now a discussion on who neck technologies are affecting art, journalism and race relations. this is an hour and 15 minutes. >> good afternoon. i am sarah rich. i'm a writer and digital media consultant currently the editor of smithsonian magazine's column and i have a new book out in six months on the rich road to agriculture in american cities. i have been coming to aspen ideas festival for six years and i represent a publication called well changing where is a managing editor. is a small outlets focused on solutions to some of the most pressing problems of the next entry project attended a roundtable session on the future of media and the inclusion of the session was clearly eight -- industry there is a palpable sense that the center need thing was no great threat to the giant

publisher so bloggers were -- terrell made and i suspect few people run facebook. things have changed. this year walter isaacson spoke about digital media and is up in remarks and we have been given hashtag for the life tweeting panel. every person from roundtable has developed a robust digital strategy for their brand. if you're listening to the leaders on that roundtable six years ago you might not have seen pitchers give up the impending disruption but there were emerging leaders in that crowd that year that could've told you not only that massive change was going to calm but that it was our day already happening just outside the digital field of the industry powerhouses. you have calm to hear the best ideas of the moment that the session is going to be a little bit different. today we are going to start with the best ideas of next year or the year after that. the four people you are here from today are already

established leaders in their field. they're also the carriers of the future. they have the vision and understanding required to actively -- in the coming years and we trust you'll agree that these are the kinds of people you want in that role. we are excited to present you with the frontlines of change. >> i am alexis madrigal senior editor at "the atlantic." this session as in keeping with the idea that is going to be different it's going to be logistically different as well. we have four speakers and we will introduce them in just a second. two of them are speaking solo and their sandwiching people who will do a little too wet. these are going to be fall on presentations as opposed to sort of the more panel discussions that you have seen and they are going to try and really bring you something a fully packaged idea. why we chose these four people aside from --

you know in technologies which is what i mostly write about we talked about the adoption curve and we talked about as a new technology comes to the market like some small percentage of people adopted cell phones or the iphone after came out or computers in the 1980s. but the truth is that lots of different cultural ideas and new practices also have really similar a adoption curves. and so the people that you are looking at here are cultural early adopters. in their chosen fields they are at the forefront of practice and are really trying to bring you new ideas before they hit the mainstream. does anyone here know who the artist -- is? [laughter] for people who don't know i want to let you know you all know his work. he is the sculptor of mount rushmore and adam lerner might be the world's foremost expert on mount rushmore. he has his ph.d. from hopkins

and american monuments. from there he entered the museum world and the contemporary muse -- museum in baltimore and at the denver art museum. after that he wanted to strike out on his own and so he decided to found an art space in a suburban shopping mall outside of denver shopping complex. is called the laboratory of art in ideas and he quickly established himself as one of the most innovative and creative people in the art world and so when the museum of contemporary arts in denver at the mca came looking for someone to run their building they found him. there is also -- and inspiration for this session because that denver and ca, he does a program called -- where he pairs unlike speaker so i gave a talk about compressed air and my counterpart gave a talk about art history and alchemy and you

defined unexpected connections between these. amanda mitchell, we appropriately met when her project beat our longshot magazine for an innovation of journalism award. she has been at the absolute edge of additional media and politics since things really exist it. do you remain the heart -- [inaudible] that was amanda. [laughter] she moved to "huffington post" when she had a groundbreaking project off the bus and now has ended up most curiously after a time back in the newspaper the guardian, the u.k. guardian running many of their social media things. i just want you to believe me when i tell you she is one of

the sharpest minds in digital media in one of the most articulate advocates for how social media can be just or then marketing. she will be presenting with matt thompson who is sitting to her right and he is the digital media inventor constantly on the edge of what our new realities or scientific changes are in its kind of hard to tell because he is so far beyond what most people are thinking. he runs digital things that mpr and he is another advocate for digital journalism and all its forms if there are any budding journalists. he is going to entice you to go out and run on code is simply -- quickly as possible. we couldn't have two better people to talk about the future of media and political media. last but obviously not least gustavo arellano sitting right there. i actually met gestapo in the best possible way because my dad

was his biggest fan. when he was writing the mexican column for "oc weekly" hysterically funny and informed by gustavo latin american studies from ucla my dad never taught me much about mexican culture just outsource that whole project. [laughter] i met him five years ago when his first book came owhic which is ask a mexican and in the five year since he has been skyrocketing forward. he has two other books, one of personal history of orange county and his most recent book which is called "taco usa" and it uses mexican food to probe the borders and boundaries between american and mexican culture and he is also the editor of "oc weekly" in southern california. >> just a final comment, we are going to be tweeting these talks using the hashtag aspen futures. and in general just as alexis

already mentioned we really want to encourage everybody to draw connections. ese presentations have some boundaries between them but ideally we are breaking down the boundaries and finding the commonalities in the interdisciplinary date between them and that makes interesting things happen. without further ado our first speaker is adam lerner. [applause] >> i love it when people talk about my work as a graduate student, at least until i pay off my student loans. i like to make sure that it gets some airplay. actually, i was a graduate student for a very long time, about 12 years, and sometimes i felt embarrassed to admit to my peers that i was writing my dissertation on the sculptor of mount rushmore because of its lowbrow associations. but now what amazes me is something very different.

what amazes me is that i actually fail to learn what is probably the one single great lesson of studying an artist, especially an artist like him so in the six years of research and writing about this artist, who found his voice by attempting to do something that nobody else had done before, it never occurred to me that there is a lesson in that. there is a lesson in that actually might apply to me, that i might actually think about doing something that no one else had done before. and it's actually the nature of academic pursuits to remain an observer of other people who break the rules. now, as the director of our museum of contemporary arts actually i realize it's actually the nature of all cultural institutions to remain detached as an observer of those people

who break the rules. that actually it is the nature of our cultural decisions to cultivate a sense of maybe appreciative or respectful detachment from the risktakers. it is the nature of art as we have inherited to actually be about breaking rules and going against conventions. there is something about the formal presentation of museums that actually is very similar to an academic thesis and their own creative impulse. so the great implicit message of all of our cultural decisions is that the artist has made the

sacrifice so that you don't have to. and that is basically the christian model. which i think is something that i have sort of always as a museum or sort have tried to work against. so museums, and traditional cultural institutions, they point to the arts and they say isn't that an original voice, but the audience what they see is, they see the institution which has no original voice of its own generally. so it's like when you point in front of a dog, if you have dogs. what does it do? he sniffs your finger, right? the dog sees you, not what you're pointing at and the same thing as the audience for cultural institutions they tend to see you, the cultural

institution as the framer of all that creative energy that the artist has sort of mustard. which means that the institution has to be a sort of model. if they have to model themselves, how we can learn from these creative artists to express an original voice, to break out of existing conventions and so if you want to foster the idea of the artist sacrifice, the artist sacrifice should be an inspiration for us to take chances, for us to break the rules, for us to clear away those conventions and start to see the world afresh. we want to sort of foster that attitude, then we as an institution have to do that ourselves and that is actually what i'm going to talk to you about from here on, sort of how i have tried to serve as an institution to have an original, creative voice. it is the attempt to model what it is we learn from our.

i began in 2004 when a real real estate developer invited me as alexis mentioned, to create a cultural institution in the suburbs of denver where i was freed from any strictures of one cultural institution ought to be. and i began with a lecture program as mentioned. i called it the lab, the lab and it was a labrador retriever. i don't have a labrador retriever. at the docks and that it was sort of funny. i found it funny. maybe you don't come i don't know. we started with a lecture program and that lecture program we called unrelated topics and this was sandy -- andy warhol and artificial lighting.

one speaker spoke on one subject for half an hour and then an unrelated subjects for half an hour and then both of at the same time. now, there we have it. we are in an unleased storefront space in the shopping district and there are 20 people in the audience and that is about two weeks into it. there a few weeks later we have maybe 75 people now showing up. on the left a of professor at the university of colorado talking about ts elliott and then you have a grocer talking about fresh meat sausage. [laughter] this is a sample season for you. carnivorous plants and colorful painting. earth art and cheese. l. and -- chinese opera and alfred hitchcock, walt whitman and whole hog cooking. what we do is sleep here things according to how they sound good

next to each other and that sounded great. tequila and dark energy in the universe. [laughter] so you start to get what happens, your mind immediately makes the connection doesn't it? soul food and existentialism. prairie dogs and gertrude stein. and then the one which of course is obvious, marxism and kittens, kittens, kittens. now the point of all of this is that the mind naturally follows existing patterns when thinking about any subject. think about where you want to go to dinner on an average day and your mind will always go to the same places that it always goes to. you have got to check the mind to get to something new. by forcing the mind to make a connection with indifferent rounds it fosters new patterns of ranking bringing us out of the old patterns. which is why salman rushdie says a bit of this and a bit of that is how the newness enters the

world. so we start to get the developers to build a separate building for us where we did have these programs as well as contemporary artists position. our motto was because culture is big, like canada. we also thought that was funny. obviously a very different sense of humor here. [laughter] so we did exhibitions on international art that there is a sense of play in everything we did. we were across this place from this -- across the street from this place called sporting goods. welcome to the lab, we are not. [laughter] and then we had to actually apologize for that. we had to publish something, apologize to our neighbors saying we are not. apparently we are. [laughter]

so what happens is through play we not only deflated for tensions that are normally associated with high art of the created a sense of the unexpected so we are not sort of saying that this is our budgets a playful spirit of art so joke making for us became a model for creativity for breaking out of what you usually expect from any kind of art institution. then in 2009 with the popularity of the labs programming's as alexis mentioned i was offered the position of the director of the museum. now the class clown becomes the class president. at mca denver we are a contemporary art museum but we added the dog to our logo because we believe we both are a museum preserving the tradition of art but also we are a lab, laboratory for experiments and with the future of art is and what the future of the museum might be. and in that we try to develop a

new language for contemporary art that would be outside of a traditional museums tend to do. this is our program, art fitness training. waiver program feminism and company were for example this is let by julian silverman and hear a sample program would be were repaired a woman who is the leading salesperson of toys at passion parties and paired her with a leading tupperware sales person and followed by a sociologist who studies women's -- and there was a kind of ringing together of the cultural right -- richness and understanding the various ways. there is a kind of understanding of our culture that is very fabric, the very fabric of our lives and that is both commercial culture and not really looked out on a normal basis. we did a program called art

meets these were we had an artisan butcher who fabricated a carcass in front of an audience. meanwhile we had a guy named roger green playing guitar who is a vegetarian so we called the vegetarian option. and we had sarah rich and nicola doing talks going everywhere from the animal itself all the way to the restaurant in the city. the point is to connect art to those creative forces that actually make up our civilization. through these live programs life programs we become as an institution, coproducers with these other creative people out there who produces with the artist as well so his co-authors in a sense we developed our own unique voice as an institution. but i think more than anything else though we had to relying upon the creativity of our staff, the people who want to work at an art museum or people who are attracted to creative

endeavors. these are incredibly creative people and we have a young generation of folks who work there, who you have to actually work to keep down their creative spirits, which actually most cultural institutions do. we tried to do the opposite. here is sarah and brett. but, so for example we did an exhibition called energy effects, which feature your thermonuclear weapons paired alongside a video work by gonzalez and when our exhibition manager went to return those weapons to the air and museum he decided he would wear a bunny suit. there you see him with his assistant, and he drove around in a flatbed truck wearing a bunny suit and the rest of the staff wanted to play a prank on him and wanted to have him arrested and called the cops on

him which was funny. nothing happened. he is an artist, but this is something, this is kind of like the creative spirit that takes place within the organization that i think is not about our. it's about energy. energy has this natural gravitational pull to it. it's not even something that is marketed. is something that becomes an attractive force. there you have my assistant at the time aaron, who for our event dressed as a taco and played the trumpet and the donkey is also carrying a tropics during the fund-raiser. we have our graphic designer alec stevens who cannot do anything without being fabulous. this is our visitor services director who organizes -- andy lyons who organizes a friday night event called black sheep friday and one night he organized an event for example called museum professional wrestling where he invited museum professionals to engage

in thumb wrestling competitions. and we still do mix to taste at the program, mixed taste. sarah and by the way these crowds now are like 300 plus people at these events. we have to use in industrial space across the street becerra who produces these programs, she likes to -- so we giveaway a raffle and in this case what we did once, we gave away free tickets to the king tut exhibition at the denver art museum and the winner had to redeem these two used tires at the art museum to collect their winning tickets but we didn't tell the art museum that. [laughter] so we never did that again. so anyway the point of all of this is that why do we have art? why do we have art if we cannot ourselves learn from the artists

