TFGL2021 - S1 - Ep3 - Thanks, Internet - Show Transcript

Welcome to this episode of the Tech For Good Live podcast.

Joining host Bex, we have Greg Ashton and Tom Passmore from the TFGL team, and our special guest this week is Matt Collins. Matt runs Platypus Digital, a digital marketing agency for charities.

Transcript

Bex: Hello, lonely and bored people. Welcome back to the Tech for Good Live podcast. I've cast my eye over the agenda for the show today and it looks to be at least adequate, maybe even good. We'll judge that as we go. We'll be talking today about some shocking stories. For example, The Washington Post reports that if you kick wires off Twitter, then there's less lying on Twitter. There's some stats to back up this unbelievable statement. We'll get into tha. With the third sector news report says that politicians are having some major beef with campaigners and activists. Again, very new information. There's also talk of a sweetheart deal between Facebook and Google. This is mostly surprising because Zuckerberg is a lifeless robot. He doesn't have the capability to recognise when something is sweet nor understand what a heart is. Who knows, maybe one day Zuckerberg will encounter his own Dorothy Gale. She'll have little Toto with her. She'll be wearing ruby slippers, and they'll be singing and dancing, and she'll throw water on Zuckerberg and we'll all be finally free of this nightmare. Anyway, let's get podcasting. Joining me today, with our collective fingers on the pulse of Tech For Good, we have Greg Ashton. Greg, if you had some ruby slippers right now, where would you send yourself and you're not allowed to just say away?

Greg: I wouldn't send myself anywhere. I'd send everybody else away.

Bex: (laughs) Good answer. Tom Passmore is stepping into the role of both producer, editor and regular old contributor today. Tom, same question about the ruby slippers.

Tom: Oh, I don't know. I don't know . There’s so many options. Oh quickly, Lisbon. 

Bex: Lisbon? Any reason?

Tom: I went there once and it seemed nice.

Bex: Okay (laughs). I'm Bex. I'll be your host today. If I could send myself anywhere it would be, I don't know, somewhere with wine. Probably for the same reason as Tom. I actually saw a shooting star the other day and I thought I’d better wish for something and I thought wine. I’ve used my one wish on wine. I already have wine in the house. Collins is here with us as well. We have a wonderful guest which is more important than any of us. Hi, Matt. 

Matt: Hi. how’s it going? 

Bex: Good. Good to have you here. You run Platypus Digital, and that's a digital marketing agency for charities. Is that correct?

Matt: That is correct. Absolutely correct. Could not be more correct if you tried it.

Bex: Excellent. Would you like to add any extras on to that. Anything else that you want to say about yourself?

Matt: Yeah, I run Platypus Digital, which is a digital marketing agency for charities, tech for good at its very core. We exist to raise money and raise awareness of really good causes online. Yeah, how much more of an unbelievable plugin can I fit into this? Am I gonna get asked the ruby slippers question though? Because that's the question I really want to answer.

Bex: Yes. If you have ruby slippers Matt, where would you send yourself?

Matt: Well, I don't wanna get too detailed about that specific question but are we talking about the world as it is, but just anywhere in it? Or just like any version of the current world? 

Bex: Oooh, I don't know. What powers do the ruby slippers have? Do they transcend time? They do transcend different worlds so we can have that I suppose. 

Matt: Yeah we can get to a parallel universe but only at this time. My imagination doesn't stretch that far. So these ruby slippers are going to take me to maybe the mosh pit front row of a national gig where it's really, really crowded. You know, normally, they would take you to a desert island that there's no one around and it's just empty space. I don't want that anymore. I want to be really close to people who are listening to really live music in a way that I haven't done obviously for nearly a year. So that's where my ruby slippers have taken me and if there's wine there that’s fine.

Bex: And it's in Lisbon. Maybe we can combine forces.

Matt: Why not? Why not?

Bex: Greg won't be there so he'll be happy.

Greg: Yeah we’ll all be in Lisbon. 

Matt: I didn't know we were going to Lisbon before. Now I know, can I come? Do we all have to fit into the same pair of ruby slippers? I mean….

Greg: No. I don’t want my feet touching somebody else’s. 

No, I think it'd be fine. We just took each other in like Harry Potter and stuff where they just zip around. I mean, that'd be fine. Yeah, they're magical. They can do pretty much what we want them to do. 

