York Stock Exchange with kids yelling numbers out instead of colors and shapes. So, one team is the answer team, and that's going to be the white watches. And the question team is going to be in green. These change every 15 seconds to prevent someone from getting stuck on a particular problem. So, even if they don't solve the problem, it'll move on to something else so it gives them another opportunity to solve a problem. I do want to show you a few of the settings. In this, you can focus on specific operators if you wanted, and you can also change your operand range. If you needed to focus on low range numbers, you can do that. Higher range numbers, no problem. You can focus on addition and subtraction, multiplication, or division. You do need to have two operators to play the game though. So, I suggest you stick to addition and subtraction, or multiplication and division. Any questions on Math Match? All right. Our next game is one of our newest games called Word Wave. Similar matching concept, except instead of numbers, colors, we're going with language and native language and target language. Currently, have Spanish and English, and French and English. In the future, we're more than likely going to be working towards created a Teacher's . It's There's uploadable lists for the day of what you would be teaching, where if there's a specific set of target words that you need to focus on, you can do that before your lesson. So if you were looking for something like that, that is something in development, and I'm happy to share that it will be coming. For this game, we'll focus on English to Spanish words, and it's honestly really interesting to see how the dynamic of language changes up how the game is played. You'll notice that the Spanish speakers for this game are very, very strong in delegating and communicating where to move and who to move towards to get the words matched. Just so that I show you guys what it looks like on our watches. So, these are all going to be on the Spanish team. There's another watch that will be a green watch, which none of these were set to. But... But... They would just have to match with the same green watch. Let me try and turn one more of these on and get that. Let's see if this gets added in. Please go to green team. Oh, that's because I put them on the Spanish team, that's right. Excuse me. You can actually select who's on the English or Spanish team, and the numbers at the bottom of the watch translate to where they are on the team. So, your English team will be on green. Your Spanish team will be on purple. And I do not have any other matches over here because I need about six more players for this game to work really well. But, the gist of it is, I'm not going to match Tree with Familia. I'll match Leche with Milk if I have, but I don't have. This will also swap after 15 seconds so you do not get caught up on the word as well. So, if anybody is having trouble with the words, they do change after 15 seconds. Another one of our newest games is called Sequence Train. Excuse me. In this game, players have to find the puzzle in the sequence and then link their watches to the next person in the sequence. So, one has to find two, two has to find three, three finds four, four finds five, or by tens, or by evens, or by odds, whatever you want to set that to. For this game to work effectively, effectively, we actually have a... We teacher in Wisconsin who came up with a circle method where the person who has the, we'll do natural numbers, we're going to have 10, 6, and 13. The person who has the watch is basically in the middle of everybody, and if we simulate that this person is the person with number one, that person's number two, they're on the outside of the circle. Number one says, I need number two, number two tags in the middle. And then number two says, I need number three, and then number three tags in the middle. Who needs number four, who tags and goes in the middle? Who needs number five, tags, goes in the middle. Who needs number six, tags, goes in the middle. So it's a collaborative puzzle solving game more than anything. I'll show you what it looks like really quick. So number one is going to go to number two, which is going to go to number three. fairly quickly, to Wood. There's And, kind of So ASI with something should happen may not vary From four to number five, so on and so forth. That's sequence string. Any questions on sequence string? Okay. Rock, paper, scissors. One of the most cognitively loading games, and I like to play this game as a collaborative puzzle-solving game as opposed to anything else. The goal of the game is to have everybody on the same team. Or, in competitive rock, paper, scissors, rock goes after scissors, scissors goes after paper, paper goes after rock. How cognitively loading you want to make this game is up to you. I like to say, all you need to do for this game is find someone, match your watch together, and once you're on the same team, try and get everybody on that team. Make it a puzzle-solving game as opposed to a competitive game, and it becomes a lot easier for you to run. I can't really run. This effectively here, so I'm going to skip on over this one. KeepAway is one of our other, is our movement into tag games and chase games. In KeepAway, one person is going to have the ball, or you can select up to four people to have the ball. Why would you want to do that? Let's say that you have a 20-person group and one person has the ball. It's a little bit challenging for one person to escape 20 people. If you select a few different balls, you can have one person running away from three people. Another one person running away from four people. So, adding more balls allows it to be a little less, I want to say, chaotic. It is controlled chaos to the settings that you create it to. I actually reverse this game. And instead of them going to tag, chasing, trying to take the ball away, I make a tag. And one person then has to chase. Thank Instead of 20 people chasing one, we reverse it into one going after 20. We can further add more taggers in, and now we can have three taggers chasing after 20. We can have four taggers chasing after 20. This game is a little bit challenging to do in a small setting. You do want to try this out in a bigger setting. Any questions on people? The game that you'll be playing the most and the game that we'll close out with is going to be a game called Zombie Survival. This is the game that everybody loves. This is the game you've probably saw the demo on and that you've played at a show if you've seen it at a show. For this game, we're going to basically set an entire world of humans and zombies. And the way we do that is just by this. For Zombie Tag, we have two different versions. We're going to be playing the version with a doc. If you're playing the version with a doctor, you'll have three different teams. Just give me one second. All right. So, on our left-hand side of the screen, we've got all of our players. We can assign them to the humans, zombies, or doctors. But before that, I'll take you through the settings. We've got our time limit. How many seconds the game goes on for. Our zombies on randomize. How many zombies there are at the start of the game. Our doctors on randomize. How many doctors there are. Number of tags before infection. That's how many lives they have, or how many tags they have to have before they get turned into a zombie. We're going to set that as two. The infection duration is how long it takes for them to turn into a zombie. And the doctor heal limit is how. How many times the doctor can heal someone in a game? So I'm going to randomly assign everybody, and I'm going to move this just slightly down so we can see what everybody looks like. You'll notice that the zombie team is a red watch, the doctor team is a white watch, and the human team are green watches. So you'll see that if the zombie is too close to the doctor, they will start to get stunned, which means they cannot infect anyone. But if the zombie is close enough to anybody else, they will turn them into zombies. So the green team becomes the red team. The red team are the zombies, the green team are the humans. And you'll notice all these watchers flashing, that's because they're about to turn into a zombie. ... ... ... At the end of the game, there will be a stat screen that you see over here. The watches will look like that. I do want to show you one more quick thing, and we'll just set it so that one of these watches survives. I'm going to take this one and put it to the side. So the doctor can heal three people. He's going to stun the zombie. And let's say that those humans survived. At the end of the game, these surviving humans will have that rainbow LED sequence. So what I like to do is say, if we have any human survivors, please hold your hands up, and I count off those rainbow watches. Any questions on Zombie Tag? It looks like we're okay. Okay. Last thing today. We've got five minutes left, and this will take about a minute or two minutes to go through. First thing we're going to do is learn how to shut our system down. It's very important that we do this in the correct way. First step, make sure that all of your ZTAGGERS are back in their little charge dock. So I'm going to start putting these back in, and you can see that I'm not turning them off. I'm just putting them right on the dock, and I'm moving on with my life, because I don't have time for that. And I'm not trying to keep you guys here for longer than your allotted time. And I have one more watch in there. Great. Okay. Once you have everything back inside, you can lower down a little plexiglass. You're going to take a look at the top right corner, and we're going to look at that power button. We started from the top up. is mine. When we turn Turn the system on, we're now going to work, I'm sorry, we started from the bottom, bottom up, now we're working from the top down, so we're going to be taking off our router, we're going to be unscrewing the antennas, we can drop those right in there in the corner, I also recommend you put an air tagger in your case, it's nice to just have that in there. We're going to take off our router clip, and in that top right corner there's that little cutout area, you can just drop that right in there, built just for that. You're going to take your router, make sure that it's coiled up nicely. Put that in. Second step. We work from our top. We're going right to our power button. Power button, what do you want to do? Turn it off, shut down. Your screen will flicker off, just like so. We were up there. Now we're going to work our way down to our silver power button, which has this little blue light indicator. Press that. And we're going to work our way down. After about five seconds. Press red. And you'll notice the bottom part shuts off. After about another five seconds. Unplug. Oil up your cord. Which I'm going to do. Kind of lazily right here. But. going at it. Y You can place that in there nicely. And you're going to close your case. There should be no resistance when you close the case. And that is how you shut down your Zeus. Now jump on over to the other computer.
Steven Hanna: Okay. I know I just blasted through all that. And I know it was a lot. And I appreciate it coming into a lot of this information. Do you guys have any questions for me in regards to operations? How did it work, ZTAG? Anything at all.
Trisha Mason - AUSD: If I I lot I think maybe the only question I have is on your website, do you guys have a breakdown of the rules for each game?
Steven Hanna: Yes.
Trisha Mason - AUSD: Okay, perfect.
Steven Hanna: I'll also include that in our follow-up email. I'll just give you the direct link to those games. And there's also a few videos. That teacher that I was mentioning from Wisconsin, he has a few of his videos on there as like a community resource. Perfect. Mm-hmm. Questions?
Trisha Mason - AUSD: Do have any questions?
Steven Hanna: Okay. I will be sending all of you a follow-up email with your PlayMaker certificates. Basically what that means is you guys have access to me for an advanced level of support for logistics and whatever you need for your events. If you are coming up with something and you're like, oh my goodness, I don't know what I'm doing, that's fine. I'm here to help you. I will literally one-on-one with you and make sure you know what's up. So in addition to that, what I'm going to ask periodically, I may reach out to see what your system data looks Like, just because it helps us to formulate some new games and that leaderboard, like we've said, we want to start establishing. We want to start establishing that. I am one minute over my time, and you are all teachers. With that, please have a wonderful day. I appreciate you taking this time, and I am excited to see what you guys will do with ZTAG. It is very fun, and it has changed my life personally as a teacher, and I say that because I was just brought on recently with them. So I have not worked with them for long. I've used their system for two years as a client of theirs before I was brought on. So it did change my life in a very, very fun way, and it is really fun to hear the laughter of children and have that, you know, feed your soul as an educator versus being admin held back. So, go forth. Have a wonderful day. Use ZTAG as you will. Bye-bye. Thank so much. you.
Kristin Neal: Hi, James. Hello.
ansteadj: Hello.
Kristin Neal: How are you? Can you hear me okay? Yes. Great, great. Thank you so much for meeting with me. You're welcome. Very cool. So, James, tell me, it looks like you're from Palm Beach Schools?
ansteadj: Yeah, Palm Beach County Schools, School District. Great. And that's in California? No, Florida. It is.
Kristin Neal: Okay, I was wondering. I was like, I think that's Florida. Very cool. Yeah, we're not over. We are in Lafayette, I believe, Florida. Is that a city in Florida that I'm thinking of? I don't think so.
ansteadj: Okay.
Kristin Neal: It's like a pop. I'm sure I'm wrong, but very cool. James, how did you hear about us?
ansteadj: Probably social media.
Kristin Neal: Somewhere I can't remember, but yeah. Okay, James. Well, thank you again for meeting. My name is Kris Neal. I'm the Partner Relations Director. I'm not in sales. I'm just here to see how we can support your programs. So would you be able to tell me a little bit about your programs? And then after that, I'll go over the unit if it looks like it's a good partnership. I have coverage to go over and a place to go over. Does that sound good?
ansteadj: Sure. Sure. Perfect.
Kristin Neal: It'll probably be about 30, 20, 30 minutes.
ansteadj: Sure. All right, sir.
Kristin Neal: So please tell me about your schools. How, what are you guys challenged by? What are you, what are you?
ansteadj: So I run an after-school program in an elementary school that has, you know, that has 96 elementary schools, you know, that have after-school programs in them. And, and so I was just looking for something that. It might be different, and of course I've been looking for, you know, for different things to, you know, get kids participate in, you know, certain activities. So I just sort of came upon this, and I thought it was something I might want to take a look at.
Kristin Neal: That's great, Jim. So you have all-age kids, or are you looking more for elementary age?
ansteadj: It's all, it's, it's just elementary for, for me is, it's, you know, five through 11.
Kristin Neal: Okay, five through 11 years of age.
ansteadj: Yes.
Kristin Neal: Okay, perfect. Well, ZTAG is definitely great for those ages. We actually, that's like the most impactful that we're seeing. So definitely age appropriate, and you're talking about 96 sites or 96 schools? I'm sorry, children. 96 sites or 96 children?
ansteadj: No, no, we, we, yeah, I mean, the system itself has 96. 96 schools, so that's 96 different sites, different physical locations. Yes, yes, okay.
Kristin Neal: Thank you so much for sharing that, Jim. Now I kind of get a little bit of an idea of what we can work with. ZTAG is great because a lot of schools right now are purchasing like one unit to see how it kind of is impacting their programs, and we've seen them come back several times, actually, with reordering. So we can absolutely go forward with that kind of hopeful mentality and see where we can help you guys out. Does that sound okay?
ansteadj: Sure. Perfect.
Kristin Neal: I'm going to start sharing my screen, James. Let me know if you can see it.
ansteadj: Yes.
Kristin Neal: Perfect. This here is our ZTAG welcome letter. This is exactly what you're going to get when you purchase a unit. So you see everything is right here for your whole team to be able to get in one spot. I'm going to go through. going through. Thank This will briefly, just stop me if you have any questions, okay?
ansteadj: This here is our ZEUS unit.
Kristin Neal: This is ZTAG. ZTAG, that's ZEUS. That starts with a Z. ZTAG Unified Edutainment System. It has 24 of these game watches in this portable case. It has the wheels. It has the handle. Very durable. So, like I was saying, it's easy to move from site to site. Okay. And we have, everything is based off this power plug right here. All you need is a power plug. You're able to actually move this to the middle of the woods. And as long as you have a generator, you're good to go. It has a one-hour battery charge, and you get three hours of gameplay. But we like to get kids in and out, because in about 10 minutes, kids need a break. And so, it has such a high energy. So, we like to rotate 15 and 15. All right? Or, you know what I mean. Yep, yep, yep, yep.
ansteadj: Perfect.
Kristin Neal: There's also no Wi-Fi that's needed in this, James. The Wi-Fi is already built in, so it really is a plug and play. No Wi-Fi. It's also customizable. There's a cog up here that you can get into your data info. So it's a step counter and also an interaction counter. So every time the kids connect, we count those interactions. We're the only ones that do that. I think that's it for the units. Let me just make sure. There is a football field range. So the kids are able to go. If you put it right in the center, you get like a 360 football range. Let's see. We did the Wi-Fi, the charge, the plug. There is a USB port up here that you can connect your big screens in like the gym. So they're able to see every game has a leaderboard. So they're able to see the winner of those. And it's all, you Okay. The only time that you will need Wi-Fi, James, is when you do any updates. That's the only time when you're able to just jump on your own hotspot. If there's an issue with your firewall at school, we're able to offer in one of the extended cares just an SD card update, okay, if that's an issue. Okay. And then once you purchase this, James, you are the owner of it. There is no subscription, no monthly fees. You purchase it, and then you guys own it.
ansteadj: Is there any warranty with it? There is. Yep, there is a 12-month manufacturer's warranty, and there's an additional warranty that we'll go over in a little bit.
Kristin Neal: Yes, that is absolutely available. Okay, there's no more questions. I'm going to move on to the ZTAGGERS, the Game Watches themselves. Sound good? Yep.
ansteadj: Perfect.
Kristin Neal: These are the Game Watches, and again, you get 24 in this case. However, You can link two units together to get the ultimate 48-player game, okay? You also, this ZTAGG right here, it vibrates, the noise, the sound, it comes from this device, and it also, wait, vibrates, sounds, there's so many things, lights up, makes up. So there's like three things that it's totally. Lights up, maybe, yeah.
ansteadj: Yes, yes, exactly.
Kristin Neal: So it totally immerses the student in the game. starts off, it says, three, two, one, and then it's like, boom, the kids are in it. So very cool. It's all sensor-based, too. These two sensors right here, it's kind of like a remote control. So we really encourage you guys to train the kids up, showing them, having two kids come up and kind of aiming their game watches so that they can see they don't need to get physical. This is the 21st century to playing tag. Right, right.
ansteadj: And there is a double screen protection.
Kristin Neal: Right, right, right, right, on here. And this has a rubber guard around that. There is a Velcro strap right here that's good for both adults and children. It can go backwards to fit smaller wrists.
ansteadj: And I think that's it for the game watches.
Kristin Neal: Did you have any questions on those?
ansteadj: So the, it's encased, is that permanent case or is it a case that can open up and I don't know if it has a battery or is it just, can the battery, I don't know if it has a battery that goes bad. Does that get replaced or how does that work and how long do they last? Great question, James.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, absolutely. We have, there's a battery that is right back in here and then right down here, I believe there's lithium. I don't want to miss say. That's like a technical, so I would have to get my team player to get it. Exactly the information on that, but I know as far as these right here, you are not able to get into them. The kids are unable, all these buttons are not able to do anything with, so these are not able to get into. This one, there's screws right in here that you'd be able to take apart and get to those things, but this unit is not right now modular. If something goes wrong, we would have to replace the whole thing.
ansteadj: The whole thing. Okay, so is it the, so the main battery that charges these units is in the case itself, and is that, as you're saying, it's sort of like a permanent thing, and so if that went bad, I guess after a year, that whole unit would be placed at my cost? That would be very highly unlikely.
Kristin Neal: We have not seen. A year going over that, you know, having an issue at a year. We've had them out, this particular unit, we're going on five years now since, no, actually since 2016, so nine years with this unit. So no failure rate in nine years? For the unit, no. We have, there are some, I can get you exact numbers on those, but no, we have the batteries. We have not seen the batteries fail yet, so.
ansteadj: Okay. Yeah, but here is an accidental replacement.
Kristin Neal: Let's say it was left out in the rain. There is that coverage that we would be able to put $2,300 towards a repurchase. Okay, and then here's the trade-in and upgrade credit. Again, I can get you more information on exactly the numbers on data on that. you. Thank Yeah, good questions. Anything else, James, on the unit, the ZTAGGERS or unit?
ansteadj: So the watch-based thing, too, is that technically waterproof?
Kristin Neal: It's sweat-proof, not waterproof, yes. waterproof, okay.
ansteadj: And then if that unit, meaning the watch was damaged in the first year, it's replaced?
Kristin Neal: Yes, unless it is, these are the only ways that it will not be covered. Normal wear and tear, accidents, misuse, loss, or stolen. But if you get the extended care this first year, right here, then it would be covered, 60 ZTAGERS per year.
ansteadj: Right. I see that. So in other words, you're charging an insurance policy, in a sense, with different years of care. Exactly.
Kristin Neal: On top of the cost of the unit, right? Correct. Not necessary, but for peace of mind. No, I understand.
ansteadj: All right.
Kristin Neal: All right, here you have videos on how to wear the ZTAGGER, set up a ZTAGGER, how to register the unit. Again, no Wi-Fi, so when you first get it, it'll say register here or skip for now. Just have your people skip for now, but we recommend it for over-the-air updates. These are the eight games that the unit currently comes with. We do suggest the red light, green light that teaches the kids just to play with their own game watch. If you click on the easy, you'll get like a very thorough video. Did you want me to kind of go into more detail of the games or how are you doing on time, James?
ansteadj: No, I'm okay. So, yeah, I could, you know, we could watch one or two of them for a few, maybe a few minutes each or something. Perfect.
Kristin Neal: Not all.
ansteadj: We don't have to watch all of them, but... Perfect. Sounds good.
Kristin Neal: I'm going to show you this Red Light, Green Light. This is the best one to start the kids with.
ansteadj: Right. I'm going to do Red Light, Green Light.
Kristin Neal: That's the first game I typically introduce new players to. I press Assign All, and that moves all the available ZTAGGERS to the playing ZTAGGERS, and then I press Next. And during this time, the system is sending a Get Ready signal to all the ZTAGGERS, and you'll see on your wristband here, it says Get Ready. Once it says Get Ready, and you see there are green check marks on all of them, that means this system is ready to start the game. And you just have to press Start Match, and this will go.
ansteadj: Okay, so this game, whenever it's green, you want to have the people move around in shape.
Kristin Neal: And whenever it goes red, and if you keep moving... me... it's I'm think... I think... So you'll see that it says you're out. You can actually change the setting in this game, James, to where it actually just deduct points. So all the kids are fully emerged in the game. There's no one out. Did you have any questions about this game? I can jump over to the next one.
ansteadj: Perfect.
Kristin Neal: Next, I'm going to show you how we teach the kids to come together. So that was more of an individual game where the kids are playing against themselves. This one, we're teaching the kids that the game watches actually connect to each other. Okay, so the next game, I'm going to show a few more taggers here. Actually, let's just have three for now. I'll turn this on. We're going to do pattern match. And I'm showing you the games in the order that I would introduce it to your players. The reason why I'm showing you Red Light, Green Light first is because this game is an intro game. And it just requires a player to look at their own Z-tackers. It doesn't require them... So it's an individual game, and it shows the players that this device is actually tracking your own movement and your own performance, and that have to interact with it. And then beyond that, we're going to go to Pattern Match, which is the next game, and this is going to show how your taggers are going to be interacting with other people. And so in this game, the goal is to find another player that has either the same color or the same shape as you, and you want to have your taggers link up by getting within a few feet sensor to sensor or screen to screen. The sensors are actually right up here on top of the taggers, and you want them to be facing each other in order for them to register. And so there's a few implications to the sensors. Now, if you have a bunch of people with signals, and they're all just, let's say, huddled around like this, you're going to get random signals crossing over, even with people that you may not want to. And in this game, we might also have negative scoring set up, which means if you get the wrong match, you'll also get minus points, which cancels out your progress. And that means people have to be very deliberate in how they interact with each other. If everybody just bunches up, you're most likely going to get the wrong signals, and that's going to cause negative scoring. That's really helping kids with clear communication. So we're telling them, cover your game watches, and intentionally call out the color and the pattern, the match. So you're So blue triangle, and then you're very clearly saying those things. Usually we recommend you have the players take a few steps back and call out what they have and observe other people and look at their colors and then do the match. Okay, so I'm going to give you a quick demo here, but because these are placed here and not worn by players, you're going to likely see a lot of crossover negative points. Okay, so I'm going to hit next. They say, get ready, start. Okay, so yeah, because these are so close to me, they're registering to hit. So for example, right now have a red circle. Okay, let me put that aside. And over here, I have a yellow circle. So circle and circle will match. And if bring that over, oh, actually, these are changed. Circle. You basically get the idea of how that pattern match works. Yeah. Like organized chaos. The one the kids that they love, they love the most and a lot of schools are using for incentive Fridays, especially for low attendance Fridays. Zombie survival. done edge amiga circle, towards And And in this game of Zombie Survival, we have three roles. We're going to have the humans, core green, zombies, core red, and the doctors, who going to be white. And we can randomly assign them. Actually, I'm going to take a few more taggers out, just for demo. And I'm turning them on with the red switch right here. We'll wait a few seconds for them to load up and then put them into random. Also, while we're waiting for that, we can go into the settings to see some of the parameters you can adjust. For example, you can change the total time on this game. You can also change how many zombies or doctors they'll put into the game. But let me first show you how the rules work. So we randomly assign people to be humans, zombies, or doctors. The humans, they're trying to just stay away from the zombies and not get tagged. The zombies are trying to get close to the humans by getting their screen linked to a human screen and convert the human into a zombie. Now, if the zombie gets close enough to a human, the human gets infected and has about 10 seconds to go find a doctor to get saved and become human again. If they can't find a doctor in 10 seconds, then they become a zombie and they become can start trying to tag other humans to turn them into zombies. The amount of time that someone stays in transition or infected mode is dependent on what you write here. So you can change the infection duration to be 10 seconds or longer depending on the game. But for most of our games, pretty quick pace, 10 seconds is a good amount. And then also the doctor, this is a really key role. If you give this to a player who might be a little shy or possibly special needs, this is a great way to increase their engagement because everyone who gets infected by a zombie is going to come to the doctor to get saved, and it's really going to boost the self-confidence of this player. And to assign someone manually, the doctor, let's say you want this tagger to be a doctor, you can find that they're number 18, go in here and select the doctor status, and this player will later on be the doctor. Very simple. the sake of this demo, I'm going to put a few zombies on the side here. Actually, I'm going to start with one zombie here. So we're going to do 06 as the zombie, and everybody else will have as a human, and then 18 as the doctor. So 18 I'm going to set here, 06 I'm going to set aside, and then all the ones over here are going to be humans when I start. So let's go to the next. You'll see the load screen and everybody's ready to go while they get ready. Okay? So you see these are the humans. That's the doctor. I'm going to turn it upside down right now so I can demonstrate for you the interaction. If this zombie gets close to these when their screens are facing, you'll see they get infected. In fact, you see that signal actually crossed over to here. And if these people are close to the doctor, the doctor will save one person. The doctor will only save one person because the doctor actually goes into a timeout after some time and has to wait about five seconds before the doctor can save someone else again. The doctor also has this ability to stun a zombie so that the zombies can't infect for a short amount of time. And because these are all on the table here, I'm basically bouncing the signal back to them. You'll see it's very easy for them to infect. All right, James. Did you have any questions on that game?
ansteadj: So on that game, that the, it sounds, so the person in charge of the unit at the time would be able to, does it have a standard setting? For the game, where if I pulled it out and just said, turn on zombie game, and it would set up a standard, and then I can change that standard if I wanted to.
Kristin Neal: Exactly. Yes. Yes, there is a default where, like, the time for the conversion from getting into a human from a zombie, you can change that amount of time. You can change the amount of times they have to save, also. Yes. Okay.
ansteadj: I'm good, yeah. Thank you. Great.
Kristin Neal: All right, sir. So those are our three main games, the Math Match, Word Wave. These two are also, like, the Pattern Match, where the kids are matching. So half the kids will have the problem, the other half will have the solution, and then they've to find each other. So it'll be, like, two plus two, and I'm looking, I need a four, I need a four, and then someone just has the answer. Word Wave has the same concept. Half the kids will have English, the other half will have Spanish or French. have English. Where it's like, they got to find and connect.
ansteadj: Gotcha. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Sequence train, super fun. All the kids go into one circle. They can do odds, evens, fives, tens, or natural numbers. I like to start off with fives. So the number five will jump in the center. Their game watch is all lit up. And we're counting as a group how high we can go up with the numbers. So it'll start with five. I'm looking for 10, 10, jump in, and then tag through that. Okay. So that one's a lot of fun. I love that one. Keep Away is our virtual ball. That one has basically the same tagging concept, but it's all through a virtual ball. And that'll be just three of them will be dispersed at the start of that. And whoever has the virtual ball the longest wins. And then the rock, paper, scissor, it's not literally rock, paper, scissor, but it's still the same game concept. So you'll see like the rocks actually work together to go find the papers. Right? Yeah, the papers. Right? Yeah. The All right. Those are our games, James. Did you have any questions on those?
ansteadj: So the game there, when it's flipped up, that's a video screen?
Kristin Neal: Yes. Right here. Yeah.
ansteadj: And that's, so it's the game directions through a video when somebody turns it on? There is actually a game of directions.
Kristin Neal: It pops up with very simple rules of the game, so anyone can jump in and see it. However, we also have a printout that we are also being, adding to this welcome letter with quick tips of just very quick how to operate. Right.
ansteadj: Okay. Okay. And I can send you that, too, so you can see the simplicity of it. Okay. I got you. And I take it, is this something that you will add on to in a sense that whatever games you add on to, or you have to pay to whatever comes next?
Kristin Neal: No, we offer free updates for the games. There are going to be some specialized games that we will be looking into an additional purchase, but these general games are absolutely included.
ansteadj: Right. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, great question. All right. If there's nothing else, here are the videos on how to properly shut down the unit. Very simple operations manual, very thorough. And then we offer right here our ZTAG logo files and digital artwork, which I'll go into a little bit more in the next category, but I just want to point these out so you can see that they're right here. The educator video library, I'm going to show you this one real quick. Like, this is how, um... ZTAG is so neat and special that it can be added actually to any kind of game that you're already participating in. Like the Rocket League, if you have these scooters, you can add the virtual ball to this game. We have the math match with obstacles. A lot of fun in what other teachers are doing with the unit. Red Lake, Green Lake with the ball, there's a teacher that just reached out to us recently. They're having the kids run back and forth in the gym as animals, as their favorite animals. So there's just like little things that you can do to really extend the use of it. Right.
ansteadj: All right.
Kristin Neal: And this is our extended care coverage. I will absolutely go through this. I'm going to send this to you for your review, sir. So please, if you have any questions, just let me know. But this first page, when you look at it, is everything that the unit comes with with each purchase. So you do get that 12-month manufacturer's warranty. These are the things that do not cover that. Thank you. Here are those logo and digital artwork that I was showing you on the training website. And then every purchase does get a complimentary PlayMaker virtual training. So whether it's a Zoom session with your team, if you're looking to implement the program in ZTAG district-wide, we can go in person. Just see how we can support you guys. Any questions on what it comes with?
ansteadj: No, I'm good. Good with that. Sounds good.
Kristin Neal: And everything past this is optional. So it is the one, three, and five-year options. Start in 930. They go up to 4,000. This one right here does include the free complimentary launch pack, which you'll find right down here. This is the launch pack.
ansteadj: Okay.
Kristin Neal: And you'll also see up here if you'd need additional replacements, a la carte price. So Yeah, definitely some good stuff to review in here. Yeah, for sure.
ansteadj: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Here we have our Institutional Pricing Catalog. I will also send this over to you for you, Ruth, because I'm really bad at this, to be honest. Yeah, that's okay.
ansteadj: Where I get, like, done done.
Kristin Neal: So each unit costs $9,700 for the 24-player pack.
ansteadj: It's that one-year hardware warranty.
Kristin Neal: Here we have everything laid out, the individual cost, the extended care is optional. And here we have the volume and the nonprofit discounts. If you guys are a nonprofit, we can offer a 10% discount. Here we have the quantity of systems discount. Okay, start at $5,000 and they go up to $10,000, quantity $10,000 and over. Okay.
ansteadj: And payment and terms.
Kristin Neal: Okay, James. And that is it. We also do have a sole source statement. We have a letter saying that we are the only source of this technology. So we can all send this to you. So you have it available to you right here. All right, James, did you have any questions whatsoever?
ansteadj: Would you like me to send over a quote?
Kristin Neal: I can start you off with a quote for one for you to send to your team.
ansteadj: Yeah, I mean, you can send that over along with whatever else you're going to send information-wise. Trying to think on top of my head at the moment. So the company has been around for 10 plus years?
Kristin Neal: Yes, nine years, yes. Nine years? Yes, since 2016. Yes.
ansteadj: Okay. Um, and do you have any... Do Do Are you a California-based company?
Kristin Neal: Yes, California Valencia-based. I'm in Indiana, but yes.
ansteadj: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And do you know if you have any units in Florida?
Kristin Neal: I can get you that information, yes. I know I have that here somewhere. I just got to find it. Just give me the link.
ansteadj: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know it's here.
Kristin Neal: It literally was just shown to me the other day.
ansteadj: How about I send you a picture?
Kristin Neal: Would that be okay? Let me find it, and I will get that all for you.
ansteadj: So in other words, you think there's units that are in the state of Florida, but just you don't know what county or what entity that uses them. Exactly.
Kristin Neal: I almost want to say Tallahassee, maybe? Let me see. yeah, yeah. That's the capital, and I have people that live there. Okay, okay.
ansteadj: Some half of my family lives there. Some half
Kristin Neal: Good. Well, at least I'm in the right state.
ansteadj: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it'd just be interesting to get a personal, you know, somebody that uses it close by and either see it myself or have somebody that I know see it in use or something to see how they feel about it. Yeah, let's see.
Kristin Neal: let's see. We have Celebrity Cruises, City of, oh, City of Pensacola, Parks and Rec, Parks and Recreation. Pensacola?
ansteadj: Mm-hmm.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, yeah.
ansteadj: Parks and Rec. Mm-hmm. Any, any, any, is that the only one in Florida then?
Kristin Neal: I believe so, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Parks and Rec, Pensacola. Okay.
ansteadj: No, I have two friends in Pensacola.
Kristin Neal: Okay, okay. Not to say they work for Parks and Rec, but.
ansteadj: Yeah. I there's a connection somehow. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the, is there any school districts, any, anywhere that you have that uses it throughout their whole school district?
Kristin Neal: Yes, actually, we just had Bakersfield. Bakersfield just ordered 43 units, so they have gone district-wide, yes. Yes.
ansteadj: So Bakersfield is California, or?
Kristin Neal: California, yes, yes. Central, Central California.
ansteadj: Bakersfield. Trying to figure out where that is. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kristin Neal: It's right, it's probably like three hours south of Sacramento, maybe two hours south of Sacramento. Yeah, yeah, yeah. you.
ansteadj: I'm to think more on the top of my head. can't remember where my brother lives.
Kristin Neal: Huh? Is he in California? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
ansteadj: He's in California. He's, God, what's the name of the town?
Kristin Neal: Hey, let me know, because we can, if he's even south, that's where the owner is. He's in Valencia.
ansteadj: Valencia, yeah. I think he's northern California. California.
Kristin Neal: Okay, yeah. I have to think of the town.
ansteadj: He's a mayor of a small town there, and I can't really get the name right now. I don't know why.
Kristin Neal: We're in a lot of small towns in Northern California because there's no Wi-Fi. Right, right. it's huge with rural towns.
ansteadj: Yeah, yeah.
Kristin Neal: Well, that's probably why it's in Pensacola.
ansteadj: It's very rural. Oh, is it?
Kristin Neal: Okay. Yeah.
ansteadj: Interesting.
Kristin Neal: We get the rural, but then we get the city because there's not a lot of space in the city, so it works for that too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
ansteadj: Sure, sure. Sure. Okay. Yeah, think that, I mean, that's probably enough for now, and I will, I'm sure I'll have different questions after I look at the material and stuff like that that you send me.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, please do. Please review it. Let me know what questions you have. I'm going to include Carmi. She's a sales associate. Just in case there's things that you need, like support-wise, things like that. Definitely reach out and let her know, and we can get this over. For sure.
ansteadj: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: All right, James. me know if, and did you want me to get you in touch with Steve to talk about the battery or any technical issues, questions that you had, technical questions?
ansteadj: No, I think if you're, I'm just, I guess, you know, when you buy anything, it's always about, you know, what. You're going to get out of it before you have to put some more money into it, like your house and everything else, right? Oh, yeah. So, yeah, so that's, that was, that would be, I think you answered it in a sense, if you're telling me for nine years, they haven't really had to replace a battery in nine years, and that sort of tells me that it's, you know, that's pretty solid, and you're, if you're getting, even if you're getting five years out of the battery or something like that, and something happens, then. So, the, you, you, you did say the unit would have to be replaced completely if the battery went bad? If there was an issue with the battery, yes.
Kristin Neal: There, there might be, you sound like you're very technical, like. I'm, I'm just educated, not to, I'm not very good at a lot of things. Okay.
ansteadj: I speak, I speak, I speak the terminology that I don't know.
Kristin Neal: Well, you speak it well, you do speak it well, because it might actually be more beneficial. So, James, let me, let me just be full transparency.
ansteadj: We have the V2.
Kristin Neal: That's the unit that I just showed you. Also, actually, in the process of opening up a V3, this one, so the way our company has worked is they've actually opened up the V2 to game operators, so game trucks, the management centers, things like that. So they were actually the very first ones to kind of break in the V2. There were issues.
ansteadj: Let me replace what I said, because there were issues actually with the ZTAGGER, the ZTAGGER batteries.
Kristin Neal: Those were in 2023, but since we've actually replaced all of those to current ones, and we have not seen issues with the batteries since. So those things that we know are like the system, they've just been replaced, no questions asked. So in that case, that's something I wanted to declare. But, oh, so the V3, that might actually be a little bit, might be more your alley, because we have the unveiling of that next month. But what we are doing is the Game Trucks are actually, we're opening it up to Game Trucks again.
ansteadj: So they're going be kind of like the guinea pigs of the V3.
Kristin Neal: But if you want to be in that category of offering, and now the V3, I can send you what the difference is. This one is modular. This one, if there's an issue with the battery, all you have to do is replace that section of where the battery is. I think it's on the bottom.
ansteadj: Right, right.
Kristin Neal: So it has the element that it sounds like your concern might alleviate. But again, Steve would definitely be the person to discuss what you think would be best. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
ansteadj: No, no, I understand totally about what you're saying. Good.
Kristin Neal: It's sort of like, it's like the iPhone, right?
ansteadj: You've got to go with iPhone. You can't just... Buy another battery, or, you know, they do that, obviously, on purpose. So, you can't do anything. So, but that's okay. So, yeah, I mean, you can send his contact information or his email or something like that, so I can maybe reach out to him to just understand it a little bit better about, like I said, it sounds like, and I know you have an insurance policy there, but it brings the cost way up. If you spend it, and then you're still not, doesn't, you're still not completely locked in, I guess, with some kind of defect, I guess, maybe after a couple years, right? So, you know, it just, it's, it's a tough thing. It's, like I said, buying warranties, you know, how they, you know, they don't recommend you buy warranties, right? Because it's, you're just paying the money and typically you don't use them.
Kristin Neal: Oh, yeah, I guess. it's the same.
ansteadj: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: No, it's just a fact.
ansteadj: I mean, I'm just stating facts. mean, I like, I, like said, I'm overstudied on certain things, but I don't know everything is what I'm saying. So, but anyways, it would be, yeah, I'll take his information and then, like I said, and all the other information that you'll send me and then, you know, I'll do a deep dive and we'll figure it out.
Kristin Neal: Sounds good, James. So this, this upgrade is happening in a month? It is, it is, but we're not offering it because we want to make sure. of course, of course, of course, of Are fully, like, 100% it's been tested and all that. So we're not offering it to schools until next year, so.
ansteadj: Oh, you're not going to offer it to schools until next year?
Kristin Neal: There might be some things we could do for you that might allow you to kind of jump on that. If you are willing to take that, I don't want to say risk, but. No, no, I know what you're just saying.
ansteadj: So if you're offering it to, so let's just say I personally want to offer it to myself and I don't have a company.
Kristin Neal: I'm just. This is made up.
ansteadj: So I have my game truck company, and I say, want to purchase the V3 from you. As you said, a test person. And I take the V3 unit, and I start doing it, and it's great, and whatever. But then all of a sudden, it doesn't work one day. You're covering that for one year, or how are you doing it with them? Meaning like the business is on. Just like that.
Kristin Neal: Even the owner-operators. So those are the game truck owners. The same coverage. So it's the year coverage with the extended warranty.
ansteadj: The manufacturer's warranty.
Kristin Neal: And then also offered that extended care. The different extended care packages. Exactly.
ansteadj: But on the V3, it's a little bit more simple about like if the battery is a defective battery after two years or something like that, you can replace just the defective battery. And each one of them have one instead of the unit itself, which would be the big amount of money because it's the one. same thing as Exactly.
Kristin Neal: Exactly. You're replacing the entire unit instead of just that individual thing. Yes. Right.
ansteadj: So on the new ones, could do individual as a whole point.
Kristin Neal: Yes, exactly. Gotcha. If you need a new screen, like the case, the major screen. Yeah. Yeah.
ansteadj: Everything is sort of separate in the new unit to keep the cost down, maybe, if it happens to have that defect or damage. so much quicker.
Kristin Neal: Yes.
ansteadj: Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So will you also send that information, meaning about the V3?
Kristin Neal: Yes.
ansteadj: And that's so I can discuss, you know, different options in the future type thing. And if we try one of the older ones and then try one of the newer ones or something like that.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Or maybe.
ansteadj: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. So I'm going to be sending you the V3 versus the V2.
ansteadj: Kind of compare. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: I'm to send you Steve's information, and I'm going to get you a quote started for one unit.
ansteadj: We'll start with the V2.
Kristin Neal: Do you want me to do a V2 and a V3? Yeah, you might as well. You're going to see the V3. We offer an early adopter discount, so you're going to be able to get 30% off of that one. That one does cost more. That one's at $12.7, but it kind of makes it down. It's like $88.90, I believe. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's actually a little bit less. That one actually would be financially better for you because the V2, if you want a non-profit, is going to be regular price at $9,700.
ansteadj: Right. Okay. Yeah, I get you.
Kristin Neal: It's all feasible. Right. Yeah, exactly. Was there anything else that I said I was going to get to you? No, right? And besides all these other, the pricing catalog and-
ansteadj: Yeah, yeah. No, that's good. Like I said, I'm sure I'll have a few other small questions after I sink my teeth into it. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good.
Kristin Neal: Definitely sink them in.
ansteadj: Let us know.
Kristin Neal: I'm going to add Carmi, so just help whatever you need. Okay, sir?
ansteadj: Okay. All right. Thank you so much for your time.
Kristin Neal: I appreciate it.
ansteadj: Thank you, and appreciate it, too. Have a great one. Thank you, you too. Bye-bye. Take care. Bye-bye.
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Quan Gan: So we're praying for them. Wow. Yeah, I'm just looking up on some news. Have you guys experienced anything that big before?
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah. Not earthquake, but storm, like typhoons, the same. The houses were washed out. Look, our home was, like, washed out last 2021 due to, like, typhoons. So with this, you know, kinds of calamities, like, it kind of triggers our anxiety because we've experienced losing homes. But, yeah, we're just praying for everyone's safety because right now, a lot of, like, there's typhoon also that's coming in the Philippines. And just last week, another part of the Philippines was affected by the typhoon, like flooding. Like, yeah, there's so much going on in the Philippines right now.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Carmee Sarvida: We really need your prayers.
Quan Gan: Let us know if there's anything we as a team can help with.
Carmee Sarvida: Thank you.
Quan Gan: Feel free to reach out to us directly or anyone. Thank you. Okay. Chris, so this topic, I guess you were the lead for it. We wanted to take the time to look at what our sales SOPs are and then lock that down and then see how that turns into specific things we implement through automation.
Kris Neal: Okay. Sounds good. I'm going to jump over to, I shared that with all of you earlier and I've added some comments. Was that okay to kind of just build off of Quan, or did you want to start fully from over?
Quan Gan: No, we can work off of this. I have a second monitor, so I'm looking at what you shared. Maybe it would be good for you to screen share, and we can talk through it.
Kris Neal: Sounds good. Okay.
Charlie Xu: Can everybody see it?
Kris Neal: All right. This is the SOP processing, oh, sorry, this is the TIPS one. Sorry, which actually also needs to get brought up, but at another time. Okay. This is the SOP for the standard process for sales, tax, and accounts receivable. Carmee is still in charge of all the leads in CRM. The lead statuses. This is super important, if we could just make sure this is updated.
Carmee Sarvida: And I know you're on top of it, Carmee, so.
Kris Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Lead verification, missing information, Can we just spend a little bit of time on each just to make sure, you know, Charlie and I understand it? So my thing in looking at this is, are those labels working for everybody? Or do you guys have any feedback on this?
Kris Neal: This is the one that we definitely need clarification on. I think everything else is working, Carmee. What do you think? Because it looks like they're pretty much the same as how you have it in your leads, how you have it categorized here.
Quan Gan: Okay. So one thing that I have some questions on, not feedback yet, but just more questions on clarity. Here, I don't see anything where it changes the leads into deals, or how do you guys decide? Concerned what stays as a lead and then what goes into the deals pipeline.
Kris Neal: Carmee, do you want to speak to that or do you want me to kind of make sure that this is the process and then you let me know if that's what you're doing?
Carmee Sarvida: Because I just want to make sure, like, would that work better? Yeah, let's do that, please.
Kris Neal: Okay, perfect. So from my understanding, the process is once they've turned into an account, that's when a deal is created. So this is all the pre, before, this is how we're connecting with them, whether they need to be nurtured, whether they need to be converted. Once they're converted, then that's when the deal is.
Quan Gan: Okay, so you're, they turn into an account first and then there's a deal associated with them, right?
Kris Neal: Well, let me, let me back up too, though, because we're actually sending soft quotes now. So we're not sending... So we're creating the contact, I'm sorry, we're creating the account after we send them a quote, right, Carmee? Like that's kind of the... Yes.
Quan Gan: Yeah. All right. So let's take a step back without looking at our current process. I want to know in your mind, what is that threshold to turn a lead into something more formal? Well, but you don't even have to use the word deal or account yet. Just how do you know a lead should go into our pipeline versus, oh, this is just going to stay a lead?
Kris Neal: For me, it's the quote, but I feel like now, especially because we're giving them a soft quote, it makes it even more sense because they're serious.
Charlie Xu: Chris, what do you mean the soft quote? It's through email?
Kris Neal: Yes. It's just letting them know what the investment is, and if that's okay with them, then we get them.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Is that at that stage, they also express their interest of purchasing, or are they just asking for the price? So I was just wondering, like, what is the definition of the soft quote? At what stage? Because some people are asking for price, but maybe they will step away right after they know the price. So are we creating that to be a lead or not?
Kris Neal: The lead as a soft quote, yes, it stays as a lead. But once they want to move forward, that's when we convert them over into an official account.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. Because also, for example, I was looking at the pipeline of the deals. For example, on October 3rd, we have three, seven, about seven deals was being created. But on there, I do see some. It has a quote, but some doesn't have a quote. So how we know which is that moving forward, and why some of them doesn't have any quotes attached to it. Interesting, yeah. Let me show the way I sees it. Yeah. Okay. Okay.
Kris Neal: I'm trying to think, Carmee, can you think of an instance where a deal would have been created and not a quote?
Carmee Sarvida: I can't remember creating a deal without a quote, because I'm adding the deal when I create the quote.
Charlie Xu: Yeah.
Kris Neal: Okay, so. Oh, you're doing it that way. Okay.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. Okay. Okay, so let's go to the Charts View, and I'll see here. Okay, it's a little slow. So these are the ones that have the quotes. Let's see, I do feel like when I go through, oh, this one has some quotes. Oh, so it looks like a... Okay, so for example, this one, Chris, Chris, Chris Elementary, it doesn't have a quote attached to it. So, like, what status of this one is?
Carmee Sarvida: I haven't... Let me check my...
Charlie Xu: Okay, let me keep clicking to see the rest. And this one doesn't have a quote as well.
Kris Neal: Klansys, this isn't an automation, is it?
Carmee Sarvida: I think it's an automation. It's not even an account yet.
Charlie Xu: It's still a lead.
Kris Neal: We had actually caught this in a different way. Remember, Carmee, this week, because we were like, is this an automation? There was something else. I think this was actually something. What else, Carmee, Charlie, was not?
Charlie Xu: There's two. And also, I think this one doesn't have it, and it doubles.
Quan Gan: Charlie, can we take a few steps back and look at high-level directives first, and then we'll get into more details?
Charlie Xu: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But I want to make sure we clear the edge of what turns into...
Quan Gan: Yes.
Charlie Xu: And what is not, yeah.
Quan Gan: In getting to the same page on what becomes a... And what's a lead? It'll fix these things. So it's good that we're seeing what the issues are, but I still need to stay at top level first to make sure I understand the process before we, you know, we give directives to the rest of the team on how they get things into alignment. Okay, so I want to just kind of bring us back into a visual. Let's just say you're a shop owner and there are people walking along the streets. They're going to be looking into your window and seeing, okay, this seems interesting, but they're not going to walk in. They're probably just going to look at some price tags outside saying, okay, is this even the shop for me? And then they might just keep going. But there's some people that are interested and they walk through the door and then they want to have a little bit more formal engagement. So we need to know what is that door mechanism? You know, what do we allow people to just keep walking by as a lead? And which one, when we open the door, they essentially might become a, you could call it an account or a deal or something. You know, but even people coming in, they might still be like, oh, this is not for me and leave. So we kind of need to, yeah, stay at that architect level.
Kris Neal: And we need to know when that point is. Yes. It's, that's a good point. I'm glad you brought that up because price is a really big thing. So it's like, should we do that pivot at the beginning or are we gaining either momentum or are we shooing them away?
Quan Gan: Yeah, and I think the price conversation, the more and more I'm realizing we need to show them a per student per month cost rather than just hit them with a price tag. There we go. Because when they look at a per student per month, it's normalized across every other activity they have. And it's actually not that bad. I'll give you, I'll give you a recent example talking to the girls at, what's that, Milieu, Milieu. I had a, I had a consulting call with them just to kind of get. Give them some pointers. And what I found out is their per-student or their per-purchase cost is way lower than ours, probably on the order of several hundred dollars compared to our $9,000 system. But it's almost a harder equation for them because they're trying to sell it to an entire district. And so they'll be quoting something like a quarter million dollars. And then they're actually losing sales because the price tag for the entire district rollout is too big. Compared to ours, yes, it's a $9,700 price tag, but you're sharing it between sites. It's kind of a relatively low entry point just to start $10,000 relative to the entire district. It's actually cheap. So the way you frame the pricing could completely steer whether this customer believes in you or not. Especially these new... new... Social Media Customers, when they see 10,000, it just sounds like a big number because it's relative to, you know, buying a car or something. You know, it's more expensive than a used car, but it's way cheaper than a college education. You know, like, depends on what you're comparing it to. So if you're able to, at the very early stage, let's say they're outside the window, not just show them this is 9,700 because that scares a lot of people. Say this is, like, about $1 to $3 per student per month, and that normalized to other programs. Other programs are, like, easily $3 to $5, if not more, right? So including the SEL, you you type of stuff, they might be actually more per child, you know? So I think early on, as a soft quote, rather than just telling them, okay, here, this is $9,700, and then they'll just ghost you, I think it's better to have a much... You know, more casual conversation saying, look, our program is actually one of the most affordable things you can imagine. But, you know, it comes with a upfront cost, but get that upfront cost once they're already in the door and saying, hey, look, it's low cost per student, but it is a pricey single time investment. But it's a single time that you can amortize over the usage.
Kris Neal: Quan, if you can get me that so I can use in the demos and kind of give that to Carmee to authorize her use for the soft quotes, I think that that'll be the pivot that we need to kind of differentiate. If they're ready to move forward after that, then make it count.
Quan Gan: In I think that might already be baked into the GPT I made to kind of come up with some of the pricing rebuttals to look at the unit economics per student rather than this is a, you know, an expensive single kit.
Steven Hanna: Thank you. Thank you. I'll say one thing. The biggest way to express this would probably be if you needed to delineate it down to what the cost per step would be at the biggest number, right? So if it needs to be at a penny value for them, where it's less than a penny per step, it's basically something to consider of, wow, all right, well, the kids are moving. I just actually did the math on my system where we've got 1.4 million steps in three years of use, right? We bought the system for roughly $10,000. That's 0.0067 cents per step. So I'm just trying to express it in the most valuable thing for a numbers person to think of, right? If it's a numbers-based person, and this is something that you and sales are going to see, like the numbers-based people are going to want to know, okay, give me the cost breakdown of per child, what would the cost be? Some are going to just ask, okay, what's the cost of the unit, where they're not focused more or less on the sale or per unit child, but the overall cost. So the larger the number, the more expressive it is, and the smaller the number on the cost side, the more expressive it is for a consumer. This is at least true in my industry when I'm selling parties.
Quan Gan: Well, I think the numbers like that, it does give them a different perspective. I also think there's a sweet spot where you can relate it to something that they're probably doing on a daily basis. Like saying, I don't know, just random bad examples, compared to the cost of a hamburger. Like for a hamburger a day or something, you're already doing this. Because like if it's 0.0001 cents or whatever that decimal is, that might actually be unrelatable to the low side. Versus if you can normalize it to this is about a dollar per whatever that is, and that sounds like a relatable metric. They're like, oh, okay, it's not that expensive. So you want to anchor it to something that's familiar to the person. On a daily basis, you know, how much are they buying a coffee for? How much a, you know, probably coffee costs would be a relatable thing.
Charlie Xu: And I want to have a little add-on because like meanwhile, we have an angle of adding like how much per kids cost. Actually, we also could add another angle of rising the student's attendance. So because that's also normally school are earning money from the government through the high rate of the attendance. And so the past, there are many people, teachers are talking, the feedback of their attendance that go higher, like they can see it because it has.
Quan Gan: We have anecdotal data of that or real data because that is really important, but I wouldn't want to push that until we have real data we can back it with.
Kris Neal: You'll be able to get it when you go to the school on the 17th. wonder. Bye! I would ask them, when did this start? They've had ZTAG, I think, for several months. Carmee, if you can get me that exact for Calibri, when we first started partnering with them, they would be the ones to launch that.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I would love that.
Kris Neal: You know, hard data is we can really lean into. Yeah, it's specifically for Fun Fridays.
Quan Gan: Great, great. So all of this, let's bring it back to the lead management. I'm just thinking, at the lead level, a soft quote shouldn't be telling them it's $9,700. It should just be telling them, you know, the relatable cost per person, so that they would be willing to have another conversation to get a formal quote. And so it's almost like you want them to come up with the number themselves and then still stay in the game, then you present them something. What I mean by that is, you give them a soft quote saying, okay, it's... About $2 or $3 per child per week or something. And then you ask them, how many kids are there? How many kids do you plan to serve? And then they'll give you the number, but in their own head, they can already do the multiplication and figure out, well, it's basically, let's say I have 300 kids. Well, then if it's $3 per child per month, then that's $900 per month times 12 months. Okay, so roughly $10,000. So they've come up with that themselves. Rather than you hit them with a $10,000 sticker, they're going to get shocked and just go away. Is that making sense?
Kris Neal: Juan, is this something that we can update the GPT with? Kind of like that reasoning?
Quan Gan: We definitely can, yeah.
Kris Neal: mean, think that would help, wouldn't it?
Steven Hanna: I like that's also just more your assessment of the person you're talking with as well. We can GPT that as much as possible, but the human assessment on it is going to be the most valuable thing. I know when I'm talking to a numbers person when I'm trying to talk about a party with my other business, I know when I'm talking to a mom who just wants to have all the stress removed and she needs to hear what we'll provide as far as the service goes. They don't care about the number, whereas the other people care about the number. So I think it's really important to not rely on GPT harshly in that assessment because this is very dynamic and each email will reveal new information. So, yes, we can utilize it as much as possible, but this is a very human-to-human assessment and just keep it that way as much as possible around the framework of GPT.
Kris Neal: I agree, yes, but it's also the pivoting point that we need, Steve, to kind of differentiate if they're willing to partner or not. I don't know.
Quan Gan: My take on this is the human nuances. We can first order approximate it with a GPT or some kind of automation. And the way you approximate this, which is different from what we're doing right now, is every time there's a web form, I think, Kris, you have an automation that's automatically sending them something, right? And it's kind of a, here, let me just make sure I'm looking at this right. So there's a warm welcome from the ZTAG team, which has, hi, you know, that person's name, thanks for raising your hand to get more info on ZTAG. You know that template I'm talking about? And then there's academic standards and benefits. So, correct me if I'm wrong, but that's an automation that's replying back instantly, right?
Kris Neal: Yes, that's an old one. It has been updated since.
Quan Gan: Okay, so even at this level, I think it needs... So it'd be a lot shorter and actually more information gathering first time.
Kris Neal: let me, can I show you the updated one then?
Quan Gan: Because that was changed on the 30th. Oh, okay. Cool. Well, actually what I'm seeing is October 4th.
Charlie Xu: No, it hasn't been updated.
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, regarding those automations. So Carmee and I were actually working on the PDF that you gave, Chris, because I sent it to you, and you said that try to fit it to the GPT that you've created. So it has a, it has a information about escalation paths, whether they will go into us sending more details or about the course. So me and Carmee are actually working on that, refining it, then we can give it to you, the document. Still, Quan mentioned. If Kris's recommendation is still nothing, the GPT will go to recommend. And yes, it's still the short email the GPT recommend, but it has an escalation email that we can use for the automations when it comes to leads.
Quan Gan: Is it possible to make the path kind of GPT-driven so that it's not so programmed into, okay, this particular person has to have five exchanges, this person has seven, but kind of organically have the GPT figure out the best way to get them to the end goal that we want?
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, we can do that, and I can feed GPT to do a reply based on their queries, so we just need to feed it.
Quan Gan: Then I think the first stage, so general stages, I think, rather than. Specific prompts or specific templates would be the first stage is we're trying to gather more information from the customer. So, yes, they filled out a quote, and then we're going to enrich that quote based on, you know, our standard process. But then from that, I think our first response to them is like a quick question saying, hey, you know, based on what you've submitted, is this for your school or after school program or something? And let them reply first. Because every time we can get a single reply from them, they're slightly further down the funnel and they're cognitively more invested in having a conversation. We're doing that. Go ahead.
Kris Neal: We're doing that. They're replying with one word answer to school or after school.
Quan Gan: Yes, but as of October 4th, we're still sending these warm, actually, no, even this morning, we're still sending a warm welcome from ZTAG because that's not changed yet.
Klansys Palacio: Quidditch. Quidditch. Actually, I'll send the document that me and Carmee.
Kris Neal: I have it right here.
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, Kris was sent that already last week. So we received it. And based on last week, so you mentioned Quan about why not try to check it on the GPT. So me and Carmee, I'm asking Carmee about the email. So she said that it's all good.
Quan Gan: This is fine, but there's still an initial email that we haven't turned off yet.
Kris Neal: Okay, I think that's what it is, yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah, we haven't turned, let me just screenshot what I'm seeing here.
Kris Neal: Because I was like, I think this process is being used.
Quan Gan: Yes, but it's on top of a outdated template. There we go. Right, this is being sent on October 4th, and then immediately after you're sending this, this should be the first email. Yes. Like, we shouldn't have this. You know, because this is being redundantly sent out, like, maybe a little later. So remove this.
Kris Neal: Yes, please.
Quan Gan: There we go. Yeah.
Kris Neal: Thank you.
Quan Gan: You're like, you know, you're trying to hook on to the fish, but you're just, like, throwing a giant piece of meat at the fish and scaring it away. Right? You got to get the fish to nibble a few times. Like, this needs to be the first email.
Kris Neal: That's what we have.
Quan Gan: Right? And then even without saying supporting Kris, because they don't know who Kris is.
Kris Neal: Yeah, that should be the second one, the second reach out.
Charlie Xu: Is this current second email is automation as well, or is this Carmee, you manually following up?
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah. For now, Charlie, it's manual.
Charlie Xu: So manual? Yeah, because I know, like, before, you're still catching up the previous, a lot of emails that we use the automation. And I do see you are following up with this question. So. So there are probably like, let's say, about 40, more than 50 leads are using the old Fathom, and Carmee is still using this question to following up. But also, I'm curious, so far, how many leads have been coming, replying back by you giving them this short question? Is that, like, what's the rate of that, sir, they're following back?
Kris Neal: Carmee, I have the thing ready if you want. She put it in a task, Charlie. Did you see? She added both of us to it.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, yeah.
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, but that's like, as of the 30th, I haven't, yeah, I haven't updated the ones that came in this month. Because we have been... This week. think... Haven't sent out the, yeah, the follow-ups.
Kris Neal: So since right here, Carmee? Since the first. Okay, since Wednesday.
Quan Gan: I mean, just the general feeling, does it seem like they're more responsive?
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, yeah, compared to the emails that we were using before, they're more responsive. Like, as you can see, the one that you showed us, Quan, they replied both. And I have actually received replies now, saying school, after school. So, yeah, I think it's more kind of, like, engaging. Like, we're asking them to reply, maybe just with one word.
Quan Gan: Okay, good. I think the primary metric is engagement. We don't even need to know if they're a partner yet. But the fact that they're engaging is a really good starting point. I'll share something a little bit. It's kind of funny, or where I even got some of this technique. It was a YouTube video about CIA interrogation techniques. Okay, so, Steve, I think you'll, okay, yeah, so it's like, if you want to extract more information from a person, rather than asking them, because when you ask them, they automatically get defensive, and they're like, why are you asking me all this? You make a statement. You make a statement that they tend to correct you on. So, by saying, okay, I assume this is for after school, right? And they're like, no, actually, this is for both. Well, they just gave you more information without you having to ask, oh, is this for something, right? So, the technique I baked in there is you put more statements out there to get them to further engage and correct you if you're wrong. But the fact that they're correcting you means they're already engaging and they're more willing to engage you again on the next piece of email. So one statement equals two responses?
Steven Hanna: You're using leading questioning and the springboarding teaching technique in a different way. Basically, it's what's not being said, right? You're reading in between the lines, and yes, they might say that it's for this and that, but any engagement is really the main factor here, is just opening a line of communication. Whether or not we figure out if it's this or that at the first conversation, second, third, fourth, or fifth, as long as they're engaged and emotionally invested, because the longer they're engaged, the longer the emotional investment is there, the more likely they are to continue to engage and push through with a leap that eventually is set. So just opening a line of communication and measuring the metric of engagement is probably the most valuable insight we would have, because we can see who we're reaching and how we're reaching. And Chris, This goes right into the playmaker side of it, where the more they speak with us, the more likely they are to be a higher level playmaker. It's almost like a filter at the start, where if they're that engaged and they're willing to talk about it and share this type of information and provide insight and feedback to us off the bat, this might be a person who we might want to consider as a higher level playmaker and a better source of expansive engagement for us. So it actually serves multi-purpose reasons here. It's just at different points of the pipeline that it serves those purposes. But the engagement and opening lines of communication, I think, is also really, really important right now.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I think when you're engaging them, just a few more pieces of info from them, that could probably be put back into the GPT to do its second order enrichment. Because the first order enrichment is whatever they were willing to fill out on the quotes form. So you have, you know, what school, you know, the name of their program or something. And then the agent, the AI agent will just go online and look for public information. But the fact that you were able to get a few more back and forth in an email exchange, that really gives you a laser focus on this person's persona that allows you to give them what they're ultimately asking for, which is, you know, the pricing and the, you know, the further things down the funnel. But by knowing their personality better through these kind of AI-driven enrichment processes, you're going to be able to say exactly the right words, or at least relatively the more relevant words to pull them further into the funnel. Chris, you're deep in thought?
Kris Neal: Chris, I'm just trying to make it really easy for Kermie, so I think that's why You pointed me, not pointed me out, but I think that's what you're trying to point out, is that it's okay for her to go back and forth with trying to figure out how to best give that price breakdown? Is that what you meant by that?
Steven Hanna: Yes. Talk as much as necessary and open as many lines of communication, but there's a point where that line of communication may break down where the information is not provided, right? So this is like the human element where I say we have to be really human to human observant of when somebody is like tired of communicating, right? We might want to communicate with them and get all the information and maybe like one email like Carmee sending where it's like, hey, after school or this? Or it might be two emails down where it's, oh, it's an after school program and you might be using it at multiple sites. Okay, great. Well, then we could formulate our response a little bit better. After that, two responses, we probably don't need to get any more information. We have all we need to formulate. know, very strong, you know, intro to them. But we've already opened the line of communication. We know who they are, and we're catering the, you know, sale to them specifically. So it's almost very challenging to not engage with it once we've done that.
Charlie Xu: Oh, go ahead, Chris.
Kris Neal: Go ahead.
Charlie Xu: Okay, so, because I do feel like it's important to try to add in the conversations as much as possible. But on the other side of being practical, I really feel like this, how we can turn it into stage and a formula, reduce Karmie to be in each conversation and turn this into automations and have Karmie observe. She is kind of like in charge of these flows, but not really dive into so many conversations because Right now, have so many leads already, and it's going to come. Otherwise, if you guys feel like too much, I can pause for a while. But I do want to feel like how we can involve in the automation to turn this into a flow that doesn't require Carmee to follow up with. our, yeah, it has to rely on really It has to be scalable. But then, it's not just like Carmee says they're chasing back. It's like, for me, it's impossible. But I do understand we are creating this back and forth communication is necessary.
Quan Gan: But how, right now, the AI, the automation- I have a solution to this. But I need to start with a question, actually. Carmee, right now, based on the current volume, and you're manually copying and pasting or sending, is it still manageable today? Or is it already exploded?
Carmee Sarvida: the to I would be lying if I say not, because right now, I don't even take a break. I have to finish, because I'm at the moment to send out the emails, and especially during Mondays, since Saturday and Sunday, there's a lot of leads coming in. So, like I said, Kris, my inbox is swamped. I am no longer achieving inbox zero. I don't need to come in. So, yeah, it's over.
Quan Gan: So, Charlie, I would say pause it for now, and let's get a process down first. Here we go. Let's do that. Carmee, you'll probably need to manually go through a few times to get what this new rhythm feels like, but then as quickly as possible, we need Klansys to turn this into an automation. Because the bot should, based on the entire context of the conversation, know... How many exchanges do you have? Have we extracted enough information to turn that lead into an account and a deal? Or the bot might be smart enough to say, okay, this doesn't seem like it's going anywhere, so just kill it and then just don't convert it. And then the next step would basically be notifying Carmee to turn that into a deal. Or maybe we can automate that part too. But I would say in the initial part, Carmee, you be the overseer to see, like approve it to turn into a deal. But you shouldn't be going to do the back and forth on an individual basis in the beginning.
Kris Neal: Kris? That might be easy, Klansys, because the deal thing that we fill out is like four questions. It's very simple. So it might be easy. Please, go ahead.
Quan Gan: Yes, good idea. Yeah, so I think the earlier part of the process, let me just reiterate. Initially, Carmee, you might have to do a little bit of back and forth. Just to... Get a feel for what that looks like, basically copying and pasting what the GPT is saying to see, are we getting good engagement? And if you approve of that process, then let's transfer that over to Klansys to see if she could turn that into what the GPT would have. And then that conversation, they're basically just talking to AI without knowing it, but it feels very personal. And then when it seems like, okay, yeah, they say, okay, I'm ready to get the, hit me with the full stuff, convert that and then send the quote out.
Kris Neal: And that's when the human kind of takes over.
Quan Gan: For now, you know, we kind of go up the stage, right? You want to automate the low-level churning stuff first. And then the human, you have oversight over important decisions. Eventually, if these important decisions, all you're doing is approving every time. Then you automate that part, and then you go up the ladder.
Kris Neal: The quote creation is already done, so that makes sense.
Quan Gan: Thank Okay. Klansys, do you see any technical challenges to this?
Klansys Palacio: Actually, no, Quan. It's actually doable. So, and we do have, if in the near future, we could use those auto-creation as well, sent by the bot, maybe we're going to use that because we've already done that and we are using that. We have a bot who's creating a code based on their emails, if they confirm or not. And yeah, for the automations, I just need the entire flow for that. But I will just go into make my own structures for the automations based on what I understand so that it will not go into having roadblocks in the near future when it comes to the flow. So, based on what I understand, I will go into recreate the structures.
Kris Neal: Okay. Do need the flow more? Is it more than what I sent on the 30th classes that you need?
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, if you have any additionals, that would be really great. for the steps that you have sent, it was already been, I already added the AI agent, so it was actually working, but I just need to finalize everything for the AI agent about these steps that you, shared to last.
Kris Neal: Quan, do you want to prove that?
Quan Gan: Should we look at it right now?
Kris Neal: It's up to you. I could just send it to you if you'd like.
Quan Gan: Let's take a quick look at it together, but I still have a question for Klansys. Is the automation ready in a way where I could use my Gmail account or a new Gmail account and start sending an inquiry into ZTAG, and then I'll have a few exchanges and see. see. Maybe that I end up in the CRM somewhere?
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, sure, Quan. Okay.
Quan Gan: Let me know when it's ready for that, because I'd like each of us to use our personal email or register some random thing and just playtest it and see if the automation sounds like it's someone from ZTAG that generally knows the product and is saying the right things.
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, for the automations, it's not yet the, like, the bot will go into answers, so it is still based on, like, quiz emails, the steps that you've sent, the 90 days, the after school, and school reply. So that's the thing.
Quan Gan: I want to feel more like a chatbot conversation, so I might pretend to be an extra difficult, you know, customer or prospect and just throw hardball questions at it and see how nice it is.
Steven Hanna: You don't have to try. Just do.
Kris Neal: You said the 90-day responses. I have auto-replies for 2 to 3, 5 to 6, 9 to 10 days.
Klansys Palacio: 9 to 10 days. I was like, oh my gosh, 90 days?
Kris Neal: Okay.
Quan Gan: Those are further down the chain. think it's less, like, yes, those are important, but my focus right now is on the incoming leads. We don't want that to be, you know, Barry and Carmee in manual replies, so I want to playtest that. So Klansys, you tell us when you think this bot will be ready, and I'm just going to be having a good old existential conversation with it and trying to have it brainwash me into buying ZTAG. Yeah. I am curious how you're implementing it, because I gave you a GPT, which is not something you could plug into. So are you taking that prompt and making your own some kind of... Module or something?
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, I am actually creating a prompt where I can feed it to the AI, to the entire prompt. Yeah, and I use it to, like, whether if there is an email, so it depends on what is the context of the email, then the agent will go into reply. Okay.
Quan Gan: as of now, the only thing that I previous email context, like it knows the entire history of that email?
Klansys Palacio: Oh, not yet. That for... That's history? Wait, I think, yes.
Quan Gan: Because... great if you could feed in the whole history, and then as it's giving us more information, if it sees any information that it could do external research on, let's say it talks, the person says, oh, I'm trying to use it for this particular program. You know, see if that could trigger a enrichment opportunity to go online, look up that program, and pull that... Context back in. So now you're really understanding this person.
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, okay. So I added as well the filtering because all the emails, I added some of the checking, which is to prevent duplications of emails. So I added that too because sometimes at GPT we're going to recreate or send another email without checking the story. I think that's the one thing that I can improve to that as well, like the history that you wanted to be added.
Quan Gan: Great. I know we're still looking at the first part of this process. What I would do after this meeting, once I have the transcript, I want to come up with a set of hard metrics of what do we need to know for the customer or the prospect to turn them into a lead, from a lead into a qualified deal in an account. So basically the GPT... CT's goal is to get these, let's say, five or ten metrics checked off. So through the conversation, if it's able to check all of those off, then you have a hard measurement saying, okay, anything with these checked off, you can go down to the next level. Anything that's not checked off, and even if you're having another conversation, you're not checking them off, then, you know, that lead is stale, and, you know, we can just do a drip campaign.
Kris Neal: Or something like that. Go ahead, Carmee.
Carmee Sarvida: Relating to that, Quan, right now, since we have, like, the code automation, code generation automation, I've experienced this last week. A lead said that they wanted a code, and the agent automatically converted the lead to an account and then generated a code. I didn't send them the code. I just sent them the soft code. And then they said that it's out of their budget. So I think we have.
Quan Gan: So basically, to prevent that from happening, we should have that gate before that happens. Basically, you're having a few early conversations talking about the per-unit economics first, and then get them to explicitly say, okay, I would like to have a quote for the full system, you know, before you convert them and send them a quote. Like, there should be much earlier back and forth through the bot, and then they'll, if they say, oh, you know, we did our internal calculations, we don't have this budget, and they go away, you never converted them to the deal in the first place versus converting to the deal and then saying, okay, this is a bad deal. Because we want to make sure that we want to consistent gating for everything that converts to a deal so that we have a, so that our conversion metrics, once it's a deal and further. Fairly accurate. Because right now, if you're having these random, you know, social media people coming in, it's going to increase your volume, but your hit rate is going to be much lower. So then it's actually going to skew our success rate down, right?
Steven Hanna: Should the metric be, quote, provided instead of engagement?
Kris Neal: That is how we do it.
Quan Gan: That's how we do it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so basically, we, like, people who don't really qualify to get the quote, we shouldn't even turn them into a deal yet. You know, so that's why we should have, like, a hard gating metric.
Kris Neal: That's how it's supposed to be.
Quan Gan: For the pipeline. But right now, we haven't defined what that line is, so some people are bleeding over, and some people are, you know.
Kris Neal: Okay. I'm curious, Quan, if this is something that could be the gatekeepers, because if we're doing that process of trying to engage more conversation, et cetera, et cetera, if when I'm hearing everything, would it be possible that we can make those gates questions leading into something? There's we can provide them. Like, Carmee, like, if you're going to school after school, there's got to be something that we can provide them for that. The next question would be, what is, what's the question? What's something that we have that would benefit them to ask them about it? Do you get what I mean? And then after, like, a third time, you know, it sounds like you're really serious about this. This is what the return ROI, because we've already had that question. How many people are in your program? That's got to be a question in order for us to get that ROI done. So if that could be one of the gates.
Quan Gan: It's basically, like, the gate is consistent across whoever we talk to to turn it into a deal. But it's more like when they show up, some people are closer to hitting that gate immediately. Some people are, like, on the ground floor, and you have to work them a few times to get them up to there. Or some people, they'll just never get to this gate, and then they'll fall away. But this gate doesn't change for anybody coming in. is will learn Yeah. The The AI's purpose is to get the various people at different stages up to what the gating process is, and the rest of the funnel stays the same. So that's why I'm staying so focused on just the lead management right now, because I think we have a good sales process after the lead. It's really figuring out what the gate needs to be and how we can engage them through AI and low lift on Carmee and Klansys' side so that they get to the gate.
Kris Neal: It's got to be questions, though.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah.
Kris Neal: Just at least respond, and then if so, oh, here you go. Here's what you need to support what that question was.
Charlie Xu: Charlie, you were? Yeah, I just, yeah, a quick thoughts over here. So if we were leaning towards the kind of like constant interactions of providing different stage of questions, on social media, there's an option. On They can direct them to Messenger. So if we can create an AI bot, constantly they can ask questions and throw out these, then Carmee will be the next stage. So if we're doing that...
Quan Gan: I don't want them on Messenger. Okay. You don't want them on Messenger. Because you don't own that property, you need to get them off of Messenger as quickly as possible into our own property. Because Meta could change their algorithm in a day, and then that whole thing just gets blown out. So as a company directive, as quickly as you can take something off someone else's property, put it back in ours. So you might be able to send them an automation quick, but just say, hey, if you want to engage further, fill out this form on our website, get a quote, because that's actually the first gate. We don't want to stay with them on the Meta platform. In fact, you see this every day. Like, there's a bunch of spam on Meta saying that... Yeah, you know, you got a canceled account or something. Like, you need to get off of that because it's actually quite vulnerable even from an IT security standpoint.
Kris Neal: That was just an example, right? Like, that's not the first question that we're asking. Sorry? That was just an example, right? We're not asking him about a quote to start with.
Quan Gan: No, I'm just saying, like, any engagement on Meta is not automated because that's actually a huge security vulnerability. You're exposing your AI bot to some other bigger piece, and if they hack it, they can actually, like, reverse engineer what your internal process is and actually, like, you've opened a back door to the company. So I want to make sure that you have an initial engagement on Meta and just say, look, if you're interested in finding out a little bit more, fill out this form. Force them to do a little bit extra work, but at least they're on our property and it's safe versus staying, having a bot on. Yeah. Okay. I know we spent a lot of time on this. I'll come up with the gating metrics after this call, and then you guys can give me a quick approval or not. But the AI essentially will have a number of exchanges, probably no more than four or five back and forth, to get them up to this gate. And if it cannot get them up to the gate level within four or five back and forth, then we just, you know, consider it's a lost lead rather than converted.
Charlie Xu: I just want to understand at what stage. So it looks like right now it's more towards the automation of different stage with different questions. So for Carmee, at what stage she is the one to observe?
Quan Gan: Oh, it's not any different. Carmee, you're still doing the same exact process once they become a warm lead and they're in a deal form. Like, I only want you to work on deals. I don't want you to work on the leads. Well, work on the leads until it gets automated. But once Klansys automates all the leads, you should not be touching leads. You should only be nurturing deals. Because we have a very clear gating process. It's not Carmee's job to be warming up the leads up to the deal. It's the AI process warming them up to the deal.
Kris Neal: Did you still want to go through the S.O.P.
Quan Gan: or? We can if it's further relevant. know we have to talk about a few of the highlighted things. So maybe you could walk us through that, Kris.
Kris Neal: Let's see. The verification. We're using the, this will need to be. Updated with the process of the AI automation, link notifications and outreach.
Quan Gan: Are we still doing SendSpark?
Kris Neal: No, that's been canceled. Okay.
Quan Gan: And any mention of Mateo is removed, right?
Kris Neal: Yeah, that's what we need to update, yes. And a quote to invoice workflow. I think this pretty much stays the same, though. Receive a PO. So this is the only thing. We need to figure out when this actually is converted. We have it, Charlie, I just want to make sure Klansys, Carmee, confirm that the quote to invoice workflow starts with a verbal agreement. As soon as we hear them say, yes, we are moving forward with it and a check is in the process, then we move it to this verbal agreement. So, thank Invoice is created in CRM, and then it should be seen in books. Yeah. Okay. Great. That is this. Wait. Okay. So that just needs to be updated. Make sure when that starts in a verbal agreement.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. So is there any particular situation where the verbal agreement would drop? Are they normally, when they say verbal agreement, they will move it forward?
Kris Neal: That's great question, Charlie, because actually we've received payments without verbal agreement.
Charlie Xu: Oh, without? We do receive payment without? That's interesting.
Kris Neal: At what stage that happens? Yeah. It's very, we call them the rainbows, right, Carmee? Like when all of a sudden we get a payment, and it's like, oh, they didn't even tell us. Really?
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah. Their finance department is actually processing this.
Steven Hanna: Are those for like low volumes of units or high volumes of units, or it doesn't matter.
Kris Neal: All volumes.
Carmee Sarvida: We celebrate every unit.
Steven Hanna: I'm just trying to think, because if it's a high volume of units that that happens for, I would just be curious to know, like, that account, which person is a decision-maker, like, how long have you guys spent? Because that decision-maker just basically pulled the trigger at the end of a quarter and said, use it, fine, it's done, send it. Like, it didn't say anything. So that's why I'm curious to know if it's a higher volume or lower volume.
Kris Neal: I wish I could tell you. From what I remember, it was both. It was literally, every one is very unique.
Quan Gan: Very cool. I think in all the different interactions we've had, it's actually very challenging to come up with a uniform process, because every district is different. They have different approval processes. In departments. Deadlines, departments. So our buckets try to capture all of them, but sometimes they might skip.
Kris Neal: Okay, so that's, I guess, Charlie, that's the only time when that will happen. Carmee is that, that work out for, it'll be here in the verbal agreement, and then sometimes it'll be over here in a proposal sent, but then it'll jump to over here when payment has been received. So Tim will have to know. Well, that's the only time, Charlie, that you'll have to notify us that a payment was received, like the one today, the one over the weekend we got a PO, but we had no one, we didn't understand that they were ready to move forward, right, Carmee? They didn't give you a verbal agreement. So that's when you just notify sales, and then we get it on our end with converting. Right? Anything else, guys, on that one?
Quan Gan: Nope.
Kris Neal: Okay. Let's see. She's also making sure, just so you know, Charlie, in this, in the deals, right here, Carmee and all, this SOP has got to be updated with that. In the actual deal name, here is where she will tag it with check processing. It's only available in the deal part. So that's when you need to look for the check.
Charlie Xu: Is that, is this, is the thing while adding this check? Carmee. Carmee. Check processing, which means they already received invoice and they're preparing checking. Check?
Kris Neal: Yes, because it could be a pro forma invoice.
Charlie Xu: Oh, pro Okay. So this, okay. So this check processing is only for pro forma invoice. Correct.
Kris Neal: Okay, gotcha. Yeah, because the other way, a credit card payment, it's a regular invoice.
Charlie Xu: Okay, invoice.
Kris Neal: Yeah, good, good, good. Okay. Is this two-step review still being done, Carmee?
Carmee Sarvida: Oh, perfect.
Kris Neal: Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much. This, the only thing that has changed, Quan, since doing this, is in the products, when I was updating the V8 games, it's now mandatory, I have to have a tax on it. So I have every tax in products as out of state, just so you know, I don't know if that's going to cause an issue later, or what?
Quan Gan: Say it again, every product is out of state.
Kris Neal: When I went to update the products with V8 games last week, when I edit, it's a mandatory. I have to update the tax. I have to update the tax.
Quan Gan: So like this one. So how did that affect our quote creation accuracy?
Kris Neal: Nothing. Carmee said it was fine. We checked. But right here, Charlie.
Quan Gan: Okay, it's mandatory. So click on the dropdown, what does it say?
Charlie Xu: It gives all the California ones. Okay, so regarding to the, actually it shouldn't be here, because recently I'm also doing the Q3 sales tax report, and I find out off here, you should say, we should choose tax exempt instead of this. Otherwise, this will be still under California category.
Quan Gan: Yeah, why, why does the product have, sorry, Steve, just a quick question. But why does the product have region-specific tax versus just saying this is taxable or non-taxable?
Kris Neal: Clansys, do you know?
Quan Gan: Or Charlie? Because the tax should be on the overall invoice.
Kris Neal: You know what? It is in books.
Quan Gan: I think it is in books, Quan.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Because in the books, the structure, you would choose is it taxable or it's tax-exempt. So there's two categories. But right now, this out-of-state sale is still under taxable category, and sometimes it would be categories under California. So when I was generating the reports, there's a line has this out-of-state sale, but it's not California's sale.
Quan Gan: Yeah, that's weird. So Charlie or Klansys, can you tell me how... Oh, the integration is working with books, because why do we have all of these listings under tax on a product level, where ideally on the product it should just be taxable or not. And then in books, you would select the tax rate on the entire quote, not on the product.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, so for here, the setting is setting the entire tax rate for the whole invoice.
Quan Gan: Yes. For the quote, this is...
Charlie Xu: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Maybe Klansys can answer me this then. Like this list under the product specific tax, was that pulled in from books?
Klansys Palacio: No, Kuan. It's different. We cannot pull tax from the books to the CRM. Is this manually typed by us? Yes. Yes. Well... ... If we were going to update the tax on the CRM, we were going to update it on the books as well, because there is no available APIs for the tax on the CRM.
Quan Gan: Can we just reduce it into taxable or non-taxable into just two entries?
Klansys Palacio: It will go into effect the numbers of the percentage of the tax on the books. It won't reflect on the total of the invoice. So that's why it has a percentage for the out-of-sale. So it was actually discussed. We had a meeting about this. So for the tax exempt, so I actually shared with you that it is not possible that A.O. we're going to do it manually since we are syncing the CRM. R�무bin,-CM, and From the CRM to books. So I tried to do a deluge code as well, but it is not available on the API. So I already confirmed that with the support, and I informed you about it. And the options that we have is to add the out-of-state sale instead of doing the tax exam, because it's not, it will not go into sync if we were going to do the tax exempt.
Quan Gan: But sale, that's, that's a wrong description if you're still selling to in-state. So, I mean, if you can add something that says out-of-state sale, then why can't you just add the line tax-exempt versus non-exempt?
Kris Neal: This might be to the bridge between CRM and books. Is that right, Klansys? Is this kind of what bridges the two?
Klansys Palacio: Mm-hmm, yeah. Because- On the books, we have taxable and tax example, so we can only get the taxable, not the tax example.
Kris Neal: This is what's connected to that taxable.
Charlie Xu: Kris, can you be able to click the next taxable? Come out of this? Yeah, click and taxable. Let's say, unclick this one? What does that mean? So it's tax exam?
Kris Neal: I wonder.
Charlie Xu: So if this one, if it's out of state, maybe we just unclick this one.
Kris Neal: But for, this is the product.
Quan Gan: But why can't we just, Klansys, is the requirement for tax, this red bar, is that something that we had set as this module, or is this something baked into Zoho?
Klansys Palacio: end. Sure. Yeah, we have. Because back then, Quan, so when you're going to create a code, so it will automatically set to wholesale, which is the one that needs to be removed, because on the report, it actually reflects wholesale, but it's not a wholesale product.
Quan Gan: So why not just, okay, so if it's manually added, then why not just have the taxable checkmark below, by default checked, and then just remove this entire tax category, because we're trying to tax at the wholesale, not on the individual product.
Kris Neal: Because it needs to connect to the books, the taxable in the books.
Quan Gan: But it seems wrong that you would be attaching it at the product level. Like, it should be, it should be something that you add as additional field on the, on the quote or the invoice level, not on the product.
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, it's in the invoice one.
Quan Gan: Right, so why.
Kris Neal: I still don't get why tax shows all of these.
Quan Gan: Like, well, would happen if you just erase this?
Kris Neal: I see what you mean.
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, I'm not really sure about the products because it is already there, tax. But for the four-hour process, it's in the invoice. We don't really add taxes on products, but on invoice itself. So if you're going to check invoices and quotes, so it will not be going to add taxes on each product, but on the entire quote and invoice itself.
Quan Gan: I'm still getting confused. This might need you to investigate deeper and give me a report on this. But my question is, what breaks if we just erase the tax field from this altogether? Because to me, it seems like this is extra and wrong in the first place.
Charlie Xu: I was wondering, because maybe for California tax, if it's... The new county, do we add in the tax in CRM, or are we adding that in Zoho Books?
Steven Hanna: I just looked that up. You have to do both for California. New York State is actually different, because in New York State, it's county. So for us, we'd do that over here. But California is by zip code and then additional.
Kris Neal: Wait, wait, wait. I think we're talking about two different things. You're talking about two different things.
Quan Gan: Where is the registry for tax codes? Is it in books, in CRM, or both?
Kris Neal: And is there an integration between the two? When I create it in CRM, when it's not included in this list right here, I add it in CRM, and then I tell Carmee, and she adds it in books. Okay. Only if it's not added, this has been added from the tax website, everything.
Quan Gan: That's only when a city is not in one of those. So you two are manually doing the integration? Genuinely putting it in.
Kris Neal: Okay. But it's already gone through the automation. Klansys has already been there, done that, checked that box. It's already done. This is only for the ones that come across that. don't have information.
Quan Gan: then where are you editing that list?
Kris Neal: Can you show me? In the products list. Where? Right here. Hey, Steve, I'm going to ask that question because it sounded like you had, is it, where is it, Carmee, is it templates?
Carmee Sarvida: Modules.
Kris Neal: Modules. Thank you. Thank you. And then right here. And Customize Tax Rates. And then I, the city, I add it. I Google the sales tax for that city. Okay.
Quan Gan: So Customize Tax Rates. Okay. And then can you cancel? How did you get in there?
Kris Neal: You were doing this under products?
Quan Gan: Yes. Ooh, okay. I see that. It should not be there. It should be at the quotes or sales order level or purchase.
Kris Neal: Okay. Good. This was how it was shown to me.
Quan Gan: Yeah. It should not Be at the product level, and this is what I'm saying, that's wrong.
Kris Neal: This was a video that you sent to me.
Quan Gan: So there's even a video from you showing me how to do Okay, well, now I know better because the tax should not be a – the only thing related to tax on the product is, is it taxable or not? The actual tax rate should not be bound to an item. It should be bound to the entire order. Perfect. Right, so that means that list needs to live somewhere else, and I don't even know if that list needs to be living in quotes, sales order, purchase orders, or invoice, because to me that seems like it should be a separate module, just a tax module, and then those sales order, invoice quotes should tap into that. So yeah, okay, so what happens if you go to tax here? Thanks for having I do I Okay, so click on that. What is it?
Kris Neal: What are the fields?
Quan Gan: That seems weird.
Kris Neal: I have no idea.
Carmee Sarvida: I think I have created this one. It was my first time adding attacks.
Kris Neal: Okay.
Carmee Sarvida: I went to this.
Quan Gan: Yeah, that doesn't look right either. Is this module currently linked to anything? Like, would it break if we wiped it and redid it? No, I don't think so. It's not. Okay. Because whatever those tax line items that Kris has meticulously added to products, that should be put over into here. And then we'll remove the mandatory tax field inside the products. And then at the... At the quote, sales order, invoice level, Klansys, can you add a reference field to that tax module?
Kris Neal: No.
Klansys Palacio: The product's tax is actually connected to sales quotes, and it is how Pankash developed the entire system for those modules. So when, Pankash is the one who worked on the entire system, so I was just updating everything, and the products from, the tax products is actually connected and synced to old. So we really don't do products, taxations, or single products, we do it, or link it to the quotes, invoices, and sales order.
Quan Gan: I'm still pretty confused here, because I don't want to make a decision that breaks everything, so... Should Pankaj be in this conversation?
Klansys Palacio: Should we have a meeting with him? Yeah, I think so.
Quan Gan: I would really like to know exactly how this integration is working on an actual field level and see the automation, and then I want to make a decision on that. Because right now, seeing it on the product, that's fundamentally wrong.
Kris Neal: We need to correct that. But it makes sense, though, Klansys. I agree. That does sound foundational. That was, that's, yeah. Good. Bringing Pankaj back and just finding out.
Quan Gan: Okay. Are you able to get a hold of him?
Kris Neal: Who? Klansys?
Quan Gan: Are you going to get in touch with Pankaj, or do you need me to?
Klansys Palacio: Can you contact him? I don't have contact with him anymore, so.
Quan Gan: Okay. I'll reach out to him. But you're saying he's the guy who actually put that process in there?
Klansys Palacio: Yeah. During... ZTAG, I think we had a Zoho, old Zoho request, and Quan Cash was there, all the information that we have for the entire system that is built, so it was Quan Cash.
Kris Neal: Okay. makes sense, Quan, because remember we were doing the quotes through the books, through that other process, it makes sense that this is done wrong. Okay.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. Okay, glad we're- It's possible of adding, checking status of if it's a right sales tax, right? Is that somehow it's something can be built in as well?
Kris Neal: Like the website?
Charlie Xu: I don't know.
Quan Gan: Well, we have in our process here, create or update, quote, verify correct tax amount with partner and correct CA taxes. That's in SOP right now.
Charlie Xu: Okay, so recently I found out there's a mistake on one of our big orders. So B-C-A-R. Go check B-C-A-R. It's on a different, it's on a wrong sales tax rate. So it was marked as California 1, but I checked the address. It should be on their particular county rate. And it actually, it's rise from 9% to 10.25%. So by regenerate, updating with that sales tax, we are short charging them about $1,500 on the sales tax. So it might be something we need to reach out to them to get this. But I just want to make sure, like when we're charging, especially for big orders, like 1%, 2% still leads to a big difference. So how we can have that.
Kris Neal: I'm glad you brought that up, Charlie. didn't realize there was a tax discrepancy with that. One thing that came up with Carmee and I, I believe, last week was that, because I had caught a tax difference with a PO that had come in, and when I brought it to their attention, they said, well, actually, the units are being delivered to a different city. So where the units were actually being delivered was different from where their billing address was. So you might want to verify that what we quoted was from the billing, I'm sorry, with the delivery. And that was what they said.
Quan Gan: Interesting.
Charlie Xu: But, okay, but California, because for the BCAR is California 1, we probably need to, like, what is the California 1 for? Because normally we will come with exact allocations rates. So this, that one to me is very general, general attacks. So. But the thing is, like, how, like, what's the location we should building, we should regarding as, is the place they're receiving, or the place they're paying?
Kris Neal: I think that's, this was, if you want to look at their account, but she said, like, she had full authority, which I don't know, maybe she was just saying, but she was like, because I said, you know what, the tax is off, you know, blah, blah, blah, make sure to update your PO, and she said, actually, the units are being shipped here, so we qualify under this. So it sounded like she knew what she was talking about when she said, no, we qualify for this tax, because that's where they're being delivered. Quan, do you have?
Quan Gan: Let me look it up right now.
Kris Neal: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Based on my own personal experience in working with schools and being a vendor, I would verify billing versus shipping on taxable.
Quan Gan: is Прating the sit do It says the short answer is California sales tax is generally based on where the buyer takes possession, i.e. delivery location or ship to, not necessarily the billing address. But there are nuances. So, hold on, let me just tell the other nuances. So tax followed the ship to address, not billing. Okay, origin versus destination, state rate from seller's location, out-of-state shipping generally is non-taxable. Shipping charges taxable if combined with handling or markup, non-taxable if separate as actual cost. Billing in California, delivery out-of-state, no California tax. Okay, so generally where it lands.
Kris Neal: Is that for every state or just California?
Quan Gan: I'm grateful. Well, we're shipping from California, so. So, Anything that's in California, use the address of where it's being shipped to, not the billing. So if it's going to multiple sites, then theoretically you have to look at it.
Steven Hanna: Wow, that's ridiculous. Then you would probably tell them you might want to just have these all shipped to one site for the tax purpose of it. For E's purpose on everyone's side, it would be easier for us to. But for, if they needed to do that individually, they have to be, each tax would need to be individualized to the shipment. Oh man, I know, Charlie, that looks like a pain in the already, right?
Charlie Xu: It didn't come up this problem before. It just like, we just naturally, organically, whatever happens, it just happens. But it just, yeah.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, now I'm like, hmm, if you come over one zip code, I can get you 1.5% off, you know? It's like one of those things. One zip code in two blocks is going to be the difference between a 1.5% difference in tax at a $9,700 item, which at that point, as stupid as it sounds, someone who is that hell-bent on not paying that tax, that could be, like, one of the deciding factors for them, if they're that petty about it.
Quan Gan: Each delivery location is taxed at its own local rate. You must split the order by destination. So if one order ships to three CA sites with different district taxes, you charge each site its correct local rate and report them separately on your sales tax return under each jurisdiction.
Kris Neal: That's only if they're not shipped to one spot. Right. Yeah. So we're not worrying about that, Carmee. Everything goes to one spot.
Quan Gan: For Charlie, your information, it does get more complex if it goes multiple steps.
Charlie Xu: Feels like a hair. Can we just pretend you don't know this?
Kris Neal: I know. Well, at least you know, Carmee, because if Shasta reorders, they do send it to each individual site. So just keep that in mind. There are actually school districts that do that. But now you know. Don't allow that. Just say it's better for them in one spot.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Steven Hanna: What a pain. Thanks for talking that one through and figuring that one out.
Charlie Xu: So what are we going to do for the next in the future?
Quan Gan: Charlie, for you, just verify that tax is related to the destination. But I think on our side, whoever clicked on the California one, let's look at what that rate is and correct it to a correct name.
Charlie Xu: Okay. I already start adjusting because I need to generate the report. But in the future, because I feel like when the sales team are creating the quote, that's already come up with the sales text, like at that stage, how are we going to choose which sales text, or is it just based on their school location in general?
Kris Neal: Their shipping address?
Charlie Xu: Yeah, shipping address.
Kris Neal: Actually, that would actually need to be associated, Klansys, with the quote generation, the automatic quote, if you can grab it from the shipping address. That's a good point, Charlie. Because that's when it really gets started, is that quote form. Which I have some edits on that quote form, too, Klansys. I'm going to give them to you at another time. And I think we need a little bit more information. Or the quote form.
Carmee Sarvida: I have the same question as Charlie.
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, sure, go ahead.
Carmee Sarvida: I have the same question as Charlie. Since we are generating the code, and after, like, setting the code and make them confirm the shipping address, so when we create the code, we don't have the shipping address yet. It's on our SOP, Chris, so do we need to, like, edit the SOP to get the shipping address first before sending them a code, or we just base it on their school's address, billing address?
Kris Neal: What if we were, I was thinking about this earlier, Carmee, what if we use the quote form for anyone who wants a quote, have them fill it out, add to it the ARP. Payment terms, the shipping address, like, get that, the title. know, Charlie, we were talking about last week, getting the actual title of the people that we're talking to, and then it being automatically generated. Like, using that quote form kind of, like, on an every-person basis, actually, now.
Carmee Sarvida: I think for the meta leads, we don't have their addresses.
Kris Neal: But that could be a gate. That could be a gate that Quan was talking about. Right, Quan?
Quan Gan: Oh, one second. Amazon. Oh, Charlie's going to go get it, because the dogs are out there.
Kris Neal: Hi.
Quan Gan: Okay. She'll be back in, like, a minute.
Kris Neal: No worries.ctoroute. . . . .
Quan Gan: . you. Chris, what was the question?
Kris Neal: Well, Carmee was asking how to get that tax correct and where to get that information right, Carmee, because we're not getting that address from the meta-add form. So I said, this is a quote request. So this is after getting all the information, the gates going through each and every gate. And yes, they're finally ready to get a quote officially. So this is several steps in the process. And at that point, send them, okay, we're so excited for you. You're ready to move forward with an official quote. Send them the quote form. Don't sit there and base on the information that we've hopefully gathered. No more of that. Do the quote form as a equal.
Quan Gan: Do we have a quote form right now?
Kris Neal: We do, but it's not being used as often as it should.
Quan Gan: And. It needs to be edited. This is a different quote form than what we have on our website.
Kris Neal: No, this is the same.
Quan Gan: Because they'll go and type that, right? So that quote form for me sounds much earlier in the gating process than later, because the quote form on the website is still a casual passerby.
Kris Neal: How about we change it to a quote proposal?
Quan Gan: What do you mean?
Kris Neal: A quote proposal, meaning like we give them a soft quote and information on the unit so that they can pass forward to people who need that information. Because having an actual quote is what defines them as an account. So it would be nice if we can get a little bit. And we need information for their AR contact, point of contact, payment terms.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so I think we have to delineate a couple of different stages. So the quote form on our website that anybody can go in and say, ask a quote, that is still before our gate. That's before our gate. I treat that as a lead. I don't treat that as a formal account yet, even if they don't have that form.
Kris Neal: But on our end, see, that's what I'm saying. On our end, the quote is what differentiates it.
Quan Gan: But on your side, it's But what I'm saying is there needs to be yet another form that maybe we pre-fill out but force them to go through because now they're formally wanting a process. So it's actually two forms. The request a quote from our website that is before the gate, that's a lead. That's just the lead saying, okay, because they don't even know how to fill it outright.
Kris Neal: They want 24 systems, usually, right? We take that as like a soft quote. We can give a soft quote for that?
Quan Gan: When I- Okay, so- Internal. Internally. Checking my definitions. Soft quote to me means like $2 or $3 per child per month. It's not $9,700. Perfect. That's what I see as a soft quote.
Kris Neal: Perfect.
Quan Gan: Yes. Yeah. The actual full System quote is behind the gate, right, that they know, okay, well, behind the gate, you've already figured out how many students are they serving, right? So prior to the gate, you're just doing a per-person unit economics, and you're also asking how many kids are you serving, so that at the gate, they already know this is roughly going to be a $10,000 or $20,000 endeavor, right? They pass the gate, and you're saying, okay, we're ready to give you a formal quote process, please fill this out with your shipping or receiving address, so we actually know what tax rate to charge you, right, at which point they're putting in their information. I think that's a separate quote process. You could, I don't know if you need, well, no, they should spend the extra time to retype things, because I agree with the quote, yes.
Kris Neal: Yeah. But not with the pricing. I think where you're looking at is people who want- Pricing information, which I'm all for the ROI per step, per smile, per whatever friction point there is.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I would say the gate, if anything, we raise it higher to say, okay, if you're really willing to jump over it because we've already told you all this, that, you know, it's going to be more than, you know, 9,000. If they're still in it, right, you know, like, yes, I want to proceed, I want to get a formal quote, then you send them another form saying, okay, then tell us exactly where we're shipping this. When do you actually need it? We'll give you all the details.
Kris Neal: Perfect.
Quan Gan: Okay. Klansys, are you clear on that? We probably need a second form for them to fill out. That is very sales specific. I could send you a template that Gantem uses when we have a new customer and they're wanting a quote. Like... Yeah, all the things that they need to actually fill out.
Kris Neal: Let me see if I can find that. Quan, for, these were the few that I could think of, Carmee, if you could think of anything additional to besides the quote form that he's finding. But we need to make sure the titles, so like the AR contact and the main contact. So that's even, that would even help Steve to know who to contact for, you know, setting up the training. And then payment terms for AR, for Charlie and Tin. That would be, sorry, Klansys, I don't know why I was thinking of it. But Carmee, if you could think of anything else that you need to know, Klansys, those are the two that I see needed.
Carmee Sarvida: For the meta-leads, sometimes they don't include their company or what school they are from.
Kris Neal: It's not a mandatory field in a meta-lead ad? In their form? In their form? form? form? form? Charlie? You're on mute.
Charlie Xu: Yeah.
Kris Neal: Sorry, could you say it again? Is that a mandatory field in the meta-add-lead form when they fill out that they're interested?
Carmee Sarvida: Their company or their school, Charlie?
Charlie Xu: It is. Yeah, I think it is. But I can set it as optional.
Kris Neal: Can you make it mandatory? That's a huge help.
Charlie Xu: Mandatory. Yeah, I definitely would check. But so far, I've been paused all the ads. But maybe next time when I start, yeah, I will set it into mandatory. But also, if you have any other question you want me adding to it, just let me know.
Kris Neal: I can just, yeah, quickly add in there. Okay.
Charlie Xu: Mm-hmm. you. Because also I do check the leads, some people are just not typing, I don't know, or typing anything, they just put random, I just see one or two, put random things in there, yeah.
Kris Neal: Francis, did you receive the quote form from Quan?
Quan Gan: We're still trying to figure out how to get access to this.
Kris Neal: Steve, you had to say happy anniversary to Alexa for us. Happy anniversary. She's right over.
Steven Hanna: They're saying happy anniversary. She's going to come into frame really quick. See, you're blurred. You're blurred, you're censored.
Kris Neal: Thanks for having me.
Steven Hanna: appreciated that. Thanks, guys.
Quan Gan: The client says, I'll send it to you afterwards. I got to ask my team about it.
Kris Neal: Carmee, does that help with kind of knowing what to send, kind of like the gates a little bit? mean, Quan, you're going to get it all written out, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Kris Neal: Okay. But at least you kind of get a general, what Quan understands is like the pricing or like the ROI.
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. Do we have more things to discuss?
Kris Neal: I just want to make sure Carmee has what she needs for supporting what are already being done right now. Do you have? Do you have anything?
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah. For the, for the, like, part of what I think, the soft goal. That Quan mentioned earlier, and like first steps, like how much it costs, first steps, something like the details on that.
Kris Neal: I think Quan is going to update the GPT with that, at least to have a little bit of that understanding, and then how to navigate that with your conversations from what Ziva was saying, kind of get more information and if that really, how that can help them.
Carmee Sarvida: Okay, yeah, I'll try to have some conversation with the GPT.
Steven Hanna: And if you need a human input too, you can bounce this off of me as well, if you're like, hey, where does this person form line?
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, sure, Steve, thank you.
Kris Neal: And then Quan, you're going to reach out to Pancash to connect him and Clances to figure out the tax issue. you. For the product.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I'll do that.
Klansys Palacio: Okay, regarding that too, can we ask Pankash why, what is the reason behind he created a custom module instead of using the Zoho Finance? Zoho Finance is there. It's connected to the books.
Quan Gan: I have a rough idea of what it is, because I looked at this a while back. The finance module doesn't actually do much synchronization, as we imagine. It's more of a window. It's almost like a, yeah, it's pretty much, imagine it as just a window for you to see into books, but it doesn't actually have integration. So anything you want to have beyond the integration, you end up having to do a custom module. So it's kind of useless. You know, they, I think in books they have some. Something called, it's not called quote, it's called something else like proposal or something. Estimates. Yeah, you know, because there might be small businesses that don't have CRM and just purely are on the books, like a contractor or something.
Kris Neal: That's what it was.
Quan Gan: That's what it was before. Yeah. So it wasn't designed for a full-fledged CRM like what we're using. And in order for us to have the automation processes, the finance module just didn't have those features. So we just ignored it.
Kris Neal: But it makes sense, though, Klansys, what your question, to go back to what you had asked, because it was done originally that way. makes sense that he did the module for not going through the module. you know what mean? Because it was done wrong first. So everything was done wrong first. It sounds like I hate to say it.
Quan Gan: We have to go back and clean it up.
Kris Neal: In the wrong category.
Quan Gan: In tech terms, this is called technical debt that you have to repay. As the company grows, you have to pay down your technical debt.
Kris Neal: That makes sense.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and it's literally debt in the sense that the more you do on the old stuff, you're accumulating more debt because you haven't paid off the original. So you have to fix it at the root level so that you don't accumulate further debt because it just gets more painful when you try to fix it later on.
Kris Neal: And perfectly explains the tax issue because it sounds like this might be the root of it.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay. Anything else? Oh, we still have a lot of strategy and international stuff to talk about.
Kris Neal: That's right. That's right.
Quan Gan: He wants a response. Yeah, but I think that's probably, that doesn't require Klansys or Carmee, right, for now?
Kris Neal: She'll just need to know next steps for them, but yeah, I can give her that information.
Quan Gan: Okay, are we ready to move on and we can really leave Carmee and Klansys?
Kris Neal: Thank you, ladies.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Charlie Xu: Thank you, Derek.
Steven Hanna: Take care. Can we take a quick five-bathroom break, if that's okay? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Let's say it's about 45 now.
Quan Gan: Let's try and be back by 55. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank Thank you. Thank you. You
Kris Neal: Thank you.
Quan Gan: Juan, if you're there. Hello. I'm sorry.
Kris Neal: just wanted to take a minute and talk about the October thing, if that's okay, just real briefly. That's the school caliber that has the perfect attendance. So you're going to need swag for that one.
Quan Gan: That's the very last
Kris Neal: Last trip you're taking on Friday the 17th on your way home. Okay. What time can I tell her that you would like to have that?
Quan Gan: Because it's going to be a play day with the perfect attendance kids and then a Q&A with a larger group. I'm not sure if it's going to be with the 900 amount of students.
Kris Neal: Okay.
Quan Gan: It might be, but I told her you'd be willing, you'd be up for it, but she was like, she's so excited. Okay. 900?
Kris Neal: I heard 900. I just got back. don't know what it is. Okay. is leaving the night before, right? On the 16th? Unfortunately, yes. Okay.
Quan Gan: I mean, I'll be up. So what is standard school time? It's an hour from Sacramento. North or south? South. It's on your way home. On your way home? Okay. A lot of your way about 45 minutes, but yes, it's on your way home. So? Do you want to do like 10 to 12? That's what I'm thinking. And yeah, like. Ten. Ten? Yeah, wear them out, and it'll be lunchtime. Okay. Perfect. I'll connect with her and see if that's okay. Okay. So do like a play date with the perfect attendees. Well, in that time frame.
Kris Neal: So I would arrive by ten, but I'll need probably like 30 minutes to set up. Got it.
Quan Gan: Okay. We can start at 10.30, but yeah, I'll need to get in and set up first. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you so much. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then just, yeah, please add every detail to my calendar. Yes. Yes. I already put like a place marker. I don't know if you've noticed my place markers, but I just click on the beginning of the day, and then in your notes, I tell you I'm going to update as soon as I know. Great. She just responded to me this morning, though, so. Yeah, I also, just in the main group chat, I posted the, we call it the Gantam Buyers App. So it's not a quote. It's a buyer's application, because in order for us to give I'll give you a quote. You're filled. They're out this application. It's called an application, I think, more to set the tone that they're doing the work ahead of time to make sure that everything is smooth. I wonder if we can just name it form. I don't know, application, anything that applies to schools?
Kris Neal: We could probably name it something different, but if you click on it, you'll see how much detail it is compared to a quote form.
Quan Gan: It's asking for your accounts payable people, who's your company manager. I mean, this is more specific to Gantam's business model, but you see the business contact is not just a single person. It is like, we want every single thing we're going to need. Not just now, but even in the future. Potentially, like here, well here, I'll screen share. Can you guys see? Mm-hmm.-hmm. Mm So some of this is about running sales, that doesn't really matter. Parent company, that probably doesn't matter. But here's the meat of it. It's like, who are the responsible people for your organization, including potential playmakers? We want to get this information ahead of time so we know who do we contact when this thing actually lands so that they can schedule training.
Steven Hanna: I was wondering if that was too much information at that time because we have it at the end of the process. I think laying that up front is going to save us a lot of work down the line and also show them how much of a, like, we're just as involved as they are. We want to make sure that we do our due diligence on them and that, you know, we're a professional company. And then you have your billing information. We've got the company physical address, right? In our case, where are we physically shipping it to? Okay. Steve, do you have any questions or comments on this? Other than you create an application to sound elite? No. Not at all. That you wanted to set the tone of, you know, you have to apply to buy something with us? It's the club. It's the club.
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Steven Hanna: You're setting the goalposts. I see what's going on.
Quan Gan: Well, the timeline of when we ask, though, I mean, I actually do kind of lean towards later for the playmakers. Later? I do. A lot of this is information overload, and one thing that I come to learn is that we're sending a lot of emails to the same people. Mm-hmm. Mm Mm-hmm. And... We might be able to streamline that if Kris or I have to send an email to the same person, maybe there's two pieces of information that could be in that email as opposed to two separate emails being sent.
Kris Neal: Because we've got support, we've got sales, we've got Kris's Playmaker Relations, customer Playmaker Relations, and then Playmaker Developer. And Kris, myself, and Carmee, or Tin, probably send three emails to the same person, four emails to the same person. So it's a lot of information we're sending to them.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I do agree also that it's a fundamentally different customer type compared to Gantum.
Steven Hanna: But what I'm really trying to share is if we can get a lot of this info ahead of time, and it may not be like, you know, as detailed as Gantum needs, but it
Quan Gan: It will smoothen things out a little bit, but yeah, I am aware that maybe we're loading. My counter-argument to that would be something you said. Who's going to read? Who's going to take the time to read? Yeah. Go ahead. If we could have on that quote form or the application support materials for them to just check, like W-9 sole source, would that be possible? So we know what is necessary for them to be sent with a quote, like support material. Okay. Yeah. I mean, we can have a bunch of check marks saying, okay. It almost is so that they see like, yes, I actually do. Put it on the website in the FAQs. Just throw it on the website in the FAQs with the check mark with a link to how they can do that section. And then they can literally have a little clickable check mark to say, yep, I did that. But I don't know if we want our W9N, like that sounds like information you don't want to get scraped, you know, and sole source. So I, yeah, I would hesitate to put it directly on the website for anybody to see. That's probably better through email. But kind of macroscopically, this, you we don't have to go too deep into this topic, but even with the Playmaker Club, the intention for me is, you know, among us four as the leaders, I'm seeing a common pattern where we might personally feel inadequate. And so we're kind of chasing them versus I want us to shift to a framework where we know we are enough and they're actually looking for us. You know, it's so it's this weird.
Kris Neal: balance of perfectionism to, like, it's a double-edged sword. Our own perfection makes us have a stellar product, and we show up in a great way. But the shadow side of that is we often undersell ourselves when, in fact, this is actually, like, something that everybody should want to be a part of rather than we're begging them, right?
Quan Gan: So it's kind of this mental shift that I'm cognitively making a choice on. It's like, this is a good product, celebrate it, and those who are in residence will come to us rather than are we begging them to, you know, to buy our product or be part of a playmaker. It's like, look, this is where the party is. You want to be here. So is that what you're trying to reflect in the club and those options? Yeah, yeah, it's not us chasing. It's like, we're here. You know, join it because you want to be a part of it. Then I totally support that. So if we want to add that to kind of like an addition to what Steve, maybe he offers more on his side, maybe not gone through Carmee. I mean, I can mention it in the demo, you know, that there's a club, an exclusive club that they, as their district, would like to participate in. I saw that it was a per year, though. That was interesting. I think we'll have to workshop that more. You know, to figure out what that model is. And it's probably like, you know, rinse it through or pass it to Sargina and get her feedback on it. But it's like the way it's going to take shape, it doesn't really matter to me. It's more of the internal dialogue.
Kris Neal: Can we change ourselves from being, you know, perfectionist and the shadow side is like, oh, this is not good enough.
Charlie Xu: So I keep on like moving my own goalposts versus look. goalposts So So You So I am a value, and I've created something of value. And by changing that dialogue, you're going to show up in a way where people are gravitated towards you rather than you trying to chase and please others. Yeah, and this is a common pattern that I've seen across not only myself, but all of us here. It's a personal journey that we have to travel through. You guys all bring, you know, tremendous value to the whole equation. So I want to acknowledge that. But, you know, I can't change your own framework. You know, everybody's dialogue is internal to themselves. I'm glad you asked that. Yeah. Go ahead, Charlie. Yeah. From my perspective, I do feel like as the rise of ZTAG are, like, growing, growing, it's also the top. Time, we're creating cultures and our, how we present ourselves to this educational industries. And I do feel like maybe making a club, it will bring a lot of fun. So it just like, kind of like they have, besides their school, we ZTAG providing another community.
Quan Gan: It can come up as a lot of fun things they can be part of, like also educations. And also Quan has mentioned some, like the EO organization, how to create the part of, like the parts of each group are constantly connecting with another. It kind of like, maybe reframe a new structure, if like the ZTAG playmaker, they know each other through ZTAG, but not through schools. So it might be like a ZTAGGER, oh no, not a ZTAGGER, but a PlayMaker, or could be a good friend with another state of PlayMaker.
Steven Hanna: So it's creating a good way of them to grow, even personally. So it's just kind of like a personal growth opportunity through this cloud. It's owning our own platform. You we own our own ecosystem. We don't necessarily rely on another organization, another trade show, to be able to present. As the company matures, you're going to, like, I think right now we could easily look at the people that we invited to the Boost Dinner and probably get a dozen PlayMakers. You we don't have to charge them anything, but just like start it foundationally to say, look, you guys are the first cohort. And based on that snowballed as to something that they get exclusive benefits. iPhone's Based. Based. And then they're going to be talking about it, sharing with other – there's social currency with that, and then trying to get other people to want to join in. That's actually the one thing that I've written down. Why do I care about joining this club? That's the one note that I have. Why? The people. I need – well, I care if there's proven success, right? Like the people, yes, by default they'll succeed and they'll motivate me. But why do I care about purchasing an annual membership to a club, right? What's the main thing? It's not the people. It's the environment. It's the combination of everything. It's not just one secular thing. How do we make every part of that appealing for everybody, and that's tough because some people aren't going to have the money, and then some people are going to be relying on their districts to pay for it.
Quan Gan: Like why is the teacher going to pay out of – I've to join a playmaker club.
Steven Hanna: They won't. Why would a district support the playmaker club unless it's a warranty, right? Like you're selling culture, which is fine, but I don't think you should mix that up with a warranty because a warranty, it's two very different things.
Quan Gan: And a warranty for entertainment moving into IAAPA is going to mean something very different than playmaker. A playmaker at IAAPA, here's what that means.
Steven Hanna: They want direct access to me to give them insight to how to market to every single person with ZTAG. That's what a playmaker is for entertainment. A playmaker for education is a person who's going to provide feedback to literally create the foundation for new games being developed. So the warranty is something that would be appealing to one sect. The playmakers, people don't have the money to join a club, and you're selling a club to them.
Quan Gan: Sell the warranty.
Steven Hanna: Well, it's... It's... It's... PD. Yes, it's PD at the same time, but maybe they're not looking for PD. Maybe they just need the security and knowing that the warranty is there. If you're going to combine the two, great. But say that it's part of ZTAG Extended Care because that extended care that we offer them is PD. It's extended care to the community. It's extended care to the people who are going to be using the system. It's already built in. Okay, so would you have extended care include these things rather than the club including extended care? I don't think you'd call it a club. I think it maintains its own organic thing. The second you start calling it a club and you're selling culture, we're now saying there's an exclusivity element to this. And people who can't afford to get in, well, too bad, you can't afford it. Oh, well, what, you needed a system to get in at 10K and now you have to drop another 2K to be part of the cool kids club and have that table to sit at at lunch? That's not something that I would do. That would actually be a turnoff. To me, as a teacher, if you guys tried to sell me something as a teacher who's using this because my district got it, I'd be like, get out of here. What am I, all right, what am I doing next? Like, I wouldn't even give it a second thought. I would literally say, absolutely not. What's my lesson plan for today? Oh, it's with ZTAG? Maybe I don't want to use ZTAG today because I just saw something and I'm in emotional response mode. Like, it might actually be doing the opposite. I am a unique case, though. Remember, I am the person who's defiant.
Quan Gan: I'm a person who will look at that and go, no.
Steven Hanna: So, there might be a person who would say, yeah, I want access to that. I want to be a part of that. I just don't know who that person is and I haven't seen them yet.
Quan Gan: I feel like they would be a very unique person.
Kris Neal: I feel like there are certain people who align in that but are not in the category of you're part of this exclusive club. we wanted to establish, you know, regions and regional playmakers, what are we going to do?
Quan Gan: Establish the regional playmaker clubs? Because the second we do that, once you go down to a local level, you're not going to have the amount of signups that you would at a national level.
Steven Hanna: You're not going to have the level of input you would, because a local charter versus a national charter or something, or a regional charter, it's just different sign-up, show-up population. Steve, let's bake on this some more in person.
Quan Gan: I'll fight you on it.
Steven Hanna: You're telling me that you want me to be the bouncer selling membership at this club, and I'm telling you, absolutely not.
Kris Neal: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Chris, you're muted.
Kris Neal: I can see it as a PD.
Steven Hanna: I do see it as that, because I think we've heard enough evidence that there is... It's funding for that. But I agree with the club issue. I do see that, too. Yeah, I mean, this is really the point is to just get everybody's feedback. And then, you know, it was crazy Quan having a thought. I'll put it out there. But it wasn't bad. All right. Here's the full transparency of it. We just got done with an IT meeting where Oshkahn said, here's the visionary up in the clouds. And the moment you said that, I had a flashback to that exact moment in Zoom where I was like, yeah, and there it is.
Kris Neal: All right.
Steven Hanna: I need to let this sit for a few days and think about it because that's a very different shift. And if my initial response is, hell no.
Kris Neal: Okay. That's right. Like, I need it to sit for it in. That's why I didn't respond. This has been in the process for more than just this since you. Yeah. I just think that the PD is part of the extended care. And a playmaker club will develop naturally. We don't need to standardize it as such.
Steven Hanna: That will be such an organic thing. And here's what will happen. It's going to spiral and snowball with Sargenia, Ella, and there's going to be two new people. This guy, Chris, from the Lakay Hornet Club. I'm going to reach out to him at the end of the month. He's been using ZTAG pretty frequently from what my check-in has been. And it's just going to be a natural thing. Erica is going to be a big part of that. We don't need to standardize it as, let me see your ID. You want to dance? Let me see that ID.
Quan Gan: Show me your invoice. What's your invoice number? I'm really, really curious, Steve. If you had that kind of relationship that you're talking about, Chris, and these other people, would it not be something that you would enjoy to share? Hey, did you know that you can actually, that there's something that your district can purchase where your PD... It's funded, like, it's purchased for the year, so we have these regular, like...
Steven Hanna: Yeah, I mean, listen, I can always reach out, but Chris is not the decision maker, right? Chris is just one of the teachers that's using it because he got transitioned from janitorial staff and got a really lucky break where his school's paying for him to become a teacher and giving him a really cool opportunity, and he now has this to kickstart, right? Like, I'm not trying to sell that to him. I'm just trying to make sure that he's supported on his teaching journey, and that ZTAG is always going to be a good thing in his eyes, where anytime mentions that, he goes, Oh, man, I played this ZTAG game the other day with this, and he can go right into it. I think your pushback is totally valid. Where I see the commonality, and really the root of it, is just how do we take care of our playmakers? That's it. You know, how we go and how and what we do to execute it, I think that's different. But the why is, you know, since Chris... Chris has been saying this in the very beginning. It's like, just how can we show love to the people who's on the ground actually doing the work? You treat them as whale clients in other businesses, but you treat them with true generosity in mind, knowing that their value is going to come in their community-driven feedback for everything. They have a different understanding as teachers and community people who, honestly, their emotional ties to the community are the most valuable thing that they can bring to ZTAG. So as long as we can support that and say, hey, do you have anything coming up that we can support you with? It can be such an organic, open-ended thing, right? We don't need to say, hey, let's set up a package for every person. We could reach out to Ella and say, hey, do you have something coming up that we can, like, work on with? And I guarantee you, we'll get some responses that are, eh, but we'll also get some people who are going, you know what?
Quan Gan: Now that I think about it, we're doing this really cool PTA event with this blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Maybe this...
Kris Neal: There's something that we can do together in that, and it could be something as simple as offering, you know, a basket, right, where the basket is the financial energy involved and ZTAG's name is behind it, and they are happy in knowing that we sent that. Maybe it's an event sponsorship where you're within an hour of the event and you can go out and host that event for them for an hour and a half, something along lines of that. It doesn't need to be standardized, but you treat these people as whale clients who are meant to be nurtured throughout the entire experience with true generosity in mind. There's no expectation of return on our end. The only thing that we're here to do is support you through the ZTAG experience, and whatever you provide back as a direct result of that, thank you. Anyone else? Questions, comments, concerns, deliberations? I'll die on this hill, too. We have plenty more to talk about, so we'll come back to this.
Steven Hanna: Chris, how about you take the lead on... on... The other remaining sales and strategy topics.
Kris Neal: We need to discuss foreign policy.
Quan Gan: So if I can ask, I think, two, three questions.
Kris Neal: One, how was your process before when you first came into IAAPA?
Quan Gan: Because that's what the foreign or international, sorry, our international partner distribution, action distribution kind of is in the understanding of going forward. I would like to discuss what didn't work with that partnership. And then finally, what the conclusion with, I understand you want to continue a distribution, but for me, I think I'll die on the hill of getting rid of the distribution. Since we are moving forward with TIN doing full support, Steve doing full support with training, it's been a nightmare working with action distribution. So would you mind telling us, though, what the... The... I just ask, can you remind me of this... Does the French contact that we have, Guigou, that name? Gerard? Patrice Cougou or something? Patrice, G-I-G-O-U. G-I-E-R-R.
Kris Neal: But it is that account, correct?
Quan Gan: Yes. There's another person, Gregoire or something. There's two people. Yeah, I just want to make sure I'm thinking of the right account. Okay, brain dump on this. You know, we have plenty of U.S. customers. So obviously, international is not our primary focus. It's probably going to be like less than 10% currently. So just kind of frame this in the overall, you know, you have your U.S. market. Our motivation with them was similarly mapped to... How Gantem works. We have, Gantem has international distributors. They don't have exclusivity per se. It's more like because they've made past purchases, we'll preferentially send these their way if them purchasing it in bulk and distributing it and providing support on their end helps us. But for us, I mean, any issue, especially international, it is kind of a headache because they'd have to return it to the stateside, you know, their support issues. And that's compounded with how V2 has rolled out because V2, you know, V2 was not a very serviceable product, right? Even right now, why are we exchanging them? And I think... Action Distribution has bought everything prior to 2023.
Kris Neal: I don't think they made a single purchase in 2024. So their stuff is even more prone to breaking and servicing.
Steven Hanna: So V3 mitigates that. V3 certainly helps that because if there's any issue, they're just swapping a module rather than the whole thing. So that's already way better. So I could say like today, if we're looking at the same, we're kind of re-approaching the situation.
Kris Neal: We have a fundamentally more serviceable product. The next question to ask is, what value do they have in terms of providing extended service to their customers? Or do we want to be working with each of their playmakers?
Quan Gan: So for example, is Steve having a call with each individual customer on their end? Or is he training... So distribution, and then action distribution would train those other people. I think that's the first question, is we need to actually figure out if there is still a distribution. I will say the answer to that would be if you sell to an individual client outside of the United States, I would have a personal training with them. If you sell a bunch to a distribution network, I would do one training to that distribution network.
Kris Neal: Outside of that, our hands are pretty much, you know, we don't know them anything after that, besides the warranty that we sold them originally as the distribution network.
Quan Gan: It would need to involve that, the training to that one person, and also the support that they would need to provide people if their ZTAggers go out. So 500 ZTAggers or whatever. So they would be the ones that they go to in order for the support. So the product today is certainly able to do that.
Steven Hanna: I would also say at that point, we're going to run into an issue with scalability and if we want to keep everything in-house or if we want to move it to that distribution network style.
Quan Gan: Because the second we decide to go into Europe, for example, congratulations, Quan, we're going to every European show with ZTAG. Like that name brand has to start strong there and it can't be at a distribution network level. It has to be, there's a whole different element to international here that I'm hesitant to. One being, we're adding a layer between us and the customer and that's a big layer. And for them to go through a distribution network for support and if the distribution network doesn't handle it well, then they hold the ZTAG name accountable for the distribution network not handling it well. And yes, it's not correct, but this is how I feel a customer would go through it. But Quan is saying that we would actually do the support, not the distribution. Right, but then why don't we just establish ZTAG distribution networks internationally and do that? Why would we outsource that to someone already, just because they have the capability to do it already? The distribution, okay, here's kind of a difference between a distributor compared to, let's say, a rep.
Kris Neal: A distributor holds inventory, so they're willing to buy 10 or 20 units at a time, and they're basically the bank and selling it to other prospects.
Quan Gan: Versus if we are doing distribution ourselves, then we need to hold on to a certain inventory and then ship it either from M5 directly or we ship it from stateside. So there is extra duties and coordination with that. And also from what I've Seen, because Gantem has international distribution, initially we have attended some of these international trade shows as Gantem, but once we got distribution, we basically stopped going to them, and then the distributors would just put our brand and show up in a certain way. But they're effectively Gantem Europe, or Gantem whatever region you want to put it, and then we can optionally show up and attend, but we're not building the booth, we're not doing any of those exhibits.
Kris Neal: That's what I was wondering, if Jerry would be able to be that person for the international shipping of ZTAG, and it would just go...
Quan Gan: Jerry wouldn't do any of that. It would be M5. Jerry's sole responsibility is sourcing, and making sure the QA is passed on the hardware. Yeah, has no... Jerry's strong suit is definitely not business.
Kris Neal: It is production. So if you have them... Go and take care of international business that it won't work. So they don't have, like, we don't have someone on that end to be able to process international orders. Well, the processing of international orders depends on where we go.
Quan Gan: If we go through an action distribution, we're processing a single order of 10 or 20 units. They take care of it. It's their inventory from that point on. They're doing all the actual distribution afterwards. But if we go like how Steve and I suggested of getting rid of the middleman, since we're already providing the support and we provide that. Then we have to handle from the state side all of the commercial invoices, all of the taxes and duties related to going to all these different places. Yeah, there's an extra layer that is. It sounds to me like you're leaning more towards the distribution, which I'm okay with. So what's But if we can just have a support, it feels like to me, if they're going to that one person for training, they should also go to that one person for support. That's how I feel.
Kris Neal: So that would alleviate Tim. I mean, she would connect with Patrice, the gentleman. Well, why don't we look at it kind of like Game Truck, in a way. Game Truck is almost like a distribution in the U.S.
Quan Gan: We sold it through them, and they were able to distribute it to all their customers. But later on, on the support end, we want each of those customers to have a direct relationship with us as a playmaker. So we make sure that they're up-to-date, well-trained. So that part doesn't change geographically. Just because someone is on the opposite side of the planet, the only difference is you might have to have some weird scheduling to teach them.
Kris Neal: But beyond that, you know.
Charlie Xu: So if they have any physical product issues, them going back to the distributor would handle that way easier than we having to replace onesie, twosies, sending international shipments and replacements. Perfect. So how about we move forward with what we had before? There were distribution prices of 20 units, 10 units. That might just need editing for the distribution and then a support package. Yeah, as far as I know, I haven't changed my thoughts on that policy. So the GPT might still be accurate in terms of anything international. I think there was like a 30% upcharge or something. I think so. Yeah, I think it was like a 30% upcharge just so they could do their discount back to, you know, whatever our standard retail is. Yeah, I believe so. It's been a while, but. Yeah. It's not updated in the GPT, though. Remember, that was the issue. Okay. Can I ask for your thoughts, Charlie? First of all, I feel like for the international and whatever who is reaching out to us, I feel like at the beginning we need to build a relationship of who they are, what they are doing, what their intention want to connect with us. First of all, I feel like if it's, if it's like a great alignment, I feel like it might be an opportunity to develop into that country. But really, I feel like at the early stage, who is the person we're working with is something we need to focus on. Because otherwise, it just, it takes a lot of effort to, because right now, we're still growing on the U.S.
Quan Gan: side, all the tensions over here. We're trying to establish everything. So, if it's... Adding another branch, it could be a distraction. But also, if the person is super aligned with ZTAG, and he is dedicated to bringing ZTAG to, you know, like someone like Steve or Eric, you know, in other countries, sees huge values and have the business background of doing things, then it might be we can schedule multiple meetings.
Charlie Xu: to go through the details. But I don't know, like right now, what is the bottleneck of this for friends' customers?
Kris Neal: Like, at what stage? Are they want to do it? Or we're just thinking they, like, how they... I think it's a combination of, you know, we haven't been that proactive in reaching out to them. And, you know, our VT product has issues. Yeah. And the last time we had an exchange with them was replacing incidental things for their V2. But now that we have V3, there's an opportunity for us to reestablish a new working pattern, especially now Steve is also on board so he can train people. So it's time for a refresh of the product and also the service around the product. So because we're talking distributions, but maybe it's just treated as customers, but it's not at the distribution level yet.
Quan Gan: Charlie, I added his last email to the chat. If you wanted to just look to see how he worded it, that was the distribution that we've worked with response. Wait, I agree with you, Charlie. I totally agree with you because Steven and I were just talking about this. We are so upset hearing when partners...
Steven Hanna: And I really hope this is like clarified IAPA, that we don't want people to just drop off the unit and walk away. It cannot be that. So we're hoping that that does not happen, whether sign something, I don't know. But I agree with you being concerned who the distributor is, but whoever buys from them, I doubt that they're going to be as wanting to find out if their potential partner or customer is as intentional as we are wanting to partner. I don't know. That might require some steps on our end to ensure that. Yeah, but I agree. Can we mitigate the way that ZTAG shows up by doing proper training, even with our distributor, and require them, if they are of a certain status, they have to prove to us that they have the skills to distribute it? Okay. Make a face. Those are a lot of unique requirements, right? Like, what are the prerequisites for someone like that first? Secondly, most of these people who are purchasing this are going to be financially driven in that sort of way. So the exchange of energy is going to be completely financially oriented. And we do have to treat them as just another customer at this point. I, like, kind of have to agree. If they're reselling ZTAG at a 30% upcharge, which they reduce at whatever numbers they're taking, however many systems is, however many systems they sell, the level of support is at their level. Like, whatever they want to offer is at their level.
Kris Neal: And honestly, the only time someone's going to care about support in a financially oriented situation is when something breaks. It's not going to be like a teacher who's going to be taking a preemptive training with me and going, oh, my goodness, I didn't know that these settings existed. It's going to be someone who is saying, okay, I can run this for. For two hours at a weekend party, and then I have to charge for 30 minutes?
Steven Hanna: That's the mentality behind someone who would be looking for support. Oh, one of them broke. I have to go through the distributor.
Kris Neal: Oh, the distributor's stonewalling me. It's basically like Amazon saying, go to the seller, right? Even they were international? Well, it's almost analogous to that, right? Like, some of these sellers that sell through Amazon at their distribution level, right?
Charlie Xu: Like, if you go to return that product to Amazon, and you go through Amazon support and say, hey, I'm looking to return this, they're going to say, reach out to the private seller. We're just a distributor. We just delivered it. They're not going to want to provide service. So wouldn't it be easier for them to go through the distributor? Let's say Amazon did say, okay, I do have replacements that you can go through me because the person that you bought it from is from the U.S., and it'll take you forever. That's where I'm trying to say.
Quan Gan: The distributor having technical support, ZTAGGERS, whatever. But what financial incentive do they have to do that other than them taking the money, right? And then selling them another ZTAGGER or replacement or warranty? They would have to purchase like a support package from us and then they would have kind of like the Zeus, a 30% markup on the ZTAGGERS and they would have to sell it. It would have to be a different ZTAGG Extended Care for distribution. Yeah, because also right now, like all the customers in U.S., we know their background. Like we know if it's entertainment, which what they're doing. But like for this email to me, it's just so simple, but I don't know what is his intentions going to do. Like a part of me, I don't, I feel uncertainty of if it's not being well trained or they just sell to someone and they don't know how to do that.
Charlie Xu: And then end up there reaching out to us.
Kris Neal: Let's just get on a call.
Quan Gan: think the first thing before you get a call, you know, we haven't had an actual call with them for over a year, even though we've been wanting to.
Kris Neal: So we should just get on a call and say, hey, before we can provide you pricing, there's a lot of internal updates that we need to let you know about.
Steven Hanna: We have, you know, even new products coming. Are you coming to IAPA? Like, let's have a sit-down conversation.
Kris Neal: It's like, why don't we book an in-person meeting for IAPA? I think that's probably the perfect opportunity for that.
Steven Hanna: If they're serious enough to fly to Orlando, you know, then, then yeah, you know, 10, 20 units, that's 100K, 200K orders. How many units they have right now? I think they probably sold out. mean, they've purchased on the order of 10 to 15 over the years. All Oh, Steve, I will add you to that email, so you can coordinate with him on that. And here, let me... Yeah, unless you want me to add everybody. Quan? Do you want to be added to that email? Sure. Thank you.
Quan Gan: I've already sent him an email, actually. I just want to respond. I to this email that he sent regarding the reorder. So I'll just let him know that you guys would like to talk to him about it at IAPA. All right. What does he got? He resells laser tag, resells escape rooms in a box, resells tablet-based escape rooms, resells ZTAG. Okay. And has a weekend laser tag rental business, party rental business. Nice. All right, Patrice, he is an entrepreneur. So a little bit of distribution, a little bit of usage on his own, probably one or two systems for himself, and then the rest are going to get sold. If I could deduce it based on Facebook analysis, and me being in the industry. Okay, so this is what I have from GPT, but I had to pull in the information from the GitHub. So the GPT might be outdated, but this information has always been there. So if they're buying a V2, or sorry, we're not selling V2s anymore. They're buying a V3. It's going to be marked up 15% over our standard price. Which is $12.7. So they're getting this for $14.605. But if they are, as a distributor, the MOQ is 10 units, and they'll be able to get it down to this price, which I believe is about 30% off of that. Let me just see. And also to clarify, this does not include shipping from the factory.
Kris Neal: Let's see.
Quan Gan: Yeah, exactly. So this price is 30% off of that price.
Kris Neal: So you get a 30% break by buying 10.
Quan Gan: Shipping, well, I'm actually okay with covering shipping because currently, even for stateside, we're covering shipping for it to land here, and then we're then still shipping it locally. So if they're going to be... Buying this internationally, I would just have M5 ship it to them direct from the factory, save a trip to the U.S., because then we actually save, you your 25% import duties. So giving it to them for this price, shipping included, we're still pretty good. And we're okay with going through Teresa on that. Yeah, I mean, they were able to ship. Just like how TIN had that process, yeah. Yeah, the recent 30 units to probably a dozen customers. mean, yeah, sending it to somewhere else is the same. So we can let TIN know that process will be the same for these two institutions. Yeah, we don't have to charge for shipping. It's baked in. And the only thing is, we don't have a map policy. not exactly where which willbear Japan, a first Steve, you familiar with this thing, Minimum Advertised Price? Do you know how that works? Nope. Okay, so just a quick primer on this. At least in U.S. law, you cannot control pricing by telling people how much they're able to sell something for. That's called price fixing. It's illegal. However, kind of the legal way around that. MSRP. MSRP, you can recommend a price, and you can say you cannot advertise less than a certain minimum price.
Steven Hanna: And typically, that's like 5% or something.
Quan Gan: But the reason why you see online where there might be some ultra low price, it says add to shopping cart to show the actual price. At that point, it's considered a quote. It's no longer an advertisement. So people can still sell at a low price. They just can't publicly advertise. So, for example, if you look up a Gantem 1 spotlight, this price will not go lower than that, supposedly. Or what happens if it does go low, one of the other distributors will do price shopping and say, hey, why is this person advertising a lower? Or, and they'll actually just report them to the manufacturer. And then we basically go in and enforce it.
Kris Neal: say, we'll stop selling it to you unless you remove this listing because it's breaking that policy.
Quan Gan: It's like a DMCA takedown at, like, a distributor level, basically. Yeah.
Kris Neal: Okay. Yeah. So that's how pricing, global pricing or anything is generally enforced.
Quan Gan: So, yeah, we just need to, we do need to set a map so that they don't, you know, do a race to the bottom and just say, oh, everybody come by for me. Because, you know, I'll sell it to you for the cheapest.
Kris Neal: We don't have any V3 education pricing.
Quan Gan: So, yeah, and we don't have many yet. So, really, it's just these two numbers. If they want to buy a single one, then it's this price. If they're willing to buy 10, then it's this price. You're being included on everything, even as a single?
Kris Neal: So, if it comes out of the factory, then yeah.
Quan Gan: As a distribution, they had to buy 10 plus units for that price. Was that the question? I'm sorry. No, they could buy a single, like anybody can come to us internationally and buy a V3 from us right now. Right, for $14,605.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. Yeah, but if they're a distributor. What qualifies them as a distributor is they're buying 10 at a time, and they're going to be signing, we got to get them to sign a distributor agreement, which...
Quan Gan: We haven't figured out the details on that, and then have them commit to an MAP. Would the MAP be the same as the $14.605 or no? It will probably, you could probably say something like 5% off of this number.
Kris Neal: Oh, okay.
Quan Gan: Right, just so they can make it look like they have a slight discount, you know, offered to people. It's like, oh, you get 5% off by, you know, buying it from me rather than from ZTAG. Okay. Yeah. Because you want to give a little bit of differential, because if people can buy it directly from us and from them, they'll probably want to buy it directly from us, but then there might be more overhead and work that we have to do with international papers. So, because we do have educational customers, they buy more than 10 units, but they are not as distributors. So, because So for the distribute, they, they, I don't know. Those customers. They're, they're not internet payment. So they're actually getting a better discount because they're right now, first of all, they're buying V2s. They're buying V2s and if they're buying more than 10, what was their, like they get 7% off or something? Five and up and then 10 and up is 12%.
Charlie Xu: Okay, so, so, so, 12% off of 9,700 is actually better than international distributor pricing. For V3 though?
Quan Gan: Well, for V3 education customers, I would maintain that we actually keep it the same price going forward because our cost is actually the same.
Charlie Xu: Okay, we need to start talking about when to start switching that, but yeah. That's probably, like, end of January type of.
Quan Gan: type of thing because I want to make sure V3s are solid with the professionals at least for two to three months, and this is where checking in with them, Steve, probably that'll be your thing to just make sure they're, you know, they're not facing any issues. Any issues need to be immediately escalated so we can resolve it on the next production batch. Yeah, and also we have 40 units are for V2 are in the production, so.
Kris Neal: Yeah. So we, by default, we're still going to be on V2 until we feel very solid about V3, and then we say V2 is cut off, everything from now on is going to be V3.
Steven Hanna: So, since we are still testing the V3, are we maybe pushing off a little bit the overseas distribution for a little bit? Because right now I feel like. I'm okay with them buying. I just don't want education customers buying B3 immediately because that's a different pool of people. Entertainment, if something goes wrong, you could probably work with them on a case-by-case, and they're typically a little bit more tech-savvy, so you could replace a part and get them up and running.
Quan Gan: But if you're selling this to an institution and something goes wrong, well, now you have, you know, now you have a lot of reputation to manage. It feels like this needs to be in place. There's going to be a lot of IAPA, right? This needs to be figured out because of that. A lot of things.
Kris Neal: In France, we're getting a lot of... Not in a district. It's going to be more of single operators who are coming by. The last day, we're going to have people who are walking by a booth going, how much will you sell me your stuff for? You don't want to leave with...
Quan Gan: That might be a distributor, but for, I would say, 80% of the people who are coming by, it's going to be a single operator looking to, you know, or an entity like GameTruck looking to get, you know, 30, 40 systems. But I don't know if it'll be distribution across seas like that, where they're going to want 40, 50 systems to sell in, you know, another continent. Yeah, I agree with Steve on the general makeup of the people coming to us.
Steven Hanna: So right now, I don't know if we're making any decisions, or are we just re-syncing on what we've already put into policy? Because currently, I'm not hearing any pushback against what we already established.
Quan Gan: You heard my pushback as far as support. Like, if we're going to do the support, why would we go through a distributor?
Steven Hanna: And we're even offering it to individual purchase, so we're still in the same boat as working. Now the cost of shipment, what do you call that?
Kris Neal: These are two separate things. Selling and supporting, I think we should decouple.
Quan Gan: Supporting, Steve, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like other than time zone difference, you could support as many end users as action distribution is able to sell to, right? They sell 20 units. I could do 20 Zoom sessions. Will I hate having to wake up at 1 a.m. for Norway? Sure. Will I do it once or twice for you guys just to say I ain't doing this crap ever again? Yeah, I'll give it one go. We're not asking for, you know, really off hours, but, you know, from a logistical standpoint, other than time zone. And logistic-wise, one system equals one training, no matter where it's purchased at, to what level. Yeah. It's a one-to-one ratio, and even for schools, I would say if they needed more than that, we do it as a gesture as well. Training, yes, but support, no. You still need to send one or two ZTAGGERS. They need the little antenna, the little clip, and those little things. For V3, the replacements go like this.
Steven Hanna: ZTAGGERS, top unit, bottom unit. Perfect. There's only three things.
Quan Gan: You just require them to buy a few of those extras. And actually, here, look at what it says here.
Steven Hanna: For them to be a distributor, we could put this in their agreement, but they are also going to be the first-line support on that end. Cool.
Kris Neal: Oh, sorry. Perfect. All right, so this is what they have.
Quan Gan: Sign agreement, first-line support, and... They can't advertise below a certain number.
Kris Neal: This is, so first-line support, that's like, we need to train them at least once. So Steve will train them on, you know, what are the nuances of V3?
Steven Hanna: And then just show them there's only three parts you need to replace, so you got to get a few of these extras.
Kris Neal: And it's very possible that they buy one or two extra units, and some of these extra units can...
Steven Hanna: They'll gut them. That would be my thing.
Kris Neal: If I was a distributor, I would have a gut unit ready to go for something like that, if you're a proactive approach. Wait, what was the term you used?
Quan Gan: I'd have a gut system ready to go. Basically a single unit of parts that can... Oh yeah, that thing would be Frankensteined out. Whatever needs to go wherever, that thing would get... It doesn't matter. That thing is literally body parts.
Kris Neal: And so that might actually be the easier thing. You just sell them an extra unit or two, and those are purely used... For servicing broken parts. I love it. And it's modular enough to do that now.
Quan Gan: Perfect. Thank you, Steve. Yeah. So how about for every 10 units, an additional unit is purchased for gutting purposes?
Steven Hanna: It's a mandatory order quantity. It's plus one. For every 10 units or five? For every 10.
Quan Gan: Five, they can order individual parts. For 10, they're ordering another system so that we don't have to be bought. Then can we have a five-system support bundle? Like, they have to purchase 15 ZTAGGERS or something? Well, how do you enforce that? Because if they bought 10 units, they could just basically say, I have nine units of inventory and one for replacement. Like, you don't really have to dictate how many they need to buy, right?
Steven Hanna: Well, they don't get the... make it mandatory, right? They have to have a support.
Kris Neal: So whether it's five and under, it's just the ZTAGGERS. Five through ten, it's an additional unit.
Quan Gan: I really don't want to get into the nuances of, like, controlling those actions. Then bundle it in.
Kris Neal: You get five, and it's the price of this, and this is included.
Quan Gan: You get ten, this is the price that's already inclusive of that. Like, we don't have to have it as a line item, per se. Like, if you were to, if you knew buying from me that ten units, you buy this ten inventory, and we strongly recommend you put one off as serviceable parts, then when you, let's say, you buy, or you sold eight units, you're like, okay, I have technically only one unit left in inventory, it's time to buy another one.
Steven Hanna: Oh, you're muted. I literally gave her a snack. Yeah, I trying to. What if, for each unit purchased, they have to purchase five ZTAGGERS, at least, for every one unit?
Kris Neal: Well, the product already comes with two extra ZTAGGERS. Okay. Like, that's just like a, whatever the support is.
Quan Gan: I think the support will organically show up without us mandating it. Because you sell them 10 units, when they get it down to, you know, having one or two left in inventory, they're probably going to need to keep one or two for parts, and they'll need to make a reorder.
Kris Neal: Also, if you're purchasing in this quantity, you should be anticipating that write-off at some point for something.
Charlie Xu: So, as a distributor or someone who's going to be spending X amount of dollars in the tens of thousands of range, or even the hundreds of thousands of range, that's a small reinvestment. So it's something that I would be like, okay, yeah, I need that. But that's also someone who's proactive. Some of them might not be proactive.
Quan Gan: We can go, I know it was an issue from the previous order, but they did have things that needed to be replaced. We just got to be ready for that. And something that is going to be quick.
Kris Neal: That's mainly because of the V2 issues. Like they had to replace routers.
Quan Gan: They had to replace some lids. We're seeing ZTAGGERS needing to be replaced. I'm just simply asking that it's not gone through 10 for a simple ZTAGGER or something like that.
Charlie Xu: Like, but Charlie, were you going to say something? For me, I was thinking like as a distributor, if I buy 10 units, I don't feel like I want to have one unit and take it apart and just for support. I like for it. For it. As a distributor, they feel like that's factory's duty of supporting on that.
Quan Gan: I probably will take like selling 10, not like take one unit down.
Charlie Xu: Then we can just separately price the parts because the ZTAGGERS would be 300 per unit. The top unit, what was that, 4,000 or something? Yeah. The base was, I forget, a little bit cheaper. I don't have it on me, but yeah. When you add it all up, it's actually more expensive than buying the full set.
Quan Gan: So maybe you just, in agreement, you said mandatory, because you are the frontline supporters. So you need to have the standby. So maybe just give them a compare tables of like, if you buy these will be this, or you buy one units will be this. So for them to make sense, oh, it's.
Kris Neal: reasonable buy extra.
Charlie Xu: But if you just say, hey, you buy 10 and you turn one into a support, it just, yeah, I don't feel like that.
Quan Gan: We'll give them extra parts. That's fine. The factory can package that. Okay. You're selling these parts or maybe it's come with a, like maybe give them an extra price for this if you need to order. Do they need to order right away or maybe, because right now we, for other customers, we are just whatever situation, situation happens, we give them. They'll need to have some on hand.
Charlie Xu: So we should tell them, okay, we'll sell you 10 units and then here's a recommended list of extra parts you need to buy. Okay. Yes. There we go. It's basically one full unit is just taken apart. So. Oh, exactly.
Steven Hanna: I think if you give them a list, I think it sounds more reasonable instead of like, hey, you just take apart a new unit. Yeah, that's fine.
Quan Gan: And then I would just say take whatever numbers you have on the current price sheet, add 15% to it. And of course, it's for V3, and you should be able to come up with the pricing to quote them for.
Kris Neal: For the distribution, that will also need the map. Because they'll just resell it to whoever. Yeah. We should just have another, we should have a meeting with them. Do you want it before IAPA or? Probably before, because we don't even know if they're coming to IAPA.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I think that will also helping us to structure if there's other people come up if want to be distributors. So we probably need to prepare that earlier.
Kris Neal: Yeah, before IAPA. So we, whatever. Who approached to us about this, we have answered. We can always just say it's something that we're in consideration of, and it's, you know, something that we can have a further conversation about after I have that. We don't need to have something for them then and there.
Quan Gan: Yeah, like sometime this week or next week, if we can have a, or this week, I guess, probably like an early morning meeting.
Kris Neal: Does that work okay for you guys?
Quan Gan: Well, I'll message him and see when this week is available for him.
Kris Neal: One more thing that needs to be added to this, the ZTAG Extended Care, should that be offered to just the distributor or to, for them to offer partners? That's a good question.
Quan Gan: I'd like to know what, how AI rinses that through. It would be nice to have on the ZTAG Extended Care that. Okay, Thank That one-year manufacturer's warranty can actually be replaced with the distributor's warranty and maybe work with them to see what they would be willing to have as a warranty. Maybe that could be how they can purchase it separately.
Kris Neal: Ideally, if we find the right distributor, and it's not saying action isn't, we just haven't really built that relationship.
Quan Gan: But if we have a good relationship with them, then we could just be workshopping this over Zoom and hear what they care about and see how we can find mutual alignment.
Charlie Xu: Okay. That's going to be on. What else is there to talk about? That, the ZTAG extended care, the support package we would want to hear from them? Yeah, like I'm more than happy to show them this is currently what we sell stateside, but the fact that we're selling internationally, there is overheads. So that's why we're adding 15%. You know, like we could be pretty transparent with them on our current U.S.
Kris Neal: policy and then workshop that because a good distributor will know how to market their local rates accordingly.
Quan Gan: And they might even push back, you know, saying this is what our market's able to sell and then we'll have to negotiate that. That's true because they were purchasing not at even 6,000, right?
Steven Hanna: Weren't they purchasing them at four?
Quan Gan: We're a member. So we'd have to, yeah, we'd have to really talk to them about it. Yeah. You know, they have priced out of the model, so we don't know. I think it's good to, even like oversee, we also helping us to understand what ZTAG is established over there, like what his potential customer is. We want to know what he's, if he goes into school system or just party events.
Charlie Xu: And probably we don't, not knowing much.
Quan Gan: So it's through this conversation also while helping us to collect more data. So if it's a strong bonding relationship or not. Cool.
Steven Hanna: That sounds good.
Quan Gan: Anything else?
Kris Neal: We've been in three hours of meetings today.
Steven Hanna: Oh, you're not done yet. Actually, can I show you guys something I've been working on? This is for the IAPA booth. Let's see what shiny stuff you have for us, Quan.
Kris Neal: Okay. So I bought a second projector.
Steven Hanna: And then I made a kit.
Quan Gan: These are the fan blades to the hologram. What? You know what I'm talking about?
Kris Neal: What is that?
Quan Gan: You've seen those like floating signs that's actually like a giant... They're 3D like spinny signs, but it's just fans with LEDs that make a...
Kris Neal: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Quan Gan: So imagine something twice as whiff, because this is only one blade. So one blade here, one blade here, up here, and here it's spinning.
Charlie Xu: It's like a giant wheel. Tired of guns? Yeah, and it's going to say tired of guns.
Quan Gan: Ooh. You're going to trigger people. Oh, yeah. This is called shitposting, and this is what is the fun part about this type of show, is that you can do stuff like this.
Charlie Xu: No, it's called rage-tempting?
Quan Gan: Rage-baiting?
Charlie Xu: Rage Yeah, we're rage-baiting them.
Quan Gan: Rage-baiting.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. And so, yeah, it's all packaged in one high, you know, all the high-value secure stuff, and it won't move all the foam. So you're able to take that on the flight? Or ship it.
Quan Gan: I mean, even shipping it should be fine.
Steven Hanna: It's going to be pretty self-employed.
Quan Gan: Yeah.-S-S-S-T-I- here Yes, and then also there's a tripod here.
Steven Hanna: It's going to stand up like that high. It's like seven feet off the ground spinning.
Quan Gan: Quan, will you be able to make it higher? Because I feel like I don't chop people's head off because it's not high enough.
Kris Neal: I'll make it as high as possible, but definitely the table will need to be put in a way where Steve, you and I, we're going to be mostly in front of the table, okay?
Steven Hanna: Locking people there.
Charlie Xu: Hey, that's cool. Can I touch it? Nothing like that. We're in line, right? We're not in the corner, are we? No, we're one off a peninsula corner. So there's a corner that's like, corner like this, we are right here.
Quan Gan: Oh, so we do have a corner. We're not on a corner. There is one more booth on the corner. We are one in from the corner. Yeah, so that's what I'm saying.
Charlie Xu: We're in line. Technically, yes. Okay.
Kris Neal: Yeah, so if...
Quan Gan: If you put this in the back, there's nobody walking through the booth. We just can't go back there. It's going to be sick. No, but you throw that in the back where it's spinning above a bunch of booths, people are going be like, where's that gun sign?
Kris Neal: It's pretty big. It's like this big. Up here is a giant halo. Oh, wow.
Quan Gan: You're going to show this to me in person, and you're going to be like, you like my science project?
Kris Neal: Be like, yeah, can't wait to get yelled at for four days because of it. So we might need to have an Upwork, find an Upwork, people can do some 3D, like ZTAG logo spinning animations to put in there, just instead of only tire of the guns.
Steven Hanna: feel like you might, meanwhile, you need to promote our branding as well. Yeah. So, Charlie, can you hand sketch a few things that should go on there, and I'll just keep repeating. Mm-hmm. Mm Like several different. Yeah, so there might be a ZTAGG logo that's spinning back and forth, and then like a gun logo with like a giant X that's tired of guns. Okay. Guys, my son, because he went with me to California, is not able to get off in November, and neither is Steve.
Charlie Xu: So I'll be going to IAPA by myself, just so you know. You mean Alabama?
Quan Gan: Yes. Sorry, Alabama. Yes. So I'm going to Eric will be there.
Kris Neal: Eric will be there. No, ma'am. So far, right, Steve? Eric has not gotten approval from his administration because they think he would have been using PD money from the school. To which we said, no, that's not the case. And I said, we would be happy to provide something in writing that says that this is sponsored, you know, by ZTAG. But how does it look if a school is giving... A teacher time sponsored by a private company to go and work for them, so to say.
Quan Gan: If I'm an administrator, the only way I look at this is, so we're selling our teachers time, and we're allowing companies to buy that. That's the only thing that I can think of as an administrator, and I can understand why there's hesitancy.
Steven Hanna: So he is out of no at the moment. Well, Kris, can you alone handle the show? You know, I'll honestly probably keep preying on it, and if someone comes into, like, alignment, where I feel like it might be a cool opportunity for them to join, if that's okay, I'll just bring them along. They could be the Eric. Do you think this same situation for Eric would go for Ella or someone else? What about Sargina? I can't. I feel like yes, it does. Are you going to throw a Komodo dragon in there? Because I love their experience, Quan, but I also don't want to step on the toes of school. So it's like, I know teachers. I know teachers that are teaching. Remember Sargina was working the Skiltastic or Scholastic booth. I don't know if she got an exchange from that or whatever. So one thing that you guys might, we actually didn't even speak about that, is that we saw three members of Linden. Two members of Linden at the last show working with Jess on the booth. Are you kidding?
Quan Gan: No. No, they were branded up.
Kris Neal: They had shirts on. They were like, we're here with Scholastics and Jess.
Steven Hanna: Oh, man. They were proud to say it. Dang.
Charlie Xu: maybe it is something that, look, for someone like Eric, he's midway through his teaching career, okay?
Kris Neal: Maybe making the wrong decision here, something deemed as the wrong decision in his eyes could affect Check that. Sargenia, someone who's happy to say, I've been doing this for 25 years. I know what's going on.
Charlie Xu: I'll tell people how to spend their money.
Kris Neal: That's someone who may be more aligned with this type of thing who can get the time. What are you looking after?
Charlie Xu: I'll send her a text right now. Hey, want to go to Alabama? Actually, you know what? I'm going to do that. That's the exact type of text that she'd respond to and be like, what are you asking me, Steve? All right, let's see. I'll fire this off. And if she comes with you, I think you guys will grow a great bond. Hey, dot, dot, dot. That's the first text. So what is her role in the school system? What is she doing? Do you know Dan, do you remember Rebecca? Rebecca? And Shasta, Rebecca and, oh, sorry, I'm drawing a blank. Rebecca and, yeah, for Eric's situation, I definitely feel like we don't want him, I do feel like he is establishing his careers as a PE teacher, being inspiring, of tapping into new arrow, and I don't want the ZTAG force is too strong to pull him out of the school, being denied by his original school environment.
Quan Gan: So on that part, also feel like give him a little space and time and to adjusting there. Yeah, I feel like if it's too much, it's... We feel like as a school, they might be like, hey, you're too active.
Kris Neal: Hey, we may just eventually take him from the school. I mean, he really likes what he's doing, right? I feel like right now his role is really helping ZTAG establishing PE, even if PE doesn't have money. But I feel like he's at the front line being experiential of how integrating that to align the PE standards are important.
Charlie Xu: Like, I feel like it's – and also, like, I don't want – You aren't supposed to have a meeting with him. We're going to have a meeting with him. mean, through text, he says sometime this week we should probably have, like, 30-minute or 60-minute discussion on It would be way longer than that. Yeah. I appreciate you asking that, Charlie. Can I jump in real quick, Quan? Because she said something that I think we should actually might listen to because she said PE doesn't have money. So how are we marketing all these PE teachers that we're getting leads on the use of this? It's a coordinated effort. It's not a one-size-fits-all because we haven't found that, like ELOP, where they just have direct access to funds. So why are we focusing our intentions, our leads, everything on this sector that we don't have the answer for them? We're showing them a unit that they would love to use, but there's... Okay, Chris, I'm telling you right now, like right now, so far for these couple weeks, we got like 150 leads. Each leads for marketing will probably spend like $2 to $3 for each leads. So on the marketing side, we just spent like $500. So... Even any of these didn't turn into any cells.
Kris Neal: I'm okay with that. But, you know, like for me, I do feel like there's many people like Steven Erickster sees, like I do see these P people sees the values. There's a solution to elevate P.E. in school. So these people want something loud. They like to have loud voice to helping them to say, hey, there is something. So these are the people who will bring ZTAG to their school decision makers' attention. You know, so if they have an after school, they might say, hey, maybe this could not be for P.E. They might, okay, we can use it after school. So we are reaching out to school way more than we go through school, like trade shows. And so now we just have someone really interested in ZTAG. In the school system, they're probably going to talk about it, but if, yeah.
Charlie Xu: So we are trying to create an advocate, basically, a ZTAG advocate. Nurture is the main focus. One of the things, I want to build on that, because I agree with you, Charlie, on that. So I want to actually talk to you about funding that I think actually more aligns.
Kris Neal: We've already seen that during the school and after school, there's not a good bridge there. Remember, like, there's too much hands-off, you know, handing off the unit for them to feel comfortable.
Quan Gan: What if instead of us going towards with the ZTAG, I'm sorry, with the PE teacher partnering with the after school, what if we have them partner and I looked? They actually have funding for community events. They're creating a whole child mentality where it involves the entire community, parents involved.
Kris Neal: So if we actually push them towards that, that kind of funding. Then they are the advocate. They actually hold the system.
Quan Gan: They are the system playmaker for community events after school, before school, whenever. So, I don't know. I'm not sure for school system, are they particular like event planning department are separate from PE? Normally, probably PE teacher will be the, would not be the event host people. No, but they would work in correlation with the event planner, which is usually the PFA, to be honest. They usually run and host all the community events. But it's something that the schools are taking more interest in. Something else I want to add that we haven't excluded the possibility that ZTAG becomes something so wanted by the parents that their PTA will raise the money for it. So, I feel like, yes, they absolutely will. But they will feel even more like, yes, supportive if they need.
Kris Neal: Know that someone is going to be in charge of it and that they can trust. Yeah, I think we have to attack this from multiple angles because I think with the right desire, the money can be found. So we have to keep doing this. And the other thing is, let's say they did have to fundraise or write for a grant or something.
Steven Hanna: The amount of effort they had to put in to acquire the product should translate to how much effort they're going to be putting into the product once they get it. Just like, you know, a child that worked really hard to earn their allowance and bought something, they're probably going to value this thing a lot more than just some random thing that was airdropped to them and handed out. So I think it's, we can look at how do we lean into supporting them so that if they put in the right work, they can get rewarded and they might actually be some of the best playmakers. It feels easier to do that through community events than in after school, because it would be them the entire time. Having the training with Steve would be a great starting point.
Kris Neal: And then, like, event coordination with Steve offering that.
Steven Hanna: I think you already do, Steve.
Kris Neal: I think you already offered that. For what? Again, coordination and logistics? Yeah.
Steven Hanna: If they want, I always leave off with it and say, if, you know, you have my email, you have my number, you're more than welcome to text me for any logistics and coordination if you need help. How has the engagement been after the training? Do they, have you had to reach back out, or did they reach back to you? We're still within the first, like, three weeks of doing the training. Like, I wish I had more time here to say, yeah, I've done all these reach outs, but I've sent, like, the first round of everything back from the first start of the year. And the earliest back that I've done a training is from somebody who purchased in late March or April. I'd have to look at the account list, but I remember that that was pretty significantly back. Of 24? Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. So.
Steven Hanna: If you could reach out to Alfonso, I think, I'll give you that name.
Quan Gan: Which account?
Steven Hanna: I was thinking of him the other day. Let me see. I'll find it, and I'll put it in the chat. Okay. 100% of the trainings, though, people do not know about SETTICS. I will say that. That is the common denominator in 100%. If you go through any of those Fathom videos, and you rinse it, you will find that no one knows about extra SETTICS. Aww. So, that's my battle. See that entertainment playmakers are more likely to know about it?
Quan Gan: 100%. Are they more likely to use it?
Charlie Xu: No. No. Entertainment playmakers need to know what The quick settings for the young kids, what are the quick settings for the old kids? What works now, what works fast, what gets it done? Okay. So my training for them is going to be way different than an educator. They need to know structure. I've got one hour. What am I doing? I got it.
Steven Hanna: But, yeah, no one knew about settings. It scared me. People are like default setting everything and just hoping for the... Like one person said, yeah, tried to run zombies with these settings, but it just didn't work. And I'm like, well, did you change the settings? She's like, wait, there's different settings? I'm like, oh, man. I'm so sorry that I'm about to do this to you, but click that little settings icon in the top. And then the look. And then the...
Charlie Xu: Yeah, okay, I see how this could be done differently now.
Steven Hanna: Like it's a very, very eye-opening thing, but it's almost a painful eye-opening moment for them. Yeah.
Charlie Xu: So Steve thinks the one-page sheet is... Done. Should I start, print it out, and we mail it to the old customers and have them on hand?
Steven Hanna: Or we just upload onto a website, have them download and print it?
Kris Neal: I think we can send out to the new customers with all V3s. I don't know if it's necessary for the old customers.
Quan Gan: I mean, it would be proactive for us to do it, and it would be the right thing to do as a customer, but would they actually utilize it versus us just doing the right thing and making sure they have it?
Steven Hanna: I don't know if they'd utilize it. It is the right thing to do in my eyes, though, if you're going to, you know, and that's just postage. That's, you know, 46 cents. It's nothing crazy.
Charlie Xu: Yeah.
Quan Gan: But I think with all V3s going out, yeah, definitely.
Steven Hanna: V3? Any of the new V3s that are going out should have that one pager in it. Okay, but then we need to...
Quan Gan: Quan said they have different versions than V2 because there's some components are totally different.
Steven Hanna: So then we just need to take out the antenna and the antenna clip. That would be the only difference between... Can't you see now on the case, the button? The button is slightly different location. HTMI is different location. So those... But the procedures are still the same. But the location of the most obvious thing changed would be the router, definitely.
Kris Neal: And that would just be removing the router, router clip. Let me write that down.
Charlie Xu: And a USB, right? The USB is next to the screen too. Yeah. So it's just change of location of one USB and a silver power button. HDMI is still on the bottom right side of the view. No, everything, the only stuff that remains on the bottom is the red switch and the plug.
Kris Neal: There's nothing else beyond that, I think.
Charlie Xu: Red switch and plug. So then, Charlie, I guess it would make sense to send this out to the V2s, and then for V3s we'll make a new one.
Kris Neal: Because the V2s are going to be the last of that generation, and it's like, everything moving on will be V3.
Steven Hanna: Unless you feel otherwise.
Quan Gan: And the handle? So we don't mention handles in one sheet.
Kris Neal: Oh, we should, right? Yeah, we should probably have that handle. I wish to have that, make sure, have them, like, open up when charging or something like
Quan Gan: Like that, to let the... Yeah, and there should be the blow effect around it.
Kris Neal: leave the keys open.
Charlie Xu: I will send you, Steve, will send you the most recent one, but based on that, you just maybe let me know what you think you need to... Okay. That is in the task. She, Paulette, put it in there if you need it sooner, Steve. Okay. I will probably work on that after this. Then get some lesson components done. Are we still doing the meeting on Thursday? Should we skip it? Do we need to? Let me see. There's a few things I need. Armando, you guys wanted an update about Armando. Joe and Ella, right, last week? They responded and they input the forms. So they're... right. Exciting. Or maybe we could have a reduced L10 since I think we covered a lot today. That sounds good. So, Kris, I might need to have maybe a meeting with Ella soon once we're getting close to the lesson plans. I want to maybe send that to her to get feedback before we print it out, everything. And we got the sticker. Oh, I think Gio brought it.
Kris Neal: I have Gio helping me to get the little stickers in packs. So we put it in the box.
Charlie Xu: So each one will give it 24 stickers to align with the ZU's is 24 ZTAGGERS. So if like the teacher will have, let's. Exciting.
Steven Hanna: Or maybe we could have a reduced L10 since I think we covered a lot today. That sounds good. So, Kris, I might need to have maybe a meeting with Ella soon once we're getting close to the lesson plans.
Charlie Xu: I want to maybe send that to her to get feedback before we print it out, everything. And we got the sticker. Oh, I think Gio brought it. I have Gio helping me to get the little stickers in packs. So we put it in the box. So each one will give it 24 stickers to align with the ZU's is 24 ZTAGGERS. So if like the teacher will have, let's. Say, three different classes with 24 kids as a group, they'll give them three packs. So I need to know, like, exactly the details, how she is going to run her programs.
Steven Hanna: Is it long-term or short-term? Like, if it's just, like, every week's work on one or every week's have three classes to work on one. So these are the details we need to discuss. Yeah. Do you want me to coordinate that, Charlie, or are you able to coordinate that with her directly?
Kris Neal: Oh, I don't feel like I have her contact.
Steven Hanna: Am I having her contact? She's in the email. You're in the email with her and discussing the stickers. Yeah, you've actually emailed her back and forth with the stickers. Oh, okay.
Kris Neal: Okay. There's a thread.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Yeah, maybe, Steve, do you want to be part of that meeting as well?
Kris Neal: Yeah. you. Thank Thank
Steven Hanna: So probably next week or so after, yeah. I think it's important that any of the playmakers that we're reaching out to, at least, you know, say hello.
Charlie Xu: Like Ella, want to make sure I say hello again so that she sees my beautiful bald and remembers me. That'll be in two weeks, okay, Charlie?
Steven Hanna: Yeah, next week or the week after, yeah, no rush.
Quan Gan: But just because Ken is in February, I still want to leave it like one, at least one month. So because it's a 10 classes, I think a 10, 10 I can.
Charlie Xu: So probably need to leave her enough time she can evaluate the whole, like just do the whole process. Even just one day, one stickers. So yeah, I just want to like how practical it could be. Maybe some kids would skip certain, maybe they are... ... Absolutely from the schools. don't know. So like practically align this design to how she applied that. We just need to discuss a little bit. We also should probably have someone to observe them. It's going to be important to see what she can't while she's in the middle of that lesson. And maybe that's something Eric can do. Maybe it's something that we can schedule around a training that's out there, Kris, where I can kind of dual-purpose it and maybe head to Ella for one day and do an observation of the class.
Steven Hanna: Charlie would be really good with that too, it feels like. If we could both head there, that would probably be one of the better things.
Kris Neal: Because Charlie, you've got the feeling of what it should feel, and I can translate the words of what you're telling me. Of saying, hey, I think it should be like this, and I'll go, okay, that's this learning theory with this and this. We can apply it in this way. So, yeah, I think it would be really worthwhile if you're there and myself are there, and if we can schedule it around a training, multi-purpose that trip out, that would be phenomenal. Yeah, it goes there, right? In the process, and we can, yeah, maybe we can plan a trip. You mean like in person being there? Yeah, totally.
Steven Hanna: Just to observe her class and how she's running it. I think that would be really... Is Charlie coming up with us next week? Is that what you're saying? Next week? Well, we... Dude, I don't have these lesson plans for next week. Are you kidding? Oh, for lesson plans. Yeah, think it's ready enough.
Kris Neal: I really, yeah, I think it would be good. It would be fun.
Steven Hanna: I feel like, because, right, like sometimes I'm reading this kind of like SEL books to my daughter. I feel like, hey, it's just telling a story.
Kris Neal: But, but within ZTAC, it's like embodying this without just telling a story. You are... Yeah, Experiencing it, you're like witnessing what's happening, you're like reflecting, so I think it's a very dynamic way of learning just by just reading a book, because to them in reading a book based on the story, it's not deep enough. They have to really apply it, it really fills it, so yeah, I think it will be a very cool angle, brought along with the ZTAG.
Charlie Xu: Let's see. That would be fun. Let's schedule that with Ellis, so that we can talk about it. While we're on the topic of next week, Mount Diablo is cancelled.
Kris Neal: Yes, for Tuesday, yes, and no, no, no, that was Monday, and Tuesday, I'm still trying to figure out with Jill, I reached out to her last week about the time, and she hasn't gotten back to me yet, so. She was okay for Tuesday, but I could see...
Steven Hanna: They can't get everybody together, and they had a shortened day on Wednesday, and then there was something else that was booked for Monday. So it just didn't work out.
Charlie Xu: Timing, it's hard for her to get everybody together. So I said the virtual, maybe she can get everyone together for that. So you said that's where it's kind of...
Steven Hanna: Would it be more beneficial to see if we can do that in November, for November 1st, 2nd, or 3rd, when we have something, Walnut Oaks, Charter Oaks with the training?
Charlie Xu: That's the one. I was going to say, I know there's another one coming up, so we could schedule Ella around that. So as of now, Mount Diablo is cancelled, and Jill is up in the air. A little less than up in the air. I would say she's like 85%. Okay, that's good. That's a good assessment.
Steven Hanna: It was November 3rd.
Charlie Xu: There we go. Yep, yep, November 3rd. Yeah, with Charter Oak. So if I could coordinate Ella, a meeting with Ella around that, maybe the 2nd.
Steven Hanna: November? Yes. November, oh, okay.
Charlie Xu: So which means, like, we should hand out this to her as early as possible before we head there. Yeah, yeah. Well, I was talking about Mount Diablo. Oh, with her, didn't it feel like she was happy with the virtual demo? It didn't sound, she was sounding thrilled at that process. That's fine. Okay. A lot of, a lot of them, you gotta. Remember, they don't have time for the in-person. Right. That was an issue before. No, we just put a lot of energy into it.
Steven Hanna: That's why I was asking. Because I'm trying to see if it's worthwhile for me to...
Kris Neal: No, never mind. It is. It is. Are we talking about Ella or the other, the school? I was referring to Mount Diablo, but we can audible it and change it to Ella. But that just means we'd have to work quick on lesson plans. And I've got a lot of trainings coming up in these next few days. Yeah. So maybe, maybe, Steve, if you need support from us, maybe, maybe we can have Paula to put the structure first. Then you, based on that, to do the adjustment. So I just try to make your...
Quan Gan: Because also, right now, you have load up with the trainees, but also... no.
Kris Neal: Like, we just finished one, but there's 10. So I tried to give you a little bit. would help me a lot more. Okay.
Charlie Xu: If the format's done already, because then I can just take my notepad and go through and modify as needed. In the Canvas? No? Probably in the Doc, right?
Quan Gan: In a Google Doc.
Charlie Xu: If it's, whichever structure is easiest for you to remove a step for me, that would be helpful.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. Yeah. Maybe have her put the content there first.
Charlie Xu: But it still, there's, because I, like, last time I sent you the document, I feel like there's a little bit, like, highlight for the learning process of what is, for example, but, so, still, there's a little modification on that. Maybe you're just focusing, let's focusing on the first one a little bit. first little bit. And more, then after finalize, I feel like we have a structure to go based on that for the rest.
Kris Neal: Bounce back, feedback on highlights, got it. Yeah. Okay, you got it.
Charlie Xu: Juan, is it possible, or at least you guys to consider, I know, Steve, you want to do the in-person trainings, and I'm not saying I don't agree with that, but the Covina one, if we could just keep it as that one, because you guys are going to IAPA a week later. So it just feels like that might be, but if that's not too difficult for you to do, I will shut up. But if so, I can pack it, if you like, that week of November 3rd, or if Quan can just go and do that in-person PD training. I can go in-person, Covina.
Kris Neal: Juan can do it. November 3rd. So then that'll just leave you focusing for IAPA. That'll be perfect, yeah. Okay, so it's just that one November 3rd. November 3rd. Yeah. It's possible PD day, but I'll edit to make sure it's up to date. Okay. Is that local? It's like an hour and a half, an hour. Do you want like Mateo be there, capture something?
Charlie Xu: For training? Do we need to? It's about the same, like last time we go to. Usually training, training to me feels, unless, well, unless we get their permission, it'll feel kind of weird, we'll just bring a camera person there.
Kris Neal: Oh, and on another part, like since Kris, we are recently quite focusing on the PE part, so how's the process of this?
Charlie Xu: Thank you. Thank you. Sales right now, is it still like the after-scoop customers are reaching out to us? We have one right now in the pipeline. Let me see where our deals are at.
Kris Neal: Yeah, because also like last time you gave us the Ostecom list, so it's like maybe I need to also, maybe also Carmee should focusing on follow-up on this Ostecom. leads as well, because this probably will be the, the leads that we have been encountered before.
Charlie Xu: So, yeah, yeah, if it has a value, probably just not, let it just sits there. Yeah, we have, let's see, there's actually quite, not quite, but reorder, reorder, bookmakers. I We're in the process after school, but KIPP, we're already partners with, and then the city of Lancaster, we're working on, and another is a camp.
Kris Neal: So they found us at the ACA, and they found us at the NAA from last year, believe, the city of Lancaster. So. Okay. Okay, yeah. A few after school, but. Okay, great. Yeah, because right now, I know, like, normally, October is our lower seasons, so I want to still make sure our sales are still strong, but I, like, the focusing on PE, don't want to distract our whole team on something, or, we don't know the result yet, so, yeah, I was, yeah, trying to check.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay. Yeah. That's good to know.
Kris Neal: So, put more energy in the, yeah. Maybe, yeah. I'll see. This list is also, it's something we will follow up as well to send them, send them the leads of like, hey, what's going on, right? Yeah, because I know like September are very overwhelming for the teachers. Maybe October is a time to, to get to reach out to, to them. I think we talked about an email campaign and then it morphed into the SendSpark video and then it just has not been able to get. Any kind of traction moving towards reaching out to that, so, yeah. Maybe that's also some automations could be, we just need two different type of automation systems set up. One for maybe social media, one for trade show leads.
Quan Gan: Yeah, once, yeah.
Kris Neal: Like, like, yeah, right now we don't, we haven't set up any newsletter, newsletter email yet.
Steven Hanna: But these... should be something we can think about.
Kris Neal: Can I just say one thing before, because I don't know if about Thursday we're still going to meet or not, but we got approved for the tips.
Steven Hanna: So that is, I'm going to send over the SOP for that, Charlie, with the clear steps of if we get a contract and the SOP for Charlie Anton for AR, because there's certain things that we need to do.
Kris Neal: For tips, was that a order waiting for us to finish tips for it to come in, or did that order already come through?
Quan Gan: No, that was like three orders that were waiting. Okay, so this one, now that we have tips, those orders will turn on, or did those already happen before? They should. They should. Carmi is ready to. To move forward. You know what? So this will unlock more, more orders, or some more pending? Typically for Texas, yes.
Kris Neal: Yes.
Quan Gan: Hang on, I might have misspoken. Okay, sorry about that.
Kris Neal: This was actually, they're in the process of looking over it.
Quan Gan: They sent me something else, and I got it mixed up, I'm sorry, but they've passed it on to their lawyers. So everything on their end is clear now, it's the lawyers, and then at the end of the month, we'll be notified whether we're approved or not.
Kris Neal: That's it, sorry. Well, good job. It's a long process. It took three months, and I think six weeks to get everything input.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Hopefully next time around, you go there and say, hey, we're already tips approved.
Steven Hanna: That's the OSTICON show. So Steve, that'll help you a lot next year for OSTICON. I'll just have a sign.
Quan Gan: Let's There's tips.
Charlie Xu: Ask me. Oh, man, that's a bad hat.
Quan Gan: Never mind.
Kris Neal: I'm not. No. Never mind. Yeah, no kidding.
Steven Hanna: I think that's it. Ask me about my funding. There. That's better. Have you heard about the tip? There. We could make it funny. It's funny. We did get actually reached out to by Olympians Inspired. Did you guys see that? I saw something. mean, happy to have a conversation with them. Okay. Should we meet them, Quan?
Quan Gan: Okay. we all for everybody? I would say just you, me, and them. Like, let's not involve too many people until we know it's worth it.
Charlie Xu: Like, we have to gate it, too.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kris Neal: You'll find a lot of these companies, you know, we probably have something more to offer them than the other way around.
Quan Gan: So we should get it. And even just the word Olympians is not a, I don't think it's trademarked, so people could willy-nilly use it.
Kris Neal: Yeah. Yeah. And just also realize, like, athletes, most of them are barely scraping by.
Steven Hanna: It's not a very good economic model for athletes. So just the fact that you're a former Olympian or whatever, like, you know, the prestige sounds way bigger than what it actually does for them financially.
Kris Neal: So true. Yeah.
Charlie Xu: Unfortunately. Okay. Sounds good. I'll reach out to them then. Okay. Good meeting. What are you guys rated at? Wait, hold on. I'm not done. One last thing. I'm not looking at this.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, just one quick link, because Charlie sent me over the exhibitor forum last night. For the presenter, Quan, am I putting you? Yeah. For what? For the main presenter for Boost 26. Sure. Okay. Wait, we're not doing Eric? Oh, main exhibitor.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, it's asking about main exhibitor showcase workshop.
Kris Neal: So I don't know who's email. It's asking for the main presenter's email. So that would be probably in-house with us as far as that goes, and we can just speak with Andrea. Because Andrea is pretty cool with Boost and we'll ask her name swaps for anything. We're going to set a record for the longest meeting. I don't know. You want to put three more minutes? I would love to be able to go over our to-do's, but that's okay.
Quan Gan: I won't push.
Kris Neal: We're here already. We're already invested. This is a loss fallacy at this point. I don't know. I'm loaded now. What did you guys say about the Alabama? You already asked San Gina, right? San Gina's interested. I'm probably going to call her and just be like, okay, here's the deal. This is what it is. It's a yes or a no. She's going to go, oh, man. Yeah, I'm there.
Quan Gan: That's, yeah, I'll progress on that and I will share any communications I have with her. But it looks like that's a positive direction. Okay. So is that something like they can, is this kind of like taking off as a vacation or like for them to get away from the school on the school days?
Kris Neal: That's a good question. And I'm going to leave it up to her to guide me into how that works, because for her.
Steven Hanna: Her as an administrator, at some level, it might be different than like a teacher asking for time off. So her saying I might have to get time off with my district might be a simple text to someone she knows, or it might be like a formal process. Okay. Yeah. I could do my to-dos real quick. Setting up meeting for the foreign policy, I forgot, action distribution. Olympians Inspire Partnership, and Ella with Steve and Charlie, I'll set up that meeting, yeah. And then Sargina, I'll wait for your response, and then I'm waiting on your SOP, Quan, for the social media leads and the meeting you've got with Klansys. Okay, I think that's it for that.
Quan Gan: The social media leads, that was a document you shared. Were you me earlier? Yes, the SOP. And the shared email overview. Shared email. What is that?
Steven Hanna: Like the email automations for the... Let's see. It's on the auto-reply. It's called Sales Minute Ad Leads Escalation Ladder. I sent it to you. Do you want me to grab your link? Yes, if you can send me a link to those, just DM me.
Kris Neal: I'll work through those.
Steven Hanna: Because sometimes when I get notifications, it gets buried into all my other emails, so it's hard to find again. Thank you. I think that's it on my end, guys. Okay.
Quan Gan: My to-do's send this text to Sarjana, get a response, trainings, finishing this room, and then Ricardo basically sent me a three-and-a-half-minute guide on what to do for new support videos, so I'll hopefully have that stuff coming up and ready for you soon.
Kris Neal: Quan, I do have to ask you about mirroring and mouse movement on the unit, because I'm going to be using a second monitor.
Quan Gan: So instead of me doing the video of me looking at ZTAG itself, I need to actually just have it, the ZTAG screen displayed side-by-side with what I'm tapping on screen, so I'm going to OBS it.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, you'll need some kind of HDMI in. That might be another piece of hardware to bridge in. Then can you and I sit down for 10 minutes and you just walk me through how we can best do that? Sure, although I would have to GPT it anyways. I just nibble some kind of external HDMI into your computer. So it's going to be a splitter. Okay. Yeah. I'll do a quick search and then send it to you, and then you can see if it satisfies your needs. Okay. And then those are my two do's is get that studio finalized, get videos started, and make sure that the training stuff is awesome. It's good that you got a lot of training, Steve.
Kris Neal: That's exciting.
Quan Gan: They're rolling in.
Charlie Xu: I'm actually surprised. I didn't think they would be at this frequency, but also with the V3 swaps, like Dan Enfield, he's probably got about nine or ten sites that are getting them for KidsQuest.
Quan Gan: So I know that those trainings are about to, like, just...
Charlie Xu: Yeah, I have nine...
Steven Hanna: 9 returned black Zeus units.
Quan Gan: These are like prior to- that's like not even a V1.
Steven Hanna: That's V0.5. Like the- There's USB sticking right out that like you have to meticulously like wiggle in to even connect with us.
Charlie Xu: You should come see it. And then most of them have like broken plastic lids. Oh, it's like- It makes me feel like- They're going to be excited for their- They are.
Kris Neal: Lots training. Yeah. Well, they don't even have multiple games as a UI.
Charlie Xu: It's like they just show up. It looks like DOS. Oh, wow.
Quan Gan: That's old. Okay. So this is going to be like literally getting a new iPhone from a flip phone.
Kris Neal: Yes. Yeah. Huh. That's- From a rotary phone. How's that? From a rotary? All right. Fair enough. But yeah, a lot of training's coming in. A lot of school districts. I think we're up to like 35 plus playmakers that I've
Quan Gan: I've entered into the system, and I still have, like, all of BACR. Heather never got back to us with that list, so that's 20 more. So there's 20 unaccounted playmakers that are in there, and another 15 that I have to add in for the rest of the day. So almost reaching, you know, 50-plus playmakers in a month, six weeks, that's pretty dang good.
Kris Neal: Quan, please have a sign-up sheet when you go and do your PD for Steve, please. Oh, okay. Yes. Can we make an internal one? Can I ask Steve to make one for me?
Quan Gan: What? I'm not on graphics. That's Paula. Get the format. Balls to everyone. Visionary of the class is dropping raindrops.
Charlie Xu: No, no. Paula.
Kris Neal: Back to the capture. It's called a video capture card. I'll give you a link. Okay. Is it an Elgato capture card or something else? I think that's what this one is. on.
Quan Gan: Yeah, Avato HD60X. Okay. Please link that. Okay.
Charlie Xu: So, Chris, you said it just need a sign-up sheet for every time we go to the PD and have all the site coordinators leave their information, right?
Quan Gan: Those that are getting trained, they might not be site coordinators, but yes. Okay. Okay. Steve, I sent that over? I have a quick question.
Kris Neal: Is someone working on the V3 operator guide? No.
Quan Gan: Or the V3 version? That's you guys were talking about for the one-pager. You guys are working on that?
Steven Hanna: I kind of want to deprecate the V2 guide because it's mostly all of that info is translated into short videos and the actual training. You know, unless there's some reason they need to read through a bunch of things, and we know how people are for reading, I just don't see the need for it. Sounds good. Mm-hmm. Okay.
Kris Neal: And then banners, where you guys already got those figured out for IAPA. Actually, Charlie, you and I need to work on banners for IAPA. You know, I have graph, you know, I have the hardware here, but I need you to work with me on the booth.
Quan Gan: Okay. Chris, have you received all the flyers and banners?
Kris Neal: Yes, ma'am. Sorry. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. So you guys are going to send me one of the projectors, right? So I'm going to send you the existing booth that we use for all education, which would probably be what the two... No, I already shipped out the new set, the banner, shipped out the flyers, the tablecloths, it's all there. Oh, okay. So, Kris, are you getting a new case or something? It was just a projector that Steve said I should definitely take. Oh, you just need a projector? Then, yeah, I'll send it to you in an empty Zeus case. Okay. Cool, cool. Yeah, Yeah, I can do that later this week. can week. Yeah, this Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Are we good? Any other to-dos? We're good? Bueno? One thing to put on the burner, guys, we do need to speak with one-to-ones on the L10 stuff from last week.
Steven Hanna: Kris, those numbers, the scorecard numbers and stuff, we just need to make sure that they are the right numbers.
Kris Neal: So they still should come up with their own, but we should realign them if the numbers are not showing what we need. Are we all in agreement on that? Yes. I have several things to say based on that meaning, but I will shut my mouth and smile. Yes. Why? I was actually pretty flush watching that part because I don't want to be such a witch. I really don't. I really don't want to be such a witch, but we did not implement this book. A year ago. I'm sorry, we did not. It was three months ago that I finally started reading it and trying to get the entire team aligned with that book and getting them to understand first what a KPI is, because there's a very big cultural divide with SOP and trying to figure out the aligning of this book. So the very first time that they did it, yes, I told them, this is your number. It has to be fully owned by them. That is exactly what the book said. That's exactly what, Quan, you even said last year, which I do appreciate. It just was never followed through with. So that was why these numbers might not be perfectly aligned, but they are what they came up with. That's what we want to support and encourage. Yes, you guys have this. What we're talking about, what you're talking about, Charlie, I totally understand and I get it, but that's a report. That's a report that I need to come up with. That's a report that Steve needs to come up with.
Charlie Xu: Each department has a report that's completely separate from a KPI. But when we talked before, Charlie, we were talking about the KPI as being something that we actually have and our support, our, I hate to say, assistance. Support us with that. So that was the only thing that I was like, oh, because I just want to make sure that was clear. I totally agree. Report. But that's something. So is it the definition or is it the concept? The concept, I totally agree with. It's just something that we need them to own. So at the end of the month, and I told them in September, we will realign and we will review the KPIs and see if we need to edit them. And that's exactly the timing. The timing is perfect. It was just three weeks of having to kind of make sure that they own that number. Now we go back with them and we edit. We say, you know what, this number wasn't quite needed. But this is. But we all have reports of what our departments are doing. As separate. As a separate.
Quan Gan: The KPIs need to align with the... 10-year goal. So it's like you wanted to impact 1.7 million kids, I think it was, in the big, I forgot what it's called, but the VTO, in the main, in the big VTO, you talked about the 10-year plan wanting 1.7 kids interacted. So that was how me and Klansys were talking, how can we measure that? It's how many people are visiting, and it's something that is in, it's out of their control, right? Steve, said that. It's got to be something that they can control, actually, that they have control over.
Steven Hanna: So it's just, maybe we need to understand a little bit fully what kind of number that they have control over, that they can input those goals. Because also, I do feel like for, to align these KPI and step-by-step, it's, a lot of things is really depends on the high level of company's directions. they have have over, that that have have over, that control For example, like for marketing side, are we targeting the right marketing? Are we put ourselves into different, like California? I do feel like it's not just based on Carmee how many emails she sent out. It really is like from a higher perspective of are we going to the right directions? Are we strategically planning this? So for Carmee, she is more like the lower of the end result of, hey, we turned this into sales. But I do feel like if we do emphasize the KPI of these numbers, we need to redirect our energy on focusing on the higher strategic KPI of are we going. Is it something that we can maybe just... Weigh it on a little bit, because I know it's important, but I don't think it's urgent. Like, our company is still progressing forward, you know, even if the numbers aren't exactly what they need. And to Kris's point, we've only implemented EOS three months ago. So maybe five months or six months from now, we might have a better understanding of exactly what numbers we care about. And we can have a deeper in-person discussion, because I think this is, it is important, but we might implement something right now just to realize, oh, we're going to have to redo something later.
Kris Neal: I actually just want to walk it back and say, my only reason to bring this up was to open the discussion for the one-to-ones. Like, my opening discussion with Tim was, like, in regards to, like, dead tickets and, you know, what do we classify as that? So we came up with a few things that we needed to actually figure out and perform metrics to make sure. It's steady.
Charlie Xu: So it's just opening up that conversation with them and saying, hey, what are these things that you see as these main issues? What are these things that we can quantify as numbers? And that sort of thing. We're not making any decisions on that now. It's just saying, hey, these are in direct control of that. You're in direct control of this. Is there something that better represents this and something else you might be in direct control over that's more valuable to everybody here in the grand scheme of the ZTAG?
Quan Gan: You know, company. Like, it's not saying your KPIs are not right. It's saying, hey, that's a good KPI. However, we need to know some information on this, and maybe there's a different KPI we need to apply for this that, you know, you don't need to focus on that because it's a different KPI that doesn't apply right now. This is the KPI for this quarter. That needs to be, you know, in your domain and in your control.
Kris Neal: If there needs to be an alignment where it's like, hey, maybe the number doesn't make sense. quarter. is the KPI
Quan Gan: That's where we can say, yes, we should change the number, because maybe you shouldn't be meeting 95% accuracy on this. Like, it doesn't need to be that specific. But just opening up a conversation about that is a valuable thing. Like, it already brought me to solve some problems with TIN about how to classify non-responsive tickets, and at what point do you say, okay, this is not worth the time anymore. We've done all that we can.
Kris Neal: So just open the conversation. Don't make a decision that has nothing to do with the decision. Yep. Well, it aligns with what I've already told them that would happen, and each of us doing that individually, it would make sense.
Steven Hanna: Quan, I don't know what Klansys does.
Quan Gan: I don't know how that worked, how that would support the 10-year goal, but you would. So it makes sense you would meet with Klansys. I would meet with Carmee. Charlie, you would pull us. We all know where we need to be, I think.
Steven Hanna: later. later. later. you.
Quan Gan: So just having that conversation.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, and also I feel like we as now a higher level, we have to have a structured meeting once a while to align these KPIs on our end.
Quan Gan: And then we can maybe just, as you said, adding these conversations between us and who is supporting us.
Steven Hanna: Do we have an opportunity to meet in December, maybe? Or early December, or is it something that we'll have to wait till January for us to have an actual gathering?
Kris Neal: When does the quarter end?
Quan Gan: Right now, right? Right now it's...
Kris Neal: Yeah, October, November, December. So this is the beginning of this quarter. It would just be nice. I mean, I don't want to wash this quarter away, but...
Quan Gan: Yeah. Post-IAPA, I'm just thinking it might need to be like the first week of December or something.
Charlie Xu: Do we have time for that?
Steven Hanna: It's hard. All right.
Kris Neal: January?
Quan Gan: For an in-person, quarterly?
Charlie Xu: Yeah.
Kris Neal: We could do the second week of December.
Steven Hanna: That's at all possible. Second week of December works. I'm pretty sure I'm gone. Hold on. Let me just check. Steve, you and I, you know what happens in December. The mountains are calling? The mountains are calling, and I must schedule 500 emails to go.
Quan Gan: December, you're going to be at your ski camp thing, right?
Kris Neal: Yeah, it's the 14th through the 18th.
Quan Gan: I'll definitely be gone. that's actually technically what? 8th through the 12th.
Steven Hanna: That's technically the third week of December. So the 8th through the 12th, there is, like you said, Chris, that would be prime time.
Kris Neal: Charlie? Probably earlier in the week.
Quan Gan: You want to do like 8th through 10th? Can I confirm by the end of tonight? Sure. It's just a few calendars that are physical for the kids, sorry.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, tentatively. Okay. California, or you guys want to come to Indiana?
Quan Gan: Yeah. you. don't know.
Steven Hanna: Wherever. I'd have to get on a plane either way. Is it easier for you guys to meet somewhere and then we find you or the other way around? She's central, I'm east, you're west. It doesn't matter.
Quan Gan: Should we meet in Texas? Doesn't everybody have a one-way to Texas?
Kris Neal: Maybe.
Steven Hanna: We can do that. Yeah, Texas is fun.
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Steven Hanna: Thank Hello. Hey.
havenjones: Good morning.
Steven Hanna: How are you?
havenjones: Good. How are you? I'm okay.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Got your ZTAG stuff ready?
havenjones: Yes. I put it on the charger about 20 minutes ago. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Perfect. Have you used ZTAG before?
havenjones: Yeah. We had the, I guess, the first system.
Steven Hanna: What color was that system? Was it yellow or black?
havenjones: Yeah. Yellow. Yellow, okay.
Steven Hanna: All right. So, a few new updates, first off. Just want to kind of jump into it, but before I do that, my name is Steve. I'm the Playmaker Developer here with ZTAG to just kind of walk you through new stuff with the system, be your kind of liaison for any system-related issues quickly on the spot. So, any stuff with the new V3, right after this meeting, you'll have access to me. You could text me, email, call, whatever is the most convenient for you, if anything should come up. The first thing that you'll notice off the bat is that the router no longer exists on the top of the unit, and it's not something that you have to, like, clip in anymore.
havenjones: It's built right into the top portion of the lid.
Steven Hanna: So, if you're looking directly at the screen, on the sides of the screen, that's actually where the router is now. So, you no longer have to do that. The startup, there is one step removed as you don't need to put that router on anymore. So, So you can just basically plug it into the power source, have the bottom part, you know, with the black power cable plugged in, hit the red button, wait a few seconds, and then on the screen now, instead of that silver button being right next to the red button, it's actually on the top portion of the screen. So those are the only, like, significant physical changes that you might have noticed on it. Is the system on?
havenjones: Yeah, I haven't. Like, I mean, I did the red button, I haven't turned the, hit the silver button yet.