who break the rules? to find new patterns of thinking and doing things through play, and to connect to each other as human beings through laughter, through sort of somehow shaking things up and sort of not being as professionals to each other as an institution to a visitor but actually as being human to each other. we do exhibitions of art, but as a museum will do, but the important thing is by modeling creativity for our visitors we hope that they will be able to see our exhibitions in a different light. we want them to be actually inspired by our artist so themselves be creative. we wanted them to believe that they too can re-create the world so we believe in masterworks. this is not to say oh yeah to wear a bunny suit is the same as

to make a masterwork of our. the core of every art is the authentic creative act which is common to everyone and to do that you need to do it yourself. you can't just say it. you need to do it as an institution. that is what inspires other people to do a too. then there are a couple of institutions i will end with which are crucial to our attitude about art and culture. one is an exhibition that i co-authored focused on the american counterculture of the 1960's and seventies. this is a crucial one called west of center and it's a large-scale exhibition. what it does is it looks at certain creative individuals in the 60's and seventies and why it is interesting is these people i believe have to find an alternative legacy for a culture that actually continues to exist today. these are people and here's a picture of trinidad colorado a

geo-descent commune and these are people who didn't necessarily define themselves as artists but set out to live artistically and do so in sort of set out to make the world that they wanted to live in and so they inspired other people to do the same. and that was an attitude you also found in the punk era which followed and this was an exit vision we did centered around the work of bruce conner who you see here where we explored in this exhibition this idea which is again the opposite of what is that the mainstream of cultural institutions today. the attitude is when i see somebody on stage doing something creative and expressive, the feeling that is cultivated in punk rock is i can do that too and those early days formed bands themselves. bad along with the counterculture is the origins effectively the origins of the

diy culture that is everywhere today, especially amongst youth culture. that is the origins of the spirit you see amongst my staff, the people who sort of belief that they are not trying necessarily to find what they're doing as art but to do things more interestingly in the world. they try to live in the world that they feel is more interesting place to live in. and the question is to let that happen so the diy attitude i believe now dominates youth culture. more partly i think it's everywhere and our culture and society and those people who are the leaders of i think actually the future of our culture and society are those people who actually are identifying those creative forces within themselves in any field, in any profession. and at some level what they are doing is modeling themselves after artists and using art as the archetype for innovation, for risk-taking, for creative thinking so it's up to the cultural institutions now to

begin to understand that too. thanks. [applause] >> i have to wear the rare opportunity of getting to query a man do about her insights in the future and we are going to interview each other little bit. before we start talking about the future, think we want to put it into context a little bit. in 2008, you were at "the huffington post." you are now at the guardian and in between you are at the public eye, three very different places. when you think about what the campaign environment was like in 2008 what has changed since? >> there has been a radical shift. it largely is because more of us have our lives on line.

i was hired to by "the huffington post." it's kind of like calling hardball show, not softball but the basic premise was to get her readers engaged in a campaign coverage and as much as possible to make sure that the campaign coverage wasn't so focused on the actual race, so the barbs that were tossed back and forth to train the candidates and to really try and understand what was happening on the ground in communities around the country. now what was so interesting to me, what is very interesting to me looking back is how formalized. we recruited people at "the huffington post" to be what they called citizen journalist. it's a very professional in his effort. the idea was to sign up you have your full-time job. you you are in some ways to embody the life of a journalist. now it turns out we had a project that went on for a year and a half and they wrote some very big stories. we piloted lots of different features on the site that we

found out something most people and maybe recognize today and at the 20,000 people or participate are participate in the part checked i know 14% were interested in writing full-length pieces and doing reporting on their own but for many of the people they wanted to dip in and out of the process. now when you look on line or you look at different news sites, i'm sure you have had this experience, most all of them are asking readers, take a look at this, what do you see? here is how to contribute your photos and a formalized approach we took in 2000 is largely been accepted as sort of an everyday practice for most media institution so at the time i think we were very romantic about the approach and now it it is very commonplace. the big shift in campaign coverage that we are experiencing now and it is really a big challenge for reporters, is, to the campaigns now rely on data to do the campaigning. i am going to tell you a little sort of story. earlier this year a lot of

reporters and political analysts were pointing their fingers at that romney and how is he really going to -- if he has these few offices people can walk into? what a lot of us hadn't buzz hadn't realized was several years before the people who worked with romney had helped identified using data and using records that his campaign had, a small percentage of people who are die-hard romney supporters and they asked him to call it of the supporters who then i.d. that there potentially die-hard romney supporters to then call others and affect a lot of their campaign work in iowa was done largely through the internet, through on line call centers. if you flash back to 2000 think about the millions of people on line who were making t-shirts, putting up their own posters and making media constantly now in effect what you have especially in the campaign in which frankly can say there is there's a bit of lackluster interest on both

sides, a lot of the activity the engine driving the campaigns is largely and of the. if your reporter and you're trying to make sense of this you don't actually have the benefit that you had in 2008, which is the sort of outpouring of local support on line. you are really trying to find out the imaginations of campaigns by watching to see for example what e-mails they may send where and what subject lines because you are using that kind of information to understand their strategy. as a profound difference and a profound challenge. >> i think when i look at user behavior and i look at how the folks that we are reporting for and telling stories to, how they have changed their behavior has changed, the thing that sticks out to me is the new ubiquity of media. but i mean we have had cell phones, mobile phones and mobile devices for a long time now, the better part of the last decade.

the iphone was introduced in 2007. in the time since, in those five years, smartphones, 50% of the u.s. population has a smartphone. it's insane how much people have now worked the media into the fabric of everyday life. caeser did a study called generation it m2 just last year in which they went out to 18-year-olds and surveyed how much time they were spending with the media on a given day and their dramatic uptick. it actually doubled if you go back to 2004. it's about 350 minutes a day. now it is approaching 700 minutes a day that folks are spending with media. that is not they are just watching tv for 700 minutes in a day. it is now the media is a layer on top of everyone's daily experience. so, i have a good friend that i

believe alexis had mentioned named robin sloan. he is a media inventor and writer. a few years ago we created a video looking out at the future of the media and what will happen over the next 10 years back in 2004. we reconvened last year for the society for news design to take a whack at this question of okay in the years since what has changed and what is changing? the way we chose to tackle that question was we wanted to take a common story that would be told across the media, across as long as humankind has been telling itself stories so we told the story of the storm which is a new story of a storm destroying a town or severely damaging a town which is a news story not only which has been told since time eternal since the flood of course that is one that we tell with increasing frequency today. and so, when you look at that, as many examples as we can find from across time going back to

ancient greek emperor that depicted this tale of a storm, a giant storm wiping away of town and we fast-forwarded through town through telegraphs in newspapers and ultimately today to social media and then beyond. and this week, when you collect all of that, all of those forms of telling the story altogether the single thing that stood out was, we have gone from having media, these appointment moments, media as something you go to at 6:30 after you are finished with your work day and watching the evening news with your family around the television to media as this texture, this thing that you are constantly both suckered by and also buffeted by a near daily life. that ubiquity i think is one of the biggest changes, and we still are struggling i think to

grapple with how that changes what we should be saying and how we should be telling stories. >> completely and i think that is fined 2000 we were using these formalized approach is asking people to sign up and giving writers assignments and now i think a lot of people know if they go to a campaign event they expect themselves to take pitchers or to post something on facebook. before we will asking people to to do that in a much more sort of formal approach. but i think you know the last few years we have also seen other big shifts. we have seen i think in many instances grassroots communities organizing themselves for the purposes of clinical power. you can look at sopa and you can look at pipa and i'm really curious to hear from you and your vantage point at national public media how is the dynamic between media and citizens changed, in what ways? >> i think that one of the fundamental shifts has been we used to be a broadcasting organization. we used to send out messages to

people and this is no longer a relation that we sit alongside people talking to one another. what they use these mobile devices to do is not actually to listen to us but to talk with each other and now we sit in that space. we are there right alongside them as they are on twitter, talking with their friends about what they are going to do tonight. then there is the morning edition sending out a tweet about what is happening in serious. that space and that juxtaposition is actually for us i think at npr quite sweet. we consider ourselves to have this uniquely intimate medium of the radio. we are whispering in your ear and now coupled with that notion of ubiquity before the fact that an increasing part of our audience or listenership for npr has been growing over the past several years in contrast to what's happening with a lot of the media and part of that is

because people can now carry us with them places. they can carry us with them on their run or at the gym. while they are cooking in a way that was more difficult to do before. so that intimacy of being in a communication medium and the slippages between people talking to one another and people being spoken to by the media has a thing created a drastically new dynamic for us. i am curious -- do you have done a lot of efforts working with citizens in all contexts of producing journalism. how has that changed for you? >> so when i was at propublica we spent the year focusing on what we called explainers and the idea was you know we can cover the story. we can take up the details and do a six-month, 12 month monthlong investigation but sometimes people have questions that are pressing, much like the questions, we know that because we asked them of ourselves in at some of our friends. what does this really mean?

what is the significance of this bill? we found actually working on very simple pieces that we are aiming to answer the questions we might see people asking asking in their facebook feed, asking on twitter, were actually the kind supposed to get a tremendous resonance among people in the feedback we got from our readers is that they were tremendously useful. for myself i'm particularly interested in ways in which readers and which citizens can help frankly hold those empowered accountable. i spend my time thinking about where are their collective action problems that exist out there in the world? in a project that i did at propublica which we called the stimulus check, shortly after the recovery act had come through. there were lots of big promises about what sort of jobs we could expect and what sort of transformation we would see economically in our communities. the question that we pose to our readers was, well can we really tell what's going on?

one of the leading indicators that biden pointed everyone to work construction site they were going to be hiring people to work on sites around the country and that is one of the ways in which we can sort of get back on our feet. less actually find out if that is happening so i put up a post on propublica thing we can either wait for the administration to release figures -- this was in the early summer, and early fall and trust they got the measurements right or we can take matters in our own hands. i asked readers to help us identify the progress that was made and about 550 sites around the country which propublica's statistician told me was 4.5% of the construction sites around the country which gave us the statistical soundness that we would need. and what did people do? they called their local d.o.t. offices, department of transportation offices and they would stop at different sites. what we found actually that gusher of work was further down the pipeline than we expected. for me though what was most

valuable about this were the kinds of conversations i had with my readers like oh, it was actually you know sometimes a hassle to get this information. i made five, six, seven phonecalls but i got the information that i wanted. two, people would actually say oh, journalism is hard and annoying. and i think especially in these days a lot of times we are trying to make the case for the work that we do. a lot of the cost of journalism and especially the place like propublica in which reporters, they go down the rabbit hole but that is after they have found the rabbit hole. if you're an investigative reporter you have to find that story and can it can take you months. ringing read -- readers into the process was one of the transformative ways of making the case for journalism. how artists who actually make sense of what is happening out there in the world. now the real challenge in doing these sorts of projects is you need certain kinds of skills like you have to know how to organize information in people

and i think actually some of the more dramatic instances we have seen in which people have held power and count whether it's for journalistic purposes or not have actually been largely spontaneous. there is a fantastic example actually in germany in which a major politician was found to have plagiarized a lot in his thesis and people discovered this because someone put up a wiki and essentially active researchers and academics began copying and pasting part of his thesis on line and finding out where he had pulled the copy from. so, i think the big challenge for media institutions frankly is to really keep their eye on the ball because like you are saying matt the ubiquity of media because sometimes you have the false impression that you know what's happening in the world because it's very easy to point to a tweet here and they treat there and pull up facebook post, what is coming up that i can easily see i have an answer but the truth is a lot of stories of our much more

difficult to find and there are plenty of people too who don't have a voice. so, i think the futurist -- >> i reject to that title. >> in your position at npr in which you are working side-by-side with reporters and editors and largely helping people see the skills that they need to learn and the ways in which they need to look at things differently, what do you see coming down the pipeline? >> when we think about storytelling particularly and when i'm working with the reporters that i work with, one of the essential and central concepts that i have tried to wrap my head around and that i try to work through with the journalist that i collaborate with is this notion that we are moving from stories towards streams, that this notion, we will always -- we have told each other stories as humans.