Perfect.

Bex: I forgot about your foot thing, Greg. Sorry for bringing that up. I know it’s a bit hard for you. Anyway, apparently there was a 78% decrease in misinformation, decrease in misinformation to allow for Trump's…..somebody else do it. 

Greg: I mean, I like the idea that they've removed the creases from misinformation. They’ve decreased it. So yeah, there's been a 78% decrease in misinformation following Trump's removal from social media. Yeah. As you said in the intro, are we surprised by this fact?

Tom: So is this all misinformation, or just Trump related misinformation?

Greg: It's specifically focused on tweets that were questioning the election.

Tom: Okay, that makes much more sense.  

Greg: Yeah. 

Tom: Than just every bit of information on Twitter. A massive reduction like, wow, he worked hard. Wow. 

Matt: It's an interesting one, isn't it because it really speaks to the power of social media to amplify, if someone says something is true, often enough that it is true, like and Trump's power on social media was such that he had legions of people who would just retweet everything he put out there. Doesn't matter what it was. The topics could be widely googled but just amplify it. And suddenly, you remove the figurehead from that kind of pyramid of bullshit, then everything just kind of crumbles beneath it. And that's an interesting one, because, well, I think it speaks to two things. Twitter has an incredible power, like more than you might think, because they just removed a couple of accounts that weren't just Trump, there are some allies in there as well. And faith in one of the biggest democracies in the world is almost universally restored, because that's where it was being shaken. All they had to do was remove one person. Twitter has that power over the world. Like it's really scary in a way. Then I was sort of thinking about it and yeah, I wouldn't believe anything like that but at the same time, you must have done what I've done and just flicked through Twitter looking for the opinions of someone who's smarter than you are. Think, how do I get over Brexit, how do I get out of lockdown? What do I need to think about this? You're looking for people's opinions that are smarter than mine and like that's what Trump's followers are doing. So yeah, you just got to be careful and make sure you think for yourself every now and again.

Bex: Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the weird things for me about all of this was that I obviously think Trump definitely should have been banned from social media sites much, much sooner. And I 100% agree with that. But there was always this little thing in the back of my mind, like, oh, I kind of like him. beyond Twitter. I need to know what he's up to, like, I need to keep an eye on him. That sort of thing. It's helpful to see how much detail there is on social; that seems to be an important thing. Like there's always that little thing in the back of my head but obviously, it's good that he's not on Twitter. Obviously. And this kind of proves it.

Greg: Yeah, I did question whether how much of this was related to Trump and how much was related to other factors. So where we're up to in the election and the inauguration, the fact that many of his supporters also left after he was banned because of their feelings about the situation, kind of crackdowns on various groups and users. But I mean, the research demonstrated that Trump's tweets were retweeted at a crazy rate by the supporters, no matter the subject. So he's got a huge ability to kind of amplify his message.

Tom: It's just crazy. Like, honestly, I just find it bewildering, that reach that Twitter had. Like what you were saying man, that power. Like that is terrifying for everyone I think. Like just this idea that one megalomaniac can change and alter, basically, reality around you. And it's just like, that's not okay. Like that ability to do it is quite, I mean, it's quite impressive. But shame it's always for evil. Why do impressive things always have to go evil? 

Matt: That’s a very good question. Yeah, but it's interesting what you were saying about following him to keep an eye on him. And I think a lot of people will not agree with what he says, but they'll follow him for entertainment. Like the comedian John Malaney does this great piece about him and when he gets in, first, when he was elected, he compared it to a horse being loose in the hospital. It's like, well, this has never happened before and so he's constantly checking his phone going on there. What's the horse doing in the hospital? What does it even know what a hospital is? And then like, you look for updates, like, well, the horse has got into a lift, and you're like, no, he knew how to do that. And then you're just like, captivated by the story. You don't want the horse to win. You don't root for the horse. You don’t support it, but a horse at a hospital, it just doesn't make any sense. And so you're glued to it as a permanent news story and he loved that and fed on the attention, as all great megalomaniacs do but you gotta admit it's a distraction. And sometimes it's funny and it would’ve been a lot funnier had it not been tragically true. Today, at least today at recording time, this is his last day.

Bex: It is very exciting. And scary. I'm scared for tomorrow. But fingers crossed. When this releases, it will all have happened.

Greg: Yeah, it'll be over.