Steven Hanna: All right, let's hit that silver button. Let's make sure that your system's turning on, you've got two new games with it. The only thing that you might be asked to do is register your system when you start it up. So it might take you to, like, a QR code after you input the Wi-Fi. That's the only thing that you might be held up by.
havenjones: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Any other questions besides upgrading the system, though, new features, stuff like that, because we'll go into it. But if you have any specific things that you want to go over, happy to touch up on that now.
havenjones: Not right now. I don't think so.
Steven Hanna: Okay. And where are you guys located, if you don't mind me asking?
havenjones: We are in Tabor City, North Carolina. It's right at the state line of South Carolina.
Steven Hanna: Gotcha. All right. So you're East Coast time with me.
havenjones: Yes. Cool. Okay. In just a few steps, you can register and set up your Zeus, assume, and continue.
Steven Hanna: Yes. So we're going to ask that you register your system. It doesn't chart. There's no money to register. It's just making sure that you could look at your data on it and get access to those new games. So if you could do the registration, I recommend you do it on an admin account for wherever you might be. Don't do it on your personal.
havenjones: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Thank If you needed to skip the registration, you can do that, and I can just run you through it, but highly recommended that you register the system. And you have a blue case, correct?
havenjones: Yes, I do. Oh, okay.
Steven Hanna: You are one of like five people right now with that, and I'm very jealous. Very jealous.
havenjones: Yeah, and we got it Friday, and some of our wristbands had started messing up, because we do ZTAG on Friday nights, and some of the wristbands had started messing up again on Friday, like not wanting to connect right.
Steven Hanna: On the old system or the new one?
havenjones: The old one. This is the first time. All right.
Steven Hanna: I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's making me nervous.
havenjones: Hold on. Yeah, no, we didn't even, like, it was so late in the afternoon whenever we got this, I was like, we'll just worry about it next week.
Steven Hanna: All right, perfect. Problem for Monday, Tuesday.
havenjones: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Fair enough.
havenjones: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Now, when those watches were kind of just experiencing those tech issues, what was happening specifically?
havenjones: So I wasn't out there, but I think it was like just keeping it connected.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Like they would go out of range and it wouldn't start them in the game or something like that?
havenjones: Honestly, I'm not sure. I'm sorry. No problem.
Steven Hanna: I don't have, I wasn't out there.
havenjones: I think, I know that our Wi-Fi gets weaker out there where we do it. But you actually don't need Wi-Fi to run the system.
Steven Hanna: So if anybody's ever saying, hey, the Wi-Fi is weak, they could still run the system. It's actually on its own little Wi-Fi is what we call it. So it's called a wireless local area network. That's what that router does. So it creates a little network for everybody to play inside of.
havenjones: Okay. Okay.
Steven Hanna: All right. Now I'm, I'm interested, but I'm not pressing you further.
havenjones: You've passed the interrogation. Okay. Okay, so now I'm at the QR code.
Steven Hanna: Okay, it's gonna just scan that on your phone and it should bring up a quick, like, registration side.
havenjones: Okay, I'm sorry, I have to find my phone.
Steven Hanna: It's okay, take your time. I appreciate people not having their phones on them.
havenjones: I was a former teacher, so when I hear that, I'm like, yes.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
havenjones: Okay, so this is what you were talking about, admin, so I need to put, like, my work address in.
Steven Hanna: If there is, like, if you're part of an organization, that's probably recommended, whichever, yeah. If it was your personal system, I would say register it to your, like, Gmail or something, but if it's with an entity, just, you know, it's yours. Let's go we go. Screenbean, now is not the time to start the squeak toy. It's too early. I'm sorry if you hear my dog playing with her squeak toy. I have to keep her occupied while I'm doing screenings in some way.
havenjones: Okay, so if we already have, like, obviously, we had set up an account with the old one. So can we just log in? You can try.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, you can try and log into the old one. If you run into, like, a login error, it's just going to be quicker to re-register it instead of, like, resetting passwords and all that.
havenjones: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So how many staff members are using the system, just out of curiosity?
havenjones: We have – so we have different departments, and they – like, the ones that run – I'm sorry, I'm trying to sign in – the ones that usually run this is on the recreation team. So right now, there is probably, I would say, seven or eight of those. And of those seven or eight, are they all, like, pretty up to speed on ZTAG stuff, or does anyone need kind of, like, a little refresher? I would say for the most part, they're all pretty good.
Steven Hanna: Then they should be pretty good with the new games. It's just little adaptations of, like, matching. We've got two new games that are – one is, like, pattern match, except instead of the matching of the shape you're matching. I mean, I think English to Spanish or English to French. And then the second game is a game called Sequence Train, where it's like a collaborative puzzle-solving game, where the kids need to see what number the sequence goes up by. could be like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. It could be 10s, 20s, 5s, evens, odds. And then they have to tag the next person in the sequence.
havenjones: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So like everybody has to have a, you know, a moment to interact and tag because they literally need to tag each other in order for them to win. So more collaborative games. I'm sure that mostly everybody's playing zombie tag. Yes, that's what I was about to say.
havenjones: Most of them just do ZTAG. If we need a couple feelers or if like we get rained out or something with an outside activity, then we'll take it inside and do some of those other games. Cool.
Steven Hanna: Have you guys tried to do like other stuff or is it pretty much like ZTAG works? We run it.
havenjones: Yeah, pretty much. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: I'll shoot. Let you over a script of like the other game rules and settings that I haven't used in the past. would be, I'd be interested to know how it works with you guys, but if zombie tag is working, run it, run the same play over and over. Are you through the registration?
havenjones: I am verifying the email now.
Steven Hanna: Sorry, I know it's a bit of a pain.
havenjones: It's okay. Okay. So now I am the serial number. I gotta see it. Okay, and then for DeVos' name, is there a particular?
Steven Hanna: Whatever you would like to call your new case. You want to call it Jellystone 1, you'd like to call it Tabor City ZTAG, whatever, whatever you want to personify it as.
havenjones: Okay. All right. Okay. Games are up. Awesome.
Steven Hanna: So we're now at the home screen, correct?
havenjones: Yes. So instead of those six games that you had previously, you should have two new games in the bottom, right? Mm-hmm. Awesome.
Steven Hanna: Those are those two games that I was just referring to. One thing that I am going to ask... is that you turn on the individual ZTAGGERS if you take them out of the little charge dock and press that little red button on the left side. Just turn those on, and I want to make sure that they all can connect. When they do turn on, it'll take about 10 seconds or so. In the top right corner, there's going to be a little battery indicator. To the left of that battery indicator, there's going to be signal bars or some random numbers and letters. If you see those random numbers and letters of the signal bars, that ZTAGGER device is communicating with the big computer. Those signal bars or that number letter sequence is not there. Give it about a minute or two. It should turn on, and it should add them right in. If it's not, just let me know. Okay.
havenjones: So we'll, like, We've had to order new bands. Will any of those old bands work with this, or would we have to program it?
Steven Hanna: They'll work right after we do, like, a quick update. So what we'll do while I'm on with you today is we'll take those bands, whichever ones you want to keep. I would, I don't know how many you're going to hold on to, but, you know, hold on to a few of them, because you should have a few extras with that.
havenjones: And we may not have any extra because of having to replace some of them, so it was just a, I don't even know where they would be, so.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Just a general question. If you do find them, let's touch base again, because it's probably, like, a five-minute thing that I can walk you through. And then, like, I could probably just send you a video of my stuff, and you can do it at your convenience instead of a meeting. That's easier. But, yes, easily updatable is the answer. About five minutes or less.
havenjones: Okay, all of them have those random numbers and letters.
Steven Hanna: Perfect. I'm just going to ask you to tap on Zombie Tag just so that the pregame lobby screen shows up on them. And once that pregame lobby screen shows up, I'm personally satisfied with, you know, your system as far as function. You're more than welcome to start the game. I will recommend you reduce the volume in that top section so that if you're in a small office setting, you're not going to get blasted with 24 of these things, you know, with the sound. Change it to like one or two so it's not overburied. Once you start the game up, you should be good to go. There are different settings in, do you play Zombie Tag with or without Doctor?
havenjones: We usually do three rounds and the last round we do with the doctor.
Steven Hanna: Perfect. Perfect. you. Thank Perfect. Because I was going to say, you can structure it where the first game is without, second game you had like one doctor in, third game you had two doctors in.
havenjones: Okay.
Steven Hanna: There are some settings that we've changed in Zombie Tech. The newest thing is going to be something called the Doctor Heal Limit. So this kind of evens it up a little bit for the zombies to have a better chance to win. After certain amounts of heals, the Doctor becomes a human again. So after like three, you can set the number however many you want. What I like to say is if you're working in a larger space, those numbers always go up. If you're working in a smaller space, those numbers decrease. Okay. That is pretty much it as far as new features on Zombie Tech with Doctor. The new games, if you guys are mainly playing Zombie Tech, I have a feeling you're going to just stick with that. And, you know, you have an operator who wants to try something. They're more than welcome to. However, it might be slightly challenging because if everybody's used to zombie tags, switching it up is kind of tough. Other unique settings that we've changed, the Red Light, Green Light game now has a negative scoring mode. I'm not sure if you might have had that before, but if you do like to play Red Light, Green Light with young kids, it can make it so that they don't get eliminated. They're always playing the game. So that's kind of one way to add variety. What I like to do is I structure my games in sets of three, and I do like Red Light, Green Light three times, where the first time is low stakes, low reward, second time medium, third is elimination. Then I do Pattern Match, where I teach them how to tag.
havenjones: Then I go into Math Match if they're kind of crappy and really energetic, like I need to slow them down a little bit.
Steven Hanna: But we do go right into zombie tag fairly quickly. The new games that you guys have, you'll probably try them out. I don't know how well they would work for like... how they would work for like... A camp where you're just needing to do the activity for X amount of time, so I would say try out some new games, Red Light, Green Light, and Pattern Match are good warm-ups, and then Zombie Tag is also, you know, kick's butt. Yeah. Any questions on the system as far as turning things on, shutting them off, the ZTAGGERS themselves, because I just want to go through the shutdown sequence with you, and then we're pretty much golden.
havenjones: No, I don't think so. I think we're good.
Steven Hanna: Okay. So two ways to turn off your ZTAGGERS. The first way is to just put them right onto the dock, they turn off and start the charge process. The second way is to double tap the red button on the side. Excuse me. You may have a large volume of kids for one group, and you may be rotating, and for that, I would just say, just turn them off and keep them down next to you. You don't want to. Keep putting them on and off the charge dock. It's kind of a pain. Yeah. If one of the watches is not connected, the first troubleshooting step is to just tap the red button close to the main computer. That's kind of like the reset that solves 95% of my problems. If that does not work, put the ZTAGGER on the watch itself and put the ZTAGGER on the dock and then take it off and restart it.
havenjones: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So those are the two main troubleshooting steps for the ZTAGGER is not connecting, but all of your devices are connected and there shouldn't be any problems at all.
havenjones: Right.
Steven Hanna: That's pretty much it as far as the new system and new features go, as far as training for the shutdown sequence. All you're going to do is put every single watch inside of the dock and you're going to make sure that you see the red or green charge light indicator for that. Once you're done with that, let me know and we'll go. go through the LCD power now.
havenjones: Okay. So we're gonna go through the LCDs. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.
Steven Hanna: So I'm just taking a look at the website for you guys. When you guys run ZTAG, do you guys have it like structured on Fridays where it's like, hey, you can do ZTAG from this time to this time?
havenjones: Yeah, so we schedule it as an activity, but then we also have... Um, like, we have something called the Craft Shack where you can just sign up for different activities, so we'll start signing people up so they'll know what time, so they're not standing there and waiting for an hour to play.
Steven Hanna: Gotcha. Okay. That's what I was, like, trying to figure out if it's, like, a time slot where people are waiting or if it's, like, nope, you have your FastPass, this is when you go here for this activity, here's a FastPass, go there for that activity. Sounds like it's that.
havenjones: Yeah, we do, we do the sign-ups, but, like, if people miss the sign-ups, you can also just show up, and then you'll just get added to whatever game.
Steven Hanna: Right. It's not like you're gonna restrict them from participating if they show up a few minutes late, right? Okay.
havenjones: Okay. I have them in. I have three that's not reading.
Steven Hanna: If they're not reading, just wiggle them and seat them a little bit more strongly inside the magnetic dock, and they should turn on. Thank you. Thank you. When you are charging these, though, just make sure you lift the lid a bit so that the heat from the devices can come out. Okay. Are those three charging?
havenjones: Well, I'm down to one, and the blue light is on, like, in the dock, but it's not – the red light is not coming on the wristband.
Steven Hanna: Take it out and then reseed it. Still being a little finicky?
havenjones: Yep.
Steven Hanna: Try swapping it with another device in that charge port.
havenjones: Okay, they're on now. Cool.
Steven Hanna: So once the devices are in the dock and they're charging, you can go through the power down sequence. It's important that you go onto the main screen and tap that little power button, and then hit the power down button after that.
havenjones: Okay. So that screen on the top side should turn off.
Steven Hanna: It should flicker black and then go completely black. Correct?
havenjones: Yeah, the screen is black.
Steven Hanna: Okay, perfect. Then you're going to work your way from that screen down. So there's that silver power button that you press to turn it on. You're going to press that button to turn the blue. Okay. Light Off. Okay. Then give it about 5-10 seconds, and then you're going to see that little red switch on the bottom, normally where it was on the last system, and then you can press that off.
havenjones: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Now you can take your power cord and coil it up and put in that little storage area on the back side of the charge dock. There's like a little, probably two-inch gap.
havenjones: Yeah. Okay. And you should have a USB and like this little micro keyboard.
Steven Hanna: It looks like an old BlackBerry Sidekick. I don't know if remember those phones, but that's just in case for some troubleshooting in case you need to maneuver around with a mouse or you need to type a few things in. You don't need to keep that inside of the system's case. You could probably put that into an office drawer and just put a piece of tape on it that just says like ZTAG keyboard.
havenjones: Okay.
Steven Hanna: That'll reduce the confusion for your staff when they're looking at this going, what am I supposed to do with this? That's it. Don't worry about it. You know what mean? That's for, if something goes south, we can, you know, try and fix it with that. Okay.
havenjones: Sounds good.
Steven Hanna: Other than that, your system case should close perfectly flush. There shouldn't be any resistance. If there is resistance, please open your case up and take a look at the straps. Sometimes the straps get caught inside the space between the plexiglass cover and the watch, the ZTAGGER device. So it'll prevent it from closing. So just any resistance, just please check this case one more time. It should close perfectly. And then you have those two little latches that you could press it down with.
havenjones: Got it. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Last feature on this one. I'm not sure if you guys used it before, but the thing does have wheels and it does have a expandable handle.
havenjones: Yes, we did. You can. Perfect.
Steven Hanna: Because I've had someone who's like, I have never known about this.
havenjones: This would have saved my back for months.
Steven Hanna: I'm like, oh man, we should have spoken sooner. But that's pretty much it on the new system. You guys are pretty much up to date on everything. Do you have any questions for me in regards to operations, how to use it? You guys have used this before. It's pretty similar. Yeah.
havenjones: No, I don't have any questions. If you will, though, email me the...
Steven Hanna: You'll have this entire meeting, transcript, and video.
havenjones: Okay. Like the rules and different things for the other day.
Steven Hanna: I got a script ready to go for you right after this is done. You'll get an email from me within like half hour. And it should have all that cool information for you, okay?
havenjones: All right. Sounds good.
Steven Hanna: All right, Hayden. Anything else I can help you with today before we jump off?
havenjones: I don't think so.
Steven Hanna: All right. You have a wonderful day and reach out to us for anything at all, okay?
havenjones: I will. Thank you. Take care.
Steven Hanna: Bye-bye.
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Klansys Palacio: Good, we are just experiencing heavy rains non-stop since yesterday. Ooh.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Ooh, ooh. That is not fun. I'm so sorry. How is the house? Is it holding up okay?
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, it's all good. We are on the inclined part of the area, so the water will not go into the beach here.
Kristin Neal: Good, good, good, good. Good morning. Good Good morning. What a pretty color on you, Charlie. That purple color is so pretty.
Charlie Xu: Oh, thank you.
Kristin Neal: Thank you.
Charlie Xu: Where are you going? Right to the school. Where are you? I'm at the office. I have a full work day.
Kristin Neal: She's on mom mode right now.
Charlie Xu: Right. Dad, don't Crazy driving mode.
Kristin Neal: Driving mode, yes. Very cool. Here comes Steve. Morning. Morning, Steve. Hey, everyone. Morning. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us today. Hey, Klansys, we are so grateful for us to just take this time. We're going to go through kind of like what we actually know. never did this before. Did we have a six-month review? No.
Quan Gan: We had a true up right around March, right? Just to make sure, you know, we got everybody kind of realigned. But this would be the first six-month review since that.
Kristin Neal: Thank you. Gosh, yeah. I totally. Yes. Thank you so much, Kwan. So. This is your very first six-month review in this new process. I'm going to go ahead and share my screen. This is just a very casual discussion, okay, Klansys? I think that's my main point is we just want to talk things out. We have something we'll be going over, but please be as transparent as possible, okay? This is a very safe place, okay? So just we're going to have a very casual conversation, okay? You will get this at the end, too, okay, Klansys, so we can, we'll go over it. It'll be edited at the end, and then I'll send it over, okay? So here we have your review date today. Thank you so much for your patience and flexibility with moving this a week back. We appreciate it. And your role I wanted to make sure that we highlight here is the business process analyst and developer. Okay. So this is your opportunity right now. Klansys to tell us, this is a check-in, your role and responsibilities. How has that been for you? How has that process, these six months, how has that role been for you?
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, at first, it was actually quite overwhelming. And of course, I felt pressured, to be honest, because, you know, Quan is a smart guy. So he's a tech guy. So it's like, very pressure on my end, because I really don't want to, like, disappoint any one of you here on the team. So, but as time goes by, so I really learned a lot during those transition or six months, not just the six months, since I am already two years here in the ZTAG. So it was really actually great, because this role was actually... It really helped me to shape a lot and really brought something in me. So it was like I wasn't really expecting or this is unexpected for me to really have this kind of role wherein I was only a web developer, just a web developer alone. So if you can, if we were going back like a year ago, so I don't know how to do automations. I don't know how to like solve any problem that could really automate our systems. So, and Quan introduced me to all of those and I don't know AI before, so I was just relying on Google search and video and YouTube tutorials. So Quan was actually the one who really pushed us or really pushed me when it. It comes to technologies. So it was like, Klansys, can you check this out? This is really good. I was just, oh no, I don't know how to do this, but I'll try. So it's something like taking the risk is one of the things that really helped me. It's not like quitting, but taking the risk because that's something that really helped me to improve more, not just only focus on a role that I am comfortable with because getting out from your comfort zone is not really that easy. But yeah, I managed to do it. So it was, it was really good. And of course, the management that we are having right now is more organized. And I really see the goals and everything is actually cleared for me. We do have all the steps, clear roles, and of course the collaboration. Collaborations that we are having right now is really something because when I'm going to like review it back then, we were just working by ourselves without talking to each other. So it was like very hard because I am very afraid to ask questions. I am very afraid to like message you because I have questions. I was just, okay, I need to do it by myself. But with those transitions that we have, so I really, it really pushes me to do things that I haven't experienced before. So it was really, it was really great. It was a roller coaster journey during that six months or two years, but it was something that really bring out the best in me. So I really, I really, I really felt the inclusivity here in the ZTAG. So that's cool.
Kristin Neal: That's great, Klansys. Thank you so much for that. And I agree. In fact, when we go back the six months, because I think that's pretty much when this changed the process analyst. And that was after Pankaj left. I remember Quan saying, no, Klansys can do it now. She can take over that. And we didn't need Pankaj anymore. So it was like, that was so neat that you took that on and ran with it. I'm not sure if you've owned it yet, and we'll get there in a little bit, but I've seen you run with it. And I appreciate that very much. Charlie, Quan, Steve, do you guys have any input on her title?
Quan Gan: Yeah, just, you know, I have tremendous appreciation for Klansys, your adaptability. Because whenever I, I see a lot of new topics all the time. So I throw a bunch of things over your way. And, you know, the fact that That you're able to explore on your own and hit those metrics. Yeah, it's very encouraging and just, you know, I'm excited to see where we will be even in a few months or a year from now.
Kristin Neal: I would say she's teachable. That's a very big gift. You're teachable, Klansys, and that's huge. Yeah.
Klansys Palacio: So much.
Charlie Xu: And also on the marketing side, Klansys is always very supportive, very efficient, like whatever we have, any graphic updates on the website, she is like, boom, right away, finish everything. So very efficient. And also, by hearing what you taught, Klansys, you're really fast learning, and it's so great. You're taking such an important role on the team to make sure all the automations get ready. It just, like, it brings a lot of efficiencies to the team. just, yeah, we deeply appreciate your talent adding to this team.
Steven Hanna: Although I am new, thank you for updating every module that I send you within 12 hours. You are awesome. Thank you, Klansys.
Kristin Neal: Yes, I love that. Well, actually, we're going to be highlighting that. So I'm glad you brought that up, Steve. Yeah. Okay. Changes or clarifications over the past six months. I think we talked about that. That would be the transition you doing the business process analyst from Pencash, taking that on. Any other changes these past six months? The automations for the team would be one for sure. Any other changes, you guys, that you could see? We take time, go. Fair We'll All The deals have changed, automating that whole sales process.
Quan Gan: And there's been updates to the website and forms, and making sure that those forms are properly aligned to our new business practices.
Kristin Neal: Oh, yes. Yeah, and that's ongoing, because we just had a meeting the other day about some new process. Was that the supply, where the assets are being shared?
Quan Gan: Well, it was a sales automation regarding, well, I think we're going to be calling it a school buyer form or something, instead of the application. But essentially, a second gate that gives us all the hard metrics we need to successfully complete the order.
Kristin Neal: time. time. We'll There we go. Including a checkmark if they are interested in professional development. Perfect. Perfect. And also the, I'm sorry, the Fulfillment Center, right? Getting that process. Yeah, we're working on that as we speak.
Quan Gan: Oh, you guys are currently.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Yeah. It's a big one. Yeah.
Quan Gan: mean, even just the review modules, like all these things are new to me. So it's quite encouraging that I'm not asking for those, but the team asking Klansys to do that and it's organically happening. That's amazing. So true.
Kristin Neal: Yes. You know, you're right. The team collaboration really, really took form these past three, four, six months. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you're usually at the center of it, Klansys. what a, thank you. That's a big role. That's a very important. All right. KPI. We're going to review the team scorecard for these, unless anyone has anything else to add. All right, team three, quarter three, team scorecard. So we have you right here, Klansys, at the top, and you are measuring, can everybody see this? Number of organic sessions this week versus baseline, I remember us discussing how we can track the amount of growth that we, that Quan is looking for in the 10-year. I remember this very clearly. And we were like, what if we were to track how many people hit the website? And that's this one, right? Okay.
Quan Gan: I'm curious what the actual metrics look like.
Kristin Neal: So, Klansys, I know I told the team the first time, the first three weeks, they were your numbers, we weren't going to edit them. And at the end of the quarter, which is actually the end of September, the beginning of this month, we'll just kind of talk it over and see what we can. Actually edit and see what we can change. So would it be possible to get the actual number of hits our websites are getting?
Klansys Palacio: Yes, yes, Chris. So let me filter for the month of September.
Quan Gan: Because I think in particular interest, probably to Charlie, is, you know, we've changed some outreach strategies through social media, whether that's Mateo or her doing it. It'd be really interesting to see if we see any uptick in that.
Kristin Neal: So social media metrics?
Quan Gan: Well, not necessarily social media, but the fact that she's putting the information out there, I would imagine there's more people flowing to the website.
Kristin Neal: It's on the social...
Charlie Xu: Oh, sorry. Go ahead.
Klansys Palacio: Go ahead. Go ahead. ahead. Go Yeah, we do have analytics for the website itself. So I'm not sure about the socials because Pola is the one who is like managing the analytics of the socials that we have.
Charlie Xu: Is there a way to access, like, for example, if our website is on WordPress, is there a way logging WordPress to get the data? Like how many people are logging, how many clicks, which page they're clicking, or buttons? Is there a way of accessing these data?
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, I am using Google Analytics for that, so we can see all the active users, new users, and all the countries that users came from, so we can see everything, including the search. And Gene, if it is organic or referral or something about videos where they can, where they saw, I click the ZTAG website. So it's all in the Google Analytics that I actually built for the ZTAG website. Great.
Kristin Neal: Can you give Charlie and Quan access to that?
Charlie Xu: Yeah, sure.
Klansys Palacio: I will go in to share it through your email. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Or do you want to screen share it right now? Do you guys want to see what she did? Yeah, Yeah, that'd be great.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Can you see my screen, guys?
Klansys Palacio: Yep. So this is actually the entire Google Analytics for the website. So this is only for the, let's say, say, let's Can you do the last 90 days?
Quan Gan: Or just click to the side here. There's that quick link.
Klansys Palacio: Here. So here are the analytics that we have for the last 90 days. So what were the upticks in August?
Quan Gan: Is that Mateo? Charlie, when did we hire Mateo?
Kristin Neal: It was the month of Standard.
Charlie Xu: think, yeah, end of August towards September. Might be July, no?
Kristin Neal: I'll have to look at the calendar. Because when we went to Standard, that was his first day.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, because also on the social media, like, I was trying to do... ... ... ... Try different ways. There's a way I can directly click back to the website. And also the testimonials, I would direct them to the website. So if over here we can see page, like which page they're going to, they might. Okay. I think on the right side. this one.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so get a quote is the second most clicked thing. That's good.
Kristin Neal: Okay, great.
Charlie Xu: Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah, I think this dashboard, if we could see it more often, I think it would really help us.
Kristin Neal: Are you guys able to just access it at your own time or?
Quan Gan: I think Klansys might need to give us access. I don't know if I already have access or not.
Steven Hanna: There should also be a generate report option for this. You might just be able to generate a report at the end of the week that displays all this information. Instead Instead of... It's maintaining it. Yeah, we have snapshots. We can create snapshots.
Klansys Palacio: So I think we can do automations for this as well, like they'll give us weekly data. Yeah, let's do that. try to look if we can integrate it to the CRM, because CRM is the most convenient platform that we're using. So it might be able to like embed it there and do a weekly data for automations.
Kristin Neal: There we go. That sounds great, Klansys. Yeah, that is perfect. All right. Anyone else? Okay. So do we still need to review the team scorecard, or are you guys comfortable with moving forward with her report? right. All All We can go forward.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: All right. Klansys, did you have any questions on that? On those KPIs? They will be edited with, you'll be working with Quan on that, exactly what he wants you to kind of edit your KPIs, but yeah, that'll come. Okay. Okay. Core Values Alignment. So everything that we have and we try to surround the company with is our core values. And Klansys, I know you know them, so we're very grateful. I'm just going to go over them really quick, not the descriptions, but just the names of them really quick. Number one, human connection first. Number two, inclusive empowerment. Number three, authentic innovation. Four, radical transparency. Five, collaborative spirit. Six, data-driven. Impact, and seven, Sustainable Growth. So I definitely want to make sure that you know, Klansys, that we see every single one of these here embodied in you. This next part of the review is just going to show exactly where you excel in these core values, but we see them in you, okay? So we have our human connections first. You exemplify that. And a very great specific moment I can bring up is you actually were like, no, Kris, we need a human connections first in our three-year goal. And you were like, we're human connections first, and we're not meeting face-to-face. So you added that to the VTO, and I thought that was such a great specific moment that showed that, that you always remember that. Okay, inclusive empowerment, behavior or interaction that stood out. That's my example feedback, but inclusive empowerment, you'll see that they're actually both. Highlighted. By the way, the highlighted is the one that's the answer. They're both highlighted because as you've seen in the, every child gives a place to shine regardless of background ability or social status. We believe everyone plays on equal footing. Transforming the shine withdrawn into confident contributors. This is you, embodiment of that. You have transformed from someone that is shy into contributors. I'm not sure if you've had confidence in that contribution. Even just talking about it right now, about the scorecard, it was like, oh yeah, we can do that. It wasn't like you came up with that on your own, like without this meeting. Do you understand what I'm saying? So bring it to your role and it'll just be a plus for next time. Okay. So we see the inclusive in you, but not as much in your role. Does that make sense? Okay. I also want to add.
Quan Gan: On this, I think the confidence, even with just everybody, it's something that we will build upon, you know, because part of, I guess, the flip side of confidence is risk-taking, you know, like being willing to take those risks. And as a company, we want people to take calculated risks because without the risk, you're not going to get the proportional reward. So, yes, it could be conservative and we're not moving forward, but we really want to have people ask those questions like, oh, what if we change this? Like, can we actually have a big impact? So don't shy away from that, you know, at the very least, maybe ask us and see what our opinions are. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised how often we'll probably respond positively to, you know, new ideas.
Kristin Neal: Anyone else? That's great. By default, I'm not allowed to respond negatively to any ideas ever brought up as a teacher. So it's already there.
Steven Hanna: Whatever you want to try or express confidence in attempting, I'm here to support in any way, shape, or form.
Kristin Neal: Very cool. Authentic Innovation, Klansys, you are coming up with these in our discussions, in our collaborative meetings, you are coming up with things that we're talking about. So you are building. Okay, so we definitely see that. Radical Transparency. this is one I had for both. And there's a reason for this one, because you are absolutely radical transparent for yourself, for like, you'll tell us everything that is on your heart, and that is very much appreciated. But I'm not sure if it goes to when you... Are at your limit. Like we hear about it later, but we don't hear about it in the moment. So I was curious because Charlie and I, and I'll add this to your review, your days, your missing days. Okay, I think you have like three missing days since we started taking this. And I'll confirm with Charlie. But our concern is when you're burnt out or not burnt out, but when you have too much on your plate, that you'll call out. Instead of just being very transparent, you need to be very honest with us. Even when you're at that point of, I need a day off because I'm overwhelmed. You need to be that transparent and know that we understand and can support that. Do you agree, Klansys, or what do you think?
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, it's all good. But yeah, for the, I think. The overwhelming part, I think I am not really like something to live or quit with the days I have, because I do, I do really like, when I felt overwhelmed, I was just eating, so it was, it was really something that helped me to really overcome with the pressures that I am doing. Well, agree with the, there's times that I really don't communicate with the pressure that I am, I really felt, and that's, I agree with that, because I do felt like, sometimes I might be like, a burden, so it is, it is, it is, sometimes I do felt like, am I going to say this to, to the team, or, or not, so I was very hesitant, because I don't really feel sometimes that it's. They might be busy, so I just keep it to myself. So I really agree with the communications because sometimes I don't really feel it when I feel that all of you are busy.
Quan Gan: I want to just contribute a little here. I think there also might be a cultural thing that I want to highlight because Westerners tend to be more outspoken in their feelings and where they're at and even push back. But I think from an Asian culture, a working culture, both Charlie and I are familiar with this. It tends to be much more of a hierarchical top-down approach. So I acknowledge that. But being that we are a U.S. company, we are also encouraging our Asian-based teammates to be okay with expressing... where can do the we're you're the yourself which believe Things that are your internal state, because that's kind of how we operate. We'd rather know more than not know, because if we don't know, we're making assumptions. And those assumptions are probably 99% of the time wrong, because we don't know, we can't read your mind. So we encourage, you know, if you're facing any challenges, whether personally or professionally, reach out to us. You don't have to reach out to everyone, but you could, you know, reach out at least to one person that you feel like, you know, you'll be supported, and then as a team, we'll adjust accordingly.
Kristin Neal: But you've got to tell us the truth. It can't just, I'm not saying what you haven't done is the truth, but you've to, that's the part. Exactly. Don't just call out. Tell us the real truth. All right, well, thank you so much. Collaborative spirit, you are at the center of every meeting and ready to, I love. Yeah, I'll look into it. That's usually your answer. I'll look into it, which means that you're going to run and own it and figure that out. So we appreciate that very much. Data-driven impact, you are doing that in everything you're also doing because everything is to get that data. So the modules, the tasks, the way that you created the task board, the way you created the digital employee files, all of that is to have that kind of data-driven. now with the analytics for the website, that's perfect. Sustainable growth. This is both also, again, because I think what Quan said earlier in the, during our KPIs, it was now that you own it, now own it and grow it. Okay, so you're, this. Part of your position, the business process analyst part, that is where we can, we would love to see you just take it and run with it. So having that kind of time in your day when you're like, you know what, I just learned this, like what Quan showed you earlier about all of us, learning something and seeing how you can apply it to whomever. Or not to where you're going to wait for a meeting and discuss it, more like being proactive about it, okay? And coming maybe to Quan with, hey, you know what, I just learned this, I think I can apply it here, here, and here. What do you think? Do you see the difference, Klansys?
Quan Gan: Yeah, I would love us to reverse roles. So you're feeding me more things that you've found, right? It's like, hey, this sounds interesting. And then I would probably get even more excited by that.
Kristin Neal: Yes. Yes. Awesome. Any questions, Klansys, on these seven core values and where you shine and where we can get a little more?
Klansys Palacio: It's all good. I really do agree with all the feedback, especially the sustainable growth. So I remember we had a meeting, like one of the weaknesses for the seven core values that we have is the sustainable growth. But I'm trying. I really try my best to believe because I do see all the things that is really growing and that really motivates you. So because sometimes I do have this phase where I can just have my comfort zone. Like I still have this doubt, but I will go from there. So I'm trying to really get out from that feeling that I'm having. So yeah, little by little.
Charlie Xu: Charlie, ahead. Yeah, Klansys, I remember there's a one Friday, Fun Friday meeting. I was leading the team, and we're doing the cards, and you're showing the transforming of you during the time you're working with ZTAG. So I see this platform is really a great platform for everyone to grow and find their strengths. It's a process. It's a constantly growing opportunity. And I definitely see the confidence building up in you, little by little, and also you are a fast learner. So there's huge potentials we're looking forward to seeing.
Quan Gan: I want to add one point here, and this... And this is maybe kind of coupled between the sustainable growth and radical transparency, just from my perspective. So if I'm not aware of what your current workload or your stress level or how overwhelmed you are, then I wouldn't really be able to track, in my mind, are you pushing forward or are you working on a whole bunch of other things? So for example, like, I didn't really know much detail about the employee tracker until just recently. I mean, that's amazing work. You know, I'm sure that took a long time, those tasks. So I need to be made aware of what's currently on your plate to make a fair assessment of, you know, where you are. And so that's really that transparency, both on your workload, you know, just telling me what you're working on on a weekly basis would really help me. Understand, you know, where you are and how much to send over to you because if you're overwhelmed on something, the last thing I want to do is, like, dump something else on your plate. And also, like, myself, I want to be aware that, you know, we're not in growth mode all the time. Like, people do need to take breaks. You know, even for us, we go to trade shows after we come back from travel. We need a few days off. Kris needs to take, you know, a week off next week. Like, those are cyclical pacing, right? It's just like the seasons. We're not going to be growing every single day, right? So, yeah, just having that transparency would actually really benefit both of those metrics.
Charlie Xu: Like, thinking of maybe it's possible to have, because since right now we're thinking having all our departments, maybe have a one-on-one meetings once a week. So, Like, go through all the tasks everyone is on, then you will have a clear idea of what everyone, like, they're working on right now. Would that help? I think so.
Quan Gan: I think this new structure that we have in leadership, it's almost like a one-to-one relationship. I think, Klansys, you and I, we're pretty much linked one-to-one. So I would like to further establish that relationship. So maybe on a weekly basis, we can just check in to see where you're at with things, what's on your plate. This is different from before, where it's like Chris is overseeing four people, but some of those topics may not be directly relevant to her. But I think in terms of technology and business process, I certainly want to be plugged into that. So, yeah, we should have our, even if it's just like a quick 15-minute check-in per week, I think. That would really help.
Kristin Neal: I think we make the most stride. When that happens, when you and Klansys join forces, that's like, it feels like the ship goes huge, huge forward.
Quan Gan: Yeah, like yesterday, I mean, we uncovered a lot of stuff, and I see she's making good pace on that.
Kristin Neal: Klansys, do you want to respond?
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, it is really a good idea, because, you know, discussing it with people that don't have any idea of what I'm doing is really something. So it's like adding a task on their mind, like, oh, what she's talking about? She's like, oh, no, what I'm going to do with this, because I'm talking to the person who don't have knowledge with this thing. So it was really good, because yesterday, we had really a productive meeting, and I really say that, like, having a brainstorming. So it was really good, like meeting the one that really understands about your role is something that would really help me to strategize and everything or solve things. It might be like, I have an idea that you can actually make it more easy, or you have an idea that I can make it more easier. So it's like throwing ideas to one another, which is really a love. So it is really great, because if you're just talking, if I'm going to talk to Paola, Paola, do you know about this? No, Paola will just go and say, no, I'm on graphics. So it is something that I do really want to brought up as well. So it is something that the feedback I really want to tell you when you're going to ask me about talking to a person who spoke the same language. So you. you. you. Thank It is really something. Because one time I asked Tin about the automation, and she was like, what was that? Okay, I was just going to figure this out. And Tin was just going to throw me a lot of processes, and I was going to do it. So it was really created the idea that having that one-on-one, like what we had before, Quan. So we had a one-on-one before. So it's really good to bring this back.
Quan Gan: And I'll share this with not only you, but everyone on the team, is that by default, I keep myself busy, but don't feel like you're interrupting or disrupting anything, because things do need attention. So I encourage you guys, each one of you, to proactively ping me for things that you need. And I will tell you my availability, because sometimes I am traveling, but I never see it as a bother, because I need to know these things. Right? So rather than... Me asking you, hey, when can we schedule a meeting for this? Pressure me. Like, give me a little bit of pressure because some of these things do need my attention.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, I'm actively giving you permission to give me pressure without feeling that you're bothering me, okay?
Klansys Palacio: Yeah. This is great.
Charlie Xu: Great.
Kristin Neal: All right, guys. Thank you so much. Anyone else? If not, we will move on to number four. All right, All-Star Tag System spot. This now, Klansys, is your spot bonus. So you get these at your six- and one-year review. The All-Star Tag System is based on the EOS principle of rewarding alignment with core values. Team members earn All-Star Tags added to their individual tasks when their work demonstrates AZ Tag core value. So, Steve, this is part of their review process. And you've probably seen them. And seen him. Team. Here, Klansys, is your digital file, and these all-star tags, this is what they represent, okay? So I'm going to just highlight a few. If you've noticed, you've received one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten tags this quarter. So very good job, Klansys. Very, very proud of you. I wanted to show Quan and Charlie one, this one in particular, especially with Steve here. This was your task on creating the ZTAG event module. This was a huge task, and I'm just going to read what I wrote because, thank you. Congratulations, Klansys. Your collaborative spirit working with Steve to create this new module is truly appreciated as we provide our newest playmakers with sustainable growth. So because of this right here, this is what. She has created, we are able to now have everything in one spot for each event. She has automated the checklist of things that need to get the open activities. She's automated, so we are on top of things that need to be done for each trade show. We also have tags. She's poured a lot of work into this, so congratulations, Klansys. Thank you so much for your hard work on that. That's huge. That's awesome.
Quan Gan: Thank you.
Kristin Neal: Steve, do you have anything to add? This is your baby. This has been, this is, as is, I like this more than that other one that we were going through. Remember, we were, there was something else that we were going to try to go through.
Steven Hanna: looking at Airtable, and then I looked at one of your videos, and I was like, yeah, that's it. We don't need that. The CRM is, CRM is the way to go, even though it was investigating for other purposes.
Kristin Neal: I didn't even know, though, that it could be. I Like that, that blew my mind that, and your collaboration together.
Steven Hanna: Klansys can make it a module.
Kristin Neal: I hear you.
Klansys Palacio: You know, that event actually was, I wasn't able to really communicate with you, not until Kris brought it up. So it's something that, oh no, I really fall to radical transparency because I didn't talk about the ZTAG event. So I really, maybe because I was too shy, but that before I made this, and it was one of the ideas of Kwan's Wall. So we are working together with that, and I was just, made it, and turned it into module. Then I forget about it. So I really love Kris brought it up, so, and continued working on it because they were actually here. So, yeah. So,
Kristin Neal: Yeah, that's been a huge help. Klansys is huge. I don't need my board anymore, my whiteboard.
Quan Gan: I mean, your task module, I think that's the highest value because just by having that, you're supporting the entire team and we're able to track what's happening.
Kristin Neal: Yes, and it comes up automatically. So now we don't have to sit there and think, oh, no, am I missing anything? Huge, huge, huge. All right. And I'll bring up this one. This one was probably the biggest one for me. Update the task module. Because of Klansys and probably like two or three weeks of going back and forth and working out the task board, you have implemented this beautifully. So I'll start tag. We can't thank you enough, Klansys, for your incredible display of helping us reach sustainable growth through editing the task module and working alongside me with collaborative spirit for all your incredible patience. Congratulations, girl, you've earned it. So this whole task module you've created to where in the, and even this mode, the Kan Gan, right? Kan Gan? Hanban?
Quan Gan: Sorry, yeah, that one.
Kristin Neal: Hanban. It's like Kan Gan.
Quan Gan: Oh, thank you.
Kristin Neal: There we go. Thank you. There we go. Even in this view, you're able to, you did this. So thank you so much, Klansys. This has changed everything for all of us, the entire team. All right. Those are your 10, Klansys. Did you have anything on that? Here's all your y'all's or tags. Was there anything else that you wanted to say on that?
Klansys Palacio: No, think I'm just, I really appreciate everything. So they all started. Got some good information Thanks. you. All-Star Tags, or even the All-Star Tags, all the things that I'm doing, I really learned how to love all of them, even though I was just thinking about, oh, am I able to do it? So yes, yes, I'm always on the positive side. So I am actually looking how Quan really have a positive or optimistic towards technologies.
Kristin Neal: automation.
Klansys Palacio: So it was really like, if Quan was able to research about it, then why I can't. So it's something that really helped me. And of course, the theme as well, I really see the theme, Embracing Technologies, which is like giving me more or motivates me more to learn more new things so that I can be able to share it with you, where I will be able to teach you, especially when we have At the ZAP years, I was able to teach Karmie, was able to teach Tin, and they are now doing their own ZAP year email. So yeah, Tin was able to do it because I was teaching her, and Karmie was able to hey Karmie, you can just put it here if they actually encounter some difficulties, because we have actions that are more technical, but all in all they're doing great when it comes to technologies. That's why I really want to strive more and learn more about technologies, because this is where I can help all the team. This is where I can really answer your questions when it comes to technologies. So this is something that I really wanted to share when it comes to questions. So sometimes when you ask me questions, so I was just, oh no, what's that? I will go to AI and ask AI. So it's like something adding, adding an information. much. 2007. Thank To my mind, which is, this is new to me. I need to go to AI. So AI is really my best friend right now. So AI is everything for me already because it is something that I really love about it. It's not just answering questions, but helping me with the issues. So, and one thing I really learned here about here in ZTAGG is, you know, talking to support. I'm really afraid to talk to support because I really don't know what to ask. But during those times that I am, okay, you can do this. You can talk to them. I was, I am the one who's going to schedule one-on-one session to all of them. So it is something that I learned to because I cannot find answers on their documentations. I cannot find answers on the Google, even AI, then I will go to support. So that's how the process that I am doing right now, because they don't, sometimes they don't disclose. Some information when it comes to their functionalities, and they confirmed about it as well, so you need to message them or do a one-on-one session. And it was really good because they are really supportive and they are teaching me, you're wrong in this part, you need to recreate this. So it's really good, like meeting some people who knows about things that really help me to solve everything. It's really a big help for me and huge and a big impact when it comes to learning because I do write notes when it comes, when I do learn new things. So that if I will be able to do it and encounter the same problem again, then I can do it without asking anyone else. Just having my notes will be the thing. And of course, it is really something that really helped me to, like being more resourceful. That's just only... Like, stick to one answer, but find another option, because sometimes I do feel like those are roadblocks when I try to wait for supports, because I know they are receiving a bunch of tickets, so looking for another answer is something that really I learned, like options, do not stick on options. There's one time that we had a meeting with Quan, and Quan is really talking about searching for answers, do not just make this one solution as a roadblocks, because you cannot do it, because you are lacking of tools, you're lacking of this, like this, so you need to go beyond. it's like, think outside of the box, so that's something that really, I got it. So it was, it was really great, and I really appreciate that you, all of you appreciate all the things that we are doing, but I really love. What I'm doing right now, though it's really, sometimes it's really like, it's really like pressured and over again because technology is really evolving. So I need to, I need to, it's not that I need, I really want to like learn because it's not like I want to learn because I need to do it here in ZTAG because it is something that really helped me too. So, yeah, I really appreciate all of you guys. Thank you. Thank you for the appreciation. We appreciate your growth mindset.
Steven Hanna: That's very, very, very lovely to hear.
Quan Gan: Klansys, I also want to add one more piece of encouragement. You know, realize that you're spending all day working on a particular topic. Like, I'm much more of a generalist because I have to work on so many other things. So, so just knowing. That the amount of time you could spend focusing on one thing compared to me, soon, you're supposed to exceed me in terms of knowledge and capability. So right now, the tone might be, you know, I'm giving you ideas. But really, I think just the amount of time and concentration focus you're putting onto a particular topic, you will become that expert. You know, and I would be coming to you to get advice, you know, because, again, my attention is spread through a lot of things. I'm spending most of my time in code for the game itself. So at that point, I am the subject matter expert. But as far as operations and procedures and all that, you know, you're definitely on track to becoming that expert. And I come to you for that advice.
Kristin Neal: That's awesome. All right. Thank you so much, Kwan. All right, Clancy. So you have 10 tags for this six. Semi-annual, and for your next one year, this will also have your growth bonus possible, and also your update, your tier update. So that'll affect your pay. That'll come at the one year. Okay? These guys. The tier. Okay? So far, you've got your 10-tag bonus. And skills to develop or deepen, I think you discussed that right now beautifully, how you'll be looking into the automations and AI. I know you said that you've been talking with support. Is there anything else that you want to add to that skill that you'd like to develop or deepen moving forward these next six months? And any support that you can provide?
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, think for the skills area, I really want to To dive more deeper on the Looge code. So that's one of the things that I'm... I know the basics. I'm trying to learn. If I have time, I'm watching some of the videos that will help me. Because back then, I was just asking AI. And I was able to write it to very basic and will run it. So it is a progress for me. And I really want to dive deeper with that. So I was able... Just real quick.
Quan Gan: For those who don't know Looge code, it's the Zoho-specific coding language for CRM, for Creator, all the automation. It's Zoho-specific code. Yeah. So it's very relevant.
Kristin Neal: Can I put Zoho code then? Zoho code. Okay. Thank you, Klans. That's great. That's great that you want to learn more about that. Anything else that you would like to deepen as far as... What's your skill?
Klansys Palacio: I think more on analytics. I have this average skills on analytics already, but I saw some of the things when it comes to errors on analytics. I cannot really resolve that easily. So I had, before, I had a, what do you call this, I had a course with the analytics, but I wasn't able to finish it. So it was during, I think, last year, I wasn't able to really finish it, but it was really good. So the thing that I only finished was the SEO, I think. So that one was an additional skills that I've learned. So it was really good, and I applied it to our website. But those are the things that I'm really eager to learn, especially the Zoho code. Because that's something that really helped us when it comes to our process here, since we are using the Zoho as our main system. So it would be really great. So I was just checking their seminar sometimes because it's popping on the CRM. So it said that if you're going, just register. So sometimes it's behind my R's. So I'm really trying. That's why I'm just watching their videos. So if I wasn't able to really attend, so I do watch their videos for that.
Kristin Neal: Register anyways for those Klansys, because they'll send you a recording of the meeting. Yeah, that's how I get it.
Klansys Palacio: You did.
Kristin Neal: Okay, good. Good, good, good. Yeah. Okay. And analytics, I think that's a great one for data-driven impact. Anything else that you think you can develop that would be a help to your position?
Klansys Palacio: I think for the skills, let's say self-skills, I think communication.
Kristin Neal: Yes, transparent communication. I love it.
Klansys Palacio: Thank you.
Kristin Neal: That's good or bad. Good. Thank you, Clasys. I love that. We're going to go ahead and keep plugging along so we can get to Carmine's review in five minutes. Role expansion, I think we're in agreement of just developing this role that you're in. We don't see any expansion, at least currently. Right, guys? Yeah. Resources or support needed. I think you can reach right out to Quan for that. Don't come to me because I'll be like, oh, boy.
Quan Gan: Again, I actively encourage you to reach out to me.
Klansys Palacio: Yeah. That would be great.
Kristin Neal: And then this will all get... Get edited, okay? So we're going to have focus areas align with your skills that you would like to develop, the KPIs that will also get this edited and up-to-date. Is there anything else anyone has before we close out this review?
Quan Gan: Great job overall. Thank you. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Great six-month, Klansys. Thank you. Just want to say thank you for always being on top of any tech requests. Thank you very much.
Klansys Palacio: Thank you. Thank you so much, guys. Thank you for all your support, too. So without you, I am not here, guys. So thank you. Of course, especially to Quan for pushing me. It was challenging, but yeah. I'm up to those challenges that you're going to throw to me.
Kristin Neal: So thank you all
Klansys Palacio: He'll stretch you, but you're willing.
Kristin Neal: That's what's so great. That's all you need. The mindset that you have is all you need. Quan will do the stretching, I'm sure. Eventually, you'll be stretching me.
Quan Gan: Okay, so.
Klansys Palacio: Thank you so much, guys. Thank you so much for your time, Klansys, everybody. Have a great day. Thank you, Klan.
Kris Neal: How's your morning going, Steve?
Steven Hanna: Stressful, but okay. Stressful. Puppy and grandmother things, but... Thanks. You?
Kris Neal: Okay. Okay. Yeah. Plugging along. Plugging along.
Steven Hanna: Good. Glad to hear.
Kris Neal: Want to have breakfast burrito?
Steven Hanna: Oh, nice. I am going to have to grab coffee in like five minutes. I just started brewing, so I will leave for 30 seconds to grab that. Gosh, wouldn't give anything for a cup right now.
Kris Neal: That sounds so good.
Steven Hanna: So I have my ratings for coffee of, do you need to... Stay up for an hour to finish something? Do you need to stay up for three hours to do something? Or do you need to stay up for the day? And it depends on which coffee I'll use. So like I have three different types of Colombian coffees. So my Café Bustelo is where I'm at three.
Kris Neal: I got to stay up for the day.
Steven Hanna: My two is my Costco blend and my number one is like a French, like it's a French-Colombian hybrid.
Kris Neal: I'm a coffee snob. I'm coming to find out more guys are coffee snobs than not, to be completely honest. Shockingly. Shockingly.
Steven Hanna: I think if it's not wine or beer for dudes, it's like that. I don't know. Like if I'm going to be a connoisseur of something, I'd rather it be something that's not going to destroy lives.
Kris Neal: Your liver, sugar, red. Big connoisseur of snow.
Steven Hanna: Those two different meats. Thanks for that one.
Kris Neal: Funny. Oh, my goodness.
Steven Hanna: It'd be a, you know, a liaison for skiable snow.
Kris Neal: Oh, skiable snow. Oh, man. We have the Fall Festival. It's the number one Fall Festival in the whole country right now. It's down the street from our house. It's so crazy.
Steven Hanna: How big is it?
Kris Neal: Probably a mile down, at least. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Wow. Yeah.
Kris Neal: Those Midwest festivals, they are large. Mind-blowing. I had no idea. was like, wow.
Steven Hanna: Oh. Amazing. See if can get ZTAGG there for zombie tag for the trunk retreats.
Kris Neal: I can't even imagine.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. They're fun.
Kris Neal: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Trying to get involved with my local town to, actually. Yeah. One block down from me, they shut down this one-mile street. It's not a one-mile street. I call it the one-mile street, but they shut down a very sizably long street, and they do like a street trick-or-treating where like the parents put out a table and decorate in front of their house for the kids to come up to, and like you can walk in the street with your family. So it's like a block party slash trick-or-treat party down the whole street. I've been trying to get involved with them for like four years, but the nepotism involved with town-like contracts and just town work is, man, it's like trying to breach a military compound.
Kris Neal: Like, it's just so many things happen. That's crazy. So you didn't penetrate this year, I take it?
Steven Hanna: No, no. I'm at the gates.
Kris Neal: Again, just wondering. Waiting.
Steven Hanna: I've been at these gates before. I'm just...
Kris Neal: Kwan. I've been at the gates before. Just waiting for someone to be like, hey, you were out here the whole time? Carmee. What's up, Carmee?
Carmee Sarvida: Good morning, everyone.
Kris Neal: Good morning. How are you?
Carmee Sarvida: Good. Feeling better.
Kris Neal: Good. Good. Glad to hear it. Glad to hear it. We'll give Carmee, I'm sorry, we'll give Charlie a few more moments to join us.
Quan Gan: You've combined their names before. I can see how close they are. Charmee, you've said Charmee before. I like the duality of that, right? Charmee, that's a good name.
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, actually, some people will get confused with my name and call me Charmee, so I was not surprised.
Kris Neal: It's like when I have to write an email to Chris and then Tim at the same time, I'm like, I'm just typing one.
Steven Hanna: Name, and both of them are popping up in sequence now. This is great. Perfect, Kris, it's in. Yeah, it's the sequence. It's the person who I'm sending the email to, then it's you, Kris, and then by default, since TIN is part of your name, she's automatically added. I'm like, this is great. Talk about optimized.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it'd be interesting to see all the different, they call it the Pormonteux implementations of all our names. Like, all the different combinations, and then just turn that into actual noun.
Kris Neal: Thank you so much, Charlie.
Quan Gan: Quantsis. Quantsis.
Steven Hanna: Quantsis, it's just Francis, but with a Q and a U. Quantsis, I love it.
Kris Neal: Quantsis. All right, thank you so much for joining us, Charlie. Carmee, of course, thank you so much for being here. You had your six-month review, so you know exactly what this is. All It's going to entail very casual conversation. Steve now is joining us. We're excited to have his input as far as what he has seen since he's been here in your growth. So this is just, again, a casual conversation. I'm excited to just jump in. Did you have any questions before we started?
Carmee Sarvida: No.
Kris Neal: Okay. Awesome, Carmee. All right. Here we go. And you'll get a copy of this after, okay? It'll probably just be sent directly, though, to you. I won't add it to your digital file yet. I don't think at all. This will just go directly to you. Okay. So, again, you started with us back 9-12-20-24. Actually, sorry about that. 2024, that's when you started with us. Your position title is sales coordinator. I kind of morphed over this past year with, I believe. I believe. You're I'm When you first started, you were an EO, right? Executive Assistant, EA to STAN?
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, yeah.
Kris Neal: And then morphed into Sales Coordinator. I don't think it changed beyond that, did it?
Carmee Sarvida: No. Cool.
Kris Neal: All right. And this will be edited after, and we'll go over your level status, your tier recommendation, and the proposed adjustment, okay? And that'll go to Quan and Charlie for approval. Right now, Carmee, I would love to hear your key responsibilities that you have seen take part in the Sales Coordinator. Just for clarification, was a job description ever given to you at the beginning of taking on this role?
Carmee Sarvida: No, I don't believe so. I I It just referred to the GitHub that we have, like the SOP. That's the first, yeah, document that I have seen my responsibilities in the sales team.
Kris Neal: Okay. I think that's okay. I'm glad that it was displayed in that. I'll talk with Quan to see if something a little bit more concrete needs to be done. Do you think that needs to be done, Carmee, or are you okay going forward with just that GitHub?
Carmee Sarvida: I have actually, like, asked ChatGPT to list all my responsibilities, referencing to the GitHub and the sales AR document that we have, because as far as I know, all of my responsibilities are both in those two documents.
Kris Neal: Okay. And you're okay with just referencing that?
Carmee Sarvida: I think for now, but if we can have a refined list of responsibilities that I have on the sales team, that would be very helpful for me.
Kris Neal: Okay.
Carmee Sarvida: But not right now. Sounds good, Carmee.
Kris Neal: Thank you so much. Yeah. I totally support that. So that's great. So in these last six months since taking on the sales coordinator position, what have your key responsibilities in execution been? Are you able to kind of bullet point those core role steps, things that you're doing? Examples of tool use, initiative, leadership?
Carmee Sarvida: I have this. I prepare, like, some growth that I've... Like I've seen during the past seven months that I'm on the sales team. Yeah, just like the general of everything that I have done here. First would be I think I've grown in the sales team where I am now able to take ownership of like from lead. Conversion to code generation and then to like invoice with processing or sending. And second would be I am now more confident in like exchanging, you know, emails with prospect or with the leads without, you know. Without your guidance, like, fully, like, I, like, remember way back during my first month, I have to, like, send you a lot of messages, questions, but right now, I still, though, I still send you questions when it's time to, like, escalate, when it's, like, it's a unique or it's a new, like, scenario to me. So, but, yeah, I think most of the time I can handle the queries, but I also, sometimes I also have to, like, ask Charlie or even Quan on what, you know, the suggestions on how to reply to this lead or to this prospect. And second would be, in the CRM, I've noticed that we... Had to improve how we categorize our leads, the taggings, and on leads in the deals. So I never thought that I would have that initiative, the right term, like initiative to have those leads categorized for me to be able to easily track. And follow up, you know, follow, ascend, follow up to them. And, but, I think collaboration, especially with the invoicing, then I have to, I have to ask them to verify the invoice before me sending it out. And, of course, I'm note of the, like reminders, Charlie's reminders before. I sent out the invoice, like making sure the tax is correct, which we've been doing the past couple of months, I think. And there's still some improvements, but I think as a team, we've been, like we have some improvements on that process. And I think last would be, I think compared to the first review that we have, I am now more, of course, experienced and more knowledgeable. where I can, like, um, give ideas on how to improve our SOPs, like, um, when I say... I think we need to update this, need to do this instead, and it kind of like seemed natural to me that I sometimes get shocked that, oh, I've improved, like, I think I've improved a lot since then because I'm now able to, like, argue with Chuck GPT, of course, that I don't think this is the right information. It's not, it's not the right thing that I should be sending to, to this person, so, like, I have to revise my prompt to get the information, the correct information that I needed, so, yeah, that's what I've been noticing so far for my girl.
Kris Neal: Huge, Carmi, thank you so much for editing, have, let's see, for hallucination. Hallucination. Oh, yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah, that's what I want.
Kris Neal: For hallucinations. Okay.
Charlie Xu: I love it.
Kris Neal: I love that you even brought that up. That's great. Does anyone else see anything that she might have missed in these past six months that you've seen her take the responsibility and execution of?
Quan Gan: I mean, I see a lot of proactive touch points on the emails, right? So you obviously have some kind of system because like when I wake up and I look at the copied emails, there's like a whole bunch. So yeah, the fact that you've processed that, that's an encouraging sign. And, you know, it also shows us like how we can help you automate part of that process.
Kris Neal: That's huge. I think you summed it up really well, Carmee. I'm glad you took that time and really thought through those things because I couldn't have agreed more. You taking ownership, especially these last three months, you have fully owned the sales, fully owned it. The quote process, the deal process, and we'll go into that a little bit later, end of that. But if there's nothing else, I'll go ahead and move on. Everything up here is, of course, down here, and this will be edited. KPI process. So we're going to look into the team scorecard. Here we have your, and again, I was very clear about having you guys own your numbers this first quarter. So at the end of this September, I said they'll be edited. We'll kind of see where we were at with those numbers if they still are a help to the team. Amen. If we'll just kind of talk through that. So how we are kind of moving forward, Carmee, is more of like a one-to-one. So instead of me doing the meeting every day, it'll just be you and I working together, Steve and Tin, Quan and Clances and Charlie and Paula, of course, and more of like when it's needed kind of thing. So we can go into this a little bit more. We do have analytics, Charlie, that I'll be now reporting for the L-10s. That'll be separate. But Carmee and I will work on the KPIs that we'll be moving into this next quarter. Weekly Nurture. Charlie, what did you think about these numbers? Actually, Carmee, you tell us. These numbers, did you feel like they gave a lot of input? Did you feel like there might have been something missing?
Carmee Sarvida: The numbers? These are.
Kris Neal: Do we nurture reach-outs?
Carmee Sarvida: For the nurture reach-outs, I don't have any issue with it. I think it's doable every week, 15 to 20, because we have a lot of nurture leads from past years. And you still have, I still have a lot to reach out to.
Kris Neal: So maybe, let's, because I know Charlie wants more data, like, in, like, actual hard data. So I'm thinking of those weekly nurture reach-outs. I agree. Those are important because we're finding out if we're able to connect the older leads with a new unit. So if we can do this weekly nurture reach-outs, plus the approval of those, the amount that they're actually responding, and if there's a sale that comes from a previous lead. Like from these leads in particular, these nurture leads. Charlie, would that be something that might be a little more substantial?
Charlie Xu: I think it would be good. Somehow maybe we can extract that data from CRM. We'll probably just need to have a structure. For example, like each week, how many new leads we had, right? And also how many people are responding. So I feel like we have to have some kind of like the data and percentage we can, each week and we can, we can get that data. So we can accumulate, we can do the analyze if this are really work, like marketing. Because I do, I feel like we do have some leads, a lot of leads come in, but like how much are really turned into the next step? So I feel like having these data, helping us to collect more data to see how this flow of this funnel going. Otherwise, it's just like, oh, we see a lot of back-and-forth emails, but like, hey, how long does that, and what's the percentage does all these leads turn into an active customer? So these are the things we want to eventually have a way to capture instead of like, hey, or like we have a lot of email activities, but what's the result of that? So I think maybe having a report of that will really helping us to see more clearly of how this process is. And also, because I think like, Carmee, you do have a lot of new leads come in, but also we have a lot of old leads there. So I was wondering, is there any automation or like some way to capture? Carmee? Which one Like for me understanding, you will have every day to deal with new and old. Like how you capture which is the today I'm going to follow up, which is the next to follow up. Is there a system for you to managing? Yeah.
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, I'm still following our two-day check-in. Like after the lead is, after the lead comes in. After two days, I scheduled, I scheduled them to be followed up. And after two days, it's like one week and then the one month check-in.
Charlie Xu: Okay, but these are still at the lead level.
Kris Neal: Yes.
Carmee Sarvida: The lead is set.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Okay. Then I think also we're being before. You've been giving me the OssieCon leads, like any old leads from the trade show, are we still following up or these leads are kind of like sinked down?
Kris Neal: The OssieCon one, we're specifically waiting, Carmee, that was my mistake. We haven't been officially approved for the tips thing, but as soon as we're approved by that, Charlie, that was when we were going to do a whole reach out to the OssieCon to let them know that we were approved. So by the end of this month, we'll be, we'll have approval and we can do that.
Charlie Xu: Okay. And do we have any system for like all the old trade show leads? Are we like maybe sending a broad email to, is it something we have been doing now? We've tried to do the campaigns.
Kris Neal: We haven't gotten that off. I mean, we're hoping at the beginning of the year that we can start getting those nurturing campaigns. But that's where Carmee is going back. And. Reaching out to those old leads from the old trade shows.
Charlie Xu: That's where she is. I see. Yeah, because I remember Eric has been once mentioned that why he is picking some of the vendors, because normally when he wants something, the vendor just pop up in the email. So sometimes it's like a kind of like warm up the relationship, even they're really old and just giving our hands to them. And sometimes it will help them. Oh, there's ZTAG because they're busy. They're not constantly remember us. So maybe that's something we can consider, but it's low priority. But I feel like it could be if we build up some automations, we just like, hey, like a newsletter, monthly newsletter or something could be in the future. But I agree with the newsletter, Charlie, because right now I'm like.
Carmee Sarvida: back. Bye. Thank Manually following them up, like opening their names and then sending out the emails. And most, like a lot of times, the email will just bounce back because I think the email is not updated anymore. And that's also one of my questions. What do we do with those leads? Like if their email is not, you know, reachable anymore.
Quan Gan: Yeah, just cut it. Okay.
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. Yeah. Because I understand, Carmee, you've been dealing with so many emails. So in the process, if you feel like you need a support from the team, like automations and just brought it up. And yeah. And also, if you see there's a way to bring the efficiency, definitely bring alert to us. Like, hey, we can do this that way. Because I don't want you being buried in emails to try to just catch. There is definitely a way to bring the efficiency in the whole process, and I really feel like I want you to stay at the very key point of figuring out, oh, how we improve, but instead of just, you know, like if we have AI can support, yeah.
Kris Neal: That leads us right into our next section, Charlie, so that's perfect. The order accuracy rate on your KPI, we'll just tweak that a little bit, Carmee. So far, you're hitting that, so that doesn't seem like a necessity to track anymore. Okay. But you and I will work on that individually, and then we'll update the KPIs.
Carmee Sarvida: Okay.
Kris Neal: All right. So, so far, you've hit those for the month that you had them. You did hit them. So, this is our core value reflection. Of course, everything that we're trying to do is... Is centered around these core values. This is 100%, Carmee, you are hitting these core values, okay? But we want to kind of take a look at each of them and see how you excel or if there's any improvement that's needed, et cetera, et cetera. But I just want to make sure you understand you already have these core values, okay? Number one, human connections first. Number two, inclusive empowerment. Number three, authentic innovation. Four, radical transparency. Five, collaborative spirit. Six, data-driven impact. And seven, sustainable growth. So now we're going to go a little bit one by one and see exactly where you're excelling in that. So human connections first. Human connection first. I gave you a plus on this, Carmee, because you are all about connecting with me actually first to make sure things are okay on my end. You're constantly checking in on my dad, which I really appreciate. Thank Appreciate offering prayers. So that is huge in my eyes, more so than just as an employee, but as a human. So thank you so much. Does anyone have anything else to add for that one? Cool. Inclusive Empowerment. This one I love because you absolutely exemplify this, but I've seen it also across the board with the team. You're more than willing to jump in and provide help, and that really brings the team together. Authentic Innovation. You have come so, so often. I love it because you're like, Kris, I'm going to work with Clancy's because we can get this automated. I can get this email automated. You've come to me several times saying that, and it's so awesome that you think outside that box and really, really use the tools. That Quan and Charlie are implementing in this team. Very cool. Radical Transparency. I love how you have called me out on things that I didn't realize. To be honest, you're very okay with bringing to attention somewhere that I have lacked, which I really appreciate because then it makes me, I've told you before, that you make me actually make sure that my T's are crossed and my I's are dotted. Before I come to you. then there's been a time where I was like, oh, I was wrong. And then I'm like, okay, let me, let me fix what I did wrong. So I really appreciate that, that radical transparency. Collaborative spirit. You're 100% in, in the team meetings, trying, especially the taxes. The taxes have been a major collaborative spirit with your insistence of getting it right. Like, that's, I feel like that's your, your main focus. It's just making sure that you get it right 100% and you understand clearly the steps for that. Data-driven impact, you've actually mentioned it a few times on a few things that weren't correctly data-driven. You've questioned, is this really data-driven? And I really appreciate that, of course, that radical transparency when you're questioning that. The data-driven, it was, I think in particular, our school, which is something that we could actually talk about maybe a little bit more clearly, but our standard alignment, one for school, you've questioned the data on that, which I appreciated. Yeah, you're right. We should have data connected to that.
Charlie Xu: Can we expand this part a little bit? Like, what is the part that currently are saying the question?
Kris Neal: She was questioning what we were sending out to our partners, and I believe it, Carmee, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it was the standard alignment and goal, goal alignment, page that we were sending out to partners, or that we are sending out to partners. There's no numbers attached to it.
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, I think it was those, it was that time, Charlie, when, I think we've also talked about this, the, like, we have the ZTAG in Numbers, right? And, um, I think it was about, um, more on the data that I can add to my email, um, like, proving that we have this data, um, like, reliable data, don't just, you know, send, um, great numbers, we, we have this, um, analyzed, we, we have proof that. This is our impact to the schools.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, yeah, for sure. These are some directions we're tapping into. We're going to try to work with organization or school entities to have collaboration on collecting these data. It's right now, we're just like roughly some data we can use for marketing, but yeah, it is. Yeah, want to add to this point too.
Quan Gan: This is a constantly growing thing. Early on, the data that we do track are actual gameplay data that's on the system, but not all that data is relayed back to us because most systems are actually offline. So we can only make a fair, conservative estimate based on the number of units deployed, and then looking at the ones that, what percentage does give us feedback, and then make a very conservative. That's estimate of, you know, what the overall system is. But where Steve is actually coming in is he's getting directly access to the people who are running the games. So that data will become more and more concrete and hopefully much higher than even some of our conservative numbers. And beyond that is what I'm working on right now with Chris is, you know, we're rewriting the SOPs and even how you reach out to people. Remember how I was talking about the, like the per child per month cost, right? So those are things that I'm doing research on to even figure out what competitors are so that when we showed them, you know, it's presented in the correct, yeah, the best way possible.
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah.
Kris Neal: Anyone else have anything to add? What did hear Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Yes. Just that data that Quan was just talking about, and I know this is going to relate to you, Carmee, because the first initial interaction from sales is basically you and Kris, you know, maybe there's something that we can coordinate on where we can just establish a more open communication from the start, from the sale. I don't know if it's something that's required, but it's just something that would help us on the end side of it from training to have a really strong relationship from the start where they're willing to give us that data, because this is all, you know, voluntary data collection. We aren't just getting this data off the system. We have to ask them to provide it.
Charlie Xu: Is that the data that they have to ship back the whole card?
Steven Hanna: Is the way we can capture all the data? No. The main way that we're capturing data at the moment is asking for a setting. Screen cap, or if they can send us a picture on the system, because then I can upload that into their account, and subsequently the Playmaker profile, where we can have a unit associated with that school or person, and it automatically has the data from the last entry point that I got.
Kris Neal: This feels like it's just going to grow, to be honest, but you already have that mindset.
Steven Hanna: You're kicking butt with it.
Kris Neal: Yeah, but since you already have that mindset of it, it's, yeah, it'll keep getting better and better.
Steven Hanna: Didn't mean to distract, just wanted to say why we were, you know, circling around to get everything from that.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, I'm just curious, like, because if right now the data collecting is based on a screenshot, so how are collecting or analyzing these data? Is there some way we can gather them together and analyze them?
Steven Hanna: Right. At the moment, No, because we don't have a sample size that's large enough to produce anything in time.
Quan Gan: We do have cloud data. The cloud data is like a single digit percentage of all systems deployed. So that's how we push the numbers of what we show on the website in terms of number of interactions. And I had to make a very conservative guess by multiplying by a certain factor. So the actual data, hopefully, is actually much higher than what we have on our website. But if you're interested in seeing that data, it is there.
Charlie Xu: I can show you in the cloud. Yeah, I think it's a very important data. Maybe you can have a little case study of like, hey, one school, how many kids, you know, during a certain time. So it could be the data. It doesn't need to be like an average, but it could be a case study. It can be using. It on marketing and sales to, you know, get some of these data out.
Kris Neal: And when we partner with Ella, Charlie, for the ICANN sticker program, it might be interesting if we can add that to that.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, that, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Kris Neal: Maybe she can record, maybe on the sheets, she can record each day, just go there and check and write on the numbers or something like that. Okay, okay. Yeah. That would be cool. All right. Anything else for core value reflection? Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah, great job, Carmee.
Kris Neal: And honestly, the last three months, this has really just exploded. You were good, but these last three months, it feels like you took the sales and you owned it. You have owned it. So, thank you so much.
Quan Gan: Could I ask a question, but maybe at the risk? Risk of kind of changing the course, but I wanted to just kind of go back to initially, I remember, Carmee, your motivation was towards a more design-based role, and I don't know where that fits into where things are. Has things changed? I mean, you know, the sales was something we needed you to do, but from a long-term sustainability standpoint, just curious, what's your position on that?
Carmee Sarvida: Oh, I think there was this one time during the Friday chat where me and Charlie was, like, we're paired, and that was before that, we didn't have, like, a one-on-one conversation for a long time. Um, I, like, months ago, I was told that I would be joining the marketing team, which I was... So excited about, but I totally forget about it because I was so immersed with doing all the sales stuff. And I think the creative part of me is I still like integrate or apply it in the sales, especially in the CRM where the categorization, making sure that in a glance, like Kris and I, because we're the ones who are mostly seeing all the dashboards, the leads, the deals, at a glance, it would be like we understand it. So I think that's just what I can think as of now. Kind of like keep on improving how things look like, because that's like one of the basics of the designing part. So I'm kind of like redesigning how our serum looks like for now. But I've also got to be honest, I also like question myself. Since like you've mentioned us, what you guys know, I am on the creative part, but I am still kind of having an identity crisis. But not to that extent, but somehow I'm questioning myself, like where would I be in the next five years? And the only answer that I have is that I still... I want to be in this team for a long time. And I don't know, maybe I'll figure it out along the way. And I know there's so much growth in here. Maybe there will be opportunities in the future where I can help out with the marketing and stuff. But yeah, I'm very open to new opportunities, growth, and very much anticipating what's ahead in this team.
Quan Gan: Can I ask a question, actually, Carmee?
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah. Are you experiencing imposter syndrome or the feeling of? Yeah, yeah, that's, that's, I can say that's one of my, like, not so good characteristics. Like, I do feel that a lot, imposter syndrome, and that will also lead to, like, self-sabotage.-sabotage, but... I'm working on it. I'm on it, Steve. I'm working on my confidence that, oh, no, I can do this. Just take one step at a time. I always remind myself that, yeah, I can do this. That's actually the mindset that helped me grow in the sales team. This role is really unexpected. But, yeah, I think one of my realizations as well is that there's always a first time in everything, and I don't have to limit myself to this one box. Maybe I can be good in some other things, not just on things that I know. So, I think, yeah, that's... That's my biggest growth in the past year, learning new things and just doing a good job and trying your best to deliver the expected output. But not just what you guys expected from me, but also what I expect myself to, what the outputs that I expect myself to do.
Steven Hanna: Thank you very much for sharing. I know that's very challenging to share. And I will speak for everyone when we say we are proud of you and everything that you have accomplished and grown to. So the answer to your question is you will be fully supported in five years wherever you are and you don't know and that's okay. But the answer is you will be fully supported. So thank you for sharing. I know that might be very challenging to share.
Kris Neal: Thank you, Steve.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, I know, Carmee, right now you're being pushed into positions, but the position you're sitting on is so important at this stage of our team needed. So it really is deeply appreciate, the whole team appreciate your efforts and your dedicated work to put on this position. But your intention is always in our mind because we know that you are the creative sides. Like I cannot imagine myself just doing, well, I'm doing accounting parts. So I'm also splitting myself into both sides. But I was like, also in the future, we definitely, I really want to like go deeper on the workload, process, what kind of the work. You can automate it. You just oversize the procedures, and then we can put you into the more creative sites. And also, I do lacking of someone do, you know, like marketing do want the people. I do want someone can add into the team. But as right now, maybe you are the key person helping us to refine, refine the sales process, you know, like have plans supporting you. How? So you are not just when you're doing all the process. I want you to see how we can bring the efficiency, you know, like bring automations, bring this, bring that. How can pull yourself outside of this role right now? Then we can talk about how to do the fun, creative, creative part. But I do feel like it's just running, running. In the ZTAG machines, we don't need to be the screw have like wheels running all the time, but it's like we all put our efforts into the key essential and using the most efficient ways to make it running, right? We just jump out of the traditional way of just sit there for eight hours and doing repeatable things. So I want you to be creative and take the ownership of, hey, how can I pull myself out of this role?
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, I think it's still in process, especially with the automation, the new automation that we are planning, Clancy is working on. Right now, I'm doing like manually, the follow-ups, but yeah, we'll see. I also, I'm also challenging myself to think outside of the box on how... How to, like, automate a lot of things that, yeah, a lot of things that I do so that I will have time with the creative stuff in the future.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I also see some short-term and long-term potentials. So short-term, you've kind of touched on this. I see the beautification of dashboards and things that make it easily readable to us as something that's really needed. So, like, if you treat us as those customers and you're able to come up with something that, at a glance, you know, we, on a weekly basis, can see, okay, this is the state of the company. I think that's something that's quite dynamic. It's helpful for us. And then I also see, potentially, the customer-facing side of things, like, we don't have a newsletter yet. You know, those are things that we're going to be getting information and sending it out. And that would definitely Definitely be through your channel because you're making those direct communications. So that's related. And then just long term, there are so many things that ZTAG has not touched yet. It's like we're still an infant in terms of company maturity and available impact. So there will come a time, you know, as long as you're here and you're working on the technologies and testing new tools, that will definitely really need to leverage your creative skill set.
Kris Neal: That's huge, Quan. Yeah, I love it. I totally agree. Everything what you said, I've seen your design brain come into how you're making everything beautiful. But then I also see your data-driven impact brain where you want to include them both. You want that data, but you also want it beautiful. Beautiful. I think perfect combination, Carmee. Yeah. And absolutely. Yeah. That five-year growth. So true. All right. There's nothing else. We'll keep on moving. Steve, can you do me a huge favor? Can you just message Paula and let her know we're probably going to be about another 20 minutes?
Steven Hanna: Sure.
Kris Neal: We'll meet her at 1.30.
Carmee Sarvida: Thank you so much.
Kris Neal: Well, I wanted to make sure because the six-month reviews and the one-year reviews are different. I'm sure you remember, Carmee. One-year review is when you're available to get the next tier in your pay and also your growth goals. So these next ones. And then we do have, I was able to confirm you had two missing days this past, since we started measuring those. And I'll, again, update your, this to reflect all that. So your tier evaluation now, this is for the KPIs, and those ones you did meet for the last three weeks that we've implemented those. The last six months you had what would have been equivalent to 10 tags based on that very first bonus that we were able to start with you. So you are currently at 20 tags, and you had five plus core values at plus, so awesome job with that. So we will evaluate this tier, whether it's growth or scaling, and then your pay tier will be adjusted to that. Okay. And you did receive 10 tags this quarter. Congratulations, Carmee. Here is an overview of your tags. Thanks. Okay, so let's count them. One, two, three, four, five. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. And I'm going to do this, the update deals. Let's see how this one. All right. Congratulations on receiving this very special all-star tag. The sustainable growth you have shown, you have grown into these past few months is remarkable. The way you've shown ownership of the sales position and have continued to make improvements to the process, especially in the deals, is both seen and very much appreciated. So the whole, this process right here was an absolute collaboration with you. This whole deal, columns, names, everything was a collaboration with you this past three months. And it's been a huge improvement, huge improvement. So thank you so much for your hard work with this, Carmee. Huge, huge help. Okay, here we go. There go, and another one we'll review. Organize the leads. Let's look into this one. You did the deals first. We were working on those column names, when to send what in each column. But then you took a look at the leads, and the leads were a hot mess because they had old data, old tags. They were just a hot mess. And you took, I think, about a month. And you went through every single lead, updated every single tag. And then one day we met, and you were like, you were like mind blown. You're like, Kris, I got the leads all organized in the same scenario as the deals. And I was like, what? And you're like, yeah, I did the Kanban view of it, too. And then you showed me everything that you had done with this. So it was like... go Okay. Go,! Go, My mind was blown. After you showed me, was, this was really, really huge. And a big difference. This, this was a huge push for sales to be able to see it like this and tagged and all updated. So, Carmee, this is a huge, huge job well done. Thank you so much for this. Huge.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, and also I see huge potentials that, uh, Carmee can work with Clancy's Quan to build up a system that have, uh, have Carmee's essence in there to be organized and straightforward.
Kris Neal: It is. Yes. Very true. Does anyone else have anything else to add?
Quan Gan: Yeah, what's your tagging scheme?
Steven Hanna: I like it.
Charlie Xu: I like your organization.
Steven Hanna: I just want to know what the tagging scheme is. going to, I'm going to show you after so you can have at it. Yeah, that would be.
Kris Neal: Sorry to divert. I just wanted to slightly compliment and say I like the organization and wanting to know your thought process. This was after a meeting with Quan and Clancis, and they were like, what? You got to have it all organized. But yeah, huge, huge, Clancis job.
Quan Gan: share a possibility, just to throw it out there, so you kind of keep this in the back of your mind, about how a skill can be very cross-functional. So this happened probably 15 years ago with my lighting company, Gantum. And so I have to draw circuit boards. Drawing circuit boards, you require engineering tasks, but a lot of this is actually more about arranging layout, so spatial reasoning. And I gave that to Charlie. She has no engineering training whatsoever, at least in that particular field, but she was able to rearrange things in a better way that I could do it. All right. Thank Bye. So just think about how you could take your creativity and arranging abilities from a visual perspective and apply it to all aspects of the company. And, you know, it may not look like, you know, a flyer or something that is publicly shown, but internal, the value of that is tremendous. And her work is still used in all the circuit boards that are deployed, you know, in tens of thousands to all the major theme parks. And affecting hundreds of millions of people's eyeballs, you know, over the years. So just so you know, like your essence can very much be baked into even things that don't seem completely related.
Kris Neal: 100%. See that in both of those?
Carmee Sarvida: That's awesome.
Kris Neal: Poster syndrome be gone. Here it is.
Carmee Sarvida: Manifesting.
Kris Neal: You have many cross-transfer.-transfer.
Steven Hanna: And your organization and efficiency in organization is something that is very highly valued in very, very many ways.
Kris Neal: Yes. Yes. I think this is your data impact brain. You doing this, like, it was exactly what sales needed. It needed the design, but it needed that.
Steven Hanna: And let's not just restrict the word data to not meaning the beautification of data, right? That's absolutely something that's within that category.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Also, something just more long-term, just based on AI. You know, with AI, pretty much anybody soon will be able to do anyone else's job. But it is really, do you have the creative drive to do that? Or asking the right prompts? Because AI is going to make the actual action quite easy, but not everybody will even think of those actions. So we're going to all become generalists over the next few years. We'll be generalists in terms of AI can do these things for us, but you'll be specialists in understanding what things to ask the AI to actualize for you. And we'll all be very different from that. And so your skill set is very particular to you, but just realize it'll be transferable to pretty much anything you touch.
Kris Neal: That's huge. All right, team, we're going to go ahead and move on. All right, so with the, you had 20 tags total for the year. This here is your spot bonus for this time, for this one year for your all-star tags. And now we're on to number five, your growth bonus. I really wanted this, there could have been so many ways of kind of measuring this, Carmi, but nothing. Thank you. Something that associated with the human first. We still want to keep this in the front of our mind, human connection first. I even want to impact that here, affect that here, however you say it. But we want to hear from you where you have had your personal growth and development goals. Where have you taken that on outside of ZTAG? Besides the, I know the EOS book was sent to you. I know Superhuman, you also had that as your, on your task board, yeah, as your growth. Right here and right here, yeah. So, by all means, right now is when I want you to kind of advocate for yourself and share what you've taken on. Okay, and then Quan and Charlie will kind of assess that and then apply that bonus. to your all-star tag.
Carmee Sarvida: Just making sure I understand it correctly, personal growth would mean it's not necessarily work-related.
Kris Neal: Right, it's an addition to that. So something like the books, any kind of sales training that you have gone above and beyond and looked into, or ZOHO training that you have looked into?
Carmee Sarvida: Well, for training, I think I need to explore more on that. or growth, personal, not related to the books, but my personal, like, being. I think what I do here in ZTAG, especially the scheduling, it actually allows me to do things during the day, like contribute to my physical health, that I can go outside, do things outside work. Um, walking or exercising and, um, have more time, spend more time with, with my family. Like, um, during the day I can, um, have a video call with my, my parents, especially that I need to, um, check up, check in with my dad, um, like a lot of, more often. And, um, probably the, the. The biggest personal impact that ZTAG, that me being in ZTAG was during the time when I needed to like take weeks, two weeks off, a couple of weeks off because of my dad. Like I wouldn't be able to survive that without your understanding, your empathy during that time. With that, I was able to support my family and that was actually the hardest moment of my life. And I'm just so grateful that you They with me, supporting me during that time, and I couldn't really thank you enough for that. And I think that's also the time that I realized that I am taken care of in this company. I am being supported, and I don't think I can, like, wish for anything else. And that's what actually driven me to, like, do better, because I am... I want to, like, give back the same energy that you're giving to us, like, you are very supportive in anything that we do, the tools that we need, like, you just say that, you need a subscription, we give you the subscription, like, you're very open to anything that could support our growth, and maybe that's definitely the reason why we've grown so much as a team during this year because you guys were just, yeah, open and, like, we have this connection. I remember the time first when you asked what's one word that comes to my mind when I heard, like, ZTAG, something, something along that question, and I said empathy because, um... You guys treated us not just like mere employees, but we make sure to apply our core values in the team, starting with the team, the human connection first. just don't ask updates on the work that we do, but also in our personal lives, which really help us to connect with you guys, be more transparent and honest in what we are dealing with. In our personal lives, like outside work, and with that, we are, like, I personally want to do well and give, you know, the same energy that you're giving to us. And I think that that's also one of the reasons why I can think of myself being in a ZTAG for, like, in the long term.
Kris Neal: Carmee, the last three months since your dad, you're absolutely right. And I'm actually glad you brought this up during your growth opportunity to share with Quan and Charlie. You have had a lot on your plate, especially with everything in ZTAG changing, your parents, your dad, supporting them. So the personal growth that you have had these last three months, four months has absolutely been incredible. So you're absolutely, the last, when we did this the last time at your six-month review, your dad happened less than three weeks later. So it perfectly falls in these last six months. Yeah. Very cool.
Quan Gan: I just want to further commend you for the incredible resilience you've shown, you know, the flexibility and just being able to. And really take full stride in your current core responsibilities. You we as a company feel supported by you.
Kris Neal: Right. So true. Because even when you think about it, because I remember, Carmee, one time when things were really rough and you were like, Kris, I don't think I can do this. I don't think I can continue because there was just so much on ZTAG's end and you had so much in your own family. You just you came out and said it. And it was like, Carmee, just do what you can. You've got this. You know, we're going to be here no matter what. But look at what you've done since then. Like when you think about like the leads that you cleaned up and reorganize the deals, the columns, like everything that has come to these last six months, it was after that. So it's like mind blowing, like because of your resilience, look at what you have have brought back. So and also I.
Charlie Xu: I mean, I want to remind, and ZTAGG is a platform that everyone has a great opportunity to grow, no matter what. So even right now, your adaptability of putting you into this role right now, but still, like, even right now, you don't very clearly see the direction when you're focusing on grow, but definitely there is opportunity will pop up. So just grabs any time it comes, and if there's a way, you know, like when something you know you are integrating your skills to different departments, all these are the great learning opportunity to, will eventually lead to something great. So, yeah, keep an open mind, like the whole company has said, have a very open mind culture. So, so anything you think will support you or support your skills. Your values, that type of things to put into this growth category, it's all welcome.
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, I just want to add to what Charlie said. I think also one of the biggest personal growth that I have during this last month was to be able to pull off the sales. I think that's it, you know, I've never really imagined to, like, before when I hear about, like, sales role opportunities, I kind of like, no, back off. I am not familiar with that, and I'm not interested in that. And, yeah, I think learning new things, not necessarily related to tools, but, like, you know, learning new things and discovering new skills. I love that you guys, the term transferable skills, I think that sums up like everything that I've been doing this year, like discovering or learning where to like integrate the skills to the role that I currently have. So I think that's it.
Quan Gan: One last thing I want to touch on is I encourage you to reach out to me and probably will also have clances in here to help you automate a lot of those sales roles because my original intent, and I haven't forgotten this, it's more just, you know, there's other things happening, but I want to highly automate the repetitive stuff. And those need to be sent over to the AI agents, which in itself is a high scale. That's to figure out. Pretty much any time we have a new initiative, there's going to be a lot of initial repetitive manual labor, but turning that manual labor into an agent skill base where the AI will eventually take it over, that is definitely transferable to any position. You know, just right now, we formed a small group for the fulfillment side, so it's me, Tim, and Clances, but I think for the sales, the nurturing side, it could be you, me, and Clances, and I want you to proactively push on us on that, on saying, okay, like, this part is starting to get repetitive, I'm kind of doing the same thing, well, what can we do to make that less time-consuming so I can free up my time to do higher value decisions?
Kris Neal: That actually perfectly leads us right into right here. Stretch goals or skill areas. I have your transferable skills added. How about that AI automation mindset? Does that work out?
Steven Hanna: Exploration. Exploration.
Kris Neal: Great. Perfect. And what's another stretch goal? How are you as CRM, Carmee? Do you think maybe they have a lot of training or online seminars? Where do you think you could stretch that would help your role these next six months?
Carmee Sarvida: For CRM, I think. Oh, Oh, Oh More on data analytics, that's where, like, that's the part where I haven't really, you know, dive in, dive deeper yet, because I'm mostly on the deals, the leads, the accounts, but not more on the analytics. And this, yeah, yeah, this is all, because I think this is very important, since we now have, like, the VTO, the scorecard, and, yeah.
Kris Neal: You have access to the dashboards, right, Carmee?
Carmee Sarvida: Yes, yeah. Good, good, good, yeah.
Kris Neal: I love that you and Clansys both put analytics on your, where you'd like to stretch yourself, so definitely partner with Clansys and see where, where that can go. Yeah, that's great. All right. Do you need any support, Carmee? Right now would be a great time to share if you need. Support in any of these stretch goals or support for your role?
Carmee Sarvida: I think mentorship for the new initiatives that we have, especially with, you know, leading out the data, the cost, the soft code, like, I don't think we already have that integrated to our AI yet. I tried asking that.
Quan Gan: I'm working on that.
Carmee Sarvida: Yes, we should talk more about that. Yeah, I have actually tried using that method, Quan, the soft code in the AI. I've actually, like, had the computation, did the computation themselves, and I have, like, received requests for a formal code after, like, sending them that self-code. So I think that's more effective than, you know, giving them the full cost on our system.
Kris Neal: Yeah, that kind of works.
Carmee Sarvida: That's great.
Quan Gan: And, okay, so this touching kind of back onto the data part, I want you guys to come up to a point where it's not me recommending things and then you guys taking it and running with it, but you see the data yourself, what method is more effective? And then you make that decision, right? Because as a company, yes, we want to grow, but I don't always know best. I'm just presenting ideas, right? So you guys, because you're doing... Doing that particular role on a day-in and day-out basis, you become the expert. And so you also have the potential to not only make your decisions, but push back against my recommendations, because you probably know more at that point. And so all of this really comes down to having the right data and seeing, okay, which one's more effective? And then, you know, it's your call.
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, I'll explore more on that.
Kris Neal: He's definitely open. That's great. Kermie, I have not updated you yet. On Thursday, we will have a foreign policy in place. We will be discussing, we'll be meeting with action distribution. So the foreign policy you will have ready in hand for single units and distribution prices, which is updated in the GitHub, but it just needs to be updated in the sales. Oh.
Carmee Sarvida: Oh. Oh. Yeah.
Kris Neal: Email, Sales GPT. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Anything else, Kermit?
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, I think if I can also like go explore on the training on sales, like a self-paced course from like Udemy or something like that, that will also be helpful for me because we don't really have the, like the formal training. I know Kris and I like go back and forth with all of like establishing the SOP, but outside of what we are currently doing, like I want to learn more so that I can also like approach the, our customers, you know, better in like knowledgeable ways.
Kris Neal: I like where you're going with that. Carmee Quan shared, I can't remember. Where or when, but he was actually looking at FBI tactics and how to discuss.
Steven Hanna: You don't need to jump to FBI, all right? There's no need to go straight to law enforcement interrogation techniques.
Carmee Sarvida: Let's start off with a more general approach. Yeah, I think overall, it's just like find some top-rating sales books.
Charlie Xu: And, you know, like for each book, if you can take a golden sentence, bring you like a little bit awareness of what you don't know, that's good enough. You know, I just constantly learning what you're interested. Don't overwhelm me. Like I always overwhelm so many books to read, but, you know, each book, if you learn something golden to you, just even one sentence, that's good enough.
Quan Gan: Yeah, think you can, you can ask GPT to recommend things based on your own personality, because here's the thing, like sales sometimes have. a pretty negative connotation to it. It sounds, you know, salesy or sleazy or, you know, you're trying to push something on people. And ZTAG is certainly not that, but sales is also communication. And if you learn how to communicate the right way to people, you'll unlock potential. And basically, it's like you're unlocking the potential for any of these prospects to serve more kids. So that's a completely different framework of saying, oh, I'm trying to, you know, extract $10,000 from you. No, it's like you don't realize the opportunity you have on your hands in serving these kids at a very affordable cost that, like, they just don't know what's out there. So you're really communicating and educating them in that sense.
Steven Hanna: There is a fine line because ZTAG, the human first element, is almost counterintuitive to sales because the sales element is a financial-based venture. So in any sales that you view or any courses or any podcasts, videos you listen to, just bear in mind the human-first element of this as the main focus of your sales pitch. That's what I personally feel. If anyone has any other feelings on that, they're more than welcome to speak up. But sales in itself is inherently capitalistic, and you have to draw a barrier for where ZTAG sales pitches become capitalistic versus community-driven providing something for them. So just a grain of salt, but understand that there is a line in sales for this specific company where it can cross into that very quickly. It will happen for entertainment-based clients, which we'll see in the next coming months, and Quan and I. We'll go over it, and you will see an entire different side of people. And this is where we'll find that line, so to say. But just bear in mind, human first element. That's what I want to drive that point home.
Quan Gan: Yeah, even on the professional customers who might be primarily return on investment, you know, financially driven, even in that subset of people, we'll find people who are mission-aligned. mean, Steve is your best example of that, right? Because he came to us as a professional customer, but why is he working with ZTAG is because he believes in the mission. And you'll find to a point where it's almost like you're trying to convince them not to buy from you, and then they'll end up even committing more because they realize that this is the thing that they want. And it's not just because it's another number that fits there. A budget.
Steven Hanna: Carmee, if you'd like, I can throw you something right in the middle ground of what ZTAGG is doing versus what the sales component is. It's a 14-minute video.
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, sure. Thanks for sharing that to you.
Kris Neal: That's great, guys. All right. Anything else, Carmee? I added the tips, SOP review, and full understanding that is possibly coming up at the end of the month. Is there any other support that you need?
Carmee Sarvida: Lastly would be regarding the – what does the budget mean?
Kris Neal: The budget? Like, the budget for your department for sales? I think that more is – I don't think that's something you need to worry about.
Carmee Sarvida: Okay.
Quan Gan: I think maybe like if There are certain resources you need to make your goal easier, right? Certain tools, or like you mentioned, Udemy.
Carmee Sarvida: The course, yeah.
Quan Gan: Those things, yeah. My general perspective on that is by paying X amount, you're actually multiplying your eventual output and potential. You're actualizing your potential, then it's worth it, right? It's an investment. So we don't see that as, oh, we got to cut our budget and we don't have this. As long as, you know, like even $1 can be too expensive if you end up wasting it and not using it. But something that's $100 or even $1,000 can be actually very cheap if you're able to generate tenfold, you know, what that value is.
Kris Neal: So have that mindset for, for that growth, for sure. All right. If that's it, we will move on. Next steps. This will be edited, Carmi, again, and sent to you.
Carmee Sarvida: Direct.
Kris Neal: It won't be added to your virtual file. And I think that's it. Does anyone else have anything else to add?
Quan Gan: Thank you. That's it. Keep up the good work.
Kris Neal: Yes. Thank you.
Carmee Sarvida: Thank you, everyone.
Kris Neal: Thank you so much, Carmee. Thank you for all you've been doing. Yeah. For the sales department that you've helped create, for sure.
Steven Hanna: And I just want to say thanks for being totally transparent and sharing your feelings and saying how you felt. The imposter syndrome thing is a real, and I'm going to say it's a real pain in the , but I appreciate you sharing that. And we can support you in letting you know that you do belong here. And it is not something that you should feel this overwearing pressure. overwearing It's So if there's anything that any of us can do to assist you with that, we're here. Yeah, thank you.
Carmee Sarvida: I love that you mentioned that I don't have to worry about where I will be in like long term or like in the future because I've seen that you guys are willing to support in ways that we can grow. And you're actually giving us opportunities to grow. So I'm reassured that I am in the right, like I am planted in the right team. And just so grateful to have found you guys. I am so grateful to have found this team and this company.
Quan Gan: I want to add one more thing. So just on that point, you know, the. The transparency and vulnerability that you bring in is something that ZTAG will maintain even as we grow. We'll have more people coming in, but the fact that you're exhibiting that, it keeps it as a core value that's living through you and through us. But that also makes sure that the future people that we do bring into ZTAG also have those qualities. So certainly, you know, maintain that and we encourage it.
Charlie Xu: I want to add something? Because I, like recently I was working with Steve and Paula on the I Can Statement lesson books. I also learned so much from that because I do feel like as a healthy culture of a company, we are also have the open ways to express the downside of us. So it's like we're honored the whole emotion. Cycles of who we are, you know, like, life is always up and down, we honor it, we're not hiding it, or just swallowing it, bring it up, we as a team, we can, we can work it out together, so that's also we're learning, so it's, yeah, yeah.
Carmee Sarvida: I think I'm more on, like, just the observant, the observant personality before, but I remember Quan said that the Filipino culture is, like, we don't speak, like, openly, we're more on, like, submitting to something that, someone that is higher than us, and since, since that day, I always remind myself to overcome that, and I have started doing that with Kris, like, being transparent with her. And I also think that's the reason why I am confident that I can open up my ideas and links with you guys because you're actually the one encouraging us to do it. So, and yeah, and I really, really appreciate that because it's also one of the growth that I have seen in me because I will just stay silent during meetings, especially with the virtual meetings. But with this, I'm starting to, like, with having this in mind, I'm starting to interact and, like, put on, put, like, inputs when I have. So, I thank you for encouraging us to speak up. And, yeah.
Kris Neal: That's true, Carmee. I like that you said that because you're right. Because you do have that with me, that openness, and absolutely, now with the team, you're going to just keep opening. Just keep that open. That was a beautiful.
Carmee Sarvida: Thank you.
Kris Neal: This meeting was a beautiful display of that. So that's huge. All right. Thank you, Carmee.
Steven Hanna: We appreciate you.
Kris Neal: Thank you.
Steven Hanna: All good to close this one out?
Kris Neal: Yes, sir. We already saw this. She just gave me the quick reminder. Anyone there?
Quan Gan: We need another five or ten minutes, I think. Got to reset.
Steven Hanna: All right. I'm going to let her know. We'll take five minutes, and then we'll jump in. Thanks, Steve. Thank you, Carmee. Have a good day. everybody. Take care.
Paula Cia: How are you?
Kristin Neal: Thank you so much for your patience, girl. We appreciate it. Yeah, no. Give the guys some time to join us. And we'll jump in. Is it raining out by you, Paula? Who is it? Clancy said it was really raining out by her.
Paula Cia: Today, I didn't experience rain, but it's very cloudy.
Kristin Neal: The Philippines has a lot of rain.
Paula Cia: California is living in a desert.
Kristin Neal: You can feel it, Charlie. When you're there, you can feel the climate change. It's a trip. Thank you. Hi, Quan. Hey, Paula.
Quan Gan: Thanks for waiting. Yeah, no problem. We've been deep diving with each person, so the time kind of stacked up. So I appreciate you waiting. I know.
Kristin Neal: Next time, hour and a half for each.
Quan Gan: If you put an hour and a half, it'll take two hours. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Just put more spacing and more buffer in between. Sounds good.
Quan Gan: No, it's been, today's been really great. I really liked it. Everybody's making great progress.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, it's nice to take a minute to look back.
Quan Gan: Because we're all just like running all the time. Exactly, yeah.
Kristin Neal: It's like this allows us to stop. Stop. Appreciate it. Here comes Steve Therese. Hi, Steve.
Paula Cia: What's up, Paula?—how are you?
Steven Hanna: I'm NERVOUS.
Paula Cia: Hold on, why are you NERVOUS?
Quan Gan: Well, she's never done this before!
Kristin Neal: Of course you're nervous! like first time in front of a group of random heads what do you mean like i feel like it's a job interview oh let's alleviate that fear right now this is a very very casual conversation paula that we're just here to support you in every way and just take a moment to look back the six months and now the six months ahead to just see where we can support you in that i'm curious but you totally should be nervous like you didn't know what you're totally understandable all right we're gonna jump in with your six month review We're here, and everything will be updated and sent to you after, Paula, directly to you, not to your digital employee file, okay? Let's take a minute right here, and we will acknowledge your title, Design and Social Media Coordinator. That is your official title. Your current weekly rate, and this can be evaluated and adjusted at the one-year. Mark, and also at the one-year mark, your growth goal will also be assessed. So definitely these next six months, try to focus, if you can, on those particular ones. That might help, yeah. All right, so for your Design and Social Media Coordinator role, Paula, what have been your duties in that, and what have been your objectives these past six months? Okay, so for the past six months.
Paula Cia: Since during that time, we already are into transition, and we are like building from scratch, like everything from branding to the website, we are transitioning. So I was really focused on the graphics, especially on the marketing materials, like the branding guidelines and other steps that might support also for the website development. And then I was also posting on social media, but not that active, because this was the time that most of the time I focused on graphics under Charlie's supervision. On the six months also, I was able to assist on the sales department, especially under Carmi, when the time that she was... It's like not around for two weeks, so that's the time I took over the role of like reaching out to the leads. And then I'm also assisting cleanses on the website development. So when there are like thumbnails that she needed, I will be the one to grade that. And then she also asked sometimes some help for the website layout. So that's the mostly I did on the six months, Kris. Awesome.
Kristin Neal: Those are specifically the thumbnails, right, for the web development?
Paula Cia: Yes, Kris. In addition also, I'm on the, I'm assisting also the. Again, when it comes to shipments of SWAG, so I'm the one creating the shipments for SWAG. But since we are not sending any more SWAG, so that might be on hold.
Kristin Neal: Well, but then Chris. Okay. Okay. Great, Paula. Thank you so much for sharing these. Do we see anything different, you guys? Charlie, Quan, Steve, do we see anything worse you might have missed? I mean, there's...
Quan Gan: Actually, you know what? Charlie, why don't you go? Because you guys have been working together the most. Yeah.
Charlie Xu: So thank you, Paula, to list out. It just brings me back to a long time ago. I feel like, well, it's like throughout the whole couple of months, we have been changing a That's from the very beginning of redo a lot of the branding. You're right, Charlie, because it is actually right at the time.
Kristin Neal: I'm glad you pointed that out. The time, the month is exactly when the transition happened.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, by looking back, it's really we achieved a lot. Just like, like feel like it's changing the blood of a person just in such a short time. It's quite amazing. And also, along the way, I feel like Paula is always very supportive. Let's say, very adaptability and resistant. know, like sometimes where when doing the design, it's just like, hey, I want to do this way. So it's more result driven. So like, hey, Paula, do this and do that. So, but she is always very supportive of giving the updates in a very short amount of time. Always, always there. Ready to give some results. the team are amazing. Yeah, and I really appreciate your role. So not only, you know, like supporting other teams, members, if we do some graphic requirement, always there to be ready to support. Yeah, and also one thing I want to highlight is before we are really is doing the design based on just the human skills of, design, things we think we're liking. But I feel like the more we're starting adapting to having AI evolving, I do see that's also part of your, Paula, you, the growth mindset of having AI to do the very first stage of work to selecting the directions. And based on that, so we are. Trying to bring more efficiency, not only using AI, not only on the other department, but also in the marketing department of helping us to do this graphic design at the early stage. Did you tell Paula that she made Kris?
Quan Gan: No. The one sheet, the little lady in there, when I saw it, that is totally Kris.
Paula Cia: It looks like Kris. I just, I just knew it the day.
Kristin Neal: It's a beautiful representation. Paula, we've seen the transition. It feels like even the banners, the banners, Mateo, even as an outsider, was like, these are really, really well done compared to what our banners were before. Um, it's just... It feels like a whole new, different level of that. So I think Charlie's influence on you has been apparent. You've taken on that teachable spirit where she's been nurturing that, it feels like. And you guys have both made marketing absolutely what it is today. So it's, I could probably cry with how much like I want it like back when I was like beating my head against Stan and seeing what it is today. It's like, this is exactly what.
Quan Gan: Yeah, we have a unified. It's just so much better. Beautiful.
Kristin Neal: It's a beautiful look. Yes.
Quan Gan: like Frankenstein before. Right?
Kristin Neal: Like different... Our body part from this one.
Quan Gan: Yes.
Kristin Neal: Now it's like, oh, it feels very on brand.
Quan Gan: Yeah. I think the branding consistency is still something we are constantly working on.
Charlie Xu: It's also a learning progress. And by the time, even like different trade shows, we need to come up with something. But at the early stage, since we are rebranding everything, so I do put a lot of force on doing a certain way. But in the future, I definitely feel, Paula, by growing together, you've been already knowing the working type we are, right? So I really foresee that you will take the ownership of the marketing parts. And like for me, I will like step by step, step back. A little bit more instead of like before, like, hey, this way. No, this way. But yeah, I want to give you more the ownership of that site, including the social medias too. But I definitely see like we're working together. You are very adaptable to a new way of doing. And we are all learning on that, even with the new iTools coming up. I also feel like we need to open, stepping more into learning what is they're offering us to bring the efficiency into the marketing team as well.
Paula Cia: Got it, Charlie. That's great, everybody.
Kristin Neal: Paula, has there been any changes besides the ones that you actually mentioned up here? You mentioned about jumping in. But was there anything else that you wanted to note that has changed from your title? You're... position.
Paula Cia: Right now, Kris, I think my title is accurate and there's no changes at all.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Great. Thank you so much. All right. KPI progress. We're going to look at our scorecard, our team scorecard. You have these three right here. Might have actually been edited down to two. I'm not sure, but we'll go with these three. We have a percentage follower change from last week. So we totally understand what I informed the team. These are your guys' numbers. The very first month, you guys would own them. Moving forward, though, they will be kind of shifted and edited. And also moving forward, we're going to, instead of going where I'll be doing like the month, the daily operation meetings, it'll be more like one-on-one. You working with Charlie directly, if you have any questions and things like that. There's still more refinement. That needs to be kind of talked through, but at least for now, we know that. So if there's any questions and KPIs, you'll be able to work with Charlie Individual on those edits moving forward. But so far, what did you think about these KPIs that you've kind of managed the last three weeks? You've had yes on every one, I believe. So the percentage of follower change versus last week, is that something that has been a good thing? Would it be something that maybe you can give Charlie an actual number on? Would that be?
Paula Cia: Yeah. Yes, Kris. Actually, since the boosting of our posts, like doing ads, we actually like gained 14% for the Facebook and Instagram. That's the followers, we gain 14%. And then we... We have like more interactions now compared before that we don't do the ads. Even though I do like two posting a day, and that's every day, we still don't have interaction and no additional followers. But right now that we are doing ads, we have a 14% increase in the followers for the Facebook and Instagram. Great. And then for the engagement, so is that the engagement or is that the post from our other, for the other partners that we have? For number four, right? No, I mean the Playmaker post this week. So last week and this week, we had new posts from the school district of Monroe. So we were tagged in Facebook, but I didn't see that coming through the Instagram. But the Palmdale Hunted Jailhouse also tagged us for their event on the Instagram. So there are like two new posts for our playmakers.
Kristin Neal: Great, great, great. Charlie, would that work? Well, you girls will refine that and we'll have a new set or an edited set of KPIs moving forward. But that's really, thank you so much for getting that information so quickly, Paula. Wow, that was great.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, I do feel like from the marketing side, we will look more into the impact on social medias. And right now, like by even last month, I would step into a study on the social medias. It is like, it's crazy. It's just how accurate, like in a short amount of time, you can reach out to so many potential customers. If we are just getting ready for the right content, it just like flows in, right? The leads are flowing. So, and also it's just like how we capture them and really nurture that into our customers. And it's, it's just, we, it's a turn of like, we're using minimum energies to, to make a bigger impact or outcome. So it's just something we really feel like Paula from, I want, we both work on more higher, higher angle of how to set the KPI, how to reach these. And then put this into the exact steps, what we need to do. So probably need to schedule more meetings in general marketing directions, but also I do feel like it just maybe also can help me have a scheduled social media, like step-by-step, or maybe like an overview. An overview, or maybe like you did before, like this month. How many, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we need to, from the KPI, we need to have an exact, what we need to do to achieve. So we have maybe a plan, like a monthly plan. Yeah. I like that, Charlie.
Kristin Neal: That sounds really, really cool. Yeah. Very cool. Especially for the schools, because when you think about it, they're all in a different, no, they're not all in a, they're all in the same season with schools, so.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, because I, I definitely feel like the social media when we're open this, even like right now, it's our downtime, but still like catch this interest from the school front all over. I just don't know even the school's names I never heard of, but they just randomly come, get in touch with them. So that's quite amazing. Yeah, so like we need to constantly working on the good content on social medias, photos or videos, and working AI with the good content to put on under the videos. These are the things we, yeah, we can put into the schedules. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, you guys have been doing amazing with that. All right. Any other input for KPIs?
Paula Cia: That's all for us. Cool. Thank you, Paula.
Kristin Neal: All right, so you have Hit those KPIs. Awesome job. This right here is our core value alignment. So you've seen the last maybe three or four months that we've implemented the All-Star Tags, really showcasing your core values. We want to make sure you understand, Opaulie, you display all these core values. You absolutely do. So if you didn't, you just wouldn't be here. That's all there is to it. But you already show these beautifully. What now we're going to do, we're going to go down each one, see where you implement and where you excel. And then after that, we'll go through your tags. Okay. So the core values, of course, number one, human connection first. Number two, inclusive empowerment. Three, authentic innovation. Four, radical transparency. Five, collaborative spirit. Six, data-driven impact. And seven, sustainable growth. Six, data-driven impact. And here we We have our core value, human connection first. You're always right there. I think with this one, the human connection first, the specific moment and impact is directly related with the team. You already showed ahead. You do. You're ready to jump in wherever anyone needs help, and that is so very much appreciated, Paula. You're ready to go with very little direction, too. I think with the sales, it was more like, just do this and just do that, and you were like, okay, and you just ran. So it was very, very much appreciated. Inclusive empowerment, you do display this. I would love to see how you're able to show this in your work. Like, I see what you, I'm just, I'll leave it at that. How can you show that in your work? Okay, but you do display it yourself, so we do appreciate that. Authentic innovation, again, you. Display this beautifully. If we can see a little bit more, for this to be a plus, let's see how you see your challenges with bringing automation or bringing a plan, an overview, things like that. That might be something in your capability because Quan's right, you see things every day that might happen and you can bring in other team members.
Quan Gan: I want to add to this point, and this is something that I've shared with other teammates as well. You know, right now, maybe by default, it's myself, since I'm always like looking at new tools and I kind of present it, just I throw it into the team chat and then people may choose to use it. But I would love to see a day where you guys are actually sharing stuff back with me, so you guys are proactively doing research and seeing how these new tools, you know, surprise. Me with innovative updates. There's a constant thing they talk about leadership. It's like good leadership, from my perspective, I need to be the dumbest person in the room. I need to be surrounded by other subject matter experts. So that's what I really encourage. It's like if you're seeing there's like a new Sora release for video or something, there's a new image generator or something that you could use in your workflow, please share it with us. And that, by you sharing it, it'll actually feel, there's probably going to be a lot more buy-in from the rest of the team because it's peer-shared rather than leadership, like, you know, enforced, top-down. And I think that's really going to probably help both of those points, you know, the inclusive empowerment and the authentic innovation because it's something that the teammates are bringing forth rather than, oh, this is just something that the boss kind of, like, threw at me and I have to do. Yeah, and also I definitely feel like we're riding on the tip of a wave right now.
Charlie Xu: So it's just like so many things out there available. It's just such a great time to open for these new learnings. So as we as a graphic designers, there's like, you know, if we don't catch up, we're probably going to be like sink down. You know, so I definitely feel like it's just like find time and if the times is down, we can do some learning. So I really feel like maybe, Paula, one day you can say, hey, Charlie, this is a new tool we can try. You know, like AI have these functions and how we can, because right now you and I were working for a couple of months. You already know the process should be, right? So bring your creativity into, to refine. Like at what stage we can have AI to do the work and then which stage we can do. So we're not just solid our role as just a graphic designer. I want you more be like maybe a marketing director or graphic director of like, hey, how using AI to support us to reduce the time, time consuming but low value time, you know, like because these are so powerful right now. We don't we don't need to spend much time just make it look nice because we just can doing a prompt and having AI to make it look nice. And there's so many ways just, you know, so so I feel like it's go learning, especially like graphic design part, how how how these trends are moving forward. you're about using requires Thank I feel like there's so many things will exciting us so much. We just don't know. But I definitely feel like that could be something both you and I, we can tap into that more. I want to add something to that, too.
Quan Gan: You know, if you look at the trend of technology, let's just say 20 or 30 years ago, design was not on Photoshop. You're probably cutting out paper pieces, right, and, like, photocopying them to get a design. So the fact that you had Photoshop and all these new tools, it didn't make you less busy. In fact, you have more work because you're more productive now. Same thing with AI and innovation. This new generation is just even a faster acceleration. So if you don't use the tools or if you just allow the tools to progress but you're not learning anything new, well, then eventually that job will shrink to basically free because you could press a button and the AI will just... But then that's basically turning humans into robotic appendages because we're not making any decisions anymore because someone could just press a button. So the constant innovation is staying ahead of the AI so you can be the commander and actually expand your capability. So before, you know, a single person had to do paper cutouts for hours just to get a graphic design. But now you can have the AI generate for you 100 different designs that you can take a strategic pick on and then deploy through social media. You see that scale of expansion of a single person. And that's something that we really encourage every single teammate to be able to continue leveraging because that's the only way we can stay at the pace of the growth of the entire company.
Kristin Neal: I'm so glad you guys explained that further because it actually includes all three of them. It's the Inclusive, Empowerment, Authentic, Innovation, And the sustainable growth, they're all aligned. So as soon as you get those kind of what has been discussed, those will be pluses. Okay, Paula. You very much show radical transparency. I think there's been a few times when you've called me out and we meet and we talk it out. And I really, really appreciate that. It refines me as a leader and it refines, I think, our understanding of what we need to kind of understand. Okay. Yeah, I really appreciate that. And your collaborative spirit. You're very much on board with joining the Fun Friday meetings. You have a full collaborative spirit with working through issues, working through staff. You know, anything the staff needs, you're right there. So very much appreciative and data-driven impact. This one I gave you a plus on because this. This week, I was so like, I was so proud of you, because I was like, the task board, so there was a task, and I can't even remember what the task was, but it wasn't even barely sent in the email, and you already had it tasked in your task board, so it was like, wow, thank you so much for having, being on it, and I've looked at your tasks, they're up to date, they're beautiful, I really appreciate you taking that system, and really running with it, so thank you. All right, anything else on the core values, guys? We are going to look at your All-Star Tag System number four, your spot bonus, which you're eligible for in six-month and one-year review. The All-Star Tag System is based on the EOS principle of rewarding alignment with core values. Team members earn All-Star Tags added to their individual tasks when their work demonstrates a ZTAG core value. You have earned 10, ZTAG this quarter. Paula, congratulations. We're going to go through those a little bit. Let's see. Oh, no, not analytics. There we go. All right, Paula, here we go. We've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. And we can share a few of these. I'll share the tips catalog. This one was, okay, congratulations, Paula. Paula, because of your hard work, everything has been submitted and the process is close to approval. Your commitment to sustainable growth was very much appreciated. That tips catalog, and it was kind of like a, I don't want to say a catalyst. It was a catalyst for actually a lot of things. Of the tips catalog, we finally got a pricing catalog for ZTAG, for the ZEUS and the V3. So it was because of this, you sprung board it into many things that were needed. So huge, huge congratulations. And we have the one-pager guide. I will put that, but that was a really good one. And the graphic on that, the emotion I can. Here we go. This was a good one. I love this one. Congratulations, Paula, on earning this all-star tenfold for this special project. Your dedication to collaborative spirit, inclusive empowerment, and more importantly, human connection first has been such an asset, and we're so grateful. So you have just poured that into this project, and I think it's exactly what was needed. This is like a new layer to ZTAG. Thank That was made possible by you and Charlie working together for that. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Does anyone else have anything else to add to for her tags? All right. Thank you so much, Paula, for your hard work. Thank you so much. So you have a 10 count for your six month. So at the one year, we will add up and then you'll have another opportunity for that bonus and the growth bonus and the tier adjustment at the next review. Development action items, support needs. So this is where we would love to see, hear from you, a skill area or a new tool that you would like to develop or deepen the next six months.
Paula Cia: Um, Thank you, Kris. So Charlie and I were planning like to post more videos from now on. So I'm planning to learn more about CapCut. I did CapCut before, but there are just some other things that I can add. But I still don't know when it comes to video editing. So video editing will be my next target. And of course, to improve my skill also in Illustrator and Photoshop, because I'm still very slow when it comes to Illustrator and Photoshop. But when it comes to Canva, I can say that I'm 8 out of 10.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, Paula, so I, like before I haven't got chance to using Canva, but through the ICANN project, you are having me jump onto the Canva. Actually, I think it's. It's very easy to use. So, yeah, so maybe like in the future, could be more like the Illustrator, Photoshop. It's just in case if you need to do some exact beautification on a photo, then you're using Photoshop or you just do some icons that might be easier to do the refine work on Illustrator. But then all of that can be put onto the Canvas because it's just design. It's such a great user experience. It makes everything so easy. Every like it's super good for beginners and whoever haven't got graphic design, they also. So it's great. It's great. And definitely, I also want to learn from you to like tell me maybe in the future we schedule a meeting to teach me on Canvas so I get to know more about that.
Paula Cia: Yeah. I love that. I'm going to add that right here, your role expansion.
Kristin Neal: Do you mind if I add that, Charlie?
Charlie Xu: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Canvas teaching, training.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Charlie Xu: Well, maybe for the whole team. Yeah. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Absolutely. Thank you so much. That's great, Paula. Was there anything else? These are great. So if these are it, that's perfectly fine. But was there anything else that you wanted to put on here that you want to develop?
Paula Cia: That's all for now, Kris. I cannot think of anything for now. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, these are great, great ones to develop. Is there anything? I want to just second what Charlie is saying.
Quan Gan: By the way, Canva doesn't have an S. Sorry.
Kristin Neal: Thank you.
Quan Gan: We are really encouraging each teammate to become the subject matter experts so that we come to you for your expertise rather than us being top down saying this is what it needs to be. So we're really maturing. really learning... As a company and also as individuals to become the subject matter experts.
Kristin Neal: I think you're on the way too, Paula, for the one-year review. We'll kind of assess if you've taken that role of what Quan is discussing, and then the pay will adjust to that. So, yeah.
Paula Cia: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Is there any other support that we can do? Coaching, training, check-ins? Budget-for-it-skilling, is there something that we can do to support what you would like to develop? Or for your role? Yeah.
Paula Cia: For the role, maybe for the next six months, since we are now focusing on the social media and marketing, I might be able or I might need some training when it comes to social media management. since I really do. I have the proper training before in social media management. So I just do like YouTube and Google just to know how to do it. Good, good.
Kristin Neal: What else? Go ahead.
Charlie Xu: Paula, I think you've been before doing social media pre-jobs or doing that too, right? Yeah. Yeah, so definitely not only like your proper training because it's also new for us too. So maybe we need to have more meetings regarding on social media is how we have a plan or we need to know where our blind spot is. Because it's like if you're asking for training, I don't even know what kind of training I can give it to you. But based on your experience, so maybe you can refine this process, you know, like how we can amplify. Amplify our work along with the resource of the social media and just amplify the effects. So maybe having like a once-a-while meeting, know, weekly meeting only regarding on social media and also have a meeting regarding on graphics that might be helping just to moving this forward. Yeah, I agree, Charlie. Also, maybe it could be also possible for you, if you can do some learning on social media like YouTube, there are so many out there too. If you can come up with, hey, Charlie, this is something we are not thinking, we haven't stepped into, maybe it could be something you brought up to the whole team that I would feel like we'll be. I appreciate of you kind of like step out and leading that direction.
Paula Cia: there anything else you'd like to add to that, Paula? That's it, Kris. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Looks like you're on a good trajectory for your next review. So I'm excited to see what the next six months come for you. It looks very, very exciting. Okay. Paula, this will all be edited after. We'll have, you'll meet with Charlie individually with that KPI editing, kind of refining that. And I think that's it. Was there anything else that would like to be added?
Paula Cia: I think I don't have anything, but just to thank you guys for the... Of course. Thank you.
Kristin Neal: This is, thank you, Paula, for everything you've done these last six months, for two and a half, two years and six months, right? Yeah.
Paula Cia: Two years, six months.
Kristin Neal: Thank you so much, Paula.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I want to just also express my gratitude, because everything you touch, our customers see. Yeah, that is going to just expand out into infinity. So it's such an important role. And yeah, you're sitting in there, you're actually like sitting on top of a tremendous amount of influence. And that role is really supporting the rest of the team and our ability to serve more, more kids. So thank you. Thank you, Quan.
Paula Cia: Thank you, team. Thank you, Paula.
Kristin Neal: Well, the great. Great work.
Steven Hanna: Thank you for always being responsive to edits and micro-edits because I'm, you know, I'm me.
Paula Cia: Appreciate it.
Kristin Neal: Thank you, Paula.
Steven Hanna: Thank you, Steve.
Charlie Xu: Thank you, Paula, for your great works.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, thank you also, Charlie.
Paula Cia: I've learned a lot when it comes to Illustrator and Photoshop.
Charlie Xu: Awesome. Good, good.
Kristin Neal: All right, Paula, thank you again. You have a great day, okay? Thanks, guys. care, everyone. Bye. Bye.
Steven Hanna: Thank All right. We are approaching the 10-minute mark of a no-show from the Hartland Christian Camp. Yes. With Zach and Joshua. So I'm going to wait here for another 15 minutes, and then I'm going to start to do something else. Thank Thank All right. I have been here for 26 minutes and have sent an email indicating that there is a Zoom link. I am now going to leave. There is no reason to be in this training session anymore.
Laura: Hello. How are you?
Steven Hanna: Good, how are you?
Laura: Doing well, doing well.
Steven Hanna: I do have an audio, video, AI recorder that's going to record our meeting and just send that back to you when we're done so that you can refer to it at any point.
Laura: Okay. So don't worry about taking notes.
Steven Hanna: First off, thank you for joining me. My name is Steve. I'm ZTAG's Playmaker Developer. Just here to kind of get you acquainted with the system, updates for the new stuff, and some new games that came out, and some new settings. So do you have any questions for me before we jump in?
Laura: Nope. Okay. Do you have the system in front of you? Yep. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Have you used it before?
Laura: Not the new one.
Steven Hanna: Okay. You've used the old one before?
Laura: Yeah. How did you like that one? We had a lot of issues with it. We had a lot of connectivity issues, a lot of distance issues with the stuff not staying connected. We had to use it in a much smaller space than was advertised. And then our other biggest issue was durability. What was going on with the connectivity side of things?
Steven Hanna: Was it just not...
Laura: We never got it figured out. We tried. Was it Wi-Fi or was it gameplay? Both.
Steven Hanna: Okay. The system doesn't need Wi-Fi, so this one won't either. So if anyone's saying like, hey, I can't connect to Wi-Fi, I don't know if we could play, don't worry. You absolutely can't play without it. But the taggers themselves, those were also experiencing connectivity issues?
Laura: Yeah, they wouldn't stay connected to the game.
Steven Hanna: So some of them would stay in, some of them would not get started.
Laura: So some would be like on like a pre-game lobby almost, like that screen? Okay.
Steven Hanna: And this was your other case. It's a yellow case, correct? That one that was just... All right. This one's a blue one? Yep. Okay.
Laura: I don't believe you should be experiencing any of...
Steven Hanna: those issues with this. I do want to apologize because that's not something that should be happening. If that does happen, though, at any point in time, if there's like a few of them that aren't getting added into the game, the quickest solution is to just hit the red power button and just have them get close enough to the system and it'll automatically add them in.
Laura: Yeah. Not the best way to run it.
Steven Hanna: We the disconnect and reconnect of all of them, but it never, and it was never the same once. Always different. Always different.
Laura: Were you in the same place?
Steven Hanna: That's my next question.
Laura: Not always. We change where we play based on the group.
Steven Hanna: Okay. How, what's the typical player? Is it open area, grass, gym?
Laura: We tried everywhere. We did it at our playground a few times. That had a lot of issues. We never did that again. Our kind of settling space was like a small conference room, so it was inside. It also just gave the kids another indoor activity. Activity. That one we had the least amount of issues in. So we just stuck with it in there. But we also only had like 12 people playing at a time because of the size of the room.
Steven Hanna: Okay. 12 people, connectivity issues still. That's not great in my eyes. Shouldn't experience that with this one. I'm just thinking what could have been the issues. But that's, I'm leaving that in the past and saying we have a new system now. Let's focus on that one. I will relay all of this to the team because this is valuable feedback that I take very seriously. The fact that you can't use the system that was advertised in that way is not something that we like. So thank you for your feedback. And I'm sorry.
Laura: Yeah. No, it's all good.
Steven Hanna: That's, that's, that sticks. With the new system, though, you'll notice that there are a few different things. things. Thank The main focus being that there's no router attached anymore to it, so the router is built inside of the actual system now, where you're not going to have to focus on that thing sticking out like two sore thumbs. The second main feature difference that you'll notice is the silver power button is no longer on the bottom right, it's on the upper portion of the lid. Two main things, other than that, everything is pretty much the same as far as the layout goes. On the system, when you're starting the system up, just work from the bottom up, and the power cord, red, and then silver, and instead of, you know, shutting down and taking the router down now, that step is just completely removed. So you're just going to hit the power button, shut down, silver button, red button. So those are the main differences as far as functionality for you, what, you know, steps you might take to set it up and turn it off, that would be it. The... The... New system has two additional games on it. I don't know if you had this on your old system, but there were two new games that we released, and they should be on this new one. Are you at the registration screen or home screen?
Laura: I'm on the welcome, you can register and set up.
Steven Hanna: You can register your system if you would like. You do not have to do it at this time, but it's just recommended. It's a QR code, Wi-Fi connection type thing. But I just want to show you the features of the system. You'll also notice in the bottom portion of the charge dock, there is a blue ambient light now.
Laura: Yes. Right.
Steven Hanna: That's just another indicator that it's on, so that you have another visual indicator. The charge dock on these, there are, well, there is a little bit of a smaller component to the edges, so some of them might be a little bit challenging to get into the magnetic dock, but the... Support itself has actually been reinforced on each of the ZTAGGERS on this one, so if you had any of them that lost that little power thing, like the connectivity thing, yeah, that is not happening anymore.
Laura: You should not ever experience that.
Steven Hanna: While you are charging the system, though, I do recommend you just pop that lid a little bit so that it has a little heat dissipation coming out. That'll just extend the lifespan of the system and those ZTAGGERS. Other than that, nothing is different on the ZTAGGER itself. That power button's in the same spot. Everything is in the exact same location. They didn't change anything as far as that goes. When you turn the ZTAGGER on, what you'll notice is that instead of signal bars now, there's a few, like, numbers and letters next to the battery. That is the indicator that that watch is communicating with the main system. If you take a bunch of them out and just turn them on, those should all have that weird little number and letter code sequence. I know. I know what specifically it is, but it's, see it. If that is not there, that device will not connect and communicate with the system. So this is your way of knowing like, hey, are all of them about to get added into this game? Or am I going to run into that same issue like you did last time where half of them are in, half of them are out? This is where you'd be able to just see right off the bat and say, okay, every tagger is communicating. So they should all receive the signal.
Laura: Once you have a few of them on, have you played most of the games or are you kind of like stuck with zombie tag like most people? Keep Away and zombie tag are always the most popular games, but.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Have you had a moment to mess around with the settings of those games?
Laura: Yes. We did that a lot last year. Like changing like how long you play and all that.
Steven Hanna: Yep. Like. How many people have a ball and keep away, stuff like that? Okay, cool. Have you tried red light, green light?
Laura: Have you changed the settings in that?
Steven Hanna: I think, yes.
Laura: So zombie tag was probably first, and then keep away, and then rock, paper, scissors, and then red light, green light.
Steven Hanna: How did rock, paper, scissors work out for you guys?
Laura: It was good. When all of them were working, we were good.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
Laura: That one, just need a few more people to make it, because we don't, we have some groups that, like, require everybody to go to a certain activity, and then, like, they all rotate. Like, they swim, and then do ZTAG, and then do axe throwing, and then rotate around. Some of them, it's just a free-for-all, so they have to stay, like, with a counselor, but they can go do whatever they want. So some of them struggled a little more on some of them, but that was just because of the amount of people that they were traveling with. Like, they all just wanted to swim or whatever. But group, group issues more than game issues. Oh.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Because there are some cool settings that you can change in pretty much every game, and it seems like you've kind of navigated them, so I'm not going to bore you with the game settings. But depending on your groups, you can set up different games to be competitive and more fun. Red Light, Green Light, that's actually one of my starting games, and we do like a light sensitivity, medium sensitivity, high sensitivity, and then we do like an elimination round for the high sensitivity.
Laura: So there's a few different ways to structure it.
Steven Hanna: How often, or how long are your groups, I should say?
Laura: Most of them, when they do rotations, are there for like 45 minutes, and then rotate the last 15 minutes to whatever they're doing next. But when it's free-for-all, some of them are there for like five minutes, and some of them might stay for like 30 minutes.
Steven Hanna: But on average, 30 to 45 is like...
Laura: Okay, cool.
Steven Hanna: I'll send you over like all the games. settings that I have for a 45-minute class, and it might give you some cool things to structure and change around. One thing with Red Light, Green Light, not Red Light, Green Light, Rock, Paper, Scissors that I learned was if I actually change the game to a puzzle-solving game with the kids and say your whole goal is to just find the next person and tag you're watching it on the same color team, it actually becomes a really unique social game rather than competitive chase. So if you needed to switch it up a little bit, you could do that. That's pretty much it with the settings. On the devices themselves, I do want to just quickly run a startup with you to make sure that everything connects through. So if you want to just tap on any game so it starts that pregame lobby. And just make sure that those devices that you turned on just connect and go what I have on.
Laura: Cool.
Steven Hanna: All right. That is pretty much it on the system difference. The two new games that there are, they're going to be WordWave, and they're going to be Sequence Train. WordWave is like Pattern Match and Shape Match, where instead of matching a pattern or shape, you're now matching a language or native language to a target language. So we have English to Spanish and English to French. And what happens is the people are put on two different teams, and you can select them based on who you want on what team. And they have to match the words with the opposite language. So Spanish, for example, we would use Manzana for Apple. So the Spanish team would have Manzana, and they would try and find a person on the English team with the word Apple. And that's kind of just, you know, sequentially for every 15 seconds, the words change so that they have an opportunity to find a new word and match with a new partner. That's a good game if you have a lot of Spanish. in your classes. It's a really great game to just slow things down and focus purely on linguistics. The other game that we have is Sequence Train, and this is a number-solving puzzle game where everybody is kind of given a number in a sequence, and that sequence could be, you know, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, up by 1. It could be odds, evens, prime numbers, whatever you want to select. There's a few different drop-down menu items. You can basically have everybody have one chance of tagging in sequence. So one has to find two, two has to find three, three to four, four to five, five to six, so on and so forth. So just two new games if you wanted to add a little bit of a variety to it. In your old version of Zombie Tag, in the settings, I believe we added two new settings or one new setting. Does the Dr. Heal limit sound familiar to you?
Laura: No.
Steven Hanna: So the doctor heal limit is actually a new setting for zombie tag where we've noticed that sometimes the doctor and the humans just absolutely stomp in the round and the zombies get their butts kicked. And it's like the most demotivating thing to say. This skews it so that the beginning of the game is heavily weighted towards the humans succeeding. And then once the doctor heals that amount of people, the doctor is gone. So it basically floats it up towards like the humans winning in the first minute or two. And if the doctor's gone, it levels it out so that the zombies can take the win.
Laura: So this is a cool little balancing component that you might want to change up with your groups.
Steven Hanna: Tags before infection. Have you changed that before?
Laura: No, I don't think we had that either.
Steven Hanna: Okay, so these are lives. So this is how many lives you have before you turn into a zombie now. And this is where... die within like three seconds. Exactly. So when the game starts... They're all camping right next to their friends, and it's like, oh, crap. I was right here, and they got me. Now, what I like to do with this is just set it to two or three lives. If you're indoors, smaller area, lower numbers. That's what I say. Larger area, larger numbers.
Laura: I think for the most part, it'll probably be inside, so. I would set it for two or three lives.
Steven Hanna: If you're in, like, that conference room where you're saying, on average, it's 12-ish people, I would say two to three lives is perfect, because it gives everybody at least one or two opportunities for, like, a little bit of a mess-up, and then by that third time, you definitely got tagged. That, I believe, are the two new settings within Zombie Tag, but if there's something on your screen that you see that I didn't go over that's new, just let me know, and I'll go over that setting.
Laura: No, everything else is the same. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, we're good. With those... Those two new settings, you could really change up how to play Zombie Tag. What I like to do now is I throw an Offensive Doctor and a Defensive Doctor in, where one Doctor has to heal, and one Doctor has to go after the Zombies. So, adds a little variety to it. But other than that, those are the only new settings on there. I believe that's pretty much it as far as new features and new settings go. So, you seem like you have time on the system, and there's really nothing else that I can share with you that you don't already know or you haven't already done. So, I'm not going to bore you and waste more than 15 minutes of your time and just share the new fun stuff.
Laura: Do y'all have anything about, like, durability? Like, are they harder to destroy the screens or anything?
Steven Hanna: When we say harder to destroy the screens, tell me what's happening.
Laura: Well, so, I don't know what happened to our old one that we mailed back, or if you guys get to look at them at all. know... you. Um, if you want a great level of destruction on screens to look at the different types of ways to destroy them, ours are really interesting.
Steven Hanna: I sent back all of our broken ones too.
Laura: So, um, some, a lot of them cracked like from the corner across. Some of them cracked all up from the middle, um, just to where they're not usable anymore. And some of them still connect. So you have to actually like turn them off and take them out of the room because they'll still connect.
Steven Hanna: Even if you can't see what's on them. Right. Okay.
Laura: But. So how many out of 24 would you say? Um, at the end, when we mailed ours back, we had 12.
Steven Hanna: Wow. And how long did you have the system for?
Laura: I could look at the account, but I'm just curious. years, but we mailed back, we probably broke over 40. Like we mailed back a couple sets of broken ones.
Steven Hanna: Okay. When you.
Laura: You guys are teaching them how to play.
Steven Hanna: Are you guys really reinforcing that this is a no-contact thing?
Laura: Yeah, but we have like 600 kids at a time in the summer.
Steven Hanna: it's realistic, but that's not happening. No, we weren't.
Laura: I mean, we understand we're not necessarily the target audience for this.
Steven Hanna: I'm not holding you responsible for the fact that you can't model proper ZTAG behavior to 600 kids, okay?
Laura: I'm not doing that. It's not possible.
Steven Hanna: It's just not possible.
Laura: Like, if it was 20 kids, I would be like, Laura, please. We did. We had a lot of contact issues just in general, and they weren't all, like, I was in, I didn't, I don't run it all the time. Like, we have summer staff and stuff that come in and do it too, but even just like, like, wrist against floor, like.
Steven Hanna: that stop motion, the bang, the just carelessness of arm flail into a wall, right? Okay, so it's more just spatial awareness. Fairness of Individuals. It's not on you. It's not on you. Grimmers.
Laura: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, there's really not much I can do to assist on that side other than say, as long as you try. As long as you try.
Laura: They were going to maybe be more durable than the last set, so.
Steven Hanna: They are slightly more durable, but I would say, based on your description, treat them with the same durability as you with your old set.
Laura: Well, I'm going to take some of them out. I'm not going to send the whole thing.
Steven Hanna: What I recommend is that you take six or eight out. I would say if you're not, yeah, if you're not running like 15 to 16 player games, just keep 16 in there, take them out.
Laura: Yeah, and they're nice sort of things when they don't think that there's more, so.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, when people know that there's a lifespan to it, you know, they treat it with a little more respect, for sure. Other than that, any questions on the new system? hear With the Awesome. Anything that I can help you with?
Laura: questions for ZTAG at all? Nope, we're good.
Steven Hanna: Alrighty. I'm going to shoot you over a quick follow-up email. You'll get two emails after this training. One is going to be the recording copy that you can, you know, utilize at your own will. The second is going to be my, like, follow-up with just settings that I've used if you want to try to mess around with those. Awesome. Periodically, I might shoot you a quick email and just ask about your system stats just because it helps us create new games. And we like to know how you guys are, you know, using ZTAG. We're making a little internal leaderboard to, like, say, hey, look at this. Laura's got two million steps. What do you guys have? Kind of like a little, you know, a little competition internally. But there's no pressure to provide the data at all. I want to say thank you so much for your time. And if you need anything at all, please reach out to us. I'm here for you. You have my direct line and email right after this. So.
Laura: Cool. Thank you. You got it.
Steven Hanna: Have wonderful day.
Steven Hanna: Hello, folks. Sorry about that.
katie and jenna: It's okay.
Steven Hanna: Someone else asking me questions from another center, so I had to go find some info for them. No problem. No problem. How are you? Not bad. I am sure...
katie and jenna: You've noticed by now, I am not Megan.
Steven Hanna: I don't judge, and I was just going to go with whatever you decide to identify as, I'm rolling with it.
katie and jenna: Sounds like it. I am not Megan. I am Tyler.
Steven Hanna: I'm the technician here at the arcade.
katie and jenna: Megan is on her way. She ran into some trouble out on the road. One of the roads has some construction on her way in. But we figured it'd be better, or not better, but it'd be good for me to sit in on this also.
Steven Hanna: Absolutely. For sure. And what was your name? I'm sorry. Tyler.
katie and jenna: Tyler? Okay.
Steven Hanna: Tyler. Awesome. And you said you were running the tech on the arcade side, correct?
katie and jenna: Yes, sir. Yep.
Steven Hanna: Awesome. So, my first question is, have you utilized ZTAG before in the arcade side?
katie and jenna: No, not on the arcade side. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Have you used it at all?
katie and jenna: Um, I, I haven't done anything. I've done some things with the old. ZTAG, um, like, when James asks, uh, to, to do any kind of, um, diagnostics on what was going on with the old, the old bracelets, um, but Megan just showed up, she does have experience with the ZTAG.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
katie and jenna: That's what I heard. Yeah. Hello, Megan.
Steven Hanna: you? I'm well, how are you?
katie and jenna: Good, there's construction on the road that I know that I take, and that wasn't two hours ago. No worries.
Steven Hanna: I, I live in New York and we've had one road that's been under construction for 22 years for as long as I can remember. Yeah, it's called a, it's a parkway that they should have had done, like, within three years, but they just like to extend that contract for two damn decades. Oh my goodness. Yeah, it's, um, it's one of those roads that if we have to leave New York, I always, like, look at Google and I'm like, if you're taking me down the Belt Parkway, I will personally take an hour detour to avoid that. So. So. Yeah. I understand, and I'm sorry. That's insane.
katie and jenna: Hopefully they're a little bit more efficient where you guys are at with road repair. Probably slightly.
Steven Hanna: Like two decades ahead, maybe?
katie and jenna: yeah. Give or take, you know.
Steven Hanna: Fair enough, fair enough.
katie and jenna: Well, thank you for joining me.
Steven Hanna: I will try and keep it short, light, and sweet. I know it's five o'clock where I am. I don't know where it is where you are. But based on that, I just kind of want to get a brief overview of your system. I see how you kind of liked it. See if there was any feedback that you can, you know, share with me based on your experience or maybe some of your team. We loved it. Yeah, we loved it.
katie and jenna: It was very user-friendly. We only had, like, the zombie one. We, for a while, we had the one where, like, you, oh, you guys compared it to, do you remember what game they compared it to? Well, like, change colors. Squid Game.
Steven Hanna: They probably said Squid Game, if that sounds right. Oh, Light, Green Light? Yes, yes.
katie and jenna: That one we had a very hard time figuring out, so we never really used that one. But the ZTAG, we used very frequently. Okay.
Steven Hanna: So it seems like ZTAG is kind of like the go-to 99.999% use?
katie and jenna: Yes. Cool.
Steven Hanna: Then I'll kind of just start there. In ZTAG on the new system, do you guys have that with you now?
katie and jenna: We do not. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Is it in route to you? I believe so.
katie and jenna: Okay.
Steven Hanna: I'll kind of quickly go over with you guys the new stuff on the system, but without seeing it in front of you, it's a little bit challenging to kind of go through the training on. Okay. What I will do is I will give you everything that I can based off of visualization, and then I'm going to send you a script for the games. What I would like to do, though, is if I can get 15 minutes of your time after this just to show you the other games, because I think you guys can use them and kind of open it up out of zombie tag. Red Light, Green Light is actually a really great warmup, and I actually use it in my classes where we do three rounds, 60 seconds each, and I have them move from one side to the other side of the gym. So if it's structured in a certain way, you can actually get much more use out of the other games. But for zombie tag, I kind of just want to focus in on the settings because not many people know that you can change the settings and how many zombies there are, how long the game lasts, stuff like that.
katie and jenna: So we can, we do know how to do that.
Steven Hanna: Okay. least in the older, whatever version we had, we did know how to do that. Okay, perfect. Then the only difference now in zombie tag is that there's two new settings, one new setting. One is going to be something called the Dr. Heal Limit.
katie and jenna: Okay.
Steven Hanna: This is basically, in the previous version of zombie tag, the doctor was the doctor for the whole round. They're not changed whatsoever. In this version of zombie tag. After a certain amount of heals, the doctor becomes a human. Oh, okay. So it waits it a little bit. And Tyler, if you've ever played video games, you'll know that balancing is a big PETA pain, you know? Yeah, yep, yep, yep. For this, this is actually a balancing mechanism to make sure that the humans have a higher chance at the beginning of the game to win. And as the game progresses, that chance decreases. So as the doctor heals five people, there's no more doctor. And now the zombies can tag everybody else. So the beginning of the game starts out balanced towards and weighted towards a human win. And then as the game progresses, it shifts progressively towards the zombies winning. Okay.
katie and jenna: So that's what the doctor heal limit is.
Steven Hanna: There also should be something called heals before infection, tags before infection. Have you seen that setting before?
katie and jenna: No. Okay. Then this might be something new as well.
Steven Hanna: We've added a lot. So instead of you losing one life and becoming a zombie, you now have like two or three hearts that a zombie has to take before they turn you into a zombie. So this just adds a little bit more balancing towards the humans. If you've had younger players, it's a little bit tough for them to compete. So you can give them two to three lives as opposed to one life being taken and they just turn into a zombie.
katie and jenna: So yeah, all gamers set up like that, I just don't think we knew what it was called.
Steven Hanna: Okay, perfect. Then you know how to change the settings on that. there's going to be two new games on your system when you get it. These are more educational based and you might not utilize them, but I do kind of want to walk you through them.
katie and jenna: It's just tough to do it without the system in front of you.
Steven Hanna: So I'm not sure how much more we can get out of the training other than new settings. The only thing that changed for you guys on the case is instead of the silver button being on the side, it's now on the top. Okay.
katie and jenna: you. No more router as well.
Steven Hanna: Oh, okay. So the router is built into the case itself. We've removed that step completely. Other than that, they go right into the dock the same. The ZTAGGERS have been enhanced this version. You might have had some of the little charge ports come loose in the last version. This version, that should not happen at all. The dock is a little bit, and this is my personal opinion on it, it's a little bit more finicky to put the ZTAGGERS in. However, it is a much better dock compared to the ones before. There's a little bit more space for the straps to kind of be placed on the side so that they don't get caught in the lid when you put it down. The only problem you may run into is when you place them on the dock, it may not start the charge sequence. Just push it down a little bit harder. That's the one thing that I've noticed is the connection just isn't perfect when you put it in. You might just... just have to apply 5% more pressure to get it charging. Other than that, nothing insanely different on the system as far as your startup goes, as far as your shutdown goes. Same exact sequences before, just minus the router. Okay, perfect. What I would recommend based on your group sizes is to, if you're not running 20 players at a time, take a few of those out of the case so that you have them as a backup. If you run at max capacity at all times, I can tell you right now, you will run into situations where someone will not be able to play. If you say that the system can run 24, but we optimize it for 16, we optimize it for 18, you'll always have a few extras that your stragglers can join in with. So that's one of the best practices that I tell people is structured around 18 to 20, so you have two to four extras that you can add in if players come by way through. All right, perfect.
katie and jenna: Any questions for me in regards to system operations? No. system at all? No. Are there any kind of, because since we don't have the ZTAGGERS here to play with and help us with the demo or the learning process, is there instructions or anything like that that we could read over later when we do get them?
Steven Hanna: Yep. There's going to be a one-page sheet that's included with every new system of yours. That's kind of like a one-page startup guide. It'll give you all the instructions you need on how to start things up. It provides like a highlight of what's in your kit, what to use when, how to use it. And then you'll also have access to me. You'll have my personal cell phone number right after this where your system comes in and you're like, hey, what's going on here? You could call me. Awesome. pretty available. I'm available from like 10 Eastern until about 8. Eastern for support. We're on the same time zone too, so that's great. Basically, anything that you guys need, you just give me a call or shoot me a text and I'll be able to respond probably within an hour or four. If it's like a critical issue where you're trying to run something and it is just not working, you can just call me on the spot, send me a little text SOS. If I get that, I'm basically, wherever I am, I'm leaving to take that call. So, you guys are part of that support package and, you know, whenever you get your system, if you guys do need another walkthrough, happy to do, it'll take 15 minutes. You guys know what you're doing with the system. This half hour, I just like to allocate in case you needed to talk about issues with me where I can get that to the support staff.
katie and jenna: Is it easier to switch between the games this time around? That's what we had difficulty with last time. Define easier.
Steven Hanna: What were you running into as far as the issue goes?
katie and jenna: We couldn't get all the bracelets to switch over.
Steven Hanna: Some of them would switch into the new lobby. Is of like that new game and someone would be stuck on the old game?
katie and jenna: Correct. Okay.
Steven Hanna: For this one, when your system comes in, it's probably going to be worthwhile to spend five minutes with me just so I could show you the connection area on that. When you turn the watch on, in our old variation, you would see signal bars on the watch. Yes. We now have kind of created a better network where those signal bars do not show as signal bars anywhere. They show as like a sequence of numbers and letters. It's just a stronger connection. With that, if you do run into some of those not moving into the next game, troubleshooting step number one, just go back to the home screen and start the game over from the home screen. It's kind of like a hard reset on the system, but not a hard reset. It's just going home and saying, forget all the memory that you had on this just now. We're going back to the beginning on it. Second troubleshooting step would be to one tap the red button on this. Side of the ZTAGGER and just have them hold their hand up so that it can detect the signal on the watch. By holding it up, it's just the case is basically broadcasting up and out in 360 degrees. So the higher up it is, it's just a little bit better of a potential for that signal to be detected and to connect. What you will do at the start of your event is just take a look at that device and make sure that that sequence of letters and numbers is there. It's right next to the battery logo. I know it's very hard to visualize right now and we're just doing everything. Let's play pretend, right? But I promise you when it's concrete in your hands, you'll go, that makes sense. I see this. You're a tech guy, Tyler, so you're probably going to get this case, open it up and start it and run your system function tests on it as it is. So I'm sure that if anything comes up then, you'll just give me a Call or text me, but it's pretty similar to the old system. Main feature difference is removal of the router with the two antennas. It's built into the case, and your silver power button is no longer on the bottom.
katie and jenna: It's on the top of the screen. Okay. And two new games, which I'll walk you through.
Steven Hanna: They're more educational, but for you guys, if you're sticking into the zombie tag, you'll probably use that once a year for one game. Just fully transparent. They're great games, and it's great for marketing for schools and education if you guys need to do something like that. But practicality, theory versus application, you guys are going to be running zombie tag.
katie and jenna: Okay. I will also send you my script of games and settings that I have for that for 45 minutes. Okay.
Steven Hanna: It'll give you guys ideas. Okay, perfect. Yeah, I'm not going to take up too much of your time without the system, but... Give you guys ideas. All right, perfect.
katie and jenna: Thank you. You got it.
Steven Hanna: Any other questions before we jump off? Not that I have.
katie and jenna: Okay.
Steven Hanna: When you do get that system, if you do have questions, please reach out. Yes. I am available. My phone is here. They pay for it. I have to use it.
katie and jenna: Take care, guys.
Steven Hanna: Have a wonderful day. You too. Thanks. Bye.
Kristin Neal: Hey Charlie, how are you?
Charlie Xu: Are you a volunteer at church right now?
Kristin Neal: It's for my daughter's choir. They have a booth here at the Fall Festival and they're working it. So all the parents signed up for, this was weeks and weeks and weeks ago and I totally forgot. I don't know. They have a for what?
Charlie Xu: What are they presenting there? They are selling loaded tater tots. So they're frying tater tots with like pulled pork or taco seasoning with barbecue, cheese, all kinds of goodies. Oh, that's fun. Yeah, I'm working in the kitchen.
Kristin Neal: I'm just keeping it clean.
Charlie Xu: Oh, you're helping? Yeah.
Kristin Neal: I might, I might have to jump over and help them, but I'll, I'll, you know, keep this project. This is possible.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, thank you for working on the sheet, get ready before the meetings.
Kristin Neal: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. I wanted to make sure it was just clear. I think that's the, hopefully we can just have it so clear after our meeting, how we can, yeah, move forward.
Charlie Xu: So this is the first distributors were potentially good, right? The friends one is the very first one.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, yeah, definitely the first international.
Charlie Xu: Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Yeah, because, so in, for Ghenton, they do have a friends distributors and, hey, Steve. Hey.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, but it just somehow has some kind of like interesting relationship.
Charlie Xu: So, so probably just need to know more, a little bit more of their background, like who they are.
Kristin Neal: it's good.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, I think it's great.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, that's a great idea. area. Yeah.
Charlie Xu: How are you, Steve?
Steven Hanna: Tired. You caught me last night. I was in bed, and I got the notification that said, go to bed, Steve.
Charlie Xu: Steve is still working at midnight, working on the lesson plan. It's midnight, go to sleep. Steve. So I was still, like, adding comments, and I still seeing his, like, what is that, the The cursor moving around, yeah.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, he's still, like, changing, like, hey, go to, I just comment directly in that page, like, go to sleep.
Steven Hanna: I was like, no. He was having a brawl.
Kristin Neal: I was, like, in the flow state.
Steven Hanna: I'm like, I could do it.
Charlie Xu: We're getting there, we're getting there.
Steven Hanna: Hey. Cool.
Kristin Neal: Hey, Quan. Hello.
Steven Hanna: How you?
Quan Gan: How are you?
Kristin Neal: I am sweaty.
Quan Gan: What?
Charlie Xu: Before a workout.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: It looks like the office.
Steven Hanna: What's sweaty in the office?
Kristin Neal: Oh.
Charlie Xu: Oh, come on.
Kristin Neal: I've been in the office for the past two days.
Quan Gan: Rather than going home to sleep, I'm in here.
Steven Hanna: You need to get the Costco table so you're not bending down that often for those units. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: We do have that.
Charlie Xu: Maybe you need to. Oh, are on the ground just charging.
Quan Gan: But once I start mass producing it, it'll be up on the table.
Steven Hanna: You don't destroy your back. Oh, yeah.
Quan Gan: No, I'm quite aware. I have a little desk there. Yep.
Steven Hanna: Great.
Charlie Xu: Not anymore.
Quan Gan: Yeah. don't know.
Charlie Xu: I don't I don't I don't know. I don't don't know. don't I don't know. Thank What's the guy's name? Sorry. Patrice. Patrice.
Quan Gan: Patrice.
Charlie Xu: Oh, okay.
Steven Hanna: Kris, if you got to go, go for it. I was just going to say, I'm sorry. you. We love you for setting this up.
Kristin Neal: Come back if you can. If not, we got you. Thanks, guys. I appreciate it. I'll jump in.
Quan Gan: Okay. care.
Charlie Xu: Patrice. Patrice.
Steven Hanna: I'm not even trying that last name.
Charlie Xu: So he's been buying the units before, right?
Quan Gan: For a couple of years. Well, I think for a year and a half. And then probably, whether actively or passively, we stopped really supporting international sales. So it just kind of fell off. And also, the product had issues. So we just kind of incrementally. We fixes, but we haven't been proactive in, like, really resolving it. So I think getting the V3s out to our domestic customers, that was the primary thing. But with him, I would like to start that conversation, too.
Charlie Xu: But before, he just, like, a common customer without any further discount or anything?
Quan Gan: No, I think we gave him a volume discount because he was going to sell many he purchased. I don't see him come in yet. Yeah.
Charlie Xu: Do you?
Quan Gan: Let me find him on WhatsApp. Hold on.
Charlie Xu: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Action Distribution. Let's pull up his quote and see what we have. Let's do this. You
Charlie Xu: Steven, just sent you the PlayMaker sheet where Paula and I worked today.
Steven Hanna: Oh my goodness, this is so cute.
Charlie Xu: Oh my goodness, I see the little thumbnail. A little thumbnail. Oh, what?
Steven Hanna: That is so cool.
Charlie Xu: Oh, you saw it? So cute. Oh my goodness.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, it seems good.
Charlie Xu: Right, we're getting there, we're getting there. Wow.
Steven Hanna: Have I seen it?
Quan Gan: Oh no, I can send it to you.
Charlie Xu: I just, exclusive, exclusive. goodness.
Steven Hanna: I love my exclusive preview, it was needed, it was needed.
Charlie Xu: Oh no, oh my god. That's, that's very cool. Yeah, okay. All right. Oh, I think my system are open too many things, sir, forcing me closing some of the stuff. Hold on, Quan, you can, you can go home and show it. Okay, that's fine.
Steven Hanna: I'm just going to share it with the Jedi Council, I downloaded it. I got it. Oh, okay, okay.
Charlie Xu: Got it. I think I'm my, my AI. Oh no. Gosh.
Steven Hanna: Very cute.
Charlie Xu: Very appealing. Yeah?
Steven Hanna: Yeah, if I, if I'm a teacher and I see this, I'm like, you've got the visuals down.
Charlie Xu: Awesome. Yeah, like, you guys have accentuated all of the visual points that I need as a teacher. To make me care. Good to hear.
Steven Hanna: You've got the codifying of color for words. That's great. Yeah.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. The words is from you.
Steven Hanna: You guys are just doing wonders with it.
Charlie Xu: You know what? I don't think this is the right time. What?
Quan Gan: Because, hold on. He accepted. Did he? Yep.
Steven Hanna: Oh, is he coming? It says that he has a checkmark next to his accepted thing for his email.
Quan Gan: Well, I am checking here, unless I'm...
Steven Hanna: Maybe there's a time when, like, one hour...
Quan Gan: It's 2 a.m. in France.
Charlie Xu: What? So, hold on.
Steven Hanna: Do we have this reverse show that we're supposed to be up at 2 a.m.
Quan Gan: doing this? Okay, so, look. Because... Because... It is 2.05. Checkmark that he might have. I don't trust checkmarks because that could just be an automated thing. I'm looking at on Tuesday, he says 5 p.m. or 6 p.m. or 8 or 9 for him. Is it something that could work around? I can be available next few days at this hour. And then Kristin replied, let's schedule for Thursday, October 9th at 5 p.m. PST. No, I think, yeah, I think there was a time thing. Oops.
Charlie Xu: So we appreciate your flexibility.
Quan Gan: And then he never replied back. So, yeah. I think it's a no-go.
Charlie Xu: Well, these are part of knowing our distributors.
Quan Gan: Yeah, because, okay, so France is before you. So in terms of getting the sun. And So, Steve, then he would be several hours, probably like...
Steven Hanna: He's GMT plus two, if I'm minus five. So he's like six hours ahead of you or something like that. Four plus two, yeah, he is exactly six hours ahead of me.
Quan Gan: So six hours later for you. So nine, nine for you guys. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: And seven for Kris. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay, so I'm going to just let him know. We have the wrong time zone.
Steven Hanna: I mean, listen, if I got to do something at 2 a.m.
Quan Gan: No, we're not doing anything at 2 a.m.
Steven Hanna: I was just going to throw something at me, but go to... Stop it.
Quan Gan: Like his, yeah, it'll have to be like seven hours later or even later than that. Or like, so his seven hours later would be your morning. seen. Get Wait, no, that's too late. So I think the easiest thing is probably our morning, which would be his evening.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, your like 9 a.m. almost. Yeah. Which would be his 8, 6, yeah, 6 p.m.
Quan Gan: Okay, so Kris, can you reach back out to him and then reschedule?
Kristin Neal: Yeah, no problem. So he said he wasn't going to make it? I'm sorry, I missed that.
Quan Gan: No, I don't think there was, like, just looking at the email chain, unless there was something that I didn't get copied on, he never formally replied he was accepting?
Kristin Neal: Oh, yeah, he accepted the invite.
Quan Gan: I don't trust checkmarks ever. I only trust, like, actual email reception. So, like, if people don't say, yes, I will be there, I assume it's not. Yeah. Even if they check it, because...
Kristin Neal: Yeah, let me look. The checkmark is...
Quan Gan: It's actually the same exact reason Ashkahn says he hates TFA, like, dual authentication with the yes-no answer, because it might just pop up, and then we're, like, trying to get rid of it, so we'll press whatever button, so you can never, like, trust any yes-no answer. Okay. So unless they're, like, explicitly saying, yes, I will be there at my time, assume it's, especially internationally, I assume it's not happening.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, it's also 2 a.m. over there. I don't think it's possible for him to stay so late. So listen, let's wake his up, get him out of bed.
Steven Hanna: We got things to talk about.
Quan Gan: So I think also just procedurally, especially as we probably will eventually deal with more international customers, always use Google just to do a time check, or you can ask GPT, what is that time for them? Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, I'll definitely look over the emails, because that was all clear. I'm He actually suggested this time.
Quan Gan: Well, no, he said 5 p.m. his time, like either his morning or his evening, and that's when I'm reading right now.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, I'll look over and see where I'm misunderstood.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, so, no, it's fine. We'll just reschedule. Cool. Well, then I'll go back to coding my stuff.
Kristin Neal: Okay, guys. Okay.
Charlie Xu: Thank you so much.
Quan Gan: Have a good one.
Kristin Neal: Bye. Bye.
Quan Gan: Take care.
[Metadata only — transcript not included in this selection]
Kristin Neal: How I'm good. Thank you so much for meeting. I'm glad it worked out better today.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Yeah, I'm so sorry. I apologize for it from yesterday.
Kristin Neal: No, no, not at all. I know you guys have got a lot going on.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. I thought that if I jump to that meeting, I'm not going to be paying a lot of attention, and I really want to understand a lot of things.
Kristin Neal: So that is why I sent a quick message to you. Thank you. Thank you so much for rescheduling. It worked out perfect.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Yeah, amazing, amazing.
Kristin Neal: Perfect.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: It looks like, do you have about 30 minutes?
Kristin Neal: That's about as long as I have to be able to. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Okay. cancel another meeting, so don't worry. I need to at least understand a little bit to have all the information, so then I can send it to the team as well.
Kristin Neal: Absolutely, absolutely. And this is going to be recorded and sent over, so you can absolutely share it with them, and hopefully they can see what ZTAG is.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Lovely, lovely, amazing.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Perfect. All right.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Great.
Kristin Neal: Please tell me how. I've looked into your company a little bit. It looks amazing. It looks like you guys partner with a lot of after-school care. Before you call me then, let me just tell you really quick, my name is Kris Neal. I'm not sales. I'm just here to see if a partnership, my title is Partner Relations Director, just to see what kind of partnership that we could provide you guys. It has nothing to do with sales. At the end of our 30 minutes, I'll go over a little bit of the cost and things like that. I'm not sales, so if you want to make sure I can send you a link and then you can have clear steps right after.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Lovely.
Kristin Neal: I would love to hear about your programs, please.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Well, okay. So, first of all, my name is Delphi. I'm in charge of all the content of our programs. I'm planning all the lesson plans, trying to have partnerships with new materials, try to bring new ideas to our programs, try not to... In a way have like the basic education and things like that, so always try to think and look forward and think new ideas. I used to be a teacher, so I know what's to be inside a classroom with 20, 24 students. So as I always say, my big goal here is to try to help our instructors and to have a great opportunity with our kids and our students. Well, they learn through playing, like that's my big goal here in HOKALI and I always say that. Like, I know that we are always learning and doing a lot of things, but we know that the best moments of our kids and students is when they are playing and when they are really enjoying what they are doing. So I want them to have like all this experience and trying to learn because they learn a lot of things through playing. So I'm trying to transmit that to our instructors. And hook. Hook. It's an after-school company, but also an after-care company as well. We are, we have more or less five, and yeah, five, we actually, we, our birthday was this year, we turned five years. We started as a surf company, and our owners are really, really big, passionate about sports, and actually from, they meet each other doing surf. So they started giving some lessons to their own friends, then to kids, and then they realized that they can bring these surf activities to the schools. When they arrived to schools, they realized that there were a lot of opportunities out there doing sports. So they started bringing soccer, bringing dancing, trying to connect instructors, and give them lessons on the, on the schools. And now... We are growing a lot. We have around 150 schools around California. We are expanding to New York, to New Jersey. The last year, we started this new way of trying to have HOKALI at the schools, that is the aftercare educators. So we have some districts in Mont Diablo, in Los Angeles, in Inglewood, where we are in charge of, like, four hours, like, the enrichment part of the day. But we have the kids from 1, 2 p.m. until 6 p.m. So the idea is there to bring a lot of enrichment programs, the ones that we have, like, after schools, but in a way, in an aftercare process, in a way. We are growing really fast, as we have this... These aftercare contracts, we also have afterschool programs at the same time running, we have sports, we have STEM, we have cooking, we have wellness, we have a lot of things, dance as well, and we always, as I always say, we always try to have that contact with the school to see what else we can have specifically. In that school, or maybe the students, what they are needing. So we are always trying to learn and try to connect also with the schools to see what else we can have. And I came across ZTAG because actually my boss, I think that met you at the Boots Conference, I think so. So long time ago, I was hearing about regarding you. And then when we started at Monde Diablo.
Kristin Neal: . . . . I was going to say, they're a big partner of ours, yes.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Yeah, when we started over there with five schools, actually we started in August, but we are working with them since June. I saw that one of the, I think that was the director of one of the schools. So someone told me regarding you, and I said, OK, I need to have a meeting with you. I was a little bit busy, but I said, OK, I need to do it during this month. And as I said, I'm always trying to bring new ideas. Actually, my big, big challenge is middle school. So I'm always trying to bring new programs in a way to our aftercare contracts. And as I always say, maybe there's a project that I'm bringing there to our districts and to our aftercare educators, that maybe I can bring it to an afterschool program and we turn that on an afterschool program and we sell it only. Let's see. Let's Thank As an after-school. Our after-school programs, actually, they more or less, they last between 12 weeks, sometimes 10 weeks. It depends on the school, but our like normal program is 12 weeks, once a week. My other big challenge is to try to let the sales team know that it's very, very important for us to, actually for me, for the educational world to try to split the groups and to take into account the ages of each kid. So I'm also working on trying to, okay, if we're going to have an after-school, we are going to try to have the age is more or less the same, because the goal for a five years old is not the same of a 12 year old. So I'm also working a lot on that, and so as I said, in this opportunity, I would love to bring this to our after-care educators and try to bring it to, I know that in Mondeablo they are running a little bit there, but it's not from HOKALI. I would love to bring it from my side, but as I'm saying, like, my idea is like, okay, this is a pilot, it's going to be, it's fantastic, we did it, and tried to bring it to our after-school program, and of course, we are having a lot of other districts this year, so the idea is to try to grow over there and try to always send it over there. I'm a big obsessed, I do not want to send a material and just leave it over there on a corner, and they do not use it, I hate that, so I'm always, like, as I said, I always start as a small pilot, but with a lesson plan or thinking activities, okay, okay, so this, I don't know, this material, you can use it once a week, but with this, this, this, and this activity, try to use it during a whole month, maybe if you like it, do it twice a week, but use it, please. I went to your website and a lot of things, but I said, OK, maybe if I can have a meeting with them and try to talk a little bit more, and as I said, my big goal is to try to have a partnership and to see how we can grow together with this material.
Kristin Neal: That sounds great, Delfina. Everything you said, everything was like, ooh, it just kept getting me more excited, especially, we have someone on our team called the Playmaker. So when you said, like, play is such an important part of, you know, how you want to support the kids, I mean, I absolutely, a thousand percent agree. The teaching, the lessons they learn absolutely are through play.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: We love taking that.
Kristin Neal: We, this year, had, took part in the Play Day initiative through CAN, and it was just, like, amazing. We had so many site visits through California just to play and just have that time with the kids. It's so absolutely amazing, and then that you're, you're a teacher before, so you know exactly kind of, like, what they need. and going through and that you do your curriculum, like that's so exciting because ZTAGG is exactly what you need it to be. It can be as easy, as simple as you're telling your team just push this button and this button and you can just have the kids engaged and connecting and learning. Like it can be as simple as that or you can go as deep as to where it can be centered around curriculum. I'll show you the unit right now. We'll go over exactly what the unit comes with. I'm going to start my sharing right here. This is the ZEUS unit. Can you see that OK? Lovely.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Perfect.
Kristin Neal: Perfect. The ZEUS unit, that does stand for ZTAG Unified Edutainment System. There is a 24-player, this is a 24-player pack right here.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Lovely.
Kristin Neal: It has a durable Pelican case right here. Wheels and handles, so it's super simple to move. Everything is in the... So it's very, very easy to move from site to site. So a lot of sites do. have someone that, Team Primetime, we have partnered with them, which I think are the same, kind of comparable to what your program is. They have it and move it from site to site. Super, super simple. One hour to charge. It only takes one hour to charge, and then you get three to four hours of play on the ZTAGG right here. But we like to say after 10 or 15 minutes, the kids actually need a break. They, they're worn out because it's a lot of running.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: So we just suggest rotating kids in and out. OK. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: So like, it'll be perfect if you have like a, like rotation, you know. OK, OK. Yeah. Things like that.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Yeah. Football field range is the, where, as far as the kids can run to, for it to still be in range right here. Ah, got it. It's all connected right here through this, and there's absolutely no Wi-Fi required for
Kristin Neal: It's all built in, so you don't have to worry about getting on school Wi-Fi, hotspot, anything like that. Everything you just need is a plug. So if you have a generator, you can even take this into the middle of the woods, which kids do love. Everything right here is very, very simple to use. In fact, schools even have, like, leadership teams for the kids, where they're actually running the system, being the tech team, and being in charge of that. Very simple. Right here in this top corner, you can't quite see it, but there's a cog in that right there. And you're able to touch that, and in the system, there's all, we provide data on two things. One is the amount, well actually several things, but step counter. We have a step counter, how many, how long each of the games are being played for. and where? where? The only company that also calculates how many times the kids are connecting. So every time they're matching watch-to-watch, that number goes up.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Ah, got it.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, super cool. Yep, only the plug is needed. There's a USB port right here, and that is so you're able to connect to the big screen in a gym. So the kids, yeah, it's all anonymous, leaderboard, so it's very, yeah, it's great. Each of the games are customizable, so you can change the timing of the game. There's a few sensitivity changes, things like that. OK.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: And game updates.
Kristin Neal: So you do get these eight games right here, which we'll go over in a little bit. But the only time that you will need Wi-Fi is when you update the system for general game updates. Yeah, those are complementary. General game updates. We just let you know, and then you hop on the Wi-Fi and you download. Very, very simple. Again, Wi-Fi is not needed. And then once you purchase this unit, you actually own it. There's no subscription. There's no yearly fee or anything like that.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: We just ship right to you.
Kristin Neal: Lovely.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Perfect.
Kristin Neal: Great. Did you have a question?
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Yeah, sorry. I'm thinking out loud. Like for how long do you think that you can have in a way like this material? Like I'm thinking, for example, if I have a program of 12 weeks and it's only once per week, like it's only 12 lessons in a way. Can I have like this as a program and we have like different type of games? Like can we have 12 games or how can I try to see if I can connect that to our program?
Kristin Neal: Absolutely. So right here is your welcome letter. Everything that you will need is right in here. right year. I It's In this welcome letter, you're going to have all the videos, but right down here to answer your question, this gentleman is actually a PE teacher in Wisconsin, and he has been a partner with us for about three years now, and what he's done is taken the eight games and changed it to where it's like a dozen games that you're able to play. You're able to play a game that we have, it's called, it's like the virtual ball game, the keep away game, and he's adding these scooters to it, to where it's adding that to whatever program that you already have, to kind of layer it and add that variation.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: OK.
Kristin Neal: So they're on the scooters here. This one, math match with obstacles, so they'll have like a team obstacle course, red light, green light with a ball. My teacher just a few weeks ago said, And... She's doing Red Light, Green Light now, where the kids are running across the gym as her favorite kind of animal. So it's things like that that you can just keep working that brain that you have of recreating. Yeah. And then you can create however you want. You can even do, like, the virtual ball. Like, have so much fun with it where you can do, like, a spelling bee with it. Whoever is in gets tagged. Whoever has it the longest in that game wins. So it's something that you can just fix.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: do you know, like, the group pages that it's, like, allowed to play? Like, do you have a group page or it's, like, for elementary or it depends on the activity?
Kristin Neal: Well, we actually have a teacher on staff and he's our playmaker.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: That's Steve. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: He was a previous teacher. So it's something that you really do want to collaborate with. Okay. you. He'd be more than happy to kind of explore that with you, where it's like an actual curriculum focused on a certain aspect of it. He has his own company with ZTAG, and he does have like a curriculum based on the lasers, actually. The lasers and the, it's like a STEM, it's definitely a STEM program that he's done with his own. But he would love to share that with you. Yeah, the angles. Lovely.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: And I'm thinking like on the sales team, like this type of material will be a STEM program or more a sport program. Like I do not know where to add it in a way on our catalog.
Kristin Neal: Exactly. Yeah, that's why ZTAG is so different, unique, because we can actually go into every catalog. Exactly. Going to everyone. With the CAN symposium, we were in meetings with volleyball.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: tips care. Bye. Bye.
Kristin Neal: FOOTBALL, SOCCER, SO WE'RE FULLY IN THAT SPORTS CATEGORY, BUT WE ALSO CAN GO INTO THE EDUCATIONAL, BECAUSE WE HAVE GAMES LIKE RIGHT HERE, OUR MATH MATCH, OUR WORD WAVE, OUR SEQUENCE TRAIN, THESE ARE EDUCATIONAL GAMES, PATTERN MATCH, EDUCATIONAL. SO IT CAN VERY WELL GO INTO TUTORING ALSO. OKAY.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: DO WANT TO SEE HOW THESE GAMES ARE PLAYED? YEAH, OF COURSE.
Kristin Neal: OKAY. AT LEAST ONE, I UNDERSTAND A LITTLE BIT. OKAY. SO THE NEXT GAME, I'M GOING TO SHOW A FEW MORE TAGGERS HERE. ACTUALLY, LET'S JUST HAVE THREE FOR NOW. I'LL TURN THIS ON. WE'RE GOING TO DO PATTERN MATCH. AND I'M SHOWING YOU THE GAMES IN THE ORDER THAT I WOULD INTRODUCE IT TO YOUR PLAYERS. THE REASON WHY I'M SHOWING YOU REDLIGHT, GREENLIGHT. THE FIRST ONE, WAS THAT THE REDLIGHT? YEAH, THE FIRST ONE IS REDLIGHT, GREENLIGHT.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: I THINK HE'LL GO INTO THAT RIGHT NOW.
Kristin Neal: FIRST, THIS GAME IS AN INTRO GAME, AND IT JUST REQUIRES A PLAYER TO LOOK AT THEIR OWN ZTAGGERS. IT DOESN'T REQUIRE THEM TO LOOK at anybody else, it's individual game, and it shows the players that this device is actually tracking your own movement and your own performance, and that you have to interact with it. And then beyond that, we're going to go to Pattern Match, which is the next game, and this is going to show how your taggers are going to be interacting with other people. And so in this game, the goal is to find another player that has either the same color or the same shape as you, and you want to have your taggers link up by getting within a few feet, sensor to sensor, or screen to screen. The sensors are actually right up here on top of the taggers, and you want them to be facing each other in order for them to register. And so there's a few implications to the sensors. Now, if you have a bunch of people with signals, and they're all just, let's say, huddled around like this, you're going to get random signals crossing over. Even with people that you may not want to, and in this game, we might also have negative scoring set up, which means if... So you're able to change, I know it's blurry, I'm sorry about that, my wife.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: No, no, it's okay.
Kristin Neal: You're able to change the colors that you want to work with, so you can work with little littles, the shapes kind of moving up. I know you said junior high age is kind of where you're trying to focus.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Yeah. And there's games that are better for that, but this is a great way for the kids to learn to communicate. It's can we play like the 24... Usually our rate, our rate is like 20 students. Can we, in a way, play all together?
Kristin Neal: All together. Everybody plays all together. And more...
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: OK. And more or less, the games, they last 10 minutes, 15 minutes?
Kristin Neal: They only last a few minutes. Yeah. You can actually change the setting on the timing to make it last like a 10 minute round of zombies survival, but it's more of like... It's customizable thing, but the standard is just like a standard 90-minute, a 90-second game or a two-minute game, just to kind of warm them up.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: OK, OK, OK, OK.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Let me show you how this one works. And he had mentioned the negative scoring. That's a great way because the kids are constantly playing. No one is out. Everybody is out.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Exactly. OK.
Kristin Neal: Yes. If you get the wrong match, you'll also get minus points, which cancels out your progress. And that means people have to be very deliberate in how they interact with each other. If everybody just bunches up, you're most likely going to get the wrong signals and that's going to cause negative scoring. So usually we recommend to have the players take a few steps back and call out what they have and observe other people and look at their colors and then do the match. OK, so I'm going to give you a quick demo here, but because these are placed here and. I Warned by players, you're going to likely see a lot of crossover and negative points. OK, so I'm going to hit next. They say, get ready, start. See, it's fully immersive. And they vibrate too. See how sensitive? They're very sensitive. Because these are so close to me, they're registering the hit. So for example, right now I have a red circle. OK, let me put that aside. And over here, I have a yellow circle. So circle and circle will match. And if I bring that over, oh, actually, these are, they change sometimes. Circle. ZARA and ZARA, these won't match, but there's blue right here. It's a match, OK. This is red star. That is ZARA, Nope, that didn't match. Oh, yellow and yellow. So you saw in the last bit, I had two identical shapes, and that actually gives you five points instead of just one point. So you can match either the shape or the color, but if you match both identically, then you get extra points. And also notice I have a Pause and Resume Game button right here, which allows the taggers to be paused, and then you can give additional instructions. OK, I'm going to stop the match here. All right. Did you have any questions on the pattern match game?
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: No, I don't think so. No, I think that it's OK. The only thing that if you have any videos like the kids playing or things like that, I think that I can go on your website, right?
Kristin Neal: I was going to say everything is on our website or on our YouTube channel.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Yes. Ah, YouTube channel.
Kristin Neal: Yes, everything is on here. Yeah. Yeah. You'll absolutely see kids playing.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Let me show you. And you usually use it like for elementary kids, right? Or you have like different type of, I don't know, it depends on what the school decides.
Kristin Neal: This one is our junior high partner that we have in, he's over in Sacramento. Can I show you the video real quick and hear what he has to say? Hello, my name is Joel Mulderich, I'm a specialist here at the University of High School District. Sorry, I have it on so high, so fast.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Sorry.
Kristin Neal: I've had the glory to be able to find ZTAG, bring the devices out to our sites. I recently took it to one of our junior high sites. Obviously, junior high students are always one of the hardest to engage in any activity or any new incentive out there. Obviously, they were all glued to their phone before we started, and at the end of the day, they just didn't want to leave because they wanted to continue to participate in the ZTAG. So... So... So... So... So... So... ZTAG is a great device to get the students moving, moving around, interacting with one another, along with some of the apps, the games that they have, like the zombie games always get them moving, learning away from each other in a good way. And then, for example, the word translator is getting them to learn a new language and also giving the opportunity to those students that do know the language to coach other students and teach other students the language and help them understand what's on their screen. Okay, so he mentioned the screen, I'm sorry, the foreign language game. That one I hadn't shown you yet. That one is this one, our word wave. So half the kids will have Spanish, and then the other half will have English, and then they got to find each other.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Yeah, or French.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Amazing.
Kristin Neal: You can do a curriculum fully on that for a whole week, you know, kind of playing that game and adding that. Thank you you for having me on We that program, don't you, on foreign language?
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Yeah, yeah. We have Spanish, Mandarin, and Portuguese.
Kristin Neal: Yes, yes. I remember seeing that. Yeah. So cool to add that.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: No, like, I love this idea.
Kristin Neal: The only thing that... I'm going to do it all there.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: No, it's OK. I think that I would love to try it on one of our aftercare contracts. But as I said, I would love to try to think out how we can do the partnership to see if we can start thinking of a program for our afterschool that maybe they last more or less 12 weeks. But I would love to have, like, the whole program, like, in a way, I don't know, Hocali by ZTAG or something like that, so where the sales team knows exactly that this program is... It's all about this, and start selling that in an after-school program. I don't know how to usually work with the partnerships or the pricing or things like that, that I would love to understand and to see how we can work together.
Kristin Neal: Absolutely. Let me share with you what I'm going to be sending you, so you can take a real deep look in this with your team. OK, Delfina, this very first page of the ZTAG Extended Care Pack page is everything what the unit comes with when you purchase the unit. It comes with a 12-month manufacturer's warranty. It does not cover these normal wear and tears accidents misuse. That's an additional. But each of the programs I was showing you has the educational resources from Eric that, you know, we're growing. So you're going to get those additional, seeing what other schools are doing, the digital artwork. $10 I'm get I'm The branding guidelines, because we found out that schools have their own printing programs, so if there's any printing programs, you're ready to go with this one, and each of the units do come with complimentary Playmaker virtual training. This is with Steve. This is with the teacher I was telling you about. He will meet with your team, but if you need him to be in person, we can also make that happen. If you'd like to get maybe your whole team together and do a PD kind of day, we love providing that, so. Lovely.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: And you're in California, so we can definitely get it worked out.
Kristin Neal: Anything past this, this is an additional, it's not necessary for play, but we do just suggest it for peace of mind, but you're able to cover the ZTAGGERS, so those were the, those game watches. Okay. You, let's see, right here. We didn't really quite go into them, but you weren't able to see in the video, but they also vibrate. They vibrate, they make noise, they, it's a. The real, the kids are like, whoa, very, very in tune to that. And I also forgot to tell you, you're actually able to connect two units to have one big game of 48 students.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: OK.
Kristin Neal: For the ZTAGGERS, that's where this coverage is. So each of them is six years, just changes in the year timeframe. And this one right here, the five-year care coverage, this one is if you have like special events that you guys really do. Because if you purchase this, you also get the Community Launch Pack, where we're able to send you these, this equipment for you to have host like the ultimate ZTAG event. OK. And then here's some more of coverage information for you to review, all the cart pricing. If you don't have that coverage or warranty and someone does mean, had a mistake or an accident, yeah, if an accident accidentally happens.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: whose is one page Cool.
Kristin Neal: And then here's just a few more information for you to review. We did send you over, know, Kermie sent you over the soft quote, just letting you know, kind of like the ballpark. So I'll send you this official package. This is our pricing catalog for institutions. Are you guys a non-profit by chance? The 501C form?
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: I think so.
Kristin Neal: Okay. If you are... Let's hope, let's hope. I hope that that's true. Because if so, you're able, you're actually able to access the non-profit discount. Okay.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Lovely. Yeah, that's a 10% discount on each unit.
Kristin Neal: So if you do want... Oh, go ahead. Yes.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: No, I'm so sorry. On top, like those different type of... No, on the other chart.
Kristin Neal: Yes.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: This one. This one. Like, what is the difference between... Those, like, products?
Kristin Neal: Yeah, these ones are the Game Watches, those are the ZTAGGERS, and then this is the case, the whole ZEUS unit.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Ah, like the one that you showed me, the, the, ah, I got it. OK.
Kristin Neal: That is, this whole thing is the ZEUS unit, and then the ZTAGGERS.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, that's those, um, here, and then just real simply, the extended care options. And then if you do, I know we, you talked about maybe starting one, so we can absolutely start you off one, but if you get to that point where you hit five or ten, then we're able to take this discount.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Lovely.
Kristin Neal: OK. Wonderful. Payment in terms for you to look through with your team, and also our sole source statement. So we have, uh, we're the sole source of ZTAGG, there's no distributors, and, um, so here's a letter to verify that, and I'll send you this over for your review. OK. Yes, please.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: The other thing that I would love to know is, like, if we try to do this partnership, can we have, like, all the marketing and try to, from our side, promote also that, like, try to have both? OK, so I can also talk to the marketing team to see how we can work out this.
Kristin Neal: 100%.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: And yes, please, I would love to try to read a little bit more to try to talk with the team as well and to see how we can start working on this.
Kristin Neal: That's perfect, Delfina. Yeah, we'll send, I'll send you all this over when your team is ready. I'll also send you a form to fill out for an official quote. OK.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Carmen will be there to send it all to you.
Kristin Neal: And if you need any information, like a marketing, do you want me to send you, like, what we have for you to send to schools?
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: Yes, please. If you have, like, all the information that you can bring me on that email is better for me so I can present everything to the team. And try to see how we can, as I said, try to see how we can work out this.
Kristin Neal: Wonderful, Delfina. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.
Delfina Corso - HOKALI: I'm really excited. Yeah, me too. I hope we can do something together. And thank you for your time. And we keep in touch. Yeah, sounds good. Have a great one. Thank you. Lovely. You too. Bye-bye.
[Metadata only — transcript not included in this selection]
Quan Gan: Hello. How are you?
Kristin Neal: Good.
Quan Gan: In the truck. Oh, great.
Kristin Neal: Charlie's over here.
Quan Gan: Hey, Charlie.
Kristin Neal: Hey, girl. Hi.
Quan Gan: How are you?
Kristin Neal: How are you?
Quan Gan: Good, good. Good, good.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: I'm at the Palmdale Sheriff's Department. We're going to be setting up ZTAG in their jailhouse.
Kristin Neal: What? That is so cool. Oh, my goodness.
Quan Gan: Yeah. It's actually, it's not the current game that you see. It's a completely different experience. We turn them into radiation meters, and then people are going to get infected by the actors.
Kristin Neal: What? Oh, my gosh. That was so cool.
Quan Gan: Oh, my goodness. That's what I've been spending this whole week prepping. We had like 200 refurbished ZTAGers that I'm putting into use.
Kristin Neal: Wow. 200? Yeah.
Quan Gan: Here, let me. Let me show you. I'll send you a photo of what it looks like.
Kristin Neal: You're going to have them playing? Not all at once.
Quan Gan: We'll see. Jedi Council. Okay.
Kristin Neal: You see it?
Quan Gan: Hang on, hang on.
Kristin Neal: Hi. Hello, hello.
Taj Dashaun: How are you?
Kristin Neal: Hello there. you? Sorry to be waiting.
Quan Gan: We were wrapping up a meeting that went a little bit long.
Sarah Lepe: Yeah. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Thanks for taking some time.
Taj Dashaun: I actually came across ZTAG from, it was the play day. I forget where it was. I want to say it was in Sacramento.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. I crossed a flyer that went out and I was like, ZTAG, that sounds really interesting. And I started looking into it. I went there. Were you there at play day? No, we weren't there.
Taj Dashaun: We couldn't, but we had an engagement in SoCal at the time.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Taj Dashaun: But I just started digging into your company and watching all the videos and stuff. And I was like, this is such a cool concept. And of course, with what we do with Olympians, it's just a natural partnership. So thanks for taking some time to meet. We've been looking forward to this.
Quan Gan: Oh, yeah. Wonderful. Nice to meet you guys. Yeah.
Sarah Lepe: Nice to meet you guys as well. Good to you too, Sarah Tosh.
Kristin Neal: Great.
Taj Dashaun: I guess I just, just. Be transparent. don't know how much you know about us. I feel like I've done all the research and we've watched all of your stuff. Do you guys feel like you have a pretty decent understanding of what we do or not?
Quan Gan: I've looked at the website, but it would definitely help for you guys to, you know, go a little bit deeper. Okay, I'll give a quick overview.
Taj Dashaun: Sarah is much better at talking about certain aspects of what we do. But essentially, I always say that everything we do is centered around teaching kids how to be Olympians in life. So we bring real world, high level, mostly retired, some still competing Olympians into schools. And we do assemblies, workshops, classroom visits, playground activities, autograph sessions, medal ceremonies where we'll give out like character awards for, you know, different traits that are tied into sports. And then we have curriculum as well. We have a full on K-8 curriculum, which Sarah developed. And Sarah could tell you a little bit more about her background later, but working in education for a long time, it's a really strong curriculum. you. And a lot of people are gravitating towards it. And then we do mentorship as well, because for us, as we get closer to the Olympics being in L.A. in 2028, with all roads leading to L.A. 28, we're more focused these days on becoming pillars in the community, meaning we want the Olympians to be familiar faces and role models.
Sarah Lepe: And that's where the mentorship, along with the curriculum, comes in as well.
Taj Dashaun: So that's us in a nutshell.
Sarah Lepe: Thank you. Sarah?
Quan Gan: Yeah, so I've got a background in education.
Sarah Lepe: I was a teacher, school principal, district manager for the last almost three years, working in after-school programs for kids. So I've always had a passion for them. was an after-school kid myself, played volleyball in college, and really found out that, you know, sports was everything to me in my life. So when I had this opportunity to come together with Taj to really bring, like, my education side, and then also leadership aspects as well, too, we... In addition to the curriculum that I've been developing for Olympians Inspire, really focuses on the champion's mindset and getting kids prepared for the life skills that come as a result of trying and the resiliency of not getting the result the first time around, but the growth process through it. So we've really kind of taken the reins on that this past year, helping Olympians Inspire to really showcase that as we've gone through school sites and not only looking to take it just with the kids, but also the staff as well, too, because, you know, in the positions I've held, I've seen how important it is to really have that team aspect working with the staff to prepare them to have that same similar mindset as when we work with the kids. So I'm also looking for those type of opportunities as well, too, but it's been fun, you know, working with Olympians and really hearing their stories when our, when we've gone into the schools and the kids, I mean, they are. Team works so well together that they're able to really make it a dynamic presentation and cater it for, you know, what it is going to be for the K-2s is very different from the middle school students, so really making those connections with them has been really great, and we've heard about you guys and, you know, thought that there, you know, could be some potential here as well. I know Troy Selby from California After School Network, I've gotten to know him in the past few years, especially with the district that I worked in, and so he's saying your guys' praises about the program that you guys are also running as well, and was like, you know, this would be a great connection for you too, because, you know, the work that we're doing is very similar to what you guys are doing as well. Yeah, and you guys are based in Northern California, right? We're in SoCal.
Quan Gan: Oh, you are in SoCal. We're kind of all over. We're pretty much all in, in all the time zones, so Chris is in Indiana.
Sarah Lepe: I'm in LA.
Kristin Neal: Nice.
Taj Dashaun: Are there any particular, oh, I'm sorry, were we saying Chris?
Kristin Neal: We were just, I was excited to hear Troy's name. was like, oh, great guy, great guy. Yeah, absolutely.
Quan Gan: Well, actually, can I ask some questions? Just, you know, kind of large scope to kind of help us kind of hone out on where we can contribute. Just like, can you tell me in five years, if you could snap your finger, what would your mission look like? And what did that impact look like?
Taj Dashaun: Yeah, Sarah, well, okay, so for me, I'll just quickly share, I think five years from now, we want to be partnered with the USOPC and have an official partnership, USOPC and the IOC, just be fully on board with the Olympics as a program, a global program, honestly, where it gives Olympians either current or former an opportunity to give back and have an impact on kids and also get compensated. Yeah, right now, just we're focused on something. SoCal, of course, because of ELOP funds, and that's primarily how we fund our business. But I think five years from now, we'll be focused on global opportunities.
Sarah Lepe: Yeah, and I would definitely echo that. And especially leading up to LA-28, I think we have such an opportunity right now for the kids to live and feel the experience of the Olympics in our own backyard and the impact and ripple effect that that'll have. Taj and I, we're actually, we were both former D1 athletes, so really this life after sports concept really resonates with us, too, and giving these Olympians an opportunity to also extend what they have learned through their sports, and most of them have done it their entire life, to give them an opportunity to give back in a different form, too. So, that's amazing.
Quan Gan: amazing. And can I ask about, you know, workforce-wise, or I don't know if that's the right word, but just the actual people that are boots on the ground being able... You've deploy and mentor and actualize what your mission is. How does that scale with your current business?
Taj Dashaun: Well, right now, so just to build it out from now to five years, right now, most of our Olympians that we utilize are based in SoCal. We've flown in people from different states before, if need be, but having that connection with the USOPC is going to be critical. Because our workforce, as of right now, until we bring on a COO or other folks like that, it's really just Sarah and I. And then we have some folks who help out with admin and operations and things like that part-time. But the Olympians are the workforce. So being plugged in with that network and being able to utilize that network around the country and around the world is going to be critical for us.
Quan Gan: Amazing. Okay. So I'm just curious, how can we support you and your mission?
Taj Dashaun: Well, I would love to flip the five-year question back to you. That was a really... A good one. I'd love to learn more about your five-year aspirations or plans. Awesome.
Quan Gan: Kris, do you want to take a stab at it?
Kristin Neal: Sure. Well, I'll start with the fun ones. We are definitely planning on, within five years, having our own kind of event where it really, to be honest, is active SEL. ZTAG is so much more than just being active and running around, and it's all about connecting kids face-to-face, getting that screen time that they love, but on a whole nother level. So, we envision our own conferences for teachers, for site administrators to come and really feel that active SEL moment, because ZTAG is, we were in the CAN meetings with volleyball and soccer and active, things like that, but there's a whole nother element where... It's learning, and learning just to communicate, even, something as simple as that, but it really gets those kids to just come out of their shells, so we really, really would love to just multiply that tenfold, definitely within the next five years, by those conferences. Another way, we're trying to impact as many kids as we possibly can in any way, form, so definitely, it sounds like we're aligned with that. I mean, I can get into other details as far as full team, like, West Coast, East Coast, every coast to come together face-to-face, but other than that, kids are...
Quan Gan: I'll add a kind of another dimension to it, maybe from a more operational standpoint, because at the end of the day, yes, we want to impact and scale for as many kids as possible, but it ultimately relies on the equipment and someone who's actually hosting the games. little little bit bit a For the equipment, because it's not something you just, like, drop off somewhere and then they'll figure it out. It is something that has to go through formal training certification to make sure that they deliver the most optimal active learning experience to anyone who touches it. You know, and it ranges from the different types of activities that we scaffold onto the students so that we're not overwhelming them with, like, you know, something very complex in the beginning. But they kind of build those skills. And then throughout, we're kind of blending the best mix of physical and digital sports, like esports meets physical sports. You know, the kids love video games, but it's not physically active. It's mentally active, but, you know, physically we're trying to combine that. So they actually feel like they're playing a live action role play or a video game, but they're getting the social, emotional learning. They're getting the physical activity out of it. So. There's just this platform we see as a huge potential, but ultimately it relies on the facilitator to deliver those experiences.
Taj Dashaun: Okay.
Sarah Lepe: Yeah. So, and as you replicate that, so would that look like your staff going in to, you know, train staff from after-school programs and things like that? Is that how you're looking at replicating it or having employees?
Quan Gan: So every system that gets sold on the receiving end is someone who's day-to-day operating these. For example, a site coordinator or some staff at the site. So they get certified through our own team. So we give them best practices and a lot of support materials. But we also have organizations or even individuals who actually purchase the product and they go and host their own as a service. So we kind of have two branches. There's a professional branch, which are these operators that will buy the equipment outright, and then they're in the business of hosting events and making a part of their own service. And then we also have schools who might hire them, maybe short-term, you know, a few times, and they realize, oh, this thing is actually so effective, we should just own one and get self-trained so that we can just be using this every single day. I see.