we have told each other stories forever and we will tell each other stories forever. stories are powerful concepts but this notion of the classic story, the big inning, the middle, the end with a little spike of catharsis before you reach that finish, that is being augmented by this constant stream, this flow of information. we have a reporter, our senior editor for social media, andy carvin, who is tracking constantly the events that are happening right now in the middle east over twitter and he has created quite a profile and quite a crowd for himself, people who follow this constant stream, this flow of tweets from all over the middle east from libya, tunisia and syria and egypt. is a very different experience, experiencing a story in that fashion that is not really with

a beginning point or an ending point. clive thompson who is a technology writer who i really like once likened this dreamlike experience to proprioception come this ambient awareness, the fact that proprioception that we know where our arms are and our limbs and appendages are in space at any given time, that notion that something like twitter gives you the sense of the texture of the lives of the people that you follow and another different way than ever before that you actually kind of to dip into these lives over 24 hours. that idea of how we tell stories or the question of how we tell stories gwen as the writer paul ford put it, we are encountering and in two innings, the epiphany that we seek in every media story that we come across. it says this is what this is about. we no longer have that moring. how we tell stories in that age,

in my universe part of what we are doing is trying -- trying to pull back the lens a little bit and zoom out and actually tell a larger story over time, to hook people into an ongoing narrative, to if you will, ring them along with us on a quest. a lot of the reporters i work with one of the things that has long been true of good journalism is great journalism often does not start with an answer. it starts with a great question. it's something that you don't know, that process of discovery, that quest of trying to figure something out is a key part of doing fantastic journalism and i encourage our journalist to share that question, to start and hook their audience into that overarching question of for example how will the pacific northwest meet the renewable energy targets by 2020? it's a question we don't know the answer to. it has a lot of complex parts but every day over the course of

a year, we can start attacking different parts of that question, which produces great stories that are part of this unending stream, this flow that i think actually can make people both more engaged in these types of questions and more informed. how do you approach this question of how storytelling will change? >> i think what we pointed to is there is this real need to as you put it, to get context because we all see the sort of abbreviated lips and bytes that are just sort of running by my question is how do we really make sense of something that is greater? i think some of the other trends we have talked about are things like the visual, that more and more we are going to be making sense of the world through video and images and they think you can look at a place like facebook and no it's a massive photo album but far more often telling stories by taking pictures. a photo has a masterful way of setting a scene as a short video

clip. a lot of people talk about whether or not we have actually been come existing in a time which morality, the written word is that we are going to move much -- much more towards the spoken word but also this image. i think, certainly for the journalists that the guardian one of the real challenges in one of the thing we focused on the lot is frankly not saying how to actually bring people along an ongoing story because some of them make a lot of sense like the article. every texan over production process in which we sat down, had your morning paper and then moved on but the question is how to tether things together. if you are dipping in -- in a old way. i see alexis flashing at us so i we have to. >> show we go to q&a?

thank you. [applause] >> be will start to q&a after -- [inaudible] >> awesome. since i am the chief tequila to all this fine morning i'm going to be short, sweet into the point but no lime wedge, sorry. my name is gustavo arellano nine the editor of the "oc weekly." in alternative newspaper, the sister paper of the village voice, seattle weekly and we specialize in yellow journalism. we specialize in inconvenient truth. we get politicians in jail and get innocent people out of jail. we have an obsession with neo-nazis and genocide deniers and all these horrible people and do my job specific he i tell the inconvenient truth of perhaps the most vexing problems, the most vexing

suppose of problem affecting the united states today. what are we going to do with all these dam mexicans? there are so many mexicans here. that is all we care about in the media. so far this year would have we had? we have one story that minority births, minority births are now the majority. in other words wide earth are you climbing while minority births of going off of course because of that latin for blood and enough fecundity that never stops. we also have, what was that other big thing? the 2012 election, oh the latino vote, the swing state barack obama needs to appeal to them. is made romney going to get marco rubio to get that swing vote because it's all about the latino. recently at the supreme court decision talking about arizona s.b. 70 surprising a lot of people really come a knocking down three of the four things that s.b. 1070 proposed and all along though you have this, this is something i've been dealing

with my entire life not just as a child of nixon immigrants when he came to this country in the trunk of a chevy in 1968 but also as a reporter again and again what are latinos and when we are talking about latinos than one worries about puerto ricans anymore or cubans or dominicans. we are wearing about mexicans. what on earth are mexicans going to do to this country? in a way i speak to you from the present that in a way speak to you from the future because with the birthrates, with demographic changes on in the future and i'm speaking from the future to the present. multilingual, multicultural, mexican. and so i am one one of those invading hoards. i'm here to tell you everything is going to be okay. [laughter] now, thank you. alright. [applause] everything is going to be alright and i have proof. tacos. you know when i was talking to alexis what am i going to talk about, i gave him some titles

and one of them i said, should i talk about the taco as oracle so he insisted i do that so i'm going to talk about tacos but before talk about above me talk about what gets me the most notoriety given back to the inconvenient truth. i write a column called asking mexican. people asking questions about mexicans and i answer them and does not matter what the questions may be. i have answer questions on everything from why do mexicans have so many babies to what part of illegal don't we understand, to why don't mexicans pay any taxes and we do actually ended and in fact some studies show we are supporting social security as we know it because of all the undocumented folks paying into the social security system with fake social security numbers that they they're never going to get back to why are mexicans always so dam happy? i have answered all of that and more so. the column is now around 39 newspapers across the country

and a best-selling book in 2007. you could find it on line ask a mexican.net. the reason i do the column is to debunk and deconstruct and destroy stereotypes and misconceptions that people have about mexicans. using the prism of satire but really using the effects. my background as i said earlier is an investigative reporters when people ask me question for instance my favorite question anybody asks me, somebody asked me why don't you mexicans ever learn to speak english? are you too stupid, you cannot learn two or three words a day? what is going on with you guys? it was a nice question. all it had to do to answer that question with the facts. i went to them and i said the american government shares your concerns. they shoot a study saying that this new wave of immigrants are idiots. they are not like the previous wave of immigrants who came to this country to learn and become americans, you know that rhetoric you hear so much including from the right but also from the left sometimes and that we should have the policy

of stopping immigration deporting those immigrants because all they want to do is take our money, take our jobs and send them back. that report wasn't for in the modern day. it was in 1911 dillingham. at the time they were some of your ancestors in this room. italians, greeks, polls, not spaniards to a lesser extent, bulgarians etc. and immigrants we lionized in the past you are the swedes, the french and english. all i had to do is insert the fact and of course at the end i put a whole bunch of -- and that is your answer. the column of course is not without its critics. may be at another time i can tell you about how my column got a man suspended from work for five days for reading it at work. you can find it on line. in my job is trying to let people know it's okay, mexicans are perfectly fine in this country is going to be as great

as it has been with us being the majority in some places, i decided to go with my most recent book on something that everyone could understand, mexican food. my new book, "taco usa" how mexican food conquered america, i love titles. i tell you everything you need to know from the subtitle and that is exactly what it is. how mexican food conquered america. of course the relationship between the united states in mexico as we all know, it's like the ultimate bad romance really. you know we share a border yet we have got into three official wars, god knows how many on facial wars. america is dependent on mexican cheap labor. mexico is dependent upon all those remittances going back into mexico. we have the drug war and we have all sorts of nasty battles that we always fight that we have made our peace on one thing and that is food. in fact more than made our peace. i would argue we are showing you

the future. mexicans will be on top because we have already conquered your stomach's. [laughter] so the book really briefly i will talk about the book and that i'm going to talk specifically about tacos. it goes to the 125 year history of mexican food in this country. there's a misconception that mexican food really didn't become popular until the 1950's in the 1960's with the spread of fast food mexican joints like taco bell, taco john's around these areas and other taco empires going up on the east coast but from the moment americans have even heard about mexican food, we have been obsessed. so what has happened ever since the 1880s there has been the cycle that continues to repeat itself every single decade. and americans hear about mexican food, whether reading it, rather hearing about it from people that tried it. they seek it when they are going on vacation, cooking it from cookbooks, waiting for someone

to make it in front of them at a restaurant or at home. they be it, they assimilated and then they say what's next? give us the next great dish so from the 1880s and 1890s the two great mexican foods america fell in love with were not tacos, but what it used to be called chile con carne which we now know as chile. and tamales. tamales, the great nexus point was the 1893 chicago world's fair for you had tamales and from san francisco go to the chicago world fair and selling their tamales from the steam buckets. yet the texas delegation to the chicago world's fair go and start selling their chile con carnet. of course at the time chicago was the centerpoint of the book, the canning industry and the meatpacking industry and they decided to put this mexican food in a can. they saw it as being from a can,

cheap with a long shelf life. after that you had chile. tamales you can still find them but at this point in time i would not be tamales in a can. from their on, mexican food has conquered the united states again and again. the 1900 cc this bread of chile powder right outside of san antonio. in the 1920 cc gebhardt's printing of a quarter million cookbooks a year going across the united states and teaching people how to make mexican food. the 1930s to start seeing the spread of talk is the 1940s and fifties for furthermore the actual mexican restaurants. the 60's and 70's you start seeing the spread of what is known as sitdown mexican restaurants and some of you may remember a restaurant chain called chi-chi's, which would never work in southern california because that is slang for female.

and onward and onward we see the spread or the creation of a multibillion-dollar mexican food industry. not just in its totality but individual segments. alcohol, hot sauce. may be of her the fact, i think it's this year the 20th anniversary of salsa outselling ketchup, which is true. taco bell, multibillion-dollar empire, mexican candy and so on and so forth. with the shows to me and it's been a americans by the way. it's been americans who have been pushing and making all these foods popular. mexicans have always been being them of course but if it wasn't for the widescale embrace of americans of mexican food and that this would have happened. so for me that shows the future is bright. the future is positive because we all know especially when it comes to humanizing other cultures the first thing we demonize besides the way maybe that we look is there for. you still see some remnants of that when it comes to mexican

food. you might've heard's although that is the 1950's and i don't know why people still use that. in fact the first dispatches, the first writings of mexican food goes back to the 1830s and there were scouts for the american army going through texas and mexico to conquer the area for the united states and they were saying how all that mexican food was horrible. ..

to a yes or read because of the lag brad, all the crowds go into their fancy equipment. but the tortilla is special. in fact, by will at choosers appear in a tortilla. it happened in 1878. absolutely have been. so i see a positive future. what are things about mexican food? this goes into an argument. the great thing about mexican food is none of its authentic. d.c. mexicans who change over the ways because the best evolution you can see has been in that humble taco.

so tacos, they are they've migrated to the united states. it didn't come to the united states until around the mexican revolution. before that, mexican food in this country was chili con carne, chile being jealous, pinto beans and so forth. but the first mexican tacos were hard shell tacos. in other words come you might've heard somewhere along the lines that mexicans donate for a tacos. those are the first tacos that came into this country. the first to come in with something called tacky terrace. hopefully most of you have had this at this point in time. we'll tortilla aside with the beads inside. eventually, remember the migration to the united states outside the southwest after 265. even before then was demand for tacos. read the 1950s the gentleman from el paso is most famous for inventing tortilla is an icann,

which i want to taste because they are now extinct because no one should eat tortillas in a canned again. if you send me a little shall. you put these tortillas and aluminum shells and fry them and make tacos and became the multimillionaire added that. all the talk about fame riding the idea for his restaurant for his tacos of a small restaurant which of course he created a multibillion dollars empire. so you have a hard shell taco passed off for the longest time. but what happened of course if they started changing. in 1980s that is what is now saying as taco, corn tortilla with something inside. right now in southern california you see the spread of korea and tacos. turkey is a korean made. and i see better tacos from

mexico. basically a pita, which actually comes from lebanese. you are starting to see battleship tacos from the state of war to back out. you see also sorts of tacos. probably the most glorious creation, tater tot tacos. they appear in the upper midwest as a mexican cabinet from california at cub years ago, neediness mexican food in sandy's tater tot tacos, i just shook my head and sat by and earth are americans so afraid of us? they've tater tots and tacos now. thank you so much. [applause] >> so we obviously have runover. it's pouring rain.