Tom: It will, it will be the start at the end.

Bex: Well, everything will be over.

Tom: Let’s stay positive. It will be a new left leaning government in the USA, which will then create a world change and it will all be rosy and bright.

Bex: Talking about staying positive - charity news of the week. Apparently there are hostile relations between politicians and campaigners. What's this about Greg? Talk us through it?

Greg: Yeah, so Sheila McKechnie Foundation, have done a poll of UK campaigners and activists and 63% said politicians became more negative towards campaigning in 2020, which is up 18% on the previous year. In their words, they're calling on politicians to work with the sector and stop making charities fodder in the phoney culture wars. Matt, I know that you had some thoughts on this. 

Matt: Mostly feelings, I do struggle to kind of distil them into thoughts that you can actually understand, but it's absolutely infuriating stuff. This has been going on for years and years. So the conservatives have very intentionally been creating a hostile environment for charities for a number of years. And they've tried to make it so that campaigning on an issue that matters to charities is a bad thing, and you shouldn't do it. And it's really clever in many ways. Again, it's like this classic Trump-ism of if you say something enough times, it becomes true. I grew up in Northern Ireland and was a there was a thing, politics, obviously a different slant 20 odd years ago, 30 years ago. And people would sometimes say people, like, he doesn't care about politics, like he’d be praising someone and saying he doesn't care about politics, he doesn't care about any of that stuff. I remember my dad saying to me, he's like, I don't understand that as a compliment because if you're saying you don't care about politics, you don't care about whether families have a roof over their heads, you don’t care about whether kids get fed in school, you know, you don't care about justice from marginalised groups. That’s not a compliment. Or it shouldn't be anyway. And they're starting to do the same thing here. They're like, well, if you get involved in political campaigning, or you're playing party politics or whatever, then you shouldn't do that. Whether the families have a roof over their head and kids get educated and discrimination against marginalised groups, that’s charities business. And obviously, if you're, you know, conservative, right leaning government, you don't want to have charities, you know, in your ear every five minutes saying hey, what about this change, maybe you could change the rules a little bit so that things aren't so incredibly unjust. They don't want to hear that. So they've created this kind of vibe, where campaigning is just not welcome because they don't want to make those changes. You know, they're far too busy giving multimillion pound contracts for literally nothing to their best friends. So it's been going on for a long time and I’m not surprised to hear that it's filtering through to that level. it's just an unbelievable disgrace. These people are trying to change the world for the better and these organisations know more about that stuff than most politicians everywhere. And they should listen, and they should make improvements they're suggesting. That’s what campaigning is, it improves people's lives. 

Tom: So I've got this thing about charities. In a perfect world, charities wouldn't need to exist because the state would look after people. So based on that kind of idealistic thought, I would have thought that Tories would have loved charities because they could just, you know, see it as a secret tax. Just let people get on with it. We don't want to look after our people and I’m putting a lot of words in Tories’ mouths now, which they probably have said, but this goes against that idea in my head, which is really interesting. So did they just not want to care for people at all, in any way, shape or form? 

Matt: That's a good question. I mean, you know, it's easy to characterise politicians as good and evil and stuff, and it's very hard not to in a situation like this, where you have Jacob Rhys Mogg calling UNICEF a disgrace for playing party politics in the way that they did. You know, disgrace for trying to proclaim that in the first place. Yeah, and there was a comment, it was a long time ago. I can’t remember who said it, but that the charity should stick to their knitting. You know, that they shouldn't get involved in these kind of high level, you know, campaigning stuff, leave that to the big boys and girls, and you know, we're the government. We’re the people who do all this. You stick to your knitting. Very, very patronising, like, you know, these are the public policy campaigners who have huge numbers of years of experience, who could, you know, change the world at a click to their fingers, because they know so much about a particular issue. Stick to their knitting now.  That’s what they said.  I mean, again, if this is a bit too on the fence, please call me out on it. And it's, you know, not committing one way or the other. But yeah, broad feelings on that situation.

Bex: Yeah, I can add to that. I completely agree 100%. And I think it was, like, really what? It was a great speech, Matt. And, you know, I've been watching old films recently, that I should have seen years ago, I've only just started to watch and I watched Air Force One last night. And the speech he did at the beginning, I nearly cried, I was like I could have used….it's not related to this particular issue. But for some reason, your speech just then reminded me of the Don't be afraid speech from Air Force One. So well done. 