Taj Dashaun: Would you say that you're more, not more, not that you have to be more focused on one area, but I guess if you had to choose, would you say you're more focused on the individuals purchasing it and running events or focused on getting into more school programs? Definitely the latter, the school, because that's where the leverage is.
Quan Gan: You know, I sell to a single school, well, then it's impacting hundreds of kids, you know, over just that school year. And then it's going to be evergreen compared to an individual. It's an individual there. Well, I would say the professional customers at the end of the day, they are making an impact, but it is also a, it's a financial, it's an ROI for them because they're buying this equipment to make a profit from. So the mission alignment is definitely much stronger when it's with the schools.
Taj Dashaun: Okay. That being said, and that's kind of when I think about a partnership, of course, it's us approaching school districts together or regions together, right? And I wanted to ask, like, are there any particular regions or just areas, like whether it's states or counties or anything like that, that you're focused on expanding in?
Quan Gan: Or is it just like, hey, whoever wants to do business with ZTAG will be there. I mean, yeah, we want ZTAG in every single school in America, private and public. But, you know, really where the funding comes from is, you know, usually where we can get the first to market just because. They can afford it. There's grants and things that can support it. Because it's an investment. It's a pretty substantial piece of equipment to make that work.
Taj Dashaun: Right. Right. Yeah, we have the same focus. We want to be everywhere. And also, like we said at the beginning of the call, we have a primary focus, at least short-term or leading up to LA-28, on just doing business with as many schools in LA County or surrounding areas as possible. While we also, you know, try to expand outside of California too. But yeah, like I'm a simple guy. You know, I saw your business and I was like, how cool would it be to approach districts together, even support one another in areas where we don't currently have contacts and be able to turn events that we're doing that are already amazing into something that's even more cool by just layering our businesses on top of one another. That was kind of my thought process there of just one form of partnership.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I mean, I see the possibility. There's a lot lot of Yeah, possibility. I think the mission is common between both companies. It's more probably logistically how we can complement each other. Sharing resources or contacts, think those are things that we kind of do by default because we work well with pretty much any program. We like to think that we pretty much don't even have a direct competitor because everyone's trying to really help the kids, but in terms of what we do, there's not a direct competitor that's like doing what we do. So anytime we have the opportunity to share a contact or a resource that we find fitting, we will certainly do that. Right.
Taj Dashaun: Yeah, I was thinking, and just to maybe give you some idea of what our typical days look like, whether we do like a one-day activation or something long-term, we'll come in and like Sarah said, we'll normally do a few different assemblies. He's broken up by age group, just because, of course, with the older kids, you can talk about some deeper topics where the younger kids are just excited the Olympians are there. So we'll come in, we'll do some assemblies, and we'll usually break and do some playground activities. And from there, that's when we'll get into the later part of the day with autograph signings and medal character award ceremonies and things like that. So, of course, naturally, my mind goes to, well, when it's time for the playground activities, if ZTAG is facilitating the games and the Olympians are more so just taking a backseat and kind of joining in, where the kids get to have fun, they're excited Olympians are there, but they're really getting to have the full ZTAG experience. That was kind of my thought process on that.
Quan Gan: Why don't they play ZTAG with the Olympians?
Sarah Lepe: Right. Well, yeah, that's, yes.
Quan Gan: Yes.
Taj Dashaun: Yeah. Quick question on that, Tash, right?
Kristin Neal: Tash? Yes, Tash, like the Taj Mahal.
Taj Dashaun: Thank you, Tash.
Kristin Neal: Thank you, Tash. Do you guys charge for your... But your services, you do, right?
Taj Dashaun: Absolutely, yes.
Kristin Neal: So it would be maybe even Quan-like for you to partner with actually the opposite instead of the institution, more of the individual partner, right? Like a professional user, professional ZTAgger, to partner with as far as like you're going to need someone to run the games. It wouldn't be your Olympian running the games. So that's where I'm kind of seeing it, actually going the opposite direction. Do you guys see? Yeah, no, I see what you're saying, Kris.
Taj Dashaun: I think that makes a lot of sense. And then it also, because if we look at the people who are buying it from you individually, they're almost like a franchisee. Exactly. That could be a...
Quan Gan: They are, but well, so from a strict legal standpoint, they definitely are not a franchisee. But it sounds similar in that we share business best practices so that they can be successful, but they're not a franchisee. It's because we don't dictate how they run their business. And we actually really want to stay out of that lane because it creates a whole bunch of other bureaucratic and governmental tax and franchise laws in there. It's like, you could buy this widget, we'll tell you the instructions, and then best of luck with you. But it's like, we don't want to be like, you have to do X, Y, Z and pay franchise fees to us.
Kristin Neal: Understood. Yeah.
Taj Dashaun: Yeah, get what you're saying. It's not, it's almost like a franchise model, but not on paper, essentially.
Quan Gan: So yeah, there's a fine legal line there that we have to really make sure we're, you know, we're an equipment manufacturer in that sense. And then we'll teach you all the best ways to deliver the experience, but we're not going to force you to run a business in a particular way.
Taj Dashaun: Understood. But I do see Chris's point. I think that could be a great route or avenue, especially as that side of the business. to continues to grow for you because then we become like a partner that when someone purchases from you guys, then it's like, hey, we have this company and they could, to enhance your events or help sell it, you know, you can layer some Olympians on top of it and they can come join in with the kids too.
Quan Gan: So I do autograph signings and all that kind of stuff as And we've done this with, you know, other partners in that ecosystem because there are times where a school may actually outsource their staffing to a third party and they come in and they provide their daycare or their curriculum. And then we oftentimes will go and train those organizations so that when they do come to a school that happens to have ZTAG, they're now certified to even use it as part of what they deliver.
Kristin Neal: We could actually even share maybe some of our larger districts that have units and say, hey, they, since you already have the unit, the only thing, well, that would be something to think. But definitely maybe seeing how that can.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and what we've done before is, I mean, really the best way to even think about what potential next steps are is you guys need to experience it. You know, if we have an event or if there's a school thing or there's, you know, any of these conferences, come and play. But once you play, and especially bring the Olympians, because your athletes, oh my God, this is going to just like unlock their most competitive elements. It really does.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, and it gives everybody that platform and permission to do so.
Quan Gan: I think once you actually experience it in person, like new ideas will definitely come through. Yeah.
Taj Dashaun: I think that's a great idea. Yeah. What's the next event?
Sarah Lepe: Yeah. Where are you guys at next?
Taj Dashaun: Where are you at right now?
Kristin Neal: literally, I'm at the Palmdale Sheriff's Department.
Quan Gan: After this, I'm going to be setting up for their haunted house. We're going to do ZTAGG in there.
Taj Dashaun: Oh, that's awesome.
Quan Gan: So if you guys don't have anything to do the next two days, between noon and 6, we have a custom ZTAGG event where the watches are going to be your radiation meter going through a haunted house and the actors are trying to infect you. Oh my goodness.
Sarah Lepe: Wow.
Taj Dashaun: That's cool.
Quan Gan: You guys have a, I know it's probably like internal and top secret, but if you have like an internal calendar of events coming up, that would be great. So we can try to coordinate to get out to one of them. Oh yeah. Yeah. We can share that. Yeah. We have a bunch of events coming up. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. There are several next month.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Chris, is that something you can share with Taj later?
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Taj Dashaun: Also, I know we're coming up on time, but one thing I wanted to, that I forgot to mention during kind of our long-term plan is corporate sponsorships. Cause you know how it, you know how it goes sometimes with ELOP funds, different budgets, like people, some folks have the money to spend and some folks don't. And some folks have the money. But pretend like they don't. So you know how that goes. But we're looking to secure corporate sponsorships as soon as possible. That way we can come into a school and say, hey, it's already paid for. You know, it's brought to you by Target or something like that. You know, so is that something that you guys are or you probably already have some sort of sponsorships set up?
Quan Gan: We we sponsor certain activities and events if if the business is in alignment, you know, as far as sponsoring your programs, that's something we'll probably have to think a little bit more about in terms of like, like, at the end of the day, we want to make sure it's a it's an even energy exchange. Right. So we like to think of everything as an energy exchange. Financial is a form of energy, but sometimes maybe that energy can be exchanged through other other means. So, yeah, it's it's to say that we're open to opportunities of sponsorship or exchange, but it just has to be. You know, even on both sides. Yeah.
Taj Dashaun: And for the record, Quan, I wasn't suggesting that you sponsor ZTAG Sponsor Olympians Inspire. I was more so asking if ZTAG was looking into securing corporate sponsorships for your business.
Quan Gan: Not directly, because we would be the corporate that would sponsor ourselves, you know, so we haven't because the other thing for us that's very important is ZTAG wants to maintain our own sovereignty in terms of what we provide. We have our own mission that is very, like, central to what we do. And then taking on additional sponsorship money or even, let's just say, investor money, it could very much skew our mission, right? So that's something that we've always been bootstrapped because we, you know, we want to make sure that we're sovereign to our mission. Absolutely.
Taj Dashaun: Yeah, I hear you on that. And we have the same sentiment. We're not looking for anyone to come in. And if it's a sponsor, it's more so a sponsor. To be attached to what it is that we're doing, rather than an investor to try to tell us how to run the business. Yeah, exactly.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Taj Dashaun: Well, yeah, I have a page full of notes.
Sarah Lepe: Sarah knows about me.
Taj Dashaun: I have to come off these meetings. I need to take time to digest things. But, yeah, this has been great. I don't know if anyone else has any other questions or anything, but I'm immediately going into processing mode. That's my default.
Quan Gan: So I can marinate on this call. Well, just looking forward to seeing you guys in person. And then I'm sure we can talk about it in a lot more depth.
Taj Dashaun: Absolutely. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: It's to be some event dates. Okay. Thank you, Chris.
Taj Dashaun: Great.
Sarah Lepe: Yeah, we look forward to it. It was great to meet you guys. And, you know, we'll see what the future holds.
Quan Gan: Looking forward to it. Awesome.
Sarah Lepe: Have a good Friday.
Taj Dashaun: you guys.
Quan Gan: Bye-bye. Bye. Bye.
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Steven Hanna: Good morning.
My PC: Hello.
Steven Hanna: Good day.
My PC: It is good to see you again, under better circumstances. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no kidding.
Steven Hanna: I was like, Nadia, Nadia. Oh my goodness, I remember. I've met her once. Yes, now I can meet her again with better conditions, better system, and then basically show you all the new fun stuff on the new things.
My PC: I am so excited. So how have you been? Not too bad. Luckily, not that many jobs. Well, I think I've had two birthday parties, and it was just, anyways, I survived it. The screen wasn't, it was giving me a hard time, and the games, they wanted to play different games, and I didn't have the buttons for those games, so anyways. It was kind of cool, like I just ended up, and then the watches kept dying, so I think they were too far and they weren't connecting, so I ended up just putting all the watches on, and then they were doing that matching game, but I just kind of laid them all on the ground, so they had to run and match to the ones that were on the ground, so that ended up working and they liked that, so.
Steven Hanna: That's actually something that someone else gave us feedback on, where they put, like, since they only had two kids playing, they had them, like, set out a bunch of cones, put the little watch on the cones, and they had to go and tag the cones to earn points, and it was like a one-versus-one with only two kids playing, basically, so.
My PC: Wow.
Steven Hanna: Seems pretty aligned with what you were just describing. All right. Well, survival for me.
My PC: Survival, yeah.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, yeah.
My PC: was surprising.
Steven Hanna: But your new system, do you have it next to you? I do.
My PC: I didn't put anything on, because I didn't want to anything up. I turned it on to make sure that it went on before I cut the cable of The other one, because, but yeah, I put it on, I saw the screen, I shut it off, and I am waiting for instructions.
Steven Hanna: Okay, so the first thing that you'll notice is that there is no longer a router that you're going to have to connect. That's the biggest, like, physical change that you'll see is that that white router no longer exists. It's built right into the top portion of the case. The second biggest physical difference that you'll see is the power button, the silver little one, is actually on the upper portion of the lid as opposed to the bottom right portion where it was before. So those are the two biggest physical changes. With your ZTAGGERS, they're pretty much the same. They function exactly the same as before. The only difference now is when you turn them on when the system is on, if you want to get them ready, what you can do is get the power cable plugged in.
My PC: Then you're going to hit the red switch. And you should hear the bottom portion of the case turn on, hear a little beep. week. We And just take a quick peek at all of the devices.
Steven Hanna: Make sure that they're all charging. Sometimes during shipment or movement, they might have gotten a little loose and they might not light up. So just push it down if there are any that are not lit up right now. If they're all lit up, awesome.
My PC: Awesome.
Steven Hanna: Yeah.
My PC: I think when I turned it on the first time, there was three and I'm like, oh, no.
Steven Hanna: Nope. Nope. Just a little bit loose from shipment, like right on top of the magnet dock where it's not going to start to charge, but just literally one finger, push it down. Perfect. All right.
My PC: Oh, there's a pretty blue light. cool.
Steven Hanna: Yep. And they've got a blue ambient light on the bottom of the case now. So you know that the bottom's on. Sweet.
My PC: All right. Green light so far. Cool.
Steven Hanna: On your upper portion of the lid, that silver button, go ahead and push that to turn it blue.
My PC: Yep. So this is a sequence that should be turned on every time, right?
Steven Hanna: Yep. You're starting. Starting from the bottom up. So when you start up, always start from the bottom up. And also, I'm going to give you a recording of this with all of my notes and everything I have. So don't worry about writing. Focus on physically touching and physically maneuvering with it. Because you'll get more out of that. And I send you a recap that you like left, right, left, right. Okay.
My PC: So no bad words in case I have to let my staff watch this.
Steven Hanna: Well, I mean, hey, you know, an F-bomb here or there. We're on the East Coast technically, right? You're like East Coast time zone.
My PC: I consider you East Coast. So no, you can send this out to all your staff as well.
Steven Hanna: But basically from the startup sequence, you're going to work from your bottom all the way up. So the first thing that you had was that black power cable, which you already plugged in. Then you had the red switch right above the black power cable, which you turn on. And then as you work your way up, you've just pressed that silver button as the last thing and the screen should turn on. It takes about a minute to turn on. So it should flicker a little bit. You should see the ZTAG stuff kind of go on and off. Now you should be at a screen that says register your system.
My PC: It says ZTAG. It's got a picture of all the games.
Steven Hanna: Oh, okay. Then you might not have had to register or you skipped. That's fine. At the home screen, you have two new games in the bottom right corner, correct?
My PC: No. How many games?
Steven Hanna: Well, WordWave.
My PC: WordWave and the number one?
Steven Hanna: Sequence, Train, and WordWave. Yeah.
My PC: Okay, yes. Okay, so those are the two new ones that you should have, right? Okay, yeah. They were on the old system. Okay, so have you played them before? Ish. Ish?
Steven Hanna: Okay, so you know that they exist, you know that they are there, and you know that you can play them.
My PC: Yes, yes. Okay, perfect.
Steven Hanna: Now that you're at the home screen, we're going to turn on one of the ZTAG or devices, and as you turn those on... It's the same thing as before. Little red button on the side. Nothing different. Once for on. Yep. Once for on, two times for off. And if it's on and you press it once, it's a reset.
My PC: Oh, okay. That one, I... Once it's on and press it once, it's a reset. Okay. I think I read that somewhere recently.
Steven Hanna: It's actually a good troubleshooting step. You said you ran into a situation before where they wouldn't link in sometimes. This is actually the quickest troubleshooting to make. Just say, hey, quick reset. Hold it next to the system. Okay, cool. You're in. That type of thing. So, when you turn the device on in the top right corner, you're going to see a small battery indicator.
My PC: Correct? Yep.
Steven Hanna: Next to that, there should be a few letters and numbers 6BBC or BEC, something like that. Yep.
My PC: And then there should be signal bars to the left of that. Yep. So, these are the three things that you're going to want to pay attention.
Steven Hanna: One is the battery, obviously, so that it can run and play. Two, that little sequence of numbers and the signal bar, that is the indicator that this ZTAGG is connected to the big computer. So if you don't see those signal bars there, that means that there's something wrong that it's not connecting. Hit the button once and try and reset it. If it does not connect after a reset, drop it back into the dock, take it back out, and turn it back on again. So the two troubleshooting steps are press once, quick reset, have it next to the system, link in. Next step would be put it back on the dock, have it start to charge, and then take it back off and start it up again.
My PC: Okay, is it the same as the other ones where it doesn't have to be off to put back on the dock, or should we put it?
Steven Hanna: Correct.
My PC: You can drop it on any state, on or off, and it'll start to charge. Okay. And you know that the red is obviously indicating a charge sequence, green is indicating the charge is complete. Got it, yeah. Okay.
Steven Hanna: The hardware on these has been pretty much souped up and enhanced. So before, you might have noticed that the chargers, the screens, pretty much everything might have gotten a little banged up with light use. This is going to take a bit of a heavier hit, so to say. Really?
My PC: Okay.
Steven Hanna: The charger itself, sometimes you'll notice it, like, fell out of the old devices.
My PC: Yeah. On this, that will not happen.
Steven Hanna: That charge will always be locked, basically, in there. It's soldered within. They had some internal enhancements in addition to that, which really makes the device really nice to use for us. Still model tagging behavior and make sure that they are not banging into each other. It's like... a smartphone, you know, you get too many bangs on the glass, it's going to get dinged up. So as long as you model the correct behavior for tagging, and the way that I actually like to do that is through Pattern Match. I don't know if you've, have you played that one frequently?
My PC: Okay.
Steven Hanna: I basically put two players in, and I only have those two players as the people playing. I'm sorry, my dog's going to walk up my shoulder.
My PC: okay. I have my dog, too. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: No. Thanks, Mom.
My PC: Sorry.
Steven Hanna: This is recorded, right?
My PC: Your parenting is recorded.
Steven Hanna: Prove that I'm an evil mom.
My PC: None of the stuff will see it go.
Steven Hanna: Listen, that just means that you guys have a great relationship, and you love each other more than anyone else, all right?
My PC: Let's go with that.
Steven Hanna: Oh, you should hear the words that I exchanged with my mom. It sounds like two sailors, and then at the end, we're like, well, that was fun.
My PC: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Well, hello. Hello. Daughter of Nadia that hasn't been introduced other than dog and has no name yet that I don't know.
My PC: Manager. I should have said this is my manager.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. Should start with that. I didn't get your name. I still don't have your name.
My PC: Sabrina. Sabrina.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
My PC: Boss. I call her boss.
Steven Hanna: All right. On her certificate, I'll put boss Sabrina.
My PC: Boss Sabrina. I like it.
Steven Hanna: So as long as you model the right behavior with the devices, you should have these lasting 20 to 30% longer than the older ones. That's my anecdotal evidence of how much I run events over in New York. So we run about two to three events per week with ZTAG. Wow. And it's, yeah, it's, they, they have heavy use, but we also model the behaviors really well. And we haven't had a ZTAG or go down in like two months now. Yeah.
My PC: Oh, nice.
Steven Hanna: That's like pretty dang heavy use. So I don't know if it's the staff that's doing a good job in showing them how to play or the kids just being really great and like having restraint, maybe a combination of the two. But as long as you really reinforce the right tagging mechanism, you should get a really good lifespan off of these devices. While they are charging on that little plexiglass cover, just make sure it's open a little bit so that the heat can come out from the charge area.
My PC: Oh, okay.
Steven Hanna: That's one thing that we do want to reinforce on the newer systems to protect the battery lifespan. You don't want to have these like overnight charging stuff like that. You kind of want to just keep it on charge for the necessary amount of time.
My PC: Okay. So 40 minutes is the maximum for a full charge on everything. Really? Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, you they get four hours of runtime on each of the watches and devices, but. charge. 40 minutes minutes is And you can recharge them in about 35 to 40 minutes. So it charges pretty dang quick. And if you just keep it on charge overnight, like for 17 nights in a row, like some people are, those batteries, just like any phones, they have a recharge limit and a life cycle on the battery. So they're not going to maintain charge as long as they would normally do. So just think of it like, yeah, think of it like that phone that has that souped up night charging.
My PC: There's a reason why it has that setting.
Steven Hanna: And that's to preserve your battery.
My PC: I did not know that. Interesting.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. So similar to this, preserve the batteries over the lifespan and just try and keep it on charge for the necessary amount of time. Don't overcharge, so to say. Okay.
My PC: Okay. Now, your games.
Steven Hanna: You should have two new settings in Zombie Tag, which you're probably going to be playing the most. So let's jump right into that. And start there. If you go to zombie tag with doctor, you are now, yeah, and then in the top right corner, you'll see a settings icon. If you tap that settings icon, there should be two new things, but your system was updated recently, so maybe it's not. Are any of these settings new to you? I didn't really look, I don't really play around with the settings. ever, okay, that was my next question was, have you ever changed up any of the settings? Sometimes just for the amount of zombies, but since it hasn't been working, I've just been doing it manually and hope that zombies have randomized. Now you have a little bit more control over your game, so it's not just that stock game where you're adding more zombies in. Now you can actually change up how many zombies there are, the time limit, the amount of doctors, the amount of lives that people have before they become a zombie, and the amount of times that the doctor can heal a person. So, So, below. So this is going to change up your events a little bit based on how much you want to put into the event itself. I can tell you right now, modifying these settings and changing the games up, I can extend my event by like an extra 15 to 20 minutes just by changing these settings. Because it changes the way the game is played. So it's not just one life run around, oh, I'm a zombie. Now there's six lives and you have to run around before you turn into a zombie. Now there's four doctors before you turn, you know, before you have, um, there's four doctors who are healing people with two heels each before they turn into a human again. So the doctor is not just invincible anymore. The doctor can turn back into a human.
My PC: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So they've made a few modifications here and truly like, so I don't know about your events, but I structure mine to be about an hour long for a birthday party. Um, yeah, in that timeframe, I get about 45 to 50. 50 minutes of gameplay and, like, 10 minutes of water break instructions, fooling around, whatever you want to call it, but I got 10 minutes of downtime. This actually gets me back that 10 minutes, so I can complete the full hour, and it doesn't look like I have any downtime. The only downtime that we'll actually have is, like, a water break because it's necessary.
My PC: Yeah, before they die.
Steven Hanna: Right. So do you suggest setting the games that way or doing it manually? This is going to depend on where you're playing and who you're servicing. If you're servicing a private client, depending on the play area and outdoors environment, my settings would be as follows for recommended. 120 seconds on the time limit, two zombies at the start, one doctor at the start, two lives each. Okay. And the reason why I say two lives is because the first life is your freebie giveaway. Okay. Okay. Okay. You'll notice that for younger kids, the settings are going to be a certain way, and for older kids, they're going to be a very different way. So what I'll do is, after this, I'll send you a quick follow-up email with all of the settings that I use for my kids, and then you can modify as is. So I would say, I've been doing this for ZTAG. I've been working with ZTAG for two months. I've been doing ZTAG events for three and a half years.
My PC: ZTAG.
Steven Hanna: The settings are, like, pretty, pretty refined to what it should be for a group.
My PC: That's it on ZTAG.
Steven Hanna: You guys know how all the games work, so there's no, you know, if there's anything new on the system, that's kind of what I want to go over with you, because I want you to just say, okay, what's new here that I haven't seen? Okay, I know that I can use that. I know this is new. Everything else is the same. That's kind of where I want to get with you guys. So if there's anything new on here, let's just explore it a little bit, and you guys can just tap around, because... I think I spoke with you about everything else before.
My PC: Well, yeah, like I've had it for what, four years now? Right.
Steven Hanna: So you know what you're doing with the system. It's really just what's new on it, new settings, and, you know, how to modify them.
My PC: So I haven't played with the WordWave, so I don't know if we can go over that one.
Steven Hanna: You can. It'll probably be good for you guys up there in Canada. We've got French.
My PC: Yeah, well, that's what I'm thinking. And that's why when these new games came out, I'm like, , I want to hit the score. Like, I could really, but I couldn't rely on the system, so I was scared. I think I've shared that with you.
Steven Hanna: I didn't. This system is fantastic. Yeah, I will say that. After you're comfortable running two events, doing private stuff, and you're thinking about going back to the schools, just because I know you're going to need the confidence boost on that, reach out to me. Let me know. I can structure some wording for you for a little bit of marketing. Well, that's, yeah, that's...
My PC: my next step is to how to get into the schools, first of all, and then go from there?
Steven Hanna: PTA. PTA, Parent Teacher Association.
My PC: Really? They take care of, like, during school?
Steven Hanna: They have more political power than you can imagine.
My PC: Really? I'm going to write that.
Steven Hanna: PTA and after-school programs, those are your way in. It's the most non-school-based entry point. But those open the door to the schools. After-school and PTA, those are the two entities that I would say go for them.
My PC: Okay. Perfect. Good. And honestly, go to the PTA website.
Steven Hanna: Find the president. Don't go through anyone else. Just email the president. Don't waste your time emailing, like, the hierarchy. Go straight to the top. Yeah.
My PC: Okay. Good to know. Yeah, because even if I go to one of their meetings and show them live... Yeah, you could run a demo.
Steven Hanna: That's the most effective... It's way to do it. Just show up, they're like, what the hell is this thing? You're like, you want to play a game?
My PC: Yeah. What? It sounds like the intro to a Saw movie, basically. That's right. You want to play a game? Yeah, and then you're like, no, no, no, we're just going to play a game called Zombie Tech.
Steven Hanna: Here, hold this watch, run away.
My PC: Well, yeah, and me, it's that counting one. Like, that counting one is just, for the little guys, it's amazing.
Steven Hanna: I love these new games. Yep, they're very, very education-based.
My PC: Wow, that's amazing. Are they planning any other games? I can't talk about that.
Steven Hanna: Short answer is yes.
My PC: Long answer is, can't talk about it.
Steven Hanna: Got it.
My PC: All right. Yes is good enough for me.
Steven Hanna: Yes. And any feedback that you guys might have, we, these two games have basically been the result of feedback that has come back from people. So, they're like community-created games, basically. So, if you guys see things that work or have ideas, please let us know. It's something that we want to hear about, because if there's a game that we can make that would make your experience... Experience better and more marketable. Chances are that would be the same for everybody. Well, that's what I'm thinking.
My PC: Like, education games are in with the schools. And like I said, I teach figure skating. So if I could do a school with ZK during the day and then go coach a skating after school, like, I can move to Florida sooner than I expected.
Steven Hanna: You can. Speaking of that, are you guys coming down for IAPA? I wish my daughter wants to.
My PC: Maybe. It's in November. I think we're going to go next year. Because that's where I found ZTAG when after COVID hit. Well, I've got two extra tickets.
Steven Hanna: If you guys are thinking that it might be in the cards for you this year, ZTAG can float two entry tickets your way. Like, airfare and hotel and car are on you. But entry and IAPA stuff could be on us if that's something that would, you know. That's soon, isn't that?
My PC: Like three weeks?
Steven Hanna: Yeah, it's soon. It's pretty soon. It's pretty soon.
My PC: You booked a cruise a week before getting on a cruise ship.
Steven Hanna: What's the problem here?
My PC: You go to your room.
Steven Hanna: I will keep that.
My PC: She's been bugging me.
Steven Hanna: Keep it in mind. It is a great experience.
My PC: Oh, yeah.
Steven Hanna: And we'll all be there from the ZTAG team, so you'll basically have full access to us, too. That's amazing.
My PC: I've been twice already to IAPA. And it's just a fun time.
Steven Hanna: I love just going and being a kid again and playing games and not having any direction to go. It's great. Yeah, I come back and grow my business. I don't know about that. That's exactly what happens. You spend three days there. The first day there is your play day. The second day there is your research day. The third day there is your deal day. Those are the three days. Okay, IAPA. Maybe next time. Fine. We'll see you guys soon. Who knows?
My PC: Yeah, well, I'm sure it's not going to be the end of this conversation.
Steven Hanna: Okay, back to work.
My PC: So import new list. I haven't touched that button.
Steven Hanna: Is anything going to explode if I touch it? No, we're going to be creating, this is basically for teachers in the future. We're creating a framework where if they wanted to import a word list for the day, say they're focusing on like 20 or 30 specific words, just import your word bank in English, import your word bank in French, and congratulations, you now have a new game for the day based on what you are trying to teach. That's awesome.
My PC: Okay. Yeah. So that's not for me yet.
Steven Hanna: It can be. It can be.
My PC: Okay. So the number one, the sequence train, I saw a video, I guess, on TikTok, wherever you guys post videos, that the kids were in a circle.
Steven Hanna: Yup. So is that how you play that? That is the most efficient way to play it now. One of our teachers from Wisconsin basically sent us that video and was like, your way sucks. Here's how I'm doing it. And we were like, your way is amazing. We do suck. You're right. So we basically took that video and we're like, are you cool if we share this with everybody? He's like, please do. They need to know that it works and it works this way. I was like, fine. So we came up with this new variant where it's called the circle tagging method where, yes, that circle is around them. There's one person in the middle with a cone and that person is the person who has the flashing number. What they're going to be doing is yelling out, say they're number two and they need to find number three. Number three is on the outside of the circle. So they need to turn and keep going. I need number three. Who's got number three? Who's got number three? And number three tags them and switches places with them. So number three is now in the middle looking for number four on the outside of the circle. Number four tags in to the center and they stay in the cone. So it's basically one person goes into the cone and stays in the middle and the rest of the people are on the outside of the circle. With that game, multiple people will have the next number. So it is slightly. It's competitive to race to the center. Yes. Okay. So number two could be searching for number three, but there will be two people with number three.
My PC: Okay. So the person who had number two is now in the outside. What happens to their wash? Does it stay number They get a new number.
Steven Hanna: They get a new number in the sequence, higher in the sequence. Right. So there's like a kind of like a cool down timer for them where they can't be in the middle anymore for like 10, 15 seconds. Then their number might come up again and they tag in again.
My PC: Okay. That one.
Steven Hanna: I saw that video and I'm like, oh. Four iterations of for you to know how to run it effectively. Four times is the charm. I've noticed that.
My PC: Okay. And it'll change with each group.
Steven Hanna: For your younger kids, it'll be very, very challenging at first. For the older kids, it'll take them about two times and then I'll know what they're doing.
My PC: Okay. Is there a game? Is it the number one?
Steven Hanna: Math match?
My PC: No, I haven't played. I that one very much, but the ones with the shape.
Steven Hanna: Pattern Match and Shape Match, yes.
My PC: Yeah, so is there a way in the settings, because they change, right? Oh, I have a blue circle, I have a blue circle, and now all of a sudden it changes to a different one. So is that a setting that can be adjusted? No.
Steven Hanna: The reason why that exists is because it's a static timer. If somebody is not able to find a match within that time, it gives them a new color and a new shape so that they can find a new match. So it's basically so that no one gets stuck. Yes, it might be quick. I believe it's at like 15 seconds, and it auto-cycles through colors and shapes. So every 15 seconds, no matter what, somebody will get a new color and shape. But if they match with somebody within that 15 seconds, they'll get a new one within that.
My PC: Okay, gotcha. So this just started making a buzzing. Is that a fan, I guess? That's a fan.
Steven Hanna: We've got cooling inside. Out of that thing now.
My PC: Nice. Okay. Yeah, because that was one of the things a kid would put a watch on, especially when it was an outside job.
Steven Hanna: And, my watch is hot, so that's gone now? That should, so you can mitigate that by doing three things. One, have a 10x10 tent that's branded with your company name above you. That is the most effective way. Two, pop the little plexiglass open a little bit whenever it's charging. And three, just keep it in shade.
My PC: Yeah. She didn't even learn that the hard way. Yeah. I was putting a Kleenex under kids' watches so they weren't getting burned. That's she's saying. She's putting Kleenex underneath to cushion that.
Steven Hanna: Wow. I'm sorry that you guys had to do that.
My PC: It was in the sun, I think, though. It was a really hot day. I think the one day was warm in Canada. Oh, stop it.
Steven Hanna: Your Canadian summers get pretty dang hot, okay? I've been up to Banff in the summer.
My PC: That place is steaming hot. Yeah. Yeah, haven't been to Banff, but we're on the other side of Canada. I know, you're East, that's West. Yes. Yes.
Steven Hanna: Is there like an East rivalry, just out of curiosity?
My PC: The what? Is there like an East-West rivalry for Canada, or like a North-South rivalry?
Steven Hanna: I don't know if there's like territorial rivalries, like us East Coast people, we're like, oh, those West coasters, can't stand them, like that type of thing.
My PC: But we're Canadians, we like everybody.
Steven Hanna: No, but you're also, you're also French, okay? I am.
My PC: Divided by province, and then everyone against Toronto. Yes. Is really just everybody against Toronto? No, I should. of the time, yeah. It was Quebec. The Quebec province is a bit of a -disturbing. In front of the Newfies, too. Newfies, yeah.
Steven Hanna: Okay, a continuous mode.
My PC: See, you do have it.
Steven Hanna: You didn't realize you had it, but you have it.
My PC: I guess so, yeah.
Steven Hanna: The house.
My PC: Nah, not me. Yeah, I stay in my house. I don't have to leave. Okay, continuous mode in this pattern. Never ending. Never ending. That means it'll never end.
Steven Hanna: The game will never end. If it's on continuous, like if you just need the game to keep going until you want to stop it yourself instead of a time limit.
My PC: Oh, okay, because then the numbers become unavailable.
Steven Hanna: Right. Right, because the time limit.
My PC: Mm-hmm.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
My PC: And then negative scorings, if they don't match. That would be for the older guys, right?
Steven Hanna: Right. It's really demotivating for a kid to not match a circle and then get points taken away. It's like a slap to the face and then a backhand to the other cheek.
My PC: But I love watching the kids cry.
Steven Hanna: Listen. A lot of crying.
My PC: Our joy in the suffering of children. Nah, I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. It's true. I always say it all the time. Listen, do we like hearing a kid run into something and be fine?
Steven Hanna: And not cry after? Yes, it's hilarious. It's slapstick humor. Okay? We love that.
My PC: We do. We do. That's why we work with children.
Steven Hanna: Right.
My PC: Okay, all the colors. Do you usually typically, I guess the shape depends on the age, if you're on a grade one or something.
Steven Hanna: If working with older kids, I'll put in the hecto, pecto, secto, those fun sides, and they're like, what is this? And I'm like, the school industry has failed you.
My PC: That's why you're here.
Steven Hanna: You can't, you don't know how many sides there are to something. This is like, grade two. Like, come on, man. There's an arrow.
My PC: I don't think we've ever played with an arrow.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, so you can add cognitive load to all these games now. You can make it much more challenging. Before, did you have multiple balls in keep away?
My PC: I think I've had two. Okay, now we have four. Oh, and I guess I would be in the setting as well?
Steven Hanna: Yep. You go into keep away, and then you go into the settings, and you should see four different balls that you can select now. And a time limit.
My PC: So they're all different. Because I've had two of like the black and white soccer. The longer the game, the more balls it goes.
Steven Hanna: So with this, it was one or two balls before and it was flashing and you had to take the ball from someone. Now there's up to four balls and I've created a variant of this called Hot Potato. know, instead of people chasing after the person with the ball, the person with the ball has to give it to someone else now. They don't want the Hot Potato. It's like TAG.
My PC: So I was playing it. You had told me I was wrong. Well, you said it's a variant. You can play both, right?
Steven Hanna: Listen, there's a variant. You are not wrong. You played it differently.
My PC: I'd never heard of the game and some kid asked me to play it. I'm like, sure, let's figure it out. So you can do the way I explain it is whoever's got, it's red, right? always forget what color the flag Black and white. The ball's black and white, it flashes.
Steven Hanna: If you're safe, it's red.
My PC: Okay, yeah. So you want the flashing. So I tell them it's a $100 bill, and you want to grab that $100 bill because you want to end the game with a $100 bill.
Steven Hanna: Nice. I like that method.
My PC: Kids, you don't want to be flashing. You don't want to be flashing. And it's red. Everybody's white, and I keep forgetting that. So each of those balls has a different color.
Steven Hanna: That's what that watch will flash now. So it's going to be black and white, blue and white, yellow and black, and I forgot the last one. Green.
My PC: And green. So all of those watches will flash those colors now. So what I do with this is I do it in a set of three games.
Steven Hanna: The first game, I set one person as the ball, and I say, you're the tagger. You have to tag someone else. You don't want to have this. The second game, I make two people the tagger. The third game, I say, you guys have been doing really good with one and two. We're going to go up to four, and I just start. And I give them no time to process. And you'll hear, like, the chaos for the three-second count. They're like, wait, what? There's four people? Oh, my God, run! And you'll just see the scatter occur. It's a fun way to do it. I personally like to do it that way because I love to interact with my events personally. I don't just start, stop, start, stop.
My PC: I like to add a little flair to it.
Steven Hanna: Get them pumped up. That is one new thing on KeepAway. Everything else is pretty much the same in regards to settings. Have you seen the red light, green light settings in the past with sensitivity and negative scoring?
My PC: Yes, that, yeah, that was fairly new for us. That makes children. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, better that they're not automatically out. Sensitivity. Right. Okay. Yeah, because now it counts down, right? They get, like, a bit warning before it turns red?
Steven Hanna: So there's two ways. If it's negative scoring with the checkmark... That means that they'll only lose 10 points if they get caught on red. If negative scoring doesn't have the check mark, that means when they get caught, they'll get a warning, and then the second time, they'll get booted.
My PC: Oh, so they still, okay. So it's negative scoring or out right away.
Steven Hanna: Those are the two.
My PC: Gotcha.
Steven Hanna: Minus points and play the whole time, or get caught and get out. Oh, so you do get a warning, yeah.
My PC: I think the first time I ever played it, I played red light, it was out right away, so I hate that game now. Now, everybody's playing the whole time. Got it. And low, medium, high, like how sensitive, like how big of a difference is there between the low and the high sensitivity? Try it out.
Steven Hanna: If you don't want to try it, I'll tell you right now, it is very significant. Oh, yeah?
My PC: Between low, medium, and high.
Steven Hanna: Low is great for younger kids, elementary, pre, TK, whatever you want to work, like K through four. Thank Thank Thank Thank Thank Fantastic. Fifth and up, where it gets slightly competitive and the kids start having egos, excuse my French on the recording, put that in check real quick.
My PC: Nice.
Steven Hanna: make sure that they get eliminated, basically.
My PC: Okay. So does high still get that little bit of a countdown of a warning before it turns red? There's nothing.
Steven Hanna: There's basically no indicator that it's changing other than the vibrate.
My PC: It vibrates and it changes the color quick. Okay. Huh. All right. Cool. And then, is there a video or something on rock, paper, scissors?
Steven Hanna: Two ways to play. There is two ways? The everybody, this is my variant that works better than their rock, paper, scissors, and I'll die on this hill. I don't even play rock, paper, scissors with them. I use it as an icebreaker, learn how to tag game. Okay. In this game, each of you is going to get put on a team. Red, blue, or green. It is your goal. One, two, find someone, anybody on a different team, link your watch together, and see what color you become. Then find somebody else and link your watch together and see if you're all the same color. Your goal by the end of two minutes is that everybody needs to be on the same color team. It could be red, it could be blue, or it could be green. It doesn't matter to me, but you all need to be on the same color team. And it forces everybody to interact with each other. So they're not chasing, running away from each other. They're actually coming together and solving a puzzle versus running away and competing. And let me tell you, this way, oh man, I see it work probably three to four times more effectively. And this is just my personal experience with it. But when I use it as a puzzle-solving game and to reinforce the right tagging mechanism so they're not bumping watches, it really works. And they like working together. That's the other thing with it. They like Solving the Puzzle Together.
My PC: Really? You'd be surprised.
Steven Hanna: If you frame this in this puzzle-solving way that everybody has to work together, these kids, something triggers in them where they have to work collaboratively, and they stop thinking about winning individually. They're thinking about, we all need to get on the same color. How do we do it? It doesn't matter. Just do it. Just tag. Just do it. So that's the way that I play it.
My PC: That makes more sense because even I'm like, okay, the scissor blue has to find this color. And I find like, because the kids have to remember what color is what, and that's really hard on the brain.
Steven Hanna: So, all right. So I'll explain it to you exactly how I would explain it to a group. All right, folks, we're going to be playing Rock, Paper, Scissors for our next game today. In Rock, Paper, Scissors, there are three different teams. We have Team Rock, Team Scissor, and Team Paper. Can somebody please share with me what team wins when they verse each other? I'm going to ask you a question. Team Rock beats, and this is when they would say it, and nine out of ten times. with him. We They say paper. And I go, really? Rock beats paper? Okay, let's start that over. Team rock beats, and we go over this cycle for about three to four minutes. And by the end of two, three, four minutes of explaining instructions, no matter what age group you are, I've lost you. I have lost your working memory and the ability to relay information. You are trying to think of information that I spoke about a minute ago. Even right now, that's basically object permanence out of sight, out of mind. If I asked you what were the specific words that I said 35 seconds ago, you couldn't even recall it. No, definitely not.
My PC: ADHD. Right. Well, let's extrapolate it, right?
Steven Hanna: Let's think about all the kids who may have diagnosis or undiagnosed ADHD. And we're just going to try and give them three and a half minutes of instructions?
My PC: Hell no. Absolutely not.
Steven Hanna: they're excited.
My PC: Right.
Steven Hanna: All I'm to do is say, your goal in this game, find anybody else and tag your watch together and get on the same team. And then make everybody. else on the same team? If I say it like that and send you on your way, isn't that much, much simpler and much, much more efficient than me wasting five minutes trying to talk about rock is scissors, scissor goes paper, paper is scissors. By the way, rock is red, scissor is blue. Now I'm adding two layers of compounding cognitive load to you with color association and language association? Absolutely not.
My PC: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: From the teacher's perspective, that is like barbaric and almost like harassment to a child.
My PC: Harassment, yeah. Abuse, abuse. It is, from my end. I guess it would work in a separate, like, you know how you say everybody on the same team, but I guess the reverse would work. You don't want to be the same, like, you want to try to keep your color till the end. You don't want to let anybody change you, which I guess kind of would be the same as a zombie. then the paper.
Steven Hanna: However, you would like to variant it and explain it to make it more efficient for your groups. You can.
My PC: And then I guess the way you do it for the team, if you shrink, you know, it took us two minutes last time. Let's see if we can do it under a minute. Let's see if we can it under 30 seconds.
Steven Hanna: Exactly. Use it as a high score. Use it as a high score motivator.
My PC: Okay. Cool.
Steven Hanna: And that's what you can also do with the counting game for a number sequence train. Use the last high score as a motivator to beat for the next round. Oh, you guys counted up to 12. Great. Let's try and see if we can get 15 next round. Let's see if we can aim for 20. So they're re-motivating factors and just high scores.
My PC: Okay. Sounds good. And the math one, do you have any little tips about that one? That one, think we played, what, maybe at birthday parties. never, that's my joke. How about we play the math game? And they're like, no.
Steven Hanna: So use math in schools for administrators. You're in an entertainment business and you know what needs to look a certain way and appeal a certain way to certain people. If you're in an admin based room, I highly recommend. And bring up MathMatch because they're going to be very inclined to know that there's an educational component to this that they can see. You can explain it as much as you would like, but if they don't see it, it's very hard to apply, you know, concept versus theory or concept versus application. Okay.
My PC: And do you kind of like prefer all that one or is there like a pattern?
Steven Hanna: I use it as a slowdown game. I do not play it in my like main cycle of games. I use it as a, great, you guys have bumped into each other 15 times in two minutes. Guess what we're doing? Math.
My PC: Uh-huh. But is it the same? I'm looking for a 10.
Steven Hanna: Yes. has 10? Is it?
My PC: Okay. Yes.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
My PC: I think I only have one birthday party that actually wanted to play it. Yeah. Like, you guys are weird. It's very, it's very select.
Steven Hanna: I will say, stereotypically, at certain events, some. Children want to play math.
My PC: I've, yeah, which is awesome. It's awesome, but I get to know the way because I'm like, you're here to party.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, that is true. Like, come on.
My PC: It's not about you. Each quarter will be 30 seconds, low.
Steven Hanna: So this is where you can change the cycle on the numbers. So remember how in pattern match you said, oh, the number, the color keeps changing quick.
My PC: Okay. For this game, you can change that.
Steven Hanna: So each quarter can, that's basically how long they'll have to solve the problem.
My PC: Okay. So low and high?
Steven Hanna: That's the low number that you'll be using. Like, say you want to focus on one, two, three, four. So you'll select the low is one and the high is four.
My PC: Gotcha. What's the highest you can go? I think it's nine. They can do like 20 times 20, 20 plus 20. I don't know.
Steven Hanna: highest Okay. So... Okay.
My PC: I haven't gone above nine.
Steven Hanna: I don't use it, I don't even use, you know, it's like one of those, I don't even use it that much to warrant me trying it out.
My PC: I just, I just really want the schools.
Steven Hanna: The school, all right, if you really want the schools, what other entertainment options do you guys currently offer?
My PC: For schools? Yeah, anyone, anyone, anything that a school will purchase, that's, that's my question. In, in the winter times, we have those little writable animals, laser tag, the schools don't want that because it's guns. We do wax hands, virtual reality.
Steven Hanna: What's the most commonly booked thing from a school?
My PC: Are those wax hands? I want to say hands, usually for school barbecues and stuff like that.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. Awesome. Are those outdoor or indoor?
My PC: Indoor. Perfect. Do they have access to a gym space? Yeah. Great.
Steven Hanna: Here's how you're going to get started in a school. The next time your wax hands get booked, you're comping them with ZTAG.
My PC: I've done that a few times.
Steven Hanna: Also, professional development, offer a free professional development to the school. Say, hey, get your staff members together for a PD day. We'd love to do a little teamwork exercise over here with ZTAG. Can I offer you a quick 45-minute PD for this?
My PC: Correct. I know we went in with the school and we took a lot of video because it's fun. It's really hard to make a video to promote this. I find it very difficult.
Steven Hanna: I would direct you to my Instagram, but it won't do you guys any entertainment service. That would be the only problem.
My PC: Well, even just for ideas, like how do you show what the game is? Is it you? Are you on the ZTAG as well? I'm following somebody on ZTAG. And I tagged somebody. did an unboxing video on my... Yeah. you.
Steven Hanna: So I just sent over in the chat my Instagram. That's for my own personal company. And I'm sharing that because I want you to see the marketing behind ZTAGG that I've decided to do relative to my regular laser tag. Um, you'll notice that with ZTAGG, it's just a lot of fun. Kids smiling, kids holding a watch, holding a device. You don't really see a lot of the gameplay necessarily, right? Okay. So I guess that's what you're promoting.
My PC: You're promoting the smiling, excited part.
Steven Hanna: At the end of the day, you as an entertainment company, you're not selling a specific event. You're selling either one of three things. You're selling time so that parents can connect at a party. You're basically a glorified babysitter. You're selling your own time to the school to exist there where you're not at a private party. Or you're selling fun and happiness. Those are the three main things that you actually sell as an entertainment company. You're not selling events. If you focus on the other three things that you're selling, you'll be very surprised to know that the events trickle in.
My PC: Mm-hmm. Well, being that the business is called Climb and Fun, I'm going to push the whole fun side of it.
Steven Hanna: Right. For your marketing, you have a lot of entertainment options. The thing that I would focus on most is the people. The people are going to be the biggest seller for you because someone holding up a wax hand smiling with a cool figure, right? Like, maybe the hand is contorted or, like, I don't know. Whenever I did wax hands, I was always the edgy kid that did my middle finger down.
My PC: And, like, the guy was like, all right, whatever. I'll let it fly. Gramas. Gramas are bad for middle fingers.
Steven Hanna: So, however you are selling your business should be more focused. Based on the people and enjoyment factor, not what you have. What you have, people will see on your website once they click on it and go to it. What they need to see is that I'm getting that experience. Those people are having fun. Humans, marketing-wise, we're very, very inclined to relate to things that are unrelatable. It's really funny. Like, I show parents, you know, some Instagram pictures I have, like, parents literally sitting back, and the out of focus is the kids in the background, right?
My PC: Wow.
Steven Hanna: All I need is for the parent to say, wait, are those the kids in the, wait, that could be me?
My PC: Oh, man, all right, how much does it cost for me to have that?
Steven Hanna: They don't care about the service for the kid, and it's really unfortunate. What they actually care about is their own selfish motivator of time. That is so true.
My PC: Wow, I never thought of it that way, but it makes sense. Oh, my People offered me to come sit down, like how many parents offer to come sit down and give me a beer at a phone party?
Steven Hanna: It's like, just come relax, let the kids play.
My PC: Yeah, because we do phone parties as well, and that's what it is. And the Rockwell, we become babysitters. Parents just leave their kids there.
Steven Hanna: Now that I've made the blissful wall of ignorance disappear behind what you're actually selling, you're going to see this now and go, oh my God, he's right. This is what we've been doing.
My PC: Yeah, that's so true. And people pay for the experience, right? That's why we go bungee jumping and whatever. We want that experience.
Steven Hanna: What will happen is people will stop paying for the experience and they will start paying for you to host the experience. They're no longer paying for it because they know the experience exists anywhere else. They're going to be paying for you. And this is where you guys need to really separate yourselves from the other people. ZTAG, it's a really unique thing. And the fact that you guys have it... ZTAG, it's a ZTAG, ZTAG, You've already separated yourselves. You need to reinforce the fact that in your region, the name ZTAG should be you. Yeah, there's two.
My PC: I think there's one in Toronto, which is eight hours away, but they must have an old system too.
Steven Hanna: Not even close.
My PC: Don't worry.
Steven Hanna: As far as competition goes, if you're worried about that, the only level of competition you would need to worry about is if there is someone who comes within a two and a half hour radius of you and can service regions outside of your area.
My PC: Yeah. Because at that point, Everything I have. At that point, what I would say is you need to have a conversation with that person about partnering up rather than competing. Yeah. Yeah. No, I don't have, everything I have is all very unique. The foam, everything. There's nobody around. And almost, there's no other rock wall. The closest one is three hours. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: So you guys are literally selling the experience and foam. Yeah.
My PC: So remember that.
Steven Hanna: Yeah.
My PC: We just added you to Instagram. What did you find? Oh, yes. Are you okay if I take some ideas?
Steven Hanna: By all means. By all means.
My PC: It's not like, not to be mean, but we get a lot of the same idea shots, so it's not too bad.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. We're on the right track. Just adapt. Just adapt it. That's all you need to do. Like, yeah, you'll see some of my product shots in there, but they're the top three things on the page. Right after that, you'll see everybody, like the people, the things, where we go. So I don't focus on the product itself. I focus on the people and places more than anything.
My PC: Okay. Do you, because I think you can change the names of the ZTAGERS, right?
Steven Hanna: You can. you that? Too much time. Too much time. For us as entertainers, way too much time. Also, the amount of times that one kid will be like, oh, I'll be right back. I just gotta get a water. And then they never come back. And then Josh is now Alex, and Alex is now Greg. And Greg is Sylvia, and Sylvia is at the party.
My PC: Okay, got it. So that's what you'll run into. So is that what this stuff was kind of in there for?
Steven Hanna: Yes, one of the functions for that, and another function is for some tech support troubleshooting. But what I recommend you do with that, put it in a nice little Ziploc bag, label the bag, put it in a nice little tech drawer with a bunch of other chargers that you have in your house. And then whenever you need to find it, ask your daughter where it is.
My PC: She'll tell you where it is.
Steven Hanna: You'll go, I don't remember putting it there.
My PC: And she'll go, check.
Steven Hanna: And then you'll go, oh, you're right, it's there. I feel like you know me so well.
My PC: She's like, how did he know that?
Steven Hanna: Based on your 30 seconds of interaction where you called your daughter a dog, and she laughed and then said, yeah, this is about right. All right, fine.
My PC: I thought you were a magician or a psychic, but we'll go.
Steven Hanna: No, got a lot of a lot of psych background and a lot of teaching background. And so it's like, let me just pick that, extrapolate it out to everything, which is why I know about the hidden charger thing, because it's what my mom and I do, and it's a personal experience.
My PC: I thought you just knew the adult brain was...
Steven Hanna: No, no, you're just a great fun parent, and I know that this is what great fun parents do, is they forget about everything else, because they're having great fun with the kids at all times. So it's like an object permanence thing.
My PC: Very true. Well, thank you. Thank you for observing that. I think I just have one more I wrote.
Steven Hanna: Do you play with obstacles? I do.
My PC: some videos... Okay, so 1 to 10, how much do you recommend having those pop-up stats?
Steven Hanna: Zero! What?
My PC: Zero, I don't recommend it. Really? Okay. You're actually going to have to at the start with ZTAG, because it needs to be this extravagant thing. Okay. You'll find that the obstacles only get used for zombie tech. That makes sense. Like, there's no reason for the obstacles for...
Steven Hanna: Bunker Pattern Match or Shape Match or, you know, any of the other games. For half of the games, they would use them, but you don't play those games until the last 20 minutes.
My PC: Okay. So if we're at a public event in a park, then, and that would be eye-catching too, especially if get our logos on them.
Steven Hanna: Totally. Do you guys know about Vortex Bunkers?
My PC: Vortex? No.
Steven Hanna: Self-inflating, like, similar to I have the little pop-up tents, these are self-inflating mini bunkers. Like, keychain push auto-inflates, keychain push auto-deflates, put it in, like, one of those Costco storage bins, and roll away with Okay. That is something, these are called Vortex Bunkers, V-O-R-T-E-X. My assistant is looking it up. They're slightly pricey. They're probably in the six to seven Canadian dollar range, six to seven thousand. But that's for a set.
My PC: They're a set of, I believe, 13 or 14.
Steven Hanna: What you can do with that set is split it up for your events. So you don't need 14 obstacles for ZTAG. You need like four, five, if that. I use cones. Like I just have cones out. I put traffic cones. That's an obstacle. And it's not something that's going to hurt the kid. It's rubber. They fall into it. falls over. The kid gets up. The cone's down. I'll take the cone down versus the kid down. Yeah. I don't know what your insurance looks like with inflatables, though. So if you do grab these, insurance might, you know, jump a little bit.
My PC: Oh, okay. A 15-piece set, according to the website that I'm looking at, is $3,800.
Steven Hanna: If that is the case, that is a fantastic price. And that is something that, well, I'll be honest with you, I'm purchasing them at IAPA this year. When I go there. Oh, yeah.
My PC: For, for my.
Steven Hanna: For this company, the Long Island Laser Tag. Oh, this is my wife's hoodie. Oh, I was looking at it earlier. See, we have non-gender conforming things. I wear her hoodies, all right?
My PC: Nice. It looks comfy.
Steven Hanna: It is very comfy, I will say. We're going to grab them at IAPA this year, and we're going to grab, I believe, a 15-piece set for our Laser Tag company. We're going to be purchasing them in the red and blue vinyl color for us, but that's kind of our, based on our company colors, those are the colors. So I'm branding it out for our specific company. For the ZTAG side of things, they actually do offer ZTAG-branded things. If you wanted to, like, pick those up from ZTAG themselves, they have, like, a ZTAG tablecloth, a ZTAG 10x10, 10, stuff like that. But for your own company and the direction you're heading, your own branding is obviously the most effective. So lean into... I more than anything.
My PC: It's just because I have laser tag vests, and we used to play in an inflatable maze, but I'm getting rid of that thing.
Steven Hanna: That thing's a pain in the . Tell me about it.
My PC: Two pieces at 300 bucks, 300 pounds, and then you gotta roll it up. Everything I own is a one-man show, except that stupid laser tag. Yeah, no, it shouldn't be like that.
Steven Hanna: It should be like a 10-minute rollout, 10-minute setup, 15-minute breakdown. That extra five-minute on a breakdown is literally to collect a balance and schmooze.
My PC: Yeah, so these things might be good for ZTAG and laser tag if I keep it.
Steven Hanna: My managers are basically telling me they're not working with me unless I get these. So I am being strong-armed by my management. Wow. They've done the research. I've done the research. I've told them that I personally don't like them, but they said this will make our lives 10 times easier and make the company look 10 times better.
My PC: Really? If they're arguing and fighting me on it, I almost can't say no just because...
Steven Hanna: Because of, they've done the research. Everything they've said is valid. And in combination with ZTAG, it looks great. It does.
My PC: If it's self-inflating, if I gotta sit there with a fan, then no thing. No, no.
Steven Hanna: This is Keychain. Keychain startup. I actually had a video call with them where I watched him, like, press it and start it up. It's about a two and a half minute setup. And they include the weights inside the inflatable. You don't need to attach any weights. That's the part where I'm like, you have made this for the mobile person. You've designed this for me, basically.
My PC: Alright. Oh my god, I'm getting the, let's go to IAPA look on face.
Steven Hanna: Listen, I'm not saying that these tickets still exist and that I'll make sure that they exist for as long as they need to for your Canadian people to get over here. But, if it's something that is on the table, just reach out. Let me know. I, I, Hey, what's in?
My PC: Listen, I'm not trying to force this. This is like the worst case of like the parish.
Steven Hanna: Come on, dude, you're shutting me up here.
My PC: I look into the dates. I teach skating, so we'll have to see. And she's in college, so. Fair one, won't kill me. Anyways, we'll look into it.
Steven Hanna: But work-wise, I know we are like went way over your time here, so. Not at all. Listen, it is a pleasure to speak with you guys. I also have a 45-minute buffer after all of my meetings for this exact reason so that I can spend the time.
My PC: Another question, the callback button, I don't remember what the name of it is. Oh, yeah.
Steven Hanna: You can press it, it's going to get real loud.
My PC: Yeah, that's why I didn't want to push it. But last time, I'm hoping this is fixed, but last time, my system was off. And they were still ... Did you shut down the watch itself? I feel like I would have. I feel like that would have been the first thing I did, but maybe. Maybe not. I feel like you did.
Steven Hanna: Mm-hmm.
My PC: Well, it makes sense that I didn't, but I'm like, what the is going on?
Steven Hanna: All right, so here's the deal. When you press that button, the two ways to make it stop. The first way, just hit the reset button on the little watch, just that red power button once. It'll automatically turn it off, and it basically acts as if you put it on the dock. Second way, just drop it on the dock. I don't believe if you shut your system down first and then put it on the dock, I don't think it'll kill the signal. So that might have been what was going on. Your system, like LCD screen, might have been shut down, and then the bottom part might have been shut down, but you sent that signal before you shut the system down.
My PC: Oh, okay. So maybe that's, I don't know. That would be the only thing that I can consider.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, no, that's, you're good. You're good. I would say that is an anomaly, and this is the first time that I'm ever hearing of that. And based on what you're describing, the only thing I can think of is that. But, who knows? I'm not going to say it's operator error. It could be something else completely different in the system that we've... I've never seen before. Yeah, well, I would be the one to catch it.
My PC: But, okay, so the old system are, like, the ZTAGs, because I just had to cut the cable, which was so hard. Oh, my God, I almost started crying.
Steven Hanna: Oh, it was hard for us internally, too. They were, like, literally saying that they're cutting the umbilical cord, and I told them, you have to stop humanizing this experience.
My PC: It's getting weird. No, it's getting weird, but it's just so weird. So if the other ZTAGs, if these break, do I still have all the other ones as backup?
Steven Hanna: You can try.
My PC: But? You can try.
Steven Hanna: Oh, really? Some of it might be utilized. Some of it can be, you know, put into that system. So let's say a few of those devices on that system go down, and you need to put some from the other system into that. You know how to do an update?
My PC: Oh, yeah, but at the top? Just yes, yes, yes, yes, I think.
Steven Hanna: So if you go into the little gear icon in the settings from the main system, there should be a tab on the left. I can't remember which one, but it says, like, firmware, I think. Okay, yeah.
My PC: Firmware, devices.
Steven Hanna: So says firmware on it, you should see something that says, like, 7.0.26 with a little cloud button next to it.
My PC: Yeah, with a push.
Steven Hanna: Right. So when you, if you do want to test that theory, you're going to take all of the devices out of the one you have currently, put the old ones into the blue case, and you're going to go into that and push that firmware. That will basically make them connected to that system, and you can use them with the blue system now, too. Okay.
My PC: Some of them may work, some of them may not work. Yeah. So I know I've got some, I guess, newer ones sent to me recently, because there was a lot. A lot of like back and forth, so I'd rather, I'd rather not, I'd rather not, but I'm just, and we have the two spare ones, so let's go with them, I'm going to break.
Steven Hanna: Just hold on to them, the old devices, because there may be a time where you need four or five of them, and you just don't want to email us to say, I need a replacement onto a single one. You're probably going to wait till like two or three or four are out, because that's what I do personally. There's no need for me to get one replaced. Just hold on to them, keep them in that drawer with the little keyboard.
My PC: That's a big drawer. That you'll forget about.
Steven Hanna: Yeah.
My PC: don't know where it is.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, make it a closet at this point. Yeah.
My PC: Okay, and it's the one with the QR codes, right? Because I think I had some that didn't have, these are the newer ones, the one with the QR codes.
Steven Hanna: So if they don't have QR codes, chances are they're not going to be able to work with the new system. If they do have QR codes, chances are they will be able to work with the new system. Okay.
My PC: Okay, now this, should this new system be. Register it under, I recommend you register it under whatever you like.
Steven Hanna: It's your own personal system. It's not part of the school system, so you don't need like an admin email or anything.
My PC: Okay, so, because this is this new one, can't you guys troubleshoot from somewhere else?
Steven Hanna: Is that one of the newer features? Register it so we can.
My PC: Well, that's okay. So, under account. I am under account. It says sign out.
Steven Hanna: Oh, then you should, your system's already registered then. How is that possible?
My PC: Because I'm not even connected to Wi-Fi and I just got it, so.
Steven Hanna: Unless they pre-registered your system for you, which would be really weird, but. Yeah, because wasn't it sent from China?
My PC: I'm not even connected to a Wi-Fi. And it has your account name on there?
Steven Hanna: If you go to account, what comes up?
My PC: Name ZTAG. ZTAG M5 Factory.
Steven Hanna: Okay, so they just, they apply to stock to this. So if you want, you could basically reset the system, or you could leave as is.
My PC: It's up to you. Okay, but you just told me to register it, so I should register it.
Steven Hanna: If it's registered already under that, I mean, we already know what it is, and all you'd have to do is say, this is what the account name is.
My PC: Oh, okay.
Steven Hanna: Because it basically, on our internal side, what we would see is something very different than what you guys see. So as long as we know that, hey, that system is named this, we could say, okay, if that system is named this, and it's the only one connected to the internet, then we could jump in and troubleshoot.
My PC: Got it. But you can reset it if you want.
Steven Hanna: If you want to re-register it, you would basically go into the about in the last tab on the left, and there should be something in the top area that says like reset or something reset Zeus in red.
My PC: Yeah. That's what you would press for that.
Steven Hanna: So you're more than welcome to do it, but. I ain't touching more.
My PC: Well, then I need to touch because I suck at this .
Steven Hanna: Then leave as is and call it a day and it's registered to you.
My PC: Okay. Sounds good. For your shutdown, I do want to go through that. Unless you have another question on the main side. No, I think that's it.
Steven Hanna: Okay, for your shutdown, it is absolutely important that you follow these steps. You're going to work from the top down. On the LCD screen, you're going to press that little power button indicator in the top right. Shutdown or reboot should appear. You're going to hit shut down.
My PC: Your screen will flicker.
Steven Hanna: It will go off. From there, you're going to look at the silver power button on the top portion of the lid. And you're going to press that so that the blue light turns off.
My PC: Got it. Make sure that all of your ZTAGGERS are still charging.
Steven Hanna: They have red, green, whatever.
My PC: They're in the docks. Okay.
Steven Hanna: From there, press the red button.
My PC: After that, give it a few seconds.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, that fan is whoo. Give it a few seconds on that, and you can take out the power cable.
My PC: A few seconds, like, good to go now? You're good. Boom.
Steven Hanna: You're going to coil up the power cable, make sure that it lays flat, and put it in that little black, uh, put it in the little back storage area behind the charging dock. Same way that you put the other stuff in the old ZTAG system. Just now, you got a lot more space.
My PC: Yeah, I just going to say, so much more space. Boom. And then, yeah.
Steven Hanna: When you close up your lid on there, and you should not experience any resistance when you close the lid. When you close Go to latch it down. If there's any bounce or play or resistance, make sure that the wires are all securely snug. Make sure that nothing is, like, preventing it from closing. The plexiglass doesn't have any of the Velcro on it. Stuff like that. You could then close and latch the ZU.
My PC: And then take your money and run!
Steven Hanna: And then go up to your client, say, hey, it's been great. Here's the credit card link. I prefer cash, but... You know, whatever you need to say. And then you shake their hands and move on with your life.
My PC: Move on to the next money! Exactly. So, USB... Is this a USB? Is that USB charge? No, that's HDMI. Those two are USB. Okay, so the USB is that thing? That's for that little keyboard before.
Steven Hanna: So there was that USB connector there. Also, there... There is another function, but you won't... It wouldn't... It for you guys. would be more for, like, us on our side. All right.
My PC: Does it charge cell phones? I was just about to ask. Don't plug a phone into this, please.
Steven Hanna: Use your little power brick. I don't recommend plugging anything into ZTAG other than ZTAG.
My PC: Okay. What about a TV? Is that HDMI?
Steven Hanna: HDMI. Mm-hmm. You could do that.
My PC: And I noticed in the other one, there's a – you have to plug in the cable before, right? Is there a sequence? Because I know the other one me up a couple times.
Steven Hanna: Same thing. HDMI goes in before.
My PC: Plug it in. then it goes in the sequence when you turn it on. Red button, silver button. I guess it would make sense because the HDMI is plugged in before everything comes on. That's right. Got it. Okay.
Steven Hanna: You also should have gotten a little memory card with your system.
My PC: It should be in the bottom. Oh, is it kind of, like, tucked in the back?
Steven Hanna: Yes, it is.
My PC: Okay, yeah. That is a backup.
Steven Hanna: If you guys ever run into a problem with the system basically being bricked because you didn't turn it on or off correctly, this is a backup for that. There's a little black piece of tape on your system covering the port where this goes.
My PC: It's covering really good because I can't see it. On the top part, next to the silver button, look over there. Oh, oh, I see it. Yep.
Steven Hanna: This is a backup for you that we are including. Put this in the closet or drawer, whatever you are calling it in your house.
My PC: Can I leave it in there? It's in there pretty good.
Steven Hanna: You can leave it in there as well. Yeah. Probably be more beneficial to actually leave it in there, keep it snug just in case you're at an event. If the system does go down, you could just say, perfect, give me 10 seconds. Pop it out, pop it, and restart.
My PC: And what does this do? What going down look like?
Steven Hanna: I've had one system go down in three and a half years, and what happened was I started Red Light, Green Light. After that, the game ended. My system turned black. I tried to restart the system, and it went into an operating system screen. What that means for me as a tech guy is that something internally was so messed up that my system basically said, I'm sick. I'm not going to work today, and I'm not going back to work ever again. That's what a system going down looks like. One in three and a half years for me. It was on the new system that they sent me to test. I told them what happened, and it was basically an SD card swap in and out. So that will not happen to you guys because it happened to me, and I made sure it's not going to happen.
My PC: Thank you.
Steven Hanna: I was the test dummy for that one.
My PC: That's good catch. Good catch. Because I'm pretty sure at the last party. I started one game on the screen, but another game started on the bracelets, and I'm like, what the just happened here?
Steven Hanna: So one of the games probably reset, one of the watches probably reset, and the game signal didn't end, and the other signal was sent to start a game. So that game was finishing up, and it was like, I'm just going to finish what I'm doing here, I'll catch up to you guys when I'm done. And then it never caught up, because it decided to stop. Okay.
My PC: So watch is not starting, I had that problem. Is that solved with this new system?
Steven Hanna: 90% solved, the other 10% is going to be by that troubleshooting step, just tap the red button once.
My PC: Okay. I rarely, rarely run into issues like that now. Okay, good, because that was one of the embarrassing parts.
Steven Hanna: Also, the next troubleshooting step is just go to the home screen, and then go back into the game. So two easy quick fixes for it is just tap the red button once, reset the device, or from the system level, hit home, go to the home screen. and then just go right back into the game.
My PC: Really? Yeah.
Steven Hanna: So when a game is in progress? No, if the game's over. Oh, okay.
My PC: Right.
Steven Hanna: Like sometimes they won't be in at the start of the game, right? Like sometimes you might have ran into that. Just go back to the home screen and then go back into the game.
My PC: Okay. Yeah, because I'm talking about the game would start and there's like two, three kids that come up and my watch didn't start.
Steven Hanna: So mid-game, if that happens, if the game is on the previous game, a different one completely, drop it in the dock, take it out and reset.
My PC: Okay. So if the watches don't start, put them back in the dock. Okay. All right. Well, this is exciting. It is.
Steven Hanna: And you also are one of 30 people with a blue system. And I told them I will fight for a blue system. Oh, especially you if that's your... It is my colors. It is my jam. It is literally... No kidding.
My PC: Why are they hooking you up? The blue system.
Steven Hanna: Well, you've got to make sure that the customers are taken care of. Since our last meeting, they hired me. So now I'm on the ZTAG team doing this in addition.
My PC: Right, because you were kind of just helping before. Yeah, now I'm making sure that everyone's taken care of. And you make money. Yeah, a little bit of that along the way. Nice, that's always fun. I, for one, super appreciate it. You're very good at this. You explain it very well.
Steven Hanna: And I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I appreciate that very much. And you are probably one of, like, four people that I enjoy training. Shh, don't tell anyone else.
My PC: Okay, I won't.
Steven Hanna: I really do appreciate you guys using the system and the questions that you ask. Because it's... out who may not have the level of expertise that you have. And it is really great to know that the systems are being utilized the way that I use them. So I'm personally happy. And ZTAG will be very happy to know that you guys received the system, have this training, and you will go forth and conquer.
My PC: Yes. And make lots of money to move to Florida.
Steven Hanna: That's true. That's true. Most definitely true. It's starting to get pretty chilly by you guys now.
My PC: Well, there was a pretty sure thick frost. There was a white layer on my vehicle this morning.
Steven Hanna: So, yeah.
My PC: Good for the snowboarders.
Steven Hanna: Bad for the normal peoples. Yeah, that is true. Do you guys need anything else with me while we're here today? Any questions, comments, concerns, feedback?
My PC: No. I still have you on my WhatsApp. So if you don't mind, if there's anything, I can maybe reach out that way if that's okay.
Steven Hanna: You text me. Yep, absolutely. We are same time zone. You can absolutely text. And if you need to share that with any of your staff as well. it. You have my permission to do so.
My PC: Okay, perfect. Thank you so much. You got it. All right, well, have a good rest of your day.
Steven Hanna: You as well. Take care, Nadia. Sabrina, take care. I'm going to send over a quick email follow-up with all the settings that I use for my games, and then you guys can, you know, just take a peek at that, modify as you see fit. Okay, sounds good. Have a wonderful day. Take care. Thanks. Bye-bye.
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Ruben Saenz: So therefore it, whatchamacallit, I have to like remove it all because I have like the box and everything like that. So my laptop just connects to my monitor so I can't remove it.
Steven Hanna: I need to get like a little mini camera or something on top. good. Don't worry about it, you know?
Ruben Saenz: If I showed you my like studio setup downstairs for recording videos, it's basically that.
Steven Hanna: I've got like a ZTAG box hooked up to a capture card, switching into a monitor on the side, back into S on the other monitor. Like I know exactly what you're talking about.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, like my, it's like the, it's like the laptop's on the side and it's in the box with two monitors to display it on there.
Steven Hanna: And so then I'm like, but then I'm like, I don't have my camera. So every time you're a medium. You're like, how the hell do I go on the camera with it?
Ruben Saenz: Right, I to unplug it, pull it to the side and pull it in front of me. And I'm like, it just, it's like wasted space.
Steven Hanna: So I like, I want the ZTAG in front me while I do it. So, but no, yeah, it's all good.
Ruben Saenz: We'll figure it out and stuff like that.
Steven Hanna: So like the hat, by the way.
Ruben Saenz: Thank you, man.
Steven Hanna: I appreciate it. I got the shirt.
Ruben Saenz: I just need the hat now. Yeah, that's next, dude.
Steven Hanna: And if you have the opportunity to get out to Florida for... Fathom, I'm sure they can get you one, too.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, when I see them in Tennessee, they had a bunch of stuff, so it was cool. That gets you swag. Yeah, for sure.
Steven Hanna: That gets you swag. I'm also going to, I'll also get your address at the end, and I'll send you some personal stuff.
Ruben Saenz: Nice, cool. Yeah, that'd be dope. I'd like it a lot. I'm already rocking the ZTAG card already, so.
Steven Hanna: Hell yeah. All right, so then let me kind of jump into the system itself. So have you had the opportunity to utilize it before? You kind of know what's going on with it?
Ruben Saenz: Not sure. Yeah, so yeah, so we've utilized it a lot with our after-school program, I'd like that. We have technically a total of four of them, the ZTAGs. Initially, when we bought them, we bought one to try it out, and then we bought additional three for our summer camps. That way, each summer camp could have one ZTAG, and then during the school year, we basically swap between our 25 schools on, like, you know, Fun Friday, Half Days, or whatever the events are. There's five different regions. It's how they're regionalized with all five different schools. We only have four ZTAGs, so we kind of, like, you know, pick and choose. Who kind of gets them here and there, and hopefully, eventually, I would like to get one more, so that way we can have for all the school year, and then we have a backup if one breaks, or not working, or something like that, or just have a bunch of extra ZTAGs, and then we initially purchased them, we get a few of them, but just when you have that many, right, four to five ZTAGs, you know, and add two or three extra on those ones, like, I already had some where the screen's been breaking on them, you know, I had one that got really bad damage on it, so we're just trying to go ahead and figure out how we can kind of assess and figure that out.
Steven Hanna: So, on the ones that you're saying, the screens are kind of bad, are you talking about just on the little ZTAG devices themselves, not the big box, right? No, no, no, the box is fine, yeah, yeah, not the actual box itself, it's just like the ZTAG, like, you know what I mean, we have public kids. How many of those, how many of those are you down?
Ruben Saenz: I would say, just, just ballpark it.
Steven Hanna: Like, four or five, maybe. Okay. Yeah, and I have replacements, I just haven't replaced them yet, I've been, I was gonna, I was actually waiting until this meeting to talk to you, to see if it's.
Ruben Saenz: It's like those extra ones, or if they're only designated to those ZTAGs that we purchased, or they're universal, and they can be from anywhere.
Steven Hanna: They're universal. It's basically drop it in the dock, and then go into your settings, and just hit reset devices, and it syncs it right in.
Ruben Saenz: Okay, cool.
Steven Hanna: They may need an update, or just to be put on the same version. Maybe you're rocking an older version, and you have one that's newer that we updated and sent to you. So, like, you may have to update the system to that, in which case, I'll just walk you through how to update it. And if your Wi-Fi doesn't allow, we'd be able to get you memory cards just to make sure you can update.
Ruben Saenz: When did you guys get the systems, if you don't mind me Oh, we've had them, bro. I want to say, so we had this past conference this past year in Tennessee, and then we got them a year before that, because that's when we found them at the conferences. And that was, where was that conference at? It was, like, right when I first started, I was one of the specials that wasn't, like, chosen. It wasn't to go just because I was more newer. So I would say I've been here two years ago is what I would say when we got them. And we were like, I don't know if we still are, but we were like one of the very first ones in Arizona to even have one.
Steven Hanna: That's what I'm trying to pull up right now. I'm trying to see how old these systems are. And it looks like, okay, not bad. Those are older. Looks about a year, year and a half. Does that sound about?
Ruben Saenz: that sounds about right. Yeah, because I have been here about two years and we got them like within the year that I was here.
Steven Hanna: All right. So then those extra ones, like I said, you could probably just drop them right into the new docs if you need.
Ruben Saenz: Perfect.
Steven Hanna: And just make sure that they're on the same firmware. To do that, I mean, you seem you're pretty tech advanced. You're rocking multiple monitors and you know your setups. So, yeah.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Basically going into the settings on the system, and if you have the system in front of you, I could tell you where it is now. Yeah, I can go through it.
Ruben Saenz: I've updated all of our ZTAGs already, except for the last one that I've been waiting. They're all updated, the newest firmware, and the new betas that just came out too.
Steven Hanna: Perfect. So you have the games, you're on 7.026, right?
Ruben Saenz: Correct. Yep, correct. That's the one I'm on right now.
Steven Hanna: Then just make sure whenever you drop those new devices in, just make sure they're on 7026 as well. If they're not, just make sure you push that firmware one more time, OTA update it, and you should be golden.
Ruben Saenz: Okay, yeah, that's what I did. The problem I'm running into is the public school Wi-Fi. That's been my issue. So I have to take these home and do it there. Now, obviously, I'm on to my third one already, so it's been a lot faster, and they're all in my name and everything like that. So it's made things a lot quicker with me scanning them with the QR code and everything like that and getting them up and running in the betas there. So I just thought the SD cards might be convenient just to have them too. then also, I like the email that I got sent about the warranty because we did We an incident where one actually caught on fire, so that was kind of crazy.
Steven Hanna: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on, hold on. Yeah.
Ruben Saenz: One caught fire. Yes, one of the ZTAG's things itself caught fire because one of our site leads did not put, they put it in the charger and they closed the case on top of it. And so when they did that, they left it there for like hours and then.
Steven Hanna: Probably about like 10 hours on, sure. I don't know, yeah, I don't know how long. All right, I'm not going to speculate it, but okay. Do you have that?
Ruben Saenz: I did have it, but so our operation person is supposed to be in charge of the actual ZTAG and stuff. But I take care of all the operations, like all the maintenance and basically inventory and make sure they're good to go. I up the betas and everything like that because the guy that's doing it, he's kind of transitioning here and there and stuff like that.
Steven Hanna: So we like, we need them now and we can't just wait and, you know, like what the debate is coming. I'm like highly concerned. Like that, that's something that, that does not sit well. You're. Yeah, no. Sorry, I don't mean to cut you off. No, you're good. My brain is literally going like, what? Okay. Yeah. So the device, when did that happen?
Ruben Saenz: like This happened probably like a couple months ago.
Steven Hanna: And did you guys reach out to ZTAG about that? We told the operations guy, and then he said he would take care of it, and that was kind of it. Okay, because I'm looking at the email comms here, and I have nothing as far as it takes care Yeah, I'm sure you didn't have anything with that, so yeah. Okay. And do you still have that? I'm sorry, I interrupted you before.
Ruben Saenz: I have. I do not personally have. I did see it. The guy that does the operations, he has it.
Steven Hanna: I can get it from him and possibly show you. Yeah, that's something that they're going to want to take a look at, because that is not okay. Yeah.
Ruben Saenz: Well, I'm sure it was like her fault, because she put it in the charger, closed the unit, and I don't know if he... when see. But don't Like the unit in that was even a thing too, but like now what I've done is most of the doors are kind of falling off with that fiberglass and those like little screws. It's just like they're not holding very well. So majority of our ZTAGs, the door is pretty much removed at this point, and I thought it was kind of better just because with that one person having that ZTAG catch on fire. So they're just, I don't know, I think just overused because we do use them a lot and going back and forth and they get, they're transported. So the lids are kind of falling off. I, I can fix them. I just need a few screws and stuff like that, that kind of disappeared. I thought maybe some thread locker would be nice to put on it so that they wouldn't come loose.
Steven Hanna: Okay. I'm, I'm basically writing this down because the second I get off, just so that you know what I'm going to do. I'm, I'm going to call our tech team and literally get on the horn about this to see if there is something with the system. Yes, could be beautiful. But I just don't want to speculate whether it was user error, system error. I don't want to apply any blame to them. Yeah, and I feel like it was our fault because I even asked that because I was like, well, how did this happen?
Ruben Saenz: I said the only way that could have happened is if you guys had closed the ZTAG itself and left it on and you guys forgot about it and stuff. And so we talked to that site lead that was at that site and she told us what kind of happened and that's pretty much what it was. And so they had forgot about it. And so when it, I mean, thank goodness it didn't catch the whole thing. Like, yeah, no, no, no, no, of course, you know, like, yeah, but it was, it was pretty melted.
Steven Hanna: It was pretty like bad way.
Ruben Saenz: Like even the person that's in charge of those sites was like letting me know and she gave it to that guy and he ended up keeping it. I should have took a picture of it, but like, well, I was glad everybody was kind of safe and it was fine. And I asked that the ZTAG system, you know, it was right.
Steven Hanna: Anything else?
Ruben Saenz: I mean, I'm looking at it. I just got it today, this morning. It obviously that one is missing, but like even the fiberglass itself. Looks like a little, looks a charred, it's like, a little blackened, I can actually show you, it's not cleared up on here, let me see. All right, can you see, without it being blurred?
Steven Hanna: Yes.
Ruben Saenz: So I believe, oh, I believe it was that one that's missing right there.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
Ruben Saenz: And then, if you can kind of see how it's like, it's kind of like, it's not coming off.
Steven Hanna: Now, do you have a router on the system, or is there no router? There's no, there is? Yeah, mm-hmm, on the back end, yeah.
Ruben Saenz: Okay. I just had it plugged up, just in case you wanted me to do something with it.
Steven Hanna: Nope, that's perfect, I just had to verify, because that tells me what model it is, versus another model. Oh, wait, the newer models won't have the routers? So, so. There is a newer model that they're just starting to roll out that the router is just removed. It's actually built right into the backup portion of it.
Ruben Saenz: that's nice. It does make it a little bit nicer for operations-wise.
Steven Hanna: I think they're offering that at a $2,000 to $3,000 upgrade per unit, but I'm not 100% sure, and I'm not in sales. I'm on making sure that your stuff is good to roll.
Ruben Saenz: No, for sure.
Steven Hanna: Don't quote me on that. I just remember them vaguely saying that in a meeting, but the new upgrade, it's a V3, and it's basically the removal of the router, and it's a little bit more streamlined for your use.
Ruben Saenz: okay. Nice. Did they end up upgrading this too as well, the new controller?
Steven Hanna: So they're actually phasing that out. Ooh, okay. So they've realized that you and I are probably one or two out of 100 people that would use that. Yeah, because I use it all the time, especially if I'm
Ruben Saenz: In the gym, and I'm far away from the ZTAGG, and I'm talking to parents, I can just control it from here, but I told the guy, was like, if you guys put a screen on here, would be nicer, because then I can see, you know, from like 40 feet away what I'm doing.
Steven Hanna: We're gonna nerd out right here, okay, I've told them that they need to create a master controller ZTAGGER that you as a host has on your wrist, where you can, those three buttons need to become functional, where it's a selection, move to the side, move to the side, and you can start a game from the feet.
Ruben Saenz: So that's, that's something that hopefully they, they will be coming up with. Yeah, hell, make it an app, right? Like, just put it on a phone, we can download it.
Steven Hanna: Theoretically, yeah, theoretically, but I think it takes away from the magic of it, right? Like, you have it on your wrist, you're using it, and it's, it's there.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: And you can put it on an app, and it's, it's on the app store, and it's like, oh, I'll control this from, you know, my offers. Right. I'll watch them on the security cam, I'll start the game from here.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, I'm like messing with it. Well, because I've done it with, uh, Team building events, like after hours events, and I tell people, all right, we're going to play. The whole school is open base. The whole entire school. Playground, outside, offices, buildings, and nobody's there, except for hours. And so, like, I have to run back to the gym to go, like, hit the button. So for that, it would actually be workable for you.
Steven Hanna: It might actually be a usable thing. Right, yeah.
Ruben Saenz: I'm like, oh, man. And it's fine. Like, who's near the gym, you know, like, trying to hit the button or whatever, like, because I'm hiding, you know. That's great.
Steven Hanna: The chef loved it.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, it was really cool. like, man, that should have been, like, a video. You know, turn the lights down and stuff like that, like, so people can't see. Yeah, and, like, you just hear ZTAG, their own entire school, so.
Steven Hanna: If you ever do get footage, I'm not sure about your photography video release stuff, but if you're at ZTAG on the Instagram, Facebook stuff, they'll repost it, so.
Ruben Saenz: Oh, really? Okay. Yeah, I'll have do that. know Gavin, our communication guy, he does all our video footage and everything like that, and he actually did some drone work. The other day with the kids playing V. ZTAG in a gym, and it came out really good and stuff like that.
Steven Hanna: Dude, we'd love to see it if possible. We won't post it anywhere if you don't want us to, but I'd personally love to see drone footage of ZTAG in a gym. That sounds awesome.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, well, it's on our Instagram, probably. can find it.
Steven Hanna: What's your Insta? What is it?
Ruben Saenz: Our Insta is, I think it's GPS Community Ed. Let me look it up. It's funny, have it on my personal phone, but not my work phone. Okay. Let me see. Yeah, because these are all the videos, and we usually throw a couple ZTAGs inside of there when we, like, doing, like, Photoshop. Cool, let me come Yeah, so it's Community Ed, and it's all one word, all lowercase.
Steven Hanna: GPS Community Ed.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah. Very cool.
Steven Hanna: Yeah.
Ruben Saenz: And he'll show us videos, but sometimes they'll be like, yeah, that wouldn't make it, or this will make it, but. Like, that's where we post all of our stuff. Like, even my.
Steven Hanna: got a good gram. He's a good grandma. I'll give him that.
Ruben Saenz: He knows what he's doing.
Steven Hanna: He's trying.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, he's trying to get up there.
Steven Hanna: He's doing a pretty dang good job. I'll give him that much.
Ruben Saenz: I'll give him a follow from me over here on the East Coast. I was wondering where you were. You're all bundled up and everything.
Steven Hanna: This East Coast weather is for the birds, dude. It's like 40 degrees right now. Really? Yeah, my room, got a little tiny space heater. It's all the way over there. It says it's 70. That's a lie. Straight lies.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah. Well, I don't want make you feel bad, but we're about 80s in October right now in Arizona.
Steven Hanna: You know, you said you didn't want to make me feel bad, but you knew exactly what you were doing. That's like, no offense, but.
Ruben Saenz: I spent my time there. North Carolina, six years.
Steven Hanna: All right. Well, let's listen. I'm a little bit further north than North Carolina.
Ruben Saenz: I'm in like the northeast region.
Steven Hanna: It's getting chilly out here.
Ruben Saenz: Oh, I can't wait. Oh, These nights are getting like 35 degrees. Oh, I don't miss it being so cold. I don't miss it at all. I will say I am a snowboarder, so I do enjoy it. See, if you like that, you have to have snow, you know?
Steven Hanna: Yes, that's very true. But in regards to your system, I'm going to reach out right after this for that. In regards to our training, since you basically know the systems and everything, I'm just going to go over the differentiated settings that we have for each game mode. But some of these you may have seen, some of them you may not have seen. So I differentiate it out for younger and older kids, usually K through 5, and then like 6 and up. Those are kind of the grades that I think of when I'm looking at the games. Have you changed up any of the game settings before?
Ruben Saenz: Can you, I guess, explain a little bit more? Like, I've extended times, I've, you know, made them shorter, stuff like that. I don't know if that's what you're kind of looking for.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, something similar to So you've obviously navigated into the game itself, and then you've gotten into the settings for each game. So you'll see that there's time and a few different settings.
Ruben Saenz: As far as the settings go for red light, green light, if you want to tap on that, I'm just going to walk you through what they are.
Steven Hanna: And then you can kind of gauge based on your groups and their needs, how you'd structure it. What I normally do, I usually rock 60 seconds as the go-to, and I do groups of threes for every single game. So I'll play red light, green light three times, pattern match three times, keep away three times, stuff like that.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, okay.
Steven Hanna: For our first game, for the youngers, if you're in the settings, the two settings you will be looking at are sensitivity and negative scoring. Sensitivity, if they're really tiny, like K1 and 2, think low. If they're 3, 4, 5, I would go medium. That's for round one. Negative scoring is on. And the reason why we have that setting on is because in the prior... version of red light green light if you got caught one catch and you're out so it's okay it's kind of very exclusive for kids who are good versus kids who don't have hand-eye coordination with negative scoring on instead of getting kicked out they'll just lose 10 points and they'll have the ability to play for the entire duration of the round that would be nice because kids get out they kind of get bummed exactly it's very demotivating from like a social standpoint where you're constantly getting your butt kicked by the computer and your friend is literally kicking butt and right exactly like well what am I really doing here it sucks yeah so when I play it's been like it's like it's hard you know what mean I'm looking at it now it's time limits 120 seconds sensitivity is high and negative scoring is off yeah so you're basically at the highest difficulty setting by default oh wow so you've been playing at max yeah you're playing at like easy medium hard and then new game plus like that's what you're playing at you're playing top ton you're
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, they're vets, but I guarantee you they'll like this more because they actually run and earn more points. So having everybody stay in is something that you're going to want to consider.
Steven Hanna: For the first game, if they're youngers, I go low sensitivity, 60 seconds, negative scoring on. Second game, medium sensitivity, negative scoring on. Third game, high sensitivity, negative scoring on. For my olders, I change up the last game just to have negative scoring off. So two out of the three games are just point reductions, and the last game is slightly competitive in nature.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, okay. Also, don't worry about typing these settings.
Steven Hanna: I'm sending you an email with my entire script. Oh, perfect. Okay.
Ruben Saenz: You will be able to copy that.
Steven Hanna: Don't worry about this. I'm just walking you through it, making sure that you see where the things are and know how to change it, because your staff is going to ask, hey, where is this? And you'll know, based on you just touching.
Ruben Saenz: Okay. That's for every game, right? Yeah. It doesn't mean if I have to change it for every game, I can't just do it for a Well, it'll maintain the settings of the last game.
Steven Hanna: So if you want to change it for the next game, just go into the settings. If you want to just start it up again, by all means, start it up again.
Ruben Saenz: So you don't necessarily need to change low, medium, and high.
Steven Hanna: Maybe you want to do two games on medium with negative scoring and then change it to high and take off negative scoring. So cater it to your group needs and your time needs. I usually have an hour at my events, so I structure it to that.
Ruben Saenz: That's why I do three sets of each game. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Any questions on Red Light Green? So, yeah, no.
Ruben Saenz: I just peeked at the Zombies Survival to see if it was – their settings are a little bit different. But, no, that'll definitely help when we, like, play. Because we have preschoolers that play, too. So, like, you know, three- and four-year-olds are the really, really, really young ones.
Steven Hanna: They need a little extra boost for this one.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, and the straps probably even fit them, right?
Steven Hanna: So they just kind of hold it a little bit. So there's actually two ways to make it a little bit easier. It's for the pre-Ks and TKs. One way, if you have the device, if you take one of those watches and feed it through the loop as you would normally do, but twist it at the end, you can probably take another inch of pull off of that, and it gets it very, very, very tiny.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, so what I've done is I pulled it, and I think I wrapped it around or twisted, like you said, and then that's been a knot for them all the time. Oh, okay. Yeah, go shoulder to bicep.
Steven Hanna: It's basically, they're not going to be doing this, but they have to move their shoulder a little bit, and the bicep is going to be, like, statistically has the largest circumference of the arm.
Ruben Saenz: Right, exactly, yeah. It'll fit more.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, you can go right up the arm, you can go elbow, and also you can do it like Iron Man, where you actually turn it around. Instead of it being on the wrist over here, you just flip it to the palm, and it's, like, tagged like I've seen kids do that, yeah.
Ruben Saenz: They're like, oh, it's like total Iron
Steven Hanna: It's fun how it kind of naturally develops. They kind of get through it. They figure it out and stuff like that. Yeah. And then you catch your first cheater.
Ruben Saenz: You're like, how did you figure that out?
Steven Hanna: Yeah. And then you catch the kid who's a science kid who knows how to bounce a shot off a linoleum floor.
Ruben Saenz: And you're like, who are you? Like, are you John Wick?
Steven Hanna: Like, how do you know this? Like, you're trick-shotting, zombying people against the floor, and they're thinking you're a magician over here.
Ruben Saenz: Right. Yeah. He's like, I got it. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: It's pretty funny. it had a personal experience. I've watched it happen.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah. Literally.
Steven Hanna: I watched it live. And I asked the kid, how did you know about that? And he goes, oh, in our science class, we just went over this thing called reflection and refraction. And this is a shiny surface, so it reflects. And I was like, oh, that is so dang cool. You're actually applying something from science in like a physical education. life.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah. I was like, oh, man, your teacher did a dang good job. And I'm even more proud of you for knowing how to do
Steven Hanna: Do this.
Ruben Saenz: You're 12.
Steven Hanna: You're 12 and 13 years old.
Ruben Saenz: For you to do that, you're going far. You might be John Wick, and I'm concerned, but you're going far. Yeah. Like, oh, man, they seem to surprise you on there. Oh, that's awesome. Definitely cool to see them learn in new ways.
Steven Hanna: After red light, green light, what I like to do is I go into pattern match and shape match, and there are a few different settings in that. You can increase the cognitive load by changing up how many colors and shapes you have in each round. However, I just keep it as is. It's a lot. Like, if you keep them as...
Ruben Saenz: There's four different colors and four different shapes, right? And you could add more if you wanted to.
Steven Hanna: Right. So you can increase the cognitive load as needed. Negative scoring, I don't have it on for this mode because I don't think someone should be penalized for not matching a square to a square.
Ruben Saenz: Right. Exactly. I think it's harsh.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's a little harsh in my eyes. No, for sure.
Ruben Saenz: So for this game, what I do is...
Steven Hanna: This is where I... Model the tagging behavior so that kids aren't breaking the glass against each other.
Ruben Saenz: And what I'll do is I'll have two players in at the start, and I'll have them stand at opposite ends of the room.
Steven Hanna: And I'll have them face the watches towards each other and slowly walk towards each other. And they'll see at about 10 feet away, the watches will start to go off, and they don't need to be right on top of each other for this game to work. So if you model the behavior on how to really keep these watches safe and how to tag safely, you're not going to run into these like broken glass issues. They'll be less frequent. I will say they still will occur, they're children and kids' mistakes, it's just natural. But you'll probably preserve the longevity if I was going to give you an anecdotal number by 20 to 30% of the lifespan.
Ruben Saenz: Just by modeling the right behavior on it.
Steven Hanna: I do this in a set of three. The first game I focus on colors only. The second game I focus on shapes.
Ruben Saenz: And the third game I focus on both. Okay.
Steven Hanna: With this... This game, you can, well, never mind. Scratch that. It's for another use.
Ruben Saenz: I'm just thinking of a variation.
Steven Hanna: After you're done with pattern match and shape match, you can go into rock, paper, scissors, and there's actually two ways to play this. The first way that everybody plays is rock chases scissors, scissor chases paper, paper chases rock. The way that I like to play is I turn it into an ice-breaking game and a community game where people are not going to go after each other. They just have to interact with one another and get put on the same team. So the start of the game is basically everybody's on red, blue, or green. All you have to do is tag someone, get on that team, and then tag someone else and get onto that team. And everybody's got to be on the same team by the end of the game.
Ruben Saenz: Right.
Steven Hanna: So it's more of a collaborative puzzle-solving thing than it is a competitive type of game. Okay.
Ruben Saenz: All right.
Steven Hanna: So that'll fail or succeed depending on who's operating. And honestly, it's like, you know, if they say it and are enthusiastic about it, it can work very well.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah. That one is less commonly played.
Steven Hanna: The settings in that, it's only time. There's nothing really to change.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah. I was like, there's nothing really much in there. So the kids like that one, you know, it's simplistic, you know, they know it. It's something they grew up with, right? Rock, paper, scissors here and there. So they've been able to like, you know, incorporate it and stuff like that. And so thank you. I appreciate it. So, um, by the way, I had my buddy bring it by.
Steven Hanna: Wow. I know you're probably recording too, so. Oh, oh yeah. No, I'm making sure that, yeah.
Ruben Saenz: But that was the worst of it.
Steven Hanna: That is, um, okay.
Ruben Saenz: So, yeah. So I texted him to, uh, I don't know you saw me, but I was texting him to bring it by.
Steven Hanna: That, that is, that, that's, that's perfect.
Ruben Saenz: And this is like. great, but perfect.
Steven Hanna: That I can.
Ruben Saenz: But. Yeah, just want you to kind of, so you can see that way you don't think like we were just like.
Steven Hanna: No, dude, believe me, you say fire and I go, no, I need to know what's going on.
Ruben Saenz: so it's like, I don't know if they like know about that or this is a thing, but you know, I mean, I'm 100% sure it was probably like our fault, obviously, because we had to have a lot of clothes and things like that.
Steven Hanna: So, but I just want to let you guys know it too, because I don't know if there's like something. Well, that's something that needs to be considered from a foundational build point.
Ruben Saenz: Right, and that's what I would say if it's coming out of the factory, they need to have a failsafe in there, even for user error, if it's based on user error. Correct, yeah, right. And then you guys just get going, you know, so I like, I don't know.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, no, no, no, that's, look, that is something that I'm personally concerned about. They just brought me on about seven and a half weeks ago.
Ruben Saenz: Oh, did they really? Okay, well, So for me to hear, thank you, I appreciate it.
Steven Hanna: For me to hear this, it's like, this is something that once I get off here, I'm clearing my rest of the afternoon to be able to focus on this and make. Sure, like, we have support if there's anything with the system, if we need to get a new system out to you, swap a system out, like, whatever it's going to be, I just need to make sure that that's what I'm doing for the remainder of my day.
Ruben Saenz: Right.
Steven Hanna: Like, I do take it very seriously, and, like, I've already sent the message out to the tech team, and it's basically, the chat's going. Like, it is, yeah, like, my peripheral on my second monitor over here is, it's rolling.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah. Like, I'll get to that, and I'll view everything. Live or no?
Steven Hanna: No, no, no. So, basically, they're waiting, they're going to wait for our meeting to conclude, and once we're done, AI will automatically send it to you guys.
Ruben Saenz: Okay.
Steven Hanna: internally, they'll also have all of this for us as well. So, the internal team is going to basically get this recording two minutes after, go through it, and then I'm going to basically screen cap times that, you know, you showed that, and say, here, here, and here, look at what they're talking about.
Ruben Saenz: Right, yeah. And I can ship this to you if you need me to, just let me know.
Steven Hanna: Bye. Bye.
Ruben Saenz: They're probably, you know, yeah, listen, I'm, get that, send it, man.
Steven Hanna: Okay, that aside, the next set of games that I do want to walk through is KeepAway, because they've added a few different things in KeepAway. Have you played this frequently with your groups, or not so much?
Ruben Saenz: Let I'm going to be completely honest with you, it's more of our, my site leads and people like that, that do that.
Steven Hanna: Okay, perfect. They play the games themselves.
Ruben Saenz: I personally have, I play, so my son's the guinea pig for all the new betas, right? So what I do is I put them all around the house, we both get on one, we go outside, and, you I put on the game, and then we kind of figure it out together and stuff like that.
Steven Hanna: And he's into math right now, so the new beta with the, like, prime numbers and numbers like the sequence training, yeah.
Ruben Saenz: Sequence training, yeah, so he liked that a lot, stuff like that. So I only know those ones that I play there, and then what my stuff kind of play.
Steven Hanna: I know our hot one is obviously the zombies.
Ruben Saenz: Zombie One is the biggest one, probably. Second, maybe Red Light, Green Light. But Zombies has always been number one.
Steven Hanna: This is actually a precursor to Zombies. It'll make Zombies a little bit more easier to understand because in this game, instead of there being one person holding onto the ball running away, I reverse it and I call the variant Hot Potato or TAG where you're not running away with the ball. You actually have to give it to someone else. So this just teaches and reinforces the tagging mechanism and you can have multiple balls so that it's not just one person as a tagger or, you know, two or three. can have up to four. So you'll notice micro games of tags start to develop between four and five kids because they're really athletic and they like to play together in this area.
Ruben Saenz: Right. That ball.
Steven Hanna: And then this ball has two or three kids who are playing with that ball. So there's ways to kind of differentiate it out for your competitive kids in this element. Versus your casual kids who maybe they're not. Not running as much. And you can say, listen, if you can't catch someone and you're running away, go after someone else with the ball, you know, like give it to someone else. So the two ways to do it, keep away, running away with the ball. The second way, hot potato, they're tagging someone and giving it to someone.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah. Okay. No, that's cool. You can do that. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: So after that, you have, you've seen Math Match. Those settings are pretty much the same. The operands, the low range, high range, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, nothing inherently new on that side. Same mechanism as the pattern match where you're matching with a person with a, you know, similar match, whether it's the answer to the problem or a color, the mechanism is the same, right? Okay.
Ruben Saenz: Find somebody and partner with them. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: The WordWave game is the newer beta, newer beta game. And that one is from English as a native language to a target language. which in Spanish or French.
Ruben Saenz: Oh, yeah, that one was cool. Same tagging mechanism as well. Yeah, he was into it and stuff like that. So he's been kind of trying to learn French. So it was a cool way to learn French a little bit, you know.
Steven Hanna: So there's a fun way that we kind of came out to play this. If you have like a few cones, what you can do is sit them out in the backyard and just put ZTAGGERS on the cones. And you can basically play a game by yourself where you have to find the right match.
Ruben Saenz: back and forth. Yeah, exactly. That's what I did around the house. I just put them around the house in different areas. So that makes total sense.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, because I was like, I need more people to test this.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, even if you have like two or three kids, like you can still put out 10 or 12 taggers and say, you guys got a match and see out of the three of you who the most matches.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, who has the most matches by the end. Right.
Ruben Saenz: So that's one way that we play. Yeah, I like that idea. That's awesome.
Steven Hanna: It's a fun way to do it. You can do it with pattern match. You can do it with math match. You can do it with word match. So those are the three games that it works with. As long as there's a tag mechanism and a collapse. Yeah. Okay. collaborative approach, it works.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, well, I think, like, for camps, you could do, like, cones in the gym, and then the kids could, like, have a group of 20, you know what I mean? They could do, like, 10, or this group is group A, group B, then we switch and see who gets the most words at the same time, right?
Steven Hanna: So. Yep. It's, and then you just use it as a motivator for a high score, like, all right, beat that the next run, right? Right, for sure.
Ruben Saenz: So, we do the same thing with Sequence Train.
Steven Hanna: There's one little variation of Sequence Train where the person who has the flashing number is in the middle, and they have a cone in the middle, and then everybody is in a circle around them, like a clock. So, they're, like, the center of the clock, and they say what number they need next and keep turning, and then whenever they reach it, they tag out with the person who just got the next number.
Ruben Saenz: Okay. So, they go in and out of the middle. Back forth, yeah. Right.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
Ruben Saenz: So, those are the settings on that.
Steven Hanna: The last settings, as you said, zombie tag, there are a few different things on that. I'm just going to walk you through the new things. So, you want to go to zombie tag, just tell me what is new to you, because most of it is pretty. Similar, I think there's two settings that might be new.
Ruben Saenz: So I have time limit, zombies on randomized, number of tags before infection, infection duration.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
Ruben Saenz: So I don't believe we messed with the settings too much because we were kind of, me and the other guy that, he was actually the one that found you guys when he went to the conference. We just kind of instilled in them, like, don't mess with the settings, like, don't mess with anything, like, on there because, like, they were already kind of, when we first got them, they weren't complicated, like, for us, obviously, but, like. They were optimized. Yeah. Yeah. So when our satellites got them there, we were like, just do these, that's it, right? Just do A, B, and C, like, don't mess with anything else because we did come into issue where the ZTAGs weren't communicating with the actual box itself. And so we had to kind of figure out, like, okay, so do we turn on the ZTAGs and then the system? Like, we had to figure all that out. And then finally we got a good flow of that. And obviously they were kind of finicky. had to reach out to support. And things like that, because, I mean, we were, you know, potentially one of the first people to have them in Arizona. it's like we couldn't, like, you know, hey, how's your ZTAG doing? You know what I mean? So we had to call in, and I got a few of their, you know, information, a couple meetings with them. I had to FaceTime a couple of them, so, you know, it was just kind of get in and go and learn it. Now, here and there, we have it. Well, we know that we just have to wait for them to kind of, you know, basically reconnect and talk to each other. And so that's when we run into our most struggles.
Steven Hanna: But after that, they're usually pretty good, so.
Ruben Saenz: all right.
Steven Hanna: I will also say, if any of your site leads need a one-on-one training, and they want to meet with me, like, I'm happy to do that. Like, the reason why ZTAG brought me on is specifically to train. And that's why, like, your experience is basically describing pre-my time, where they didn't have a trainer for this exact reason.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, and I felt that they were kind of, like, you know, trying to, like, we were just trying to figure it out together, which is fine, right? Like, it's a newer system and anything like that. So I just wanted to make sure, like, okay, so. Are we doing the correct steps to actually initiate? The game, right? Like, do we turn on everything on, and then, you know, we put the game on, and then pull the ZTAG and turn it on? Or do we turn the ZTAG on first, and then turn the game?
Steven Hanna: You know what mean? So things like that. So we'll go through a full boot sequence as well, and I'll just, you know, we'll go from the top down, shut down, because you already have it turned on, and then we'll go turning on as well. Okay. The one thing I'm going to ask while I have you is if you can grab a picture of the serial number of that system and just send it over to me, just because this is something they're going to want to know. That's the one that had the fire issue, correct? Correct, yeah.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, the one I've been messing with all the time is that one.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Let me see. Let me see. And then they're probably also going to ask for system data. They're going to want to know how much time you have on the system.
Ruben Saenz: Oh, for sure. can get that. Is there any way to look at the number itself? Actually, it might be in the software. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: So if you go into the settings tab from the home screen, in the top right corner, as long as you've registered the systems in the about tab, there should be, like, system information. Or there might be, like, a little sticker in the little storage area.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah. Normally, they all do this one in particular.
Steven Hanna: I've not seen it. We have our asset tag on it. No problem. No problem. Yeah. I will just let them know serial number unavailable at the moment. Um, yeah. Okay, no problem. And if I get it, once I register it, I can, I'll get No problem. What's your system, uh, stats though?
Ruben Saenz: Let's see here.
Steven Hanna: Also, how are you on time? I got about eight, nine minutes left for.
Ruben Saenz: Oh, I'm fine. I got nothing else.
Steven Hanna: I got lunch and that's it, you know? Okay.
Ruben Saenz: Well, I just want to ask, you know, people schedule the time.
Steven Hanna: Mostly, mostly I'm working with educators and I know that you guys are 42 minutes at a time, essentially.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, we, um, um, our, our time is kind of different because we're like a enrichment specialist. So we oversee this like before and after school. So basically any time between that is pretty good. We usually have like meetings here and there, but I tried not to schedule more, you know, maybe, you know, meeting here and there. don't know.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. The Wednesday and Thursday criticals.
Ruben Saenz: Exactly. Yeah. So like Wednesday knows a lot. Yesterday we had a lot of meetings. So let me see here.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. They are asking about serial numbers. If you do have that, okay, let me just register it real quick, and then I'll get it.
Ruben Saenz: The one ZTAG that doesn't have the serial number. Thank you.
Steven Hanna: Like the New York Stock Exchange in this chat. So basically, I got to get you a few backup SD cards for new updates that come out when they do. Yeah, pretty much updated on new ones.
Ruben Saenz: Can I pull? Pull up the information without being connected to the internet.
Steven Hanna: You're probably going to have to connect, in which case, don't even worry about it. I've described the system in depth, and they should know which batch this is based on the router and the blue ambient light in the bottom of the case. That's probably one generation before they currently have right now.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, because I literally, on my other ZTAG systems, they all have the serial numbers, and they're in that bottom left corner. This one's tagged with our asset text, Brickover Public Schools. And this is the only one I haven't registered in my name and connected to my thing. So it's the problem child, is what I'm hearing. Yes, it's the problem child, what it is. And I'm going to confirm and make sure this is the one that caught fire. I'm pretty sure this is, because this one is specifically for that region, and that site lead that spoke about that is in her region. So I want to confirm and make sure, because I don't want to give you the wrong serial number. I'm sure you want the serial number for the one that actually caught fire, right?
Steven Hanna: Yeah, and if there's a serial number on that little device as well, on the ZTAGGER, in the top left corner, there should be a little QR code on the side.
Ruben Saenz: Okay. Yeah, I'll take a look. I'll ask her and make sure. On the burnt device, if you can take, yeah, just take a quick look at that one.
Steven Hanna: There's a QR code. Like, if you're looking straight at the LCD screen, on the top portion, on the side, upper side, there's a QR code. Oh, I see it right here. What's the number on that? Okay.
Ruben Saenz: This one? Just want to make sure. Yep.
Steven Hanna: Can you just read that one off? It's a little blurry.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah. No, yeah. 2-4-0-5-2-7-0-0-7-3. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Perfect. All right. I will... I'm that on over.
Ruben Saenz: That'll help. That does help. Okay, do you still need the... On the system, I'm not going to be focused too much on that because I've described what batch it is. can only be one of two batches and they would know better than I do. they're trying to figure out. Right.
Steven Hanna: On the device, what's up? When I scanned the QR code, I went to a phone number, which is weird. What phone number? I'm curious.
Ruben Saenz: It was like, I scanned it, 240-527-0073. I don't know if you can see it. Huh.
Steven Hanna: That sounds muddy, but okay. Yeah, that's weird.
Ruben Saenz: I don't know. I don't know. Okay, so I got the serial number on that.
Steven Hanna: I do want to go over the zombie tag settings with you, and I'm sorry that we're kind of jumping back and forth.
Ruben Saenz: No, that's fine. Yeah, I know that's a bigger concern, and I know you guys want to figure that out.
Steven Hanna: Well, yeah, it's not... It is a bigger concern. I just want to make sure that you know what's going on with the system, too, so that you can differentiate.
Ruben Saenz: it out for your sites as well. Yeah, no, for sure, yeah.
Steven Hanna: So in your settings for a zombie tag, you're going to have your time limit. What I recommend is setting it to 120. You're going to have number of zombies on randomized. In a smaller space, work with smaller amounts of zombies. In a larger space, work with larger amounts of zombies. Same thing with the doctors. Smaller space, smaller amount of doctors. Larger, larger amount of doctors. There's going to be something called number of tags before infection. Now, instead of getting tagged once and you becoming a zombie, you can select how many lives they have. So they can get tagged two times, three times, four times, five times, six times, whatever you set that number as. When they get tagged that amount of times, they will then turn into the zombie.
Ruben Saenz: So it's no longer a one and done.
Steven Hanna: Right. Okay. Now, if you're working indoors, I usually like to set it to three or four. Yeah, have it at three.
Ruben Saenz: I changed it to three right now.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. Three is my sweet spot. The first one is, all right, that's a freebie. The second one is, you should probably start moving. The third one is, you definitely got caught.
Ruben Saenz: So it's like the three strikes on it work really well for my groups. Yeah, for sure.
Steven Hanna: And then you should, what's the setting below that?
Ruben Saenz: So the setting below Infection Duration.
Steven Hanna: So this is how long it takes for someone to turn into a zombie. If you're working indoors, it'll take 10 seconds for them, like, from the time they get tagged, their watch flashes, turning red and green. That's how long it takes for them to turn into a zombie. So you can change this number if you're working outdoors for a larger amount of time because the kids have to run a further distance to find a doctor to get healed.
Ruben Saenz: Right, for sure. Okay. So you can change that up as well.
Steven Hanna: And then in the top right corner, what do you have?
Ruben Saenz: So ours is five.
Steven Hanna: That's doctor heal limit?
Ruben Saenz: The only thing I have is Infection Duration and then it says five next to it.
Steven Hanna: Okay, so you might want to change that to 10. 10 for a 10-second delay on TAG to zombification.
Ruben Saenz: Okay. And then there should be something called the Doctor Heal Limit. That is not on here.
Steven Hanna: Okay. And it might be just because of the version that I have on here. So are you on Zombies with or without Doctor?
Ruben Saenz: Let me see. I'm pretty sure I'm probably without Doctor. I might not have heard you say it.
Steven Hanna: It's okay. You can jump into a zombie with Doctor.
Ruben Saenz: Okay.
Steven Hanna: And you'll see a setting called the Doctor Heal Limit. So before in Doctors, they basically were unlimited healers. They were gods amongst the group. Now, you can change how many times they can heal someone during the game before they turn back into a human. So at the start of the game, it'll be skewed towards a human win. But as the game goes on, the zombies obviously get larger and larger. Their team has a higher chance of winning. So it's more of a balancing mechanism for those games. You can select how many times they can heal someone in a match. Oh, nice.
Ruben Saenz: Okay.
Steven Hanna: That is the last setting to go through on the system as far as games go. And like I said, I'm going to send you like my script with the settings that I use for everything. And then you can send it to your sites if you need whatever.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, when I check out ZTAG, what I'll start doing is sending all this information. Because most of the time they just call or text me or FaceTime to me and see what's going on. We've trained a few people to kind of run it. I know from my side, I have one specific person. He does with all my like electronic, like STEM stuff, STEM kids, robotics, ZTAG, all that stuff. know what I mean?
Steven Hanna: Quest.
Ruben Saenz: Dedicated staff member to the tech fun stuff. Exactly. Yeah. He specifically just does that for me. And it makes things a whole lot easier because I can't be both. I can't. I can't.
Steven Hanna: I Well, you're You're doing a lot, man.
Ruben Saenz: You're doing a lot. It's also a Tuesday. Exactly, yeah. I'm like, can't do both. Like, I already got these trainings. I got them all backed up. I got all the new betas, and we have winter break coming up, you know, Veterans Day Camp, and then, you know, Thanksgiving Camp. So, you know, these are a hot commodity once we have those camps. So, I want to make sure they're good to go for all my employees.
Steven Hanna: If you preset some of the systems, they'll be easier for them.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, and I do like that setting. I was like, you know what, I'll change that on there because, I mean, we have, I mean, you know, most of the time the feedback we get back, then nobody's ever been like, oh, it's too hard or anything like that, right? They just jumped in, and they, like you said, they've been on veteran mode this whole entire time.
Steven Hanna: So, yeah, like, you know, the winter is actually hard mode when you don't know that there's, like, three other settings, and you're like, wait a second.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, for sure.
Steven Hanna: We've been training this hard for this long?
Ruben Saenz: Right, exactly. No, for sure. Yeah, I'm like, dang. I was like, I didn't realize it was like.
Steven Hanna: I mean, you take the weights off, and it gets easier, and you're like, what game have I been playing?
Ruben Saenz: Right, yeah, that's how you should start out anyways, right, no, yeah, it's just like, it's one of those things where like, it totally makes sense that you guys have that, right, but it's like, you know, the time is what the issue is, right, like, we don't have time to go through it and all that, and I would like to, you know, it's not like, I don't have one of these personally, right, at home, if I did, I'd mess with it all the time, right, or check it out, or what does this do, or what does that do, right, I was like, when I'm working, I'm like, I got 30 kids, want to play, right, you got 30 kids, and you've got 30 seconds, actually, you've got statistically, eight seconds post-COVID to retain the attention, so, exactly, yeah, you don't get that game started, yeah, if that 15 seconds isn't met, you're done, yeah, and you know it, and I know, yeah, totally understandable, yeah, hence why I created, like, a 15-minute, like, test, like I said, you need to test them before you run your first group, right, like, you make sure it's going, like, don't come in, roll in, turn it on, and think, like, everything's gonna work as soon as you start, it may happen, right, you may, it may happen, maybe you're lucky, yeah, Yeah, but I want to make sure it's good to go. Then it's like, well, I didn't run until the third rotation because I had to mess with it. Well, why didn't you come in earlier?
Steven Hanna: Just because you weren't confident and you said you were confident doesn't mean I have to, all right, fine.
Ruben Saenz: You need more time on this?
Steven Hanna: Sure, whatever.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, exactly, for sure. And it's worked out better since we've done that.
Steven Hanna: I'm glad that there's kind of like a hierarchy for training for you guys. But like I said, if you guys need a one-on-one with me, please send my link out to any of your staff. They could just sign up. Yeah, no, it helps to have somebody now.
Ruben Saenz: glad that they went with hiring somebody because not to say like the other one didn't work. It just seemed like it was just a little harder to kind of have, you know, if you have something.
Steven Hanna: It's challenging to get a new shiny piece of equipment, especially a computer, right? And then to not have guidance going through it and coming up with your own pathway, it's tough. Yeah, and this is something that we've gotten feedback on and they've said, listen. Yeah. So it's... People have been asking for this for like a year and we're at the point where we can now bring someone on to do it.
Ruben Saenz: do that. Yeah. No, that's nice. That's awesome. So this is they're hitting all the old partners and just saying, hey, this exists.
Steven Hanna: We want to make sure that you guys are taken care of. And, you know, we might have lacked in before having this, but it's here now and we want to make sure, you know, it's there.
Ruben Saenz: Right. Yeah. And I think like, you know, anybody who's like tech savvy or is into computers or things like that, right, it may be natural and easy for them to do that. Right. But not, you got more general people just buying these. Right. You know what I mean?
Steven Hanna: It's not just specifically for like, I'm a computer guy, you know, right.
Ruben Saenz: You know what mean? It's like, I know I can do it, but it's like, I'm not, but I'm not in my passion, you know, about like electronics. Right. It's like, I just want to be able to do one and done.
Steven Hanna: Right. Figure it out and hit it and stuff like that. You're passionate about the tech existing for you to be like, oh, sweet.
Ruben Saenz: This is awesome.
Steven Hanna: But if it's not comprehensible, easy to use tech outside of that, you're like, well, that sucks. All right. Moving on to the thing.
Ruben Saenz: I don't want to spend. Yeah. I'm going to. Plenty more time on it. As me, I'm like, no, I want to figure this out. I want to know how to do this. It's going to be cool. It's going to come out really awesome for the kids, and it's going to be a good thing, but it's going to take some time on my part to do that.
Steven Hanna: Most definitely. It will take time. I will say, we are doing internal leaderboards for anybody who has ZTAG, so if you want to share your system data with us at any point in time, we have a cool little leaderboard where you can kind of see where you are in relation to other districts and who's doing the most with ZTAG, basically. No, for sure.
Ruben Saenz: I would love that, yeah. I love to see that. like rankings a lot, so. It's a little competitive thing that they're like, how do we make it competitive?
Steven Hanna: I'm like, make it like a video game leaderboard.
Ruben Saenz: Who's running the most?
Steven Hanna: Who has the most hours?
Ruben Saenz: has the most time plays?
Steven Hanna: Who has the most tags? Yeah, exactly. Every category for who's got the most, basically.
Ruben Saenz: Right, yeah.
Steven Hanna: I do want to quickly go over the shutdown and startup sequence with you because this is kind of crucial as far as conservation of data and not corrupting your system over time. So. In the top right corner, you basically have the LCD screen with the power button indicator. You're going to press that power button.
Ruben Saenz: You're going to go through the shutdown prompt as opposed to reboot. Okay. Your screen should flicker and go black.
Steven Hanna: After that, you're going to take your router, take the antennas off, take the router clip off, coil things up, and place them nicely in the storage area behind the little charge dock.
Ruben Saenz: Let me talk to Tyler. Yeah, me talk to Tyler quick and then we can call back. All right, thank you. All right. All right, I got that all put away.
Steven Hanna: Perfect. Perfect. On the right-hand side, there's a little... Silver button. That's blue lit. Tap that.
Ruben Saenz: Wait about five seconds.
Steven Hanna: And then hit the red slash orange button the other way to turn it off. And you'll hear the bottom of the case start to, or you won't hear it start to turn off. You will see it turn off visually, and you will not hear anything any longer.
Ruben Saenz: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Once that is done, you can take out the black power cable from the ZU side, and then take it out from the wall. But we'll just pretend that you took it out from the wall, because you're going to turn it back on in a second.
Ruben Saenz: Okay. Close the case and latch it.
Steven Hanna: Make sure that there is no resistance when you are closing the case. If there's any resistance, you're going to have a strap or something or a wire that's not fully put away.
Ruben Saenz: Okay, for sure.
Steven Hanna: When you're starting the system up, you're going to work from the bottom up. So you'll unlatch the case, move that upper portion of the lid up, and you will first plug in the black. There's power cable in the bottom right of the system. After the black power cable is plugged in, you're going to press the red button.
Ruben Saenz: You're going to wait about 10 seconds, wait for the bottom of the case to turn on.
Steven Hanna: You'll see the ZTAGGers starting to indicate a charge sequence. Red indicates charging, green indicates completion of charge. From there, after 10 seconds, you can press the silver button and turn the upper portion of the case on. We're going to pretend that you are taking apart and uncoiling the router, because you also have that little black router clip that goes into the back.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah. Are we able to order more of those, by the way? They seem to be breaking pretty easily.
Steven Hanna: I am going to send over a few.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah. And I know you... So we're going away with the controller, so that won't be of concern. I know some of them. I got two different models. got one that looked like the one I showed you earlier, and another one that was like a square style. I call this the video game controller.
Steven Hanna: Video game versus keyboard, right?
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I was like, oh, there's two different versions.
Steven Hanna: So like I said, I'm the only one that pretty much uses You're probably one. I am the only other person that I know that has used it, and I use it one out of every hundred events that I have with ZTAG. Yeah. But you do need new black router clips.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, the clips have been breaking a lot and stuff like that.
Steven Hanna: And you have four sites, you said?
Ruben Saenz: Yes. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Make sure I get a few of those over your way. What's a good shipping address for that?
Ruben Saenz: Let me pull that up because they're really weird here. We are not allowed to have anything actually shipped directly to...
Steven Hanna: I've got 140 South Gilbert Road as my current...
Ruben Saenz: that's it.
Steven Hanna: That's it, yeah.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah. Yeah. Ours is 6839 East Guadalupe, and that's my combat office.
Steven Hanna: There's actually two. What would be the best for you to receive them personally? Because I know if you get them, you will utilize them.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah. If you put everything in my name, then what they do is at Warehouse, they would deliver it to me. If it has my name and everything on it, it goes straight to Warehouse, Warehouse opens up, make sure everything's in the contents that you had said that you were shipping, and then they send it to me and give it to me directly to my desk. Okay.
Steven Hanna: I've got 140 South Gilbert Road, Gilbert, Arizona 85296?
Ruben Saenz: Correct. Yes. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Perfect. And I'm going to attention you on these. And then on the SD cards, what I'll do with that is on the next update, when they release that, I'm going to send you four SD cards. Okay.
Ruben Saenz: Perfect. That'd be awesome. Right.
Steven Hanna: Because you have four systems. And it's just going to be easier to SD card update for you guys, because tech is, they're going to block your ports. Yeah, I tried to connect it here, it wasn't working, and the IT guy come out, and it's like... He's got to go into it, man.
Ruben Saenz: To get that thing online for school Wi-Fi and pass through what he needs to pass through, it's like a mission.
Steven Hanna: He could do it, I know how it can be done, but depending on his workload, it could be like a five-minute thing, or like a, why are you asking me to do this type of thing?
Ruben Saenz: Well, and it's like, I would like, I'm just better off me taking it home and doing it really quickly, right? And I know the SD card's like, because one time I'm not here, or like something happens, it'd be nice just to have us to pop them in quickly. Okay, cool.
Steven Hanna: One more quick thing when you turn on your devices, if you tap the red button on the side, you'll see the battery button indicator. Come in on the top, right? The only other thing you need to pay attention to is the signal bar indicator. You meant... I earlier that some of these weren't communicating.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: And this is the way to make sure that they are connected to the main system and communicating. Okay. So you'll see the battery button indicator come on, and then to the left of the battery, yep, to the left of the battery, you're going to see a signal bar or some sort of indicator that there's a connection.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, I've noticed that before when I was talking to them that it needed a signal bar to communicate. Like, this one says 10 right now. Right. That's all it says. So, yeah. And the system's on right now, but I haven't, I guess, if I hit a, should I have to hit a game before it actually connects or it should just automatically connect?
Steven Hanna: It should automatically connect. It should be a few seconds as long as you see that little signal bar next to it. And then if you tap a game, it'll go to like a pregame lobby on the screen and you can verify.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah. Okay. And sometimes what I do is I'll pull another one. So when I. I'm turning on the ZTAG, so once the whole system is on, in order to turn on an actual ZTAG or watch band, do I turn on the game first and then the ZTAG or turn on the ZTAG itself then?
Steven Hanna: So the whole startup sequence we just did, first thing you're going to do. Okay. And then what we just did by turning it on, second thing you're going to do. Okay.
Ruben Saenz: So main system, big system first. Okay. And then little devices. Okay. So like, but I don't need to be into the game itself in order to turn on the actual thing.
Steven Hanna: No. If you are, it'll just automatically add that watch into the game.
Ruben Saenz: Okay. Yeah. Because this one just came up right now. Yeah. So if you need to do a mid-game add, you're ready to go pretty much.
Steven Hanna: If a kid comes in midway through, you're like, okay, just wait for the watch, give it 10 seconds, it load in.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, that'll come up. Okay. No, that makes sense for sure. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: And then turning them off. 10 itself, but it's like, it doesn't have the signal thing on there. So the test. N is the volume. The volume indicator is that little 10 button.
Ruben Saenz: Okay, is that what that is? Circle, yeah.
Steven Hanna: So you can change the volume. IR is infrared.
Ruben Saenz: Okay.
Steven Hanna: To turn those off, two ways to do it. Double tap the red button or just drop it right into the magnetic charge dock.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, I like dropping it in.
Steven Hanna: Dropping it in makes it feel good. I like the feel of the tactile drop and feeling it in, and it's good to go.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah. And then always, as you know, just keep that lid open a little bit for your...
Steven Hanna: Oh, yeah. That was very explained a lot. Yeah, yeah. There should also be a sticker on that.
Ruben Saenz: It says do not close lid while charging.
Steven Hanna: All right. Yeah, well...
Ruben Saenz: In your defense, that's what I'm saying. It was 100%.
Steven Hanna: Well, I don't like to throw a blame. That was never my thing. No, I... I'll chalk it up and then wherever it falls...
Ruben Saenz: She knows Steven. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
Ruben Saenz: It's funny because her boss was... I nervous about letting me know what was going on, because I told her I've been, I told her I kind of take care of them, and I made sure, and she was like, yeah, I wanted to tell you this, I was like, well, I'm kind of glad, I was like, I've been meeting with them, so this is a better breakup, so.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, it's, it's, listen, my eyes are only widening as we talk about it, okay, like, like I said.
Ruben Saenz: me know if you want it, you know, send it to you.
Steven Hanna: They're, they're gonna want. I need to wash my hands after.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, I was gonna say, you might have some on there.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, wiped my nose, and I was like, why does it smell like smoke? And I was like, oh my gosh, it's the freaking you have the pumice soap that the mechanics use, would say try and get soap, exfoliate a little bit, you know? I got public school soap, I should be okay.
Ruben Saenz: Same grit, you're fine. Same grit, yeah, literally. Yeah, it's like, you know, 220 grit. All right, Ruben, I'm gonna, you'll get a few emails from me after this.
Steven Hanna: One is definitely gonna be coming from our support team, so.
Ruben Saenz: Oh, yeah, I figured it addition to my.
Steven Hanna: If to you, just be on the lookout because that's the next step in either making sure that we can replace that or, you know, if we got to send someone out to retrieve it, we will. I'm sure, yeah.
Ruben Saenz: Like, if they need me to send, I don't mind shipping it.
Steven Hanna: It doesn't, you know. Oh, they'll have everything basically prepaid, pre-labeled. The only thing you might need is, like, if you get a crappy little Amazon box that you're not using anymore, just chuck it in that, you know. Yeah, just throw a hat in there and bring it back. stop it. Listen, listen. I got you on some swag, okay?
Ruben Saenz: Believe me.
Steven Hanna: Swag is the least that I can personally do for a few texts. I could get you some swag and router clips.
Ruben Saenz: Yeah, there we go.
Steven Hanna: That's within my domain. I was like, man, we keep breaking.
Ruben Saenz: I like hanging it on, but, like, I don't like sitting to the side because I feel it's more accident problem like that, right?
Steven Hanna: So, I'm like, I need to get new clips.
Ruben Saenz: I'm like, how do I order them? I was like, I'll just ask. I had all my questions ready for you today.
Steven Hanna: I got you. Answer them all to the top of your ability.
Ruben Saenz: I appreciate it so much. I appreciate you taking the time.
Steven Hanna: know we're a little bit over, but thank you for sharing that, and my afternoon is... It's cleared. I've literally canceled four meetings for this.
Ruben Saenz: gosh. No, listen.
Steven Hanna: Well, luck. You've given me a good reason to jump on this. It's important. We'll reach out soon, okay? Okay.
Ruben Saenz: I appreciate it. I'll talk to you soon. Take care, Ruman.
Steven Hanna: Have a good one.
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Kristin Neal: Hello there. Hi, how are you?
Armida Colón: Good, how are you doing?
Kristin Neal: Good.
Armida Colón: Great, great.
Kristin Neal: Happy, what day is today? Wednesday.
Armida Colón: Happy Wednesday. Happy Wednesday, yes. Although it feels like we've done a lot of living this week. That's why it did me, but I was like, are we going to the same? Well, thank you so much for meeting with me.
Kristin Neal: Is that how, do we pronounce your name Armida?
Armida Colón: Yes, Armida. And I think Alexis is going to join us. I know she was trying to work some things out in her schedule, so she may or may not jump in in the next couple of minutes.
Kristin Neal: Sounds good, Armida. And Juan, of course, wasn't able to join us. He's on a plane right now, so. Okay. It'll just be me, but if you have any questions, we can definitely forward, you know, accordingly to our team, so.
Armida Colón: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I had a chance to look at your product a few weeks ago. So, um, at the vendor fair at Stanislaus County Office of Education.
Kristin Neal: Thank you.
Armida Colón: And so we were really impressed with what you had to offer. And I know I got to see it from the sideline, and I was talking to the representative who was there that day. So we were really intrigued. know Alexis, she's actually my coordinator, my assistant coordinator for summer, because that's really what we're looking at in terms of services. And so she got to engage in the activities. So she got a firsthand experience.
Kristin Neal: And so we're looking to use ZTAG primarily in our summer program, but then also see how it could be used in our after-school programs. Love it. Thank you so much for sharing that, Armida. And how old are your kids?
Armida Colón: Like, what are their age ranges? So we serve kinder through sixth grade.
Kristin Neal: Oh, great. Okay. Yeah, it's super special for those ages, especially the sixth graders, because it's hard to find something that, that connects them together. So this really speaks well for that age. And I love it, too, because in certain areas, you actually have seen the older kids playing with the little kids that you just don't see. With this technology, it's all non-contact. So it's perfect for if you're ever needing to bridge the ages altogether.
Armida Colón: Yeah. And that's what we're looking at as well, because I remember that that's one of the things Alexis learned through the experience because she got to go hands-on and meet someone from another district who they are already using your product. And so they were very impressed with what it had to offer. So I'm here to learn. So, you know, we can go ahead and get.
Kristin Neal: Oh, here she is. Yes. Glad she is.
Armida Colón: Looks like she's logging on. Great.
Kristin Neal: Hi, Alexis. You guys got to play with Stephen Kwan. This. That's the founder and our playmaker.
Armida Colón: Oh, okay.
Kristin Neal: You guys had a lot of fun with those guys. Hi.
Armida Colón: Hi.
Alexis: How are you?
Kristin Neal: Happy Wednesday.
Alexis: Happy Wednesday. Don't mind me. I'm just eating my lunch while I'm on the menu.
Armida Colón: Thank you for jumping on, too. Thank you.
Kristin Neal: Thank you so much. I appreciate it, Alexis. What are you having for lunch? Do you mind me asking? Um, leftovers from last night.
Alexis: kind of did, like, a Chipotle bowl.
Kristin Neal: Oh, that's the best. Leftovers, yes.
Armida Colón: So, Alexis, was sharing with Kris our experience and exposure to ZTAG.
Alexis: Yes.
Armida Colón: And so my perspective, which was more about what it had to offer, and your perspective, which was very hands-on in talking to other people. So she's going to give us an overview, and I also shared with her that we're moving forward primarily to use it for our summer program, but then also looking at how... We could be integrated into our after-school program and that we serve students in K through 6.
Alexis: So, yeah, we're just getting started.
Armida Colón: So, Kris, it's all yours.
Kristin Neal: The stage is yours. over. Perfect. Sounds good. Thank you so much, Armida. Yes, I'm so glad you were able to experience it firsthand because there's nothing like it. I could sit here and talk about it as much as I can, but until you actually play it and see the live interaction face-to-face, you're actually, you're just connecting on a whole different level. So, I'm going to jump in, and this, everything that I'm sharing is exactly what we send your team after the purchase of the unit. So, it's all in one spot for your team to be able to understand, get clarity, and there's also training involved for every purchase. So, we really make sure that your team is 100%. This here is the Zeus unit that you did see. You saw the case, the wheels, the handle, everything is... Compact in that one single case. You saw the ZTAG, actually the antennas right here.
Armida Colón: This is the router, so there's no Wi-Fi needed. It's already built into the system.
Kristin Neal: All you need is a plug right there. You just need a plug, but even if you have a generator, you can plug it into the generator and take it out into the middle of the woods and play. So it's a full football field size playing area, 360 degrees.
Alexis: Nice.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, super, super great, because then it's just, you don't have to worry about getting on hotspots, anything like that. The only time you will need that is when you update for new games. That's the only time, but you can jump on a hotspot. And if there is any issues, you just let us know. there's a, right here, there's a USB, an SD card that we can just send you. Okay. So Chris, you just mentioned something about a generator.
Armida Colón: So would one of those portable, what do they call them, those battery devices? that are real popular. can't think of the actual technical name of those, but, you know, they're really compact battery packs.
Kristin Neal: Yes, absolutely. You know, a mini generator, for lack of a better word. Yes, exactly. It's almost like a, I know exactly what you're talking about, like a battery pack, like a portable battery pack. Just like that. We use one, and we've purchased it through Amazon. I can send you the links. You can make sure that yours is kind of equivalent, but it's super, yeah, you're thinking of the same thing.
Armida Colón: Yeah, and we, I know personally, I have one of those at home. It's called the Jackery, the brand.
Kristin Neal: Yes, yes. Okay. And so, would it be, as we consider using this system and the possibility of using it out in the field, because it is so interactive, and sometimes space, you know, large spaces are limited, would it be beneficial to invest also in one of those backup devices? Yeah, I would definitely think that, because then you have the, the ease of if, If something does get like a rainy day or maybe something super hot outside, you just, yes, you need an area, a large area, but you can also take it into like the library where you think that you might need a lot more area, but you actually have a little bit more condensed and then you have a little bit more engagement between them. You don't want them to be running out in the middle of, you know, too, too far because then you get less engagement, but yeah, maybe like a library that doesn't have that plug, you know, easily accessed would be, would be another fun spot to just jump in.
Armida Colón: Okay. For sure.
Kristin Neal: You do get 24 of these game watches. These are the ZTAGGERS that each game comes with. You're actually able to combine, two systems to one, so you can get a mega game of 48 players. So we definitely suggest this. You might, if you have events, it's great to pull out. Out for events, because then you have the grandma that's able to join in, you know, with that red light, green light, where they're really just moving their arms, or you could put them in a doctor role, maybe you played with that, Alexis.
Alexis: I did, yeah. Yeah, the zombie survival, so much fun.
Kristin Neal: You really get the kids, everybody who doesn't want to play, that active play, engaged in that game. So, 48 players, everything right here is a touch screen, and everything up here, there's a cog up here that actually shows, you're even able to go into the system, Armida, and get the step counter, and the total interactions. So, every time the kids connect, watch-to-watch, those interactions go up. We're the only company that does that.
Alexis: That's cool. Yeah, yeah, it's, that step counter is great for grants, too.
Armida Colón: Like, a lot of times, I want data, and then we can get that data.
Kristin Neal: So, it takes one hour. You're able to play for three to four hours, but we like to rotate the kids in and out since at about 10-15 minutes, they're ready for a break, and you can just rotate the next kids in. So, like a library, that's why I love, like, go read a book, and they're, like, running to go sit and just read.
Alexis: It's really cool.
Kristin Neal: Oh, that's cool. Yeah, yeah. Right here, there is a USB port. So, you're able to even connect, like, a big screen TV, or even in the gym, sometimes they have those large, like, pull-down screens, because they have, that's where the leaderboard is. So, all the kids see the leaderboard, and, of course, it's an anonymous leaderboard, so. Oh, wait, so how would I hook that up to this?
Alexis: Like, because we have projector screens. Is it an HDMI cord?
Kristin Neal: Yes, yes. Okay, okay, I know how to do that.
Alexis: That's cool. It's super easy.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, even, like, right? It's, even we know how to do that.
Alexis: Right. Right. So what if a screen is not available?
Armida Colón: Is it required, or can the game be played without it?
Kristin Neal: Absolutely, yeah. You'll just see all the kids kind of huddle around them, and then break up and go back to playing. So it's just a sweet thing, too, when you see them kind of huddle.
Armida Colón: Oh, yeah. But, you know, it's also motivating to see it on the big screen. You know, it just really adds to the excitement.
Kristin Neal: It really does. It does. It sets that environment. So true. Yeah. And then, too, I've even had it to where I've needed to rotate teams in and out. So you're able to actually change the, like, ZTAG or 1, ZTAG or 2 into words, like team, red team, blue team, so that when they take it off, it's very easy to hand it off to the right team. So that's a little bit deeper in depth that our playmaker will get more in depth with you. But that's just to give you a heads up of the ease of that. And then there's no... Subscription, either. Once you purchase a unit, you own it, the games on it, and the coming games, as long as they're the general games. Soon, we're not sure when, hopefully next year, we'll be able to start getting more curriculum central games going, but the general games, those are included. Did you guys have any questions on the ZEUS unit itself?
Armida Colón: No. No, no real questions.
Alexis: Okay, perfect.
Kristin Neal: These are the ZTAGGers, a little bit closer up. mentioned that there's no, everything is infrared, so there's these little windows up here. This is also the training guide that we send you, but here's a little bit closer up. This little window, that's where the sensors come out, so it's all non-contact. Again, it lights up, it vibrates. You can adjust the sound in case you have kids that are a little bit more sensitive. works. Yeah. Okay, let's see. double screen. protection on this, and also on the screen itself. It lights up with that colored, colored lighting. Okay, the Velcro strap right here is good for adults and littles. I've had it as small as three years old playing this. Yeah, the red light, green light is so much fun to see them. Just that simple stop and go. It's super fun. I think that's it on the ZTAGGERS, unless you have any questions on that.
Alexis: Are the Velcro straps interchangeable, say in case one gets like dirty or gets germs or whatever on it?
Kristin Neal: Yes, yes, but Alexis, I highly suggest one of our partners actually got sweatbands for the kids, and we can send you sweatbands too as swag, but they have it over the sweatbands. So, it kind of helps.
Alexis: Oh, I see.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Alexis: Oh.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, because it does get, I mean, the kids get sweatbands. Sweaty, they get hot, they get, and it does, it, we've have, we have replacements, I have not seen any replacements, except for six of them in this whole year and a half that I've been here, so it's very durable, it's not your typical, like, weak Velcro, it's industrial Velcro, but yes, that is some way that we can, you can limit that use, and we can also replace.
Armida Colón: Yeah, that Velcro idea, though, is so inexpensive, um, and doable.
Kristin Neal: Yes, and you can add, uh, we found partners actually even added to wheelchairs, or crutches, or things that kids are, are, need in order for them to obviously be there, but it, it connects to anything, so.
Alexis: Now, if we were to, like, say we're out in the fields, and we take, like, an iPad with us, we have to download the program onto the iPad, and then, do I need... Need, because I just got some tech and I found this out, they're all connected to Bluetooth and they can't be right next, they all can't be right next to the device, otherwise I'll pick up Tommy way over there, or Tina way over there, not to my actual device.
Kristin Neal: Okay, great question, Alexis. Yes, we are able to get two units together to combine to one, but if you do have like a third unit that is close to it, you might be picking up on that. But there is absolutely no program that you need to be able to use this. Everything is just on this touch screen. So there's no other laptop that you need, or tablet, or anything else. It's already built in.
Alexis: Nice. This is a one-stop shop.
Armida Colón: Everything you need is right here.
Kristin Neal: Every single thing you need, yes.
Armida Colón: Okay. Yes, exactly.
Kristin Neal: And it's easy. It's quick and easy. Each game that comes up, it actually comes up with game rules, too. So if... Someone needs to just jump in. They're able to do it. They're even having their own kids be as like a tech supervisor of these things. So maybe your sixth graders would benefit from that. All right. So here's we have more videos for your team to be able to review, how to set up ZTAGGERS, how to register multiple units. Again, it's not necessary for play. So when you first open the screen up and ready to play, it'll say, do you want to register? There's a skip button down here on the bottom. You just skip it, and then you can go back to it. But we definitely suggest registering the unit with a general email. So it's under no one's, you know, if someone leaves, it's under that general email. And we can even get you reports on this. At the end of the year, if you want a report of how much your ZTAGG was played, we can print all that out.
Armida Colón: Okay. Yeah. So our intention. So we think about this, the after school program, you know, we have. Thank We're after-school programs, and right now our thoughts are to purchase two units and make them available for checkout. So I know I do have a generic program email, so that will be the one that we will all use, because that seems to, again, it doesn't belong to anybody, and I'm the only one really as the director who looks at it.
Kristin Neal: So we can make that available to everybody.
Armida Colón: So we wouldn't run into any issues with the devices being moved from different locations.
Kristin Neal: Not at all. Not at all. They don't even need, after that first initial registration, you can even maybe have your tech team do it. After that, they never have to register or do anything.
Armida Colón: They just, they just go in and play.
Kristin Neal: Nice.
Armida Colón: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, I would probably have my tech guy do it. Especially with its own router, I'm sure there's other stuff going on there that I would not know what to do with. Yes, yes, exactly. I'm lucky I'm able to figure this out, but yes, I know what you mean.
Armida Colón: Thanks for that heads up. This is an overview again for your team to look at the games itself and how to train for each game.
Kristin Neal: Again, very simple. If you like, I can go over them. Do you want me to show you kind of like the general?
Armida Colón: Yeah, we'd like to get, not all of them, but just a few so we get an idea of what it's looking like. Because one of our challenges is that we don't have a lot of planning time or time for staff to learn things. And so I appreciate that you have all of these videos available because we can, you know, they can view it on another time and prepare for this. So, but yeah, just to get an idea of what it looks like, that'd be helpful.
Kristin Neal: Perfect, Armida. And just so you know, they are being reproduced. Kwan, this is the founder who created him. He's wearing glasses and as much as we appreciate it, you'll see. If you get the general overview, it's just not that. So thank you for your patience. I'm going to do red light. Greenlight. That's the first game I typically introduce new players to. I press Assign All, and that moves all the available ZTAGGERS to the playing ZTAGGERS, and then I press Next. And during this time, the system is sending a Get Ready signal to all the ZTAGGERS, and you'll see on your wristband here, it says Get Ready. Once it says Get Ready, and you see there are green check marks on all of them, that means this system is ready to start the game. And you just have to press Start Match, and this will go. Okay, so this game, whenever it's green, you want to have the people move around and shake. And whenever it goes red, and if you keep moving, you'll see that it says you're out. When you're green, you want to move as much as you can, and as soon as it's red, Then, Then, you. Got to stop. And if I didn't stop in time, you saw that it has a warning signal. So right now I move when it's green, and as soon as it's red, so I stopped, and then you see my score increases the more that I move when it's green. And this one was already out because I moved when it's red. Now you can wait for the timer to run out and the game will automatically stop, or you can press the stop match right here. Okay, and after any game, the winner is going to have a rainbow bar on their lights, okay, so it's very convenient here. And then you can go back, and you can restart a new game from here. Something else to show you is with any of the games, you can click on the settings with this cog, and it will allow you to adjust some of the parameters, such as the sensitivity or time limit. In this particular game, this negative scoring is kind of a cool feature. For red light, green light, you might want to give some of your players an additional chance after they move during red and not just automatically. And what that means is if you do move when it's red, it'll just minus 10 points for you, and you're not actually at the end of the game. They're still winning. Which participation factor. But if you're doing something in a much more competitive setting, and you want to have a strikeout, you can remove the negative scoring. And if you do move when it's red, it'll knock you out of that round. Okay.
Armida Colón: And I like that negative scoring, because then that doesn't, you know, kids don't end up on the sideline twiddling their thumbs.
Kristin Neal: Exactly. Exactly. And I love shouting out, it's okay, you can still win it.
Armida Colón: Yeah. You still got this.
Kristin Neal: You can still do it.
Armida Colón: Yeah. Yeah. Again, above all, too, because they might have been distracted, or, you know, it's their first time, they're learning the game. But for me, I'm thinking, and Alexis, chime in, but, you know, I'm thinking about all those kids that end up on the sideline, you know, kind of bored out of their mind. And then, of course, trouble ensues, because they've been sitting out.
Alexis: Mm-hmm. My big... The is that alleviates the behavior management part that we're doing, because that's a struggle that I think all the districts across right now. Sorry, I have a very big dog. Yeah, I think just eliminating all the opportunities for kids like that.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, like separating. I can only imagine. You must need to have eyes on the back of your head in order to handle your kids that are doing what they're supposed to and the ones that aren't. So, yeah, this definitely gets them all moving all at once, no matter what. And you can even add this, Alexis, what they're doing is they're running across the gym as their favorite animal, as in the red light, green light sequence. So, you can get their creativity moving. You can have them run through obstacles with this red light, green light. This is very layerable. So, anything that you might see, you know what, we can add this. Red Light, Green Light to this. We could do it to jump rope. We could do it with the hula hoop. You can add this to anything that you might want to add a little bit extra.
Alexis: Yeah, and like Armida said, that's very great because a lot of our staff, this is all brand new to them, so as long as they're consistent with the same thing, eventually they'll become masters of it.
Armida Colón: So that's a great part.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, I love that, Alexis. Yeah, love that. Here, so that's the very first game that we suggest the kids playing because that will show them how to watch their own game, their own game watch and their own body movements. The next game we like to show is the pattern match. That shows the kids how to connect with others. So believe it or not, it helps with the communication, just clear communication, stopping at the end of the first game and saying, how did that help? What could you do better? Were you able to, with our math match, stopping again at the end and saying. What could you do to help? So the kids were saying, having the numbers up on their fingers, you know, the ones that they're looking for, you know, there's things that you can do at the end to stop and reflect on how they can do it better. I'll show you the pattern match, and I'll probably fast forward a little bit. Yeah, that's fine. I'm going to show a few more patterns here. Actually, let's just have three for now. I'll turn this on. We're going to do pattern match. And I'm showing you the games in the order. He's telling us how to do it in the order. So it's an individual game, and a show are going to be interacting with other people. And so in this game, the goal is to find another player that has either the same color or the same shape as you, and you want to have your taggers link up by getting within a few feet, sensor to sensor, or screen to screen. And we'll even tell, our playmaker will tell you, first start with just the color. Just start with just the color, get them used to it, then bring the second round, just do shape. And we'll both. Okay.
Armida Colón: Yeah. So it's also, it can be scaffolded to the different abilities. Exactly.
Kristin Neal: And you can even change in the, if you have littles, like maybe your kinders are even smaller, in the cog, you're able to even take out some shapes and colors to kind of build on that also. Oh, nice.
Armida Colón: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: And negative scoring again. You're on top of the taggers, and you want them to be facing each other in order for them to register. And so there's a few implications to the sensors. Now, if you have a bunch of people with signals, and they're all just, let's say, huddled around like this, you're going to get random signals crossing over, even with people that you may not want to. And in this game, we might also have negative scoring set up, which means if you get the wrong match, you'll also get minus points, which cancels out your progress. And that means people have to be very deliberate in how they interact with each other. If everybody just bunches up, you're most likely going to get the wrong signals, and that's going to cause a negative scoring. But usually, we recommend to have the players take a few steps back and call out what they have and observe other people and look at their colors, and then do a match. Okay, so I'm going to give you... A quick demo here, but because these are placed here, and not won by players, you're going to likely see a lot of crossover. The demo is horrible. It's all the sensors bouncing off, but at least you get the sensitivity of it. Okay, rolling down. Okay, so. Yeah, because these are so close to me, they're registering to hit. So, for example, right now I have a red circle, okay? Let me put that aside. And over here I have a yellow circle. So circle and circle will match. And if I bring that over, oh, actually these are, they changed. Circle. Star and star, these won't match, but there's blue right here. These won't match. But he's calling out, he would be typically calling out blue star, blue star as he's got the watch, and then intentionally connecting with either the blue or the star. So that's that demonstration. Sorry again about that movement. But you have at least the concept of the matching watch-to-watch. This is the same with The The math match. Half the kids will have the problems. The other half will have the solution, and they've to find each other. So I'll have a 2 plus 2, and I'm looking for 4. And it's different colors, too. The problems are the green, and the solutions, I believe, are the purple. So it's another easy to be able to match. This is our rock, paper, scissor game. And this one is more of like an economy, I forgot that word, but it's, I can show you really quick, but it's a little bit confusing. Because you're not playing rock, paper, scissor, but you're playing, seeing your group and who you need to actually connect with. So it's a little bit more of deeper thinking, to be honest with the kids, but they get it. They see like, oh wait, I need to actually go after just the rocks or just the scissors.
Armida Colón: Yeah, and I think apart with all of this, we would probably spend quite a bit of time with just the red light, green light. Just while we lay down the foundation, because until we fully understand how the bands work, the wristbands work, we can't get to the next game. You know, and I think red light, green light is the foundational game for understanding the wristbands. Okay, what happens and how they work and all the nuances of time and negative scoring, because that concept is new. What do you mean? I'm out, but I get to still play? You know, but, so I think we would spend quite a bit of time with that game alone before we can even entertain the others. So, but it's awesome to see how much is available and that the resources are there to support our staff, so.
Kristin Neal: I love, too, Armida, that you have that concept of just gradually jumping in. Like, I agree, why overwhelm the kids of everything? So, you're actually even able, I'm glad you brought that up, in this main cog, you can actually. So you remove all of the games and just show one game at a time or two at a time, however you want to display it. So you can...
Armida Colón: fact, I'm sorry, I'm not even thinking about students, I'm thinking about staff first, because the staff need to become comfortable first. And I like your idea there of removing the games so they don't get to see all the other games, because they might look at the other games and say, I want to do that, but it requires more preparation or work on their end, and we're not there yet. We have to learn the basics first, so I like that you can hide some of those games and then add them as the staff's comfort level and knowledge increases, and the students does as well. I love it, Armida.
Kristin Neal: I love your concept. You know, you're in California, right? Aren't you? Yes.
Armida Colón: is that again?
Kristin Neal: You're in Northern California?
Armida Colón: Northern, yeah, Central Valley.
Kristin Neal: Central Valley. Our, um, Kwan and Steve, who you both... They'll be in that area. I think they would love to just go in person and train your team, if that would be an interest.
Armida Colón: I would love that.
Alexis: Thank you, Carolyn. I could probably pull together my supervisors, which, so we have four programs, so I have four supervisors.
Armida Colón: So yeah, if we can pull something together where I can bring all four of them in, because to bring the staff, that's a whole nother level of challenge, because they come in for after-school program hours, and they have other jobs and responsibilities during the day. But if they're in the area, and they can provide that overview to the supervisors, that's a great starting point. Because Alexis and Amy, who was one of the other supervisors, they both had exposure to ZTAG, but then the other two ladies did not. So yeah, that would be a good opportunity I'd take you up on.
Kristin Neal: Definitely, definitely. I know Steve and Quan would love that, so for sure. Let's see. so those are the games. Let me show you this last one, Zombie Survival. This is the kids' favorite, and I definitely suggest holding off until I'm in a perfect time, but it's nice to show you this is what all the kids and adults love. And then in this game of Zombie Survival, we have three roles. We're have the humans, the core green, zombies, core red, and the doctors, red, and we can randomly assign them. Okay, actually, I'm going to take a few more taggers out, just for demo. Okay, and I'm turning them on with the red switch right here. We'll wait a few seconds for them to load up and then put them into random. Also, while we're waiting for that, we can go into the settings to see some of the parameters you can adjust. For example, you can change the total time on this game. You can also change how many zombies or doctors you'll put into the game. But let me first show you how the rules work. So we randomly assign people to be humans, zombies, or doctors. The humans, they're trying to just stay away from the zombies and not get tagged. The zombies are trying to get close to the humans by getting their screen linked to a human screen. And convert the human into a zombie. Now, if a zombie gets close enough to a human, the human gets infected and has about 10 seconds to go find a doctor to get saved and become human again. If they can't find a doctor in 10 seconds, then they become a zombie, and they can start trying to attack other humans to turn them into zombies. The amount of time that someone stays in transition or infected mode is dependent on what you wreck here. So you can change the infection duration to be 10 seconds or longer, depending on the game. But for most of our games, pretty quick pace, 10 seconds is a good amount. And then also the doctor, this is a really key role. If you give this to a player who might be a little shy, or possibly special needs, this is a great way to increase their engagement, because everyone who gets infected by a zombie is going to come to the doctor to get saved, and it's really going to boost the self-confidence of this player. And to assign someone manually the doctor, let's say you want this tagger to be a doctor, you can find that they're number 18, go in here and select the doctor status, and this player will later on be the doctor. So for the sake of this, I'm going to put a few zombies on the side here. Actually, I'm to start with one zombie here. So we're going to do 06 as the zombie, and everybody else will have as a human. And then... then... So Thank 18 is the document. So 18 on the set here, 06 on the set side, and then all the ones over here. You might want to consider that one, Alexis, or for any of the other supervisors, if you have any special needs specific, that you need a game specifically for a student, that might be something to consider.
Alexis: Yes, we do have quite a few students with specific needs integrated into our program, and I think that that would be great. Yeah, yeah.
Kristin Neal: Instead of taking it away, maybe just that, well, definitely think on that, Armida, but definitely want to just throw that out there. Okay? I'm going to humans when I start. So let's go next. You'll see the load screen, and everybody's ready to go while we get ready, okay? So you see, these are the humans. That's the docker. I'm going to turn it upside down right now, so I can demonstrate for you the interaction. If this zombie gets close to these, when their screens are facing, you'll see they In fact, you see that signal actually crossed over to here, and if these people are close to the doctor, the doctor will save one person. The doctor will only save one person because the doctor actually goes into a timeout after some time and has to wait about five seconds before the doctor can save someone else again. The doctor also has this ability to stun a zombie so that the zombies can't infect for a short amount of time. And because these are all on the table here, I'm basically bouncing the signal back to them. You'll see that it's very easy for them to infect. I think you get the concept. How do you get that? Okay, cool.
Alexis: This is the one that we played during the training, and it was really fun.
Armida Colón: Yeah. Amy was very into it. She's the competitive one in the group.
Alexis: I love it.
Kristin Neal: They use it for PD days. They bring it with them on those dates. So it's a lot of fun for adults. Here again, our operations, our full operations manual, our quick start guide, and that's actually what I've been using right here, our quick start guide. And then we do have our community launch pack. So every purchase also includes a digital artwork. Educator library, this has videos from what other students, what other schools are actually doing with their students. So that's where I was bringing up like the obstacle course or the red light, green light with a ball. That's where you'll find these. And then our logo files and branding guidelines, because we found out you guys have your own printing a lot of times.
Alexis: we wanted to be able to provide all that.
Armida Colón: Thank you. No problem.
Kristin Neal: Here's some testimonials on there. But that is everything in one spot for your training. And then I, I'm not sure if I actually ever introduced myself. My name, sorry about that. Well, you did. You and I talked, you and I talked, and then Alexis chimed in, so yeah. Good, good, good. Okay, good. Well, Alexis, my name is Kris Neal.
Alexis: I am the Relations Director.
Kristin Neal: I see your name on your screen.
Alexis: Good, good.
Armida Colón: I'm not in sales.
Kristin Neal: I'm totally not in sales.
Alexis: I'm like terrible at sales.
Kristin Neal: In fact, right now I get hives, but I'm going to spend, I'll go over this briefly, and then the extended care, if you're interested, is not necessary for play. It's just the coverage. But if you want to take a look at it, I'll forward it all to you, and you can take a look for it together, please. But the ZU unit, it is $9,700. It's an investment. But again, own it. After you purchase, you own it. These are the cost of things if you don't have the coverage. Here's the coverage that we offer for the ZU.S. unit. And here's discounts. know, Armita, you talked about two units. That's awesome. We're excited. And then we'll just keep adding. If you want to keep expanding later, hopefully we'll eventually get to this part. Okay. Here's our payment in terms. And our sole source statement is here also. We are the sole source provider for this technology. And this is more, so this very first page that you're going to be looking at is what every ZU.S. comes with. Every ZU.S., every unit comes with the 12 month of equipment protection. Anything wear and tear, that's where the extended care comes in. But manufacturer defects are all covered for 12 months. Those are all the program resources and branding support that I showed you. And then each unit, again, comes with that training, which hopefully we'll be able to get in person. But we could probably also do maybe a virtual training. It sounds like you might need that so you can just forward to whoever has questions later.
Armida Colón: All right, ladies.
Kristin Neal: Any questions on this?
Armida Colón: No.
Kristin Neal: No, not for me.
Alexis: Yeah, I know we'll be finalizing.
Armida Colón: I mean, we're pretty convinced about what you have to offer, and we think it would be a good fit for our programs.
Kristin Neal: So now it's just a matter of determining exactly what we need, how many units, extended care, and all those things, which will be coming in the next couple of weeks. Perfect, Armida, perfect. I will send all this over for you then, so you can get a head start on that. Do you have an address that I can put for that? Send me a unit as a pilot. It's always worth throwing it out there. Just put it in my pocket. But how, if you'd like, I can get started on a quote. Would you like an official quote?
Armida Colón: Sure. Well, actually, no, you know what? Let me get you exactly... Let me you exactly... What we need. That way you can provide me an appropriate quote. And like I said, that decision will be coming fairly shortly, actually, because we would like to pilot it sooner rather than later.
Kristin Neal: So, yeah. Sounds great, Armida. Yeah, summer is coming. It'll be here before we know it.
Armida Colón: Yes. So what is your turnaround rate? So let's say we place an order in the next week. What is your shipping timeline? I guess I should ask that, too, if we were to purchase two units.
Kristin Neal: Yes, we should be getting those in 15 days. Oh, okay.
Armida Colón: All right. So I wasn't sure because I know with some vendors, it could be a few weeks. So just make sure. All right.
Kristin Neal: We're almost sold out. We've got one in store. So we could get you one unit right now. But we have a next shipment in 14, 15 days.
Armida Colón: So. Okay. Yeah. So we would be looking at two units probably in the next few weeks.
Kristin Neal: Sounds great. Thank you so much, ladies. You're going to hear from me and I'm also going to include Carmi.
Armida Colón: Thank In case you have any questions, please let her know and she'll be able to get whatever you need. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you for your time.
Kristin Neal: Thank you for joining us on your lunch.
Armida Colón: Thanks.
Kristin Neal: Thanks, Alexis, chiming in. No worries. You're welcome. I'll see you later. Bye.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Hey, Mal.
Malachi Burke: How are you? I'm good. How are you?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, good as well.
Malachi Burke: Good. What's new?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Well, what should I say? Nothing new. Same old stuff.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, with me, uh... There's a video game I play with a friend of mine, although the patch inhibits cross-play, so I can't play at the moment with them, but I set up OBS and a streaming channel, and I'm a grumpy old guy, so I think it's kind of entertaining for people to watch a grumpy old dude swear in, like, 70s vernacular at a video game while he plays, so that's the gamble anyhow. Wow, and OBS Studio is, I've used that before for other things, I don't know if you've ever used that, but that's really great software.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, I've used it, I've used their OBS Studio, I guess back in my university days I have to use this.
Malachi Burke: Oh yeah, what did you do with it?
Muhammad Basim Ali: I don't really remember why, but probably we used to record some lectures when we had online classes from teachers, so yeah. For that reason we have used OBS Studio.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, could see that. Like, could overlay relevant titling and stuff for the lecture.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah. Yeah. Smart.
Malachi Burke: Never thought of that.
Muhammad Basim Ali: I was, like, even in, like, physical classes, I sometimes used to, you know, sit in the front axis and record the whole lecture.
Malachi Burke: Cool.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Just so that, you know, afterwards when I study, so, you know, I could get the things, what the teacher said, what the professor was mentioning right when he was teaching this topic. Smart. Smart.
Malachi Burke: And did you sell off the recording for $5 a piece?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Nah. We had a friend. We had a friend. He makes the notes and then we sell off his notes.
Malachi Burke: Ah, better. That's it. That's better.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Good. We send those PDF notes.
Malachi Burke: I'm waiting for AI to come up with a standard 2. Code inflections when it transcribes people, because that's so important for a deeper meaning.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: I worked with a company who, this is before the AI craze lit off, but we were doing a lot of transcriptions, and I learned about diarization, which is a fancy word for telling the difference between two speakers. And I don't remember what it was, but they had some really primitive, like they were able to detect if somebody stopped talking for a moment, not just a pause, but like the tonality, they were kind of done. And I just thought, yeah, because, like the meme says, know, grammar is the difference between knowing your and knowing your , right? So, grammar, you know, inflection makes all the difference. I love that one. Uh-oh, AI recorded me saying that.
Muhammad Basim Ali: I'm on the record swearing. Uh-oh.-oh.-oh. Uh Uh
Malachi Burke: Hey, Faisal. Hello.
Aamir Ilyas: Good to see you.
Muhammad Basim Ali: How are you?
Malachi Burke: I'm good.
Muhammad Basim Ali: How are you?
Aamir Ilyas: I'm good.
Malachi Burke: Doing well.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: You're looking good, too.
Aamir Ilyas: Thank you. Thank you. Where is Mr. Sean and where is our boss, Mr.
Malachi Burke: Quan? Tonight on Unsolved Mysteries.
Aamir Ilyas: Oh, man. My body is soaring. I just recently started a bit of exercise and walks and running, and it's crazy now.
Malachi Burke: Wow. Yeah, going from nothing to running, you'll feel it.
Aamir Ilyas: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there was a good pause for about a month, and just now I've started. So it made me realize, you better not to pause.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, yeah. I'm no exercise nut. God, the furthest thing from it. I kind of don't enjoy it. Well, who enjoys it? But I don't get a high off of it or anything. But the body is set up to do some exercise. It just doesn't matter what your brain wants. The body needs it, you know?
Aamir Ilyas: I mean, sooner or later, you're going to agree to that. So it depends. I mean, when you're getting that signal.
Malachi Burke: It's true. Well, it's like saying, nope, I don't care that I'm hungry. Three days later, that's a lie. That's a hoax. Fake news that my stomach wants something in it. It's like, no, the body gives us indicators, doesn't it?
Aamir Ilyas: Exactly, exactly. So like, I don't know, since you are now almost stretching 47 or something, somewhere you mentioned your age back in I'm my 50s, bro. I'm in my 50s. my 50s. Yeah, yeah. So you're better ahead of us. Listening to your body, but at least for me, just touching the 40s now, and I've started some good noise. So maybe you have not seen me earlier, but I've shredded now almost 20 kgs, like kilos, so something like 30 to 40 oz in between. I'm not good with the oz, but with kgs, yeah, 20 kgs almost, I've shredded over the last 8, 9 months now.
Malachi Burke: You've gained it, or you've lost it?
Aamir Ilyas: I've lost it, yeah. Well, good for you. I used to be like this.
Malachi Burke: Wow. Well, presumably good for you. For all I know, you were underweight.
Aamir Ilyas: Who knows, right?
Malachi Burke: I didn't see. But it seems like you look very healthy, so I'm going to say it's a good thing.
Aamir Ilyas: Yeah, I had to reduce because I've got started different complications, and it's better to shred weight in any ways.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, getting old. It the best, bro. The best.
Aamir Ilyas: All right. I think we can start off. Meanwhile, if I don't know, Sean was supposed to join, but he got issues with his machine or something. I'm not sure. But let's say if he joins in between, so he's most welcome. Likewise with Quan also. But let's get the conversation started going on. So overall, not a major breakthrough or a discovery. In the last two days, they were not able to run or compile the code at our end. So yeah, so they're just working on fixing the PR issues by Basim. And then Sean was working on NVS, some temperature thing on the ESP32, discussed with Quan about that battery consumption. So there was a feedback around using the temperatures. And, sir, built in ESP32. So, mostly we've spent time around there, but we've spent time around the Codebase 4 also in understanding, but to be honest, since we're not able do it, so there's no rich feedback available so far what we aimed for in the last meeting. So, yeah, so that's the overall scenario of last two days. Basim, she would like to help Mal in your to-do's so that at least we can discuss that, and then we can proceed further.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, sure. Thanks, Vassil. So, yeah, well, I've worked on the PR description of the eigenlibrary, so I've seen that PR is merged. That's a good one. Secondly, fixing the sound melody, using the play melody instead of play tone, sound tone, right? So, I've raised the PR as well. So you can just see it. It's not merged yet. So I assume that you haven't looked into it right now. Besides that, me and Sean were both trying to, you know, fix the build error, building error in the idea version 5.3.2. But we weren't able to, you know, build it at all. But some of our other colleagues have, in office, has 5.3.3 and 5.4. So we built the project like Code4 on their machine and it compiled. But when we were running, we were just getting those watchdog logs and there was nothing on the display that we could test. So we just decided to, you know, start building some understanding on the Code4. But obviously, if we don't have any running code, we cannot, you know, test it better or get a good, you know, provide a feedback. But there are some good things that we noted. On the code for, but still, it's just too vague to say anything for now, because obviously, if the code would have worked, we could have, you know, come up with a better feedback for now, but it's just not there right now.
Malachi Burke: That's fair. That's fair.
Aamir Ilyas: And we have available Sean also now. So, hi, Sean.
Shan Usmani: Hi, guys.
Malachi Burke: How are you? Good. How are you, Sean?
Shan Usmani: Yeah.
Aamir Ilyas: I'm good. Sean is not sounding active and well.
Shan Usmani: I hope he's good. actually. I'm not really feeling well today, so.
Aamir Ilyas: No problem. You can take rest. Anyways.
Shan Usmani: So. Yeah, no worries. I'm here.
Malachi Burke: Thanks for joining us.
Aamir Ilyas: Right. Right. Right. So we were discussing. Thank Shan, that since we're not able to compile the code, so we don't have a lot of feedback, but yeah, Shan was able to work on Khan's feedback around the ESP32 built-in temperature and sensor, and a bit of running around the code base 4 also. So just help us understand, and then we're going to initiate a conversation around code base 4, if we can together make some sense.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, so basically I was working on multiple friends this week, there was the NBS thing that I was working on, still couldn't finalize it in the ballgame, there's an issue where score update is not working, so basically the game loads from the NBS, we receive the updated score from views, so the updated score doesn't really take effect. So I'm working on that right now. Other things, the timer and the game roll are working perfectly, so we... We set the device, basically, the device gets back up, it loads from NVS, and then it gets updated configurations from ZEWS. All of this is working. The score just doesn't get updated for some reason. So that's the status for NVS. Then Quan mentioned something about, yeah, the battery getting heated up. So he discussed with the M5 guys, they said there is an onboard temperature sensor on ESP, which isn't really that much effective, but we can use it to get some sort of an idea. I started looking into it, but I'm not sure if the demo sensor is there, because I found some links, and AI suggested also that it should be connected on ADC0, built-in internally. There were some codes available online as well, but none of them worked. And it seems that in the latest, later versions, ESP might have removed the documentation as well, due to accuracy of the temporary sensor as well. So... So, yeah, there wasn't that much available, things available on that, and it really didn't work at all. So, I'll ask Quan if anything else needs to be done on that. He said that the ESP guys, the N5 guys, are providing him some sort of a test map, so they'll see what we can do. Apart from that, then Quan did some sort of like firmware updates, not really updates, but like which firmware has which current settings. So, I had to dig deep and go through a lot of firmware, older firmwares to figure out which firmware has which version. Yeah, so that was also there. And then finally, Uzair is basically working on OTA. We decided on a flow of how things will work. So, Uzair will start implementation today, and hopefully it will be done next week. I'm talking about the offline OTA process. One requested that if any TGGERS are not on the current version, so they'll be updated automatically. So what we plan with Maze is when the ZEOS will boot up, so we are on the game screen, and once NAMPTD gets connected, and if any of the TGGERS are all on the older firmware versions, the screen will automatically redirect you to the firmware device, firmware's page, where then at that screen, we can either do it start automatically, or we can do like a minimal button where we just confirm if you want to OTA. So that's the plan on that.
Malachi Burke: That's a lot. Thank you.
Aamir Ilyas: All right. And Mal, do you have some input to share?
Malachi Burke: I do. And before I get to the agenda, I'll just kind of respond to some of the things I've heard. Um, first of all, that's a bummer that the temperature sensor isn't behaving. And yeah, I mean, we've, as you guys know, we've got something that's very similar to the M5 part, right, but has some deviation. So perhaps that's one. I can't help but wonder if it's a little bit like a speaker amplifier where there's like an extra I.O. you got to turn on. Uh, but that would be kind of weird for a temperature sensor, unless it was I2C, and it was a separate chip, which it might be. Um, so, yeah, um, I appreciate that you're, uh, uh, checking that out. Um, and I would prioritize the current behavior, uh, vastly over the temperature sensor thing, really. Um, but I will leave that to you and Quan to sort out. That's all I have to comment on that part. Uh, go ahead, please. Yeah, Yeah, was just saying, yeah, I thought that too as well, like there might be some sort of an I.O.
Shan Usmani: which we need to trigger as well, but that didn't really make sense and couldn't find a lot of info. Basically, ESP has removed a lot of documentation regarding the temperature sensor.
Malachi Burke: Due to the reason that it wasn't really effective. So you can see I was just trying to shoot in the dark, but it didn't really work. Oh, okay. So I misunderstood. I thought that the M5 people added a little temperature peripheral, but you're saying there's an on-chip sensor that was there.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, exactly. There's an on-chip sensor. This is supposed to be an on-chip sensor on the ESP itself.
Malachi Burke: Ah, right, right, right. Okay. Well, good luck with that, my friend. Okay. Or the effort, though. On to other things then. Um. On Protocol 4, I have a couple things to mention. First of all, I know that we're adherent to IDF 5.3.2, and I've already said how 5.3.4 is probably a pretty safe upgrade, but putting that aside for a moment, what also works is if you're a little bit careful, doesn't take much effort, you can actually, if you're on Linux or macOS, you can have 5.3, 5.4, and 5.5 all sitting side-by-side, and they don't conflict with each other. So we might have an easier experience for you guys if you try to compile Protocol 4 under 5.4.2. It might just be easier. That way you don't have to leave 5.3.2.
Shan Usmani: First of all, we don't have either Linux or Macs, so, but, yeah, we have. I've previously installed two different IDEA versions together on the same machine in Windows as well. We just try to avoid it anymore. It makes things quite complicated in terms of since we try to use the extensions in Cursor or in basically VS Code. So if we have multiple IDEA that might make things complicated there, they can work alone, like directly from their own dedicated CMDs. So that's not an issue. But we just try to avoid it. However, Basim was able to compile on a different machine with 5.3.4.
Malachi Burke: But for some reason, the code just seems to be giving watchdog errors. Right. Which doesn't shock me to hear. The code hasn't been vetted much. Okay, well, those are the options I see. And I was careful to say under Linux or Mac OS, because under Windows, your best option really is the extension. But the extension, yeah, it gets a little It's murky when you've got different versions. And for me, when I try the Windows extension, breaks so easily. I don't even use it. Although it's good software. I just don't use it. So, yeah, I hear you. And the other thing I want to say about Protocol 4 is that I put some suggestions out there on Discord. Did you guys have a look at that?
Shan Usmani: Yeah, Basim, were you able to check those?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, Mal, you probably mentioned about the full clean one, right?
Malachi Burke: One more time, please.
Muhammad Basim Ali: You were mentioning about the full clean, right?
Malachi Burke: Yes.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yes. Yeah, so I did look into it. And first, I was asking Sean, what is this full clean if it's not IDF 3rdPy full clean? Right. But when I just looked into the... You know, go through chat GPT about what this full clean you are talking about. So it told me about like deleting the build manually, build folder manually, and you know, deleting some CMakes. So that deleting the CMake was a bit, you know, I was being too cautious to try that thing, but I did, you know, try the full clean when reconfigure one, all of the other suggestions that GPT had given me. Like deleting the caches as well, but nothing seems to work.
Malachi Burke: I had a feeling I would need to clarify that, and it's so tricky, not tricky, it's so technical. I didn't feel like putting it there, just in case you already knew it. But what I mean by, and we need a different name, quote unquote full clean is, of course, remove the build folder completely, which means you don't have to diddle around with, is it a CMake list or whatever, just, you that's all just gone, just like a regular full clean deck. And then the quote-unquote full clean, also you remove dependencies.lock and you remove the managed components and you remove the SDK config as well. And that really wipes it out. I don't know why they didn't do that with the regular full clean, because that's really what a full clean ought to do. The dependencies.lock gets confused, I'm not going to say easily, but more easily than you would think. And it, I don't think this is the major possibility, but there's a slight possibility that one of the libraries was getting upgraded during the times you were trying to compile it, at which point the dependencies.lock will get out of sync with itself, because you're getting some problem with a component retrieval, for sure. And that's directly related to the dependencies.lock file. So that was my thinking there. There's a few other things too, but that's the first one I would start with.
Muhammad Basim Ali: You're saying that you want just to manually delete the dependency log and build in SDK configs in these files, right?
Malachi Burke: Yes, and remove the SDK, yeah, the SDK config, and you need to remove the managed components folder as well.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Managed components folder, okay. I'll try to do it, I'll try to do it, I don't know what would be the outcome of this, but yeah, I can try that.
Malachi Burke: It'll probably still fail, but it's an easy thing to try. And the other thing to try, I don't know if I mentioned this, well, yeah, I wasn't real specific here, but when I say the naming and the services, CMake lists, there's like an expressive underscore underscore in front of some of those things or something like that, and that's not usually the way you want to do it. So, oh, that's something else to try. Thank Typically, though, if you have access to machines that have 5.4.x on them, or 5.3.4, maybe it's not worth the effort, right, to fiddle with this, right? Maybe it's more expedient to do the other thing. Let me actually pull up the exact file name I'm talking about here. If I go to, where are you, protocode4? Come on, protocode4, where are you? Oh, now it's not even responding. Give me a second, my machine is locked up for a second here. Go over here to protocode4, Claude. Then we go over there, and then we go to CMake Lists. Not that one. Yeah, CMakeList Services, and I'll put into chat, Discord, what I'm talking about. So in Discord, if you look in that servicescmakeList.txt, you can see that it's got this fully qualified name thing going on here. And normally I'd be like, well, don't do that, but who cares? But if it's actually crashing on the build with dependency resolution, this is a participant in all that. And so the quote-unquote recommended way is to not have that M5Stack underscore underscore and the Espressif underscore underscore. So that's something to try to. Like I said in that chat, Yeah, I only give that a 10% chance of really making that much of a difference, because it does seem like a deeper glitch in their build tooling. But that's what I got for you, some random things to try.
Shan Usmani: Do we remove one underscore, or how do we clear this?
Malachi Burke: Let me give the presented solution for that. And in fact, if I'm really... In fact, I think I'm seeing kind of a different problem with this. Yeah, I think that might actually be the problem. Hmm. I didn't think I would actually diagnose it now. Give me a moment. One moment, please. As they used to say on TV, please stand by. I'm going to share my screen. As is always, I always end up doing that. Might as well just start sharing the screen. So observe, we have the IDF component here, and then the CMake list and question over here. But what's peculiar is normally when you're consuming these, we'll call them remote components, right, that you're pulling off the cloud, normally the IDF component sits in the same folder as the guy consuming it, but that was not done in this case. And I could envision a situation where that would confuse the component retrieval mechanism. So I would suggest, for the time being, you can kind of, as a test, you can copy, where is he? You can make a copy of this guy, like this, just put it up. Into the Services Component, like that, and then just remove these two. Because if it's present in here, it's kind of automatically included for this. And I'll do a sanity check right now while you guys are here. It's easy enough. Although I'm not running your version of things, but we'll just see how well it goes. So I'm going to also do practice what I preach here. So this is what I'm talking about with a quote-unquote full clean. It's kind of annoying, but that's what you got to do. And this is going to take a moment. So you see it's re-retrieving everything.
Shan Usmani: Mel, did you try uploading this code to a device?
Malachi Burke: No. No, I did not.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, because Basim was able to compile on the device, but the code just won't work, so.
Malachi Burke: Right. Right. No, I've been focused on other things. Unfortunately, this is compiling nice and quick, so we should get an answer soon. But what we're looking for is not a solution to your problem specifically. I'm just doing a sanity check to make sure that my changes don't break the build on my side. And while we're waiting, I'll mention that for protocol for my agenda is to be reviewing Quan's in-depth. Developer Notes and His Hotspots as part of the Developer Notes so that I can get kind of a high-level assessment. Okay, so that broke it. So I guess I was wrong about that other thing. I thought for sure. Oh, right. That's probably not in services. Oh, it is in services. Okay, that's really actually pretty surprising. But it is what it is. That's why we do these tests. So I don't have a specific timeline on my agenda of reviewing his document, but I plan on spending between three and five hours on it and producing a report so that we can assess just how deep we want to go with those hotspots he identified. So I'll keep you guys updated on that. Okay. So please make a note that something to try is, you see how I removed the prefixes here, and I pretty much moved, well, copied this from the other place. And really, you don't actually want to copy for production-style things, but just to bring it up, it's a legitimate test. How's that strike you?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, well, I'm taking my notes, nobody's contested.
Malachi Burke: Fabulous. Yeah, and as far as the watchdog errors go, that'll have to be something that we talk about with Quan when he returns. Great. Great. So I'm going to undo those changes.
Muhammad Basim Ali: one more thing. And Quan's like proto code 4. And the readme on Discord, sorry, GitHub, it mentions that he has built the project on IDF 5.3.2.
Malachi Burke: Like at the very end of the readme of the main branch. Interesting.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Interesting.
Malachi Burke: I'm going to make a note of that. And in the proto code 4, that it's compiled with 5.3.2. I would say that's something to be acknowledged. But it does seem like a nuanced tooling error. So some part of his machine might be configured differently enough to get around it. So I would say, let's acknowledge that, but let's just continue with our diagnostic approach. And I don't want to harass you guys about it, but is there a particular reason that we're staying on 532 versus 534?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Shan, do you have any comment on that?
Shan Usmani: Shan, I'm man. I missed the question.
Malachi Burke: Can you repeat? No worries. If I am harassing you, just say so. But I'm curious, is there a particular reason why we're staying on 532 and not moving to 534?
Shan Usmani: No real reason. Just it's working on our hands. We don't want to break it. Otherwise, nothing specific.
Malachi Burke: Fair. And that's a good reason, actually. So as the technical advisor on the team, I will say it is safe to go to 5.3.4. If you still don't want to, I respect that, but I'm letting you know that's what I run, works for me.
Shan Usmani: We can try that. Since we have 5.3.4 installed on another machine, Basim, just do a quick test with our code base. If it's like compiling, they're working without issue, we can all upgrade to 5.3.4.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Shahan, we don't have currently 5.3.4 in any machine. We have 5.4. something and 5.3.3. So 5.3.4 isn't there, but we can try this, why not?
Shan Usmani: Mel, is there like a major advantage of like updating from 3.2 to 3.4, or should we update to 5.4 something?
Malachi Burke: It's only oblique. When I did my research, there was like these informal mentions of 5.3.2 had some. in the build tooling that 533 and 534 fixed, but it wasn't authoritative. So all I can say is the general statement of you want to stay kind of up to date if you can. And I will also say the general statement of most companies suck at backwards compatibility and maintaining the quality with their versions, but certain companies like Espressif and believe it or not, Microsoft are good at that. So I feel very confident that 534 isn't going to botch us up too bad. But as far as a specific answer, I'm afraid, no. I can't think of a specific reason why 3.3 is better.
Shan Usmani: Okay, just on a newer machine, just try to update, like install 5.3.4, and if it works, we can update there.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Sure, Shan.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Thank you, guys, for your flexibility. And if it doesn't work, I will swiftly blame somebody else for the problem.
Aamir Ilyas: I think we've spent good time back in time in this version things, and we finally agreed on 5.3.2, along with Quan and the other team, Team Janus, working with us earlier. So, like, we have spent good time over agreeing on 5.3.2. But, yeah, since now, it's back in time. So it's good to sync with what you are running. So, yeah, please, Basim, try on 5.3.4, and let's sync everybody together.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Sure, Faisal.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, thank you, guys. Fingers crossed. Be okay. And I appreciate that you're able to do some what sounds like regression testing on your side. That makes a big difference as well. Everything else I have is part of my bigger agenda, so I'll pause before launching into that. Faisal, did we want to visit any other topics before the Mal agenda?
Aamir Ilyas: Sorry, Mal just missed your voice.
Malachi Burke: The rest of my commentary is my regular large agenda, and before I launch into that, I wanted to hand the floor back to you.
Aamir Ilyas: Yeah, I mean, from our side, things are pretty much discussed, so yeah, please proceed with what you have, and then we'll jump in.
Malachi Burke: Great. Okay, thank you, guys. So starting out, the pull request number 177, the eigenissue, as Basim, you already observed, that has been merged. Thank you, thank and the description is still a little off, not enough for me to kick it back, but... In the future, let's be mindful because in the description, we want to talk about the delta that changes from develop to the feature branch. And in this description, it said, well, we switched from something to a componentized eigen, but that's actually not true in context of develop. We didn't switch. We added it from nothing. So let's just be mindful because AI is going to, doesn't have the context always to go, well, even though the last commit says you switched, which is true, that's not representative of the entire PR.
Muhammad Basim Ali: So let's be mindful about that in the future, please. No worries. I'll be careful next time.
Malachi Burke: Thank you. Thank you. The other thing about that PR I want to mention is, by and large, when we're talking about an IDF component dependency, like I was saying earlier, usually that doesn't need. To be named in the requirements in the consuming cmakelist.txt. Although I was surprised just now, this one, it wanted it. So I guess, you know, maybe I'm wrong about that. But in the past, I haven't needed to. So take that with a grain of salt. Try it out if you feel so inclined. I'm going to move on to the next thing, because that one's kind of a maybe. PR-180, which is issue 179, which is the play melody one. That one actually, I think we have a problem with this one. But before I get into the problem, I'm going to get into my softer notes. There's a verbiage thing, too. I'd like to request we keep using either the expected observed format or the story form. And this one is less important. I get it, because this is kind of a one-and-done situation. But I like to have the formality there, because it helps with the context. Because if we look at this issue a month later. Or a year later, or if somebody who is not us looks at the issue, having that more formalized context is super-duper helpful. So I'd like to request that, Basim.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, sure, Mal. I can update the verbiage of the issue.
Malachi Burke: Thank you. You can leave this one alone for this time, just for future.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Sure.
Malachi Burke: Thank you. you so much. I appreciate that we've kind of got a habit now of linking the PR to the development branch. That's pretty awesome. I'm liking that. And finally, yeah, the PR itself, I hadn't inspected the play melody behavior close enough when I was looking at it before. When I was looking at it before, I was focused on the call to M Speaker Driver Play Melody, which does exactly what we needed. And I incorrectly presumed that Play Melody on the speaker interface. Thank you.
Muhammad Basim Ali: I know what should I say, shocked when I see that it's only taking one frequency and then making five frequencies or n number of frequencies just by multiplying them with some ratio. So basically it's multiplying that input frequency with some ratios and then giving the output sound. So not exactly what we want because obviously we want some sound like if I want to play a sound of 117 frequency and then what should I say, 20 frequency, it won't be achieved by this method. So I was waiting for your comments on this because I knew that Mel would see this and you know, will point out a thing that it's not how we intended the play melody should work. So no issue Mel, I can make it as a like pass-through argument. Change the array's arguments into the Play Melody, and that could, you know, fix our thing over here. No worries. We can fix it.
Malachi Burke: Great. Great. And I take some responsibility, too, because when I was looking at the code, I was looking at that tonal math, and I'm like, I don't know why they're doing that, but I see down below that they've got the Play Melody call that I want, so I'm good to go. And if I had spent five more minutes looking at it, I would have seen that it's, you know, just as you described. So, but thank you. I would like to upgrade. And, you know, the other thing is, it's kind of a cute feature, that auto melody they did. So perhaps we should preserve that. I'll leave that to your discretion. But one thing for sure is I get the impression that they didn't finish making the Play Melody, and that's why it's doing this. I feel like this is an in-between piece of code. Well, they is you. You guys wrote it, actually, so you tell me.
Muhammad Basim Ali: And now the interface is when, like, it was even before I came on board.
Malachi Burke: So I wasn't very prepared, you know, again, we can take this. It's a kind of a nifty feature, the auto scale that it does. I don't know. I don't know if I'd miss it if it was gone. Like I said, I will trust your judgment with that.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, sure. mean, like, when I implemented it and raised the PR, I tested the both sounds, and they both sound, like, good to me. So I just say, yeah, we can, we can, you know, leave it as it. But the play melody shouldn't be like that. That's what my initial understanding was as well. Because if you want to play a certain kind of melody, a custom melody, we cannot create that custom melody using this function, right?
Malachi Burke: So totally agree. We can, we can work on it and, you know, fix it. Okay, thank you. I propose also that this is a really good opportunity to practice using the union feature, specifically with and around sound params. Sure, I can try that. Okay, great. Thank you. And finally, we often call this update queue paradigm on these interfaces directly, despite the presence of helper wrappers. Like there is, for example, we never call the playtone method, which is there, which wraps up this whole thing, kind of syntactic sugar. So I'm kind of curious what led us to that. It feels like a missed opportunity.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Well, guess Shahan could better comment on it, but what my understanding is that, you know, there's only one entry point and one exit point, and it's just, that's why we are using the update.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Okay, not muddying the waters by calling different methods to do the same thing.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, you can say that.
Malachi Burke: I have a comment on that, but I'd like to hear what Sean has to say first.
Shan Usmani: Sorry guys, I just had half of it. Can you debate me?
Malachi Burke: It's okay, buddy. We are calling update directly, these update queue method all over the code base, despite that there's helper wrappers. For example, we never call the playtone method. We call update with playtone command. And I'm just curious what led us to that, because it seems like a missed opportunity.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, to be honest, I don't really remember. It's been quite a while that we worked on it. So I'll just look at it today with Basim and then update you in the next meeting.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Definitely not something I'm demanding we change.
Shan Usmani: I think mostly, as Basim said, might be related to the one entry point thing where we have the tasks running and we just call the update from other sites to just send data to the task and they perform everything there. But I'm not really sure at the moment. I'll check.
Malachi Burke: Yeah.
Muhammad Basim Ali: So, Mike. We basically, I'm sorry to cut you off, but we basically have a single queue and that single queue is responsible for the display, sound, haptic, and lightbar commands. So, like, only this queue is going to, you know, take those commands in and then pass it to the relevant interfaces. And there's only one entry point in the, in the interfaces. The interface is not like that. You could. Simply, you know, access the display interface, that function, or in this case, you can access the play melody directly. So you can access the interface directly, but there is an entry point at the interface, and that is the update method. So it allows you to access all of those internal methods of the, what should I say, interfaces.
Malachi Burke: The pseudo-driver situation, yeah.
Shan Usmani: So basically, one queue for each interface, right, Basim?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Kanshan, guess, it's different queues, I guess, yeah, you're right, you're right, my bad. Every interface has its own queue, I'm sorry, my bad.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, so the actual work will be performed by the task, but, so, and wherever we want to play melody or do any action, we just populate that queue, and that queue is decoded by the task and perform the action, so, yeah. So, yeah.
Malachi Burke: Right, and that's my point, actually, is that if you look at the PlayTone method attached to sound interface, that is a wrapper for update sound, play sound, Q command, is what it is. So it's that exact Q command you're already doing, but in a tidier method that you can call. So we're still, even if you use that PlayTone method that's attached to sound interface, you're still going through the Q. Now, you could make a sound argument to say, well, pardon the pun, you could make an argument to say, hey, okay, but what we don't want is people call an update over here and wrapper methods over there. We want that, that could be a different form of your single entry point argument, and I could counter-argue and say, well, when it comes to the speaker interface, there's such a limited number of folks even interacting with it, you could do it all with it. At which point you would still have that single entry. Should I share my screen to show what I'm talking about, or are you following?
Shan Usmani: I am following, just to be sure, just you can share the screen and so we can discuss it, me and Vasim.
Malachi Burke: So now, go back over here. Go back over here. So we go over to Sound Interface. So of course, of course we have our update, which is just fine. but we've also got these guys, right? And if you go to these guys, see what they do? They, They're just kind of helpers. So I'm just kind of curious, I mean, if we don't like these, or if we do like these and don't know about them, or what?
Shan Usmani: Yeah, I'll have to check. It's been some time since we implemented those, so there must be some reason. I'll check and let's discuss in the next meeting.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Okay. The last thing I'll say about that is, it seems like of all the candidates, Play Melody would be the most interesting one to wrap up, because there's so many different, it looks like there's different flavors of Play Melody, and overloads would help there. All right. I'm going to move on. Thank you, guys. So I'm going to make a note that we'll continue to discuss that next time. Continue to discuss Play Melody next time. And I'm sure it'll come up naturally as part of the PR. Good job us for having that process. So I'm going to move forward. And this one is a discussion. I don't have like a bunch of things to dictate or ideas to tell you what I think you ought to do or anything like that. It's more we have the RLGL feature branch. We've all kind of agreed that we don't want it to sit too long, and it has been sitting a long time. I think we all agreed that we're going to begin turning the wheels for the PR process, even though it hasn't received acceptance testing. Is that what we – am I understanding that correctly?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, guess we were on the same page. Thank you. Thank Thank I guess we discussed it that we could start the PR process last Monday, but we didn't for some reason.
Malachi Burke: No problem. I expect the PR for that one to be extra, you know. Hopefully not a feature 74, but it's going to be, you know, some things. Are we still feeling like that's a good plan?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Well, I do have a, like, query that while raising the PR, so we have multiple branches of the RLGL game, right? So should we just, and all of those branches are coming from, like, RLGL one feature, then RLGL second features come out of the feature one, and the RLGL third features come out of the second feature. So what do you think, like, should we raise the PR only for the last branch that's the most updated one?
Malachi Burke: Well, this one's a special case, right? I think the multiple feature branches we, uh, are Pedoed, because there was a merge glitch in it, right?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Like, I couldn't understand that point that you just mentioned.
Malachi Burke: Call it up here.
Muhammad Basim Ali: What I was saying, basically, was that the RLGLCacheDotain is the branch that has all the features, like the previous branches and the new branches as well. It's the most updated one.
Malachi Burke: Oh, I see. I see what you're saying. Right. The other RLGL is somewhere else. This is the fixed one, is what you're talking about.
Muhammad Basim Ali: It's the most complete one with most of the features, I guess. Should I say all the features that we have developed right now? The Catch-the-Train has all of those. The other branches, like, obviously, we were publishing branch and the features are completed.
Malachi Burke: I'm a little bit bothered because I can't find the one, the broken one. Not that I want to merge the broken one. I just don't want to accidentally. There he is. Right. This was the one that we repaired it from. Okay. I see what you're saying now. I was not aware of this guy. Um, I see what you're saying. I'm open to either one. It's going to be a huge PR and it'll be an even huger PR. So what would the ups and downs be? The upside to the multiple PR is, of course, we could get one closed sooner. Right. That would be the upside. Um, the downside is the merging might get a little awkward because that means we'll merge this one, but then we'll have to do another PR and merge that one. So part of this is how many merge conflicts are we in?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Participating here. Mel, did a, I guess, a week or two weeks ago, I don't really remember, when we did the field test. So I did the emerge, this RLGL gets the training to the development branch, and I got, probably I didn't get any, any much conflicts. There was just one man of much conflict, and that was related to the header files in the ballgame. So it was like, just a click away. So it wasn't a big issue there. But, like, I merged it, like, last week or probably before that. So I can't remember, but two weeks or a week ago, it was merging fine, without any much conflicts. So, I guess we can probably, you know, cry, and we won't find any much conflict. But if there are any much conflict, we can fix that.
Malachi Burke: No worries for that. So here's my thinking, is that. So if we can open a big honk in PR, which we don't love, but like I keep saying, this is a special case, without a whole lot of merge conflict problems, let's do it. But if we are hitting some merge conflict stuff, then let's break it up into two PRs.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Sure. So what I'll do right now is to first try to merge this, catch the train with the developer. And if I find a lot of merge conflicts, then I won't be raising its PR. But if I want to find any or some simple merge conflicts, I'll simply raise the PR for the casualty train, right?