if you want to stand where a strike for questioning. i know that we need to use a microphone. there is someone with a microphone. like we said, this is a q&a. so you can ask questions of anyone, multiple people. anyone out there? >> yeah, ratepayer. >> jacob gordon. this is farmout digests. but any of buddie of course can chime in. you talk about people becoming more participant journalists themselves and as you mentioned and tech knowledge is part of your background and passion as well click >> i think it's hard to be involved in digital journalism and not get a little bit into the code. i have only deployed my first

working with replication this year, but since i started in newspapers i've been making things with code and i think that's a pattern for a lot of digital journalists. >> i wonder, do you see that happening to people contributing content? in new york we have a group called hackers in both technologists and content creators. do you see the people who are empowering themselves also willing to hack and people hacking not necessarily because they're passionate about writing, reporting, creating video content but because they want to build applications and things to say twitter api and things like that? >> i told especially aspiring young journalists and college from increase in the news organization for folks who are making decisions that ultimately shape the stories that we tell are increasingly not editorial

folks, but code and technology of people who can understand the data possibilities in a particular story and can actually do things with the database. have a huge sway that we can tell what we develop. and you see the sort of confluence between technology and media, where what we thought of as companies are becoming media companies. we have the other day i was supposed to give a type with a fellow named mark waukee a fellow for the "washington post" that days before attack began as announced is going to work i twitter. we've journalists now working at google and facebook and all over the taxpayer. conversely we've got technologies. >> adam, do you see emerging artists codeine and working with hardware and things that are

really, really valuable within contemporary art? >> yes, of course. i think there a lot of artists who were with technology and coding. data visualization with art and data. it is funny because 10 years ago when i would give the example in the exact opposite of art, i would've said gather. it's not just data, it are. but what is amazing is how we understand data is actually a visual phenomenon. and yes, there's a lot of people with rates and artists who work in that area, based in l.a. on the subject. but i think what's really amazing to me as most academic environments are now people who sort of see almost their job as

hard as as chess like experimental, like working in the laboratory and away with data, with different technologies. they may never even think about the museum context, but will they resemble montrealer who created the interactive plan so you can touch the plan and electronically transmitting, those kinds of things are the experimentation. >> just to get a sense of numbers, the guardian office in new york has about 30 people and i think four or five of them are programmers through data visualization peirce is a very high percentage. compared to some other newsrooms is growing. i think there are for programmers on staff who are in

charge of finding ways to scrape data entered into the official forum for readers. >> hi, rebecca allen. this is to add him or anyone. so i started working as an artist of the digital technology in the 70s and it's amazing to me in the traditional art world that may be in the last two years is starting to be accepted. i've been shocked at the art world has been so basically afraid to embrace digital art or understand it or figure out how to critique it. you know, video seem to sneak into the art world. do you have any sense of why it's been so long in coming and the art world? >> i think you probably know the answer to that yourself, right? bucci suggested be the answer? >> i'm not sure.

>> it seems to me obviously would be related to the marketplace, that actually it is so hard to modify. >> you don't have the original necessarily the one precious object. >> that's what i think it is. >> still videos the same kind of situation that has been accepted way back in the 60s he then. >> but a lot of video artists have done is as much as possible to make better video art much like a painting as possible. make it rare, and make it in addition work. even the package around video art is beautiful, gemlike packages and getting an object. not just a video. but he actually think is truly because a lot of people looking at knowledge here on the

borderline. the data visualization and that amanda was talking about in the world of fine art is actually like that boundary. the art world, like some boundaries, but it doesn't like the boundary between what is ours and what is life in the world. that's actually pretty scary. >> said the artwork is kept itself fixed in the past, which is disappointing when you expect our two latest into the future. >> good question. one more question. >> mary houston speaking here. listening to all of you as entertainers in your fields and also very aware of the

interdisciplinary nature of your discipline, as someone having a 15-year-old son who is in the digital world, often times i worry not only for myself, there's a lot of noise. so as people we need to figure out what is the most important part to listen to. the streaming was talked about. changing kind of the venue of museums and making them participatory, unveiling the snobbery, making it a conversation in politics and journalism, talking, you seem to people, your listeners asked messengers really.

but how do you view the creation of classic journalism? i mean, what is going to live on in your lifetime? which pieces? >> the story. especially being part of the world we always focus on the story. it doesn't matter if you read a book or you ready to eat, if it is not something one way or another it's not going to stick around anywhere. i always tell my fighters that whatever you do, make sure you able to stand by it and say this is the best thing i was able to do in whatever form your eye. so going on twitter and facebook, i don't fire things off randomly. and make sure everything i do precisely. there's twitter where you have 140 characters or something

where you can make your own video or take a picture. as a reporter, you have to make sure. you have to trust in what you're going to do that is going to grab you. really you jump into -- you just jump into the abyss and hope for the past. >> i was going to invoke our mutual friend again who wrote this great post actually impart a response, where he sighed the master of media metaphors of our time in stock and vote, which he appropriated from economics. in a new media environment we find ourselves constantly and flow and the real challenge is how to figure out the goods and stories. second, everything you said about the real challenge is frankly it's not easy and it's very much in comments on a been a survey responsibility. there's different ways of going about it.

the shortcuts may be finding people who cover issues that you care about and think are important and you trust their analysis? and they become in ways your world. there's no easy solution. >> i just like to say thank you for creating the intro this morning. birkeland to talk about bad at kinds of answers or six-year question the sense that the point of that story as he is saying you can't always be inside of the flow of that digital overload. you have to only step out to be a creator of this status and you have to find the balance between those things. so i think that that. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> and five days

>> thursday, to form looking at alternatives to traditional public school. the policies that are well expressed options, including online classes in homeschooling. live at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> they felt the president was not going to be a strong defender of american values and american principles, human rights, democracy, free trade, free enterprise. the source of apology and statement have been pulled those who find us at the weekend enemy.

douglas mcmillon, president of wal-mart international spoke about his company at the eighth international ideas festival. he talked about wal-mart sustainability goals and partnerships with local farmers. this is an hour. >> and waited to say anything until the microphones come on. okay, we are going. greetings, everyone. please take your seats and give some of your lunch. we have a very interesting hour discussion ahead of s. i miss james fallows, writer for "the atlantic" magazine. very excited to be back here again. i'm excited about this session we have ahead of us. we have the president and ceo of wal-mart international, which has 5000 stores around the world and how many associates they are

quite >> with about 2.2 million associates come over 10,000 stores around the world and only my grandmother calls we douglas. >> i will call you dug from now on. i'm getting old in many ways. so the category of your grandmother is one i will avoid from now on. you were the later sam's club for three years. he started wal-mart almost 20 years ago. >> first the company as a teenager, unloading one of our warehouses and getting into management training programs and then became a buyer in 1991 and moved into our home office. >> my observation is that if they typical story for a lot of leadership come is in a quick it is. the career path is a big deal. as you know, we've grown our business but beaters and its most productive and effective defined within her own drinks a develop our talents. >> so the context of our discussion as a number of programs in this ideas festival about addressing the 9 billion,

the world's population goes up as cities and environmental pressures grow, food pressures grow, social changes emerge come as women take on a different role and minorities are integrated in different ways around the world. we look at the institutions that address that. and you could make the case that if any institution in the united states, wal-mart plays a bigger role in sealing with the outside world than any other. the u.s. military would probably be the second in a different interaction with the world. but in april was wal-mart international you see the ways in which people see habits changing, you seem to grow the company has in the environment. the last two years i've been living in china, they dramatically impressed by the impact of wal-mart and a forceful or environmental good about the world. we had an article indialantic about exactly that point about changes in your supply chain had been fairly radically affect data and reducing pollution and

worker safety issues, et cetera in china. things like that will affect the united states. let's start with two topical questions for you and i'll tell everybody here will talk for maybe half the amount of time and turn it to you in the audience for questions. first is as you know two hours ago, three hours ago the supreme court gave its relatively surprising ruling on the obama health care proposal. health care and its costs are enormous issues for corporations. they been about controversial issues for wal-mart. does anything about this really make life different for you quite >> yes, you think a desperate week is surely on in the health care debate occurring and recognize we need to have a voice in the subject, mainly because the system we had was not sustainable. it was sustainable for associates, employees, not employers must not sustainable from a competitive point of view for the country. so we support change and the one

piece of work that we think still needs to be a key area of focus is cost management, sustainability of the issues. as with every other business, we've been planning an ersatz to execute. >> as you plan for the upcoming new patch or different plans,a, b. and c., is this some more of us to structure for yet another alternative to mistake the mandate had been overturned. >> probably on the left side. this will adjust the marketplace and we will adjust with it. >> headline here is wal-mart endorses obamacare. >> thank you very much. you had to say that. >> i was in the joshi mode. the other topical issue any to ask you about is much more directly centered the last couple of months as a number of stories for "the new york times," wal-mart's problems in mexico and with bribery accusations in mexico, how should we think about these

revelations, how you think they have been, what are companies doing about them now? >> is obviously a serious issue and we treated as such we will tolerate compliance anywhere in the world are an example of the company. the investigation going on this independent and it will take time. we are dedicated to making sure that the best possible investigation and that is independent. if the facts are clear given the allegations out there, we will deal with them in the public about this action says it can be public about them. as the leader of wal-mart, one of the things i get to do is make sure we take advantage of the environment to get even stronger across the board in the area specifically, not only in mexico, but other markets we been strengthening our processes to change some things about how we ought it. there's been a lot of training for thousands of people all over again. we've created an attorney in

mexico that supports record of corporate, not to summon a mexico. so we try to demonstrate directions that her intentions are and deliver against what is required. but compliance is a big issue. the company in 27 countries to deliver fire safety to tcp in china and other markets that we try to do now is make sure all of our training and processes and other things in place are as strong as they can possibly be. >> just to follow-up, sometimes when there is a scandal of some sort or a violation of covered in any part of the world, people see it as a stand-alone operation and think how could that have happened. on the other hand with the recent scandals in china, people say this is the tip of the iceberg and the unveiled one, there's a lot more to be found. within the company, one of the reasons that would make you think it's a stand-alone case in mexico? other circumstances that would

make this more likely they are than other parts of the world? >> baster with organizational culture. we talk about the culture of academic institutions. culture matters. our purpose is to save people money so they can live better. our culture is on core values make a bet to sam walton. bummer croucher gets talked about. we take a run and explain my perspective. there are four core values. we expect the individual can't strive for excellence and serve on a foundation of integrity. we think about why values mattered our business. how do you want to be treated by an associate of one of our stores? you want to respected, have a service mentality and our founders, sam walton understood that if he didn't have those behaviors come associates wouldn't have those behaviors that is true for the leaders of the company today. so what i can tell you for my position is our culture is strong. we have a very strong

organizational culture. it is so strong today and were making it even stronger, reaching 2.2 million people requires repetition. it requires work and were focused on that. as i travel around the world am i spend a lot of time talking about organizational culture. so will there be issues that pop up? i'm sure they will. how we handled them is that i'm focused on. >> a word about wal-mart culture. a chance, one of our family son spent about a year in bentonville, went down to see some of the saturday meeting to wal-mart and was a very, very impressive culture that i think you should make more and more people available to see those meetings. >> communication is supported in a people business like ours and sam started saturday morning meeting and he felt like if the stores are up in a saturday and

were cannot saturday, the management team should work on saturday. they show up early in the morning, talk about business and items, merchandising and if there's time left over, the suits would unload trucks at our warehouse, which is at the home office till noon. today i do want to unload trucks, but should understand the spirit. we studied together on saturday mornings and have similar meetings that are fun, give them a lot of discussion and we try to perpetuate culture. it's a big part of what we talk about on saturdays. >> i want to talk about the connection between wal-mart. and your spread around the world. when i was living in china is impressed by a vocalist of wal-mart stores. their carcasses hanging hanging from the roof and the rest. i'm wondering how you have managed to have the sort of split consciousness of an

american brand, american practices and things could about wal-marts identity and the localization necessary in europe or latin america or far east to be successful. >> is a big heart of leadership challenge. to think about what people want to buy in shanghai, it's different than what they buy in oklahoma. we have local teams making decisions. chinese fires for cheney's customers and most of what by his local and most of our markets, maybe all is the percentage repurchases 90% local. we could better the times, products were relevant. so you have this natural occurrence. but we try to work through as we want to have something comment. but when a common purpose and we have fixed, and operating principles we want every one of our stores and everyone of her businesses around the world to operate with. beyond that they have a lot of freedom. this one and this brittanica pictures from mexico from a supercenter in mexico city and they were showing as the items

they were featuring and how many they were selling. but there were different than the items in china when i'm there in a few months. >> what would you say this as work best in terms of the sweet spot of american identity and local culture and were you still have the greatest challenges? >> most customers have the same -- we share a lot in common. and i travel a lot. we have stores all over the place. sometimes going to their homes, sometimes talk to them in the store and what i hear about our common things like making things better and save enough money so i can take a vacation, common things like that. but what they want to buy can be different by area. and i think the supercenters are way to think about the commonality to answer your question directly. we have similar look and feels in brazil, mexico and china.

that's where we've been able to apply the processes inside the commonality. other instances we have lots of stores. in fact, more than 10 different formats. you might not recognize him and markets because they're smaller, might have cement floor, summary or condition because they are meeting the need of a different demographic. they leverage some of the things they mentioned, but they are neat in the way they approach their customers. >> maybe we should do a poll here. this is the aspen ideas festival demographic doesn't overlap exactly with the normal wal-mart purchasing demographic here but how many people at a wal-mart in the last week? how many in the last month? and so, for people who are not familiar, raise your hand. >> i'm glad they been in our stores. >> spend 30 seconds explaining exactly what a supercenter is.

if you go around the world and see these as we have in china, australia, what other distinctive mark is? >> well, a supercenter is meant to be a stock up tripe. so it's in a serpent at everyday low prices. it's a bigger store, larger than 120,000 square feet away ballade over the u.s. what we purchase businesses over the years that is much smaller store footprint. some of our stores are a lot bigger than me be two times and have a much smaller assortment and maybe in a different market with a lower income level than a supercenter could ever be. as a portfolio management job and replace different stores. we actually have over 50 different retail brand names around the world and outside the u.s. we do a lot of business, the majority of our business under brand names that are not wal-mart, some of that because of acquisitions we've made.