Matt: That's a great compliment. I had to try and think about what I thought about that because when it's mentioned in conversations, I just go off on one and I don't make any sense. Let me try and make sense so we can talk about it at some point.

Bex: We will no longer tolerate. We will no longer be afraid, is basically the end of that. And I think it applies to this. It's your turn to be afraid politicians.

Greg: But is that the right approach, though? Like, where has that emnity come from? Why is that that friction? You know, if we kind of look at it from the perspective of the charity is providing a service, they’re providing a deeper knowledge about a particular group, and they're there to kind of balance the knowledge of politicians and the work that they're doing. Surely it benefits everybody, rather than at loggerheads, that campaigning is kind of a force to say, here's what you should be thinking about, rather than it being a battle. There is some kind of collaboration, maybe not at the start but certainly towards the end. And how  have we got to this point, and how do we get past it?

Matt: I don't know how we've gotten to this point. I mean, probably the two answers are the same. We probably have gotten to this point because the Conservatives have been in power for 15 years now. 16. And we get past it by voting them out . Not to get too party political, but you know, because that's a really terrible thing,I honestly think that. I mean, it's easy to go it was all great and in the old times, it definitely wasn't. But you're right, that is how charity should be used. You know, a lot of people in the charities, Chief Execs, Policy Managers, they've been around for a lot longer than any government. Some of them longer than the parties have been around. Like, they know those issues inside. I mean, you're right. They're just they're kind of banging the door down saying give us what we want. Strongarmed I’m sure. If you're a policy person, you know how to talk constructively, or more constructively, maybe than I do. And they would do given half the chance. It’s a good question. I don't know. I don't know what the easier answer to that is.

Greg: So on that, I mean, I would argue that the previous Labour government had just as bad or if not worse, human rights record. But so do we think this is kind of a publicity thing? Is it? Is it in the press? Is it the media, kind of hyping these conversations up? And it's, you know,  arguments on Twitter, but actually behind the scenes, everybody's just getting on with the job and they are having those more constructive conversations.

Matt: I'm sure constructive conversations haven't gone away completely. You know, I know there's years of relationships at local and national level between politicians and charities that you know, endure. But the stats and the surveys suggest that it's a different environment, compared to a few years ago.

Bex: I say It's weird. It's like an entire culture change. We're shifting the culture and the kind of attitude towards consultation and into policy with working with people on the ground. That’s a big thing to reverse. It's a bigger thing to reverse than just a one off issue. How do we do it? What should we do? What action should we take to make this better? Any idea? Any thoughts?

Matt: I mean, charities know what they're doing, I would say. You know, they'll keep going. They won't stop, they will never stop. So there's incredible tenacity and passion there. So that's the main thing, is keep supporting charities and when they have campaigns out there you know, support them . Use social media for good then. You know, when it says tweet to show that you've taken this action, and share on Twitter, then do it. Share on WhatsApp. Tweet your local MP, email your MP and all these things are possible on the internet so keep on doing them until change happens, which it does incrementally every day. 

Bex: Awesome. Go on Greg. It looks like you were gonna say something.

Greg: Yeah, I was gonna say it kind of reminds me of a conversation we had the other week about unions and that. And I was saying it’s about that balance. You know, particularly for those who are in power, having the checks and balances should be part and parcel but it should also be welcomed so that you can make sure that you're getting the best results. Because it isn't, you know, whether you're left or whether you're right, no one's  got the right answer 100% of the time, it's just a difference of opinion. So having that balance from another voice should be in every situation where we need that balance of power, I think we should be open to heated debate. There's nothing wrong with heated debate. It's when you get your Trumps and people like that in where it's suddenly you know, we're right, you're wrong. And those conversations and I feel, I felt that's probably part of this growing dissonance between the campaigners and the politicians. Yes, those arguments have always been there. But, you know, potentially, it's been more civil in the past. And now it's just kind of like, it's our way or no other way.

Matt: Yeah. And like campaigning, I think it is hard. It is encouraging, passionate debate, and I 100% support that. This is trying to shut down the debate. You know, like when Trump kind of banned certain reporters or when, you know, the kind of Dominic Cummings style of government banned certain reporters from press conferences. It’s stifling debate. And it's like, well, we're not even gonna listen at all. If they listen and disagree that's, you know, that's a different thing altogether. But to shut it down is yeah, scary really.