Malachi Burke: Could you repeat that again?
Muhammad Basim Ali: I'm sorry, I missed the end of that. No worries. I was just mentioning that if I'll try to merge the casualty train with develop, if there are a lot of merge conflicts, I won't raise its PR.
Malachi Burke: But if there is only one or two, as I mentioned, small merge conflicts, I will simply raise the PR for the casualty Yeah. Got it. Perfect. Perfect. And let's hedge our bet here and be careful, because this is part of the reason I've got tags, too, because when we have these big mergers that come in, which are natural, that happens, more regression possibilities. So I like to have the tags available so that we can go back in time if we need to. So let me do that now. Okay. Let's do a refresh. Make sure it's happy. Oh, this is the wrong folder. Sure, why not? Okay, great. Great. I'm glad we covered that. Thank you, guys. Yeah, no worries, I feel pretty synchronized on that, so I'm going to move forward. And I already mentioned this, but I'll just reiterate it. On my agenda is to review Quan's developer notes, which are somewhat extensive for Protocode 4. I asked him during our last sit-down meeting to give me some guidance how to understand the code base and where to look, and that's what he produced. And once I do, as I already mentioned, I'm going to create a report. your support looking on that, which everybody's welcome to. I'm in agreement with Faisal still that you guys shouldn't wait for my report. You should go ahead and poke it around, and if you get watchdog errors, then make note of that. But just know that that's coming so that we can kind of synchronize in that kind of top-down way too.
Aamir Ilyas: Yeah, I mean, this will be super helpful if we get to hear from you also. Meanwhile, we're just trying to figure out how to run this, maybe 5.3.4 or 3.2, whatever. But yeah, on the way, while on the way, if we get to hear from you, yeah, that will be super helpful.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, yeah, you got it. That's one of my main duties here for sure. Yeah, I don't relish the idea of digging through a bunch of AI code, but it is my job, and I'm going to do it.
Aamir Ilyas: You have my word. All right.
Malachi Burke: That's everything I got, guys. Thank you so much for just your flexibility and, you know, everything. Appreciate it.
Aamir Ilyas: You're welcome. All right. So I think what I have concluded from the conversation so far is like we need to somehow run this code base at our end to get to the end. And we wait to hear from you also. And then we can continue from there once we have some more feedback. And meanwhile, I believe Quan will be back also by our next meeting.
Malachi Burke: I hope so. Yeah. And only because it's of such large importance.
Aamir Ilyas: You know, the battery thing has to be the highest priority of all of these things. Yeah. No issues. I mean, Basim and Sean will work on somehow compiling this code and changing the ID. So in any ways, we're going to achieve a change of IDF version at least. And yeah, meanwhile, we'll be able to run this and come up with some points from our side. And so yeah, the idea is to sync again on the next meeting with this Codebase 4 feedback, and then dive into the discussion around that.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, I think that's fair. Sean, do you have any concerns or questions regarding the battery code in case I talk to Quan to pass along?
Shan Usmani: Not really at the moment. I don't really know the details. Quan just said that they are providing some sort of a test map for this. So we'll see, and he can update us.
Malachi Burke: Okay, let me kind of dive into that topic a little more. That sounds reasonable. Are you in a comfortable place to update the legacy code? So the event you get some specifications.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, I can do that.
Malachi Burke: Okay, because that would be the only prerequisite I would expect there.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, basically the current rate that he mentioned is already lower. It's currently at 450 mAh instead of the 700 mAh. Initially, in the initial firmware code, we had the charging current set to 700 mAh. But later on, we reduced it to 450 mAh. So yeah, think Quan was fine with it. Fine in the sense that he said it's like the later version is already safer than the earlier ones. So he wanted to get customers up to date with the latest firmware.
Malachi Burke: Oh, I see. So that change was made in the past already, that reduction of the amperage. That's what I'm hearing.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, we have already made that change a while ago.
Malachi Burke: All right.
Shan Usmani: So basically some of the customers are using like the initial release firmware, I think 6.9. So maybe those are the guys that are experiencing the battery issues. I'm not sure, but it's what I understood from Quan's initial message that the guys having the 6.9 version might be facing it more than the latest ones, since the later ones have already reduced charging current.
Malachi Burke: Ah, okay. Okay. Well, good. I wanted to put due diligence into this because it is, you know, a significant issue. But it sounds like we're doing what we need to be doing.
Aamir Ilyas: So thank you. Right. Yeah. Most of the code base have this lesser MAH, like 450. It's just that even Quan is trying to figure out that what exactly customers, which exact customer is having the code base, which have 750 MAH. So we're going to try to track it down, but most of the code base. It's been already revised earlier to 450-something.
Malachi Burke: I see. Well, that's good. That part's good. Great.
Aamir Ilyas: Well, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. You're welcome. All right. So I think we have pretty much concluded most of the points we have and most of the points Mal has also. Yeah. So I think, okay, let's just wrap it up for today and connect again on Monday, which is Tuesday morning for us. And let's keep the conversation going around CodeBestport 4.
Malachi Burke: All right. I look forward to talking to you guys then.
Aamir Ilyas: Have a great weekend. All right, buddy.
Malachi Burke: Take care. See you guys.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
Steven Hanna: Hello. Good morning. How are you?
Megan and Maddie: Doing well.
Steven Hanna: How about yourself? Good.
Megan and Maddie: All right.
Steven Hanna: Megan or Maddie? Or Megan and Maddie?
Megan and Maddie: I am just Megan today.
Steven Hanna: All right. Is there another day that you would try to be Maddie or?
Megan and Maddie: Nope. Maddie's my assistant and she just did not make it today.
Steven Hanna: Okay, cool. Well, Megan, thank you. I appreciate you being here today. Yes. Have you got your system in front of you?
Megan and Maddie: Yes, I do. Awesome.
Steven Hanna: Cool. So is this the first time that you're seeing this? Have you used this before?
Megan and Maddie: Is this like a brand new thing?
Steven Hanna: No, we had the old version of ZTAG. Okay. In black case. So you're in the black case? Yes.
Megan and Maddie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So we actually have a bunch of new things. So have you turned the system on before? Have you kind of gone through everything?
Megan and Maddie: Anything we're just waiting to? Okay. So yes, I have it. I've. Turn it on. Do I have to set up an account with it?
Steven Hanna: So you can skip that for now. There should be a skip for now option.
Megan and Maddie: Yes. Okay. Okay. Skip that. Perfect.
Steven Hanna: So from your previous version of your kit, you probably only had one game on there, right?
Megan and Maddie: Yes. Now we've got eight.
Steven Hanna: So we've got a few different things going on. I'm not going to take up too much of your time, but I do want to walk through each of the games because I think your staff can use them in a variety of different ways.
Megan and Maddie: Yes.
Steven Hanna: All right. So the first thing is just take out like two or three of the ZTAGGERS and turn them on by pressing the little red button on the left side of them. So it's on the upper left-hand portion of the screen. Not the screen. On the left side. Okay. Perfect.
Megan and Maddie: And then you should hear them beep once and then they should turn on in like two or three seconds. Okay. I have three of them on right now.
Steven Hanna: Sweet. In the top right corner of one of those, you should see a battery indicator, correct?
Megan and Maddie: Yes. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Just pay attention. Right next to that on the left, there's going to be a signal indicator. There are going to be a few letters and numbers and maybe like a signal bar that come up in a few seconds.
Megan and Maddie: When those come up, just let me know. Yep. One of them has it right now.
Steven Hanna: Okay. So the rest are still getting turned on and added in. So they'll turn on in like a few seconds and you should see that icon here. They're all good to go. Perfect. So the two things on your ZTAGGERS that you're going to pay attention to are that little battery indicator that we just went over and those signal bars.
Megan and Maddie: That signal bar indicates that that little ZTAGGER is communicating with the main system. Okay.
Steven Hanna: So in the event that you do not see that, you could just tap that little red button once and reset it. So it's like a quick troubleshooting step.
Megan and Maddie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: There are two ways to turn off those little watches, the ZTAGGERS. You could press the red button twice on the side. You don't have to do it right now. Or you could just drop it right into the dock. That starts the charge sequence. Okay. When you're starting up a game, what I will say is, if you are indoors, and you are, in the top right corner, if you're in an office right now, there's a little volume icon on a home screen. You're going to want to tap that and bring it down to like one or two, just so that it's not super, super loud in a small space. I ran into that a few times, and now I just tell people, let's not run into that with you. On your device, you should also see that represented on the little watch. There should be a one next to the volume indicator.
Megan and Maddie: Yep, see that too. Perfect.
Steven Hanna: So those are kind of, I don't know about the black system, but this is kind of the new system and the new icons to pay attention to on the device. When you get into the games, if you would like, tap on Red Light, Green Light for me.
Megan and Maddie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So you've heard or played Red Light, Green Light before, or you've hosted it before. You know that it's like a Red Light, Green Light, one, two, three, turn around. let's type of game. However, our version of red light, green light is slightly different. The watch can detect if they are moving on red.
Megan and Maddie: So it uses like three or four different sensors to detect their movement. And if they are caught on red, it will detect that and it will either boot them out of the game or take a few points away. Okay. So there should be a little description screen of red light, green light in front of you.
Steven Hanna: So this is always going to be here for your operators if they ever just need a quick guide on, hey, how do I run through this? This will always start up at the beginning of the game. If you hit next, you should be at the Tagger Assign screen, which is Assign All, or you can put individual people in. You can just tap Assign All, and it'll move everybody to the right.
Megan and Maddie: Okay. Now, if you look down at your device, your ZTAGGER, you should see that screen.
Steven Hanna: Does it say get ready or like red and green light?
Megan and Maddie: No, it's just flashing between red light and green light now. Do you want me to hit next on the box now?
Steven Hanna: So if you hit next... Okay. This is where you'll have your startup screen. It'll say, get ready.
Megan and Maddie: Yes. And now it says, get ready. And then the screen says, stop match.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Is there a little settings gear icon in the top right corner of the big screen? No.
Megan and Maddie: Okay. Go back one screen. Okay. Now there's a setting gear. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Hit that little gear icon for me.
Megan and Maddie: Okay. So one really cool thing about this is that you can differentiate it for your youngers and your olders. Okay.
Steven Hanna: If you would like, this is how I personally run this. I run it in a set of threes. I keep the time limit at 60 seconds because you do not need much longer than that.
Megan and Maddie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: The sensitivity setting, you can keep lower or medium for your youngers. For your olders, you can set it to medium or high. And then there's an option for negative scoring. Negative scoring, if that box is checked, that means when they're caught on red, they'll just lose a few points instead of getting kicked out. Okay.
Megan and Maddie: So if that box is off...
Steven Hanna: So don't worry about writing notes or anything. I have like this AI thing that's going to send you this over.
Megan and Maddie: Yep.
Steven Hanna: Don't worry.
Megan and Maddie: We're going to talk.
Steven Hanna: I'm talking fast. And this is going to literally put it in like note order for you and like bullet points. Yep. Perfect. I was like, all right, it looks like she's moving her arm really quick and I'm talking really fast here.
Megan and Maddie: Okay. Yes. Perfect.
Steven Hanna: Thank you. Don't worry about it. Just focus more on the actual like touching the equipment and like holding back.
Megan and Maddie: Okay. Perfect. Because this is kind of like a new tech overload for you with a lot of new games.
Steven Hanna: Yes. Yes. So I'd rather have you focus on that and then just refer to this as needed. Okay.
Megan and Maddie: Perfect. Thank you so much. You got it.
Steven Hanna: So with your settings for your youngers, you're looking at 60 seconds. Yeah. And I'll also send you all of my settings that I give you like the entire settings that we discuss here.
Megan and Maddie: Okay. Perfect. pull the format for you too.
Steven Hanna: Okay. The younger is they're going to go for 60 seconds, lower to medium sensitivity, negative scoring is checked. So if they're caught, they'll lose points, but they'll always be in for 60 seconds. If you take that checkmark off negative scoring, if they got caught on red, they'll just get knocked out instead of lose points.
Megan and Maddie: So it makes it a little bit more competitive.
Steven Hanna: And that's where I say for the olders or the last game, that's where I make it a knockout round or make it competitive. Yes.
Megan and Maddie: Okay, perfect.
Steven Hanna: So if you wanted to, you can start the game, just move the watch around. You can exit the little setting screen. And then go to the next. And then just hit start match. And you'll see that countdown for three, two, one, go.
Megan and Maddie: Yes. And with your watch, just like shake it around, move it around a little bit.
Steven Hanna: And you'll just see how the watch picks up the movement, earns points. And you can see that represented on the screen, also the bigger screen.
Megan and Maddie: Yes.
Steven Hanna: So your operators will basically have a bird's eye view of everybody in the game and how they're doing. If they do get caught on red. they can that. Why? With the negative scoring enabled, they are just deducted a few points. And if they're caught without negative scoring, it's an elimination.
Megan and Maddie: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: So for this, what I like to do, if you have like a half a gym or a cafeteria, what I do is I set up cones on one side of the gym. And then I set up cones on the other side of the gym, other side of the gym, so that I have them target move towards the other area. So when I start this, I say, we're going to move from cone set to cone set. And when we reach the end of the cones, we're going to stop, hold our watches up, and turn around so that we're not going to bump into any of our friends.
Megan and Maddie: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: So it's kind of like a hand-eye coordination, you know, development game in that sort of way. If you hit stop match or it'll end on its own, you'll see that the person who wins will also have a rainbow LED sequence on the side of their watch.
Megan and Maddie: Oh, that's fun. Yeah, it's a cool little motivator. It's like, at the end of each round.
Steven Hanna: So I do a practice round. And what I say with everybody is, is it okay if we do a practice round?
Megan and Maddie: So. That we just see how it works. Yeah. they all say yes.
Steven Hanna: Then at the end of the practice round, the person with the rainbow watch, I say, hey, can you just hold your hand up really quick so we can see what that rainbow watch looks like? And then I explain what the rainbow watch looks like.
Megan and Maddie: That's really fun. Yes.
Steven Hanna: It's cute. It's fun. It's like a nice little sense of achievement. And it's not like any risk is involved. It's just play the game and enjoy it with your friends.
Megan and Maddie: Yeah. That's super cute.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. That's red light, green light. Okay.
Megan and Maddie: So back out of that game and go back to your home screen. Okay. The next game that I like to play is a game called Pattern Match or Shape Match.
Steven Hanna: There's like a color, circles, triangles. Yeah. This game is basically like Uno, except instead of matching a number, you're going to be matching a shape.
Megan and Maddie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So same concept of matching a color, except now you're matching a shape as well.
Megan and Maddie: Okay. If you start the game up, I'm just going to have you see what it looks like.
Steven Hanna: Like, because it's easier to see it and then I'll explain it rather than the opposite. Now you'll see each of these devices is going to have a color and a shape.
Megan and Maddie: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: If you can imagine like 20 kids or like 15 kids kind of having these on their wrists and trying to call out whichever color or shape they have, find a partner and link their watches together. They don't have to tap them. They just have to get them close enough to each other.
Megan and Maddie: Right. So same way in Zombie Tag, was close enough. This is the same concept.
Steven Hanna: So this is the second game that I play to reinforce tagging and show them how to actually tag.
Megan and Maddie: Okay. Red Light, Green Light is more like a startup. Yeah. And then I just scaffold the skills to lead up to Zombie Tag. So it's really just leading right into it.
Steven Hanna: For this game, if you hit the stop match, I will show you some of the settings on this and just go over how I run this one.
Megan and Maddie: So you might have to go back one screen to the settings. Yes. Yes. But know, tried play Yes. Yes.
Steven Hanna: And here's where you can cognitively load the heck out of it. So different colors, different shapes. What I recommend is keep this game simple because it can kind of fall apart pretty quick if it doesn't, you know. 60 seconds, once again, is my timer on this one. I run it in a set of three. The first game, we're going to focus on color only. The second game, we're going to focus on shape only. The third game, we can focus on color and shape.
Megan and Maddie: So I'm just building up those skills and it's all within three minutes.
Steven Hanna: So they're going to be quickly engaged. They're not going to lose that type of attention span. And honestly, when you see them start to call out the colors and the shapes and like communicate, it sounds insane, but it's the funniest thing to hear like a bunch of kids screaming colors and shapes for no other reason other than to match them together. I don't know. For me, it's just hilarious to watch. So that's color match, pattern match and shape match. Really good game to read. It's force tagging. What I like to do with this is I take two volunteers and I add them in at the start. So you can also add individual people in as opposed to the whole group. Yes. So if you look at the number of the tagger, what I like to do is I ask for two volunteers to come up for this game and I ask them, hey, what are the numbers of your taggers? I'm going to add you in.
Megan and Maddie: You two are the only people that are going to be in.
Steven Hanna: I have them stand about 10 or 15 feet away from each other. Then I have them turn their watches towards each other and walk towards each other until they hear and see the watches going off. They don't have to match, but they just need to see how far away they can interact.
Megan and Maddie: Okay, perfect.
Steven Hanna: This is a really good way to model tagging and this will protect the lifespan of your ZTAGGERS. The more bumps you have, the more likely it is that it will degrade over time. It's like, you know, just dropping a cell phone. You drop it enough times. It's like going to going to crap out. Yeah, so keep that in mind with this. If you back out of this game and go. Back to your home screen. There's a game called Math Match. Yes.
Megan and Maddie: This is the game that I like to use to slow things down. This is what I like to call my punishment game. However, it's not my punishment game according to like kids who like math. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: In the same way that we were just matching a color and a shape, now we will be matching math problems. Oh, that's fun.
Megan and Maddie: Right.
Steven Hanna: So jump into the settings on this one before you start it up, just so that you can see what there is. You can focus on two to four different operations at a time and have your low and high range of numbers, depending on what you would like to focus on. For your youngers, addition and subtraction are going to be the easiest thing to do. For your olders, multiplication and division. For the kids who are in middle school, I throw in the mix of things and then they forget math and it's the funniest thing for them to be ego-driven and then go, oh, geez. Yeah.
Megan and Maddie: have I gotten myself into?
Steven Hanna: So you can change in. Fiddle with the settings on this, and then when you're ready, you can start it up just to see what the devices look like on the screens. So you only have three out right now. What might happen is they might be the same math problem for a little while. And the reason why that is, is it's about a 15-second timer, and then the math problems and answers cycle. This is so that if anybody does get stuck, they're not stuck for longer than 15 seconds, and they'll have another opportunity to solve the problem.
Megan and Maddie: So is one the math problem and one the answer?
Steven Hanna: Yes. So if you take a few more of them out and just start turning them on, you'll see that a few of them will get added in as the problem, and some of them will get added in as answer. Okay.
Megan and Maddie: So it's kind of tough with two or three of them, but if you have like seven or eight, you'll have a better idea on how that works. There'll be multiple math problems and multiple answers.
Steven Hanna: Correct. Okay, gotcha.
Megan and Maddie: I'm fouling you now. Okay. Yep.
Steven Hanna: So that one's kind of my punishment game, you know, when the group's... A rowdy. go, fine, we're doing math. And they go, what do you mean?
Megan and Maddie: And I go, you're solving math problems for two minutes. Yeah, I have a second grader that loves math. She's going to be begging me to play this all the time when she's here.
Steven Hanna: So here's something really cool that you can do with those cones once again. If you have people who don't want to play this game and she really wants to play it, if you have seven or eight cones, take seven or eight of the ZTAGGERS and just, you see the little Velcro, right?
Megan and Maddie: Yes.
Steven Hanna: Just literally drop it over the top of the cone, spread them out throughout the gym, and have her do an agility math game where she's solving the problem and she has to go up and see the different cones and try and match with the different cones.
Megan and Maddie: Yeah. Right now we're in our slow time here at Kids Quest 2, but we only have like one or two kids in the evening. So that'll be a lot of fun for those kids, even with the color match one.
Steven Hanna: It really is. This is like something new that we just started talking about and I was like, wait, they have these like cool little agility lights that the kids are always trying to like touch and like score high scores. Why don't we just adapt it to a larger space in a gym where they actually have to run back and forth now? Yeah, that'd be lot of fun for them. Yeah, it's a cool way to do it, and that's a really nice thing. If you needed to do that for three kids, it's really great, because then they could be like this 1v1v1 agility map game, or 1v1v1 pattern matching game, right?
Megan and Maddie: Yeah, no, thank you for that idea. Yeah, it's definitely a really, really great one for a younger, smaller audience. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: So if you go back to, any questions on this one?
Megan and Maddie: No, nope.
Steven Hanna: Okay, if you jump back to your home screen. Yes.
Megan and Maddie: The next game that we go through is Word Wave. Okay.
Steven Hanna: And in this game, same exact pattern concept, matching concept, math concept, but with a language now. So, we have Spanish, and I believe French as our target languages, and English as our native language. This is a really great game. Let's You do need about 10 people to play.
Megan and Maddie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So this is a little bit more of a larger group because you need three to four very, very fluent Spanish speakers or French speakers that are going to go to the Spanish team or French team. And then your English team is going to be your native English speakers. Okay. And they're going to have to match a flashcard word to one another.
Megan and Maddie: Oh, that's fun. Right.
Steven Hanna: So, you know, the example I use is Manzana for the Spanish speakers and Apple for the English speakers.
Megan and Maddie: So they would have to find each other within the group and those two kids would have to match with each other. Okay. So same exact thing before, if you wanted to put a few of these out on the cones and just have them try that as well. Cool, cool way to play as well. That, yeah. No, we actually, for some, we have some kids also come to Kids Quest that speak, we don't have a lot of Spanish speakers that work here with us. And kids come here that speak Spanish. And we do. Okay. Okay. We don't have a lot of games for them. And so this is awesome. Yes, this would be a great game to include them in for inclusion. You're going to laugh.
Steven Hanna: They actually become the stronger players. They're stronger than the English players because they have a bilingual component already embedded.
Megan and Maddie: Yes, I can imagine.
Steven Hanna: You'll see that some of the Spanish speakers start to delegate where the English speakers go. And the English speakers are like, what's going on? And it's this cool, weird, like, cultural reversal. I don't know. I always find this really interesting to see when, like, the English speakers don't know what's going on.
Megan and Maddie: Yes. I'm a teacher and my wife is a teacher.
Steven Hanna: So, like, when we see this classroom reversal, it's really, like, sociologically interesting.
Megan and Maddie: Yeah, I Because you see, like, the egos start to play into effect.
Steven Hanna: And then you see, like, all right, well, maybe for this one, I really do need to, like, work with someone else and collaborate. I don't know what the heck I'm doing here. And then you see the egos being squashed. And then you see this cool.
Megan and Maddie: Collaboration occur. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: This is a really fun one. It's you do need about 10 people to play eight. It works with eight. It'll be challenging, but 10 is the 10 is a good number for this.
Megan and Maddie: Okay, perfect. Thank you.
Steven Hanna: Yep. And if you go back to your home screen.
Megan and Maddie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Next game that we like to go through is a game called Sequence Train in the bottom right. Okay. Pattern Recognition Number Solving. So choose your puzzle of what you would like the numbers to go up by. I choose natural numbers because those are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and those are the easiest.
Megan and Maddie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: And for this game, everybody has to tag the next person in the sequence. So number one is going to have a flashing watch at the start.
Megan and Maddie: Yes. They need to find number two.
Steven Hanna: Number two needs to tag them. They need to find number three. Number three needs to tag them.
Megan and Maddie: It sounds challenging.
Steven Hanna: It sounds weird as I describe it. But there is a phys ed teacher in Wisconsin who came up with a variant of this game where they They do a tag-in method. Now, it starts out, and I'm going to show you my crappy drawing, but if you imagine, I don't know if that's going to show, hold on, I've to unblur this. Let's see. So, this person right here starts off with the tagger. They're number one. Now, every person around the circle is another player with another number.
Megan and Maddie: Yes. Number one is looking for number two.
Steven Hanna: Let's say this one's number two. We'll draw this in.
Megan and Maddie: Number, oh, it's not mirrored.
Steven Hanna: I'm sorry.
Megan and Maddie: This is terrible. Number one.
Steven Hanna: You understand, though. Yes.
Megan and Maddie: Number one is over here.
Steven Hanna: Number two is over here. Yes. Number two says, I have number two, and they're going to run in and tag in. Up to number one. Yes.
Megan and Maddie: So, now, number one.
Steven Hanna: one. Is going to rotate out. Right, exactly. So the person who has the flashing watch is in the center. Yeah. Always going to be tagging into the center. Yes.
Megan and Maddie: And that person tags out.
Steven Hanna: Perfect. So this is kind of a fun variant of it. It works a lot more efficient than just who's got number one and everybody's like just crowding around each other. Yes. So that's sequence train. What I like to do with that is I use the previous high score as a motivator for the next round. And I say, okay, you guys got 12. Let's see if we can get 13 in the next, you know, minute. So, yep, that's sequence train. If you jump back to your home screen. Okay. The last two that we're going to actually have three. We'll go over rock, paper, scissors. Okay. I use rock, paper, scissors as a ice breaking game. Instead of making it competitive, I use it as a puzzle solve. At the start of the game. Everyone's watch is going to be red, blue, or green. Each of those colors correspond to rock, paper, or scissors.
Megan and Maddie: Yes.
Steven Hanna: You can play this competitively where they have to go after one another and have to try and tag. However, the puzzle-solving ice-breaking game is really effective. I say, I don't care what color you're on at the start, what team you're on at the start. could be rock, paper, or scissors. By the end of this minute, you all have to be on the same team. And all it does is prompt them to interact with one another. Whatever color they're on, they don't really know how the game works. They just know that they need to interact with one another and get on the same color. Okay. So they figure out how the colors work on their own and how to solve the puzzle on their own. That's the most effective way that I see it personally work with youngers. With olders, it does work very effectively with regular rock, paper, scissors.
Megan and Maddie: Okay. If you jump back to your homes.
Steven Hanna: Actually, if you want to start it to just see, you can. If you want to jump back to your home screen, that's up to you. All right.
Megan and Maddie: I am back at the home screen.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Next game is going to be a game called Keep Away.
Megan and Maddie: Okay. This game can be played in two ways. The first game is actual keep away where the person with the ball is going to be running away from everybody. Okay. I personally don't like that because I don't like to see a bunch of people going after one person. Yes.
Steven Hanna: I reverse it and make it hot potato. Okay. The person with the ball has the hot potato. They have to give that to somebody else.
Megan and Maddie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: With that, you'll find that if you have one player who's the hot potato and there's like 16 people playing, a lot of people are just going to be standing on the outskirts. If you jump into your settings in this game, you can add multiple balls for Keep Away. This is to make it so that you can have multiple hot potatoes, you can have multiple balls, and you can assign those to specific people if you need to.
Megan and Maddie: Okay. Okay. Okay.
Steven Hanna: This is going to be kind of one of those variant games where you'll see how it works the most effective with your groups and you'll modify it as needed. What I like to do is I like to say a one to four ratio on person to ball. That's that's the good number to keep in mind.
Megan and Maddie: OK.
Steven Hanna: If you want to start it, you can. It's up to you. You could just see how the ball kind of moves around. It's more of like a single tag type of game where it's like a tag, you're it. And if you have them all next to each other, they'll just go constantly back and forth.
Megan and Maddie: And the ball transfers to whatever one is closest to the tag.
Steven Hanna: Yep. So you're you're you probably have them all kind of close to each other right now. So they're going to like there's going to be some.
Megan and Maddie: Exactly.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. But if you wanted to, you can, you know, put them around the room and you can see how they individually go. So I'm not. But, you know, you do that whenever you're comfortable.
Megan and Maddie: Uh. Okay, perfect. Thank you. You got it.
Steven Hanna: So that's Keep Away or Hot Potato. Any questions on that?
Megan and Maddie: No. All right.
Steven Hanna: Last game that you guys obviously know is going to be Zombie Tag. Yes.
Megan and Maddie: If you tap on that one.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
Megan and Maddie: There's going to be zombies with doctor or without doctor. Yes. Go to the one with the doctor. Okay. If you go into your settings. Okay.
Steven Hanna: There's going to be a bunch of things here that you may or may not have seen before. I've never seen these before.
Megan and Maddie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: I'm going to take you from the top down because Zombie Tag just got really, really like complex for a second. Okay.
Megan and Maddie: But we're going to dial it down and make it very comprehensible. Okay. So your time limit is obviously how long the game is going to last for. My recommendation is if you're indoors in a gym, 120 seconds is a perfect time limit. Okay. Underneath that, you're going to have zombies on randomize, correct? Yes.
Steven Hanna: If you're indoor in a gym, start out with one or two zombies.
Megan and Maddie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Underneath that, you're going to have doctors on randomize. Yes. Same thing inside of a gym, one or two people. Okay.
Megan and Maddie: Underneath that, what's the next setting? A number of tags before infection.
Steven Hanna: That's how many lives people have now. So before, when you get tagged once, you become the zombie, right?
Megan and Maddie: Yes.
Steven Hanna: Now, you can set how many times they can get tagged before they become a zombie. So whether it's one through six, I believe, that's how many lives they have. Okay. So for a gym indoors, three is a good number. Perfect.
Megan and Maddie: Underneath that, what's your next setting? Infection duration. That's how long it takes for a person to turn into a zombie. Okay. So you can set that, I think it's set at 10 seconds by default.
Steven Hanna: If they find the doctor after they lose all their lives and their watch starts flashing, within that 10 seconds, they're saved and they get a life back. So you can increase or decrease that depending on what you would like with your groups.
Megan and Maddie: Underneath that, what do you have? Doctor heal time.
Steven Hanna: Doctor heal time?
Megan and Maddie: Sorry, doctor heal limit. Heal limit, okay.
Steven Hanna: Yes. That is how many times the doctor can heal somebody inside of the game. So if you set this to a lower number, they'll only be able to heal two or three people before they turn back into a human.
Megan and Maddie: Oh. So this is kind of a balancing mechanism where at the start of the game, the humans and the doctors are going to be slated to win. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: But as the game goes on and the doctor heals people, they're not going to be able to heal people anymore. There's no more doctors. So the humans can then kind of get gobbled up by the rest of the zombies. So humans start to win at the beginning, shifting towards the zombies winning towards the end.
Megan and Maddie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: And then there should be something called, wait, is there anything else? Nope, that's all. Okay, so if you would like to start this game up, set it so that they have three lives. I just want you to see what the, did you guys have doctors before in the game?
Megan and Maddie: Yes, we had doctors before.
Steven Hanna: I want you to see, I don't know if there's any interface changes for you on the devices, so if you start this one up, just take a quick peek, see how the devices are communicating with each other, and then just, you know, if there's anything different, you'll see. If there's anything similar, obviously you can end it.
Megan and Maddie: No, the only thing that looks different is that like you have the hearts for the lives now.
Steven Hanna: But beyond that, they all look, it's pretty much the same. Okay, then perfect. Then this is your new version of ZOMBIETEG with settings. It's basically your way to balance it out. I've seen a few different versions of this. I've I've seen a version called Doctor Defense where there's like two zombies at one side of the gym, one human at the other side, and then a bunch of doctors in the middle. And the zombies have to like get around the doctors to the humans and try and tag them at the end.
Megan and Maddie: So kind of like a version of like kind of like capture the flag. Yeah, kind of like capture the flag.
Steven Hanna: But every time they get stunned by the doctor, they have to go back to the start.
Megan and Maddie: That's fun.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, so there's like a few different variants of this. I like to do a variant where I make myself the zombie, and I just like hold on to it, and I don't let anyone know, I have them like trying to figure Yep, we do that here too. Yeah, so Secret Zombie is my version. I love that one. It's my way of having fun.
Megan and Maddie: Yeah. But that's pretty much it as far as zombie tag goes in regards to the settings and differences. Any questions on that?
Steven Hanna: No, I'm excited to play it with the kids.
Megan and Maddie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Last thing before we kind of scoot off, I'm going to show you the system. And I'm going to show you the shut-off sequence, and then you're pretty much good to go.
Megan and Maddie: Okay. So if you go to your home screen once more. Okay.
Steven Hanna: In your top right corner, you're going to see a settings icon. Sorry, my dog is... No, you're okay. Maybe she'll make a guest appearance in a few seconds when she jumps up. So in your settings icon, well, home screen, there should be four different icons. Do you see that? The four different icons at the home screen?
Megan and Maddie: So you have that volume indicator, there's a little settings icon, there's a little arrow with a little like U-turn kind of thing, and then there's the power button. Yes.
Steven Hanna: That little arrow with the U-turn is a recall feature. If the devices don't make their way back to you at the end of a session and you need to just know where they are, if you tap that, it sends like an alarm out to the devices.
Megan and Maddie: That's amazing. Yes.
Steven Hanna: So I would... No. No. I do recommend you do that inside with 10 of them right next to you because it increases the volume to like 10 and then it's just blaring. But if you did want to test that on your own, I recommend you do just so that you see how that works.
Megan and Maddie: Okay. If you jump into the little settings icon from the home screen, you should have a bunch of tabs on your left-hand side. You're going to have a Wi-Fi error right off the bat. Yep. Yes.
Steven Hanna: Wi-Fi is not needed to run the system. I'm going to stress that over and over and over. If you ever see that little error come up, just go right through it and go to the home screen and play the games. You do not need Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi is used for updating. If you need to update, we will let you know how to do that. It's connecting to your Wi-Fi and going through the tabs. But we will give you a guide on how to do that. Just cycle through your tabs and just we'll go right down the left side. count.
Megan and Maddie: Tap Tap Tap that.
Steven Hanna: that. that. Tap You haven't registered anything, so that's not going to be there. If you tap on your devices, this is where you'll be able to see all of your devices. If you have more than one unit with you at your site, then you probably won't run into a duplicate issue. But if you do run into a duplicate issue, say some of these watches are like ZTAG or 22, and there's two of them or three of them. So when all of the devices are on the dock, if you hit the Reset Device button, it'll just reset all of them numerically, one through 24.
Megan and Maddie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So if you have OCD like me, that's what I do every day. That's your devices. What's on the next?
Megan and Maddie: Firmware. If you hit on firmware, this is kind of where that update section is going to come into play. Okay.
Steven Hanna: You won't need to update anything here. You're on 7.0.26 already, and you're on 2.8.0. So you're already the most up-to-date. And as you're... Is system blue or yellow?
Megan and Maddie: Blue. I'm jealous.
Steven Hanna: Okay. You're like one of 30 people with that system. I'm like, yeah. You have one of the most updated systems, so it's already updated.
Megan and Maddie: You don't need to update anything. Perfect. Next tab.
Steven Hanna: Games. On the games, if you hit that, this is where you can select which games appear on your home screen. So say you're sending this out with another staff member and you don't want them to play a certain game on a certain day. You can physically remove it from the home screen by just unchecking it.
Megan and Maddie: Okay. Next tab.
Steven Hanna: System info. Once you register your system, if you do register your system, this is where your system data will come up and you'll be able to see a bunch of really cool data on how many steps your kids have taken, how many tags they have, how many games you guys have played. So, I do recommend you registered. It is kind of cool to see. Okay. also... If anyone needs like an efficacy reminder of like, hey, is this thing used? You'd be like, click. Yeah.
Megan and Maddie: Yes, it is.
Steven Hanna: Here's how it's like, you don't really, the screen does pictures worth a thousand words. This is where I tell anyone who's using the system, if they have admin who are wondering if you are using it, this is the screen that you just say, yes, send, and it's over.
Megan and Maddie: Okay, perfect.
Steven Hanna: Underneath that, what do you have about? Help.
Megan and Maddie: Help. Help. So three different QR codes here, if you do need help. Okay.
Steven Hanna: You can always reach out to me though. You'll have my phone number, email, and anything basically right after this. Okay. So you can reach out to me. I'd recommend that before going through there. I'm usually quicker to respond than they are.
Megan and Maddie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: And then you should have about. Yes. If you tap on the about, you should see, what do you see? Uh, it takes me back to like wanting to sign up.
Megan and Maddie: or sign into my account.
Steven Hanna: Okay. So when you do need to update, you may need to register the system.
Megan and Maddie: Okay. This is that tab that you would do that with it. Okay. If you go back to the home screen with all the games. Okay.
Steven Hanna: In the top right corner, that little power button, I'm going to take you through the power down sequence. It's very important that you go through this sequence because if you don't do this from the top down, you might corrupt your system over time and it may not turn on.
Megan and Maddie: Do the ZTAGGERS have to be in the system before I power it down?
Steven Hanna: Yes. Okay. So we're going to drop those in that little magnetic charge dock in the open spots and they should beep and they should start to turn red indicating the charge sequence. Then the ones that are green indicate the charge sequence is complete. And if they're not... ... Not like turning on, or if they're a little loose, just put a little more pressure in. But they should turn right on and go right immediately.
Megan and Maddie: Okay. We're good. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Now, in that top right corner, there's that little power button. You're going to tap that power button for me, and there's going to be two little buttons that come up. Shut down or reboot.
Megan and Maddie: Shut down for me. Okay. After about 10 seconds, there's that little silver button with the blue ring light over it. Yes. Press that for me. Okay. Wait about 10 seconds.
Steven Hanna: After that, there's a little red button that's lit up currently.
Megan and Maddie: Yes. You're going to press that. Okay.
Steven Hanna: After that, that black power cable, you're going to take it out from the system first. And then you're going to take it out from the wall. Okay. Now, inside of your system, there should have been a few things. There should have been that black power cable. There should be a little SD card, like a plastic case.
Megan and Maddie: Yes.
Steven Hanna: There should also be a little keyboard with a, yep, with a little USB attachment for it. If not, no worries. It's got batteries in it. You'll be okay.
Megan and Maddie: I believe that.
Steven Hanna: What you can do with the keyboard is take it out of the system and put it aside in another drawer with ZTAG stuff. That's not really utilized unless we need to do some troubleshooting with you. Okay.
Megan and Maddie: And we would show you how to use it then. So that's more of just a fail-safe.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Perfect.
Megan and Maddie: Other than that, you can coil up that black power cable and put it right in that little storage area behind the charge dock. Okay.
Steven Hanna: And then when you do close, and when, actually, I will say this, when you are charging, the one thing that I want to remind you of is to pay attention to that little sticker reminder to keep that glass up.
Megan and Maddie: Yes. That is very important.
Steven Hanna: Safety-wise, you want to keep as much air flowing through. It's like a computer. So, you know, just want to make sure that the heat gets out, and that's the way to do it. Okay, perfect. From there, when you close your case down and latch it, just make sure there's no resistance when you latch it down. That means that something is obviously preventing it from latching. Yes. You do know that your system has wheels and a fold-out handle?
Megan and Maddie: Yes. Okay.
Steven Hanna: That was the other thing that I'm like, let me mention that before I go.
Megan and Maddie: Yes. And then...
Steven Hanna: Other than that, Megan, that was pretty much it. That's the new system, new games, new settings, a lot of information. After like two minutes when this meeting ends, this AI, wherever it is, up, down, left, right, is going to send you our full transcript. Perfect.
Megan and Maddie: And it's a link that you can refer to at any time. Okay.
Steven Hanna: And then I'm going to send you a follow-up email with a few of the settings that I have on my system that you can adopt for whatever you need.
Megan and Maddie: Okay, perfect. Thank you so much. You got it.
Steven Hanna: Any questions for me, ZTAG, anything at all?
Megan and Maddie: Not right now. I'm excited to play it.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. Let me know. I'm probably going to reach out in like a week or two just to see like, hey, how's it going? You like it?
Megan and Maddie: Is it all right?
Steven Hanna: Yes.
Megan and Maddie: All right. Cool.
Steven Hanna: Other than that, I'm giving you homework that's not mandatory. Register your system or don't. Yes, will do.
Megan and Maddie: Take care, Megan.
Steven Hanna: Have a wonderful day.
Megan and Maddie: Yes, And it was great to chat with you. Yes, have a good one. Bye-bye. Bye.
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David: Okay, he's Okay, it's good. Okay, hi.
Steven Hanna: How are you?
David: Fine, fine. But I'm running for coming here. I'm in my wife's office. Okay. Because I have issues with my connection at home.
Steven Hanna: Okay. So then what's going on? Talk to me. Tell me what's wrong.
David: Hello. What's wrong? You see this? Yeah. Okay. Okay. I have a... Hello. For you, what's the name of this?
Steven Hanna: ZTAGGER, Watch, whatever you want.
David: Okay, watch. Okay. And this?
Steven Hanna: Zeus, main computer, big computer.
David: Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. computer. Okay. Okay. I have some watch. Okay. Some tagger who's not... Um... My English is bad.
Steven Hanna: It's OK.
David: Not charge? No. This one, not . Not open. The power on is not working. OK? But if I put on the computer, OK, you can see it's charging. OK?
Steven Hanna: Right.
David: It's charging, but it's impossible to power up.
Steven Hanna: On the top side, look at the QR code. What number is that?
David: OK. 24, 08, 16, 09. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Thank Mm-hmm.
David: 44.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Any others like that?
David: This one, too. What's that one?
Steven Hanna: But this one, not of the QR code. Okay. Okay.
David: And this one, too. Okay. This one, not the QR code, too. And this one, yes. This one is 23, 0, 9, 0, 4, 152.
Steven Hanna: Okay. So three?
David: Four, four. Four.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
David: Four was not Power One. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Two of them have zero QR code, and then the other one. Yeah.
David: Yeah. And two with the QR that I say to you. Okay. And these two, these two, not connected to the computer.
Steven Hanna: Hmm. I've tried.
David: I've tried. I tried the method you put on YouTube for the, you know, to reset.
Steven Hanna: Wi-Fi, right, right, updates.
David: Yeah, but it's not working. Do they turn on? Okay. Can they turn on or no? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Steven Hanna: Okay. When you turn them on, on the bottom, it says a number, like 2.7 point something, something. What's the number?
David: The number, where is the number?
Steven Hanna: It says, on the bottom of it, it says like 7, oh, it doesn't even say that. Okay. 7.0.26.
David: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I, oh. So it looks like it's on. Okay, okay, okay, wait, wait.
Steven Hanna: Try red light. Click it, click a game. Click red light, green light.
David: See if it changes the game. Okay. Yeah, it's good. It's good.
Steven Hanna: Okay, try the other one.
David: Okay, it's magic. I don't know. Okay, try the other one now. Okay, it's good. But, okay, it's good.
Steven Hanna: So, in the top right.
David: I'll try it again. No, it's good. It's good.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
David: Okay. Hallelujah. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Okay, so how many are broken? Four then?
David: Alors, I have many issues. Okay, I have some tagger that the screen inside is broken. Okay, but it's inside the, and it's problematic for playing with kids. Of course. Because there is no look at this one. You see it? Okay. What are the numbers on those? I don't have the numbers.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
David: No. There's the first I received with the computer.
Steven Hanna: Okay. And when did you buy the unit?
David: The computer? Mm-hmm.
Steven Hanna: Two years ago. Okay. If you look inside the little unit, is there a little serial number?
David: On the computer?
Steven Hanna: The big computer. Is there a serial number and a little sticker?
David: Okay. But really?
Steven Hanna: Inside, if you look at the screen, look down to the left in the little area where the storage is, is there a little serial sticker in there?
David: that please. Bye. Thank Bye. Bye. No, I don't see it.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
David: Go into System Setting. Look. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. System Info?
Steven Hanna: It should be in About. Account?
David: No. Device, Firmware, Games, System Info?
Steven Hanna: About.
David: About. Okay. Okay. MAC address.
Steven Hanna: Does it say serial number or no?
David: The Register Dom? No.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Try account.
David: I have a MAC address. It's not a MAC address. No. No. No. System Info.
Steven Hanna: And you got it from Action Distribution, right?
David: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The first year. The first year. The... I... I... I've loved the computer for the first time, the 4th of December, in 23.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
David: Any serial number?
Steven Hanna: Nothing, nothing, nothing.
David: Okay. I don't know where we see.
Steven Hanna: It's okay. The system is probably just a little bit older. So any other issues with the system?
David: No, no. I have an issue last year with the name of the game, the KeepAway. KeepAway got issues last year, but now it's good.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Any other game issues?
David: No, I don't know. I don't know. So just a little watch issues then, right? Just watch. The principal problem is the watch.
Steven Hanna: All right. So we have two that won't charge, and then two that have the screen problem, right?
David: No. No. Look, look. Tell me how many broken? All right. This fourth, the fourth here, okay?
Steven Hanna: One, two, three, four.
David: Don't power up, okay? Right. Power up, okay? And these two, it's just the screen, because the other is the connection, but this connection is gone down.
Steven Hanna: Okay. So six all together. Got it.
David: Yeah. I have another question. How can I change this? The, you know, the connector, the magnetic charger? Yeah, because when I, I don't know the word in English, when I put off, okay, when I take up the interior, okay, this one can be changed. You know? I'm trying to think.
Steven Hanna: Does the little port, it comes out?
David: Yeah, no, it don't come because the, the, the hole is too, too teeny. And I can change the, the connector.
Steven Hanna: It's just that one?
David: It's just this one. Because this one, not charge the, the watch.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
David: Look, look. You understand, look. If I put the watch. Right. He opened the watch, okay? He power on the watch, but not charging. Always. I don't know why. And then you put it on another one and it starts to charge. Another one is good. Look.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Got it.
David: And if I put it in here, okay, look. He power one and don't charge.
Steven Hanna: And I tried to change the connector, okay?
David: But the connector is, it's impossible to change it.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, it's a lot to get inside underneath. Okay. So I've got one, three, four, five, six, seven. Seven issues with the system. All right. I need to reach. Reach out to the tech team to just see what we can do. What's your, can I reach you on WhatsApp?
David: Is that okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Steven Hanna: Okay, what's your WhatsApp?
David: Okay, you want the number?
Steven Hanna: Yes.
David: Okay, 0033?
Steven Hanna: Mm-hmm.
David: There was, oh, 13, 14, 6, 21, 21, 36? Yeah. 27, 16. Okay.
Steven Hanna: And then what I'm going to do is just put my phone number in here as well. So you can just send me a message now as well.
David: Yeah. Yeah. don't know what feels Mr.
Steven Hanna: Huh. Thank Okay, so I just sent it into the chat.
David: Send me a message now so that I have your number.
Steven Hanna: I'm going to reach out to the support team right as we jump off, and then I'm going to see what we can do about this, and then I will text you in a little while, and I'm also going to email you as well, okay?
David: Okay, okay, okay. Do you want, just to confirm my number, do you want I send you with an email?
Steven Hanna: Yes, do that as well. So the same email that I just responded to, send it right back to me. I'm going to take a quick look at that and see if it's in there.
David: Okay, if you see, my number is on my, I don't know the word, signature.
Steven Hanna: The email signature, right?
David: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
David: You just have to put the zero. 0023 to before the 06.
Steven Hanna: 0023. Okay. Then I'm going to send you a message on WhatsApp, and I'm also going to email you quickly. My number is in the Zoom chat as well, just so that if you see it in the little chat and want to send me the message because I'm an American and I'm going to get this wrong.
David: I'm going to go to the email signature and see what we have.
Steven Hanna: 0023.
David: 6, 21, 36, 27, 16. Okay, it's good. Okay, that's a little bit. I have a question. Do you have customers that put, you know, like the phone, a glass for protecting the watches or no?
Steven Hanna: Um, we don't usually send them out. You probably have to send them back in because we need to look on the inside. If it usually has glass damage, that means something internally is also probably loosened. So we, when we get them back, we tighten everything up on the inside and then replace the glass as well. So we normally don't send it out.
David: Okay, okay.
Steven Hanna: I'm just trying to get you added in here to WhatsApp. Okay, perfect. Now that that's in, I'm going to send this recording over to the tech team. the tech team. I'm going I'm going to send them over all of your issues, and then I'm going to get back to you as soon as possible as I can today, okay?
David: Okay, okay.
Steven Hanna: All right, David. Thank you for your patience, and I appreciate it. I'm going to have a response for you, I promise.
David: Okay, thank you so much. You got it.
Steven Hanna: You can text me at this number at any time as well, okay?
David: Okay, okay, okay. All right, we'll talk soon, okay? Okay, cool. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
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Steven Hanna: Hey, Charlie. Hi.
Charlie Xu: Were you able to hear me?
Steven Hanna: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Charlie Xu: Okay.
Steven Hanna: All right. I'm just going to jump to the side for one second to grab my water, and I'll be right back.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Hi, Kris. Hey, everybody.
Kris Neal: How are you?
Quan Gan: Good to see you.
Charlie Xu: Good to see you, too.
Kris Neal: Hello.
Charlie Xu: Is it cold over there? Did you catch cold?
Kris Neal: I know. Not really. It's beautiful, actually. It's cold, but it's nice and sunny.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. It's beautiful.
Kris Neal: How about you guys? Is it cold over there?
Quan Gan: No, it's nice.
Charlie Xu: Cloudy. I'm like cloudy today. The sun's coming up. So Paula won't be able to join. She has some internet. I see you over there.
Kris Neal: So does Clancy's and Tin.
Charlie Xu: Oh. And Kermie, I think, is back on right now, but she might be trying to catch up. I see. Are these midweek check-ins for leadership or the whole team?
Kris Neal: I think they're whatever they need to be.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Steven Hanna: They're very open-ended. The first 10 minutes of every one of these is a critical crossover between any team issues that we all have to focus on, and then a branch out after that.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Good to see you guys. Francis, Paula, and Tin with issues. Okay. You as well. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Good to see everybody.
Steven Hanna: Kind of resurfacing.
Quan Gan: I finally got enough sleep in.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Then with. With that in mind, let me just pull this up over here. It's kind of just going to be us then, I guess. And then Carmee just got in. Okay. So there's Carmee.
Kris Neal: She's got a lot to do if we want to excuse her and just do the L10 or leadership. It's up to you guys.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Well, we can do an impromptu L10 today. Yeah. Hey, Carmee. Hey, Carmee.
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, I'm turning off my camera since our power is out again. It's okay.
Steven Hanna: Should I leave for you guys in the L10?
Kris Neal: Okay.
Steven Hanna: This is the midweek check-in. This is more of the support of, you know, do you need anything? Is there anything that we can do for you from our side with your tasks? Do you need to communicate with anyone here for those tasks?
Carmee Sarvida: I think I'm all good. For now, I've already. When catch up on the tasks that I haven't worked on the last couple of days, I'm back on track, and yeah, I'm very grateful for Chris's support while I was on, I was away. Thank you, Chris. Of course, Carly.
Quan Gan: I did notice that the emails going out seem more dynamic than before. I'm just curious, how has been the effect of that? Have you felt any difference?
Carmee Sarvida: On that, I think I noticed a significant difference between, yeah, from the before on response, because we've shortened the emails and actually tailored on the info. I'm actually using the sales. The ladder that Kris prepared, like adding it as my AI so that I can easily, you know, tailor my replies to the leads. Great.
Quan Gan: Good job.
Kris Neal: Yeah, great job, Carmee. I have seen them respond. I have noticed enough tips.
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, and I think, yeah, I think you've also noticed, Kris, that from like a couple of weeks, we started getting a lot of deals. Yeah, there's still, there's still for review, but I think that's a good progress compared to, I think, last month that we didn't get, you know, number of deals. But yeah, there's still in progress, and a lot of them are actually responding that they're still for review and that it's already been approved, but they're... It's like the final approval stage. So yeah, I think for me, the important thing is that they keep us in the loop, that they're still in progress, and I'm actually tagging the deals on what their statuses are. Carmee, as you mentioned that compared to the months before, are these the leads come from social media or in general? Carmee, media. Most of them are social media. We only have like a few from the web leads.
Kris Neal: Yeah, I was going to say.
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, I'm actually working on the meta-leads sheet where we can trace how many of them have responded to the reach-outs. Okay.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I do feel like we have a period of time is mostly focusing on P.E.
Carmee Sarvida: teachers. So as you said, when these P.E.
Charlie Xu: teachers start responding, are they're trying to find funds to apply for ZTAG?
Carmee Sarvida: What I'm noticing as of now, when they say that they're like out of budget, I offer them a call with Kris so that they can explore funding. And most of the time, they say that probably next time. So I tag them as nurture, and I also add a note on our sheet so that we can easily track them if we need to reach to them in the future, reach out to them in the future.
Quan Gan: I want to connect an idea and see how you guys feel about it. But, Chris, I believe... So we've had people purchase ZTAG through their own fundraising efforts, right?
Kris Neal: Yeah, the one that we know of.
Quan Gan: Okay, so can we somehow highlight them, maybe turn that into a case study to show this is how they fundraise for it? Because the message I just put into the chat, you know, they are actively also looking for it. So I'm like, maybe we have a fundraising kit. But, you know, it's like this is a ZTAG self-starting fundraiser kit in a box with graphical resources, your community posts, you know, like things that they can templatize and turn into a fundraising event to get ZTAG.
Kris Neal: That would probably take it to the next level. Sales. I really do. Yeah, that's probably a big thing coming back, the pushback, but to giving them that option that is not for them to do, but for their kids to do, I think that's huge. If we could even kind of shape it, PTA. Okay. It's really big in schools, so they would be your biggest advocate to getting that to them.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I think we can work through AI to figure out what does that kit look like. Just like, you know, how I got geo, you know, press release and all that, like AI assisted me in all the documents. So it's essentially just a Google Drive full of logos or flyers or something. Or permission slips, yeah, simple things.
Kris Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Absolutely. Do you guys feel aligned about that as they, you know, it's like, if it's over budget, it's like, okay, well, by the way, here's a fundraising kit.
Kris Neal: We almost have that already in play with the Shasta County. I wonder if we could actually highlight them when you guys trained them in January, because they did that. Remember Quan with their junior high kids? They had a tech team. the one that had the student-led team.
Quan Gan: It would be the same kind of thing they would fundraise and then lead it after.
Kris Neal: time. this. Let's you. Interesting. Okay.
Steven Hanna: For the longevity of this, it needs to be something sustainable that we can copy and paste over directly to anyone who asks about this. So we need to have the model established and we need to have that case study done. Second thing that we would need to have is a fundraiser agreement similar to, have you ever been to those fundraisers where they have like a little meter to where, you know, the fundraising goal is met, where we have three different tiers of what they can meet. The first fundraising tier is going to be like, they didn't do as much fundraising as they anticipated. It's sub $2,500. We can then offer them a discount to purchase the system. So basically each fundraising level gets an unlock towards like the higher levels of, well, not higher levels, each level that we set. So we're setting a system at what, 93 or $9,700 for schools? $97. $97. $97. So we... Basically separate it out into three tiers. Your first tier is $2,500. Your second tier is like $5,000. And your last tier is $9,000. You meet the goals for that. You basically get the system. And we can get that $700 credit down because, you know, that's $700. In my eyes, that's $700 fluff dollars to account for excess. But that $700 credit, making it $9,000 is the extra incentive for them to do the fundraising. Then, as long as they meet one, two, or three, we can offer them the incentive to purchase the system at whatever discount we select. So they at least have the option of getting up to those levels. So it keeps it open for us to still offer it out if we have a really good relationship with them. It gives them the incentive to work towards it because it's a further discount on it. And as long as they fundraise one, two, or three levels, they're either getting a system for free or not for free. They're getting a system through the fundraising or they're getting a discount on the system based on the credit that they already fundraised.
Kris Neal: It needs to be in their hands. I don't think we have the capacity to kind of manage their fundraising. So whatever it is, it's got to be fully in their hands.
Steven Hanna: Oh, yeah. No, we're not tracking that. We're just asking them, hey, what number do you guys have? Like, I just want to know what number you guys have. If you have like $7,800, I'm sure that we're not going to say you're not getting a system. You know, at that point, that's like, you've gotten close enough. Hey, is there any other fundraising that can be done? We'll extend the deadline on this. If not, we can work with you to, you know, accommodate a price. I don't want to accommodate too much pricing because I think the fundraising is like highly valuable for them. But I also don't want it to become the popcorn scenario where we're exploiting child labor to fund. Yeah, you're laughing because you know that that's the other end of the spectrum of this, right? That these kids are basically going out on behalf of their school to get this system. And we are exploiting child labor to some extent based on. Our chat GPT conversation on of the objective reality of fundraising.
Kris Neal: Or donations, but yes.
Quan Gan: I want to hear what Carmee has to say.
Kris Neal: Carmee, if someone were to come to you with $7,800 and said this was all we could fundraise, what would you respond with?
Carmee Sarvida: I'm actually thinking of, I think I've heard, best you want, that we have like the half of the 24-layer set up?
Quan Gan: Not yet, but that might be something. Remember what Quanahui says, it's an exchange of energy.
Kris Neal: So if they came with a $7,800, with that little reminder, what would you respond with? Exchange of energy.
Carmee Sarvida: They will come up with this through a final. Fundraiser, right? Mm-hmm.
Kris Neal: Remember the feedback grant? Do you remember that one? No.
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, I'm not really actually familiar with the feedback grant.
Kris Neal: That one, we're keeping kind of open, you know, we're open to exchanging of energy as far as, like, if they want to do that case study or something like that. So that's cool. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Carmee Sarvida: I remember that.
Kris Neal: Okay, so, like.
Quan Gan: really, well, sorry, I want to interject because this is awesome. I love how we're trying to, like, verbalize this exchange. I think if they're already making that much effort, this is very different from, oh, this was, like, some, you know, ELOP budget that the district just bought and airdropped in, right? Like, they are so engaged in getting this to the finish line. Okay. Thank That energy is actually way more than the price of the product.
Kris Neal: So can you imagine if we were to say, please send us your pictures, send us your progress. We would love to highlight that. I'm not saying like anything further, but just to see what they've done to do that. I think it would be just as equal.
Steven Hanna: and also just to further highlight that this is basically the bottom of the funnel. This is not someone who's at the top. This is someone who has literally gone down every avenue and is now saying, I need money. That is it. The only barrier for me now is money, and I'm working for it. So as far as energy goes, this person or this entity, this district, this afterschool program, whatever it is that's going for this, has already gotten one person who is fully invested. And that is something that if they're that invested from the get-go, and they're a few hundred dollars. A few thousand dollars short. There can be some other exchange that we can have, right? The photos, the social media, the, you know, testimonial, the, this is what we're going to need. We're going to need data. We're going to need this, like, and we're going to check up on you and we're going to make sure that you guys do that. And if you don't do it, like, listen, there's nothing that we can actually do, but we can say, hey, you know, I just want to remind you that we did go out of our way to make sure that you guys have this. And, you know, we would like, we would appreciate it if you could at least provide some sort of transfer here. Like, the finance is there. They're already at the end of it. Now the transfer is what other type of energy is there? Is there a social media energy to this? Is there a playmaker energy? Is there a person who's leaving their district who has money, who wants to purchase ZTAG on the side for their own little side business? Like, there are so many avenues here. So maybe we don't set the fund. Razor at the value of $9,000. Maybe we set it at $8,000, $8,500. Make it a little bit more accessible so that they can reach that, you know, top level.
Quan Gan: So I want to also express a couple of other dimensions to consider. I would probably keep the 97 just for keeping it consistent, but there's so many other extensions of our own energy to match their energy. So the first thing I wanted to kind of just help us calibrate is I would value a school that has fundraised for ZTAG way higher than a district that purchased ZTAG on behalf of the schools and just dropped it in because the schools didn't necessarily have buy-in, right? We've seen systems just sitting on the shelf for a year because the district bought it for them and they have no idea. You could be sure as heck that someone who fundraises for ZTAG, they'll want PD, right? Like, because they're so bought in that... The money is actually the last gate for them. The buy-in is actually the most important. So the amount of energy I would propose to even extend is rather than discounting the 97, someone should show up and do their launch. Like hand deliver, white glove, the ZTAG, like you fundraise for this, host a ZTAG day as your finish line. We'll come out and host it for you. That's our discount.
Steven Hanna: I like that more. But think about your finance and cost to the company at that point, because then it's going to cost time, energy, and money. And I know that it's worth the value at that point.
Quan Gan: I just want to say be considerate of that number as part of this. Yeah, mean, didn't we kind of ballpark a site visit on the order of probably what, like $1,500 hard costs, right? If planned correctly, yeah, just sub-2K.
Steven Hanna: If planned incorrectly and it needs to be emergency visited, about $4
Quan Gan: Okay, yeah. So let's just say that is kind of worked into the calculus of it because they're already vested. Giving them a launch will also generate a lot of residual word of mouth, lower incidences, you know, aftercare, like they're so bought in. So I think that's worth a visit. And I think as we scale, know, just like how, Steve, your Playmaker developer role is designed to get to a certain capacity at which we're going to have to replicate. It's like a, you know, like a cell dividing. We're have to have another role, but yeah, it will replicate with the number of system sales of that type.
Steven Hanna: I think this is really actually way more valuable than just providing the discount because that hands-on approach, and this is something where it's invite your friends, invite your other teachers, the other teachers from the other districts, right? They want to see this. Some of these schools that can't. Before this, that have gone the fundraising, they are the marketing, right? Like it's almost a free system. And at that point, they are going, no, we didn't pay for it. We just, we did the fundraiser. took us two and a half months, but we got it. And now we have it. So I think that's a really, really powerful tool that we can kind of foster and nurture from a basic human to human understanding of, all right, you're not going to be able to buy this system for $10,000. Work on it over time. Make it an experience with your kids, a learning experience. They'll appreciate the system more because they worked for it, right? Like these are things that we need to include in this type of package here. I do want to say, let's limit this to about another five to seven minutes because I do want to go over the IAPA stuff. That is kind of crucial. So, but yes, I think the value of it and us being there physically, once again, we've only gotten positive. let's at this type of So we just continue doing that.
Quan Gan: I also want to add that I've seen this happen for other programs. Like we used to go to Diamond Bar School and host ZTAG. mean, that's their band fundraiser. They fundraise like 30K in a day. But the amount of like lifting between all the parents and the students. And this is for a subgroup, right? Like this is for their band group to go to New York or do something. I mean, ZTAG is for the entire school. So, you know, I think this, once you can frame it in the right way and get that buy-in, I think it could be very explosive.
Kris Neal: So not only a fundraiser for them to earn, but a fundraiser for them to keep earning. I like that. Cool. And then when you said, Steve, about inviting others. I'm It was nice. Bye Bye I would hate for it to look like that. I'm just going to say it out there so that AI can catch it. It feels better if it were to come celebrate with us, celebrate what our kids have done with us. Oh, yeah.
Steven Hanna: However we format that is whatever we format it as, 100%. But I do want to just open that up to say these educators have other educator friends within their districts that are not in the same school. So for them to at least see it and be a part of the experience, to be like, hey, look at what the kids did, look at what we did exactly like you said, I think that framing is really important for them.
Charlie Xu: So I think this situation actually, I feel like quite important. It could be also a milestone for our companies because also when we're discussing with Ken to bring this as a bridge to the community to bring kind of like doing a network, this movement we're doing are really, really powerful case study of what we are. We're in a way of doing this. So, yeah, I definitely feel like at the very early stage to having Ricardo over there, recording everything, make a great case study to inspire what other people can do, not only just rely on the school funds. It's a very community-focused program, like events. It really is. Yeah, it's great. I feel like even, like, it's a great marketing opportunity for us as well. I wish they would respond.
Kris Neal: The one that I reached out to, she hasn't responded yet, so I'll try to nudge her again. I think she's in New York. That's the one that I called you right away about, Steve. It's like two hours from you.
Steven Hanna: New York, New York.
Kris Neal: Yeah. Remind me one more time. What town? Two weeks. I don't remember. It's south of you. I just remember. don't It's on the other side of that water, so. New Jersey?
Steven Hanna: Oh, New Jersey. No, that's New Jersey.
Quan Gan: No.
Steven Hanna: Absolutely.
Kris Neal: Oh, that's right!
Quan Gan: New Jersey, okay? He said something about snow. Absolutely.
Steven Hanna: You said it's on the other side of the water.
Kris Neal: I'm like, no, no. That place doesn't exist.
Steven Hanna: It's a fairytale land where people go to hide. I don't care what anyone says.
Kris Neal: You did say something about the smell now that I remember.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, it's smelly, and people go there to hide, so they're not really hiding if you can smell them, right?
Quan Gan: Like, that's.
Kris Neal: Carmee, if there's nothing else, we will let you go. All right, thank you.
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah. You can see my Bible heads.
Kris Neal: Bye.
Carmee Sarvida: Bye.
Kris Neal: Take care.
Steven Hanna: Bye. Bye.
Quan Gan: Bye. Bye. Bye.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
Quan Gan: Should we jump right into IAPA stuff? Yes, please.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Charlie, hold on. Chris, yes. Stop me.
Kris Neal: No, stop.
Steven Hanna: Stop the train.
Kris Neal: What's up?
Steven Hanna: I could just get a yes or a no.
Kris Neal: I know you guys said the emails are long.
Quan Gan: Can I just send the bloody things, please? That's fine. Something is better than nothing. Thank you.
Kris Neal: Steve, I'm so sorry. Please. It's fine.
Steven Hanna: Don't appeal to his email, you know, retentive things, okay?
Quan Gan: Yeah. You can override me. It's just my opinion. I think everything's too long, but yeah, I get so many emails every day.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. Well, you're in it, okay? Desensitize yourself to this. Cool. Those emails look fine, Chris. If you need another person who needs contrast, they look great and fine. And if I'm looking at them and reading them, it takes me an extra 14 seconds to read. Okay, anything else, Kris, before we jump into IAAPA stuff? Okay, any mission-critical stuff between all teams?
Charlie Xu: Yes.
Steven Hanna: So for the video, and Quan, make sure the video is open for access to everyone.
Quan Gan: Is it not?
Charlie Xu: I didn't. Well, no, we need to post it on, we have to post it.
Quan Gan: Wait, wait, just, Charlie, I looked at it, and it looks like it is.
Kris Neal: See, this is it right here. Anyone with the link, it's, they're given access, so we're good.
Quan Gan: I don't want this to be in Google. I think this needs to be on YouTube with a link. So I uploaded it here just so someone can post it onto YouTube.
Steven Hanna: Out of curiosity, why wouldn't we have a separate site page with this on our website? This is a pretty crucial thing that we should.
Quan Gan: but it's hosted on YouTube. So that it can be found.
Charlie Xu: I think it would be better just, because I think I've been talking with Carmen before, is it related to these things, but I do feel like this can be another page on our, like a hidden page on our website, instead of direct them to the YouTube, because YouTube, it will come up with other feeds, it's distracting.
Quan Gan: Yes, well, the same thing with all of our training videos, they need to be hosted on YouTube, so you can have an active link that can be sent to people, but it's embedded into a dedicated page on our website.
Steven Hanna: So yes, it is on YouTube, Charlie, but it's like a direct link on our website, where it just plays on the website. Like, they don't have to go to YouTube, it's just going to be played on the website itself. So they click on our support safety upgrade, and it automatically on our page is playing.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. Is that going to be on the website, the safety update?
Steven Hanna: I personally think that should be a new webpage. That's a pretty significant thing that we should consider putting as a header.
Kris Neal: Hidden or non-hidden?
Steven Hanna: A header? No.
Charlie Xu: A hidden page, just through the link, they direct them to that page, but not everyone. Those are the ways the page will see it. Got it.
Kris Neal: I'm telling Clancis right now to put it on a hidden page then. But it needs to go on YouTube first. Yes. Got it. Correct. Thanks, guys.
Steven Hanna: And then, like, a GPT, a nice little YouTube description. Got some nice taglines in there.
Quan Gan: Yeah, because even in the YouTube, in the description, yeah, you'll need to have the proper links to the forms. Because I mentioned specifically, you know, at the bottom of this video. So that should be replicated both in the YouTube description and also on this page. It is a hidden page that you can have a direct link to. I do think it should be indexed, though, if people are looking for it. Let's say they're doing a Google search or something, they should be able to find it organically still.
Kris Neal: What did you call it?
Steven Hanna: Indexed. Indexed, thank you. Basically, makes it Google searchable, but it's not going to be readily available as, like, if people are navigating on our website.
Kris Neal: Got it. Thank you. Cool.
Steven Hanna: Thank you. . I just want say, I'm really excited about that fundraising pack. That's really exciting to think about. It motivated me. I'm looking at this on my other monitor that I have notes on, and I'm like, that's pretty powerful for a school in a rural area that is not able to purchase this type of system. That's a dang powerful tool we're going to give them.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, and I definitely feel like it has to turn it into like a ceremony, you know, like it's just have that.
Steven Hanna: this Olympic ceremony where we're like lighting the torch with some bow and arrow. Okay, so who's taking the lead on this thing? Oh, come on. Don't do that already. All right, listen. I just wanted to say I'm happy and motivated for it. We're not planning for that literally right now.
Quan Gan: This is IAPA time. We're seven minutes in. Okay. Okay.
Steven Hanna: We'll to get it done.
Quan Gan: I'll work with Charlie.
Charlie Xu: All right, let's – That was the first question.
Steven Hanna: All right, so who's taking the wheel? We all are, the answer is.
Quan Gan: I'd like to take the wheel on it, but it's just going to take some time. Yeah, yeah, let's figure out the IAPA stuff first.
Steven Hanna: Anything else mission critical between all departments that we need to kind of go over before we jump into IAPA? Anybody at all?
Quan Gan: I do have a quick update on Code Red and my intention with it. So this is with Celebrity as well because they're still looking for me to respond to them. It would be good for Steve, you and I, to get on a Zoom call with Emily and Kyle from Celebrity probably tomorrow or sometime this week because they are also pending the two new system purchases. Yeah, so it's kind of interrelated because the V2, because of one incident, they've pulled it. So we want to address them. And to show that the V3 should be addressing these issues, but we also need to provide additional PD to make sure they're up-to-date and how to handle it.
Steven Hanna: Zoom call with Celebrity.
Charlie Xu: Also, Quan, the access to their platform, we need to update our banking information. I will try to reach out, like, I will try to access, but somehow I think you need to do it. Okay.
Steven Hanna: All right. All right. So I'm going to leave you to set that up as you've had main comms with them, and it does appear better coming from you than it does me. So let me know whenever you want to schedule that, and let's do it.
Quan Gan: Okay. Any other mission-critical updates between all departments?
Steven Hanna: Anyone at all?
Kris Neal: updates? For the code red, there's a few things I just want to make sure that we have or are at in the process. The one pager, Charlie, and the safety stickers, those and the SD card are going to go out to the ones that want to deferred. So I just want to make sure that you are handling them. Tin will be reaching out to you, letting you know when with a... Yeah, currently I haven't started working on any of these yet, like stickers.
Charlie Xu: I need to verify what's going on with the correct information you need to put on the stickers. And for the page, so for the page, so I also want to verify is there like two versions? One is V2 and one is V3. So for the V3, we're still waiting for the new physical device we can take a photo with and update on that.
Quan Gan: They have the same... They have the same... So once you get the V3, you could take a photo of it and get the stickers.
Charlie Xu: mean, the one-sheet instructions, we need to print two versions. So do you think the V3, update V3 version, people will reach us through this red, core red thing?
Quan Gan: No, I think the code red really only applies to V2 because everything from Steve coming on board and later should already have very low risk because they're properly trained and the new systems have additional safety measures in there. Okay.
Charlie Xu: Oh, yeah, and also for the SD card, since they're going to ship back the ZTAggers, would it be good for them to ship back the SD card as well so we can collect in the data? Because we're going to send them a new one anyway. It's
Quan Gan: It's not that easy to load up. mean, sure, yeah, have them send it back to us. That's okay.
Charlie Xu: But yeah, I feel like they're probably need to be okay, but if it's necessary, we can have them back. If you don't think it's necessary, we just don't A lot of work.
Quan Gan: I was going to say, are you going to do something with them?
Kris Neal: Because if not, it's just another one additional step.
Steven Hanna: on. What's a lot of work? As I peer in here with my teacher questioning.
Kris Neal: Hold on.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. What's a lot of work? Because now that you've taught me how to do these memory cards, okay?
Quan Gan: Okay, fine. I'll tell you. It's not something you could just pop in the memory card and read a certain file because it's baked into the binary. So you'd have to load it onto a Zeus or a Raspberry Pi to then go in and find the menu. Do you see if your intern can do this?
Charlie Xu: Your intern?
Quan Gan: Probably. I mean, we can- can- can can What We can make an automated system.
Steven Hanna: more annoyed with the physical analog part of this. It has, because, all right, dropping the SD card in and turning the system on and off, on and off, on and off, on and off for X amount of SD cards, it's just a repetitive, nonsensical motion in your eyes. So for an intern, that would be a perfect task. For the kids, that also might be a good thing to see, okay, hey, let's go through this and see who has the highest numbers and teach them how to navigate the screen. Like, you could turn that into something. But the repetitive motion of it, yes, it does take time and it is a pain, whereas we can just ask them to send us a picture of it. That's the other side.
Quan Gan: Well, because I think in our VTO, there's always a data-driven highlight in there.
Charlie Xu: Let me explore it.
Quan Gan: Fine, I'll explore it. I'll have the intern explore the possibility of extracting that data. I don't know if we can. If I thought that that was going to cause you that much stress already, oh, man, the inner teacher of me would have asked that question way sooner.
Charlie Xu: You know, I do see it would be cool that we give them a bonus of a report of what they have been using ZTAG with all the data.
Quan Gan: But don't promise this. This is exploratory. will.
Charlie Xu: I'll get back them a hidden report that, hey, by the time you're using ZTAG, here's the report. How many steps you have been generated? How many interactions have been? I don't know. Like, I think.
Steven Hanna: That would be so cool to give them back with their taggers, right? You just give them this cool little packet where it's like your day with ZTAG or your year with ZTAG.
Kris Neal: Like almost like Facebook memories where it's like, hey, one year ago you did this.
Steven Hanna: Like if we could just provide that, like, hey, one year ago you got your system. And since then, look at all the things you did, right? It's like me going back into my phone and just scrolling and flicking. tell about podcasting to go. Going, oh my god, I've done this many ZTAG events. Like, wow, I didn't realize that. This is kind of crazy. If we can do the same for other people, it's very sentimental. It's nice. And it does go with VTO, you know, data. But I get it. Pain in the is what it comes down to. It would be nice to do, though.
Charlie Xu: Okay, I've just sent the text. Okay, let's move on.
Quan Gan: I've sent the text.
Charlie Xu: Don't overwhelm, because, you know, we are the ones to deal with the ZTAGERS and your kids. I'll just write it up, but if we're going to do it or not, let's consider it. Yeah. All right.
Steven Hanna: Any other mission criticals across the board between everybody?
Kris Neal: I think you guys all saw Ella and Armando got approved for the CAN symposium. Okay, so that's organic approval, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah. Meaning this is like an independent thing? Does it what? Meaning that it's like an independent thing they're doing. And their own thing. then we have additional credits of like ZTAG specific promo workshop.
Kris Neal: I believe that's the plan with Steven. I believe so.
Steven Hanna: But if, okay. Yes, organic. But how organic is it if we're throwing $12,000 at this and ZTAG's name is already there? Okay. Let's, I'm not going to say that that's completely organic. There's a lot of money on the line. And if in their proposal, they mentioned ZTAG, there's probably a very good inclination that our name plus $12,000 for a sponsorship is, it's as organic as you're going to get, but not organic at all.
Quan Gan: Yeah. And what I mean is we basically have two additional workshops that we're filling that is product specific, right? Okay. Okay. That's the net result. So it's basically four sessions. That's great.
Steven Hanna: Essentially. Essentially. Okay. And then we have to go over some CAN stuff. I'm going to be submitting that form later this afternoon for Troy. He needs additional info on our sponsorship. So if there's anything. respond? Yeah, no, he just sent over a second form that he just said, hey, if you guys could do this as well, he can get over an invoice and we can start the payment on that. So I'm going to do that probably once we jump off here before another training. So that's CAN. As far as Eric goes for Shape America, I know you guys saw in the chat that his district is willing to take payment, I believe. So as long as we pay his district and Eric has his, you know, daily requirement of what he asked, we basically have a streamlined educator to get right through into Shape America and speak, speak the talk and do the walk, basically, of all the PE teachers. I don't know how to do it. So, yeah. I think that's really great. He's working with his admin to see how we can do that, though. So I don't know if what the payment process would look like. I don't know if it's a check. don't know if there's a donation. I don't know what it is. We will find out. That's an update on that side. Any other mission criticals before IAPA? Steve, you available on Friday?
Kris Neal: Charlie, are you both available on Friday for TIN's review? Quan, I'm looking at your calendar. You're clear.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay. All right.
Steven Hanna: Let me just see what trainings I have. Yeah.
Kris Neal: What time?
Steven Hanna: Anytime.
Kris Neal: Anytime.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
Kris Neal: Anytime besides the fun Friday. Steve, on average, how many trainings per day are you getting these days?
Steven Hanna: One to two a day, and I limit it to that. I've done three in one day, and it didn't work out well for me. By the third one, I would just... I was not at functioning capacity.
Quan Gan: You and me have the same limit.
Kris Neal: I love it.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, it's also once it gets super techie and people start asking like variable questions and I have to spend 15 minutes on one specific thing. Like it, I don't know, my brain, my teacher brain can only do like 38 minutes. give me 45 and then it extends to an hour and 15 with certain people. And I'm like, okay, there's office hours when I was a college TA. We could, we could do that, but reschedule. So two, two a day on average. So just some napkin math, would you say approximately per year, that's about 400 trainings? Oh, we're going to say, yes, trainings, but who I'm certifying, there are multiple people in each session. Like I've noticed that some people have two to four or five people around for their training. So we're, we're probably getting, if you just on the low side of a one-to-one.-hmm. We're probably going to have 400 to 600 playmakers a year, depending on if there are a few multiples coming in.
Quan Gan: So that kind of tracks for, you know, 365 days, approximately two trainings a day, if you standardize it over a year, roughly 700, but we're going go on the low was thinking effectively 200 days because there's a lot of off things. So 200 times two, that's where I'm getting the point, right? That's a good low side estimate. Okay. Because I'm doing that napkin math to understand at what point we'll feel capacity, because those number of training supports are current deployed systems. And then we're going to need some additional playmaker to help us expand that capacity.
Steven Hanna: That's going to be coming sooner than later, like within eight months, I could foresee that happening. Just to give you context, going into the playmakers that we have right now, we have 77 confirmed playmakers. I still have to add 13 more, so that brings us up to 90. We have Heather from Bay Area CR.
Kris Neal: I forgot the last two on that. You've got her?
Steven Hanna: No, we don't have any information, but we have 22 guaranteed playmakers from that session. So we have over 110 playmakers in nine weeks that we've been basically doing this.
Quan Gan: I mean, that's great numbers.
Steven Hanna: Just the unaccounted ones that I don't have names for is the only thing that's going to get to me. But the numbers are looking really, really nice. I mean, let just do the math. Nine weeks.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, I definitely see maps on our front page with all the playmakers marked.
Steven Hanna: Gotta have them. Like, where are the playmakers? Where are the systems? Like, I don't need that. Listen, we're not going to, we're not going to. We're not going to make sure people know where you are, right? Listen, a nice little pinpoint in 600 miles is enough.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Is it on the webpage, Charlie?
Charlie Xu: No, I think Quan is working on that before, but we just need to redo a format and get the data. And it's quick, right, Quan?
Quan Gan: Everything's relative. It can be.
Steven Hanna: So just for numbers' sake, that estimate of two per day is actually the exact number of the average. I'm at 45 weekday workdays, and multiply that by two, that's 90. And that's the exact amount that I have minus Heather. So we're actually over.
Quan Gan: Okay, that's a well-working machine now. Thank you. Yeah, that's...
Steven Hanna: That's cruising along, cruising along, and then we still have V3 swaps that are coming that trainings are rolling in from, so we've got a few more of those that are kind of taken off, but yeah, that's the PlayMaker side.
Quan Gan: All right, let's jump to IAPA. Yeah, let's go to IAPA.
Steven Hanna: Charlie, marketing-wise, do you need anything from anyone at all?
Charlie Xu: No, I, right now, I just sent the flyer in the chat. You guys, did you guys check the two-page website? I, Quan, updated a little information. So we might, we might do a little bit of minor, minor adjustment on, on the flyer. What should you send it to?
Quan Gan: Oh, sure.
Charlie Xu: Jad of the council?
Steven Hanna: It was November 3rd at... No, no, no, No, it's right here.
Charlie Xu: Oh.
Kris Neal: Here, Zoom, in the Zoom chat.
Steven Hanna: Oh. You me off guard.
Charlie Xu: Or I can send it to the team.
Quan Gan: Put it into the council.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Quan, I need a bigger screen, for sure.
Quan Gan: Oh, you can just take my monitor from my room. Okay.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, okay, I sent it.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
Quan Gan: I think for now, just take a look at, like, get a gut feel, and we'll dive deeper into the actual wording, especially on page two, because I want to make sure those metrics We'll I think Match, including how much we sell it for. So I want to have some discussion on that.
Steven Hanna: The first thing, Quan, we need to decide is what is our strategy for this? Because we keep talking about anti-selling, but this is something that will affect Charlie and how she describes the words.
Quan Gan: Yeah. So my take on this, and I've spent a little bit of time rinsing with AI on the strategy. The hook is gunless lag, but it's only a hook, and I don't want to dive too deep into a laser tag to ZTAG comparison because it may not even be the same type of person. Someone who is already invested into laser tag, no matter what kind of convincing, it may not shift them versus looking for people that might be just coming into the market or looking for a new offering when they're fresh. than having the angle of, okay, this is new and intriguing, but really showing them the ROI or the potential with schools as a completely new, unconsidered market. Because if they were already, let's say these are historical laser tag operators, they're probably, I don't know how much they've been even looking at the school market in the first place because they're already blocked. So Steve, would you say that's true?
Steven Hanna: Depending on if they're an FEC or mobile, that's highly varied. Your mobile operators, yes, that's highly valuable info for, but the FECs, they basically set their ads at certain times for the schools.
Quan Gan: Okay. Well, so the, I think overall it means using gunless laser tag as a hook because I knew that kind of drew attention. Um, but... But... Quickly shifting it into this is an unexplored opportunity that, you know, your traditional operators don't have access to and really look into the human-centric part of it. And then also at the very end, the data should support this is essentially a no-brainer purchase. It's low risk because we have enough clients out there, enough sites that are already running this. So it's not like three years ago or four years ago where it's like you're the first taste tester in your market. like, no, ZTAG is already established in hundreds of locations now. So you're kind of here to catch this wave. And we have the proof in the returns that you can use this to generate ROI and give back to your community.
Steven Hanna: Okay. We have to assume these operators do not care about their community. app display. Let's Let's Thisları And the reason is, ROI. You have to sell to them?
Kris Neal: If they don't care about the community, how are they a partner?
Steven Hanna: Well, Chris, IAPA, and this is where it's like a very different show, and we're basically going, we're almost taking number one and the human element of this, and we have to omit it for the time being. And the reason why is because this is more of a data-driven thing that people want to see numbers on. So for IAPA, this specific show, we're going to have to switch our core values around a little bit because it needs to be adaptable to selling to these people. As far as partners go, some of these people will be partners because of how much they're invested in the system, and they'll actually develop into playmakers. So they may start as a partner who purchases the system, but they'll be so invested in the system because they see the value in it that they inherently become a playmaker, right? Like, Eric. So that's like one of the... First examples, go, okay, he's an educator, though. Fine. Let's throw the educator out the window. Let's assume that this is your average mobile weekend warrior operator who just needs to know what the ROI is. They have two kids. They're in a family-owned business. They're running it with their family. They're using this as secondary supplemental income. Yes, they care about the human nature and connection, right? That's their family-driven thing, but they need to know the numbers. They need to know how it's going to support them and their family. They're going to care more about that dollar amount first as a priority and then supporting the community secondary, whereas we've been selling to most of our partners where that's the exact reverse order, where the community is the number one thing that these people bring to the table and need to provide for, and they fight for that, and we love to support that. And then the finance side is, okay, well, that's admin. Deal with them. But now we're combining the two into one interaction with a... A person who does not necessarily care about community-driven impact, who does not care about necessarily the human-first impact that this brings. They're going to care about who do I sell it to, what's the number, how do I run it, does it run 100% of the time effectively? Those are the questions that if I'm coming into this as a seasoned operator, I need to know those numbers. You may as well treat them like real estate agents. Yeah, and this is why, like, you're going to have the ick with a lot of these people is because they're not human-driven. Like, it is there. They represent it, and it seeps off of them, and you can feel it while you're talking to them. Like, it is not something that is great to feel. It's almost like, okay, you're going to the shittiest part of New York City, and you know you're going to the shittiest part, and everything around you just feels weird.
Kris Neal: That's the only description, and I'm not going to say that's I.
Steven Hanna: IAPA, but that's the client base at most of IAPA. Yes, there are some gems in the rough, but man, are they really hard to find at this type of show.
Quan Gan: They're going to be, their first and foremost is what can ZTAG do for me? And how quickly can I get my money back? You know, they're looking at what is the ROI per square foot if they're fixed business, FEC. It's like, compare this to a slot machine. Compare this to a coin-operated arcade. Compare this to some other thing that takes up space. So for the fixed location, you're really showing, okay, well, if you already have a soft play area, like a jungle gym or something, well, and the kids are organically tagging each other and creating safety incidents, well, now at least you can regulate it. And so they're playing tag through your soft play. That's for the fixed. For the mobile operator, you're showing... Showing them this is, you know, relative to spending money on laser tag or any other type of rental type business, this is still a no-brainer because you're able to generate this kind of income. And here's your client base. Like, you can go reach out to the schools where normally maybe they may not even hire you because it's gun-based.
Steven Hanna: It's an icky show.
Quan Gan: I like how you guys said the square footage.
Kris Neal: think that's probably one of the biggest things because it can be anywhere. Can that not be an angle that would appeal to them?
Quan Gan: Yeah. I believe we have it in there somewhere related to – yeah, we'll have to show them just how flexible it is to deploy and even the ease of use where it is. A three-minute setup, right? Like, those are kind of the major highlights of just how quick and easy this thing is. You plug it in, turn it on, and you're ready to go. And you don't even have to have bunkers if, you know, if not necessary. Whereas LazerTag, you pretty much, even, I don't know how often you do this. Does every one of your ZTAG events, you pop up bunkers? Zero.
Steven Hanna: Zero?
Quan Gan: Okay. What about LazerTag events?
Steven Hanna: 100%. No way!
Kris Neal: You have to.
Quan Gan: I'm late.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
Kris Neal: Well, the only game that the bunkers were utilized for was ZombiTech, right?
Steven Hanna: Like, it actually is the most effective in an open area. Once we started incorporating bunkers, kids started, like, hiding for Math Match, and, like, they weren't actually playing the games because they were more distracted by, ooh, I get to hide in a tent. Like, that's fun to younger kids. The second we took that away, we prompted interaction. Now let's go.
Quan Gan: Okay, that's a great insight. they ask for it, like some events, they're like, hey, can you bring the tents?
Steven Hanna: I'll be like, yeah, sure. Like, they're only going to get set up for five minutes and, you know, that's fine. But if you request them, sure. Okay. When we do indoor events now with this new place, I'm going to be looking at the Vortex Bunkers when we go to IAPA, and I think we're going to invest in them because the branding and just having that look and appeal is very, very attractive. So. Yeah, they never reply back to me.
Quan Gan: I want to connect with them corporate to corporate to see if we can do as tag brand Just go to the show.
Steven Hanna: I'm 99, well, obviously we're going to the show. Just go and visit their booth at the show. We're going to be, I'm 99% sure that the owner is going to be there.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I met that guy like six or seven years ago. So, yeah, I'll reconnect with them. The branding on it's good.
Steven Hanna: All right, let's take a look. Look at the overall feel of the flyer then. So if we're leaning in towards that icky market type, the first thing that I'm thinking is gunless laser tag, the human-centered play tech for real connection, we might want to change the wording on that for gunless laser tag and have that as the first thing that someone sees because that's going to be the hook. The second thing we might want to do is highlight the device more as opposed to the kids connecting. I think they're going to be more intrigued by what the device looks like than rather the kids playing because they're not concerned about that. They know that the kids are going to play. They just need to see what it is.
Quan Gan: Okay, so what about that image with Gio with the band on his arm? Is that okay?
Steven Hanna: Yeah, but it should be really highlighting just the tag. be big, really tight. I mean, not needs I almost don't want to have a kid's face in here. Like, do you remember on the website, like, Ricardo's shimmering hands with the ZTAGGER? Like, I almost want to have, like, a few of those shimmering hands on the side so people see, like, it's on your wrist, right? Like, if they see that it's on your wrist, and they see that those are the hands, and this is, like, all of the games. Like, we can have one game for each hand on there, basically.
Quan Gan: Okay. I like that idea, because I think at the very least, you'd still need a body part as reference, because otherwise, just a box, you have no idea how big it is.
Steven Hanna: Right, that's exactly what I'm thinking. I'm just thinking if I'm, if I want to have, because this is very human first, this is very teacher-centric, this is very community-driven, all right? Like, I know that, and it feels that way, and I love that, but the show is, like, not that. So, if we can, if we can get the hands with the images of the watches, I think that's a really strong image to have. And I'm sorry if I sound crude. I'm just getting the feel of this.
Quan Gan: No, these are good, and I think your feedback has a lot of weight here because you are essentially part of that target market. Quick question.
Kris Neal: Is this not something to highlight that there's no subscription fees?
Steven Hanna: It is something to highlight. It is 100% no annual subscription fees. I would say 75% of the Lasertag companies that I've done research on are charging subscription fees for their software.
Kris Neal: That's not on here.
Quan Gan: That's great.
Charlie Xu: What about low staff require? Just like one or two people maintain? One person. Yeah, one. Solo operator.
Steven Hanna: That's a good wording to have. All right. Let me just continue going from the top down, though. Does anybody else have anything, like, if we're looking at this from the top, just ZTAG, Human-Centered PlayTech, and then gunless laser tag, and then the kids right next to it, does anybody have any feedback on that other than what I've provided?
Charlie Xu: Yeah, I like you said, but put the gunless laser tag as the most highlighted area to make sure the first eye catch is that information, then they will read soon. I agree with you that Flyer is more products.
Quan Gan: Do we, what about the three top bullet points? Yeah, they're going to, each bullet point changes to one word, one-to-one swap on that.
Steven Hanna: But, Charlie, what were you going to finish up saying?
Charlie Xu: Sorry. No, no, I agree with you. The marketing towards IAPA is more product-centric. It's not the customer center. So, and with the zoos down there, and with how you're showing they're wearing ZTAG, I think it would be good.
Kris Neal: So maybe, oh, sorry, go ahead, Kris.
Steven Hanna: Go ahead, were you going to move down? No, I was just saying, Quan was saying, what about the word swapping? Yeah, I would say a one-to-one swap for each line on that, the gunless laser tag gets swapped, gunless for human-centered, laser for Playtex, and then tag. Because it's sequentially, you want to have this funnel to move the I down. And if the wording at the top with the ZTAG logo is where the I is drawn, the funnel basically comes in like this, just based on how we use the words.
Charlie Xu: I'm not really getting it. Could you say it again? So you said... So do you see where human-centered is? Yes. So you see where gunless laser tag is, right? Mm-hmm. So...
Steven Hanna: Take the word gunless and move it to where human-centered is. Take the word laser, move it where play tech is. And then take the word tag and move it where real connection is. Or whatever variation of that.
Kris Neal: I'm also seeing, I'm sorry if you're going to move on. Great for, that's actually duplicated under gunless laser tag. You already have reinvented for schools, camps, and mobile events. I don't think it's necessary a second time. I feel like that's really good, a spot to have a little bit more highlights than adding that again.
Quan Gan: Okay, so maybe right under ZTAG, one line says gunless. And then I think laser tag should be just a second line and we don't have a third line. Because if you go three separate ones, think tag, it kind of hangs there a little bit. And that's also how we're showing it. But off on that spinning banner, the floating thing.
Steven Hanna: One word line.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Because, and maybe gunless, you even highlight it with a different color just to really make it pop. So gunless laser tag. I'm not sure if we need this current banner then, if we're moving gunless laser tag up to the top.
Kris Neal: But my next question would be those three bullet points.
Quan Gan: Because I think, Steve, you mentioned quite a few first order highlights. Maybe those are, we need to replace what, you know, I don't, maybe three minute setup stays. But there's probably some other things that are more catchy. No subscription. No subscription. Okay. Solo operator.
Steven Hanna: setup, no annual subscription. That's definitely something that I would like to see. And then. Can be played anywhere.
Charlie Xu: In or outdoor.
Kris Neal: I like anywhere, because you could take it to the forest. could take it, I mean, to really have that outer, I mean, everyone wants a party different, so why not have this in the woods?
Steven Hanna: So, no Wi-Fi needed. Take it anywhere. There we go.
Kris Neal: Play anywhere?
Charlie Xu: Is that stronger than Solo Operator?
Steven Hanna: Well, the Solo Operator, I feel like we could just discuss that, right, and talk about that, because most of these people are going to be running a Solo Operator anyway, and they're going to ask. Hey, you know, that'll come up pretty naturally.
Charlie Xu: So, minutes set up, no annual subscriptions, no Wi-Fi needed, play anywhere.
Quan Gan: No, it's still, no Wi-Fi needed slash play anywhere.
Steven Hanna: Let's table this and come back to the three bullet points, because I think what I'm feeling is there should be something more valuable there. And I think we're settling on something right now just because we're going line by line. So let's take a few minutes, table that, and move down to the next section where it says great for. I do have to say, I love the gradient changes and color design on this. Very, very smooth on the eyes. Very, very nice. Thank you.
Kris Neal: All right.
Steven Hanna: That looks good. That looks good. And are we highlighting a V2 or a V3 here? That looks like a V2, correct? It'll be a V3, but we don't have photos of it yet. Okay. Can we get a picture, if possible, of the ZTAGGER?
Charlie Xu: Yeah, yeah. I definitely, like, as Steve mentioned, we were using a hand with ZTAGG to replace the kids on the top right corner.
Kris Neal: Perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That'll be great.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Great for franchises and mobile operators.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. And also, as you know, the PDF I exported still have some issues of showing the gradient. So some parts, it looks a little bit weird. Like the top, there's a block with the bright blue. I think maybe it's the way I export it. It doesn't look like that.
Kris Neal: Oh, I was wondering about that.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. Yeah. It's not like that. It's just the way I export it. Yeah. Okay. I was like, oh, that's different.
Steven Hanna: Great for franchises, mobile operators, schools and after-school programs, camps and retreats, family entertainment centers, and community and church. Does it need to be doubled? Where is it doubled? Under the gunless laser tag.
Kris Neal: Oh, well, we're going to get rid of that.
Steven Hanna: Oh, That entire banner, got it, okay. that entire banner we can omit. I like the wording of it, though.
Kris Neal: What's the scan here?
Steven Hanna: Actually, why am I asking that? I'm just going to scan here.
Quan Gan: Probably, I don't know if we've finished it, but we'll probably need a landing pitch for that specifically. Because if they go right to our ZTAG. I think we need a landing page that is essentially symmetric to what this flyer would say.
Steven Hanna: So it's an IAPA hidden landing page, basically, on the site?
Quan Gan: Yes. And it wouldn't necessarily have the same testimonials. Yeah. We already... Yeah, we'll have to... Thank you. We'll have to find industry-specific feedback, though. So that's where I was just going to say, we should omit these testimonies. Yeah.
Kris Neal: We have one for Ostecon, so I think, Lance, this would be okay to get that done real quick. Do we have any professional testimonies? I have kids' questions.
Charlie Xu: my testimony.
Steven Hanna: I mean, but my testimony is very, very biased, so, you know. Do with that what you do.
Quan Gan: Get yours, get Eric's. Yeah.
Kris Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: You know, we can interview Eric specifically for his community events outside of school. I think your testimony is just actually even huger, because...
Steven Hanna: My testimony is completely biased. I'm part of this company. Whatever I'm going to say is...
Kris Neal: No, you are now, but everything before, you've been... You're here only because of the years that you've put in.
Steven Hanna: So you want me to literally... I remove my human-first element of ZTAG and just talk about the product, and this is, that's a hard one, Kris.
Kris Neal: That's like harsh.
Steven Hanna: You're like asking me to talk badly about a child. Like, that's terrible. I don't get it.
Quan Gan: You can do your personas. You know, you're pretty good at acting. All right. Yeah, that's all right.
Steven Hanna: Okay. How is that not human first?
Kris Neal: You're absolutely telling the truth. Your human side. How is that? Because I'm trying to sell it at this point.
Steven Hanna: This show is about selling it to this person. It's not about selling the product. It's selling it to that specific individual.
Kris Neal: I think just telling them what you've experienced. It's not selling. It's just your experience.
Steven Hanna: Okay. I would even be absolutely honest.
Kris Neal: You had to be out the door. You were banging on that door for months and months, and finally we responded. If I'm being true.
Steven Hanna: All right. Here's the truthful. Depending on the political powers that be, gun or. Our gunless laser tag will make you more money. Choose ZTAG.
Quan Gan: I mean, even just talking about how, like, you're transitioning out of school, like, ZTAG was able to provide you.
Steven Hanna: I'm just being, you know, I'm being steep. Don't worry. I got something that we can put on there. It'll be something that's pretty aligned with what we need to say. But, yes, we should definitely get something from Eric as well. And the one thing that I would omit is the locations of where we are. locations? Okay.
Kris Neal: That's the only thing that I would say.
Steven Hanna: I'm not trying to draw attention to myself like that, especially being associated with you guys. And Eric, if there's crossover in the future at some point, I would be thinking the same way about him.
Quan Gan: Yeah. don't know how valid that becomes.
Steven Hanna: mean, you can put whatever, wherever we're from. can say I'm from, you know, Colorado. Or better yet, we can ask Nadia and Sabrina from Canada.
Quan Gan: Okay, yeah. Yeah, and Alicia, well, she's not really. Well, part of the energy exchange from the V3 swap is to get existing customer buy-in, to say things about ZTAG as a company and how they are there to support, right? So we should be reaching out to all the people that got their systems, preferably you've trained them, and then just say, hey, like, do us a huge favor. Like, we gave you this huge discount. Can you just give us, like, a 30-second reel?
Steven Hanna: Okay, I got two. You know, do a selfie.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Nadia and Sabrina.
Steven Hanna: And then Joel Carlson, I believe he's Game Truck, yeah. Yeah, Julian Freeman, get him from Game Truck, he's great. Julian Freeman, okay.
Kris Neal: Yeah, he's in Atlanta, Georgia.
Quan Gan: Like, this is really where we are cashing out our karma, right? Like, we've done, I think we've done solid with them, so it was a 30-second reel.
Kris Neal: That one that you sent your V2, no, you sent your V3 for, we should definitely get that one in Texas. You sent your V3 for him to have two units.
Quan Gan: I'm going to message some people right now, just.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, go for it. All right, so back to the page, though, this flyer. Now that I'm thinking about the bullet points, they need to have numbers. Every single one of them should have a number. Three minutes to set up is good because they're going to want to know what are the main metrics. Three minutes to set up, one operator required, and then some other metric on the bullets. Sorry to go back to that, but I just wanted to, because the numbers look really good. They look really nice there.
Charlie Xu: Doesn't it need be only three bullets? So if we need to add more, we can just arrange more?
Steven Hanna: No, think that's perfect, because your eye is basically brought down. So you have your cool colors contrasting right here, and then you go straight to this black label, which is like, okay, this is where you should really be looking. If you look at, this is going to sound terrible that I'm doing this comparison, but if you look at alcohol companies and the way that they market, the most important thing is the label across the center, right? So your eye to the black label on this is actually a subconscious hit on why... You want to pay attention to a black and white label versus you're cool. You know what I'm talking about. You do this all the time.
Charlie Xu: It's just great to see. I much appreciate you were also using that angle to analyze the design. That's great. Well, because we always talk about color, right?
Steven Hanna: And ZTAG has a cool color scheme with one warm color and a gradient change from a dark to a white. So we have a lot of contrast in one logo. And then to see it all play out sequentially with these colors, it's very appealing to the eye. Most of the companies at IAPA, what I noticed with their flyers is that they're very, very vibey, neon-y, very eye-catching, very, like, almost irritating to the eye to see. Like, when I kept pulling flyers the first year that I went, I was like, oh, my God, my eyes are, like, strained to see these things. This has a very, very good design moving through and through. But the bullet points do need to be colors. I just wanted to acknowledge. That and say, very, very nice choice. Any issues anybody has with the great for checkmark side? I think that's perfect. Kris, Quan?
Kris Neal: Okay.
Quan Gan: What am I looking at again?
Steven Hanna: We're looking at the great for bullet point checkmarks, just seeing if there's anything that needs to be modified, any wording, or anything at all that we should be paying attention to.
Quan Gan: This was GPT generated based on what it understands for our market. So just take your perspective as an IAPA goer, do these seem relevant to you if you're an operator, and are these areas that you might consider? Or you need to be in, like, one of these categories.
Steven Hanna: No, they're all pretty encompassing. If I'm wondering as an operator who I can sell it to, this is a pretty nice area to look at. I would change that then.
Kris Neal: Maybe the wording, great for, there's something, what you just said, that might resonate a little more.
Quan Gan: I just realized it's two different things, because great for is the type of customer this system is for, right? It's not necessarily who your customer base is. So I don't know. Like huge customer base. Huge customer base.
Kris Neal: Huge customer base.
Quan Gan: Um.
Charlie Xu: Like here, we do have talking two things. One is our customer operator. And also, on the other hand, we're talking about events and programs. So I think these are different, right? It's operator can using this for programs and events. But I feel like here it's a little mix.
Steven Hanna: All right. So here's what we do. Now that I'm looking at the top first page, if we're modifying that to be product-centric, we move the wording for great for down, and we include metrics on the product. The second page can then have the ROI snapshot, can then have who to sell to, what type of events this is good for, and then we can move that to page two, where we go over ROI and then that. Because I feel like if they see ROI, and then they see who you can sell it to, right after that, they'll go, oh, yeah, that makes sense, right?
Kris Neal: Makes sense, yeah. Right.
Steven Hanna: Like, it's almost... It's almost continuous from the ROI point to, all right, well, you say that my ROI is this. How do I do that? I just sell to these people. Okay, that makes sense. Right. I can earn my ROI by going to all of these different areas and trying to market to them.
Kris Neal: There we go. So we move that down to page two.
Charlie Xu: Okay, I can remove one of the testimonials and put on under there. So, yeah.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, I think we take away one testimonial, and I think we might need a game truck testimonial. The name, the power that comes with game truck in the industry is pretty strong. As much as I don't like to admit it, they are, the name itself is a very, very, very strong name amongst any operator.
Quan Gan: I've already got some okays to give me something, so that's coming. Awesome.
Steven Hanna: So then once you get that, have it come from the game truck operator, and then... I would only use their first name and then say that they're with Game Truck. I wouldn't have any identifying information outside of that. I'm still looking out for their business, even though I can't stand it. Okay, so then we need something.
Charlie Xu: So what about the first page, if we remove that? So maybe the three bullet points is the same, like, especially our highlight features, and also the empty part. We can add in, like, no subscriptions, no Wi-Fi, no this and no that.
Kris Neal: And you're on the top?
Charlie Xu: No, I mean, like, since we removed the grade four, so that will be open. I agree.
Kris Neal: can add in all the...
Charlie Xu: All the, like, know this, know that. Like, we're not, is this?
Steven Hanna: I think we're like, know this, you know that. Can you do that? Yes, no. So there's a why choose us section, right? Why choose ZTAG? That's what the actual header is. And then under that, we have, oh, go ahead, Kris, sorry.
Kris Neal: Go ahead. No, no, no, you were on it.
Steven Hanna: Go, no, finish. It's like a why choose ZTAG, right? And then we have all the reasons with up to 24 players, no subscription services, no Wi-Fi required. Like, we still have those three bullet points with the numbers.
Charlie Xu: But here's where we highlight, like, specific reasons for ZTAG. Yeah, maybe I, like, Kris said, like, I have a little icons with yes or no, like cross or click. So some is no, some is yes. So they will see, like, oh, we do yes, yes, yes. And no, no, no. So, and also adding, adding. These features we mentioned. So they will say, oh, we have this included, and this are now needed, like no Wi-Fi, no subscription. What other? No. No Wi-Fi, no subscription.
Steven Hanna: What else? As a mobile operator, what do I want out of this? No Wi-Fi, no subscription. I want support. I want that.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Yeah, if it doesn't need to be like set into that form. So maybe let's just say highlight what we want to say. So if for the bullet points, we definitely leave one minute setup, one operator required. It's a three-minute setup.
Kris Neal: Oh, yeah, yeah, sorry.
Charlie Xu: Three-minute setup, one operator required. Maybe another thing with a number up there. And down there, we have no Wi-Fi, no subscription. Eight different games. Yeah, oh, yeah, eight. Yep, because that's what I want to know is how many games can I play?
Steven Hanna: That's the question that came up quite a bit. And that's a good metric to have. So we have them going up sequentially. So one, from the left to right, it would read 1-3-8. One solo, one operator required, three-minute setup, eight games to play.
Charlie Xu: How about, let's say, high-repeat customers or high-repeat customers? How say,-repeat No, kids are requesting, so it's the repeat customers for them to asking for this. On the bullet point, the three bullet?
Steven Hanna: Yeah. I think we stick with the numbers, because then we can put that down on, like, the ROI. Yeah, I mean, like, oh, okay.
Charlie Xu: Okay, no, I mean the bullet, the Y2. The tick mark?
Steven Hanna: No, Y2, ZTAG. Y2, ZTAG, okay. High repeat customer. Okay, so we have, what so far?
Charlie Xu: No Wi-Fi, no subscription, eight different games, let's say kids love. High repeat customer. Gunless, gunless should be repeated here once again.
Steven Hanna: Gunless and school-friendly. Ooh. That is something that sounds really appealing.
Charlie Xu: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Gunless and school-friendly. Maybe we take gunless and just have school-friendly. School-friendly?
Charlie Xu: Okay.
Quan Gan: I want to just critically ask that. Like, for school-friendly, is that appealing to you on the operator side, or is that appealing to you on the teaching side? 80% operator, 20% educator.
Steven Hanna: If you're asking me to remove bias and give you a number, yeah, here's a reason why. I need to sell to a school. School becomes a repeat customer, and that's an annual for me. So, if it's school-safe, that's appealing. Is that an obvious, or is that kind of deep into
Quan Gan: To the persona of many of these operators that they would like to sell to schools?
Steven Hanna: That would be a yes into the persona, but leaning to the educator side because I'm coming from that place. So the bias is I'm coming from there and it's appealing to me because I know of it. The other side is it's going to be appealing to someone else because they're not coming from there and they don't know about it.
Charlie Xu: How about fight me on it? Like parents and school families, not a friendly.
Quan Gan: The AGI tells us that's where we're leaning into, but I just want to make sure it's correctly calculating what the persona may care about. Maybe it was never in their minds. So this is maybe a seed to say. Hey, you have a completely greenfield market that you haven't really tapped into, and this is your repeated customer base.
Steven Hanna: So if it's Y2ZTAG, and we're going to remove school-friendly or school-safe and fully inclusive, we go into watch-based device, because I want to know what the mechanism is. It can't be something that looks like a gun, and if you're telling me it's gunless laser tag, and you've shown me the case, you've shown me what the hands look like, I probably need a reminder that the device is a watch. Okay, so why choose ZTAG, watch-like device, or watch-based device? That would be something that I would be interested as an operator to know, because now, if I'm thinking, you've shown me the hands with ZTAG at the first page, it's the first thing I see, then you've shown me a system. With ZTAG. As I go down, I want to know what it is even more. Like, is it that system? Is it stuff that's on the charger? Is it the screen? Like, what's the device? What's the mechanism of gameplay at that point? So, I think we reinforce at this point that it is a watch-based device or a watch-like device. However, we want to mention that we do need to differentiate that the physical mechanism of play is not a gun. It's not something you aim, point, then pull a trigger on. It's a watch. That is appealing. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk, by the way.
Kris Neal: I would say game watch device. Not just watch device. Game watch device.
Steven Hanna: Some indicator that It is a watch, though, is what I would be wanting to know next. So how many bullet points do we have? Three?
Charlie Xu: Eight. So how about for the one with the number, eight games kids love? Because we have three minutes, one operator, eight games kids love. We have that number.
Kris Neal: How about eight active games? Yeah.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Is that two?
Kris Neal: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So.
Quan Gan: I mean, what if we wrote schools love ZTAG? And I mean, that's proof. We need the eight.
Kris Neal: We need the number.
Charlie Xu: So like three, one. Right.
Steven Hanna: We have three, 24, and then we have a switch up to just text. We're going to be continuous here with our sequence. So we have one operator required on the left. Then the middle one is three. Three. Eight minutes to set up. And then on the right, we have eight games that kids love or eight games to play.
Kris Neal: Does that sound correct?
Charlie Xu: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Then when we go down to the great four section, this is where we're going to say why choose ZTAG instead. We're going to have the bullet points that we went over where it's a game watch device, game watch based device as number one. And then maybe we have underneath that. We have no Wi-Fi needed, play anywhere. Wi-Fi needed, no subscription, no annual subscription.
Charlie Xu: Is the new Wi-Fi part really a big highlight?
Quan Gan: I mean, in contrast to what other devices need Wi-Fi?
Steven Hanna: Laser War, Battle Company. What the hell is the other one? Laser Blast. Those are the three biggest sellers of laser tag in the United States. And they all have some level of annual subscription for their software. You can get in at the base level, but as far as bare bones go and freemium, it is the most freemium piece of software for this type of thing you can get. Very, very basic, two game modes, you can't do much. You have to unlock the game modes and unlock everything else, basically. So that's where their subscriptions come in. I would say 50% anecdotally of the other companies that I've done research on have some sort of subscription.
Kris Neal: Yeah, that's a big one.
Quan Gan: Right, so that's subscription, but the Wi-Fi part, is that really a major differentiator for this group? Well, they also need Wi-Fi to verify the subscription.
Steven Hanna: They need to connect to their Wi-Fi to verify that their token or whatever on the account is good. So is that So is that at every point?
Quan Gan: Every time they operate? Yes, most of them. Like, let's say you go out into the middle of the woods and you can't get hotspot, it won't even turn on for you?
Steven Hanna: That's why Laser War is mostly for indoor environments. They do have some mobile operators that are doing something like that, but I don't know how they're getting around their annual or 30-day, like, re-up on the internet. It's like Netflix saying, hey, this isn't your home device, right?
Quan Gan: Like, sign in from your home device once every 30 days. Yes. Because I'm just wondering if the no Wi-Fi needed is, like, a sub-part that kind of implies through the no subscription that the no subscription is good enough. Whereas, like, for school, when you say no Wi-Fi needed, it's in contrast to pretty much every single other software they need that requires the internet.
Steven Hanna: So maybe it can be one line, no Wi-Fi dash no subscription fee.
Quan Gan: Or do you want it removed entirely?
Steven Hanna: I'm just thinking that maybe the no Wi-Fi doesn't seem that strong.
Quan Gan: But I definitely feel like for no Wi-Fi can play anywhere, play anywhere, like indoor and outdoor are appealing because they can. That's true. Yeah, the universal nature of it.
Steven Hanna: That's kind of what I was alluding to on the other side of that is the no Wi-Fi needed is also indicative of modularity, right? You can take it anywhere.
Charlie Xu: Maybe no Wi-Fi needed and indoor, outdoor, play anywhere. Some combination of that. No utilities needed.
Steven Hanna: Like, you don't need power or Wi-Fi. Like, I don't know. Maybe there's a better way to say it, but there is some inherent value, I think, to it. And you'll have to excuse me for one second because I have to let these dogs out. So I'm going to be right around the corner for a minute. I am going to scroll. Do you need me to scroll down on the shared screen?
Quan Gan: Sure, scroll down a little bit.
Steven Hanna: So the QR code, we said that we were going to have a one-to-one that Clancy's can probably dupe out, right, Kris?
Kris Neal: Yeah, I got that jotted down. I'll let her know that it's due by the IAPA.
Steven Hanna: Cool. And then I'll tell her to connect with you guys to get the testimonials. Sweet. Okay. And then we go into page two with our ROI. And this is where we said we should keep the ROI, absolutely. And then maybe we have the section for who to market to or what ZTAG, where ZTAG has been used in the past. I don't know. How do we want to word that for the ROI section?
Quan Gan: I'm going to let these dogs out. I'll be right back. Is it? Okay. Yes, Steve, ahead. And then I'll post the question again later. I'm curious, Kris, have you had a chance to look at the actual sales price?
Kris Neal: I put it through ChatGPT like you told me to.
Quan Gan: Yeah, what does it come up with? It says that they can, pretty much like what you said, in seven weeks they can get it back. But the actual 12-7, did it have any comments about this?
Kris Neal: No. Okay.
Quan Gan: Can you poke at it in that respect, just to say, is this optimally priced for the customer base? Because I want to check that, well, first of all, I came up with this number really just kind of arbitrarily saying, okay, it's 3,000 above our current. But maybe we're leaving money on the table, and if there's any room. Or additional, like making it higher, then that really helps us long-term.
Steven Hanna: There might be. My GPT said in the ranges of 13 to 17, because we have an all-inclusive system that doesn't include a subscription-based piece of software and has 24 allotted players, most system is purchasing out on an individual. The problem with that is that when you can buy at a small base, you can also run at a small base, right? So a guy purchasing eight laser taggers for $4,000, he's not getting 24, he's getting eight. Yeah.
Kris Neal: I would do the coverage. If you're going to add to it, I would just say the coverage is part of it.
Quan Gan: Yeah. You know, we can include the ZEC, which we're pretty much practically already doing. Exactly.
Kris Neal: But now it's like, it's added. It's added.
Quan Gan: You could roll it in as a whole price and don't allow them to decouple it. It's like you're getting the training, you're getting the ZEC, right? The continued training.
Kris Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Do we want to throw in a consulting session maybe as well? Love it. Yeah. Like what are the highest value add things from an operator standpoint so that they feel like, okay, for this price.
Kris Neal: Fully supported for five years. great.
Steven Hanna: I don't say it's five. I give them two. I would say start these operators because these guys are going to be beating the crap out of these systems. And our replacement cost might be pretty darn high for our entertainment customers versus our education customers. So maybe five is- Right.
Kris Neal: Like I'm obviously going to do the training, right?
Steven Hanna: That's incredible. Thank Thank And that's like the part of the consulting session, too. It's training slash consult, right? You have an hour with me. That's included with your cost here at, you know, $14,000, $15,000. Like, look at the average line item. Let's actually see. Maybe let's rinse this through GPT and see what the average item cost that I have.
Quan Gan: The context for this 12-7 was middle of last year. Or no, mean, middle of this year, a few months ago. But prior to Steve, you coming on board, and even us essentially converting this free training to PD, which essentially has real tangible value. So now if we're re-shaking this thing, I think it could be worth more.
Kris Neal: The few owner-operators that I've spoken to, they're shocked that it's 12-7. I don't know if that's just them putting it out, but they said that most of their systems are 15K.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. And this is where, if you, my GPT is like, sell this thing for 20K. You could do it. Like, with the value that we're providing, I just put into the Jedi Council, it's actually starting at 17K. Like, that's what GP, and I honestly think that's a very strong, good number.
Quan Gan: But, it is also our first year coming back into IAAPA with a V3.
Steven Hanna: And we may be running into problems in the future. Do I think that the money right now that they're willing to drop makes a difference? No. Do I think on average, somebody is willing to spend in the range of 10 to 20K for a laser tag system?
Kris Neal: Oh, absolutely. 100%. Do I think 12.7 is on the low end?
Steven Hanna: Oh, yeah. Do I think that we are undervaluing it for this type of convention based on just inflation alone from when I went in, what, 2021? 22? Like, we're three years after. And we're in a post-COVID world. 12, 7, with tariffs, with everything going on, this is like a 15K minimum system, in my eyes.
Quan Gan: I agree.
Kris Neal: Okay.
Quan Gan: And let's get it in there. We'll throw additional value in there with the training. Let's bundle it. And also, we'll need to make it still feel like a discount because those who are going to IAPA, they've spent additional, money just to take those three days, four days off further down the funnel. So if we can close the deal at the show, maybe that's worth a 10% discount, but off of this new retail price, which still comes in higher than what we're doing at 12, 7.
Steven Hanna: But further approving this and further validating this is we're classified as a mid-sized. Yeah. Thank And we're in a post-COVID world. 12, 7, with tariffs, with everything going on, this is like a 15K minimum system, in my eyes. I agree. Okay. And let's get it in there. We'll throw additional value in there with the training. Let's bundle it. And also, we'll need to make it still feel like a discount because those who are going to IAPA, they've spent additional, money just to take those three days, four days off further down the funnel.
Quan Gan: So if we can close the deal at the show, maybe that's worth a 10% discount, but off of this new retail price, which still comes in higher than what we're doing at 12, 7.
Steven Hanna: But further approving this and further validating this is we're classified as a mid-sized. Yeah. Thank
Kris Neal: It's a laser tag package that is in between the ranges of $24 to $30,000, and the expected budgetary constraint for this type of package anywhere else is between $25,000 and $45,000. So I'm fully in with starting this at $17,500, and then if we got to close it, $15,000. That's the bottom dollar amount for this show. Anybody asking about anything else, go elsewhere. We don't want to talk to you. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, because I also want to make sure that we're countering this potential of like, why is it so cheap? Is there something wrong with it? Right? Like you need to get it premium enough to make it feel like, okay, this is actually what it's worth.
Steven Hanna: And that needs to be consistent with their internal model. Yeah.
Quan Gan: And I would say $17,500 is actually a great deal. This is going up to $20,000 next to IAPA.
Kris Neal: This is our, this is our. Raid Show Special for one year where we're getting this thing out and it's going up. Guys, if we could actually add that to the value, I'm reading the ChatGPT and it's talking about the ceiling, the premium bundle. If we can actually have a welcome letter for professionals only and have like the marketing kit, the training videos for whoever their staff is, would that be something that we could maybe consider?
Quan Gan: and that would also be part of the bundle of their purchase?
Kris Neal: Would it look any different? Would it look any different?
Steven Hanna: I don't think so, but I wouldn't market it as a welcome letter. It would be more of like the professional kit or the professional business. don't know. Professional introductory packet or introduction packet is basically what it would be. Yeah. Okay, so same, same content. Later.
Kris Neal: It out a little bit different. Have the marketing, all the marketing, Charlie, that you already worked on, the branding and all that, have that, like, highlighted at the top more.
Steven Hanna: You know what I mean?
Kris Neal: Have the, there's got to be, like, what we were just talking about, Steve, your small business, like, like, checklist or whatever.
Steven Hanna: You know what mean? At the top. Something. What we were talking about earlier. I'm gonna lose signal for five minutes, so coming back home, I'll be on. Okay.
Charlie Xu: Oh, thank God, I hated talking to that guy. I love how that, and that was perfectly as he left, too, so he probably got the start of that. And he heard, oh, thank God, I hate talking, and then he comes out. Steve, you had me dying. I was over here dying while you were brushing your beard.
Kris Neal: I was like, are you, like, Listen, we're gonna be here for a minute. Like, everybody's acting so, listen, you guys can be as professional as you want. I am. I need to brush this beard, stimulate these follicles down, all right? It's getting to winter. showing off. I got nothing! I got nothing!
Steven Hanna: If I were a guy, I would have been so jealous. No, it was, it was, I noticed you started to chuckle as I started doing this, but I was like, yeah, I'm not going to stop. I started this process. This is personal grooming now. Oh, man. Okay, so, so, yeah, I think it's, it's, it should be pretty easy to get the page set up. If clients, yeah, I have clients, too. All we need to do, collecting all the testimonials. We still have a week, like, more than a week to get these things. The testimonials, but it also needs to have everything that we can send to the schools. That was another big thing when speaking with these potential, um. week. We We They were like, do you have something that I can send to the school? So like those academic alignment things for them to take? They don't need that. They need the schools to see the kids running. For the educators, they need more of the specifics of the academic standards that it hits because they need to prove to an admin like, hey, look at subsection four through seven of this academic standard. It hits everything. Like, we got to get this. For these guys, they're asking more for marketing. So from my trainings in the V3 upgrades with them, when they constantly ask, they're like, hey, you know, we came to a meeting where you guys said that you were working on stuff like this. And I was like, well, listen, your version and expectation of what we would provide might have been a little bit different than what we're actually creating. Like, we're creating marketing about ZTAG. Like, for ZTAG. We're not creating marketing for you to... Sell to a school. That's where some of these people are getting confused because Joel Carlson, was like, yeah, we went to this meeting. You guys said you were going to create some marketing for us. Well, what's the deal with that? And then he mentioned the Playmaker thing that we all attended. Yeah. And I sent it to him.
Charlie Xu: Right.
Steven Hanna: And then he asked me about it again. And I said, listen, if you go to the Facebook and the Instagram, you'll have all of these things. Like a school may say, hey, where has this been used? Like go there. If you need a testimonial from another educator, go to the Facebook and Instagram. Like we post these testimonials.
Kris Neal: They exist for your exact desire.
Steven Hanna: You need this stuff. Go to it. And he was like, oh, I'll have to check it out. And then while we're on the call, he's going, oh, wow. Yeah, this is I got to send this stuff to the schools. Yeah, this is great. I got to explore this, you know, and I'm directing him to the resource. And he now knows there may be all this marketing that exists for him already. His use of it is how he figures out how to do it, but we've provided it. Like Charlie and Paula and Ricardo, you guys are pumping out videos.
Kris Neal: Like the fact that he's going, where's my marketing? It's like an insult almost. It's like, dude, go look in the refrigerator. You want food? Open the door. I don't know what to tell you. And you'll hear my New York come out here very strong.
Steven Hanna: I just noticed it.
Kris Neal: Wow. Okay. Got to reel it back. Getting slightly upset. Oh, no. No, no, no.
Charlie Xu: We need that a little bit. Just a little. For IAPA, it'll be there. Don't worry. But this is, yeah. The marketing is already there. And anybody who takes 10 minutes to watch those videos can go, I can use this and I can send that to this person. This camp needs to see it used in a camp. Let's send that to that camp. These people. People over here need to know what it looks like for after school. Perfect. This person over here wants to know how many schools have this, what people think about it. We've got testimonials. Steve, so what Paula just did, she just divided them, right, Charlie, into those categories? Maybe we can have that in that page with those categories. You need information, you need the video on this schools for camps. What do you think? For IAAPA or? For the, not the welcome page, but the introduction page for professionals. Well, I feel like I, because we pretty much kind of like shrink the whole website into one page, including the product introductions, testimonials.
Kris Neal: It's just one loading page.
Charlie Xu: And I do feel like it doesn't need to be a lot of, like, maybe Q&A. Anyway. We can direct them to our website Q&A, so if there's needed buttons, we can add in buttons.
Steven Hanna: But I still feel like keep it simple, but like the numbers they care about, it needs to be a pair on there. If we can have a report on more data for ROI, you know, like a business plan for them, I see more, it will be more convincing, convinceable for them, so. Yeah, but yeah, just keep it simple, just one page, not like a huge along with all the things we needed. No, no, not at all. In fact, I like the welcome letter because it's not so overall. Right, right, yeah, yeah. But I do feel like we don't have good testimonials only for...
Charlie Xu: ... ... ... Um, entertainment though, like the video and video testimonial. Okay.
Steven Hanna: So my, my numbers for that are, it took me 75% of a year to make back my ROI. And that's, that's at 40 weeks. That's exactly how long it took 40 weeks for me to make back on my initial system purchase at 9,700 divided by 40. $242 per, per event, basically per week. So ZTAG was generating $242.5 on average per week. Um, and it takes what, let's do what 40 divided by 52 tells me how many, oh no, that's not that 40 divided by 52. That'll tell me how long of the year it takes. So 76.9% of the year. We'll do 77% of the year. But the thing is, we are rising the price now, so it's going to take longer. So we're looking at $17.5, and if that's the same amount of time, which it's not, well, what's the percent increase? That's a good question. $12,700 to $17.5. All right, so we're increasing this by effectively 37.8%. That's the dollar amount we're increasing this by, from $12,700 up to $17.5. However, the value there, we're applying almost 40% more value with... No subscription, full support for X amount of years, whatever we're thinking about for ZEC, and then a consultation training. That's pretty valuable at $17.5. And two years of coverage. Yeah, and two years of coverage, which is basically $1,000 a year. So you're getting $2,000 of coverage. The consulting session and training, that's at least $750 for the hour because I'm basically teaching you how to fish. Is that what other companies, do they even offer that at other companies? No, they include it with your initial purchase, but they will say if you need additional training, can pay for it. The consultation you pay for, the support you pay for, like everything is a line item basically after the first investment. So your annual subscription is for the year at $1,000. Then you get support for the year at $1,000. Then you get, you know. Training included for free because you purchased X amount of systems. Wow.
Charlie Xu: They tag it on. Like when you invest in laser tag, this was like my ignorant side here.
Steven Hanna: was like, oh, great. I got everything I need. And they're like, no, you have to buy the software. was like, oh, Jesus. How much does the software cost? They're like $1,500 per year. And I was like, so I've got two units. So I'm at $3,000 per year on my laser tag. And then I went with another company that was like, yeah, you just buy the software once for $500 on any of your devices. And I said, that's why I'm going with you.
Kris Neal: Because this is a one-time purchase. You're not going to nickel and dime me every year.
Steven Hanna: You're going to support me. And that's what I care about. Like, it's not like I'm Dave & Buster's or this other location that has a $4 million entertainment budget to reinvest with. We're a small company with $20,000 to reinvest with and play with. We don't have a lot of money. I need to know that that money is going to go as far as I can stretch it. And if If you guys are going to help me stretch that money, that's a bigger incentive for me to go with you. Yeah, Steve, you just mentioned one-time purchase. I think that's also a highlight. Yeah, it's a one-time purchase, right? Like you're not going to get nickel and dimed out of this. Everything is not a line item. What do you get for $17,500? You get your system. You get the consult training.
Kris Neal: You get support for two years. You don't have to purchase anything additionally from us unless you want branding at that point.
Steven Hanna: At which, go to the website. Buy it off the website. Like e-commerce that. I see it's like one, two, three. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a lot of value for $17,500. For 24 players as well, I'm thinking if I'm getting into laser tag, my expectation is it's $1,000 per player investment on the guns or anything. So, oh, all right. So, perfect example. Wizard Tech, right? This just started coming out. They just released the Kickstarter.
Kris Neal: Their Kickstarter is... You can get the wands for $235.
Charlie Xu: Their wands are going to go up to probably $600 after that. I'm going to try and stretch the money as far as possible on this one-time subscription. They have a bunch of mini-game packages that I could purchase for the wands. I don't care about that. I don't want you to nickel and dime me. I just want the wands. I'm looking at how many items they're trying to nickel and dime people on, and it's a turnoff. Like, you're going to give me this game pack. You're going to give me the education pack, the explorer pack, the student pack.
Steven Hanna: My goodness, this feels like I'm 14 again on an Xbox Marketplace looking at what DLC to buy. There's so many things to look at. Just sell me one thing. The term should be all-inclusive then.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, this is an entirely all-inclusive thing. And the fact that the consult training is coming with it, like, the value in that, like, oh my goodness, I'm basically giving you the keys to the kingdom of four years of me beta-testing this. All inclusive, and I think another thing we were coming to the table that's very different from previous IAPA is we have social proof now, and I've added, like right here, we already have Tivia who's gone to Spy Ninjas with ZTAG, and she did a one-minute review.
Kris Neal: Oh my gosh, yes. Yeah, so we have all of this for indoor operators.
Charlie Xu: They're already playing in the gym, right? We're no longer just conceptually saying you could do this.
Kris Neal: It's like, look, people are doing this.
Steven Hanna: I'm also going to get pictures from Alicia of them playing inside the jungle gym at Kids Quest.
Charlie Xu: Like, she was saying they play inside the jungle gym with ZTAG all the time. Yeah, so I built a new testimonial page for professional operators specifically so that they need to see this is all inclusive, and we've already field tested everything for them. Juan, were you here when I asked about if we could have a welcome? welcome? Is letter for professionals only? Yeah, was just there, and then I had to cut off.
Steven Hanna: But yes, I'm understanding that it's essentially the same content, but just reworded or re- Reorganized, I think. Ordered? Yeah, reordered.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, so that it's framed in this is basically your business in a box.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you could say it's a ZTAG success kit or something.
Kris Neal: What would be the, it's not a welcome letter. Steve said, what did you call it?
Steven Hanna: Introduction packet. Introduction packet.
Kris Neal: Okay. Do you want to call it intro?
Steven Hanna: Because I kind of feel like this is your success guide.
Kris Neal: Yeah, it is.
Steven Hanna: That's launch or some kind of, you know, your setup for success with us.
Kris Neal: It can get really, really crazy and call it the Bible of success.
Steven Hanna: No, we'll say. I, um. It's intro. it interesting? Intro implies there's other non-intro stuff. No, I think it's your guide to success. I really think it's that. Because as long as you follow the guide and you do these specific instructions in this order, there's a pretty dang high chance to succeed.
Charlie Xu: But can we call it the ZTAG success guide? Kris is wincing.
Kris Neal: What do you got, Kris? I liked that. I liked how that sounded. I wasn't exactly liking the other. Because I'm thinking of like writing it out and I'm like, it feels a little pretentious. It is pretentious. These people are pretentious.
Charlie Xu: You got to match. They got to mirror them.
Kris Neal: See, you're getting the ick.
Steven Hanna: See, that's what I mean. It's the ick. You feel it.
Charlie Xu: Now it's exploiting itself inside of you. And you're like, oh, man, I don't want to do this. Well, then it's perfect then. There we go.
Kris Neal: We'll take your money and we'll help you make more money. It's okay.
Steven Hanna: Yeah.
Kris Neal: This is the one time that I'll say if we're getting a 37.8% in. Increase of revenue just by offering things that we're normally offering to everybody as is.
Charlie Xu: Why not?
Steven Hanna: Yeah, I also think that the credential would make the school favor this even more.
Kris Neal: It's you're showing like, look, professionals are basically paying double what you're paying.
Steven Hanna: And they're going to charge more. That's actually a great point. They will charge more because of that. And they'll want to actually buy a unit themselves because are we going to keep the institution at 9-7 then if it's such a difference?
Kris Neal: I still think so. Yeah. Okay. I think that goes up over this next year. Well, I think going up or not, like we'd have to weigh it against what additional barriers they have for funding approval.
Charlie Xu: The funding approval. That is how we can push that. If we can give them that net, if we can give them that platform to be able to do it, then I see. I mean, after, not before, but. The 97, like if you're over 10K, then my understanding is it goes through additional approval process, which may. It's 9, 9, 9, 9 and under, you're pretty much golden. Really? I've heard so many teachers say that their curriculum is 12, 13, 14,000.
Steven Hanna: But what we're talking about is like second and third layers of approval for purchase rather than someone saying, okay, this is right within the budget and I could just spend it right now. I could just buy it rather than, okay, this goes up the chain for secondary.
Charlie Xu: I'm seeing too many of both. I'm still seeing it being an issue. It's already an issue for the ones that have. So based on the district then. It's like. Exactly. Right. Okay. My, my current feeling, and unless we get like overwhelmingly, like they're showing we're leaving money on the table is we keep the product under 10K for schools because, you know, the margins are already healthy there.
Steven Hanna: But you can upsell through P. And other things that go over that budget. So now they can kind of carve it the way they need to. But for entertainment, because they're using us to make money, well, then we should reciprocate that and make money off of them. And that profit should drive our overall business that allows us to further serve education. That's cool. Yeah. And at a near 40% increase for offering the same as we're offering to education. That's like an extra $4,800 on the table. I mean, if you look at the cost of educational version, even in software, I think that differential is probably similar. You know, like Adobe for education or Microsoft for education. Let me just do a quick.
Charlie Xu: Or anything for education, even an icon pass for education. I logged right back into my student email to get my discount for $400 off of snowboarding. Like anything. How you get? I bought it for $809. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Listen, if you have an old school email, just register for classes for 10 minutes. Take a quick screenshot of that.
Kris Neal: And then, you know, we're talking about scheming the skiing industry because they don't verify if you're really a student or not.
Steven Hanna: You just need to prove that you are. And you can save, like, $400 to $500 on your snowboarding pass if you're able to get a transcript or schedule, basically. So I have, like, old school emails from when I was teaching. They set me up with a bunch of them.
Charlie Xu: And I'm like, I'll just use this one. And then they verify that because they're like, oh, yeah, of course you're a teacher. This is a teacher email. There's no way that a student can have that. So you get a little bit of a discount here, too.
Steven Hanna: Nice. So I'm seeing things that are 10 to 20 off of some retail, but as high as 40 to 60%. Thank Discount for Software and Tech Bundles. So we're right in line there. Okay. The numbers make sense at 9.7 and 17.5. Yeah. You guys actually push it up way higher than I had anticipated.
Charlie Xu: Go to my GPT in the Jedi Council. That justification, there is nothing in that justification that I would be alarmed at looking at and saying that price doesn't make sense. Everything that that thing brought up was objective reality. And based on Chris's anecdotal evidence of people going, it's only 12.7?
Steven Hanna: Like, what? That's great. I really needed your neurons to connect to this because it's not like my generation wasn't grounded on anything. So your feedback to it basically says, okay, this has legs. Yeah, it definitely does. And I think coming from looking at the other systems and doing the research in the past and knowing that if I'm looking at this as a model, these are... So the things that I specifically need to be met, like that's going to be, yeah, it's very specific and it's super niche, but if I'm trying to get the most out of my money and spread it the most, this would be something that I'd be looking at. Okay, so then if we're calculating what that initial kit cost is, let's say 17, whatever, what other things do we need to adjust? Like the typical session revenue, are these accurate or do we need to even change like what is the breakeven? Well, they're going to have to change because you also have to remember that my evidence of 40 weeks at a $9,700 system is also in a very high cost of living area where some of our events, like an hour of ZTAG in a specific place can cost $900 for one hour. One hour? Wow. Oh, Charlie, I had an event, you're going to laugh at this, you're going to be like, wow, Steve, you're exploiting this, but no, actually I got exploited. We have, I don't know, have you ever heard of a place called the Hamptons in New York? I have. Yes. Okay. It's like, I don't know what the equivalent in LA or Hollywood would be, but I think it's like Mulholland Drive, like where all of those houses are basically like $20 million to $40 million minimum investment. That's the area that we get booked at sometimes. And when we're going to those areas, it takes about two hours for us to get out there. And we have to like consider the cost of taking an entire unit out for the whole day. So where we make $400 an hour locally, that event that we ran, that was $900. This is actually another event that I'm talking about. This event was $1,500 for one hour. So, like, we're hosting ZTAG and we're going with three people and it's, you know, it's basically like they're watching a play. They want to see their kids engage. And act as, and they need us to be actors, basically. So they're paying us as actors to come out for the day. Like, that's what we're paid to do. ZTAG is just the thing we have with us, but we're there as your babysitters, we're there as your confidants, we're there as your friends. Like, they have us sign NDAs when we go there because they're high quality and high value people in like a lot of really cool industries, but they don't mind paying that. And sometimes we'll actually get feedback where they're like, oh, you guys are on the cheap side. And I'm like, what? I'm like, I just rang you at $1,300 for an hour to come out here. And you're telling me I'm on the cheap side? Like, man, what could I have said? Like, I want to know the number now. Like, just tell me. So in the high cost of living areas, like that ROI can come back really fast. Also, I don't really have much competition because my competition is a person who. Didn't invest in their people or the system. So he's falling behind because he doesn't have the capacity to run the system or the right people to run the games. So all of his failures are kind of just trickling down to me and my success because we do it different.
Charlie Xu: High cost of living, no real competition.
Steven Hanna: If I went and purchased a new system from MSRP at, let's say, 12.7, without any traction, if I'm motivated to make it work, it'll take me a year to get the money back. At 17.5, I can expect it to be a year and a quarter, maybe a year and a half is what I'm going to say. But if you're looking at your typical ROI in the entertainment industry, it's within three to five. So if you're below, right. So if you're below.
Kris Neal: If the three to five year ROI on the entertainment, you basically cut my time in half that I need to make my money.
Steven Hanna: And the fact that you're teaching me who to market to and how to do that is further stretching that money. Yeah, I think what we're discussing here are the highlight we need to put on the page.
Charlie Xu: Like the page they click into, like how they invest, how fast they can get the back, break even.
Steven Hanna: So why don't we set up an ROI calculator?
Charlie Xu: Why don't we have a little like game that they can play on the site, right? Like, I can build that.
Steven Hanna: Frances can build that. I can help her with it. That's easy. And that's quick enough where we're going to gamify it for you now.
Charlie Xu: What is your purchase price?
Steven Hanna: Cool.
Charlie Xu: What area are you in? Let's look up the average, like national average of, you know, median income or whatever. And then we can just basically have an algorithm put this out to say, hey, you want to know how to make this money?
Steven Hanna: Go play the game. Mm-hmm. And it's always a whole player. Exactly. That one player will get all the, or the one.
Charlie Xu: Right. They'll have a personalized experience. It's not just going to be blanketed across for everybody. So maybe there's a QR code here for, see your live ROI, right? Like, see what your ROI might look like. And now you got me on a new shiny object. Because I can have GPT say, tell me what your market is. You know? Damn it. Why did I do this? I know you. AI agent search on your market and your competition, and here's exactly how to do it. Yeah. You can weaponize that really quickly. Yeah. I mean, we could just make a GPT. We'll just make a custom sales GPT and say, talk to this GPT and have it, you know. Hey, business coaching. Yeah. What if I give them business coaching? I'm giving them a business coaching the second they purchase a $17,500 system. coaching. They get that included.
Steven Hanna: they need it to be in actual numbers so that they can quantify it in their brain, talk to the robot.
Charlie Xu: It'll give you your numbers. Okay, so back to here on this page. So definitely these numbers are off. So is there anyone can give me the correct numbers? One second. me calculate. I think we made a few data points from Steve if we can get it from Eric. Okay. At least those two data points are pretty representative. Well, today is the middle of this week. I definitely feel like I want to get this printed next week so I can get all the stuff needed before the show. So I can get it printed one day, but still like the shipping takes extra days. So like, yeah, I need these numbers and ASAP. Cool. If If If you guys keep talking about this and give me two minutes to do some background number work, I can get you that number right now, Charlie. Okay, okay. Yeah.
Kris Neal: Yeah, maybe these numbers, just like on the first page, we have the number towards the students, how many steps and interactions and just that.
Charlie Xu: These are the numbers to having classes to show up on that particular professional page. Like the ROI and I don't know. Associated with the amount of steps? No, no. Because on our ZTAG page, we have numbers, like how many systems deployed, how many interactions. But I don't really feel like the professional people will care about these numbers. So definitely the ROI number can be some big numbers popping up in the page, particularly just for... for them to see. And maybe it was a ROI calculation down there. I actually like that, Charlie, because now we're talking about the website being the one and only website, ZTAG in general, and then the welcome letters being individualized, whether professional or schools. I actually like that. Yeah, but I think we're talking not only a welcome letter, I think it's just particular, like the QR code will direct them to a page tailored for these professional customers, but doesn't have so many different pages. But it just, it's a, like, highlights for, for, for, for, for, for, particularly these, these customers. Okay. Then later, we will have a welcome letter. After they purchase, we send them a separate, a different welcome letter. Or, but, but now I've. feel like if they scan the QR code, goes to our website, current website, the language is not speaking to them at all. Yeah, it's like a whole child. Well, that's what the web page is, right?
Steven Hanna: Yeah, redo the page, maybe to highlight the feature of V3, how durable it is. Like all we're talking about before with Steve and like the benefit, like how much compare, maybe the comparison with other thing, like the comparison could be adding to it too. Because here, before this flyer, we do have a comparison between ZTAG and traditional laser tag, laser tag. But Quan removed it because he wasn't putting the ROI there. It is over here, but on that page, we can definitely put a comparison over there, including like how much they need to invest, how much, how long does it take to, to, to bid break even. I think these data are important. Yeah. I just got the numbers extrapolated to 70. Yeah, it's like 73 weeks, 72.2 weeks, which is kind of on par. Like I said, a year and a half or lower, that's 52 plus another 20 weeks. So you're actually coming in at a year and like four to five months-ish around there. That's not bad. That's, that's pretty good as far as ROI on entertainment. If we account for some other variables and some linear growth, some stagnation and a steady state from GPT. a reality. What that means statistically is ups and downs.
Charlie Xu: On the low end, 54 weeks. 54, it depends like how many events. Right. So on a very, very exponential growth model, we're looking at 20 to 26 weeks is the earliest somebody can make their money back with us. On the high end, we're looking at about 79 weeks.
Steven Hanna: That is the most accurate average. On the median, we're looking at 54 to 57, which is just about a year. So the numbers are increasing a little bit on the year, but not by much. So we're going from how many? We have 48 weeks. We're basically just going up by seven weeks. So an extra two months is the average ROI to come back on this. That's not bad. Okay. It's under a year. So, but this is not like, because the chart I was making, but can you tell me like the number, are you based on one event a week, two events a week, or like how frequently they would? Um, it's, it's based on an average weekly income. Do you want me to base it on the events? Because then I have to. will be more clear. Yeah. Let me do that. We're going to have to assume that not everybody can charge 200 to 250 an hour per event. Eric is charging on the mid-range of 150 an hour. So we have to assume. That a two-hour event is going to be worth $300.
Kris Neal: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So the case you were saying, like $800 an hour, it's a very rare case. For me, it's not as rare as it used to be because my word of mouth is out there. Right. I'm also, culturally, that community that I work with is very, very, very physically item-based, transactional, like fear of missing out. Another family has more than we do. So when we get involved with one family in this area, we know that we'll probably be back four or five times in that area because the other families go, oh, the Berenstain's had it. So, you know, we need to have this. It has to be better. Like, how can you make it better? So it's like the cultural kind of, yeah. They're always looking for the different angle. Yeah. And it's basically, they had this, how can we make it better? And I just go, well, you could do another version of Laser Tag.
Charlie Xu: We have mini golf. We've got this. And they go, yes, we want it. And I'm just like, okay, sure. Like, can you invoice us now? I'm like, yeah, sure. So they're very quick to spend the money and they do like to flaunt it.
Steven Hanna: So we cater to them a lot.
Charlie Xu: So for someone else, that's why I said I have to base this off of Eric, because Eric is actually probably the most accurate at 150 an hour. And that's like a very reasonable rate, you know, for a rural area. So let's base the ROI off of how many events it would take to make them on the way back.
Steven Hanna: going to have event worth 150. And we're going to assume that this is a two-hour event, because that's what you have there as well, right? I'm not going to change that number around. Quan, the event to your base is one hour or two hour? So on the ROI numbers, you said like one event per week, which hourly base? Is it one hour? It says two hours at $4.50.
Charlie Xu: Oh, yeah, two-hour event.
Steven Hanna: Okay, yeah, okay. Do you want me to change that to one hour?
Charlie Xu: Because one hour is usually the event time that you're working Then let's do that, yeah.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, this is just based on GPT, so you can do it. Because this is probably going to be more representative. I'm also making sure of my numbers. This has just over two years.
Charlie Xu: years. couple weeks. I'm Thank
Steven Hanna: So that's still in line below the three. And it would still be like highly desirable, but someone seeing 117 weeks at $150 an hour is going to be like, oh man, that's time. That's a lot of time. So maybe we don't say it in weeks. Maybe we use the smaller number here and use like 1.5 years or one and a half years, right? Like maybe we don't have this big quantification of this and we use the smallest number possible to appeal to the three months, like two months. Yeah. Right. Cause like, even if we say like, you can make, yeah, like 18 months, you can make it back. Someone will go 18 months.
Kris Neal: That's it. All right. I got that.
Steven Hanna: Right. If somebody sees 116, they're like 116. Oh God. Like it doesn't even matter what it is. Like it could be. Grains of Rice, and you're like, oh, it's nothing. It's a handful, right? Like, but you hear 116, and you're like, oh, man, what am I getting into? You tell me, like, I can make it back within 1.5 years. I'm like, perfect. 1.5, a year and a half. I know how long that is. You tell me 18 months. I'm like, great. That's two children. I know how long that is. Like, it's, I have that frame of reference where it's more relatable. Mm-hmm. So, typical session revenue for one hour, we can't say that it's $150.
Charlie Xu: We actually have to say it's a little bit more than that. We probably have to say it's in the 250 range to 300 range. So, let's do it at, let's say. I agree, since the unit price went up. I just needed to know Eric's range, because that's going to give me my low, and then my range is just totally outside of the chart, basically. So, I don't even want to think about my range.
Steven Hanna: My range is... It's usually like a $550 to $600 hour now locally versus, you know, Eric's at $150.
Charlie Xu: So the mid-ground here is going to be someone who is not in a rural environment, who's not in a city environment, who's in a suburban environment, who is at basically the center of all of this. All right. This one hour end is worth, what is the number that we're going to decide on here? Two, $250, $225, let's go increments of $25, $300, what do we feel? Let's go $250, one hour, right? Yep. See? Also, I'm going to have to go in five minutes, I've got a training.
Steven Hanna: Okay. I am curious about like the, like a jumping house, they, or like the venue, they will host birthday parties. How much they normally were charged for?
Charlie Xu: Depending. Depending. On the area in your competition, Florida has the worst, so we'll start there.
Steven Hanna: You're going to be renting your bouncy house out for five hours for less than $200, so that's $50 an hour. I mean, like a climbing gym or entertainment centers, our family are hosting birthday parties at their venues.
Charlie Xu: They were additionally charged for that and providing, for example, ZTAG events.
Steven Hanna: So I was just curious, like, how much they were charged for additional, like, party, yeah, the part, yeah.
Charlie Xu: Let's find out.
Steven Hanna: No, it's not on there. What about party?
Charlie Xu: What Oh, no, I did. Laying their bounds. Yep, this is it.
Steven Hanna: So if we're doing a kid's birthday package, party pack, this is going to be $8.99 for 20 people. Okay. For how long? For one hour. These guys, actually, it's much less than that. It's probably 45 minutes, because I'm looking at this now. Three private games of laser tag at 10 minutes each.
Charlie Xu: So that's 30 minutes. And then you have the party room for pizza and cake. Yeah, it's about an hour.
Steven Hanna: One private game of laser tag. Wow, that's crazy. And these guys are charging $5.99.
Charlie Xu: These guys are charging $6.99. And that's for 10 kids. So for 20 kids.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, so I think we...
Charlie Xu: My lower value, the one-hour price, if we just charge us $250, that's low.
Steven Hanna: I don't know. So let's say $300.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, $300. Let's see what we're looking at. 58 weeks. That's lovely.
Steven Hanna: That's a nice number. That's just over a year. And we can just have our literal expected, that little squiggly that's like, eh, it could be, you know, like roughly.
Charlie Xu: So roughly one year.
Steven Hanna: What about the fast one? One event per week. What about the fast one? We just divide it by two. So for what, 20, 26.1, yeah.
Charlie Xu: Half a year. How months? 29. 29 months. 29 months. 29 weeks, excuse me. So how many? 29, hold on, 52. Just over half a year. So let's say 0.5 year.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. Two events a week? Um, yeah, because you're just, you're just going for an extra event, one extra event per week. Okay, that's not bad.
Kris Neal: So here are the numbers that I'm going to put them in our chat.
Steven Hanna: This, because Quan is throwing a profit, a profit possession, and. Here, but since we reduced from two hours to one hour, I see this number.
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Quan Gan: Yeah, it's pretty. Well, I mean, it was kind of uneventful, but I mean, it was good. We just went to my parents' old neighborhood and took the kids around, but there weren't that many trick-or-treaters anymore.
Kristin Neal: No kidding. We didn't get that many this year either. I was shocked for it being on a Friday.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Just not what it used to be, I guess. I know.
Quan Gan: I want to share a testimonial I got from Joel Carlson.
Kristin Neal: Please, please. I can't wait. Yes, that's the LA, right?
Quan Gan: Mm-hmm. LA Newtruck.
Kristin Neal: Orange County. Let me see.
Quan Gan: I'll share the council.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, I asked for 30 seconds.
Quan Gan: gave me two minutes. was great.
Kristin Neal: Nice. Anyways, here comes Charlie. comes Charlie.
Quan Gan: Is Steve joining us, too?
Kristin Neal: Yes. Hey, Charlie, thank you for joining.
Quan Gan: All right, just sent it. Great.
Kristin Neal: Can I share? Do you mind?
Quan Gan: No, go ahead. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Charlie, this is from Joe Carlson. Hi, my name is Joe Carlson. Give me the speaker. There we go. I own a Game Truck franchise in Orange County.
Quan Gan: So wait for Steve to come.
Kristin Neal: I think he would appreciate it.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Yes, yes, yes. Almost like a mirror of Steve. Hey, Tin.
Tin DG: Hello again, everyone.
Charlie Xu: Hi.
Kristin Neal: My gosh, I've never seen you without your glasses.
Tin DG: Oh, yeah. My eyes is...
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Tin DG: Because I got the toy, I just remove it now. I'm wearing it again.
Kristin Neal: Oh, beautiful. I was like, I can see your eyes. Very cool. I'll start us off. Once Steve gets here, we just have a testimonial that we wanted to kind of see. That's okay. Yeah, that's okay. Yeah. You know Joe Carlson, right? Joel Carlson from the county. Yep. Game truck. Very good. Yep. That's, it's from him. So, and then we'll jump in.
Quan Gan: Yeah, we have to actively ask for these because people aren't just going to go and do it. I mean, unless you go really over the top, but it was really nice because we're trying to get these videos for IAPA on a landing page. So, this is the first of hopefully many.
Kristin Neal: Hey, Steve. Thanks for joining us. We're going to kick off this review with a... Testimonial from Joel Carlson. Tin knows him very well, so I'm going to share my screen. Sorry, let me share my screen, and then I will get that played. Hi, my name is Joel Carlson. I own a game truck franchise in Orange County, California, and this is my testimonial for ZTAG. I couldn't be happier with it. I used to offer laser tag, but I dropped it several years ago because my equipment looked and sounded like real assault weapons, and I became very uncomfortable encouraging young kids to simulate gun violence on one another. So I dropped laser tag, and about the time that I did that, ZTAG hit the market, and to me it was just a no-brainer replacement for laser tag. And, I couldn't have been more right about that. I got my investment back on it in probably about five months because I do a lot of events with schools and summer camps, and they immediately adopted ZTAG as a fun activity for their kids. With ZTAG, had a minimum age of eight and older that we would allow to participate just because of the bulkiness and weight of the equipment. With ZTAG, we can easily include, go down to as known as five-year-olds, so it's a lot more inclusive for our events, and that's been a huge advantage and benefit with ZTAG for my business at our events. And lastly, Quan and his team have been phenomenal with technical support when needed. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and Thank It's just a great decision to drop laser tag and adopt ZTAG, and it's worked great for my business, and I couldn't be happier with it. Wow. I couldn't think of a better way to start this review, Tin, because you have, I know you know this person, you've handled this person beautifully, obviously. He's a very happy partner, so thank you so much, Tin. What a perfect way to start this, Quan. Thank you so much. Huge, huge, huge. Anyone else want a feedback?
Quan Gan: Steve's got a bigger dog there.
Kristin Neal: Hey! What happened to Peanut?
Steven Hanna: I'm dog-sitting. Three other dogs. This is Bruce. Bruce is inbred for probably a few generations. Yes, yes, bigger dog. But that's a wonderful testimonial, and it's a... A true testament to what we're doing here. Great job.
Kristin Neal: All right. All right, Bruce, I'm going to move on, and we will start Tin's one-year review. I have her review ready to go. Can everybody see that okay?
Quan Gan: Yep. All right.
Kristin Neal: Today, of course, is November 7th, and we were reviewing Tin. Thank you so much. Your position, Titled Tin, is Ops and Logistics, Accounts Receivable Coordinator, Playmaker Support, and Logistics and RMA. So that's a big mouthful that I got from our VTO. So is that correct?
Tin DG: Yes, Kris. All right.
Kristin Neal: Great. This, I wanted to make sure you understood this, italic, because I know it's early. You actually started in in February. So we're, one, you've been kicking butt and taking names, so we wanted to make sure that you felt like you were being honored with, you have several titles, but also we are moving the team to be able to have, be on the same schedule for the review, so it's not, there's a two-parter in that. So the next one, we're going to get more aligned with the rest of the team, okay? This will be updated accordingly, your proposed adjustment for your weekly rate, your weekly rate, and the tier recommendation, which we'll be going over soon, and days missed, I actually looked into this, and I wanted to highlight that for Charlie, because Tin has been actually incredible with her days. She is only missed because of Wi-Fi, and the only time that she missed this last quarter was for her grandmother's death, so that was the only time, and then And one time in June, you had a sick day, just one, and we weren't even counting attendance at that time. So I was very impressed with that, Tin. We are very grateful for your commitment. That's a great commitment. Anyone else have anything to add? Okay, then I'm going to move on down to the summary of role performance. So, Tin, this is your chance to tell us. How has your role right here? Or notable growth or changes to your role? What are your key responsibilities that you would like to tell us about? And what you've done to execute those?
Tin DG: I know there are several. Okay. I will start first on the technical support. That is my main role. So my responsibility there is making sure that I respond to the customer timely. And attend to their inquiries. Making sure if they're having issue, making sure that I respond to them with empathy. I will for gone, didn't And then if they provide information, also acknowledge it and making sure I request additional information that is needed for us to review it fully. If it's for the next step, it's either for tech support or really for replacement. And then following up, making sure it's for replacement, it's connected to shipment. So making sure they receive the item and inform them when to receive it, just keep following up or informing them, keep updating them on what's happening on their concern. And then after that, once it's resolved, also following up, checking in on them if they're experiencing an issue again on that specific concern. So more on keeping them sure that they are fully supported if they have an issue and then once it's resolved, we also keep checking on them. So keep maintaining the high level of service. In terms of tech support. Next, in the order fulfillment, what I'm doing is making sure that the stock is updated from sales team, Charlie, and coordinating with the factory. Now that I'm, because before I'm not coordinating with factory, I'm only asking Charlie how many items we will be receiving like that. But now I'm directly communicating to them. And then sharing it with them. I also added a spreadsheet for the inventory, for the fulfillment, making sure the deadline is met. Once they have a deadline, when they want to receive the package, once it's available, I'm making sure they receive it. I adjust the label, like the next day, next two days, make sure that they will meet the deadline. We will meet the deadline, and then making sure it will be delivered to the correct address. Next on that is coordinating with the carrier. Because I keep tracking the shipment once I provide it to order fulfillment. I'm making sure that the tracking, there is a movement, it's on the way. Because there are times that they didn't update the tracking number. They said that it's already pick up, but when I check the tracking number, there's no movement. It's like stating their label created. So I communicate with the carrier. Since I've been communicating to them, often I know what already to do. Like I already filed an investigation and then checking it on the next day, making sure it's already have a status or else I need to contact them again. So that's how I do the order fulfillment, making sure it's on time and it's on the way and the carrier doing their part to deliver our package correctly. Because it's part of their experience, receiving the package on time and making sure it's received it safely. And then next is the, no, sorry, I want to add in the order fulfillment. But we Clancy's is doing automation in the order fulfillment, because I discuss to them the step that I'm doing once to complete the order fulfillment tasks, like from creating the label, checking the address, and then from the pickup, UPS pickup. So they want to lessen the task that I'm doing, so I've been communicating with Clancy's often. I created a drop also for her in the Excel, how I want that tracker to be shown in the CRM, because she will do it on CRM, so I can track them. So I will not track it personally on my Excel, so there we can see it in the CRM. So I also discussed that with Clancy's, and then she's been communicating to Logiva. Once she received the access, we will try it, and then to see what is the next thing, or how we will do it. So she's just waiting for the access, maybe next week we can do it. And if it's already okay to do the automation in the order fulfillment. So I think that is the improvement part in the automation. It will be more easier to do the fulfillment task. It can be tracked in one area. And then also adding the, sending them the label. Because when sending the label, I need to merge it all. If it's a bulk order, so I need to merge it one by one and then send it to them. So it will be easier now once the automation is done. And next, in the account receivable. In account receivable, before it's difficult for me because I don't know what to do. It's like a learning curve. It's a challenge for me. So because once the invoice sent, I immediately called them. But now I have this process since it's more organized now when we discuss the invoice. There is an email. So I email them first, making sure they receive it. And it's a correct, in the correct department. And then... into can update Yeah. If they didn't respond, that's the time I only call. But I keep following up on that date that I need to follow up to them. And that is when they receive the package or what is that delivered. I informed them that the package is delivered and also asked if the invoice they receive it and it's the correct person to process it. So now there is no issue about that. And because before we were receiving more net dirty, now it's more on prepaid. So they are paid already before they receive the package. So now I only have one pending, that is the KIPP. So it's still within the processing time. So next week I need to follow up what is the status of the payment. So I believe the process in the invoice and receiving the payment, we don't have much delay on it. Yeah, I think that's all my tasks.
Kristin Neal: That's great, dude. Thank you so much. I'm so glad that you were able to share because I see your hand a lot. So I'm glad. I that you were able to share exactly where you're expanding on that. So thank you, Tin. Has there been any notable growth or changes in your role? I know this VTO was just released this last quarter. Was there a big change?
Tin DG: Yes. In the growth, in the technical support, since we have Steve now, I have more people to help me, to back me up in the support. Especially, we have new issues now, like the safety one that we are working on right now, the red code. So my growth on that is being more productive in customer support, in dealing with customers, and also in our side, in our team side. Making sure everyone is aware on what is the issue that we are having, and make the customer feel that they are safe. So I think the growth on that part is I'm learning more how to communicate with them. And since I'm also handling... During the Legacy Swap, I'm not only doing the shipment, but I also do the coordination with all of the partners that will receive the shipment for the Legacy Swap. It's like I know now how to communicate with them because before I apply all professional communication. But now since I know them better, like a game truck, they want the communication like in email, but it's like a chat. It's like one word, the one that you can understand it fully. It's easy for them to read. It's like a busy person and I make it more personal now. Like Nadia, since I know her, so I can communicate with her more personal, not only just professional like a robot, but now I can like adding it more flavor to it to be more engaging to our customers. So I think that is more improvement in our side since I'm communicating to them more so I'm learning to know them one by one. And I'm starting to familiarize myself in which customer we have. And. And. And. What is the frequent issue that they have in?
Kristin Neal: That's great, Tin. Thank you so much for, you're absolutely right. Your communication has very much improved through these changes in your roles. Another one I've seen that maybe you might not have seen was your organizing. You have been organizing a lot more these last six months since your last review, and it's very impressive. The swap, the legacy swap, the organizing of that, the transition of old to new and getting them trained, the organizing that you're doing with Steve. Thank you so much for that growth. Anyone else have anything to add?
Quan Gan: I just want to say how grateful I am for you, Tin. You've taken a huge burden off of my shoulders on a lot of these day-to-day operational things. I echo what Kris is mentioning about the organization because I can just ask you, and you're very responsive and able to give me a full summary of what needs to happen. So I know you keep me on task, even though I'm more of a bottleneck in many of these situations, but knowing that you're also adding the human element to it, that's beautiful. That's exactly what we want with our customers, that it's a long-term relationship and not just something transactional. So I really appreciate that.
Tin DG: Thank you, Quan.
Kristin Neal: All right. If no one else, we will move on to the KPI progress and next steps. So, Tin, moving forward, we're going to – we'll talk a little bit more about this. You're going to work more directly with Steve to kind of assist him with KPIs that work. We're going to be working on soon, but we're going to go back to these, the Q3 KPIs, and here we have yours, your response time, less than five business hours, you've absolutely applied, response quality, percentage of complete response rates, including info, troubleshooting steps, links, and next actions, I've seen that 100%. Does anyone else disagree? Order processing time, the percentage of orders processed within eight business hours, I've absolutely seen that with new units, getting them out, and the delivery timelessness, I've seen those being delivered on time 100%. Huge, huge, huge. And I'll even go back to that in one of your all-stars, one of your all-star tags, your invoice confirmation percentage. Polskies trying to get two-Face the Thank So delivered orders with invoice receipt via email within seven business days. You have 100% done that. And then this one, I'm grateful you mentioned, you said just one is in the process, still with the prepaid. So you're very close to 100% on that. Does anyone disagree, Charlie? Do you see anything with the invoices, with the accounts receivable, any growth in particular? Is anything that, that you'd like to add? Oh, you're on mute. Sorry.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, overall, think Tin really stepped her foot into the accounts receivable part, and really do the jobs of keeping contact our customers and get the money paid in time. It really is like, as a concept, it's just also Tin, you're helping me remember. Move this from me to chasing, but your organizing way of doing this, it really is very essential for keep the cash flow running. So, yeah. Thank you, Tin. Thank you, Charlie.
Kristin Neal: Great, Tin. Thank you so much for your work in that. That's awesome. I remember we've done so many meetings trying to get that flow, get the understanding of the process. So it's been difficult, but it's worth it now. We're able to kind of step back and say, you know what, there was a reason for that heartache. So thank you. Thank you. A little quick jump in.
Charlie Xu: And so, Tin, as you mentioned, so you said we, after we send out the invoice, after seven days, you will send another email first to confirm with them if they receive.
Tin DG: received the invoice or not yet, right? Yes, once they delivered the unit, for the new order, I'll ask them if they received the invoice also, because we're sending them the invoice once it's picked up, so they have at least five business days to receive it, if it's by mail or email.
Charlie Xu: Okay, yeah, because also, like, sometimes I will check in the partnership document, I do see, like, some is in progress, which also you mark as they receive as in progress, so is that the stage of the first email, or normally you have to call them? So you make the phone call, it's more due to the invoice, it's close to the due date, is that right? So at what stage you're calling them?
Tin DG: Yes, because the first thing I know, because now what I observed, there are some that more are responsive on the email, because in, when I... Calling them through phone, sometimes I'm routed to voicemail, and sometimes they just need to connect me with the other department. But in email, I can CC everyone, because I can see it in CRM, and I can see it in a spreadsheet, which one is the main contact and which one is for purchasing. So I just send the email to them. Sometimes the main person will respond to me or the ones in the finance using the email. So I can see who I can contact with with the payment. So I'm following up once they receive the product, and then I add the tracking number. Because I receive also a response that I'm waiting for our warehouse to inform us that they received the product. So in my end, I'm already adding the tracking number, so they can easily see that it's really delivered on their end. Because when my last experience on that, once they received the tracking number, they immediately processed the invoice. So that is one that I learned also. So I add that. Information already, so they will process it immediately once they receive my email.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Do I answer your question, Charlie?
Tin DG: Is that correct?
Charlie Xu: Yeah, thank you. Just like the phone call, it's more after the invoice passing the due date, the time you were calling them, or you still call them?
Tin DG: If they respond through the email, I don't need to contact them because I already have the information I need through email. Like, we already process it, or we already process the payment, the payment is on your way, and here is the check number. That is the one that I'm sending to you when I get that to the email. The payment is already coming to us, and here is the check number. And then in the spreadsheet, I will add this, I will tag this as a payment in process. But right now, it's invoice in process because they're still processing the invoice to be paid.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Tay. Thank you.
Tin DG: Thank Charlie.
Kristin Neal: Gesundheit, Quan. All right, guys. So, Tin, you'll be working with Steve and the next quarter's KPI, okay?
Tin DG: Yes. All right.
Kristin Neal: Steve, is there any KPI tasks right away that we need to note? Anything on the support side?
Steven Hanna: Just responsiveness to code reds. That's probably one thing that I might want to see in there. So, if you could just put code red discussion, just a small note. Yeah. Other than that, it's pretty much most of the stuff that Tin has already been doing. It's just finding the right metric for it to make sense. That's kind of what we're looking for. Nothing new other than that from me. Anybody else? else? else? Yeah. Thanks. See Bye.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it's probably good for a separate meeting. Just some of the information I revealed to Steven yesterday about my findings in dissecting some of these products, I'd like to share that with Tin so you understand underlying what's actually causing. So a lot of the customers, they might say, oh, this is not charging or it's not, you know, the screen's not turning on or something. It may actually be related to the battery. So we want to have a deeper technical discussion to figure out what are the proper next steps. And some of this is also intertwined because it's availability of parts that I have versus replacing it with certain things, and also it ties into our extended care as well, as well as the, this internal recall or the, what we call it, the safety upgrade. So some of these things might be safety upgrade covered versus the ZEC.
Kristin Neal: Good to know. Good to know, Quan. Yeah. All right. Anyone else to end? All right. We're going to move on to the core value reflections. Tin, we, this is, I have here our core values. Of course, we have these seven core values. And honestly, Tin, you share all, you show them all. Or else you wouldn't be here, to be honest. Like, you obviously show them. But this next portion of the review, we're going to share exactly where we're seeing this. And whether it's, you're consistently showing it, you're showing it, but not all the time, and then not showing it. So there's three different levels. Okay. Here we go. So the very. The first core value we have is the human connection first. I have that as an absolutely you're showing this. Tin has displayed this by keen oversight of shipments, making sure they're received by their deadline. So that was absolutely part of your all-star tag right here. was actually one of the very first ones for Yuba City. And I'll never forget this one because they had, I believe, a 30, was it the 18 or the 30? It might have been the 30 unit order. And they had all of their order and they had this hard deadline, but the very last unit was lost. It was, we thought it was all delivered, but you caught it before the deadline and got on UPS and had that whole, you mentioned it earlier, you filed the report, they still couldn't find it, and you said, you know what, let's just ship another unit. It's okay as long as we hit that deadline, and then that missing unit did end up finding its way back to Quan, but you were absolutely on it, and thank you for saving that order, because it was a hard deadline that they needed, so that was huge. We are going to move on with inclusive empowerment. Tin, you have shown this by training your co-workers, such as Paula, on how to create those shipments. You are making her a leader who allows others to shine, so thank you so much for doing that. Authentic innovation. So I had this one as a plus minus, so it's like a A minus, only because there's a reason. So you consistently demonstrate this in a way you provide support. I've added both of these because I'm not sure those bigger innovations are being implemented. You just mentioned Iowatha, I believe, Lagowatha.
Charlie Xu: Thank you.
Kristin Neal: I'm not sure if that's being implemented yet. I know you were working on the sale, I'm sorry, the support automation emails with Clansys. So I love what you're doing with Authentic Innovation. I'm just not sure if it's actually being done. Does anyone have? It is.
Tin DG: Yeah, sorry. We're still working on that part.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'd also like to jump in.
Steven Hanna: I mean, as far as the innovation goes, Tin has kind of jumped on the board with needing a new SOP for these code reds and kind of telling everybody and saying, hey, this is something that we should set parameters on and we should really be aware of like what we're working with for this. So as far as far that goes, I have, I've absolutely seen it on my side. And I would just like to say that's, that's an A plus on my side. The execution on it might take some time just due to other people and time constraints. Right. But as far as the innovation element of that and the authenticity of it, I full A plus in my opinion. I don't know how much weight that has. I've only been here for nine weeks, but do with that with what you will.
Tin DG: Thank you, Steve.
Kristin Neal: Anyone else? Next, we have Radical Transparency. This one I like the most about you, Tin, because you excel in this value. Especially when voicing, when things shouldn't be your responsibility. I love how honest you are. But in a very caring approach, you never come at me saying, no, this is not, you know, my job. You've never said that. You've always come with, bless you, Charlie. You've always come with, hey, clarity. Is this supposed to be in my, am I supposed to be taking care of this? Like, you've always been very respectful with that, And I do appreciate that.
Tin DG: Good thing you take that, like that, Kris, because I'm worried about that after saying, oh, maybe I become too direct, I become too disrespectful. It's become like a worry on my part. So now I'm being careful every time I fall.
Kristin Neal: Never, Tin, never. How you approach it is exactly how you're supposed to approach it, letting us know with just that clarity. Huge, huge, huge. Thank you, Kris. Thank you, Tin. Collaborative spirit. Tin, you have always shown a collaborative spirit in our fun Friday meetings like the one we just had. I can't wait to hear yours and Paula's song, by the way. But jumping in with funny insights, I'll never forget what you said in the meeting that you'd rather handle 100 tickets than answer some of those personal questions. Good times. Data-driven impact. fact, you are a consistent contributor in compiling data to ensure the impact we're trying to accomplishes. So thank you so much for that. Does anyone have anything to add? Sustainable Growth, Tin, you have discovered a process and support that was not there previously. I need to really emphasize that. You came in with a process that it wasn't complete. It was definitely missing. And it was missing the drive. You have added the drive to support. So thank you so much for that. You have clear templates with clear instructions. And you have found a good flow with Steve. So thank you so much. And with that being said, we're looking at your all-star tags. And you, my dear, have earned 11. So we have right up here, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. But I'm sure we could go on and on. You've really displayed those. I agree.
Tin DG: Thank you.
Kristin Neal: Let's see. So here we're going to go into your tier evaluation. This is where your payment, your weekly pay is determined. So you're going to be either in the core, the growth, or the scaling. And that'll be whether your KPIs have been met, the all-star tags. For this year, you have a total of 25. Awesome job. And then the core value alignments. So this will be updated and sent. Okay. And that'll be, it'll be sent with the new amount, new weekly amount that you'll earn. All right. And this now is your chance to share with us about your personal growth and development. In this past year, you're welcome to share with us, Quan and Charlie are very much advocates of personal growth as much as professional. And it's, you're given this. opportunity to just share where you've excelled in that and where they can honor that. So, Tin, go ahead and share where you have grown in these last six months, and I'm hoping to see, like, the evidence of it, classes, et cetera, et cetera. So go right ahead.
Tin DG: This past few months after my last review, I really feel that this one-year review is like my one-year review because in my perspective, I feel like I grew faster in the company, not only for the tasks that I'm dealing, but also my relationship to my coworkers. So it's feel, since I'm also open to them, I feel like I've been knowing them for long. That's why having that good relationship with them, it's made me also want to work more because I'm seeing them how they work and they're really good at it. So they become my inspiration also how to don't waste their effort on that part. So, and that's why I... I also feel like I'm more growing. And when it comes from tech support, I'm really absorbing or taking all the information that Quan and Steven shared to me because one of my goals is to deepen my knowledge in our product. So I'm collecting that data and then I'm putting in a spreadsheet. There is some adjustment now because we're receiving different issues like the safety one. So I might update it and then send it soon for approval as our SOP in the tech support. Because what I want is to remove some of my questions, especially on the frequent concern of the partners. So to lessen on their part, I need to handle it on my own in terms of tech support. In order fulfillment, I think I've grown because when they asked me what I'm doing in order fulfillment, I easily explained to them what is the process. So right now... Because I can easily explain it to them, we come up with this automation. So it will become more easier for us. It's not only for my end, it's also for the future who will be helping us. So it will be easier for them to do all of these tasks since I'm already doing it manually. So now we can put it on the automation part, like we are improving. Like on sales, you collect all the process and now you know where is the pain and how to resolve it. So that's like what I'm doing in the fulfillment. Since I'm the only one who's doing that task, but making sure everyone is aware for the product that we are having, we can be more, it will be more easier now to do the task. And like before, everything is manually. Now is, since after transition, we're really evolving. And I want to be part also on that evolving in my task that it makes it also easier. And in AR, I believe I... If I'm doing the follow-up or payment, we don't have much delay. I give them time to process the payment because it's net 30, so there is a processing time for them to process the payment. So I think I keep what I'm doing, making sure we receive the payment more earlier. So I think I will be more proactive on that so we can receive the payment more earlier. And then just if there is another way that I can see to improve, that we can receive the payment more, more advanced, then I will just step up on it. So I think that is the growth that I want and the growth that I'm having right now.
Kristin Neal: Tin, what I'm taking from that is I love what you shared. Thank you so much. What I'm hearing is that you've actually self-taught your kind of way through this last year. And growing through the sticking points, the hard, the things that you're seeing are difficult. You're learning through those. on your own and shaping it to be what it needs to be. Is that what I'm hearing? Yes.
Tin DG: So it will be easier, the process. So once the process is more easier with me, we can adopt more responsibility. Like one saying, we can take advantage of this AI doing it as our helper so we can create more, like leveraging. That's great.
Kristin Neal: You're working through the problems. That's great. That's great. Or your solution. Yeah. Anyone have anything to add?
Steven Hanna: No, I just want to say thank you for being open to learning a bunch of these things. It's, you know, a lot of tech knowledge and a lot of human interaction. And when you combine the two, there's a lot of confusion for some people, and that becomes a very frustrating thing. So I just want to say your ability to learn and relay that information has been very evident. So thank you. Thank Thank you, Steve.
Quan Gan: I also want to echo how important that quality of learning is because we're constantly making new products, right? So the new products will have new ways of servicing, but also probably new issues customers are dealing with. And you're also navigating the products that have been out there for a long time and their entire life cycle. Something that, this is even very new to me because, you know, ZTAG is still growing and evolving. So a lot of the products that we've put out there, they last, you know, fortunately, but also there are certain things that have wear. And those are things that we didn't really know until we actually built the product. So it's like a long three, four year experiment with many of these cases. And so just the ability to evolve. With that knowledge and understand, oh, okay, I see you're having this issue, but that's because it's this generation that's so important, not only for the products that are released, but also the new stuff that's coming out as well. So thank you. Thank you, Quan.
Kristin Neal: Charlie, you're on mute. Okay, I want to add something.
Charlie Xu: So since I think ZTAG is a very unique company by leading with a tech person like Quan, so sometimes like the transition are extremely fast, and we're just like we are all adapting to the new change for whatever the future is coming. But I definitely seen, Ting, you are the front line dealing with problems, like normally we'll see what the problem is from your side, but your adaptability of connecting with human being. Meanwhile, And also emphasizing the efficiency and accuracy, that's very important. And also I do feel like by growing towards we as a human leading, not leading by AI, but leading AI to fulfill what we are, fulfill the needs of the company growth are the essential. So I definitely see all the input you're putting in there, you are leading it. So thank you. Thank you, Charlie.
Tin DG: So true.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, she is the front line. Yeah. It's huge. Tin, is there any support that you need to be able to grow these coming months? Is there anything that you see that we could help you with as far as personal growth, personal knowledge?
Tin DG: Yes. I think since I'm... And we're having this experience in tech support. So I think because I want to focus on my knowledge on that, like how to deepen it, how to really see how's the area or the function of it. So I think like when I'm exhausting all the information that we have on our website, like because also me, I'm like the customer. I'm also learning by watching it. So if I still doing it, like if there's a training for it, like what is I need to learn? Because now I'm collecting all the information of what we have having problem on the customer part, on how the resolution and to become that our SOP. I think once I submit that, they can teach me what is what I really need to know about the system. So we need to really summarize it. So I think I need to... to... To collect that more purse and then submit it to them. This is the issue that we're having, like the most issue. And then this is the solution that I have right now, based on our discussion. And then they can add more onto that, what is, I need to know more. So, because I want to, to listen, to ask them information about it and to take care of on myself, like the tech part, like the easy part, so I can handle it on my own. The, some of the question of the partner and taking care of them because they are the current customer that we have. I believe, my belief in the business is once you take care of the people or the customer that you already have, it will spread it. And that's how the business grow, not by acquiring more, not only by acquiring more, but keeping the current customer happy. So, that's why I want to improve my product knowledge.
Kristin Neal: I'm glad you brought that up, Tin, because we're actually in a very interesting spot right now as a company. At end of this month, we're going to be opening it up to professional users. So this is a new kind of ballpark, ballgame that we're going to be dabbling in. So if you can think of support that you need in order for you to know that world more, maybe let us know, okay?
Tin DG: Yes. Okay, Kris.
Kristin Neal: Anything else, you guys?
Quan Gan: I think in the future, hopefully sooner than later, we need to get your hands on the actual product and have you actually work it. So I'm going to find a way to do that one way or another. Maybe even meet you somewhere and I'll hand off a unit to you. Yeah. What's the easiest way for you to get to like an international location?
Tin DG: Because they can send product now in our province. So they will send it. Like at DHL, once they send it to the main city, Manila, after that they can deliver it by a van or by a truck. Got it.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I'm just wondering, maybe we could ship you something. I mean, do you have a local community you can actually playtest with?
Tin DG: Yeah, that part, that's why I'm not insisting it to receive the product, because that part is I'm thinking, who I will help me, because that one is a group, group, group, like, it's a, what call this one? That church with all the kids that you just showed us earlier would be a perfect one. Because that one is already in high school, so I'm thinking, how can I get on that? I have my niece, and then my cousin's children, so I'm thinking all of that one, after our last year's review.
Kristin Neal: Take it to their school. Your niece's school, just take it over.
Tin DG: Yeah, and that one is, I'm still thinking, because it's more new. So I'm thinking people who can, because they're kids, know, kids, they are, especially here, they are, they might, I don't want them to worry to them and then, and then auntie, because they will not be careful about it.
Quan Gan: So I'm thinking that's the actual customer. You know, okay, so something I have to share, which is, you know, we're the producer of the product. So it's like, we're the parent of it. Yeah, obviously, we want the product to be handled nicely. But it's better that the damage happens in-house than it happens outside. You know, you have car companies, they'll make a car and intentionally crash test it. And it's heartbreaking for the creator. But, you know, when I went back to China last week with Jerry, we had to take batteries and, like, just, like, shove a screwdriver through it just to see what happens to it. And, like, intentionally watch it catch fire. And basically explode. And it's crazy, right? It's heartbreaking. But, you know, it's better that we crash test and put it through harsh treatment than our customers and not knowing how to deal with it.
Tin DG: Yeah. Yeah, but yes. But I think I will try to think more on that. I'm not worried about how to receive it because I know I received some product easily from other countries. But that part is I'm worried. Okay, who is the people that I'm going with and which school? Because my nephew now is in high school and my niece is, they have this village in their own area. So I'm not sure who I can deal with that. That is the part that I'm still thinking. That's why I'm not pushing it yet to receive the product. But I'm considering to receive the product and use it to see it in actual.
Quan Gan: Yeah. What's the name of your area?
Tin DG: I have to guess.
Kristin Neal: You have it?
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Do you want me to... Send it to you? Yeah, yeah.
Quan Gan: I'll do some research, too, just to see what might work out. Yeah.
Tin DG: It's like four, five hours away from the city.
Quan Gan: Okay. Which island are you on?
Tin DG: Nueva Ecija. How do you spell that? It's N-U, N-E-U, sorry, N-E-U-B-A, and then Ecija, it's like E-S in elephant, C, N-I, and then letter J, J-A.
Quan Gan: Oops. Okay. Cool. Thank you.
Kristin Neal: All right. Anyone else to add to the support for TIN this coming quarter? All right. Ten Next Steps, E.U.S. Rock Alignment. think the code red is a perfect rock for this upcoming quarter. So coordinating with Charlie, coordinating training with Steve, you and I will be working on that for sure. Is there anything else you guys want her to focus on besides what she's already doing?
Quan Gan: Charlie just continue to be vocal of what tools you need in order to do your job well, including, you know, pushing on me. Yeah, exactly what you're currently doing.
Kristin Neal: And for AR, for accounts receivable, anything on that end, Charlie, that you see that she'll need to focus on? We are on mute. Sorry.
Charlie Xu: Okay, so far, think due to right now it's a low season, so it's just trying to catch up whatever the outstanding invoice is. So I think on my end, like, from now until maybe early next year, it's a low season. So, yeah, I think it should be fun, probably more focusing on the core red issues. Yeah. Okay, sure.
Kristin Neal: And how about for our Playmaker support? Anything on your end, Steve, that you'd like her to focus on?
Steven Hanna: No, I think it would be really beneficial to jump in on a training or two, see kind of how I go over things with people. But that's pretty much it. You've been great. Thank you for jumping in where needed. And I know that the second I'm done with any sort of training and there's sort of issues that come up, I know as long as I get it in a format for you, you got it from there. So thank you. Thank you, Steve.
Tin DG: support.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, you guys are a good team, for sure. Thank All right, I will summarize that.
Steven Hanna: Well, hold on one more thing. I do want to say for the authentic innovation, Tin actually took control of our meetings because we had noticed that our schedules were very sporadic with how busy I was. So Tin kind of just took control, said, I'm sharing my screen, and we're going to go ticket by ticket, and I need answers for these things. So, yeah, she laughs at it now, but it's kind of exactly what was needed for her to get what she needed and ensure that we were on track for what we needed as a company. So as far as, you know, keeping people on track, I know that she does that with Quan, and I appreciate, you know, you doing that for us on our side. So thank you for making sure that we do the things in order.
Kristin Neal: Hear, hear. Perfect way to end it, And a minus, removing that minus. Get it out of here. All right. If no one else has anything to add, I will finish this up, the summary, I will fill this out for Charlie to assess your bonus for your one-year bonus, and that will be applied by next paycheck, by next paycheck, that'll be next week, okay? All right, everybody. If nothing else, thank you so much, Thank you, everyone, for your feedback.
Tin DG: Thank you. Thank you, Tim.
Steven Hanna: Thank you, Chris, for hosting, as always. Appreciate you doing all of these meetings. Thank you. Thank you, guys.
Kristin Neal: Happy Friday.
Quan Gan: Happy Friday.
Kristin Neal: Take care, folks.
Steven Hanna: Have a wonderful Friday.
Kristin Neal: Bye-bye.
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Steven Hanna: How are you? I have them.
Kris Neal: Sorry. Here we go.
Steven Hanna: Oh, there's the board gate. Hi, Charlie. Hello.
Jiali Xu: Good morning. Good morning.
Kris Neal: Good morning. Good morning, Kris. For a long time, I'll see. Right? Monday does feel, today's only Wednesday, huh? Gosh, it does feel a time ago. Yeah. Waiting, is he waiting for Kwon? He said he's in a shower, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jiali Xu: I'm thinking, yeah, he's, yeah. Yes, we are all waiting for you, Kwon. Thank you, Kwon. Kwon. Kwon. Thank Thank Kwon. Kwon. Thank you, Kwon. Thank We'll joining a meeting soon.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Get his booty in gear. No, I was being baked with ZTAGGERS sound, geeky, geeky, like, oh! I can't stop, Lord of Alley, I cannot handle that.
Jiali Xu: Like, oh my God.
Steven Hanna: I must keep baking there.
Jiali Xu: Very funny.
Steven Hanna: morning. I'm just going to grab my cup of coffee and use the restroom before we get into all of it.
Jiali Xu: Chris, you have any plan for tomorrow?
Kris Neal: Yeah, we're going to have a fake one. We're going to have our in-laws and a few friends.
Jiali Xu: lovely.
Kris Neal: How about you guys?
Carmee Sarvida: Good morning, everyone.
Quan Gan: I'm going to be at our parents' place.
Klansys Palacio: Good morning. Yes.
Kris Neal: Good morning. That's a great color on you guys. Is that the new sweatshirt?
Paula Cia: Good morning, everyone. Yeah.
Jiali Xu: Yeah. I got a chance to send out yet. My car is broken.
Kris Neal: Oh, no. That's right. Your car is, yes. Yeah, it's still in the shop. Bummer.
Jiali Xu: Morning, Klans.
Klansys Palacio: Morning, Dave.
Kris Neal: Morning, Paula. Why don't we jump in, and then Steve can join us. He's just doing a quick restroom break. Does that sound good, or should we wait? I hate, I feel like we're waiting outside the door of the bathroom.
Jiali Xu: It's just dark.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kris Neal: All right, guys, welcome to our midweek check-in, and do you guys celebrate Thanksgiving? Thanksgiving? No? No, it's not.
Carmee Sarvida: Okay.
Kris Neal: Okay. Hey, Steve, perfect timing, please. I was just asking the team if they celebrated Thanksgiving, and they don't.
Steven Hanna: Oh, okay. Well, that's nice to celebrate, but, you know, it's also, eh, whatever. Welcome all to the Wednesday Midweek Checkup. We hope you all are having a good week so far. Um, with the safety rollout, I know there's a lot of things kind of in motion, and, uh, a lot of things in the pipeline to reach the end of the pipeline. So, thank you for your continued work on that. Uh, I wanted to start off by asking, does anybody have any support needs for their current tasks that they've been working on coming into today? Anyone need any assistance or support with anything?
Kris Neal: Chris? I wanted to clarify real quick. Um, Tim mentioned that we just got the V2 units in. Moving forward, are those the last V2 Two units that we're going to be getting, we're transferring to the V3, correct?
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay.
Kris Neal: So, Carmen, keep that in mind. We're keeping the same cost of the V2 for the educational, but after those units are done, we'll transition to the V3. Thanks, guys. it, Chris.
Carmee Sarvida: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Anybody else in regards to any support questions, cross-team inquiries? Anything like that? Okay. Sounds good, since no one's talking.
Quan Gan: Fine.
Steven Hanna: So I'll just give kind of everybody an update. guess we could just go through a quick one-minuter of what we're all kind of moving into for the next week. I'll start off by saying I'm heading back out to California. We might have two PDs set up for us, one in Twin Rivers, and then one, I believe, about within an hour of Castaic. Um, so hopefully we can get those kind of knocked away, and then I'll be, uh, sending out the safety upbraids with the, uh, padded envelopes. So that's what I'll be doing. And I'll pop corn over to, let's go with Chris.
Kris Neal: Thanks, Steve. Um, so there's some things that I wanted, um, Quan to kind of take a look at and see. Um, Carmee, um, and I and Paula have been working away at, so in Alabama, we learned about that grant, um, ASAP grant, right, Charlie? And it allowed us to see exactly what is needed for grants. So after looking into it, it's actually something that is needed for every state. So I'm looking into actually creating, like, a folder for each state and what their grants are requiring. Um, I have, um, we work... I on it this week for the alignment for the ASAP grant, but like the Arizona one, Quan, I actually took everything that you shared and created, let me share, kind of the same thing, which come to find out is actually necessary for each state. Great. So we've got all kinds of stuff for them to be able to just transition. Can I share this with you? So can you add, can you do your AI to see if it's aligned or whatnot? Okay.
Quan Gan: Sounds good.
Kris Neal: Each of these have, a lot of things actually need things like worded out, exactly their program, exactly like their training. This one I love because it really laid out what your training kind of goes over, Steve. So maybe I can share that with you just to make sure it's legit. Like, I think it was. They look good to me, but if there was anything missing. But then we've also never had like a product specification sheet. That one got me excited because it shows like everything. And Carmee and Paula are working on getting that all. But it really discusses even the data that we're sharing in the unit. So it's really just all spelled out. So not necessarily that one pager that you guys have created. Okay, I think that's it. I have, I'm also working on, I'll send this over to you, Quan. I'm also working on Kimberly Rothie. She is the woman from New Jersey who the school fundraised to get the unit. So she is working on, I sent her, Steve, like outline of, I think I shared it with you. she's to about Like, everything is going to go through you, pretty much, like, however you want to have that kind of trade-off. That was kind of, like, discussed, like, a long time ago. It's weird how it kind of naturally came into that. So you'll just connect with their PE teacher, which I'm really excited about, for that exchange, because they're going to go with the V3. So she's just getting those things worked out. And action distribution, the letter of compliance. It's, Quan, do we have, have you mentioned that to the factory?
Quan Gan: Oh, I think, didn't, I received something. Did I not send it out?
Kris Neal: If you did, it did not include me.
Quan Gan: Okay. I know I got something.
Kris Neal: Wonderful. Thank you so much. That's faster than the two weeks. Yeah. And, Chris, I'm sorry, you said New Jersey? Yes. Right? Isn't that what we...
Steven Hanna: Oh, no.
Kris Neal: I love the dreaded Jersey school, the one that I've been... Yeah.
Steven Hanna: A lot of people from Jersey, everybody from Jersey came and found them. Yeah, IAPA was, the New Jersey and New York people, the Northeast Corridor were like, hey, who are you?
Kris Neal: That's funny. I also included you, Tin, to one of the responses from Camp High Hopes. They're one of the testimonials with the Special Needs Camp. So, Steve, I'm so excited for you to connect with their boots on the ground because they're a Special Needs Camp, and that's going to be great. But this Jersey school, they're the ones, like, it would be great to find out how they decided. They had a wish list, and they decided on ZTED. So, it would be great to find out how they raised the money for them. Juan, did you send me what you were looking for?
Quan Gan: I found the certificates. I'll send it. Thank you.
Kris Neal: You'll just send it directly to him? Thank you.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I'll CC you.
Kris Neal: Okay. Can we send? send? And also to Tin, in case that's ever needed again.
Quan Gan: I'm going to put this into a folder, and then you guys can share. Thank you.
Kris Neal: Tin, this was for France. They needed some sort of documentation on the unit. It's a CE certificate.
Quan Gan: That's Europe specifically, all of you do.
Kris Neal: I think that's it. Charlie, are we still working towards the sticker program? I know you're swamped. Oh, you're on mute. You're on mute.
Jiali Xu: Yes, well, since I think like a lot of the content is rely on it's not I'm not know. know Steve to give us the detail, but I feel like he's right now packed with many other tasks, so we're pushing it back. But since right now we are still working on putting, like, we just finished the EBA, we just finished the thank you card. Then I feel like I might start working on that first, maybe later on have Steve to adding the game card, or maybe we have a, like, a meeting, a quick meeting to go through some of the drafts so we can start drafting some of it. I just try not to give, give, give it too much pressure on that one, and, but on the time, so, Kris, do you, do, do you know what is the deadline?
Kris Neal: It's when we go, yeah, it's when we go to, north to do the training with, and all The Project Share. So that's January 3rd, I believe.
Quan Gan: January 3rd, okay.
Jiali Xu: Okay.
Kris Neal: So then it'll give them the time to implement it in their programs and then discuss it. I think we have time.
Jiali Xu: Yeah, I think we have time. So after Thanksgiving, we can pull the energy onto focusing on this. Yeah. Very cool.
Kris Neal: Am I doing the partner gifts again? Is that okay to move forward with? I know there were like a lot of discussion about what we could do.
Jiali Xu: Socks were a big hit last year, so would that be okay if I just move forward with that? Mm-hmm. Okay.
Kris Neal: And then like little $5 gift cards to Starbucks in each little sock. Okay. All right. I'll do, I did 12 last year, believe. Should I do like 15?
Quan Gan: Whoever you think would appreciate it.
Kris Neal: Okay. Sounds good. Thanks, guys.
Steven Hanna: I do have a request that you send something over to Michael, that teacher in California who has been looking to get a system.
Kris Neal: Absolutely. Was that the very first guy that you talked to?
Steven Hanna: Yes. Yes. Yeah.
Kris Neal: Very cool. I think that's it on my end. Who wants to go next? Jiali, do you want to go?
Jiali Xu: Sure. Okay. So recently, I worked with Paula, just finished the design of the Senku card. And we've been finished printing all the stickers, the safety pack stickers. So it will arrive next week, early next week. So we can work on that. I think one thing I need to verify. Okay. Okay. So on the card, the wording is, is about, we, we, hold on, me, let me pull it out. Okay, so the wording is, wait a minute. Okay, the wording is, we've upgraded all your ZTAGGER, ZTAGGER watches, watches with fresh new tag, new game, on the new SD card, right? So, so, but, but, but we're going to send them before we switch their ZTAGGER, so, right? So you said, like, we're going to send out all the envelopes.
Steven Hanna: Correct.
Jiali Xu: So should we kind of like just delay sending out these envelopes or whoever already have the switch to ZTAGGERS? Because I feel like it's just this envelope is a little bit ahead of time of we switching the ZTAGGERS.
Steven Hanna: Right. So I would say that would be up to you guys. We can get this out as soon as possible, the stickers and everything, because that's really what they, I guess, would want to have on their systems, right? We want them to know that they should shut it down correctly sooner than later, even without the training. And then we should obviously train. So I would say that would be up to us all to decide when we want to do that. The wording, we can change up pretty quickly because, you know, that's that, right? Did you order already?
Jiali Xu: I already sent it to print.
Steven Hanna: Okay, then, you know, we can decide whether or not we want to hold on to it for a little while.
Jiali Xu: We can.
Steven Hanna: can have them ready to go, and then when you guys send out taggers, you can send them out with that pack.
Jiali Xu: What do you think, Quan?
Quan Gan: What are the options?
Steven Hanna: Option one, send out the padded envelopes with the SD card and safety stickers and thank you card before we send it out with the taggers. Option two, send out taggers with safety envelope.
Quan Gan: I think this should go out first.
Jiali Xu: Okay.