>> give this a few demonstrations. >> we purchased a business pickup meters ago in chile in the format would be like a supercenter is the leader. matteo quick story here for fun after we made the acquisition i went down to chile and was talking to a customer in the grocery side of the store and she had a child come a little girl in her shopping cart and i walked up with someone assuming we would need to speak spanish and i don't speak spanish. i said we do ask her what she likes and what she doesn't like. and she turned to me in perfect english and said don't mess the store out. i said what do you mean? she said i live here, but a senior supercenters in florida and i like the food in the store better than the food in the supercenter in florida. a sample that's great, but i don't see a nonfood or general merchandise apparel. do you buy your electronics?

toys? apparel? no, no. we will leave food allowed to book a work on the other side of the story make it better. what do you think? she said that's a good idea. sure enough two years later a business on a nonfood site is great and the food business a couple weeks ago was even better. so the brand name under some, but really what matters to customers as they want value, they want in stock and someone to serve them with respect and that's true everywhere. >> so turning to her topic of the 9 billion emerging world population, wal-mart i think it's again uniquely positioned to know about the income characteristics can misspending preference is. as the united states and around the world are people who aren't always covered by the news media. from your international operations, what can you tell us about what you're saying about the emerging middle class, upper working class or whatever icc in

china, sec and latin america, middle east. do you see more and more prosperity coming? what you know about your customers overseas? >> as many people know growth in the middle income in emerging markets is phenomenal and over the next decade a lot of divers get talked about, but the one i remember is 320 million new and middle in china, india, brazil and the other emerging markets. we are positioned for stores to service customers as they grow. it is stories like in india, a mom who was in one of our stores and why to buy bedding. she needed an additional bedding set, because they just moved into a new apartment, got an extra bedroom and her two sons would now have separate rooms, which meant a lot to her. what was interesting that she was excited about two bedrooms for the kids because they would be able to study in peace. and really what she wanted with

a better education, but she was moving up beyond just buying food and thing she had to have into some more discretionary staff as she looked around the store. so that kind of customers happening around the world. we have to deliver on a lot of fronts. we have to deliver as a business financially, but we have to deliver socially and environmentally to make sure that people like her can experience what they want to experience. i mean today with a 7 billion number population, so many people around the world both mobile and other things now how people in aspen are living. they want to live more like that than they are today. to make that possible, we have to another businesses have to engage with ngos and in some cases governments to create a more sustainable environment socially and environmentally wicked talk about that's more if you want to. >> will get that any second. a customer base question for you.

and outside the united states that politicians if they are sure you pay close attention to the certifying behavior of the wal-mart population because it's an important barometer of consumer confidence in where people cut back, where they start to spend more. as he used as a barometer, looking at parts of the world better in the news now, for example the middle eastern countries which it is so much turmoil or in china we have all those concerned about growing economic extremes. are there any insights you have that would augment what we read in them is about the stability or non-stability of some of these places? >> you might be surprised to know just how much our business is still done with cash that there's a lot of customers to shop in our stores. any cache environment, gas prices are the number one discretionary spending in our stores here. and we know that when casket to the 350 range that we see different behavior. to write out being around $3 we

feel a little relief. there would be a bit more discretionary purchases. in recent months, i would say pre-easter, we were still seeing pressure where people were buying smaller sizes because they have a lower price point. so something that might have a higher value per ounce, they buy a smaller size because they have the 1 dollar or $5 or though the region by a product ran because they don't think they can afford the brand here in this country. it's very different by marka appeared in the u.k. right now, people feel a kind of pressure. the austerity measures and the euro are creating pressure. china recently has flowed in terms of consumption and consumer growth. currently we see a robust new year. in january or february. we did not see that this year. but we hear from our team there isn't some ways chinese customers now have more information about what is happening around the world,

including europe, so their conservatism is at least somewhat a reflection of what they hear about the world, not just what is happening on the ground in china. so the gdp expectations for some markets have changed in the last 12 or 24 months and we see that play out in terms of consumer behavior. >> that's an interesting point. one of many interesting points you make. there's a great debate about the livability of chinese statistics and economic progress, so people look for the unthinkable things like the number of ships still sitting in hong kong harbor and the piles of coal. and i would think there were stores would be another one of those true barometer is that you can't fake other ways. let's talk about the social and environmental effect of wal-mart around the world. you are well aware and i imagine we'll have some questions afterward. the expansion of wal-mart inside the united states has been a

continuation of a centuries long debate in the united states about the economic efficiency versus traditional values of one kind or another. back in the 1920s and 1930s, and there were emergents who are being distracted and of course the other side is the benefits that come with fewer jobs and lower prices than all the rest. as you look at the effect of wal-mart overseas, are there similar debates about its social effect? what is either the other day and cc were the case to make about positive or even negative effects of wal-mart's expansion in other countries? >> there are definitely debates about it. right now donate a lot in india about foreign direct investment, multibrand retailed is an ongoing debate. millions of shopkeepers, farmers really want to reduce the amount of waste on fruits and

vegetables, for example, which is supposedly in the 40% range and they want to make more for fruits and vegetables and whole changing invested in. so it's a very active debate in most markets and around the world. one of the things we point to is mexico. if you will be entered in mexico in 1891, how much of the business was done in the informal market as opposed to modern retail. it hasn't changed very much. there's still over 40% of the retail sales in mexico is done in an informal market. in many instances where there's no tax collection, meaning no infrastructure is developed, et cetera. so it is a debate and we obviously feel we demonstrate to the actions we have that we are good for communities and societies and worked to prevent to be sure all the time. >> how about your role as employer oversees. not having so much about the supply chain obviously wal-mart purchasers have such a huge effect in china and other places, but i save retailed for

us in the stores. how is that different from your preexisting employment opportunities? what changes have you seen based on not? >> let me tell you a quick story about brazil. a young lady named adriana i met a couple years ago and she was inducted into something called the social retail school. she qualified to kind to learn about business than about retail. she was a very young person in an impoverished area, didn't have a lot of career opportunities and by entering the social retail school, she did well in that school of, got an opportunity to become an associate and is off to a fantastic start and her career as she refers to it in her opportunity to now go to school and what she is of health care benefits is different than it would have banned if it weren't for the retail school and for our business. another story out of india a young lady that i met a few

years ago and it toppled amorous bill and the northwest part of indiana. if she were here, she would tell you she was in a situation where she would have to get married early would have a life working in the crops in a small farm. she got an opportunity because we open a store in her neighborhood, and caching query store. we had a smaller come to similar school there peers she made it to the school, got a job and it's not taking her mba online. so her life systematically different. there are large numbers of people experiencing. we will grow over the next five years to the point we need to employ another 500,000 people. a lot of them international, most in stores and we welcome all trained people in the stores when make investments to try and create that environment. >> i'm fascinated all these interesting anecdotes you've told so far involve women. i know that wal-mart has probably not known by the general public one of its

missions is opportunities for women. can you say more about that? >> sure. i think that her deal was here earlier. care is one of the organization has helped or goodness. wal-mart went through transition a few years ago. we believed in the very beginning as you would expect that customers and associates were two key stakeholders. did we care about shareholders quite sure. any business cares about shareholders. if you focus on associate and they're happy and have opportunities and the customers are happy sounds good. when we became bed can we do did not get the memo on the moment that occurred. but when we became big, societal expectations were higher than what i just described. so starting to listen more to people like dr. gail and others to say you need to think differently about the environment and social issues has led us to a point where we are today. we are still maturing, but we have a different point of view.

one of those areas is in the area of women. so we know that women are disproportionately impoverished, disproportionally literate. they have a hard time as entrepreneurs gain access to capital. we know what women spend many oncoming typically children an education and health care than the guys may spend money on. that matters. i was in a meeting not to lie to where someone called investment like a global stimulus package. there is some truth in that, so we made some commitments about a resource good, what we expect from service providers as it relates to female representation. we made a commitment to train 200,000 women to answer the workforce and retail at some of the young ladies i just mentioned and they believe that's an investment. we see what other companies see that representation of the top has progressed. we have a ton of representation in the large numbers of wal-mart and then we've got

middle-management where we figure out how to break down barriers so the whole thing works organizationally and that is one of the areas of focus we have. >> let me ask you one cultural point. i know everyone of wal-mart is religiously disciplined about saying associate rather than employee. can you explain the whole connotation of that? >> it goes back to sam walton and someone that works for you is your partner are part of the company. so many other people i could tell you that started in the hourly ranks. 70% of managers started as cashier, pushing carts. so it's really about were all missing together. that is the point of why we use that term. >> and other international question not strictly related to your responsibility, but i'm sure you know about it. over the last you were to, global supply chain issues have become more and more prominent question. the designer from apple was

saying people should get to know the insides of their machines. apple is suffered a lot of bad press in the last year in china. can you tell us whether you think, number one, why wal-mart has gotten involved in issues of environmentalism and supply-chain safety, especially in china, where you think you've been successful and were you haven't. what you should know to improve the supply-chain use that as a lever on environmental issues. >> well, i think it starts with the idea of transparency and i'm going to be proud to work at wal-mart. i do want to sit in front of you that goes to the factories in every country where resource. we have standards for retailers have standards. one of the things that we have seen the past as there is a standard for wal-mart and the standard for retailera, b., c., d. and you're kind of pulling your hair out.

some of the things that's happened is more industry simplification which i think is how can the area of execution. we believe suppliers to do the best job on compliance, paying overtime bonito over time are also the people that live runtime in the best quality. we are really entries that in quality selection. we changed the risk. if you ask which he not do well, keeping ni on how many suppliers we have been with you was coming on board, not giving up on a factory when they have a shortcoming. one of the mistakes of the past of people is made as if you have a factory that you don't have a long-standing relationship with then you have some sort of infraction you've got two choices. pull out of the factory or engage and help train them and teach them. that is a constant battle is figuring out whether you're red, yellow and green and how much tolerance to get an intense on the issue and how many fences, et cetera.

were trying to improve the overall supply-chain process. and with the idea eventually everyone will know everything. if you want to shine a light on any place in our supply-chain, we want you to which you find. i want to like what i find. so that's the way we approach it. >> are the illustrations you can get us where there's been a difference in the kind of toxic pollutants in southern china or stories you are aware of where you're able to switch to a better or safer part of supply-chain? >> i think we've had success for removing toxins. if i think a sustainable act -- food is so much a part of this. we don't believe in the 9 billion number if you doubt believe in farm holders in the right way. we did a great job of embracing all farmers. they help them learn how to use water, have used pesticides, get to market faster, make a more

efficient and they transported everywhere. so i've been on farms in china, costa rica, africa, similarly small farms, almost garden like if you want to think about what it looks like to you. and helping them figure out how to get to market, make 10% to 15% more than data to the store faster, customer gets a better product from a local products, there's a winning equation there. on the factory side, as i said before, we try to do a better job of selecting quality suppliers and will use something called sustainable value networks on different subjects to try and work with ngos and government to set policies well. when we engage the sustainability in a different way, there's packaging. and corn and you do this for packaging but with better,

ethanol, et cetera. we don't know that's a peer for retailers. we've had to open a through sustainable value networks, let people influence us, use good judgment set policies then it's those policies that make a difference. >> one of those that i saw in china and have it seen as much is the change in the packaging through the supply-chain. can you say about the targets you are giving to get the amount of repackaging used? >> was started sustainability efforts we set three vehicles. we wanted to sell more sustainable projects and more sustainable packaging and have zero race. so we're making progress on zero waste and energy. breezing led lighting in stores and in some countries are up to 80%, 90% of the removal in the landfills come as a waste a big area of focus. we have a packaging scorecard with expectations to reduce the packaging by certain percentages, sometimes by

category. but we have learned is the connection, the overlap in via the sustainable availability is a sweet spot that takes cost out of the economy. if some of our suppliers would like to have a huge package that takes up a lot of space on the show because they want you to see their brand, so it's not very efficient. we have been setting expectations in getting some of that stuff tightened up, even the medal ties that drive you crazy in the toy department because when you add that stuff if it's a significant negative from a carbon point of view. so those decisions and policy are both were focused on. >> i have one more question in my own and then i'll about it, to the microphone. this is not so much international is back to wal-mart's observations in the united states. the trans-we've been discussing can always be inserted two contradictory economic phenomenon around the world.