Bex: Did you want to talk about the update on the financial investment guidance? Is it interesting? it sounds really boring. No offense.

Greg: It does sound really boring, but it touches on something interesting luckily. The Charity Commission, they're kind of going up their guidance on how charities might invest their reserves, like the cash they've got, which sounds like a very boring financial thing. But at the minute, they can kind of invest their money wherever they want and Charity Commission have already said they're not sure they should be telling charities how to invest. But this is an interesting one, because in theory, if that's the case, use a charity who people will rightly or wrongly think should be a really ethical type of organisation, could invest in funds that back sale of weapons, tobacco, alcohol, any number of unethical funds and reap the rewards of that investment and reinvest the funds into charitable service. Now, should they be able to do that is the question. And that touches on a very kind of wide ranging topic, which is how ethical an organisation should be, top to bottom average charity be top to bottom. So let's say you are a health charity, you're a cancer charity, you know, should you therefore because you are a charity and you're trying to do good in the world, should you have an ethical investments policy that says you're not going to invest in certain types of funds because they are not nice. They're not good, they don't do good things to make their money. Should you have top to bottom anti racism policies and show real commitment to that even though your cause has nothing to do with racism for example. Should you work very hard to ensure there's no kind of discrimination of any kind, top to bottom? I mean, there's all sorts of wider issues in the calls, you've got a lot of charities, you know, possibly some people's view is that because they're a charity, they tick I'm a good person box or a good organisation, so the rest of it doesn't really matter. And money being you know, very tight for most charities at the moment. 2020 was a terrible year for fundraising obviously and some may resist guidance in an area that they previously had freedom to kind of make more money. So it's boring on its own for sure. But if you think about it more widely, how ethical an organisation should a charity be. Quite an interesting question really. 

Bex: Yeah, conceptually, that's like super interesting and something we talk about a lot and I I think there's like a really easy answer for it because it is about weighing up impact as well, isn't it? And like, I think on the surface, we'd all like to say, yeah, of course charity should be ethical. And why don't they actually leading this because we think about things in this way already. But yeah, sometimes I think there is this narrow focus, which is a shame, because the way that charities tend to think about impact is much better than other sectors based on what they do. But yeah, it's a fascinating topic, like, even not in the charity sector, people vaguely are trying to do good. If there's like a fund out maybe, a lot of tech companies have funds, like for the CSR, and you're like, should we take that money because we know that maybe they're not the most ethical company, should we take that cash. And a way I've been seeing it as it's like a tax for them being bad, and you take the money and run and do good stuff over here. And you could argue that loads of stuff, good stuff has been done off the back of that money. But also, you're like agreeing that it's okay for them to give money out and cover up the bad stuff that they're doing. So yeah, it's like a conversation that used to come up all the time. Do you take the money and run and do your own good stuff with it? Or do you like refuse to work with these people? And yeah, it's a fascinating topic.

Matt: Yeah, I am, I included this because it reminded me of a few years ago, I can't really remember whether it was, it might have been a few charities, actually, certainly I think Comic Relief or Children in Need, got caught foul of this, because they were investing money into a series of funds and it turns out, parts of those funds were funding like tobacco and things like that. So they kind of got called out for that. And I remember, I think we spoke about on the podcast at the time about, I think people were surprised that they were using their money in that way. So one of the reasons I included this was, I'm not sure whether it is the Commission's job to tell charities how to invest their money because you know, then they could be fairly short sighted or maybe they're not saying the right things. And there's an opportunity for innovation or development. But what it's done that's really important is sparked a conversation. So given charities and other organisations the opportunity to chime in on this topic, and actually talk about, okay, how and why charities should be investing the money. So I think it's really useful in that respect, that people are having those conversations. Because when you don't, what happens is, you know, someone in finance is seeing that opportunity with investment, but doesn't think it through from the perspective of the charity as a whole so having the open and honest and speaking about it, I think gives them the opportunity to do it well. And do it right.