Quan Gan: Because this, if you send this out, there's a few benefits. The SD card already gets some new games, but it also forces them to upgrade their firmware, which also does improve safety margins. Because we've reduced the charging rate on the latest firmware. So even if they're still improperly charging, you're in. You've increased the safety factor by a lot with the reduced charging rate.
Jiali Xu: Okay, yeah, but just on the card, warning is we have upgraded ZTAGGERS, but the thing is we haven't, because they haven't shipped back.
Quan Gan: Well, technically, you're upgrading the firmware has also improved it. Okay. Right, so ideally, we could swap their stuff back, but at the very least, like there's so many different layers, right? That's a really first easy layer. So if you provided them something, all they need to do is plug it in, and it should upgrade everything.
Steven Hanna: So I think, Charlie, you're focused more on the wording of what we're true to doing as a company more than, right? Yeah, just because I don't, because it's a whole process, right? Right.
Jiali Xu: Including working on the ZTAGGER, including... So I just feel like now we're a little bit ahead of time to send them the envelope, but still we're waiting for them to ship back the ZTAGGERS and really fully upgrade the whole thing.
Quan Gan: We want to do this in layers because we don't have all the inventory to upgrade everybody. So this is something, Tin, you need to be aware of as well. We've pretty much exhausted all of our current replacement inventory with recent fixes. So I have a bunch of things that I've swapped out. So I have several hundred ZTAGGERS, but these ZTAGGERS need to have their batteries swapped. You know, because what happened before was I had probably about three or four hundred completely new ZTAGGERS. And then our family has inserted little ZTAGGERS. ZTAGGERS. We've the things in the battery to keep it safe, and we've already shipped all of these out. So we've collected things back, but these are used products that we need to refurbish. The used ones, we need to get new batteries from the factory, and that's probably not going to happen until another month from now. So if we are collecting people's units back right now, it's going to take some time before we can get them physically new products. So I'd rather it kind of trickle in, and we just work on it as we have products. But the very base layer beyond the physical is we update their firmware. So we want to make sure they have their eight games and not just four or six. And that's kind of the better incentive because they want new games. And in order for them to get new games, they have to update their firmware on their ZTAGGERS, which actually improves. or safety anyways. So that's more of a using the carrot rather than the stick.
Kris Neal: So the follow-up email to them, Tin, when you email them that their safety package is on their way, is probably videos of how to update the ZTAGGERS and the unit with what's coming.
Tin DG: Is it like attaching the video for the new game or just mentioning it through the email?
Quan Gan: We should probably have a, well, I'm still testing on a completely new firmware. haven't tested it yet. But ideally, all they got to do is swap the SD card out and the, and that system will automatically detect their ZTAGGERS and do the update all in one shot. So if that's, if that works and it's the case, we'll probably make a new video for that. And the... And the lead for that video, I don't think it should be just safety. It's like, oh, we've already updated everything. You've got two new games, and there's additional features, right? So you almost don't even have to talk about the safety stuff. It's like, you want to get this updated, plug this thing in, it's going to give you two new games.
Kris Neal: It just solidifies what the stickers say, so that's perfect. And then she'll just give next steps of what's coming next. Them implementing the update on the unit, and the sticker placement, and then training with Steve will be coming next, and us getting their ZTAG.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I think the overall thing that's going to move the needle the most is incentivizing them with two new games. So you tell them, hey, we've updated ZTAG, there's two new games. In order to learn about how these work, well, schedule your call with Steve. So kind of leading it with the things that they probably value the most. We value the safety most, but that's kind of hidden. It's like the medicine inside. But the sugar coating is you got two new games, and Steve's here to help you learn about these.
Jiali Xu: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So maybe, Steve, when you're here, when we're taking the videos, we can't include that of schedule a meeting with us or something. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: No, no, no.
Kris Neal: It's got to be you can always schedule a meeting. You got to direct them that it's always in their hands to schedule a meeting with Steve. Sorry.
Steven Hanna: Well, we can include that in the video, right? That's what you're saying. Just make sure that it's inclusive to say, I'm always available for you, rather than, hey, you know, I'm only available for select.
Kris Neal: I get what you're saying, Kris. Or in an email, email us to send you the link. It's in their hands to schedule.
Jiali Xu: I have had a lot of no-shows.
Steven Hanna: I want to say about 10 to 15% of my trainings are no-shows at this point. So I have a protocol where I do send them two emails during the training, like with their window, five minutes in and 15 minutes in. And then by the 30-minute mark, I just leave because obviously they're not showing up by then. So I don't really know what else we can do for that. I've set up four automations for messages for Calendly to be sent out, reminding people and text messages. So they're getting an email and a text beforehand, an hour beforehand, and a day beforehand. I don't know what else we can do. So it's not like the main issue here, but I am just saying people scheduling. I do anticipate about 10 to 15% of the future people scheduling to not actually show up for this training. make-bye. Bye Bye Bye Okay. Anything else in regards to safety, upgrades, marketing, wording, cross-team concepts that we need to kind of go over? Quan, do we need to go over anything for IAPA sales with Carmee as those roll in?
Quan Gan: There's not much. And I say, I would think maybe the IAPA sales you and I can handle is probably just going to be people that we've met. And then maybe, yeah, how do you feel about that? Because it's going to be a pretty small percentage.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, I was kind of leaning in that direction of they've already seen us and they know who we are. So we might as well continue that line of communication and keep the IAPA away. From everybody else, that's kind of what it is right here. Just isolate it. I know we got an email from Ami already. Yeah. Yes.
Quan Gan: I know.
Steven Hanna: I saw it. I saw it. So let's just continue to handle it ourselves, and you and I can coordinate on those. Carmee, if anything does come in from the IAPA side, just at us so that we are aware that there is some sort of future pipeline lead with them. Some of them, I'm going to be honest, we're not going to reach back out to. Like, they're going to be dead leads, and they are not qualified. There were probably three to four people who may be qualified of that one couple who would actually be qualified. So it's a very, very small pool of people who would actually be coming from IAPA. But if they do say they're from there, just make sure you add us so that we can communicate.
Carmee Sarvida: Got it, Steve. Thank you. Yeah.
Quan Gan: And to... Reiterate, IAPA or any kind of entertainment-based person, they do not go through our standard pipeline, so there's no follow-up. In fact, we want to make it harder for them because we want them to know that they have to work for, like, they have to be interviewing us rather than the other way around. No, like, we are interviewing them rather than the other way around. Like, they have to pitch us to prove that they're worth dealing with. This will only apply to the IAPA leads, not for all the professional.
Carmee Sarvida: Any professional entertainment.
Steven Hanna: Any FECs and mobile entertainment operators. Those are the two categories that I would say are exempt from the standard pipeline. We need to reverse vet them, basically. So we have to do our research on them. I think one thing that we kind of came to the conclusion of is if you have a bounce house business and you're doing... What'd you call it? Drop and dumps? Yeah.
Quan Gan: Drop and dumps.
Steven Hanna: You're basically excluded. You are totally not able to purchase the system. If you are a teacher who happens to own a side business where you're doing bounce houses, we can have a conversation. But if that's your primary, probably not. If you're a teacher who's trying to start a business and it's just this, chances are it's probably yes. So like it's very selective. So it's case by case. And I just want to say, don't apply the standard thought process when it comes to these types of leads.
Quan Gan: Yeah. And you'll get leads because they see how active we are, right? Through our social media, through some of our other customers who are going out and doing it. And, but realize the equation is different. Because when they see that, they're like, oh, they see dollar signs. They want to be making money, right? Versus, oh, this is the impact that I can have in my community. And so we have to reverse vet them to say, what is your actual motivation here? Yes, there is a business case behind it, but is your motivation to actually help your community? Or are you just trying to make a buck and we're no different from a bounce house? And if we are no different from a bounce house, then go buy the bounce house.
Steven Hanna: Totally different than Chris's experience where she's coming from a show that is basically embedded halfway into camp world, halfway into education, halfway into edutainment, which is kind of like this nice little middle ground where the leads coming from that are going to be much more, this is going to sound crazy to say, but much more clean is the word that I'm going to use. And they feel more clean and the experience is much more clean. So those are the standard. You know, practice that we have, but you'll see the contrast, and you might look at some of these people in the leads and go, what the hell are they talking about? And that could happen. Any questions? Kris?
Kris Neal: Do you guys need the V3 institutional updated? We talked about that this week, Carmee and Paul and I, but I know there's a few things like the two-year, extended care. There's several things that it now comes with, so. Does anyone know? Are you talking about policy pricing or what? Pricing catalog, yeah. The V3 pricing catalog.
Quan Gan: So V3, from our internal cost and operation, is pretty much identical to V2. It's more of a hardware chain. It's chain. That allows for better servicing. So I wouldn't really see any changes there. We could probably increase the warranty if that's what's needed. But I don't know. Are schools pushing back that it's a one-year?
Kris Neal: No, this was for the professional.
Steven Hanna: This was for entertainment. Oh, entertainment.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay.
Steven Hanna: Because I wouldn't call that institutional.
Quan Gan: I'm sorry, did I call it institutional? Sorry.
Kris Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: My bad. You're talking about professional?
Kris Neal: Professional. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Professional, yeah, we pushed the price to $17,500.
Kris Neal: And there was a few things that were added in that that need to be included in that pricing catalog.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I would say, well, again, we'll take it case by case. And whatever Charlie had already put into the flyer, that's what we're going to work off of. So we don't really don't even need. To bake it into our model yet, because it's going to be a few people. Yeah. And then there was this guy in Israel or Middle East. He's like, okay, do I get exclusivity? You know, he wants to buy two. I'm like, look, man, you need to prove that you deserve exclusivity, right? Like, give me your business plan. Like, I'm going to make it hard for him, you know? So we'll take it.
Steven Hanna: The second system was his for his own personal use. The first was for the water park.
Kris Neal: The second one was, you know, an add-on. Water park? He's coming from a water park.
Steven Hanna: However, he's an entrepreneur, and you could definitely tell that he has other business models in mind. So it's like, it's a double-edged sword of, yes, the water park would probably get it. But that second system, who knows? I don't think a water park. Park is going to have two systems. That sounds, you know, there's just something that's off there.
Kris Neal: Definitely.
Steven Hanna: It's just my entertainment brain going, two systems in a water park? Maybe it reinforced, and now you want two for one water park? How big is this water park? It's in Israel. Like, how big could it possibly be? Aqua Kef, if we want to do research. Okay. Any other cross-team things that have come up? Questions, comments, concerns, needs for support, anyone?
Tin DG: I have a question.
Steven Hanna: Shoot.
Tin DG: For Science School. One, Amanda already sent back their unit, the one with safety issue, and we authorized to upgrade their unit to B3. We sent the B3 to your house when we will be sending her B3.
Quan Gan: Wait, is this with a code red?
Tin DG: Yes, the one with sea tagger and catching fire.
Quan Gan: Okay, where, which state is it from?
Tin DG: Oklahoma.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. It's the far one. Okay, so we got their system back.
Tin DG: Yes.
Quan Gan: Oh, nice. Okay, great. Send them the V3.
Tin DG: So we can send the V3 for her. I'll be sending you the label. Because the V3 is in your house for her.
Quan Gan: Okay, do we have any V3s in inventory still? We do, right?
Tin DG: Yes, we have seven.
Quan Gan: Okay, then just ship one from the inventory. Okay. Yeah, but have them return their V2 first. I got to make sure I get it first before you send this V3.
Tin DG: Yes, it was stating in the UPS tracker that already delivered to your house.
Quan Gan: it's already? Okay. If it's here, then good. Then I offer as sending their thing.
Tin DG: Thank Okay.
Quan Gan: And then, yeah, make sure they get scheduled training with Steve.
Tin DG: Yes, for them to be.
Quan Gan: Okay. Thank you.
Tin DG: Thank you.
Quan Gan: Oh, I'm so glad we were able to get in touch with him finally.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, Amanda's been the elusive unicorn. She's been tough. Okay. Any other cross-team issues that need to be brought to everyone's attention to work on? Are we okay? Charlie?
Quan Gan: do a quick Were you waving your hand?
Jiali Xu: Yes. Okay. So, since we are also facing Chinese New Year, so we're going to, right now, all the orders we placed for factory has been delivered. So, we need to discuss about. The next orders, when we should place, and how many by the training last year, based on last year? maybe, because also, should we prepare that for Cannes? Because it's kind of like close to that time.
Quan Gan: I do know that last year, we sat on inventory for quite a few months. We probably had two or three months of inventory where it was fully stocked at our HQ. So you probably don't need to make another immediate order unless we sell out of V3s. V3s would justify maybe a new smaller batch order if there's continued demand.
Jiali Xu: But our V2s, we have to clear out that inventory before we can allow the schools to migrate over to that. Okay, yeah, because I think, Tin, give me the, as a Tin, how many V3 is in the inventory right now?
Tin DG: Because we will be sending one to science school. Currently, we have six V3 and 35 for V2.
Jiali Xu: Okay, so in the future, we are, no matter what, we're going to order V3, right? So maybe we can place an order for V3.
Quan Gan: Yeah, we will place an order for V3, but I think the timing of that will depend on how quickly we clear out V2s. And it also depends if there are professional customers wanting V3s. If professional customers want V3s, then we sell out this inventory and use that profit to make another order for V3s. But any school for now, other than that code red swap, they're all getting V2s because we have to make sure that inventory clears out.
Jiali Xu: Okay, so, okay. okay. okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah, because we're probably not going to see more sales movement in the school system until February, right, Kris?
Kris Neal: Right, yeah. At Cannes, that'll be, yeah, it's in February, so I was like, what?
Quan Gan: Yeah, so it's going to be a quiet few months, so this is time for us to do more internal work than strong sales.
Kris Neal: Cannes was January last year, that's where I got confused.
Jiali Xu: Okay. Yeah, but I do see, so yeah, I see also, Kris, maybe give me, give us a little update on the sales part, because I do see some orders coming, like appeals are coming. So from your forecast, do you see there will be still the units coming out during this month and next month?
Kris Neal: Let me get back from break, because a lot of people were kind of like waiting on, and then I can get you an accurate number.
Jiali Xu: Is that okay? Like the first week of December, maybe? Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Jiali Xu: So, yeah, because also the factory takes two months to produce, and they have spring break, their spring festival, I early February. So, yeah, we do need to place that in December, early December. Then they have two months to...
Steven Hanna: What's the usual delay for Chinese New Year? I know it's a significant amount of time.
Jiali Xu: Oh, it's shifting all the time.
Quan Gan: Well, it basically renders three to four weeks useless. Just think about you lose an entire month of production.
Steven Hanna: That's what I was trying to figure out. How much time is really like...
Quan Gan: Yeah. When you buffer both ends, it's one whole month.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
Quan Gan: And when does that begin? It shifts year to year. It's usually like end of January to early February. So basically, mid-Jan to March, we should expect there should be zero work done on the Chinese side.
Jiali Xu: Next year is February 17th to March 3rd.
Steven Hanna: So from the beginning of February to the end of March is basically when we should expect not a lot of work to be done.
Jiali Xu: One month. I think one month is good.
Quan Gan: All of February. All of February.
Jiali Xu: Yeah, around February. But sometimes it could be January.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay. My current position is you probably don't need to make another order with the factory and try to squeeze it before Chinese New Year.
Jiali Xu: Okay.
Quan Gan: We could probably place an order in January and say, okay, get it to us in March, and I think it would be okay.
Kris Neal: You know what? That actually makes sense. right. Okay. As if all their focus could kind of be on the batteries right now.
Jiali Xu: Yeah, exactly.
Quan Gan: Get us the ZTAGGERS and the batteries. That's what we need.
Kris Neal: Yeah, let's do that.
Quan Gan: That sounds good. So I would push you to get that rather than full systems.
Kris Neal: Yeah, that sounds good.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it's actually a similar production amount because we want to get 1,000 ZTAGGERS from them, and 1,000 is roughly like 20 systems worth of ZTAGGERS. Right? Because each system has 26, so 20 – no, it's actually about 30. Yeah, so you're looking at 30-some units worth of ZTAGGERS, right? So that's pretty significant. And 5,000 batteries.
Kris Neal: And this is already ordered, right? This is still in negotiation because they're testing the batteries.
Quan Gan: Like we have – We have The price for our replacement ZTAGGERS, they've been pretty good about reducing it to share some of the costs with us, but they're also providing 5,000 batteries. In order for that to go through, though, they have to fully test these batteries, and I haven't gotten the test results yet. Yeah, but that should be a goal to have that done before Chinese New Year, for sure.
Kris Neal: That would be great. Before CAN, that would be so great.
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah.
Kris Neal: We can, like, plan. When is CAN?
Steven Hanna: February 27th, 28th, 29th.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Kris Neal: Start fresh. Should we do a recap one? Is that what you were saying?
Quan Gan: Yeah, I'd like to. How about, Chris, how about you start with your end of things?
Kris Neal: Yeah, I'll be getting together the sock gift card gifts to partners. I'm excited for that. Okay. I'marmeñ. Okay. I'll I'm keeping... continuing doing doing we're I sent that Quan over to you, that doc with all the documents. I actually meant a recap on your travels. Oh, sorry. Oh, yeah. Oh, gosh. Okay. Thank you. Oh, my gosh, Steve. I'm so excited. I've been wanting to do it all week. Oh, my gosh. I was going to jump in the meeting. was like, man. Okay. I was like, okay, how do I do this? How do I do a session, right? Because your guys' energy is just unmatched. So, I was like, a story. The story, the video that you guys produced, Paula and Charlie, the every play is a story. I just love that video. So, I created, like, the evolution of ZTAG through play. So, I started off with showing them the red light, green light because they stopped and started with the lighting and they had to stop a lot of things and then go with a lot of things and then moved on to, like, learning. We had to learn all these things. We moved into, like, learning games or we had to... Learned their language, the language game. That's something I want to change for if that ever comes up again. And then like the math game, because we had to learn their lingo. had to learn all about how they can purchase and all that. And then the zombie survival, Steve, that was so cool. Because like when I said that, I was like, and now we come to the zombie survival. And the whole crowd was like, oh, like, yeah, this is it. This is the game that I want to play. was so cool. So I was like, all right. So we played zombie survival. And then I told him about like Quan and like Logan. I totally had a brain fart and I forgot the poor kid's name. But and just how that that moves him to to create this for schools and just, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And then it was so cool because Steve at the very end, I was like, my title. I was like, I'm so sorry. forgot to introduce myself. I got so excited to start. My name's Chris. And then I said my title and I was like, but that's not really the title that I feel like is me. I'm room mom. I've always been a room mom. So here I am, room mom. This is so amazing. And that was it.
Quan Gan: And how many people attended again?
Kris Neal: About 50. There was a bunch of people. Yeah, there was at least 45 playing, but then there was like 10 or 15 in the back that were just standing. And my phone is so overloaded with pictures and all that. I can't send it out. Can I just throw it to you? Can you just look at the video? Send it. Steve, think you're going to have to send Chris a Playmaker Developer Certificate.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, I think we could work something out. I could pop open Canvan, type your name in pretty quick.
Kris Neal: I don't know if that qualifies.
Steven Hanna: More of a ZTAG Storyteller. Oh, that? No, no, no. You qualify. Don't worry. Cool.
Kris Neal: Please, go ahead and tell us how your guys' went.
Quan Gan: We had a whole rollercoaster, literally and figuratively. We show up every... Well, the first day when I got picked up from the airport, I thought they had lost one in my luggage because I had an AirTag that it showed it was still at LAX. I was like, oh, , did something not even arrive? And it was just a scare because the AirTag was actually in my car the whole time. So I did get both. I was like, okay, you know, maybe we usually have something weird happen, you know, before the show. You know how it is. And then we go and set up the show. Pretty smooth. The next day we go to the show, turn everything on, nothing will connect. Like the ZTAGGERS will just not want to jump onto the Wi-Fi. And through a lot of debugging, I realized the trade show floor is just a giant Wi-Fi war zone because every single device from every other demo is like using the Air. here. The I know in instead of And we made a recent change in the V3, and I didn't know this is like, you know, this tiny little change has its consequence. We have a router that is specifically for the China region, and it uses the frequency that the U.S. ones don't use. So what happened is once the router detects a really crowded airspace, it jumps to a channel that no other devices use, but it's only spec for China. And so none of our ZTAGGERS could see it. Basically, it's like the router just left the building. And so this would never connect. And so I was very frustrated the first day. And then we ended up going to Best Buy to get another router, and I was up until like 2 in the morning. And I got it working at home. We bring it back to the show the next day. It works for like 30 minutes, and it doesn't work again. So basically, we gave up on having any demos. But... In going through this whole thing, I realized that maybe it was meant to be, that we're not there to actually do demos in the first place. Because every person who has come through, other than all but one, and that person wasn't even a potential buyer, they were more like trying to, they're an industry news person, so they want to see it working. But nobody even requested a demo, because we, up to this point, we have so much, we have so much content online and whatever, like they can see it for themselves, how it works. So there's, the proof is already there, you know, and there are people who, you know, if they go on social media, they can see it. And also the booth being a 10 by 10, I think it's very different compared to a larger 20 by 20 booth that invites you to want to come in and do a demo. This looks like this is an information gathering, info only booth anyways, right? So we never really had to. Like, felt a negative that we didn't do a demo. And so all four days, the right people came by. And you end up finding up, like, serendipitously, when you have a new person that seems like they're the right fit, as they're hovering, there's always, like, time and time again, an older customer comes through, and they basically say, you got to get this, this is the best thing ever, and just, like, nonstop. Like, it's like we couldn't even have paid for that, right? and it really just shows the, I guess, the karma that we put out there, especially with some of these older customers, because they experience a lot of product pain through the years of, like, much earlier generation, not even the V2. These are the, like, the little pins, and we've done right by them, and they know we've been around for a long time, that we're not a fly-by-night business. So they'll come and vouch for us for anything. Anybody who is new and unsure, just hearing some other customer come through and just like say nothing but good things, it's been a really good feeling. And then on top of that, we went to an IAPA Celebrates event where they closed out all of Universal, the latest Epic Universe, and that is essentially a Gantem lighting showcase. Like for our other company, there's hundreds if not thousands of lighting fixtures all over that entire park. And this is the most expensive park and class of roller coasters in the world. This entire park just opened, I think this year, and it's like a seven or eight billion dollar project. And Gantem is like the, some of the most select, like the most important scenes they use Gantem to light up. Yeah. And the best part about this is like I had nothing directly to do with it because the team was able to put that together. And the team over the past 15 years have really established deeply into the relationships in that sector. And so it's very encouraging to me to see, okay, well, that took 15 years worth of work, but it's, you know, it's a very small company. And the effect of those lights have literally affected hundreds of millions, if not in the billions of people's eyeballs now, or accumulated over these years, right? We've lit up that many people's experiences. ZTAG's going to do it even on a larger scale, right? If we've already done that before with a previous company, ZTAG, all we got to do is stay in the game, exist. ZTAG, the right conditions will naturally form around us. And I think it's going to be. Just enormous. So this whole thing was just so fulfilling. And Steve and I, we also rode the most advanced crazy roller coaster that I basically tasted my heart four times through this whole thing. It's just crazy. Maybe, Steve, you can jump in and chime in on that.
Steven Hanna: It was a very, very fun, twisty, windy roller coaster that if you have sciatica problems or back problems or neck problems, you definitely don't want to be on. yeah, so the park was pretty cool, and the lights were pretty gnarly. That's not much more to say other than you would have to see it to understand the experience, and talking about it would not do it justice. So it's one of those things. And I'm sure he'll start posting some pictures into the group chat of the experience. But, yeah, the whole IAAPA experience. This was definitely a roller coaster. Too much Wi-Fi is basically what it came down to. And Chris, you were like, how is there too much Wi-Fi? And I was like, oh, if you only understood and knew the context of this. If you had to personify each individual person as their own soldier for Wi-Fi, it was literally just a massacre. Everybody was just firing in different directions. It doesn't matter who was getting connections. Everybody was just falling over. Somebody would get a connection for 30 seconds, be at the top of the hill, and then a random Wi-Fi bullet would come and take them out. And then that person's at the top of the hill for 10 seconds. Then a Wi-Fi mortar from downfield comes and blows everybody up. Like, this is just a war zone. If you're just standing in the wrong place, you know, the thing would fail. Yeah, we were just not in the best tactical position for Wi-Fi.
Quan Gan: I never thought I'd say that. It was weird because there were, like, occasional times where I got it working and right then there was a cop. And we actually did do like one or two demos, and it didn't fail when they were there. And then when they leave, it drops again.
Steven Hanna: So maybe we created a human Faraday cage around the system for that small time period?
Quan Gan: I don't know. It was so weird. Several times I had to lug the system out of the trade show. It'll basically walk a quarter mile to get it somewhere where I can configure it just to get it working and then take it back to the show and it doesn't work again.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, was basically a feedback loop of Quan going, all right, I got to take the system upstairs. You good? I'm like, we're not running demos. We're fine. Go ahead. Then he'd come back with an updated system. We tried and he'd be like, well, that didn't work. And I'd go, okay, see you in a few. We just keep repeating that for like two days straight.
Kris Neal: But that's never happened before, right, Quan?
Steven Hanna: No.
Kris Neal: You guys have been at IAVA before.
Quan Gan: And that's because the router changed. The router changed. And I thought the router was like fundamentally better. But because. It's a China region router. It has China-specific frequencies that's incompatible in the U.S.
Kris Neal: Interesting.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Like, just tiny little variables you'd never think would affect you, and it bites you in the .
Steven Hanna: But, like Quan said, it was almost pretty ironically funny that every time a potential person or buyer partner came along, someone from the old roster came along as well and was basically taking over for Quan and I, where we didn't have to talk for two to three, four or five minutes. There's this one guy, Michael K., I forgot his last name, it's something crazy, but he basically sold the system to someone for us without, you know, he rolled by on a scooter. He was like, you thinking about getting that? That thing is the best thing ever, and you'd be stupid if you didn't get And he had this like hard accent too. So it was just very interesting to know every single time someone came up, someone from our old roster or past partner was vouching on our behalf. And even without a demo, it was very successful in its own way. Like seeing that there's two systems that are potentially being purchased coming out of this, like by day two, Quan and I had to shift a mindset to, okay, this is kind of wonky. What do we really expect out of this now at this point? Because we're no longer in our line of expectation of how this event is going to go. After we realized that it was naturally and organically developing as this experience that other people were going to be a part of, we were just like, okay, we can just exist. Exist in the space and that's it. So we're learning time and time again that just by being in the space. wonderfulelaảnhains. ... Now, … ... One We're getting a lot of value out of information, out of potential partner research, market research, pathways for marketing, and just how to navigate different types of markets. So it's really valuable to just be on the floor. And I would say we just get a really good source of information. And I'm sure that, Quan, you also had the same in Arizona when you went there.
Quan Gan: Oh, yeah. Can I talk about that? That's recent.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay, so Arizona was an old Code Red, or a Code Red that Steve had unearthed when he did the training with them, because they had just kind of didn't care about it. And so we took the Cybertruck over there, and I realized that out of the four systems, three of them they've already removed. Three He the clear plastic lid. I think from various factors, they probably broke or, you know, maybe they smashed it or something. So he just removed it completely. And the one system that still had the plastic lid on, that's where the code red happened. It's like, if it didn't have the lid, it wouldn't happen. But the one that did, yeah. And then you could see there's like a burn mark from the lid being covered on top of it. And it's like almost the same place that I saw in the other system. So there's a pattern. But they were very grateful that we were there to swap things out. And we spent several hours and I took them to lunch. And the fact that we took the Cybertruck, you know, they were very happy that I took them on full self-driving to get to our lunch and treat them out. So from my perspective, it's hard to be aware of this unless I see it reflected through others. Just And people probably see ZTAG as just like this really futuristic company that they've never even touched that far into the future because most people don't even know what full self-driving feels like. And our technology is also very forward, right? So, and because I'm so immersed in state-of-the-art technology, to me, it's normal. But I think when you contrast that to teachers, you know, or how much they use ChatGPT or anything, like, we are so many years ahead that we probably just look like aliens in human form, you know? So we really stood out. And the partners, when they saw, you know, just having a Cybertruck come through, it's also very legitimate, right? It's not just like, okay, I roll up in a regular rental car and I'm here to service something. It's like, look, we're here to represent something and this is how we roll. And I showed them our tent. I showed them our A-frame. All that. They're like, oh, we want to do all of that. They want to actually host their own games. So this is a really strong partner. They've also won the best program award in the state because they got all of their 25 schools certified to a certain level. And they basically have their own kind of like canned quality standards in Arizona. So they basically like are the model district that have basically checked all the checkboxes. So if we drive our partnership much deeper with them, that example is going to like really spread out to the rest of the state. And they're interested in maybe co-presenting. And basically everything we're doing with partners in California, I think we're going to be able to do with them and more. And the other difference I realize is. In Arizona, it's all tuition-based, probably because they have lower tax dollars, so it's more like the individual a la carte will pay for these services, and they're expected to, whereas California, it's like your tax dollars already paid for it, so it's, you know, the state took it, and they've kind of just like mandated that, well, it left out. But for them, they're totally okay with using this to drive their, it wouldn't be attendance, but their, I don't know, enrollment. It would improve their enrollment, right, by having something so attractive as ZTAG.
Kris Neal: She, they almost sound like the Julian, don't they? Twiniverse?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Kris Neal: Like they're innovative, they're willing to be the first adopters, so I'm excited.
Quan Gan: I think you're going to find that mirrored because we are the innovators as a company, right? So we're going We're to be attracting innovator-type customers who really want to do similar. You're going to see that really good mutual match, and the more that we reciprocate, the more they're going to be able to amplify what we do.
Kris Neal: Just for, like, AI purposes or filtering, I'm curious if we had that kind of partner in each state, and we were to have, like, exactly what they gave you, like, the input where their funding is coming from, so we kind of get ahead of what that state needs. You know what I mean? If we have, like, a Texas partner that was really, yeah.
Quan Gan: I think a lot of these things, they're not, I mean, we can be a little bit intentional about it once something happens, but a lot of these things, like Steve said, it's like, we just need to exist. Opportunities or crises might pop up that pulls us into a certain circumstance. You know, IAPA included, or this Code Red included, but once you just engage with them and have a conversation, may lead to other beautiful things.
Steven Hanna: Anybody else share it? Okay. Then with that, we have been just about the hour for everybody, so I will say if no one else has any further questions, comments, support needs, us Americans are probably going to be off tomorrow. We may seldom be reached, so if you do send a message, just know that we may or may not respond depending on who we are. So, 50-50. Have fun. Yeah, it's like a game now. So, if you message us, through let. But other than that, we should be back around Friday to close out the week to do some quick extra wrap-up stuff. And that's pretty much it. You guys can leave at your own pleasure. Leadership team, hang out? Or do we want to do a new...
Quan Gan: I actually have to take Charlie out to get her car. So I don't know if we have time to maybe meet afternoon or...
Steven Hanna: That would be up to Chris. I have no time restrictions on my end. I had one training earlier today, so I'm free.
Kris Neal: And I have nothing else to share. Do we have more to share?
Steven Hanna: For L10 stuff, we might have to go over a few quick things for like a half hour.
Quan Gan: How about, let's play by ear for later. If not, we'll push it to next week. There's nothing urgent.
Kris Neal: And I'll be honest, I'm not sure if I'll be here on Friday. Is that okay, guys?
Steven Hanna: I'm sorry. I kind of thought.
Kris Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: We weren't expecting.
Kris Neal: Okay. Yeah. All right.
Quan Gan: All right.
Kris Neal: And we'll see you on Monday. Sounds good, everybody. Take care. See you guys later. Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you. Bye.
Kristin Neal: Good morning, Paula.
Paula Cia: How are you?
Kristin Neal: Good morning.
Tin DG: Good morning.
Kristin Neal: Good morning. All right. Hey, Carmee. Good morning.
Carmee Sarvida: Good morning. Good morning.
Kristin Neal: Good morning. Yes. All right. We'll go ahead and get started. Clansis is unavailable today. And Charlie is also unavailable today. She is taking Gio to school. So we'll go ahead and jump in. We'll go And there's, gosh, it's so good to see you girls after last week, after Thanksgiving week. It was definitely an interesting week. I think we could all agree on that, that there's so much, and I'm sure you guys have seen all over the news, everything that's going on in Hong Kong, even in, I believe it's Malaysia, right? And all the flooding and the roads, I mean, it's so, so devastating. Thailand, all that, like 500 people, it's just crazy. So I think in the spirit of human connection, if we could just open this time in prayer, is there anything I can pray for for you guys? Glances has an aunt who's ill, so I'll be praying for her. Is there anything else I could pray for? else pray for? for? Is there Okay. All right. I'll start us off. Dear Gracious and Heavenly Father, thank you, Lord, so much for bringing us together this beautiful day, this beautiful evening. Thank you, Lord, for your hand of protection over this team. Thank you, Lord, for being with all of our friends and our family, especially Clancis' aunt, who is going through some issues with her blood. Lord, she needs a donor, and we know that you are going to provide that. Thank you so much in advance for your hand in her healing, Lord, and being with Clancis and just surrounding her family with your love and your care. Thank you, Lord, for Charlie and for Quan and for Steve, who are in the midst of traveling right now, with Charlie heading to Geo School and Steve heading to California for the training. Lord, we are so grateful for what you're Thank through them, Lord. And I lift up this team. I lift up the situations, Lord, that were so devastating over the weekend. My goodness, it was the fires in Hong Kong, the mudslides in Thailand, Lord, the devastation, Father. But we are so grateful because this is not our home. Our home is with you. So please place that peace in our heart and let us know that you are guiding us every single day, no matter our situation. You're right there walking through it with us. So I lift up this meeting to you. I pray you put on our hearts the things that are necessary and the things that are giving us issues, Lord. Lord, pray that those issues smooth out, Lord, smooth the way before every single one of our team members. And we are so grateful for being your hand in all things. And we lift this time to you. In Jesus's name we pray. Amen. Thank you, ladies. Thank so much. Okay, so we have a lot of things kind of in the works. We have the safety thing, the safety initiative, which, Tin, I'm going to connect with you and Charlie separately because we're going to work out that second response to those that have not reached out to us. Yes, I believe we met not last week, but the week before, and we had gone over that list, and you said you were going to update them. I just wanted to make sure that was still on your wheelhouse. Is that still okay for you to update to let us know if they responded in the process or have not responded?
Tin DG: Yes, I'm still updating the information. I'm just checking up some of the email. I'm not seeing on the list, but I will just add it on the list. But I'm updating that on FND, for the second response.
Kristin Neal: Thank you so much, Tin. Then I'll get that in. Underway, and then I'm going to meet with Charlie because from what I understood the meeting last week, I took some time to be able to think that through. She's saying that we had like 500 units, but we've only reached out to like half of those people. So the rest, the remaining people, the remaining units, I think are the ones that actually have gone through the training and have gone, have the stickers, you know, that's what our understanding is. But they still need battery replacements. So it'll be a set, it'll be a different one where, a template where it'll be more like, we know you've already had these things, but this is an added safety. So that's where the hole is. So thank you for updating that so we can fill that. Carmee, Tin, you had a question about the sales for David, right?
Tin DG: Yes, the ones that, not on the deal.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Carmee, did you see that deal come through?
Carmee Sarvida: What exactly did they, um, what? Are they trying to purchase things? Because I haven't received any email from David. haven't been in contact with him.
Tin DG: Yes, this one is before the legacy swap. Kris sent the invoice for him, for the one that is for trade show, and he has the second order. So that one is like before the legacy swap, we have this, but he is not part of the legacy swap. This one is for the second order for his P3. I think the amount is $6,500. I will double check it and send it to you.
Kristin Neal: $6,350? I think that's it. Yeah. Yeah, I'm seeing it, Tin. Let me show you. I got it pulled up.
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, we have the invoice, but it's not added on the deal, so it doesn't have a deal.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Yes.
Tin DG: For that one, can you add this one on the deal? And then I'll proceed on the shipment.
Carmee Sarvida: Okay.
Tin DG: Because this one is already paid. It's prepaid.
Kristin Neal: Perfect.
Carmee Sarvida: The one that is dated on...
Kristin Neal: June 4th?
Tin DG: I think this one is the... Yeah, this one, June 4th.
Carmee Sarvida: Okay, June 4th. Okay, I will add this to the deal thing.
Tin DG: Is this need to be added also on the partnership deals because this one is new order or just on the deals?
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, I think, right, Kris, this all purchase should be added on the partnership.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Tin DG: So, I'll update the shipment on the partnership deals and on... The deals, on the CRM.
Kristin Neal: Perfect. Was there any other? We're waiting on a few other prepayments, right, Carmee? I remember that. Pre-payment, but mostly POs. This one, Millstone Township, this is the one that has the kids. Yeah. I texted her last week, and she said she was still working on it. So I saw that you reached out to her, too. So hopefully we'll get something on that. Let's see, budget corrections. So this one could be a possibility, Liberty. They're going through their PTO processing. Ignite. I'm going There was also one today. This one we might be able to push back because they're, don't think they're in the process of purchasing anymore. Remember they were the ones that were looking for, like, the tips. We had sent them the tips contract because they were looking for, like, a third party.
Carmee Sarvida: Which one? This one, City of Lancaster. City of Lancaster. He actually, Coralie actually replied to me last week.
Kristin Neal: Oh, great.
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, he was just, he wanted me to update the code. They're actually on the process. Oh, that's great.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Carmee Sarvida: They're still processing the P.O.R.
Kristin Neal: Oh, that's great, Kermie. That's wonderful. So, keep an eye out for all of these, Tyn. I'm hoping. I'm that process is, you look right here, and everything, every payment that comes in, you're going be able to find. Okay, let's see. I'm working on the gifts, the partnership gifts, with the socks and the gift cards and things like that. That'll be a big one this week to work out. I ordered everything last week and got it all, almost all. I met with Ella this morning. She is Ella with Project SHARE. So I'm working with her on the CAN symposium and trying to get that straightened out, lined out. I think that's the safety initiative and these gifts are what I'm really going to focus on this week. All right. Is there anyone else that wants to update? Questions?
Carmee Sarvida: Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Kamis. leads, since they have, like, the December 5th deadline, we actually reached out to them last Thursday. Yeah, Thursday or Wednesday. But should we follow up, or do we have, like, a template? For me to send? Let me get that.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. I'll just do, like, a really quick check-in template. Yeah. Thank you.
Carmee Sarvida: Thank you.
Kristin Neal: And that's for the Alabama. Okay. Tin, how about you?
Tin DG: I just want to provide update on the shipment for the new order that we sent out. For the Port B2 of Norris School District, it's already delivered. And the OJUSD. OJUSD. B2 and the Uncle Mookie's B3, it's out for delivery and is scheduled to be delivered today. And for the safety upgrade, we have three partners that are waiting for the update of the ZTAGGERS. And I have one that is already on the way. I'm just waiting for the others, dimension of the box, and then I'll create shipment also.
Kristin Neal: That's great. That's perfect. Okay. How are you doing with that? Do you need any support?
Tin DG: I'm sorry? What is that, Kris?
Kristin Neal: How are you doing with that, Tin? Do you need any support?
Tin DG: As of the moment, no, I'm still coordinating with the box dimension and the pickup. Because others scheduled the pickup last November, so it's already past the pickup date. So I need to follow up also with that.
Kristin Neal: Thank you, Tin. Thank you, Kris. How about you, Paula? How are you doing?
Paula Cia: I just finished updating the specification sheet, and then I'm working on the social media contents. I already sent it for approval to Charlie, and sending some three-month check-in.
Kristin Neal: And the three-month check, have we gotten any responses from those?
Paula Cia: We haven't, huh? Yeah, we haven't.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, we might need to update that, but that's kind of on my back burner right now, but eventually we'll get that updated. Paula, did I already send you the product specification sheet? Did I send you that?
Paula Cia: The one for V2?
Kristin Neal: Yes, yes, this one.
Paula Cia: Yeah, I updated that one, and it's on the drive already.
Kristin Neal: Okay, it's already on the tasks?
Paula Cia: It's not on the task. Carmee just mentioned me on the document, so I just updated it.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Oh, perfect. So you deleted that part that I just deleted. Right, Paula?
Paula Cia: The update. have an empty comment there. This part.
Kristin Neal: We just need to delete that part. I thought it was just a word update. Oh, no. It was that whole part, because it doesn't need to have that. Yeah. Sorry for being confusing. Yeah. Just like that will be perfect. Okay. Very cool. And then this, you said, is in the shared drive.
Paula Cia: The shared drive?
Kristin Neal: Okay. Perfect. I think, Carmee, with all these that we're trying to provide you, Carmee, like, um, all this, these information, this information and things, um... It's really just to have you kind of like a quiver, you know what mean? It's like just another arrow for you to be able to use at your discretion kind of thing. Like we're providing these things so that if they, whatever question comes at you, then we're going to be able to direct them exactly what they need.
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, this is actually what I asked Charlie about because we didn't have like the full info on the system itself. We just have like the inclusions, which are this first list on this document, but the other technical, technical information, I don't, I don't know. Although I can ask JATGPT, but I don't have, you know, the reference to cross check it. So yeah, thank you for putting this all together, Kris.
Kristin Neal: Carrie. I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing at the situation, because this is what Paula and I were working last year. Do you remember, Paula, we were working for like three months on this bloody, I can't remember what it was called, it was like a program, it was like a ZTAG, what was it? But finally, now we know, this is how, yeah, it's not, I think what we were trying to do, Paula, is like a, it was more of like a, what do you call it? Like a, I wish I had a catalog, that's what we were, that's what we were working on, we were working on a catalog, and it wasn't supposed to be a catalog, it just needed to have this black and white kind of, so this is, I'm so glad, Carmi, that you saw that you needed this, I agree, this has definitely been needing, needed, so. My camera is so interesting, it does like an autofocus, that is interesting. All right, ladies, okay, so this. This is good. This is a good quiver for you, Carmee. That's great. If there's anything else that you feel like you see we need, you got to let us know, okay? Carmee?
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah, thank you, girl.
Kristin Neal: Anything else, Paula, on your side?
Paula Cia: Not so good, Grace.
Kristin Neal: Okay. All right. Anything for automation that we need to connect with that? The quote form is still good to go, right, Carmee? The quote form, and then the... Actually, I wanted to ask you about that, because from what I am seeing... Let me show you. This is the process of... So after they fill out that quote form, I see it down here. see Custom quote records. Thanks. And then all their information is right here. So it's not necessarily being created, right? All the information that they input is right here. But now this needs to be put into a quote.
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: So that's what we're waiting for, right?
Carmee Sarvida: Because for this one, for the previous ones that filled out the form, I had to manually upgrade the code. From all this information? Yeah.
Kristin Neal: And that's not helpful, right? That doesn't help you, right? Right.
Carmee Sarvida: Because at that time, I didn't know. I had no idea how long the agent would take for it to generate the code. And I couldn't wait because I had to reply back to Derek. Where all of those, like, five codes that they... So after that, we have it received in a new filled-out form, so we can test if the agent will be able to generate the quote from this info.
Kristin Neal: From this info, okay. Yeah, I definitely see you're responding to the quotes, so this is it. This is for the quote, the big one. Okay. This is the Derek one. Let's hope, let's hope, once Clancy's gets back, if we can kind of touch bases with her, we can see where the automation is. Okay.
Carmee Sarvida: Also, Kris, for the inventory in the partnership sheet, I mean, under the inventory tab, I have added there. I um... Deals, or like units that are on the pipeline, since we only have like 35 units left for the V2. And then as of now, we have 31 that are on the deals. So I'm wondering if, would I stop sending out the V2 codes? Because we might, we might run out of, um, oh yeah, V3. This one, the Millstone, um, Township, they're gonna do the V3 because they want to do the early adopter discount.
Kristin Neal: So let me change, oh, did it already fix it? Okay, good. Wonderful, fixed it. Oh, how wonderful, it already calculated. Oh, I love it. This is wonderful, Carmi. think this is huge, huge, huge help. Let's, um, play it by ear since we only have a few. We only have five more. it. And then as soon as you get the, it almost feels, let's have that code word, you know, do you want us to reserve your units? And then let's just put it like how you're doing it. And then as soon as you hit 35, let's just switch over to the V3.
Carmee Sarvida: Okay. Quoting for the V3.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Carmee Sarvida: We have a new lead that came in, Kris. They're from this AC Aerospace Museum. Are they qualified for the V2 or for the V3? Nonprofit.
Kristin Neal: Nonprofit?
Carmee Sarvida: I would do the V2.
Kristin Neal: I would still stick with the V2 and then offer the 10%.
Carmee Sarvida: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Unless they want to go to the V3 and then offer the, check to see where their budget is. If they say, oh, no, that's like way out of their budget, we can say, you know what, there's another option with this V3. However, remember the equal exchange, so it'll be like a monthly check-in with Steve, our playmaker, which I already have, actually, a, let me see.
Carmee Sarvida: Do we have like a document for that, I do, I have it right here.
Kristin Neal: Let's see. I did, here we go. I think this is it. Oh, no, this one. but it's something for their, their discount, and what exactly it kind of, um, what it entails kind of thing. Doctor. Ah, there we go. So, if they do want to, um, go through with the early adopter, just let me know, and then I'll create, like, this agreement for them. know, know, let Where they'll get that 30% discount for only one unit, and then the monthly, the requirements for the feedback. And even, Paula, I'll probably even add in here, this one I couldn't because they already said that they couldn't allow social media, like posts and things like that because of the kids. But with this arrow space, I will absolutely include that social media content as part of it. Okay, of kids playing with it. Paula, is there anything else that we could add to that that you could really use?
Paula Cia: I can't think of anything for another use.
Kristin Neal: If something comes to mind, let me know so I can add that. Something that you're like, gosh, I wish I had that. Okay. Carmee, do you want me to share this with you so you kind of see?
Carmee Sarvida: Yes. What it entails?
Kristin Neal: Yeah. And this is also, like, it's going to be in their hands and Steve's hands to coordinate, like, the scheduling and all that. So it's, like, just put in their hands and we can adjust it if need be. So this isn't, like, final one. It can be played with. Okay. Yeah, this is the filming. With the school approval. All right. Anything else, ladies? Anything else for automation? Anything else for training? Anything else for marketing? I think so. Okay. All right. Thank you all so much for coming. You all have a great. Have day, okay? I'm on standby if you need me. Thank you. Have a good one. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Bye-bye.
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Moshe Bitan: Hello. Hello. Hello.
Quan Gan: Good evening.
Moshe Bitan: Hey, how are you doing? Good.
Quan Gan: It's been a while. How are you?
Moshe Bitan: Yeah. a minute. Can I drive the camera? Okay. Yep.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Moshe Bitan: So it's a good idea for us to catch up so we can bring you up to speed with the advances that we made. Also, be happy if you can show your current status and how things are going at your end. Yeah, absolutely.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Moshe Bitan: So, um... So, from our point of view, our main focus was a lot of emphasis on accuracy. That means that the foot contact is much better, it's much more stable. We now have finger motion from the outside in cameras for multiple people. And I've got one of the features that you requested, which is the re-identification of people. Yeah, that was the biggest thing. So that means that I'll show you that in a moment, that I can register myself once I'm in the showroom. For example, I'll just like, I'll take a look at several of the cameras, and when we're confident enough, we're providing it with a constant identification. And then, whenever I'll go out and go back in. And I'll be assigned with the same continuous ID. So that means that I'll have the running ID, the skeleton ID that you will see, it will be constantly changing whenever I go in and out, but I get an identification as myself. And once I'm identified as Lior, then I will also be assigned with the same virtual character. Okay, awesome. So I guess we'll just go ahead and straight to the demo, if that's okay with you. Perfect. Thank you. Okay. By the way, we can extend your existing license by a year without any kind of additional charges because you haven't been able to use the system. That would be needed, yeah. Thank you. So no problem about that. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, let me share. So, I'm sharing my screen using OBS. Yep.
Quan Gan: So, let me know if you can see my current screen.
Moshe Bitan: Okay, good. So, if you can notice that I got this ID just above my head. Yeah, okay. Can you see what it's saying? Yeah, I see it. Yes, it's your name. Yeah, it's Lior. And let me change your character so it's not the default character. Okay. So, right now on this character. And so, I'll go out and back in. I'll look at one of the cameras and you would see that it was almost, the identification was pretty fast. Yeah. Yeah. So, it does use... Facial Recognition to identify the person. So none of these are sent to the cloud, so everything is stored. So it doesn't store any kind of images or video. It just stored this embedding of your face so we can identify it later on. So we don't store any kind of images on the server or on the cloud. The process of registration is currently like this. So let me just first, I'll forget myself. Let's see, I have nothing. So right now, you see that I, so I'm starting the start registration here. I'm the registration process, and then I'll look at one of the cameras, and you should see that I get a number and I get an ID, like a yellow ID, so that means that the registration process has enough samples, so I can start to make it better, but that's enough for me to be recognized well, so I can stop the registration. It does help if you look at the cameras, and I can rename, provide it with a name, so we can, and then, and that's it, basically. I'll go out, and back again, and I'm being recognized.
Quan Gan: Yep.
Moshe Bitan: So it helps if you look directly at one of the cameras. But what you can do in your situation, can position one of the cameras at the entrance, or looking at the entrance, so people would look at that when they come into the room, and that would help. So it would also work if they're not looking directly at it, but it would take longer for them to be recognized. It doesn't work, for example, if a person is constantly looking downwards at his phone. Because we need to have enough facial features to identify him. Okay. Other than that, let me zoom in a little bit. Other than that, I don't recall if you've seen that we have these finger tracking without any sensors. Okay. I don't know if that's relevant for you, but I do believe that the feet movement is rather relevant for you. So there's much less jitterism in the feet.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it looks a lot more stable than before.
Moshe Bitan: Yeah, and the contact is much better. Yeah, okay. So I can do fast motion, small movements, everything is still good. So, any questions so far?
Quan Gan: Yeah, one thing I haven't seen yet, and I don't know if you're able to do this, but if you have a colleague, I just want to know if two people are occluding, you know, let's say you're hugging or something, and then you separate. I assume the IDs will be persistent. So...
Moshe Bitan: So... So... So let me see. Okay, I still have the idea. Just let me zoom out so we can see that. we'll call in one of the... So you want us to be... So I'm not sure that Hagen will change the skeleton ID. Okay. If it doesn't change the skeleton ID, then of course it still remains with the same ID. If it does change, then I will still need to look at the cameras until I'll be recognized again, if that makes sense. Like it would take a while until the system... So the face ID is constantly running and trying to find out if there is a skeleton that does not have any kind of idea associated with it, then it will constantly run and try to evaluate it against the database of the players.
Quan Gan: Is it possible that, let's say, you know, players are hugging each other, and then at that point, you lose tracking? Or I would rather you fail instead of making a wrong guess. So what I mean is, like, if you got too many people in a blob, just make them disappear from the scene, and then when they separate from that bunch, you redetect them as if they enter the room, so it doesn't require recalibration.
Moshe Bitan: When talking about recalibration, it's just like, when I'm doing recalibration, I just mean, like, I need to move around a little bit. I don't need to start the process of recalibration again.
Quan Gan: So I don't need the recalibration.
Moshe Bitan: What I'm showing you is, like...
Quan Gan: saying is, from the actual game user case, you're going to have a lot of instances where the kid... Or the adults are getting very close in proximity. And I guess I want to see if I can emphasize this enough, which is I'd rather have no tracking than accidental tracking or even having a pause in the game where they're kind of like having to intentionally get re-recognized. So I want to...
Moshe Bitan: It has to be very dynamic. When you're talking about tracking, are you talking about the idea of the person or are you talking about the skeletal tracking? The idea of the person.
Quan Gan: The skeleton doesn't have to be that accurate. I don't know if you remember, my real need was only center of mass because I want to be putting a circle at the bottom of their feet, roughly maybe... I person the the the One or two meters in a radius. And so as long as they're within that circle and the circle can, you know, have their player name projected on the ground, that's all I need. So I can deal with a little bit of slop. You know, let's say the circle might shift around by 20 or 30 centimeters even. I think that's okay as long as the player is, you know, by the circle. But what would be catastrophic is accidentally that circle belongs to someone else or that circle is lost. So then I basically lose the player state.
Moshe Bitan: So you're talking about a situation where we fail to recognize the person. Yeah. Or provide like another skeleton with the same. So I think we can, so it doesn't happen. That much. So I haven't seen it fail. Like, I haven't seen it. Okay, let me emphasize that. When we designed it, we prefer the situation that it would take longer to recognize than provide it with a wrong ID. So there's a trade-off between speed and accuracy, that is. Yeah, and I'm aligned there, too.
Quan Gan: I'd rather not have the ID than, you know, and I can, at the application layer, maybe, you know, hold the last position. But it's more like, you know, on your API layer, you would have to maybe give me like a confidence number or something. And then, and then for, on the application layer, if the confidence is below a certain threshold, I just hold my last position or I do some kind of guesswork on the movement of the player and infer where they might be in the next field.
Moshe Bitan: way, believe Go in the same category limits. Okay.
Quan Gan: Then I'll update it.
Moshe Bitan: I don't think the API is providing confidence, but you can set on the server several thresholds that would make him very tuned for accuracy rather than speed or recognition. Okay. So let me grab one of the colleagues and bring him in. Paul? Okay. Okay. So I called in or, and you see that or is recognized? Yep. So now the task is whether to see first if we can make... It's so will the skeleton would lose its tracking. Okay. So I'm trying to occlude also. Okay, so I'm now lost tracking, you see? Okay. I changed my skeleton ID. So now if I look at one of the cameras, it should be recognized again as me. Okay, but is skeleton ID increment? Yeah, the skeleton ID got incremented, but then it was re-identified. I see.
Quan Gan: Okay, so the ID still comes later. I mean, the ID is good, but that may mean the game has to be slowed down in such a way that the person comes on. So like at the unity layer, what I would probably do... So is if there's a new skeleton ID, like basically not even put the skeleton there or not even draw anything because I don't you're talking about not the skeleton ID but the identification ID?
Moshe Bitan: So if it's not yet, so the skeleton is, you would see increment all the time when it gets lost.
Quan Gan: Yeah, basically the skeleton ID would be useless to me. I would have to be using the name. Yeah, the name or the persistent ID. Right, the persistent ID. But if the persistent ID takes, you know, half a second or longer, it's not impossible but it makes the game, like I would have to pace the game in a certain way. Yeah, I have to be intelligent on how to not stop the flow of the game for the kids.
Moshe Bitan: So what would you rather have it do? Like, what kind of, is there, like, a preferred situation from your point of view?
Quan Gan: There's a couple of questions that I'll see if we can lead into this. So how long is the persistence on this? Is it per session, or, you know, it gets stored into local memory? How does that work?
Moshe Bitan: So currently it's stored, so you can, using the API layer, you can control it. But currently it's stored on the disk on the server. Okay. But you can, using the API, can just delete all, or delete the specific ID, or whatever you choose to do. Okay.
Quan Gan: Is there an upper limit to the number of people you can track? Persistence?
Moshe Bitan: Not that I'm aware of. Okay.
Quan Gan: So, theoretically, if I have, like, a whole school of kids play this, you know, several... A hundred, would it actually be able to recognize a hundred of them or several hundred later?
Moshe Bitan: So we haven't tested it in that scale yet. Okay, got it. So what I'm concerned is that if you add a hundred people, then you add more to the... Yeah, so it would make it... Basically, it would make it possible to make more mistakes because you need to identify that person against a hundred people.
Quan Gan: Yeah, because you have more data in that space, so the way you categorize... Exactly.
Moshe Bitan: Okay, I get it. So, for example, if you, let's say that if you, if we just did it by random, that means that even if we didn't do anything smart... If you have like two people in that space, then half the time you would be right. Yeah. But if like 100 people, then it's one in 100. Yeah. It's not exactly like that, but it does increase the overall weight. Right. So what?
Quan Gan: So then we would probably just wipe it after each session. Yeah, that would be much easier. The other question is, are you specifically only tracking the face, or are you looking at clothing features, shoes, pants, all that? No.
Moshe Bitan: So it's just the face, currently. Yeah. And the way it works is that we have the idea of the person. We have the idea of the skeleton. Sorry. We have the idea of the skeleton. So we are able to know that we can grab multiple images of that. will know. The A skeleton from different angles, from different cameras, and then all of these images are being analyzed and extracted with the features that makes the person unique.
Quan Gan: Can you tell me why the design choice of tracking face only versus the entire body? Because it seems to me that you would have more embeddings with the entire human.
Moshe Bitan: So the idea was that we wanted it to be persistent between multiple days. So even if you come at a different outfit or you come wearing a dress or pants or coat or anything like that, you still got the same face.
Quan Gan: Is that use case something that most of your customers are needing? Versus what I I need. Brett, what do you mean? Well, so to me, I don't necessarily need persistence across days. I really just need very strong persistence in a single game, especially after occlusion and when they separate. But the challenge you're presenting, which is they have to kind of slow down and face a camera, ideally, to gain the persistent ID back, that is still kind of a blocker for our function. Because I would love if the embedding was on the clothes, you know, they're not changing clothes per session, then organically, as soon as they separate, you can very quickly get their ID back. Or probably never lose tracking of their persistent ID because you see their clothes.
Moshe Bitan: Yeah, so we tried, at the beginning, we tried it with like an embedding of the whole body. But then it was much more difficult because when we had especially children. know. you Fathom, which sometimes were similar clothes or uniform, and some of them were very close in, let's call it the body proportion. So that was not a good separator. Okay.
Quan Gan: Back then, was it just whole body and not face, or was the face also part of the embedding? No, it was a whole body.
Moshe Bitan: But it wouldn't necessarily make it faster. So we still need, because we aim for accuracy, so you can make it faster, but that could cost you in terms of how accurate, and then you might get confused. Okay.
Quan Gan: Well, but I wonder right now, like, if you had two people kind of close together, and then, I don't know, if you tuck your face into your shirt, and then you reveal your face again, does your... Your persistent ID take, you know, a second or two to remap to you.
Moshe Bitan: So once, like, so right now, I'm not being reassessed for a new ID at all. Oh, it's only when the skeleton does not have an ID. Oh, okay. So you can delete it, or you can tell it it got confused, but unless you do something like that, then it will not reassess. So right now, I'm using the skeleton. So unless I change the ID of the skeleton, only then I will need to reassess the persistent ID.
Quan Gan: Okay, then my understanding is the gating factor is just making sure the skeleton never gets lost now. Yeah.
Moshe Bitan: So you can control that, and you saw that we stood rather close, and it was not easy for us to lose it. Right, okay.
Quan Gan: okay. Right, so don't now I noticed you have more cameras than me, like 10 cameras. Is that still a need, or is that just because your lab's set up in such a way?
Moshe Bitan: A lab setup is called 360 cameras. Okay.
Quan Gan: And then, I haven't turned these cameras on for a while, but do you remember how we had relatively low lighting compared to what you calibrated? Yeah.
Moshe Bitan: So, that may affect things.
Quan Gan: I wonder, since, I think it was like two or three years ago, have there been newer cameras or other things that you guys are using on the hardware side?
Moshe Bitan: So, we've got now also 9 megapixel cameras. I think yours was 5 megapixel, if I'm not, if I remember correctly, but I'm not entirely sure. So, that means better resolution, but that's not, that does not mean... And light, necessarily.
Quan Gan: Have you guys explored infrared cameras?
Moshe Bitan: So we, all of these cameras, so what we are able to do is you can remove the IR filter from these cameras. Yeah. And then you've got, you can, if you flood the room with IR light, then you still get good tracking.
Quan Gan: Okay. And even on the faces with IR spectrum, it's okay?
Moshe Bitan: So it does work, but you still need like, you need a lot of lights. So it doesn't need to be comparable to like normal lights. Okay. It does work with the IR. So, yeah.
Quan Gan: So the unique circumstance for us is also the, the lighting level of the room is going to be very dynamic because. So, yeah. So, yeah. What we intend to do is either have a complete LED floor, which is obviously going to change a lot of lighting, and LED walls, because that's going to be putting a lot of the game features projected or displayed, or we have projectors. And you can see my setup here in the back. I have a projector hitting the floor. I still have the cameras up there. But for my experiment, and you can see my floor right here, I have these one-meter, one-meter squares. It's on a white floor. But in order for me to see my projection well, I have to dim the room to have the projector on there. And that seems to have a direct conflict with picking up the character. Unless we go to IR. And then I noticed with these cameras, when I removed the IR filter from it, the focus got really blurry, and I couldn't get it back into focus under any adjustment on the lens.
Moshe Bitan: I'll go ahead and what I'll try and do is I can send you these IR filters. So you get only the IR filters, and that would also solve the focus issue, because you would still get a lens, still get a filter, just the opposite way. Oh, okay. So it will only pass the IR range. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Because you see, I also did buy some IR floods in here, so I'm able to do that. Okay, so hopefully if we have the IR filter. Okay, Then no matter what I have displayed on the floor or the walls or even what my lighting level is with, you know, visible lighting, then it should be okay.
Moshe Bitan: Yeah, we need to check that, but yeah. I think that there is a very good possibility that everything would just work as is. So we tested it, we tested it here, and we do get, so we didn't flood the room with enough lights. So it needs to be comparable to the amount of light that you've got when it's visible. Yeah. So that's the one thing. Have you, have you looked at, it's not like, it's not like, oh, sorry.
Quan Gan: Do you have specific LUX requirements?
Moshe Bitan: Um, I'll get, need to get back to you. Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah, if you, if you can just measure what your room, uh, light level is and tell me, then I can try to. MATCH IT. Okay. Let's see. I had a few other questions. Yeah, so in terms of my compute hardware, I think it was a dual 3090. Is that still more than enough? should be still good. Because what I was also exploring, hold on, let me see if I can find the model of it. Okay. You know, have you guys looked into infrared depth cameras rather than these RGB cameras?
Moshe Bitan: Yeah, that's not the direction we're going to go with. Okay.
Quan Gan: Can you tell me what those design choices are?
Moshe Bitan: Basically, we don't get enough. It's much more expensive, usually. Okay. Okay. Okay. This is IOBF, and it does not allow you to... Um... Work in a variety of venues, for example, you cannot work with direct sunlight, and if there's like metal object, then sometimes it doesn't work well, as well as it's seriously limited in the range that you can capture. So it only works like within, I don't know, three to four meters from the camera. Okay.
Quan Gan: Let me go back and check. Okay.
Moshe Bitan: Okay.
Quan Gan: I may have to send this to you later if I can find it. Oh, called Orbeck. Do you know that company?
Moshe Bitan: Nope.
Quan Gan: It's called Structured Light Infrared, and the range depth could be 0.6 to 8 meters. Orbeck Femto. I'll send this to you. I'm using a lot of chat to do the research. I haven't verified it yet. chat. Thank you. I have can give me access to, is you're You I've got then something on Thank I'll send it into the chat, into WhatsApp. Yeah, we can discuss that later. Because I was looking, you know, to reignite this project if the tracking persistence, you know, worked out. And I was just doing research saying, you know, if we aren't considering these cameras or use the depth cameras, would it give us some better accuracy? And what led me to that was actually going to a family entertainment center that has a type of technology very similar to what I want to achieve, but they're doing it simply. Have you heard of a company called Valo Motion? No. Let me see if can find their website. Whatever. Oh. Thank you. Okay, can I screen share? Yeah. Hold on. Actually, I don't think it's, I can't do it mid-session. Oh, I'll just paste it here. Okay, so if you look at your phone, do you see their use case on their main screen? Like the main video, you can already see what they do.
Moshe Bitan: They've got like a wall.
Quan Gan: Yeah, they have a wall. They have a capturing of these kids. You know, the IDs are persistent. to there, like wall end moment. That's I'm all But I it works pretty well. It's quite responsive. And they're only using two cameras, or two sensors. I don't know if they're fully cameras, but I also do have an image I took of it. I've gone to one of these places to play with it. And there's only two. Yeah. And do you see this image? Yeah, it's just simply two cameras on the opposite sides of the arena. Mm-hmm.
Moshe Bitan: Yeah.
Quan Gan: And so their game is very similar to what we want to achieve. The main difference is for our application, the players aren't going to be looking at the screen. They're going to be playing with each other, because I don't know if you remember the ZTAG application, we have these. Wrist-mounted wearables, and then they're playing tag. And so the goal is to have, you know, ground effects be supplemental to their face-to-face interaction. Yeah. So it seems like the current use case for you guys, it might be a little overkill for what we need because we don't necessarily need finger tracking. Like, those are all nice things, and maybe in the future we can projection map, you know, costumes onto the kids. That's all great. But right now I really just need what they have here, which is, you know, just having a persistent circle underneath. And the fact that they're able to track, you know, the visuals of the player, because they capture the whole image of the player and they overlay it, and they're not losing tracking. I've never seen, you know, a kid's ID get confused with someone else's. So it seems like just having those two cameras, they've already solved.
Moshe Bitan: So all the cameras on the back or in front of them?
Quan Gan: There's two opposite sides of the field. So all the sides?
Moshe Bitan: Yeah, it's two sides.
Quan Gan: And then the recognition is also seamless because it's in a contained room, but one of the walls of the room has a big door. It's not even a door, it's just a big opening. And so it allows for anyone to just simply walk into the space and instantly their video will show up on the screen. Got it. Yeah. And of course, if you walk out, you come back in, I think you probably get re-recognized where the game probably stops and waits for new players to come in. So it's essentially like if I had that tech staff, but I integrated it. With ZTAG, I think I can get really far with this. And, you know, I'll give you some update on our side. We've actually, over the past two and a half, three years, 95% pivoted into the education market rather than the theme park entertainment market. We are in about 600 schools now, deployed systems. Yeah, and growing several hundred per year. The kids at the schools just absolutely love this. And we would have a particular use case where many of these schools, they have gyms. So potentially, if we can do some kind of mocap that is very lightweight that you can install into a gym, turn off the lights, and you project, you know, these floor markers, that would be very interesting, right? you. it. But right now, you know, without this technology, our tech is still selling very well. You know, the schools are very happy with it. I want to add a competitive layer to it. So this coming year, we're going to be rolling out some team-based games and turn it into league play so that the kids not only compete within the schools, but compete maybe school-to-school or district-to-district. So once we turn that into a regulation format, you know, we would love to be able to start adding more things, like more visuals and audio, you know, when they score tag or something, you know, like have the audio turn on or have, you know, certain projections on the floor. That'd be really interesting.
Moshe Bitan: So currently, you've got the projector in each of the schools?
Quan Gan: Well, we don't have any projector application yet, right, because we haven't figured out this use case.
Moshe Bitan: So apparently, they just get the tags? thanks. right back.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so just go to ZTAGG.com, I'll send you the link, and you can see what we're doing right now.
Moshe Bitan: Yeah, so I'm down.
Quan Gan: Okay, yeah, so if you just look at the video, you'll see, you know, we have kids running in gyms, in the field. You know, these are various school and after-school settings. So the kids are playing fine without any kind of VR or AR technology, you know, as we speak. But you can understand that eventually having this added to it would just be, you know, a complete game changer, too.
Moshe Bitan: So currently, they just run around with the tags, and then you've got, like, a central hub that keeps track of... Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Yeah, you see that box. Yeah.
Quan Gan: That box is the central command that connects to all the players. And then we have an HDMI out, so they could put this onto a projector, and then all the kids see their scoreboard. Oh, that's cool.
Moshe Bitan: Yeah.
Quan Gan: So it's a very simple game, but it gets...
Moshe Bitan: It's in a box. Like, you've got a solution inside the box and ready to go.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and we literally, from opening the box, just starting the first game, under two minutes. Yeah. Let's see if I can give you a... There's probably another demo I can show. Let's see. Okay. Yeah, this is a new...
Moshe Bitan: So how much do you need one of these solutions, or one of these boxes? How much do you charge? Yeah. Is it a monthly? One time? No, we don't.
Quan Gan: Currently, it's a one-time setup. We have two pricing categories. For schools, it's roughly $10,000 U.S. And then we have the link I'm going to send you shows this as higher. It's about $17,000. That's for professional operators. So there are people who buy our system and they use it to make money. And they host birthday parties and stuff like that. So we charge them more because there's more service needed behind it. So the second link I showed you shows you more of exactly what that system is. And then if you click on the video a little bit lower, you can just see how it works. You open it up and then set up the first game. All right. right. Yeah, so our roadmap for this is quite strong because we have the potential to be in every single school in America, and there are over 100,000 public schools. So you can see that we're barely scratching the surface with only a few hundred.
Moshe Bitan: Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Well done.
Moshe Bitan: Thank you.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it's taken a long time, but we finally found our product market fit now. Yeah, even like 600 is like, is it mostly in California? Probably 70% in California and 30% all over the U.S. But yeah, we're pretty much in most major states. Amazing.
Moshe Bitan: Yeah. Well done.
Quan Gan: Thank you. Yeah, it's very exciting because we also, here, I'll show you a fun thing we do now. We bought a Cybertruck and we wrapped it. Let's see. Can you see this? You don't want to see.
Moshe Bitan: Enlarge it. Oh, yeah. It's like, I'll dictize it. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Actually, here, I'll send it forward to you. Yeah, we go, we drive up and down the state. We visit schools. We train the teachers to run the games. Teachers have a lot of fun. The kids end up having a lot of fun, too. Thousands of kids, maybe even 100,000 kids have, you know, started playing ZTAG, you know, in the past few years, and it's still rapidly growing. And because we have these good relationships with the schools, they are, they're very willing to experiment with us. If we have new games or new ways of playing, I think we can deploy it, you know, provided that it's very easy to set up. Yeah. So, this whole thing with the arena, we kind of have two approaches. As you see, we have an education approach, and we have an entertainment approach. The education, sell directly to the schools, and the schools run the game, and that current box is enough. But the entertainment route is kind of like the analogy where, you know, you can play... There's basketball, but there's also the NBA, you know, where you go into a real arena and there's a lot of AV all set up. So there will come a time where I probably, you know, start my own family entertainment venue in a way, right? And it could kind of be a lab in the beginning where we're playtesting, but also open to the public to try these things. And you've got like people already know the brand because they...
Moshe Bitan: experience with it in school. you get like... Yeah. They know how to play the game and it's like an extension of... Yeah, exactly. It's like...
Quan Gan: And if you fast forward this by a generation, so let's say 25, 30 years, it could potentially be like Super Mario, where, you know, they've grown up playing the game, but now you have a theme park that has Super Mario Land. That's cool.
Moshe Bitan: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and this is actually Z-Tag, I would strongly say. And... And... Of course, I'm biased, but this is probably the most engaging game for most of these kids.
Moshe Bitan: Yeah, because they're actually moving around and running and having a positive outlook for their energy, as opposed to just playing with their toes.
Quan Gan: Exactly. So we would love to open up something that is like, okay, now you get to experience ZTAG in a league setting, fully AV, we'll have DMX lighting, we have, you know, motion capture, and then you go and they have full LED floor. Yeah. And so, you know, it's kind of something that will happen sooner or later, but I really wanted to just, you know, connect with you and see what the state of the art is. And if there's an opportunity to have me start experimenting with it again, and it's getting that level of reliability, and then I kind of have a business. In this direction of, you know, what that next step needs to be. Okay. Okay.
Moshe Bitan: So, from my point of view, so we need to send you the IR block or IR pass only filters. Okay. So I'll send you the straight thing tomorrow. Okay. And I need to get your software and server up to speed. Okay.
Quan Gan: I'd have to check my computer in the back because since it was sitting there for some time, I actually put Windows on it. So I turned it into a gaming computer.
Moshe Bitan: Okay.
Quan Gan: So we may have to do some other things to get, you know, your previous software.
Moshe Bitan: Do you still have the previous operating system or did you delete it? I don't remember. dual boot? Okay. I don't remember.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it's like two years ago.
Moshe Bitan: So if it's not a dual boot, I can send you like a... Uh... Uh... Uh... Uh... A link that you can install the OS. So during the installation, you can also control whether it's dual boot or not. So that's definitely... So we can do either way.
Quan Gan: Yeah, because I was like, it's just sitting there, actually, at least turn it into your gaming computer. I was playing VR on it. It's pretty nice. It is a powerful machine, so that's like...
Moshe Bitan: It's still good.
Quan Gan: Do you know the big screen VR? Like an application?
Moshe Bitan: No, no. Oh, it's like a... I here.
Quan Gan: So I got a chair, you know, sim chair for stuff, and then this thing is nice. Have you tried this picture? haven't tried that.
Moshe Bitan: No. Yeah, these are the lightest weight goggles.
Quan Gan: It was only like 100-some grams, not including the head mount, but the actual thing on the face is only like 100-some grams. And then... And then the face, this piece was actually like, you scanned your face, you know, so it's like custom 3D printed. So yeah, it was like, it was a nice fun setup to play some, you know, VR games in there. Nice, sounds good. Yeah, yeah, no, it'd be, it'd be fun to, you know, recheck this and then, you know, I'll try to get the motion capture on the, on the floor going again. And then, yeah, especially if I can change the lighting conditions a little bit with the IR, that would be helpful. And also, you know, in the, in the past three years, obviously with ChatGPT and everything, it's made building toy applications a lot faster. So I, I'm not completely constrained onto, you know, waiting for another developer to put it together. I can run a lot of these experiments myself.
Moshe Bitan: That's good. So are you currently using Unity? I was at the time.
Quan Gan: mean, I haven't touched Unity for some time, but it's just, you know, my thing was I was limited by not knowing the language and where to press the buttons, but now AI can tell me all of that, so it allows me, you know, touching the medium so much easier. That's great.
Moshe Bitan: Okay.
Quan Gan: Okay, good. Yeah, thank you for sharing, you know, I'm excited to see the progress.
Moshe Bitan: If you can send me the status of the server, and if it still has the Ubuntu on it, so send me the AnyDesk address, and I will remotely update. I may...
Quan Gan: may... may... I I may... Okay, so right now, I think when it boots up, it goes directly into Windows. I think I tried dual boot at some time, but even if I do still have the Linux on there, I probably forgot how to log in, so you'll need to show up.
Moshe Bitan: Yeah, Yeah, I think, okay. Not sure I have the password.
Quan Gan: The other thing was, when I was trying to install this, I'm like, okay, what can I do to just make, not impact the previous thing? I wanted to install a new hard drive on there, just so I could swap it out. But even then, it was like so small and buried underneath the graphics cards, I'm like, I don't want to do that.
Moshe Bitan: I'm not sure that I have the login details, but it should be AL51 as a user and AL51 at ZTAG. Oh, okay. Yeah, that sounds well, right? That should be, but I don't have any. Well, it's written down. Okay. But maybe we can look at our conversation in either the Gmail or in WhatsApp. Okay. So send me the status of the server, and if I can remotely connect and update, that's good. If not, I'll send you an Ubuntu installation with a guide, so you can reinstall the Ubuntu. You can also do a dual boot if you prefer. Yeah. it to Ubuntu. Right. And I'll send you the IR filters. I'll check if I have IR filters that feed your specific cameras. Okay.
Quan Gan: And you still remember which cameras I have, or do I need? They take photos of them. Let me check.
Moshe Bitan: Are the cameras still up?
Quan Gan: Yeah, you see them in the back. Okay, good. They've remained there, you know, eight of them. That's good. So what's the current direction of your company? What is then your main market?
Moshe Bitan: Let me check that first. No, I'm not sure that I do have that information. I'm up there, I'll take some photos.
Quan Gan: Okay. I'm I'll some photos. Okay. Okay. Why
Moshe Bitan: Thank Yeah, not sure that I do, not sure that I have, yeah, so if you can send me the stickers of one of the cameras. Okay. It should be, like, good. So, for us, so we've done a lot of location-based, so most of it is still in VR. Well, a lot of universities, actually. They're using it for research, for biomechanics, and just to learn what the position of the body is. But recently, we've also done more of a broadcaster. So, for example, we sell the system to the PGA Tour, the golf, familiar with it. So, our system is installed in the studio. So, when they're not active, like a presenter is moving around, you can track it, and they're using it with their other, is integrated with their other systems. Okay. Okay. Yeah, so that's mostly, but that's not a large pivot. That's too large of a pivot. Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have any high player use cases, you know, other than potentially what ZTAG would be doing? Anything like, you know, soccer?
Moshe Bitan: No, no, nothing that's, nothing that took off, like, in a permanent installation. Okay.
Quan Gan: And I'm wondering now, you know, with having access to AI and, you faster coding, are you guys potentially more flexible in custom developing some of these branches, if it's our use case specifically?
Moshe Bitan: So it's still, we still need it to be, like, a use case that we see that a large customer base can benefit from. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay. Well, yeah, hopefully this is something I can prove out, even, you know, without your system currently, but let's say we're in, you know, several thousand. And they all have gyms, you know, probably at the very least add DMX lighting and audio, you know, synced up to our games, right? So if we know that the schools have the gyms and they're willing to purchase, you know, certain equipment to keep their games interactive, I think that's potentially a good baseline, right? That would be amazing, yeah.
Moshe Bitan: Yeah.
Quan Gan: And then on my side, which is to launch the league play this coming year. And, you know, I can let you know how successful that is. I'm pretty sure it'll be very good because right now our games don't have any team base, but it's already pretty sticky. So once we put teams together, they're going to want to play this every single day.
Moshe Bitan: Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that's good.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay. Well, yeah, thank you for that. And, oh, the last thing is just. Just to, you know, set some timeline expectations. So I'm actually going to be traveling starting Thursday for at least a week. Okay. I'll see what I can do before I leave. Okay. You know, no hurry on your side. You know, I reached out really just because it's kind of the slower part of the year. I'm like, okay, let's see what everybody's at. So even if this takes a little bit longer, you know, I'm in no hurry. We're not going anywhere. So, yeah. Okay, got it.
Moshe Bitan: Yeah. Cool. Okay. Do you have any other questions for me? No, not at the moment. I'll check with the sales team. They might have, like, questions once I'll inform them with our conversation. Okay. Yeah, sounds good.
Quan Gan: And then I'll send you the meeting notes because I have my AI recorded. updates to Largeälotker. next time. Bye. Bye. And then feel free to do your research on ZTAGG and see where we are. know, just think there's a fit. All right.
Moshe Bitan: Okay. Cool. Okay. Thank you, Leo. I'll see you later. Bye. Bye.
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Steven Hanna: It's going all right. How's everything on your side of the cold eastern area that we're in? man.
Quakingya Batie: Trying to stay warm the best I can. Excellent, excellent, excellent.
Steven Hanna: So, southern Jersey, what area of Jersey are from?
Quakingya Batie: Yeah, south Jersey.
Steven Hanna: Okay, cool. I'm just trying to think of if there's any partners that I know of in the southern Jersey area that have a system, and I don't think there is. So, you'd probably be the first in your area that has access to kind of grow it out and, you know, make sure that you kind of get that little ahead of the game curve before everybody else kind of has access to a system. The cool thing for you is that the system kind of just jumped up in price by about 5K up to $17,500. So, the entry point is also kind of changing as well. So, you got in just before that price jump, and I was looking at the profile, and I'm like, oh, man, nice.
Quakingya Batie: This is cool.
Steven Hanna: This is cool.
Quakingya Batie: And then I think we got a...
Steven Hanna: I messages from, I think, Wisconsin and New York that you might have been trying to get some info to, and they said that you were a good guy, and that they vouched for you, and they said that you were definitely a person that should have a system. So, yeah, it's kind of cool to hear the community kind of working together in a neat kind of way to be like, yeah, this is a guy that did his research, and he should have it. He's one of the few people that has reached out. Actually, you're probably one of two people that's ever gone that far. So it's kind of cool, yeah, it's kind of cool to hear the communities, like, really supportive of each other in that type of way. So, it's kind of great to hear, and I kind of just wanted to share all that we can offer you in regards to training to get you a leg up before you kind of head out for the spring season. And, you know, I know it's kind of a cold season, things are slow, and now's the perfect time to just understand it, get an idea on how to utilize it, and have a plan of action moving into spring and kind of summer. So, yeah. So that's kind of where I'm at. So I'm Steve. I'm their trainer. And this is kind of my whole thing is just bring you up to speed on everything that the system can do and how you can use it. For some background info, I'm a teacher from New York that transitioned into the entertainment industry about five, six years ago. My wife and I figured that we can't sustain ourselves post-COVID. It's like we're getting our butts kicked in that school district and like we just got to survive. And we want to be humans and live in our marriage. So this was kind of our way to move out. And ZTAG was kind of a neat way that slipped right into that in the gunless laser tag category. So we had guns laser tag before. And then a lot of our clients had canceled with us after I forgot which school shooting it was. And we needed something different. And ZTAG filled that gap in really fast. So it was a really nice way for us to fill the gap of what. We lost as far as finance goes and offer a very cool new thing that schools really do love. And we're coming from the school industry, so we know it. So that's kind of where we're at. We have two systems now on our side. My wife uses hers. I use mine. And as far as the entertainment side goes, we run our entertainer stuff on the weekends. And we were teaching during the week. Now I'm doing this during the week and doing ZTAG on the weekends. So it's a great way to kind of maintain if you're trying to have a schedule, have something on the weekends. This is also the way to do it. What other entertainment options do you have? Just out of curiosity.
Quakingya Batie: This is the only thing right now. Perfect.
Steven Hanna: Then this is going to be the main focus and the main highlight. And I'm just going to give you some good marketing that you can kind of throw at schools, camps, and everything in between that kind of hits the buzzwords they need to hear for you. Well, the first thing. Is, do you have your system next to you?
Quakingya Batie: I do. All right.
Steven Hanna: We're going to get that hooked up. First things first, unlatch those two little black latches on it, open it up, and then there's going to be like all these fun little opening bubble wrap thing. Perfect. You're already set up. Love it. So we'll just go right into the games and how everything works.
Quakingya Batie: Okay. Your setup is exactly how you did.
Steven Hanna: That little black power cable, that little silver button and the red button.
Quakingya Batie: Yeah. That's the exact setup.
Steven Hanna: So black power cable, then you work your way up. Black power, red power, silver power. That's it. So when you start your system up, as you saw, it takes like two minutes to really set up from like the screen flashing and turning on. Open computer. If you take out one of those devices, you can go ahead and take out like two or three of them actually. If you look on the left-hand side, there's a little red button. Thank you.
Quakingya Batie: you.
Steven Hanna: And you're going to press that button. Turn on, like, let's say four of them, just so have an idea, like, if we're simulating a few different players. The first thing that you're going to notice when you hit that red button, it takes about two to three seconds for that screen to turn on. And in the top right-hand corner, there's a little battery indicator.
Quakingya Batie: You see that? Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Each of those bars of the battery is one hour of game time. So when you're out in the field, and the kids are coming back to you, and they're like, hey, you know, I only have one bar left. My watch is dying. It's, nah, you got an hour left of play time.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So this is a little bit of a misconception, like, when they come running up to you, just let them know, like, you got mad time left. Like, it's not like that.
Quakingya Batie: Next to that little battery indicator, there's some random numbers and letters, like 6E, B, C, B, C, something like that. Do you see that? Yeah. Perfect.
Steven Hanna: And there's
Quakingya Batie: Also, signal bar is next to that.
Steven Hanna: You see those? Yes. That is the indicator that that device is specifically communicating with that main computer. So sometimes if the kids run out of range, they might not have that, and they might have to run back in range. So if that's not there, the first thing you're going to do is just press that red button on the side of any watch once, which you can do now, and that's a reset. Okay. So the first troubleshooting step for most problems is reset the watch.
Quakingya Batie: Press that red button once. It's a 10-second solution, and I'll say it probably solves about 90% of the problems. Okay.
Steven Hanna: To turn off the watch, since we're on this topic of a reset, hit the red button twice.
Quakingya Batie: Now, once the device is off, that's the first way to turn it off.
Steven Hanna: The second way to turn it off, just drop it directly on the dock. It could be on, it could be off, it doesn't matter. Just drop it on the dock and it'll automatically turn it off.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So the reason why I'm showing you both of these is when you're running your events, it might be more efficient for you to keep it off of the dock, but keep it off. Because if you have a high volume of players rotating through, you need to quickly kind of get the watches on, get the watches off. You don't want to have to spend time fighting the magnet on and off of the dock.
Quakingya Batie: Okay. So that's the one kind of quick tip I'll say.
Steven Hanna: Always consider just dropping them right in front and making sure you can quickly get them on and off of the kids.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: For camps and schools, you're probably going to be running high volume rotations for 200 to 300 kids. So it's like 30 minutes for like one or two groups. It's a lot of volume rotation. So you don't want to fight. Just kind of have that off to the side. You can turn those back on if you want as well, because we're going to simulate some of the gameplay.
Quakingya Batie: Okay. Now.
Steven Hanna: Any questions so far as far as turning on the devices, turning them off, making sure they're connected?
Quakingya Batie: No. Okay.
Steven Hanna: And literally just stop me at any point and be like, yeah, what's going on with this? Okay. Like, don't let me talk too long. I'm a teacher.
Quakingya Batie: This is what they pay me to do.
Steven Hanna: So when the devices are on and you see those indicators on the top of the screen, you're basically ready to play. Okay. I'm going to share with you in the top right corner, since you're inside, there's a little volume indicator. Tap that on the main computer screen and bring that down to one or two so that it's not going to blast you guys inside the house.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: When you're outdoors, check it out at volume 10. But when you're indoors just testing, keep it on a low volume. It is very loud.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: First game we're going to jump into, red light, green light. Tap on that red light, green light game screen for me. It's kind of that cool iPad.
Quakingya Batie: And the first thing you're going to see is like a pregame lobby screen.
Steven Hanna: I don't know. Are you a gamer at all?
Quakingya Batie: Yeah. Okay. All right.
Steven Hanna: So I'm going to use Call of Duty references. You play COD?
Quakingya Batie: Yeah. Perfect. All right.
Steven Hanna: So this is our pregame lobby. This is where we're assigning teams, making sure all the settings are correct. And the first thing that you're going to see is something called Assign All in the bottom left. Do you see that button? Yeah.
Quakingya Batie: Yeah. Tap that button for me.
Steven Hanna: This is going to make sure that everybody is in the pregame lobby. So they'll move from the left-hand side to the right-hand side. And you should see however many watches you have, whatever numbers they are, are going to be on the right-hand side.
Quakingya Batie: Okay. Then you're going to hit the next button.
Steven Hanna: Now, if you take a quick peek at your watches, they should say red light, green light, or get ready. Yeah.
Quakingya Batie: Get ready.
Steven Hanna: In the bottom right corner, hit the start game button. And when the light is green, you're going to move your hand. And when the light is red, you're obviously going to stop. This is just the first game that gets everybody kind of up and moving, where you're going to target run people from one location to the next. So set up cones on one side, set up cones on the other side, probably like 40 feet away from each other. And then you're going to say, when the light is green, we're starting off on these cones, we're heading to those cones. Perfect. When the light's red, what is everybody going to do? And have them say the word stop so that you know they know how to play. So I always started off by saying, has anybody played red light, green light before? And they'll say, yeah, of course. And you'll say, perfect. What do we do on a green light? And they'll say, we go. And you'll say, that's great. Where are we going to go today? We're going to start at these cones and we're going to go to those cones. And then you're going to say, when we see a red light, what do we do? And they're going to say, stop. And you're going to say, perfect. Look at your device. Look at your watch. When it's green, we're going to move. When it's red, we're going to stop. So it's a little bit of like an intro to the game and a kind of a practice round. And the way that you always get away scot-free is you always ask, does everybody want to try a practice round? If you say that, two things happen. One, to your clients, it signals to them that you know how to work with kids very well because you're offering them like a no risk, no reward type of round where everybody wins, basically. Secondly, to the kids, you're providing them such a safety net of failure that it only looks better for everyone. So always try and start off with a practice round. Now, you can earn points by running. can earn points by staying in place and shaking your watch. You can earn points by literally flailing your arms around and not moving. But you just need to move that device when it's green or stop on red. So if you have any kids who have special needs or like, I have some kids in a special needs program in wheelchairs, they basically just move their arms around up and down and start punching. So you can also do stuff where you're punching and you have to continuously do combos, stuff like that, where you can combine boxing, you can combine ZTAG, you can combine a bunch of different things. There's a teacher that does basketball drills in a PE class where he's doing dribbling drills, and when it's red, they got to stop. And then when it's green, they can continue dribbling and moving. So it's like kind of a cool way to combine different things. And the reason why I'm sharing so much of it is because I just want to give you as many ideas as possible so that you can share this with your potential clients and say, hey, it works in all of these different ways. This is why you got to work with us. So that's red light, green light. Any questions on that?
Quakingya Batie: No. Okay.
Steven Hanna: If you hit the stop game or if you're at the stop game and you see the settings in the top right corner, hit the settings icon in that gear. You should see three different settings. Time, sensitivity, and then negative scoring, correct?
Quakingya Batie: Yeah. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Time is how long your game is going to last for. My recommendation is you set this to 60 seconds. This isn't meant to be a long game. With all of these games, try and keep them as low as possible on the time where it's just enough to make them want more. That's what this is for the key for ZTAG for you is going to be. Keep the low times, but a high volume of games. So you'll run Red Light, Green Light four or five times because it's only 60 seconds. Second setting is going to be sensitivity. You have low, medium, or high for younger kids. And this is going to be something that the word that you have to specifically use for the teachers here and schools and camps is the word we differentiate gameplay for younger and older audiences. And when you say that word, you basically follow it up with, for the younger kids, we've got more casual settings. And for the older kids, we've got more competitive settings. Those are basically the keys to. Selling to camps and schools. As long as you can market to a younger audience and an older audience with these games, it's a very highly desirable thing for them. Also, being in New Jersey, the camps and the schools have a lot of funding. They do. And they're willing to burn that money at the end of the year for field days. So when they're trying to figure out what the most accessible thing for everybody is going to be, this is you. Okay. The camps also snowball really quick with schools. Word of mouth is really strong with them. And if you get in with one, you'll get in with a lot. My recommendation to you from an entrepreneur's side is find the PTA that you love. Find someone who works with a PTA in your family and ask them if you can donate one event to them. And And And And
Quakingya Batie: That's, that's, that's my way.
Steven Hanna: Literally donate an event from you guys. So, hello. I heard like the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain and I'm like, all right, the random, the random person's over here.
Quakingya Batie: I know they exist.
Steven Hanna: But if you guys can donate one event to your school, you'd be surprised how fast you guys get business from it because they just need to see it work once. And also it's great practice for you guys. It's kind of a risk-free way to provide something for you guys to look great and for you guys to get practice at the same time and for the potential to make future sales and future clients off of it. So that's, that's kind of like the quick little tip on that side. And I'm sorry, I'm all over the place with this. It's just from the entrepreneur side. There are so many things that I want to share to you that will work because you're in a metro region. And I, I know the metro regions and I know how ZTAGG kind of succeeds in them. So. So schools are going to be one big thing in camps. Focus on those two. And then the private parties, you can do Facebook or Google Ads for, and those will kind of roll in whenever you need. For the winter, it is cold. People do not want to play outside in the Northeast where we're at. So if you guys can find an indoor facility, that being a turf rental field or basketball rental field or indoor soccer rental field, whatever, tennis, whatever it is, it's highly valuable to have that option there so that you can run classes there for this winter side. It's pretty good. And you can charge per kid at those classes. And if they do well, they will bring you back probably once a month at each location. So a lot of little side things, but a lot of access to many different areas with ZTAG is what I'm trying to kind of get at. That's red light, green light. Those are the settings. Negative scoring is the last thing there. And that's basically the elimination round is for your younger kids. If you have negative scoring with that checkmark, it means that if they get caught on red, they'll just lose a few points. They're not going to get eliminated. If that checkmark is not there for your older kids, that means when they're caught on red, two times they're out, basically, and eliminated.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: That's red light, green light. If you jump back to your... Hold on, sorry.
Quakingya Batie: For red light, green light, you said two times?
Steven Hanna: For how many times you play it?
Quakingya Batie: No, you said two times. Oh, how many times you're caught on red?
Steven Hanna: It's two times, but it's not in sequence. So it's like, you get caught on red once, it'll give you a warning. And then if you get caught on red again on another red, like you got through that red, it'll give you another warning. If you get caught on red, and then you stutter stop and get caught a second time on the same red, you're out. So it's pretty forgiving. And that's kind of what we wanted to make it, where kids are always playing. You don't ever want to see a kid not moving around with these watches. That's kind of what it comes...
Quakingya Batie: down to. Okay.
Steven Hanna: So that's Red Light, Green Light. And the next game that we jump into, if you go back to your home screen, is a game that's similar to Uno. It's called Pattern Match or Shape Match.
Quakingya Batie: Okay. You can tap on that one.
Steven Hanna: And then if you look down at your devices, you should see a bunch of random colors and shapes changing. It's like kind of the indicator that the game is changing as well for the kids.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: This game is Uno, where we're going to be matching colors and shapes. Instead of a number, we're matching a shape. For this game, when you start it out, everybody's going to be given a random color and a random shape. What I recommend you do is make your first game where the kids focus on colors only. Match your colors only with everybody. The second game is going to be matching shapes only with everybody. The third game is going to be a combination of colors and shapes with everybody. This makes it a little bit easier for the kids where they're just Just focusing on finding a color, then they're just focusing on finding a shape, and then you're just building up on the skills they need to find a color and a shape together. This is also a really great game to do modeling on how far away these devices can work. So I'm going to ask your wife if she wouldn't mind please standing up and taking like a bunch of steps back, like 10, 15 feet away. And then you're going to start this game up, and you're going to face your watches towards each other and see how far away these are just like communicating. You'll see that it's pretty far away.
Quakingya Batie: Yeah. Okay. It's pretty far away.
Steven Hanna: could be about like 10 feet away or so. So the main reason why we jump right into this game after and show everybody how far away the watches can communicate is because if the kids keep bashing the watches against each other, you just got to figure it's like a phone. And if these kids are bashing phones against each other after certain amounts of bashes, they're just not going to work. So just model how far away they can communicate and say you don't need to be on top of each other. Now, for your first few events, you're going to be wincing, going, oh, my God, they're like hitting the devices and it's OK. They're made to withstand impact. They're not made to withstand abusive impact. That's the main difference. And you'll know the difference. I had in full transparency in my first year operating, I probably replaced three of the devices. And that was one event was a special needs event and a kid literally like football. appreciate the большое. Spiked it down. Had a behavioral issue, and there was nothing that anyone could do about it. The kid's just had an issue, and he's not emotionally regulated. Spiked it, broke it. The second one, I think a kid tried to turn and then hit it into a wall, just not aware. And that was like, it cracked right at the spot where he hit it. But it was also like a hard turn trying to avoid somebody.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: And then another one, I think one of our own operators literally just dropped it by accident from like six or seven feet. They were standing on a podium, and they just dropped it by accident. So that's the type of misuse that I'm really talking about is it's harsh misuse.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So these little kind of taps that you're going to see day-to-day, those are okay. Just try and prevent them. And this is the game that we show to prevent them.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: If you go into the settings here, there's a lot of different things that you can do here to cognitively load kids. I don't recommend change. right. It up too much other than the time. 60 seconds once again, great amount of time for all of these games. And let me know if you have any questions on any of those settings or how this game works.
Quakingya Batie: And how many fakes do you typically have?
Steven Hanna: I usually keep them pretty standard. go triangle, square, circle, and then a star. Those are my usual four that I go with. Those are the easiest. There's like a penta or a hectare or some sort of sided, five, six-sided thing there. The kids don't even know what it is. They see a star, they know what it is. They see a circle, they know what it is. Keep it simple, stupid is what my grandfather has taught me, and it has worked. I'm just going with that.
Quakingya Batie: And then usually for colors. Yes, for colors, you might run into...
Steven Hanna: Just some colorblind, kids, and that's okay. The main colors that you're going to go are red, blue, yellow, and then you can choose, I believe, orange or purple.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Any questions on pattern match or shade match?
Quakingya Batie: No. Okay.
Steven Hanna: And then, once again, with that one, just when you're starting that game up, a good question to ask everyone. Yep.
Quakingya Batie: I do have a question. Two. Do you ever run into sensitivity issues as far as, like, is just reading too much? How do you?
Steven Hanna: Yes, and the areas that you will encounter them in are when the kids are piling up trying to match. So, there's going to be a lot of cross-signal interference in those. And that's okay as well, because those games are more social in nature. So you kind of want people to be yelling and close to each other. They might not be earning as many points as they should be earning if they're playing it the right way, but some of this is appearance versus function for what you're trying to sell as far as an event goes. So the function is, you know that the function is, it should be operating this way, but application-wise, it's appearing this way. So the appearance to them versus what you know, it's like front of the desk, back of the desk type of situation. You know how it should work. You theoretically, and you've seen it work and applied it in that way before, but they're just applying it in a different way. And it looks better to your client that way because of the social interactions that the kids are having.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So in small spaces, in indoor locations, in whitewalled rooms, that's where these signals are going to have a lot. Because it's basically just bouncing off of everything. So small indoor white room. Those are the three locations. Also linoleum finish floors. It will bounce off of that. I have had a kid on a gym floor trick shot someone underneath his legs and turned him into a zombie because he did his science class and he learned about the surface being reflective. And he knew that if he shot at least the sensor down at the floor behind him, he shot it right underneath his legs and trick shot at him. And it took me like a minute to put it together. I'm like, wait, how did he actually? Oh, my God. He just used a linoleum trick shot. I'm like, this is crazy. I'm like, I can't even tell this kid about this. He knows what he did. But if I explain what he did, all these kids are going to try and do is trick shot. So I'm like, this is kind of crazy. Like the kid used the surface reflection and knew that he could and made it happen. So you'll actually find, like, these kids are, they'll find ways to play that you'll never even think of, and you've never, you're never gonna think of. They're just that in tune to, like, how can I take this to the limit of how to play? And it's kind of crazy to see. But yeah, I do find that you will see that interference in those three locations, indoor, small, white walls.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Next game that we jump into is going to be, I will give you the option of jumping into Rock, Paper, Scissors, or Keep Away.
Quakingya Batie: We can do Rock, Paper, Scissors. Okay.
Steven Hanna: So this game is gonna be a hit or miss depending on the groups that you're working with. For the groups that it hits with are your older kids who are competitive because they understand they have to chase after one another. For your younger kids, you're gonna play this game as a very, very social, it doesn't matter what color you're on at the start, you just have to tag. somebody and get on the same team. For your older kids, it becomes like triple team tag. Red is going to chase blue. Red is rock. Blue is scissors. Paper is green. So red chases blue. Blue chases green. Green chases red. And it becomes very confusing when we like try to explain it to kids because we're combining language and color and physical element here. So that's why I say for your young kids, it's just a fun game where you have to all get on the same color team. Just tag a watch with somebody. It doesn't matter. It's a two-minute game. You all just got to get on the same color. And if you're all the same color, you all win. Good job. For your older kids, it'll take one round for them to know how to play. And then that second and third round are like highly competitive chase games. Okay.
Quakingya Batie: So that's what I felt like I kind of struggled with like coming up with a good way to explain it to where they'll remember it while they're playing. So you can choose.
Steven Hanna: There's two ways. One is going to be go off of color alone or go off of language alone. Okay.
Quakingya Batie: Because if you try and combine the two, you're actually adding six different layers of load to the kids. Okay. The color of red is rock.
Steven Hanna: And the way that I tell kids is R, R, remember, red, rock, red, rock. Like we go over that, we do a mnemonic for it where we talk it out and we say, okay, blue, scissor, blue, scissor, blue. And we literally reinforce it for like two seconds. And then I go green, paper, green, paper. Like think of money, like green is paper, green is paper. The blue scissors, I don't have a thing for. Red is rock. Like as long as you get red is rock and green is paper, you'll figure out blue. Like you'll piece that in between. But depending on how you try and structure it for the kids and reinforce that, like I said, for your older kids, they're going to need about one or two games to like understand the model of how to play it. And then they'll go, all right, bet. I know what I'm doing here. And then they'll start doing the actual chase. For your younger kids, keep it as a social game. Just tag anybody on the other color. Join the same color team. Get together, have fun. That's it. Say hello to them when you meet them. Engage and interact. The whole thing with ZTAG is you're not actually selling gunless laser tag. You're selling an engaging experience. You'll figure this out more often than not for private clients. Most of these parents are just looking for time where their kids can do something. They need an hour. need an hour and a half where they can have a few drinks and just enjoy themselves. For the kids, they just want to make sure that they're with somebody who's safe and they're enjoying themselves and running around. The main thing that you want to hear at the end of the day is, wow, I think my kid's going to go to sleep tonight. If you hear those words, you guys win. That's a selling point. Your kids will go to sleep tonight because of how much they run and how much they have fun. That is literally what parents want to hear.
Quakingya Batie: And that's something that this can absolutely offer.
Steven Hanna: Um, so that's a red light, not red light, green light. If you wanted to start up Rock, Paper, Scissors to see how it works, you should, if you haven't already. I have.
Quakingya Batie: I felt like my biggest thing was figuring out a good way to explain it.
Steven Hanna: That one's going to be tough, hit or miss. Okay. If they're older, they'll get in two games. If they're younger, keep it simple. have them just get any color team. As long as you're on the same color team by the end of the game, we all win. That's all that matters. Next game, uh, let's jump into, I'll let you say, let's go keep away, because there's two different ways that I could teach you how to play this.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: First way that we're going to play is a traditional keep away method. Someone has the ball, they're running away with the ball. What you will find is that as an operator, depending on your insurance, you may not want. 10 or 15 kids running after one person with that ball. You may want to split that up. So if you hit your settings, you can add multiple balls in so that not everybody is chasing after one person with the ball. This means that there will be a few different people with that digital ball, and there's a few micro games of that developing as opposed to one giant game where people are like, he's got the ball and he's at the 10-yard line and he ain't making it to that end. So like that type of feel. So if you add a few different balls in, it does make it a little bit more digestible for you and the kids. So that's the first way to play. Have you started this one up?
Quakingya Batie: Have you seen it in action yet? I have. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Second way to play, reverse keep away to hot potato. The kids know hot potato more than they know keep away.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: And now instead of the ball trying to be stolen from somebody, that person with the ball is... Not a hot potato. They have to just try and tag somebody else now with it. So it's no longer a bunch of people going after one ball or like those four balls. It's those four balls going after everybody else.
Quakingya Batie: Gotcha.
Steven Hanna: So it reverses the order of that and makes it much more easier to watch from an operator standpoint. Like, be fully transparent with you, when we first started KeepAway, my wife was at us with our first event. She literally said, this isn't going to work. These kids are literally like running after one person and our insurance is going to hate us. And I was like, okay, so how does it work? And she was like, it doesn't work right now. Like, this is not something that'll work. This is when they only had one ball.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So my wife and I were giving them feedback. I didn't work for them at the time. And we were saying, hey, this would be a lot more digestible if you had a few different balls. And they added a few different balls. then my wife was like, okay, this is good. But we still have like five or six people going after one person. good. you. What if we reverse it and make it hot potato? She's like, everybody in my second grade class knows hot potato. Like, you don't want the potato. You have to give it to somebody else. So we flipped it, and she ran it for that day, and I was like, this is what we're doing from now on. Like, it's never going to be keep away ever again. This is always going to be hot potato.
Quakingya Batie: And now I'm fighting with them internally to get like a hot potato skin for the game.
Steven Hanna: Where like, if you get this skinned out, the kids will understand it completely. Like, it works the way we explain it, but if it's skinned out, and it's a UI with a hot potato, and like, it says like, I don't want the hot potato, something, right? Like, whatever. They'll know they got to give that to somebody else. So, those are the two ways that I play. For the younger kids, hot potato works. For my older kids, keep away works. And this is why that differentiation comes into play. You're able to differentiate the gameplay for your younger and older audience for your schools. Any questions? On Keep Away Hot Potato?
Quakingya Batie: No. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Next game we'll jump into. These are going to be some of the boring games, but they're going to be some of the more marketable games for your school. In the bottom right corner, you've got Word Wave or you've got Sequence Train. You choose whichever one you want to hit first.
Quakingya Batie: I do Word Wave. Okay.
Steven Hanna: In Word Wave, we have two different teams. The first team is going to be the English team, and the second team is going to be the target language team, that being Spanish or French. We currently have two languages, and we're adding more. And as teachers progress and we progress, we're going to be able to give teachers the option of adding a word list in for the day. So think of a flashcard matching game where you're matching a flashcard in English to the target language, except it's on the watches now. So one team is going to be on the English team, one team is going to be on the Spanish team, and they're going to have to communicate about the same words and find their matched partner and link their watch together. So English, for example... Spanish will have Gato, and they would have to find each other and link their watch together to earn points together. So you're going to hear, you know, a bunch of kids screaming in English, a bunch of kids screaming in Spanish, and they'll eventually find each other, link the watches together and earn points. This is a very marketable game for schools, especially in our area. This Northeast area, bilingual approaches to education are very strong sellers. You can start it up. You're probably going to have to add, like, eight or nine in for it to work. It won't work too well with four or five, but you'll get the basic structure of it.
Quakingya Batie: Yeah. You know, they're, like, there's. Is going to be a match or there's not always going to be a match?
Steven Hanna: So if you had 10 players, there will be a match. So this is where there's like a little bit of a minimum requirement. The cool thing with the 10 players is over the summer, teacher figured out a way to do something called time trials with this, where even if they only had one or two kids, they were able to put 10 cones out and put 10 of those watches and just strap them to the top of the cone.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: And then they had these kids go and match the cones for the words and they would race each other. So we'd have like one kid with on the English team and another kid on the English team and all of the cones were on the Spanish team and their watches would sequence up and they'd be out throughout the gym, but they would be basically, know, 1v1 for 60 seconds to see who can get the most matches from English to Spanish.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So even with a small amount of players, these games are highly desirable for competitiveness. That's of the cool part with it. I've only seen him do that successfully. I have yet to try it, but he's like a gym teacher, and he showed me a video, and I'm like, all right, man, that's kind of crazy. You're working with the Spanish teacher, and they're allowing you guys to basically run a Spanish gym class, and this is part of that. That is absolutely awesome. That's great. So, yeah, and I'm like, they would never let me do that in New York, but okay. Like, I don't know what they're doing to you in Wisconsin with the leeway, but sure. So that's kind of a word wave. Any questions on this one?
Quakingya Batie: Nah. Okay, pretty self-explanatory. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Jump into sequence train for me.
Quakingya Batie: Okay. This is going to be our counting game.
Steven Hanna: Really desirable for younger audiences in schools. In this game, one person will start out at the correct sequence start, and you have a bunch of different sequences you can choose. Like, Natural, odd, even, all that. Whatever numbers you want them to count by, just select that for yourself.
Quakingya Batie: At the start of the game, one person is going to have a flashing watch, and they'll start the sequence, and they have to yell out what they need next, and that person has to find them and tag their watch to become the next person in the sequence. Oh, okay.
Steven Hanna: So, when you start the game up, you'll see how kind of it flows around, and every time somebody gets a tag, their number changes.
Quakingya Batie: So, it will usually, like, stand in maybe a circle or a line?
Steven Hanna: That's exactly what everybody does. And the way that this one normally works is that same gym teacher came up with another way to play, where he went center court on the basketball court and said, All right, everybody circle around. There's going to be one person. When the game starts, that person needs to run into the center of the circle and tell everybody what they need. I need one, need two, I need three, whatever the number is.
Quakingya Batie: And then whoever's on the outside of the circle with that number has to trade places with them in the middle, of course.
Steven Hanna: So it's kind of like this tag-in, tag-out counting game where everybody's in a circle, and then the person who has the watch that's next runs into the middle and tags in. Okay. It's hit or miss, I'll be totally honest with you. If you've got a good group of older kids, it can be pretty competitive because multiple kids will have the same next number. So like say you're number one, like your wife and I will have number two, and we'd have to try and race to the center to see who can get the next tag.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So there is a little bit of a competitive nature to it. So think of collaboratively competitive counting, CCC. Like if that's like the easiest way to say it, because I don't know how else I could explain it.
Quakingya Batie: Right.
Steven Hanna: Like, you're working together to get a high score to count, you know? Yeah. Like, that's the quickest that we could do with that. Any questions on this one? No.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Then I believe we've got one more game to go through, and that's going to be ZOBBYTEG. Oh, we have two. Math Match and ZOBBYTEG. Math Match is another matching game, but you're doing math puzzles together.
Quakingya Batie: And for a sequence, Trent, you keep it at, I think the default was 120.
Steven Hanna: I keep it at, like, 60 to 90 is a good number for that, because it just gives them the right amount of time. And honestly, the longer these games go on, the more boring they get. So, like, that's why I always try and keep it down to, like, one minute, minute and a half, two minutes max for ZOBBYTEG. ZTAG, stuff like that, because you'd be surprised at how much running goes on in these games, too, and these kids need a break. So the next games that we have, we'll do the boring game, we'll do Math Match real quick, just so that we'll run through it since we're on the education train. And you'll notice that four or five of these games are education-based, and the other half is going to be entertainment-based. So you'll have one foot into both worlds, and that's kind of the good thing here, is no other laser tag company offers anything like this. So it's good marketing. Math Match. This is my slowdown game. This is my punishment game. This is when the kids are really rowdy and don't pay attention. I just throw math at them, and I say, fine, we're going to play another game. You're going to hate it, but you're going to play it anyway. I throw them one minute of Math Match, where... Some of these kids are going to have problems. Some of these kids are going to have the answers to the problems, and they have to coordinate together to solve those math problems together. Find the match for the right problem. You might have two plus two. I'll have the number four. You'll have to say, I need number four. I got two plus two. Who's got four? And I'll say, I got four. We have to find each other amongst everybody and match to earn points. The reason I use this as a punishment game is because statistically, mathematics load kids up. And cognitively, if they have to think about something, they physically slow down. So if I load the brain, they got to physically slow down. So I give them one minute of this just to slow it down. And it's a very effective tool.
Quakingya Batie: I swear to you, it works really well.
Steven Hanna: They hate it. But as an operator, if I have a group that's really out of touch with what we need, I will throw math match at them for one minute. And it puts them right back in. To, like, a different mindset of, like, all right, I want to play the fun game, so I have to, like, actually be good and decent here. I'm not going to, like, throw my water bottle at four kids in this last round like that just happened. Like, no. Okay.
Quakingya Batie: I'm going to have to actually play.
Steven Hanna: So there's kind of this balancing act with the games. This is my way to balance it out.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: You're more than welcome to start it up, but you get the general gist of the matching games. It's pretty self-explanatory.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: And then if you actually go into the settings, you can change up a few things. The operands and low range and high range. So if people are looking for how does this game work for younger and older kids? For our younger kids, we focus on lower operands and lower number ranges. For our older kids, we focus on higher-end operations and upper-end numbers. And I say a lot of words. Which is why we got AI in here, in this chat, and it's going to send you an email with all this fun stuff after.
Quakingya Batie: Okay, I'm sorry.
Steven Hanna: All right. Last game that we've got is going to be Zombie Tech. And this is where you're going to focus most of your sales, because the fun of this game is really just, it's great. So, for Zombie Tech, have you started this one up before?
Quakingya Batie: Yeah, I have. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Have you played with Doctor or without Doctor?
Quakingya Batie: I've played with both. I haven't got a chance to go outside with it in a big enough space for it to, you know.
Steven Hanna: Gotcha. Right, but I have started it. Okay. You can go into Zombie Tech with Doctor, because it's all the same settings.
Quakingya Batie: It's just one or two different ones for the Doctor that I want to show you before we start. Okay. Okay. Okay.
Steven Hanna: So when you start it with Doctor, you're going to see in the settings in the top right, that little gear icon.
Quakingya Batie: If you press on that, we're just going to go setting by setting.
Steven Hanna: The first thing you're going to see is going to be a time limit, correct?
Quakingya Batie: I recommend setting this at 90 seconds to 120 seconds.
Steven Hanna: Second thing you're going to see is number of zombies on randomized, correct?
Quakingya Batie: Yeah. That means how many zombies there are at the start of the game.
Steven Hanna: Third thing is number of doctors on randomized, correct?
Quakingya Batie: Okay. How many doctors at the start of the game?
Steven Hanna: I don't know why they use this sort of language. I've told them that they just need to make it so much simpler and just say, how many doctors at the start of the game? How many zombies at the start of the Like, you guys are saying way more words than are necessary.
Quakingya Batie: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: And then underneath that, what's the next setting?
Quakingya Batie: It says number of tags before infection.
Steven Hanna: Now, if I just told you this is number of lives, would you say that makes more sense?
Quakingya Batie: Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Because I have told them this in my feedback. said, just make a number of lives. You how much easier that is for everybody?
Quakingya Batie: Number of hearts, whatever.
Steven Hanna: So that's number of lives. You can select up to six lives that the humans have where they'll have to get tagged six times by a zombie before they turn into a zombie. My recommendation for this is, in a smaller space, give them more lives. If you're indoor, give them more lives. If you are outdoor, give them less lives. Okay.
Quakingya Batie: Like, it's more space to run around, so theoretically they shouldn't get caught as much.
Steven Hanna: If they're indoors and there's signal interference, the zombies might, you know, catch a life here or there when they're not really supposed to. So, that's why you give them more inside and in small spaces. In outdoors, go with, I'll say, probably like through two lives. Three lives is good for indoor, two lives is good for outdoor. I just like to give everybody a second chance if they get caught. I'm just a sucker for compassion, I guess. I don't know. But that's up to you to decide as an operator, and these are balancing on the fly each game. So you may have to change it up and say, all right, that didn't work. Like, I got to change this up. So I'm going to take away a life, or I'm going to add more time for the zombies to have to catch them. Underneath that number of tags before infection, it should be infection duration.
Quakingya Batie: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: That's how long it takes for them to turn into a zombie. If I just said how long it takes to turn into a zombie, that would make much more sense.
Quakingya Batie: Yeah. Right.
Steven Hanna: Now, in the top right, you should have something called Dr. Heel Limit. Yeah.
Quakingya Batie: That's how many times a doctor can save someone in the round.
Steven Hanna: You can select this to whatever number you want, but set it to like three, four. Each time they save somebody, they'll lose the ability to save someone again. So two Now, Like, by the end of four saves, they're a human again. So this is a good way to give it to, like, an introverted kid and say, hey, if you're really not wanting to play, like, I'll make you the doctor. Just stand here. They got to come to you. Like, you don't have to go out and play. They could literally come to you. So you give them the doctor role. That's kind of it on the settings. Any questions in that screen?
Quakingya Batie: No, I think that's good. You usually have, obviously it's dependent on the size of the group, but the amount of zombies and doctors. It's usually one doctor.
Steven Hanna: I usually have one or two doctors, and then I have, so I do a one to two ratio. Whatever doctors I have, I have two more. I have two times the zombies. Okay. So I'll do, like, two doctors, four zombies. And the reason why is because the doctors are also invincible and they stun the zombies. So it's like, I got to make sure that at least one zombie can start getting people while one zombie is getting camped. And this is like balancing mechanisms to think about for you. So a one to two ratio is usually pretty good on that. Okay.
Quakingya Batie: Any questions on the settings or this game? No. Okay.
Steven Hanna: You can start it up to see it. You don't have to. you started and seen it, that's fine.
Quakingya Batie: I'm good. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Jump back to your home screen. Okay.
Quakingya Batie: And then go into your settings.
Steven Hanna: This is the backend. This is where you're going to be going through everything for updates, for, you know, just to see what things are happening. If you go into system info on the left-hand side, you should have data, correct? Yeah.
Quakingya Batie: Perfect.
Steven Hanna: Schools. And the first thing that I'm going to say is take a quick picture of this screen before your event and after your event and let the school know how much their kids ran. They need a number. This is the newest marketable metric for an entrepreneur is a school needs to know how much their kids ran, and I'm going to do the math for them. And all I'm going to do is throw it into chat GPT and say, this is the number, here's the picture, this is the number after, calculate it based on an average height of four feet. Like, that's how tall these kids are. So I had one group that ran like 12 miles in one hour. And when I showed the school, like, no, this is the number. They were like, what? This is how much our kids run with this? I'm like, yes. And they booked us again for like two more events just because I gave them a number. So it's like pretty valuable to have that. These other tabs are basically for updates, you can go through them tab by tab, but what you've So but… So, They're pretty self-explanatory, and unless there's something specific that you want me to go over in the settings, the last thing that I'll do is teach you the shutdown sequence, because shutting your system down is probably the most important thing that you have to do in the correct order.
Quakingya Batie: I'm good with that. Okay.
Steven Hanna: So, shutdown sequence. First thing you're going to do, get all of your devices, take the magnetic charge dock, and then drop them right into the magnetic charge dock on that side. You can always shut them off by double tapping on the red, or you can just drop them right into the charge dock, and you know that'll turn them off. So that's the first step. Once you have all those in there, and they're starting to charge again, red is charging, green is complete.
Quakingya Batie: Wait, do have a technique as far as putting them in there to get them to, as I have found myself?
Steven Hanna: Shimmy shimmy them with a bunch of TLC, basically. Consider it like. I don't know. My wife made the analogy one day. She's like, oh, wow, this is like your first date as a 16-year-old. And I was like, what the hell does that mean? And she's like, oh, you're just scared to touch anything. I'm like, you're right. Oh, my God. I was like, so how do you put these? And she's like, just drop them in and, you know, wiggle it a little bit. I'm like, okay, fine. If you figure this out, I'll leave that to you. But it does require a little bit of wiggling. And the reason why is because they're made just in case they do ever need to be replaced. They're very modular. And it's a very quick replacement process should it ever go down. The system was kind of built with the mindset of, we had a lazy engineer, as he likes to call himself, when he designed this. And he said, I want to make it so that if I ever do need to repair it, it's the most simplest thing that anyone else can do with a screwdriver and a part. And I was like, okay, I respect that. Like, if you're making it that open source, like, all right, everybody's got a Phillips screwdriver, and I've got a camera and I can walk some. Somebody threw how to take apart something on a screw.
Quakingya Batie: Like, yeah, enough.
Steven Hanna: So they're built to be a little bit modular for that. Once all the devices are on there and you're at that home screen again in the top right hand side, there's two more icons we'll go over. There's a little arrow that's a U-turn arrow, and that is the recall button. At the end of an event, if your devices don't all make it back, tap that button. That's basically the fire alarm to bring it back.
Quakingya Batie: The devices will start screaming.
Steven Hanna: And by screaming, I mean yelling. They will be beeping. They will be flashing. They will be saying, return to dock. It will be very apparent that your device is somewhere where it should not be. The second thing is that power button in the top right corner. For the power button sequence and shutdown, you're going to hit that power button and go to shutdown instead of reboot.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Once you hit shutdown, give it about 10 to 15 seconds. You're going going screen is going to flicker on the black side, and then that will, like, you will no longer see an image on the screen at all after about 10 seconds. Once that's completely off on the screen, you'll see that red button on the downside. Okay.
Quakingya Batie: You can press that, not the red button, hold on.
Steven Hanna: We have silver first, because we're on the top side. You have a new system. You're one of 30 people with the new system, I just had to remember. So your silver button is going to be on the top side of the screen, correct?
Quakingya Batie: Yeah. So we're going to tap that.
Steven Hanna: Oh, wait, hold on.
Quakingya Batie: Quick question. Shoot. Yes, I shut it all the way down. It came with a memory card. What is this for? Was I supposed to put this in there, or?
Steven Hanna: Nope. So that is the backup that I've told them that they need to start including with everybody's system, that just in case your system is not shut down correctly over time, if you have other operators or people who are not you who's using it, your system may eventually corrupt with data. Think of it like a PS5, PS4. Or you constantly unplug that. Think You're going to lose your data at some point as opposed to shutting it down the right way.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So this is the backup just in case your system breaks. This is like the quick fix that we know works. Okay.
Quakingya Batie: Now, has that ever happened?
Steven Hanna: Nope. Hasn't happened in a year that I've been looking at these things. But I'm a firm believer as an entrepreneur in having a backup plan for most things. And I'm going to be looking out for most people in this type of industry who are working with this type of software where it's experimental. So you need that backup. And even if you never use it, I'm satisfied knowing that you at least have it should you need it. And you have my phone number to make sure that I help you get that SD card where it needs to go, which is pretty simple. There's a little black-like thing right next to the silver, like HDMI area.
Quakingya Batie: It's actually right behind that little black piece of tape. Okay. All right.
Steven Hanna: So that's the backup. And I apologize for... Being slightly confusing. You're like, what the hell do I do with this? But this is my personal hand in saying, I need to make sure that you guys are always set to run. And that's why that's there. You also should have this little keyboard thing. Did you get that in there?
Quakingya Batie: All right, cool. Take that keyboard out.
Steven Hanna: Take that USB cord out. You're not going to really ever use that.
Quakingya Batie: Oh, God.
Steven Hanna: This is a legacy thing from a while ago that they still haven't removed. And I'm like, get rid of it. It's just for troubleshooting if we ever need to jump into the system with you together. So it's just easier to use a keyboard and that little touchpad to move it around, basically.
Quakingya Batie: You can take that out, throw it in a Ziploc bag, and then put it in the junk drawer that you'll say does not exist, but we all know does exist. I've got a couple of those.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. Usually one is going to be in the kitchen. Then you'll have like one or two in random spots and cabinets. It's on the other side of the kitchen that we don't know how that eventually got there. Yeah, my wife knows. It's fine. I'll just go and argue with her about it later. But you can take that USB cord out. You can take that little keyboard out, put it in that drawer. And the only thing that you'll want to keep in there is going to be that black power cord and the SD card in that little slot. Okay. When you're charging, just make sure that that lid is up like 30, 45 degrees, just so that the heat comes out too.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: If you keep that lid down, it kind of creates a pretty hot spot for these to charge up. And then after you've shut that like screen off on that touchpad, you can hit that silver button and then that. Blue little light is going to go out.
Quakingya Batie: So I hit the silver button.
Steven Hanna: Yep.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: And then after that silver button is no longer blue, then you'll look down at that red button, and then you'll tap that red button, and you'll turn the bottom of the case off.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So when we start up, easiest way to remember this is start up, bottom up. Shut down, top down. Okay. And by the top down, you're going to hit the LCD screen, then you're going to hit that silver button, and then you're going to hit that red button, and then you're going to take that black power cable out. So it's literally top down.
Quakingya Batie: Okay, I make sense. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: And then start up, you're working from the bottom up. So as long as you can remember bottom up, top down, you're golden. Okay. And then you can coil up that black power cable, get it in that little storage area in the back. And you know the thing has wheels as well, right?
Quakingya Batie: Yeah. All right, perfect.
Steven Hanna: If you ever got to move it around, perfect way to move it around without breaking your back. Things like 40 pounds.
Quakingya Batie: It's actually a lot heavier than I expected.
Steven Hanna: Yes, and that was advisable. would say I don't use the wheels on concrete. I don't use it on blacktop. Think of smooth floors, smooth wheels type of thing. Because you got to remember it is a computer. And like, if you're taking this on concrete, rolling it around, it's a lot of things that are moving around inside there. Like, they've tested this at the factory very extensively, like through earthquake level vibration tests. But, I mean, you know, still an investment on the system and it's still like yours, right? So it's like.
Quakingya Batie: Do you usually just give it a second to cool down or is it okay to just close the...
Steven Hanna: No. No. You can go straight. Once the system's off, that heat dissipates pretty quickly. As long as it's on and charging, the heat's going to constantly generate because it's trying to charge and it's, you know, producing heat.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: But as long as the system's off, you can shut it down, make sure that it closes nice and snugly, no snags on those little Velcro things or anything. Make sure that you can get those latches to clasp just perfectly. Like, there shouldn't be any resistance when you close this up.
Quakingya Batie: Okay. Okay. And now, I will say thank you for taking the time.
Steven Hanna: I'm sorry I took way more than 45 minutes, bud.
Quakingya Batie: Oh, no, it's fine. I definitely learned a lot that I didn't, you know. So, then, whatever you need support-wise from us.
Steven Hanna: So, you just reach right out to me, man. You got my phone number, you got my email. Email, you got everything. I'm also local enough to you where we're on the same time zone and probably within about 75 miles of each other at this point. So it's like, I'm your East Coast contact for all ZTAG related things. If you need any advice on the entrepreneur side, I'm happy to share that as well. I'm a pretty open book for most of the stuff. I'll share with you that. We do have an entertainment company out in New York, and it has ZTAG, laser tag, video game truck, popcorn, cotton candy, all that good stuff, whatever, blah, blah, blah. So I am part of the entertainment industry. Before I got into teaching, I worked for a game truck for about seven and a half years. So I have over a decade of experience within the industry, and that's why we can kind of seamlessly go right in with ZTAG and say, hey, I know how the model works. And this is what you're going to need to say to get into the right spots.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So anything you need from here, man. Please, you let me know. Like I said, phone, email, you can text me, and I'm really glad that you have a system, man. You're one of 30 with the new system, and in full transparency, it's very hard to get a system as an entertainer right now, like stock-wise, availability-wise, and the company has a very high requirement for who they sell to as far as entertainers. So, whoever you spoke to, I will say, their vouching and then giving them you the thumbs-up was pretty great firepower to come in with, too. And, man, I am excited to see what you do with the system, dude. Like, anything at all. Like, even if you have your first event coming up, I'd love to know personally, just to, you know, give you some feedback on how you can make it work.
Quakingya Batie: I hope you do have my first event is, what, what's today? It's the 20th. So, you got Saturday.
Steven Hanna: Yep, Saturday is going to be the first.
Quakingya Batie: Okay, where are at?
Steven Hanna: Indoor, outdoor?
Quakingya Batie: It's actually going to be outdoor, so. What?
Steven Hanna: Okay, have fun with that. I hope y'all have some heated vests or something. And the second thing is, if you guys are going to be doing outdoor events, did they tell you about the portable solar power brick at all?
Quakingya Batie: Oh, like the power station?
Steven Hanna: Yeah, the Jackery. It's like a little, okay, high, okay, perfect. Then you're golden. If you are doing this outside in the cold, good luck is my first thing. My second thing is, are you setting up obstacles or are you working in an open field? That's the other thing.
Quakingya Batie: Wow. Well, it's an open field, but we're going to set up obstacles and a heat intent for the kids as well. Yeah, perfect.
Steven Hanna: Forget the kids, the heat intents for y'all.
Quakingya Batie: Like, don't worry about them.
Steven Hanna: Y'all run. Like, y'all are standing still for most of the day. Yeah. So. So. So. For that type of event, the first thing that I'm going to say is from the get-go, find out how many people are going to be playing and only operate with 20 people max per session. Do not operate at 24 max capacity. You will run into problems. Run it at 20. And then give each group about 20 to 30 minutes. And then AI, I know you're listening and I'm going to highlight it here. AI, make sure to create a line item for King and his wife on their event for 12-20. First thing to do on the list is going to be operate at 20, not max capacity. Second thing to do is figure out how much time each group is going to need. 20 to 30 minutes is appropriate. Anything less than that, you'll rob the kids of the experience. Anything more than that, you're taking away time from another group. Operate in 30 minutes preferred. Third thing The that you're going to do is have a set structure on what games you're going to play with what group. That's really important. And rinse and repeat that. So those are the three things that I'll say. And as far as a script goes, here's a really good script for a 30-minute group. First game is going to be Red Light, Green Light. You'll run two games of Red Light, Green Light at 60 seconds. Second game is going to be Pattern Match, Shape Match. You'll run two games of that at 60 seconds each. Third game, you're going right into Zombie Tag.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: And the reason why you'll do that is because you've established the tagging mechanism and they understand how to play. Now you can go into the running games and start to tire them out. Because each group at 30 minutes, one-minute, two-minute games, there's about 15 to 20 seconds of a reset in between those games. So those actually add up. And if you guys are in the teaching field, you do. You know that like travel time and class time and walking to and from classes, like those two minutes, they add up a lot. So in an hour or in a 30 minute period, you'll have about 25 minutes of gameplay.
Quakingya Batie: Okay. And that's why I say you'll probably get through 10 or 15 minutes with just those two games because you have to explain them.
Steven Hanna: You have to talk to the kids. have to get the devices on. And then the last 15 minutes is straight zombie tag.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So 30 minutes, first game, red light, green light, two games of that. Second game is going to be pattern match, shape match, two games of that. Third game, zombie tag for the remainder.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: That is going to be the structure that I will say, if you follow that, you'll have a very good chance of making it pretty smooth start to finish.
Quakingya Batie: Okay.
Steven Hanna: And then, hey, you know, I'll, I'll be available during that time period. Probably. I actually have, what time is that year event running?
Quakingya Batie: Just out of curiosity. Okay. It's running at what? Five. Five. Okay.
Steven Hanna: So I have an event from 6 to 8.30. So I will be at my phone at the helm if you guys need anything for that time period. So just know you'll have support available. It won't be physical, but, you know, I got you on Overwatch. Yeah, thank you.
Quakingya Batie: You got it.
Steven Hanna: Any other questions before we jump off? I apologize for taking up way more time than I anticipated, but I just want to make sure you guys are set and want to make sure that you guys are at least comfortable from here. Now, on Saturday, your comfortableness will change, but from here, I want to make sure you're comfortable now. For Saturday.
Quakingya Batie: You got any questions? Not yet. Okay. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Sounds good. And you will get two emails from me. One's going to be from the AI. The second one's going to be a follow-up email just with, like, thank you. Here's your certification. Here's the script that we talked about. And then, you know. You Good luck. We'll talk from there. All right.
Quakingya Batie: It was nice meeting you. Thanks for taking us as well.
Steven Hanna: Absolutely. Have a wonderful holiday, guys. Have a great first event. I'm looking forward to hearing about it. And I'll be here for you guys on Saturday if you guys need to. Thank you. Take care. Take care, guys. Be good.
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Kristin Neal: Good morning, good morning, hello, good morning, good morning, excuse me, good morning, good morning, good morning, hi, good morning, good morning, good morning, here comes Charles. It looks like we're waiting on the China team and oh, there's Jimmy. Jimmy's here and Kwan.
JimmyLai: Yes, I am here.
Kristin Neal: Hi, Jimmy. Joining us.
JimmyLai: Yes.
Kristin Neal: We're going to get started in just a minute. Here comes Alan. Here comes Quan. Hey, hey, good morning.
Quan Gan: Good morning.
Kristin Neal: We have Carmi coming. All right. This is so awesome. Oh, my goodness. Look at you guys. Very cool. All right. I think we'll just go ahead and get started. And if anyone else joins, we'll just, I'll try to keep my eye on it. And hopefully, they'll be able to join us. So thank you all so much. Happy Monday. We are so excited to have everyone join us. We're kind of taking it a little bit of a difference. So we have guests. This is usually our Fun Friday meeting. So Fun Fridays, we have a meeting where we get to connect. And it's really bringing the, here comes Ryan Summers, the ZTAG core values back to the table. We like to come back, realign ourselves with one another. We're all remote. So we want to make sure that we're all just feeling supportive in a very fun and creative way. So it's been a lot of fun. So you guys are going to be joining us on our holiday version this week. So we're very excited for that. The girls pretty much, the Daily Ops team, Steve, of course, knows kind of like how this goes. So just you guys share what you'd like to share. It is an open table. We want to just make sure everyone has a voice. GodID. It is an open If you don't want to share, that's fine, too. And then at the end, we'll play a few games. Not really games, but just a few things that we like to play during our Fun Friday meetings where we just have that opportunity to share. But we, I'm so excited to see, like, we have the whole team from Boots on the Ground. Eric, wave so we can see the Boots on the Ground. Thank you so much, Eric. That's Boots on the Ground. We're so grateful for you, Eric. Eric, as a teacher, he's the one that is in the schools every day bringing ZTAG to life, really, and bringing it all the way back through to our assembly, right, our China team. So we have all the team in between, and then we have the assembly team here today. So we're super excited. So thank you again for joining us. We are going to jump into our very first activity, and we want to hear human connection first. We want to hear introductions. the House. right back. start the And titles, and maybe, like, what it is you actually do. So, like, also known, I'm the person also known as such and such. So, I'll go first. My name is Chris Neal, and I am the Partner Relations Director at ZTAG. I've been honored to be here for almost two years. And I am the person that loves emojis. So, you'll see, like, emails, everything. There's always an emoji connected there somewhere. I love connecting with people, though. So, I get to have that opportunity with teachers and with site coordinators and just see how we can connect the team to the mission, to the mission, to our partners. So, very grateful. I will popcorn to Malachi.
Quan Gan: Oh, you're muted.
Kristin Neal: you're muted. you're Oh, you're Thank
Malachi Burke: Thank you, Kristin. Thank you, Quan. Hello, everybody. Yeah, I mute my microphone because I've got a thousand-year-old keyboard here that's very noisy. So when I take my notes, I don't want to interrupt. But yeah, hey, everybody. I am Malachi, and I have been engineering for a very, very long time. And I'm very grateful to be a part of this team. Quan has treated me very well, and I always really appreciate it. He and I have some good debates, very good debates. And we come away with a lot of respect for each other, which is where it started, and I appreciate that. And yeah, I first began engineering well professionally in about 1991. And I just loved it. You know, I took a step away for a while in the late 90s. And I'm like, you know what? I miss it. I came back, and I haven't looked back. So yeah, that's me in a nutshell right there. Thank you.
Quan Gan: Who do you think?
Kristin Neal: Should we popcorn to Tin? Tin, how about you take it from there?
Tin DG: Hi, everyone. I'm Tin. I'm also known as a person who do the partner support. So I'm helping the partners having their tech issue. I'm also helping Charlie with the account receivable. I'm doing the follow-up for payments, and I'm also the one who's processing the shipments. For new orders, for replacement, and SWACs that we have. Next, I'll popcorn to Paula.
Paula Cia: Thank you, Tin. Hi, everyone. Nice meeting you all. I'm Paula, and I am on the marketing team. I support Charlie when it comes to graphics, and also I work on social media. Yeah, I've been working with ZTAG for two years now going. And what I really love in working with ZTAG is that they are very supportive, especially Quan, Charlie, Steve, and Chris when it comes to tools and other things that might support our task and also the team. I'll talk forward to Clansys.
Klansys Palacio: Thanks, Paula. Hey, everyone. Good morning. So I am Clansys. It's so nice to finally meet you all. So I'm really glad that you are complete. I've been working for ZTAG for almost three years now, same with Paula. So I am handling the web development and automations. So I am supporting all the teams here. So what I really love, ZTAG, so despite of different expertises, we are always. I'm having the same goals, and all of the team here are very collaborative and very supportive. I really appreciate those, even though it is really hard to, like, you know, if it's a techie thing, so it's really hard to understand it, but they managed to do it. So I really am really proud of that, and I am a person who loves K-dramas, and I love eating, and, of course, I love dogs. yeah, I'll popcorn to Carmee.
Carmee Sarvida: So, yeah, hi, everyone. I hope you've been having, you know, hope you've been enjoying your holidays. So far, nice to see new faces. I'm Carmee. I'm with Chris in the sales team. I support Chris in connecting with the partners, potential partners. And I've been with ZTAG for a year now. And I love traveling. And what I love about ZTAG is that we strive to practice the values that we are trying to build. And I love that in this meeting or in this chat, during our Friday chat, I love that we've established a safe place where we can speak up and not worry about... or a lot. Anything or any judgment because this is like a family that we can open up to. We can open up anything that we are worrying or even personally. So it's been really nice working with ZTAG and nice to meet everyone here. I will pop forward to Ryan.
Ryan Summers: Hello, I'm Ryan. I just joined the engineering team this year. So very nice to meet you all. I have been working alongside Quan and Malachi, just kind of behind the scenes trying to get code working. And I've been trying to learn a lot and they've helped me a lot. So I'm very thankful for them about how much I'm able to learn about engineering and everything. the, I Um, I kind of got started with programming and engineering and robotics, and what I really liked about robotics is you could see the code that you type kind of have a reaction on the world. So I could see the robot doing, you know, basically the work that I was putting on in the computer, and that's why I really like this is because I'm able to see our devices work and I'm able to get kind of like that instant gratification and just see, you know, oh, my work is actually having some sort of physical impact, and I'm also glad that tons of kids are able to use it and have fun. I haven't gotten to see a full demo yet, so hopefully I'm working on that, but I have let some of my neighbor's kids play with it, and they have a ton of fun, so it's super exciting. I suppose I can popcorn to Steven, yeah, but great to meet you all.
Steven Hanna: Thanks, Ryan. Hey, folks. My name is Steven. I'm... One of the Playmaker developers, which roughly translates to I'm a partner trainer for anyone who's going to be getting a ZTAG system. And I've been on the team for about four-ish months now, but I've been on and off doing some trade show stuff with Quan and the team for about a year or two. So it's been fun. I love that we can have a lot of fun with the team and basically see what direction we can go with things and see what the limitations are in any direction. I like the fact that we can push it to the outer limits in whatever we do. So that's been really fun to have the support to do that and look forward to having more of that in 26. And then I will popcorn over to Charlie.
Jiali Xu: Hello, everyone. My name is Charlie. So in ZTAG, I'm in charge of Marketing Director, and also in charge of Accounting Department. So for ZTAG, I officially joined ZTAG in March. What I like is this platform is such a great opportunity for personal growth and work with each other. and it's very open and full of potential. So I'm going to popcorn to Jimmy.
JimmyLai: Hello, hello. I'm Jimmy, and I'm the founder of the M5Stack. And so I have designed all of the M5Stack products. So maybe I have a lot of the experiment, and some ideas. Ideas to make the products, but also need good ideas come from youth. I consider ZTAG is very meaningful to help the people to keep in touch with others. So I think maybe you can tell us some ideas. I'm good at to make it as a product. So welcome to ideas. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Eric, how do go next? That's a great, that would be so neat.
Eric: Hi, everyone. It is so nice to meet the team. You know, I hear names and every now and then I get to talk about some of you guys, but to see everyone, it feels great. My name is Eric. Eric, I am kind of like a partner playmaker. I'm a full-time PE teacher, like Chris said. Getting them the boots on the ground, and I love it. That's probably my favorite part. I get to see everything you guys are working on and problem-solving and putting together, and then I get to take it and bring it to real life. My students, my community, they love ZTAG, and I think the best thing that I love about it is the alternative option is giving so many kids in today's world where, you know, they love technology. This really meets where they are, but now it's getting them away from sitting down and scrolling and interacting, and now interacting face-to-face, and it's been a blast. I've been involved with ZTAG for the last two years now, and it's been tremendous, a huge impact from the support you all give me. I've never owned a business, and this has really helped me kind of start a side business, and I've learned a lot, but the best thing is coming back to the kids. It's all about them, and you guys are developing something that is going to change their lives. Offer them some really good outlets to express themselves and get to know each other. So I'm very grateful for everything you all are doing.
Kristin Neal: Thanks, Eric, Quan. How about you? How about, is Alan here?
Quan Gan: I know we can't see him, but maybe he can do a quick intro.
Kristin Neal: Oh, Alan, thank you so much.
Chao Allen: Hello, everyone, because now it's right late. China now, I'm just waiting for the night drive, so I'm going to show you our cameras. So I just want to say hello to all the guys. So we are from the M5Stack, so we are the manufacturer for the ZTAG and for the Zeus. I think we know Quan ran like six years ago, right? We start from the first version, and from the single ZTAG, and to ZStation, and to Zeus, and the mini Zeus, and the version 1, Zeus, and the version 3. I think for this year, we handled them. 10 or more than 10 versions of those, and we really like the ZTAG products. It's really meaningful for this thing, and for the children, and for programming. And thanks to Quan for you, just the wonderful ideas for these kind of products. And thanks to Jimmy, who can, as Jimmy said, who can just do the fast prototyping. I think we are the best matching. So, ZTAG and AmpireStack, now we are not only the customer and the manufacturer, we are also non-time partners, we are also like good friends each time. So, yeah, very nice to see all you guys here. No, yeah, thank you. I pass to Quan, yeah.
Quan Gan: Hi, everybody. I'm just incredibly grateful for this Monday morning. I wasn't expecting this because I thought it was just going to be a small group, but just seeing everybody populated on the screen is really like. Like, it's making me quite emotional because this is a long journey we've been through, and I just see growth everywhere in all different dimensions. You know, it's no longer a single-person effort. It is a global effort across at least four or five time zones now, maybe more. And it gives me a lot of hope and confidence of where we can take it because there's momentum now. You know, it's not just, like, a single person digging a hole. It's, like, everybody's, like, coming and contributing, and we're going to be making a mountain pretty soon. And it's already growing and feeling it. You know, beyond the team, you guys probably all know me as also an avid skier. I've already gotten about two weeks of skiing this year through a blizzard. Yeah, it was – so, just a mammoth report. The snow was so good that they had to shut down the mountain for the past two days. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because of avalanche. So it's like we left at the right time, and my car skidded out, and with the kids in there, and we were like, we ran into multiple snow banks. So I'm getting new tires today. But anyways, I'll hand it back to Chris, and I just, I love seeing everybody here today.
Kristin Neal: Thank you. Thank you so much, Quan. And we're so glad you got home safe. But I do want to acknowledge what you said, because that is so true. I'm very grateful to have been here from last year to this year, and this year was definitely, it, we went through fire, it feels like, through several portions of this year. But each time we've come out and stronger than ever. So there's one person on this team that, and I need to shout it out, I've been thinking about this for several days, but there's one person on this team that really took... ZTAG in a whole nother direction. That's you, Charlie, this year. In March, when you came on, it changed everything. So thank you so much for taking that on. And we are so grateful for everything you've done. It's been incredible. Really, truly incredible this year. So we're excited for next year. We have, I'm super excited. And my family has been so annoyed with me all week. It's actually quite funny. But we have, so the activities that we do on Fun Friday Meetings, which, Quan, I hope you don't mind, is available to anyone. Whoever needs that human connection, please join us for those Friday meetings if you'd like in the new year. We have no, we would love to have you guys. Right, Steve? We would love to be able to.
Steven Hanna: Oh, we have fun. Oh, we sure do.
Kristin Neal: We laugh. Mostly at ourselves, but we laugh. We do. Yes. But that's the best way. So that is an open invitation. We are now going to have. It's game, but it's also, it's called Active, our Active 2025 Slideshow. Okay, ZTAG is all about active, so we are not going to just sit here and look at pictures and just dilly-dally. We're going to look at pictures, but you guys are going to call out how ZTAG lived out its values in 2025. So it's okay, you don't know the values. It's all good because I have those ready, and we're going to take a look back and see what ZTAG has done in 2025. So I'm going to start sharing.
Steven Hanna: There better be sappy music to this photo montage starting up.
Kristin Neal: Oh, no, no, no, no, I couldn't. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out the music, but that's okay because we're going to talk. We're going to talk through this. So here we go, a look back at how ZTAG lived out its values in 2025. So here we have, I love this one, Eric, your son's ZTAG Christmas. Christmas. I love that one. Here we have the ZTAG card. Go ahead, guys. Call it out. What do you see?
Quan Gan: Community. Connection. Happy children.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Kids having a good time. Yeah.
Eric: Yeah. They worked for it.
Kristin Neal: What was that? They all worked for it.
Quan Gan: They made projects. They wrote stuff. Yeah, they really worked for it.
Kristin Neal: They really did. Yeah. We even had a school this year fundraise for it. So a school, actually, the kids earned enough money. They had one choice of toy or system that they wanted for their school, and they wanted ZTAG. So that was one that happened this year. Right. Mm-hmm. And then these are our Fun Friday meetings, kind of games that we play. We have... We have... I'm with those.
Quan Gan: There's a road trip with me and Steve.
Steven Hanna: There's a little coding nerd, yeah, in that bottom corner over there.
Kristin Neal: Yep.
Quan Gan: Yep, that's your birthday.
Kristin Neal: Oh, is that on my birthday?
Quan Gan: That was on your birthday.
Kristin Neal: That was Steve taking a picture of the birthday boy.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. So Steve is not driving the Tesla, because it's driving, and then I am coding.
Steven Hanna: I'm being as road safe as possible.
Kristin Neal: Mm-hmm, very cool. And this here was a board that one of the schools made, this school right here. This is Ella. This is one of our biggest partners. She's huge support.
Quan Gan: She's covered in paint dust.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, she is. That was fun. Here we have how we lived out human connection first. So here we have our meetings up here. Here we have... Here Me and the team, we've connected with our Fun Friday meetings, but also scheduled meetings on Mondays and Wednesdays, where Steve takes control of the Wednesdays. Over here, Steve, I had to add this one for you. This is your training. That was a huge change this year. You want to tell us about it?
Steven Hanna: Sure. So I've kind of been brought on the team for in-person development for a lot of the partners once they pick up their systems. And that training, actually, Quan and I had to split the day because in the bottom left corner, he's with Jeff from Cannes at the library. So for the start of that day, we went to the library and we were working with Cannes and I split out to jump to the training in the top right corner. And we basically had a fun split day where we were able to just get a lot of stuff done. And I was able to meet up with Twin Rivers, which that was. The start of the training for the most recent one we just went to, where we, I think we were speaking to at least over 80 or 90 people in the room, and we were able to get the, at least a third of them, at least using the system. So, in-person trainings have kind of just taken off this year, and that's one of them. He got caught, he was hiding underneath the table behind him, and someone called him out at the end. So, he let everybody, like, zombify each other, he hid underneath the table, and then one of his co-workers was like, wait, where's whatever his name is? And then they started looking, identified him, and then they just caught him immediately, because he was hiding. So, that was a fun one. That is good.
Kristin Neal: I'm glad he got that shot. That's perfect. That's the, oh man, you had to say something? Yep. But you see the kid, you see the kid there too.
Steven Hanna: Totally, totally, The little disappointment, but I had so much fun that, you know.
Kristin Neal: So true. Charlie, do you want to? Can us about this little boy that you met earlier this year?
Jiali Xu: Yeah, of course. First of all, thank you, Chris, for putting all these beautiful memories together. I feel like throughout the year, we're rushing moving forward and never really looking back. But once you put all these images together, it really is filling the deep touch. So this image is at the very beginning, I started working with ZTAG, and we're visiting a school, after-school programs in the North California, North, North there. Yeah, and we got a really warm welcome, full of loving. All the kids are so happy we're visiting them. And this one, one of this boy approached to me, he is so excited, telling me all the story, how he overcome himself. He tell like at the beginning, he's not good at it, but at the end. He's so good at it, like, full of confidence and joy. And it just, like, it feels like all of a sudden it touched me so hard, like, so deeply of how it's through this kid's mouth telling me how much impact we made for each individual kid. And the kids are so proud of his part of ZTAG, like, playing it every day, he asking, take a selfie with me. And he said, do you send this to my mom? So, like, wow, it's like, it just, yeah, it's worthless. And also, I think that moment brings me a lot of responsibility. Like, we need to make this, bring the impact more to the kids all over. Because I feel like it could be just slightly some emotion change. But, but. But I think these memories are lasting long. So, yeah, thank you. Thank you, Charlie.
Kristin Neal: Thank you. Over here on the left is my husband and I with Charlie and Quan. This was our very first double booth. I wanted to add that because we'd only had the 10x10, at least with me, maybe with earlier. But this was the first double booth, and it was like the perfect, the whole year was the perfect booth, was right in the middle of kind of like the field. So, that was a really neat. And having my husband there, he doesn't fly. So, having him there, we were able to drive there together. It was really special because the very first, oh my gosh, it was really funny because the very first night, it was like packed. Like, we just got like swarmed, and my husband was so overwhelmed. He was like, oh my gosh, like he had no idea that that was what the shows were like. Like the, the, so. And then, of course, Quan up here, I loved adding this, because this just kind of put it absolutely in black and white, where there's issues with the team in the Philippines. We're praying for you guys. We're making sure that you guys are okay, whether it's a fire, a family member. We're always human first, human connection first. Does anyone have any other examples that you guys saw in your departments that maybe I, well, of course, I didn't.
Quan Gan: want to describe the one in the middle, bottom. That's the M5 team, or a small section of the M5 team. They have a lot more people, but these are a lot of the people involved with our project. So it's, you know, the people that Jimmy and Alan oversee. And the first time playing, right?
Kristin Neal: It's the first time playing in all six years.
Quan Gan: They've been developing this, you know, basically to spec, but not realizing the game. Itself until we went over there to qualify the version three. Yeah, it was amazing. I got to see them running around, and I think playing the game transmitted so much more information than even just touching and handling it.
Kristin Neal: Huge.
Steven Hanna: That's a really cool, cumulative kind of full circle. I think six years, too long, too long. I'll do the Italian thing, too long. But that's a really, really cool full circle to see the people who have been working on this from overseas and behind the scenes that we don't normally see, see them like that. So, great photo. Oh, wow.
Kristin Neal: Yes.
Chao Allen: I want to piggyback.
Eric: have manufactured.
Chao Allen: Oh, sorry. Oh, go ahead.
Eric: So, yeah.
Chao Allen: Yeah, this is Aaron. So, actually, we manufactured this one for more than, as I said, more than six years. But we already scheduled, maybe one or. Two times ago, we see we need to find some playset, we need to play with our engineers, so our engineers can feel what they are creating, so what a fun game, what a fun products they are doing now, developing now. So only this year we have the chance because we have moved to a new office and just near our office, there's a playground, so we just gathering all the people to be there. Yeah, you can see that most of our team mates that are younger people there, yeah, not including me and Jimmy, we two are our guests. So yeah, we just played or run three games or something, the most fun one should be, definitely should be the zombie one. So everyone just running like the kids, know, so just streaming and just laughing and everyone. So yeah, we really enjoyed it very much. The main point is that everyone is knowing what we are manufacturing, what we are creating now, yeah. The way, the one on the button, you can see the back side of the hat, that was me, just wearing the blue hat.
Kristin Neal: That was me.
Chao Allen: Okay.
Quan Gan: I just want to take you back on Charlie's picture.
Eric: There's been lots of moments kind of like that, you know, on the ground, getting to see these kids that, you know, maybe wouldn't join a traditional sport or don't have access to that traditional sport. What we're creating is so inclusive. So many kids are having success, both athletes and non-athletes. When I put on my events and my YMCA leagues, we have kids with autism that are doing really well and participating and feeling a part of a team without the pressures that sometimes come with traditional sports. So, again, that picture captures so many other kids that are also having that same experience, and I'm so glad to be a part of this.
Kristin Neal: Thank you, Eric. Thank you. Can we go over the one in the bottom right?
Steven Hanna: The bottom right one?
Kristin Neal: Go ahead, Steve, please.
Steven Hanna: That one was from Palm Springs. That was from the sponsored event that we had outside. I think it was a pool party. Eric, that was, what, the second show? First show? Which one? That was Eric's first show that he came out to ZTAG for. And, man, that was a great show. That was fun. Yeah, Eric, if you want to talk about how much fun you had, you're more than welcome to. But I just remember that picture was, we had to do the silly hats, and we attached the beach balls again this year, and they work. So, as serious as Quan looks in this pose, there's this element of pure comic relief with this beach ball attached to his head. Like, such an in-depth conversation, but with this giant beach ball attached.
Kristin Neal: To me, it showed how much trust he has. In his team. For some reason, that just screams that. And they do. Thanks, you guys. Any other way? If not, we'll keep moving. Here we go. This is how we lived out inclusive empowerment, where every, I forgot to read that part of the last one, I'm sorry. Well, inclusive empowerment is where every child gets a place to shine, regardless of background, ability, or social status. We believe everyone plays on equal footing, transforming the shine, withdrawn into confident contributors. Paula, do you want to tell us about this picture on the right? What is this project that you've...
Paula Cia: Yeah, that's the Icon Stickers. I forgot, but it... It is the project that Charlie and I were working that used for the kids that... They give out during the games or the play.
Kristin Neal: Yes, it's a great way of showing how the kids learning their emotions, being able to verbalize those. That was a great project, Paula. Thank you. And that it is coming into fruition in the beginning of January. So we're super excited. This picture up here, I wanted to include because I take ZTAG to a local group at a church. But these gentlemen, I just wanted to show you, they're in their 90s. They're literally, this gentleman back here is in their 90s. He's almost 90. And they're right there. And they wanted to play more than, the kids loved it. But they were like, bring it back, bring it back. So I had to show you guys, you have 90-year-olds playing. Eric, do you want to tell us about this one down here?
Eric: Yeah, so getting to bring it to school, the kids love it. And we fit it into the curriculum many different ways. This is where we... We're kind of working on some chasing and fleeing strategies, and we got some inspiration from another non-traditional sport called World Chase Tag, which is essentially team tag, but it's 1v1 for 20 seconds, and you have to try and tag the other player, and if you do, you score a point, but we decided instead of physically tagging, we're going to use ZTAG. And so we play for 30 seconds, the zombie has to tag the human three times in order to win the round, and then they just swap the watch to the next player, and it's just a fast pace, constantly going. They don't even get caught up in the points, they're having so much fun, but yeah, it's just an alternative way to play zombie tag, great for smaller groups or large groups, and they just, they love it. It's intense, it's, their heart rates are up, this video also has a clip of the heart rate monitors they're wearing, so again, it's just showing this is both good mentally and physically for them.
Kristin Neal: Awesome. Thank you, Eric. How about down here? Would anyone like to share what this captures? The smiles. I just couldn't get over the smiles.
Quan Gan: Oh, one? one on bottom? bottom?
Kristin Neal: Yep. Oh, yeah.
Quan Gan: This is part of the M5 team, and it's on their playground, and you see the engineers chasing each other.
Kristin Neal: Love it. Is there any other way that you guys saw Inclusive Empowerment this year?
Steven Hanna: One way I saw it, we do a lot of special needs events over in New York, and we have one camp that brings us back probably like five or six times a year for their programs. So each time we see them, it's kind of just great to see the repeat kids and then the new kids that come in and just see everybody playing. week. M6. acute Okay, ZTAG without there being a formal way to play, that's been kind of really amazing, is as much guidance as we provide, it's also very open, and the ability to take it in whatever direction we need, it's really kind of just opened it up for kids that you would not expect to play ZTAG to be playing ZTAG.
Kristin Neal: Hmm, I love that.
Quan Gan: Okay, piggyback on that, you just reminded me that we went to JSAAC, which is the juvenile correction facility, so we went to a camp essentially for kids in jail, and even for that community, we were able to reach out to some of them, not all of them, but many of them participated, so it's definitely very inclusive.
Kristin Neal: That's huge. Thank you, Quan, yes, that was huge. All right, we'll move on, and how we lived out. Authentic Innovation. We create solutions that feel natural, not forced. Innovation comes from community-driven creativity rather than corporate features. Simplicity enables rather than complicates. Malachi, do you want to share with us what these two pictures represent? I love this dream. Yeah, absolutely.
Malachi Burke: And before I do, I want to say I have felt what you just said on the team with the UTF guys and with Quan, where it's very much not corporate, which I am very appreciative of. It's just ideas come out, and it is a safe space, as one of you mentioned earlier, and I am very appreciative of that. But yeah, you can see up there in the upper right with the little thing that says Dreamer and then some PCBs down below. Yeah, just in my filthy workspace to the left of that. Dreamer is just as cool. It looks like a baby monitor, but There's no microphone or anything in there. So it's for parents who want to have soothing sounds for their baby to sleep to. So it's, you know, like waves crashing or crickets chirping or something like that. And I helped put together the firmware for that. They designed all the hardware. It's got a really nice speaker. So it just has this really beautiful sound to it. And then below is my own prototypes for a industrial can control system. So it uses a specification that like harvesters and big diesel trucks use, but I'm using it for other things. Yeah. So that's what those two things are up to. And I wrote all the firmware for both of those. Very cool.
Kristin Neal: Very cool. Thank you for sharing those projects.
Malachi Burke: Very good. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Thank you.
Malachi Burke: Thank you.
Kristin Neal: Eric, you had a little technical problem up here on the top right that I wanted to kind of share that there's actually a chat. Between you, Boots on the Ground, with Steve and Quan, and just pouring information. So I wanted to capture that, because that just started this year, correct?
Eric: Yeah, I just had a, I noticed one of the kids, you know, was running around, and he was the only, I think, human left, and none of the zombies were getting him. So I was wondering what was going on, and when I took a look at his, at his tagger, that black, I'm assuming, sensor, had been bent back. So I don't know quite how it happened. I attempted to try and solder it back on, but I can't solder. I'll leave that to you guys. So yeah, just something new that popped up, and just wanted to send it your guys' way, just something to be aware of. Again, it must have gotten bumped, I'm assuming. Yeah, it's only happened once, so.
Kristin Neal: Thank you so much. We're very grateful for that, that flow of information that, that you guys have established. That's awesome. All right, Jimmy, right?
JimmyLai: Hi.
Kristin Neal: Who is this gentleman? Or is this Alan? Would you guys like to tell us more?
JimmyLai: Yeah, please. I am the guy behind the V, W-E-E, V.
Kristin Neal: Behind the E, behind the E. Behind the E, gentleman.
JimmyLai: We. There we go.
Kristin Neal: Uh-huh.
JimmyLai: Okay. And the Alan is, is the, this one. Down here?
Chao Allen: Yeah. Yeah.
JimmyLai: that was me, the owner, Barton.
Chao Allen: There we Connor, that was fine. See me.
JimmyLai: Yeah, the game is funny and very interesting.
Kristin Neal: I see you have two on your wrist. That's- That must have been a fun game.
Chao Allen: Yeah, because Jimmy is the boss. The boss can wear it too. Special one for boss.
JimmyLai: Very cool.
Kristin Neal: Well, thank you guys for everything you guys are doing with authentic innovation. We are very, very grateful for everything you're doing. Yeah, I want to say something.
Jiali Xu: So early this year, I went with Quan to the factory and see M5's workspace. And also as an observer, I really appreciate M5 is very supportive because during the meeting, we will discuss a lot of issues and how we moving forward. Jimmy is always the one who has a huge idea of how to always come up solutions so quickly. And I think the authentic innovation, it really is through, throughout the. The whole company, not only the engineer team, not only the marketing team, but also as the back support bone, as M5 also has such a spirit of innovations and come up the solutions quickly. So, yeah, I think that's really a big fortune for ZTAG.
Quan Gan: I also want to add something about just how rare this partnership between ZTAG and M5 is, because, you we've seen a lot of different Chinese businesses, and, you know, most of them, obviously, they're for profit, they're driven by that, but, Jimmy, you know, we resonate on so many levels that's beyond the finance. It's really about developing something that is useful and helpful and able to elevate lives. You know, we are one of their many clients, but I believe we are probably the most complex client, or at least we have very weird use cases. And even when these products have issues in the field, Jimmy and his team and Alan have just been so supportive of sharing some of that burden with us so that we don't feel stranded with a product that's, you know, having issues in the field. We always feel strongly supported, and even if it is, you know, a financial cost on their side, they're willing to stand behind their products just as much as we are willing to stand behind our products. And it's because of that rare, similar in core values. They may have different core values, but it's very similar in frequency with us that we've been able to carry this long, and we develop a very deep friendship every time we visit as well, beyond just, you know, the work. That's huge.
JimmyLai: Yeah, they were huge.
Kristin Neal: Your team was huge with the swap, the legacy swap.
JimmyLai: Yes, and this is my duty and my honor. I think I'm looking forward to the next generation. I have a lot of ideas. Yes, so I will decide something step-by-step and give you some free read and maybe in the next year, we have a new product. Yes.
Kristin Neal: Awesome. Thank you, Jimmy. All right. No one else has anything to add? All right. If, in case you're wondering, there's seven, so we're almost halfway through. add. No one one one No one anything Here we have how we lived out radical transparency. This is one that is very dear to our heart because we just want to be authentic. We want to be our very authentic selves. I think that's something that we, that Quan really shows us how to be that. And I had to share this that showed the radical transparency because we communicate openly about challenges and solutions. Our community co-creates with us through honest feedback. We offer straightforward pricing and clear value propositions. That's for our partners, but we offer straightforward with everything. So it was actually after I wanted to acknowledge your trip to China because when you came back, was, there was something different about you, Quan. You even have mentioned, I love this down here that you said it was the very first time you had hosted ZTAG in Chinese and it was a fun challenge. So it was just really neat seeing that good change in you when you came back. But you have here as large as a tree above. Ground, so is the root below. The M5 team is responsible for ZTAG production, not counting factory workers. It's about similar size as our team of employees, contractors, and developers. The collective consciousness of people working together tirelessly to make this happen. If you extend further and consider factory workers in the entire supply chain, then it may be hundreds of people supporting this mission. So it was very, very cool to see. Anyone have anything to add?
Quan Gan: I think it was a perfect segue from the previous statement. know, it's like M5 needs to be there as our roots to be supplying all the nutrients up into this tree. And all of our customers are their leaves. So as our customer base grows, there's going to be even more nutrients that need to be sent up into the trunk. be as you spend two that get And all
Kristin Neal: I it. I love it because I actually call ZTAG the fruit. So I love that it's, there we go. All right. Anyone else? All right. Here we go. How we lived out collaborative spirit. Members are co-creators, not just customers. We nurture passionate champions who extend our mission. Success is shared when our partners thrive. We all thrive. I think that absolutely pertains to our team. When part of our team thrives, we all thrive. I had to add this, add the, add the kids down here. They're a very big part of your guys' team. So it's huge. I love that picture of the kids there.
Malachi Burke: Just creating a way.
Kristin Neal: That's very cool. Beautiful.
Quan Gan: Yeah, they're rolling up their sleeves. They're helping me make some modifications to ZTAGERS.
Malachi Burke: They look like they got to get this done. I love the determination. Elimination on that, and they're having fun at the same time. They're very cool. Exactly.
Steven Hanna: Gio's looking at Sierra like, all right, what part are you on? Okay, you're ahead of me? All right, all right, right, I got to catch up a little bit here.
Kristin Neal: Seriously, seriously.
Eric: I love, ZTAG allowed me to get my five-year-old son involved with it. He doesn't do much of the tech stuff, but, you know, he's like a little playmaker with me at all my events. He participates. He likes to give feedback or teach the game a little bit, so it's been a pleasure being able to have him with me. You know, I used to coach sports, and I still might eventually, but you can't always take your kid to that, so it's nice that me and him get to bond over ZTAG, so much that he put it on his gingerbread house.
Kristin Neal: Thank you, guys. Thank you, and this was, Charlie, you created this, was it with Paula, the new playmaker shirts on stage?
Jiali Xu: Yeah. So, finally, we looked into the blues, because, like, ZTAG always have different tones of blues, so, and finally, we decided one blue I really like, it's to bring out the vibrancy of ZTAG's energy, as Quan called, it's an electric blue. And, and also, yeah, I think we need to make the, the, the, uniform for the playmakers, so, um, these are still the prototype, it's not the, the, the screen print version yet, but, yeah, I'm very excited, can deliver this to all the playmakers.
Eric: I love it, I, I'm finally watching it, because I've worn it so much, but, it's great, you feel proud wearing it, and, I wore it that day to an event, and, uh, it just, it feels good, you know, brings up questions, people ask, it's bright, it's nice, like, electric, like you guys said, um, so. You're on the right track. I love it.
Jiali Xu: Awesome.
Ryan Summers: Hi. I just wanted to say it was great meeting you all. I have to head off to my Starbucks shift. So I hope you all have a wonderful day.
Kristin Neal: Thank you, Ryan. Good to see you, Ryan.
Malachi Burke: Take care, Ryan.
Steven Hanna: Great to see you.
Kristin Neal: And then we have our team up here in Palm Springs. Our very first time, Eric, you joined us. And this here is Lily. I almost invited her, but she only does this event with ZTAG. But she helped us coordinate some of the events that we needed to have for our partners. And our play day. I did want to add the play day because in California, we went to, forgive me if I'm wrong, Steve, am I correct? Four or was it five locations?
Steven Hanna: It was at one, Quan was at another, and then there were two more minimums. So at minimum, four, potentially five.
Kristin Neal: Hi, Alexis. Alexis. That's like, that's Steve's wife, Alexis.
Steven Hanna: Alexa's walking behind. You'll see her kind of in the void. Hold on, let me do my magic.
Kristin Neal: There she is. Hey, happy new year.
Steven Hanna: Yes, that was a huge thing this year.
Kristin Neal: We went last year one time to four different locations in California. Huge, huge collaborative spirit with our partners. And we have a collaborative spirit up here with Ella. She will be bringing things to her class to also bring on board. Anyone else to add? All right, next one. How we lived out our data-driven impact. We seek out and build evidence-based research partnerships with world-class institutions to validate our impact. We don't just claim our work creates change. We prove it with academically rigorous data. So here I had to add Charlie. We had a really great, here in September, where we had just an explosion of leads, and the team was ready to take that on, and they handled it beautifully. Thank you, team. And here we have the M5 team. Of course, making sure we're living that out.
Jiali Xu: Oh, and also another thing is, I want to point out is, end of this year, we're working on the ICANN lesson book project that we will, for next, we'll bring it to the schools and after schools program. That's also a media for us to collect the data directly from our end user, the kids, to give us feedbacks of how they feel throughout the whole activities, which next place. We're also helping us to collect more accurate data based on different games or different, yeah, different approach. But, yeah, I'm also very looking forward to that data collecting.
Kristin Neal: That's huge, Charlie. That's a big project you, Steve, and Paula have been working on the last three months extensively. Yes, very excited to see that. All right. Which we're almost done with. Are you really? Yeah.
Steven Hanna: We're almost done.
Kristin Neal: I can feel it. I can feel it. Like, right before Christmas, I was like, all right, I am getting these lesson plans in. Now we're just little edits here and there, and we're good to go. Wow. Huge. That'll be for January 5th. They're going to be heading out to Northern California to do a playmaker training and also a test. We're going to be testing this. We're So. Super excited team. Thank you. All right, here we go. How we lived out sustainable growth. How can we not add the incredible growth of the teammates of Steve, Tin, Charlie, of course, having you guys on the team, Tin, you were brought on in February, right? Steve, were brought in in August, was it? Huge, huge, huge, huge. And then I had to add up here, sustainable growth. This was our Bakersfield School District, who ordered 43 units. So we had to throw that one in there. That was huge. That was a great, great, that was our record for one day. And then Quan, down here, please.
Quan Gan: Yeah, part of the sustainable part is also sustainability. So a lot of these crates have ended up in Charlie's garden as a garden bed. My raised bed.
Jiali Xu: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: But when you look back on it, Quan, we never would have been, I mean, we probably would have, but not to the extent that we did this year, being able to handle that big of an order last year. I really don't think we would have been able to. mean, it would have been really, really hard. This year, I mean, you, the team just handled it. Tin, you handled the shipping beautifully.
Quan Gan: Our infrastructure is there this year. Mm-hmm.
Kristin Neal: Huge. And then, of course, getting the, this, this was probably one of the biggest changes this year, and the biggest, like, relief off of shoulders, and that is getting the fulfillment center. Tin, do you want to tell us how that's been going for you?
Tin DG: Yes. Now working on the fulfillment center. in So what I do is a process order in the Logiva system that they have in the Valencia Fulfillment Center. So I think it's very helpful to create with Melissa and Jose on how to handle the shipment. If I miss some stock, how many to get an update with them, it's more easy to communicate with them how I will do the shipment, and how to update our team on how many stacks that we have. So we have this clarity on making the orders and to create the shipment. And then also coordinating with Carrier to ensure that we deliver the unit to our partners successfully and see.
Kristin Neal: Yes, and that whole process was put in this year, that she's now making sure that it's delivered properly, and the receipts are being sent. It's been an incredible process. That has ironed out this year. Huge. Anyone else?
Jiali Xu: Another thing I want to point out is the left button part of the traction books. Yeah, I really want to shout out to Chris. Chris is taking that huge responsibility and bringing the structures and we're experimenting on how to build a very efficient structures and throughout even in the leadership or execution team. But it's great. Thank you, Chris, to put all the effort and like the book notes, like it's hard to see, but the book notes, like pretty much each page, she, yes, yes. It's like, yeah, amazing, amazing, Chris.
Kristin Neal: Thank you, Charlie. I had to add that because, Kwon, you gave it to me, I think in the middle of the year. You're in it. Everything just changed after that. It was like a full understanding of what, for those of you who don't know me, I have no background in business. I have a background in volunteering for schools, so definitely not experienced, but this book really just, it made everything so clear. was so beautiful. It was such a beautiful book, and Quan, the trust that you, and the team, the team has been so trusting, and it feels like everything has finally come together this year, once we understood what that process was. Thank you, Charlie. And this, too, I wanted to add Teresa down here, too. I was hoping she was going to join us, but she's also a very big part in the process with Tin, getting shipments, correct shipments from China over to us, and then here, oh, I had to add this one. Ladies, I had to add the ZTAG task. That changed, I think, a lot, too, in the daily operations and having it. A visual board where we're all able to see and add things, so everything is needed, it's all at our fingertips. That was a big change this year. Huge.
Steven Hanna: I just want to say, the other person in that picture is my wife, and she's behind a lot of the creative decisions when it comes to working with younger kids. She has a background in K-6, and I have a background in 7-12, so I apply, like, hard love techniques, and she applies gentle approaches, and her gentle approaches are a little bit more appropriate for what we're trying to do. Like, there will be times where she's saying, you're doing it wrong, you have to do it this way.
Kristin Neal: Like, majority of the time, thank you. Appreciate it.
Jiali Xu: The peanut gallery is in the back.
Quan Gan: She's like, yeah, that's fine.
Steven Hanna: But yeah, she is a huge part of the decision-making and how we orient gameplay for younger and older audiences and differentiate it, so I just want to kind of give her... A shout-out because, you know, Brownie points because she's right there, but two, because she genuinely does provide a lot of great input for the team, and a lot of our decision-making is influenced by her. So, on our side, over here in New York, I would say.
Kristin Neal: Huge. Thank you, Steve. It's huge. And please thank Alexis for us. Yes, she's part of this, too. Absolutely part of this. All right, team. Did anyone keep count? I on number seven?
Steven Hanna: Half the slide.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, we're done. We're done. That was the last core value, but there's one more thing. So, at the end of this, I wanted to take a screenshot of the whole team, unfortunately. I'm bummed that one had to leave, but that's okay, though, because this is our last slide for today, but we wanted to make sure that you guys understand how everybody, everyone remote, we are all in the same picture. We are all... on this mission. So we have Quan here thanking the family for making 2025 so special. And 2026, here we go.
Steven Hanna: That is the best crappy Photoshop I've ever seen. And I just want to say, I appreciate everybody's orientation being slightly different to the camera. Like, Malachi's literally on a stage looking off playing guitar. And then Glances is looking to the right. I love it. This is great.
Jiali Xu: Chris, send me that. I want to make a postcard of it.
Kristin Neal: Yes, we'll do. We'll do.
Jiali Xu: I love it.
Kristin Neal: We got, at least we got the whole, and then, um, where, where is, um...
Quan Gan: Jerry probably, yeah, he's probably asleep or something. I don't know. Bummer, bummer, bummer. We'll get Jerry next time.
Kristin Neal: I spotted him right here. I Well, thank you guys, everyone. So we are going to close off our time. We're going to finish up with one word that you want for 2026. What is one word that you want to drive for 2026? And if you have a project in mind, you can share that too. But one word that you want to kind of take with you in 2026. I will start. My word is ready. I feel so ready for 2026 more so than any before, any year, personal life, work life, any year, any really year. And to boot, my husband actually brought this up yesterday. I wanted to just share it because this might be important. I found out last this year, 2025 is the year of the snake. I found that how my husband told me. And it was like, it couldn't have been more perfect. 2025. There was so much shedding. I feel like there's so much shedding. So, 2026, ready. And for a project, the project I really can't wait to get handled is the phone number to ZTAG. All right. Steve.
Quan Gan: You know, that's in process right now. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: It might happen today. Ah! It might happen today.
Quan Gan: We'll see.
Kristin Neal: Before 2026, then I'm really off to a good start.
Steven Hanna: I like the might, the slight, slight lean into it.
Kristin Neal: Because I submitted it, so it's in process.
Steven Hanna: All right. So, one word that I'm looking forward to in 2026, and my wife's going to laugh, is the word declutter. Yeah. Decluttering a lot mentally, physically. And the first project that I'm going to be working on is going through all of the menu screens in ZTAG and seeing the wording and what can be removed. Because we need to to...戦 Make it more concise. that's my first project of 26 is every menu option, words and language.
Kristin Neal: Nice. All right, who's next?
Steven Hanna: Popcorn over to Carmee.
Carmee Sarvida: I had a feeling that you're popcorn to me.
Steven Hanna: Well, you didn't do your bobblehead thing, so I needed like a little, yeah, there we go. If you gave me the bobblehead, I would have chose someone else, but you didn't give me the bobble.
Carmee Sarvida: One word for me would be provision, provision in every aspect of my life, and project would be to read a lot of books next year, because I bought a lot of books this year that I haven't even touched, so that would be my project next Yeah. Thank you. I'll move forward to Eric.
Eric: All right. My one word will be belonging. Just ZTAG belongs here, and I'm excited to continue to grow it within my school, but also within my side business as well. I think it definitely has proven itself, and now it belongs, and I'm excited to show everyone and anyone that ZTAG is here, and we're here to make a difference. So belong. I pop corn gin.
JimmyLai: One word, I think, for me, me. next I am a designer, so I think the gravity is the most important, so I will see more other industrial things to get some idea for them, and because ZTAG, I have played this game, so I know the situation is very tough, so I think I need more waterproof, and more tough situation for that, so I will prepare them, okay? Good.
Kristin Neal: Thank you, Jimmy.
JimmyLai: Charlie, do you want to go?
Jiali Xu: Sure, so for 2026, my work will be balanced. So as Chris mentioned, the 2025 is the snake year, and 2026 is the fourth. So we're going to run. We're going to definitely run. But meanwhile, we need to keep the balance. And I got this as, hold on.
Kristin Neal: Charlie, that's from the whole team.
Jiali Xu: Yeah. Oh, gosh. Let me see how should I. But yeah, it's a gift from Chris and you draw that. It's because this year I try to keep balance. It's really, really hard for me to keep balance. But I'm going keep practicing that. I feel like this year I'm ready for bringing more perfect balance into the team. Yeah. Thank you, Chris. It's such a great gift. Thank you. It's from the whole team.
Kristin Neal: We're so grateful for you.
Jiali Xu: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Popcorn to Paula. Paula.
Paula Cia: Thank you, Charlie. One word for me is preparation. So I. I will prepare for the new year, 2026, and also I'll prepare for new challenges for next year. Klansys.
Klansys Palacio (2): Thanks, Paula. For me, I would be excited. So I am really excited for what's coming this 2026, and I'm ready to face everything, even if it's ups or down. So, yeah, even if it's something that I cannot see right now, but it was, I'm really excited for the 2026, and of course, I think I would say as well, sales for ZTAG too. So, more and more sales for ZTAG, and projects would be, I think I will go in to finish all the books that I have, as I am with Carmi. So I already started it, and yeah. that's for my 2016. Oh, popcorn to Kwan.
Quan Gan: My word would be abundance in all aspects of our business. You know, with our code base developing very strongly, we'll be able to create new activities, new games for more kids. And then internally, our team continues to grow. We're building deeper infrastructure. We'll be able to support more projects and programs for all the people we serve. Hi, popcorn.
Kristin Neal: Tin, have you got it? Oh, go ahead. Who else? Not yet.
Tin DG: Okay. For me, my one word is momentum. To continue to do what I'm doing. Bye. Bye. To provide more support and to continue growing and learning new things with ZTAG and with the team. And I think my project that I will work on this year is focusing on my health. So I noticed that I easily get sick this year. So I think since momentum is more on movement, so I will do a little bit of exercise and be mindful on what I did. So that is my one word, momentum. And next is... Malachi, finish this off, Malachi.
Kristin Neal: You got Eric excited.
Malachi Burke: As a recovering perfectionist, I was going to say quality, because I'm always trying to keep a high quality bar. But the real answer is fun. That's the word. Beginning of 2025 was just a real grind for me. And just not fun. And just trying to make things happen, trying to get it ready. And now, 2026, I see a lot of opportunity just to be human, enjoy myself, be real and healthy in an emotional way. Okay. And just have some fun. And I appreciate that I am able to do that with this team.
Kristin Neal: That's huge, Malachi. Thank you so much.
Malachi Burke: Thank you. Allen, do you want to close us up?
Kristin Neal: Finish us up?
Chao Allen: Yes. So one word for 2026, I want to say something like a connection. Because during the COVID that we just stay in our home, we cannot go out. After that, we just go broadly to different countries that we see our customers and we meet with our partners that, so face-to-face. And we still find that there are still some places that people like our product, but they don't know Amphastate brand. So, yeah, in the new year, we may just make more connections to our customers and to our partners globally. And just like today, same today, we have the connection with ZTAG team. So, yeah. So, yeah. This is our honor, yeah.
Kristin Neal: Ellen, you couldn't have put it better. Thank you so much. That was a perfect word connection for the finish of this. Thank you. That was so perfect. Quan, do you have anything else to say? If not, we will close our time. I will. I'm sorry, but I do close our time in prayer. But if you'd like to leave beforehand, that's perfectly fine. But I got to pray us out if that's okay. Do you have any words before I do so, Quan?
Quan Gan: Just deeply grateful for all that you do, Chris, and putting this together. This is nothing like I had imagined it originally. So I'm so grateful that you did do this.
Kristin Neal: Thank you for letting me. Thank you for this team. This is an incredible, incredible team. And you guys have made 2025 seriously so special for everyone. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much, Lord. Oh, my goodness. It's like overwhelming just how good. You are with ZTAG and with all of us in all of our lives, Lord. got us through 2025, and you have put this energy, this wonderful energy into us for 2026. are for all the words that we laid before you, Father, especially with that last one. The most important word, it feels like, the connecting. Lord, thank you so much for connecting us to this mission. Thank you for connecting us to each other, to our families, to the people that we want to serve, Lord. Thank you so much for this opportunity that you have given us, and all the many, many wonderful things in 2025. We are excited for what you are going to be bringing to all of us in 2026. Thank you, Lord. We love you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you, thank you, thank you, team. Very exciting to have you all.
JimmyLai: Have a wonderful year.
Kristin Neal: I'm going to send out the fun Friday, so if you want more. For fun human connection first, please join us.
Steven Hanna: Thank you for hosting, Chris.
Chao Allen: Thank you.
Steven Hanna: really appreciate it. Thanks, Steve.
Kristin Neal: Thank you.
Eric: Great to see everybody.
Steven Hanna: Have a great day, everyone. you, See you.-bye. you. you. you. you. Have a nice day. Happy and healthy. Bye. Bye.
[Metadata only — transcript not included in this selection]
Shan Usmani: ZTAG Hi, guys. Can you hear me?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Mal, your mic is mute.
Malachi Burke: Yes. Yes, I can hear you.
Shan Usmani: How are you, Mal?
Malachi Burke: Not bad. How are you?
Shan Usmani: Yeah, we are good as well.
Malachi Burke: How are you, Basim?
Muhammad Basim Ali: you. Yeah, good as well, Mel.
Shan Usmani: So how was your Christmas, Mel?
Malachi Burke: Oh, it was very quiet. Is Christmas a thing where you live?
Shan Usmani: There are people who celebrate, so not very much, but yeah, they do. We actually have another holiday on the same day, so it's a day off for us as well throughout the country.
Malachi Burke: Oh, what's that holiday?
Shan Usmani: Yeah, basically, the founder of Pakistan, his birthday is dead, so it's like a national holiday day.
Malachi Burke: Interesting.
Shan Usmani: Get a day off on the same day.
Malachi Burke: He doesn't happen to wear a big red suit with a fluffy white beard and give everybody gifts, does he?
Shan Usmani: Yeah, no. Oh, okay.
Malachi Burke: Okay, okay.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, funny.
Malachi Burke: Good. Good. Good. How was Pakistan founded?
Shan Usmani: It was 1947, 14th August, 1947. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, basically he was the founder of Pakistan. In India they had Gandhi at the time, and in Pakistan we had Jinnah. You must have heard of Gandhi, I believe.
Malachi Burke: Of course, yeah. But how do you spell your founder's name? How do I pronounce it?
Shan Usmani: It's Jinnah, J-I-N-N-A-H, Jinnah.
Malachi Burke: J-I-N-N-A-H.
Shan Usmani: Double N-A-H, yeah.
Malachi Burke: Cool. Cool. And he brought everything about for Pakistan.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, almost everything. It was a long struggle, but eventually they were able to get it done.
Malachi Burke: Didn't realize it was... was so recent in history when that occurred, less than 100 years ago.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, almost around 80 years now.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, you know, I don't know the story there. I know that there's a history of India and Pakistan region, but that's all I know.
Shan Usmani: So basically it was a British colony at the time, Britishers were there. And so India and Pakistan both struggled, and eventually they got separated and divided into India and Pakistan. Indians celebrate on 15th August, we do on 14th.
Malachi Burke: Interesting. You beat them.
Shan Usmani: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: You got there first.
Shan Usmani: Yes. We eventually had, like at the time of the partition, had Bangladesh as well as Pakistan. So No. that. story was East Pakistan and West Pakistan, and later on in 1971, Bangladesh also got separated, but initially it was also like a part of Pakistan, but like there was a distance of 1,600 between, like the whole India between both the Pakistan states. So eventually that led to the partition as well.
Malachi Burke: Wow. And I understand there's some border disputes, but it's not on the level of like East-West Germany or North-South Korea. It's not quite at that extreme level. Am I right?
Shan Usmani: Yeah, it wasn't. Basically, it was like both of these were the Muslim majority areas, so they were converted into Pakistan. But then since there was a 1,600 kilometer of India in between, so it was very hard to manage. And like you can say like communication wasn't really working at the time, and it started creating difference. And eventually, like, it was, Bangladesh was created then.
Malachi Burke: I should learn more about all that.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, it's a brief history of us anyways. So let's move on. Faisal, unfortunately, isn't going to join us today. I believe he's at a doctor's appointment or something. But, yeah, so, Basim, he's here, right?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, Shan.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, okay. So, yeah, so, just a quick update on our end. We were basically working on the ZTAG league by myself. And there, I think we've, like, almost finished the game. There were a few bugs that we identified for NBS and other things. I am... Basically on my cell phone tonight, since there is no electricity, so Basim, can you describe all of the issues that we faced and we fixed apart from that? So basically the initial implementation of the ZTAG League is complete from our end. Now the ZEUS implementation is also underway. I think it should be done by either today or tomorrow. So to match that ZEUS implementation, we have to make some changes on the ZTAGGer code as well that's being underway as well. So those will be completed, I think, by today as well or maximum tomorrow. So hopefully during this week, the ZTAGG League, along with the implementation on ZEUS as well, will be completed. Yeah, and Basim, can you give your update as well and quickly summarize the bugs that we discovered and fixed then?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, sure, Sean. So, well, well, During the, like, I told Quan in the last meeting on Tuesday that we will be having a, you know, complete testing of the game, ZTAGly. So during that testing, we basically found some edge cases, some scenarios that weren't handled, so basically fixed them. Number one would be the NBS implementation. Basically, the game would start after, from the NBS, but it wouldn't receive the new, or say update the new configs received from the ZUS after its implementation. after the Wi-Fi and MQTT connects. So fixed that thing. Next was the ZStation, we didn't update the cooldown timer, basically. What happened when, you know, the game starts, the, we, we, would, you know, have the option to set the cooldown boost timers on the, on the ZStations and the Dagger. The ZStations weren't updating the timer, like, they were going to the default one, but the ZDaggers were, so it was a simple fix for, for the MQTT field. So, I did that thing. Next was, we also see that there was a condition, especially an edge case, where the ball would vanish. Like, it would be something like a ball would be passing between two taggers, and in this code base, apparently, there wasn't the three-way tagging. It was just two-way tagging. Like, a runner would send the IR, and the other person would send the ESPN acknowledgement, and that's it. So there weren't any third acknowledgement in this code base. yeah, because of that third acknowledgement, if during this traditional phase, if a stunner, if a device known as the boost would come and stun both of these taggers, then, you know, they both will get a stun, and the ball would disappear. After the stun time is over, there isn't any ball in the game. So, because the ball was lost during this transitional phase. So, yeah, fix that thing as well. What's next? Two boost players. Stunning each other, yeah. So there was also a condition where if two opposite team players that were boosted at the time would come in front of each other, they would randomly stun one on the other. So yeah, we basically fixed that thing. So now these boost players will be able to stun other taggers, but not the other boost players. So yeah, that thing was done. Besides the distant player scoring a goal, there was a condition that wasn't handled in the case, in the court, where if a device that is stunned by another boost player comes near to its opposite goal, it will, you know, send the acknowledgement on the ball passing, even without having the ball. So yeah, it just, you know, creates a second ball in the game. Like, it would multiply the ball. So yeah, that thing is fixed as well. Uh, and lastly, uh, going into cool down state after. So that thing has been fixed as well. Basically what happens is that the boosters would have a time set of about 20 seconds and it's supposed to only go into the cool down state after it has received an acknowledgement from any other tagger it has boosted. the Z stations are what I'm talking about. So here, there was a condition where probably the AI got confused when we were merging it and, you know, it just goes and the booster would go into the cool down state after 20 seconds or whatever the time set without even receiving any, you know, tag from other tagger. So yeah, these were some fixes, some quick fixes, some, some of them took time, but yeah, we all handle these, all, all of the edge cases.
Malachi Burke: Right on. All of the edge cases.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Awesome. Yeah. Like, actually, there were, these conditions weren't handled in the code base, so we assumed that, obviously, it wouldn't have appeared, obviously, that's usually, and in the field, you know, everything is far apart, these conditions won't take place. But when we were testing it in the, in the, in-house, in, in our office, in the room, so all the taggers in the station were, you know, were put close to each other, and that, that brings us to all these conditions.
Malachi Burke: I actually get a joy when I discover the bug before the customer does. I like it.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, agreed.
Malachi Burke: Good, good job.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Thank you.
Malachi Burke: It's, it's nice to see the Z stations getting some action, too.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, for now, we will be calling them Z stations, but obviously, in this implementation, which Shan was talking about, the Z stations aren't, you know, just gonna, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh We are going to replace them with ZTAGGERS now. Sorry. No actions for ZTAGGERS for now. Yeah. Darn it.
Malachi Burke: Well, for customers who do have them laying around, it's nice that that's an option. But it makes sense to have firmware that it can run on either.
Muhammad Basim Ali: So that's a good direction.
Malachi Burke: Well, thank you for that update. I guess I'll speak about what I've been working on. So the sandbox has mostly – and I think Ryan is here. Hello, Ryan.
Ryan Summers: Hello, hello.
Malachi Burke: Good to see you.
Ryan Summers: Sorry, I was having some issues with Zoom, so I'm on my phone right now.
Malachi Burke: It's all good. Zoom is a funky one. It's the best of all the bad options.
Ryan Summers: There you go.
Malachi Burke: So the sandbox SB5, as I call it, has mostly proven itself. There's a few things that I still would like to shake out, but it's proven itself enough that I've started migrating into the real code base, code 5, and that's been underway for a little while now. So I've probably spoke about it before, and also I've updated the architecture document to reflect what's going on there. Both of those are still obviously work in progress, but the architecture document is at a point where you could read it if you want to. It's not just some fire hose of information. You can make your way through it, but I will be adding – I haven't added diagrams yet. So if you want to wait for the diagrams, don't read it.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, thank you. On the document, Mel, I did have a brief look at it, not very much detail, but when you shared the link, I just saw it and then I forgot about it. But yeah, so I'll continue reading it.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Yeah, it's, yeah, no problem. It's what I call the right thing to do. So when you requested something like that over a month or two ago, that was already on the agenda. so however much or little you read it, it's just fine with me because I'm here to talk about the architecture directly as well. But yeah, I do recommend having a look for everybody here in the meeting, actually.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, it's nice to have something like architecture document, even though we discuss it in the meeting, but meetings are so real-time. So sometimes we just don't grab things that quickly. So it's nice to have it. We can refer to the document to get it understanding clearly.
Malachi Burke: I totally agree. As tight corporate as I am, they have a few good ideas, and knowledge transfer is something the corporate types really like to brag about. And having a piece of somebody's brain information available when that person is not actually there across a team, especially across the world, I think is critical. So when it comes to documentation, I'm actually happy to do it, believe it or not.
Shan Usmani: Interestingly, last time when we started, I think it was core three, we spent quite a lot of time around, I don't know, around, I think maybe around five or six months just working on the documentation and getting everything, you know, to, there were two teams, us and there was the other team as well. So we initially started from what will happen where, then started different things, tagging, et cetera. Everything, we spent quite a lot of time on the documentation. The idea from Quan was there, like, if the documentation is good, it will be more easier for the AI to implement it. So, yeah, that's why it has quite a lot of comprehensive documentation and diagrams and everything. So whenever I'm onboarding a new teammate or anyone, so that's why I know whether I'm onboarding anyone, so I just refer them to the documentation. Actually, just to go through it, there are diagrams, they are able to understand it. So that's why I was emphasizing more on the architecture.
Malachi Burke: Oh, yeah. It's a completely valid and professional ask. The only trouble I have with this particular variety of document, it's not the document's fault, is the way I work, I don't know the architecture until I start sandboxing it out. That's just the way I work. So if somebody wants a document from me, it's going to be really vague until I actually have some code in place, which makes the document not so useful, right? So that's my that's my only... only... So Resistance. But otherwise, yeah, I'm here. By the way, I have the same opinion about testing. I love the idea of testing like TDD, but in reality, I don't find it works very well. Anyway, I didn't mean to interrupt you.
Shan Usmani: Please continue. No, I was just saying like I can relate being a developer. We don't like to do documentation as well of any kind. So, yeah, I can relate. We just start building in whatever comes in our mind.
Malachi Burke: Well, yeah, the way many of the best developers I know, not every one of them, but many of the good developers I have met over the years, they don't know until you get in there and write it. And they're like, oh, yeah, this is how we ought to do it. And we have the whiteboard. And okay, let's try that. And then like a day later, like, okay, that kind of worked. Doing it all in your head. That's like, you know, that's like Mozart, Beethoven territory. It's like, yeah, those guys could imagine the whole thing and spit it. But most of us, we need to kind of sandbox it. But once it's done, once the sandboxing, well, not done, but once the sandboxing is solid enough, I actually really like writing documents. I actually really like it. So I'm happy to do it once it's possible. I just want to go on the record and say that. Yeah, I was trained by a tech writer years ago how to do it, a very good tech writer. But anyway, that document is there. And now Code 5, there's enough for you to look at Code 5 instead of the sandbox. And that might be better because the sandbox has got all this experimental thing going on, although it's pretty clean. But Code 5 is cleaner. So if you do feel like perusing code, that's a good place to look.
Shan Usmani: That's nice. I didn't think we had access to Code 5, but yeah, I must have. So. I'll have a look at it. If it's in the ZTAG, if it's in the ZTAG organization, I'll have access to it. I know one of the admins, so that's not an issue.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, I'm pretty sure you do, but I'm going to check right now. As soon as I log in again, because it always wants me to log in. Yeah, but I'm 90% sure that you have access. Yeah, ZTAG dev has access to it, which includes you, I'm sure.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Malachi Burke: Wait a minute. There's two child team members. Oh, I see. That's just how he categorized remote. Okay. Okay, awesome. Yeah, have a look. It's underway.
Shan Usmani: Sure, sure.
Malachi Burke: We'll definitely have it. Thanks. Awesome. Any questions on that?
Shan Usmani: I think not yet. We'll have a quick look, me and Basim, and we'll definitely have some questions then.
Malachi Burke: Awesome. Basim, I wanted to just comment that the three-legged ACK, I think that's going to get affected for Code 5 by our discovery, right? that ESPNow Unicast has got a guaranteed delivery in it. Do you feel the same way?
Muhammad Basim Ali: I like, okay, I got the point that you are saying that one tagger would send the IR and the other one would send the ESPNow Unicast, right? Yeah. So are you sending the complete megabyte in the IR? Yeah.
Malachi Burke: No, we're still planning to send the last three, and I see where you're going with it.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, so the unicast requires a complete six megabyte. If you somehow are able to fix that thing and put all six complete megabyte in the IR, then unicast is on the table for sure. In fact, I'll vote for it. Okay.
Malachi Burke: Well, that's a really excellent piece of insight.
Muhammad Basim Ali: I'd forgotten about that.