there was this growing, global middle class which is part of your customer base around the world, but also in every other country in the words come in the distribution has been getting more unequal. you have the countries as a whole are getting rich, but on nfs go to the very top and people in the bottom half and third are under increasing pressure. that's been a phenomenon in the united states. a richer country, but the median income more or less flat. wal-mart is in a unique position to observe this because often the pressures on the lower half of the american income distribution company or customers, will they buy more of, less of, who enters your customer base if you haven't been there before. what do you know about the distribution of income in america now, the sense of opportunity for people at the moment who are feeling left out come the ways in which the american socioeconomic system is different now from when he started with the company in the

1980s? >> in the u.s. there was a bit of an inflection point. our research shows we would define a lower income in the united states at $35,000 or below. our research shows that around easter time there was a level of optimism that changed either know how much is related to gas prices were other factors, the lower income customers have felt better the late and we have seen that show up in purchasing. but there's a lot of americans struggling to put food on the table were trying to do the best job we can observe in them. some of them may be on government assistance programs and programs get activated. at midnight the cache is placed and we see most of them shopping at midnight. some may be in there buying baby formula at 12:01 and we can see that in our transactions. so back to her purpose, we save people money so they can live better. when i talked to my children about my job and career, that's

a sense of pride for me that we fight for the people who need to be 54 as it relates to price. we want our to be well-paid. in the u.s. we pay more than $5 on the average associate about minimum wage. we have a health care where you get $15 a month to get health care peer which i can make health care affordable. we want great jobs, career opportunities, but our purpose is false to save people money. thus we do for customers that their proposition and i'm proud of that. >> at more questions, but i give you a chance. yes, a microphone. would you identify yourself, please. >> bikepath, thank you for being here. great presentation. you come up with ideas. i was here a couple years ago at another event and we started talking about health care and the moderator for the person on stage goes, i have an idea.

what if wal-mart put a center -- a medical center, not an urgent care, but a clinic in each of their stories, located throughout the area that would accommodate people of the navy could not health care. i am not taking a open heart surgeries, but the monda comes in with the ear infection or the kid with a sprained ankle. i think that would be a tremendous relief for the centers in the hospital throughout the country. hedges wondered since you're here if you have any thoughts on that. >> yeah, it is a good idea and we and others have been doing it. we've got some clinic center stores now we've had success with it. finding the right providers to provide the service on the hours, et cetera has been one of the things they been working through. not only wal-mart, but there is

an article in "the new york times" about the breeze to create those clinics and even more stores. would like to do it in our customers value it. we just want to make sure when we do it that we do it really well. >> yes, over here, shelley. >> banks, shelley boris, first allowed to commend wal-mart for your leadership in supplier diversity not only here in the united states getting them in the global supply chain, but also other countries. youth supplied as an certified women-owned businesses to enter global supply chain. in fact, we have our first contracts with wal-mart.com. thank you. that said, the need is tremendous. a question for you is how can we sell at great integration, small lunch granaries beyond that women are cheaper knowers into

global supply chain given how fast an impact really wal-mart has globally. >> there is an opportunity and also just collaboration across entities. this talking to dana powell at goldman sachs and other program they have and she is identified entrepreneurs we need to be buying from. when a particular we talked about last night in indiana. our job is to make sure we continue to tell people where accessible and interested it with other organizations continue to communicate and sometimes as specific as there is this person in the deli make in this item, will you buy it and create an environment where buyers are incentive to do that and accessible is one once again focused on. thank you. >> hi, you represent your company so well. >> would you identify? [inaudible] >> make me wants to buy more of your stock. in any case, some of us that the last panel on the arabs burned

talked about the role of business in social and economic entrepreneurship in egypt and try to influence in a positive way trade and hope. i was wondering, when you see world events, do you target a particular country because you know there's a all you can play in assisting? t. work with the government? what are your thoughts about helping an arab spring so it's not an error pointer? that's my first question. there was a wonderful film last year in the film fussed about how giving farmers in africa and fisherman cell phones allows them to compete more aggressively in the marketplace and to help them individually. thank you. >> thank you. we don't currently have any stories in egypt for the middle east. typically our sourcing follows our stores. so someday we may be there but

we don't have any short-term plans to be there. we tried strategic for us and i wouldn't rule it out. if there's a great supplier would want to take a look at them, but we don't actively engage in that. we are more local in nature. a quick story in the second part of your question. last year to zambia in a small farm and there is a guy named dale lewis who works for an ngo called the mako that he founded. he was there to save elephants commercially but he founded he couldn't stop poaching unless poaching had higher income levels. so we taught them how to farm and the next level they needed this communication by farmers said they could get information, et cetera. so we helped with some radios, to help with communication to buy product and get in some of our stores. so we love those kind of stories and examples. ..

comparison with out of market except all of the united states. and then second question is what is the most concerned issue for [inaudible] market? thank you. >> we have a great team in china. we started there with one store in 1996, i believe it was. and have now a lot of experience

people there and they're very good item merchants. what that means to us when the stores there, our associates will grab me by the arm and take me over and show an item and telling me how they're selling more of the item. they have taken to walmart culture in an effective way. my biggest opportunity in walmart china, disadvantage. prewto we were required to one store per city. it spread us out. it is a logistical disadvantage for us. china is going through centralizing which will help with food safety and other issues. it's too complex and too distributed, and so not only walmart but suppliers in china are thinking about how can we make improvements in the supply

chain to deliver things on food safety and instock because of supply chain. it goes through another phase of change largely geographic. >> a brief followup, walmart is second to care for as a big retail. is that a unique chinese situation or does that have happen in other praise -- places. we were urm one in the united states in 1970. our focus is one great store at the time and one great customer at the time. it's more about being the best. there are markets where we are not the largest, which is fine. >> yes, sir, over here. yes, sir? >> hi, [inaudible] with the competitor store. and [inaudible] national retail federation, we note that one in four american workers are work in retrail, and one in eight of those actually work for walmart which is amazing and i think wonderful.

kind of excluding mexico and china, what country do so you have the deepest penetration with and why? and what is that number, would you estimate in china or mexico if that's the one so you the next deepest penetration for. i'm working for the indian or poland and why do you think that is? >> our numbers outside the u.s. would be a lot smaller than they are here. and in general, what we have been longer we look more like that have penetration and et. cetera. we have been mexico and canada for longer. we have more developments there and they're great. the ones to watch out for, the ones that are grow and be more important over time start with china and brazil and also personally i'm excited about what's happening in of a cap. the investment we made last year almost a year ago now of a company called mass mart which was a multicountry in twelve different countries in africa

multiple format retailers. they had do-it-yourself. they have lows or home depot. they have food stores or discount stores. it's going to be increasingly over the next five, ten, and twenty years for the number of reasons. i think that's an area from an investment point of view to keep an eye on. as it remits to africa, in particular. >> question from the same table? >> gordon, how do you look at the amazon threat in terms of what they're able to do in getting into much more commodity products they started with. now they are delivering more commodities without sales tax and certainly free delivery. how does that impact walmart? what steps are you taking to address amazon. >> it's a mistake to go by

without talking about the internet. it's changing everything with speed. there they're terrific competitor. there are other terrific competitors especially when you look at internationally and some of the fastest growth rates are coming out of. we made investment but have been making more. the capability of being able to serve the customer online difficultly in a multichannel where they can order online, pick up in the store, the use of mobile, if you haven't tried the ipad take. take a look at the walmart ipad app. those things are hugely important. we make ak scwitions as it relates to other digital capabilities to try and catch up and quickly become more effective as it relates to selling merchandise online. there are opportunities for leverage or existings a sets in this country and others. and it's very different around the world. the u.s. is in one position, but

china from an internet point of vow is an incredible story of growth and we have a minority investment there today in a companied called [inaudible] we have asked for government approval to buy a majority stake in. so we're focused on and our primary focus more than being on what competition is doing, which we have in the side vision is what does the customer want us to do and how do we do it more effectively? it is a transformational change for us and other retailers. it's a big deal. >> we have the lady in the black in the far back and the gentleman here. could you wait a second for the microphone? thank you. >> my name is [inaudible] i'm from australia. it seems to me one of the biggest [inaudible] demand for product is access to a simple, cheap contraception which can be sold over-the-counter. i was wondering if this is

something where walmart would take a lead? >> that's the first time i've ever been asked that question. [laughter] >> i might just say the distribution of contraceptives left a message of innovation through a very, good but don't have -- [inaudible] has. >> it's an idea festival. you gave me one. let us go back and think about what we can do there. i appreciate you bringing it up. [applause] >> the gentleman there. and wait for the microphone, please. >> hi i'm john rogers from san francisco. i want to circle back to your programs for education nam programs for associate. can you articulate for us how much about is recruitment versus

retention and advance. how much you think about insourcing that and outsources that. you think about buying an university and announced partnership with american public. can you summarize what your approach is and your goals are. >> i'll try to do it briefly. this is a lot going on and it varies a lot by question geography. primarily around a recruitment and development. as i messagessed earlier we want our leaders to come from inside the company as we can. in some cases india is the first place to comes to mind. it's true in other places too. there's literally not a customer service work force waiting to be employed. so we have to start at hello. and if you went through the materials, our curriculum in india and look at the basic business education we're doing in the markets it would demonstrate for you how much opportunity there is to cause people to understand.

they can have a different kind of career with a company like walmart. they don't have to be in a formal market or working on the farm. i mentioned the social retail school in brazil. we have the venture partnership with folks in india. we have things underway in china with the university. we have the programs you mentioned in the united states, and what we're trying to do is to make sure that we're ready to to hire and retrain 500,000 people. within the 2.2 population we have 300,000 people that have been with the company for more than ten years. we would like to see the number go. we need a 0 lot of talent in the area of technology and internet. we're working the advanced level and the large population of people with those kinds of programs. if you have any great ideas what we can do better. please grab me afterwards and let me know. >> time for one or two more

questions. over here. >> my name is -- [inaudible] and i'm from mexico. so i understand that after the bribery scandal, the company was -- [inaudible] in increasing compliance and et. cetera, i wonder what walmart did community wise. >> we have a very well developed foundation in mexico. they engage on everything from sources to daterble give -- charitable giving. the u.s. the last year with cash and kind gifts, our charitable giving number was close to $1 billion with about $400 million of that being in cash. mexico in or portion of terms is about the same, if i recall. there is a well established charitable giving in mexico. it's one of the best examples of foundation giving outside the united states. >> yes? >> thank you. johnathan with designing sustainability. i want to like walmart and i

don't at least not yet. so here are the two concerns. one is that in the effort to save money, walmart may not only drive down costs, but may push them out into the future so that cost end up getting paid by the kids and grand kids. because they're not materialized now. second is related to the comment about the african small landowner, and saving of 10 to 150% by eliminating the middlemen. middle men are -- nobody likes to with them. in the kind of situation, if that farmer has no option to sell to anybody else, you can then have a lot of market power in determining the price you pay. there's nobody left they can sell to other than you. >> i don't know if you're -- i can keep telling you the truth and decide for yourself. relative to small farmers

eliminating the middle men is not something we control exclusively. i think china is a good example. we're working with farmers and cooops. what we're trying to establish is a storage facility for them near their farms or coo yops so their goods continue go to waste. the other method of distribution they can use because the middlemen exist, there are props going to market our share is not that high. or not as e fish yent. like of a market like inn ya. 40% of fruits and vegetables are going to waste. walmart can't solve that problem. modern retail can't solve that problem. we can make a difference. i would argue that walmart's impact in that respect is more positive than the old way of doing business or the informal market. i feel the same way about sustainability. wall smart not sustainable yet. we will keep haveing big goals.