Greg: Yeah, totally. And I think the conversation is important, but really, and if it sparks that, then great and if there's no conversation has happened at the highest levels of a charity about where they spend money and how they fundraise and what it's okay to do and not to do, then the person responsible for investing a charity’s reserves, which will run into the many millions of pounds and should be made to work to create more money to deliver more of their service that will, you know, change people's lives for the better, then they'll default to doing what has the highest return because that's their job. And if they haven't got any more of a framework than that, and then if the conversation happens, and is a spectrum, not just good investments, bad investments, there's a conversation that happens about what they should invest in, where they should invest, how much, that kind of thing, then that's going to be a productive one. But it's funny where people just assume that charities need to be held to a much higher ethical standard than everyone else in the whole country. It's why charity CEO pay comes up again, and again, as a terrible issue. So there’s like CEOs on 90 grand or whatever, it just paints a picture of charity CEOs as money grabbing and selfish and only in for their own careers. And there’s an idea that they should be angels and just volunteers all the time and working for nothing. So it's, again, it's that kind of principle applied in a very specific area.

Bex: And just bringing it quickly back to technology as well, like, you know, when we think about being or acting in an ethical way, and spending money, you can also talk about procurement. And I think it's really, really hard to decide what tech platforms to use, or procure, you know, talking about CRMs or whatever. This is something I’ve been thinking over a lot lately. And like you can't, there's no easy way of figuring out what that platform is up to behind the scenes and whether they're a good company, like it's really a bit shady and hard to have to figure it out. So I think frameworks for this sort of stuff, like how do you choose the tech that you work with. We slag off a lot of charities for pushing Facebook because we know that they are like a bad company. 

Tom: Are they? 

Bex: It’s probably more complicated than that but there's no guidance to say who's bad and who's good and why and we know that they're bad because of every single podcast that we do. But you know, it's hard to make those decisions. So yeah, frameworks are good to help people make decisions. 

Greg: Yeah, yeah, really good.

Matt: But it's a hard question. You know, when charities were having a go for Stop It for Profits thing and we kind of talked to a lot of our clients about it and said that there’s this campaign happening, we do support it and we know how hard that is because the amount of good that Facebook does for charity and not a CSR way,. If you advertise your events, or your cash appeals or your regular giver acquisition campaigns on Facebook, it’s a good chance you'll make money and you use that money to change people's lives for the better. There is no platform that rivals it in terms of reach for sure. So to say we're not going to do that, we're not going to get the returns that it brings is a hard question and the challenge is how to go and we didn't quite get there. And you can understand why. So yeah, I think a lot of them will know Facebook are bad, and if it's started the conversation that's a good start. But I think for charities, that's a hard one. That's really hard. 

Bex: Yeah, absolutely. We need to kind of take that into consideration I think, when we’re pushing this agenda on them. But talking about Facebook, tech news of the week, there is a sweetheart deal going on between Facebook and Google, apparently. What's this, Greg? 

Greg: Yeah, so there were rumours of this flying around for a few years. I think going back to 2018, maybe longer. Basically that Facebook and Google were doing backroom deals to kind of reduce ad competition and corner the market. They nicknamed the deal Jedi Blue and it sounds like a nefarious deal doesn't it? Sounds sneaky. Sounds like something you'd buy off the Silk Road or whatever it's called. Yeah. So basically working together to reduce competition and do exactly what they've been doing anyway. But then to make it even harder for people and this could not have come at a worse time. So this is from documents that have been obtained by the New York Times. So this is like evidence that these things are going on. So it's really bad news, I think, for Facebook and Google in regards to the antitrust cases that are going on. And that brings us back to that question of what the charities do ,you know, if they have a choice between using a platform that ferments insurrections and creates genocide in certain countries, then the governments are the ones that are going to have to make those decisions on their behalf. And it’s cases like this, and not any government. So the UK government couldn't do very much about it. Really, it's down to the US government in this weird, global world that we live in, where we're now realising that having massive globe spanning organisations, that we need some different way of policing them because now it's up to us to wait for the American government to do something about it.

Greg: Which is always a very shaky position to be in, I think, no matter what. If we just wait for America, they'll sort it out. They love a bit of anti competition. So it's a funny one, isn't it because it's a bit of a sort of scorpion stings frog shocker kind of story. Like these are enormous organisations, both with unbelievable revenues that would make your eyes water, and neither of them have any interest in reducing or increasing competition. They want their monopolies and they want to make money, so any deal they can strike whereby they will both make more money and keep away from competition, they for sure are going to do it. And that's what you should expect. And it's one of the many issues in the world that I'm glad it's not my actual job to deal with that, because that's quite a big problem. Quite a hard one to fix, you know. When is enough enough for these guys. Like, when is that amount of money? Like? Why? Like why. I don’t understand the why. Is it just to do it, like just to solve the tech problem around or is there a way to figure this out? That's what I don't understand about this. I've never quite understood because maybe I’m not cut the right way but why. 