Malachi Burke: Accept. Is there an accept? No. So what I was kicking around for a very long time was the idea of a DHCP-style mechanism for our system, but for MAC addresses instead. And for those of you who are not familiar with DHCP, it allows you to work with a reduced address space. So we... we... could turn the MAC addresses, we could pretty much serialize, say, okay, you're in the table entry zero for this MAC address, you're table entry one, blah, blah, blah, and everybody kind of knows who everybody is. It's not trivial to do that, but there are a lot of other reasons why we want to do it too, not just this one. And if we had that, then actually the ID could be one byte instead of three bytes if we did it that way.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Okay, like there is also one thing that ESPNOW ad pairs, it has a limitation of about 20 ESPNOW, and we obviously, we probably would be playing with either 24 or 48 taggers as well. There were contributions where Kwan had, like, reported there were two Z stations, sorry, two, like, two sets of ZTAGG, so basically 48 taggers were playing. So, how are you planning to handle that and talking about the one byte you're talking about? So, I've seen, like, in... In Office, I have, like, three or four taggers that had the same last byte. So, in fact, I mean, you know, when I was working on Code 3, and there was, I had two taggers that had, like, the last four bytes were similar.
Malachi Burke: That's scary, because the last three are supposed to be unique.
Muhammad Basim Ali: I'm talking with last two, not last three. So, that was a unique case, but obviously, there were just two taggers, and, you know, whenever a tagger would broadcast, both of them would receive the ball. So, that's why we were, you know, initially going for the three MacBytes in the Code 3 as well.
Malachi Burke: Well, the three MacBytes is a good idea.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: The, what I'm calling DHCP style would be just kind of an upgrade from that, is what it would be. So, picture a table, a 60-entry table, okay, and each entry has a MAC address in it. and, and, Every device is able to know about that table. Yeah.
Muhammad Basim Ali: That's what I'm proposing. Yeah.
Shan Usmani: And Mal, can that table be updated at real time as well? So like if a new device comes in.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah. Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Which obviously is going to make that more complicated, but that would be necessary, that ability, for it to really work right. Yeah. This is what DHCP does, because our NAT addresses are required. IPv6 didn't take off, so we've only got IPv4. So, because we were starting to run out of IP addresses in the late 90s, so everybody started doing NATing, and NAT addressing relies on DHCP. It's kind of a cross-relationship, and it kind of just says, well, this MAC address, instead of saying it's always going to be this IP address, I'm going to dynamically choose from a small pool of IP addresses to give to these MAC addresses. And that's why your home computers, their IPs are Move around a little because of DHCP. So we're not going to, we're going to try to not go as crazy as they did with DHCP, but I have a feeling we're going to need it for a lot of reasons. But certainly, if we want to do unicast, like you said, Basim, it's either that or send the whole darn Mac. Well, we wouldn't have to send the whole Mac because the prefix is supposed to be the same, right? Because it's all from Expressive. I think that's the idea. So maybe the existing architecture in the short term would work. We'd have to double check that to be sure.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Sure, Mal. Like, I look forward to it. Me too. Yeah. It's just finger crossed and hope for the best.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Well, we'll make it happen one way or the other. There's a lot of ways to do it. I mean, there's the more extreme route making a whole mesh, right? That would be the other route. But that's such It's such a big topic, but we probably ought to shelve that for another discussion. Hello, Quan.
Quan Gan: Hello. I have some guests, so sorry, I'm a little bit late.
Malachi Burke: Good to see you.
Quan Gan: Good to see you.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, we were just about to wrap up, actually, but we can kind of work backwards. I can tell you what my status is. It's just the sandbox has largely proven itself. There's some things that I would still like to shake down, but it's proven itself enough that you may have noticed Code 5, I'm putting, populating it with some foundational code. Okay. So that it's as ready as possible for the guys when the time comes, which is coming soon, obviously.
Quan Gan: Thank you.
Malachi Burke: I've also been working on a Code 5 architecture document, which I'm pretty sure you have visibility of. I certainly shared it with you. Are you aware of that document, Quan?
Quan Gan: You probably have it in history. I haven't had a chance to go in.
Malachi Burke: No problem. I wouldn't call it necessarily required reading, but it is there, and I'm going to continue to update it for the short term. So if you're curious about what's coming from a formal point of view, that's where to look.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: That's kind of the summary of what I went through. Basim and Sean, you want to recap what you were saying earlier?
Shan Usmani: Hi, Yashu. Quan. Hi. So we are basically, just to summarize, we were able to complete the initial version of ZTAG leak without the zeroes one, basically. And then we did found some of the bugs. Basim will tell you more details about those quickly. And we were able to fix those as well. So there were some edge cases, NBS issues. So we're to to And numbers. And the of bit tiny And so all of those were also fixed. Now OZER has started the implementation on ZEOS. That's expected to be done by tomorrow. And similarly, to counter that as well, we need some changes on ZTAGERS as well. So we are doing those on our end as well. So yeah, hopefully in this week, ZTAG League would be done, including the ZEOS version as well.
Quan Gan: Okay. That's great. Thank you.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, Basim, can you quickly provide Quan with the update as well?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, sure. Hi, Quan. So Bill told you that we'll be doing some, you know, complete testing of the game. And during the game testing, found some bugs. One was like, we fixed most of all of those bugs. But let me just go through the list again. Updated Timer and all the things, right? So the taggers won't receive those things, so fix that thing. The second one was the update the cooldown timer from the config. Yeah, so basically, during, like, before starting the game, if we were to, you know, update the cooldown timer, the boost timer from 10 seconds, let's say 20 seconds, the ZTAGGERS would receive them, but the ZSTATIONS won't. So, yeah, simple fix. Fix that thing as well. Okay, there was a condition where the ball would vanish. Okay, here's how it happened. Basically, we had, like, about two-way IR tagging, right? The IR and the ESP now, right now, in the code base. suppose there are two ZTAGGERS of the same team passing the ball. So, what would happen if that, if, if a IR is sent to the, the holder, the holder will lose the ball and send ESP now acknowledgement to the, to the tagger who sent the, you know, IR. But what if the tagger who is supposed to receive the ESPNOW gets a stun before the ESPNOW acknowledgement? The first tagger has already lost the ball, and the other one was stunned, so the ball is, you know, vanished from the game. And there isn't any ball after the stun time is over. So yeah, fix that thing, implement the three-way IR tagging, the broadcast and the unicast like we did in the Code 3. So yeah, utilize the Code 3 learning here as well.
Quan Gan: So real quick, if they get the stun, what is the desired proper behavior after that?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Like, okay, so here's the situation. In this condition, if the receiver, the one who was supposed to get the ball, gets a stun before the ESPNOW, it's now not basically sending the last unicast to the holder. So holder keeps the ball, he doesn't lose the ball, and it has about... Like 1.5 seconds for now. If he doesn't receive the unicast from the runner in 1.5 seconds, he'll simply, you know, start taking the other IR attacks from other runners and pass the ball to those.
Quan Gan: Okay. I'm just trying to see if, so in the previous condition, the ball should have been to this new holder, and the holder is getting a stun. But the holder is getting a stun from yet a third player, right?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah.
Quan Gan: A player which is boosted and is from the other team. Oh, from the other team. Okay. Yeah. I mean, from a game standpoint, shouldn't that person earn the ball then?
Muhammad Basim Ali: But it's, he like, when he's boosted, he cannot become the holder. He's boosted straight for like, or whatever time we set in the game.
Quan Gan: Yeah, boosted is supposed to stun someone. And, um... I'm trying to figure out the game logic here. If someone, if you have the ball, you're on a different team, and I have boost, and I stun you, then technically I should have, I should be just like any person without the boost, trying to get the ball from you, right?
Muhammad Basim Ali: No, like if I had the ball, and you are a booster, if we just talk about this, you are a booster player of other team, you come towards me, you won't be able to boost me. So you won't be able to stun me, and I won't be passing the ball to you. I'll be only passing the ball to other team members of your, who are runners at the time.
Quan Gan: Okay, so let me see. Mal or Ryan, does that check out from a game standpoint? Like for me, if you were to play Rocket League, I haven't played it for a while. So if, if you have boost, shouldn't you be able to have the ability to earn the ball, or are you only stunning other players?
Ryan Summers: At least in Rocket League, Boost, you're definitely able to take the ball while you're boosted. What does Boost do in the ZTAG League, exactly?
Quan Gan: The intention was to give non-ball carriers some additional purpose, because obviously the ball is central to the game objective, but if you have multiple people and they don't have balls, if they can take on a boost, then they can stun their opponents, and I guess it doesn't matter if it's a ball carrier or a non-ball carrier, they should be able to just stun them so that it disables them. So if it happens to be a ball carrier, my thought is the ball should be dropped and given to whoever stunned them. Would you agree?
Ryan Summers: Yeah, that definitely makes sense. You kind of get rewarded for having the boost, they get the stun, and then you also get the ball.
Quan Gan: Yeah. I mean, if this is one of those edge cases or almost like a race condition where you can't see the difference, then I think defaulting to not having the ball pass is fine. But if I have a boost and I'm directly standing right in front of you and you happen to have a ball and there's no response, let's say for more than 300 milliseconds or even more than a second, then I'm going to feel something is off.
Muhammad Basim Ali: So what I get at that point is that you want the boost player to get to become the holder, right? If he is in front of you.
Quan Gan: I would assume so. I think anyone who's not holding the ball, whether boost or not, should be able to grab the ball. So because otherwise you're in a way you're penalizing. position and to But currently you'reก The person with the boost mechanism.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, so you're limiting the boost player that you can have the ball for a certain amount of time, right?
Quan Gan: Well, not a certain amount of time. Boost is kind of like star power or like an extra ability that allows you to earn the ball easier, if anything, because you can disable other players so you're the only player left that can take the ball.
Shan Usmani: Initially, boost was like just a special feature whose job was just to, you know, prevent the other team from getting or passing the ball and helping their own teammate, basically. It was the role initially. But yeah, we can look into changing this.
Quan Gan: Yeah, okay. So, yeah, because think of it as like a superpower, right? You can disable other people. Let's say you disable... Every other player on that team, then you're the only one left in the vicinity that can still grab the ball. But if you just simply disable them, then it doesn't do anything if you can't get the ball. Like, there's no benefit of that, right?
Shan Usmani: Basim, how will that work? So, like, currently, the runners are sending the IER or the holder? Because in this case, Boost will be sending its signal, and will it receive anything from the holder, or how will that work?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah, I'm just figuring that thing out. Okay, to answer your question, the runners are sending the IER packet. They are sending the send-ask-for-ball with command 71, and the holder will send them the acknowledgement with command 73, 0x73. So, they have their own command. I think that's doable then. Yeah, so, what happens, Kushan, the logic is something like the boost player, the player that is boosted would send... Probably 77, and in response, we receive 78 from the player that got stunned right now, right? No, no, no, okay, okay, wait a second, yeah. So here's the logic goes. The boosted player would send a stun, that is, I don't really remember the command, whatever it is, but there isn't any acknowledgement back to the boosted player. So the boosted player doesn't receive the acknowledgement from the player that got stunned. It'll simply send, like, if we set the timer for boosted player for about, like, 10 seconds, and in this 10-second cycle, the boosted player will be only sending the send-stun packet to the, to everyone, like, whoever it receives it. So we would simply, you know, need to create a acknowledgement mechanism from the player that got stunned, sent back to the player that boosted it, and afterwards, like, if the player receives that. want if you want to see, see, Have successfully stunned some other player. He would be able to send the, you know, 71 packet, which is asked for ball, to the holder and receive the 73. So, yeah.
Shan Usmani: I don't think Basim will need that. It's doable, Quan.
Quan Gan: We'll try. We'll implement it. Okay. Okay.
Ryan Summers: And then there's one other detail, and this is something that Ryan had worked on when we were trying to... Yeah, was going to remember that.
Quan Gan: Yeah, the pass rate. So, does it make sense to make us do an experiment to invert who's sending the IR packet so that maybe the ball carrier is the one beaconing the IR, and then that way it might be easier for the ball to get passed or lost rather than other people tagging because you might have, you know, a whole bunch of people crowding into a single person for the ball.
Shan Usmani: I think we initially, like, explored that as well, or it might have been implemented that way as well, but I'm not sure. Sure, but from what I remember, it was causing a lot of ball loss issues, because the ball would be passed to everyone, and then if that element got lost or something, that was causing quite a lot of ball loss or ball duplication scenarios, basically. So that's why we thought it would be easier to send IR the way around.
Quan Gan: Right, but that was a long time ago before we really spent a lot of time on this ball pass rate in the recent year, right?
Shan Usmani: Yeah, on the ball pass rate, but I remember there was a specific reason we choose to do this. We'll explore it other way around as well.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I think maybe if there's a way to, as a prototype, maybe in the interface have like mode A or mode B, and then maybe internally we know which one is which, but turn it on for either way, and then I could put it into the field and get some of my customers to test. Yes. That's One way or the other, kind of like a double-blind test, and then tell you which one feels better.
Shan Usmani: We can try implementing and see if that works, then we'll put A and B there.
Quan Gan: Yeah, because I know this was something we did explore, but maybe we didn't have a definite conclusion back then compared to this past year. You know, we spent a lot of mindshare on this particular mechanism, so I'd like to capture some of that.
Shan Usmani: Sure, I think we did and tested it, but mostly ball duplication or something, but if now we are doing the acknowledgement on ESP now, that should improve it a lot. So, yeah, we'll discuss and we'll implement it and see how that works and update you.
Quan Gan: Okay, sounds good.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, so there are two things now. First of all, one, with the tagging, we'll be sent the other way around, and then we have the boost that will... We'll now get them all as well, for these two changes.
Quan Gan: Yes. Just checking with Mal or Ryan, do those game logics seem correct to you?
Ryan Summers: Yeah, I definitely think the person with the boost, yeah, shouldn't be punished for, like, you know, having the boost and then also hitting the person.
Malachi Burke: I defer, because I'm pretty overwhelmed. I'm not really sure. understand the game at this point.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: The only thought I have is, if somebody universally has the ability to grab the ball, but then when they get boosted, they lose that ability, that would be wrong.
Quan Gan: Right. Right. Yeah, they shouldn't get punished.
Malachi Burke: Yeah.
Shan Usmani: So I think that's very logical, and I agree with that.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Anything else to discuss? Yeah, so, like, I was just on bugs number three, so there are two more. So, yeah, basically, we also find that if two boosted players from other teams would come in front of each other, one of them would stun the other one. So, yeah, we removed that thing, because we didn't want the boosted player to be stunned by the boosted player.
Quan Gan: Oh, yeah, that makes sense.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Stunned player scoring the ball. Yeah, so there was a condition here in the goal that if a player is stunned and it somehow, you know, goes to the opposite goal, that, you know, like, opposing goal, it'll just send the acknowledgement for the ball pass for some reason, and, you know, it was an unhandled condition in the goal.
Quan Gan: So, fixed that thing. It was basically creating a ball duplication in the game, where the stun player would go to the goal and just, you know, hit the goal without even, you know, having the ball.
Muhammad Basim Ali: So, yeah, the thing was fixed. And lastly, booster going into the cool-down state after the set time. Booster going into the cool-down state. Yeah, yeah, so, okay, here is the thing that, you know, we had said that the boosters, the Z-stations, they will only get into the cool-down state after they receive a tag from any tag. But we had this condition probably while we were merging it, the code, it got confused and, you know, what happened was the booster would simply go into the cool-down state after their time be set on the settings before the game. So, yeah, fix that thing as well.
Quan Gan: Okay. Just thinking about an idea here, we don't have to implement it, but maybe we bookmark it. Might it be interesting that if someone is stunned, they have to run back to their own goal in order to maybe quicken And the cooldown, I don't know if that's an interesting mechanism.
Ryan Summers: Yeah, I think that could add a lot of agency to the players. Instead of just standing around waiting for it to end, it gives them something to do in that time.
Shan Usmani: I think that sounds good. The cooldown time is longer enough. Currently, I think it's usually set to five seconds, so by the time they reach goal, their time will already be ended.
Ryan Summers: That's true, that's true, I guess, in that case.
Quan Gan: Yeah, okay. So, I mean, those are game mechanics we should balance, but maybe we consider that and have a variable. Maybe sometimes the stun is longer, and it's very much field-size dependent. So if it's a large field, and you're, let's say, quite close to the opposing team's goal, so then if you get stunned, maybe it's, you're not incentivized to go back. But if you're on your side, you get... If you might be incentivized to go back and just do a quick reset to allow you to play defense again.
Malachi Burke: I have an idea. This might be kind of fun. It's kind of what you said, but what if somebody, when they get stunned, they have a certain short amount of time, like three or four seconds, and if they're near the person with the ball, that person gets stunned too.
Quan Gan: Wait, what?
Malachi Burke: Right. They become kind of a zombie virus. What happens if somebody gets stunned, they have to run away from the person holding the ball if they're on their team. If it's their team member who has the ball and they get stunned. Oh, you can only stun somebody who's got the ball in the first place.
Quan Gan: Never mind. Well, no, you can stun anybody, supposedly. Yeah. You should be able to stun anybody because that gives more purpose to non-ball-carrying players. So it's almost like, you know... Football, right, you got the entire defense line, they're doing stuff, even though they're not carrying the ball, they're preventing other people from running.
Malachi Burke: So let's say you've got player A1, so that's team A, then you've got player B1 and B2 on team B, and B1 has got the ball, right? And A1 stuns B2. B2 doesn't have the ball, B1 has the ball, but if B2 doesn't get away from B1, then B1 gets stunned also.
Muhammad Basim Ali: That way B2 actually has to make a quick decision and get away, and it might I think maybe as a reserve feature, because I think it would get quite confusing right now.
Malachi Burke: Okay.
Quan Gan: You know, I don't know how that will play out yet, but it sounds interesting. However, I think if you're teaching someone new, it might be kind of, yeah, they wouldn't understand the logic initially.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, yeah, no worries.
Ryan Summers: Or maybe to make it more active if you get stunned instead of waiting out a timer. Or you have to, like, shake your device to unstun yourself.
Quan Gan: Yeah, that would be cool. Yeah, you know, you're motivating them to, like, do jumping jacks or spin in circles or something. Yeah, maybe they have to spin in circles.
Ryan Summers: Yeah, so yeah, you could do, like, they need to do a certain movement or something like that to get unstunned.
Quan Gan: That would be cool because it would be quite visual, too. You know, like, if you get stunned, the only way to quick hasten your cooldown is to do, like, three rapid rotations.
Shan Usmani: Or we can just tell them to do that anyway.
Malachi Burke: You could tell, yeah, you could probably... They've been playing for three months. Wait a minute, I don't actually have to do this.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yeah.
Shan Usmani: Or maybe they can go to their own boost decision as well instead of... They can go to either, whichever is near, you know, to reduce their time or something.
Quan Gan: Yeah, like... Yeah, let's reserve different abilities to reduce your... Cooldown. So maybe, you know, the cooldown could be a little bit longer and then give it some other abilities as just like reserve features that we can play test out. But for now, just the core functionality will leave as is, except for that one thing about, you know, being able to stun someone and take the ball. I think that's the only thing to change.
Shan Usmani: Sounds great. Got it.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Yep.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: I especially like Ryan's idea. That was very good. Can you imagine? All the kids are like, ah, you got stunned. They're going to know because the guy's like shaking his wrist, you know?
Ryan Summers: Yeah, right. That's funny. It's like Mario Kart, right? You get hit by a shell and you go, ah, you found a banana.
Malachi Burke: Good job.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and that makes it very spectatable. So that aligns with her FTD.
Malachi Burke: Okay.
Quan Gan: Ryan, did you have anything to add or summarize?
Ryan Summers: Yeah, yeah, I've got some. I metrics on my testing. So I did two tests. I did a full-frame kind of display test for both M5GFX and the ESPY LCD. And then I also did kind of like a fake HUD test, kind of like as a more real use case. So for the full-frame test, M5GFX, I got both FPSs to be about the same. About, with M5GFX usually just being about one FPS higher, pretty much all their metrics were the same for the full-frame test, though. They're both getting above 25 FPS pretty consistently.
Quan Gan: That's promising.
Ryan Summers: Okay. Yeah. The only big difference between full-frame or full-screen was the DRAM usage. So without any optimizations, ESPLC... ESPLC... DD is using 150 kilobytes of RAM versus M5GFX, which apparently only uses 0.2 kilobytes of RAM. I don't know how great that sounds. You can't be right, but something is mostly different. Okay. But yeah, but FPS-wise, we were getting pretty high. Switching to the fake HUD test, it just had a little bar. It kind of goes up and down, kind of like an HP thing, as well as some text updates. Both FPS, I got pretty similar there. M5GFX had about 26. LVGL had about 25 FPS. Let's see.
Quan Gan: Would you be able to share some videos of that later?
Ryan Summers: Yeah, yeah, definitely. I can take some videos. It doesn't show up very well, but I can try. But DRAM, for DRAM usage, I was able to get LVGL down to about 35 kilobytes for that one. And then, but yeah, FPS-wise, they're both pretty much the same. So it might be feasible to swift over to LVGL just because of the ease of use for different widgets. If you have, like, different parts of the screen that you need to update at different times, because M5G effects, definitely, it's a lot more difficult because you have to do that pretty much manually. But LVGL has, like, built-in dirty tracking and stuff like that. So really, the only issue is just how much RAM are you willing to give up to use it for that case, yeah.
Quan Gan: Good findings.
Malachi Burke: Good findings, yeah, look forward to seeing all the metrics you gathered on that and seeing if we can optimize past that, too. Do you plan on, can you put that into the sandbox? Is that possible?
Ryan Summers: Yeah, I was trying to upload it to the sandbox. I don't think it was letting me, for some reason. I can try again and see what issue I was running into.
Malachi Burke: Okay, yeah. You'll have to go through the pull request mechanism for it to accept Oh, gotcha, okay.
Ryan Summers: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, I'm here to help if you need some guidance how to get that in there.
Ryan Summers: Perfect. But yeah, frame-wise, it looks pretty good. I was able to, yeah, for the HUD, was getting like 25 plus.
Malachi Burke: How about full frame?
Ryan Summers: That was 25 also? Yeah, full frame. Oh, yeah, full frame was also 25 plus for both of them. All right.
Malachi Burke: All right. Good.
Quan Gan: And what kind of graphics were you testing?
Ryan Summers: What do you mean?
Quan Gan: Like, when... you're testing for the frame, are they just like single solid colors that you're changing or triangles?
Ryan Summers: For full frame, it was just like a single color. And then the other one was kind of like a fake HUD test. So it was updating text at different parts of the screen. One was like a bar that would, the bar would be moving constantly, stuff like that, just to be more of like a real use case.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, this sounds promising, but love to see it.
Malachi Burke: Sweet. Thank you, Ryan. Yeah, please get that into the sandbox and hit me up if you hit any blockages there.
Ryan Summers: Yeah, for sure.
Malachi Burke: Thank you, sir. Yeah, LVGL is going to be fat no matter what we do. The question is, you know, because... We have the sprite mechanism with our existing code base, which is a fine way to do things, but the sprite is a lot of extra memory, too. So to compare apples to apples, can a cut-down LVGL meet a similar footprint as our old sprite mechanism? And if so, without compromising performance, because it will, LVGL, as Ryan implied, it benefits greatly from having a full frame buffer. So we'll see if the performance is still acceptable when we cut down LVGL.
Quan Gan: Okay. Anything else today?
Ryan Summers: The old, the other sprite uses, by any chance?
Malachi Burke: Are you asking how much memory the existing sprite thing uses?
Ryan Summers: Oh, did it go through hello? Yeah.
Malachi Burke: Is that a yes?
Ryan Summers: Oh, yeah.
Malachi Burke: Can you hear me? Yeah.
Ryan Summers: Okay. Yeah, yeah. I was just wondering if you knew by any chance what the other one used, so I could maybe see how low I could get it.
Malachi Burke: Right. I don't have an exact number. I have just kind of deduced numbers. It's a full frame that you allocate for the sprite size, right, guys?
Quan Gan: The sprite size, I think, was maybe reduced by 33% because I try to make it just the center part of the window. And then the top six and the bottom six, you know, they're basically just direct draws.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Okay. So the math on that would put it at about, what, about 60K approximately. That's my deal. Guess is how much it uses.
Quan Gan: I've also reduced the color depth maybe down to maybe four bits or something because, yeah, we didn't necessarily need all the colors, so I was happy with, you know, just 16 solid colors. But if we could put more in there, certainly that'll give us additional ability, but our baseline was only 16 colors.
Malachi Burke: My expectation, and Quan, if you found this not to be true, that would be great, but my expectation is you're going to see a serious performance hit if you lower the bit depth.
Quan Gan: In what way? User experience?
Malachi Burke: FPS is going to drop and you'll get more tearing.
Quan Gan: For having less bits? How are those two things related?
Malachi Burke: The way it's related is that the hardware does not. Understand lower bit depth. So it has to upscale your bits on the way out.
Quan Gan: Okay, got it. Yeah, it might, I think I had that lower just to reduce the memory, but you're basically saying we're paying for it on the computational side.
Malachi Burke: Probably. It would bear some exploration, but I would expect so.
Shan Usmani: Okay. Quan, we did a similar thing in the original, the legacy code as well, if you remember. We were having the RAM issues, and we did, like, decrease from 8-bit to 4-bit, and that made up quarter bit of RAM as well. So, yeah, we have already tried that before as well.
Quan Gan: Okay, so we reduced the RAM use, but I guess what Mal is implying is our frame rate might be limited because of having to upsample it back.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, so basically, I don't remember exactly, but I don't think that was... So or something. It was negligible. We didn't see any difference at that time, at least. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Okay. Well, I do think it's worth testing, you know, because if it's a small performance hit, getting the RAM back would really be nice. It really would be.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah. And just from a use case standpoint, most games, we probably wouldn't need to tell the difference beyond more than 16 colors.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I voiced my concern, and it could be that it's livable. And then, yeah, that would be a game changer. That would be very helpful to have more RAM.
Quan Gan: Anything else to do? do?
Malachi Burke: Nothing.
Quan Gan: Are we planning to meet Thursday? I know it's New Year.
Shan Usmani: I'm going to say a solid maybe.
Quan Gan: Sorry, I didn't hear either of you.
Malachi Burke: I'm going to say a solid maybe.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Sorry, you got cut off again. Please say again.
Shan Usmani: I was saying like we will be available. So if you guys are available, we can definitely be.
Quan Gan: Okay. Then let's say tentative. If we're able to, then let's do meet.
Shan Usmani: If not, then we'll meet the following Monday. Sure.
Malachi Burke: Great. I'm leaning towards a yes, but keeping my option open at the moment.
Ryan Summers: Yeah, but I should be available to as well.
Quan Gan: Okay. All right. Thank Thank you. you. See you, everybody. Thank you, guys. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye-bye. a good one.
Malachi Burke: Half a Half a glass.
Ryan Summers: Half a bottle. was like, okay, half a bottle.
Malachi Burke: Half a bottle. I had a little bit of Chardonnay, but really not a bottle. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Really just a boring story, my drinking life. Drinking stories tend to be pretty boring. Uh, yeah. But, um, I like what you did. Um, and as you can tell, I, uh, you know, I gave it a once over.
Ryan Summers: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: And, um, I figured we would talk about the commentary cause I've observed with the UTF guys, uh, that when I make comments versus actual commanding requests, uh, sometimes the comments, uh, don't even get noticed.
Ryan Summers: Oh, okay. No, I was reading, I was reading it all.
Malachi Burke: Okay. And you know, I, this is not like, uh, you know, I don't take it personal. It's like, okay, you know, you guys didn't notice, whatever. I don't think anybody's got it out for me. So I just wanted, being that this is our first PR, I wanted to open the door and give you all the options.
Ryan Summers: Okay.
Malachi Burke: But since we got you here, I'm going to go to the PR2. And let's go have a look-see.
Ryan Summers: Yeah, keep looking at the numbers. I'm like, it seems higher than I would expect, but I mean, I don't know.
Malachi Burke: Which numbers?
Ryan Summers: Oh, like the FPS? I guess it can go past 30, theoretically, right?
Malachi Burke: I mean, I'm such a skeptical guy that when I see that, I saw that, too.
Ryan Summers: Right.
Malachi Burke: But what I don't want to do is say, well, that's wrong, because I don't know. It could be right. Oh, I know. So the way I'm going to approach it is you did the research, you clearly put some effort into it, and if we find something's wrong, we'll update the prototype.
Ryan Summers: Okay. Sounds good.
Malachi Burke: One thing's for sure, though, I saw the FPS, I mean, I saw it with my own eyes, was high.
Ryan Summers: Yeah, no, yeah, definitely. It definitely looks good.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, so seeing is believing, and like I mentioned in this additional commentary and request, the big one for me was, like, the amount of memory that was still available after you set everything up.
Ryan Summers: Yeah, for LVGL, right? Yeah, it was, like, at 150 originally around. Actually, it might have been more, because that just default was 150. But, yeah, we kind of just had the AI help me go through, like, things to test out. So I tested out, like, everything, and we got it down to 30.
Malachi Burke: I mean, really good work, you know. Really appreciate that.
Ryan Summers: Yeah, it was all fun. I like things like this. It's like I can actually focus pretty well on it when I have like a good goal like that. And then I just sit for hours and just like keep working at it.
Malachi Burke: Let me turn on my camera here. Turn off that background.
Ryan Summers: That's a cool background.
Malachi Burke: What's that from? That is concept art from a 70s sci-fi TV show.
Ryan Summers: Oh, how cool.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, I liked it. I'm like, oh, I'm going to put that up there. But that was not meant for your eyes.
Ryan Summers: Oh, my bad.
Malachi Burke: There, that's cool. Yeah, so, you know, we will see what happens when we try to take those things into production, but I'm encouraged. I'm encouraged. And I'm designing the system in such a way where it is modular.
Ryan Summers: Okay. That's best part.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, in the event we don't like LVGL, I'm not saying it'll just be like a day's worth of work, but we can swap.
Ryan Summers: Okay. Fathom, the way I'm putting things together. Perfect.
Malachi Burke: So let's just go through the items.
Ryan Summers: Let's blow through them. Okay.
Malachi Burke: Additional commentary and requests.
Ryan Summers: Are you on that same area? Yep.
Malachi Burke: All right. So, yeah, I'll lead off with what – this is a good segue. I actually put in that API I call because, you know, AI can slop in some things.
Ryan Summers: definitely.
Malachi Burke: It's going get wrong. So I'm like, well, let's see. And, no, AI was – your code, and I'm not going to call it AI, your code was a line It was a collaborative effort. Fair. So that's exciting, right? So I'm going to move on to the second one.
Ryan Summers: And you've got the RTOS tick rate configured at one I was saying that. Uh-huh.
Malachi Burke: And that is something that you can experiment with, but as far as, like, a default setting goes, is you should leave it alone.
Ryan Summers: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. And I think I actually – We made that an official change request, too.
Ryan Summers: Okay.
Malachi Burke: So moving on, even though you made some correct and insightful discoveries about TaskYield, I noticed there's still a bunch of them in your code.
Ryan Summers: Okay.
Malachi Burke: So that's not necessarily the end of the world, but the thing is this code serves two major purposes. It serves as a proving ground, but it also serves as a future reference for when we want to know how to do something. So if TaskYields are in there, but they don't actually do the job, that could be a problem. So let's, why don't you make a point of scrubbing those out, unless they really are needed.
Ryan Summers: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And on that note, as you discovered, TaskYield doesn't really do what you think it will do.
Ryan Summers: Right.
Malachi Burke: So AI had suggested about a month ago that I do this TaskNotify Wait trick. And I really pummeled AI about it.
Ryan Summers: I'm like, are you sure? Because...
Malachi Burke: I don't know.
Ryan Summers: Are we sure this is right? That sounds... So would you say a task what trick?
Malachi Burke: You see item four has got this little API call.
Ryan Summers: four, one, two, three, four. The... Which one? Oh, is it the... This is not actually set in the config? Wait, which one? Maybe we're not looking at the same area Maybe I'm not looking at the same thing. Oh, look into alternative ways?
Malachi Burke: Yes.
Ryan Summers: Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. Okay, sorry. Yeah, I was misinterpreting.
Malachi Burke: Okay. No worries. Now, my testing in Sandbox 5 area, Proto A, was encouraging. It was like, hmm, this does appear to be poking the free R-cost scheduler enough, at-cost, and So... It actually does run the idle task. It appeared to be doing that.
Ryan Summers: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. So I say give it a try.
Ryan Summers: Okay, yeah.
Malachi Burke: And if it doesn't work, that's good, too, because then you can say, hey, dude, this sucks.
Ryan Summers: No, you are bad. And then I'll be, thank you for saving me from committing to a bad, you know, decision.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, go ahead.
Ryan Summers: Oh, no, no, no. I was just saying, yeah, like, you can definitely notice that AI sometimes sends you down the wrong path.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, yeah. Well, moving on to item number five, like it says here, I was concerned about the size of the document in general.
Ryan Summers: Yeah, it's a lot of information. In particular, reading LVGL optimizations, but when I skimmed it, but I spent more than 60 seconds skimming it.
Malachi Burke: But I really did read, I'm like, you know. I'm So this is actually what needs to be in here. So in fact, that one is pretty good. So well done. Some really good discoveries in there. Moving on, I would like you to spend an hour or two scrubbing your code to reduce its size and reuse components.
Ryan Summers: Okay. Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely a very just mashable test.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Yeah. I had given the UTF guys, like, just carte blanche and like, go ahead and just do whatever you need to do to get this thing to work.
Ryan Summers: And then after that, we can, yeah.
Malachi Burke: And then after that. But I'm being a little harder on you because, you know, you did a lot of things here. Mm-hmm. And a lot of good things. But now it's going to be harder to understand.
Ryan Summers: No, for sure.
Malachi Burke: So awesome. Moving forward, similarly.
Ryan Summers: Yeah, the docs.
Malachi Burke: The documentation. documentation. But But that one, you know, use your own discretion. I'm not going to say spend an hour or two because I didn't, I wasn't as thorough with the documentation. But I did see there's this omission of certain edge cases. And what the hell does that mean? What that means is that human to human, this is not a guide for how to do everything ESPID yet, right? This is a guide for what to do about LVGL. So what you don't want to do is have, like, all these different edge cases for where you could build it this way, you could build it that way, you know. Like, you've got the, this one example is a good example. Can you scroll up and you can actually, oh, it's actually not in there, so scroll down.
Ryan Summers: Scroll down.
Malachi Burke: And you will see.
Ryan Summers: Leave this out and update the README. Is that one?
Malachi Burke: Where is that? Leave this out. No.
Ryan Summers: Oh, okay.
Malachi Burke: No, it is two above that. It's the very first change request.
Ryan Summers: okay.
Malachi Burke: In your main readme, you've got, like, you can use menu config, you can...
Ryan Summers: Oh, yeah. Okay. Right.
Malachi Burke: But if you don't know how to use the thing, then you're using menu config. So leave that in there. But if you don't know how to use the thing, you don't need that instruction.
Ryan Summers: Okay. Okay.
Malachi Burke: So things like that so that we can keep it more succinct and on point.
Ryan Summers: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And what comes next? Spend an hour or two, do, do, do. Metric reporting. Yeah, this was, like, this is not the end of the world, but something seemed off because the minimum amount free was higher than the regular amount free of reported memory.
Ryan Summers: Okay.
Malachi Burke: So... Oh, I think your metric is wrong there.
Ryan Summers: Yeah, that might be something wrong there, yeah.
Malachi Burke: So I think we'll want to look into there because there is the possibility that the minimum dipped really far down and you didn't know because it's not aggregated right.
Ryan Summers: Got you.
Malachi Burke: So I don't think so, but let's just be 100%.
Ryan Summers: Okay.
Malachi Burke: And then finally, we end where we began. Pretty impressive FPS numbers. And I really like how the raw baseline is something that you can turn on or off, too.
Ryan Summers: I like that.
Malachi Burke: So just a good job, dude. Thank you. Yeah. It's so helpful to have a bright individual such as yourself helping us with these things.
Ryan Summers: A dim light bulb, but it's growing, maybe. A dim light bulb can still light up a dark room. There you go.
Malachi Burke: That and other aphorisms, right? Okay, and that's everything.
Ryan Summers: Awesome. Yeah, no, all good stuff.
Malachi Burke: All right. Very good. Very good. And I thought it was kind of cool that you used the fork.
Ryan Summers: Oh, yeah. I finally figured out how to do that.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, that was not a foregone conclusion with Quan or myself because forking opens certain integrity risks to the code base, actually.
Ryan Summers: Oh, okay.
Malachi Burke: I'm not worried about you botching anything up at all.
Ryan Summers: Oh, okay.
Malachi Burke: Not at all. But on the other hand, it actually opens up additional gateways to protect the code integrity. So it all kind of depends on how you expect your team to operate.
Ryan Summers: Okay. Oh, it was what I did okay?
Malachi Burke: Kind of an okay way to handle it? It was a good way. Not just okay.
Ryan Summers: It was a good way. Okay.
Malachi Burke: Yeah.
Ryan Summers: It's remarkable only because you're the first person to do a PR from a fork. Oh, really? Oh, okay. Mm-hmm.
Malachi Burke: I was going to, but then we paused code three. So we've gone to something else.
Ryan Summers: Okay.
Malachi Burke: Awesome. Yeah, really, really cool stuff. And I'm out of Hawaiian cookies, so I'm a little bit...
Ryan Summers: Oh, well, okay.
Malachi Burke: I know what to get next. Yeah, you know, what's funny is, I mean, I'm flattered. A random Ghirardelli little gift bag showed up on my doorstep.
Ryan Summers: Oh, nice. Who was it from?
Malachi Burke: I don't know.
Ryan Summers: Oh, a secret admirer.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, I don't know. And in the old days, my landlord, who was a hero, would just leave me stuff, not chocolates, but he would, like, on New Year's, he would leave me, like, you know, a bottle of, you know, gin or something. So I thought it was him. And I said, I think this was you. Thank you. And he's like, I have no idea what you're talking about. Sounds like you got something good.
Ryan Summers: That's cute, though. That's great.
Malachi Burke: You deserve it. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Ryan Summers: See, people notice your kindness.
Malachi Burke: I suppose so. It's funny that way. And we notice yours as well.
Ryan Summers: Oh, thank you.
Malachi Burke: I've always liked being kind as possible. It's the best way. The challenge in life I've found, and it's a good challenge, I actually like this challenge, is to be sincere and kind at the same time.
Ryan Summers: Oh yeah, that can be hard sometimes. But honestly, even like when I was working at Starbucks, like I never, yeah, I'm never like fake kind to anyone. That's why I don't like it when Starbucks pushes that fake kindness. Right. Because like I need it to be genuine. And if, you know, you keep kind of hounding us like that, it's not going to be genuine kindness anymore.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like that, that brain twister. You must love this person with all your heart or else.
Ryan Summers: Or else, right.
Malachi Burke: Like, Like, well, hold on a second.
Ryan Summers: If it To be forced is not genuine.
Malachi Burke: So true. So true. Yeah. I heard that there was a policy change reducing the window of time you're allowed to talk to customers.
Ryan Summers: Interesting. I didn't hear about that. But that... Ryan, your mom's calling you. Oh, I'm working right now. What was I saying? Oh, yeah. Maybe. I think my... I think Michelle, my manager, got a complaint that she was talking too much to someone one time.
Malachi Burke: Oh, boy.
Ryan Summers: I think someone was angry. He like, oh, she was just standing around lollygagging. Which none of you do. No, yeah. It's like, we like to connect with our customers, you know? That's how you stay relevant. And we just genuinely like the people, too.
Malachi Burke: You guys could lollygag a little more, as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, yeah. And Michelle.
Ryan Summers: Chell is the least lollygagger of them all, from what I can see.
Malachi Burke: definitely. Wow. Interesting. Yeah, I heard that from, obviously, the other Starbucks that I was at this morning.
Ryan Summers: You've been cheating on us?
Malachi Burke: I see.
Ryan Summers: Yeah, I can see it's very important. No, that's funny. The one on Fair Oaks?
Malachi Burke: On Main.
Ryan Summers: On Main. Oh, in O'Hambra?
Malachi Burke: Uh-huh.
Ryan Summers: Oh, that's right. That is totally okay.
Malachi Burke: Nice. That's a nice one, too. Yeah. Yeah. They're pretty on point there, as well. I'm happy to report.
Ryan Summers: And right next to Boiling Crab.
Malachi Burke: Right next to Boiling Crab. Yeah. I confess, I'm not really a crustacean enjoyer.
Ryan Summers: That's fine. That's fine. Seafood prices have been going up, so. I do love me some, like, fish.
Malachi Burke: Ooh. But, like, lobster and crab and stuff, it's okay. Whatever. Not my bag, baby.
Ryan Summers: Yeah, I just went out for some sushi with some friends today, actually, some all-you-can-eat.
Malachi Burke: Nice, nice.
Ryan Summers: Was it good? Oh, yeah. It's a spot in Koreatown called Hirfishy Fishy. Very funny name. Very good sushi for all-you-can-eat.
Malachi Burke: Probably the best quality all-you-can-eat place I've ever been to. All right. All right. Hirfishy Fishy, that's an easy name to remember. Yeah, right. Wow, that's funny. I do like sushi a lot.
Ryan Summers: So, yeah, I would recommend if you got a big stomach that day, go grab some fish.
Malachi Burke: Well, you-can-eat sushi. Approximately where? Is it on Wilshire?
Ryan Summers: Yeah, yeah.
Malachi Burke: It's on Wilshire. Yeah, I figured. 99% of the restaurants are there on Wilshire.
Ryan Summers: For sure.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Have you ever been to BCD Tofu?
Ryan Summers: Oh, yes, of course.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. That's the late-night place, right?
Ryan Summers: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, right. Open until 2 a.m.
Malachi Burke: Is it still?
Ryan Summers: That's good. Yep.
Malachi Burke: Is it still hotter than in there?
Ryan Summers: Oh, yeah.
Malachi Burke: Definitely.
Ryan Summers: So many people, and then, yeah, all those hot tofu bowls, definitely.
Malachi Burke: I dated a Korean girl. The first Korean girl I ever dated, and she took me there, and I'm like, this place is awesome!
Ryan Summers: Right? It is, yeah. Especially for youngsters such as yourself.
Malachi Burke: You get your drinking going, and then it's like, what's open?
Ryan Summers: Well, I know this really good place! Right? Yeah, it's the go-to. Okay, we spent way too late out. Where do we go?
Malachi Burke: There's a place in, well, it's actually Monterey Park, but it's close to where I live, called JJ Cafe.
Ryan Summers: Oh, my God. You're so cultured. You know all the spots.
Malachi Burke: You know about JJ?
Ryan Summers: Yeah, of course I know JJ.
Malachi Burke: That place is good, too.
Ryan Summers: Very good.
Malachi Burke: yeah. Hmm. Okay. Yeah. That place is, it's just what you need after a night out. Yeah. Well, I don't go out much anymore, but my friend, she would just find all the spots, and then we would go, and we just went again recently, and it hasn't changed. The only thing that's changed is there's less people there than there used to be. That was interesting.
Ryan Summers: It used to be crowded all the time, but now it was a little bit sparse. Yeah, definitely lots of people going out less.
Malachi Burke: Oh, yeah. COVID changed all that.
Ryan Summers: Yeah.
Malachi Burke: My memories are from pre-COVID days.
Ryan Summers: No.
Malachi Burke: I know. Well, I know Faisal's not showing up, and...
Ryan Summers: Let's see, did Quan tell us anything? He hasn't mentioned anything, so...
Malachi Burke: yeah. Hi, guys, how are you?
Ryan Summers: Hey, Sean, how are you? Happy New Year.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, we are good. Happy New Year to you, too, Ryan. So, we are here. For a while now, we saw that you guys were very excited.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, we were talking about really, really cheap late-night food, and we were having a good time.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, so we thought we'd let you guys continue.
Ryan Summers: We can get started now.
Shan Usmani: Right on. Right on.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, good to see you.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, so, yeah, as you said, Mel Felsel is not going to join us. I'm not sure about Quan, so, Basim, can you provide our update?
Muhammad Basim Ali: Sure, Sean. Hey, everyone.
Malachi Burke: How are you?
Ryan Summers: Hey, hey.
Muhammad Basim Ali: So, so, sorry for a bad throat. Yeah, so, yeah, we guys have been working on a couple of things. Like, I completed the booster player, capable of gaining the ball possession, as Quan mentioned in the last meeting. So, initially, I just did the... The booster player would be able to steal the ball from other team runners, but then during the testing, found that the booster player won't be able to gain the ball from its own team holder, or probably if a goal occurs and the player is now boosted, he wasn't able to get the ball from its own goal. So there wasn't a kickoff there. So yeah, so that fixes, and now the booster player is able to gain the ball from any holder, whether the goal or its own team or other opposing team holder. Besides that, Shan was working on the, like, removing the boot sequence that we did for the ZStation. So, what we had in this testing build was that if you press the button A during the boot, the ZTAGGER will boot up as a ZStation. But since now, Uzair has provided us the new Zuse build, and... The ZU's build doesn't require any Z-Stations anymore. Now, obviously, the game when we are selecting the team and assigning the roles to the taggers, so we will simply assign the role as goal or booster there, so we don't need the Z-Station boot anymore. So Shan will be, you know, probably has done it or will done it today, that he'll remove the A button boot for the Z-Station. So that sequence will be removed, you know, Z-Stations will be assigned through the Z-U's in the game. Also, we were, you know, testing some of the things that the new Z-U's build that was provided has. But we found some of the minor bugs. However, the game was working completely fine, but, like, the game wasn't, the Z-U's wasn't reflecting the goals score on the Z-U's right now. So, some, you know, minor bugs there with the MQTT payload. But it will fix it. And lastly, Tukwano also mentioned, you know, for me to test with the reverse I.E.R. tagging. So I haven't implemented it yet. Like initially, I thought it would be an easy thing. But apparently, there is just so much going on in the game that, you know, I had to note all of them down and then reverse the logic. So, yeah, we'll be implementing it later today. So that's the whole update.
Ryan Summers: Awesome.
Malachi Burke: Great work. Thank you. You've been doing a lot.
Ryan Summers: Yeah, I also did some experiments with trying to reverse the way ball passing worked. And, yeah, there's a lot of things you have to account for.
Muhammad Basim Ali: So it's not easy. So, Ryan, are you working on the, like, the legacy code, right? With the ZTAG?
Ryan Summers: I did, like, a standalone project. Oh, okay. Just experimenting. Just With that, yeah. That was just kind of like my first project that Quan had me do, just to kind of like get used to working with the device.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Got it, got it.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, that's a good segue though, because Ryan has been working on some interesting metrics optimization research. Why don't you tell them what you've been up to, Ryan?
Ryan Summers: Yeah, sure. So yeah, like we've kind of discussed before, we're kind of thinking about how we should handle the display for newer updated codes. So we're looking at M5GFX, which is that what our current code uses, right, on the devices?
Malachi Burke: That's what Code 3 uses, and that's what the legacy code uses too, right guys?
Shan Usmani: Yep, yep.
Ryan Summers: Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool. So yeah, we were testing M5GFX versus LVGL with ESP-LCD. Um... Um... And the basic, like, things that we kind of got from those metrics are LVGL can hit pretty much the same FPS as M5GFX. Both look pretty solid, at least with my tests. Well, they are noisy, so we could, oh, did we crash? Oh, okay, no, no, we're good. It is a little noisy. Did you notice some noise, Malachi, if you were testing it?
Malachi Burke: No, not online.
Ryan Summers: Oh, okay, maybe I have a defective one. I'll try it on another device.
Malachi Burke: No, that's actually, I'm going to interrupt your status because you've inspired a thought here. My apartment is cold. It doesn't have good insulation, so I'm wondering if it's heat-related.
Ryan Summers: Interesting, maybe, yeah, because when my thing was kind of flashing, I did notice a little bit of a high-pitched noise that might need to be scaled down a little bit. Which could... Effect Performance. I was just kind of thinking about that. But for these metrics, I was focused on getting the max performance just before anything else. But yeah, both tests were able to get around 30 full frame, pretty close to 30 full frame. And then I guess the main advantage of using LVGL over M5GFX would be that you don't need to manually track everything, because LVGL has a lot of good widgets that you can use if you have a more complicated UI and you need to handle a lot of changes at that UI at the same time. We were also able to get the RAM usage for LVGL down to about 30 kilobytes. I was going to go into the old code and kind of try to see if I could test how much RAM that was using to see if we're saving anything off of that. Yeah, that's kind of where I am right now.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, really remember. Go ahead, you first.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, sorry, Mal. I was just saying, Ryan, how did you manage to get the RAM down? Because I think that's the most crucial thing here, and earlier as well when we were working, so like the RAM usage was just off the charts, and we couldn't find ways to reduce the RAM. And that's why we discussed in the last meeting as well that we had to reduce the bits, color bits, to four as well.
Ryan Summers: We tried different things, but yeah, the RAM was a big issue back then. Yeah, for sure. I had the AI help me make an optimizations of like a list of all the kind of things that we tested and optimized. I can totally send that over to you guys after I comb through it again, just to make sure everything looks good.
Shan Usmani: Sure, sure. Just out of curiosity, I want to have a look at it.
Ryan Summers: No, yeah, for sure.
Malachi Burke: Yeah. Me too. And in a broader sense – oh, Ryan, are you done? I didn't mean to Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, great work, Ryan. Thank you. You're welcome. And in a broader sense, we're aggregating that into the sandbox as well, and Ryan has actually done a whole bunch of reporting and analysis and a bunch of markdown files. So that'll be available soon, and we're going through a PR process, because he did so much that there is some changes that I've requested he do. But you can expect that to be in the sandbox soon, Sean.
Shan Usmani: Go ahead, Edmund.
Malachi Burke: Let's keep our fingers crossed, because, I mean, if that memory got reduced the way you said it did, that is going to make a gigantic difference for us.
Ryan Summers: Yep, I'm hoping it's not a too-good-to-be-true moment as well.
Malachi Burke: Yeah, I mean, the skeptic in me says... That's one thing, but I mean, I ran the, Ryan and I were talking about this already, I ran the stuff myself on my devices, and I threw some other memory analysis at it, and the numbers seemed to jive, so fingers crossed. You know, if that number holds true, MicroPython is definitely on the table.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, I guess, but it sounds like the restaurant that ran visited today, so.
Malachi Burke: That's true, that's true. It's like, we have a lot of RAM until we put MicroPython on it.
Ryan Summers: Right, yeah, so the MicroPython might be, yeah, we'll see.
Malachi Burke: Right, right, right, right, right, right. Well, in any sense, this is universally a good thing, so really thank you, Ryan, for doing all that you did.
Ryan Summers: Man, I need to get rid of my notetaker. It just dies all the time. Thank you.
Malachi Burke: Thank you. And I'll talk a little bit about what I got up to. Still kind of working on prepping Code 5 for real PRs and things like that. And it's coming along just fine. Proto A sandbox is effectively frozen now. All work is being put into Code 5. As I mentioned last session, the concepts have largely shaken out and proven themselves. And one thing, I wish Quan were here to hear this, is that he'll read it in the transcription, is I've decided, you may recall that I have been talking about this term called suite that bundles all the game-specific things together. But I hated that term. I just couldn't come up with a better one. And Quan had this term called cartridge for Proto Code 4. But cartridge was more holistic suite. So I'm like, well, I can't use that because cartridge is a A more than what a suite does. But now I've decided, you know what, what he did first, cartridge actually is good. It's what we should do. So now we've got the cartridge idea. And what the cartridge idea does is it's the bundle of the game and all the adapters associated with the game in one bubble. And the reason we do that is so that we do one allocation instead of like a whole bunch of them. And that's working out pretty well, too, and has some other advantages, like the ability for the cartridge to actually reach out to the system and override the way the HUD wants to work and things like that. So there's some pretty cool things it can do.
Ryan Summers: Sounds cool.
Malachi Burke: I'm happy with it. I'm happy with it. So, yeah, it's underway. And it's coming to the point close where it's not quite there yet. Yeah, my next goal is to get a minimal RLGL working. It's going to be missing a bunch of features, but at least it'll be enough. So that, you know, Ryan, Sean, Basim, you can all see it and go, okay, this is how it works when a game is actually in the system.
Ryan Summers: Cool.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, definitely. sorry. Sorry, Ryan, go ahead.
Ryan Summers: Oh, yeah. I was just saying definitely having like that more visual aspect to kind of trace through mentally is definitely very helpful.
Malachi Burke: Absolutely. That's on the way. Go ahead, Sean.
Shan Usmani: Yeah. So I was just saying like, so what's the updated timelines now? I believe we are already now into 2026. So what do you, what do you estimate the timelines there?
Malachi Burke: Well, I will say one thing that I always say, I am not a manager, firstly. And secondly, you know, I don't know. I don't see a specific danger to the Q3 goal. But things are eroding away from it, you know. don't I For example, you two are multi-tasks now. You're not a dedicated task. But even if you were a dedicated task, you'd be kind of waiting right on the architecture a little bit. So I would say perhaps a mild hit to the timeline is what I would say.
Shan Usmani: Makes sense.
Malachi Burke: How about, I'm going to kind of judo the conversation towards you. How about, what's the state of the backlog looking like between you and Faisal and your spreadsheet and stuff?
Shan Usmani: You're talking about the user stories?
Malachi Burke: Yeah.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, that's, I think, on hold for a few days now. Faisal isn't really available these days due to some personal reasons. Secondly, I'm more focused on getting the ZTAG League to work as soon as we can. Again, we're doingoms. Okay. So then I'll have some more time to spend on that. Apart from that, we're also looking into the Zeus thing. Yeah, before I forget, I'll give an update on that so Quan can read on it. So basically, Uzair has provided me initial versions of both the builds, the updated ZTAG League version as well, and then the OTA feature, the auto-update OTA feature that we discussed as well. So both of those are in testing. So we will be able to test both of these builds today. And then hopefully, if any more changes is not required, I'll try to release those during mid of next week. But I believe during testing, we always find a few things, you know, to look into. And then because for the ZTAG League, it's been going over for a while over this week. There are things. Basically, Uzair is also optimizing the code for the ZTAG League since it was done like, I think, around two years ago now. And at that time, it was done in a hurry. Not that much tested at that time. So now it's time to optimize it a bit. So he's doing that as well. And during that, there are some changes that needed to be implemented on our end as well, such as the JSON keys or those kind of things. So they change at one end, we test it, and then we find, oh, it's not working. And then we realize that we need to make this change on both ends. So it's been going on for a while. We have a new build for both of these today as well. So we'll check test today. And then hopefully, during next week, I'll be able to release those builds, both of those. For the OTA build, we discussed with Quan, we were initially, you know, when the ZUs were booting up, we had a pop-up that would say that these ZTAG are not update, please update them. And then we had like... But then in the last meeting, Quan said that don't let it just disappear until the next boot. So now if we don't update, it will keep appearing after every 15 seconds unless the person updated, forcing the updates. And also if the game is being played, it won't appear during the game because then it would interact with the gameplay. But even if they are on the config screen and the new ZTAGGERS opens up, that's also on the previous version. So we'll still get the notification. So hopefully during testing, it will work fine.
Malachi Burke: So yeah, I'll let you guys know. Good luck, Billy.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, that was the update.
Malachi Burke: Well, thank you. Very good. Well, I don't think... So, I don't think Quan will be joining us. I didn't see a message on Discord, and he's not here now. So, we could probably start wrapping it up.
Shan Usmani: Sure. I think it's, you know, that's it for Ryan for today.
Malachi Burke: Nice. All right. Any remaining questions before we wrap up the meeting today?
Shan Usmani: Basim, do you have anything?
Muhammad Basim Ali: I don't know, Shan.
Malachi Burke: How about Ryan?
Ryan Summers: No, I think I'm good.
Malachi Burke: All right. And I haven't forgotten about updating diagrams in the Code 5 architecture.
Ryan Summers: Don't worry.
Malachi Burke: That's still planned for everybody. All right, guys. Thank you so much for your contributions, and have a good evening, or have a good day, depending on where you are.
Ryan Summers: Happy 2026. Happy 2026.
Malachi Burke: Happy 2026.
Shan Usmani: ...26 to you all. Ran seems very excited over that.
Ryan Summers: I'm trying to be as happy as possible.
Shan Usmani: Yeah, you are young right now, so you can be.
Ryan Summers: That's true, that's true. You just had a lot of good sushi, so that was fun. All right, see you guys.
Malachi Burke: We'll see you later, guys.
Shan Usmani: Bye, guys.
Muhammad Basim Ali: Bye. Bye, guys. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.
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Steven Hanna: How are you? Good.
Quan Gan: Or afternoon for you, right?
Steven Hanna: But the time's irrelevant, you know.
Quan Gan: Yeah. It's just how the body feels.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, I can hear you fine.
Quan Gan: I'm back at home.
Steven Hanna: You're wearing the shirt. Like, why are you doing this to me? This is like, this is a problem. You're like, yeah, let just push this in his face a little bit more and more.
Quan Gan: not doing it intentionally.
Steven Hanna: This is what I have in the morning. The signals are just like, all right.
Quan Gan: And the dog is here. And Kingston's hanging out, too.
Steven Hanna: That's awesome. How was the ride in the last few days?
Quan Gan: Oh, it's gorgeous. Yeah. I got, I get, I get hand drag on the ground now at 35 miles an hour.
Steven Hanna: Hell yeah, dude. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Awesome. It's getting good. Getting more confident. I realize I have to start basically like squatting.
Steven Hanna: And that's how you get the edge angle.
Quan Gan: Like, I think. Most of the time when you start kind of standing, it blocks you from getting intentionally lower.
Steven Hanna: You'll have to share those tips with Spencer when we're riding because he was asking, you know, if he'd be able to get pointers from you. And I was like, absolutely.
Quan Gan: He's literally. Oh, yeah.
Steven Hanna: You're going to be with another skier, too. It's not just all snowboarders. Yeah, we've got a pretty, pretty advanced skier with us.
Quan Gan: So you'll have someone to ride with.
Steven Hanna: And if you guys want to do your own thing.
Quan Gan: No, then I can, I could put him on my carve and then we can compete. So, so Gio, I put, I put it on him, but he doesn't have the right bootstraps to hold it there. So it might be flopping around, but maybe it's compensating. So I assume his score is good. He's only like 10 points behind me. So that's intensely good. Yeah. So, yeah, he was getting like in the 120s or mid 120s and I'm getting mid 130s. So, yeah. Like his level is my level. Hey, that's impressive for his age. Yeah, yeah. And then we got him some new used skis in that gear exchange. He basically manifested it. Before he went, was like, I want some taller head skis. And lo and behold, they were there. Lo and behold, in physical form.
Steven Hanna: Yes. I'm going to admit them to the room. They're just joining.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Hey there, Emily.
Emily Baugher: Hello. Can you see me?
Steven Hanna: We saw you for a second. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Oh.
Emily Baugher: Can you see me now? Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yes.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
Emily Baugher: Do you have magic tricks?
Steven Hanna: Like, is that where we're going with this?
Emily Baugher: I have no magic tricks. I have no experience in that, unfortunately. I think Kyle's joining in here, too.
Quan Gan: Okay. Is he on a ship or is he in No, he's right. He's right here. Oh, okay. Well, we'll get to finally see him.
Kyle: Hey, Kyle.
Quan Gan: Perfect. Sorry. It was, do you approve your camera?
Kyle: Do you approve your microphone?
Steven Hanna: Do you approve of your lifestyle?
Kyle: No, but here we are.
Quan Gan: Good to see you. Yeah, good to see you guys.
Emily Baugher: everything been?
Quan Gan: It's a happy new year. You know, we already started our new year, like super busy, traveling a lot and visiting partners, customers. Yeah, it's been, it's been a good beginning.
Kyle: Nice. Yeah, it's been a good one for us as well. Just so you're aware, and I'm just because I know you're like, when we all kind of first met and brought it up, Damien was with us. Damien's moved on. He's not with Celebrity Cruises. So any emails, like, you'll probably just get a bounce back from his email now, so you can just remove Damien from any email chains.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kyle: Yeah, his position is currently vacant. It's still the same position, but, yeah, he's not equipped with anyone.
Quan Gan: Okay, got it. Anything else on your site before we give you an update from ours? Okay. Well, so, yeah, as you guys know, my last correspondence with you guys were just, you know, were taking this very seriously, and I'd rather be more methodical in taking things one step at a time rather than rushing things and then, you know, yeah, so causing any other uncertainty. So the main thing is, we realized that the failure mode is due to a combination of things where the battery... Over time, if it's not being properly charged or the device is not being properly, you know, handled, such as maybe there's impact due to lack of training, that it may basically create an adverse condition for the batteries, which, you know, we saw that one incident. So since that incident, I have personally flown over to the factory to, you know, look at what exactly might be those cases. And we've actually, you know, went back to the battery manufacturer to see if they can create some additional measures on the battery itself to prevent things in the future. So all of that, you know, has taken place over the past two and a half months, I think, pretty much immediately since after you guys reported that, you know, the next week I was available. I flew back to China to resolve this. So it's taken a while for us to... Basically do internal tests on these new supplies of batteries, and that is coming, I think it's actually en route as we speak. And then we are also manufacturing a new batch of ZTAGGERS because we understand, you know, in your fleet, there's a combination of logistical challenges because you guys are, you know, operating remotely. We want to be able to assure that every product on your end is going to be safe operationally and also provide the proper instruction because we understand turnover, staff turnover is a thing. So we may need to re-instruct them to make sure what is the proper way to handle these things. So all said and done, by the end of this month, we expect to have our supplies. And beyond that is really scheduling when would be the best time for us to come out and, you know, personally do the swap and do the training. Training to make sure that, you know, we introduce the product back, you know, on the right footing without any of these potential hazards.
Kyle: Okay, cool. That's great. Yeah, that'd be really good. I think the kind of other question on that is the, we know that Excel, ordered the two of the new cases, new ZUS, ZUS, ZUS, I don't know, ZUS. ZUS.
Quan Gan: Yeah, we'll call them ZUS.
Steven Hanna: We're like called ZUS, all right, we ordered two ZUS.
Quan Gan: Yeah, we're just wondering if an update on those as well. Yeah, yeah. So because it's kind of intertwined, since, you know, we don't want to be releasing things that, without the proper training, we wanted to go back and just kind of start one step at a time. So our primary thing is, you know, retrofitting everything you guys currently have so that it's at an adequate state. Like, the new products, I have the physical products. Again, inventory. However, as you guys know, Celebrity has a special custom firmware, so that's something that I'm still working with my team to check that it's updated. Because since we've sent you guys the original firmware, there's been several updates on our end, and so we have to get the Celebrity custom version up to the same level as our latest firmware. So that's taking a little bit of time. But I also expect that should be in sync with when either Steven or I go out and travel. So I'm hoping maybe we can just do that all in one batch. Like, you know, provide you the new equipment, whether that is the V3 Zeus and the ZTAGGERS for your old ones. Refresh all the software with all of them. basically, when he's there, you know, we can maximize the refresh rather than doing it in piecemeal so that you guys would have... Have the new equipment for the new ship, as well as replace the old ones.
Kyle: So something that we're kind of really struggling with at the moment is cabins on board the ships. So our ships are sailing at 105 to 115% load factors, which is fantastic. But then at the same time, it's also kind of like, oh, if we need to get people on to do any sorts of installations, trainings, whatever it may be, is something like this able to be done on a turnaround day? So where you can get on the ship, and you can usually get on the ship as a, it's called early boarding. As soon as the ship allows it, kind of 7, 8 o'clock in the morning, and you can be there until, it's usually 30 minutes before the order board.
Quan Gan: So sometime in the afternoon. Basically, like when I visited last time, right?
Kyle: Yeah, just for the day visit. Would you be able to do that? There's like software updates and everything kind of in that day visit. And we can make sure that the youth team are there to be. We'll be to do any trainings with you as well.
Steven Hanna: Easily.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I think that's the plan. Yeah. So it's really dependent on your guys' schedule. Like if there's a concentrated few days where the ships are coming in and out, then either Steven and I will coordinate our schedule to basically just be parked there and standby. And whenever that ship is available, you know, we'll do the, I guess, what would we call this? Yeah, the refresh. We can accommodate to your schedule.
Steven Hanna: We know that you're probably running on a turnaround and it's going to be quick and it has to be on a timed fashion for your exact schedule. So whatever you need us to get on for, whatever time you need us on, whatever time you need us out, you just let us know and just escort us in, escort us out. That's pretty much it. As far as staff goes, you just bring your staff, as many people as you need trained, and we'll adjust our training based on how many people are there. For your use case, it's probably going to be more for an entertainment based function. So I would probably structure a training. be about 30 minutes, and then they actually play the games for about 30 to 45 minutes.
Kyle: So they have the learning experience, the hands-on experience, and then the application experience. Awesome. Yeah, it works for us. It's great.
Steven Hanna: So do you have any timeframes where that might be upcoming in February, where there could be something in that or leaning into mid-February?
Kyle: I think the best thing is probably if, Emily, you look at the ship deployment and try and find a timeframe in which all of the ships are either in or out. We do have a few that are Saturday, Sunday ships, and then we have some that are doing three, four-day cruises, five, and then five- and four-day cruises. So they kind of go into the mid-week as well. So you should be able to get a fair few. And if both of you are here at the same time, we have ships that dock on the same day. So Reflection and Ascent, for example, were both docked on. We Northdale on Monday together, so you could kind of just tag team and split if that would work as well.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. That would be interesting. Yeah, so if we can get an initial schedule from you guys, then we'll internally coordinate to see when and how we'll get there.
Emily Baugher: Yeah, yeah, I can make that up. So just to kind of get a good time frame. So like you said, mid-February, you think you'll be ready with all of the batteries and training and everything? I think mid-February is probably the general timeline.
Quan Gan: So maybe give us like, you know, over the span of a month or so, because we're also, you know, kind of in between trade shows. So we just want to make sure there's a band that we can nominate.
Kyle: Yeah, sure.
Emily Baugher: We do have ships, too, that are not in the Caribbean, which I think I briefly mentioned. So we have our Celebrity Edge, which is in Australia currently, and then along with Celebrity Solstice, who they will be transitioning to Alaska in May. Um, so those ones might be a little tricky, and then the Millennium is just stuck in Asia forever, um, along with Infinity, which is also stuck in the Mediterranean forever. So, um, I think once we can get these Caribbean ones out of the way, then, um, we can be, we can look at those other ships and see how we can, you know, get those battery swaps, uh, going.
Quan Gan: Yeah, that, that sounds fine. And I, I think we can kind of also figure out what is the, the best return on investment of our time and resources. You know, maybe there is a, a way to virtually do this, or, you know, we hand it off to you guys once you've already seen what we had to do. So there's enough knowledge transfer internally for you guys to also handle that.
Kyle: Yeah, that would, something like that would be, um, would be doable. I'm actually heading over to Millennium in March. Anyway. Okay. Um, I just don't know if, I leave at the beginning. I leave in three weeks. I'm not, I don't think that might be a little bit. too tight to kind of sort a few things out.
Quan Gan: about, do you guys have any internal resources for documentation? Maybe someone internally, you know, just brings a camera or something, and then as we're doing this, you just record it, and then you can send it to the other teams. Yeah, we can sell something like that out when you're on board.
Kyle: It can also just be that you guys can do it on a, when it comes to this type of stuff, we don't care if it's fully produced or not. It's like just done on an iPhone, Android, whatever it is you use, like any of these videos, you just upload it to a platform, and then they can see it happening.
Emily Baugher: Honestly, it would probably be good just to have, like in our training documents, to have you guys do it, you know, because you'll go, you know, you're going to go and visit these ships, but we're going to have new staff coming, we're going to have new managers coming in, so it would be good to, you know, have.
Quan Gan: I think less so the production part of it, it's more, you know, while we're operating, it's hard for us to be videoing and operating, so if you start. If on your staff can be actively recording all aspects of it before handling it, then you'll have that for your permanent reference. Okay.
Emily Baugher: absolutely. Sure. Okay. And then, Quan, I think I'm probably more accessible to them.
Steven Hanna: My flight time is probably like two hours and ten minutes. So if I need to jump out for a day and come back, I can probably, if there's a serious case where it's got to happen, just for it being transparent and on the table, I could probably jump out for a day, get on the ship, and then be back home in New York by the end of day. Okay.
Emily Baugher: I think we would want to start this on Excel just because we want, I think Excel still needs their first batch. And so that's probably going to be the easiest to start with and then go from there. Okay.
Quan Gan: Can we do a shared Google Sheet and then just with a checklist and then what your priorities are and timelines are, and then maybe we can. We our own comments, so then we're all going to be on the same page.
Emily Baugher: Okay, I can make something that we're able to share. Okay.
Steven Hanna: I would say the main thing to focus on would be what ships you would want serviced first, and their schedules. That would be the two most crucial things for us to coordinate.
Emily Baugher: I can make that. I like, honestly, looking at where ships are in the world, that's something I just do my free time.
Quan Gan: It's fun.
Emily Baugher: I'll make the schedule for you.
Steven Hanna: I like your puzzle-solving mentality to this of like, perfect, I get to sit in my own happy corner and do my happy thing?
Emily Baugher: Fine, I could do that. Yeah, no, it's all good. I can send that over to you, like what the best strategic plan would be to go from one ship to another.
Steven Hanna: That would be perfect. That would be amazing.
Emily Baugher: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Excellent. So do you folks need anything else from our side before we touch base next? And I would like to just set up one more meeting before we move into February, just to touch base.
Emily Baugher: Yeah, I think once we use, like, once I... Like, before the first one that you come and do, I'll go, obviously, I'll go with you on that first one, or Kyle, or both of us, and then, so we can just kind of briefly talk about what will be happening.
Steven Hanna: Sweet. For me, that's it.
Emily Baugher: I don't know, Kyle, do you have anything else?
Kyle: No, nothing from my side. I will be over in Asia from the beginning of February until the end of March, so I'll be on a complete opposite time. But Emily will be the one that can do this health project. Okay.
Quan Gan: I had one more question logistically, because I was receiving some emails about, like, an Oracle system update, but I never got the actual email, because I got a few announcements saying there's, like, a system update on the accounting side, but then that email never happened, so I'm wondering if you guys can check on that.
Kyle: Yeah, we've, as of, I think it's two weeks from... Now we're just transitioning from one payment system to another payment system. So I think it's just making sure that all of your details are or were up to date. If you're able to forward me the previous email or the latest communication you had, we can follow up and see what it is that you have to do. You might have just received something that it's like an auto just to let you know that something might be coming. You might be getting an email as of maybe it's in two weeks time once we switch to this new system. And then it'll just ask you to check and update all of your details and just make sure we actually have the right ones.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Okay. I'll forward that email to you.
Kyle: Awesome. All right.
Quan Gan: Anything else?
Emily Baugher: All good. I'll send you over that schedule. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: And then I'll just shoot a quick follow-up email. Just receipts that we've spoken. Yeah. All right. Excellent, folks. Have a wonderful day. Take care. Thanks, Thanks, Quan. Bye. Bye. Bye.
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Quan Gan: Okay. It connects to Quan's earpods.
Jiali Xu: I cannot hear you scream. I can hear you now.
Quan Gan: Okay. All right.
Steven Hanna: Kris, you there? I'm here.
Kris Neal: Okay.
Steven Hanna: All right. So we've got canned stuff, lots of canned stuff. I figured we should probably just re-sync on this a bit because it seems like we all are, you know, a little bit unorganized and we can probably just use a quick meeting to say, hey, this is what we're doing moving forward. So as far as CAN goes, we had the meeting yesterday. It went pretty well as far as logistics and information goes. We just need to kind of come up with those three activities. Chris, had came up with a few really, really good ones. And I think it's worthwhile that we explore that. And I think it's worthwhile that we agree on the activities. So this meeting is part event planning, part logistics.
Kris Neal: Sounds good. Okay.
Steven Hanna: So any feedback from yesterday's meeting first before we kind of dissect what we're getting into?
Quan Gan: I a little bureaucratic, but I guess that's just the realm they operate in.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. Very by-the-books checkmark, go over A, C, D, G. So linear meeting is fine. But on our side, is there any feedback that we should, you know, touch up on before we start planning anything?
Kris Neal: I think going forward, if we were to do this again, we need to be on the same page a little bit better. There's been some emails that I've had to resend several times, and it's just... ... ... I don't know what's going on, but we're not on the same page.
Steven Hanna: For sure. Is there anything that we can do now to reorganize that and get on the same page that you can see or think of?
Kris Neal: As long as we hit those January 16th deadlines, I think that'll be a good point to hit. And then after that, we can reassess what needs to be done after that. I think after the 16th, though, there's nothing else from marketing like that. I think it's all minor things.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Charlie, anything?
Jiali Xu: Yeah, I'm currently still working on the design for the can. We do feel like we need to add in a little bit more. Or based on what we originally was supposed to send out, so probably we're going to start redesigning and just a little bit improving, including changing the color of the zoos. I think it's not, I'm sure we can get hit the deadline, especially for just the online marketing. We don't, it's only one page, so it's not like the full design for a flyer. It's just, I don't need to finish all the design for printing. But after that, we're going to, I'm going to order the, the ship, if we fin, after we finish the flyer, we're going to ship out the flyers to them. And also the, in the email, they mentioned the banner. I think maybe it's the one you asked Apollo to send out, like many weeks ago. Is that the one, as they mentioned? That was one of them.
Steven Hanna: I uploaded that. So the images and everything that they needed for their social media posts, besides the text, I already uploaded. So like our banner, our logo, our short logo, all of those have already been uploaded to their site.
Jiali Xu: Okay. Yeah, because also on the, in the email, I think Chris sent, and it has the size of the social media, but also they mentioned, let me see. The rotating, right?
Kris Neal: Yeah, the yes, the rotating promotion banner.
Jiali Xu: But it doesn't have the size for that one. Is that the one you have Paula made, or it's a separate one? Because also, since we are up late. Uploading the media, I do feel like maybe you make it look consistent, as the same style would be good.
Steven Hanna: Let me jump into the back end and make sure while we're talking. I think this is separate.
Kris Neal: This is separate from what Steve inputted, I think, is just like, I could be wrong, for a different package. This is for the reception, correct? Because it sounded like she was waiting for that.
Steven Hanna: On the reception, we have a few different things that we can utilize. We can utilize their projector, in which case we would have to create media. They can play a rotating slideshow, as they indicated. They would have a few different sponsors, but no one that is in our room. Reign of Sponsorship, like CAN, a few higher other level sponsors. So we would need to produce a few new things. There are a few other things that they're asking about. One, we need to give them a caption, but I don't know what the caption content is for a post with new media. There's a few different social media things that I have written down. So they have an app that they need things for. They have a social media post that we're able to send out that they would need content for to approve and create. And they need a banner for the bottom of the app. But I don't know any specifications or I'm not sure. Kris, can you see those in an email that they might have sent? This might have been one of those emails that fell through. I've looked through all of the emails.
Kris Neal: Nothing indicates what that bottom banner, rotating banner. So Charlie... Like I asked in the Jedi Council, if you want me to email Nat, I don't know if this is the information that you need, like the pixel dimensions, file size, max file size, and safe area. Are those things you need to know? Yeah, I think it would be good to verify with them.
Jiali Xu: I think we do have the size for the post, which we need to submit on the 16th. But I'm sure at the same time, we're also providing like the same style for the foot, because just make the company branding consistent. So I do need the one, as they mentioned.
Quan Gan: Charlie, can you email Nat directly, just so it cuts out Kris having to be in the middle of that? Okay, yeah, sure.
Jiali Xu: Okay.
Quan Gan: Sorry, I have one other small detail just to clarify. You mentioned changing the color of the Zeus earlier. I'm not sure. Initially, we should be showing blue until we're ready to, you know, fuse up all the inventory.
Kris Neal: I agree. 100%.
Quan Gan: Yeah, we shouldn't be pre-releasing the blue to anyone until we know our inventory is cleared.
Jiali Xu: Then the postcard is blue. Can we save that for boost?
Kris Neal: Because I thought that was the plan, was to launch it at boost, the V3.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I mean, if it's already out, then we probably, we may need to have a reason why we're selling the V2. Like, you might have to give it a discount. So that, yeah, because we need to clear out our current inventory.
Jiali Xu: But on the card, I didn't say it's an upgrade version. It's just the image is blue. But probably people will ask, oh, did you change color? But it's not really, um... it. do Thank Mention about the upgradations of the systems.
Quan Gan: I understand, but yeah, it just generates more confusion until we actually have no more of the V2 inventory.
Jiali Xu: Well, we might sell them.
Kris Neal: Hopefully we can get through the 23 units by the end of February.
Jiali Xu: That's the goal, yeah.
Quan Gan: But what are we doing for the V3?
Kris Neal: Is it a launch or are we just going to start selling it?
Quan Gan: Well, we should do a launch, but I'm less so like Apple where we have, what do they call it, embargo, where, you know, you're just like, you're holding the information back. I would rather just start, you know, replacing, like you're generating your quotes, but then they end up getting a V3. And once that is already deployed, then we can officially announce that. go. Let's At the coming shows, like, V3s are everything that we're selling at this point.
Kris Neal: At which show do you want to do that? Or once they're sold?
Quan Gan: Once they're sold, yeah. So I don't have a hard deadline. It's like as soon as we could clear out the V2 and we only have V3 left, that's the trigger point. Yeah, otherwise we'd have to discount the V2.
Jiali Xu: So does that, so for the can, we are going still using the yellow box on the flyer?
Quan Gan: I would say yes. Yeah.
Jiali Xu: But do you think by the time, okay, yeah, because also, as Chris said, hope we can sell out about, like, 20 units. But by the time, I felt like the order they placed during the can, it probably will have a little time. It's because the payment process, everything. So let's say maybe even if they place the order, I don't know how long that takes. It might take a while to finally get the product.
Steven Hanna: So the question is, can we get 20 systems out in six weeks and sell? And that's really the question. If it's a yes, then we shift one way. If it's no, we don't think so, then we just go the other way. Like this is a binary choice.
Jiali Xu: Yeah, what's in the pipeline, Kris?
Quan Gan: Not a lot, unfortunately.
Kris Neal: We have like three systems, I think, maybe in the pipeline.
Steven Hanna: And those came in before, like that was end of December, right? Like this was just the tail end of those systems getting.
Kris Neal: No, we have like three units with verbal agreements. Okay.
Steven Hanna: So they're different than the December ones.
Kris Neal: I'm looking at the 2025. We sold no units in February, and we had four units in January in 2025. 2025, 2024, we had 24 units in February go out in 2024. Yeah.
Jiali Xu: So hope the postcard will generate something. And also the social media, that's why I'm kind of like pushing it a little bit.
Kris Neal: Let me push with the ACEA. They should have actually just received a grant. We saw one come, two come in, one definite. But let me push that. Let's see if we can get them.
Jiali Xu: Mm-hmm.
Steven Hanna: Also in the back end for CAN, I just put my login information there. If there's anything specific that you might need for your own tasks, I would just say login and check. Because CAN, I'm feeling like CAN is a recurring beast with so many facets, and it's very hard to keep track of. And I don't know if anybody else is feeling the same way about this, but I am feeling slightly disorganized with CAN. And I know that's partially due to my own, you know, disorganization, but this feels very tough to keep track of, personally. I do feel like this through the yesterday meeting, I feel like everyone weren't out over there.
Jiali Xu: It's like, it's just, yeah, it's a lot of too. So I definitely feel like it's not relying on them to, you know, like. I feel like, let's just say, they're providing the space, they're providing the food, but all other stuff, we have to take it over.
Kris Neal: That's another question I kind of had. Did you guys, what did you guys, I know that's a silly question, but decor, I know it's silly. It's not silly.
Steven Hanna: It makes the event. I agree. That's why I'm like, is that something we need to?
Quan Gan: I think we would need to handle that if we're going to do it. It's going to be all on us.
Steven Hanna: Basically, Kan is hands off. As Charlie said, they give us the space, they tell us what we can do in it. And if we need a hand, they'll probably help us set up a table. But as far as prep and making sure it's ZTAG, I don't think we can rely on them for that. I agree.
Kris Neal: So do we need extra hands? I have experience with events, so if you guys want to go on my minimal, you know, whatever you guys want. Okay. So...
Jiali Xu: before the meeting with Ken, I do contact Lily. Well, first of all, unfortunately, she is traveling from February 9th to April to Taiwan to take care of her mom. So she won't be able to be present at any of our events. But she's open for helping us, organizing, preparing, if anything, on her end, she can support us, give ideas, or prepare merchandise, whatever. I feel like she's able to be able to support before she leaves to Taiwan. So we can have, we can have her involved in our next meeting regarding on the events or, yeah, or, of course, you think we... We can handle that.
Quan Gan: I want to just kind of also reflect what Kris was offering. You know, like, I want to make sure you're not scratching yourself by offering that. I mean, I think our internal team, have more than the necessary talent to do what we need to do. It's just a matter of, you know, how thinly spread you would be versus if we were to get some additional help. How do you feel, Kris?
Kris Neal: Well, I was just thinking that, Quanthe, for even thinking that we could actually do it a little bit different. Instead of going through, like, the balloon arches, like how Lily does, which is beautiful, are there lights? Is there anything light Scantum can?
Quan Gan: I mean, we have lights, but it's not designed for direct view. Yeah, it's not really, yeah, typically they're not used in that kind of capacity.
Kris Neal: Okay.
Jiali Xu: Well, for me, I do feel like it doesn't, like, we should not have a strong... ...for us. Like stress of, hey, the party has to be super themed of ZTAG because, you know, it's a reception. Everyone has a back expectation to go there, have free food and drinks, you know. So it's like people are naturally will be like direct over there. It's just how we hold on these people to having fun games, you know, some small gifts if they win, give them a little merchandise. We have our speech out. If it's a video, we play the videos. We just give all the message, whatever the message we need to let them hear. I feel like let them, you know, like knowing who we are, what we do. I think at the maybe entrance, I don't know how they will put. Our logo there, it's like, hey, maybe we should also make a poster over there and say, this is ZTAG reception party or something. So they know, yeah, I don't know how much they would.
Steven Hanna: We probably have access to their easel, and we should be able to put up like a corrugated, you know, board that just says sponsored by ZTAG. Basically what we did at Boost, right, where at the entrance it had that little easel with that little corrugated board that said, you know, food and drinks on ZTAG, whatever. We should have something like that that indicates it is sponsored by us. Don't even think that can's doing anything. Like, this is going to be all on us, and yeah. I didn't even think of that, Steve.
Kris Neal: They probably won't have that. Probably won't have.
Steven Hanna: That signage that says that.
Jiali Xu: We should make it because we can reuse it. We should make it because we can reuse it.
Steven Hanna: And if we make it once, we have something that's neutral and ambiguous enough. If it's just sponsored by ZTAG, food and drink sponsored by ZTAG, whatever it is, we could probably just reuse it at every single event because it's the same thing. So, I mean, unless it's a canned specific thing we want to do for them, but I don't think we should. Yeah, yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I think, you know, the extra, the money that we put into the sponsorship, really what we're paying for is talk time and play time. You know, everything else is really, really going to be, like, I'm not going to say unimportant, but the meat of the whole thing is we have enough people, we do a demonstration. And if you look at the baseline, Chris, you and I, we were at Texas that, what was it, Ace, right? And really, we just needed to set up a corner booth and get people to play in a place that was completely undecorated for ZTAG.
Kris Neal: Yeah, there was.
Quan Gan: It like maybe one logo somewhere, and we had the ability to say something. And that, I think, is really what generates the return. So stressing out over, you know, decorations or, you know, balloon arches, I don't think we need that. And we could probably reuse a lot of the things that we currently have for general events. Like, we have our flags, we have our A-frames. Like, heck, we can even bring our tent in there, you know.
Jiali Xu: I was thinking maybe you can do, because they have the cocktail table, so maybe we should do a bunch of cocktail table with the ZTAG logo on the top. So it's, like, themed with ZTAG logo. Yeah, sure.
Quan Gan: I do want to play devil's advocate and jump in, though.
Steven Hanna: Not theming it and half-assing the accent marks does say something. And this is the one part where I'm going to say, if we're going to decide. To beautify it, we go all in, and we beautify it. If we're not going to beautify it, we don't, and don't even think about it. The beautification does make a difference. I don't know if it would make a difference at this specific event, though. It might, though. It might.
Kris Neal: Because we're in the same location, so we could just take those decor from there to our booth.
Steven Hanna: So one quick thing that's reusable that I'm thinking is, like, pictures, right, Kris? I know we don't want to deal with the Polaroid stuff, and it's time and effort to do this, but what if we just have a cardboard cutout, or not a cardboard cutout, a wooden cutout of a ZTAGGER that's painted to look like a ZTAGGER, and they can get in behind it and in the frame of the ZTAGGER watch. And they can take a picture of just that. Like, that's the little accent mark, you know? Maybe it doesn't have to be balloon arches, but it's something that's quick, it's fun. bit different. Thank And they don't have to engage with it, but they see what it is. It's like subtle theming of the event, which is also why I was kind of asking like, hey, can we theme one of the menu items? Because it's an accent. And they do, it does make a difference. So that's why I do agree with you where we should have some level of, you know, beautification accent.
Kris Neal: They did mention they have a photo area, photo booth. So adding that to their props wouldn't be difficult.
Steven Hanna: Well, just things to consider. I don't want to like discredit the fact that we might not have to beautify this one, but we should. It is on brand. And if we're not going to follow through with it, we're always following through with perfection. Why wouldn't we do it with this? I agree.
Kris Neal: Sorry, but I do agree.
Quan Gan: Okay. I mean, as long as you guys don't stress out over it.
Kris Neal: I don't know if we're stressing more so agreeing that it's important.
Steven Hanna: Hey, so maybe let's just.
Jiali Xu: Find a local Long Beach people, event people, if, like, get a quote, how much they can set up a, you know, I don't think it's expensive of setting up an arch or something. You know, if it's in the budget, we... We're also going to be on site.
Steven Hanna: Like, that's the other thing. We're having our summit. I don't know if we need, like, more hands on deck, more as we need more brains to think about how to make it, you know, good and make it a really lasting thing.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I just don't want to produce too much waste, though. That's the thing. Like, what are you going to do with a balloon versus if you have a picture sign, right, then we make it once and we get to use it for different events, then it could be amortized versus every time you do something, you've got to, you know, waste a bunch of balloons afterwards. Well, it doesn't have to be balloons.
Steven Hanna: That's the main thing. Balloons are nice, but we can also create the same feeling with other accent marks. Um... If we're going to think about reusable, I think about, you know, a wooden ZTAG silhouette that's, you know, literally made to look like a ZTAGGER. Take a picture inside of the ZTAGGER with your friend. Like, that's a quick, easy, reusable thing. But I agree we should have an accent, Mark. No, I don't think it's too stressful, and we've got enough hands on deck to move things from point A to point B at that event.
Jiali Xu: Maybe we can put a ZTAGG backdrop, you know, just set up a backdrop with ZTAGG logos.
Kris Neal: Have people...
Jiali Xu: You may have a step and repeat.
Quan Gan: What's that?
Jiali Xu: Step and repeat, just a different...
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah.
Jiali Xu: So people, yeah. Or do you want a step and repeat with partner logos on there, too? No, just ZTAGG, just ZTAGG logos as a pattern at the backdrop so they can take photos. And this can be reused with any other events.
Kris Neal: I kind of liked what Lily had at Boost, the big ZTAG letters in the background. That was kind of cool. The marquee letters?
Steven Hanna: Yeah. Those are a pain in the . Are they really?
Kris Neal: Oh, they are.
Jiali Xu: Oh, gosh.
Kris Neal: Okay. That's why she rents them from that guy.
Steven Hanna: She basically subcontracts him to come out and do the letter installation and removal.
Quan Gan: We also do have the spinning hologram that we can repurpose with some other logo.
Steven Hanna: Ooh. What's spinning hologram?
Kris Neal: Oh, you guys use it at IABA.
Steven Hanna: Our nice taunt tool, the thing that I'll call it. Yes.
Kris Neal: That'd be kind of cool right at the front. Right at the front. That'll get some attention. attention. attention.
Steven Hanna: And we don't even need to make a sign. It could just be sponsored by ZTAG.
Kris Neal: Yeah. Welcome. It just needs to be really high and out of the way.
Quan Gan: cool.
Jiali Xu: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Anchored.
Kris Neal: Yeah, it just needs to be anchored so it doesn't get in the way.
Steven Hanna: And that's already in the booth bag too, right? So that's not like it's any extra.
Jiali Xu: Is it real big?
Kris Neal: Hey.
Quan Gan: It goes to be about this big, but my biggest thing is a safety concern. It needs to be anchored in a place that nobody can possibly get access to it. And you have adults drinking.
Steven Hanna: But it's right behind.
Kris Neal: They have a registration table right outside. I remember there's something. Ooh, that might be good.
Quan Gan: So if it's like behind a booth, you know, or behind banners that's already preventing you from getting anywhere close, perfectly fine. You know, we could, I don't know how far that thing is from our booth. Because if it's close, it could literally just be our booth set up over there. And then we just transfer it.
Kris Neal: Yes. Yes, yes. Yeah.
Quan Gan: As an engineer, I'm just trying to be lazy here and say, what can we recycle that is going to give us the look that we want, but not create too much additional resource drain? Let me think about this a little bit more on that one.
Kris Neal: I'm on the same wavelength. I get it. So maximum exposure, not a lot of minor, little. Yeah. And I'll just verbalize what inventory we have for the note taker.
Quan Gan: You know, we have four feather flags already. Those could be on stands, right? So we can, we have that. We also have at least two come and play A frames, you know, and then we also have the ZTAG tent. I don't know if it's appropriate to put it indoors, but maybe it is. I don't know. Yeah. put it indoors. It's In some way, like, if they see this is the event gear that we have, you can also use that as reference, saying, hey, if you want us to support your event, we have all of these things.
Kris Neal: Well, we're going to have the unit there, so definitely, I think, bring that tent, so we can have that as, like, the come play zone, you know? Yeah.
Quan Gan: Do you guys think it's weird to have a tent indoors?
Kris Neal: I don't. Are you kidding me?
Steven Hanna: Do know how many times I've built forts and tent forts inside? Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Let's be kids again. Do we have access to getting those custom pop-up tents with ZTAG logos on them? I don't know if that's even possible. Stateside. Like blinds? Custom pop-up blinds? Not the blinds, but you know those, like, wire-twisted tents? Usually they're camo tents? Yes. Hunting blinds, yeah.
Steven Hanna: Oh, is that what you call it?
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah, okay. I don't know if we can get that locally in the States with a custom. Because those would also be gear that we could potentially be selling. It's like, if you want an event and you want a bunch of these things set up as obstacles, here it is.
Steven Hanna: I just purchased two of those that are customized for laser tag that you can attach a Velcro logo to.
Quan Gan: Okay. That's cool. you want, I could probably just bring them with me.
Steven Hanna: They're not themed for ZTAG. They're like red and blue, quarantine, like fluorescent-themed stuff. Send it over.
Quan Gan: Let us see it. Okay. Yeah, because the dimension I'm thinking about is we put the decoration there, which is great. But if those could actually be the things that they could even purchase from us and we could be the supplier for it, you're like, look, we just brought everything we normally do. Right? Thank And then it's not like we're making bespoke gear just for this event.
Kris Neal: Okay. I kind of like that route. So we're just using our gear, like our event gear.
Quan Gan: Exactly. Because, you know, part of what we wanted to do for this coming summer is really to show people, if you want to set up a ZTAG event, here's what it is. And we have all of this. So just use a whole play that's like a whole giant event demo.
Kris Neal: Okay.
Steven Hanna: All right. So this is the tent. Oh, that's perfect. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: And then he has it reversible on the inside.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Steven Hanna: And he has the top portion of it with a white fabric material. So if we wanted to put an LED on the inside and shoot it upwards, it actually has the projection.
Kris Neal: touch. it. of We'll see
Steven Hanna: Okay, so how much are those? I think I was at $160 each on these. So these are the other versions that he has, but there's no entry points. Those are just the small windows, and when you zip them up, they have a Velcro-like panel that you can just slap a Velcro logo on top of.
Quan Gan: Yeah, that's perfect, because what I was finding on Amazon was not wide like this, and they get, like, turned over, and they actually look like tents that kids want to hide in, but if he's already made this specifically for laser-tag-like things, we should be getting this. So I have the red and blue.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, I have the red and blue. If you want, I'll just bring these for Batman. How many do you have? You're only going to need two, because also these take up a fair amount of space. These are, like, probably a... Four by four. Okay.
Quan Gan: That big?
Jiali Xu: Three by three, four by four. Yeah, they are quite large.
Steven Hanna: They rotate, they collapse down into... Oh, wow, yeah, those are pretty nice. I didn't see the other ones.
Kris Neal: Can we do all blacklight at that place? Like a fluorescent?
Steven Hanna: Yes! Yeah.
Quan Gan: So a couple of considerations on that is we'd have to check with the hotel. Can they section it off? Or do they turn the whole place off? Because if they turn the whole place off, then we need to make sure we still give them enough visibility to mingle.
Kris Neal: That, go back, Steve, to that last picture. That looks like enough light to, is that black lid? Yeah, so you would need- the whole room's off.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, the whole room is off, and you're going to need enough blacklights, which we can do.
Quan Gan: Like, if that's something we like to do ourselves, then we should probably order, you know, maybe a dozen or two dozen blacklight bars that you put around the side.
Kris Neal: Yes. Oh, I actually love that idea. And that really is all it feels like we need, right? mean, that kind of...
Steven Hanna: Now, I'm not going to say that I had a hand in guiding him into this red versus blue design, because this guy was going straight military, and I told him, you're not going to sell to a wider market. So these are definitely... They're worth the investment. And the reason why is it's well thought out from an operator. It's someone who's been in the field who's created this specific thing for this use case. In each of the corners, they have two different ways to anchor them down. I'll just zoom. I don't know. I can't really zoom. But if you can see where my mouse is in the middle area, he's got an inside flap on the inside of the tent. With an opening where you can drop a sandbag into each of these corners. So they're not accessible from the outside. So the kids aren't going to... Hit or kick the outside and move it. And he's also got a loop anchor point if you need to stake them into surfaces. So as far as use case goes, this guy has basically thought about everything. Yeah, so you're exactly right.
Quan Gan: This is essentially a product specific for this industry that was based on the original tent that I have. I have like maybe six of those camping tents from Amazon. But I would say, Steve, yes, bring yours if you can. But, you know, ZTAG, we should be purchasing probably a dozen of these and we just keep it in our own inventory.
Steven Hanna: Then I would say do that through my side. Because once he sees the validity of this on a commercial scale, that's going to change. And my ability to get these might change as well. meantime, going.
Quan Gan: One. Two.
Steven Hanna: Okay, then how about you go ahead and purchase it we'll subsidize you. Yeah, I'll lay it out and I'll make sure it's done through that so that we can at least do some R&D on these and create our own versions.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and then we can, you know, put, well, so do you, what's your long-term intent? we want to make them a vendor for us or would you want us to insource?
Steven Hanna: I wouldn't want to, I don't want to make, if we could do everything in-house, keep everything in-house. I don't want any other person involved with this level because I know you guys and I trust you guys. I know that we're all going to be on the same page with most of our decision-making. This is a guy who's in it for money and it's purely finance-oriented. So it can be worthwhile for us to offload it to him or using our resources, which I think we have an abundance of, we can just basically take one of these designs and send it out and outsource it to a factory. Because that's what he's doing right now. And all the information that I'm gathering... He's sending this to a Chinese factory and getting it back. Oh, yeah.
Quan Gan: It's pretty standard.
Jiali Xu: Oh, no, that's exactly what he said.
Steven Hanna: He's like, I literally found a Chinese source and I'm communicating with the factory to get these specs. So why wouldn't we do that? Yeah, so I would probably, you know, we'll get our first batch just so we have it in inventory here.
Quan Gan: And then I could take one or two of these back to M5 and they can also source it for us.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, it's and if we theme these, here's the great part is that the second you theme these out and you throw this into a package for a gym teacher where it's like, hey, we include obstacles in Jess's catalog. Do you know how many stupid little add-ons there are for their games? Like, it's remarkable how many upsell items they have in the smallest facets. Something like this, one, it looks awesome because it's got a Z. ZTAG theme on it, right? Like red and blue, fine. We've already got our colors. All we're doing is taking away these unstable sample nonsense things.
Kris Neal: Thank you.
Steven Hanna: You know? And we've got a great new auxiliary product.
Quan Gan: Yeah. I agree. Yeah, so mainly right now, this is, the immediate purchase is mitigating Chinese New Year and customization. And it's also a prototype for us to see how does it look and feel for this show. But immediately on my next trip to China, I could bring this over and then we can formalize this. And then, so that's the tent. And then I'm also looking at what do we do as far as LED lights go. So I could probably find a bunch of those on Amazon and see what would work for a space like this.
Kris Neal: Do you want me to see if they're going to have an issue if it's all blacklit? Yeah, let's ask if that's okay.
Quan Gan: I think it'll be really fun, you know, if we could just say, yeah. It'll set the tone.
Kris Neal: It feels like it'll really set a mood.
Quan Gan: If you're going to do this, should we have a DJ?
Kris Neal: Well, they mentioned they were going to have music, but it didn't sound like a DJ. I don't think we need a DJ.
Steven Hanna: Don't worry. We went from, we don't need balloons, to, let's get a DJ.
Kris Neal: Let's pump the brakes real fast.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
Quan Gan: Well, I'm okay with stuff like this because we get to use it for our event versus a balloon arch is, you know, is general. No, I know.
Steven Hanna: This is, and that's why I am happy to spend $170 on a tent like this because I know it's, the use case is literally for me. One of the arguments that I got into with him when he was like, oh, people are arguing at $150. I'm like, then don't sell to them. You shouldn't.
Jiali Xu: I have a question about these tents. Are these, like, what's the function? In the event, are they just, the kids are hiding behind it, or they can get into it? Is it big enough for kids to know? Immersion.
Steven Hanna: Immersion. So these are about three and a half feet to four and a half feet high, and most of our players are in the ages of six to about 11 or 12, from what I've been hearing from most operators. They're just around the four foot mark. So it acts as just the right buffer to a game of zombie tag, and it acts as a great buffer for a game of keep away. The use case, though, is it's only really usable for two games. The function is marketing function and game function for us.
Jiali Xu: I think it would be like, once you're describing the games, I think maybe you can do some car, like a big, gigantic game board with our, you know, I can figure cartoon figures. So maybe like, we just show like, we tell them the schedule of. We're going to demonstrate in eight different games, maybe in every 30 minutes. So we will call out people who want to come to experiencing the game.
Quan Gan: So kind of make a, I don't know, I'm going to push back on that because I think kind of like when you go to a store and you see like you're shopping for clothes, the reason why that dress looks nice is because there's a lot of other dresses you can compare it to. And then once you bring it back, it looks different because you don't have the surroundings. So if you're only showing one game every 30 minutes or every 15 minutes even just to do that, it's going to be a hit or miss because not all of our games are smashing hits. They have to be shown together, at least like, you know, Red Light, Green Light, Pattern Match, and Zombie Tag. And in that sequence, it comes as a package. If some people only play Zombie Tag and some people only play MassMath. That's going to be bad.
Kris Neal: Did you?
Jiali Xu: Sorry, Kris. No, go ahead.
Kris Neal: No, no.
Jiali Xu: Then I think what you say right now, then I feel like for the lesson plan we've been done, it's just two games at the same time. So it doesn't, sometimes it doesn't have the zombie tag.
Quan Gan: Yes, but that's a different audience because that's the teacher delivering the curriculum and also the person making a purchase. They need to check a checkbox. They need to know I do have a curriculum surrounding this thing. But our whole purpose at this event is engaging whoever is potentially going to use it and show them this is actually the maximal fun you can dial up because you have all of these things. So if we're doing a demo, we're going to at least run through two or three games per round to make sure they understand how engaging the product is. That pulls them into our booth. Then you can talk about here's the curriculum and all. of that stuff. So I really think we should be leading with the fun and the engagement rather than, oh, this checks, you know, a couple of your SEL or educational check marks later.
Steven Hanna: You can also create a multi-day event just by having a deliverable that they can wear the next day at the symposium. Wear our T-shirt that you got at the, you know, reception. And if we see you and you stop by our booth, you get entered for a special ZTAG prize drawing, right? And now they're wearing a ZTAG shirt the whole day. And we've done, it's basically covert marketing. Like we're branding somebody without them even realizing it. And for a prize, they don't even know. Yeah. Okay. So if you show up with a ZTAG shirt, you get, you get a raffle ticket. So how about we do something like the backdrop? drop with Charlie, right? The first X amount of people at the reception. This is a time thing, all right? If you're here and you're there to get a bag, amazing. Now, you've got the Willy Wonka golden ticket in the form of a T-shirt. Show up at our booth. And then people are going to be like, why are all of these people wearing ZTAG? What is ZTAG, right? Right. So we've combined, you know, the introvert activity that they were talking about, which is just exist. And now you have the extroverted activity where there's some level of engagement. And I really do like Kris's ideas of, she had how many, originally it was how many jumping jacks we could have. And then we kind of refined it to a green light.
Kris Neal: That's for shape. That's not even the reception ideas. No, but we were talking about that.
Steven Hanna: And then it transferred over into steps and how many steps you can get in a smaller amount of time. Can. Collectively, how many steps can we all get in this short amount of time together? So Kris had fantastic ideas for this, and I would really love to touch on those before we move into other ideas, because her ideas are great. Kris, can you share? Okay, perfect. Please walk us through.
Kris Neal: Add up our steps, what it is, a simple movement activity where each participant, whether they are individual or coming as a team, contribute to the collective total. So throughout the entire night, we're able to say, hey, we just hit 500 steps together. Hey, we just hit, so each time we're adding it to this number. So at the end, then we're able to say, hey, we were able to walk 13 miles, whatever. hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, And that's one of them. So it's a continuous game. This one, Match Your Number. This one, Steve and I collaborated on because it was a little bit too much the other one. But I'm liking this one because it's very simple and it's easy. Like if you want to play, great. So it would be three questions. These are pre-printed stickers with their numbers that they're going to just stick on them. So they are in control if they want to play. And then they go around the room with that color sticker, the blue sticker that has these numbers on it. Hey, you like four to five cups of coffee a day? Heck yeah. So then they have, they come to us under that tent, maybe, maybe a separate tent, where we're going to have cards already printed saying, I found my match. And they both put their sticker on that card and put it in the raffle. So they have to find their match in order to get into the raffle. they want to continue the game, awesome. Here's another sticker with a question. How many students did your program welcome this year? I wanted to make sure the questions are absolutely nothing. mean, they were initially questions like, how many students are in your program? How many kids do you oversee? But that feels too much like we need to bring the fun into this, not like get their information kind of thing. So it was this one. And then if you want a third round, because the more they play, the more raffle cards that they're going to play, they're going to put in, right? So how many times do you say one, two, three, eyes on me in a week? So again, very simple. They stick it on that pair card raffle. A third one. This one was the one where we're, I'm not sure 100% about. The shape wall, having the shapes on the wall and having their, them come to that wall and say, tell us how, what I'm just gonna touch. Shape Best Represents the Beginning of 2026, and then they either put their picture on that shape or they put their district name, if we're able to get their, that was another question I meant to ask them yesterday, if we're able to get all the district names that are going to be there, that might be something we could use later, but sneakily ask it for this game, and then they can just get their sticker and put it on the shape. So that's even more of like someone that's coming in with absolutely no energy.
Quan Gan: And then the districts, sorry, just one thing about districts, I can actually get all district names from a California database, but I think just logistically, like anyone could potentially show up last minute. So if we had to print stickers, well, actually, no, Charlie, we have the sticker printer. Do you want to bring that? We can like whatever district name, we just print it there. Or is that going to take too much time?
Jiali Xu: Um, well, you mean, like, print it on site? takes time. You have to add it.
Kris Neal: Well, can't we ask Can just who their attendees are? Or their district attendees? We can, but I think that might change, though, even last minute, right?
Jiali Xu: Isn't that would be a lot of district? District? How many district total? In California?
Kris Neal: Yeah.
Jiali Xu: There's gotta be.
Kris Neal: There's, was it? Let me do a, let me do a search.
Quan Gan: there's a lot.
Jiali Xu: If we print, pre-print, it takes time forever for them to look for their own school. Maybe just have them write it down. Okay.
Kris Neal: Yeah. If they don't want to, the picture thing last year was, was a hit. There was a lot of pictures that people took. So I liked how that generated that. But if they don't want to take. If a picture, then yes, they can just write it on the wall or on their shape. Yes.
Jiali Xu: So you said a picture is a vendor we need to hire as a machine?
Kris Neal: Oh, just a Polaroid. Just a Polaroid camera. Oh, okay.
Jiali Xu: Which Lily might have that we could just borrow.
Kris Neal: don't know if that's something that she would lend. Okay.
Jiali Xu: Okay. I don't know.
Kris Neal: I think they're like a hundred bucks.
Quan Gan: There are 937 districts. Elementary is 516.
Kris Neal: But there's 12, like, what do you... Regions. Regions.
Quan Gan: Thank you.
Jiali Xu: Okay. Yeah, maybe regions. Let's see.
Quan Gan: Yeah, that sounds good.
Kris Neal: Narrow down a little bit.
Jiali Xu: Okay.
Quan Gan: I mean, there's also a different granularity, granularity, which...
Kris Neal: What if we just do them writing it, then? Because it's more personal. They don't know how their region is doing in 2026. But maybe even just their school name, their program name.
Quan Gan: So there are 58 county offices. There are 11 service regions. So if it's 58 or 11, you could probably pre-print those.
Kris Neal: These were the shape sets. So we would have these shapes somewhere and then these written on them somewhere that this is what they represent. Charlie, you had mentioned also about having something that they could just easily do at the tables if they don't want to do anything. Maybe we could do like find the Z's or something. Like color in the Z's. Something simple. Let me How Zs can you find in the room?
Steven Hanna: Oh.
Kris Neal: You're going to have people giving schizophrenic answers, I guarantee you.
Steven Hanna: Somebody's going to be like, 144, I see all the Zs. And then everybody's going be like, dude, there's only like eight. What is wrong with you? Oh, so like a hidden?
Jiali Xu: Like the little scavenger hunt idea.
Steven Hanna: Like, look around the room. How many of this? How many of that?
Jiali Xu: What about the ICANN stickers? So we can print out the little figures hiding it somewhere, and they have scavenger to find all these ICANN stickers. don't know. But because I think, Steve, you mentioned the scavenger hunt. So I think looking for Z or something. Because, you know, I remember go to Trader Joe's, my kids always into finding the birds. It's so obvious there, but every time they just want the lollipop and pointing out the birds.
Kris Neal: So we can just obviously put it out there.
Steven Hanna: So we need, basically what Troy was getting was we need a low-energy introverted activity and a medium-energy extroverted activity.
Kris Neal: So movement is going to be that extroverted activity where we have, you know, the steps.
Steven Hanna: I think the steps idea is really cool because seeing a live step count of like, hey, we've reached almost like the fundraising goals, Kris. Like you probably, you've seen those little like boards that they like, all right, we've reached our $4,000 goal and they'll wipe it off and draw it in. Like that type of feedback is a prompt. It's like, wait, we're all working together to get a high step count. What do we win? Nothing. You all just get to compete for a high score. Work together. Do we want a TV or something like dedicated, like some kind of interactive?
Quan Gan: That would be really cool. Digital looking board.
Jiali Xu: Visualize it.
Quan Gan: Veja, Lairda.
Steven Hanna: I we don't digitalize it, and I think we analog it, and we have the person in the round, whoever contributed in the round, write the new high step count. I think making it as tactile and as engaging as possible is the best way to do that, because they're already right next to you. Yeah, just a whiteboard with just a meter, right? We're trying to reach 12,000 steps tonight. Let's see if we can reach it.
Jiali Xu: All right, cool. Let's wipe it off. We reached 6,000. Can you draw that new mark for me?
Steven Hanna: Great. Color that in. Awesome. All right, who's going to help us for our next round? We got to get tech, you know, that type of thing.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so is it looking at maybe like the actual temperature or thermometer thing? Maybe you just use like masking tape to tape it, and then they're drawing it in there so they're not like smearing it off?
Steven Hanna: Whatever experience makes it physically tactile, that would be the most valuable for this type of group, because that's the medium extroverted activity. Okay. Okay. Thank And you're going to have people who are competitive who are going to play four rounds in a row and shake their arms around and flail. Like, that's what we want to see.
Kris Neal: Okay.
Quan Gan: What do you think is our, like, rough range so I know what's the top number and the low number? Like, when you play your games. Hold on.
Steven Hanna: Let me go to my pictures. I'll tell you how much kids run, and then we can extrapolate that to one-minute games for adults.
Kris Neal: Oh, my God. Now we can play any game they want and have it all go towards the same goal. Yeah. The second one, is this one? 10,000 steps in an hour is for children, and that's high octane running around. Okay. Okay.
Quan Gan: we, okay, so this is more on the Programming side. Do we need to have a readout at the end of every game? Because we could potentially do that if we reprogrammed it. I don't know if it'll be well tested by then, but if at every round you say, okay, this game achieved that many, you don't have to go back to the menu and look at the numbers.
Steven Hanna: We can analog it and add it up, or you can program it and create tasks for yourself.
Quan Gan: Let me check how hard that is to do. It would be yet another image. I'm sure Shan is going, really.
Steven Hanna: That's what they're there to do.
Quan Gan: Yeah, for sure.
Steven Hanna: But I really do think that that step counter idea is really a good idea, and if we're able to do that shape idea, people connecting with the shape is oddly therapeutic for them. So yeah, it was a therapeutic.
Kris Neal: Yeah. Yeah. I really do like these ideas.
Steven Hanna: And I think that we should, if not take one, we take two of these if we do decide to do anything. And I do think that we do the bag drop activity for X amount of people with a ZTAG shirt in there, little swag bag, you know, day one, you're here for the reception, you made it. And it's a, you know, ticketed number of 15 bags are on the seats. If you get there and you're one of the first 15, there's a little card in there with a message that says, wear this tomorrow and say hi to us at the booth and give this card to us tomorrow.
Kris Neal: That's your Willy Wonka golden ticket. I love it. Are we able to get any swag? I mean, obviously those bags are very, very expensive, but is that something that we want to raffle off? Like swag that they can, I mean, from booths, they use them the next day and we had a lot of people. Come and ask about them.
Steven Hanna: Well, this is the secret, you know, entry. We decide. We don't have to decide right now what it is. But if you give us your card tomorrow with your name on it, we know that you are at the reception and you're wearing our shirt. So you got it. Your mic's muted.
Jiali Xu: So normally we will, before, will kind of like spread out our shirts to whoever wants it, right? But now I, as you mentioned, the swag bag is what kind, because we, I see right now we do have the Canva bag. And we have the black one, um, we have the high-end ZTAG logo bag, um, but definitely can, uh, Looking into other kind of bags, but I just need to know, like, at what level the bag is supposed to be as valuable for them to do things like that, where ZTAG shirts should come and, you know. I don't want to just, like, they made all the effort, just give them a canvas, camera bag. I don't know. We can decide on that after.
Steven Hanna: That's not something that we need to do now, but we need to probably formalize some of our events that we're going to have for this moving forward, and at least have that concretely on paper to say we're doing A, B, and C. So, as far as the prize goes, we can come up with a cool package after. We can even include, like, you know, a future discount of $1,000 off of a ZTAG system, right, for an incentive for addition. District Purchase, where they're like, guys, I've got a coupon code.
Kris Neal: Can we use it? It's ZTAG. I like the district.
Steven Hanna: something, like some sort of incentive where it's like, okay, there's some physical, tangible item that they got for playing the game that we made. Great. You guys win, and here's your first place prize. But now there's a further incentive to engage with us. What's the further incentive? And if most of these educators know about ZTAG, some of them might not have it, what better way to get it in their hands than $500 off or $1,000 off? So create the initial reward to give them the dopamine and then create the carrot in front of them to continue engaging and playing. That's what I'm feeling with this type of crowd. Hey, Kwon, quick question before you do the new screen and add more tasks.
Kris Neal: Is this something that we... We can actually just clear out a unit. Can we just reset it back to zero and then start fresh for that day so we could just. Yeah, we could do that. It's pretty simple. I don't want to add. We can reset.
Quan Gan: Yeah. So the baseline is we can reset the number on a new account. That should be fine. Anything beyond that, I would like to. It's really just saving having to like. Go back.
Kris Neal: Exit out. Yeah.
Quan Gan: But I mean, it's not bad for them to see that it's, you know.
Steven Hanna: It's not bad, but I have a feeling that we want to create a streamlined process that they can see rather than a tedious step-by-step go back here, tap. Like, I think it's more of a represent ZTAG as a streamlined process rather than clunkiness of tapping, tapping, tapping, tapping, settings change here, there, go view here, take a picture, put it into chat GPT, do the math for me. Okay. Yeah. Get my numbers back. Like, that's what I would do for my events. So to have it streamlined where it's just, this is how many steps were earned in that round, and then we just add it to the board, is probably more valuable in the long term because we're also testing future capabilities for this at the same time.
Kris Neal: Okay, so what if we, instead of saying that, what if we just started at zero and say, let's see what number we're at now? Instead of like, oh, your group just did 500 steps, go the opposite.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I'm okay with, yeah, if we don't have our firmware done, then that's what I would do. Like, periodically, maybe once every 15 minutes, we go in, check it out. That's totally cool, and we can announce it. But if we, yeah, so I think that's kind of our, our baseline, right? We could do that today. I just know if we have to do it per round, going back there, it's not going to happen. Yeah, not, not per round.
Kris Neal: There we go. There we go.
Quan Gan: Yeah, because there are these things where I know we have a good idea, but once you're actually in operation mode, any of these points of friction just makes it a non-starter. So if we do it every 15 minutes as part of the process, I think that's fine. Or we get the reprogramming and it just shows us and we can update it live.
Steven Hanna: Perfect. Okay, so we have two activities. I will say I don't think we're going to need a third. Really?
Kris Neal: And I'll say that. And I don't think we'll need a third.
Steven Hanna: They said three, though.
Kris Neal: They said three activities.
Steven Hanna: So let's do, we have our step count, right? That's agreed upon. Can we all say yes and nod our heads and bobblehead to it? Yes.
Kris Neal: Okay. Chris, I'm imagining your imaginary bobblehead through your picture. Okay. And our second will be the Willy Wonka bag drop.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Is that aligned?
Kris Neal: That feels more like a door price, not an activity. Right.
Steven Hanna: It's just a thing. They specifically want an activity, though.
Kris Neal: That's the only thing.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Then let's table Willy Wonka, and let's go to...
Kris Neal: Unless we can make it an activity. I mean, I'm just saying that just feels like a...
Steven Hanna: ZTAG scavenger hunt? With the ICANN stickers?
Kris Neal: That would be kind of cool. Yeah, ICANN, ZTAG, Scavenger Hunt? How many ICANN stickers can you find?
Steven Hanna: And what are they? Okay.
Kris Neal: So where...
Quan Gan: Are these, like, big stickers, or what are they?
Jiali Xu: No, the shiny stickers, we maybe just stick on at the edge of the stage, or on one of the table, like the obvious place, but... Okay.
Quan Gan: Just make sure you don't, like, get into them not... Wanting you to stick on, like, walls or something. Like, we need to find appropriate places. Remove it.
Kris Neal: Or even un-coin your shirt.
Quan Gan: Okay. Some sort of scavenger hunt.
Steven Hanna: It doesn't need to be specific. Yeah, yeah.
Jiali Xu: Are we agreed upon with a scavenger hunt?
Steven Hanna: We can come up with all of these metrics after.
Jiali Xu: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's do it. Because we can just spread the sheets on the table, so they know it's an activity. So they're, like, diving to find something in the room. Perfect.
Kris Neal: Bear in mind, there's not going to be too many tables.
Steven Hanna: So there won't be that many. Mm-hmm.
Jiali Xu: Mm-hmm. That's okay. Yeah, just put on there. And, you know, it's activity. So they were expecting, oh, there's some sheets on the table. They will go there and check. Oh, it's a scavenger hunt. And people just grab a pen, a pencil, a paper. And they're probably going to do it. you.
Steven Hanna: Okay, so we've got Step Count. That's number one. And we've got Scavenger Hunt. That's number two.
Kris Neal: We need number three.
Steven Hanna: What are we feeling?
Jiali Xu: And the game. I think the game is filling up. Well, the Step Count is from the game, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah, the Step Count is, you know, Red Light, Green Light, or whatever you want to play.
Steven Hanna: I would just say it's Red Light, Green Light. You're going to set up Red Light, Green Light. That's the easiest concept, and arguably the funniest to watch people in a small space play. So you'll generate this sort of attraction just by people in a small space flailing their arms. Yeah.
Kris Neal: I agree with that.
Steven Hanna: Because we also have two presentations with ZTAG over the next few days. with with that. I Bye. Like where we're actually doing an on-site demo where they're going through four or five games and going through all variations that we can teach. So I don't think we need to shove the games down their throat. I think we need to expose them to it, subliminally mark it, and basically just get everybody associated with the brand for this one. Thoughts, comments, concerns?
Quan Gan: Just earmarking that part of the announcement is probably mentioning that we have a few of these presentations.
Kris Neal: Get them to fill the room.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, where they can experience more, you know, and really get, you know, this is a nice teaser, but for a full hands-on experience, join us tomorrow at 11 a.m. at the blah, blah, blah. Mm-hmm. Do it.
Kris Neal: Do know how big those rooms are?
Quan Gan: Not at the moment.
Steven Hanna: If you're thinking about boost, I would anticipate them to be the size of the smaller boost rooms. I don't know if you recall the size of those. Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah, kind of. I mean, 50 people? Or less.
Steven Hanna: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Might be worthwhile to have two systems. Okay.
Steven Hanna: All right, so step count activity, scavenger hunt. Two activities. Can have one more.
Quan Gan: I like the finding your match, what Kris had mentioned earlier. Wasn't that something about finding someone similar? then... And you get a raffle ticket. Mm-hmm.
Steven Hanna: So we can do that instead of the backdrop. What was the backdrop?
Quan Gan: I didn't get that.
Steven Hanna: A T-shirt, wear the T-shirt for the next day and come and find us, and you get an entry to like a Super ZTAG prize.
Quan Gan: Well, I like that. I didn't want that to be removed. I thought that was a strong integration. Like, it would be great to see a whole bunch of people wearing ZTAG at some point.
Jiali Xu: Is that the shirts we're going to send out at the event? Give that out, the event? Because... Yeah? Yeah. Oh, okay.
Quan Gan: Charlie, the recent shirts that you just brought back, what was your original purpose with it?
Jiali Xu: Sorry, say it again. The recent T-shirts that were made.
Quan Gan: Oh, it's for...
Jiali Xu: are... No, that's for Playmakers. Playmakers, okay. Yeah. It's not for the event, but if we need extra, then we just go to the shop and make these. Okay. So then we just probably need to prepare like 100 T-shirts at the event.
Steven Hanna: I don't think it needs to be 100 because you also want this to be exclusive too. You want people to... So it will be the...
Jiali Xu: So this is at the reception.
Steven Hanna: So what we would do is that Willy Wonka ticket is basically your T-shirt. You wear that tomorrow and come find us. Give us your ticket. That says you were there last night and you're eligible for a super prize. Like it's not going to be 100 people. Maybe at max it'll be, you know, 15.
Kris Neal: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Can we do like really different ZTAG shirts, like all blacked out with like neon, like backlit ZTAG?
Kris Neal: Something like totally different?
Quan Gan: I'm going to add. Advocate for tie-dye.
Kris Neal: Why?
Quan Gan: Why do you want to do Oh, you know why.
Steven Hanna: I'm Knuff. I am Knuff. That is tie-died out. I want a ZTAG shirt that's like that. I'm all for tie-dye, yeah.
Kris Neal: Okay.
Quan Gan: Because I was thinking, I like the blue because over time there's enough social masks there. At every show they see that. And it's something very recognizable. So you start saying, oh, these are all the people that are supporting. So, like, my initial thought was similar to Charlie saying, like, you want to have a hundred people roaming the show, you know, with ZTAG. Then it just creates more of that social gravity rather than, oh, this is exclusive. There's only 15 people with it.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Or create FOMO.
Kris Neal: Yeah, like.
Quan Gan: Oh, I'm creating the FOMO.
Steven Hanna: Right?
Kris Neal: I want people to ask, hey, how did you get that shirt?
Steven Hanna: Exactly.
Kris Neal: Like, that's, like, something so. Different, you know?
Steven Hanna: That's my...
Quan Gan: I understand that, but I think it needs to be those unique shirts out of the sea of other ZTAG shirts, rather than those other 15. Let's look at can colors, right?
Steven Hanna: What are the can colors that are most aligned with us? They have that, like, salmon kind of pinkish red, and then they have their teal. We've already created teal shirts for boost. Like, we have that, like, nice, cool, beach-like color. I don't know if it needs to be a different color, but I don't know if there's necessarily going to need to be 100 people with that. Because at that point, it's like, let me just shove ZTAG down.
Quan Gan: Oh, another person with it, another person with it, another person with the ZTAG shirt. But what's wrong with that? You just get sick of it.
Steven Hanna: If everybody's wearing the same shirt, I'm just going, what is this?
Kris Neal: I agree, because it doesn't make it special. Like, this is something we're trying to create something special.
Jiali Xu: The, what, is it, maybe, maybe not, we just give it. Free, during the event, like kind of ring the shirts to everyone. The raffle tickets, maybe it's easy to, you know, like just fill up the form, you get the shirts. Let them to make a little effort.
Quan Gan: I really, I like tying it to an incentive. So you basically look like you have, you know, a ton of ZTAG supporters the next day. Like that, that was a, like that really resonated with me when Steve suggested it. You know, I want to see a sea of people wearing the, wearing the logo. You can see a of I don't know how other people would feel about seeing a sea of ZTAG approaching them. Why not? I mean, they're like, why can't, why can't be a part of it?
Kris Neal: Because there is such a thing as oversaturation in branding.
Steven Hanna: I agree. And if we are totally branding. This out over the span of three and a half days, how much ZTAGG are you going to shove down someone's throat?
Kris Neal: That's the whole point of us buying sponsorships.
Steven Hanna: I agree, right? Like we are shoving it down their throats and we should be leaning it into it that way, but we should be doing it tastefully at the right points. Yeah.
Kris Neal: I listen to see if people's great.
Steven Hanna: I like seeing a sea of people in ZTAGG, but I can tell me right now, somebody's making a comment about that. And then I can already foresee the cynics and teachers going, hmm, seems like Kan's real close with ZTAGG. What's up with that? And then you have questions, and this is just speculative nature because I'm a cynic, but I can foresee someone else going down that pathway and foresee the name not being represented in the best of light because of over-promotion. Hmm.
Jiali Xu: Okay, fair point.
Quan Gan: I see a boost.
Kris Neal: What those blue bags did the next day, I want to recreate that, because they were coming to us saying, how do I get that? And it was like, well, be a partner. You know what mean? I don't know.
Quan Gan: Do you know if that converted people? Like into sales?
Kris Neal: I don't know if I tell you the truth.
Jiali Xu: Like, from what Steve said, I definitely feel like what we're promoting, it still needs to bring it back. We're creating fun, but also we're shared visions, what we want to bring to the communities. I feel like it's not just fun. It's like, let them know who we are, what we contribute. It's... It's... It's... It's... It's... You know, like, it's not like put the logos everywhere. It is letting them know what we're doing, what inspired them, what get them touched, and what they see is the value in ZTAG. I feel like we just need to, like, be who we are, like, what we do as we host an event. We, as a, as we just, as a playmaker, what we offer to whoever out there, don't overdo, yeah, don't overdo of, like, hey, come to our booths. I think they will not miss, see, Ken is not that big. It's not like IAPA. We don't need to, like, push them of, like, come to our booths. And even, because we already spent that much money of sponsoring these two big events, I'm sure our gravity is. already out there. And then I feel like we need to pull back of sending out the message of why we're here and how we can work with together. Yeah, I think it has to be tours of the visions and the missions of the ZTAG.
Steven Hanna: 100 people sounds like a display of force. sounds like we're a foreign country sending 100 people to march on our behalf. I'm just going to say, like, you sent 15 people in as ambassadors. It's a lot different than 100 people walking.
Kris Neal: Okay, yeah, it's just, your guys have points well taken.
Quan Gan: I was like, my initial calibration was like, I want 100.
Steven Hanna: No, I want masks. All right, fine, you can get masks, but just know, it won't do what you think.
Quan Gan: Okay. Charlie, we...
Kris Neal: That's what we have.
Quan Gan: You had a good point, though, Charlie.
Kris Neal: We do need to associate the games with our missions, with bringing kids together as a team to reach these goals, these physical goals. That could be the first one. The scavenger hunt, we got to find a way how that associates. You know what mean? Like, you're right. When we announce the games, we should absolutely include those. Mm-hmm.
Jiali Xu: Yeah. Just telling, like, have them experience the scavenger hunt is, we want to tell them, hey, we, our game is a CEL focus. We want to bring those values to the kids, have them, through the play, learn this. Because I feel like it's just not only we're creating fun, we have to put our voice out there. Mm-hmm.-hmm. You know, like, seating, and everyone attending the event of what But they can, on ZTAG, they can contribute. Such as like Eric, he had that device. He is, I can feel his heart is full of mission on his end of how much impact he can do. So I really feel like the theme is amplify everyone's voice. Like we, as a school, how we work with ZTAG, what we can do. know, like I, and it's just like the steps where we are working, where we're putting effort, giving out the calories, but like we're reaching a goal of something. So I think these are through our, whatever the game or the poster or, you know, like it's something we need to let them know.
Kris Neal: For the scavenger hunt, it would be cool if we say we have. have. This game, the ICANN sticker hunt, we would love to hear, we would love to tell you more about it, and you're welcome to find us at our booth to where these stickers came from. Yeah, probably, yeah, something. Guys, we're also going to need to go through the slides, because they said that they wanted to see the slides, so that might be something that we need to kind of just quickly go over what slides we'll need.
Steven Hanna: I think we have a quick video, like the kids running around, like we have for the trade show video, the projector.
Kris Neal: The ZTAG story video?
Jiali Xu: Is that the two-minute video? We can do that one? Have testimonials? It's already ready?
Steven Hanna: I would say try and think of a non-audio-focused slide. Think of something that is going to be in the background. ZTAG. playing that they're just going to have going throughout this entire event. That's what the projector is going to be for, unless we want to specifically highlight something in which we'd have to let them know, but anticipate it's just a rotating carousel of slides that they're just going to have on repeat.
Jiali Xu: As I heard, I think they're going to have a slide also including other vendors. So they would provide something not only just for ZTAG and also have some other Ken-related promotions on there. But also, as I said, maybe before we have someone get onto the stage, give a speech, maybe you can play a two-minute video. Yeah. of of of What we already have, the testimonials, then have like a quick two-minute talk, and then we start events, have them experience the other activities. And also, yeah, if the slides, it's, I don't know, it's necessary or not, but I do feel like the video is emotional, you know, has sounds, has testimonials, has kids running around, everything is there. So if they allow us to play, then I think it will be, it will be great. Maybe just play it one time.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Kris Neal: Bear and, yeah, we could play it at the start, just don't have it be on repeat, because you won't be able to hear. No, no, no.
Jiali Xu: Definitely not repeat. was like, they won't hear the story.
Steven Hanna: It's a great story. Nobody's going to hear it.
Jiali Xu: Yeah, just one before, maybe before the speech.
Quan Gan: But do we still have slides in the background rolling throughout the rest of the evening, though? We should do that. I think it's... Yes. Yes?
Jiali Xu: Yes.
Steven Hanna: Oh, yes.
Jiali Xu: With QR code?
Kris Neal: Oh, yeah.
Jiali Xu: Where we're at, what's coming up.
Kris Neal: Listen, we're dropping $20,000 into this.
Steven Hanna: We're getting a slide with a QR code, okay?
Kris Neal: We're getting that.
Steven Hanna: Definitely.
Kris Neal: And where to find us, like what booth number?
Jiali Xu: So let's come up with three slides. Let's not oversaturate.
Steven Hanna: Let's just get the right amount of information. I think we can do it in three slides or less.
Kris Neal: Can we go with five? Only because we need to explain the... Sorry. I think a slide that explains the activities would probably help. So sorry. No, you're good.
Steven Hanna: you're So... And the drop...
Kris Neal: Slide, Activity, Explanation.
Steven Hanna: What was the next one you were about to say?
Kris Neal: I was going to say the drop bag, but I don't think that's necessary because it's only going to be for the first 15 or however few, so we don't need a slide for that. Okay.
Steven Hanna: The second one, ZTAG logo, Website.
Kris Neal: Yes?
Steven Hanna: QR code, Website.
Quan Gan: I think we should have like a single short sentence or paragraph of what ZTAG is and what it solves.
Steven Hanna: ZTAG, one sentence mission statement. Okay. How do we feel about that, folks? Yeah. Charlie? Yeah, yeah.
Jiali Xu: Yeah, but so far we haven't really finalized one sentence. So, these are our marketing. Flyers always change. So, yeah, we do need a finalized slogan. Okay. Because we have Magic Beyond Screens, we have Making Learn Irresistibly, Fun, Active, Inclusive, we have Gunless, Laser Attack, we do have so many.
Quan Gan: Oh, I wanted to sync up with you, Steve, on recently I've been working with Charlie on what she sent out, and there was the term turnover proof, and I think there was maybe some missing in translation. It's proof not as in, like, we're trying to prove anything. It's like water-resistant, you know, we're waterproof. I know. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Okay, because Charlie's understanding was we're trying to prove up a specific point in ambiguity. Okay. So, turnover proof to me as an administrator, there's nothing that's turnover proof. Okay. Because if I'm thinking of something that's turnover-proof, it's something that keeps a person in a position, right? That's the turnover-proof. It's not the fact that I'm going to have turnover and I'm going to have to go through the process. It's the fact that I'm preventing that from even happening. So that's where my mind goes as an administrator. To me, that's what in this prevents this person from leaving this district.
Quan Gan: Okay. Okay, so let me back into how I came up with that conclusion, but we can find other ways. So the original reasoning is the marketing sounds pretty much just the same as anybody else. Like anybody else can say we have an engaging SEL program. Like when you go to booths or when you go to can, nobody's going to say we don't have an SEL thing. So that's kind of a wash. But what I wanted to get the AI to rinse out for me was what is so uniquely ZTAG. That we can claim for sure that when somebody sees this, they know this solves the problem. It's a strong signal among everybody else saying the same thing. And so to me, even Active Learning Platform doesn't sound as much of a signal as, look, this is going to solve some of your biggest pain points, which is from a staffing issue, from a training issue. It's like the single easiest program to deploy, but say it in a way that is factually true and makes it stand out. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Now, my pushback would be, what in ZTAG is turnover-proof? I'm asking you this at the booth. What about this is turnover-proof?
Quan Gan: It takes 30 minutes to train any new person and they can start running your program. So is it your training that's turnover-proof or is it your product that's turnover-proof? The product is so easy that anyone would... Within 20 minutes, 30 minutes can actually start running this program compared to anything else. combination of both.
Steven Hanna: It's not one or the other. Yeah, right.
Quan Gan: It's the ease of use of the product. It's designed in a way that when turnover event inevitably happens, this program doesn't die. The program can be easily transferred.
Steven Hanna: Okay, so I have four teachers who are leaving at the end of this year, and I've got two teachers who are coming in. What's that turnover process look like? What do you guys do?
Quan Gan: We provide new training. Get them up and on board. same training that you guys have given me before?
Steven Hanna: Essentially.
Quan Gan: And what does that cost us? I mean, from ZTAG standpoint, my current thinking is zero. Because when you have, we want that product to be out there and provide, providing value. So you're going to train.
Steven Hanna: My staff, on an annual basis, you guys are ready to do that.
Kris Neal: Well, let's think of it.
Quan Gan: I mean, currently, we are incentivized to do that. And the goal, or the, I guess, the financial model is such that if it continues to deliver the value, then the word of mouth generates the income for us to supplement that.
Steven Hanna: Okay. So we just had to roleplay and go through about three minutes of dialogue to tell me why it's basically turnover-proof. That's not bad for an administrator. I can see it working. I mean, again, it doesn't have to end up on this particular thing.
Quan Gan: I wanted to tell you my, my reasoning into coming to this was, this was one of the strong features that we can claim that almost nobody else can claim. Is it a highlight to claim, though?
Steven Hanna: That's, That's my main thing is the first thing that you have on that marketing is turnover. Like, you're making an assumption on my district.
Quan Gan: Right. Well, it's also to make it the oddball because every other piece of marketing says, oh, we have an excellent program for you. Also, in that particular context, turnover is something that ends up in a mailer that you're probably going to throw out.
Steven Hanna: Chris has a question. need to know your opinions.
Kris Neal: That's already being done because the link for your training is in the welcome letter that is available to them, whoever has that welcome letter. That is something that they need to have to be able to give to whoever is new. So, the difference that we have in ours compared to other businesses is we are all about people. We are all All number one. That is our number one. That's different. That is so different that we have someone that is specifically training and someone like me who is in partner relations that you can reach out to and say, hey, we have an attendance award. We are celebrating with them. That is human first. So why are we not showing up? Like I see, hang on, hang on. I see Charlie's magic beyond the screens. Why are we not exemplifying all of that? All of the magic behind the screens is them. It's humans. It is people. With everything that screen technology is this day and age, it's humans that is the magic. So how are we showing that in our marketing? Are we saying humans for training? Humans for celebrating? Humans for, what is that? Where you're giving them what they need to solve that problem.
Jiali Xu: Can I respond?
Quan Gan: Please. So I agree with all of those qualities that we have. Absolutely. 100% I agree with all of them. The only layer that I'm seeing a difference on is from a marketing standpoint, any other company can use those same exact words and claim it. Whether it's true or false, it almost doesn't matter. But using those words they were, a people-first company, sounds like the marketing that any other company can just casually claim.
Kris Neal: But we could prove it. Whereas we could prove it, right.
Quan Gan: But the thing is, those are things kind of like an end result that they would find out about ZTAG once they already become a customer. But when you promote it using those qualities, it gets mixed in with all the noise that any other company can claim. Just like, are you ever going to see a product says, I'm a mediocre product? When in fact it is. Every mediocre product says, I'm an enhanced product. I'm a better product. I'm a human-first product. Versus if you could find the one corner that no one else can claim, that starts your signal strong, and then all of the benefits after the fact will be proven. But magic beyond screens, it's got to be the kids.
Kris Neal: It's got to be. That's how we're going to be able to grow into even this league thing. Every kid, every age of kids that are going to be going through, that's a whole new generation that we're going to be able to affect.
Jiali Xu: Yeah, well, I do understand Quan's psychological mind of, like, using a physical point of, you know, like, everyone trying to create harmony beats. We could use some, like, weird. Like, we have to be the Cybertruck.
Quan Gan: Like, we have to be the Cybertruck in what we do. Right?
Jiali Xu: Turn heads.
Quan Gan: Like, this is not something you normally see.
Jiali Xu: Yeah, but I do see both points because I definitely agree with you, Kris, because what we are doing is we do want to emphasize the site coordinators, the students. It's the whole thing to make the ZTAG unique. It's the fun, you know, and creating together. I think it's right now, it's just the, because we do many marketing materials, so it's not, we are constantly changing as well. And I think right now, for what Quan agreed with the title, it's just temporary. It's not forever. And by the time we talk to more with our customers, we will come up with even better slogans. And I do see we can tag. Test out on this, because we already, honestly, already test out by sending out the postcard with that title. But in the future, I feel like for a trade show, events like Ken, I will not put the title on that fire. Sorry, I have to jump in here.
Quan Gan: There's a few different audiences. So the turnover-proof headline for sending the cards out, I think it's appropriate, because this is some kind of admin looking at it, what solution does it solve? I think for Ken, I wouldn't even put turnover-proof as a main thing, because you're having mostly site coordinators there. So dialing up the engagement and the fun to get them to become our advocates, and then sending it to their admin. Advocates. Yeah, so I would agree with Chris. that's-- And that's And what you want to do is once they report this up, somewhere along the lines, the flyer or the handout you give them shows the admins, this is turnover-proof, and this is going to do good for their staffing and their program. So for CAN, I think it's engagement first, fun first, kids first, but then you need some supporting documents for the person that needs to check the checkbox versus when you sent out these 1,000 postcards. That goes directly to the admin. They want to see what this is going to do for their checkmarks. Quick question, Quan.
Kris Neal: Is there a company where their marketing is celebrating with you, making sure that you're trained? Is there any other company that says that?
Quan Gan: I don't know. I don't know of any either.
Kris Neal: I don't know of a company that would go to site locations and host a PD. I don't know any. Maybe I'm wrong. Right.
Quan Gan: You know, those features, right? Yeah, for money, you're right, yeah. So those features, I think being, like, we're proud, but in a humble way that those are things I feel like are not advertisement points, but more for you do the work and the right organic word of mouth will happen because we've already been doing that.
Kris Neal: That's a point that we have, that we, that is a human connection. That is where the magic beyond the screens is. And if we put it in that category of this is where you see it, it's like, where do you see ZTAG putting humans first? Here you go. Training, like all the things. Sales, we want to celebrate. It's not after the sale, you're done. We're going to celebrate with you. It's problems, problem solving. We are going to walk through, Steve is going to walk through, um, lesson plans, uh, class. Collaboration, Lesson Planned Collaboration. I want to make sure it's a collab. But we're not, I don't know.
Quan Gan: I'm in alignment.
Kris Neal: And we can, we have a lot of people that are going to say, yeah, you know what, they did come to our, Steve, you're making me eat, thank you. Okay. Um, you know what, they were with us. They did come to our, we have a lot of people that are going to be there, hopefully, that will be able to say that. If anything else, this one feels like it would speak most to that. Okay.
Jiali Xu: So, Kris, what do you think for the flyers? We need to highlight the title, Human Focus? Okay. Can we stay on the slides first and finalize those?
Steven Hanna: Sorry, I've only got two written down. No, no, no, that's part of it, and the deadline is tomorrow.
Kris Neal: Listen, I know it's tomorrow, I know.
Jiali Xu: It's worth this, yeah, it really worth talking about the same thing, it's right, what message we are sending out, is through the events, through the, you know, I like, yeah.
Kris Neal: To Magic Beyond the Screens, and it's when they come in to the booth, or on the marketing page, how do we do that? What is the magic? We can even ask that, what is the magic beyond the screens, what is it?
Jiali Xu: Yes, I think from the social media, I do feel like it has a question, like, maybe like, contact, how, how you can. How you can make magic beyond the screen with ZTAG? I don't know. But something like give them a little interest of like, yes, how? I want to know more. A question of...
Kris Neal: Yes. At the risk?
Jiali Xu: At the risk?
Quan Gan: Wait, you need to...
Jiali Xu: Okay, go ahead. No, I mean, like, let's, you know, it's a word there, like, to attract them, to work with them.
Quan Gan: Can we have existing partners write something or get on stage and say something? And just say, what has ZTAG done for you? Why don't we ask them that?
Kris Neal: What is the magic beyond the screens? Where is the magic shown at your school?
Jiali Xu: beyond with want become a Uh... ... What How you can make magic beyond the screen with ZTAG? I don't know. But something like give them a little interest of like, yes, how?
Kris Neal: I want to know more. A question of... Yes. At the risk? At the risk?
Steven Hanna: Wait, you need to...
Kris Neal: Okay, go ahead. No, I mean, like, let's, you know, it's a word there, like, to attract them, to work with them.
Steven Hanna: Can we have existing partners write something or get on stage and say something?
Kris Neal: And just say, what has ZTAG done for you? Why don't we ask them that? What is the magic beyond the screens? Where is the magic shown at your school?
Steven Hanna: beyond with want become a Uh...
Kris Neal: ... What
Steven Hanna: I like this. What is the magic beyond the screens?
Kris Neal: It's the title of our flyer.
Steven Hanna: But then we're very easily able to back that up with everything that we're doing.
Kris Neal: Any assets are already conveniently created.
Steven Hanna: Yes.
Kris Neal: We've just never put a name to it.
Steven Hanna: So about these slides. got two written down. by the way, I have three slides. Where have you been? Where? I've been eating french fries waiting for you guys to figure out some slides, damn it. Oh, I've got probiotic nuts over here. Where have I been? I need to get a factor. Hold on. Yeah, let's take a quick five. Like, bathroom, food, water, five minutes. Four, four seconds. 417 to 418, we're reconvening. 418, 318, there we go. Oh, I'm sorry about your time. I don't want to hear about your time, so it's okay. it. Your time, so it's on Google Calendar. All right. I've been, like, pulling out my hair with the head. I'll see you in five. See you in five, guys. I'll see in five.
Quan Gan: Thank Sorry.
Steven Hanna: Hey, how are you? What are you eating? Chicken. Some of my factor box.
Quan Gan: Kris, you have a meeting in 10 minutes, don't you?
Steven Hanna: Hang on. There's a Daniel of CEO? Who is that? I already talked to him the other day. Oh, it's on my calendar.
Kris Neal: Okay, so just ignore it. Let me confirm.
Steven Hanna: As I'm holding this glass, I'm, like, thinking about the escape room and the inversion on the concavity, and I'm like, oh, that was a great idea with the arrows when we were in the lab escape room. What are you talking about? Do you remember when we were in the escape room in Florida, and they had the water vials at the end?
Kris Neal: I was just, like, looking at the side of this, I was like, ah, right, the reverse and concave, like, that's a...
Quan Gan: Really great physics-based puzzle. This is one that I spoke to already.
Kris Neal: This one actually might be a different one because we were unsure of the professional or educational.
Jiali Xu: So we already sent them, Kermie sent them a quote for an educational. So this might be one of the ones that got slipped through. So we'll see.
Kris Neal: One thing, I'll be right back.
Steven Hanna: You guys are still doing the factor meals? I am when I'm home. Yeah.
Kris Neal: Sometimes I take it on the road with me. Recently, since Charlie and her dad are both here, I order less because they're cooking more. Your dad is there? How cool.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. Oh my goodness. You stay with me for like two months. How sweet. Yeah. It's good. It's like a climate bird coming here to stay warm.
Kris Neal: It's a little bit cold over there.
Steven Hanna: Should we start?
Kris Neal: Okay, so Kris, you don't have a meeting in seven minutes, right?
Steven Hanna: No. Okay. Because I'm putting a cap on this meeting for 20 minutes.
Quan Gan: More minutes, because I love all of you guys, but listen, I need a break. Yeah. Are you sick of this? three hours of meetings. Oh, no.
Steven Hanna: Like I said, I love all you guys, but I just need a break. I could feel my mental cognitive load is getting there. So slide number three. Apparently, I missed my homework, Kris. What was slide number three? ZTAG mission statement.
Kris Neal: One sentence. Yeah, I've got that as number two.
Steven Hanna: And then I've got number one is the activity explanation. Website and QR code. Okay. Actually, I didn't even have that one with the game rules. So you had two as well, but you lied and said it was three.
Jiali Xu: No, my third one is the first ZTAG story with testimonials. Okay. So I didn't even have the game slide.
Quan Gan: Oh, we're including that.
Kris Neal: Okay, got it. That's going to be the intro opener.
Jiali Xu: Got it. Yeah.
Kris Neal: we play that, what's her name, Connie's video? It's like, I have my students sign contracts, and it was the best thing ever. Yeah, I want to give her a ZTAG officer uniform and give her, like, the ability to write tickets to her kids, too. She seems like she would do that.
Steven Hanna: It would just be funny. All right, I've got to write you up. You're running too fast in ZTAG today, pal.
Quan Gan: Ticket.
Jiali Xu: Oh, that's so funny. All right, pal, this is your second strike. You collided with your friend James two times in one period.
Kris Neal: Looks like we're going to have to put you in timeout for five minutes. Give me that watch back. We can play that one.
Steven Hanna: No, because the two-minute videos, including all sorts of testimonials, and also having Connie's. Yeah.
Kris Neal: Okay. Yeah, let's just play that.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. It's the ZTAG story, right? Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Quan Gan: I love that video. That's a beautiful video.
Steven Hanna: Peaks volumes. Yeah.
Kris Neal: All right, so we've got four slides. Am I missing one, Kris? No, sir. Okay, all right.
Steven Hanna: Do we need a fifth, or does four cover it? So, Kris, you mentioned we need to also introduce the games we're hosting. I was hoping a slide each for each activity, but if you think all of it can go on one slide, it might be overwhelming to get all of that all on one slide. So I would prefer each, one per each, but whatever you guys want.
Kris Neal: No, that's good. I think that's a smarter idea. Represents the information in chunked ways. Okay, so one slide per activity.
Steven Hanna: Are the activities simultaneous? Yes. They're open. Open stations. Open play. Yep. All right.
Jiali Xu: And with that, I believe that's three, four, five, six, technically.
Quan Gan: I'll minus one for the testimonial slide because I don't think that's going to be a recurring one. We're just going to show that once, correct? Sounds good. Yeah. Correct. At the intro, when we're talking, discussing, we'll just show that slide, show the video, it plays, and then it goes into the regular sequence of the other slides.
Kris Neal: I vote to play that very first, then Quan do the speech, and then the slideshow begin.
Steven Hanna: That's the structure I was thinking as well. Yeah. Yeah. Is there another structure that we can think of that might be better, or is this pretty optimized? I think it was going back and forth, whether the video first or Quan first.
Quan Gan: But that one-two sequence, though, the order is, as long as those two components are in, we're comfortable with that. How do we want to represent it? Let's play that and fill it. Yeah. Well, hold on. So Ken's going to do an introduction for us, right? That's what they said. So do you want them to introduce the person or introduce a video and then person? It'd kind of nice if they ended whatever they said. And this is ZTAG. And the video starts. Yes. It gets them, I think, not emotional, but, you know, let me get the video. And then as it closes out, that's when Quan basically transitions in and goes, Hi, I'm My name is Quan, founder and CEO. Gives us quick 30 seconds. You know, we're honored to have you.
Steven Hanna: We're glad to see all of you, et cetera, et cetera. We have three stations set up this evening for activities. Blah, blah, blah. Perfect. Yeah, that feels good. I want to verbalize what I'm spatially set up in my head, and then you guys can help calibrate this. So there's this L-shaped room. One section of the L is cocktail tables, and they're just kind of socializing, mingling. So potentially one of those lightweight games are there, and then on the other leg of the L would be potentially an actual VTAG booth that opens space with these bunkers that we're setting up in Blacklight.
Quan Gan: And that second game where they're trying to get the number of their step count is essentially being operated from the booth.
Kris Neal: Is that how you guys imagine it?
Quan Gan: I imagine there's less space than we anticipate for large-scale activities. I would say if this is cocktail reception style, think more along the lines of wedding cocktail hour rather than large spaces. It's just going to be pockets of people interacting with each other and just moving throughout the space.
Steven Hanna: So as far as a large space goes for the activities, the step counter is the only activity that's going to take up space, really.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so on the two segments of the EL, my current understanding from what they describe is the drinks and the cocktail tables are on one leg. And then the ZTAG activity for the step count would be on the other leg. other leg. Is that how you guys are visualizing it? Yes. Yes. Okay. And then maybe the stage is like somewhere near one of the legs.
Steven Hanna: So there will be a projector there. We go up on stage, and then maybe after I make any announcement from the stage, I would proceed to the actual booth where the high engagement activity, where we'll call that the step count activity, happening. Mm-hmm. That sounds accurate. Okay. I would say let's, when we're talking about booth, we're not talking about a full 10x10 booth. We're just talking about a booth area where we'll set up our areas. The It'll be the tent. Well, it would essentially be a 10x10 because we'll have a tent, table, and the system there.
Quan Gan: So, yeah, essentially it would look like a 10x10 booth. Yeah, potentially it would put... ... ... ... ... All Or your tiny projector there with the pop-up banner. So essentially, whatever is going to be in the booth, we could just be transporting it back and forth. I don't know if I would have the ZTAG tent in there then. Really? It's a lot. Because then we have two pop-up tents, and we're going into a 10x10 space that's going to translate into a 10x20 and then to a 10x30 for gameplay. I don't understand.
Steven Hanna: So if we have the tent, and we use the two pop-ups that we were talking about earlier, those red and blue ones, those are about 3.5x3.5.
Quan Gan: Two of those taking up space with maneuverability, our 10x10 effectively becomes 10x30, as far as how much space we would be taking up with that activity.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, so my thing about our flexibility is we should have enough equipment to fill out whatever size.
Quan Gan: We should don't be So I would rather, like, overfit it than underfit it.
Kris Neal: You know, we don't have to use all the gear that we bring, but let's say, you know, in the truck, there's going to be the tent and however many of these bunkers we have.
Quan Gan: And then when we go into the actual space, we'll see how we want to fill it out. Because they said it was a large room, so I don't know what the actual dimensions are.
Jiali Xu: I don't trust anybody that says size, dimensions.
Kris Neal: It's all relative. Did they say they were going to send us the actual dimensions?
Steven Hanna: us a floor plan and dimensions. Do we have it?
Kris Neal: We don't have it. We only have their general, you know, their meeting from yesterday and what they shared and what they showed about that little shape of the room. So I drew around, but... I True.
Jiali Xu: Charlie and I can have a reason to go to Long Beach and check out that room. Catalina.
Kris Neal: Catalina room?
Jiali Xu: Yeah. I would rather go and scout it out and take a video of it. That would be amazing. How about, Charlie, let's do that this weekend or something. Wow. I can go.
Kris Neal: I'll go by myself.
Jiali Xu: I'll schedule a trip to San Diego along the way. Hey, you said room layout and what? That they said that they were going to get us? I'm sorry. A floor plan. Room layout or floor plan, I'm going to assume, is the same thing that they're referring to. Perfect.
Steven Hanna: I'm trying to think of all the questions that we're going to need to ask them. And so if any other question comes up, I'll touch points on the what you need. Sure. Sure. That you've already messaged Nat?
Jiali Xu: Oh, yeah, I already, yeah. Have you got that from me? No, I haven't got the reply yet, but I'm working on the flyer first.
Quan Gan: Also, I sent in the chat, so if you guys have any feedback, let me know.
Kris Neal: That probably is the, we're going to send out either later today or tomorrow morning. We also need to.
Quan Gan: Yeah, but the banner, I don't know. So, Steve, I remember you asked Paula to make one.
Kris Neal: Would you be able to find out that dimension for me?
Quan Gan: So I just, maybe we can work on that one just in case it's the same. And I do want to replace that to match the style.
Kris Neal: Yes, but I think it's a banner for the website or a banner for their app. They were referring to two, and I just, I had no idea which one. for Okay. And Yeah, I think that's the one they mentioned about in email. It's a rotation banner. I found the online floor plan. Great. So we don't even have to go there. But we need to know their floor plan, like where they're going to have their, right?
Jiali Xu: Or is this... I think that we're fairly flexible. mean, given how Steven and could just drop in anywhere, I think I just need to know how much square footage we have.
Quan Gan: I'm going to send this in to Orton. And then, yeah, just scroll to the bottom with Catalina.
Steven Hanna: Hmm.
Kris Neal: Oh. Oh. Oh.
Jiali Xu: Oh.
Quan Gan: Oh, wow.
Kris Neal: That's big.
Steven Hanna: Oh, it's 4,000 square foot, so it's not that 4,600, it's not that big. Yeah, it's like the size of two houses.
Kris Neal: Also, just anticipate, you're probably going to have upwards of 120 to 150 people probably rolling through this event.
Steven Hanna: Right? Okay. It's... Interesting shape room.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I don't get what that seemingly useless corner is in the back there. We need to ask them if blacklight is available, right?
Jiali Xu: If we can do that?
Quan Gan: Yeah, we basically, we would bring our own. don't think they would provide it, but we just need enough places to plug into the wall. So we need to find out if electricity is going to be a problem.
Kris Neal: Yeah, we'll have access.
Quan Gan: They mentioned that we would. Oh, they did? Okay. They said if we needed to plug in anywhere, they would let us in. But we don't need to ask a commission for blacklights? For blacklights, we might. For access to power, we We wouldn't need to. That's what I'm thinking. Yeah. Oh, Catalina, right?
Kris Neal: Oh, there's a Catalina online.
Steven Hanna: Okay. There's a virtual.
Jiali Xu: Yeah, it's a 3D room. can get in there.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, we don't need to go there. Okay.
Jiali Xu: Here. Oh, I see it.
Quan Gan: Yeah. You guys see it?
Kris Neal: Yeah. It's just down a little bit. As a big pole in the center. Click on the self-walk. So, yeah, you can see the 3D. 3D, right?
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Jiali Xu: Okay. So, there's even a wooden floor. I don't know if that's their standard. Maybe the game is on the wooden floor. Hmm. Okay, let me share my screen in case you guys aren't seeing it.
Kris Neal: You guys see it? Oh.
Quan Gan: That wooden floor may not be there.
Jiali Xu: That's a movable dance floor.
Quan Gan: There's this kind of useless corner in the back here. That's probably the cocktail.
Kris Neal: Oh, there's a hidden room.
Quan Gan: Okay. Oh, that's nice.
Kris Neal: That's cool. Mm-hmm. Are you sure that's the room? That does not look like my screen. Catalina. Okay. That's interesting.
Quan Gan: Yeah, because I open it, it's like empty. Yeah, that was mine too. All these stuff. Yeah, but it's the room.
Kris Neal: Yeah, there's a big pole in the center. The carpet are the same.
Quan Gan: Yeah. It's quite a... Actually, I say... think it's a quite a good size. Hey, quick question, Quan. You mentioned the projector. Would we be able to put the projector on a wall?
Kris Neal: Like with just kids playing and having fun?
Quan Gan: mean, yes, but it'll, like, let's say we're projecting here. We're going to need a table here to get it.
Kris Neal: We'll have the, maybe that could be the play zone?
Steven Hanna: But they, they were going to have their own projector, too. Mm-hmm.
Quan Gan: But that'll be for the slides. This'll be a separate, just, movement. So why do we want to project onto a wall versus just the little vertical banner that we already have?
Steven Hanna: I thought you could go bigger. Could it go bigger or no? It can, but you just have to pull the table back further.
Kris Neal: So I don't know if it makes a huge difference. difference.
Quan Gan: I mean, we can, we can effectively even just, yeah, project it on this, this wall right here.
Steven Hanna: I could probably bring the projector, doesn't Steve and I have a projector? Can we bring all of our projectors? You want to bring both?
Kris Neal: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Sure, just it needs to have a purpose and a place to place it.
Kris Neal: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Also bear in mind that your ceiling height is 10 feet. I don't know if you're getting that tent in there. All right. Yeah, the tent's not going to fit. No. So the tent is a no.
Kris Neal: And the feather flags are probably a no then. Oh. Because the flags are 16 feet.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, I would say, I would say no to anything above eight feet.
Quan Gan: Including basketball players, if they're above eight feet.
Kris Neal: but I would would say no to anything. I to I would no no no you.
Quan Gan: Yeah, so if you had bunkers, probably four. Four bunkers at most. Okay. I would say three is a good number. You're not going to want more than three.
Kris Neal: But then you've got to have a third color, unless you do two and two.
Quan Gan: No, you don't. It's out of balance. Oh, my goodness.
Kris Neal: This is the... Okay.
Quan Gan: Because somebody's going to go, oh, they're favoriting red. Oh, they're favoriting blue.
Kris Neal: Oh, I'll reverse it for the next round there. Just pop it inside out. With the political climate right now?
Quan Gan: Yes. it should be like, what, orange and purple, and then we'll run into colorblind kids who are like, I can't see.
Kris Neal: Yeah, okay. Now we have to change it again for you.
Quan Gan: So, you got a few of the cocktail tables here.
Kris Neal: So, this is kind of the size. They're going to have a few here, right?
Quan Gan: can't Bye. Bye. So, and then the rest is mingling. So I would say, you know, maybe the cocktail, a few more cocktail tables here, and then just like that other side, maybe starting from. Is that the angle that you're looking at? Is that the entrance? Is that the angle? That's the entrance.
Steven Hanna: I think that's the entrance.
Kris Neal: Oh, you can come outside. Okay. That's not the entrance.
Quan Gan: Isn't it? Mm-mm. Because it was, on my end, it came through the big hotel. Hold on. Came from inside the hotel? Mm-hmm.
Kris Neal: So you're thinking they come in from this end?
Steven Hanna: No, that's the outside, too. go. is Oh, no. It Hola. you. So are we not in the same room?
Kris Neal: What other door do you see? Let's see what's in there. What's right there, yeah. Oh, hold on. But that is the other side of this, isn't it? Or, oh, maybe. I can't get into that room. Maybe it is the entrance. It won't let me, it will not let me get in there.
Steven Hanna: Okay, so maybe that's the entrance.
Kris Neal: Yeah, there's, it won't allow me to stand anywhere other than here. That would make sense that it's on that side if they're setting this room up the right way for flow to be the bar immediately to the right.
Quan Gan: So, yeah. Can I show you my Catalina room? Because maybe I'm looking at something different.
Kris Neal: Is that the entrance? That looks like the entrance, but is that outside? So, it must be... Isn't that the same door?
Quan Gan: Yeah, okay.
Kris Neal: That looks like it's going outside. Okay. So, this is the first thing that they're going to see. They're probably going to have the stage over here, don't you think?
Quan Gan: That would be something we'd have to ask. Yeah, their floor plan. Yeah. Yeah, that's going to be very important, their floor plan. Okay. So, no to ten... And then no two feather flags, so really we just have the bunkers left, and then the lights. Yeah. Oh, and actually walk along the wall here, I think we see enough plugs on the side. Sorry, this thing doesn't stop.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, okay. Yeah, you see outlets.
Kris Neal: Yeah. What is that?
Steven Hanna: Okay, just a stop. Jeez. Sorry. Okay. Okay.
Kris Neal: It looks like the same room, it just looked different.
Steven Hanna: So it could be an outside entrance. Okay. So we'll probably, I mean, what if we decorated it with a few more pop-up banners?
Jiali Xu: You know, those are low-cost, pretty Pretty sure.
Kris Neal: you.
Quan Gan: It's simple to set up, and we could maybe have, yeah, we reuse them and then maybe put on their, you know, some testimonials or things that, you our partners have said. Maybe they want to take a photo or something, and then we'll represent them there.
Jiali Xu: Pop-ups are easy. They're good. The kids' art would be cute, too. The kids' artwork that they've made. Okay. Something from the kids.
Kris Neal: So then if we're doing that, then it should be total human-centered first.
Steven Hanna: That's where the human-centered thing comes in, where it's all community-driven things. Like Eric, we give him a, you know, a banner. We give the kids who, with the cake and all the fun artwork, they get a banner, right? Like that's the community where they're like, what is this? Oh, that's the community out in, you know, Wisconsin who has seen this. This is the community out in New York that uses it.
Kris Neal: And they're like, what?
Quan Gan: This is everywhere?
Kris Neal: I like the case study idea. So each banner is a person.
Steven Hanna: And his... So we make it like a FI, or no, whatever.
Kris Neal: because they're going to be socializing, hanging out, and these are perfect topics for them to talk about.
Steven Hanna: They don't have to engage, they could just passively walk around and see all the cases. Yeah, would say like Ella, or like, you know, like Playmaker. Yeah. Yeah, Meet our Playmakers.
Kris Neal: Meet our Playmakers.
Quan Gan: Playmakers! Playmakers!
Kris Neal: Playmakers! Oh!
Steven Hanna: I saw this happening five minutes ago. I saw it happening. I saw it happening. What did you see happening?
Jiali Xu: I was like, well, we need to highlight the community in some way, shape, or form.
Quan Gan: And I was like, how's it going to happen? How do we do it? Because we've got all of the stuff about us, but what about everyone else now? Yeah. That makes sense.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. That's perfect. There we go. That's it. That's what it means. was like, there was something missing that I couldn't. It was what we were talking about the other day, Kris, like I couldn't pinpoint it, and then you're just like, oh, that's it, right, of course. Perfect. But why are you saying, oh, no? Because I know the amount of work that I'm going to have to put in to get information now on top of the other things that I'm doing. That's the oh, no part. The oh, no is now I get to go information fishing for the next three weeks. We may already have some of these, though. Yeah, same way, we've got it, yeah. Listen, we'll come up with a formula. Do we want it all to be the same formula, or do we want it all to be individualized? I personally think it should be individualized. What do you mean?
Kris Neal: I think if we can get a cross-section of different personas that are represented, then someone can find someone that they can relate to.
Steven Hanna: Right. I don't want it to be, like, the same standard name, occupation, age, like, abide. Bye. A bio in some book. Like, it's not that. This is human-centered. Yeah, share their story. How do they find us? What is it doing for their community? Like, Ella is an SEL focus, right? There's SEL people. Some person is going to be halfway into the entertainment world, halfway into the education world, right?
Kris Neal: Then we can highlight Eric.
Jiali Xu: We've got the international people, Nadia and Sabrina over in, you know, Canada.
Steven Hanna: We highlight them as international partners who are servicing schools and providing ZTAG to schools. You know, I think that's a really great idea, and it kind of hits on what Chris was mentioning earlier, of we're so human first, and we need to express that.
Kris Neal: It's what sets us, it's what sets us apart. Totally. Just needed a good representation of it, and I think that's a, that is a really nice way to do it. Yeah. And it's, it's non-invasive. That's the best part about it, is it's a feel-good message that you'll pass by, you'll read, and you'll go, I identify with that, that, and that here. And then you'll go to another one and see recurring points and go, wow, I am this person. I was that person at some point in time.
Quan Gan: So true. Inspire people to be or beyond that.
Kris Neal: Yeah. Just remind them. Remind them of who they are, basically, in the most non-capitalistic, slightly marketing-based way. 100%. I'm going to have to do some balloon bursts.
Steven Hanna: I hope that's okay, Quan.
Quan Gan: Like, just to put on top of, like, those little pop-up, whatever, those pop-up posters. They're super easy, just, like, a few balloons, just to put it on, like, the top corner. Just. Yeah, that's fine. I just don't think about, like, blowing up a hundred balloons in there.
Kris Neal: No, no, I mean, I might, but no, it'll just be a little burst here and there. I mean, I might. You weren't supposed to hear that. I love the slide, and I'm like, I mean, I might, but that's besides the point.
Quan Gan: You weren't supposed to hear that, dang it.
Kris Neal: If you want to spend, like, two hours doing this stuff on you. Well, it needs to be presentable. It needs to be cohesive. Yes, I love it.
Quan Gan: What Ron is basically saying is, don't enlist me to your balloon regime. What? He's saying, I'm not blowing up these balloons.
Steven Hanna: Actually, it's in Long Beach.
Kris Neal: I'll probably grab my mom.
Quan Gan: Don't we have that machine where you could just, you know, drop it on it?
Jiali Xu: My machine up! Oh my gosh, If you are going to do it, get a machine.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Jiali Xu: I had to blow it up with my chest the other day at the SCOE training because it was too loud. Lord. Thank So I'm, like, huffing a puff and, like, 20 or 30 balloons back there.
Steven Hanna: What? Oh, yeah, no, no, no. Okay, can I get my Auntie Karina to help decorate?
Jiali Xu: She is, like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe I didn't even think of her. Is that okay? Sure.
Kris Neal: Sure, I mean, can we compensate her in some way? I don't know if she would take it, to be honest.
Jiali Xu: She used to do the marine balls. She was the commanding. Oh, we'd have to exchange some form of energy, whatever that is.
Steven Hanna: Oh, okay. I'll definitely call and see if she's, yeah. Okay. Cool, thank you. How many banners do we want?
Jiali Xu: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: That's a big room. It is a big room. Eight? to four. No, no, three to five. Posting at eight. I think that wall over there, like a big one, we just put one by one.
Jiali Xu: Like, maybe five, I think. I got six case studies.
Quan Gan: You guys can pick and choose what you want. You might use all six. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. Good story. Sure. Why not? The more, the better.
Jiali Xu: So it'll just be like the one image of that one person with... No, it probably could be like the kids around it, like the group kids, how they play.
Steven Hanna: It may be easier to just have the educator. And the reason why is because of photo releases.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay.
Steven Hanna: And the educator would be the easiest person to get permission of because it's just, hey, do you mind if we put you on a banner with just a story, your story with ZTAG?
Quan Gan: Like, we're not showing your kids or anything.
Steven Hanna: We're just showing who you are and your relationship to it. Photo releases are tough. But what about Ella? Because we... Using the photos.
Quan Gan: How about we leave it to the educator if they are okay. Yeah, if they're able to get the release, sure. If they can't and just they give us their own permission, then we could blur other people out or just have a dedicated photo. Like, because right now I do feel like for Ella, for Eric are pretty much ready to go.
Steven Hanna: We have so many footage around them.
Quan Gan: Yeah. About you, Mm-hmm.
Steven Hanna: You are also a playmaker. But he's on our team, though. I'm biased. We can't have me on there. We have – let's look at who we visited before. my wife on there. Put Julian on there. Julian, Ruben, Eric, Ella. I would go with Nadia and Sabrina.
Quan Gan: I've been a you… Laval? we're możemy I've been Because. Is there a fun use case? What about, uh, Kristen, I forget the name.
Steven Hanna: We had, uh, that, that one lady down south that we met at Boost, and then I, April, yes. April? Let's get it. April Watkins. Yeah, you've got good footage of her, actually. Mm-hmm. That was before my time, so is there someone who has her contact with an already established relationship? Yeah, I, I have her cell phone. Okay.
Jiali Xu: Um, so then I would say we've got Ella, Eric, Julian, Nadia, Sabrina, Sarginia, and April. That's our six. Any other facets of life that we can think of, that ZTAG exists within, that we can ask for? Oh, I mean, Connie? I, I, I don't know if I would go with Connie for that one. Connie's got, like, that old, like, ruler. But there's people like that. I know, I know, but those people are not like Connie, who's willing to learn the tech. I think most of the people who are her age are going, what is that computer?
Quan Gan: I love her. I think it's worth value to have her.
Jiali Xu: I feel like it needs to be, um, representative to each one, uh, kind of, like, Quan.
Steven Hanna: I think at the very, very early, we have marketing content of each different person from, the person's perspective of how. ZTAG is impacted. You remember that? So I feel like from a community-wide, a teacher, a site coordinator, someone who works in the school district, someone is outside in a community. You know, like, we need to separate them as different presentations, present different group of people. I mean, basically, just go down our testimonial video sheet. think each of them... These are more school teachers. So why not use that?
Jiali Xu: Well, but each of those is representative of a different tree branch. And this is something that I'll go over right now in writing this out. We have Social-Emotional Learning with Ella. We We have Physical Education and Entrepreneurship with Eric. We have a Site Coordinator with Sarginia and Julian.
Steven Hanna: We have Nadia and Sabrina, who are private hosts. So we've got four different facets so far. Maybe April as an educator is valuable, having a boots-on-the-ground person. I would even say from OJUSD, Alexis Boyd, she was the person who reached out to me two times after we did our training and immediately was like, hey, I want to use this today, but I'm concerned.
Kris Neal: And then after, she was like, this is great. So we do have a few different areas.
Steven Hanna: What about the kid that from Chester Union, they hosting? Because I do want to kind of like push. Should it be a little bit the young leadership thing?
Kris Neal: Could you remember that, Kit?
Quan Gan: Yeah. We also post on social medias.
Steven Hanna: Kit, can you scroll up a little bit? I just, one more.
Quan Gan: Okay, that man, yeah, the man just looks slightly terrified in the bottom right corner.
Steven Hanna: just, I wanted to get the story behind, yeah, I'm just, if there's a story, I would like to know, if not, we can move on. My, my eye just got distracted for a second.
Quan Gan: Steve, that's actually the gentleman that we met at Standards PD Day that I mentioned in summer.
Kris Neal: With all the couple of shirts, he's the one that said that if we were to make ZTAG competitive where schools are playing against each other, he said that would be a game changer.
Quan Gan: Okay, so he's angry that his school isn't winning. Got it, understood. That's, that's what that is. Um, no, he's mad because the guy.
Steven Hanna: The to him just retired. Okay, that's the story, okay? There it is. That's everybody's RBF.
Quan Gan: I have an RBF just like he does. Listen, but that's more than RBF.
Steven Hanna: That's frustration RBF. If you actually watch it, he's not like that.
Quan Gan: That's just a traditional face. I just the thumbnail is not very befitting of what you guys are saying about this man.
Steven Hanna: I mean, really, if we just made a banner simply enough and really just put these on there, like, why do we need to get further permission? Like, just use this.
Quan Gan: You can have one banner with all of this. No, I mean, well, okay. You're saying one banner with all of this.
Steven Hanna: I was just saying each, turn each of these into a banner. Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah. And you already have your content.
Jiali Xu: And then we just add our stock photos of whatever resources need to go on the banner. Isn't that easier? I mean, doesn't this already do it justice? From my side, it saves me a lot of work, yeah. I'm going to advocate, absolutely, let's do it that way. From somebody else's side, they might go, this creates more work for me, so no. I mean, okay, the print work is going to have to be done anyways, but isn't this enough information that you don't want to cognitively load them with, like, several paragraphs of their life story, right? Correct. It's two to three sentences.
Quan Gan: It's the who, what, when, where, why. If you can get that to me in less than 10 seconds, I'm in. Who? That's the person.
Jiali Xu: Okay. What are they doing? So, we got our content. All right. So, the, the, no, it'd be like, yeah, oh, yeah, or I don't have to that. Oh, turn into, okay. Well, for me, I do feel like I want numbers. I want, like, how many people the teacher, for example, Ella, how many students she is supporting. I feel like, I want to know, like, each one has that gravity and all the data's around it.
Quan Gan: Well, then, I think maybe through public record, you could already find how big their programs are.
Steven Hanna: Right? I mean, it could be a marketing thing. Like, rather than asking them directly, just look online for these organizations and say, this organization represents how many students. No, because I, I, I, no, uh, the thing is, like, these posters are human-focused, so, I do want they, not. they Just seeing this image of, hey, what they say about ZTAG, it's about how they as a playmaker, I don't know, I want to hear a little bit more. Like each one, I want to hear a little bit more about the story, that the information helped me to shape the imagination of how these people are in the community to make.
Kris Neal: Okay, so Steve, you still have work, then maybe each of these we need like one extra paragraph.
Steven Hanna: I need an update, Steve. I just need for someone to send me a 30-second recording of what ZTAG is currently doing for them. That's all I would need.
Jiali Xu: If they say, oh, this is what I'm currently doing with ZTAG, because it's the most current up-to-date information that they are doing that with ZTAG, we could probably throw it into something.
Steven Hanna: So my current plan while we were figuring this out was just reach out. Shout to all of these playmakers and say, hey, can you send us a 30-second audio recording of, you know, your experience with ZTAG? And then we can extrapolate, AI it, rinse it, do whatever we want with it, and then have something that's formulated on paper. So that's while we're talking what I'm formulating. Can you let them know that we're going to have, like, the plan of what they're... Oh, yeah, it's going to be used for CAN.
Kris Neal: Their story is going to be highlighted and available to read.
Steven Hanna: And if they are not comfortable with that, hang up on me right now.
Kris Neal: Perfect. Yes. Thank you.
Steven Hanna: No, there's full transparency, and this will be used for a human-first connection. Yes, it is technically marketing.
Kris Neal: I'll be honest.
Steven Hanna: Inspire more people, you know, like, you can be that too. Oh, sprinkle that in. Yeah, of course I'll sprinkle that in, but we have to... The fully transparent nature of this is your story... ... Is speaking to other educators who have decision-making power to spend money. And we do want you to know that we want to highlight your story, but it can be interpreted under a marketing lens if you view it that way. So with the caveat of sharing this with us, we will be sharing that with the broader CAN community, and that is something that may produce funds for ZTAG. In which case, you might want to get a release on that. On what? You might want to get them to sign off on their story that they have no rights to future funds generated as a result of their contribution to ZTAG's marketing. Isn't their testimonials already doing that, or? That's verbal. That's a verbal contract. We don't have anything on paper. This is just layering protection at... A company level that we should consider, not something that we should implement, just something to consider is a person who does provide a testimony, if someone can directly link fund generation as a result of that testimony, they can be entitled to some sort of compensation. So at a verbal level, we have testimonials, but at a company level, we really don't have any formal shield in place for those testimonials. And this goes for photo releases as well. In a photo release, you normally have a section that states the specific stipulation of marketing use, social media use. You are not entitled to any funds that are generated or company profits that are generated as a result of your image use in this media. Okay, yeah, I think we'll have to create one, though. It's just something to consider.
Quan Gan: It's something I have in place for my company with photo releases, and it's wise to just think about. Okay, if I generate it, would you be able to send that along with? The only thing is, I don't want to create too much friction where they're like, oh, I'm giving testimonial. It will. So that's the double-edged sword of this is the reality is that once you ask someone to sign something like this, it's basically a confirmation indicator that we are using it for finance-oriented things.
Steven Hanna: So that's why I bring it up and say something to consider. I think that you would probably have to make a decision on that moving forward for certain people. For most people, I don't think this fits the mold. I think this is a... Just a very important thing to protect all of us in a different way. I think the, at least where we are in scale and these early partners were finding, the risk is relatively safe. I think when you get to a larger size and like, oh yeah, they're probably, you know, whatever size organization fill in the blank, then you'll have to have a little bit more of this kind of legal protection.
Jiali Xu: We're leaning into that direction right now with dropping $20,000 into sponsorships. Just, just to consider, I'm not bringing it up in this point to have a full discussion about it, but I, I just want to look out for the protection of that. Yeah. I don't think it would happen with an educator. I think this would more. than likely happen with an entertainment-based person. That's the most likely where this can happen. For an educator, I think that they would be more in tune with just sharing the message of how amazing it is and what it does to children and what it does for children. That is where I truly think that most educators would be aligned and what they're willing to share. So, just a caveat. SharePoint to consider.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, thank you for bringing it up, Steve, because I definitely feel like right now it's the age of everyone has a camera. It's like social media are posting here and there, everything.
Jiali Xu: We are not really paying attention to the legal side of the human rights of their presentation. Like, they... So maybe we do need to have some sort of policies or, you know, like a form just for future, even on social media. I don't know, like, because right now we're posting all the PD things.
Steven Hanna: We don't sign contracts with them, right? Or any waivers.
Jiali Xu: We usually have a verbal or we have an email confirmation that we're approved for it. So that's the only protection we have. But as far as redistributing that media, editing, and generating funds off of it, we technically don't have rights. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.
Steven Hanna: But I do feel like our angle is, as we say, we want to tell the story. We want to tell each playmaker's story. Story. We want to say your community. So on the poster, I do feel like what, I do want to know like what they do. Maybe from their angle, how I find. frame. Yeah, yeah. It's just how we frame this and how we share. If we do it in a quick Zoho form where it's just a one pager where it's like social media photo release and baked into it, it's a quick check mark and then sign, you're fine. Yeah. Right? Like, if we make it into a big deal, it becomes a big deal. Yeah. Agreed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Quan Gan: But add to that procedure because I feel like everyone, know, geo school or whatever, everyone including that.
Steven Hanna: So it's just a procedure. Everyone understands it's a procedure. Just for the future. This is, this is, this is not something for now. I'm, I just, you know, I'm going to send a text or make a phone call and go, hey, 30 seconds. Just for Thank you. Say nice things about the fun stuff that you've had with ZTAG, and send that my way. Cool if we share this? Great, thanks. That's pretty much it. It's going to be informal. But moving forward, once we lean heavily into formalities, this is something we should have in play in a procedure for. Okay, yeah. All right. I've got homework. I think everybody else has homework, too. And it's 5.15. I'm getting off the computer. Me too. You guys can stay. I'll leave this meeting going.
Kris Neal: You do whatever the hell you guys want.
Steven Hanna: But I cognitively cannot think about this any longer. So, I will say what I will be doing, and then I am going to ask everybody to say what they will be doing once we leave from this meeting.
Kris Neal: meeting. and We're going to follow up with each other within the next few days because we have the 16th as a due date, and then we should probably be aligned with the next four weeks before this really kicks off. I am going to reach out to the partners we have discussed and ask them for a quick 30-second testimonial that we can pull some information from and have these banners created for. That is what I will be doing. I have also shared out the login information for the back-end of CAN, so if either of you want to take a look and see what that looks like, you can.
Steven Hanna: Where is that at? I am sorry. In the Jedi Council chat, there is a message that says CAN back-end login, and it has my email with the password for this. And the link to access.
Kris Neal: Got it. Thank you.
Steven Hanna: Thank You got it.
Kris Neal: That is what I will be doing.
Jiali Xu: Popcorn anyone.
Steven Hanna: I am going to reach out to Ken and see if we can get the room layout and the floor plan and confirm the outside entrance. Make sure that the black light, is it backlight or blacklight? Blacklight. Blacklight. Blacklight is okay.
Quan Gan: Blacklight and see if we can get those rotating slide specs for Charlie.
Steven Hanna: Was there any other question for Ken for the reception? No, I think we've pretty much got our activities. We've got our format. Just to confirm the activities, we're doing our step count activity. We're doing the find your match activity and the scavenger hunt. Is that sound? sound? Is Does that sound correct with everybody? I? Yeah. And what is the second one you said? Sorry, let me repeat it again. The Find Your Match activity? Oh, okay. Okay. And then we're doing that, are we doing the bag drop thing that night? That's it, yeah. The 15 T-shirts? Is it for the first, is it for the 15 people, or is it as a prize or something? So the first 15 people will get a little, like, goodie bag from ZTAG. If we have any of those, like, not the, do you remember the hemp bags? If we have any of those, I would say, let's just use a few of those, throw a few of the wristbands in there, throw, like, a one-pager of what ZTAG is, throw a T-shirt and a pencil, right? Like, keep it super low cost, but just enough.
Kris Neal: And then a card that's, like, a raffle entry. And For further incentive to engage with ZTAG, right? So you have to, it's a literal Willy Wonka ticket that says, one, wear your shirt tomorrow on the show floor. Two, find us and give us this card at the booth with your name on the bottom right here.
Steven Hanna: And it's just their name that they write in. So as long as they have that, it's like their Willy Wonka ticket. And they're all wearing the shirts.
Kris Neal: They're coming to the booth, handing us these cards.
Steven Hanna: And at the end of boost, we can basically figure out what type of raffle package we want to give. We could come up with that totally after. It's a secret raffle. You don't know what you're going to get.
Kris Neal: But one thing that we incentivize in there is like a $500, you know, incentive off of a system that is transferable that they can give to a teacher, their district, whoever it is, but the incentive to engage with us even further. Quick questions, because last year I remember seeing a lot of groups coming in.
Steven Hanna: So would this be like one per group?
Kris Neal: Would this be like if 15, because there were like 15 people in one group, would each of them get one of these?
Jiali Xu: And then the t-shirt size might need to be reworked out, because not everyone is going to be, obviously. I always go for 2XL on t-shirts whenever I give them away. If they're not nice enough to wear out, you're wearing it as a sleep shirt. Is that something that we're going to be doing? I have leaned back, maybe, and I think so, Charlie, and I can't see a Kris, so.
Steven Hanna: Oh, well, those are my only two questions, so as long as those are worked out, yeah. And one per group, right?
Quan Gan: Or is it one per person? Now you bring up logistical standing points that I have no answers to, and I want to scrap the idea. that's good idea.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, do feel like where the shirts come to the booth, it's more like a fun activity for the person. It should be more rewarding as a gift.
Quan Gan: But, I don't know, like, we cannot get 500 coupons for everyone.
Kris Neal: But yeah, if they buy for Persist, if we do want to give a trade show coupon, then for each user.
Quan Gan: You know, options for cellular, any boards or any manufacturers since we spoke at IAPA? No, I have not. You know, it's still a little bit early on, more of a curiosity to see, can this potentially scale with us? You know, it's more of an icing on the cake and nice to have rather than a core to the business because we're currently operating without it. But if we can eventually get telemetry, it certainly would benefit with a lot of metrics and just being able to deploy and maintain things in the field.
Cole: Absolutely. Well, know, telemetry, you also have updates and firmware things, which is really nice to have. Now, currently, you know, you're connected via Wi-Fi, right?
Quan Gan: You connect to like a school's Wi-Fi or something like that if you need it. Yeah, it's almost like we've tried. So the initial ideal was, yeah, everybody has internet connection because it seemed obvious and that we would just OTA through Wi-Fi. So... But over the years, due to the practicality of school districts, you know, blocking a lot of connections, we kind of swung the complete opposite way. It's like, what if we just roll it back like the style in the 90s where we physically give you an SD card, like a CD, and then, you know, almost every year when we have new updates, we're pretty much just physically shipping you something and you plug it in. So we've kind of gone that way completely. Not to say, eventually, we don't get to something that's just natively online, like via cellular. So we kind of tried both ends of the spectrum.
Cole: Okay. And just so I know, for my reference here, you have some kind of router built in right now, right? Like a kind of receiver.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it's a 2.4, but that is for running our actual gameplay. You know, it basically builds its own local Wi-Fi so that the devices will be able to talk.
Cole: nakedーー all Thank to the essential coordinator. Gotcha. So all the devices, our clients, they'll get an IP from the 2.4 network. Okay. And this is working well for you. It's great.
Quan Gan: In most, so where our customers are, it's working fine. But where it bites us is like if we're doing a demo at a trade show like iApp, where that fails.
Cole: Yeah. Oh, it's just so congested. You've got a lot of people on that 2.4. You can scroll on your phone. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, what I can do briefly, just, you know, keep it kind of short here. I'll share my screen. I know you took a look at some of our stuff at the show. So I'm not going to go, you know, too much into hardware. However, our routers can broadcast a 2.4 or a 5G network as well. We also have a new 5G router coming out in the next couple months that has upgraded Wi-Fi. So the 2.4 will be, I don't know the exact specs on it. I want to say, I don't think it's Wi-Fi 6, but it's going to be, you know, high performance. Wi-Fi on our new router. So with the form factor of our same, it'll be the same shape, same size, everything with, you know, cell connectivity, you know, and high-performance Wi-Fi. So potentially there's something there if you're looking at boards or if you want to, you know, get one to take apart and try out, you know, there might be something there. But in terms of SIM cards and data, you know, if you do end up looking at, you know, using cellular connectivity for your devices, you know, SIM cards, we only bill you based on data usage. So, you know, on average, mean, telemetry data is really, really small, right? It's megabytes, not less, correct?
Quan Gan: Yeah, very small.
Cole: Okay, gotcha. So we have, you know, we some IoT plans with AT&T and Verizon and T-Mobile as well. Costs as low as $1.75 a month for 10 megs, $2.25, and it's scalable. So we're month to month. So, you let's say you do have a month where you need to push a firmware update, right? And that's probably only a couple megs as well. It's probably not that big. So for those months where you do need to push that update, Update, we automatically roll you up these brackets based on where you land. So let's say the update's $99. You're billing me $3 here on T-Mobile. End of the month, we roll you back down here to $1 or $1.75 going forward. So that's kind of how our SIMs work and how our data works. We can simply sell you SIM cards as well. So if this is something you're looking at taking off on and you need SIM cards and data, you know who to call.
Quan Gan: On your Wi-Fi, do you have, I don't know what's the proper term, I guess, different territories of countries because they're on different bands. So let's say if we're selling to Europe or China or somewhere else, how does that work?
Cole: Yeah, so currently our data plans are just North America, Canada, Mexico. However, we are coming out with an eSIM pretty soon. You know, they should have more profiles and more connectivity for, you know, other countries. We'll see what we'll see kind of what happens, what's down the pipeline on it. But no, right now we're currently... Yeah, but a lot of times it's, you know, we're also coming out with a new eSIM, which is a physical SIM that has multiple carrier profiles on that one SIM. So what's great is that SIM will determine what carrier it's running on instead of the hardware. So it makes it really nice and easy.
Quan Gan: I'm actually talking more about the Wi-Fi things because, for example, different countries have different Wi-Fi channels that they allow. So my understanding is your current Wi-Fi board is specifically for North America, right?
Cole: Correct. Yeah, I don't know too much about that, to be honest. I can double-check and see what, you know, what kind of Wi-Fi channels we're running on. I know they are, they're fully customizable in the hard, you know, in the GUI of the router. run OpenWRT, so you can customize your own channels, what you need. Right, right, because 5G runs 48 and stuff like that. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so that's all customizable in the router itself, the hardware.
Quan Gan: Okay. So you guys are running OpenWRT. Did you make a custom fork of it, or is it... The vanilla OpenWRT that's configured to your carriers.
Cole: I believe it's vanilla. That would be a question for our back-end firmware engineers. Let me actually write that down.
Quan Gan: I can get back to you. The reason I ask, I'm more interested about that because since we already have a router built in, but the router doesn't have cell coverage, if we were to potentially remove that router and place yours in, that's where the space real estate can be exchanged versus adding yet another router-sized thing into our hardware.
Cole: Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. If we can do that, I'll double-check my engineers and see how our OpenWRT is wrote and implemented in our hardware. Is there certain things you need in the firmware?
Quan Gan: that why? Well, maybe not necessarily in the firmware, but at least in the configuration. Like, we'll probably have to have a specific SSID we broadcast, or maybe a specific channel that we want to lock on to.
Cole: Mm-hmm.
Quan Gan: You know, those are just, yeah, we want to have control over what happens on the Wi-Fi network.
Cole: Absolutely. Let me show you this real quick. So this is our cloud management portal. This is where you can log in, monitor, and manage all your hardware, all your routers, all your SIM cards. Everything's on one platform. Anything, Quan, you can do locally in the router, in the GUI, like SSID, like channel, like a firewall, or a whitelist, anything like that, you can do remotely from our portal with remote configurations. So our router checks in to our portal, checks in with our SQL database, right? And configuration files are, you CSVs, they're really small text files that we, you know, that we can, you know, change. So, for example, if you come over to routers, router and template config. So what you can do is actually in our portal make a configuration template, and that's a standardized set. It's like a configuration. You can push it to multiple routers in one go. So you can make multiple templates and push them to groups of routers if you have certain, you know, this country needs this or this place. You know, this has this. You can do that. Let's take a look. I pop into this, each router has an individual serial number, but if I pop in here and I go, you know, edit the running config, let's say just for this router, it's going to pull up the router here, and then you have all your different options, so WLAN, Basic Settings, 2.4, 5G, can enable it here. Here's where you have all the different options, so Access Point, Wireless Network Node, you can do BBBG, all that kind of stuff, SSIDs in here, BroadcastSID, if you want it to be a private, you can that here as well, Channel. We do offer all the available channels.
Quan Gan: I'm pretty sure there's more for what you're looking for in the firmware that we can allow, I think, you know, for just here. Yeah, so you have 1 through 11.
Cole: Okay, I see that. Yeah, is that what you're looking for, 1 through 11?
Quan Gan: I'm going to write that. Yeah, but different countries may also have some additional channels that I have to check. Okay. There might be like a channel 12 or 13 in certain countries.
Cole: Gotcha. Gotcha, gotcha, yep. Channel width, things like that. So that's all in here, security options, welcome to the password. So you can save this on an individual router and upload it to the router, as long as the router's got a cell connection or some kind of internet connection that can do it. You can also create a template, like I said, and that saves it to our cloud port, saves it to WTIWireless.com. From there, you can upload that template, push to all your routers or a select number of routers, you know how you need it. It's right over here under router templates. So that makes it really nice. Everything's remotely configurable. We also can do, you know, you can tunnel into the router. So we have private static IPs with carriers. So if you have an IP address, you can get directly into that router, you with a VPN and do stuff manually in there as well. Okay.
Quan Gan: What's the potential of accidentally bricking this and you change a configuration and never be able to ping it again?
Cole: Yep. It's very low. I actually used to work on the tech support side of things. We have over 100,000 routers out there in the field. It does happen. I've seen it a couple times. times. Sometimes, right, because nothing's perfect. But, you know, all you'd have to do, you know, a router has a, you know, reboot mode where you can put it in firmware load mode. You simply just have to reload the firmware back on the router. But you need physical access to the button. Correct. Yeah, you wouldn't need that if it comes down to it. I mean, it's extremely rare. And a lot of times it only happens if, you know, let's say the cell connection is like, you know, not great. And you decide to push an update, you know, then, and it disconnects from cell halfway through a flash or something like that. But there's always a risk. I mean, any device you're doing firmware stuff with, there's always a risk with that.
Quan Gan: But is there, I don't know how your OTA does, but in a lot of IoT devices, they have two partitions. So if it breaks halfway, then it will revert to the partition that was working so that it doesn't actually, like, kill itself.
Cole: Yeah, that I don't know. I wrote it down. I'm gonna double check for you and find out. I don't believe so. I know that. We do have a base-level firmware that runs on the router kind of in the background. I don't know exactly what that is, but it's like a flash mode where it's kind of the BIOS, I guess. I'm not too familiar with the OpenWRT side of things, but I know you can run that and get into it, you know, factory level, very low level, to be able to push an OpenWRT file or firmware on there. I might be that, but I'll double check and get back to you. But, yeah, that is something to think about because, you with SEL Connection, you never really know. Are there any other questions about the portal while I'm in here? Is there anything you'd want to see in the portal? From here, I mean, you can pop into your routers. You you can see data usage per day, per month, per hour. can set alert settings, that kind of thing. If a router goes up or down, you have that options in here as well. You know, signal strength, that kind of thing is all in here. If you ping and reboot the routers, it's all, you know, API as well. So if you wanted to implement all of our stuff in your portal, So to your platform, it's all SQL, it's all up in our Azure Cloud, so we have APIs for pretty much everything.
Quan Gan: Okay. Do you have any APIs you can share with me so I can just kind of do my own browsing on it?
Cole: Absolutely. Yeah. I think it's over here. API. Yeah. So get some information. And this actually isn't all of the APIs that are available. This is all the ones that I have. And I can send you, I can write you an email with this kind of stuff.
Quan Gan: are public, so. Okay.
Cole: Yeah. And see. Was there any API that you, like, off the top, know that you need?
Quan Gan: No. I mean, this is all rather new for me, so I'd have to just really do my own research to look at it from this dimension. And I have a couple of other consultant experts I'd like to run this through. Absolutely. Yeah.
Cole: Absolutely. Great. Awesome. Well, besides that, I mean, that kind of covers everything we do. I'm not necessarily looking at hardware, but SIMS, data plans, that kind of thing.
Quan Gan: We haven't ruled out hardware yet, just because if it could do what we wanted to do on the Wi-Fi side, then potentially removing that board and then putting this in would work. But if we were to do hardware, then part of it is how do we coordinate with our factory, which happens to be in China, to integrate it at the manufacturing level. But, you that's something I remember we were talking about, you maybe it's like NDAs or something. Yeah. Yeah.
Cole: Just to respect each other's IPs. Of course. That would be above me. That'd be our head engineers here, which, you know, if this is something, you know, you actually start to look into and get down the line, let me know. I'm more than happy to set up a meeting to see about that option. You know, with quantity, that's really where we, you know, willing to help. I know you said you had, what, couple thousand, like thousands of.
Quan Gan: We're in the high hundreds that are deployed, but we are growing year after year, so our market is after-school programs, so the number of schools in America that can show you what our total available market is. But I also have to just weigh out what is the engineering cost to enable this, and is it worth it to mitigate the current pain, or can the current pain be solved with a more economical model?
Cole: So those are just things I have to consider. Absolutely. I think it's a great idea. Well, awesome. Well, hey, thanks so much for your time, Quan. I really appreciate it. It's a great kind of intro meeting, kind of see what's going on. I'll keep you, you know, I'll probably touch base with you every five, six months, something like that down the line, and see kind of where you stand, where we stand.
Quan Gan: And then if, you know, you have an idea, and if you want to get some hardware to try out, I'm happy to get you going as well.
Cole: Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I appreciate it. Cole, would you be able to just give me a ballpark number of roughly what kind of volume, whether it's annual or total, makes it interesting for your engineers to lean in a little bit onto a project like this?
Cole: Yeah, I mean, I would say it would have to be probably eight, nine hundred to a thousand, you know, a year. Something like that is what we'd be looking at. To have to, yeah, to seriously think about it. Now, a conversation is always open, right? There's always open for a conversation, right? And then, you know, go from there. But yeah, I would probably say a thousand a year, something like that.
Quan Gan: Okay, sounds good. And then how long has your company been around?