we will try to make progress. ives in the u.k. friday. our fry was excited to show we have a wine pouch. we have a bottling facility in u.k. the wine pouch has an 80% smaller carbon footprint. the smaller retailers in some markets are not working on that. and we are. so when i look at it, we are not perfect, we have a force for good. things are better because we're there. that's what we're working to dry to demonstrate to the customers and to people like you. i'd keep working on. >> we have time for one short last question. that will be here. wait for the microphone. >> [inaudible conversations] >> microphone? [inaudible] >> wait a second, please. >> your supply chain uses an awful lot of water. an awful lot of water. are you tracking it? and what are you doing about? you can throw energy into that

if you want to also. i'd like to hear one thing you don't like about walmart. what are you not doing well? >> okay. >> most of those get written about in the paper. you hear about those. [laughter] on the water side, from a sustain ability point of view, in the straightforward manners i can describe it. we're not as good at water yet. our policies and thinking is not as vadvances. we're better at energy. building stores that are more efficient than the stores before, for example. so we need to improve in that area. and i walked around a super center not long ago and looked how much water is in the product. you may or not know they were at an effort to take water out of detergent. it became more concentrated they lead that effort and the whole industry moved. it's an example where scale can be used for good. it wouldn't have happened if we said we're going to make it

happen. there was a risk associated with it because of customer perception of value. there was lots of other products in the stores i was looking the spray cleaners. we were trying to develop how you develop a concentrate plug in inspect you add the water at home and stop shipping around the water. we look for praises -- places like the laundry deter janet. what do i not like about walmart? we work really hard, and things aren't perfect. and i don't mean to them sit here and sound like they are perfect. i'm not trying to sell you anything except for maybe the share price. making sure 2.12 million people is a big part of the challenge. one story to tell you the example, we were in the u.k. on friday. every market around the world is

focused on appliances. they took a coke can and put it in the atrium of the home office. so if you walked in the front door of the home office in england there's an open area with stairwells and they took a can of coke and put on the floor and then they had a hidden camera to see how long it took for someone to pick it up. they called it the adult walk by program. if you see something wrong say something about it. the clock runs to 7:20, and you see peek walk "issue" walk by this. dozens of people. one person stops, looks a the the can and walks away. the coke can doesn't get picked up until 7:20, you agree is a a guy in the suit walk in. he picks up, and walked over to the recycling area. drops it, the he goes on to work. the person who picked up was the

ceo. [laughter] he didn't know the test was going on. but what i worry about is why did it take twenty minutes why did it take the ceo to pick up the coke can? so, you know, to make sure that everyone all the time when no one is looking is doing the right thing. >> we're going to end this with a shorthand poll. we believe in qawntd fying things. we're going to do it here. the three choices, you think better of walmart now. you think worse of walmart, or you think the same. >> you didn't tell me. >> i just thought it up. >> close your eyes for one minute. how many people think better of walmart now. how many people think worse than they did an hour ago. how many people are unchanged? i think there's been a successful worthwhile hour in many ways. please join me in thanks doug mcmill less than.

[applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] count down for the convention in five days gavel to gavel coverage of the republican convention from tampa. live on c-span front row seats to the conventions. come up tonight. a panel if forum. about using visuals understand global issue. then hispanic leaders discussion their priorities. and later another panel from the aspen idea forum on impact of new technologies on art, journalism, and race relations.

>> thursday on washington journal, bloomberg government doeses the obama administration's proposals to homeowners with the mortgages. then terri o'neal president of the national organization for women taunt the group priority the election year. later neil monroe white house correspondent for daily caller part of the series about online immediated ya. washington journal live every morning starting at 8:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> attorney attorney eric holder will speak about civil rights issues relate to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. live coverage on 7:30 p.m. c-span. >> what duo see when we look at the dead. they responded to this in two dominant ways one by describing the bodies in great detail.

and then often stopping in the middle of that very detailed description, and then saying it's too horrible. i can't put it into words. words can't convey this. this weekend on american history tv harvard professor megan kate nelson discusses the impact of images of dead soldiers on the american public during the civil war. saturday at 10:00 p.m. eastern. also this weekend, america will stand up for the ideals that we believe in when we're operating at our best, and who to see the country perhaps above all else return to the path of peace. >> more from the contenders. our series that looks at key political figures that ran for president and lost and changed history. 1939 candidate george mcgovernor. sunday at 7:30. american history tv this weekend

on c-span 3. >> now a discussion on using visuals to understand global issues. this is a little more than an hour. ms. tischler: good afternoon a thank you for coming. welcome to the panel on "visualizing ou through the lens of big data." and i assume if you took the time to come here right after lunch that you are a big data freak just like me. it's my new passion. and i really got the lucky card in the moderator swe because i have the chance to meet this morning with three amazing guys, who are doing just phenomenal stuff in this area. they are going to show you some really great data visualizations that will blow your mind. but before we jump into that, i think -- first, i want to let you know who they are and then we are going to do a lighting round about like: what is big data anyway? so first off, ed parsons. ed is th

technologist at google, and his responsibility is for evangelizing google's mission to organize the world's information using geography and tools that includes google maps, good earth -- and google maps for mobile. and anybody who's clicked on google maps and hovered over their house will know just how exciting that little bit of technology is. at google earth, he told me, he's essentially building a telescope for the planet, which is a really great idea if you try to get your head around it. know, we've always seen sort of the sky from earth but, you know, we've never seen earth from the sky except for that great blue marble picture from space. and his mission is to make -- to bring some emotion into that, that task and maybe make you cry when you see a map would be the ultimate resolution of those two conflicting thing

next up, we have david mcconville. david is the president of the buckminster fuller institute, where his passion is linking art, design and science in the pursuit of -- to complete global -- to address global challenges. and i would have to say probably his motto is "it's the system, stupid." right? (laughter) mr. mcconville: fair enough, but -- ms. tischler: because that's what bucky was all about. david is also co-founder of the elumenati design and engineering firm and he's creative director of the worldviews network, which is a collaboration of artists, scientists and educators using storytelling, dialogue around the -- around community resilience in science centers across the united states. finally, we have kenji williams. kenji is a founder and director of bella gaia, an amazing film. an award-winning filmmaker, music producer, theatrical show director and a classically trained violinist, on top of

all that. he also is linking art and science. so you can see a theme shaping up here. he works with people as diverse as nasa deepak chopra, really bringing those two sort of right brain, left brain functions together. bella gaia has already had shows, toured countries, reached some , people in person and about million through online and tv. and we are going to be lucky enough to have a performance of bella gaia here the aspen institute this week. and when is that going to be? mr. williams: tomorrow at : o'clock at paepcke. ms. tischler: tomorrow, : o'clock, be there. so before we launch into their presentations, ed, what is big data? mr. parsons: a very good question. i think i we're brutally honest, it's a bit of a marketing term at this

point in time. it's an opportunity for companies to sell you stuff. but there is -- there is an underlying change afoot in the volumes of data that we are generating ourselves and that have been generated by remote sensing satellites in measuring the world is increasing enormously. and perhaps, within the next years, it will increase by two orders of magnitude. so there's going to be much more data to deal with, much of it generated by machines that are measuring things in a much more automated fashion than today. and big data is about analyzing that huge volume of data in -- approaching real time. and obviously, from an environmental point of view, there are huge benefits in us being able to measure the environment better. ms. tischler: david, what would you like to add to that? mr. mcconville: he's right. ms. tischler: he's right? (laughte mr. mcconville: i mean -- and a but i think humans as longs at we've been around have been trying to find clever ways to understand and interpret all of this information we get going through life.

big data is the latest with that in the power to understand this. >> cool. where did you see yourself sitting in on this? >> i think what i bring to the table i'm an artist and i bring all you visual experiences enhancing the data, and i'm here to talk about importance of the emotional and personal connection and story telling of the data and information we are. >> sounds great. let's see what it looks like. you can't talk data visuallation without visualizing the stuff. ed, take it away. >> when we first started doing this making up no slides it's going to make it difficult. one fortunate i we can't have some slides. >> visualization is difficult to talk about without imams. this is an image you will see numerous times from me in the next hour but potentially many times over the next few days here. it's the famous blue marble, that image of the earth in space

that become so familiar to us and has motivated many environmental organizations around the world. it's entered our consciousness. it's something we'll dwroa up being familiar with. what is interesting, something that been seen actually by people with their own eyes relatively recently. it's only been seen by approximately twenty people. it's the astronaut that travel beyond the earth so sorry if you're in the international space station. it you don't see the blue marble. you have to go out to the monoand look back to be able to see the blue sphere. these are the first people to see in apollo eighth in ?aix. you produced the famous authorized picture. but of course this is become very familiar to us now because through visualization, through technology, this has become more excessive. it's become more assessableble because we get access to

information about our planet about the visualization of the information. actual what you're looking at there was the blue marble as seen true through google earth. and google effort is an amazing tool. we designed it initially as a experiment as a bunch of computer engineers just to see how well the latest for the generation of computergraphic technology could operate. we are looking for a problem to pose. and visualizing the earth data, the many scales of information was one of those. we had no idea at the time of the actual environment for the emotional impact it will have on society. very small things that we can change can have a big impact. there you'll you're sighing google earth with the natural boundaries. you can switch them on and off.

they pose huge challenges as on organization trying to get different nations to agree where boundaries are in some part of the world. it's hugely complex. drawing the globe without brown drinks itself is incredibly powerful. it's powerful because it's something as i said exeabl to people now. just a show of hands how many people have not used google earth? >> a few change people in the audience. yes, very few. google earth has been downloaded by 1 tbl users. i'm still shocked by that figure. 1 billion users is approximately equivalent to the number of people that use facebook and twitter combined. so in terms of a social networking, people using google earth viewing the whole planet is as big of a community as those famous social networks.

we all approach google earth in the same way. we start by zooming in to our home. we identify the part of the world we know really well. and we thought internally. we say, okay that's where i live. that's where i might go shopping. that's my route to work. that's where my kids go to school. we develop a relationship with the information because it's familiar to us. it's something that we have direct experience of even though we're looking at imagery that may have been acquired through -- more likely from aerial photography. that relationship is really important because when we go to the part of the world we have never visited, we may never visit when we look at an art can, or the rain forest, we're using the tool we already know and understand and trust because we have used it in places that we recognize.

and it also visualizes information we're familiar with. i'm a agreographer by training. i understand maps. i can read maps. i don't have too many problems. many people struggle with maps as way of visualizing information. in the broader things we see carefully as scientist or environmentalists or as policy makers how do we visualize? what tools do we use to tell the story to provide narrative that is important to us? how how do we see the world? i want to carry out a experiment with you. after lunch, this could be dangerous. i'll explain why. i wanted you to think of in this case, a location. i want do you close your eyes, everybody, even my colleagues on the stage. close your eyes and think of the city of sidney australia ya, okay.

have that in your mind's eyes. open your eyes. how many people saw this? amazing. how many people saw that? [laughter] we don't think in temples of maps. maps are abstract. maps are useful if you're carrying out specific task. you want to get from the hotel you're staying at. that's not the way we visualize the world. we visualize the world in three dimension. we visualize it standing on a street corner. recognize the fact and people different that visualize the world and connect and have devil levels of con in addition with different types of visuallation is very important. we recently announced an upgrade to google earth that takes the three d visuallation to the next level. this is model. we're combining the contentses

of irial photography missions together and seeing the world pretty much as if you were flying it over in an helicopter. this is powerful technology. what's really i think interesting from a technology point of view this is something we developed from the get go to work on mobile devices. this is something featured pc to run. it runs on the mobile phone or the tablet device. a game making, if you think about it, probably over twenty bytes of information assessable to you on your mobile phone whenever you might be. now people started to use this technology to try to visualize, trying to represent more complex environmental data than what does the world look like. i did a couple of projects a few years ago with the center which is part of the -- u.k. government agency responsible for measuring climate change, and they produced this

visualization of the temperature change estimated to be the case over the next fifty years. enthey brought up the youtube videos and scientist talk about what will be the particular impact of climb change or water availability. and it was great, and, you know, we got to stand on the stage with the prime minister and we got, you know, kind of press coverage but actually not many people visited this site. most people that visited the site really didn't connect with it. they didn't understand what was going on. most people didn't understand how it would impact on them. this was all very well, very abstract and -- we have to think kind of jond traditional data visualization. we need to think about how do we connect more with the communities of people that are now getting access to states in

is a nice example, this is a website put together by some computer enthusiast. it allows you to visualize the location of every aircraft flying over in real time combined with a 3d mobile effect. this is something that actually very few governments have the capability to do. a bunch of guys working out of the bedrooms connecting a networking of radios to pick up a particular laid owe transmission or airline to be able to visualize air traffic anywhere around the world. moving beyond visual lyings recognizing the fact -- is more powerful than the brain when we want to drive home the message. following me would drive that home more so than i can. limited experience and it is limited is things like this. this is a website we built very quickly after the tsunami and

events happened in japan. makes you serve street view. our ability to capture the photography. we identified the particular parts of japan that had been impacted by the tsunami, and literally did before or after. so this was the imagery of the particular village prethe tsunami -- [inaudible] something ?rar we. we might have viewed this in our own neighborhood. whey wanted to drive home is the actual impact of the tsunami. if we click to the post tsunami of the same area, this really drives home the impact of the disaster. by being in the same place or having the same tools, that level of trust, of understanding we can actually portray quite a powerful message using that technology that is now assessable to us.

but i leave you with a challenge. this is a challenge you have heard. this is i continually ask my colleagues. we need to get better at this. when did a map last make you cry? we see -- if you -- [inaudible] there's bad maps in the world that may make you cry. but in terms of a media, a way of communicating information, of course books makes cry, tv shows, movies do. they tug after the heart strings. maybe it's the case the technology is too new. we haven't learned how to use these tools in that narrative sense to draw home messages. hopefully today we'll learn more about the directions we're going on. i'd love to carry-on the conversation with you. this is where i am on mine. thank you very much for listening. [applause] >> david?