Matt: Did you ever see that scene in Breaking Bad where he's talking about the fact he's got $88 million now and he's made that amount of money. Someone was saying, it doesn't matter how much you've got, and even if you've got any 88 million or 8 million or $8, however much you've got to have more, and there's just something on it as a human nature that perpetual growth is always a good thing. And Caroline Lucas does some great content around this. She says like, there's a pile up on the M1. You know, that's great news from a lot of perspectives, that's going to create jobs because it's going to create new cars, insurances, you know, maybe not so good. But but economically speaking, this is a great event from every other viewpoint and every other measure, it's a total tragedy. And yet we kind of measure how well a country is doing in GBP. You measure all these things in money. So to your question, how much is enough? Nothing I think there’s just something that kind of keeps on going. And it's sort of fascinating to think of the culture must be like, it is just perpetual growth, you just gotta keep going I guess. 

Bex: Yeah It’s so funny, thinking about money. And I was talking to him the other day, who is going through employing people where they work and they were trying to employ a contractor for some short term work and the day rate and like, I've seen some high day rates in my time, but this was like, got to a point where I just felt sick thinking about it. And they were arguing over it. So obviously, they were like, we need someone in now you're the only person we can find. We can't afford this amount of money. Can you just come down a little bit on the day rate? And they were like, no, no, we will not go below this figure. It's obscene. It gets to where it’s obscene. Like you do not need that money. You do not need that. Nobody needs that amount of money. Like, what are you thinking? Why are you pushing for this? And it was on a social project as well. It's like trying to make the world a better place and you’re charging that ridiculous amount of money. Just….yeah.

Matt: Gotta be done. You can have two of them: fast, good and cheap.  You can only have two of them. So they wanted it fast and good, that means it's not going to be cheap. 

Bex: Yeah, yeah but I mean, this was beyond expensive. 

Matt: Beyond expensive (laughs) 

Bex: Thousands of pounds day rate. Like what! Anyway, on that, let's do one nice thing. That's nice of the week this week, thank you, Matt, instead of a rant. So we’ve got a positive story. And Tic Tok crowdsourced pills for medicine bottles. What's this about? Do you want to tell us Matt, cause it’s your story?

Matt :Well, I kind of crowdsourced this story.  So Sarah in my team mentioned this. Yeah, it was a funny one. So people were complaining about pill boxes couldn’t open because they had Parkinson's and the type of Parkinson's where you have tremors as well. So a guy taught himself 3d modelling from scratch within a week, because he was so angry about it, but didn't have a 3D printer. So he made the models open source. And a whole lot of people went and printed them out.  Sarah and Chris on my team mentioned this, that's just so amazing. Like, some people just jumped on a huge opportunity to, you know, improve people's lives. And that is like, that's the kind of thing where, unless you have this particular condition, and are trying to do something as simple as take a couple of pills out of a bottle, which is something we do every day and not think about, man, okay, well, that's not feeling hungry on the streets and gets, you know, campaigning for justice in the way that I've talked about before. But it changes people's lives for the better, you know, straight away and I just love the ingenuity and the inventiveness of people to just jump on a problem and get a solution really quickly or, you know, thanks to the internet really. 

Bex: Thanks internet. 

Matt: Thanks, internet. 

Greg: Yeah, imagine if social media worked like this all the time.

Bex: This is what we were told it was gonna be like. Remember that? 

Greg: It‘s what it used to be like, that's really big, isn't it? 

Matt: Yeah, humans got involved and it all went to pot. It's interesting, unfortunately, like news is such that it's usually bad news when you read it, because most things that happen on the internet, including on social media are good, but they're never news stories, because people are just assumed to be good. So when bad things happen, that’s the exception. It's more about the like, people have been DMing people with messages of support all the time. I mentioned something, I tweeted something,it wasn't a cry for help but I did to sort of mention that I get super anxious when my kids cough at the minute COVID like straightaway, or if it's a bit hot in the room, I'm like, I've got a fever what's going on, and loads of people just sent me a DM saying are you okay and like anxieties is a tough one. And I was like three out of 10 on the anxiety scale. It wasn’t terrible. But that’s the kind of thing that happens but you never hear about it. I don't think TechCrunch is going to run with that story, are they?