Cole: We've been around for 30 years. We started out as a telecom company doing voice over IP phones. That was before me. And then about 14 years ago, we got into the wireless side doing, you know, cellular modems for voice over IP. Things like that. Started branching out all IoT. So any kind of sensors, monitors, access control, we're in ATMs, we're in vending machines, we're in anything you can think of that, you know, that needs IoT connectivity. Our SIMs are everywhere. Our SIMs are inside of credit card readers. Our SIMs are in, you know, a lot of different things. Oil rigs, solar. So, yeah, we're about, yeah.
Quan Gan: Are there any considerations, let's say, to satellite links eventually?
Cole: We have satellite link GPS right now, which is GPS in terms of doing something like with T-Mobile or Starlink. Okay. I can't think of anything right now. I doubt that. I know it is coming up, especially with IoT stuff. A lot of our markets, though, are inside and they need direct, you know, view.
Quan Gan: And do these expose location information?
Cole: Like, can you triangulate where the device is? You can, yes. Yep, with certain – if you have the GPS turned on and everything like that, it can.
Quan Gan: And that's built into the router?
Cole: Mm-hmm. Yeah, the router itself has a GPS post where you can screw on an antenna, an SMA antenna, or it's actually on the board itself. It's a little thing for a GPS antenna. You can also triangulate it through the SIMs. So we can do it through carriers as well. Verizon can use the cell towers based on where it's connected to what cell tower to get an idea of where it is.
Quan Gan: What is the approximate resolution you can get?
Cole: That I don't know.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Cole: That'd be interesting. for you.
Quan Gan: Mm-hmm. I'm also looking at this from a security and theft standpoint because we have had products, you know, stolen. So if in the field when it turns on, it basically pings home and we can triangulate roughly where it is and recover that. Absolutely. That's an interesting use case.
Cole: Yeah, I mean, it just needs to have power, right? You just got to power that router to have it check in. So triangulation. Yeah, we work a lot in ATMs. And ATMs are, you they get stolen all the time. The only issue with that is, the only issue with that is there's no power, right? If someone takes an ATM, they're like, hey, someone stole my ATM, can you track it down? It's like, well, if they plug it in, then yeah.
Quan Gan: Well, our product, it would be useless unplugged, whereas the ATM, it's more useful unplugged.
Cole: Exactly. So, yes, I'll get you that information resolution for the triangulation. So it's not a bad idea to have that, you know, being able to track it, you know, via GPS from satellite or, you from the cell tower as well.
Quan Gan: Yeah. We can't guarantee the product is outdoors. I think maybe most of it is indoors. So having cell triangulation is probably going to be more beneficial than GPS.
Cole: Okay, perfect. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I, all of our stuff's inside anyway. We're in ATMs, vending machines, it's all inside. So, okay, cool. Are there any other questions about anything?
Quan Gan: No, I think we're good. Yeah, this is just a good call to just kind of get it back into my... My memory, and then if something's interesting, I'll definitely reach out.
Cole: Yeah, let me know. If you have any questions about anything, send me an email. I'm going to find out all this information I have wrote for you, and I'll write you up an email probably by the end of the week with what we have. And yeah, if there's anything you need, please let me know.
Quan Gan: It was great meeting you.
Cole: And yeah, you do any other trade shows?
Quan Gan: You can be at any other trade shows this year. I mean, we do a lot of trade shows, but probably not where you'll end up.
Cole: It's usually educational conferences. Gotcha. Do you do the Amusement Expo?
Quan Gan: I've been there once, but I can see why that works for you because it's a lot of coin-off stuff.
Cole: Yeah, is. ATMs, coin-off stuff. Yeah, okay. Awesome. Well, hey, if you're at IAPA next year, I'm sure I'll see you there. But besides that, Quan, if you have anything else, just let me know. Okay. I appreciate the call. Thanks, Cole. Take care. Happy New Year. Bye-bye. You too, bye-bye.
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Steven Hanna: Yes, we can. Good morning. How are you guys doing?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Good. How are you? Doing well. Oh, I appreciate the setup.
Steven Hanna: got a long table, family style, and we got ZTAG ready to go. Y'all are literally ready to move. I appreciate that. Excellent. This will be good depending on how many people we have. I'm going to make sure that it's just not screaming loud while we're doing it so y'all are not, like, annoyed.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Okay.
Steven Hanna: All right.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: We are good. ready to go? Yep, I'll get my vote. We are good to go. All right.
Steven Hanna: Good morning, folks. How are you guys doing?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Good. Good. How are you?
Steven Hanna: Doing okay. Doing okay. Glad to see you're all hanging out together and got ZTAG ready. I'll try and orient this training to be as streamlined to your use case as possible. But before we jump into that, I'm just going to do a quick introduction for myself. My name is Steven. I'm one of the playmakers over at ZTAG. And basically, my role is to make sure that you're confident and comfortable moving forward with your system and using your system with your students and classes. With that being said, ZTAG is a pretty amazing system. I'm not sure how you guys kind of came across it. But, you know, from whatever avenues you guys came across it, I'm happy that it's in everyone's hands and we're able to actually utilize it. So, do you guys have any questions before we begin? And I would also love to know your names as well.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Questions? No questions. Well, we'll go around, Steven, with introductions. We don't have any questions as of right now, but I'm pretty sure.
Steven Hanna: When we do, we'll let you know. Perfect.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Start with Mr. Core. Hi, Core Hunter. Back here, Joshua Bryant. Sean Reynolds. Victoria Morris.
Steven Hanna: Excellent. Wonderful. Thank you all for being here. I appreciate it. So I'll just start off by asking one quick question of what's your use case for ZTAG? And this is a pretty open-ended question. Is it class use? Is it after-school use? Is it, like, recess time use? Just kind of letting me know, you know, how are you guys planning on using it?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: After-school. I'm sorry. It was totally open.
Steven Hanna: Don't worry. I'm sorry.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: It's for after-school use. Okay.
Steven Hanna: So after-school use, and what is our average group? size that we work with?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Uh, no group, they work on, this is, I'm so sorry, Steven. Listen, it's morning, don't worry, relax, we're all just getting started, going started with the day, that's fine. We work on a rotational schedule, and no group should have more than 15 kids per rotation, um, so we plan to come up, and when I say we, I mean Mr. Joshua, who's our education liaison, he'll come up with a rotation schedule, um, where, each group will interact with it maybe one time out of the week, because we're just now getting it going, and the school year ends in May, so, um, each group should be able to interact at least one time out of the week before we rotate it to a new school, um, but we also do plan to use it this summer.
Steven Hanna: Okay, and our group sizes, are they, like, around 20, more than 20, what's, what's our, what's our average there?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: About 15. 15, okay, perfect.
Steven Hanna: Um, That's fantastic, because you have 24 in your case, and then an additional two, just in case those go offline. With your size of after-school program, my next question would be, are you orienting your games more towards entertainment, education, or a foot in both?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Both. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Then I'm going to orient the training to be all-inclusive of every game, and go over quickly some settings on each of them. I will say, we have an AI recorder, so if you want to just focus on the experience and touching ZTAG, it's more worthwhile for you to do that. Take some quick notes, but if you need specific notes, you're going to get an email right after this meeting with all of the highlights and the really, really important stuff that we go over from the AI.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Okay, thank you. Yeah, so I'm more on that hands-on side, and I would love for you guys to be as well. And the first thing that I always like to do with this is ask...
Steven Hanna: Everybody do a quick observation exercise with it and just let me know what you see, because there's a lot of parts to that, and there's a lot of things, and we're just going to go over the parts one by one and digest it a little bit more easier than just, oh my goodness, there's so many moving parts here, what's going on. So in your case, I'm just going to ask you to take a look around, take a look in the little storage area. I know it's kind of hard for, you know, one side, but if you move it to the middle, there's going to be a few different things inside of there. The first thing that you'll see is that white router with that white cable.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Okay. Perfect.
Steven Hanna: We're going to put that right on top. Exactly. And then after, you should see two antennas that are like white pointy antennas.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Okay, hook them up to the router.
Steven Hanna: You can, but we're just going to take everything out first and just go over the items. And then there should be a little black like prong clip in there on the right.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Perfect.
Steven Hanna: And then you should have a little mini keyboard and then like a little USB cable as well.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Okay.
Steven Hanna: And is there anything else in that back storage area?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: No. Okay, perfect.
Steven Hanna: Then everything that you have on your table right now, out of all of those items, the only things you'll need to keep in the case are the black power cable, the white router, the clip and the two antennas. So that keyboard and the USB cable, we can put that to the side because we're not going to be using that for our training. That's more for troubleshooting if anything goes down and we need you to access it just to type things in. So you had mentioned that little, you had asked if we can plug in or turn in the router antennas. You can do that now. You can take those two and just screw them right onto that. And Yeah. So, Router? That's a plastic.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Might have to take, yeah, there's like a little white protector.
Steven Hanna: Might have to pop that off. And this is the startup sequence that you folks are going to go through whenever you start the system. Okay. We're going to basically start off with this router, get it set up, and then we're going to take that little black router clip.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Okay.
Steven Hanna: And on the backside of the router, there's this little, like, extended prong area. You're going to slide the fat end to the upper portion of the clip, of the router.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: This is like one of those puzzles that.
Steven Hanna: that. It's just a tactile experience. There's a fatter end, and it'll, like, go up into the...
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: This is taking four people. It's okay. I wasn't going to ask the light bulb joke, but I like the teamwork. Okay, like this? Into the hole? Per, per, well, it's... Man, I'm going to have to grab my system in a second.
Steven Hanna: I want to, because it clips to the top of the...
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: This doesn't clip. No? Okay, give me one second.
Steven Hanna: I'm just going to grab a system.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: I'm just going to pull it out. Slide. Slide. You should be pretty, so I guess you better know. Yeah. few minutes... fifth one... 12 7 7 9 10 10 I'll put this in the notes. Oh, I see. Are we pushing hard enough? I'm pushing hard. How much it costs, y'all? $9,700. There we go. That works for us, Steven. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: I'm going to abandon you guys. just had to get a system.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: You got a little lean to it. Let's see. So, this is what we're looking at?
Steven Hanna: Yep. That's their clip. Fat side.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Mm-hmm. Skinny side. Okay, how we get it? That's how we get it. Okay. It's not safe. Yo, let's go. Is it supposed to click, Steven?
Steven Hanna: You can slide it in. You might hear, like, a little, like, click in. But it's not, you're not putting it inside the holes, if that's what you're asking.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: I did. He's putting it right up on the here. But it's not clicking in. Let me unblur this as well. It's like, it just didn't click. So, how you're staying in. Thank Thank
Steven Hanna: So it's underneath, right?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Slide it up.
Steven Hanna: And it goes behind. Like, there's that little gap.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: You shouldn't have to press too hard. We're putting it in correctly, Steven, but it's not clicking.
Steven Hanna: It's not staying. It doesn't need to click.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: No, but it's not staying either. Like, the way you're holding yours, if we let ours go, it's going to fall out.
Steven Hanna: Okay. So, I'm going to lift up my case as well. I'm going to just put this over here. When you put it on your case, it goes on like this.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: I think the problem is we can hang it behind it. This is the beginning. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, it's fine. Okay. Nice.
Steven Hanna: Okay, cool. So, let's give me a second to put this to the side. From there, you're going to take your black power cable. And we're going to start from the bottom up. So, in the bottom right corner, you'll have that black power cable-like connector side. You're going to plug the black power cable in.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: And then plug it into the wall.
Steven Hanna: Then you're going to hit the red power button.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: And you should hear a beep, beep. Yep. And then... then... then...
Steven Hanna: then... then... then... then... And
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: There was a silver power button as well. Right here? Yes.
Steven Hanna: Is that blue? No.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: You want us to push it? Yes.
Steven Hanna: If the red one's on, then we're pressing the blue one next.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: You want us to push it, right? Push the silver button down so the blue light turns on. Now it's blue. Perfect.
Steven Hanna: So, those are the few steps that we're going to have to take. Number one, get that router on. Two, black power cable. Three, red power button. Four, silver. And I know it sounds clunky and like a lot, but once you start it up and do the sequence, those power buttons take literally a half a second to like push in. So, realistically, it's about a 15 to 20 second process to start it up. The system itself, as you can see, from the time you pressed it, like 30 seconds, and it turns on. next While that's turning on, what I'm going to ask you to do is please take that plexiglass lid and lift it a little bit just so that you can gain access to take a few of those devices out. When you're charging, we recommend that you keep this lid open a little bit just so that the heat gets out. It does get a little bit hot in there, and it is like a computer, so just kind of try and keep it open while you're charging. I'm going to ask everybody to take out one of those ZTAGGERS. should have 24 in the case. We're going to take one each, and we're going to just start to put them on our wrists. A few different ways to wear them. You can wear them like a regular watch. You can turn them around on the palm where it's facing forward, and it's like an Iron Man way to wear it. Or if you have littles and they're really tiny, you can move it up the forearm towards the elbow so that it's a little bit easier because sometimes those wrists are very tight.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: First thing that we're going to do once the watches are on, take a look at the lid.
Steven Hanna: little silver circle.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: I'm sorry.
Steven Hanna: You're good, because we're going to be laughing and playing some games in here, too. So we're going to be laughing more in a second. You're going to take a quick look at your watch. On the left side of the watch, there's a little, like, silver circle.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Does everybody see that? Yes. That's the magnetic charger.
Steven Hanna: So when you put it back in the dock, you're going to put it so that the charger locks in on the magnet. So there's a little white, there's a little circle inside the dock. Just match those holes up and drop it right in, and it magnetically locks. Above that little circle, there's a little red button. I would like all of you to press that little red button for me. Just press it once. You don't have to hold it. Just one tap. You'll hear a little beep on the device, and you should see the screen turn on in, like, two seconds. Does everybody see that? No.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Yeah, mine didn't come on here. Use my moving phones? What? Good. Good. Mine didn't go on. Okay, it's on now.
Steven Hanna: Everybody's watches are on?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Yes, I will. Okay.
Steven Hanna: So the first thing that we're going to do, take a look at the top right corner of your watch. You see that battery indicator?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Yep.
Steven Hanna: Each one of those little bars is the equivalent of one hour of gameplay. So when your kids come back to you and say, hey, my watch is dying. I got one bar left. You can tell them you still got an hour. You're fine. Okay.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: It'll save you.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, it'll save you the stress of everybody coming up and constantly saying, my watch is dying. They have an hour of gameplay on one bar. To the left of that battery indicator are a few random letters. Do you see that?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: To the left of that is a Wi-Fi signal bar. You see that?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Correct.
Steven Hanna: That means that your watches are communicating with that main computer in front of you. If you... you don't see those signal bars or those letters, chances are they might have just went to the bathroom or just got out of range of the system. Just tap the red button once, and you can do that right now on all of your watches, and that's the reset. So if you tap the red button once, it automatically resets it. It takes about 10 to 15 seconds for it to link back up. So that solves 90% of the connection issues. If they go to the bathroom, if they jump to the water fountain, if they go around the wall, that's just, you know, not in range of the device because a lot of walls, just have them come back within range, tap the red button once, and give it about 10, 15 seconds. That's our number one troubleshooting, and the most common issue you may run into is that. That's what I see with my students is they hit the water fountain, and then two or three come back, and they're like, hey, Mr. K, I'm not in, and I just have to tap it once and just add them back. So quick troubleshooting is that. The second step for troubleshooting, which you won't need, is to place it back on the dock. And then take it off and start it up again. So those are the two. It's basically just restart it one way. If that restart doesn't work, restart it the other way.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Gotcha. Our few games that we're going to jump into, before we do that, I'm going to say that we have a sequence to teach you how to model the games and behaviors.
Steven Hanna: Because each of these devices is like a phone, and every time they tap and hit and knuckle punch each other in the wrists like that, it's like the equivalent of somebody smashing an iPhone against each other. So I don't want you guys to run into these like screen breaks where we didn't go over how to model gameplay, and now you're running into like behavioral issues with taps and your screens are breaking. So I want to model in that right way, and we scaffold the skills necessary. The first game that we're going to start off with is a game called Red Light, Green Light. In order to get there, on your main screen, there's two options. One that says register your system and one that says... Let's skip for now. We're going to hit skip for now in the bottom right corner. It is a tap screen. You can tap. You can do, you know, and now we basically have our iPad style screen, right? You guys can see all of the games that we have in the top right corner. We have some white icons that are setting icons, and in the top left, you see, you know, a build or whatever it is. First thing that I'm going to do is ask you to take that sound down, and to do that in the top right corner, just hit that little volume indicator. And bring that slider down to like two or three. It should be on 10, but you guys are in a smaller space, so we're not going to blow our ears out and keep it lower. Second thing we're going to do is tap the red light, green light icon. Perfect. Now, at the start of the game, whoever's operating will be met with this screen. line. It's. It's a quick overview of red light, green light. However, the easiest way to say this is when the watch goes red, we're all going to stop. When the watch is green, we are all going to go. And where are we going to go, you might ask? For us, we're just going to flail our arms around and simulate that we're running. If you have a problem with your coworker and punch them in the face on the Zoom call, I'm turning off my AI and it's not recording anything after that. But, um, so please bear in mind your space, uh, hit the next button after that little screen that you see, or okay.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Close. Close, yes.
Steven Hanna: Sorry. Now on the left side, we're going to have all of the people that are in. So there should be four watches that are in, and each of those has a corresponding number to one of your devices.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: You'll see a ZTAGGER and then a number next to it at the bottom of your device. I don't see my number. Three. No, no, no. I'm 24. So it's showing two numbers that are not assigned to them.
Steven Hanna: Does that make sense? Yes, it does. To solve that, we're going to actually go back to the Home Menu. In the top left, there should be a, yes, and the Settings icon in the top right. Go to the Devices tab. And then hit Reset. Yes, please. And now all of your numbers are going to reset. You might have to tap it one more time. I don't know if it's actually resetting. Yeah, there you go. And now all of them will reset. So your numbers should flash again. And this is a quick way to solve that issue. Gotcha. So settings, devices, reset.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Perfect.
Steven Hanna: So that's actually a quick troubleshooting step. Sometimes they might duplicate a number, and if they come to you with that, quickest way to do it, settings, device, reset, takes 10 seconds. From this screen, you can basically select who's in the game. We're going to put everybody in the game, so what I'm going to ask you to do is hit Assign All. Now everybody moved over to the right, correct? Yeah. If you take a quick peek down at your watches, there's going to be an indicator of what game you will be playing in the next few seconds. Red light, green light. Hit the next button on the main screen.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: And now your devices should say get ready. Perfect.
Steven Hanna: What I always do is I do a camera. Countdown with my students and I count down from 10. When we say the number three, I want you to hit start game. So 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And the more you move, the more points you will get. This is one of those games where there is a reward for movement. However, there is risk involved as well.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: We didn't stop moving. Okay. So you guys got knocked out, right? And then whenever you guys want to stop, just hit that stop. We were just excited. In the bottom right, hit the stop game. Come on, honey.
Steven Hanna: And then at the end of the game, the winner will have a nice little rainbow LED on their watch. So in the back corner, we have our friend over there with the LED sequence going off, and it's got that rainbow. So what I always like to do is highlight this.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: I wasn't ready. Rematch, Steven.
Steven Hanna: That's fine. We're going to rematch, but I'm going to show you new settings that we can make it a little bit different.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: So go back. So you just got to watch it, right? Because it's not going to vibrate on anything.
Steven Hanna: Three different indicators of change. Haptic Vibration Feedback, Audio Cue, you'll hear a beep when it's about to change, and the visual LED. So it does vibrate.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: If you're wearing it over your shirt, you might not feel.
Steven Hanna: You're definitely not, and I have no idea then, and I'm at a loss. But for our next game, what we're going to do is we're going to go into our settings in our top right.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: And we have three different settings.
Steven Hanna: We have time. We're going to change. Change that to 60 seconds if it's not. Then we're going to go to Sensitivity, and that should be on Medium, I believe.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: It's on High. Oh, perfect.
Steven Hanna: They made it Factory High for you guys. Change that to Medium. We're making it a little bit easier for everybody in this game. And then you have a setting called Negative Scoring. We're going to make sure that that is checked. Make sure that there's a checkmark next to that. And we're going to save our settings. In this game, the sensitivity has been decreased, so it'll be a little bit more forgiving on the red light changes for you guys. We also have a new setting called Negative Scoring, which is if you're caught on red, instead of an elimination, you just lose 10 points, and you're still going to be in the game. So this is a really great game for the littles to be a little bit more casual with, make sure that they're playing. I teach 7 through 12. I'm ruthless, as my wife says. It's all elimination. elimination. Nation in 7 through 12. Like, it's competitive, you guys are playing sports, and I am making it as competitive as possible. But for my littles, I tried to do that once with six-year-olds, and she told me that I was a horrible human being, and I need to reevaluate my choices. So I say for, yeah, I say that with the caveat of you have the ability to change these settings in every game. Use it to your advantage with your groups.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: You might have to adapt some of the settings. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: For this game, we have no elimination. You'll lose 10 points, and we're only going to play for one minute, earn as many points as you can. You can hit that next button, and then you can start the game. I'm not going to do countdowns anymore. That's just the way that I like to start, and then you do it after that the way you want to do it.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: So, put the scores节bere ends. Let's So, what's as dumb guys can deal with I'm not This What's
Steven Hanna: And if you time it, if you kind of time it, it's like every five to seven seconds that it starts to change. So you can almost predict it as well. But halfway through the game, they start to go out of sequence. So some of you are going to be red and some of you are going to be green, not going to be the same at the same time. So you can't cheat off of your friends halfway through, basically.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: So you can't cheat off your I don't know. I got a rainbow. a big two. You got a big three. I got a rainbow.
Steven Hanna: Well done. Well done.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Here are all that.
Steven Hanna: So one thing that I would like to say is with this game, target running is a really important thing. And having people run from one location to another for red light, green light is the easiest way to run. So I operate in a half gym and I have them literally running from like basketball court end to mid court. So they run to mid court, they stop at mid court, they turn around, and they keep going back and forth. So that targeted running works very well. I will say I haven't had an issue with it yet, and I'll share that it works well. So that's red light, green light. Any questions on that?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: No, sorry. All right.
Steven Hanna: Let's jump back to our main menu. And you're going to go in the top left corner and hit back or the ZTAG logo.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Top left.
Steven Hanna: So. Okay. the bottom right.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Yeah. Go.
Steven Hanna: All right, so the next game that we're going to jump into is Pattern Match and Shape Match. Hi, I mean, we played in Orlando. So, Pattern Match and Shape Match is a really important game to model tagging behavior. What I'm going to ask one of you to do is go all the way to the back corner over there, because we're going to see just how far away these watches can communicate with each other. And what number are you all the way in the back?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: 23. Perfect.
Steven Hanna: So we're going to hit OK on this screen. We're going to add 23 to the right side.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Close time. Close time. And then we're going to add one other person.
Steven Hanna: So we're going to use one other person as a demo. Just get your number and add your selfie.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Close time. Close Close Close Close time. Close Close
Steven Hanna: And now there should be two on the right side and two on the left.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Uh-huh. Perfect.
Steven Hanna: We're going to hit next or get ready, whatever that bottom right one is. And now the two people that are in, their devices should say get ready. The other two should just say pattern match and shape match. Yep. So for the two people that are in, what I'm going to ask you to do is aim your watches towards each other and make sure that the faces are facing each other.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: I'm going to ask one of you at the computer to start the game for me.
Steven Hanna: And when this game starts, I want you to listen to how they're communicating, because they should be communicating, and take one step away from each other each time.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: See how far away they can actually communicate. Just make sure that the faces are aiming towards each other. The faces still got to be able to see each other. Okay. Let me go over Yeah, you stay there and Josh can go straight back.
Steven Hanna: So, I don't know how long that room is, but it sounds like they're still communicating.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: That's pretty far that they can tag each other at. So, I just want you to see how far away these guys can communicate with each other because when you're modeling this with your students, you're going to have to let them know you don't have to be right on top of each other. You can be at a distance for these to work. So, we're not going to be on top of each other trying to bash them together. We're going to be communicating at a distance and linking at a distance.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Yeah, do the Power Ranger poses, like, everything. Like, 100%.
Steven Hanna: Get the 90s He-Man back, like, the Masters of the Universe pose.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: If I'm on the Power Rangers pose, my favorite. The Captain Planet pose in there.
Steven Hanna: I don't know what else we got. I'm going through my 90s.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: But you can see just how far they communicate.
Steven Hanna: And for this type of game, what I'll say is, we'll play for 60 seconds. What I'm going to ask you to do is do three rounds of this. We're not going to do three. Okay. I say do three with your students because the first round, you're going to focus on matching colors. The second round, you focus on matching shapes. The third round, you combine the two for colors and shapes. So just scaffold the skills up to tag, basically.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Okay. Really important that they get the tagging mechanisms down because the next few games are pretty much chasing tag games.
Steven Hanna: And they need to know how the tags work before they start run tagging. Questions on? Pattern Match or Shape Match?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: No, sir. Okay. So you're going to have to be looking at each other's wrists, right? Yeah.
Steven Hanna: The whole goal of that game is to communicate what color you have or shape you have and match with anybody else in the group. So if we want to do it amongst four people, what we would do is just restart it and we're just going to focus on colors first. I'll say match your colors together. Link your watches together the same way that you were at a distance and they were facing each other. That is how you tag. Now, if you jump back to the main menu, we're going to jump into another game. Next game that we're going to play is a game called Keep Away. Now, this is where the competitive nature of everybody really does come out. You know what Keep Away is. One person is going They're have the digital ball. It's not a physical ball. And they have to avoid everybody else trying to steal the ball from them. Now, as a teacher, this doesn't fly with me because that's like 15 kids chasing one person. And that's not cool. So we've added multiple balls in so that there's micro games of keep away that can develop among three to four people at a time, as opposed to 14 people chasing one person. Jump into your settings in the top right corner.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: And you'll see that you can add multiple balls. There's a little check mark underneath each soccer ball that you can add. For this game, we're just going to start with one ball so that you can see how the mechanism works.
Steven Hanna: Because right after you finish with Pattern Match, you jump into this game. And this is the first tag game that you play. So we're going to have one ball, 60 seconds, and we're just going to start the game up and just play a... I like to It's a casual game of keep-away, but we all know what casual means amongst you folks at, you know, morning time, friends. Play keep-away for about 30 seconds, start the game up, and just see how the ball transitions from person to person when you tag.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Okay. Oh. You can just rip that cellophane wrapper off, too.
Steven Hanna: Thanks.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: I was checking up, too, but, I don't know what it's going to No. What do you say? Who got the ball, huh? Sure. Well, they ain't going to- Oh, you see how you can do it? No. I kind of just like click my wrist and point it. Hey, you're trying to throw it across the table. Instead of, yeah, instead of touching, just kind of like, Oh, you gave it to me. That's pretty cool. That's got a ball. That's people, yeah. It gets intense. You can imagine it getting crazy. You didn't want to get the ball and go to the restaurant. Well, that's what happens, and then people are like, where's the ball?
Steven Hanna: Where's the ball? The ball has been taken out of the room, taking a restroom break, you know? So, that's one way to play this game. The other way to play this game is a little bit more inclusive, and it's called Hot Potato. Now, we just reverse it. Instead of Keep Away, now it's Hot Potato. You don't want that ball. You got to give it to someone else as quick as possible. So, for your littles, littles, Hot Potato works well. Olders, Keep Away works well. Okay.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: What was the question?
Steven Hanna: I'm sorry, I interrupted you. Thank As far as the ball, it's like keep away.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: They're trying to keep the ball away from the other people, right?
Steven Hanna: Yep. Okay.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: So keep away, hold the ball.
Steven Hanna: Hot potato, give the ball.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Gotcha.
Steven Hanna: So I just go immediately hot potato with it. I don't even tell my youngers that I have keep away. I just say, hey, we're playing hot potato today. If you have a little flashing watch, you want to give it to someone as quick as possible.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: So is there a way, like if we were playing keep away, is there a way that you can like electronically steal the ball? You are. So in the way that you were tagging before, you were seeing how far away pattern match works. Uh-huh. That's how you tag.
Steven Hanna: So when you approach somebody, those watches are going to be face-to-face and you try and link your watch to their watch. And that's the digital steal. So you were digitally passing before. Now, if it's a digital steal, someone's going to be trying to come up next to you and link your watch together.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: So if they, if they, if it's not facing.
Steven Hanna: Will it still connect, like if a person runs and not That is one thing that you will run into because kids are pretty dang smart, and they'll figure out that they can block the sensors. Okay.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: That is called watch guarding, and it does happen.
Steven Hanna: What I will say with it is, have fun. No.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Oh, let me get the ball. Okay, so we just got to get the ball. let's try. Oh, now she got the ball. I don't have to stop. I'm trying to run. She got it. Okay, so we got it now. We did it now, Steven. Perfect.
Steven Hanna: She had to understand. No, that's why I don't want anyone taking notes. Just play. Have fun.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: I was sneaking away. see it. I see it. Okay, children. Come on, children. That one, okay. Come on, Sean. Okay, we get it.
Steven Hanna: In the same way y'all are laughing like this, it's amplified by 15 when you have your students. It is the exact same fun that you had that you didn't realize how much you're laughing. It's amped up. So, any questions on Keep Away Hot Potato?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: No.
Steven Hanna: All right, jump back to the main menu.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: In order for us to understand it.
Steven Hanna: No, listen, it's play through each game. That's why I'm like, listen, we're starting each game up, we're going to play through. Jump back to the main menu for me.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Next game we're going to jump into is a game called Rock, Paper, Scissors.
Steven Hanna: Now, this game is a little bit challenging because we're combining linguistics with color. Thank Thank ZTAG. So each of you is going to be on a different color team. Each of those teams corresponds to rock, paper, or scissors. Red is for rock, blue is for scissors, green is for paper. Okay. If you're on the red team, you're on rock, what team can you beat?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: You can beat scissors. Right.
Steven Hanna: So you're going after blue. And if you're on the blue team, what team can you beat?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: You can beat paper, which is great. So do you see how cognitively loading this is for us as adults?
Steven Hanna: Because we're like, all right, there's linguistics, color, and now tag involved. So we have three layers here where it gets very, very challenging. You can play rock, paper, scissors in this way, where rock chases scissors, scissors chases paper, paper chases rock. When you tag that person and beat them, you turn them to your team. So if one of you is scissors, and one of you is rock, and rock beats scissors, you turn Turn scissors onto your team, and the rock team gets Oh, okay.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Right.
Steven Hanna: And who wins the most at the end wins? So the team with the most people at the end wins.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Gotcha. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Now, that's challenging as heck to explain to anybody, even as adults. What I like to do is with my littles is say, we're just going to play a game of color tag. You just have to tag anybody else who's a different color, and everybody's going to get on the same team by the end. If we're all on the same team, we win. But if some of you are on blue, some of you are on red, some of you are on green, we all lose as a group. So we want to all win today. So I just use it as a quick ice-breaking game, learn how to tag, model a tag behavior. With your older kids, this can become one of the most intense games that you'll play with them. It gets very, very fast. You can start it up, see how it works, and then you'll see what I mean by for youngers, just engage. For olders, competitive. I will say, spread out throughout the room. When you start this game. It's going to be uneven. There's going to be two on one team and one and one on the other.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: And then hit start.
Steven Hanna: And then once you hit start, spread out throughout the room so you can simulate, you know, being a little bit further away from each other. This is also a social deduction game where you have to figure out what color the other team is.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: You can, and that's part of the game.
Steven Hanna: This is social deduction.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Oh, I beat you. Oh, because paper cover rocks. Shut the front door. He's in there. We got to play that one again. He's in there. Uh-uh. He's in there. Oh, we still go. But we can go. It's a game over. Okay, go back. I'll sign. We need some more people. You can add a few of them in.
Steven Hanna: Just turn the devices on and put them throughout the room if you want to simulate it.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: No! Oh, were people. I could have got you. Hey. You won again? We need more people. Yeah, that's what it is. We need more people. We need more people. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: So you can add a few more watches in to simulate more players if you would like here. But you definitely need more people because this is fun. Now, what I like to do is when I'm operating, I'm not just sitting behind the computer. I'm actually playing every game with my kids. It is the most fun.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Experience that I could have as a teacher. We're to let you know when you play. One second.
Steven Hanna: Hold on. Give us a look. Take your time. Did you turn her watch on at least?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Did you turn it on for her? Come here, Cam. Not yet.
Steven Hanna: Let's at least set her up. Come on. Hit that red button.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Hold it. Still got a vision. Put that on.
Steven Hanna: And since we have more people, what I'm going to do is I'm actually going to jump over to the game you'll probably play the most. We're going to go into a game called Zombie Tag next instead of Rock, Paper, Scissors.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Okay. to the game today. Oh, no, please. Didi? It's important, Michael. You got it. It's important. No doctor.
Steven Hanna: Just zombie on the left. No doctor. In this game, we've got two teams. The red team, you are the zombies. The green team, you are the humans. If you're on the red team, it is your job to link your watch together to a green team member and turn them into a zombie.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: If you link your watch to a green team, you'll turn them into a zombie.
Steven Hanna: On the green team, your goal is to avoid the red team. Now, what I'm going to do is we'll change the settings. In the top right corner, just hit the little settings icon. We're going to make it so that there's one zombie on randomized. So one of you is a zombie at the start. We're going to make it so that our time limit is 60 seconds because we're in a small space. And we're going to say number of tags before infection. We'll go with three. We'll give you three lives. This is where it gets competitive, right? This is where the settings are like, look, you can give them more lives or give them less lives. We're just in a small space, and I know that your lives are going to get taken very quickly. So I'm giving you a A little bit more of an opportunity to survive. Now, in the left corner, there should be a button to randomize. What I'm going to ask everybody to do is please step away from the system and try and hide out at the start of the game. I'm going to ask one person to hit that start game button and prepare for the zombie apocalypse. We want to be fair.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Yes. And no one, look at who the zombie is. And then next and start game. I think you're ready. All right. Oh, my gosh. Good luck. Have fun. Now, the first part is who is the zombie?
Steven Hanna: We have to figure that out. I know who the zombie is.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Right. What are we doing? What are we doing? Avoid the zombie. Wait. But what are you doing with the green people? A week of all the time. Do you link with a gray part? Right, I thought, who's touching me? She's, oh, I'm in safety. Say, give me a hug. She's about to give her a hug. No, I ain't hugging you. Don't give me a hug. Oh, man. They're cheating. They're cheating.'all can't run outside to play it real. So, you're going to kill everybody else. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: So, at the end of the game, the survivors will have a rainbow watch.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: If you are a survivor, please hold your hand up so we can cut you off.
Steven Hanna: We've got one survivor. Is there a way for the humans to turn the zombies back? That's with the doctor, the game we're doing next. So, I wanted to show you that one so you... Know how to start the game in Zombies, and you see the two roles, right? We have got Zombies, then we've got Humans. Now we're going to go back to the main menu, and we're going to hit the Zombie icon again, except we're going to add the Doctor this time.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: And then hit Zombies again, and then hit the Doctor icon. And we are not leaving outside of this room. Why? No, ma'am. You can make it every time. It's not big enough.
Steven Hanna: No, ma So, jump into the settings once more, because I want to show you two new things that we can do with the Doctor. Now, before, when you got tagged, your watch was flashing. While it was flashing, that was basically you turning into a zombie. If you find the Doctor, when your watch is flashing, you get a life back, and he prevents you from turning into Right. So, what we're going to do now is we're going to add one Doctor on random, one zombie on random. We're going to have 60 seconds as our time limit. limit.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Okay.
Steven Hanna: We're going to have two as our number of tags before infection. And now in the top right, there should be something called the doctor heal limit. We're going to set that to three. The doctor heal limit is how many times the doctor can save someone in the round. The reason we have a limit is because we need to make it balanced. If they're invulnerable and can save everyone the whole round, the humans will always win 100% of the time. So this is how you'll balance out the game. How many times a doctor can save someone? How many lives you have? Time? How many zombies at the start? How many doctors at the start? Same thing as before. Hit that randomized button for me and start spreading out. Now you'll notice that there's a doctor role.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: The doctor role has a white watch and it says doctor.
Steven Hanna: You can save a human or if a zombie gets close to you, you can stun the zombie and you'll see what Go ahead and start the game.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Start it. You said start? Yes. Go ahead.
Steven Hanna: You're playing this outside.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Inside the parking lot? Yeah, in the parking lot. It's too crazy in here. It's too small. Take it right.
Steven Hanna: And then just hit start game on the bottom right.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: So what's happening? So remember, avoid the zombie.
Steven Hanna: If you do lose your life, find the doctor.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: The doctor can give you a life back. I closed the door. I closed the closed closed I closed the closed door. door. door. door. I I closed the the the the I closed the the the Fathom, Fathom, Fathom, Fathom, Fathom, Fathom, Fathom, Fathom, Fathom, Fathom, Fathom, Fathom, Fathom, Fathom, Fathom, Fathom, Fathom, Fathom, Fathom, Fathom, Fathom, Fathom inhumanity. I done saved her twice. You sure did. How are you going to kill the doctor? She just killed me. I'm dead. I needed to be saved. You are one of four survivors. survived. But we won. Humans won. Humans win.
Steven Hanna: Congratulations, humans.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: I saw that red kill you.
Steven Hanna: So, any questions on zombie tag? Any questions on zombie tag with doctor?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Okay, so that was a workout, okay.
Steven Hanna: It is a little bit of a workout. You'd be surprised what 60 seconds running around does. Like, it's intense. I like it.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: I liked it.
Steven Hanna: So, that's Zombie Tag. Those are probably the main games that you guys are going to use in an after-school program. Now we're just going to touch right on over to the education side. We're not going to spend too much time on that because you'll probably spend more time on the entertainment side.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: than the education side. Just being truthful with you guys, you know.
Steven Hanna: Go back to our main menu, Home. And you have the option of choosing one of three games. Math Match, Sequence Train, or Word Wave. You can select any one, and then we'll just jump in.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Math Match. Perfect.
Steven Hanna: So, in the same way that we were matching colors and shapes earlier. Now we're going to solve math problems together.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: I use this game as a punishment game for my students because I cognitively load them and slow them down.
Steven Hanna: Do with what you will with this. Some of you will have questions on your watch, and some of you will have answers on your watch. Those questions can be addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division, depending on what you're trying to work with. If you go into your settings, you can select two operands, or not, just keep it as is, and then you can hit start game. The goal of this game is to communicate your math problem, find a partner with the answer to your math problem, and link your watch together. For example, someone has two plus two, someone's going to have the number four on their watch. They need to find each other and link their watch together and earn a match together. So, start this one up really quickly, just see how it kind of works out. This is a little bit of a challenging one for most students. Math skills are going down, et cetera, et cetera, America, blah, blah, blah, stats, you know. The numbers are going to stay the same for a little while, for probably 10 seconds, just because it wants to give everybody the to solve the problem. It'll change after 15 seconds.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: You 35. I still got one times nine. Come on. Four plus one. Four times one. Four plus one. Four plus one. Four times one. You still got five? Yeah. Three plus three. Two plus zero. Three plus three. Three plus three. Three plus three.
Steven Hanna: plus zero. So you can see it's getting cognitively loading now. It's like, okay. It's a lot. Three plus three. It's a lot of focusing.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Two plus three.
Steven Hanna: Yes, it is. Eight times zero.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: I got two. Four minus two. Anybody got zero? Anybody have zero? have zero now. Four minus two. Two. I got four minus two. You got two? Zero. Four minus two. Eight times zero. Four. Who has zero? divided by three. Four. Four. So why is giving these problems I don't have answers to? Four.
Steven Hanna: So it's going to assume that there's more people in the game, and that's why sometimes it won't have a one-to-one if you're playing
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: You can end the game whenever you want.
Steven Hanna: As long as you know how the game works, you can hit endgame in the bottom right.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: I got nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Mine just came over. I won, though. I take three.
Steven Hanna: So, that's Mavmash.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: It was of us.
Steven Hanna: I had a 25% change in each time. I'll take three. So, that's Mavmash. Any questions on that one?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: No, that's good. Okay. If you jump back to the main home menu, the next game that I'm going to jump into is WordWave.
Steven Hanna: We're going to do a quick one-minute game of that. This is a really cool flashcard game from English to a new language. We can do English to Spanish or English to French. And it's basically match an English native word to a target language word. So, Spanish, for example, if we're... We're going with Apple, Manzana, one person will have Manzana, one person will have Apple, and they have to match their criss-cross and communicate. What?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Yeah, it's like the same thing as math match, except with language instead now. So you're more than welcome to start this one up and see how it works.
Steven Hanna: It's a little tough to do with four people. You'll need about eight to ten people for it to work.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: What are doing off-range? You got to put two on Spanish, plus sign up for two. We will have to put paper sign on. Next. So much. Love. Love. Love. I want you to work. Love. Love, Sun, Sun, Sun, let me see, what you got? I can't, I don't know these words. Flower. Sun, flower, flower. Who got mandana? Hey, this look like flower. No, that might flower. Sun. I need, I need mandana. What is sun? Gato, cat, here. I don't know.
Steven Hanna: Sun is soul, S-O-L. No.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: No. Arbor is treat. Sleep. That's Libra. That's book. Here, look. Barn. Drink. You need to change. I don't I got Arbor again. No, drink. treat. Go to me. Drink. Lebar. Bebe. Bebe, that's treat. Don't me. Real sleep. Anybody got sleep? Libra. You got Libra? Anybody got Libra? Mom. B-Bur. B-Bur. Oh, it's B-Bur. It wouldn't be good. Happy New Year. Let's leave. I got a more game. Maybe if I had what you mean, I would smoke. I don't know. I can't do that game. I don't know none of these. it's okay.
Steven Hanna: I can't do this game either. I don't play this game at all. I just show it to everybody because you know it exists.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Why do you not have one English word?
Steven Hanna: So this works really well with about 10 people. If you have two strong Spanish speakers, it works very well in addition to that. You can hit end game, whatever you want on that.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Well, we don't end game. We don't stop this because this was all over the place.
Steven Hanna: You two can do it. And the last game that we'll jump into, if you go to the main menu, is called Sequence Train. And this is a counting game that we play with kids. It's basically one person has a number and one of you guys is going to have the next number and you have to tag that person so that you can count together.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Thank you. you. I don't, nothing, because we are both English. Choose your pattern that you're going to count by.
Steven Hanna: would go with real, natural, whatever the.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Natural is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
Steven Hanna: So for this game, one of you folks is going to have the starting flashing watch at zero or one. It's your goal to find the next person who has number two and give it to number two. Number two has to find number three and tag number three. Number three has to tag number four, four, five, five, six, and tag so on and so forth. So it's basically counting together. And you're looking to, what was the question? Are they running?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: For this one, you can set it up in two ways.
Steven Hanna: First way that a teacher came up with is half court, basically have the person with the watch. Who has flashing in the middle and everyone else is. So. in a circle around them, and that person in the middle goes, I need the next number. Who's got number two? Who's got number two? And the person on the outside tags in to their position. So it's tag in, tag out. So number two tags into the center, then they go, need number three. Who's got number three? Then three tags into the center, and they keep going in and out of the center of the circle.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Hard to envision by just on Zoom. It's like one of those, you can like see it in action and operate it yourself. I will say this is like a 50-50 if it succeeds in that way. I've seen like gym teachers do it well, and then I've tried it, and my wife is like, don't run that game ever again. You should not do that.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: So caveat of, I just want you folks to see how to start, how to count up together and basically use it as another educational foothold.
Steven Hanna: So just hit that start game, and then count up together. Tag the next number. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. So on and so forth. Okay.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Me and Josh are making a little better. I have two. I got three. I guess because we're so close, we'll fine. We have four. Since you're so close together, it's just going to ping off of each other. Six. It's just going up. You're killing. So we got to be far back on the circle. Right.
Steven Hanna: And that's why that circle kind of works. But listen, you guys don't have to go out of the way. Right.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Ten. I'm ten. living. I'm living. We need people in space.
Steven Hanna: Right. Yeah. This does require people in space.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Yeah. We get it, though. But. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Perfect. You can stop that game and then go to the main menu. Okay.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: What's this? I don't know. you want to. if you to. I don't Oh, Lord. I'm sorry, Steven. You don't have to apologize.
Steven Hanna: I'm having fun with you guys, all right?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: This is the most fun training I've done in like two months, and I'm with it.
Steven Hanna: Like, I wish all of my trainings were like this. This is great. Like, I feel like I'm sitting at the other side of the room with you guys, watching you play.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Like, I'm having a good time, right? We did not have to apologize.
Steven Hanna: Like I said, best training I've had in months. So, any questions on any of those games that we've gone over?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: No, sir. I do have one.
Steven Hanna: What's the longest time limit you can put on a game? I don't recommend going over 90 seconds to 120 seconds. At 60 seconds, it's just the perfect amount of time where you'll notice that they're just tired enough. They're just motivated enough, and it's just long enough to engage. So, So at two minutes, it becomes a little bit stale. Like pattern match, I don't even go over 60 seconds. Like that's three games, 60 seconds. After three minutes, we move on to something else. So depending on how long your class size is or how long your class period is or how long you have to work with them, 30 to 45 minutes, you'll probably get through about four to five different games.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: One break or, you know, I don't to say, I'm just going to have a V-10 phrase. All right. But when you're talking about something, like they can do V-10, they can do maybe put on, they can switch in there too. V-10, the switch. So that's what we got. The game system. That's it. They can go over there. Because I mean, there's eight games on there. Yeah. Yeah. Do the games update over time or do we have to do a main?
Steven Hanna: If you have access to Wi-Fi, we basically send out a nice email that says, hey, new things are released. Connect to Wi-Fi, go here and hit update. If that doesn't work. And your tech department is a pain, like some are, just let us know, and I will personally write you an update and a memory card and just ship it to you. We update probably, I want to say, once or twice a year is where we're at right now. We release one game a year, and then we do an update once a year. So two updates a year, every six months, kind of.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Nothing that's a pain for you guys.
Steven Hanna: And the whole system can operate offline, so you don't need Wi-Fi to operate.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Okay. Any questions on any of the other games? No, sir. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Before you put these watches away, I just want to show you one of the quick features that will save you guys. In the top right corner, there's a little white U-turn arrow. Tap that, and then get prepared for loud noises.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: So of the you're give one. baby Good think There's ZTAG should be beeping now.
Steven Hanna: Did you guys turn them off?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Well, when I put it on short, I think it turned it off.
Steven Hanna: Okay, so turn one of them on, and I just want you to see what this feature does, because this is a recall feature. If somebody walks away with one of these at the end of the day, and they just forget it, you could tap this little arrow, and it's basically an alarm that goes off on that watch that says, return the ZTAGGER, and it flashes, beeps, and it's obnoxious.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Oh, okay.
Steven Hanna: Tap the red button on the side once to turn it off.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: So what would happen if they turned the ZTAGGER off? Just tap it once, you'll see. No, sir, like if we had, let's say a student walked away with one of the devices, and they turned it off, we would not be able to recall it, correct?
Steven Hanna: Correct, but they're not going to know where that button is, and that's the whole reason why it's behind the silver thing, because the silver thing is the most objective. you. do a Objectively eye-catching thing. So they'd be drawn to that, and we obscure that behind that little rubber barrier, so it's almost not even seen on the side. So that's the recall feature. Last thing to do, put those devices on the little charge dock, match up that little silver magnet charger, and once you put it on the magnet charger, you will see that light turn on. You will hear an audio indicator that you successfully got it in, and it's locked in, and it should be right in that dock, correct? If it's not perfectly seated, you might have to jiggle it slightly, but press it down and make sure that it's connected perfectly.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: There you go.
Steven Hanna: Green is obviously done charging. Red is needing to charge more. For our shutdown. shutdown. This is one of the most important processes. And the last one, since we started from the bottom up, as far as our turn-on goes, we're going to start from the top down. First thing that we're going to do, take off that white router, take off the antennas and unscrew them.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: You can take that black router clip and put it in the storage area it was in at the start. And you're going to then place that router in the storage area that it was in at the start.
Steven Hanna: Same thing with the antennas, make sure that they're together. The next thing that we're going to do is in the top right corner, there's a power button indicator on the screen.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Mm-hmm.-hmm. Mm You're going to tap that for me, and then you're going to hit shut down.
Steven Hanna: Now it should take about five seconds. That screen should turn off. After the screen turns off, you're going to work your way down the right side of the system and hit that silver button, and that blue light should turn off. Then you're going to hit that red light.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Now the bottom is turned off.
Steven Hanna: Take your black power cable, unplug it from the system, unplug it from the wall.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: I have a question. So are they still charging, or it doesn't charge unless it's powered up, correct?
Steven Hanna: So if you wanted to just charge it, just hit that red power button. Plug it in and hit the red power button if you want to just charge. If you want to turn the whole system on, that's when you're going to hit that silver button too. So silver is for the top, the red button is for the charger.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: That we used this for.
Steven Hanna: That little keyboard?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Yes.
Steven Hanna: So you're going to take that keyboard, you're going to take that little USB-C cable, you're going to find a little probable Ziploc bag, and you're going to write ZTAG on it, and then you're going to put it in the junk drawer that everybody says doesn't exist, but we all know absolutely does exist. I don't know if I'm throwing anyone under the bus here, but it's like a common battle that I have where they're like, it's in the drawer, and I'm like, the junk drawer? And they're like, it's not junk. I'm like, okay. That is going to be for troubleshooting in case that we ever need you to just type some stuff into your system for us that we can access it. So you probably will never use that. We just keep it in there as a fail-safe.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Hence, junk drawer. That may or may not exist. Alleged junk drawer, I'll say it that way.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: The alleged junk drawer.
Steven Hanna: And now, once you have all of those cables in the back, you have your black power cable, you have your router, router clip, two little antennas, you can close that top portion of the lid. And make sure that there is no resistance when you close that and latch it down.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Yeah, push one more time. Now your system has wheels.
Steven Hanna: Please save your back. On the other back side of that, there's a little clip that you can pull out a handle for and roll it around with. Please use it. It's like 35 pounds. Save your backs.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Gotcha.
Steven Hanna: Any questions for me at this point, folks?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: No, Steven, you have done an excellent job.
Steven Hanna: Really, it was you guys just playing. I was just telling you how to play. Right.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: An – Yeah.
Steven Hanna: And the same energy that you guys have is like really encouraging to know that you're bringing that to your kids. I know what's going to happen once you leave from here.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Like it's the same fun that you had here.
Steven Hanna: So I'm personally really excited to see what you guys do with this. And I'm happy in a year to support you folks in any way possible. So from here, what I'll do is I'll send two emails. The first email is going to be the AI email that's going to say, hey, this is what we went over. Here's the recording. Refer to it. Put it in the junk drawer in your email. I don't know. That also exists. And then the second email is just going to be all of the settings that I personally use. That will be more of your like kind of direct use because it's just streamlined for, you know, okay, bullet pointed. That's a setting. That's a setting. That's a setting. I know what I'm doing. So one nonsense email from AI, one legitimate email from me. What I am going to ask, if you guys can please just type in the names of everybody into the chat, because I have to just say, you guys are all certified now on our. Back-end system. What that means is you guys have unlocked access to me, and I support you at any time, 24-7, basically. Just yes is the answer of any support you guys might need. So back-end stuff for me. I appreciate it.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Hello, Lynn. Okay. I can't see. I can speak for a bag, but not close up. It's good. No space. Okay, excellent.
Steven Hanna: If you folks need anything from me, you'll have my phone number and email, direct contact. I respond to texts pretty quick. Any questions at all?
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: No.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Thank you so much for taking the time with me. Today, I'm sorry I went over, but you guys are having fun, and I'm not going to kill fun like my wife says I do for my students. So I'm an earth science teacher, so she's very harsh. She's K-6, and I'm 7-12. So I'm like a warden, and she's like, you know, the nice person that everyone loves.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: All right, folks, take care.
Steven Hanna: Have a wonderful day, and you'll just get those two emails from me.
Volunteers of America LightHouse Program: Anything, reach out at all, okay? Thank you. Have a wonderful day, guys.
Steven Hanna: Take care. Okay.
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Steven Hanna: Hey there, folks. Good morning.
ruben.baeza: Hi, good morning. How are guys doing?
Steven Hanna: Good, good.
ruben.baeza: Running around, but I have a team here.
Steven Hanna: Excellent. Well, we're going be playing games today at the start of the day, so.
ruben.baeza: Awesome, awesome. Let me bring that little.
Steven Hanna: You say it's little, but it's like 35 pounds, so it's a little bit more than little, you know? Yeah, yeah.
ruben.baeza: It's heavy. Slightly larger than your average second grader or first grader, I guess.
Steven Hanna: Thank you. Thank Thank Thank Thank The good thing is that it does have wheels and it does have a handle. you do need to roll it around, save your backs and use those wheels.
ruben.baeza: All right. So my other two members are coming in right now. Give them a few minutes.
Steven Hanna: Take our time. How's your new year going? Doing pretty good.
ruben.baeza: Doing pretty good. Thank you for asking.
Steven Hanna: Nice. Excellent.
ruben.baeza: Part of it? Yeah. All right. Good morning. Good morning. Hello, everybody.
Steven Hanna: Good morning. Good morning. Thank you guys for joining me today. I do appreciate you being here. Just to kind of quickly go over who I am. My name is Steven. I'm one of the Playmaker developers, which roughly translates to I'm a trainer for teachers on how to use the ZTAG system. So our goals for today are to go over the system. system. the system. system. for go over the Thank Make it totally comprehensible and scaffold a bunch of skills that you guys are going to need to just run the system. A little bit about myself. I'm a teacher over in New York. I teach 7 through 12. My wife teaches K through 6. As far as ZTAG goes, we're two of the content developers for that, and we've created a curriculum for ZTAG. So we're kind of brought on board as these neat little specialists to make sure that you guys are comfortable. And if there's anything that you're not comfortable with, I'm your kind of go-to point of contact to make sure that you can get a quick response, a right response, and get you back online as soon as possible should you need to get back online. Any questions on me before we begin?
ruben.baeza: Nope. think we're clear. Thanks, Of course.
Steven Hanna: I do know that there are multiple people on the sides of you, but I cannot see them. So if you guys could just say hello or just jump into frame so I can see hello. I'm James.
ruben.baeza: Hey, everybody.
Steven Hanna: Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. you. Hi, everyone.
ruben.baeza: Hello.
Steven Hanna: Hello. Good morning. Great to see everybody. So the first thing that I like to do with the system is just open it up, obviously, which you guys have done. I know that you probably have that top portion open. And we're just going to take a quick peek into the little back storage area and take all of that fun stuff out of that back storage area. So there should be some USB cable, a little keyboard, and then a few other things, some bubble wrap. We should have a black power cable. There's a white router, a bunch of stuff in that back area. So once you have everything out, we'll move on to our startup sequence and just turning the system on.
ruben.baeza: Okay.
Steven Hanna: You can take the keyboard and the little USB cable and put that to the side. We're not going to be using that today. That's going to be for troubleshooting, kind of, you know, down the line if something needs to be quickly typed in. The first thing that we're going to do... Look for the white router box. It's pretty clear, straightforward. We're going to take that white router box, put it on top of that little plexiglass. We're going to take the two white antennas and then attach them to that little router box. So there should be two little plastic pin or plastic covers on the little screw-on points. Once you have those antennas in, you're going to look for this little claw-looking black clip.
ruben.baeza: White? Is it white? So what black clip are we looking at? So it's like this little four-pronged black clip in the storage area. Yes.
Steven Hanna: So there's a fat end and a skinny end. We're going to take the fat end and hook it into the back of the router. And I know that sounds weird to say, but once it's hooked... Right underneath it?
ruben.baeza: Yeah, the fadding goes into the router. Turn it around. I think it goes maybe like this. Or maybe the fatter one. It goes on the underside of the back end. The underside of the back end.
Steven Hanna: And if I can pull up a picture, let me see.
ruben.baeza: So how would this end go in?
Steven Hanna: I'm going to just jump to the other side of my office, and I'm going to grab a system. And I'm just going to show, just give me one second. I just got to run to the other side of office and grab it.
ruben.baeza: Thank you. So I have figured it out. That's weird. Yes, we're going to learn how to use this, baby. Do you want me to start? Well, we already have a copy. Okay. You can discard it. There we go. Where does this go? Oh, I got it? You know, I think. Yeah? I mean, it just comes out. It's not. Okay. So I'm assuming that goes either there or up there for the signal. Okay. What? Do you got it? Okay. Do you go? Okay. Woo. Thank
Steven Hanna: So, we've got this, let me unblur. We've got this back end over here. We've got that fat router end clip over there, right on the back side. Oh, yeah, got it.
ruben.baeza: Okay, yeah, we got it.
Steven Hanna: Perfect. Then on the system, you're going to put it right on the top end. So, rests. Just like that.
ruben.baeza: Okay, got it. All right.
Steven Hanna: right. All right. Next step, black power cable, bottom right area of the system. There's a little connector point for it. And then once that's in, we're going to work our way up. There's a little red switch. You're going to press that once the power's on.
ruben.baeza: There's a reach. There's There's a reach.
Steven Hanna: There's a reach.
ruben.baeza: There's reach. There's Is that connection, is it under the little suitcase, or?
Steven Hanna: No, there's like a little three-prong area to plug it in from the bottom right corner. Oh, got it.
ruben.baeza: Because we still have bubble wrap.
Steven Hanna: yeah. Take all the bubble wrap out. Yeah, it might be blocking a few little access points that we might need. Yeah, so the next step is once that black power cable is in, you're going to hit the red switch right above it. I you're going to hear the system go beep-beep, and the bottom portion of the system will turn on. You see that?
ruben.baeza: Perfect.
Steven Hanna: There should be like a blue ambient light on the bottom as well, correct?
ruben.baeza: We see all the controllers with red. Red or green, actually.
Steven Hanna: They should be red, sorry. Blue is on the other red and a blue light on the bottom of them. Perfect. Okay. Excellent. That means that the bottom portion of the case is on. After the bottom portion of the case is on, there's a silver button right above that red button. Press the silver button, and it should have a blue ring light around it. That'll indicate that it's on.
ruben.baeza: There are a couple of them that are not red.
Steven Hanna: So the few of them that aren't red, if they don't have any LEDs on the side, just try and push them down a little bit further into the case. There's a magnetic charger on the bottom, which keeps them locked in. Sometimes during transit, they come a little... A bit loose, they lose like a centimeter of a connection. What we're just going to try and do is make sure that all of them at least show that red LED indicator that they're charging. And while it is charging, just make sure the LED plexiglass is up just like a little bit, just so that the heat can come out because it does generate some heat with all of those things charging at the same time. So just make sure you have that plexiglass open a bit. Now, on the main screen, if your system is on, you should see Welcome to Zeus.
ruben.baeza: Yes. Okay.
Steven Hanna: It says register or skip for now on the bottom right. We're going to tap skip for now.
ruben.baeza: Okay. And now we should be directly at our home screen where you should see eight different games, correct?
Steven Hanna: Excellent. Before we jump into the games, I'm going to ask you all to take a few of those ZTAGGERS out of the magnetic charging dock, because I want you all to just see what they are, turn them on, understand, you know, how they kind of communicate with each other. On the left-hand side of the ZTAGGER, there is a red button. I'm going to ask you all to press that red button for me. You should hear it turn on, it'll beep. You'll hear a beep, and then it should have a ZTAGG logo on the screen. Does everybody see that?
ruben.baeza: Yep. Excellent.
Steven Hanna: Top right corner, the first thing to look out for. Do you see those little battery indicators?
ruben.baeza: Yep.
Steven Hanna: Each of those bars represents one hour of gameplay. So when people are coming back to you telling you, hey, my battery is dying, that's not the case. They still have an hour of gameplay. So you don't have to come. Constantly move these back and forth. Four hours of active gameplay time, about 30 to 45 minutes to recharge from zero to full. From there, once your device is on, you have the strap. You can wear it like a regular watch. You can wear it like Iron Man on your palm. And for the little littles who have really tiny wrists, we move it up their forearm just a little bit so that it goes past the wrist and it actually stays on the arm for attention's sake. So three different ways that I like to show people how to wear it. If you can come up with more, great. But those are the three most common. Now that we have our devices on, what we're going to do is take a look at our main screen and see our few different games. Before we jump into those, we're going to turn down the volume because I know you're indoors and I'm not going to blast your ears at 930 in the morning. So there's a little volume indicator in the top right. Tap that and slide it down to like one or two so it's not going to be super loud.
ruben.baeza: That or still it's least
Steven Hanna: Once you're good on that, I have a sequence of games that I like to teach people because it scaffolds really great skills for the chase games, and it makes it easier for you guys just to understand, like, okay, we're starting off here and we're ending with chase. So we start off with a game called Red Light, Green Light. You can tap the Red Light, Green Light icon on the home menu. And at every single game, or at the start of every single game, you're going to see a brief instruction screen just for any operator who might need a refresher on how things work. The easiest way to explain Red Light, Green Light for us is on your device, your device will change from red to green. When it's red, we're going to stop. When it's green, we're going to go. Where are we going to go? Since you're in an enclosed space, we're going to move our arms around. We're just going to simulate that we're running. We're not going to actually run. But if we're in a gym, we'd be going back and forth from line to line.
ruben.baeza: For this one, you can notice that our three watches are up and running, but we have one that still has the home screen, like it didn't pick up.
Steven Hanna: Okay, so on your screen right now, you should have that little like bullet point menu that says, you know, what the game is.
ruben.baeza: Yeah. Hit close on that.
Steven Hanna: On the left-hand side, does it show three or four devices?
ruben.baeza: It shows three. Okay.
Steven Hanna: On the one that's not on, hit the red button on the side once. We're going to reset that device. It's one tap, and it should go to reset, and then it should take about 10 seconds for it to reconnect. We're just going to give it a few seconds and make sure that her watch or their watch comes back online, and it goes on to the available. it. Okay.
ruben.baeza: Yeah, it's still on the home screen.
Steven Hanna: Okay, on that specific watch, in the top right corner, next to the batteries, do you see like a Wi-Fi signal bar or anything?
ruben.baeza: It says like the 10?
Steven Hanna: It says 10 to the left of that.
ruben.baeza: No, she doesn't have the... No, the Wi-Fi, no. There's no little Wi-Fi screen. Put that watch back on the charger and take one more watch out. Wow. probably needs a reset. Really? Got it, Ness. Come on. Jeez. Hey, it's a good idea to bring it up.
Steven Hanna: If it's weird and doesn't look right, that's a good idea to bring it up.
ruben.baeza: So do we turn it off and then put it back on the docking station?
Steven Hanna: Two ways to turn them off. The easiest way, there's that magnet side with that huge circle. Drop it right in line with that circle in the dock and it'll... Automatically turn off and start to charge, or the second way, double tap the red button.
ruben.baeza: There we go. I'm on. Okay.
Steven Hanna: So now on the left-hand side, we should have four devices that says available, correct? Yes.
ruben.baeza: Perfect.
Steven Hanna: We're going to assign all, and we're going to add them to the right side of the screen.
ruben.baeza: Steven, sorry, I do have a quick question, because my watch, it shows ZTAGGER 01, but like on the available, on the screen, on the box, it says ZTAGGER 02. So, I mean, I'm connected.
Steven Hanna: So the numbers are not associated at a one-to-one. Is that what you're saying? Okay.
ruben.baeza: Yeah. Okay. That's my, that was my question. Okay.
Steven Hanna: There is a quick way to fix that, but I, I'm going to, do you want to fix that first, or do you want to start the game and see how it works? got started.
ruben.baeza: None of them are aligned, so that's why.
Steven Hanna: Okay, then we're going to just start the game up. You're going to hit next on that screen.
ruben.baeza: Do we do a sign all? You can hit assign all.
Steven Hanna: And then hit next. And then you should have a loading screen, and on your devices, it should say get ready.
ruben.baeza: Just take a quick peek down at your watches. Yeah, ready. Perfect.
Steven Hanna: What I like to do with everybody is give everyone a countdown. When I say the number three, I want you to start the game. This is red light, green light. Please remember, red, stop, green, go. If you do punch one of your coworkers in the face on this meeting, I'm ending the recording, and I didn't see anything. Wow.
ruben.baeza: It does happen, I guess.
Steven Hanna: Listen, I've had a few very fun, I've had people do fun stuff. I'll just say that. So when I say the number three, just hit the start game button, and you'll see why we do a countdown. In five, four, three... ... ... Three, two, one. Go. And we're on the highest sensitivity right now, so it's going to catch you guys really quickly.
ruben.baeza: Warning. Warning. You're out. Red light's course. Why are we out? How was I out?
Steven Hanna: The red light didn't like you. I know.
ruben.baeza: Mine says game over. Me too.
Steven Hanna: So notice how you're eliminated, and notice how quickly that game went by, right? We actually have a setting so that doesn't happen, and what we're going to do is jump into that. Hit the stop game on the bottom right.
ruben.baeza: Stop game over, Mitch. But how do I, I mean, I didn't, was there a thing that says stop, go, like red, go?
Steven Hanna: So there's three different levels of feedback. The first level is the watch changes on the LED side. It also changes on the watch face. It goes from red to green. There's vibrational haptic feedback, and there's an audio. Thank We don't have the audio up too high because you're indoors. And like I said, it's just extremely loud. And this is kind of annoying in the morning. So hearing it over and over just might be a little overbearing. What we're going to do is going to the settings. If you see a little cog in the top right corner, is it on that screen?
ruben.baeza: On the watch or on the screen? On the main screen. No, just that.
Steven Hanna: not, we're going to go back one screen.
ruben.baeza: So go back.
Steven Hanna: And then that little cog in the top right corner should appear. We're going to hit that.
ruben.baeza: Now we see three different settings.
Steven Hanna: We see setting, time. We're going to change that to 60 seconds. Then we should see sensitivity. Is that on medium or high?
ruben.baeza: High. Okay, perfect.
Steven Hanna: So the factory sets it to high to default. So for your training, you see the upper extreme of it. We're going to change it to lower, medium, whichever you folks prefer.
ruben.baeza: You don't know. I'm not議ating right now, sure. Right
Steven Hanna: And then the last setting is something called Negative Scoring. This means if you're caught on red, instead of getting knocked out like you guys were before, if you get caught, you'll just lose a few points. So this is a really good setting that I always kind of have checkmarked on. You're going to want to put that checkmark there. And then hit Save Settings. Now we're going to start the game up again, so hit Next and go to the next screen. And start the game whenever you're ready. And you'll see the difference in this game is that everybody will always be playing. And this is what I always do with my littles. Once I reach 6th, 7th grade, I start to make it competitive. But K through 5 is pretty much everybody's always playing all the time. All engagement. So hit Start Game. And then when it goes red, you'll see that you'll just lose a few points now instead of getting eliminated. Halfway through the game, the colors go out of sequence. one. time. about. We'll So some of you will be red and some of you will be green at different points of time. So you can no longer cheat off of your friends while you're walking or running next to them.
ruben.baeza: Gender is being very competitive. It gets very competitive. Giving you a hint that it's coming, the red is coming.
Steven Hanna: Yes. So those are the three levels of feedback. It's haptic, audio, and visual. And then at the end of the game, the person who earns the most points will have a rainbow watch. And you'll see their LEDs kind of going in this cool little pattern sequence.
ruben.baeza: Game over. Oh, oh, I won.
Steven Hanna: So you'll have the rainbows going off on the side and it's like a... Cool little Easter egg, you know, and what I do here is I say, if you have the rainbow watch, hold it up so that everybody can see, and then I kind of use it as a spring point to say, this is what you can earn at the end of the game.
ruben.baeza: Exactly.
Steven Hanna: So that's Red Light Greenlight. Any questions on Red Light Greenlight?
ruben.baeza: No.
Steven Hanna: Okay, we're going to go back, and we're going to go back to the home menu and jump into another game. So if you can navigate your way back to those game icons. We're going to hit Pattern Match next. And just let me know when you guys get there.
ruben.baeza: Yeah. Pattern Match? Yes.
Steven Hanna: So for Pattern Match, we basically describe this game as Uno, except instead of matching a number, you're matching a shape. So same colors, matching those, except now we're matching shapes as well. So I do three different games of this. I do the first game focusing on matching your color. Together, the second game matching your shape together, and the third game matching your color and shape together to really reinforce it. Now, how we match is we link our watches face-to-face, and how we do that is by holding them at a distance but facing each other. So the faces have to be leaning into each other. They don't have to be up here like this, they don't have to be side-to-side like that, face-to-face. So this game is a reinforcer of how to earn a tag, and how to get a match together, because the next games are all tagging and chasing games. So for this one, we're not going to swap any settings just yet. We're going to add each other in, and go to the next screen, and before it says start match, The goal of this game for all of you is to find a color match amongst your group. There's only four of you, so it's going to be pretty simple. And then link your watches together to earn points. So this is where we reinforce how to tag. And this is actually a great game to make sure that you protect the longevity of these guys. Because you're going to see the kids kind of smacking them together like this over and over. And every smack, every one of these smacks is basically like a phone dropping. So face-to-face, that's how the tag works. Focus on matching your color. When you do this in a group of 20, it sounds insane, and it sounds like kids are screaming colors. And that's literally what it is. So they will be screaming colors. Their goal is to find their match amongst the group and link a watch together. When you're ready, you can hit the start game button. Since you're so close.
ruben.baeza: The watch on the. Wrist, can it be upside down if they match it or no? Yeah, it could be upside down.
Steven Hanna: So as long as those faces are communicating. So if it's like this on the wrist, I even tell my kids, hey, if you want to wear like Iron Man and do the palm thing, you can do that too. A lot of the kids just prefer regular watch though. It's the simplest and honestly, they usually just turn their hand like this because this turning mechanism also sends a signal more efficiently rather than like holding it out and aiming it at everybody. It's kind of like you're crisscrossing signals. So there's a level of intent with that like turn and tag. So if I have a triangle, I have find your triangle. And this is where you can say colors, shapes. Like I do this in a set of three. do colors, then shapes, then I combine it. You guys do whatever you want at the start. Hit that start button whenever you're ready. You're really close. So you might want to move around just a little bit, take a step or two or slide away from each other. Just so that there's like baby tours. We're three feet of distance.
ruben.baeza: Yellow's our name. What are we doing? Square. You're trying. Oh, here we go. Star. Triangle. Star. Circle. No. Star. Oh, Star. No. Circle. Star. Triangle. Square. Triangle. Triangle. Square. No, I'm like, circle. Star. You're a triangle. Square. Square. Square. Triangle. Circle. Circle. Circle. Circle. Now switch it up to colors- Just start saying colors instead.
Steven Hanna: I'm not going to make you stop and go. I'm just gonna say, since you focused on shapes, now we're gonna focus on colors.
ruben.baeza: yellow blue red red red yellow blue red yellow blue yellow yellow square red this is hard it is challenging it is blue blue yellow yellow yellow yellow yellow green red red green you know what because we're all here i think it's kind of like it's making it Yes, it is.
Steven Hanna: You're picking up cross signals.
ruben.baeza: Yes.
Steven Hanna: So every time you get it right, it'll change. Also, there's a built-in timer. After 15 seconds, everyone's watch changes to a new color and shape.
ruben.baeza: Red, Red, blue. Yellow. Red, red, blue, blue, blue. For the next part of this game, don't even stop it.
Steven Hanna: Hold your other hand in front of it.
ruben.baeza: And then when you find a match, put it in front.
Steven Hanna: So take your hand in front. Yeah, cover the sensor up until you know your match and then link with that person specifically.
ruben.baeza: was the sensor? Right above that little ZTAG logo, that little black two dots.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. Okay. There's a level of intent with the tag where sometimes if you're close like that, you'll get crisscrossed. So sometimes, well, not sometimes, what happens 100% of the times is they circle up.
ruben.baeza: Yeah. It does go pretty quickly.
Steven Hanna: After 15 seconds, everybody's color and shape also changes. So if somebody couldn't find a shape or color match in that time, they have an opportunity to find another one. So they're not going to be left out and kind of just hanging. So there is a reason why it changes so rapidly. Also, there's a built-in mechanism. If you're so close to the same person and it picks it up, it'll start to rapidly cycle through. So you picked up like, oh, it's going really fast. Yeah, it's because it's like an anti-cheat where you can't match that same person over and over and over and over and over.
ruben.baeza: So built-in things.
Steven Hanna: Any questions on pattern match or shape match?
ruben.baeza: So technically, the biggest thing is separate and not be an exo-partner and then just utilize that partner for the points.
Steven Hanna: Right. got it. You have to find a new partner. And that's why... It swaps the color and shape after every successful one, and after 15 seconds.
ruben.baeza: Question on the watch. It has a few buttons on the front, three buttons.
Steven Hanna: Yep. If the kids were to pick on those, does it do anything? No function at this point in time.
ruben.baeza: Okay. They will do absolutely nothing.
Steven Hanna: Those are kind of a pre-built feature for Kahoot! style gameplay and responding to the main system. So if we need responses in the future, they can, you know, those three buttons are basically left, right, and yes. Yeah. So pre-built in kind of future proofings, fun stuff, I guess. It's neat. We're going to jump back to our home screen, and we're actually going to solve that number problem before we move forward. At our home screen, we should see a settings icon in our top right, that little gear icon. Tap on that. And then on the left-hand side, we should see a device tab. We're going to tap the device tab. On the top right-hand side of the device tab, there should be a button that says Reset Devices. And then we're going to hit, yes, yes. And then a second prompt for Are You Sure? And you're going to hit yes. This is going to flash all the devices back to 1 through 24, and it should be at a 1 to 1 ratio right after you do that.
ruben.baeza: Mine's a 4. What is it? Oh, 16. Mine's 22. So I think what we're going to probably do is get little labels and put them here on the numbers.
Steven Hanna: Those may change over time. So the labels...
ruben.baeza: whatever, it might change.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, so it might not be most viable. here in front. It also says it at the bottom of the tagger. Yeah.
ruben.baeza: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, right? Yep, exactly.
Steven Hanna: So now once we go into a game, I'm sorry, what was the question?
ruben.baeza: Sorry.
Steven Hanna: No, no, go ahead.
ruben.baeza: So when we go to the game, it should have those numbers now, the four of us that are playing?
Steven Hanna: Correct. It should have that one-to-one ratio of that's your number, that's what it'll appear as on screen. Okay. So for our next game, just for use case purposes, are we...
ruben.baeza: Would I'm sorry, would it be ideal that every time we start a new game, it could be like, you know, a day here, then, you know, next week, another day that we reset these numbers so it could be aligned?
Steven Hanna: The only time it will be misaligned is straight out of factory delivery like this because of testing purposes, or if you have a secondary system where some, if you wanted to link a second system and have 48 players in one game, you would have, like, 48 of these numbers appearing. wayune if you need secondary system". Thank And some of them might get crisscrossed to the system. So it should not happen. The only other time I've seen this is like very rarely if I go from one location to another location and I haven't used my system in like a month that I might have to reset it. But very rare that you'll ever have to do this outside of this one time.
ruben.baeza: Got it. Okay. All right.
Steven Hanna: Jump back to our home menu. And just for use case, are we using this for after school use, during day school use?
ruben.baeza: It might be during the day. What I'm using it more is as an incentive for like academics or attendance.
Steven Hanna: Okay. So it'll be by grade level.
ruben.baeza: So if they have a, you know, in a week I have perfect attendance in third grade, then they'll utilize it on Friday during the day.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. Then my next question would be, as a group, would you like I'd to focus more on the reward component of gameplay or more on the educational component of the games.
ruben.baeza: Could we do a little bit of both?
Steven Hanna: Yeah, that's why I asked because I can take it in either direction. I'm going to jump into the educational side since we're on the matching category. If we go back to our home screen, we should see those game icons. We're going to tap on Math Match.
ruben.baeza: You don't have a ZTAG.
Steven Hanna: And then once you're at Math Match, this game is similar to what we just played with Pattern Match, where we were matching colors and shapes, except now we're solving math problems together. So one person is going to have a problem. One person is going to have the answer to the problem. And you're going to have to communicate that with each other and solve a problem. For example, somebody has two plus two. Somebody will have the answer four. They have to match the question to the answer. So it's not questions to questions, it's question to answer. If you jump into the settings before we start up, you can actually focus in and hone in on specific operands such as addition and subtraction or multiplication and division. You can select two. You can also select your lower and high range of numbers. This is going to be kind of important for your littles if they're just starting out with, you know, timestables, second grade, first. I don't know what we're doing in California, but in New York, they're shoving times tables now in first grade, and my wife is losing her mind. So, yeah, it's intense. When I remember it was like second grade, times tables moving into third, and now she's like, they're pumping it into curriculum at like mid first grade year, and she's having a struggle. Sidebar. Anyway, back to this stuff. We have a question team and an answer team. We do. We We know who the questions and the answers are, so we're just going to assign everybody.
ruben.baeza: What's the low and high upper end range it's in?
Steven Hanna: If you would like to focus on a specific number range, like one through four, one through five, one through six, you can set your low range at one or your low range at two. So if you wanted to focus on those, you can. For first grade and second grade, it's where you kind of change it up a lot. Once you get into third, fourth, and fifth, you can kind of just keep addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, one through nine, and they should be able to, you know, engage. You can hit save settings, you can change those up, you can do whatever you'd like to do with those, but I do want you to start the game up and just see how similar the mechanism is of TAG, but see the difference in gameplay.
ruben.baeza: You can turn it on. You can turn on. You can turn on. can turn You can turn You You You Thank Okay, I'll start, Matt. 32. Right here, right here, four times two. 32, 32, 37. Four times eight.
Steven Hanna: And the numbers will remain the same for about 15 seconds. Gives everybody the opportunity to match.
ruben.baeza: You have to match or... Nine times 18. Seven. Nine times two.
Steven Hanna: Right here.
ruben.baeza: Seven. 18. No, you got... Oh, yeah. Seven. 18. Oh, nine minus six. Two. Three. Who's got three? Three. Nine minus... Three. Three. Yeah. I think it's kind of mixing it. 9 minus 6. 9 minus 6. 9 minus 6, 3. Who got 3? I do. 34 divided by 8. 2. My hair. plus 6. 9. 9. You got 9? Yeah, got 2. got 2. 3 plus 6. Or 24. Who has 24? I do. That's either a match or a finite solution, right? Who has 25? Find solution.
Steven Hanna: Correct. 5. 24. And then once you guys have the hang of it, you can stop. I don't know what the timer's going to be at. 24, 28, 28.
ruben.baeza: 10, 7, 8 times. 9 times 2 is 18. That's it. Who has 28? 28. 18. 9 times 2? have 9. That's 28. 28. 1. 9. 36. That's 9. Oh, no. I have 1. Right here. 9 again. 1. I have a 1. have have 1. I Oh, seven. Five minutes. Seven. I have 21 times. Two. Who's got two? I got two. Fifty-four. Fifty-four. have four. Three. Who's got three? Fifty-four. Fifty-four. Three. Four. Darn. Four. Fifty-four. Oh, game one. Darn. Not me. Oh, the other one.
Steven Hanna: Well done. So, that's Math Match. Any questions on Math Match? All right.
ruben.baeza: Pretty cool. Yeah, so I do have 16. You guys have your numbers up there? Fifteen. I have. Yeah, 22. Yeah. Okay, so it is. We're successful.
Steven Hanna: We're successful one-to-one. timer on it? Yeah.
ruben.baeza: Like, for it lasting 15 seconds or whatever?
Steven Hanna: Yes. I believe for Math Match, if you jump into the settings, you can select the round time, and you can make it for, like, 20 to 30 seconds, I believe. Okay. Uh, we just keep it at 15 to keep it flowing quick, and also... So realistically, Math Match is a tough game, depending on what grade you're working with, especially now with the decline in math ability across America. It could be a struggle. So hit or miss is what I like to say with Math Match. Jump back out to the home menu, and we're just going to lean right back into the education side, and we have another game called Word Wave. Now, this game is in a similar fashion to matching our color, shapes, and solving problems, except now it's a flashcard game. From native language being English to a target language being Spanish or French with new languages we're adding. So this game, two teams. One team is going to be the target language, which is going to be Spanish for this version. The native language is going to be English, and we're going to put our team members on each side for this game. One team will have a word in Spanish, we'll use Gato for example, and then the other team will have the word in English being cat, and you'll have to find your partner in a flashcard match and link your watch together. This works really well with 10 or more people. It'll be slightly challenging with five. However, you can have an opportunity to see just what words come up and how they work. You can start this game and end this game whenever you would like. I will say we are coming up on time. I'm available for you guys and I've got time. How are you guys on time?
ruben.baeza: Oh, we're done.
Steven Hanna: Okay, perfect. Then let's jump into WordWave and let's assign whichever numbers you want to put on whichever team.
ruben.baeza: And then now we're ready. This is David, I'd like one of you to speak with. Chris. Yeah, regarding what happened earlier.
Steven Hanna: And then once you have the appropriate people on whichever team. You're going to hit Next, and we're going to choose English to Spanish, I believe, if we haven't. If you guys are saying things, you're muted. If you guys are saying things to me on my side, you guys are muted. I can't hear you guys. If you're talking, you guys are muted.
ruben.baeza: There you go. Sorry about that. No, no, no. You're good.
Steven Hanna: I was just like, okay, they're saying things and telling me things.
ruben.baeza: We're on the select words list, and it has a little blue button, import new list. So that's for the future.
Steven Hanna: When you guys want to import new lists day of, if you're teaching specific words, you're going to be able to do that. For now, we've got our kind of stock set word bank, and we're going to just hit English to Spanish. We're going to put the appropriate number of people on whichever team, left or right.
ruben.baeza: Oh, okay. There we go. I'll even it out. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Right. So this is where if you have really strong Spanish speakers, it's like a flipped classroom, and they take control and delegate everything out. And it is awesome to see. So really cool game to see. Start it up. It's going to take about 10 people to be successful, but you'll have a pretty good idea. Awesome.
ruben.baeza: Thank you. you. you. you.
Steven Hanna: Since there's so few people, it might not be a one-to-one match. That's our only problem.
ruben.baeza: Word Bank's pretty big.
Steven Hanna: Book, school, that's a match, right?
ruben.baeza: Sorry?
Steven Hanna: Escuela.
ruben.baeza: It has book and school. Would that be a match?
Steven Hanna: No. No, it has to be the exact word.
ruben.baeza: The exact word.
Steven Hanna: Yep.
ruben.baeza: Book, Fiscal, Fiscal, Fish. Dog. It has to be the English and Spanish. It can be both Spanish, correct? Right.
Steven Hanna: It has to be the opposite. So, flashcard match.
ruben.baeza: Cat. Ruta. Perro, dog. Cat. Fish. No. And it needs about 10 people.
Steven Hanna: The word bank's pretty big. So, sometimes it might not. So, for you guys, like, if it's three or four, you might not find that match.
ruben.baeza: Sleep. Cat. Dog. Guy. Friend. Happy friend. Happy friend. Flower. Bye. So, you guys can see how it's the same magic mechanism, though.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, we got it.
ruben.baeza: You can stop it whenever you guys are comfortable with the game.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
ruben.baeza: Nope. Okay.
Steven Hanna: So that is going to be most of the education. I'm going to jump into the entertainment side for the reward that you'll be using. Chase Games. We got a game, if you go to the main menu, called Keep Away. We're going to start with that.
ruben.baeza: Keep Away. Go to the main menu.
Steven Hanna: Hit stopwatch.
ruben.baeza: Again. Now we've got Keep Away.
Steven Hanna: Keep Away, as you may know.
ruben.baeza: Keep Away. Keep Away. Keep Away. Okay. Holding on to the ball.
Steven Hanna: Hold Now, my wife told me this game sucks, and I need to come up with a better version of it, and she came up with Hot Potato, and Hot Potato is a lot easier for younger kids than most kids to understand, so we don't even use it as keep-away, but I will teach it as both. Whichever version you want to start off with, you can start off with, so we'll go with keep-away, which is your standard hold-on-to-the-ball. In this game, you can select up to four different balls, so that it reduces the amount of people chasing one person. At one point in time, they only had one ball, and it was like 19 people chasing one person for a ball. As you can imagine, it was crazy. So, you can add multiple balls in. If you go into the settings, in that little cog, you can select up to four different balls. I recommend a one-to-four ball-to-human ratio. Since you guys have three people in the room right now, you can keep it as one. When you start this game... game... One watch is going to have the ball. You're going to hit random assign on the ball. That person will have to run away from everybody else. Their watch will be flashing. It will be chirping. It'll tell everybody, hey, I admit, I've got the ball. You got to try and steal it. So if you want to start it up, you can start up whenever you guys are ready.
ruben.baeza: You have the ball. So there's two balls here. So how do I take it and just... Same way you were matching before, try and match the watch face. Oh, I blew. I don't have it.
Steven Hanna: You're just trying to steal it. It doesn't matter matches now. It's just you're trying to take that ball and run away.
ruben.baeza: Oh, you're trying to take away the ball. Right. That's keep away, right?
Steven Hanna: Like you're stealing it and you're running away and you're earning points for every second you have the ball. Yeah.
ruben.baeza: So the key thing is that the kids don't hide the thing. Right. And this is where you'll run into a bunch of people doing this. Yeah. Holding their hand right over the top.
Steven Hanna: Right. So that's called watch guarding. And what I tell people is if you do that, you're just losing points. I'll bluff it. I'll bluff. It's very easy to cover it up, though. And that's why earlier I was like, hey, if you hold your hand over the front, you know, you can direct it almost. Right. Like that block or direct. So that's how keep away works. I reverse this to hot potato. You don't want the ball. You want to give it away as quickly as possible. So somebody has it. You got to find somebody else as quick as possible and tag them and give it to them. And that's hot potato. So depending on how the game is going.
ruben.baeza: It's the same game. Everything. don't have to change anything. It's just flipped.
Steven Hanna: You don't want the ball.
ruben.baeza: Yep.
Steven Hanna: Just just. Just. Just. Flip the way you explain it.
ruben.baeza: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So depending on how they're starting out, it could go from keep away to hot potato or from hot potato to keep away in the same round. Like it's happened to me before. The kids just hold on to the ball and I'm like, great, now it's hot potato. You don't want the ball anymore. You got to give it away to someone else real quick. So mid-round, like I'm not going to stop the game. I'm just going to say, okay, I'm noticing you're camping with it. You're holding it in the corner. Now it's hot potato. Give it away.
ruben.baeza: You don't want it. to be Right. All right.
Steven Hanna: So there's ways to just get more out of each game is what I'm trying to say. Any questions on keep away or hot potato?
ruben.baeza: No. All right. I'm good. Perfect.
Steven Hanna: Then we're going to go back to our home screen. can stop the game, go back to the home screen, and we're going to play zombie tag next.
ruben.baeza: Zombie survival? Yes. Or zombie survival with? With doctor? I'm going to go doctor. back the doctor. I'm You We'll go with just Survival, and then we'll do Doctor after.
Steven Hanna: And before we jump in here, we're just going to go into our settings in the top right, and this is where you're going to be playing most of your reward game is this. 75% of this entire system is just this game and what people want to play. In our settings, we have a few different things. We have time, which is obviously pretty self-explanatory. We have zombies on randomize. That's basically how many zombies you want at the start. And then we have number of tags before infection. That's how many lives the kids have. It is a non-native English speaker who created this, and we are going over that to create it more easy, visually represented. When we give them more lives, that's how many tags they have before they turn into a zombie. So that's really the only thing you would be changing here besides time. I'm going I'm say change the number of tags before infection to two. Give everybody two lives. One's a freebie. The second one is you definitely got caught. For this game, you can randomize. You can select who's a zombie. You can select who's a human. I always just hit random because I don't want anyone to think I have favorites, and it's the easiest and safest way. So hit randomize or random assign on everything, and you'll see all of your roles start to fill in on the screen.
ruben.baeza: On the settings also, what is infection duration? Oh, how long it's, you're a zombie? Like, yeah, how long you're about to turn into a zombie for.
Steven Hanna: So if you get tagged, it's like 10 seconds before you morph into a zombie.
ruben.baeza: Oh, okay, okay. Right.
Steven Hanna: And that's a setting with the doctor. If they find you within those 10 seconds, they give you your life back.
ruben.baeza: Got it.
Steven Hanna: We're just going to start this one up and see how the infection kind of spreads. I would say give each other like two or three feet, roll away from each other a little bit, and then you'll We'll see how each other kind of gets tagged and, you know, how the zombie infection kind of spreads out.
ruben.baeza: So the zombie needs to get the other people?
Steven Hanna: The zombie's going after the green team, and the green team avoids the red team.
ruben.baeza: All right.
Steven Hanna: And the zombie team theoretically gets larger and larger as the game goes So if everybody gets infected, that's it, game over. Right, exactly. So as the game goes on, the zombie team gets larger and larger. The red team goes after the green team to tag them, and they basically take those lives and they turn the other person into a zombie.
ruben.baeza: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So this is the reward game that everybody will play.
ruben.baeza: When it's flashing red and green, that's the time indicator where someone that is a non-zombie could tag you and then give your life back.
Steven Hanna: So now we're going to jump into Doctor, and you'll see that in action.
ruben.baeza: Exactly. Oh, got it. Right.
Steven Hanna: So that 10-second flashing, that's like the, oh, I'm turning into a zombie. Doctor, doctor. They need to find the doctor in those 10 seconds.
ruben.baeza: Got it. And is there only specific people are doctors? All the ones are not zombies are doctors.
Steven Hanna: So they have a specific color on their watch, so they can be identified. Oh, got it.
ruben.baeza: So you'll be able to identify the zombies as red, the humans as green, and the doctors, I believe they have white. Got it. How do I go back? I just have to. Top left corner. And then just click the game again.
Steven Hanna: Right. And then it should open, do you want with doctor or without doctor?
ruben.baeza: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So we're going to hit with doctor, and then we're going to go right into the settings again, so you can see what's different on this one. Difference here. Time limit.
ruben.baeza: Yep.
Steven Hanna: Same exact stuff. Then you should have doctor heal limit in the top right. Top top Okay. This is a balanced setting so that the doctor can only heal X amount of people before they turn back into a human. If they can heal everybody the whole round, the humans always win, basically. So the doctor turns back into a human after they heal five people, four people, whatever you set that number to.
ruben.baeza: Oh, I see. So you can leave it at five.
Steven Hanna: I like to keep it at four.
ruben.baeza: It's up to you guys.
Steven Hanna: Do whatever you would like with that setting. But I do want you to see what the save looks like. So you can start the game up under whatever settings you would like, have one of those zombies tag a watch, and then have the doctor tag and give them the life back. You are muted again, if you are saying.
ruben.baeza: On the number of tags, click on two. Always have that to two or more. So you can also change that depending.
Steven Hanna: No I muted. I Depending on where you're working in. In a large space, two is a good number. One's a freebie. The second one is they definitely caught you. In a small space, half gym, I usually do three or four.
ruben.baeza: Okay. I'm a zombie. You got a Doctor. Ah, stunned. Stunned.
Steven Hanna: If the zombies get too close to the doctor, they get stunned. That's the other secret setting. I like to just have it.
ruben.baeza: Let's do, let's see how it changes from, you say someone healed timeout. Oh, there's a healed timeout as well. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Yep, because there's going to be four or five people running to the doctor at once. The doctor. The has to make a choice.
ruben.baeza: You got too close to the doctor.
Steven Hanna: The doctor is basically God is what I'm trying to get at. So how does the doctor convert me then if I'm a zombie? Once you convert, that's it.
ruben.baeza: Oh, once I'm a zombie, that's it? Yep.
Steven Hanna: So if you find them in that 10 seconds while you're about to turn into a zombie, you're saved. But once you convert, no longer can be saved. Oh, I saved it.
ruben.baeza: Okay. Let me see. So my goal as a zombie now is to infect others.
Steven Hanna: Correct. Got it. So the doctor role adds a lot of complexity.
ruben.baeza: So as a doc, zombie, zombie, zombie. Do they, are they saved by it because it gets stunned? So the doctor is invincible.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, the doctor is invincible while they're a doctor. But it changes the doctor as well, right? Yep, after they save five people, they go back to a human.
ruben.baeza: Oh, okay. So then later on, if we had two doctors, then later on we don't have any doctors.
Steven Hanna: Exactly. And then it's pretty much whoever is the last survivor waits.
ruben.baeza: Exactly.
Steven Hanna: Got it.
ruben.baeza: What I like to do is I put a buffer.
Steven Hanna: I don't like to have one survivor left. I always look at the screen, and once I see that there's two or three left, I'll stop the game. And that's just for safety's sake because I try to avoid more than four or five people running after one person. becomes, let's say, right, it's just a, you know, as teachers, it's a safety issue, right? Like, it just becomes ridiculous at a certain point to watch X amount of kids chase one person. Like, okay, I could do one-to-one. I could see two-to-one, three-to-one. But if I've got eight zombies chasing one person into a corner, it's not a great time. So just use your judgment. When it comes to how many people you want at the end of the game. Like for a class of like, say for example, I have 15 kids.
ruben.baeza: Two to three people is a good number that I would choose.
Steven Hanna: Two to three human survivors is good. Yeah. Oh, doctors, doctors. I'd go two doctors, but I would start with three zombies. So 10 humans out of 15, you'd have 10 human survivors starting. You'd have three zombies, and then you'd have two doctors.
ruben.baeza: I'd put two zombies. Oh, yeah. Cool. All right. Questions on that?
Steven Hanna: how does that?
ruben.baeza: No, I think it's pretty much self-explanatory. Thank you. I appreciate it. The reward piece. How does that work?
Steven Hanna: So this is the game that everybody wants to play. This is the, you guys want zombie tag at the end of the week. We have to work towards that. And you're going to have to build up their kind of understanding of Z-Tag so that they know. The value of what Zombie Tag is. the reward element comes in. Right, like you'll trickle this in, and there's actually a setting on the system where you can take Zombie Tag off of the screen completely, so they don't even see it. And then you can add it in one week as like a secret game, where it's like, hey, this week we got a secret game for ZTAG. Like you guys have never seen it before. And then once they see Zombie Tag in action, it's going to take one time of playing before it's kind of like a hooked on activity. So the reward is, Zombie Tag is the secret game. We play all these other interesting games, but we have this super fun game that you're going to want to be here for.
ruben.baeza: So right now I only have technically eight games that I could choose from. Correct.
Steven Hanna: How often do they get uploaded or changed? We're looking to release a new game once a year at this point. Exactly. I don't know.
ruben.baeza: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: From what I understand, there's a few games that we have in the back pocket that we've got about a month or two of testing on before we're comfortable with getting it out to you guys. Once it's done with testing, we'll basically send an email that says, hey, updates are ready. You can connect to Wi-Fi. That's great. You can do it over the air. If your school IT department is a little bit weird like others are, you can just let us know, and I just send you a funky little SD card. It's like an old Game Boy cartridge, and you just pop it right in.
ruben.baeza: Got it. Okay. Do you have any other questions? How far does it reach with the Wi-Fi kind of thing, the antenna?
Steven Hanna: So you don't actually need Wi-Fi with this. That's the fun part. That creates this local Wi-Fi network. So anywhere you go, you can operate. You're never going to have to connect to Wi-Fi.
ruben.baeza: You've got about if it's in the gym, will it get all throughout the gym? Oh, 100%.
Steven Hanna: You'll actually get about 80 yards in 300. Like the 160 degrees of direct sunlight. Like if you go football field, touch end zone to end zone, you'll get 80 yards in direct sunlight from the station. Yeah, it's got a pretty dang good range, I'd say. The only time it goes out, yes, the only time it does go out is if you have someone like go to a bathroom around a bunch of walls, that is when I've noticed it will frequently go out. Or if it's like, hey, I need a water break and they're going around like the gym wall and around another wall in a locker room, that's, wall interference does exist. But if you're just open spacing it, you've totally got about 80 yards in direct sunlight. And yes, you can connect multiple watches. If you had another system, the only thing that you would have to do is leave one system off. So turn one system on, turn the watches on from that system, but leave the main screen off and only operate on one system. So it's super quick to connect them to the other system, like literally just tap the button and it'll automatically detect and be like, hey, we're on this one now. Cool. We'll use that.
ruben.baeza: Steven, I know when I purchased this, I don't think I saw it or maybe I missed it.
Steven Hanna: The warranty.
ruben.baeza: Is that something that I can still purchase? Yes.
Steven Hanna: ZEC is available. I will send over information with that. Do you remember when you guys purchased it?
ruben.baeza: It was dragging. was like a whole peel. Literally, I just got this thing probably maybe in December. Okay.
Steven Hanna: I would say let the manufacturer run for the first year and then towards, unless you need to use the budget. In full transparency, I'm going to save you some budget now on it. Yeah. No, no.
ruben.baeza: I mean, I could allocate for that. Maybe you can send me information and say, hey, next year, on this month. won't. You won't. Okay, for sure. I think they offer one, three, and five-year plans.
Steven Hanna: I'll send you over the info for them. Yeah, I think I would have to do year to year. Okay.
ruben.baeza: For my sake, just because that's how our budget is allocated. I can't, you know, purchase something for two, three years.
Steven Hanna: Right. Makes sense. Okay, cool. All right. Yeah, that's pretty much most of this.
ruben.baeza: Yeah, in case if we get stuck, Steven, or we have like technically, we have a question, will you be our lifeline if we need to contact you?
Steven Hanna: You've got my phone number that goes direct to this, which is my business phone for three different businesses. So if this rings, it's an emergency.
ruben.baeza: I that notification that you sent me on the Zoom one, your number's there?
Steven Hanna: That 516-440-1673. And I'm also going to send a follow-up email with that, but yes, you can put that directly on your phone. You could even put that in the system if you want. in want. You put It's like an emergency contact for support. You're more than welcome to throw my stuff in an index card into that system and just make sure that whoever's using it knows who to call. What's the keyboard for? Should your system ever need troubleshooting, it's a quick way for you to type stuff in. From our end, we could go in from the back end through Wi-Fi, but you might need to type stuff in quickly. So what I recommend with that is put it in a plastic bag, label it ZTAG keyboard, and then you're going to say that the junk drawer, it doesn't exist, but throw it in the junk drawer, that definitely does exist, and just pretend that, you know, if it ever goes down. You should also have...
ruben.baeza: You should also You should Connectors?
Steven Hanna: Yep. And then you should also have two extra ZTAG watches included with your case. What is in there?
ruben.baeza: Let me see. One, two, three, five, six, seven, eight. So we have 24 watches. 24.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Whoever dropped off your unit, they're... There should be two more of these, somewhere.
ruben.baeza: Do you guys sell extra wristbands in case one of them, like, I don't know, rips or whatever?
Steven Hanna: Like the Velcro? The Velcro thing?
ruben.baeza: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: I mean, we're not going to sell them to you. You just let us know and we'll send you a pack. Okay. The small stuff like that is, we're happy to replace because we know that you guys are utilizing it. It's the stuff where it's like, if it's a system screen crack on this, we're like, okay, we understand that that's a little bit more harsher use. I do want to take you through the shutdown.
ruben.baeza: leaving the little plastic thing on the screen or taking it off?
Steven Hanna: I mean, listen, it depends how much OCD you have. I have got mine on.
ruben.baeza: All of my systems.
Steven Hanna: I got a four-year-old system with the plastic still on. So that's me. But you can rip it right off if you want. To turn it off. Well, I'm looking at it right now.
ruben.baeza: Steven, I'll talk to my secretary, but I do not see those other things.
Steven Hanna: Okay, just note that there are two more with that that you should have just as backups in case these go down. You could quickly just drop these guys in and keep moving. So there are two that should be in your kit to find. To turn the system off, I do want to go over that because it is a very crucial process and then we're out of here. We're going to basically do two things to turn it off. We're going to take our devices and we're going to drop them right on the magnetic charge dock that shuts the device off and starts the charge sequence, first thing. Once all of those are on and you should see them red and green.
ruben.baeza: I have one of them that it doesn't want to turn on, like the green or red.
Steven Hanna: Try it in a different charge dock. Curious to know if it's the magnetic connector. If you're you're
ruben.baeza: Yeah, that was it. Oh, now we have another one. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Now it's going to be whack-a-mole with which one's charging. A different one changed, turned off for some reason.
ruben.baeza: Do they turn off because they're charged already, maybe, or no?
Steven Hanna: Some of them might just reset if they get taken off of the dock and quickly back on it. It's, the magnets, I'm not 100% sure, are completely locking in perfectly. They reduce the shape on it, and in turn, it kind of doesn't fully, you have to push it in pretty strong.
ruben.baeza: Yeah, because we have all of them are on, and some have the green or red light, but we have two of them that are off. But they're on the docking station. Oh. One of them just turned on. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Might have to, yeah, might have to press it and really, yeah, really like get it locked into that kind of dock.
ruben.baeza: Got it. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Now, what we're going to do, since we started from the bottom up on startup, we start from the top down. We're going to take down the router off of the system. We're going to take down that clip as well, and we're going to unscrew the antennas off the router.
ruben.baeza: just put them in there. No, it's fine. mean, we're going to be using that. Get used, right? Yeah. Okay, so we're good.
Steven Hanna: Once that is taken off the top, you're also going to take that little black router clip, and you're going to place all of those items in the storage area where you took them out of at the start. The black clip is in there.
ruben.baeza: Okay. Got it.
Steven Hanna: On the LCD screen, there is a power button in your top right corner. Hit that power button, and then hit shut down for me.
ruben.baeza: LCD screen. On the actual screen? Yeah.
Steven Hanna: There should be a little power button on the top right, and then tap shut down. Screen should go. Give it about five seconds after it goes dark. That little silver button with the blue light, press that. Do you hold it down?
ruben.baeza: Nope.
Steven Hanna: The power button?
ruben.baeza: Nope.
Steven Hanna: Just press it, and then the blue light should go out. Correct?
ruben.baeza: I'm having trouble.
Steven Hanna: Okay, then that blue light in the silver little button, you can turn that off, right? Okay. And then you're going to hit the red button, and it should turn off the bottom.
ruben.baeza: All right. There we go.
Steven Hanna: Unplug your black power cable, and then coil that up and put that into the left storage area on that. Or any storage area that's accessible, wherever you have room. Got it. And then when you close your case, just make sure that there is no resistance when you push it down. If there's resistance, something's preventing it from closing. Please check it out. If it closes completely and you can latch it perfectly, you're golden.
ruben.baeza: Okay. Perfect.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Any last minute questions before we scoot out up here?
ruben.baeza: No. I think we're good. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Steven Hanna: You got it. The only thing I'm going to ask is if you could just please type in the names of everybody that was in the training, in the chat, that would be very helpful for me. Just so that I could keep track of You'll send me right now? Yeah. Or you can do it in Zoom. So wherever is easiest. And then I'm going to send you two emails. The first email is going to be an AI recording of this that you can distribute to anybody you need. Do you want first name and last name?
ruben.baeza: Yes, please.
Steven Hanna: The first email is going to be an AI recording of our session. It'll just get sent to you. can distribute. And the second one is going to be all of the settings that I personally use that we've gone over specifically. So if you need a quick one-pager cheat sheet, this is a great way to have it. Yeah, if you guys need anything, I'm your point of contact from here for, you know, operations. I'm pretty quick to answer my phone, call, text, email. I'll get right back to you within 20 minutes, okay? Sounds good. you. All right, Steven. Thank you. Have a wonderful day, guys. Take care. Bye-bye. You too. Bye.
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Steven Hanna: I'm doing well. How are you? I'm good. All right. Let me just get one more thing ready. just to let you know I had something else come up, but I do have two of my staff that will be running this for us, so they'll be here part of the meeting. We have the equipment ready to go.
Nancy: I will be here in the room, but I have other things I need to put together. Prioritize whatever you need to do.
Steven Hanna: You're an educator. Don't worry. I know what's going on. Relax. As long as you can hear and just, you know, think of it like a podcast in the background.
Nancy: Perfect.
Steven Hanna: Excellent. Then all I'm going to ask is, just before you run, if you could just type into the Zoom chat the names of everybody in here, just so that I have them and they know who's here. And thank you guys for being here. I appreciate it. While you're kind of typing that out, I'll just like kind of go over who I am. My name is Steven, I'm the Playmaker Developer for ZTAG. What that translates to in layman terms for us is, I'm here to train you guys and make sure you're comfortable with the system. So that's kind of my goal, and by the end of this training, if you're like, Steve, what the heck is going on? Then I failed. So let me know what's going on. If there's any confusion, questions, just stop me, and we're just going to touch up on it. For 90% of this, though, super hands-on, you guys are basically playing games. So you guys get to play games in a training today, and there's like 10% of admin stuff of, hey, here's how to turn it on, here's how to shut it off, that type of deal. I'm also going to send you a recording of this entire training, so you can refer to it at any point in time, and it's going to have a quick description of all the settings and everything. So if you need a one-page cheat sheet to operate, it's going to be right in there in the email for you. Any questions before we start? Okay. Cool. So in front of you, you should see your system. should be that yellow case, correct? What I'm going to ask you to do is please unlatch it and open up the case. Sweet. So the first thing that we're going to do is we are going to take a few things out of the case. In that little storage area in between the top latch and the bottom latch, there's like a black cable, a little keyboard, and a few different things in there. We're going to take all of that out, including the bubble wrap. Yeah, so there should be like a bunch of bubble wrap in the middle of things, and right in front of that, like, plexiglass, there's a bunch of other space. Yeah, and there's going to be a few things in there. Basically take everything out besides... A lot of stuff, but don't worry, it's going to be super comprehensible once we get right into it. Okay, so I'm going to tell you the things that we're going to need. There's a little white router box, we're going to need that. We're going to need the two little screw-on antennas for that, and we're going to screw those onto the top area. There's like two little white covers on the screw-on areas, you can take those little covers off so that you can screw on the antennas. Perfect. If you also have nails, that's very challenging to do, I've been told. Cool. Second thing that we're going to need is the black power cable. It's pretty sturdy, pretty strong. Sweet. You can put that right next to the router. Third thing that we're going to need is a little black router clip. It's like a little claw-looking thing. Yeah, perfect. And then the fourth thing that we're actually going to do is put that claw on the back area of that router. And how we do that is there's a fat side and a skinny side with those. Claws, and on the underside of that little, like, pushed up area, you're going to put that underneath it. And I'm also going to open up one of my systems just to show you. It's a little weird to explain, so I'm just going to pull up one of mine. I was trying to figure it out.
Nancy: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So let me hit it a little bit, and then let's unblur. So this clip, my side is kind of missing a... I got a new one right here. This guy right here. So there's that fat side, and then there's a skinny side. You're going to take the fat side, you're going to go underneath and clip it right in. Awesome. Yep, perfect. there's little there's bit So So Yep, exactly.
Nancy: So, like, you see how when I explain that, it's like, what the heck is this guy talking about?
Steven Hanna: And then I show you, like, oh, right, yeah, of course. That's pretty much how to put that clip on. So as far as challenges go, this is going to be challenge number one for whoever's operating. This is get the clip on right. The next thing that we're going to do is we're going to put that on the backside of the system. So, let me show you what it looks like. Let's go, lift this system up. See how that's on there? You might have to take off that little, like, wire protector thing. See how that's on there. Satsang Okay. We're all right. Okay. So that's the router setup. That's basically what we're going to do for step number one is always going to be set that router up and make sure that's up there, okay? Step number two, take that black power cable in your hands, and you're going to see in the bottom right side of the system, there's a connection point for it. It's on the, it's like a gray little box area, and then there's a recessed point. Yeah. Plug that side into that, and then plug the other side into the nearest wall outlet. And then just give me a heads up once here. Bye. Okay. We're going to start from the bottom up. Since we have that black power cable in, we're going to work our way up. There's a red switch. You're going to hit that red switch right above it. And then you're going to hear the bottom portion of the system give a beep, and you should see those lights turn on. Okay.
Nancy: All right.
Steven Hanna: Sweet. So those lights should be red. While you're charging, it's pretty self-explanatory. Like, is charging, green is done. So this is how you're always going to have a visual indicator. Like, if you're ever just charging this before you go into a game or before you go into a session, you can kind of see at a glance, like, how much is charged versus how much needs to finish charging. While you're charging, take that little plexiglass and push it up a little bit so that the heat can come out a bit. Yep. Perfect. And then you can also take that bubble wrap out. Hey. Hey. don't If some of them aren't red, yeah, the bubble wrap might have, like, pushed it up a little bit off the magnetic charger. You just push it down a little bit, and they should go red. It takes about a half second for them to register, though, so. I have OCD, so that's exactly what I do every single time. Like, I am the first person to be like, they're not all red. They are not charging. So, once you get them all charging in that area, after you've hit that red button, you're going to hit the silver button right above the red button, and it's going to give you a little blue ring light. Once that goes blue, the top portion of the screen is going to turn on. It should take about 20 to 30 seconds or so. And when that turns on, just let me know. But while we're waiting, we're going to take three or four of the little watches out of the dock and turn them on.
Nancy: They're like little robots. They are.
Steven Hanna: They're like little super like Apple watches is what I like to call them. And we're going to take out like four or five just to pretend like there's more people playing. Now to turn these on, you'll notice that there's that silver circle on the side. Do you see that? Right above that silver circle, there's a little red button. Press that button once. opportunities not been of Yeah. Because it And then the screen should turn on in about a second, and you'll see the ZTAG logo appear right after that. Two things to pay attention to on this. In the top right corner on the watches, there's a little battery indicator. Do you guys see that battery indicator? Each of those little bars means that there's one hour of gameplay. So when the kids come back to you and they're like, oh my goodness, I'm at one bar, my watch is about to die. Nah, you've got an hour, don't worry. Like, you're good. Head back out there and get playing. So this is just kind of for your sake and understanding, because they might come back and do that, and it's, you know, you could save yourself explaining that 15 times. The second thing to pay attention to, to the left of the battery indicator, there are random numbers and letters. Do you see those random numbers and letters? Yeah. Okay. Do you see the Wi-Fi signal bars next to it? There's like three little bars. Do you see that? No.
Nancy: Bars kind of look like...
Steven Hanna: Huh. Okay. Press the red button once. And on the main big screen, it's at the ZTAG, like, welcome screen. Hit skip for now on that. And now we should be at the home screen with a bunch of games?
Nancy: Yeah. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Now, on your watches, do those random letters and numbers show up now? No. No. No. No. no. No. No. No. No. No. No. you. Hmm. Hit red light, green light for me. Do your watches change from red to green at all in your hands or no? No. No? Okay. Hit the red button on the side once on those. We're going to reset those really quickly. And on the main screen, we're going to go back to home by hitting the top left or back. Once we're at the home screen, since you are in an office with a fair amount of people, we're going to take the volume down on this. In the top right, there's a little volume setting. Drag it down to one or two. Anything more than that, and the office might have problems with you guys. Now, on your devices, do you see the battery indicator? Yeah. Random numbers and letters next to it?
Nancy: Yes. And now do you see that little Wi-Fi logo?
Steven Hanna: Can I see that watch again? Huh. Okay. So we're going to do two quick things. First thing that we're going to do is we're going to put those back on the dock, and we're going to restart the system, because I think the connection needs to reestablish in some sort of way. right. So drop them back right in that silver circle to the silver circle on the dock. And then it should take about a half a second, and then it'll automatically turn the watch off, and it'll start charging. In the top right corner of that big screen, hit that power button for me, and then hit shutdown. And we're going thing thing they may Screen's going to go dark for a second. Hit that little silver button with that blue ring light. That blue ring light's going to go off. Give it about five seconds, and then you're going to hit that silver button again and turn it back on. When the screen turns on again, just get through the menu screen and hit skip for now and get to the home screen, and then we're going to turn those device watches on after that. And then we're playing red light, green light, then we're playing like Uno. And you guys can try and like play tag one-on-one, but if you start elbowing people in the office trying to avoid people, yeah. Basically, it's have fun without upsetting people in the office today. That's where we're at. That's we're at. But you're the the to Once you're at the home screen, you're going to take two or three of those devices out and turn them on again. Hit that red button on the side. And it's just a quick one-tap.
Nancy: I think it says we haven't hit this to the end of the screen.
Steven Hanna: So you're not going to need Wi-Fi. That's the cool thing about the system, is that the system runs totally offline. So you don't need Wi-Fi to connect. Run it anywhere, basically. So let's hit the red light, green light game again. Oh.
Nancy: This-tap. again. you. Thank you.
Steven Hanna: Are you tapping around on a tablet like my grandmother taps around on a tablet?
Nancy: What's going on over there? I think we clicked something by accident, so it says sign up, we're signed into your account, and then it says like the connection account devices for more games.
Steven Hanna: Okay, go to devices really quick, actually. And then in the top right corner, hit reset.
Nancy: Reset devices? Yes, and then it's going to ask, are you sure, and hit yes. Do we have to put these back?
Steven Hanna: No, they should be able to reset right there. Does it say that they're reset? It says waiting for devices. Waiting for devices. Can you just show me what that screen looks like? Does it show any of the watch? Is swatches in there or no?
Nancy: No. It did before we pressed reset device.
Steven Hanna: Hmm. Here.
Nancy: And everything is connected. I think it might be.
Steven Hanna: Trying to think. Not appearing at all. Okay. Go to the home screen. Again, top left to hit the ZTAG logo. And then we're going to go back into the settings and go to that device thing again. So hit that little cog. And then hit devices. Are they appearing now or no? It's just waiting for devices. And on the watches themselves, do they have that little Wi-Fi bar or anything or no?
Nancy: No. It just says like the 10 volume IR and then it says like some numbers in the battery and then it says ZTAG off.
Steven Hanna: Okay. On the top side there, there's a little QR code with a serial number. Yeah. Can you just read that number off to me? I'm just going to send that to our tech team.
Nancy: Uh, D0162507010054. Okay.
Steven Hanna: And then on your watch, on the top side of it, there's another QR code. Can you just read off one of those numbers to me? There's three of them. Just read off one of them. Uh, 2507.
Nancy: 3-0-0-5-7-2.
Steven Hanna: Okay. We're going to try one full system reset, and if this doesn't work, I might have to reschedule our training because I honestly am not sure what is going on with that system. So tech team might have to jump in. So drop those watches back on the dock. We're going to shut that system down one more time. And this time, after we hit that shutdown button and hit the silver button and that light goes off, we're going to completely shut it down and unplug. We're going down down and we're down we're going it we're we're we're we're And then once you hit the shutdown and hit that silver button, ring light goes off, then hit that red button, unplug it, give it like 10 seconds, and then plug it back in. This is the classic case of turn it off and turn it back on, and we're going to see if that works. Then you're going to hit the red button. Give it a half a second, and then it'll turn on. Then you're going to hit that silver button. I'm going to try this one more time on a full reset and see what happens. Once you get to that home screen, skip for now, and then we're going to turn on one or two. Two of the watches at that menu. Sorry about this, guys. This is a weird one. This is the first time that I've seen this, and I apologize if I'm, you know, burning some of your time.
Nancy: And then once you get to the home screen with all those games, take out two or three of them and turn them on.
Steven Hanna: And then you should see the battery indicator, and then any random numbers and letters this time, no? Still no. It's the same thing as before. Oh, no. Yes. Okay. Sweet. So now we're talking. Each of those devices is now connected to that main computer. It will not be that difficult in the field. I have no idea why this has happened here, but I can tell you that this is the first time it has happened and I don't foresee this happening in the field. If it does, let us know, and it might be a system thing, but very, very rare. I just want to ask what your system use case is going to be. Are we after school? Are we school day?
Nancy: Recess? What are we using? We're after school. Okay.
Steven Hanna: So are we looking for engagement, entertainment, or leaning towards education? I think like engagement.
Nancy: Because we're using it for some time. Yeah. So I think engagement. Okay.
Steven Hanna: So our training is... It's kind of focused, is going to focus in on the engagement factor rather than the education factor. So it'll just be your use case and how it'll best be utilized by your team. First thing that we're going to do is show you how to put the watches on, and it's basically a quick strap over the wrist, right? It's easy enough to drop it over someone's wrist, but if you need to, you can unstrap it, put it on, and then strap it back on. Two ways to wear the watch, or three ways. For littles, with really, really, really tiny wrists, you can slide it on the wrist and push it up the forearm a little bit so that it has that, like, larger area to hold it in. And then for others, you can basically put it around and make it Iron Man, where they have to use their palm to tag. So in the exact way that you just helped each other? Is it the exact way that it would work and, you know, where you guys are at? So when we get the watches on, we are going to start up our... Games. But before that, we're going to change the volume because, like I said, office. hit that top right area in the volume, slide that down to one or two. And then just look at your watches and make sure that that changes on your watches as well. It should say one or two. Excellent. From here, we're going to tap on any of the games. For first, we're going to go red light, green light, let's say. Now, your devices should be changing from red to green. This is what I was trying to get to before. While they're going from red to green, this is kind of the pregame lobby that says, hey, guys, this is the game that's coming up. You know, this is what we're going to be doing. You can explain the rules of red light, green light, however you'd like to explain them. However, I shortcut it to three things. When the watch is red, you stop. When the watch is green, you move. You can only earn points on green. So that's the quick three bullet points on how to play. What I recommend you do for your group is target run from one area to another. When it's green, we're moving from this area to this area. When it's red, we're stopping. Once we've reached the other point, we're going to stop, turn around, and run back the other way. So you're going back and forth. For this game of Red Light, Green Light, all I'm going to ask you to do is stay in place. Don't run around. If you want to move your arms around, that would be the quickest way to earn points. If you do punch each other, I end the recording, and there is no evidence of this, and that's on you. So what I'll ask you to do from here is hit the OK button on that screen, because it should say rules or instructions or close, whatever that is. And now we should have two of your devices on the left-hand side. Do you see your numbers? ZTAGGER number, whatever it is. That's one-to-one. So whatever ZTAGGER number you have, that's what it is on the screen. Hit assign all.
Nancy: Because if you can't look at each other during summer when we did it, you can't look at each other's watches because it'll show up in different colors.
Steven Hanna: Yep. So it secretly changes halfway through the game, and it starts to jump everyone out of sequence. So halfway through, you're cheating off of your friends, basically. And then the second half of the game, you're like, oh, no, I have to pay attention. Oh, geez, what am I doing? So for this one, what I always do is give a countdown. But we're going to assign everybody before we get into the game. hit assign all and then hit next. And then your devices should change and say get ready. I always do a countdown with my kids. And when I say the number three, what I'm going to ask you to do is hit the start game button. So I'm going to say five, four, three. That's when you're going to hit start game, okay? So we'll practice it. Five, four. Five, Five, Five, 3, and you'll see why. 2, 1.
Nancy: So you count down with the kids, basically.
Steven Hanna: And when it's green, you're going to be moving. And when it's red, you're going to stop.
Nancy: It does.
Steven Hanna: And that's how you earn points in this game. And that's why I say target move, right? That's the quickest way to do it. Now, when it's on red, move it around a little bit and see what happens.
Nancy: I got a warning. So keep getting caught on red.
Steven Hanna: Get caught again. Because I believe this is an elimination round, and I want you to see what the elimination looks like.
Nancy: Oh, yeah. Did you get eliminated? No, but it's important. I think you can.
Steven Hanna: If you get caught twice in the same red, it eliminates you. Keep continuing to... Why? Why? I don't know.
Nancy: Oh, game over, you're out.
Steven Hanna: So that's the elimination round of this. The winner at the end of the game also has a rainbow watch. So on the side of your watch, it's going to be rainbow LEDs going around the side. Yeah, nice little Easter egg. So this works really well for older kids doing an elimination round. For younger kids, it fails miserably because they just need to run and play. So we have a setting for that, and we're going to change that. We're going to go back one screen, and then we're going to go into our top right settings. And now we should have three different things that we could change. We have time, correct?
Nancy: Yeah. We're going to change that to 60 seconds. We have sensitivity.
Steven Hanna: It should be on high, correct? We're going to put that to medium or low to make it a little bit easier for the youngers. seconds. we're to young And for negative scoring, this is so that they don't get eliminated. This is if they get caught on red, it takes a few points away. So they can always earn the points back, but they're always going to be playing. And that's the most important part is the engagement factor. So make sure that that has a little checkmark next to it. Hit save settings for me. And you're going to start the game up as you just did before. For this round, I want you to get caught on red on purpose just to see the difference as opposed to getting eliminated. Now you'll just lose some points. And it's also reduced sensitivity, so it's easier to play. You won't get caught as easy.
Nancy: So that's the difference between an elimination round and a normal round.
Steven Hanna: You can hit stop game or let it run out, whatever you prefer. And you also, as the operator, see that leaderboard. It's a live leaderboard. So you'll see who's doing what and how they're doing. Any questions on Red Light, Green Light? Pretty straightforward, right? Okay, we're going to jump back to our home screen. We're going to go into our next game. Our next game is going to be a game that's similar to UNO. It's a game called Pattern Match and Shape Match. So you can hit Pattern Match or Shape Match. So On the right side, this is the game where we teach people how to tag. It is really important that we model the correct behavior for this and really, really reinforce it because every single time these bump together, it's like an iPhone hitting each other. I'm just going to be honest. It's like, yeah, exactly. That cringe face is the exact face that I always make. I'm like, oh, so we try and prevent that from happening. This is the game where we teach people how to tag at a distance. So, since it's only you two at the start, what I'm going to ask one of you to do is take a few steps back as far as you can, and you're going to face your watch towards the other person at the system. I'm going to ask you to just start this game just to see how far away the watches can communicate. We're going to focus on the mechanics after and rules, but I just want you to see how far away they can tag. And they should start to go off pretty far away from each other. So I don't know how far away the other person is, but take a few steps back and just see what the maximum distance is. So you don't have to be right on top of each other for these types of games. This is kind of the distance that you can tag from, and it's really important that you remind your students in classes that you don't have to be right on top of each other trying to hit the watches against each other. You can be that far away, which is, I'm going to assume, 12 feet to 15 feet because I know the range inside. So at 12 to 15 feet, you can see it working. And it's really important to show them this. So I always use myself as the model for this, and I use a helper to stand on the other side, and we do that just to show everybody that's how far away they work. Now, while you're in In this game, how to actually play it, you two are supposed to communicate the color and shape that you have on your watch and link your watch with somebody else in the same group, with the same color, or the same shape. So if you have red, you're going to find somebody with red. If you have blue, you'll find somebody with blue. If you have a circle, find somebody with a circle. That type of thing. So matching colors and shapes, similar to UNO, where you're matching a number and a color.
Nancy: I get a point too. This is doing a job right now. Like if we do it at the wrong shape. Yeah, okay. We take that away though, trust me.
Steven Hanna: It's really like disheartening to not get a color right, and then you lose points as a child. Like, I don't know. My wife has told me like, that's mean. So there's a setting for that as well. If you want to hit the stop game button. And if you go into the settings for this game, you'll also be able to see, ah, nice, well done. If you go into the settings for this game, you'll have that option to turn off negative scoring.
Nancy: Oh, that's cool. Right.
Steven Hanna: So a lot of shapes, a lot of colors. You can change it up depending on what you're trying to work with. I don't recommend you change it up too much. This is kind of one of those, have fun.
Nancy: So you have more colors, more shapes.
Steven Hanna: Did that hurt your soul, taking that, like, plastic off? I don't know. I saw, like, the, ah! Like, there's one person that's like, yeah, we don't need this. This is getting in the way. And then there's the OCD of, like, no! I can see the balance you guys have. That's great. So, what I like to do for this game is I do it in a set of three. I do s***. 60-second rounds, and I only play it for three minutes. And the reason why is three games at 60 seconds. The first game we focus on colors, and it's just easy, right? The second game we focus on shapes, and the third game we focus on colors and shapes at the same time. So I scaffold it up a little bit, and just having that three-step sequence to say, hey, did everybody understand how we tag? Do we understand that we can be at a distance? It's just a really great reinforcement game, because the next games are running and chasing, and require a little bit more hand-eye coordination and awareness. So this is the game to really reinforce. This is how far away you can be. You're more than welcome to start the game up. You can add a few more watches in to simulate other players, because, you know, whatever. But if you see how it works, and you're comfortable, we can move on to another one. Next game we're going to jump into is a game called Keep Away. Classic game of keep-away is you hold on to the ball and you run away with the ball. You can run this game in one of two ways. My wife came up with a game of hot potato where you don't want the ball, and you have to give it to somebody else as quickly as possible. And that works really well with littles and youngers. For older competitive kids, regular keep-away works fine. If you jump in and go into your settings, you'll see that you can also add multiple balls. This is so that there's not one person being chased by 15 people. So this makes it so that there will be three or four different people with a ball, and there will be maybe two or three people trying to take the ball from them. So it's a lot more digestible and safety-wise comfortable for you. If you would like, start the game up, and you can play keep-away or hot potato. It's only you two. But, you know, start it up and see how someone takes the ball from From each other, in the same way that you matched before, now you're trying to match to take away the ball.
Nancy: Like, where's the ball?
Steven Hanna: Yep, and then go to next, and then hit start. Should have one ball. And you'll hear the person with the ball, their watch will chirp. And vibrate. So everybody knows that they have the ball if they're trying to run away.
Nancy: Okay, okay. So you have to keep the ball to yourself. Okay. Right, so that's the keep away version of it.
Steven Hanna: If you wanted to switch it up to hot potato, give it to somebody else as quickly as possible. You don't want that. So this works well with littles, hot potato, hot potato is really good with littles, and then keep away is really good for the competitive olders.
Nancy: The longer you keep it? Correct.
Steven Hanna: One second, one second per point, basically, of holding the ball. Any questions on keep away or hot potato? Okay, you can stop the game, and then you can go back to the home screen, and we'll go over a few more games. Next, let's go, I'll give you the option of Rock, Paper, Scissors, or WordWave. So, Rock, Paper, Scissors, this one gets a little challenging. This works really well with older kids. With younger kids, it kind of fails because it's a lot to teach. So, quickest way to teach this is, red is rock. You're going to change. You're the blue team. Blue team, you're scissors. You're going to chase the green team. Green team, you're paper. You're going to chase the red team. See how quick that was, but see how convoluted it is? We're combining language, colors, and teams. So it sounds quick, it sounds easy to us, but it's really hard to digest for like a six to ten-year-old. What I tell them is, we go over rock, paper, scissors together, and I say, in rock, paper, scissors, we do a call and answer of rock beats, and then they say paper, and they lie, and they get it wrong, and I redo it at the start, and I go, rock beats, and then they say scissors, and get it right. The quickest way to play rock, paper, scissors is actually using it as an icebreaker game as a warm-up. No, anyone on any team, it doesn't matter what color you're on. All you have to do is link your watch to somebody else's watch and get on the same color team. If everybody's on the same color team by the end of a minute, we all win. If some of you are on red, some of you are on green, some of you are On blue, we all lose at the end of that minute. So collaborative icebreaker works really well as opposed to competitive. Competitive, rock, chase, scissors, scissors, chase, paper, paper, chase, rock. I would say add like one or two more of those watches in for this just so that you can see how it works. Yeah, you could turn one or two more of them on because you might need one more for the teams to even. And then once you beat the other person, like rock beats scissors, the person who's on scissors joins the rock team and the rock team gets larger and larger. So that's how everybody gets on the same color team. And then go ahead and start the game.
Nancy: So you can see how once everybody gets on the same team, it's like a group win.
Steven Hanna: And it's honestly much smoother than rock, paper, scissors. So the two ways to do it, the collaborative icebreaker way, I'll give credit to my wife on that, works amazing. Or the competitive way that I run it and is slightly more challenging for everybody. So do with what you will with that. Any questions on rock, paper, scissors? Okay, jump back to the home screen. I know we've got like two minutes left. Can I ask for another like five if that's okay?
Nancy: Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, that's fine.
Steven Hanna: Okay, because we're just going to go over ZombieTag, we're going to shut the system down, and then you guys are on your way, okay? So hit ZombieTag for me. Two versions of ZombieTag, Zombie with Doctor, Zombie without Doctor. Without Doctor is the easiest, with Doctor is a little bit more challenging and more fun. You click whatever version you want, and we'll go over it. Which one are we at? The regular Zombie.
Nancy: Okay.
Steven Hanna: We're going to go into our settings really quickly. I just want to show you what settings we have. We have time, we have zombies on randomize, we have humans on randomize, right? Oh, that's cool.
Nancy: It's like spreading new infection.
Steven Hanna: So, zombies on random is how many people are zombies at the start of the game. The duration of infection is how long it takes for someone to turn into a zombie. Time is obviously how long the time limit is. Any other questions on the settings in that? Okay. Okay. Thank Okay, back out of that, we're going to make one of you the zombie, and you can see how to do that. You can literally hit random assign, or you can personally make a person a zombie or a human, whatever role you need them. And you're going to hit start game whenever you're able, or next and then start game. And you'll see how the zombie infection spreads.
Nancy: Oh, we got him. We got him. Got the human.
Steven Hanna: So that was a quick round. We only had one life each, right?
Nancy: Thank you. No matter what you mean.
Steven Hanna: And that flashing is that, like, I'm morphing into a zombie. So once the game is over, it'll say how many survivors are left. It might not. Go back and hit settings one more time. I just want to show you how to change one quick thing on it. Do you see number of tags before infection?
Nancy: That's how many lives you can give people.
Steven Hanna: So I only gave you one life in that round because I wanted you to have a quick round and see how it spreads. If you're in a smaller space, you can give them more lives. So that's what I recommend you do. Larger space, smaller amount of lives, smaller space, more lives. Any questions on Zombie Tag? Okay, cool. We're going to jump back to our home screen and we're going to get ready to shut the system down. You can take your devices off of your wrists. And what I'm going to ask you to do is please place them inside of the case. This is a really good opportunity to teach some level of responsibility to the kids and have them place their watches back individually. I'm going to ask you to leave one watch out though. And I'm going to apologize to everyone in the office, but this is the recall feature in case one of these watches does not make it back to your case at the end of a session. And you need to locate that device. So this is going to get loud for about five seconds. When the watch goes off, press the red button to reset it, okay? So if we're at the home screen, there's a little U-turn arrow in the top right corner. Press that. Is it going off?
Nancy: It said all ZTAG be beeping now, but. But yours is not.
Steven Hanna: No. Okay. Oh, there we go.
Nancy: It just took a minute.
Steven Hanna: Okay. So hit that red button once to turn it off and reset it.
Nancy: It's not even this. Well, it's because it's not plenty.
Steven Hanna: Are you okay? I see the looks of confusion.
Nancy: I think it was a different one that was beeping, not the one that I have. You want to do it again? I feel like you want to do it again.
Steven Hanna: It's taking a good amount of time to send that signal. That's usually the screen. That's the home screen, but it should be going off right now and giving an alarm. Weird, and I don't know the answer to that. You could probably just put that right back in, and it should turn off and go into a charge sequence. To turn the system off completely, we're going to start with that router at the top. We're going to take it off. We're going to take that router clip, and we're going to take that off as well.� We're Thank You're going to unscrew the antennas.
Nancy: Oh, no, it's leaking.
Steven Hanna: When we move the router all the way over to it. Lovely.
Nancy: Do I take it out?
Steven Hanna: Take it out and hit the red button. Or it should just, yeah. And you should have those, like, two little skinny bags for the router antennas. You could probably put them in one. And in that top right storage area of the case, there's going to be a little, like, recessed area to put the router clip. You're going to place the antennas and the router and the router clip in that storage area. You're going to leave that USB cable and the keyboard onto the side. On the LCD screen in the top right corner, there's a power button. Hit that power button and hit shut down for me. The screen is going to go blank in about two to three seconds. After that, hit that silver button. ring light is going to go off. Hit the red light. And unplug. Take that out of the wall socket. Coil. Fill that black power cable up and put it in the storage area where you put the router and everything else. For the keyboard and that USB cable, if you find another Ziploc bag, you're going to put that in the administrator drawer. That is basically the way to type if we need to do tech support with you. Did you receive two extra ZTAGs, the little watches?
Nancy: I think they did, yeah. Perfect.
Steven Hanna: You're also going to put those in the admin drawer as well. This is going to be your just-in-case if something should ever happen to any of those in your kit. You have two replacements on the house. Close the top. And make sure there is no resistance when you clasp it down. And congratulations. You guys have basically went through your games and know how to run Zeus. I can take you through education side, but I have I a feeling you're going to be on that side more with those games more than anything else. So if you do need any assistance, I'm going to send two emails, a copy of this meeting, and then my contact info is associated. My phone number is on there. This phone is on me 24-7. So if you need anything, quick text or phone call. Okay. Questions, comments, concerns before we scoot out? You do know that there's wheels on that system, right? So you can save your back a little bit. Okay. There's a little clasp in the back to get the handle also to extend. So save your backs. Have a wonderful time with ZTAG. And if you need any assistance at all, any support, please shoot me a quick text, shoot me a quick call, email, whatever you might need. Okay. So it's like a push in and then a lift up on the handle. Yeah. Awesome. All right, folks. If you need anything, reach out. Have a wonderful day.
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Tin DG: Hi, good morning. Good morning, Tin. How are you?
Kristin Neal: I'm good.
Tin DG: Good, good, good, good.
Kristin Neal: That's a good color on you. That blue, I don't think I've ever seen that color on you. Yeah, it's my first time wearing this in the meeting.
Tin DG: Thank you, Chris.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, that's a good one. Good morning, Chris and Tin.
Carmee Sarvida: I'm just going to have to turn off my video because it's been raining here and it's affecting our internet. Oh, okay.
Kristin Neal: That makes sense. Thank you for joining anyways. We have, it's just going to be us today. Everyone else is unfortunately unable to make it. So that, that makes sense. There was some power outages, so, or Wi-Fi outages, but very good to see you girls. Thank you. Well, and just having you with us, Kirby. Thank you.
Carmee Sarvida: Thank you.
Kristin Neal: Thank you.
Carmee Sarvida: Well.
Kristin Neal: What I had planned for today, I'll probably just save for another day, and I'll tell you right now what it is so that you girls have a preview, because I'm just very, very grateful. One of you girls, and I will mention it, on the team really inspired me this week with a really beautiful, beautiful message, and it just, it feels like it just woke me back up. I was very, very grateful. This person, I hope, knows who they are. But this, there was, the first thing I want to do is, actually, I just want to see what you guys are listening to. I would love to hear what you guys, is on your playlist right now, what you just love listening to. So after the meeting, if you want to share whatever song you guys are just playing on repeat, I'll share you mine as well. So do that after the meeting. But I had planned. And again, we won't do it this time, but know what's coming. I want to play 21 questions with you guys. And I had it, I was praying about it because I was like, is it going to be overwhelming? I don't want to overwhelm anyone. But it also shows like how we care is by asking questions. And sometimes we might not think it's, you know, it's a stupid question or, you know, you don't feel like safe enough. But I think our team is in a really good spot with that trust to know that whatever it is that we we ask, this is an absolute safe place. So you guys actually have the benefit here, because now you can kind of think about some questions that you might have. And it could be anything, like absolutely anything. Like, I'll be honest, one of my questions that I wanted to, well, first I wanted to ask Paula if she ever. Or does karaoke? Because that I just, I would love to know. The other day when Steve said, share with something, share with something that we don't know, I was really hoping she would ask, you know, answer that. But I was like, I'm not going to ask. So it's like questions that could be like that, or it could be questions like, I would love to know if you guys have ever thought of moving here, of moving to the U.S. I don't know, like, has that ever crossed your mind? So it could be questions like, those are two questions that I'll probably ask up front. But those are the types of questions that I hope to just hear from that day. And I capped it at 21 because I figured, okay, if we can get to that 21, then we'll be okay. But if it needs to go further, then bring on the questions. So, Carmee, did you want to say something?
Carmee Sarvida: No, I just thought that that question would be for today, but it will be. Or in a different way. Yeah, yeah, we'll save it for another.
Kristin Neal: I thought Dean would like to answer.
Carmee Sarvida: Well, you're welcome to answer.
Kristin Neal: I mean, I would love to hear what you, your answers, but I thought, I didn't want to like put you girls on the spot. And maybe it would be interesting to hear from the team. Another question for Steve, I'm dying to know, is if he's, if he, I'm really curious if Steve is, if ZTAG is what he expected it to be, like the job. So it's just questions, you know, just questions to hear and process. So, but we won't do that. Don't worry. We won't, I won't put you on the, on the hot seat today. Of course, anyone is, is open to ask questions, but how was your girls' week? How, how did it go for you?
Tin DG: For me, this week is. I can say productive because right now everything is going smoothly. I am just grateful that no one is rushing in regards to the safety upgrade that wears my ZTAGGERS now. So everything is going well. So yesterday we were just following up the 10 box of batteries to Teresa. So yeah, I will just get an update from her regarding the other 10 boxes or 10 cartons. And for personal, yeah, everything is went well also. I was able to cook good food that I'm craving for and share it with family. So I think my week is going well. What do you crave, Tin?
Kristin Neal: Tell me, please. What food is this that you crave that you cook?
Tin DG: Yeah, that one we call it like a pork chop. So I just cook it, marinated it, and then cook it in the... I plan to barbecue it, but... But we don't have this goal, so I just fry it with the oil and hot pan. And then I just create a sauce with it with the soy sauce and then cucumber with garlic and onion. And a little bit with sugar because we like sauce a little bit sweet. Yes.
Kristin Neal: I do pork chops here too, Tin, just like that. I fry it in the pan. It's actually one of my kids' favorite. And we have it with white rice. And coleslaw. Have you ever had coleslaw?
Tin DG: Yes. I like the coleslaw, the one that we have in KFC because I'm too lazy to chop because that one you have to chop it a little. So I just put it whenever I want it. Yes.
Kristin Neal: Oh, very cool.
Tin DG: add a cani thing because in the KFC they don't have that cani thing in the coleslaw. But me, if I'm the one who's doing it, I add cani and then more millionaires. box. We Oh, yeah.
Kristin Neal: Oh, yeah. You got to have that creamy sauce with the pork chop and the rice. Oh, gosh, Tin. Okay, I think I know what I'm making for dinner. Thank you so much.
Carmee Sarvida: Carmee, how about you, girl?
Kristin Neal: How was your week? That suddenly makes me feel hungry.
Carmee Sarvida: I think it's great. I think this week, I think my mental health is improving because I just realized that I spent too much on the internet, like social media, and I'm trying to lower my, you know, screen time, the time that I am spending on all of those social media sites because I just want to do things that, you know, kind of make me forget that I have a phone. So I'm now starting. Okay. Thank you. To read the books that I've bought from last year. So hopefully I'll be able to finish one this weekend. That's my goal for this weekend. And, you know, this week also made me realize to be grateful to a lot of things. Because sometimes I find myself, like, looking for more when I actually have, like, enough. More than enough. Just, you know, just enough that makes me happy. It made me realize that life is just all about your perception on things. And, you know, it's just those moments where I just stare at the ceiling and realize all these things. You know, life, life just happened. And then life is complicated, but it's also just as simple as focusing on things that makes you happy, focusing on things that are there in the present and not spending too much time overthinking or worrying about the future. So, yeah, I think I'm getting better this week, and I just want to share it with you. And about work, I think we're making progress. There's, like, people reaching out, and, yeah, hopefully we'll have more partners that are more intentional in partnering with us, growing. Their schools, their company, with us, knowing how they are benefiting from, you know, having us, having ZTAG in their school for their company. So, yeah, that would be it for me. How about you, Chris? Thank you, Carmee.
Kristin Neal: Thank you for sharing. Well, you girls knew how my Monday started. I was raw. I was just, I couldn't find out I was just so raw from the weekend that it was like, I couldn't even really function, to be honest. Like, it was, it was just really hard after. So, emotional with the storm and Steve and everything. But finally on Tuesday, I was able to meet with Steve and get some things, like, clarified and, and aligned, really. Like, we have so much coming of these shows that it's like, it's almost like this giant wave that's coming. But it's like, we've, we've got to get things ready for it. I really, really appreciated, though, seeing, um, Tim, you're. Emails with the safety kits. I mean, I just saw you like flurry, just responding to those. So seeing those is like, like, it gives me such a relief, like this just deep relief. And Carmee seeing you with you two reaching out and it's like, oh my gosh, like, it's so like, like, I just, I guess it's pride. Like, I guess it's just so much pride in you guys, like seeing what you girls are doing. And it's like, it's nothing I know that, that of, it's like, gosh, seeing you girls do what you're doing is just so, like, awesome. And then Derek, Tin, I'm not sure if, if it's been known, but Derek, who we just sent the units, I think like last week, like, literally the four units that were kind of lost for a half a second, and then they were found, they're ready to reorder. That's the fastest reorder I've ever seen. So it was like, and I know it was because of you, Carmee. I I know it because you guys have such a good connection. Derek is so, he's such a good connection for you. It's so like, it's so humbling to see that. So that and with you reaching out, Carmee, when I needed it, was just like, dang, like it was just so, I'm just so grateful. I could not add that to Carmee, like you're right, like the gratitude is just so, so deep and so real. So I'm very, very, very grateful and good connections with the partners too, the partner relations. I had Ted Ward, he called me, he called me like early, early one of these days. It was like 8 a.m. and I'm like, who's calling from California at 8 a.m.? Cause it's 6 a.m. over there. So I ended up calling him back like 20 minutes later and had this great conversation. And he just was like, I just want to hear from someone that is our. Already a partner, I was like, wait a minute, Napa, we have connections in Napa, like we already had a partner there, so I was, and we did the play day there that I was able to tell him about last year, and all those connections, but the woman that I connected him to from Napa that's already a partner, she responded this morning and was like, I'd be happy to talk with him. So it was like, oh, yes, like connecting them was like, yes, I love, like that's my favorite part of the job, honestly, is connecting people, and I think that's it, I think that's my favorite part of the job, and that was really this week, was just connecting them, and there was someone else that I connected well with, but yeah, those were definitely like breaths of fresh air. Seeing you girls do amazing work, and getting connecting, or connecting with others, and yeah, that was really, really a highlight, so I'm excited next week. This is going to be my two-year anniversary. I'm so excited. It'll be two years that I've been at ZTAGG. So I'm excited for that. Yeah. Yeah. Two years. I hate to admit it. My job history was not good. Before my, when I worked at the church, that was the longest I had worked anywhere. was seven years. And I loved it. I, if we could have, we, I would have just stayed there and retired and lived there my whole life, but got ahead of the plans. And I've never been in a job besides that one at seven years, longer than two years. I've never, I've always been burnt out. To be honest, I just, I was so burnt out, but the church taught me, you know, about boundaries and maybe after the church on boundaries, but I really see, and I, I'm praying that the ZTAGG is somewhere I can just keep growing. And just keep, I'm worried though, I'm not going to lie, there's a little part of me that's worried that maybe it gets to where like it no longer needs me, and I have to be okay with that. So, but that's something, you know, that we probably all have to go through, I'm sure, with our growing pains. I think that's what they call growing pains, so. But yeah, I'm excited for the weekend. Are you girls excited for the weekend? What do you have planned? Anything? Besides good food, Tin? Yes.
Tin DG: I remember you said this year, second year, when I checked the calendar next week, it's also February, it's the 7th, yeah, it's my first year. Yeah, it's also my first year next week.
Kristin Neal: I can't believe it's only been one year. Yeah. It's Yeah, it's my one year now, yeah.
Tin DG: Wow. I just remember. Because I forget checking the days, and so I just remember. Oh, yeah, it's next. Next week is February. Yeah. So I just remembered. So my weekend plans. Yeah, it's not about food. So we're planning to go outside and travel a little bit. My father said my nephew is want to go this place. I forget the name. So maybe we would just go for it for a ride. I think it will take two hours going there. So we would just so he just want to see the places that I never been there. It's like a mountain here, but I forgot the name of the mountain. So we might go there this weekend. Yeah. So if there's not, if the weather is good, we will definitely go there. But since there are some rain, so we will just stay home and keep myself busy with the household chores. But I hope it's not so we can go outside. Because this past few weeks, I'm just staying home, doing some household stuff. So I'm hoping we Yes, I hope so too. So I think that will be my highlight of my weekends because that is the time that I was able to go outside. And then on Sunday, I will go to church and then rest. If there's nothing come up, so I will just rest on Sunday. Good, good, good.
Kristin Neal: I love it. How about you, Carmee?
Carmee Sarvida: I think mine would be food. I've been craving this chicken barbecue from a fast food restaurant here in the Philippines. And the last time I came there, they didn't have it. So I was disappointed. I think it was last week. And hopefully they will have chicken barbecue tomorrow. It's manginasalte and I've been craving for it for like weeks now. Yeah, hopefully they will. I'll have it tomorrow, and just as I shared earlier, my goal is to finish a book, and Sunday, church day, just, I don't know, maybe I'll watch a documentary movie.
Kristin Neal: That would be.
Carmee Sarvida: That would be all. What about your plans, Chris? That was awesome, Carmee.
Kristin Neal: Thank you for sharing. First, I want to ask you something, because I keep forgetting to ask you, Carmee, what's your daughter's name?
Carmee Sarvida: It's Zuriel, Z-U-R-I-E-L. Zuriel, how beautiful.
Kristin Neal: Every morning, of course, you girls know I'm in a prayer, so a lot of times I'm a little, like, hard to get, although I try to make sure I have my ear out from my phone. But I have on my screen right here, Felice, Nizette, and Bernice. Which are the nieces of Tin and Glances, and I pray for them every morning. When I started thinking about this morning, I was like, you know, I actually need to include our daughters, Carmee, because it's not just the auntie and niece relationships, it's the older girl to the younger girl. Like, we need to, like, encourage those relationships so much, and I just, it makes me, like, joyful thinking of, like, I've had the honor of being sent a picture of your daughter. mean, that, like, that warms my heart so much. Like, I don't even think you understand how much that warms my heart, seeing that beautiful relationship. So, Zeriel is definitely, I've written her down, she is being in my prayers. So, that's so sweet. Of course, of course, my pleasure. This weekend, well, this morning, I had such a good conversation with Riley, my own daughter. We've been cooped up, and they've been, like, doing their own thing while I'm at work, so it's been, like, it's frustrating to me, like, not getting that connection, but by the grace of God, I was able to get a connection with her and just talked with her for, like, literally hours this morning, and she's gonna go with me, hopefully, we'll see. She wants to go to church on Sunday, so, like, that's just amazing. We don't force our kids to go to church. As much as I would like to, I just don't see, we used to, I used to force them every week. I don't care, I mean, I was, like, the whip, like, we're going, like, I don't care what you guys say, and maybe it'll bite me in the end, like, years later, I don't know, but it doesn't, but hearing that she was open to going, I was just so grateful to hear. So, I'm hoping that on Sunday, she'll go, and she really is craving chicken and waffles. I don't know if that's popular over there, but that's her favorite meal over here, so, Steve. Has said, okay, I'll make you the chicken and waffles. So he's going to make that on Sunday. And then he promised me to take me to the movies. That's my favorite thing to do. And have Chinese food. That's my favorite. Like, that's all I need. If I get to go to the movies and have Chinese food after, I'm like the happiest person on the planet. So he said, yes, we'll do that on Sunday. So I'm so excited. And tomorrow, so I'm going to be very honest, my room is a mess. It's, it's such a hot mess. And I can tell like when like, it's a mess here, because it's like a mess here. And it's like, oh, I got to get this figured out. So, but that's okay. With the kids being home and like being cooped in this house, it was like, it was just too much for my brain to even think about cleaning this. So tomorrow, I'm going to just have fun with it and play music and just get it done at my, like my leisure. Maybe throw in a movie here somewhere. I don't know. But we're. We're still kind of cooped in. We have a lot of snow still out on the streets, so it's okay. It's okay. We're making through. But thank you, girls, so much for sharing that. I'll go ahead and close our time in prayer, and we'll close up today's Fun Friday, okay? Is there anything else that I could do anything for you, girls? Anything, anything.
Tin DG: For me, none. Thank you, Grace. Yeah, nothing. I don't. Yeah. I couldn't think of anything. Okay.
Kristin Neal: If you do, you know how to reach me. Carmee? Yeah. Yeah.
Carmee Sarvida: I think it's for my home, Chris. I'm preying on it. Yes. soon.
Kristin Neal: I'm buying a home.
Carmee Sarvida: It's currently on process. It's in Cebu, so still waiting to hear back from the contractor, from the bank. Yep. So, yeah. Yep.-bye. encanta Thank praying on it. Thank you, Grace. Absolutely, Carmee.
Kristin Neal: Thank you. great, Mish. Yeah.
Tin DG: Thank you.
Kristin Neal: That's huge.
Carmee Sarvida: That's huge.
Kristin Neal: I'm going to pray us out. Dear Lord, God, you are so, so good. Thank you so much for bringing this team together, for these beautiful ladies here. God, you are just so grateful. We are just so grateful for everything that you are doing. Thank you for the highs and lows of this week. Thank you for the hard work by everybody, Lord. Everybody did a lot of hard work this week. From Paulo with the pricing catalog. I know that was a nightmare. With Clances with this quote form. I know that was a nightmare for Carmee with reaching out to all these prospective partners with Tin and the Safety Initiative and Steve with his training and everything that he's trying to accomplish, Lord. And Charlie working so hard on these deadlines that were so hard with Tin. Gosh, she just poured her heart into that. that good thing. And Kwan, God, you are so good to be working through him as well. Thank you so much for getting us through this week. Thank you for the week in that we get to rest and restore and renew ourselves. I pray for the plans that Tin and Carmee have shared and the plans of the team. God, please give them the wonderful rest that they will seek from you this weekend. And please, Lord, I am lifting up Carmee's home. Lord, if this is her home, please, Father, please bless her with an answer so she'll know whether this is her home or whether it's not. We know that you have an amazing, the most amazing, perfect home ready for her. And we are just waiting patiently, Lord, for that, for that answer to be had. Thank you so much, Lord. We are so grateful. We love you. And Jesus is precious. Oh, and I pray for the girls in our life. Felice, Bernice, Ariel, Willow, my niece, Riley. My daughter, Lord, thank you for those relationships, and we are just so grateful for them. Thank you. We love you in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you so much, ladies. Thank you, Grace. Thank you, Thank you, Carmee.
Carmee Sarvida: Enjoy your weekend. You too. Enjoy the rest. Have a good one. Bye, ladies. Bye.
Charlie Xu: Morning, Chris. How are you? Yes, I finally got it cleaned. What? I finally got it cleaned.
Kristin Neal: Oh my goodness. That was a good couple weeks ago. I couldn't get it cleaned. How are you, Charlie? How was your weekend?
Charlie Xu: A lot of things. Multitasking, as always.
Kristin Neal: As always. Right?
Charlie Xu: Yeah, I feel like two days is not enough for me. So many things want to do. Yeah, so true. It's kind of nice because the snow makes everything slow down. Like, it kind of forces you to. I was thinking that, you know, because we're in California. The sun is burning all the time. It's just like not letting you rest.
Kristin Neal: Exactly. Yeah.
Charlie Xu: So, but I do feel like even the city I used to live in, in the winter it's cold. It's just you want to sit there, not. Moving. I think that's actually good.
Kristin Neal: But California is like burning.
Charlie Xu: like moving around.
Kristin Neal: Always. I'm exhausted.
Charlie Xu: I like a winter, winter.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, it's going to be, I think, 10 degrees today, but it's cold in the house, but it does. It makes it different. Right, yeah, yeah.
Charlie Xu: In the nature, we need winters to prepare for the spring.
Kristin Neal: Yes, rest, repair, and get our strength up for the growth to come. So true. Good morning, everybody. Good morning, ladies. Tin, unfortunately, has no power. She all of a sudden lost power, so she's going to try to join us as soon as she can. Charlie, would you mind if I started off with something that I read this morning that I wanted to share?
Charlie Xu: Okay, yeah. Cool.
Kristin Neal: Thank you so much. I really like today, today, February 2nd, to teamwork and friendship. Why do I recommend that you work to develop? Friendship is the foundation of influence. President Abraham Lincoln said, you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Good relationships make influence possible, and friendship is the most positive relationship you can develop on the job with your coworkers. Friendship is a framework for success. I believe long-term success is unachievable without good people skills. Theodore Roosevelt said, most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people. Without it, most achievements are not possible, and even what we do achieve can feel hollow. Friendship is a shelter against sudden storms. If you're having a bad day, who can make you feel better? A friend. When you have to face your fears, who would you rather do it with? A friend. When you fall in your face, who can help pick you up? A friend. And our apostle was right when he said, true friends are a sure refuge. I hope I said that right, Air Apostle? Aristotle? think it's Aristotle. Don't just be a team member, be a friend to those you work with. So I thought that was really cool. Let's start with friendship and then see where we grow from here. Thank you for sharing.
Charlie Xu: You're always the chicken soup.
Kristin Neal: That's so wonderful to start the week. Thank you for reminding us. Thank you, Charlie. So we had a good end of our weekend last week. Good connections on Friday. So Carmee has already, I saw, got emails out to them. So hopefully we'll get some units ordered early in this week. Did the AMA quote form get sent back, Carmee? For Oregon?
Carmee Sarvida: AMA? Yeah, we've already sent them the invoice. And Charlie said that. But she already see it, but it's not yet credited to the account. So we'll be looking on it. I've already added them to our partnership. So once Charlie updates the deal, then Ted and I will be working on the ship. That's wonderful.
Kristin Neal: It's been nice because we've kind of like forced everybody on that quote form. So it's like forcing them to go through this process that has been in place. So I really appreciate that, Carmee. Just keep pushing that quote form and then, yeah, it'll get them through. Klansys, did you happen to get an update on that video of what is ZTAG? I know that was an odd request.
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, for that, I am working on how we are to hear people. You're cutting in and out.
Kristin Neal: out. We can hear you, but it's a little choppy. You could maybe message it in the chat, if that helps. If you're talking, I can't hear you. No. You know, while Klansys, maybe you can take a minute to find a way to communicate, and I'll keep going, because I just got, we're going to move on to marketing. Is that okay? Okay, thanks, Klans. Ladies, Charlie, I'll send you guys some PDFs. back. PDF Requests, and that is for the slides, for the CAN slides. So these slides, if we could get them, Charlie, by next week so that they can be approved, I can. And I also am sending, let's see, the graphics. Here, should we just take a look together? Yeah, we should be, yeah, there we go. Let me share my screen. Okay, so this is for the opening reception. And we're going to be needing, I believe, three slides. Yeah, about three slides. And one of the first slides will be for the main game. This is the, you don't have to have that. It's actually, this is the title right here. Magic. Temperature, Color, and Number. That's for the subtitle Community Pair Play. And the slide will just detail the game rules and the raffle rules. This might, Charlie, if it's too much on the slide, maybe this raffle rules can be on a separate slide. I think we have that actually scheduled for a separate slide for the raffle rules. And then here, just one sign, one line signage for the table. These will actually, it's not just needed for the print, the slide, but it's also needed for the reception. So, like, if we get, you know, one of those posters that Lily got the last time that said, like, over here, the reception, like, come over here. Kind of like that same process, but on that bigger poster. Um. But just these game rules. And then these, let's see, this will be for the table. Just a small quick liner. That's just like an 8.5 by 11. Here's some notes for the slide. Just very big, very clear, minimal paragraphs. And then the slide two, add up our steps challenge. This is the challenge that we have for them. This is the title for that. And then a simple movement activity where each participant contributes steps to a collective total. If you want to, the game rules on that. Or not the game rules. It's out of play. Out of play.
Charlie Xu: Is that a 10, 1,000 steps?
Kristin Neal: I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure. was like, I ordered this too much.
Charlie Xu: Too much? I don't I have no idea.
Kristin Neal: We'll have to ask Steve.
Charlie Xu: maybe ask. Yeah, Steve. I feel like two less, like not enough.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, I was like 5,000. Like how many? Okay.
Charlie Xu: 10K. 10K.
Kristin Neal: Wow.
Charlie Xu: I don't know. That might be too much, right? I love it.
Kristin Neal: I'll make them sweat. And then really brief. Let's see if we could reach however steps tonight. And then total updates every 30 minutes.
Charlie Xu: Oh, okay. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Or maybe updated every 30 minutes. Yeah. And then so call to action. So of course not adding that, but meet our playmakers. Follow the unforgettable ZTAG sounds. Beep, beep, beep. I thought maybe to tell them to go find them. Okay. Oh, find.
Charlie Xu: Oh, playmaker.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Like to come play this game. Come find our Okay. Playmakers, so they know where that game is being played. Oh, okay.
Charlie Xu: But the Playmaker, are you, mean, like, staff, like we are? Yeah, that'll be where Quan is.
Kristin Neal: Quan is going to be over there.
Charlie Xu: Okay. So Steve will not, are we still confirming is Steve going to be there or not? Are they still? He's not going to be, at least unless the crews responded to Quan, because I know he was trying to move it up a week. Right. I haven't heard yet. Oh, okay. If to.
Kristin Neal: So, so far, no, Steve is going to be in Florida.
Charlie Xu: Okay. So it will be you, me, and Quan. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Okay. And we did ask if there was any registration or anything needed for my mom and aunt. They're right now with Lily. They're viewing.
Charlie Xu: Oh, yeah, yeah, Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Great. they're going to be, like, liaison between, they're going to be kind of like Lily's assistant.
Charlie Xu: Mm-hmm. Perfect. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Charlie Xu: And also, I do feel like on that day, maybe we can ask Ken to see if they can come, if there's any little things to help. I'm sure they will be coming and support, because last time we go to Playdate, even the leader, Jeff, is helping us wrap up things. So I feel like the whole team are very supportive. So yeah, it should be fine.
Kristin Neal: We did ask if anything was needed for them, like registration or whatever, and they haven't gotten back to us, but that was a few weeks ago. So I'm hoping it's just one of those that they could just help. I see.
Charlie Xu: I feel like they're overwhelmed, too. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Stupid question, but yeah.
Charlie Xu: Okay.
Kristin Neal: So this will be the second slide right here. So it's up to you, Charlie, if you think this is necessary to direct them. Thank Where to play, it's completely up to you, but I thought maybe to get them to listen. Everyone knows the sound from the conference. Everyone can recognize the beep, beep, beep, you know, when we're in the conference and we're playing.
Charlie Xu: So I was saying like, because maybe, I don't know, if maybe we can go through with who is introducing us or maybe we can have you on the stage to explain a little bit when we're playing, display the, the, the, the, the slideshow. So, because at the very beginning, we probably collect everyone to introduce ZTAG, to introduce the activities we're going to have. Maybe talk a little bit about the, the, the, the, the prize we're offered, get them excited. So, so yeah, I think the, the slides, it's, it's not, it's not like focusing on explaining how to play.
Kristin Neal: I think it would be good for.
Charlie Xu: A human to explain in a very simple way, the slides are just supporting it.
Kristin Neal: Perfect.
Charlie Xu: When you're saying that, we can having someone like click, click, click, and then later it can automatically running, it's fine. But I feel like when you're saying it, it brings attention, right? I feel like you're adding up the energy.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. Yeah. That's a great idea, Charlie.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Good, good, good. You're right. They need to feel like they're ready to jump in.
Charlie Xu: Participate, yeah. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Great. Oh, I love it. Here is the I Can't Sticker Hunt right here. So another really brief slide for that. And then the second one that I'm sending, these are the game templates. So here we have like the purpose of them, the size I have right here, and just what they really briefly need. It's very quick. Pull. I'll just copy and paste right here. And then again, this is, this is one. Oh, can you go back to see like the numbers? What is that? These are the cards.
Charlie Xu: Oh, what does that mean?
Kristin Neal: That's for the ICANN sticker hunt.
Charlie Xu: Oh, okay.
Kristin Neal: So how many different ICANN statements did they find? So they're going to check how many different ones they found.
Charlie Xu: Should they write it down or something like They're just going to check it.
Kristin Neal: Just check.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: They'll just check. And then after they find out how many they check, they'll, they'll turn it in.
Charlie Xu: Then is that everyone get a raffle ticket?
Kristin Neal: Everyone who turns it in. Yeah, that's a good question.
Charlie Xu: Is that like, yeah, is it like everyone finds it to, who get the raffle or only when they participate, we give them? Maybe just participate.
Kristin Neal: I agree. On this one, just participate. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's actually put the instructions on the bottom. So instructions on the bottom. That's a good point. Participate for a raffle ticket?
Charlie Xu: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, I think maybe, Paula, you can find some fun words. Like, hey, can you find, I can stay men in this room, they're hiding here and there, be creative, exploring, you know, like something like that, too. So much better, yes.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, not so boring, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or like, I think my kids say like, is that like, what is that, using your eye to, what is that, the thing? I open my, I don't what is that, the, I don't remember, but my kids know how to say, it's like a, a sentence, it's fun. I love it.
Kristin Neal: Like a, not a slang, but probably like a catchphrase or something. Something like that.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. How do you say that? I don't remember. I can check with something.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Yeah. Right? Okay.
Charlie Xu: Perfect.
Kristin Neal: Perfect. I love that. So definitely add this on the bottom. Participate for a raffle ticket. Okay. And then here's the Avery template that I'm going to be need to be using for this, for these sticker games. So this is the, it's four and a half by three. I measured it and it doesn't look too big on someone's shirt. So it's going to be visible up here on their, their shoulder. And then each of these stickers are one of these questions. So again, however you think visually it looks best, but just these need to have this certain color, very visible. Whether it's like a blue bar, a blue circle, a blue.
Charlie Xu: of to go Okay. So like a Sharpies, we're going to have like blue, red.
Kristin Neal: I'm only going to have, oh, I guess we could. I was just going to have only black.
Charlie Xu: Oh, okay. It's a sticker itself. It's blue, right?
Kristin Neal: If you could make it blue, that would be cool. Yeah. But however you want it to.
Charlie Xu: You said like match the color and numbers.
Kristin Neal: So where's the color part? Like maybe like a blue bar across the sticker or a blue triangle or like if we do the colors and the shape in that color, maybe that would help. So they're going to match their color and then their check mark. Do they have the blue type of the stickers? Yeah.
Charlie Xu: And we print it on there and they just mark it and this. We probably could.
Kristin Neal: We probably could. Yeah. Does have like a sticker for the blue, the red, and the yellow?
Charlie Xu: Yeah, and we print it on there, so it's already there.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, let me see. What's the color?
Charlie Xu: It's so obvious.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, yeah.
Charlie Xu: Maybe the shape, we can, you know, print it on there with the black outline, but the color is so obvious, so.
Kristin Neal: That's a good idea. Then it's very clear. Yeah, because I just feel like if you prepare like a colored triangle, it's a lot of work.
Charlie Xu: Like, need to, we need to find a triangle.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Or probably need to, we can have color printers. If we want to do that. The idea with what you're saying, just the color, because, and then if we just take out the shape, because that'll be even one more thing they think they have to match, but it's not. It's just the color with the check mark, so I like that idea. I'll definitely look into the different colors.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, are they, are these stickers going to be lying on the table, so they just pick whatever they want to answer that question? Okay. Okay. up. Exactly.
Kristin Neal: They'll be on all the game cards, and like the raffle thing will be on one table, on the six-foot table. Okay.
Charlie Xu: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Cool. I did order, Charlie, I ordered custom, should I show you? Let me show you. Look at what I ordered. I thought these would be a good thing for us to have for several things. They're custom raffle tickets that say ZTAG on them.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Okay.
Kristin Neal: So that'll be good for... yeah. Is it customized? Yeah, I got them. What?
Charlie Xu: Yeah. Oh. Paula gave me them. Because Lily, Lily do send us a row of raffle tickets.
Kristin Neal: Okay. But it's okay.
Charlie Xu: We can use it for later, like for boost or whatever. Also, he had, she ordered a raffle. So, Okay. Machine? Nice.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Charlie Xu: And the gift card is coming. Oh, great. the gifts are coming.
Kristin Neal: Okay. I wanted them to be, like, separate, you know what mean? Like, special raffle tickets. They, I remember last year at the, they give raffle tickets for drinks. I remember that.
Charlie Xu: Oh, okay. So you don't want to mix?
Kristin Neal: I didn't want to mix them. Yeah. right, right, right.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. Yeah, it's good.
Kristin Neal: And let me go, let me see. I think that was it. Just those. So those have been attached. Charlie, do you need me to edit any of those before turning them into you?
Charlie Xu: Does the game, the color matching game, you have instructions on there?
Kristin Neal: Let's see. I have the instructions.
Charlie Xu: Oh, it's for the slides. You have that, right?
Kristin Neal: On the slides, yes. Okay.
Charlie Xu: I don't have it on the individual.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Charlie Xu: But I do have it for the slide and that big poster that I'm hoping to have. Okay. Yeah. Oh, the big posters. What is that one?
Kristin Neal: That one is this one right here? Right here. For slide one and large print. that one's for the match your color and number for that game with the stickers oh okay i still wanted to verify so when they finish are they put on their chest or they put on the once they put it up once they do their check and they match then right here find your match pair your stickers together and then turn in the paired stickers for a raffle card oh i see i see so they they will come together like these two right exactly like they're next It's almost like a, I want them high five.
Charlie Xu: Oh, gotcha.
Kristin Neal: together, and then, so, turn in the paired stickers, receive one raffle ticket per partner.
Charlie Xu: Okay. And then, want to play again?
Kristin Neal: She's a different color.
Charlie Xu: But what about the poster? You said they're going to put it on the poster? No, if this information can just be on the poster.
Kristin Neal: Oh, okay.
Charlie Xu: I have this whole thing on a slide and poster. Oh, okay. Got you.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Okay. Cool. So, slide and poster on this one. Just the eight and a half by 11 on this simple one. It kind of just makes it super simple. And then, the slide for the challenge to add up the steps. Paula, do you have any questions on this?
Paula Cia: No, don't off our course.
Kristin Neal: Okay. you. Were you able to open up the PDFs that I added to the chat?
Paula Cia: I haven't yet because Klansys asked me a video, so I was just searching for the video show.
Kristin Neal: I'm going to put in the team chat too, just in case.
Paula Cia: Can you send it in the email, Chris, directly so it won't be hard to find after? Sure.
Kristin Neal: So add you to it from here? From up? From these? Like right here? Yeah.
Paula Cia: Okay.
Kristin Neal: I'll add you to, Charlie.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, please. Thank you. Okay. Thank you.
Kristin Neal: Okie dokie. Thank you, ladies. We don't need the templates, Charlie, until the following week, because we could just take these with us. So, but it's these ones, the slides that we're going to need probably by next week, so we can get them sent over for approval. So, they just want to look. I'm sure it'll be fine.
Charlie Xu: So, and also we sent out the slides for the general, is that one could be used on the event as well?
Kristin Neal: I was going to say, yeah. Keep it as consistent? Absolutely.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, so, so maybe Paula does, I know that that one is more like a premium looking before the game. So, maybe just keep it simple, a little bit like. Little bit elements try to match each other, but both make the style look consistent.
Kristin Neal: You're right, Charlie. There are a few more slides that are needed. So the ZTAG story with testimonials. So that first slide with the ZTAG story, the one with the website and QR code, so that could be the main session one.
Charlie Xu: The ZTAG mission statement. Okay. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Do you want me to add these on here real quick?
Charlie Xu: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Got it. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Sorry. Crazy. Bye.
Charlie Xu: Bye. Thank I think we probably just need to have the style like a company presentation, look at more like professional with like clean decorations. So, yeah, I just try to avoid too much color and too much decorations. I think that maybe you start with the front page, front slides, and then come up with a link for the video. Is it like the video? Yeah, every play is a video. The next slide will be the video link. And then probably the website and QR code could put on the last and then mission statement after. Then we're going to do. The game introductions after Quan speak. So Chris, you're going to come up there to give a little bit of the introduction of the games. Then later we have the website and QR code for the last page.
Kristin Neal: Let's actually redo these because this testimonial slide, Charlie, the one that Quan will go up and speak to, that's slide one, right?
Charlie Xu: I think slide one could be the first one we submitted to, to Ken. Yeah, the one is in general, so they're going to rotate, yeah, rotate that constantly. So like the first impression.
Kristin Neal: Yes. There.
Charlie Xu: And the second could be the testimonials.
Kristin Neal: Perfect. Yeah. And then the third for... The ZTAG Mission Statement?
Charlie Xu: Yes.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Five. Let's do five right here. It's out of your challenge.
Charlie Xu: Because I think when Quan goes up to the stage, we can put the Mission Statement slide point. There we go.
Kristin Neal: Good, good, good, good. Let me write that down. There we go. And then these ones, five, six, seven. Okay. So seven slides total. I'll reformat these. I'll re-order them.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. So it's a little bit more clear.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. And add our transcript with a little more details. They didn't limit us to the number of the slides, right? No. They didn't mention.
Charlie Xu: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Nope.
Charlie Xu: And also, I think they mentioned they were also adding other slides on there. Yes.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Charlie Xu: Yes.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Charlie Xu: Mm-hmm.
Kristin Neal: I think it was only our, like, first thought was to keep it at six or seven. But yeah, there's going to be, I'm sure, more. Okay. I'll re-order those, and I'll get them back over. All right. Thank you so much, Charlie.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. Thank you.
Kristin Neal: How, what else, ladies? What other, is there any other support? What are we working on?
Klansys Palacio: Yeah. Can you hear me now, Chris?
Kristin Neal: There we go. Thank you, Chris. Yeah. For the...
Klansys Palacio: Thanks, Thank ZTAG video. So in the analytics, we actually have a general clicks like 60 plus. It's not just for specific videos, which is the analytics only give, but I found a way to get the completed, the start and the progress if we were going to upload it on the YouTube and connect it to the websites. So in that way, we're able to check everything like the video completed, video started and the video progress for all the events that actually happened to that specific video. So because the video inside of the website is only hosted in the backend, so we are only get the in general clicks, not the specific videos for the what is ZTAG. So backend, to out. we're we're we're Thank So for the month of January, we'll have 60 clicks total, but we don't have any data for how many videos being completed, progressed, and started. So if we will be able to upload it, then we can track it by this time.
Kristin Neal: Is that okay with you, Charlie? It sounds like that video, what is ZTAG, will have to go on YouTube and our website.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, because I think we discussed that before. The original thoughts is we don't want to direct them out of our platform, because if they direct to YouTube after they finish, they probably will be distracted with other feeds. But if it stays as the page, I don't know if currently on that page, do we direct them? There is a way they can go back to our webpage.
Klansys Palacio: There I know, I will go into connect it to the website. I'll just need the link for the YouTube and the video still hosted in the website, but using the YouTube link. Oh, okay.
Charlie Xu: Okay. So it's not like, okay, yeah, I think that's fine. Yeah, yeah.
Kristin Neal: Do you want the link, like a closed link, like they can't find it on YouTube or they can only access it on our website, our webpage? Or do you want them to be able to access it? I think it's fine.
Charlie Xu: Since we provide them the link, it will from our website link, right? Because it's under our page, but it's just embedded with a YouTube video. I think that that should be totally fine. That's what I meant.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, yeah.
Charlie Xu: Because before I was thinking we could send them a YouTube link, then it, yeah, it just, it will distract them.
Kristin Neal: There we go. So when we send. It'll come from our website.
Charlie Xu: There we go.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. And also on that page, would be good to have maybe a ZTAG logo or something to when they click and they can go back to our main page, index page.
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, sure, sure. Yeah, yeah.
Charlie Xu: Or learn more, up a ton of learn more, something like call to action they can, or contact us, something there. So after they, do you have any questions, or something like that, to kind of remind them to moving forward. Yeah, call to action.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, yeah.
Charlie Xu: So the weekend, I haven't got a chance to go through the social media yet, as we talk about it. But today, I'm going to have a meeting with Clancy and Paula to go through the social media platform to see how we can. Get the best practice out of it. Yeah, because I still like for me, I do feel like I'm so, like for now, the PE, I'm not really sure, like we got about 60 leads, but maybe Carmee can give us some updates on so far, how many, what's the progress of these?
Carmee Sarvida: For the meta leads, Charlie, think we have, right now we have 45 leads since we re-stopped the automation. And then on Friday, last Friday, I've sent them the second follow-up, and I haven't, like, really noted. The statistics of how many of them replied and how many are they still in the first stage. Like we received nothing from the start, but I've seen a lot of replies, replying to the first email that we sent, like if they would be using it for school, after school or others. And I think that's where they are right now, like still in that stage.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Yeah, I still want to verify a little bit like the first email when we reach out, we send them what is ZTAG video, right? Is it the client speaking or it's the second stage? What is the very first stage?
Carmee Sarvida: Is this a question? Yeah, just a question. If they're good. Maybe using it for school, after school, and others. And then second follow-up would still be like nudging them about the question, just light tone. And then in the third follow-up, will be, I've sent them the What Is ZTAGG video together with the product spec sheet so that they can browse or review it while they're still not responding to us. and offering them if, how many students are they planning to use ZTAGG with, so that I can give them the ROI, you know, giving them like call to action so that, you know, if they have the time, they can reply back to us with the info that they want. I see.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, I think last, last week I actually go through, um, Kwan's What Is ZTAGG video, um, again. Um, I have the thoughts, want to hear your, your feedbacks. Thank Because I do feel like what is ZTAG actually just one, the owner, express his missions? But I feel like we have the other video is we have other teachers talk about ZTAG. Maybe that one is more, you know, like more convincing.
Carmee Sarvida: The testimonials?
Charlie Xu: Yeah, the testimonials, like the two minutes one, which we're going to play on Ken. It just, it talks about, I feel like, but it has, it's after school, but it's still, but still Eric's on there. So it's more like school, after school, it's still broad. I feel like, I feel like, because also it has, has the footage of how ZTAG is being applied, how the kids are reacting to it. It's more vivid. It's Other than just Quan. Nobody knows who is Quan, but he just, they are, talk like two minutes. I don't feel like people, right now has two patients, just listen to him. So I feel like the video we have, short testimonials, along with all the kids are playing, it works better. Like, I mean, I feel like, I don't know. Let me jump back. Yeah. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Let me, let me share with you what I'm, I'm seeing. Cause I, I agree with you that yes, testimonials do speak to like the heart, but a lot of them just need to know exactly what it is. So like, they just need to know exactly what kind of Quan just clearly states out. So I get why it's like, it's kind of like the boring part of the process. You know what I mean? But I'm not disagreeing with you because Quan's delivery of it could be, could be a little bit more. impactful if we included some of that footage where the kids are saying they love it, the teachers are saying, so I see Quan's video being very, very good at how it is, very kind of black and white almost, but having like maybe like a scrolling on the side, you know, of showing like these are what we've seen kind of thing, like maybe not it being like the main part of the point of the video, because I think the point of the video needs to stay at it being explained clearly, but adding that element of seeing what it's doing, I think would be a good idea.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, yeah, like the idea popped to me, maybe on that web page, we have, we can have the kids playing background.
Kristin Neal: I love it, yes.
Charlie Xu: I do feel like it's only just, if it's just blank. Blue background, but I need to feel like it's a community, right? It's quite nice to talk about it, but there's schools and, yeah, I felt, yeah, maybe that could be, I don't know, like, Carmee, any, you have any idea?
Carmee Sarvida: We actually have the, I think we can send them the testimonial page, like, we have, like, a lot of it uploaded there, and on the, on our, like, process, we actually have a question that asks what are their struggle or challenges as a teacher, and then we send them a testimonial that is relevant to that challenge. But at this point, we don't have any response yet to that, you know, they actually respond to that question, so we haven't, like. Send them the actual, you know, the actual video that is related to their struggle. But we can send them the webpage, you know, with all those testimonials. Maybe after we sent them the what is ZTAG video, you know, first the what is ZTAG so that they will have the, you know, the information on what is the actual, well, how we actually use ZTAG, how schools are using ZTAG, ZTAG in action. And then if they don't respond yet, we will send them the testimonial so that, you know, even though they're not responding, we have all this information available for them once they're able to check on the thread, the email thread. Mm-hmm.
Charlie Xu: The things I feel like we, if we, if the question we're asking is the point we're stuck, because they don't even know how they answer it, should we? Should Should we change it? Because I feel like if, you know, like, normally we get a simple question of if you're school or after school, they reply, right? Because it's simple. They don't even use brain to process it. But like, oh, what is the challenge? I think it's, there's, oh, I have a lot of challenge. I don't even know how to say it. Like, I just, I feel like it probably might stuck of like, oh, I don't even know if you are the solution, why I explain my challenge to you. I don't know. I feel like it could be, I don't know. I feel like maybe we should, you know, because it's still the automation, it's an experiment. Maybe we should constantly tailor it into how, see how people react to each actions we present.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Charlie Xu: Because I know, like, the challenge is we want interactions. We want make going going that that But so far, is there anyone replied yet?
Kristin Neal: Like, is there anyone?
Carmee Sarvida: I think the farthest that we have is asking about the pricing. Pricing details, so we send them the ROI first, and then the spec sheet, and then the pricing catalog.
Charlie Xu: Yeah. Yeah, maybe we should come up with some other questions. I don't know.
Kristin Neal: I can use your, I like to, Carmee, you had mentioned that, yeah, they're not getting past that question. Because sometimes they maybe just don't, they need the answer already.
Charlie Xu: Like, we already know their answer.
Kristin Neal: So we put on that webpage, Charlie, like, kind of the steps that we're already going through, so that they could... Just see, are you experiencing low staff, excessive absences, chronic absences? Like, we already know, like, these major things that they're dealing with, that can be portaled into the testimonials. Right, right.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, I fully agree with that. Other than a question, we provide solutions. And also, actually, something I discussed with clients this morning, because I noticed when some people reply schools, we start dumping them, like, Shaping, Shape of America materials. So I was asking, what if the teacher is not a PE teacher? Do we, is we verifying it's a PE teacher or not? So I feel like there is a process, it's very important, is that we educate them, like, how many... of see, put passer, metabolism. So have know-child Situations ZTAG can provide for, so educate them of, like, if you are a school, you can use, if you are a camp, you can this, so I do feel like, and also, as you said, like, we do see your problems, so we, like, these problems, actually, how we solve it, so we have, I feel like, yeah, we just feel like, hey, you find us because we're attractive, and we already know your solution, knowing your struggles, so, hey, here's, we just skip the, skip the answer, we say, hey, yeah, I think that, that probably, well, we'll just skip the thinking process, like, like, here you are, this is delicious food, just eat it.
Kristin Neal: Mm-hmm. So having that on one, like, page or platform, like, to learn more, would that be beneficial to have a, right? What is ZTAGG? These are the problems that we see, like, kind of, like, map them through this web, this page, to where they can come to their own conclusion, and then at the end, like, here's our quote form, or, like, something, like, pricing, I don't know.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, because I do feel like what we are, because I was trying to see, we have built a structure, we're not, like, a bandage to heal a wound in the system, but I feel like I want to, we want to be a little bit higher, higher of, like, hey, we have the bone and structure, so we grow this way, and also, it's part of the ecosystem. Like, eventually, we want to be, for example, study with Ken, to be the community, along with the school, you know, like, being the bridge, so we are already as we are, but we are. happen to be a very essential part of the system. Instead of like, oh, like, hey, because we do see problems here and there, we are, I don't know, I just feel like we, I don't, because for example, like Quan said, we are turnover proof, like the poster we sent out. He said it's a turnover proof for the schools that has short of the staffing. So I think, I think like points of these are, are great, but for decision maker or the money decision makers, they might not really, I don't know. Um, but, um, yeah, I, I, I think, we're probably going to go a little bit more. bathroom we we Discuss how we see the ZTAG's benefit, but right now, do feel like, as you said, we do need to put the solutions up front.
Kristin Neal: Definitely think about it then, Charlie. Maybe on that page, I liked what Carmee said about adding the testimonials to that page, because it is already something that is created. And then having, perhaps, this other element of seeing ZTAG in action.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, yeah, I definitely feel like testimonials are better than we think about how good we are. Because all the testimonials, all the teachers already say, like, what their problem is and what they see. They do exactly that perfectly, but they don't explain it, exactly what ZTAG is.
Kristin Neal: We need both sides. We need the structure and... And the, like the bones and the fat, I guess, I don't know, like, I don't know what to, how to describe that, but, okay, cool. All right, anything else, ladies?
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, for the automations that we will need to build for PEs and non-PE, I think we will need to come up with the knowledge base first for the AI to be able to, and instruction would be after the knowledge base, because how I did, what I did on the previous one is I created the knowledge base, then I created the filtering method on instructions. So, if we come up with the strong and very robust knowledge base, that would be something that the AI... Exactly с as as as We're going to get, and based on the instructions, it will reply and get more information in the knowledge base. So we need a system or a storage for all the information that we have for ZTAGs. Because on the previous one, we have already added the testimonials where they mentioned about challenges. So we have those two. And AI is able to get and analyze if they mention about it, then AI will go in to get the right testimonial for that challenge. So Carmee and I already tested it, and it was working. So once we have that full knowledge base, then we can do, I can work on instructions for AI, so that it will target the right information for the AI to reply.
Kristin Neal: Nancy's quick question, and Charlie would. Would this be something that we could apply to the web page? Like, let's say if we have the, what is ZTAG video on the top, and then, like, something they can input, or the question, what challenge are you facing? They input whatever they want, and then Klansys' hard work, I don't want that to go to waste, Klansys, that was a lot of hard work, I know you worked on that for months, that it could pop up with the, with the matching video to whatever they input. Instead of us saying, okay, we know what problems you're facing, have them more as that interactive. Definitely think about it, definitely think about it. Paula, you too, think about if you've ever seen that, where it's been like an interactive problem solver, almost.
Charlie Xu: Okay, so, Yumi, is that like the page on the, what is ZTAG page, when it shows up?
Kristin Neal: If, if... If Klansys and Paula are able to do the embedded, what is ZTAG video of Kwan on the webpage, so you can do the YouTube link, right, Klans? It would be on that same page. So it would be the testimonial problem solver.
Charlie Xu: Like, I was just brainstorming. Maybe it's possible, like, we have a list, like, maybe some buttons. Like, here is most of the challenge our customer sees, like, have some buttons, and click them, then direct them to certain testimonials.
Kristin Neal: Klansys, is that honoring the work that you did? Does that work? Yeah, it is actually.
Klansys Palacio: Actually, we will still going to use it. Just need to remove the filtering, because it's just targeting the socials, and it's just sending. If. It's mentioned school because it is what I instructed the agent, but yeah, we can actually work on that, and I'll send a link that I have added all the testimonials, so we actually helped me work on these two, so this one. These are the list of testimonials that we have. This is actually tied to the agent, so it just highlighted some of the important information that the agent will be able to get, the specific challenges of the leads, so that it will be able to get. And it has a link, too, so if you click the name, so it has a link redirected to our page.
Kristin Neal: Oh, that's great, Klansys. Thank you, girls. Thank you so much. Yeah, that's great. This is going to be a big help, right, Charlie, to do the buttons?
Charlie Xu: Yeah, I think the more we, testimonials we'll collect from our customer, we're adding to the bank. It's the knowledge bank of ZTAG. I think what other people say is about it's the best of like how we see us. But as us, we just need to give clear message out. So I think I spent a lot, like, Kwon and I will spend a lot of time on just the slides want to give out. Like before, we want to add everything there. But I feel like, hey, you know, we just need to make it simplify, make it like a brand. It's trustable. It's not like I want to know so much about ZTAG, but it's too much as overload. So I feel like we are building, we're building up our company confidence, right? It's like, and as the... The presence, it's just premium, high-end, trustable, but still like the service we provide, the testimonial, like how others talk about us, it's just the evidence people want to see. But as us, like the branding, I still want to push it to more like reliable. So, because you see for the educational vendors, a lot of are very premium looking and they're, Mama is just a operation systems, but you know, they need to build a look like it's reliable, like reliable, yeah.
Kristin Neal: Charlie, I love that, it's, you're, you're inspiring, I'm hoping, because I agree, and there's ways that we can add to that. Like under the buttons to add to that reliability, like the Playmaker community, you know, like very briefly give the videos of like the training videos that Steve has had, the fun videos of that showing that I think that would speak volumes so that they understand that it is a community that they're going to be going into. you. also, Charlie, district information. That's been something that Carmee and I have been working more towards the last few weeks where we're trying to get introduced to the districts. So we can have like district information for them to share. Like that would be huge. Like a button for them to see that information.
Charlie Xu: Oh, can you tell me a little bit more about the district information?
Kristin Neal: What is? Like the alignment pages. Like those, the, Carmee help me out. Those alignment pages that we have.
Charlie Xu: Is that for every specific school district, or it's in general?
Kristin Neal: It's a general one, because it's speaking exactly what the games align with what their grants are needing.
Charlie Xu: Carmee, can you explain that one a little more?
Carmee Sarvida: I didn't quite get it, Chris.
Kristin Neal: It's the, not the PE one, but it's the school one that we send out. The one that we send, when they say it's after school. standards? Yeah, there we go, that's it.
Carmee Sarvida: Ah, okay, the alignment. Academic standards and goals alignment.
Kristin Neal: There we go, that's it. There's that one, and there's a PE one, where they speak to either after school or during school. So, it would be information that, at least with that, along with the videos, and hey, look, they offer the training. And look at all these problems that they solve all in one spot. And with our way of communicating, if we're able to communicate, I think that's where it is, Charlie. I think that's the gate. I think we are being the gate. We're being the gate by asking all these questions. We shouldn't be having to ask these questions because they won't answer. They want to be able to see it and understand it. Right.
Charlie Xu: Yes. And believe it.
Kristin Neal: And everything that we're doing is supporting that. Yes. So we can do humanness with sharing this and have it all in one spot. I'm really excited for this. Yeah. Yeah.
Charlie Xu: I feel like, yes, like let them like show, educate them, let them feel we're reliable, believe in us. But also I do feel like we are not overwhelming them with giving so many things at one time, maybe just one thing at a time. So maybe maybe if it's the weather. The ZTAG page, have some, here we have, have like listed a bunch, like a couple challenge, or maybe we're using a better way, not just saying challenge, but like ZTAG can help in on this, this, this. So if you are more towards this, then you click this button to hear what other people say. So let's, to see how, how these interaction works, and maybe Klansys, you can also capture on, on the, the back end to see how the interaction went, right? I do feel like, I do feel like we don't need to push them into a sales, because it's very early stage. We just need to educate them, not like, and now, I feel like we don't put too much effort, right, this point, at this point, as Kwon said, they just swipe, moving their fingers, they don't know better. The of who we are. So I feel like educating them beyond just communication. So I feel like at this stage, give them whatever they can access to to understand if we are the good solution for them.
Kristin Neal: So instead of having it all on one page, we'll just continue to do what we're doing and just sending out the questions with the link for them just to click.
Charlie Xu: No, I think for, I don't know, like, because we're thinking on the page, what is ZTAG after coin? Maybe there's call to action buttons, such as if you have facing this problem. You click this button, you see some testimonials. So on their own, they can moving forward to see the.
Kristin Neal: And then after they review that, then we'll say, reach back out if you want to hear pricing information or if you're interested in getting this to your district.
Charlie Xu: I think maybe after that, it's the follow-up email from Carmee. So if we do see activities back there, and they do see the testimonials, maybe we send a follow-up email asking, is there any more information you want to get from us? Like price, so maybe people will ask in pricing, but at least they go through the video, they go through the testimonials.
Kristin Neal: Okay, that sounds good. So it'll be balanced with what is ZTAG and the testimonials on that one page?
Charlie Xu: Yeah, the testimonial is not on that page, but it's the buttons link them to the testimonials.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, that's what meant, the buttons on that.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, and also I do feel like maybe it could be a good way of providing them, like even if it's a PE teacher or Parks and Rec and they see these buttons, I think it's fine because ZTAG is broadly using in different environments, different conditions. So, yeah, I think it's also a good way to promote us as how flexible we are.
Kristin Neal: The training is really important too. Steve's video, the two-minute video, like training video, that really quick start video of Steve, if that were to at all be possible.
Charlie Xu: Well, I think that probably is too much, too early to give them to, because that is the one they, they buy the systems and they got trained.
Kristin Neal: It's more of proof that. That the training is available for their staff.
Charlie Xu: I think we can mention, but I don't feel like we need to provide that at this early stage.
Kristin Neal: So, Carmee, keep that in mind. Later on in there, if it helps to encourage the training, that video, if it's necessary. Okay, that sounds good. Okay, then we're excited for what's to come on that. That's a big, that's a big job.
Charlie Xu: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: The locomotion for sales.
Charlie Xu: Yeah, and also I am working on the Analyze page on CRM, and tomorrow I'm going to work. Chris Klansys as well. So I do feel like we do need a better report for leads, how the leads turn into deals and how long does it take. I feel like Carmee Yusig will give us an Excel file, but it's just not very straightforward. So if the CRM can help us to capture all the data, it will be very clear. Because right now, like, we talk about it a lot, but it's just really hard to using data to prove how it works. So I think that's also something we really need to work on.
Kristin Neal: Gosh, I hope so. The ZTAG brain, Klansys, I wonder if we can tie that in somehow, the ZTAG brain to those analytics. Because I was reading them earlier, and there's some that are just not, they're not accurate. Like, it didn't even have the Derek, him wanting to, requesting additional units. It wasn't included in that. So it's like, I wonder how we can get it to include those.
Klansys Palacio: Yeah, I'll try to talk to Quan because it's Quan's, so I don't have access to his automation. So I'll message Quan later. Thank you so much.
Kristin Neal: Is there anything else, ladies? Okay. We've got a big week ahead. Thank you all so much.
Charlie Xu: Okay. Good day.
Kristin Neal: Thank you.
Charlie Xu: Thank you.
Klansys Palacio: Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
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Quan Gan: Morning.
Kristin Neal: You got a haircut.
Quan Gan: Yeah, guess. I forgot. I also have a ski tan. You can see.
Kristin Neal: I mean, it was good for the skin.
Quan Gan: I'm not so sure about that. You have to put on a lot of sunscreen and it's still like this.
Kristin Neal: Oh, really?
Quan Gan: Yeah. Because the goggles or my shades are covered, but then everything here, even though I put sunscreen on, unless like you look completely white, it's like it would be, you know how normally you rub it until you don't see it? But for this, you keep it super white, so it just looks really weird. Geez, like that. Because you get the snow is white, so it reflects all the sun, like double the sun, basically.
Kristin Neal: Oh, gosh. Okay, so you do get a sunburn.
Quan Gan: Yeah, you can. Yeah, if you don't have, yeah.
Kristin Neal: I thought you were glowing, but no, it's a sunburn.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it's a tan, it's not a burn, but it's certainly how you get, how your face changes.
Kristin Neal: How funny, okay. So the people I've seen around here with red faces, it makes sense now.
Quan Gan: Mm-hmm, oh yeah.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, crazy, crazy. Yeah.
Quan Gan: So today, I guess Steve is traveling, right? And then Charlie, I'm not sure if she's able to join, because she needed to take a mental day off today, so. Absolutely understandable.
Kristin Neal: Steve, I talked yesterday with him, and he said, yeah, that he would join.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: He had a training at 11, but he goes traveling, I think tomorrow.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. Okay, so we'll wait. Okay.
Kristin Neal: Did you see my response to your suggestion about the, what you shared with the AI? Hey, Steve. Let's see. Hello.
Steven Hanna: Good morning.
Kristin Neal: Good morning.
Quan Gan: You're talking about the CBO?
Kristin Neal: Yeah, that.
Quan Gan: Yeah, I mean, it's, it's interesting. Yeah, we can, we can talk more about that later. I think it's, yeah, it is an avenue to explore. I have to check if, I think I checked last time it overlaps with some other show.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. And Steve, you're not, are you traveling tomorrow? I was trying to see when you're getting out.
Steven Hanna: Oh, I'm, oh, tomorrow for New Jersey, yeah. There we go.
Kristin Neal: Not tomorrow at like 4.30.
Quan Gan: Okay. Here we go.
Kristin Neal: That's it.
Steven Hanna: I do get to meet my grandmother's friends for coffee and tea in the morning, and I think that that's very cute. Like, yeah. I texted them. I'm like, hey, I'll be on my way for work. I would love to see you guys in the morning. Like, please stop by for coffee and tea at the church. I'm like, I love you. That sounds lovely.
Kristin Neal: I'll be there. That's so lovely.
Quan Gan: Well, should we get started?
Kristin Neal: Sure. Yeah. Okay.
Quan Gan: So are you, I'm just curious how this format goes because it's the first time where you're kind of reviewing yourself in a way. So do you want to take the lead and just turn it into a conversation or how do you want to do the review? Because it's pretty new for me and Steve.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, that sounds good. How about I open up like the template? And then we just kind of go through that. Okay. There are a few instances where I needed my own notes because I can't remember what the contract was from last year. But yeah, it's good.