>> i'd like to learn about problem solving today. i got through through a crazy route. my current trajectory of visualizing big data began with a burning man installation a decade ago. a friend of mine is the lead astrovisualizer wanted to take the plantarian. my company was making the hardware in the comes but he worked with the engineers and scientists and artists from all over the world to create the incredible visualization platform inspired by the charles power of nubble and they were collecting the new model of the universe that by a back of the napkin sketch it represented of $10 billion of data of astronomical observation. it was a big hit my company decided to go mobile with it we created the inflatable structure and take them all over the world.

they're installed all over the place. universities, elementary schools and the idea is to be able to use perceptual emergence to em hers people in maps to help people people cry with maps because we can't have the profound experiences. i've been fortunate to be able to use these tools for the past number of years. i've been working with a number of scientist and educators in science centers in the project called the world view networking funded by nova. we're pry mily with museums. we have them in the cities here. we have been fortunate to be able to present in a wide number of places. our strategy is really to use big d.a. to demonstrate the -- across cosmic global regional scales. we combine system thinking, and design thinking to encourage communities to participate in dialogues about how our

collective actions shape the future of the planet. i'm not going to show any of this because ken city going to be showing us loverly demonstration. but since i've been able to give the presentation to a wide number of audiences, i have noticed something common amongst all of them. for the most part, the universe is made of stories not at toms. this is an observation of the poted. this is wild. no matter how much data you have. if you don't have a compelling story. it's meaning less. something else i noticed is that i was surprised bier this. is that a lot of people have a very old model of their universe in their head that they really think of the closet moe in the heck nistic way that things are casual. this an idea that emerged in the 19th century after first scientific revolution and the story, very predictable and believed if we gather enough

data we can predict everything. well, in the 20th century we actually had another scientific revolution and it's still ongoing. and our idea of the universe is e evolving and understanding it's a series of complex systems that the sun atomic scalings were witnessing called a break down of stable systems often result in new forms of organization. we're recognizing the patterns across the different scales. perhaps most importantly. scientists don't discover that in every scale of reality from the cozzic everything actually is interconnected. and the most profound example of this is the life support systemmings of the own planet. so this realization of a paradigm of interconnected complexity is challenging many of the outdated assumptions that explain the way things work. and it's causing quite a bit of cognitive dissonance. it's particularly true with the

economic right now because the knew owe classical foundation of our economic systems are based on the 19th century story. we have been externalizing cost, ignoring the true impact of the scales. but today some economists like this view the visualization from the world economic forum a really trying to connect all of the these wicked problems that we're trying to address. and that our ability to predict the future is really only a certain as risk arises and how far out we're going paint that. and this economy we're discovering is really a holy own subsidiary of the biosphere. it's not only way around. in the words of the stockholm data center they're using this to looked at the global question mom that. we're tipping toward the unknown in the high stakes of game of crossing the boundaries. and big data is starting to help us understand this. but there's a bigger problem here. the challenge to think globally

is not something we're evolutionarily prepared to do. that we haven't effective e volved the strategies yet in my experience scientific visuallations can be extremely useful for providing context across many disciplines in order help develop innovative approach to problem solving in my research in this and trying to understand how we can wrap our heads around, i began looking into the work of mr. fuller. and many decades ago, he started to realize the potential of story telling in data visualization. we spent much of the 20th century slaying the groundwork for the development of new conceptual tools that would increases understanding from a global perspective. this was kind a natural undertaking. he refined the approaches to a half long century experience to see what the single individual could do to benefit humidity in the process he wrote 23 brooks about poet, geometry.

was granted 28 patents from everything from automobiles to art. it's estimated he was actually the most documented human in history probably of course prior to the facebook and twitter. he kepted a detailed log of his life. until he died. it's an incredible archive at stanford that is housed at. 00 volumes. you get -- a lot of people know him as the dome guy. even the goal was an example of one of the many attempts to identify nature's paternal principles to define artbles with less. this is the recurring theme throughout the life. we humans have the ability to recognize the principles and constantly -- [inaudible] technology. we comore and more withless and less. we go better and better by less and less. by straiting the approach to

problem solving. we anticipate problems coming and db now throughout the life, he maintained the biggest challenge facing him was that overspecialization and failure to see the possibility of the big picture was really one of the things that stopping us from breaking through with massive innovation and there was also an idea that emerged from the 19th century assumption the best way to understand reality was by reducing it to the component parts. reduction of it. get it? okay. [laughter] so he also -- the global economic system was based on the same outdated story. right. the assumption of scarcity was embedded with the dominant neoclassical economic paradigm it was based on the belief the exponential population growth would e virtually cause a

catastrophic crisis. as a result he claimed the modern society assumed it's impossible to fulfill the needs of everyone. this of course lead to the notion of the survival of the fittest which was an appropriately adopted theory to justify all kinds of social economic policies based on struggle and scarcity. by believing the stories they actually become self-fulfilling prophesies. we challenge the notions. he began envisioning ways in which the global future of humidity could look to innovations to solve multiple problems simultaneously. by accelerating the problem he -- it was in the long-term interest of all of us at the species. to make the case he started developing numerous approaches to do what we called making invisible visible. he was trying to help world communities and leaders find new ways to realize instead of extracted economic approaches we

can be regenerative inspect is a 18956 drawing what he called miniearth he proposed to place outside the united nations as a constant reminder to the delegates we share one planet. he also wanted to be able to see the whole earth in an undissorted way on flat maps. it made it huge and distorts everything. he developed this to visualize the exat the present time to which land masses are one island and the ocean is one big ocean. to make the stools useful, he collected data to keep tract of global trends over many decades. right. this is a particular one he did that is a graph of mans increased travel of commune indication speeds around the global. it was essentially shrinking or planets for the past 500 years. this is the same year of gordon. he took all of the observations and work with students to develop the first comprehensive

inventory what they call the world resource human trend and needs in 1965. they attempted to define what they call bear maximums of food, water, energy, housing, and transportation and other areas to enable torch realize the full potential. quite change. right. we don't hear a lot of people envisioning that. we hear a lot about the futures. what does it mean to provide for everyone? this was e haven'tly brought together in a project called the world games. that was intended to help players understand the planet through the lens of the bilge data he'd been collected in order to design a work that works for 100% of humanitarian. like what we're doing now with the software tools he worked to property type the displays with teams so he can visualize globes around the planet. this is a 1970 map. and these are energy hot spots around the planet.

he also developed a property type for world resource simulation center they could see an overview of the global metabolic flows and phenomena. the idea was to have them as ed was pointing out stand up and get a sense of the elusion of the spaceness that is forced on us by the political boundaries. by 1972, he do you remembered because of the ever increasing technological ability to do more with less and our understanding of the extreme efficiency of the ecological systems for the first time in history was actually possible to take care of everybody at the higher standard of living that anybody had known. and all humid had the option to be endurely successful. it might sound hopelessly e taupe began. he wasn't poly anish about the perspectives. he stated it bluntly. he insisted everything is touch and go. our only options are oblivion. it's everybody or nobody. so the a lot it wasn't realized

in lifetime. he predicted it wouldn't be happening for another fifty years or so. a lot of predictions are on time. the full scope wasn't realized in his lifetime. the 50-year experiment demonstrated the profound capacity what one individual can do on the planet. he insisted the best way to predict the future was to design it. even on a tom stone he gives us the primary design metaphor when you understand complex systems you find the trim tab which is a small rutter on the plan or the boat that shifts the whole trajectory. we're using a capacity to understand complex systems we can find the leverage points. and so a lot of what we do on the -- what look for the projects that are solving multiple problems simultaneously instead of using specialize strategy we try to understand the intesh connected challenging so we can work more efficiently with the complex system.

i've been inspired by this. i've help to run the organization for the past five years we've been running the challenge program to find out what the project look like today. they are fine and good. you need see embodiment. we're looking for the whole systems of approach the that are revealing what i would suggest was the new stories of humidity. moving from scarcity to extransaction. going forward abundance, restoration and regeneration. the yearly $100,000 prize is a awarding after we put out the call for projects that are designed to make the world work for 100% of human beings in the shortest possible time through spobt use corporation with the disadvantage of anyone. right. we kind of set the bar a little bit high. [laughter] just to see what comes back, you know, we had no idea what was going to happen when we first started doing this. but we're getting a number of submissions every year that are great. we have a incredible jury.

a lot of people recognize the minds. we have the moas amazing signs. -- i find with my work these projects are the stories that we need to be telling. it's fine and good to talk to us about big picture. people have to see what people are doing. they have to see what is possible. and so we have been asking people to be able to publish the projects on what we call the idea index. we have a number of these online. i invite you to go on and check them out. we're starting to explore the way we can combine these and see more synergies emerging from different projects as an example kind of to get to the concrete in the away from the abstract. one of the winners, for instance, this was a project called the challenge of biology named john who is developed the living machines that he uses to row move intox ins from water naturally. he's been doing it for about forty years. he has a proposal of what actually do with west virginia.

i'm from north carolina. i live in southern appalachia. they are being decimate bid the coal industry. the mown -- huge lakes of toxic foods are. it's the deor ituating the condition for a lot of communities. john has a strategy for how to go about sorting to restore the state. it's unprecedented. when people talk about it they are brisessed. we have to start thinking about historically. the myth cities group developed this trappings system that is using the man system for electricity cars and systems. and allen is regrowing grasslands using cattle. there's projects projects projects in madagascar. it's unbelievable what's going on out there. we have to focus attention on this and tell others these stories. at one point fuller argued that, you know, you can't fight existing reality. unless you start to build new

models. i would say the same is true of stories. we need new stories. we need new models. the old reality isn't functioning anymore. and ultimately the boils down to a simple story. i would change all you to consider to adopt it. thank you. [applause] [inaudible] >> goorve. any good afternoon. i'm here to talk about bringing the heart into data visualization and using

beautiful earth is a project i'm working on as an camp and elaborating on the saying that perhaps it's not what you say but how you say it. it's a brief background on how it happened and perhaps reintegrated some of the images and stories that have been spoken. i met a nasa astronaut several years ago and he told me of the story how he rocked out the window at the space station and had the complete transformation he saw the earth from space. and i was so inspired by his story that it got me thinking about how could i bring the transformative experience to those who can't go do space? and the project was born. and the term for it called the overview effect many astronauts have this transformingtive experience seeing the earth from space. this quote by -- [inaudible] undermining the point that i'm trying to make is that we are awash in the information, and

but we need to bring message in the heart and bring the subject of objects together. some of the favors that we all know about dwaight study on the general public only 4% responded potentially to the word of climate change or global warming. there's a huge disconnect with the distraction of the global changes. so going beyond the naked eye of what astronauts can see through data visualization, you can see things we cannot see with the naked eye. and this is an camp of a comparing one type of data can is the -- a photoof active fires. and perhaps if we can use some different too manies and some music, we can really bring it

into a different experience. i don't know if we have audio here. ♪ this clip actually profoundly effects people during the performance. and talking about crying about maps in one may bees everybody cry. this is another example of one from an information. it's a bar graph of oil consumption by country. and here is a depiction of it in the project. ♪ using actual a google earth map geographically on to a image of the planet. ♪ ♪

so a study i think there's increasing research about how the brain works and how we learn and how really we learn from memorable experience and a study by antonio deimagine owe and mary ellen found it results from complex brain dynamics that allow people to interpret their experiences in way that make mining and words we live and e hers within. video, music, and voice recruits the emotional brain that serves as a -- higher cognizant activity was of the neocortex. ..

>> how are people reacting to this? i have four astronauts that went to space, including the head of nasa, that this makes them feel in space. we have real astronauts vouching for the experience. bell la gaia exists with various musicians, and this shows large scale screens we've performed on. we perform at conferences, schools, and universities, art