Greg: (laughs) Man gets support through friends on Twitter.

Matt: Yeah. Yeah, you're not gonna hear about it.

Bex: Maybe our friends at Policy News will totally want that story right?

Greg: Oh yeah, that's the kind of stuff that they'd lap up. Yeah, definitely. And to be fair I have seen more news stories like that, I think, exactly for that reason. Even the news.I think even journalists are seeing that, like you were saying it's the things that are the norm. And it's really standing out now that people are getting stressed and under the weather and I think most journalists are doing it for their own sanity as well as like sharing these stories of positivity just to get themselves through. 

Bex: Talking about more positivity, we do have this ‘and finally’ piece  as well so we've got like a double positive which is great. I love this ‘and finally’. So 35% of people are reading more in the pandemic, which has led to an increase in independent bookshops so they're not all flocking to Amazon, which is brilliant.

Greg: Yeah, so it's not a huge amount. So there were 44 independent book shops that closed during the pandemic, but fifty book shops opened. And just for the whole idea of somebody thinking, oh there's a pandemic, I'm going to open a bookshop, and then an independent one at that. It just seems completely nuts but yeah, I think it's just fantastic. It's really good. I have read more in the pandemic. 

Bex: I’ve been using bookshop.org, I have properly made that change only in supporting good bookshops.

Matt: It's one of the best things that has come out of the pandemic, is bookshops.org. You know that's a business that pretty much started and got ramped up and launched and is now high performing all throughout 2020, and that's not a kind of ‘God isn’t great that COVID happened and that we wouldn't have all this stuff like this. I won’t want to say that but like these are things that will stick around post pandemic. Everyone will be vaccinated, we'll all be back in offices and bookshop.org will still exist. That's really amazing. And I've been looking for a way to buy books for my kids and stuff and for me, that is not Amazon, but it's as easy and nice to look at and quick as Amazon, and it's not like an e commerce experience that wants me to end my own life because it's just so difficult and painful on mobile. Bookshop.org is it and I can select my local bookshop around the corner. It's really fantastic to see that stuff. That is an interesting one because like people are reading more. Again, it kind of points to this thing that I've never really identified with, that people have loads of free time, because of COVID. I know it depends on your personal situation and if you've been furloughed, do you have more free time. If you lost your job then you might have more free time but you might be looking for a job and stuff. I have not got more free time. Sitting around with my feet up on the sofa, just flicking through a book almost kind of paints that image. That's not my personal experience but Bookshop.org is just brilliant.

Bex: Oh, yeah, that's it. We're done. That's all the time for and we finished on time, by my surprise. So yeah, that's all we have time for. Thanks for listening. Matt, how did that go? Was that fun? 

Matt: It was alright. I got to rantand talk about things I was interested in.

Greg: Good. Much better than the people sending your nice messages on Twitter. 

Matt: Too right. It's such an important place for that but the odd nice messages are good but people have to get rid of all the crap. They just don't have to follow Donald Trump to do it, you can come on a nice podcast like this.

Bex: Yeah. A friendly rant about stuff. It's a helpful rant.  Any final plugs you want to do before we sign off? 

Matt: Final plugs. Go to platypusdigital.com and check out our fantastic services that are helping charities deliver their services online and raise money for the amazing work that they do. Never more needed. Follow me on Twitter at Charity Chat although I haven't tweeted much in the last few weeks I've noticed. I'll be back on there for sure, follow me for sure and inflate my fragile ego with increased follower numbers.

Bex: Excellent. Well thanks for coming on. Listeners, what did you think? We would love to hear your thoughts. Send us some nice Twitter DMs, we're at Tech for Good Live. Or if you want to have your say on the podcast, email, hello@techforgood.live and we might even read it out. Check that out. Nobody's ever done that. No, a few people have us , that’s a lie. If you've enjoyed this podcast, give us a nice little review on iTunes as well and tell your mates about the podcast. My nan would be very happy. She’s old. Why would you want to disappoint my nan. Thanks to podcast.co for hosting our podcast . We really appreciate it and that's everything from us today. Thanks for listening, and Goodbye. 

All: Bye.