Quan Gan: And I would say this whole journey, and Steve is also on that same boat, is we also know it's a living document because the company is rapidly evolving. So it may require us to, you know, restate what the next role needs to be.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, actually, I'm glad you mentioned that because I was thinking about this earlier, and I actually want to rename this or recalibrate this to be radically transparent, like this part right here. So that's what I'll ask of both of you guys. It's like during this time, like I know there's things I need to work on, and I'll bring this up later.
Quan Gan: later. So...
Kristin Neal: I need, like, full transparency in this entire meeting. And I hope for everyone we'll kind of lean in. Let's see. So the very first thing that we do with the girls is make sure that what their job title is is aligned with what they're doing and see where maybe you've grown in this past year. That's where I would kind of start with the girls. So I'll start with that. That's okay. And I have my here somewhere. Sorry. I had it. My employment. My employment. And this year, this last year, was actually a very big difference as far as leaving sales and more focusing on being the bridge. So that was, like, the the key. The key. key.
Quan Gan: Yeah, it was a very intentional thing that we've both decided to do. And Steve, just to give you some context, I don't know how much Christian shared with you on that, but she was brought on by Stan as an outside contractor to do just the sales, right, basically follow up. But it kind of scope creep, I would say, is the gentle word to say. It's like basically a lot of things just got dumped onto her side as a contractor, which ended up being totally not fair because it's actually core responsibilities of ZTAG. And so, and also the consequence of that was because our sales are highly seasonal, then it made it very difficult for Chris, you know, when we have low seasons to be able to serve her family because it's basically a feast for family. So we calibrated things so that it is fundamentally decoupled from sales, but still tied into company performance, which is a similar metric to what you have, but you have a baseline of your salary. So it basically stabilizes and creates that buffer to make that alignment.
Kristin Neal: So with being the bridge, I have seen growth in that as far as like handing that off to Karmie. I will later suggest maybe a little bit more hands off. I think especially within these last few days, she's really stepped up with certain things that I think actually she would be okay to fully hand that over. Only because, and I only bring this up because I see that there's a need. So again, transparency. I also handed off the trade show things first to Charlie, and then it was kind of all of us. And then when Steve came on, it kind of got put on his shoulders. And now I'm kind of back into it because Steve is understandably trying to build the Playmaker Foundation. So it's almost like he's trying, and then we keep pushing him back into this, trying. And so it's getting a little bit like anxiety ridden for me because I've got these emails that are coming in like, this is due, this is due. And I just don't know. I really, I'm like, my hands are tied behind my back with this. So I would really appreciate it. And we can talk about that later. But just taking fully control of that again, because it feels like it's worked best when I have just owned it and then kind of guided you guys where you need to be.
Quan Gan: You mean the trade shows? Yeah.
Kristin Neal: The logistics of the trade shows? Logistics. Logistics. And not just only the logistics, but even... And yesterday, Lily and I met, and we didn't have anyone else with us, and we were able to get things, like, pushed through, like, and it's things that, like, I understand there's big things we need to talk about, but then there's, like, little things, like, that don't require your guys' brain. Like, you don't need to care where the line is going to be for the food, you know what mean? Like, so if I could just take over coordination with Lily as well and kind of bring things to you guys that, you know what mean? That you don't need the time for, so we can discuss that later, but that would entail me really kind of recalibrating to where Carmi is taking that sales, which I think she can. And we could talk about that later, but that's probably the biggest need that I've seen, kind of, like, flip-flop from my hands to whoever's hands and Steve's hands. So the other thing, which I'd probably say the most proud. Out I Am, the biggest project that this past year I've been able to do is, to be honest, the quote form, the official quote form. It took a lot of meetings with AR, accounts receivable, shipping, sales. took a lot of meetings and a lot of refining with Clansis. And we finally have gotten into where it's understandable, like everything needs to go through that because that's where it's like almost like the watering hole. Like all of us come to get to the, that water in that form. So it really allows Carmi to take initiative from my hands, you know, like needing to, and I wanted to ask if it's okay because she's been asking TIN for verification on the invoices. It's no longer needed because everything is now from the invoice, the tax amount, et cetera, et cetera. So she's already doing like a double thing. So if we're able to just say, you know, everything is already verified. It's already confirmed. As long as something matches it, it's confirmed. That would be a big thing. One of the other big things that is on my plate that I would prefer not to if I were to move into this is updating the forms, updating the catalogs, the spec sheets, all of that. I think Carmi is actually very capable of doing that. And I did message her very briefly that I wanted to actually bring this up, and she appreciated it. She thinks that she would be able to move forward with that. She was like, of course, there's going to be more collaboration with me, with the team. was like, of course. But more of how Tin has stepped up into support, Carmi can do the same thing for sales. And let's see. So she would be in charge of the forms. There was something else. Was there anything on your guys' end? was wasn't
Quan Gan: Well, I kind of want to – you're doing great. I wanted to kind of get a lay of the land of this meeting, like what parts you wanted to cover, and then we could probably, you know, decide to deep dive on each of these to see which are the biggest topics. So I'll currently kind of hold off any of my comments until we have a good index.
Kristin Neal: I figured if we have three categories, that, kind of what I've done this past year, and the biggest things I think that have made an impact, and then the pay, because we – there is a bonus that we will discuss, a pay raise, and there's some kind of support for that. And, like, next step, how I can shift into something that's a little bit – like, I just want to hear where exactly you guys see the need, what my next year, where you want me to focus on. The L10s are definitely going to be on that list. I don't even want to call them L10s anymore, to be honest. L8s, I don't care. Like, whatever. Just like a weekly human, like, that's a human connection that I need from you guys desperately. Even if it's just, Chris, how are things? Like, Quan is like a breath of fresh air when you would message me that. Like, it really is. I don't know if you guys understand that. Or just, Steve, when you say, hey, I'm back, I would love to connect. Like, it's like, oh, thank you. Like, it's water to me. So thank you for that. That, I hope, is in that list.
Steven Hanna: Always happy to connect. You know, always asking about your experiences. Thank you.
Kristin Neal: Steve, has it been okay with, with your end? Are you seeing anything on your end? Like, as far as when you came on? Is there too much? I want to make sure, like.
Steven Hanna: Too much in what way? know you're looking for feedback, but I need to know if there's a specific sort of feedback that you're looking for, because I have five months, and that's not a long time. Like, I've known you for longer, and I've been working with you for longer, but in this capacity, five months is not a long time to provide very valuable feedback. So I can provide valuable feedback, but I would say the weight of that would just take it with five months of experience, right? Like, don't, so if there's a, hmm? It has actually nothing to do with insight, what you see of me.
Kristin Neal: I'm curious if where, what I'm envisioning is the five, or the four of us are sitting at a table, all equal. So do you see that as being accurate? Do you feel like it's completely equal?
Steven Hanna: From coming on early, yeah. I think that maybe some realignment of responsibilities, like you were mentioning earlier, can push things to more, but that allow be It's equitable levels, but I think that they're pretty close, just minor adjustments, you know, like certain responsibilities. You know, we kind of figured out that me being on the road and training, it's hard for me to like get the show set up, right? So that going back to you has been a very, very big help for me to just say, okay, I have to focus on speaking with four people today on this. And I'm not really thinking about purchasing electrical at the end of the day, right? Like I'm focused on making sure that these four people have what they need to succeed as an operator for the 200 kids that they're going to be working with for the next week. So where my brain is like, oh my gosh, like that's right, right, right, right for me. Right. So, so I think, you know, certain shifts in that can help as far as the trade shows go, you know, definitely. I appreciate all of your help on that more than you can imagine, because there have been times where I've literally texted you and been like, I am overload. I have too many things. Please help. And you have jumped right in. So, you know, I appreciate the fact that you're able to do that. And, you know, you have the expertise that basically guided me into doing that. So I appreciate that a lot and know that you basically have it covered. So the feedback that I have is thank you for jumping in and being the shoulder that I needed to, you know, ensure that we can get some of these shows going forth and getting some of these things going. You know, with Can, you probably noticed that I, like, removed myself a little bit from it. And the reason why was I knew that you guys would be much more suited to plan this than my sort of opinion. Because you guys are thinking about it way differently than I am and approaching it from a perspective that is, more on the event side. And yes, I can approach it from that. But my... Perspective and approach from anything is going to be from a development side. So I'm coming from a development side. You're coming from an event production side. And I know I'm out of my element and I'm smart enough to realize, hey, I've gotten the ball to the 30-yard line. I need my specialist to come in and make sure that this is knocked in and we can get the point here. Like, I've done as much as I can. And I'm not going to be upset that I didn't knock it in myself. I'm going to be happy that we have such a strong line to get it there and ensure that it reaches the finish line. So, you know, I don't want you to think like, oh, man, he feels bad about this sort of thing. I don't feel bad. I'm relieved and honored to know that we have such a strong foundation that we can fill in. So my only feedback is thank you for being able to pivot and being adaptable to this because it has helped me in ways that, you know. These amazing. The other side of the feedback is I love how eager you are to make the plans for things, but in total transparency, that stresses me out. So it's one of those things because I understand from, you know, my own personal experience when I have people planning things around me and I'm like, okay, I'm like listening and I'm like, yeah, that sounds right. And then I get to the part where it's like, all right, now what's my role in? I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on here. What's going on? So for me, the planning part is stressful, but that's a me thing. Like it's very important that you do that. That applied stress tells me that something needs to move in a different direction. Like there's no, there's never a time where you'll be saying something just to say it, right? Like there's always going to be a reason. There's always going to be a thought process behind the plan and how you're sequencing together. Things Linking In. So I'm always happy to listen to that because I know that it may stress me out while I'm hearing it, but the longer that I listen and the further that I get into the plan, the more I realize, hey, this might be stressful, but it kind of has to happen that way. Like, it sounds stressful on paper, but I know that once I'm in the situation, it's not stressful. And being there and solving the stress of other people is what we're there to do.
Kristin Neal: So it's applied stress in the most beneficial of ways. Wow. That's a lot of trust. Thank you.
Steven Hanna: I've known you for years now. I've known you guys for years.
Kristin Neal: Are you kidding?
Steven Hanna: Like in an unofficial capacity as friends and as an official capacity as a member of this team, I'm taking all of that into consideration when I'm stressed out going, okay, this person is saying these things and prompting these things because there's a reason. I have to, I have To be patient and understanding enough to work through that, even if I'm feeling a certain way and I'm not expressing myself in the correct way, I need to be patient. So those are my two biggest points of feedback is beneficially applied stress and adaptability is really, you know, thank you. I appreciate that.
Kristin Neal: I appreciate too, Steve, because when you came on, you needed to come on at that moment because I had everything was on my whiteboard. There was no there was no system yet of how we have the event module and everything now is in one place. So we needed you to come on to see that and get that in place. And that's huge. Quick question about your because I really appreciate you saying that, too, because when I was doing this with Kwan, like let's say 2024, it wasn't a problem for me to book us like event after event after event. Like, it was like three events in one day. was great. But did that stress you out? Like, please be fully honest. Like, please, when I give you an itinerary, please read it and really give me your feedback as soon as you can so I can make it. I've been.
Steven Hanna: I've been more vocal. Don't worry. You've heard me saying more things in our meetings where I'm like, yeah, I don't know about that.
Kristin Neal: But that's what I mean. I know.
Steven Hanna: I'll avoid those.
Kristin Neal: Don't worry. I don't want you to get over them. I want to avoid them. No, no, no, no, no.
Steven Hanna: It's not avoid, right? That's the thing that I'm stressing here is that I don't want to avoid them. Those are the positive stressors that are indicators and working through those and chatting about those and figuring those things out help align things. So I don't want to avoid them. I want to experience that stress because that stress is indicating growth. So it's an indicator to me that if I'm feeling uncomfortable about something. It's Or have an apprehension towards something, there's two avenues, right? It's company growth or my own personal growth. And in both ways, I'm going to be gaining something from that or being able to provide something in the future because of that. So it's like, yeah, it's stressful, but I'm regulated enough to know that that stress is an indicator of something else. And that on the other side of that is a total level of growth that one, I need personally. And I'll say it in this order because, you know, this is the human first connection. Or two, I can take and turn into something that I can use for ZTAG. So in both ways, stress is beneficial. I don't see it as that. So please always push it. Always make sure that it is stressed. I don't care how I feel while I'm in it. I care how I feel at the end of it and the growth at the end.
Kristin Neal: There we go. Totally.
Steven Hanna: The ends justify the means here for me.
Kristin Neal: Okay. So don't ever avoid.
Steven Hanna: Don't ever avoid that. Cool.
Kristin Neal: Maybe for other people, they might need it a different way.
Steven Hanna: But for me, like, listen, you can literally throw the clay at my face and let it hit. Like, that's fine.
Kristin Neal: I'll never do that, but okay, I'll take it. And then the debrief, be very transparent, and we'll be golden. Yeah, absolutely. If it didn't help you grow, we'll figure out another way.
Steven Hanna: It always does. Whether I see the growth now or see the growth later, that's on me for realizing. That's just my ignorance to maybe the situation.
Kristin Neal: Very cool. Thank you. Quan?
Quan Gan: Well, I have so many things going through my head. I'm realizing that, you know, with Charlie and Steve, we've had much more face time in recent months. You know, so... Whether it's through, you know, personal interest or work, you know, we're constantly having that back and forth. And the last time we really got to sit down and talk was when you were here, right? So, yeah, so I'm just verbalizing that I realized that is something that you and I both need to have that better connection. I could do a better job at, you know, connecting with you more proactively. This is my own personal issue where when things aren't breaking, I basically have, like, if it ain't broke, don't fix it kind of mentality. So I just kind of go off and do other things, but not realizing that, you know, sometimes a lot of these, or not sometimes, most of the time, these relationships needs a constant trickle of communication and nurture. Yeah, so I kind of default into that robot sometimes. I don't know. don't know. Thank you. I also see that, you know, as a company, we've made tremendous changes over the past year. It's almost been a full year since the transition point. And because it's so new, I mean, it's like a, it's like a newborn child, right? Almost like every month, you're going to see some change, or every day you might see some change. And so that probably will create stress and growing pains because as we're dealing with, you know, new directions and new initiatives, it kind of brings out these, I guess, new feedback for each of us. Like, where do we see our roles, where we resonate, where, what tasks add energy versus which tasks drain energy for us? So it's interesting that you're sharing that. You know, the coordination part you actually enjoy, because that stuff drains the heck out of me, at least, right? So I'm certainly glad that we have someone or multiple people on the team that really cares about those details. And maybe it's just the mother touch or something. Like, Charlie and you both have, you know, that I can see. Like, really wanting things to, like, seeing the details, whereas I'm just kind of flying off and, you know, doing other things. Yeah. And I'll be perfectly transparent. You know, the reason why Charlie is probably not here today is we had a kind of a personal and business conflict yesterday. So I'm still resolving that, right? So I'm pretty entangled in a lot of these things, right? So I'm also kind of, through this review, seeing, like, a reflection of how I'm showing up, because I have to show up, at least in front of her, in, like, multiple capacities, right? As a business partner. husband and father, right? So it's pretty entangled. But all that to say is, you know, I appreciate your transparency from day one of what's working, what's not working, and allowing us to adjust like this, because, you know, even from a strategy standpoint, there's some major shifts that we're seeing. Like, you know, as Steve onboarded, as Charlie turned on, you social media ads and stuff, like, there's a lot of new information that we're getting. And I'm in the background, basically, thinking about it, but also rinsing it against AI to see what that model is, and how do we optimize it. And there's some new strategies that might require us to, you know, make a pretty significant shift in our workflow. We're not, I wouldn't say a huge... Huge shift. It's more like we already have the infrastructure, but it might, like the order, the sequencing of certain things might need to shift. Yeah, I guess I'm not giving you direct feedback on you, but I think I just really appreciate your transparency and asking for change, because that's what the system needs overall.
Kristin Neal: I would say change. Let me respond to that, because I know there's been things that you've brought up recently, like changing with the social media ads. I'm glad you brought that up, because it's almost like I get what you're saying. Like, we need to go deeper in these relationships. We need to approach it differently and things like that. But I also want to go back to like what you initially said, and that was we're getting these leads because they're in bed and they're just swiping through. So it's like, I want to also remind you. Like the intention that we first had, you know, not necessarily like, okay, let's change everything and move into this kind of thing. That's why I haven't with Karmie yet. It's like I wanted to wait till we got more confirmation if that's really your intention to build those deeper relationships with those that are just swiping through their phones at night.
Quan Gan: So, yeah, it's kind of a, it's my own reaction to new input because, you Charlie turned on the social media stuff. And through my mind, I was like, okay, you're getting all this volume, but it's not or barely turning into any actual sales. And I wonder if that is, if that pulls down the morale of the team, right, because you have a much higher hit rate during the trade show season. And obviously, we don't want to be sitting idle when it's the off season. So we want to be productive. So I'm constantly thinking how. Can we optimize this so that it can be, you know, turns into something? But that something probably requires a lot more social gravity and social mass where we really have to get it up the chain because that single person, what I'm realizing is in a very conservative spot because no one else around them even knows about ZTAG. And so if they're in a stressful job and they're just really trying to protect their own sanity or reputation even as a teacher, they're probably not going to go out, stick their neck out and say, hey, you got to try this new program, right? Versus if they went to a conference, it was a shared experience. They were there with their bosses and their bosses seem to like it. So pushing that through the goal is a lot easier.
Kristin Neal: So if we change the strategy on that, let's just close this loop real quick. And instead of pushing a sale. Pushing the social gravity and just direct all the ads, show what is ZTAG, because that's everybody's question is how does ZTAG work?
Quan Gan: Give that video, testimonials, and then done.
Kristin Neal: That's the ad that we push to generate that social gravity, not necessarily a sale, because I think you're right. And it took so long because of what we were trying to do, because it took so long to get the process in place. It took like four months for Clances to get this automation in place, and then we're not even using it. So it was like, wait, like, if we're going to make a choice, please, let's make a choice and stick with it at least until the end that we could try it.
Steven Hanna: Yes, and Quan, yeah, because Quan's got the shiny thing going, and I know what this is. This is the, I'm not seeing the immediate feedback on it. This is, this is the tro season.
Kristin Neal: Yes.
Steven Hanna: And, and I will say that you are correct in saying it needs to have time and your own personal feeling and opinion on the feedback that we're getting. seeing seeing you. Right? This is nurturing the name. This is nurturing brand awareness more than anything. And the value in that is very strong. Whether a teacher is going to go out of their way to try and get tenure with this program, I don't think they will. I don't think that it's something, like you said, that they're going to try and push if they're in a scarcity mindset and conservative. Right. Like, I think that they're going to be very more conservative with their career and choice of words when they're sharing this program. But I also think that in just sharing the name, that's the value. The ROI doesn't need to come back in a dollar amount here. The financial, so this is basically the financial input scale versus the economics of brand awareness scale. You're not going to get the same financial input at scale as you would for brand awareness growing. If you're going for scale at a one-to-one, we're not going to be focusing on the people who are on the toilet or it's going to. We're focusing on the district, like we know, and we've done that in the past. This is specifically catering to that teacher who's taking a break and swiping. This is specifically to make sure that the name is just cycled through, just over and over and over again. Whether they buy the program, or whether they share the program, or whether they just think about the program, that's it. That's the goal. There's no financial incentive here to come outside of that. The financial incentive comes from the trade shows where we can get to the district and go, great, you're going to buy five systems. Perfect. This is not the average Joe teacher who's saying, yeah, I'm going to buy a $10,000 system like Eric and Steve because, you know, they've accounted for something like this in their own personal budget. You know, and I've seen this with Michael Fletcher. That's actually a perfect example of the teacher who wants a system, who's in constant communication with me. speak to him once a month, and he's always like, speak like, really want it, just don't have the funds, right? And he can't go through the school to get it, but he knows the name, and he knows the program, and he's sharing that name and talking about the name. That is the value. The value is to just talk and get them in the door, part of the bigger community to justify a sale in the future. There's not going to be an immediate return on this. Just in the same way that funding for schools is being attacked for the next two and a half years, and after that, the attack is going the other way. The funding is coming right back, and it's actually going to be aggressive into schools. Like, the funding from this administration is being fought for and cut. After this is done, oh my goodness, it's going to be a volatile reaction in the opposite direction with funding.
Kristin Neal: And I'm serious.
Quan Gan: Like you're rage-skiing.
Steven Hanna: They're going to be rage-spending money because they have all of this money coming back from these programs that were robbed of in these last two years. And they're going to be rage spending the money. So I'm okay for the next two years in brand awareness in that program because in two years, that's going to basically relate to four or five sales, maybe even 10 sales down the line just because of brand awareness.
Kristin Neal: So yes, time.
Quan Gan: Okay, so there is one little variable change that Charlie brought up yesterday that I think is valuable to share with you guys. Which is, she wants to try ads on LinkedIn, because that's where supposedly the superintendents and people at the district or county level are hanging out. And so it might be more of a kind of a parallel approach where you're sending social media stuff so that, you know, at the playmaker level, they're aware, but also sending stuff out in articles on LinkedIn. And there's a very specific way. I don't want to get into too much tactical stuff, but just kind of summarizing, so that anybody who is approaching us, especially at the playmaker level, we try to route them up and we provide some kind of package, very similar to what we have, but maybe with very specific language that resonates with the management. That they can, basically it's like, we'll help you take this, you know, upstairs. And then, because what I'm realizing is at the school level, they might only have discretionary funds up to $3,000, even at the principal level, right? So, obviously they're not going to buy it, but if we change this to a, essentially a $3,000 limited time pilot, let's say for a two-month pilot, and that goes to our, as a credit. let's Towards a full system purchase rollout for their entire district, right?
Kristin Neal: That would be huge.
Quan Gan: Yes, and so it's essentially flipping the playbook on you are already convinced we're selling you this. It's more similar to what Steve and I know as demo equipment in ski and snowboard. It's like we don't use the word rent, but essentially they're having a short time, like a time-locked experience of the full thing. And at the end, if we get them to say, okay, like these checkboxes, there's actually a contract with this. If it checks these checkboxes for you, then the intention is for you to roll it out to your entire district. So you're not making it at the school level. You're doing it at a higher level.
Kristin Neal: That was what we tried with Stan, and his biggest argument was that we cannot send a unit to a school that is not trained. So now that Steve is here... To bridge that, it's like we absolutely, Quan, do you know how many units we'd be able to sell?
Quan Gan: Yeah, so I think that's really the unlock, and it's really not so much changing everything, it's really just kind of shifting the order of things, because we're already doing this.
Kristin Neal: Yes, we have everything to support now, like now 100% we're ready with that.
Quan Gan: Yeah, yeah.
Steven Hanna: And then the travel cost is just basically built into that, where it's, I'm there for 48 hours or less, you get trained, you're ready to go.
Kristin Neal: I wonder if we can set up like a week or two, like every month that we know you'll be in California, or whatever state is popping, you know what I mean? Like, there's a solid...
Steven Hanna: Give me the map!
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: We got a map, we can easily do that. We can, we can just be like, oh great, we've got eight Playmakers along five.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Oh, the, the, well we have the... California Partners Map. we need a national, well, international would be nice, but a national.
Steven Hanna: California is big, but these other states are also pretty dang big, all right? Yeah, I would say that that would be a very good program to roll out. I think Quan and I spoke about that, and it's basically as long as the infrastructure is there to make sure that they're trained, we're not really bleeding money into it, and we're making sure that they can grow. Why the heck not? Why not offer these systems as an entry point through the door, just so that your administrators can say that they were wrong? I love that. I love proving administrators wrong.
Kristin Neal: We can go the other route, too, which has been good with bridging them with already partners, like Santa Ana District, connecting them with, I can't even remember. Oh, no, they're with Game Truck. Game Truck is actually going on to them to do a demo. So that was a great bridge. Another one was Yes. Yes. Um, Oh, there was one just recently. Oh, it was Napa. Napa Valley. Wanted to talk with someone and I was like, wait a minute, we just partnered up with Napa. And then I looked at your email and you just sent them a playmaker. So I was like, yes, are you able to connect with them? And they're getting connected. So I like more of that. Let me do more of that.
Quan Gan: Great. Yeah, I love it. I think that's, you know, kind of like when you see a, I mean, kind of like Gio, like he picked up a yo-yo and you knew exactly that was his thing, right? And he spent time with it. So I'm seeing that resonance with Chris, you at the partner level, right? You're able to talk to them and just, yeah, you're great with them. Cool.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: So all I'm saying is if we can see more ways for you to do more of that, then let's do it. You know, it was interesting to me that. You mentioned, you know, taking on the trade shows again, if that's seriously something that you think is going to add energy or at least reduce stress on your side. I mean, if Steve, you're okay with that, let's make that . asking, because I'll be fully transparent.
Kristin Neal: It does not give me energy, but knowing that there's nothing that we've missed is where my heart needs to be. Like, that anxiety, like, oh my gosh, did they get electricity? Like, I need to know, yes, it's 100%, and here's the information on it. So, just that would help my anxiety a lot.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: And then an update, the ChatGPT, that changed the entire game this year, too, Quan. That ChatGPT helped Q4. That, thank you so much, that changed everything. But if we can just get an update on that.
Quan Gan: Wait, specifically what changed?
Kristin Neal: The ChatGPT? The Atlas?
Quan Gan: Yes.
Kristin Neal: Was it the other?
Quan Gan: Like using the browser?
Kristin Neal: No, not in GPT. It's the chat. Is it a specific GPT? Yes. Okay.
Quan Gan: Did I make one for you? Yes.
Steven Hanna: probably did. Yes.
Quan Gan: Like the sales code?
Kristin Neal: Yeah, it was kind of like, it was all operations. It was a full ops. But whatever we decide with going forward, if I could just get an update with that aligned, that would be a huge help. Whether, like, so my role would be moved into like the partner.
Quan Gan: Oh, okay. So just update that system with whatever we decided.
Kristin Neal: Exactly.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah. So that'll be my thing to do. Thank you so much.
Kristin Neal: Huge, huge. And I appreciate the insight for Charlie for the ads to go to LinkedIn.
Quan Gan: That sounds good.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: And the language for that will actually have to be completely different. Yeah. And the videos, we would not be showing the same exciting, fun videos there to the administrators.
Steven Hanna: Showing a test score going from 70 to 85. Efficacy and ZTAG. Nice buzzwords for these upper-level people to use their salaries for.
Kristin Neal: I would even go into the fun of the step challenge. Like, bring it on. What's your step challenge? What challenge do you want to give your kids? I don't know. Challenge your kids to move, basically. Yeah. That's the marketing.
Steven Hanna: Challenge them to move.
Quan Gan: Oh, I lost you guys for saying it. Can you guys hear me? Yes.
Kristin Neal: Oh, I'm back.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yes. I did want to mention about upcoming benefits that we intend to put into the company. I don't know. don't that was on your agenda at all, or if this is an appropriate time to talk about it. Perfect segue.
Kristin Neal: Thank you.
Quan Gan: Yeah, because, you know, you two are the first two employees outside of me and Charlie. And because me and Charlie, we've had benefits from Gantam, this was kind of like a bare bones thing when you guys are onboarded. The intention is certainly to add standard benefits and packages that are comparable, if not better than, you know, any other company. Because in order for ZTAG to attract and retain the best talent that we can possibly get, like, we definitely need to match that. So that's my absolute intention. The rollout for it is approximately Q2 of this year. Okay. So that's, I don't have much more detail other than, you know, I'm meeting with a company called JustWorks. And they are, they're called a PE. PE. I think it's like a professional employment organization. And logistically, what it means is your W-2 will actually end up coming from this new company. But that company gets the group rates for HR and benefits, health and all that, like as a large company that does it for many other companies. And that means like any kind of questions you have that's HR and benefits related, you basically just go to their portal, right? And it gets handled rather than, you know, I'm not a professional in this, neither is Charlie, we don't want to be handling this, right? So it's kind of just self-packaged. The only logistical thing I'll just reemphasize is your W-2 will end up coming from this company, but ZTAG is still basically paying that company to provide the benefits. So it's taking some time because I'm also synchronizing that with things on Gantam's side because Gantam was on a different platform. And we want both companies to use the same platform so that as we manage it, you know, it'll be consistent. So, yeah, did you have any questions on that?
Kristin Neal: Not for that, but that does help me with the pay request, the pay increase request, because I do take that into consideration, and I thank you so much for that. But looking at it now, and please don't take this the wrong way, but there's such a big gap from when I was a contractor, which is understandable, because the seasons, Feast or Famine, I get it, it was more. But, I mean, there was a big gap from what I made before to what I make now being on the staff, which, again, I get. But if we could just have a little bit difference, that's not, of course, the big difference between the 5% and what it is now. But, yeah. At least an increase, because I mentioned it to you last year, like, it's hard. It's really hard to keep up the house, the kids. So it would all go to, and I'm not even sure if this could be something that you guys could just write off. I just need help with cleaning. Like, I really just need, I need a cleaning lady to just help me with that. It's literally, I'm working or I'm cleaning, and it's getting even worse. Would you be able to, maybe we can do this just one-on-one to figure out what are the financial impacts of that, right?
Quan Gan: And then we can see, you know, what it would take to solve that problem.
Kristin Neal: It's not that much around here. I have a woman that's going to give me a quote, but it would just be a small bump.
Quan Gan: Okay. Yeah, certainly. There's many ways to resolve that. So, yeah. Okay. Yeah, because I think partly, you know, I would imagine when, last year when we were looking at the... We were expecting a certain income for the company overall to hit certain bonus targets. So if that's not met, then yeah, let's recalibrate to see. We did meet one.
Kristin Neal: We did meet one, but with the amount that it took to get to that, I don't know.
Quan Gan: Can you send me what numbers you were comparing? just so you have those numbers, and I'll check internally and then see how we can match that up.
Kristin Neal: Got it. Yeah. Not match, but at least get a little, just a smidge closer.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: And then I already went over with the things that would help. So Karmie's transition more into... Fully Sales, the Q, the ChatGPT Q1 update, and then the pay change. I think I'm okay with the title moving forward still just with that title. I think that feels most aligned. Oh, and Transparency Police, the L10s. Those are desperately needed. I would say weekly, but if that's not possible, at least like just a weekly check-in, even if it's anything.
Quan Gan: us four, council?
Kristin Neal: Yes. Okay.
Quan Gan: Yes.
Kristin Neal: Even if we don't meet, we got to say what we're doing.
Steven Hanna: Because there's a lot of, like an ideal schedule for me if I see it working well is every other week we have an in-person on a Thursday. And then the other Thursdays we leave as, you know, notification updates. And if we meet. We need an L-10, we call it. So keep it open, but not required for every week. And we do 50% of the month we have the L-10. Because by that point, I think there's enough. And from the pace of the work that I've seen the girls work at, it's usually on the range of five-ish days to six days before like a major task is completed. And by that point, like they're just going to start a new task and get working on that. So we can have a week in between for our personal, you know, meetups. But we definitely need them. I know that winter, everything slows down a little bit. We're all, you know, doing different things, snowboard, skiing, this, that. But required. We need to get back into it.
Quan Gan: Chris, what are your thoughts about in-person meetings? Because, you know, since your role changed with Steve on board, that's significant. Has that helped become neutral or been negative?
Kristin Neal: I would say helped with the family. It's definitely helped with the family. Thank you so much. But it's done a little bit bad. Not bad. I don't want to say bad. But as far as the connecting, like there's not really aligning with major goals, major rocks that we're trying to move. We're not aligned on that. And I think it's because we're not meeting in person, setting them firmly, and then moving forward with those. So that part would definitely be a benefit. And I mentioned it to Steve last night, like the ZTAG Summit is going out the door because we're not going to be able to meet in person.
Quan Gan: Yeah, a lot of just circumstances popped up because we've been on or off busy since November. I was going to say for months. Yeah, we had IAPA, we had the other trade show you attended, and then obviously we don't want to be impacted. Acting, Family Time in December.
Kristin Neal: People are traveling.
Quan Gan: So January, yeah, just a lot of different things. So I don't know the solution to that. How do we still have a cadence of us four all meeting more than just once a year at boost or something? Any thoughts?
Steven Hanna: It's kind of tough. We're all very, very connected yet segregated in roles and where we need to be. So having an annual is required, but it needs to be more than that based on the connection needs of us as humans.
Quan Gan: So can we target at least two all in-person leadership meetings per year? I don't know exactly what those two dates are. mean, you want to ideally separate them by six months so they're even.
Steven Hanna: Let's say do one work and one play. One work is going to be a boost, right, where we're all going to be there. And then the one play towards the end of the summer, that's when shows start slowing down.
Kristin Neal: But I would hate to meet at the end of, like, our busy months are at the beginning of the year, so I would hate for us to meet at the end of that when we're trying to strategize. Like, I would rather meet at January, at least. mean.
Quan Gan: Like a first week of January type of thing?
Kristin Neal: Uh-huh. What happened in this January, rather than me skiing? That was January 5th, and you were supposed to get back to me if you wanted me there, and you didn't get back to me. Yeah. What was I doing? No, ahead.
Quan Gan: We were PD. Oh, yeah. I went out for a week, and then we had.
Steven Hanna: O.J. and Shasta.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. We should go well, but that's okay. Okay, so an early one, I think, to strategize for that year, especially for sales, so we have something to run with. And then if we do win six months from then, it'll give us a strategy for the light months. And that's when we can probably focus on the newsletter. That's something I wanted to bring up. I know that's a newsletter that you guys have been wanting for years. If we could push that to our rock in the fall, I think that would be a perfect time to connect the slow months.
Quan Gan: Okay, so we should probably, well, okay, so the in-person meetings, Chris, is that something you would be able to own?
Kristin Neal: Oh, yeah. Yeah, setting that up.
Quan Gan: Yeah, and if you can, then let's just put it on the calendar right now. Okay.
Kristin Neal: So that they're locked in, and then we shuffle ourselves.
Quan Gan: Schedule around it rather than the other way. Because I think, yeah, for me, what ends up happening is if there's openings, then, you know, what happens to me, I'll put a ski trip in there, especially in the early years. But lock it in, so then I will allocate around it.
Kristin Neal: Got it.
Steven Hanna: We'll say, bear in mind, if we do need to send resources out for any code reds, we will. And that is the caveat to this, is if there is an absolute need for a physical presence of ZTAG in a location for anything, we do ensure that that is at least handled by the right person.
Kristin Neal: Absolutely. Yeah, those precedents.
Steven Hanna: So, yes, we build around it, but with the caveat of in an oh situation, we pivot and adjust accordingly.
Kristin Neal: 100%. Okay. Then I will own that. Are we going to meet? Are This month before the cruise and can and everything. I know we talked 20th is out, but next week.
Quan Gan: Are you talking about like physically meeting?
Kristin Neal: Yeah. In person?
Quan Gan: I'm not sure if we can, but.
Kristin Neal: My schedule dictates no.
Steven Hanna: Because my next week is littered with trainings that I'm looking at. Not littered in that type of way, but I'm looking and it's sporadically scheduled. How about the 16th? 16th. What about the 16th? Of course, library bookings. That's President's Week.
Kristin Neal: Ah.
Steven Hanna: Okay. We got three library bookings with ZTAG, that's 16 and 17.
Kristin Neal: 16. 17.
Steven Hanna: And then 18, I mean, 18, 19, I'd have open, but then we'd send me straight over to Florida for 20 through 28. Tight. Tight is the answer. And in full transparency, I'm leaning in the no direction. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: How about March 9th? Might be.
Steven Hanna: I have March 7th and 8th back in Orlando. I could be there for the 9th, but then we have NAA on the East Coast on the 11th.
Kristin Neal: That's what it was. Okay.
Steven Hanna: I would say if we're looking for an in-person, if we're considering C-Trade, considering boost going into May, we'd probably be looking at something in May.
Kristin Neal: Can I meet you guys at the NAA and not be part of the booths?
Steven Hanna: I'm going add you into it.
Quan Gan: I'm not set on this yet, but I may need to go to China the first week of March, or potentially the second week, just to make sure the V3s are good. Yes. So I've even thought, like, maybe we have to shift staffing for NAA if I can't make it back in time.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. Let me know.
Kristin Neal: Well, that might work then if I just, I'm already going to NAA, and then if you're able to join us, Quan, then we can do the summit. And if not, we'll wait until another time. Unless you guys just want to.
Quan Gan: And America is the week right after.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. Right?
Quan Gan: Um.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Quan Gan: Um, well, okay, so that would be interesting. Um, what, what if we did it in, in between those shows? Uh, Steve, are you able to be out continuously between the 11th and the 20th? Is that too long? I can certainly see. Because if, uh, if that alleviates me from having to exhibit at NAA, then I might, I'll go to China the, uh, the week of the 9th, and then I'll make it back maybe over the weekend, Saturday and Sunday or something, and we can find a central place to meet. Or maybe just, uh, where is Shape America happening?
Steven Hanna: Center of the country.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: Where is it in, you, wait.
Steven Hanna: So NAA is in Maryland, D.C., and then Shape America is in Kansas City. Missouri.
Quan Gan: Maybe we'll meet in Kansas City.
Kristin Neal: I could do that. I could actually just drive over there. Yeah, I think it's, I don't think it's that far.
Quan Gan: And if that's the intention, then I think maybe Charlie can come with me and I think we could probably do all four right there. Spend a weekend together.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Yeah, that would be cool. Yeah, it's only six hours.
Quan Gan: Okay. So we would do this as basically like paying the debt of not having a beginning of the year, right? So it's kind of end of Q1. And we would still meet at Boost.
Kristin Neal: Yes.
Quan Gan: All of us at Boost. Okay.
Steven Hanna: And that'll be the second one for the year?
Quan Gan: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Okay.
Quan Gan: Okay.
Kristin Neal: I'll be using the events at ZTAG.com email. So whoever has access to that can see for any registrations.
Quan Gan: Okay. Is that a – did I set that up? Yes.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Quan Gan: I don't even remember.
Kristin Neal: Mm-hmm. Okay.
Quan Gan: Then, yeah, so if you can set that up, did you use TripIt before?
Kristin Neal: Oh, yes. Okay.
Quan Gan: So, yeah, add that to TripIt, and then, yeah, we all have that system already.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Beautiful thing. Cool. All right.
Quan Gan: Is there anything else? I think that's it.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Okay.
Quan Gan: And, oh, I did want to touch a little bit on Carmi. So you mentioned talking to her about it. Yeah, like, how does she feel that she's not fully doing the design thing? Because I remember that was the theme in the very beginning.
Kristin Neal: Mm-hmm. I asked her if she would be up to updating those things, and I said, with your graphics, it would probably be easier for you. And she was like, yes, she could totally take that on. She was just worried about the demos. That was the only thing that she was concerned about. What do you mean? Like, the system demo? Like, how to use it for sales?
Quan Gan: Like, actually getting on video and showing someone?
Kristin Neal: Yeah. I don't think that's required of her, is it? No, but it's something that I do. It's meeting with potential partners. So I actually prefer to keep the demos, like, all in Steve's, like, handbag, you know, can throw them to me.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, I would say, anything, anytime anybody wants a specific demo, just be like, hey, we've got a great Playmaker developer. Like, don't, I would say, don't throw that onto Carmi, because that's unnecessary stress. And if it's something that I'm doing already, then just lean it down. you.
Kristin Neal: You have enough video content with support?
Steven Hanna: Yeah, I can also make specifics. If I need to do a very, very specific demo video for someone, I can go down and hook up the stuff. So I have a little card that allows me to pull the exact video feed from the ZTAG onto a computer, and then I can basically set that up where I'm only showing them that screen so they can only see like what's on the LCD.
Kristin Neal: Oh, wow. Oh, wow.
Steven Hanna: If it's like super specific and they're like, hey, I want to see this, this, and this, like, just give me a heads up and I can basically organize a demo to what they need.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Okay. Then that's something that she can, like, refine with them and then say, hey, Steve, this is kind of where they're, they need.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. And if I need to jump in on a sales meeting with them just to, you know, if she needs to hand it off in one setting where it's 30 minutes of, hey, this is what it is, now Steve's going to show you how it works, like, I can. I can do that. That's easy enough for me. I just don't, I can't have it get in the way of the other trainings that have system purchases, because those are my priority, and I need to ensure that those operators know what the hell they're doing.
Kristin Neal: 100%. We've only, there's only been like a handful of them so far last year, so.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, just, I would say, lane it over to me, and then I can coordinate with Carmi if she's setting up a time with them to meet. I'll just make sure I jump in on the meeting with them.
Kristin Neal: With, where I wanted my position to shift, with the meetings, is if they wanted to know how to build a community, how to build a ZTAG community, then meet with me. Okay.
Quan Gan: Yeah, that makes total sense. I think the way I'm framing it is, both of you already have your expertise to share, whether it's community building or training specific. And the way we would be talking to press. Perspective people is to give them a taste of what that is. So if they wanted a taste of the community building, they connect with you. They want a taste of how the system actually works, they connect to Steve.
Kristin Neal: Yes. And then Carmi is kind of the one that's like telling them the options.
Quan Gan: Yeah, she's basically routing to the right channel. So I probably would want to meet with Carmi.
Kristin Neal: I would say filtering. I would say she's the filter. A filter and route. Yeah. So you filter first and then, yeah, you don't route everything that's... Yeah. Routing everything will... Yeah.
Quan Gan: Yeah. And I think also part of the end result I want to see is in our CRM pipeline that we have a lot of the early nurture stuff may be actually filtering that down so that the ones that you know are dead, just get them off that list, just only like have some kind of... A more stringent filter so that that looks more like a pipeline rather than having like a stagnant pool of leads that probably won't respond, right? So some internal metrics we need to work out on that.
Kristin Neal: I think she would be perfect for that. Okay.
Quan Gan: But we could work together, absolutely. Okay. And would you be okay with having a meeting between me, you, and Carmi? And then let's figure out how that new split would happen? Please.
Kristin Neal: I need to be in that too.
Quan Gan: Okay. So probably everybody.
Steven Hanna: Everyone here plus Carmi.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Because there's also some tactical things with the language that needs to change depending on who's on the other side of that email. Like if they're an admin, know, there are certain things that you want to say to them versus a teacher.
Kristin Neal: That's good. Yeah. Good point. Do you want me to see if she could jump in?
Quan Gan: Right now or? So I don't want to, I don't want to mix the different roles, but, or what we can do is we can end this meeting and start a new one specifically for that topic.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Steve, what's your time like?
Steven Hanna: I got a training in an hour. I just need another cup of coffee before that.
Quan Gan: Okay. open.
Steven Hanna: Maybe a bathroom break, 10 minutes. Let's aim for two, two, two Eastern. Slash 11. That was good.
Kristin Neal: cool with that.
Quan Gan: Okay. All right. Chris, anything else on your end?
Kristin Neal: No, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Can't wait for another year.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: Thanks, guys. All right.
Quan Gan: Bye for now.
Kristin Neal: Thank you for being the best on-boarder, Chris. I appreciate you. Thank you, Steve.
Steven Hanna: It's a very, very small list, but you're at the number one and only position at the top. Thank you.
Kristin Neal: I'll take it. Thanks. See you guys. See Okay, but it's okay. Okay. Bye.
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Jess Main: Doing well, doing well.
Steven Hanna: How's everything on a Monday? Oh, spotted someone this morning, first thing, so we're off to a great start. Lovely. Well, thank you for joining me for the 3.30 Eastern Standard Time show. I appreciate you being here as my special guest, Jess. I'm Steve. I'm ZTAG's Playmaker, Trainer, Developer, slash person you will basically coordinate with if you need any help with anything.
Jess Main: Cool. Sounds like they're expanding quite a bit.
Steven Hanna: Yes, they've expanded a bit. They brought me on as one of their most recent team members.
Jess Main: I'm like their national trainer, so to say. Cool.
Steven Hanna: So, yeah, I'm a former teacher from New York. I taught 7 through 12 earth science education. My wife is a K through 6 educator. I'm 7 through 12. Between the two of us, she builds them up and I break them down, as she says.
Jess Main: Pretty much, much. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: It's her nice way of throwing her jab at me for deciding to go. A middle and high school, and her nice way to say she's a nice person and I'm not as nice as she is. You can't be that nice when they're that age. Yeah, gotta start drawing lines, as I like to say, which is, you know, terms for us of stop taking the crap, as really things come down to. Yeah, pretty much. So with ZTAG, I'm gonna make sure that you're comfortable leaving here today operating the system. It looks like you guys have a V3, so this is a safety upgrade swap, or is this a new system purchase for you guys?
Jess Main: This is a upgrade swap, so yeah, they refurbished all the taggers and sent stickers and the new little SD card thing. Excellent.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, we've had it for a couple years now. Wonderful. All right, so it looks like you got everything set up already. The stickers are pretty much in the right spots. I'm just gonna kind of ask your use case for ZTAG, because I'll orient the training more towards what your use case will be, rather than waste your time and say, hey, all this fun stuff over here. And so it's kind of like a quick interview where I've just asked you like three or four questions and then I orient the training based on what your needs are.
Jess Main: Sounds good. All right.
Steven Hanna: So first question that I have is what is, how often are you using ZTAG? Is it like an everyday thing, once a week thing, after school?
Jess Main: Yeah. So we were Park District day camp. So we have camps in like spring break, fall break, winter break, and then all through the summer. Um, so it's usually like maybe twice a week. Okay. Sometimes more, sometimes less, depending.
Steven Hanna: And are you the like designated operator slash use person or is it a bunch of different people?
Jess Main: Yeah, it's a bunch of people. So I like will train them on it at our like beginning staff training, but then, yeah, I'm not usually there.
Steven Hanna: And how many people are you training at a time?
Jess Main: Um, I've been training like all of the staff, uh, so that ends up being like 30 units. Usually, probably will try to limit that a little bit more to make sure they, like, truly know what they're doing.
Steven Hanna: Gotcha. Okay. Then I'm leaning more towards engagement, entertainment, slash, style of training, if that's kind of what you're describing, is you're training up to 30 people at a time to engage and keep people occupied?
Jess Main: Yeah, yeah. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Then what have you seen work in the past that succeeds with this, and what have you seen that does not succeed?
Jess Main: I mean, we've had a lot of just, like, system issues in the past, I feel like. Like, taggers would just, like, randomly stop working in the middle of the games a lot of time.
Steven Hanna: Yeah.
Jess Main: And I think some staff just wasn't as super comfortable. Like, they couldn't, they'd be like, it's not working, it's not working. And then I would come do it, and I'm like, you just didn't do this one thing.
Steven Hanna: Operator error. Yeah, I'm like, you just don't know what you're doing.
Jess Main: But, like, yeah, when it works, like, the kids love it. But, uh, It's mostly ZTAG and Red Light, Green Light are the big ones.
Steven Hanna: Yep. I was going to say my training is probably going to be three games and you've already mentioned two of them.
Jess Main: Yep. Yep. They don't like the math one. They don't really like, they like the soccer keyboard one sometimes, but those are the most requested ones.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Perfect. Then what I'll do is I'll keep it pretty straightforward for you because you're going to have to relay this information as well. And what I'll do is I'll also send you the AI recording of this. So when you do train your staff and they go, I don't know what I'm doing, you can just send them our review link and they can look at this exact point in time and go, wow, they called me out. So yeah, it's just like a copy and paste to them. What I will do is we'll start off by starting your system up and we'll just work from the bottom up. You've pretty much got everything hooked up from what I can see already. So that black power cable is plugged in. The next thing that we're going to do is tap that red button right above it. Once that. Red button goes on. You'll hear a little beep. The screen will turn on, and the bottom of the case will also indicate that the chargers are, like, on. Everything will turn red. Perfect. And that means that the charging portion of the case is on.
Jess Main: Your little plexiglass, you're going to want to keep that open as you currently have it.
Steven Hanna: It can be down a little bit so you can navigate the touchscreen menu, so you can put it down probably, like, halfway so that you can touch the screen as well. Perfect. While you're charging, you always just want to keep that lid open just so that the heat can dissipate. That's one of the safety upgrade features that we want for you guys to know is heat, closed area, gets very hot. Yeah, I think that was probably one of our problems. Yeah, so that's the first one. After you have that plexiglass set up that way, you can hit that silver button on the right side of the system, and it'll go blue with a little ring light around it. The screen will turn on in about 20 seconds or less. You'll see it go like a lighter shade of black. And then the ZTAG logo is going to flash in about 15 seconds, and then that screen should turn on. Perfect. And is this your first time turning the system on since you've gotten it?
Jess Main: Yeah, I like put them on to charge, but I didn't turn on the actual.
Steven Hanna: Gotcha.
Jess Main: Yeah, but I put them on to make sure they were actually charged and say I didn't know what their status was.
Steven Hanna: And then once that gets to that home screen and you see all those fun games on there for me, you can take like two or three of those. Oh, it should say you need an update. Does that say that on there? Yeah, updates available.
Jess Main: Perfect.
Steven Hanna: We're going to hit yes. And it's going to send an update to all of those lovely watches. to adjusters. And if you look on the side, there should be like a little loading bar on the little ZTAGGER watch.
Jess Main: Uh-huh. Okay, perfect.
Steven Hanna: As long as that's going on, then that should be underway. Take about 30 seconds or less, and that should restart. And the three games that we're probably going to go over are Red Light, Green Light, Pattern Match, and then Zombie Tag. I'm also going to give you a new variant of Keep-Away, which is called Hot Potato, which works a lot better with the littles. So, yeah. The Hot Potato version, it's basically instead of Keep-Away, where one person has the ball, the person who has the ball is now the Hot Potato. And they have to try and give it to somebody else. So instead of 15 people chasing one person, that one person can chase any one of those 15 people and give them the Hot Potato. Yeah, that seems a little better.
Jess Main: That Keep-Away got a little intense sometimes. For sure.
Steven Hanna: My wife basically said we're not playing Keep Away ever again, and she came up with Hot Potato, and I was like, you know what? You win. That works. Success. What's the status on the side of those? Does it say that it's initialized? Oh, there it goes.
Jess Main: Sweet. Played 100. Awesome.
Steven Hanna: They're popping up 9, 10, 13. Sweet. So I should say 24 at the end.
Jess Main: 23, 24. 24.
Steven Hanna: Nice. And then you should be able to close that screen. And we're going to go to our home menu by clicking the top left ZTAG icon. And we're going to take maybe two or three of those devices out of the Charge Dock. We're going to turn them on by pressing the red button on the side.
Jess Main: I feel like our old ones ones- It might have just been battery problems, but some of them would not turn on very well. People would have to press it a bunch of times. Most of them will be related to battery problems and overheat problems.
Steven Hanna: That was the number one thing that we had figured out was, hey, some people are charging these for seven hours at a time and burning things out. So it's like, hey, just want to let you know, 30 minutes is perfect. They charge from zero to 100% in 40 minutes max. So it's like, if you've got any downtime after an event and you're going back into the office for any sort of paperwork or any sort of transition, just recharge it for the next day. Yeah, yeah. So once you have those three on, the first thing I'm going to ask you to do is take a look in the top right corner and take a look at the battery icon. There should be four bars in there, correct? Yes. Each of those bars relates to one hour of gameplay. So when people come back to you saying, oh my goodness, I only have one bar left. My watch is about to die. They still have like 60. minutes of gameplay.
Jess Main: Okay, good to know.
Steven Hanna: that's the number one thing that your staff is going to run into are people saying my watch is dying, and you can let them know one bar, one hour. Yes. Next to that on the left-hand side, there should be some random numbers and letters.
Jess Main: Do you see those? And then to the left of that, like Wi-Fi bars? Yes. Those two icons indicate that that watch is communicating with the main computer to your left. Okay. So if those icons are not there, that means that watch is not going to receive any of the messages that you send by tapping. Okay.
Steven Hanna: To solve that problem, tap the red button once. Okay.
Jess Main: It'll reset the device and it'll re-sync up to the main computer. Okay.
Steven Hanna: So you might run into that when somebody goes to the bathroom or, you know, say you have a camper who just needed to run off for a second to do something with a counselor or whatever. They just ran out of range for like, you know, 30 seconds. They might not get. Put back into the game, when they get back within range, the system will attempt to do it automatically, but if it does not succeed in doing so, tap the red button once, and you're golden. Okay, cool. If that does not work, the second method is to drop it in the dock, into that magnetic charging dock, and just pull it out and start it up again. So one's like a soft reset, and one's a hard reset. Hard reset, gotcha. Exactly. So those are the two things that you might run into as far as like the connection issues you were mentioning before, like, hey, some of them are randomly turning off. Now the system will randomly try and add them back in once they get back in range.
Jess Main: That doesn't work.
Steven Hanna: You might have to do a little manual soft reset, but significantly better than what you've experienced before.
Jess Main: Yes, perfect. Okay.
Steven Hanna: With these devices, you also have a smaller wristband strap on them. We've reduced the size on them because we've noticed that most of your use case is probably going to be for littles, and not Yeah, they were huge.
Jess Main: 14, 15, 16.
Steven Hanna: 15-year-olds. So we've reduced the size on the straps, and there's also another way to actually, if you pull the strap through and turn it once and put it on normally, it actually makes it perfect for a little, little wrist.
Jess Main: Okay. So the straps have been changed up a little bit, a little bit more for your use case.
Steven Hanna: Those are the main differences as far as what you see on the device and what you're navigating with in your hands. It's same exact charge mechanism, drop into that magnetic charger, it automatically turns off. To turn it off for yourself, hit the red button twice, and it turns off.
Jess Main: Wow.
Steven Hanna: Now, we're going to jump into some games. What I'm going to do before that is ask you to lower the volume in the top right corner, there's a little volume indicator, so that it's not blasting in your office. Like, one or two is perfect. It is a little finicky, I will say that.
Jess Main: Okay. Okay, it's on one.
Steven Hanna: We're going to tap the red light, green light button or icon. And at the starting of the screen, you'll always see the bullet points for the information. What I like to do is just, you know, go over basically with the kids, call and answer responses on red. What do we do? We stop. On green, what do we do? We go. And where are we going? That's a great question you might want to ask. Target run from one area to the next. So what I do is I have three cones on one area, and then I have three cones at another area, and they have to run from the set of cones to the set of cones.
Jess Main: Okay, that's good. They're always just been in the gym and just going for it.
Steven Hanna: Oh, so if you're in a gym, underneath one basketball hoop, they start at one side, set up two cones at the corners, and then at the other side, set up the other two cones, and literally have them go from basketball hoop to basketball hoop back and forth. Okay.
Jess Main: Right. Also tell them that they do need to focus on looking up as they're moving.
Steven Hanna: So this is a hand-eye coordination drill, basically. Exactly. As you're moving in red light, green light, we're not bumping into any of our friends today. We're going to be looking up as we're moving. Because sometimes they'll be walking into each other, and that's where it does kind of become a little bit, you know, harsh from a supervisor standpoint as far as liability. However, if you target run, it becomes a lot more manageable for your staff. And if you're dealing with 30, I'm going to go with counselors and trainings, because I won't call them full counselors. If you're navigating 30 of them, it's easier to have them go from one area to the next, as opposed to manage 20 kids flailing arms in different directions.
Jess Main: Love that. With red light, green light, we've also changed up some of the settings.
Steven Hanna: So instead of getting eliminated, you'll now just lose a few points if you get caught on red. So the littles are always going to be playing for the whole time.
Jess Main: Good. They always cry. Yeah, no more crying.
Steven Hanna: We don't deal with that anymore.
Jess Main: On your screen in the top right corner, there's a little settings icon. Just tap that for me.
Steven Hanna: And there's going to be three different settings that you'll see. Time Limit, Sensitivity, and then Negative Scoring. Negative Scoring is that setting. If you have that little check mark on Negative Scoring, that means they'll just lose a few points. I always keep it on. I always keep it on.
Jess Main: The Sensitivity, I put on Medium to Low.
Steven Hanna: Medium, and then I scale it for older kids to high, or I scale it lower for the lower kids to low. So that's more on you figuring out your group. You're going to hit Save Settings, and you're going to hit Assign All. You're going to hit Next. And then when that loads up, go ahead and hit Start Game. Now, you're purposefully going to get caught on red so that you can see what the difference is now instead of getting eliminated.
Jess Main: Okay. I was moving. Oh, they're all green. I don't want red.
Steven Hanna: There we go.
Jess Main: Now it's minus 10 points. Okay. Yes. So they're still going to be in and able to play for the full duration of the round. Okay. That's much better. Oh, totally.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
Jess Main: Cool. You can hit stop game on the right-hand side of the screen whenever you're ready.
Steven Hanna: So that's red light, green light. You can go into the settings and change as needed. However, these settings are like perfect. One minute.
Jess Main: Yeah. You're in for the whole minute.
Steven Hanna: You're just running around. It's a warm-up game. Just move. Have a good time. Yeah. So I recommend just keeping it as we are. Any questions on red light, green light? Nope.
Jess Main: That sounds good. That should reduce a lot of tears for a lot of our kids. And then, yeah.
Steven Hanna: And a lot of stress reduction for you in turn. Less tears equals less stress all around for everyone. Less love.
Jess Main: We're going to go back to our game.
Steven Hanna: We're Select in the main menu. You can hit back on your main screen or Game Select. The next game that I like to play with everybody is a game called Pattern Match, and the way that I bring this game up is a game called Uno. If you've played a game like Uno before, you know that we have to match. How do we match in Uno? Call and answer response. We match in colors. We match in numbers. Perfect. Except instead of numbers, we're going to match shapes to them. So for the first game, we're going to be focusing on matching colors together. So hit that Pattern Match for me. And the reason that I play this game right after Red Light, Green Light is because we model tagging behavior so that you guys don't have bumps and so that your watches have a little bit more longevity as opposed to like that, you know, iPhone on iPhone tap, as I like to call it. So for this one, what I'm going to ask you to do is set up one device as far away from you as humanly possible. I'll game.
Jess Main: Okay.
Steven Hanna: And just make sure that it faces towards you so you can see the screen.
Jess Main: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Now your other device is going to be, you know, with you as you're seated. What you're going to do is press Start Game, and you're going to aim that watch towards the one further away. And I just want you to see how far away these can communicate with each other.
Jess Main: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So I don't know how far away it is, but you could probably, I've seen it in a gym go up to 25 feet before. Yeah.
Jess Main: It's only like maybe 10 feet right now. Oh, God.
Steven Hanna: That's still a pretty significant amount of space.
Jess Main: Probably less than 10. I can't. I don't know. don't That account.
Steven Hanna: You're good. But this is basically how far away these devices can communicate with each other. And it's important that you model how far away they can tag. So what I like to do is use a counselor in training as the first person, as an example, and any camper as a second example, and just have them stand away from each other and take one step towards each other until they hear them go off. And then everybody can see how far away they can be.
Jess Main: Right.
Steven Hanna: So it's really important to model that like group behavior of don't jump on each other. Like, look at how far away you can be. They're like five, six, seven feet away. Like, this is how you play. This will protect the longevity of your devices. Every time they scrape. I'm sorry, can you just give me one second? I'm getting it. That's cool.
Jess Main: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You Thank you. Okay. So, any questions on Pattern Match or Shape Match?
Jess Main: That sounds good. Okay.
Steven Hanna: What I like to do is just focus on one color or focus on the colors for one game, focus on the shapes for the second game, and the third game is a combination of colors and shapes.
Jess Main: Okay.
Steven Hanna: If you're ready, you can go to the home screen, and we can jump into Hot Potato, which will be Keep Away, that soccer ball. So now, instead of keep away, the person with the ball is going to try and give that to someone else as quickly as possible.
Jess Main: Okay. Okay. Gave it over there. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Exactly. Pretty fun.
Jess Main: There is a slight settings difference in this where you can add in multiple balls. Oh. Right.
Steven Hanna: So it's not going to be one person who's the hot potato. Now we're going to have multiple hot potatoes in the game.
Jess Main: Okay. They like that. Right.
Steven Hanna: So it's not just one person trying to interact with everyone else. If you hit the stop game button, and you hit the settings, you'll be able to see that you can add up to four balls.
Jess Main: A good ratio is one to four. All
Steven Hanna: And this makes it a little bit more digestible so that it's chunked out. You don't have to worry about one person trying to run into 15 people.
Jess Main: It's one person maybe going after like one or two. Yeah, a little better. Much more digestible.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. Exactly.
Jess Main: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Any questions on this one? Sounds good.
Jess Main: All right.
Steven Hanna: We're going to go back to our home menu, and I'm just going to go over the zombie settings really quick with you.
Jess Main: With Doctor or without Doctor? Which game do you play more? Probably with the Doctor. They always demand it. Then let's Doctor up.
Steven Hanna: New settings for this. So in your previous game of Zombie Tag, the Doctor was invincible the whole game. They were basically God. Now we have balancing mechanisms for that. Aw, man.
Jess Main: So... So...
Steven Hanna: In the top right corner, there's something called the Doctor Heal Limit. And I'm going to start from right to left because you've seen all the other stuff. I'm just showing you the new stuff first. Okay. So the Doctor Heal Limit, this is the amount of times the Doctor can heal someone in that round.
Jess Main: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So you can select, like, maybe they can only heal three people, four people, whatever number you select. After they heal that amount of people, they go back to a human.
Jess Main: So now it's much more balanced for the zombies throughout this game, and they're not just getting their butts kicked. Kicked for two minutes. Yes. Okay. Perfect. So that's the first balancing change that we have.
Steven Hanna: The bottom area, I believe there's something called time before infection or duration.
Jess Main: Infection duration.
Steven Hanna: That is how long it takes for someone to turn into a zombie. So you can change that number. If you're working in a bigger space, give them a little few more seconds to find a doctor. If you're working in a smaller space, take away a few seconds because they're working in a smaller space.
Jess Main: Okay. right. Above that, you have something called Number of Heals or Number of Tags Before Infection.
Steven Hanna: That's how many lives each human has.
Jess Main: Okay. So you can give people more than one life.
Steven Hanna: Exactly. So those are the three changes as far as settings go. The number of doctors on randomized, that's how many doctors at the start. Number of zombies on randomized, how many zombies at the start.
Jess Main: Okay. Any questions on the settings before you start it up? Sounds good. Okay.
Steven Hanna: What I recommend for zombies with doctor is you have a one to two ratio of doctors to zombies. The reason why is because the doctors can stun the zombies. Okay. And if they sit on top of one another and keep stunning them, that person effectively can't be a zombie.
Jess Main: Okay. Sounds good. You're more than welcome to start up zombie tag, but I know you've seen and heard it a thousand times. Yeah. Yeah. That is, that is the most. Played one, for sure.
Steven Hanna: Any questions on Zombie Tag at all?
Jess Main: No. Okay, any questions on those games that we've kind of gone over?
Steven Hanna: For your use case, those are the four main ones that you'll use.
Jess Main: Yeah. I don't know if you'll go into, like, the math match and, like, language match games.
Steven Hanna: Those are more, like, educational settings.
Jess Main: Yeah. Anytime we try them, they riot. Like, no, give us the zombies back.
Steven Hanna: Sometimes we make them do it to take an education break.
Jess Main: Like, don't do two of these before we can do zombies again.
Steven Hanna: But, yeah, not very often. That's pretty similar to what I do. I use math match as a punishment game. They're too energetic. We're doing math for one minute. Yeah.
Jess Main: You guys are fighting over who gets to be the doctor. Now we're doing math.
Steven Hanna: Yep. Now we all lose. One last thing, as far as a variant goes for Zombie Tag, there's some game called Time Trials, where, if you have less than, like, three people playing Zombie Tag, you can basically put all the other ones. Watches out on the field, and they have to run up to each of those watches within one minute, and all three of them work as a zombie team to get all the other watches zombified. So, one more use case if you have less than a bunch of people playing.
Jess Main: Okay. Yeah, that's pretty rare for us, but...
Steven Hanna: Okay. We'll never use that, though. Time trials for no one. Yeah.
Jess Main: Okay.
Steven Hanna: We're going to go over a system shutdown just because this is arguably the most important part of the training that we save for last.
Jess Main: Okay. What I'm going to ask you to do is please place all the devices back into the charging dock. Okay. Once those are on the charge dock, they should be either...
Steven Hanna: Green or red, depending on their charge status. We're going to go back to our main home menu. In the top right corner, you're going to hit the power button. And then shut down. You're going to take your router and router clip off of the back of the system. You can, you know, at the end, you can tangle them up and put them back in. But we'll simulate there in the back. After you have that shut down, you can press that silver button, and that blue light will turn off. That means the top portion of the screen is off. So the charger is still on right now. If you just needed to charge, you could leave it like this. And then that red button. And then you unplug from the wall. Coil everything up and put it right back into that nice little storage area that you have in the back of the system. You can leave as is. I'm not making you do all that work. That's ridiculous. Don't worry. I know you know how to turn the system off.
Jess Main: The only thing that you'll really want to make sure at the end is when you close it, just make sure there's no resistance as you push down, because that means that obviously something is in the way. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Steven Hanna: Any questions, Jess, at all? Sounds good.
Jess Main: I'll probably print some more step-by-step little things, just because staff is.
Steven Hanna: I'm going to send you an email with that exact thing that you just said.
Jess Main: Perfect. So don't worry about writing any notes.
Steven Hanna: Don't worry about anything. You will get an AI recording of this and an email from me with all the settings and that one step that you were just talking about, bullet pointed out for you.
Jess Main: Awesome. All right.
Steven Hanna: That sounds good.
Jess Main: Cool. We're excited. I appreciate it.
Steven Hanna: I'm excited to get you guys back up and running with this. Yeah. I might reach out every now and then just be like, hey, how's it going? Any feedback? And then you could be like, yeah, this thing's terrible, Steve, you're awful.
Jess Main: And I'll go, oh no, we need to talk.
Steven Hanna: We have camp again in like a month and a half.
Jess Main: Yeah, we didn't have it for our winter camp. And they were like, where's laser tag? We want to play it.
Steven Hanna: I love hearing that.
Jess Main: Good to hear.
Steven Hanna: All right, Jess, thank you so much for meeting with me today. I appreciate it. Two emails to follow up for me. And if you need anything, my phone number will be in those emails. You'll have my email and you can reach out to me any point in time. This is that emergency phone that I was like, how an emergency? So I do answer it, as you see. I apologize.
Jess Main: It had to be on your time.
Steven Hanna: No, that's fine.
Jess Main: I've done it too. Thanks, Jess. I appreciate it. Have a wonderful day. Take care.
[Metadata only — transcript not included in this selection]
Steven Hanna: Thank you for joining me on this Tuesday. I appreciate it. It's not Monday, but it feels like a Monday, but I appreciate you being here. Thank you. Yes, I take Sunday Mondays off, so Tuesdays are my Mondays. All right, so we're pretty much on the same page here with like, all right, the eyes are just opening and we're like just getting into the kind of motion of things for the day.
Allie Chappell: Yes, exactly right. All right, so you'll forgive me if I'm like looking slightly tired or slightly just like I'm getting on because I am. Oh, no worries at all.
Steven Hanna: Well, I appreciate you being here. My name is Steve. I'm the Playmaker Developer for ZTAG. What that really translates to is I'm here to make sure that you're comfortable using your ZTAG system with the safety upgrade. So I'm your point of contact for like any operations if something goes down or if one of your operators is like, hey, I don't know what's going on. Just basically throw my phone number, get them out of your hair, throw them into my non-existent hair, and then, you know, it's basically issues solved. So that's kind of what. I am in what I do. Do you have any questions about the system, ZTAG, or anything that we're currently kind of doing?
Allie Chappell: No, we've had it for about a year. My director found ZTAG at a 3CA conference, and then we purchased it for our camp. Yeah, so we've really been enjoying it. Yeah, I'd say our biggest thing is trying to get the kids to not tackle each other so they don't break the tigers. Gotcha.
Steven Hanna: Well, that is one pitfall that I'll help you with.
Allie Chappell: children running around being crazy.
Steven Hanna: That's true. I mean, like, from the supervisor-observer standpoint, you're like, oh my god, liability, children getting hurt. But then, you know, it's like, how do you not use the system because it's just doing such a cool thing, right? So it's kind of like a fine line, but I do have some techniques and some, like, modeling things that I could show you to, usually you can relay that to the kids and they'll understand, like, oh, I don't have to be football dogpiling on top. dogpiling to Thank Someone to get this. The upgrade has basically updated some of the, like, internal software so that they can communicate a little bit further away. The batteries are a little bit, well, not a little bit, the batteries are basically, like, souped up and enhanced entirely, and your ZTAGGERS have been, like, pretty much refurbished. So with your ZTAGGERS, you should have also gotten, like, a fold-out card with a little memory card. Were you able to put that memory card in? Mm-hmm.
Allie Chappell: Yep, that's in there now.
Steven Hanna: Perfect. So what we're going to do is we're just going to start up your system normally, and we're going to go through a few of those things that have changed. You've used the system before, so it's, like, not like we're going to go from the ground up. I'm just kind of orienting it towards what your specific use cases are. And if you're a camp, you're probably only going to be playing, like, three games, realistically. Like, probably Red Light, Green Light, Zombie Tag, and then, like, one other random game here or there.
Allie Chappell: Zombie Tag is huge.
Steven Hanna: Okay.
Allie Chappell: Perfect. Perfect.
Steven Hanna: So to start... It up, you've got that black power cable in, hit that red little button, and then give it a second, you'll hear all those turn on, and then hit that silver button, and that ZTAGGER that's not charging, just like wiggle or probably press it down a little bit, see if you can get it. says on the screen that it's charging. Oh, it does? Yeah.
Allie Chappell: Oh. Just lighting up. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Interesting. So once this new update kind of gets uploaded, you're going to have two additional games. That's also on the card. You probably won't use them, but they're also really good marketing tools for you guys if you need to, like, say, like, hey, we do have educational games with ZTAGG. They're, like, language matching games, counting games, and math games, stuff like that. That's awesome.
Allie Chappell: Yeah, haven't brought it into this realm. But also at our camp, we have like a commercial ropes course and zipline course. And so I'm also the team building person here too. So I do team building with a lot of school groups. So I'm like, oh, it'd be cool to use some of the educational stuff for the school groups that come in because sometimes like fifth graders come and stuff.
Steven Hanna: Then I will give you like one game variant. That is all you will need. And then after that, you can just say, yep, I got it in my arsenal and I can just deploy it whenever I need to.
Allie Chappell: Perfect. All right.
Steven Hanna: So first thing that we're going to do is in the settings menu in the top right, you're going to hit that little gear icon. And we're going to hit reset. And now all of those should say 7.0.26, correct?
Allie Chappell: They say 7.0.27.
Steven Hanna: 2.7, all right, perfect. Then you're on the super updated version. Great. right. Yeah, so all of your ZTAGGERS have basically been updated as well to that enhanced range. So what I'm going to ask you to do is just to see the new range, take out like two or three of them and turn them on. Now, when you turn them on, the first thing that you're going to notice is the battery indicator in the top right corner of the screen. Those bars, this is something that we've kind of updated to relate to one hour of gameplay. So each time those kids are coming back going, oh my goodness, my watch is about to die. It's one bar left. They still got like 60 minutes of gameplay on that.
Allie Chappell: Amazing. That's awesome. Yep.
Steven Hanna: So if any of your staff are like, hey, these things are dying quick and there's only two bars left, be like, that's actually like two hours that you could still use it for. So it may appear that it's losing battery quick, but one hour, one bar. To the left of those battery indicators are some random numbers.
Allie Chappell: Do you see those? And then Wi-Fi bars to the left of that? If you see those, that means that that watch is communicating with the big computer to your left.
Steven Hanna: If those are not there, say someone has to run to the bathroom, somebody just goes out of range, like, you know, it happens, they're kids, and they just get out of range. Sometimes when they come back, the watch won't add itself back in.
Allie Chappell: To add it back in, hit the red button once on the side. Oh, great. Okay. Do a quick reset.
Steven Hanna: It's basically a soft reset. The watch will turn on in 10 seconds and re-attempt and re-connect to the main computer.
Allie Chappell: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So there's no more of, like, oh, my goodness, have to, like, get them back, add them back in, that type of thing. Just one tap it, and they're right in.
Allie Chappell: Perfect. Awesome.
Steven Hanna: So on your main computer, what I'm going to ask you to do is tap the ZTAG button on the top left corner.
Allie Chappell: Great. And I'm going to show you the three-game sequence that'll work well for your camps.
Steven Hanna: And if you organize it this way, it's like, I don't know how long your camper groups are for activities, but you can get 30 minutes to 60 minutes, depending on what you're doing.
Allie Chappell: Okay, awesome. First game you're going to go through is Red Light, Green Light, so tap on that one.
Steven Hanna: And the easiest way to start this game up is by asking the campers, has anybody played Red Light, Green Light before? Have them start to talk and say how they've played Red Light, Green Light, and basically get you 90% of the way there. All you're going to do is say, perfect. You know on Red you're going to stop, you know on Green you're going to go. On the watch, when it's Red you stop, on Green you go. Where are we going to go, you might ask. This is where you're going to set up cones on one area and have them target run to another area. So two cones at one side of a field, two cones at another side of a field. On Green, we're working our way towards the other cones. Once we reach that set of cones, we're going to turn around and go back to the first set of cones. So it's basically back and forth for 60 seconds. So it's a good quick warm-up. It keeps them pretty engaged. And we've also added a new setting where there's a non-elimination round. So instead of getting eliminated for the littles and they start crying and then you guys have bigger problems, we now have it so they'll just lose a few points and they'll be able to continue to play for the entire duration of the game. I'm going to have you turn that setting on now by going into the top right corner and hitting the gear icon. You have time limit, sensitivity, and negative scoring. I'm going to have you change the time limit to 60 seconds. The sensitivity, you're going to keep on medium or low, depending on who you work with more. they're younger, keep it on low. If they're older, you can keep it on medium or high. The negative scoring, make sure that that has a check mark on it. And that's the setting so that they'll just lose a few points if they get caught on red. Hit save settings.
Allie Chappell: Great. I'm going to also have you reduce the volume.
Steven Hanna: You're in a small space, and it's also really early, kind of, so hit that little volume indicator and bring that down to, like, two, so it's not.
Allie Chappell: already at two. Excellent.
Steven Hanna: We're going to assign all the players into the game by hitting the Assign All button, and then you're going to hit Next. I always do a countdown with everybody, so we know when the game's going to start. I go five, four, and then on three, I tap the screen, because that's when the countdown continues. So you could do that, but start it up whenever you're ready. I want you to purposefully get caught on red so you can now see the difference of getting caught versus eliminated. What sensitivity do you have in that medium?
Allie Chappell: Yeah. Okay. Oh, there we go. Minus ten points.
Steven Hanna: Right. Okay. So they'll just lose a few points this time, and they'll still be able to continue.
Allie Chappell: Awesome.
Steven Hanna: So that's the main difference in this one. That'll make it a lot easier for you guys and get you like probably 10 minutes of gameplay just by one setting. Yeah, that's awesome.
Allie Chappell: Hit the stop match button whenever you're ready and we'll move on to the next one.
Steven Hanna: In the top left corner, you can hit game select or back, whichever. You may have to hit back first. The next game that we go into is a game called Pattern Match and Shape Match. So if you jump into that top right corner and click that icon, this is a game that is similar to Uno. If you played Uno before, you know that we're matching colors and numbers. In our version, we're matching colors and shapes. What I do for this is I focus on two different games or three different games. If you jump into the settings really quick, I'll change up the settings for you so you'll have this set up. 60 seconds is going to be. The Timer. And I do not recommend you change anything else. Okay. There's a lot of things to change there, but depending on if you're doing, like, cognitive loading and teaching sides of, like, objects and things, you can change that up. But this is more of a fun game. Just, like, engage with each other. Match your colors and numbers.
Allie Chappell: Don't go crazy, you know?
Steven Hanna: For this game, I use two people as an example at the start, and I have them stand, like, 10 or 15 feet away from each other, holding their watches towards each other. So what I'm going to ask you to do is there's a cool bookshelf behind you. Put one of the watches on that bookshelf and face it towards you.
Allie Chappell: Now they're going to be like, what's going on? Why should they be like, what are you doing? And then I'm going to ask them to join in for Zombie Tag, because you can play Zombie Tag in the office with, like, three or four people.
Steven Hanna: So I'm going to ask you. I'm assign all of the players into the game, and the watch in your hand, I'm going to ask you to face it towards the bookshelf as you start the game. I'm going to ask you to hit next on the main screen, and then start the game right after. Stay as far away as you can. I know it's kind of an office, but you can see how far away that these are communicating. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, it's like, I saw you walk probably 7 feet, plus like 2 feet, so it's probably about 10 feet, is that accurate? You got a couch in I would say this is like probably 15 feet. Okay, so 10 or 15 feet away, and you can see just how far away they communicate, is that distance? That's awesome. This is why I model this game, and I really focus in on how far away they can communicate, and this is where you're going to have kind of, you're going to spend a little bit of time on this game, but once you do this for two... Iterations, and they understand distance. Your chase games and your zombie games, oh my goodness, they become much more smoother.
Allie Chappell: Yeah, that's great. Yeah, because we usually always played outside, and so being out in the sun, it was harder for them to read, too. So yeah, with that, it's going be strange. That's amazing. It'll definitely reduce in the sun.
Steven Hanna: I'll say that, right? Like, it'll probably be half of that in the sun, but you'll still have about five to seven feet of distance that they have the ability to communicate with.
Allie Chappell: That is great.
Steven Hanna: I model this one, and I use the first game for 60 seconds, and I say, we're only going to focus on colors. I don't overload them. I just say, just colors. Match a color for this one. And then we show them how to match the color, and then the next game, we do shapes, and then the third game, I do colors and shapes. So it's 60 seconds each, three minutes of gameplay, and you just reinforce the distance tagging.
Allie Chappell: Okay, amazing. You can jump back to the home menu.
Steven Hanna: And you can actually leave that watch there, because we'll use it, yeah, we'll use it as like a A fake player, basically.
Allie Chappell: Perfect.
Steven Hanna: The third game that I like to play is actually a game that my wife told me that I needed to implement, and it's called Hot Potato. So instead of KeepAway, where you have 15 people chasing after one person with a ball, reverse KeepAway to be Hot Potato. And the kids understand what Hot Potato are. So we're going off of prior knowledge here and just basically hitting that, okay, you know what to do here. tap on KeepAway for me, and I'll just show you how to quickly do Hot Potato. In your settings in the top right, we have now added multiple balls as well. So to ensure that one person is not getting chased down by 15 people, you can have a few different balls in there if you decide to do KeepAway. If you do my version of Hot Potato, which honestly works better, and they're making this game this year because it works so well, you're just going to use one ball as the Hot Potato, two balls as the Hot Potato, however many Hot Potatoes you want. And instead of holding on to that ball for keep away, they have to try and give it to somebody as quickly as possible. So the longer that they have the ball, the worse it is, actually. They want to give it away as quickly as possible. You can start it up to see how it works, but you pretty much understand how keep away goes.
Allie Chappell: You're more than welcome to start. Very nice.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. And then you could probably pass it to the one on the bookshelf, too. Like, if he was another player, if you aimed it at that one.
Allie Chappell: Oh, yeah. And it's pretty quick now.
Steven Hanna: Like, you'll see it's kind of snappy.
Allie Chappell: So do they get points when they don't have the ball, then?
Steven Hanna: So this is where the points get a little confusing, right? And this is where I say... In Hot Potato, the more points you have, the worse it is, because one point is one second, right? In Keepaway, the more points, the better it is, right? Because one point is one second. So this is why as long as you reverse it, you have the ability to basically make it easier for younger kids and just kind of ensure that it's just smooth, realistically. And I'm sorry, I just realized your note taker has been trying to get into this room this whole time. I apologize. Oh, I know, you're good.
Allie Chappell: I didn't even realize I was trying to get in.
Steven Hanna: It's been like pinging me. It's like, hey, I'm trying to get in. I'm like, who is this random trying to get into this training right now?
Allie Chappell: I just started using this and I usually use Google Meet, so I forget. It tries to get in everywhere.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, you set the permissions and it's like, hey, I'm with you, attached to your leg.
Allie Chappell: You're like, oh my God, you're here?
Steven Hanna: My AI is also going to send you an email of all of this, so don't worry about And I'm also going to send you a follow-up email with all the settings that we just speak about, so that it's like a one-pager. If you've got other staff that this needs to be distributed to, give them the link to this training. Say it's 30 minutes, put it on 2X like the podcast you don't listen to in the background while you're doing other things. And then, yeah, just give them the one-pager with the settings and just say, this is all you need to run the system. Awesome. Any questions on KeepAway Hot Potato?
Allie Chappell: No, that's awesome.
Steven Hanna: Okay, and then the last game that you're probably going to be playing the most is going to be Zombie Tag. Do you play with Doctor or without Doctor?
Allie Chappell: Depends on how many kids we have. We usually do ours kind of like walk-up situation with kids just wandering around. So, depending on how many kids we got is if we need Doctor or not.
Steven Hanna: Okay, then I'm going to jump into the one with Doctor first, just because there are some settings that have changed up, and I want to go over those. And then if you go back to the other game, it's just, you know, Zombie Tag. without any of these settings. So if you jump into that little gear icon in the top right, I'm going to start from the top right and work kind of left. I know it's kind of weird, but it's the newest thing that you're going to see on the system and the most apparent. So you have Dr.
Allie Chappell: Heal Limit in the top right.
Steven Hanna: Have you had this setting before?
Allie Chappell: I haven't looked at it, if we have had it.
Steven Hanna: Okay, that's okay, because this is a good way to balance the game out. The Dr. Heal Limit is how many times a doctor can heal someone in the round. So it used to be where the doctor was like invincible, and the humans would basically win every single time if it was a doctor. Now, after they heal, whatever number you select, they turn back into a human and then can turn into a zombie. So it's a little bit of a balancing mechanism.
Allie Chappell: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: On the bottom left side, you have Heal Duration or something. Zombie Duration, is that correct?
Allie Chappell: Oh yeah, Infection Duration.
Steven Hanna: Infection Duration. That's That's long it takes for a person to turn into a zombie.
Allie Chappell: So that's like the morphing process, like where their watch is flashing red and green.
Steven Hanna: If they find a doctor, obviously they can get you. Above that, you have, what's that setting?
Allie Chappell: Number of tags before infection.
Steven Hanna: That's how many lives you have. So if you've only played with one life ever, now is a really good opportunity to see like, hey, what happens if I give you guys two lives, three lives, four lives, right? Like maybe it's a little bit easier and the game goes on for a longer period of time. Like maybe for the first minute it's like intense and then the last minute it slows down. So you have a bunch of settings you can change up here. But those are the three main settings that are different. The number of doctors on randomize are how many doctors at the start. And the number of zombies on randomize are how many zombies at the start of the game. It is a non-native English speaker that had created the menu and it is like weirdly written out. We're going over that and I'm making it a little bit more comprehensive because like if. If I just give you human health, and you're like, oh yeah, four hearts. I get that. And it's like, doctors on start. It's like, okay, yeah, two, right?
Allie Chappell: Yeah, sorry about the confusion.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, I see you like looking over, raising the eyebrow, going like, what? So I just wanted to elaborate on that because it is a little funky, but we are overlaying it and overworking it.
Allie Chappell: Awesome.
Steven Hanna: So zombie tag effectively runs the same exact way. So there is nothing fundamentally different on that. You're more than welcome to start it up and see how many different lives you can do, see what it looks like, but fundamentally the same exact thing.
Allie Chappell: Yeah, that's great. That's fun for the younger kids being able to do more lives.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, and if you do give them more lives, just give a little bit more time. That's kind of like the ratio where it's like, the zombie's got to work a little bit more for it, so you do want to give them a little more of an opportunity.
Allie Chappell: Yeah, that makes sense. makes sense. One doctor, one zombie, and one human. The craziest game. I know, it's wild.
Steven Hanna: 1v1v1. Healed up, perfect. And there is a heal timeout. Now, if like five people run over to the doctor, the doctor has to make a choice. Who are they going to heal?
Allie Chappell: So true. They're all zombies now. Amazing. Yeah, that's fun.
Steven Hanna: I like that. Last game that I like to do, and this is kind of an, well, I'll show you two quick ones. The Rock, Paper, Scissors game. If you jump in there, I actually don't use it as Rock, Paper, Scissors. My wife is a K-6 teacher, and she has like come up with other variants of all of these games.
Allie Chappell: And she's like, yeah, forget what they have done.
Steven Hanna: Like, this is how it works. It's like theory versus application, and I'm like, you're right. Like, they don't know what's going on. You're in the field. Like, you know how it works. So, so there's a full application game that I don't even play rock, paper, scissors with anymore. I use it as an icebreaker game and learning how to tag game. So this works really well for littles. The goal of this game is that everybody gets on the same color team by the end of one minute. I don't care what team you start on at the start, red, blue, or green. You have to find somebody, link your watch together, and everybody needs to be on the same color team. So it's an icebreaker game, and it's a collaborative win game. If some of you were on red and some of you were on blue, some of you were on green, we all lose. So we got to make sure that we all win together.
Allie Chappell: Very fun. Right.
Steven Hanna: So if you assign everybody, you can kind of see. Have you ever played this one?
Allie Chappell: Yes, yeah. Okay, all right.
Steven Hanna: So you know how one person gets changed to the other team, and that team gets larger and larger. If you reverse it to a social kind of icebreaker game, just meet up with a friend and link your watch together. Together, it's really, really fun for the littles.
Allie Chappell: That is very fun. So that's how I run that.
Steven Hanna: You're more than welcome to start and check it out.
Allie Chappell: Yeah. Scissors. Amazing.
Steven Hanna: And you guys all won because you all got on the paper team. So good. Yeah, exactly. And man, that game really works well. I have a lot of the kids who are like, I want to play that game again. I'm like, that game sucks.
Allie Chappell: Let's play zombie survival.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, like, I was just using that as a filler, dude. Like, we got to play some zombies right now. That's so funny. And then I'll just quickly go over. WordWave is going to be kind of tough because you'll need about 12 people to make that work.
Allie Chappell: It's a flashcard language matching game. Oh. So. So. Oh, one team will be in Spanish.
Steven Hanna: Actually, tap on it. Let's, yeah. If you have like an extra two to three minutes, I might go over, but as long as you're comfortable, I'll just quickly show you what's going on.
Allie Chappell: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: So two different languages that you can focus on. Native language to target language, English to Spanish, English to French.
Allie Chappell: So English to Spanish.
Steven Hanna: And now you'll have to put a few people on the Spanish team.
Allie Chappell: Great.
Steven Hanna: The word bank is quite large, so you might not have matches with the three watches, but just so that you see what it looks like, one team is going to be on purple, one team is going to be on green. They have to match the opposite word in the opposite language. So English would have, you know, Apple, Spanish would have Manzana, and they have to link their watch together to earn points. Yeah. That's the flash card element.
Allie Chappell: That's fine. It's super fun.
Steven Hanna: And honestly, it's really great to see like a flipped classroom.
Allie Chappell: Yeah. They both have the same Spanish words. Does it match with the English word?
Steven Hanna: Yeah, the word bank is a little bit large, so it might not match with three.
Allie Chappell: So do you, because these Spanish ones keep rotating through the same words. Oh, wait, now they're different.
Steven Hanna: Every 15 seconds, they will change. And the reason why is we don't want a kid to get stuck on a word if they don't understand it. We're never going to punish them for not knowing, right? So we'll give them 15 seconds to have the opportunity and the opportunity for any of their classmates or anyone else to contribute and help them. And after 15 seconds, it gives them a total new opportunity.
Allie Chappell: Right. Yep.
Steven Hanna: So super low stakes, super high reward, right? Like that's, those are all of these games, low stakes and high reward.
Allie Chappell: That's awesome.
Steven Hanna: The other game that I like to play, this works probably 25% of the time. But. But. But it is a new game, and if you find a different way to play it, I need to know, because I have one gym teacher who's, like, figured out a way, and I'm like, okay, you have the title, but you will be dethroned eventually, and I'm telling people to dethrone you. It's a game called Sequence Train. In the bottom right corner, you're going to have that number train. Mm-hmm. And basically, this is a counting game, where we're going to go in sequence and count upwards from ones to ones, odds, evens, fives, tens. So each watch is given a number, and they have to communicate with the group who they need in the next number in the sequence. So one of your watches will be number one. One of your watches will be number two. Number one's watch is going to flash, and they have to give their watch to number two. And now number two's watch is going to flash, and they have to give it to number three. So it's basically counting together, but like I said, it's kind of challenging. I'm going to be... It's like 20-25% success rate. The way that this teacher had figured out this works is he went center court on his gym and used it like a clock method where the person in the middle with the flashing watch was at the center of the clock. And they were basically turning around going, I need number two, need number two. And number two would tag into the middle and be the center of the clock. And the person who was just in the middle switches places. That's awesome, yeah. So he figured out a clock method. It works pretty well. If you figure out another method, I am at this point, I'm shocked that it even works. I'm be honest, like it never works for me.
Allie Chappell: So I am going to be amazed with anybody who comes up with good methods.
Steven Hanna: So please share if you do.
Allie Chappell: In all the different settings for like the numbers in this game, does natural numbers just mean like one through ten? It's okay.
Steven Hanna: Don't worry. I did the same thing when I saw... I was like, guys are using like semantic words here, and us educators are beyond this at this point, okay? We're not into math. We're in phys ed. We're in different things, okay?
Allie Chappell: Yeah. So yes, yeah, and would start off because it was like even on fives, natural, prime, and then tens. Yeah, it's like, oh, gee, and it's out of order, and my personal OCD at this menu screen is like, what the hell is going on here? Yeah. There is a level of OCD for me involved with all of this.
Steven Hanna: Like, I see what you're going through, and I'm like, oh, man, I feel that. I literally feel that. Like, I apologize. It will be enhanced, I promise. But it is a good game if you want to just quickly start it up to just see how the numbers transfer. It's like Keep Away, except one, two, three, and sequence, just like that. So that sequence train, that's another quick one if you wanted to have like a little educational game in your arsenal to say, yeah, we do. We have this as well. Amazing. So fun. And then Math Match. Have you played that one before? Not really? Yes, no? Yes. Yeah.
Allie Chappell: I think, I forget which one it was. It was either the Math Match or the Pattern Match we were having troubles with because the same two taggers could just stand right next to each other and keep tagging.
Steven Hanna: So, yes. And that has changed now where after three tags into the same partner, it starts to rapid cycle. So, if they are trying to do that, it'll start to quickly go through things and just lose and deduct points the longer they stand next to each other. So, it's like, yeah, you could try and do that now. But, like, look at what's going to happen. You're not getting points anymore. Where you were getting points before, now the system is punishing you for camping right next to your friend and not meeting with another partner to earn a point.
Allie Chappell: Okay. Awesome.
Steven Hanna: There is one other game that I kind of figured out and it's a game called Time Trust. And that's with Zombie Tag. If you have like two or three kids playing Zombie Tag, or like you have less than 10 kids, you can basically set a bunch of those ZTAGGERS out in a certain area, and they have to start at the system next to you, and there are two zombies at the start. Those are the two zombies right next to you, and you basically start the game and say you've got 30 seconds to get all the humans, and the humans are scattered throughout the entire area. So they just sprint out both of them, and they're tagging these watches on the ground, on like a playground, wherever you set it out. It's just a quick way to be like, okay, I got less than five people, and then we want to play. Cool. That's fun. We're going to do a time trial. You guys are all zombies. Give me about like three minutes. It's like a hide-and-seek style, like scavenger hunt, where you get a minute or two to go and set all these out, and then you get back and you're like, perfect. Get ready. You guys are the zombies. Go. You got 35 seconds. So another – Quick one for low number gameplay is Time Trials. Kids love it. It's, oh my god, I have not seen them run faster than in that before. Like, it's ridiculous. That's super fun. Just another variant of it, and I know I've gone over, but that was pretty much all the games and a few of the variants that we kind of came up with. As far as your safety upgrade goes, you've got the stickers on the system, you've kind of gone over everything. A few of the admin things, just keep that, like, case open a little bit as you're charging. Make sure that it is heat dissipation, it can get out. In addition to that, as far as the shutdown goes, that's kind of just the most important part of this process, so we're going to go through that quickly. And in the top right corner, there's that little shutdown button, or a little power button. You can tap that. And then you can hit shut down. On your ZTAGGERS, you can put them right on the dock, and they will automatically turn off. line. that case, you but... learned As you know. And they just might take like a little extra pressure to put into the magnetic chargers now. We've kind of enhanced everything a little bit to be a little more secure. And if that one isn't charging on the LED light, and it says it's charging.
Allie Chappell: Yeah, that one, yeah, it says it's charging, so.
Steven Hanna: Okay, let's just keep an eye on that. If that one like does anything weird, just let me know in the future, and I will make sure that that one gets replaced.
Allie Chappell: Okay. So, let's get it. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it moved from like blinking red to green now on the screen, so.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Then it looks like it's probably just the LEDs on the side. Yeah. Now that you've got all of those in the dock, we've got our router in the back. We're going to hit that silver button, and that blue ring light's going to go off. Perfect. And then you're going to hit that red button.
Allie Chappell: Excellent.
Steven Hanna: Close that. And then you're going to take that black wall. Outlet, and remove it from the system and the wall. Coil up all nice and neat, throw it in the storage area in the back of the system. And close. Excellent. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time today. I'm glad I was able to share some extra cool stuff with you. But any questions, comments, concerns? No, that was really helpful.
Allie Chappell: Thank you so much for taking time to go through all that.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, you got it. figure like 30 minutes is like the perfect amount of time to be like, hey, cool stuff. Here, here's what you need. Goodbye.
Allie Chappell: Yeah, no, that's perfect. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Steven Hanna: You got it. Like I said before, two follow-up emails. One's going to be the AI recording. Feel free to send that to whoever you need who's operating the system. Second one is going to be like my one page on those settings that we went over specifically. If you need to like just share that with staff too. Here's The One Page. Here's what works. Goodbye. That took me. Awesome.
Allie Chappell: Perfect. Thank you so much. appreciate it. Have a wonderful day. Take care. You as well. Yeah. Bye.
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ASA: Hello. Hey, how are you?
Steven Hanna: Good. One quick thing before we get set up today. My name is Steve. I'm going to be your Playmaker developer today, which basically translates to, I'm going to make sure that you're comfortable operating your system right after this and make sure that you're comfortable working with various groups and age ranges with a bunch of the different games and variants that we have. So if you have any questions, you're more than welcome to stop me at any point. But what's your name? My name is Tommy. Awesome.
ASA: And what is your role, Tommy? Huh? Can you say it again? What was your role with ASA? Oh, I manage the tech stuff, basically, like the tech support. Gotcha.
Steven Hanna: Okay. And are you going to be operating the system mainly, or is it going to be a set of different things?
ASA: Uh, I will, I will, in the beginning, I'll probably be setting up the ZTAG and then gradually teach others how to do it.
Steven Hanna: Okay, gotcha. All right. And then my last question is, um, for your, for your use case, uh, what do you guys plan on using ZTAG mostly for? Because I'm going to orient your training for the best use for you, rather than waste your time with, like, some of the other training that may not be relevant.
ASA: Oh, so our school is, like, a martial arts school, so it's, like, ta-ka-m-do, so we could do, like, uh, drills with it, or some fun stuff, like, we could, uh, another thing is we have a learning center, so we use it as a fun incentive if they do well in class.
Steven Hanna: Perfect. Okay. Cool. So we're, like, kind of looking for a training that's a little bit of education, mostly engagement, though. Is that kind of what I'm hearing? Yes.
ASA: Okay. Make them, like, think, like, strategy and, like, think outside the box, but they can't. Okay. So cognitive loading, actual, like, some sort of educational input where they have to have a thought process, have a logic-based thought process, and be disciplined in how they're working, basically. Yes. All right.
Steven Hanna: Perfect. Then that helps me a lot because I can kind of just orient it towards that. So do you have your system in front of you?
ASA: Yes, it's on my right side. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Perfect. First thing I'm going to ask you to do is we're going to open that system up, just those two black clasps, and make sure that they open right up, and then we'll go over the contents of your system.
ASA: It is open. Okay. And I'm going to add one more person in that's joining.
Steven Hanna: They just got here as well. All right. Hello, hello. Welcome.
Jae: Hello. Hello, hello.
Steven Hanna: Hi.
Jae: Yeah, this is Jay.
Steven Hanna: Hi, Master Jay, how are you? Good, good, thank you.
Jae: How are you?
Steven Hanna: Doing well, doing well. I was just getting Tommy kind of set up and going over a few of the little components of training that we're going to kind of go over in this. Basically, we're just kind of starting off, and we're going to be going over a lot of engagement-based exercises and ways to use the games that are more engagement-based and slightly educational in nature, but, you know, you're leaning more towards the engagement factor.
Jae: Yes, thank you, thank you. Yeah, so I'll be here, and then I'm going to have to just, you know, like, mute myself.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, consider it like a podcast. Throw it on in the background, listen in, and then you'll basically get a little recording of this after that says, hey, if you want to refer to it, here's the link. And then I'll also send a second email to Tommy and you that are all the settings, like a one-pager, if you need, like, a quick, like, cheat sheet for the day, so you can have that as well. All righty? All right.
Jae: Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. Let me ask Tommy. Is Tommy, is Daniel there with you?
ASA: He's over there. Do you want him to come in?
Jae: Yeah, you're going have to go through together. Okay, I'll be back.
Steven Hanna: Thank you.
Jae: Yeah, let's give him a few minutes and then listen in.
Steven Hanna: you need to stop me or stop any point at any time, just stop and ask or tell us what we need to be doing, all right?
Jae: Okay, all right. Thank you very much. Of course, my pleasure.
Steven Hanna: And congratulations again on having your system. It's a fantastic system. guys are going to really enjoy it a lot.
Jae: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm very excited. I spoke with your, who is this, Mr. Kwan, and then it was very interesting. You know, he came up with all this, like, ideas and everything.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, Kwan is, he's good. He's got a lot of really good and interesting ideas. For context, who I am, I'm a former teacher educator from New York. teacher I'm teacher Who has basically gotten out of middle school education. My wife is a K-6 educator. I'm through 7-12. Between the two of us, she builds everybody up. And as she says, I break them down. So I can't break them down anymore. I have to make sure that we use our education to make sure that everybody else has a fun time. So that's where I'm at as far as my education and background goes. I see. see.
Jae: And do you like to see the action at a school? Is that something that you're envisioning too?
Steven Hanna: I see it in a lot of places, but also I'm biased because this is kind of my job now. So I see it in a lot of schools as is. We have placements in Wisconsin, California, Louisiana, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania. And then I believe there are a few out in Texas as well. So we're in a few different states. You'll see a bunch of bubble wrap, and you'll also see a few different wires in addition to a USB-C and a little micro-keyboard, like a cell phone-sized keyboard.
ASA: Yep. All right.
Steven Hanna: You're also going to pull aside two different things at the moment. There is a white router. Do you guys have a white router? Yeah.
ASA: Is it a blue or a yellow system? It's a yellow. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Perfect. So you're going to take that white router. You're going to put it to the side. You're going to take the two white antennas and put them to the side next to it. And there's going to be a black-looking clip that looks like this weird. Yeah, perfect. Awesome.
ASA: With that clip, do you see that little fat side of the prong? Fat side of the prong?
Steven Hanna: On the back of the router, it's basically going to seat right into it.
ASA: Oh, that's the first step.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, you're basically just going to like hook it right underneath, and then you're going to place it on the top of the system. So that other portion is like the tension hold. Put that in the top center of the system so that the router is facing outward.
ASA: Facing us?
Steven Hanna: Outward, towards the other end of the system.
ASA: Okay, we got that set up. You can also attach the antennas to that as well.
Steven Hanna: You don't have to, but for a full system startup, you would attach the antennas.
ASA: Okay. We'll just simulate that for now.
Steven Hanna: Sounds good.
ASA: All right, we got them attached.
Steven Hanna: Okay, next thing I'm going to ask you to do is please take out that black power cable. And there's going to be a small area in the bottom right corner of the system where there's the receiving end for that cord. I'm going to ask you to please plug it into that side.
ASA: Okay. And then wall outlet the other end.
Steven Hanna: Okay. If all of them are red, are they all red? Yes, all of them are red.
ASA: Okay, perfect.
Steven Hanna: Our next step is to hit the silver button on the right side of the system, and then a blue ring light should appear, indicating that it's on. Yes. Perfect. You're going to pay attention to the top portion of that screen. Give it about, I want to say, 20 seconds. It's going to flicker, and then it'll turn on and go to the home screen, and you're going to be met with a welcome screen that says, Welcome to Zeus. Let me know when you're at that. Okay.
ASA: I am on that screen. Perfect.
Steven Hanna: So, one thing we're going to do right now, we're going to skip the registration for now. I'm going to encourage you to do this on your own time, because it takes about 10 minutes. 10 minutes to do.
ASA: 10 To register and get the email and confirm, all that stuff. We're going to skip our registration for now.
Steven Hanna: in the bottom right corner, hit skip. And now we should be at our home screen with about eight different games, correct?
ASA: Yes. Awesome.
Steven Hanna: Since we're at our home screen, the first thing I'm going to share with you about the charging sequence is that it's like a computer, man. You're pretty familiar with computers, I'm going to assume. And if you know anything about air intake and air outtake, you obviously need, you know, fans. So there is one or two fans built into the system, but it needs a little bit of extra thermal dissipation. Take that little plexiglass cover and pull it up a little bit so that it creates a little bit more airflow in there. Whenever you're charging, just make sure that that's open a little bit so that you can ensure air flows through, okay?
ASA: Yes. All right. right. right.
Steven Hanna: Next thing I'm going to do is ask you to please take out two or three of the ZTAGGERS from the charge dock. Also, if you have that on the floor, put it on the desk, man. Your back is going to be hurting you by the end of this 30 minutes.
ASA: Oh, fine.
Steven Hanna: Our desk is pretty small here.
ASA: Okay, all right, all right.
Steven Hanna: I was going to say, you might be crouched down for a little while longer, but all right. Or even put it on the chair so you're not, you know, whatever you guys want. Okay. Take two or three of them out, and then on the left-hand side of the actual watch, there's a little circle.
ASA: That's the magnetic charger. Do you see that? Yes. Perfect.
Steven Hanna: Right above that circle is a little red button. Do me a favor and tap that once. That's the power button for all the devices.
ASA: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So when you start your event up and you remove these from the charging dock, this is how you start up each individual device. Okay? Gotcha. Okay.
ASA: First thing I want you to pay attention to in the top right corner, you're going to see...
Steven Hanna: The battery indicator, correct? Yes.
ASA: You see one, two, three, and four bars? Yeah. Each of those bars is the equivalent of one hour of gameplay.
Steven Hanna: So when people are coming back to you and saying, oh my goodness, my watch is about to die, I'm at one bar, they still have 60 minutes of gameplay.
ASA: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So this is the number one thing that the little kids might come up to you, they know that the battery is getting low and you might just have to share with them, hey, like if your battery's at one bar, don't worry, you can still play for like another two hours. Or another hour, whatever you want to say to them.
ASA: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Second thing you're going to notice is to the left of the batteries are random numbers and letters. You see that?
ASA: Yes. Okay.
Steven Hanna: To the left of that is a Wi-Fi signal bar series. Do you see those?
ASA: Wi-Fi signal bar? No. It says, so there's a volume, like a sound indicator, then a white box that says IR, and then I'm assuming this is the software version, 7.0.
Steven Hanna: 0.26. Can you point it towards the camera for a second, just so I can see what's on the screen?
ASA: Sure.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Press the red button once. Okay.
ASA: That's also a reset as well.
Steven Hanna: So what I've noticed is that that device is not connecting to the system right now, and I'm trying to figure out why.
ASA: Okay. The other one's doing that as well?
Steven Hanna: Yeah.
ASA: Yes. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Can you take out like four or five of them?
ASA: Four or five of them. And then turn them on?
Steven Hanna: Seems like the other ones are also doing that. And on the router, if you look on the right side of that, are there blue lights like flashing, indicating that there's like... have go. recording.
ASA: Yeah, there's blue lights on, and then a blinking blue light at the low festival. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Tap the red light, green light game on the home screen, and do any of the watches that you just turned on change to red light, green light?
ASA: No. No.
Steven Hanna: Okay. What we're going to do is we're going to do our system restart. So what I'm going ask you to do is hit the red button on the side two times on each of the watches that are on. And that's going to turn off those devices. screen will go dark. When all those are dark, let me know. those are dark, let me know.
ASA: When
Steven Hanna: And go dark, you can place them on the magnetic charging dock. And once they go red, indicating they're charging on the main LCD screen, top right corner, hit the power button.
ASA: Okay, wait for those two to turn on. Wait. Try taking it out, yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank Thank Thank Thank Thank you. . Sorry, one of them is just getting a little bit. No, don't worry.
Steven Hanna: This is part of the learning process.
ASA: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: I appreciate you guys being so patient and adaptable with it. Thank you. Oh, no worries.
ASA: I mean, we know how it goes with electronics, so.
Steven Hanna: Fun new proprietary tech is basically the name of the game.
ASA: Yeah. Okay. They're all red. What do we do now? Okay.
Steven Hanna: On that main big LCD screen, top right corner, hit that power button for me and hit shut down.
ASA: Oh, sorry.
Steven Hanna: If you're at the other screen, go back one screen and top right power button. Shut down.
ASA: Yep.
Steven Hanna: Once that screen goes dark, give it about five seconds. Hit that silver button with that blue light around it, and the blue light's going to go off.
ASA: Then you're going to hit that red button a few seconds after.
Steven Hanna: And that's going to shut the bottom off.
ASA: All right. Good. Good.
Steven Hanna: 10, 15 seconds, you're going to hit the red button.
ASA: Okay. And then you're going to go silver button to turn it on again. Okay. So it's off right now.
Steven Hanna: Classic turn it off and turn it back on. And this will probably solve a fun problem. And then press the silver button again? Yep. Red button, then silver button. And then you'll be right at the launch load up boot screen. Takes about 20 seconds, and the system should turn on.
ASA: Okay.
Steven Hanna: This time, what I want you to do is, if you take a look at the side of the devices, the little watches, they show you a charge, like, level. And they also show you signal bars, like little Wi-Fi signal bars. Let me know if those Wi-Fi signal bars appear.
ASA: Oh. Oh.
Steven Hanna: When the device is turned on, once again, just take a quick peek in the top right corner, make sure the battery indicator is there, and then to the left, yeah, to the left of that, there's going to be random numbers and letters that appear in a few seconds, and then there should be the Wi-Fi signal bars that will appear next to that.
ASA: Give it like 10, 15. Right now, it's just showing, oh, yep, there's the Wi-Fi symbol on one of these, and another one, yes.
Steven Hanna: They'll come online, like, the order you tap them on is the order they'll come online on, so, all right, cool. So that was kind of our first troubleshooting step, is if you ever run into a connectivity issue, shut that sucker down and get it right back. So it's about a three-minute process, we're basically going to move right into gameplay and engagement-based games. I do have a script that I run with these games, and I'm also going to give... I'm you guys some ideas to use them with your classes as well. I'm going to assume at this point that you guys are probably teaching classes at your dojo? Yeah, yes.
ASA: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So then your use case with this is probably going to be supplemental to most of your classes as a, you know, just fun thing in addition to.
ASA: Right. I want to use it as like a reward system, like if they perform really well or focus really well, then yeah. Perfect.
Steven Hanna: Then the first thing I'm going to show you is how to access certain games and make sure that certain games don't appear. If you're still in that settings in the devices tab, on the left-hand side, there should be a tab called games. You can tap on that.
ASA: Okay.
Steven Hanna: You can select which games are available for which day. So if you don't want anyone to even know that certain games exist, you can deselect them from this menu. So this is one way to make sure that that happens and make sure that nobody is, you know, going beyond what you would like them to be doing.
ASA: Right.
Steven Hanna: Um, that's kind of the start off here, but we're going to go to the main menu again in the top left corner, hit that ZTAG logo for me, and we should be back at that eight menu game, right? Yes. Okay, first game that we jump into is a game called Red Light, Green Light. You can tap on that game for me. Now, if you look down at your watches, they should be flashing red and green, indicating that this is the game we're playing, correct? Yes, yes, yes.
ASA: Perfect.
Steven Hanna: First thing we're going to do, since you're in a small office, top right corner, volume indicator, bring it down to about one or two, so you're not going to blow your ears out with, like, high-pitched sounds. It is a slider, I will say that. Yeah.
ASA: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Now that it's at one or two, if you take a quick peek down at the devices, they should also reflect that change on the watch. should be at one or two. Perfect. Perfect. In Red Light, Green Light, the goal of this game is to move on green and stop on red.
ASA: Yes. Okay.
Steven Hanna: What I like to do for each of my groups is do a countdown. I start from five, and when I say the number three, that's when you're going to press start game. And you'll see why in one second. So we're going to start this game in five, four, three, and the countdown continues.
ASA: So when it's green, shake it around.
Steven Hanna: We're going to pretend like we're running. I know you said the office is slightly small. But when it goes red, you're going to stop.
ASA: And if you get caught on red, minus 10 points. Right. Yes.
Steven Hanna: Whenever you guys have had your fill of this, you can hit stop game.
ASA: Wow, that's really sensitive. Yeah, it is hypersensitive.
Steven Hanna: So what I recommend is for the next round, change it to medium.
ASA: Okay. yeah. it. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. I'm just Just see the difference between high and medium, because there is a very, very stark difference. You'll see it right off the bat. It's like, oh, wow, this is a lot more forgiving. This is a lot safer for younger kids to not get upset with.
ASA: Yeah. Okay, so we're going to start match. Three, two, one. Oh, man, I'm really bad at this. So you can also predict it.
Steven Hanna: It's about every eight seconds that it transitions from red to green.
ASA: Okay. Oh. And then halfway through the game, something pretty cool happens.
Steven Hanna: The watches go out of order. So you will not be red or green at the same time as everybody else.
ASA: Oh. So you can no longer cheat off of one another for halfway through the game. Right. Okay. Yeah, we actually had someone come in and kind of run it for us for one of our events back in the day. Yeah, or like a month ago, two months ago. But yeah, no, the kids loved it, and we thought it was awesome. Yeah. Yeah, so.
Steven Hanna: If it's ran well like that person, you know, you're basically going to get a system like this because you're like, wow, you know, we can do that, and we can probably do it in-house, and it would be just as good. Right.
ASA: Any questions on red light, green light? No, I think that's pretty straightforward. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Okay. You can hit stop game and then go to the main menu by just hitting the back button or the top left. It's just back and top left until you get to the home screen.
ASA: Okay. We're back. Next game.
Steven Hanna: In a couple minutes here.
ASA: Okay. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Next game that we jump into is a game called Pattern Match and Shape Match. In the top right corner, you can hit that game. And the reason we do this game next is to show the distance that you can tag within. So this is This is a really important game to model tagging distance with, and what I do is I have two people basically show how far away you can tag. I'm going to ask one of you to like step out of the room and see how far away you can tag because you're indoors, and you'll be able to see that you can communicate, you can have these communicate from like 10 or 15 feet away.
ASA: And the way they communicate is by facing the watches towards each other.
Steven Hanna: So the screens, just make sure they face towards each other. The sensor, it's located in that top little black, right above the logo, there's two little black dots. That's where the sensors is located. So for this game, all I'm going to ask you to do is hit start game and aim those watches towards each other, but get as far away from each other as possible. And you'll hear them start to communicate. You'll hear them start to beep, and I don't know how far away you guys are, but they should be going off from about 15 feet away.
ASA: Is Vibrant the one that activates them?
Steven Hanna: So in this game, what we're going to be doing is trying to match a color together. So your goal is to match a color to another person's color and link your watch together just like that.
ASA: Oh, yes.
Steven Hanna: The reason I start off with this, like, method of showing you how far away they can communicate is to model for your students. You do not need to be on top of each other making physical contact. This is no contact by design.
ASA: So this will work for the zombie tag game, too. Oh, yeah.
Steven Hanna: This distance is the same distance that they always communicate at. Wow.
ASA: Yeah, no, I went, I went really far.
Steven Hanna: So for what I would do for your groups is I would ask two. wanna go check,卡 So 60 seconds is fine, and the reason why is because I like to stop the game and go over any misconceptions, because if I see them hitting each other with it, one minute is just long enough where if it starts to look like it's going south, you can say, hey, I just want to make everybody aware that we're not doing this, right? So for our next game, we're going to be further away trying to make the watches communicate. That's why I have it as 60 seconds, and each game is like a quick, short burst, and then you have a feedback time period.
ASA: Okay. What is continuous mode?
Steven Hanna: If you just want the game to keep going and going and going and going, no timer, that's what you'd put on for that. Oh, okay. I always stop it, though, because, you know, you're not going to want them to play for more than like six minutes. It gets boring. Any questions on pattern match or shape match?
ASA: No. No, but is it always color and shapes together in the games? So, yes.
Steven Hanna: So it's always going to be that combination that will be shown to them, but you can tell them to focus on one, right? I want you to focus on the colors for our first game. Statistically, from an educational standpoint, colors are going to be easier than shapes. We learn colors before shapes. So, if we focus on our colors first, the second game we focus on shapes, the third game we focus on colors and shapes to earn more points.
ASA: Oh, okay. Right.
Steven Hanna: So three separate games of this. First one, colors, second one, shapes, third one, combined. Once you're comfortable with that, you can go to the home screen.
ASA: Home screen. The next game that I like to play is a game called Rock, Paper, Scissors. Okay. There's two ways to play Rock, Paper, Scissors.
Steven Hanna: The first way to play Rock, Paper, Scissors is by... Beat that other team member and see what happens.
ASA: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So you're going to have to hit start game.
ASA: Yeah. Splashing. Okay. Now they got both turned on to Team Rock.
Steven Hanna: So there should be paper around you somewhere. And now paper is going to beat Rock. And now there should be scissors somewhere.
ASA: And scissors is going to beat paper. Yes. So it's kind of like triangle tag, right?
Steven Hanna: One team is always going to be chasing another team, but they always have to watch out for their backs because someone's chasing them. Any questions on Rock, Paper, Scissors?
ASA: No. No. What's that?
Steven Hanna: The second way that I play this game, and the way that works really well for little kids, is it doesn't matter what color team you are at the start. It doesn't matter. You just have to get on the same color team by the end of the game, and everybody's got to be on the red team, the blue team, or the green team. So it's more of a social icebreaker game, and it works pretty well in that way.
ASA: Any questions on Rock, Paper, Scissors? No. All right.
Steven Hanna: Go to that main menu for me, and the next game we're going to jump into is a game called Keep Away.
ASA: Two ways to play Keep Away.
Steven Hanna: The first way is going to be your traditional way. One person holds on to the ball, except now it's a digital ball, so it's in a watch. Second way to play is a game called Hot Potato. The Keep Away game works really well with competitive older kids. Hot Potato works really well with younger kids. So in Keep... KeepAway, you know that you want to hold on to the ball, right? So if you hit the start game button, I just want you to see how the ball moves around.
ASA: Okay, this is the ball? Right, and you're going to take one of those other watches and try and give it to the other watch or take it. Oh, that's pretty fast.
Steven Hanna: It's snappy, yeah, it's pretty quick. So this is our version of KeepAway, right? Yeah. If you have the ball, it's going to flash and chirp and you want to run away from everybody else. But sometimes that might get a little overwhelming for one person to be chased down by like seven to, you know, 15 people. So to combat that, what we do is turn it around into hot potato. Instead of holding on to the ball and running away from somebody, you're going to want to give that to someone as quick as possible. It's like the hot potato. You don't want it.
ASA: Yeah. Okay. Thank
Steven Hanna: So flipping it around makes it a little bit more digestible from a safety standpoint. Once you're done with that, hit the stop game button, and we're going to go into our settings. I just want to show you some neat stuff in there. If you have a large group, you can add multiple balls in, so that there can be more than one person playing keep away, or more than one hot potato.
ASA: Yes, I see that. One to four ratio works really well. One to four, okay.
Steven Hanna: Any questions on keep away or hot potato?
ASA: What's allowed? You're breaking up a second.
Steven Hanna: What was the what?
ASA: Just allowed balls select. So you may be able to choose which individual.
Steven Hanna: Individual ZTAGGER gets the ball. What I recommend is just randomizing all the time so that no one feels like they're getting cheated out and it's the most fair way to play.
ASA: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Any questions on that?
ASA: No, no questions.
Steven Hanna: Okay, I'm going to go over one educational game with you because this is probably the one that you would utilize the most, and it's a game called Math Match. In the bottom left corner, if you want to tap on Math Match for me, in this game, you remember how we were matching colors and shapes before?
ASA: Yes. Now we're going to be matching and solving math problems.
Steven Hanna: So one group of watches will have questions, one will have answers. It is everybody's goal to communicate those questions and answers and match their watches with one another. So, assign everybody in and hit that start game button for me.
ASA: Thank you. you. Thank Thank Thank Thank Oh, I see. Yeah, I see. So one has questions and the other one has the answers. Right.
Steven Hanna: And it's everybody's goal to communicate that and tag their watches together.
ASA: Is the color telling which one has the questions? It does.
Steven Hanna: Oh, okay.
ASA: Okay. So this is a good game if you need to slow things down.
Steven Hanna: you have a very energetic group, I recommend using this game and playing it for one minute to apply a cognitive load and force everyone to slow down.
ASA: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So my wife says I use this as a punishment game. It's math. Like, you know, whatever. Yeah.
ASA: It depends on how you feel.
Steven Hanna: Any questions on that one?
ASA: What, how high level of math can you input to this? Go into the settings in the top right corner.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Thank you. And you can see that we have four different operands and a low and high range of one through nine at the moment. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division.
ASA: Okay. Let's see. Wait. What's the low and high? Is that the...
Steven Hanna: So if you wanted to focus on like a low end number of one, two, three, four, you can set that as the lowest number. So say you want to focus on your times tables of four through nine. You can put four as the low and nine as the high.
ASA: How high can it go?
Steven Hanna: Single digits at the moment, two B upgraded to double digits, and eventually some algebra, trig, geometry, and pre-calc.
ASA: Oh, okay.
Steven Hanna: Any questions on that one?
ASA: No. No.
Steven Hanna: If you're on the red team, as a zombie, you want to try and tag a green team person. How do you tag someone? Like you've been doing all day with linking watches to earned points. If you get tagged by a zombie, you have 10 seconds to find the doctor. If you find the doctor, they can save you. If you don't find them, you turn into a zombie. The zombie team grows larger and larger as the game goes on. The human team gets smaller and smaller as the game goes on. How many watches do you have on right now?
ASA: A four. Okay.
Steven Hanna: What I'm going to have you do is assign all of them.
ASA: Yes. Randomly assign?
Steven Hanna: Yep. You can random assign. Yeah, yeah.
ASA: I'll have that set up. And then there should be like two humans, one zombie, one doctor. This one human, two zombies. Take away one of the zombies.
Steven Hanna: And you'll see that you can turn them into a human zombie or a doctor by their logo.
ASA: Yes. Turn that one into another. Okay. Now in the top right corner, there should be a settings logo. You're good.
Steven Hanna: You can take it.
ASA: Oh, what does he say? Oh, I'm back. It was both the perfect timing.
Steven Hanna: That like 40-second phone call was just when I needed to grab water. Perfect. Okay. So I believe we are at the settings, correct?
ASA: Oh, yes. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Top right corner. We're going to start there, and we're going to start with the doctor heal limit. Do you see that? Yes.
ASA: That's how many times a doctor can.
Steven Hanna: Uh, time limit.
ASA: Pretty self-explanatory.
Steven Hanna: Yes. So, with our settings at the moment, we're going to hit save. And now we're going to go and hit random assign. You're going to hit next after that.
ASA: Next. And you're going to start the game.
Steven Hanna: And I want you to grab the watch, that's the zombie, because you're going to act as the zombie.
ASA: Okay. I want you to try and tag the human watches and see how you can turn them into a zombie, basically. Okay. That's very fast.
Steven Hanna: Mm-hmm.
ASA: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: And if they get to the doctor, the doctor saves them. But the doctor has a little timeout. So if a bunch of people go to the doctor at the same time, he's got to choose which person they're going to save.
ASA: Okay. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. You should also let them know that it can be taken away, and that's also something that's very valuable for you as a teacher.
ASA: Any questions on Zombie Tech? No. No questions.
Steven Hanna: That's pretty much it as far as the games go and what your use case for them will be. Do you have any questions at all in regards to any of the games? Would you like to revisit any of the games, any specific settings you would like to go over? Are you comfortable? This is the time where you say questions, comments, concerns, feedback.
ASA: Okay. So I know some games are in beta. What does that mean?
Steven Hanna: So the beta version of these games are basically, you are one of a few people who has access to these new beta games, since you have a new system. They are slightly different in nature. You may experience bugs with them, and that's why we have beta on those. The other games have been pretty... Established as far as being bug-free, pretty standardized. So anything that has beta, you just may experience a bug with, but it is a pretty darn good way to check it out. And if you'd like to check it out, WordWave is basically pattern match, except English to a target language. So English to Spanish or English to French, and it's a flashcard matching game where one team will be in the target language, Spanish or French, and one team will be in English, and they have to communicate the words and match the opposite words. So a little bit of a beta. You'll need about 10 to 20 players for that one to work effectively because the word bank is slightly large. Okay.
ASA: So I noticed there's an import new word list. Do we plug in a USB drive?
Steven Hanna: In the future? Yes, absolutely. So you'll be able to basically go into an Excel or Google Sheet and do a one-to-one. Of... So... What word you want for that day, and then it'll just be, pop it right in, hey, USB detected, is this the wordless? Yes. And then it'll automatically do it, so you'll have your own custom game for the day.
ASA: Okay. So I had opened this, like, a couple of days ago. So I had problems doing the registration.
Steven Hanna: Okay. So when I was trying to register, it just kept loading about giving me the QR code or the URL. Let me, do you want me to try and do a little bypass registration for you and get that out of the way?
ASA: Yes, please. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Can you go to that QR code for me?
ASA: How do I exit from the game?
Steven Hanna: You're going to hit the back left button or just hit back. And as you hit back and in the top left, it should go to the home.
ASA: Yes. I'm going go to the registration page. In the top right corner, the settings, that little gear icon. Yes. Oh, go to account. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Now I see the QR code.
ASA: Because before it wasn't popping up.
Steven Hanna: This is going to sound ridiculous, but are you able to take a picture of that QR code and send it direct to my phone? Oh. If you can take a picture from your phone and picture message, share it to me. Or if you just turn the webcam towards it, I can go off of my phone. It'll be a little bit janky, but I can easily do it that way.
ASA: Almost.
Steven Hanna: Almost. Almost. Come on, baby. A little closer. Actually, what's the direct link? Just read off that link to me. There should be a link, right? Yes.
ASA: Register.ZTAG.N6U.CJK.
Steven Hanna: All right. What's an email that you have on your phone right now? Because I'm going to send this to you.
ASA: The support at asa-oregon.com.
Steven Hanna: Support at asa.oregon.com?
ASA: At asa-oregon.com.
Steven Hanna: Okay. All right. What do you want the username to be?
ASA: Asa-zTAG? Put asa.
Steven Hanna: Your password, I'm going to... Reset. If that doesn't work, then I'll do another bypass. Nothing? Nothing. All right, register.ztagg.com slash N6QCJK. I'm going to just put it under mine. Are you connected on Wi-Fi, by the way, on the system? Yes. Are you able to see the serial number?
ASA: Is it at the top right of the screen? Does it say SN?
Steven Hanna: Yes, SN.
ASA: Okay, what is it? D-0-1-6-2-5-1-1-0-1-0-0-3-8.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Zeus sign-in code. What's your sign-in code?
ASA: Is that above the serial number?
Steven Hanna: Let me take a quick peek. I think that's the N6. There should be a sign-in code somewhere. don't see. There should be-in I sign-in 10, 6, 6, QC, J, K.
ASA: Oh, something appeared. Something appeared?
Steven Hanna: Yes.
ASA: I see. So it's going to be under steven at ZTAGG.com, right? Yes. Okay.
Steven Hanna: I've bypassed your registration. So now you're going to have access to something called the system settings. And if you tap on system settings, you can go and see all of your data as well. Oh, system.
ASA: Okay. Oh, okay. I see that now. All right.
Steven Hanna: So now that you have access to all this fun stuff, since we do release updates twice a year, we'll notify you of that. From the router up top, you're going to unscrew the antennas.
ASA: Unscrew them.
Steven Hanna: And you're going to place them in the storage area and wherever you are going to put them for now. You're going to take that router and router clip, the little black router clip. If you look in that storage area in the top right corner, there's going to be a little cutout where you can put that router clip. Do you see that? Oh, yes, I do.
ASA: Yeah, put that right in there.
Steven Hanna: And then you're going to take the router and also put it by that storage clip. So it should be like pretty flush, like easily closeable. So coil up the wire a little bit, you know, do what you got to do there. Thank you. Thank you. That's After you have that in, what I'm going to have you do is put all of the ZTAGGER watches in the magnetic charge dock, and they will automatically turn off and start to charge. And once those are read, we'll go to the next step.
ASA: And then, Tommy, while we're working on that, what is Daniel's last name and your last name? Oh, Daniel's last name is S-E-O.
Steven Hanna: Mine is K-U-N-G. K-U-N-G. Okay, cool. Are those in red? Yes, all red.
ASA: Okay, perfect.
Steven Hanna: Next step is going to be... To, on the top LCD screen, hit the power button for me, and shut down.
ASA: Shut down. The top of the screen should turn off.
Steven Hanna: Let me know when that's good to go.
ASA: Yes. Then you're going to hit that silver button with the blue ring light around it, and the blue light will turn off. Yes.
Steven Hanna: Then you're going to hit the red button right underneath it. And the bottom of the case should turn off. After that, unplug the black power cable from the unit and then from the wall.
ASA: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Coil that up and put it in the little storage area next to the router. You're going to leave out the keyboard and the USB-C cable. Those are the two things you're going to keep out. Okay.
ASA: You're not putting those back into the system.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Once you have the black power cable, the router, the two router antennas, and that router clip in there, so those four main things, you can close down that case. Clasp it closed. Yes.
ASA: Make sure there's no resistance.
Steven Hanna: And you do know that there are wheels and a rolling handle that extends, right?
ASA: Yeah. Okay. Perfect.
Steven Hanna: Save your back. Don't. I mean, you've bent over so much in this training. I feel bad for you, but you're young. It's fine. In any event, you also have a one-page startup guide right next to you as well. So should you forget any of the steps we've gone over today, it's step-by-step. follow it, you know? Pretty straightforward. In addition to that, you'll have my phone number and access to my email. So if there's anything going wrong, something's not right, give me a call. Shoot me a text. a text. Shoot Shoot Shoot you.
ASA: Do you get a message?
Steven Hanna: Yes, got it. All right. I just texted you as well. So you'll have my stuff and contact information should you need any assistance at all. I am totally here for you any time of the day. I am on East Coast, but I pretty much respond up until about like midnight East Coast time, so like 9 p.m.
ASA: Okay. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Other than that, just quick admin stuff. As far as charging goes, do not overcharge overnight on the system. It's a 30-minute charge from like zero to full. So it's pretty quick. And you get about four hours of gameplay. So pretty good bang for your buck. Pretty good.
ASA: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: And then... Then if you need anything from this point or anyone has any questions on ZTAG operations, like I said, feel free to please contact me. I'm here to support you folks in any way, shape, or form that you might need, okay?
ASA: Okay.
Steven Hanna: Master Jay, any questions before we jump off today?
Jae: No, actually, you did a really good job. Thank you so very much for all this very thorough explanation.
Steven Hanna: Thank you. Appreciate it.
Jae: Yeah, you should just do some kind of podcast, too.
Steven Hanna: They took me out of the classroom and they were like, just do trainings for teachers and other people. So we're continuing with that. I appreciate the feedback. And like I said, anything at all, my phone number is here as well for you, Master Jay. Please feel free to text, call, email. I respond pretty much as soon as possible.
Jae: Yes, sir. Thank you very much. Have a wonderful day, gentlemen.
Steven Hanna: And thank you.
Jae: And I...
Steven Hanna: you. you. I'm excited to hear about your next ZTAG adventure. We'll be in contact soon. Yes, yes.
Jae: We're excited, too. So, yeah, only way we know how things are going, that we just try, you know. Yep, exactly.
Steven Hanna: Try, and then I'm just going to shoot emails and be like, hey, how's it going? Do you like it? Do you hate it? What's up? And be truthful with me. Listen, I got no stake in the company game. I'm just, I'm a feedback guy.
Jae: Take care, you. Have a wonderful evening. Bye-bye.
Steven Hanna: You too. Thank you.
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Steven Hanna: How are you? How are you?
Kristin Neal: I'm okay.
Steven Hanna: Tired. My grandmother was a little stressful a few minutes ago, but okay. Everything okay? Family stress or work stress? Or both?
Kristin Neal: Family.
Steven Hanna: Work is good. I'm actually working with Clancy on getting a Playmaker feedback form up on the website, like unlisted, so we can like send it out to all of them, and then they can just like submit it on the website, and we have all the feedback linked right to CRM, onto their accounts, so I'm like trying to, yeah, I'm like excited. It's like that face that you had the smile, you're like, ooh, that was exactly what I thought of last night, and I was like, this has to happen today. It's putting this into action. Yeah, I was like, this is exactly how we're going to get the feedback we need from over 300 people that we've basically certified already. That's smart.
Kristin Neal: Is there somewhere on that form that we can use their feedback for marketing purposes or something like
Steven Hanna: I'm going to have like a little checkbox for, you know, you agree by submitting this form to allow us to use photo and video submission for any marketing slash social media, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Kristin Neal: Perfect. So will be a photo slash video disclaimer release and to make sure that they also have authorization to share those videos and photos. Good point.
Steven Hanna: So the teachers need authorization and they also need to agree that they have ownership.
Kristin Neal: Totally agree.
Steven Hanna: That's like the two-step authorizations.
Kristin Neal: Yes.
Steven Hanna: But the good thing is that I have a specific section just for photos and videos if they want to submit those.
Kristin Neal: So we'll get our actual data feedback of like, hey, based on one through five, how do you feel on the efficacy of this? And then they'll have all those numbers and we can just use the numbers.
Steven Hanna: And then they'll have like, hey, to earn an extra like swag competition entry, submit five photos for one entry.
Kristin Neal: Or submit like a 15 second video for like.
Steven Hanna: One extra entry. So it's just extra incentive, more and more incentive to just, hey, give us more, give us more, give us more. Quick question, are you going to have this on the website you said, or is it going to be on the It's not going to be listed. So it's going to be like a secret link on the website.
Kristin Neal: Could we put it on the welcome letter? Would that be a bad sign? Yeah, of course.
Steven Hanna: We absolutely can. I don't know how many more welcome letters they're going to want to reprint, though.
Kristin Neal: No, no, no. Just add it to the welcome letter. Oh, on the digital? Yeah, on the digital? 100%.
Steven Hanna: Once Klan and I are, like, comfortable and we're like, hey, this is a good product that we're comfortable, like, we do a dry run, we make sure the data goes in right and everything links correctly, that's what I'm going to be like, hey, put this into the one-sheeter, like, put this into this welcome page, make sure that everybody has access to submit feedback to us.
Kristin Neal: Love it. Oh, that's so huge, Steve. That's a huge loop to close. Thank you. Thank you so much. Hey, Is that Alexa? I've said hi. Hello, hello. Good afternoon for you guys. It's still morning.
Steven Hanna: It's 1140. I'm just an hour behind.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, sorry about that. Ahead? Behind?
Steven Hanna: Yeah, ahead. Okay. I don't remember.
Kristin Neal: CST when I do my times. Okay. Let me be very transparent. I will tell you exactly what has been done in the past, what has been done now, and then what we can do for the future. So in the past, we have, I've done one show where Steve actually came with me, but it was a driving thing, and it was a show that it was me, Charlie, and Quan. It was down in Nashville, but because it was only two hours away, and he had never seen what I've done, because he doesn't fly. So it was like, okay, I'll just, it worked out perfect, and it was so awesome. You should have seen his eyes. was hilarious. But the point is, when we did that, it was more of just like coming to support me kind of thing. So everything on his end was paid for out of us. You know what I mean? Not that there was anything really different, because I needed the job.
Steven Hanna: yeah, of course. You know what mean?
Kristin Neal: He just paid for his food, honestly. Like, it wasn't really...
Steven Hanna: So my whole idea with this is anything that I'm doing that's ZTAG work-related is ZTAG. Anything that is outside extracurricular that includes my wife that may or may not be included with ZTAG is on my own dime. So if I'm with my wife doing stuff on my own dime, like spending time, anything of that is on my own dime. And whatever that is, is food, you know, gas, like all that type of thing. I am just basically shuffling that right over to my own personal expenses. Anything that is ZTAG function-related, which is going to be, like, just the hotel, airfare, and, like, a rental car, like, that is basically ZTAG. We'll do the gas, too.
Kristin Neal: The gas should be covered. I'm going to 50-50 it.
Steven Hanna: And the reason why is because I have a feeling, like, my wife's only going to be there for two days. So she did want to see, like, hey, what do you actually do when you go out here? And I was like, all right, I think I can. Like, you're going to shadow me for the day and, like, just see what goes on and how we operate, like, sure. So she's just going to be there for two days. Outside of that, my stepdad also asked if he could see what I would be doing, and he's actually, he's like, because he's going to be in Florida for the time being, because he's looking at condos already, and he's going to be in Miami. So he's, like, 45 minutes away. So he was like, hey, can I come and see what you do for a day? And I'm like, uh, yeah, actually. This is, like, you're already there looking at condos. Like, all you have to do is drive 40 minutes. You already have your car. You're just coming to lunch with me and coming to see what's going on. Like, this is great. Yeah. So, but yes, we are totally aligned with anything that is a pure ZTAG-related function that is on my side that is a ZTAG-related expense. Anything that may or may not include my wife that I am doing ZTAG with, that is shuffle.
Kristin Neal: Right over to my own side. Perfect. Sorry, was trying to get lotion. No, you're good.
Steven Hanna: As long as like that's basically the sentiment of, hey, this is how we operate when we do family, you know, bring alongs and shadows. That's kind of how I have operated with my company. Like when I've sent my workers out to like IAPA, it was pretty much the same thing. I was like, hey, this is a work-related expense, but if you guys are going to like shows and like theme parks and that type of thing, like that's on you guys.
Kristin Neal: Well, that actually might, I'm glad you brought that up because a lot of times that actually does include like one of those outings. So that might be something to, and now that I think about it, when we were in Nashville, Quan did buy a dinner for all four of us. So I think that would be okay. Like one dinner or one event. I feel like that feels aligned.
Steven Hanna: I would basically be treating it as my own business thinking like, okay, like what's the. And say, hey, if you're doing anything extra, like that's on you, but we will contribute up to $100 in addition. Like, yeah, I feel like $100 is a good number.
Kristin Neal: Is that good for just food or entertainment?
Steven Hanna: So the food stuff, like, I feel like we have to decide a per diem limit per day on food now, right? Because now, realistically, there should be a dollar amount per day that's spent on food. And that's literally just dedicated to supporting your, you know, food. Like, you're not spending that money on anything else at all.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. Right?
Steven Hanna: So I think we need to figure out what an appropriate, like, food day rate would be.
Kristin Neal: I would say, like, an average meal that I've seen in California, and this is just, like, bare bones, like, almost like fast food, is $20, $25 per meal. So it feels like that's pretty average per meal. Um, so it's kind of like a $75 budget per day, and whether or not you get three meals, or whether or not you get one meal, like, that doesn't matter.
Steven Hanna: And if it's not, Dean, that's your reflection, sweetheart. Please, please, just two minutes. Sorry, just give me one second. Um, yeah, I think $75 is a good dollar amount on food per day. Now, you can make that a per diem and just have it banked, but I don't think that it should be. What do you mean? So a per diem is basically a dollar allowance for the employee per day, and they, it's just given to them. Like, whether or not they use it on food or anything else, like, that's just their dollar amount per day that they can spend.
Kristin Neal: Oh, okay.
Steven Hanna: This is why I say, like, maybe we don't even do that, and it's just, hey, you have up to, you know, $75 per day on food. Right? Like, not necessarily give a per diem to bank, because that's, look, it's very generous to do that, and it's nice to do, but also, like, ZTAG gives a lot. They do, I know, that's why it's, like, hard to even pay $75 a day, it's like.
Kristin Neal: Right, and this is why I'm like, I am not even comfortable with asking for $75. I know what you mean, I know what you mean.
Steven Hanna: Like, it feels weird to ask that, because it's like, I'm one person, right? Like, I don't spend that much money on food a day, personally. Like, I probably, if I'm on the lower side of things, I'm spending, like, $11 a day on food for myself.
Kristin Neal: $11? Jeez. I mean, if you have groceries and stuff, yeah, but when you're in on the road, it's like. Yeah. How do you get a dollar?
Steven Hanna: Well, no, it's actually really, so, I eat a lot of salads. like it. I Like when I'm not on the road, I basically have a salad every day.
Kristin Neal: It's just a protein salad.
Steven Hanna: So like the cost of it is basically like $9 for me to make it with two chicken breasts and have like this gigantic salad that fills me for the whole day. And then I just throw in $2 for like, oh yeah, I use croutons. Oh yeah, I used an extra tomato, like stuff like that.
Kristin Neal: How about we take it down to $50? $50 a day. $50 is fine. And that then you can use it towards food or entertainment, but at least it's, and then if you even want to like hold on to that money, like say, you know what, I want to go to a really nice dinner at the end of this. You can kind of like.
Steven Hanna: So you want to do the per diem?
Kristin Neal: I kind of do because that's how I work only because I'm sorry, that's how I work. Hey, I'm fine.
Steven Hanna: Listen, I'm fine with it. I'm just approaching it from, like I said, before we started the conversation, I'm approaching it from like, if I'm thinking about it from my own company.
Kristin Neal: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: So I'm just thinking, okay, the per diem, they're already generous. Right. So 75 is just crazy personally in my eyes.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, yeah, that is like 50 is more reasonable.
Steven Hanna: Like that's that's my three dollars, you know, 7-Eleven coffee to start the day to make sure that I can do a training. It's like a Gatorade after that to make sure I can replenish. There's, you know, eight dollars gone out of the day. And then, hey, I may want to, Dean, please stop. And then I may want to, you know, just have some small lunch for 20 bucks there. So I'm at 30 bucks for the day. Get something small for dinner. I don't need to eat something crazy. Like a burger is great.
Kristin Neal: So is that OK if we do the per diem then? Are we aligned on that? I think at the appropriate number, 50 is a good number. OK. Yeah, that feels better. Because that's that's a safety number.
Steven Hanna: That's like, OK, it contributes to both the and I'm sorry, if my dog is annoying you, I will. I think 50 is a good number and it starts off at a at a safe bet nationwide, no matter where you are. Like, And if you're in Vegas, if we're doing stuff in Vegas, I would be like, hey, it's basically $40 to get anything here, so can I maybe get $80 to get two meals? That's when I would request something like that. I think we should be able to have a special request if we know that the cost of engagement is a lot higher in those areas. Like, if you guys were coming to New York City and staying in the city, I would be like, guys, you might want to consider raising that number a bit, like, for your sake. Let's do that.
Kristin Neal: We'll keep it at $50,000, but with the ability to request additional funds according to the location.
Steven Hanna: And, yeah, and that can, you know, that's a three-person, four-person decision. Like, if someone's like, hey, I don't know about that, like, that needs to be vocalized. Because, like, one thing that I was thinking about while I was booking this hotel, like... It's real cruise season.
Kristin Neal: And I'm looking at the rates and I'm looking at the comparative rates over time.
Steven Hanna: And I'm like, Jesus, like all these hotels jacked up by like 20% over the last three to four months, knowing full well, like, okay, from, you know, October to February, March, we got snowbirds. So we can charge these stupid amounts of money.
Kristin Neal: So I'm trying to like be really considerate of hotel costs too.
Steven Hanna: Like, that's something I want to set a parameter in because like, I wouldn't have been able to get a mid-grade hotel for like 190 a night. Like, yeah.
Kristin Neal: That one I'm going to push back on a little bit only from experience because first the conference hotels that we try to book first is usually at the location. Like, thankfully, Kwan agrees that that is something that is best for partner relations, et cetera. Eric. Eric. It's perfect. The other thing that I've noticed is when I did that before, I tried to do that in Florida one time. I tried to book like the mid-range, you know, I was trying to be, you know.
Steven Hanna: Cost-considerate. All that, exactly.
Kristin Neal: It actually ended up being like a safety thing for me. Like there was just absolutely no way safety-wise I could, I should stay there alone.
Steven Hanna: Well, that's what I said about Alexa too, where I said, hey, Juan, like I'm looking at, like I could stay here. Like this is not a problem for me, but I'm bringing another person and, you know, I'm willing to provide funding, like an extra $300 to $400 of my own personal funds to like make sure that this person's at least comfortable.
Kristin Neal: And not looking over their shoulder or looking at a corner and wondering if there are bedbugs in a mattress. Like the first thing that I look for at hotels is bedbugs.
Steven Hanna: And if there is one review that mentions bedbugs, that is a no. Like, I don't care when it's from.
Kristin Neal: Like it's just a.
Steven Hanna: No. So I do think I'm being cost-considerate in that way, but if there are other parameters and more value in being closer and spending a little bit more finance to gain more relations or gain anything more in those facets, all I'm going to do is just start saying, hey, these are the three hotels that I found. You guys tell me at this point, because I'm going to give you, you know, what I'm comfortable with, what you're going to be okay with saying, yeah, sure, we'll spend the money with, and something right in the middle where it's, you know, a little bit of both where you can say, hey, do we need to save on finance on this show?
Kristin Neal: Is it not really a relationship, you know, heavy show?
Steven Hanna: Is this just like a IAPA type thing where we're not really engaging with partners? We're just existing for the day. Like, I just don't want to be, I don't want to be an when it comes to booking any of these things. It's really what it comes down to. I don't want to, and I feel so bad every time. Because I look at the number, and coming from my world, it's like, I don't have a house. I don't have assets. I have a company that I burned my life savings into, and I live with my grandparents taking care of my grandmother in her old age with a wife in an attic. As far as funds go, I see these numbers in zeros coming from a teaching career, and I'm like, Jesus Christ, that's a lot of money. To them, it might seem trivial, but to me, it's scale, right? Like, I see that, and I go, wow, I feel bad about them spending this on me. And I guess this is something that I'm just going to have to get over, because, like, I'm here for this exact reason, and this is why they're sending me to these locations, because of the value of that, right? But it's still like a, it feels like everyone is my friend, and I don't want them to spend money on me. That's what this feels like. Like, everyone's like, hey, we want to, we have to spend this money on you, and it's like, no. No. Oh, don't. Please. Like, I'm okay. See, I don't see it as they're giving money to you.
Kristin Neal: I see they're giving money to the mission that you're going to be doing.
Steven Hanna: It's not giving money to me. I'm sorry. I may have misspoken. It's spending the money in general, right? Like, I just happen to be a part of the circle that's the spend.
Kristin Neal: I just feel bad that I'm part of that mission. Right.
Steven Hanna: So I know that it's spent and it's like, hey, this is a resource that's being used on a resource to make sure that as a company, we can get more resources. Like, that's what it is at heart. And I know that. But it's just an internal feeling and being fully transparent of, I have a personal problem with people spending money when it comes to me. And this is something that I'm personally navigating. And it's hard sometimes for me to book these things, knowing full well that I have the support of you three behind me and going like, yes, Steve, like, you have to do that. Yes. But it just is hard sometimes. So if I'm ever. And expressing, you know, hey, I'm concerned about finance. It's me coming from a place of a scarcity mindset of probably 25 to 28 years and transitioning to an abundance mindset and utilizing resources in the right ways. It's taking some time, but I am getting there. But I do want to be transparent in that and, you know, share that with you. Thank you.
Kristin Neal: I do appreciate that. And it helps me to kind of know when I need to push back a little bit more and when to give maybe grace a little more.
Steven Hanna: Listen, you can always give me the benefit of the doubt, but you know, if things need to happen, punch it in action.
Kristin Neal: Well, that's the hard thing because like there was... For example, the colors, right?
Steven Hanna: The colors on the systems.
Kristin Neal: That's actually something I wanted to talk to you about. Which you were correct. Let me, let me, let me get to that, but let me finish, let me close this chapter real quick. Because like last year there was a show in... Georgia, and one of the hotel options that actually had like a group rate with the show associated, it was the Ritz-Carlton on that list. So it was like, oh my gosh, am I really going to the Ritz-Carlton, right? It was like, are we really doing this? And it was like, you know what? Everyone, there were so many people booked there from the show, et cetera, et cetera. So I understand completely what you mean about scarcity and having that kind of like anxiety. It's really just anxiety that's like, I'm reliving back, you know, our own, but I hear you. I appreciate that. Let me tell you about what I'm doing now with my own aunt. So my, I was, I was really thinking about this in the Cannes Symposium. I'm not, sorry, the Region 3. By myself, I would be no problem. But with the breakfast, with the reception breakfast, with 250 people that are going It just was like, you know, I think I'm going to need help. I just don't want to have that. At least, honestly, like if I'm getting bombarded by people, I really honestly forget all about myself and just work, work, work. And by the end of the day, I'm so like, I could barely take care of myself. And that's horrible to say. And I'm just, again, being transparent. So having my aunt there to kind of like help me take those bathroom breaks, fill in wherever is needed, help me set up, you know, help me save the energy so I can save it for when, you know, all the people come. So it's not really like I want to come see you work. It's more like she's going to be put to work. Oh, yeah. A hundred percent. So with that, I asked Juan and Charlie, I'm glad that you actually brought up the like the cap because I brought that to them. I said, Hey, I explained everything when I just said to you, really feel like this is going to be important to have some support. Would it be okay if she was. I'm not compensated, but if things were expensed for her to be able to join me. And I gave a cap. It's we're going up. The setup for that is Thursday. The event is Friday. And then it was so late that there's no flights. I can't do right. I'm Please don't make me do right. I know you can do it. God bless you for that. But I'm leaving Saturday. So it's two nights and three days, basically. So I said, can there be a cap 350 to 400 to be able to cover that? And he said, that's perfectly fine. Like, he was so gracious. In fact, I'll even share what he said, because it was so like, we are so blessed. We are so blessed. Because it wasn't even like an ask.
Steven Hanna: It was more of like a, why'd you even ask me? Of course. Like that type of feeling.
Kristin Neal: The only thing that the type of feeling, let me tell you what he said. I'm 100% okay with family support on work trips. We've built the company around that. However, we need to come up with a consistent policy so it's fair for everybody. So that's why I kind of want to make sure, like, this policy that we have in place with my aunt, where she's actually, you know, not actually, where she's going to be supporting me as far as working, that would be covered. Whereas, like, my husband coming with me, your wife going with you, it's more like, you might just come and see, you know what mean? Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Come and shadow me. Experience this. Look at what I do. Like, you don't have to really do anything, but look at what happens versus who's on her.
Kristin Neal: Right.
Steven Hanna: Exactly.
Kristin Neal: I'm not taking away that they would not help. I'm sure they'll help.
Steven Hanna: So this is like a plus one support staff, right? Like, so we have a per diem per our own, right? This is our $50. And then we have, like, a capped limit on a support staff member that we can bring if we need. Is that something that we think that would work? I think that would work.
Kristin Neal: As far as for this one, though, because we're in California, we're flying up to Sacramento. The flight up there was only $100. So it was like... that's fine. And then you have to approve it?
Steven Hanna: Yeah, and then have it approved, right? Like, we can come up with an arbitrary number of food costs per day, right? We can basically just half that number and be like, hey, you got $25 on ZTAG a day, right? That sounds good. So, like, it gives them a little bit of extra support to not have to ask and just know, like, hey, I got to go get a meal. Like, I'm not going to ask you if I can go eat. That sounds crazy to me as well, right? Yes. Like, it should just be an envelope or, you know, whatever we decide to give them, a Visa gift card, a $100 Visa gift card, whatever it is, where it's like, hey, you've got four days here with ZTAG. There's $25 per day loaded onto this card. It's a $100 Visa gift card. So, we know that you're not going to, you know, just pocket money and take cash.
Kristin Neal: Like, technically, it is cash.
Steven Hanna: can do anything with it. But it's a Visa gift card that we know and we can track, right? I would say yes, if it's for, I love that idea.
Kristin Neal: The Visa gift I totally love that. It almost feels if it were for someone that we're not family with, you know what mean? Like, if we're building this for the next person, like, yes. But since it's, like, family, it almost feels like, well, here's your Visa gift card. You know what I mean?
Steven Hanna: Congratulations, the price is right. You've got a brand new Visa gift card for coming on this ZTAG trip.
Kristin Neal: And this is your food? Don't ask me for anything. Here's your food money.
Steven Hanna: Get out of here.
Kristin Neal: I hope I see you at some point. But if they're helping, maybe we could just have that, like, combined with ours, but at least knowing that cap of $25 a day.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, I think that's, you know, the support money that they would need, right? It gives them just enough, is what I think.
Kristin Neal: So how about we align it with what we agreed with for you and your wife, or for that kind of situation? Where it was, like, that one meal that they agreed. about we, like, how about We agree that they would cover. I know that was like a one-time.
Steven Hanna: I wouldn't even consider it on this one. Like, I'm just going to run this one as a standard work trip and like whatever my wife and I do on that side, like we'll just do on that side. Like, there's no need to run a test on this one.
Kristin Neal: This is just a, let's keep it stress-free.
Steven Hanna: Like, we've already got enough stress with all that stuff. I'm honestly not trying to load up a second, like, objective of create SOP for trips and families at this point. I'm going to be honest.
Kristin Neal: Like, midi, giddy, details.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, like, I love the details, but for this trip, I'm literally just running anything my wife and I are doing on our time for my own money. Like, I don't want to deal with this dress.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, I'm not dealing with it.
Steven Hanna: Like, gas, I'll half it with you guys on ZTAG. Just for the fact of every day I'm driving to work for 30 minutes and driving back, that's an hour driving. And then, you know, probably another 30 minutes of driving for my wife and I. So I would say just put it all.
Kristin Neal: Okay. So you don't lose your mind? Pretty much.
Steven Hanna: It was like, hey, we'll give you a lot of money so that you basically just go, well, the money's worth it.
Kristin Neal: So sit in this hotel room for two weeks. I'm I to call a brewery that was like 20 miles away and explain the situation and be like, hey, can you guys send over like two growlers?
Steven Hanna: Because I can't leave. We have growlers over here.
Kristin Neal: I know what you're talking about. Oh, gosh. And it's with root beer. Ooh. Ooh.
Steven Hanna: Now, my next question is, do you have a large Mormon population by you guys, by any chance?
Kristin Neal: so. Amish. It's Amish. Amish.
Steven Hanna: Okay. Amish and Mormon. Very, very into soda making and pop making because it is one of the things that they are allowed to have that is not classified as sin.
Kristin Neal: Interesting.
Steven Hanna: Because it is not, I forgot what it is labeled as, but it's something specific where it's like, no, we're big into soda because we can because of all of it.
Kristin Neal: Gates have opened one. Yeah, would have thought pop is the difference in religion? right. Although it just, you would think would be the worst because of how bad the sugar is. I know, it's just sugar. But it doesn't change your state of mind.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, but it sure as heck changes your metabolism in your entire body.
Kristin Neal: So true. Yes, yes. Oh, man.
Steven Hanna: I think we should speak with Quan about that number and ask him what he believes. If it were up to me, I would say 40, but 40 is also just two meals. And I could tell you that right now. Like, it's one decent meal or two small meals in today's day and age with, you know. You're right.
Kristin Neal: With 50, at least you're able to get something for... It's also just an even number. Yeah, that's true.
Steven Hanna: It's nice to have that. And if it's a per diem, like, I'm going to start to save some of that to do something fun at the end. in. You. Thank
Kristin Neal: I that is good on that. Are we okay on that? And we'll definitely take once, and I can't wait to see the transcript and what ChatGPT kind of suggests for the daily per diem. So, okay. About yesterday, I wanted to bring that up to you. I really did. I'm glad you brought it up because I had already planned on bringing it up. I actually took the meeting off with just Quan, and I'll send you all of it if you'd like. Like, I really, that's how absolutely transparent I want to be and make sure that it aligns with Playmaker because this also actually, after thinking about it, because I know it started off with just the colors of the unit, and you would think that it was such a stupid, like.
Steven Hanna: Oh, no, it's much more than that. It's so much more.
Kristin Neal: It's like psychological play. There's depth.
Steven Hanna: There's depth that you see and that I can understand, and I can see why maybe it might be challenging for other people to see that.
Kristin Neal: I'm so glad because let me back up. On it with ChatGPT, like just explaining everything that was just like coming up, right?
Steven Hanna: Right.
Kristin Neal: And it made it so clear that it is the, and again, Ashley, can I show you the, I'll just send you the chat. Sure, yeah, I'll send you the chat, like my ChatGPT. I'll send you the Kwan conversation because I was like very like edited down, but the whole chat, I mean, it was like hours and hours going back and forth. I won't bore you to read the whole thing, but at least you can see where it all kind of led to because it made me realize, Steven, this was so cool, that it actually should not be based on the color of the unit. It can't actually because then it won't anchor it. It's not anchored. So I was like, how can we do that? And then it got brought to mind the ZEC, the ZTAG Extended Care. On that, on that form, on the bottom there, it's talking about, and we've never been able to close this loop of the tag. Test of the testing, the test cases, okay? We've never really had a traction on that, how we can get that to move forward. So when thinking of this, how my position is shifting away from sales, okay? That whole thing has been pretty much worked through everything this entire week. But after this conversation about the colors, they're all associated. They're all connected because we're trying to preserve the magic, there we go. I'm trying to close a loop with Carmi and trying to find out how to build this community, this partnership. When she comes across someone that says, I can't afford the unit, our process now is saying, it's okay. Hey, if you're able to introduce us, first, if you're willing to do a month-to-month check-in, like how you're doing with Milka.
Steven Hanna: That's what I'm...
Kristin Neal: So excited. Yes, I'm basing everything off of that Millstone thing, just so you know. It's all based on this. If we take that school that says they can't afford it, okay, yes, you'll do monthly check-ins, and yes, you'll introduce us to the district. I get brought into the conversation, and I say, before, this was how it was three days ago, I would offer them the early adopters discount, where they would get the discounted unit for their very first school, and we would just see. We would see if it would be enough to be rolled out into their whole district. Like, that's our goal, right? But after thinking about it, and going through with GBT, it's like, wait a minute, we don't want to devalue the unit. Again, we don't want to devalue it, even with the amount, or the place. Or experience, everything.
Steven Hanna: There's nothing that can be devalued about anything of this entire process.
Kristin Neal: Exactly. So that got me to this. Honestly, think it was a physical. She couldn't, she's having a really hard time because the kids are so physical, they've banned TAG.
Steven Hanna: What state is this in? California. Northern or SoCal? It's an hour from Sacramento.
Kristin Neal: It's Region 3. So it's the same as Julian. It's the same as Yuba City. It's the same as BCRB. BACR.
Steven Hanna: Yes. Okay. Demographics are, what age? Now I'm getting, all right, forget. No, I'm getting too specific.
Kristin Neal: But no, this is actually really good because I'm glad that you're even thinking that because after my meeting with them, after hearing about the issues that they are forming, see, I'm like looking at this. Holistically.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, totally.
Kristin Neal: But how I did it with you, I loved it because it was like, okay, Steve, they fundraised and then you took it and ran with it and did you. Sorry.
Steven Hanna: No worries.
Kristin Neal: No worries. lysed and applied your gift to the playmaker. So... That's how I see it working. No, they can't afford it. It's okay. We have this case study that I can put you on, and we're not devaluing the unit. We're giving them this as a care package to see if they're, there's some wording there that I need to kind of- we providing it for free, or are we providing it as that $3,000- I'm providing it for free. I would provide it for Give them a system.
Steven Hanna: If they're willing, I'm sorry?
Kristin Neal: We're giving them a system?
Steven Hanna: No, no, no, no.
Kristin Neal: They would buy the system.
Steven Hanna: okay. Full price.
Kristin Neal: No, no, no. Full price. No.
Steven Hanna: I was like, Chris, are we just giving away five grand and sending me out to train them, and then what?
Kristin Neal: No, don't worry. They buy the unit for free. I'm sorry. They buy the unit. They the unit. They get ZEC for three years for free. There we go. Okay. Includes the, like, I would highlight, look at this, case study. We are going to sit down right now. We're going to talk this through. center AmeriBox people. to on- One I
Steven Hanna: I'm going to give this to our playmaker who's going to now implement it at the school. That on-site? On-site.
Kristin Neal: Not necessarily on-site.
Steven Hanna: How many on-sites are you sending me to? No, no, no.
Kristin Neal: It's not going to be on-site. Like, it's just a monthly It be.
Steven Hanna: I mean, listen, the launch can be, if you feel like the relationship needs an on-site launch, and you know that these are good people who deserve it, maybe it's worthwhile, especially if the calendar's free. Look, if we don't have any trade shows or anything coming up, and we know that we can get really good value out of on-site, then we should consider it.
Kristin Neal: I almost want to start, if it's possible, I know this might come later, but like every third weekend of the month, you're going to be in California, or you're going to be in, you know what I mean? Like, if we could just- consistent two or three days where it's like, hey, Steve's in California for three days. Yes. Are you getting training?
Steven Hanna: Yes, exactly.
Kristin Neal: I might- Let's do that, and that kind of assists me because-
Steven Hanna: Well, Alexa did leave the room, but she is part of this plan. She does know that I do intend on probably making my way up to California in the next three to four years, if we're going to be continuing this type of work.
Kristin Neal: Oh, to live? Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Oh, wow. So I'd probably be trying to situate myself in Northern California near the SAC area because I'm noticing a very large trend of where our systems are located in that Stockton-Modesto 5 corridor all the way up. And honestly, I love driving five hours with Kwon every time, but man, it would be really nice to just drive an hour. So, yes. I hope that works out for you.
Kristin Neal: I really do.
Steven Hanna: I think this would be a nice start to at least get consistency on the ground there, right? Yeah, the consistent, yeah.
Kristin Neal: Hopefully we can get that in play. So do you see this? It's kind of working for your side because I basically sent that all to Quan because we were going, going, going with the colors and the, you know, wanting to preserve that and then switched over to ZEC and like how my functionality and how colors are basically us talking about something that may or may not be relevant. Hang on, hang on. I forgot the most important part because the, what GPT said for us to preserve that magic, guess what it is? We have to make it not competitive, but something that they can earn. They can earn whatever, such and such, and the competitive. It's, it's going to take, um.
Steven Hanna: So basic, all right, so they need motivation theory for efficacy, autonomy, autonomy, and goal setting. So, okay, basic, it's three basic things. Give them the ability to earn it, give them the autonomy to earn it, and give them the support to earn it. Fine. Agreed.
Kristin Neal: But we got to force, not force, we got to like encourage that, exactly, that step challenge, whatever it takes. That's where, because I was like, okay, this is the leak. We're talking about the leak that we've been talking about forever. How are we going to build this leak? And that's where the case study came in, because through the case study, we can build the leak. If we could say, you know what, if you're ready, if you're ready to take on a step challenge, or however we want to say it, well, let's do it. Let's start building that, because that's what it's going to take to keep that magic. That's what will separate the education from the professional. That's where you get that magic.
Steven Hanna: The difference between like an education magic versus an entertainment magic. Okay, so for AI, what we're going to have to do is set achievable goals at... They target levels and scaffold the methods to get there by providing support from a ZTAG level. So what that means for us is basically set a bunch of different goals that they can meet through this experience to earn different things that ZTAG can provide support for because we need to do two things. The first thing that you're doing is gaining the, is giving them the motivation to do it, right? They bought it. And now we need to keep them motivated to keep using it. Because once they have the system, you know, it gets used. It's like any novelty. It's like you use it a lot at first and then it kind of fizzles out a little bit, right? So how do you keep that motivation intrinsic and extrinsic? And the way to do that is going to be to set a bunch of different goals within the program that they're involved with of earn X amount of steps. steps. 10 ZTAG will give your class this.
Kristin Neal: I would hold off on that, having it so set, because these are the things that I feel like you can work with the playmaker at the site, because it might not even be something from us that it would be. It might even be like a day with the principal, or a free homework day, or something that might build more. For the student, for the student, that works.
Steven Hanna: But for the educator and operator, you need something more, and this is the something more.
Kristin Neal: Okay.
Steven Hanna: So in addition to keeping the students motivated, you got to keep the teacher motivated. Teacher motivated.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Okay. That makes sense. I probably explained it really bad in the GPT chat. It explains it perfectly. I'm going to share it to you, and then just say, can you explain this to me, because Chris did a horrible job.
Steven Hanna: You're doing a fine job. Are you kidding? I haven't asked you to elaborate on anything. I picked up what you were putting down on everything.
Kristin Neal: Oh, my God. Okay, good. Good, good, good. Wonderful. When have you ever miscommunicated?
Steven Hanna: Also, I understand the perspective and lens that you approach things with. So if you're ever thinking like, oh, my God, am I being misunderstood? No.
Kristin Neal: I was like, am I going off the deep end?
Steven Hanna: And it'll be like, that depends.
Kristin Neal: How do you want me to answer this? No, thankfully, it was it understood where the line was trying to be drawn, like it's trying to loop in my role, because now my role, I was kind of like, don't really know like how.
Steven Hanna: So what is your role? Because I don't really know what's going on now. It's partner relations.
Kristin Neal: It's purely partner relations.
Steven Hanna: Purely partner relations.
Kristin Neal: Hallelujah. That I'm not going to be worrying about sales. At least the sales that, like, I don't want to. Not the level that you're involved with.
Steven Hanna: Now it's probably going to be a text response of like Carmi said to you, a message would be like, hey, question.
Kristin Neal: And you go, yes, that's it. Exactly. God, I hope. Like, sitting there updating those silly, not silly, but I mean, they're all very, very neat. But just editing, updating all those, it would take me days, literally days working with Pullen, whereas I know, I know for a fact, Carmi would be able to, like, done, you know, it's like. That's where we're at with Tin now.
Steven Hanna: Tin has gotten to the point in support where we've handled a lot of tickets together.
Kristin Neal: That's huge.
Steven Hanna: And I'm only getting, like, messages now of, like, hey, this person sent this. And I'll send, like, one response back, like, send them this back right now. Like, this is it. Exactly.
Kristin Neal: Exactly. It'll get there.
Steven Hanna: Exactly what I want. Yes.
Kristin Neal: It'll definitely get there.
Steven Hanna: So Tin and I also have, like, a once-a-week ticket catch-up where it's like, okay, we've got an hour. We're going through everything in the queue from top to bottom. Who needs to be responded to and what needs to be done. And that is, oh, my God. You want to talk about efficient? We'll knock out everything in, like, 15 minutes. And she's like, okay, I don't need to talk to you for the rest of the week. Thank you. Thank I'm like, that's sad, but also really nice.
Kristin Neal: Very relieving to know.
Steven Hanna: That's huge.
Kristin Neal: Oh, that's so huge. It's definitely, it'll get to that point for you and Carmi as well.
Steven Hanna: And it'll be really, really nice when you're like, ah, I love just responding one sentence at a time instead of throwing this into GPT and burning my life away, trying to figure out how to respond to this mishtoob over here. Yeah, but we never really had it written out either.
Kristin Neal: So Carmi's role is now, it's not sales. So ZTAG no longer has a sales department. I'm loving it. I don't think we ever did. Thank you. Steven said, my Steve, I love that you and Steve like say so much of the same things because we're talking and he was like, you guys don't even have a sales department. I was like, wait a minute. And then all of that came from that. Just that when he said that, it was like, you're right. Wait, why are we even having a title of that? And. All of it came after that, the pathways. That's all Carmi is. She's just going to be at the pathway saying, okay, you're over here. You go this way. No, we can't even afford you at all. Like if they're like, oh, and we do. get some people like, oh, hell no. Who would buy that? They literally say that. And we can say, you know, no worries. If you want to just rent it, go ahead. And they can be like Cheryl, who you will be training. She's from the Oceanside. She's from the AM, PM, Vista, I think it's called. But she rented, and I hope that you can get this out of her because I couldn't find it in any of my emails to verify this. But I believe we were talking on the phone. This was in 2024 when I first came on that we were kind of going back and forth. And she said that in somewhere that she rented ZTAG like four or six times from Game Truck. And that's what, you know, let's just get our own. Like we just need to invest. they bought four units. So it's like we, that's, that's. That's the goal. Like, even if we have to say, it's okay, we'll send you to a rental just for them because, again, we don't sell ZTAG. Right.
Steven Hanna: We sell magic.
Kristin Neal: Exactly. I love it. It's just that this magic is freaking expensive, man.
Steven Hanna: It is.
Kristin Neal: I feel like, you remember Shrek?
Steven Hanna: You remember the fairy godmother from Shrek?
Kristin Neal: I'm really trying to remember. If you have the opportunity, watch the fairy godmother from Shrek and really pay attention to what magic she sells.
Steven Hanna: And you're like, you're a drug dealer for magic.
Kristin Neal: You're selling potions that make people fall in love, that make people taller, that make people euphoric.
Steven Hanna: You're a drug dealer for magic. Oh, no.
Kristin Neal: hopefully... Not here.
Steven Hanna: Not the analogy I'm making here. It's just like the magic selling. I'm like, all right, there's a few different types of magic. We're on the good side of selling this magic, but this is reminding me of the other side. of that magic, which is like all of these experiences that people are selling.
Kristin Neal: We're not really selling, we're just providing. Exactly. Actually, one of the things that ChachiPT said, he just reminded me, was since the unit is the same, the V3 to both, and now it'll be the same color, we're actually now selling the service. That's what we're really differentiating. So we're selling a different service for professionals, and we're selling a different service for educational. And that's where we got to amp up the experience service through this and trying to work with them and see. So do you think, you said you were aligned on that, that it would work? I'm aligned, yeah.
Steven Hanna: I think, look, if we have more case studies like Millstone, where I could say, hey, I'm going there. Like this, they deserve that. Like, yeah, 100%. Just bear in mind, resources spread thin with trade shows. Shows and multiple bookings. So for the next upcoming few months, since we're going to be going into the summer season, we've got four months before school's out.
Kristin Neal: So in these four months, we've got a trade show almost every month. One or two, yeah.
Steven Hanna: So I would say, bear in mind when we are offering this out, like, just check calendars, because this is, I don't mind moving around. I don't mind. But if we're going to have me at least capable of operating at 100%, I need, like, a 24-hour buffer between, like, places. Like, just to make sure I'm, brain is organized.
Kristin Neal: 24 hours between events?
Steven Hanna: Like, a 24-hour travel day, and, like, that day can be a rest day. Like, that's fine.
Kristin Neal: I will get these two things. I'm going to get two things kind of worked out. The first with the travel and plus ones and all that. And then the second one, I want to refine what I kind of sent to Quan. Do you want to see the conversation I sent to Quan?
Steven Hanna: Yeah, absolutely. can send it over. Perfect. Then I'll send it over to that in the chat so you really see what's going on in here.
Kristin Neal: And then sounds good. All right. So just so that I have confirmation, because I do write notes and meetings now again, because this is the only way I remember.
Steven Hanna: We just briefly went over the trip plus one and per diems, and we had basically come to the $50 kind of idea as a starting ground to be moved and totally tangible in either direction based on location and needs. We went over the support. Support staff having like half of that almost for each of the day, just so that they're supported if we do need support staff. And that is only if they will be working, basically. And by working, we mean like being with us and supporting us while we are working.
Kristin Neal: That sounds good. I'm curious, though, because when I sent it to Quan and Charlie, it was just that one amount that would cover all of it. So it wasn't really like a daily set. Okay.
Steven Hanna: So leaving that open and leaving that just to be tallied and accumulated to say, hey, this is what it would cause to have this person considerate of that 25 in each day at your total tally amount?
Kristin Neal: I think so. Yeah. Okay. Including that. Yeah. Okay.
Steven Hanna: So a total amount, including that, and just for approval between everybody to basically give a thumbs up and say, yes, this is what we can, you know, allocate for this type of support staff.
Kristin Neal: Perfect. Okay. Okay.
Steven Hanna: Then we went over. Or Millstone Utilization as a like keystone, like capstone study to utilize basically in California or anywhere really that is looking to acquire a system where we can also provide three years of ZEC at no additional cost and basically support for whatever they could need. Tentative to on-site as well if needed.
Kristin Neal: Yeah, and we're, the strategy would be for me to connect with the district if they're willing to meet, to introduce, and I would say we would love to almost like prove that, prove to you that ZTAG would be amazing for your whole district. Of course, not in those words, but so we're willing to do this, provide that case study, and that case study would then be handed off to you. And then you would work directly with the playmaker to kind of, because like all I told you about Millstone was they were a fundraiser, and then you went and you ran with it, which is beautiful. So it's more of that. I'm not going to give you the details. You get to have that fun. But I'll at least give you the big picture.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, if you can give me the umbrella and I can kind of fine tune what they need for, you know, gym classes, other classes, whatever they need.
Kristin Neal: Well, I want to do a club. I want them to build the Entrepreneurs Club, to be completely honest. I want them to do those things.
Steven Hanna: So this is a two-part program. Then if you're going to do something like that, because building an Entrepreneurs Club is a legitimate program that we can actually teach these skill sets with. Exactly.
Kristin Neal: But can you imagine doing that the same thing with these kids that we're trying to build it with as we did with Ella? Looking with Ella, we were able to say these are like the bare basics of what we know. Where can we?
Steven Hanna: I would love to do that, but consistent access and continuity is going to be a challenge. Okay. With Ella, I could send her a text message and just be like, hey, do you have time? I can't really send a text message to a child of a school to say, can you give me feedback on how you like the game?
Kristin Neal: Like that's, you know. It wouldn't still be associated with the playmaker. I just want to make sure that we're clear because it would be the playmaker you're in constant contact or a monthly contact. And if we were to say, okay, this month we want you to talk about the vehicle, let's say the Z-Mobile, like decorate your own Z-Mobile for your event, you know, for your business, your entrepreneurial business. So we could probably talk about that a little bit more because I really, really want to build that Entrepreneurs Club. But it feels like we can't, we need them to be able to build it, it almost feels. We do, and I can't rely on a gym teacher to act as an entrepreneur. Right, good point. Yeah. I mean, some... Some of them are, and great, right?
Steven Hanna: Your validity as an entrepreneur is basically my social credit to you, right? Like, hey, I know that you're succeeding in this way, so I know that you can teach this type of thing. It's kind of how do we certify someone is that, right? If we need them to teach it, how do we certify that they have the knowledge base? We can always give them curriculum and content. I could give anybody a sheet of paper and tell them to teach it. How they teach it and what they teach utilizing it is, it'll be different person to person. So we can create something like that. We would need a way to certify that these people are successful entrepreneurs for one, because why am I going to learn from an unsuccessful entrepreneur, right? Like through classifications, I'm an unsuccessful entrepreneur yet. Like through other classifications, I'm a successful entrepreneur because I've met certain metrics. So it's like, what are you going to validate me on? And how do you? And that number may increase, but are you successful over the long term? Are you successful over the short term? Are you unsuccessful long term? Unsuccessful short term? So many of these metrics that we would need to certify someone as. Basically, it would be Kwan that would have to go. If we're looking for the standard of success, and his success is, we see it and we know the story behind it, but I'm sure that there are also things that we don't know. Like, and I'm sure that there are also elements of this that were unsuccessful for a very long period of time that turned into success. The ones that we know about are only the ones that we know about. But how many years of, you know, someone classifying this or Kwan is not successful, and then all of a sudden it turns around and now it's successful. So we would really need to figure out who the right people are to teach that type of program.
Kristin Neal: We have professionals.
Steven Hanna: We do, but of those professional users, right? Right, here's the fun one.
Kristin Neal: Where's the ick not? I'll tell you, I've met two or three game truck operators that don't have the ick. I have.
Steven Hanna: Good. I totally have, and I will give it to them, and I've shared with them pretty much everything that I know. The other ones that have the ick, you're getting just as much as you need to make sure that you can succeed, and I'm making sure that I'm supporting you. But if you're telling me, you know, you're a teacher, you're doing this on the weekends, and you're really just trying to build your community up, I'm opening up the doors for you.
Kristin Neal: Yeah. If you're saying, hey, how do I market this to a school?
Steven Hanna: Use these words. I'm telling you how to put them together. Use those words.
Kristin Neal: Call them.
Steven Hanna: Email them. There's a few different ways to reach them. Go reach out to the PTAs. I was really curious.
Kristin Neal: Here's how your Mr. Gian training went yesterday. How did that go?
Steven Hanna: He's 65% in profit, 35% in a non-profit. So, and this is my assessment based on the people he's had in his training, his presence during the training as a supervisor, just joining the training and saying, you know, hey, this is what I'm using it for. We have classes and I use it for my classes. We want it to be a fun thing they can earn at the end of the week. Right. How much are kids paying to be a part of your class? And this is my thing of how much are making a month? And you came in as an NPO under that hat, but your use case is majority leaning in towards the profit margin because of what you, because of your model of business, basically.
Kristin Neal: The way I had it worded in the, to differentiate is if they go into the school. Then they qualify for the educational unit. If they go, if it's a standalone business, they get the professional, and with the discount, 10% discount, because they provide educational programs that the schools have to come to them for.
Steven Hanna: Well, did he tell you that it's his own school? He sure did.
Kristin Neal: Well, actually, he did tell me at one point, oh no, I plan on taking this to the schools. It's his own schools.
Steven Hanna: It's his own internal schools. It's not the public schools, because he specifically said public schools. I don't think, I don't believe that. Based on who he had teaching the program, because he didn't even learn about the system. He didn't even be there for the training. He joined the training and listened in. Well, two of his staff members were on site learning about the training. So, I taught a 16-year-old and like a 17-year-old how to operate the systems. And the 16-year-old Colton's 17-year-old will be teaching other 16s and 17-year-olds and how to operate the system.
Kristin Neal: He wasn't even there. He joined at the start at his house to say, oh, I just got out of a meeting.
Steven Hanna: You know, I wanted to call and see what this was about. He joined in, was basically camera off, said nothing, and then rejoined an hour later at another dojo, not the one, I don't know if it was the same one that his staff was at, but rejoined at another dojo in his gi and was like, oh, it was very informative, you were very great, know, thank you so much, we're going to have such a good time using it. And I'm like, I know what you're doing. Yeah. Like, you just needed validation to know that we're legitimate, and fine, you'll get it, but your use case is heavily leaning in towards the profit margin and offering another reason for people to join your martial arts studio under the non-profit. And this is where I'm like, I can recognize this because I can see through it. And this is like, it's a pretty effective manipulation because like, all so this is something called like a class two manipulation where you're utilizing outside assets and title. And there's like five classes of manipulation. This is like a level two manipulation where it's you're utilizing leveraging titles and your position under a certain premise to gain something else. So for someone like this, who's operating at a higher level of manipulation than a standard person who is pretty much at level one, who doesn't really know what they're doing sometimes in manipulating and knows how to manipulate other times. This is like a very planned manipulation.
Kristin Neal: So, so the reason you were getting the ick from this and the reason I still have.
Steven Hanna: The ick from it is because we can identify this, and it was allowed to happen, and it's problematic because it goes against morals and values, and Quan may have connected with a person who oriented themselves in a specific way to connect.
Kristin Neal: Because that's how deep the manipulation.
Steven Hanna: Right, and that's why this is like an intent-based manipulation, and this is an intentional shifting of, here's what I plan on doing, and here's what's actually happening. So, by public schools, his school is considered a public school. He's got two or three different schools. It's an NPO, because it's a martial arts association. But you still gotta pay your employees as an NPO. Hello. Yes. Still got to pay bills, and you still have to have money coming in, even if you have a 501c3 classification. Yeah. I don't know if it would be rude of me to have gatekept anything if I was involved, but I definitely would have made it a little bit more challenging for this to happen. Or I at least would have waited a little bit more time to see the validity of this, because someone like that shouldn't really get a system for sub $10,000. This is my genuine opinion on it. That's a minimum 10. Realistically, that's like a 12 to 13. You know how much it costs to put a kid in martial arts?
Kristin Neal: You know. Okay?
Steven Hanna: Yes, I do.
Kristin Neal: It's ridiculous, actually.
Steven Hanna: Multiply that by X number of kids that you have every single class.
Kristin Neal: Like, you're making the money.
Steven Hanna: Yeah.
Kristin Neal: You should be spending $17.
Steven Hanna: a idea выпasement, there Five on this system. I don't care if you're an NPO, you're making money. Yeah. That classification means nothing to me because your use case for it is different.
Kristin Neal: The only thing though with, see where the problem was though, Steve, is that we didn't have that clearly defined for Kermie. Now with his pathways, does that make sense? No, it does.
Steven Hanna: I'm just, I'm not blaming anybody. Yeah. No, no, no.
Kristin Neal: I totally get it. understand it.
Steven Hanna: Kermie was like coming from like a place of basically like, oh , there was supposed to be a quote sent out. Did we send? Oh , I should send the quote. Yeah. It was such a mess.
Kristin Neal: Like, I don't even know where, it could have been even me. Who knows where, where it faulted. But now that we've fought, now we want to prevent it from happening again. But would that be the caveat? Would that be correct in saying, if they go into the schools, kind of like ASP or the, there's, there's programs in California that we're partnered with, ASP is one of them, right? Where they actually go. Into the schools. So they would apply for, they could qualify for the educational unit, whereas someone like this, who has their own business, their own structure, that the kids have to come to them, that qualifies for the professional with the educational or the...
Steven Hanna: Yeah, I agree with that. Give them a small little shot off the top, because realistically, look, you're an educator, you're using it in a school, and whether or not it's a public or private school, you're still giving an access to an experience, right? And ZTAG is the experience. And you're an educated person and know how to utilize it. Therefore, you can get 10% off of that. It's built into the price by that point. Like, sure, we're taking off $1,750. Like, yeah, you're a teacher. You should get that off. But if you're making that money right back, like...
Kristin Neal: Quick question with the YMCA. I mean, if the YMCA went into the school... Then they would get the, I'm just trying to think this, sir, because that could be a one.
Steven Hanna: YMCA's are specific, like unique, like boys and girls clubs and YMCA's because they don't specifically go into schools, but they are a community-based organization that supports, right? So it's like, what do you put them in at what price at? Because for schools, we're at $10. It's $10, right? Whatever. Let's call it $10. But for like a YMCA, which may be generating some income off of it, but provides a community resource more than anything, like 12 is a good number.
Kristin Neal: Because that puts them just above the education.
Steven Hanna: It aligns exactly with what we need as a company, right? We're strategically trying to align with these types of organizations that provide community-based activities and grow the community. So we can provide a little bit of an incentive on that to grow the ZTAG name. If to see what number they would get a system at, the first thing I would do is I would pull up all the YMCAs around them, and I would see how they're marketing, and I would want to know if those YMCAs are standardized, and they're run by government, which most are, why are they different? And if they're marketing differently, and have more resources, and have more programs, and more things, I would go, okay, that's private money. And that's where I would go, this is probably like a $12,000 sale, right? Like, I'm not going to go $17,500 for that. I would be like, that's $12,000, because yeah, you're private, but you're also community private. So you do give a , but this is also your, like, method of living, and you do need to generate incomes to support that.
Kristin Neal: Okay. Okay. I like where you're going with this. I totally like where we're going with this, because this helps me clarify what Carmi likes, so she's 100% going forward. I have a meeting in eight minutes with Ken.
Steven Hanna: Go for it. I'm hoping to be done.
Kristin Neal: By 1230 for the Fun Friday, but if not, would you be able to jump in and just thank you so much.
Steven Hanna: I'm gonna pull up one, you know what, all right, all right, I'll have a backup, don't worry, it'll be, we're gonna share one 30-second clip from our favorite TV show, and I'm pulling up Whose Line Is It Anyway, and that'll be the start of the Fun Friday. When you said, when you said that, shared it, all of it, I was like, oh. When you were like, that is my favorite show, I'm like, I have not met another person who has seen the show in years.
Kristin Neal: What? Like, seriously, like, every night we watched this, oh, I loved it.
Steven Hanna: Wayne Brady and Drew Carey, when they got up for their, forget Colin, all right, look, Colin's great, Colin is amazing, like, I will give Colin credit 100% of the time, but you get Wayne Brady and Drew Carey on a stage, just put them there for 15 minutes, and you will be in tears, in tears by the end of it.
Kristin Neal: Seriously. Wayne Brady is so amazing. Gosh, he's so underrated. I feel like he got forgotten. Right? Like, completely. Like, hello, this man is like a genius.
Steven Hanna: Absolute comedic genius.
Kristin Neal: Are you going pull it up or am I? On, uh, which one? I'm doing the Gene Simmons.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, pull up Gene Simmons. I'll pull up another, I'll pull up something else from another show. We're going catch all the Filipino team off, off guard. Well, you can do that.
Kristin Neal: I can't. They actually came, um, to Evansville, whose line is it anyways? And I saw them all. Yeah, it was just like. that's cool.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. It was so cool.
Kristin Neal: When was that?
Steven Hanna: Like, I think last year.
Kristin Neal: was, I, I, it's just coming back to mine. Okay. I'm, I'm going to share. How can you not be like. Oh my God.
Steven Hanna: Oh.
Kristin Neal: Oh. Brian and Colin are going act on a scene, and during the scene, they have to use a number of props. However, since I don't have any real props to work with tonight, Brian, Brian, he's like, yeah, this is getting weird, fast. Brian and Colin, there's a scene. You're a lot. I can't wait. On a luxury cruise liner, a couple makes the most of a day of sunbathing, water sports, and entertainment. Take it away. Brian and Colin. Oh, this is the most romantic trip we've ever been on. Yeah, yeah, me too. Being your wife.
Steven Hanna: Yes, honey.
Kristin Neal: Why don't we look at the scenery through the little telescopes ahead you. All right.
[Metadata only — transcript not included in this selection]
Tin DG: So they just want, they know people who have this system that didn't use it, so they want to be trained so they can train the people that they know. They have 20 coaches, like something like that on the email.
Steven Hanna: Okay. And that was in November last year? Was that around mid-November?
Tin DG: Yes.
Steven Hanna: Okay. So this is right around the time that IAPA was probably occurring in Quan. This was when you probably spoke to them at some point. In regards to...
Quan Gan: So this is over a year ago? Or no, just recently? Last year. Last year, did like a few months ago.
Tin DG: Yes. Last year in November. Okay.
Quan Gan: Can I make my case? And then Steve, you can give me...
Steven Hanna: Oh, let's go.
Quan Gan: All right. Because looking at how the public school infrastructure works is bigger cities, Or bigger counties, often they might have their own resources, so they'll basically in-house who they hire to provide the service to their kids. At the end of the day, it's all about serving the kids and how they do that. But I've also seen places that are remote, like Stanislaus or any of these not major cities, because they lack the infrastructure to do their staffing, to scale it up and down with the school year, they often find these CBOs, or what they're called community-based organizations, which are essentially non-profits that's in the business of providing the staffing and the curriculum or service to the kids. So that could come in the form of, let's say, a Boys and Girls Club, a YMCA, or some of these organizations. And the money from the state, from ELOP, ultimately trickles either to them or... Well, it trickles to the school district, and then the school district can decide do they want to in-house that money or they pay a third party to provide the services. And I think that's also a similar decision on how they decide to purchase ZTAG themselves outright or they ask one of these service providers to purchase it. And we've seen it both ways. So, for example, KIPP, I think that's probably a CBO. They might have purchased our products. There's also, I think in L.A. there was another one. I mean, they purchased like three systems, but they go out and they provide the systems to the schools that they serve. And then we've also seen Westminster where they purchased the system, but when we went to do the training, I went there on site. You see there's like out of their staff, like they're all CBOs that they invited. They're like, you guys are sitting in here to listen to ZTAG to teach you how to use it for us. So in that sense, those CBOs did not purchase ZTAG, but they're required by the people who are receiving ZTAG service for them to be trained. So that's my case where pretty much as long as a ZTAG is at a school, we need to train someone, whoever is touching it, whether that someone belongs to the school or a CBO. Okay, so that's my case.
Steven Hanna: That was actually my question was, so why don't I just train the teacher? And if the teacher is offloading it to CBOs and the program is, or director is offloading it to that, then I'll just train those CBOs. I think locking into one is like, yeah, we can give the keys to success to anyone, right? As long as you have the infrastructure and the ability, like that's on you. You know how to use the screwdriver. So we can provide that, but that is a highly valuable resource that's been developed over a prolonged period of time and refined.
Quan Gan: And by... ... A lot of people.
Steven Hanna: And to provide that to a CBO that is merely going to go into schools and say, yeah, I know how to do it to get ZTAG relaunched, there should be some sort of financial exchange. Because even as a nonprofit, they're supporting their employees as a 501c3 in some sort of way, shape, or form. And whether it's classified for profit or paper or not is irrelevant, really. It's just the hat that you're wearing. You're just taxed differently. So if you're technically generating income off of the training that we're providing that we've developed in-house, there should be some sort of financial incentive tied to that. Whether we charge the training fee or not, the only thing that they know is that there's a niche opportunity, right? So fine, if you know that niche opportunity is there, and you've exposed that to us, we appreciate you sharing that and sharing the knowledge base, but you've brought up an internal. Problem of why aren't we training these people instead? The high turnover, like I'm willing to do staff trainings.
Quan Gan: don't care. That's literally my job.
Steven Hanna: Like if you need four trainings out of the year because you know your staff is not great, I'm willing to do that. Like if you tell me at the first training session, hey, is there an opportunity we can do this again like midway through the year? There's no way I'm saying no. So you're asking for support and help, and that's what we're here for.
Quan Gan: So I see your point in that there's value. I don't have enough confidence or information to give me confidence that we can monetize it. I mean, if we can monetize it, I think that's great.
Steven Hanna: That's just a blanket statement that is there needs to be some sort of energy exchange, whether it's financial or something else. Financial was the anchor point because ultimately that's where they're going to be generating their energy. So if it's down just linear. Down Financial Energy, that's my anchor.
Quan Gan: Okay. Well, then, you know, the natural Quan preference is to transform it out of the monetary exchange because it feels transactional. Although, if it gets us, you know, a better bottom line, I think that's certainly good. It's just, it's kind of delicate where I'm trying to figure out, like, who's actually on top here in terms of value, right? It's like, are we providing them more than, like, are they trying to get something from us or are we trying to get something from them? And who's trying to get more of it?
Steven Hanna: I'll argue it both ways. This way, I could be totally unbiased. Okay. The argument is I can turn 20 people into effective agents and playmakers to gather information, right? That's the pure value from this is if you're going to tell me that I've got 20 people ready to go, my eyebrow is raised, okay? Like, I am evidently interested in this because that is data and those are valuable. Fibble Data Points because the incentive is financially driven. So from that standpoint, hell yeah, I want 20 playmakers to act as like double agents for ZTAG basically and get all of this information on the schools for us. That's what it sounds like perfectly on paper. Realistically, we'll have one or two contacts who will actually be providing valuable feedback and everybody else will be operating as standard operating procedure with whatever program you're running. On the other side of that, it's a company that's reaching out because they see a niche and they've brought it to our attention. So we can reward that in some sort of way because that's basically like your security test is IT, right? Like somebody saying, hey, I found these holes in your website. I just want to let you know, like, I've got a team that could patch this. If you want to talk, we could talk. If not, whatever. I think it's... It's the same analogous sector in a different circle.
Quan Gan: Yeah.
Steven Hanna: I always am going to approach it from the point of if we're going to hold the value of edutainment, because that's really what this is. It's really leaning into entertainment, like it's 70-30. I would need to be highly considerate of the financial incentive that they have, because I know they're making money on their programs, their CBOs, have contracts. You have to have X amount, right? So it's not like you're gaining any more money or less money by knowing how to do this. So it's not like they're leveraging anything. It's just leveraging a niche. So there's no more money to be made as far as... there's money and make buy and I can perceive. It's just a hard, it's hard for me to justify training 20 people who don't have a system, who are going to need access to a system, and then like, how do we facilitate that? Like, they're just going to go to a school and be like, we're using your system for training.
Quan Gan: Well, okay. So that's a good next step. So I kind of want to like play test these out. So we could provide training, but you could tell them you need a system. So how are you going to get the system? So can you get us connected with the school, and then we can do the training with you? Or like, ultimately, they do need to have in hands with a system, right? Whether they, you know, they paid for it or not is irrelevant. So I think that's the next step. It's like, how do they get a system? And if they could easily partner with some local one, I think then we could provide that for them.
Steven Hanna: Or just buy one. Yeah, just buy one system for your 20 staff. Have it cycle through. I mean, it's pretty – you're buying gym equipment anyway. You're buying other things.
Quan Gan: So do you think it's – I'm trying to see if the value here, if they would lean one way or the other. Like, you could buy a system, so it's a 9K purchase. Or if you have a good enough relationship with one of the schools, well, then get them set up as a playmaker, and then you could do the training. You could just audit in while we train them.
Steven Hanna: Give me, like, 10 seconds of processing thing. Tin, where's the location of this?
Quan Gan: Stanislaus, right? That's up north.
Steven Hanna: That is way up north.
Tin DG: Yes. That is northern than Shasta.
Quan Gan: is – no, no, it's not. Hold on.
Steven Hanna: Stanislaus? Oh, wait. Is that the in-between area?
Quan Gan: Where is Stanislaus County?
Steven Hanna: Okay, Stockton, Modesto.
Quan Gan: Yeah. Yeah, that's actually, like, basically exactly where TSP is.
Steven Hanna: But at this point, I would really want to know, like, these systems. Who are they? Right? If they're saying, like, oh, there's so many schools. What are so many? Like, what are the... So many could be, like, two, right? They've seen it twice.
Quan Gan: Can we exchange and, like, leverage that if they know these schools and they want free training, then give us the list of schools and let us hold them accountable? Like, after you did this, did you actually go and run it with these schools?
Steven Hanna: Okay, we could. If I were going to go that route and I were going to basically turn them into information feedback providers, I would have them sign a contract for... The training of some way, shape, or form where they have to produce it or they have to buy a system like access to a system or purchasing a system is the only way to receive training.
Quan Gan: That's logical.
Steven Hanna: Yeah. Right. And if a school is willing to provide you access and training or access to the unit, then I would be happy to do a Zoom call with you. Or, you know, even if it's maybe in the future, this is something that is worth exploring and in-person for 20 of these people and just bringing a system with us and saying, this is it. You guys see it. You guys see how it works. Go to your schools. You want one? Buy one.
Quan Gan: Yeah. OK. I think that's a good policy we should have a draft for. And then so then, Tin, you can reach out to them and just say, do you have access to a system? If not, you can buy one to get the training because, well, actually preload it with a system. Everything in hand is required for training. I mean, that's obvious, right? Because you can't get trained virtually without the system. So I think that's the prerequisite. And if you can load that and say the next step, well, how do you get your system? You can A, purchase it from us, and training is always included with the purchase, or connect us with the local school that you have in mind and make sure they're partnered. And then we'll train them, and you basically become a sidecar to get trained on with them.
Tin DG: First, we will get this information to them. If they have the system, if they don't have, they need to purchase for us. So do I need to include in the email the purchasing amount already, or just asking them first?
Steven Hanna: I'm writing something up for you right now, Tim, and then I will pathway this with you for the future. But I just needed to know, I just needed to know what our general... Ready for you, Tin, and we can just quickly go over this together where it's just, know, thank you for reaching out with interest. We currently offer two ways to receive system training by our PlayMaker Training Network. One, have access to a system by a school or other program, or two, purchase a ZOOS unit. Does that seem fair?
Quan Gan: Yes, but I think preloaded with a physical system is required for training. Because I think if you front load that expectation, then we're setting the expectation that you can't be trained without a system. So how- physical ZTAG system is required for training, and there are currently two ways to receive training. Yeah.
Steven Hanna: Yeah, okay, got it.
Quan Gan: Are we good?
Steven Hanna: Yep, just one. Wanted to make sure that we were okay on that. then, Tin, I'm going to get this in the chat for you right now. And depending on their response, we will take it from there.
Quan Gan: Okay. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, guys. Take care. Have a good day.