Transcript

Joe Lavelle: Welcome back to intrepidNOW Lifestyle, I’m your host Joe Lavelle and I’m really looking forward to this conversation with another great thought leader in our series about internet security and safety. We’re going to get right to it today. We’re joined by Richard Guerry, Richard is a Founder of a non-profit organization, the Institute for Responsible Online and Cellphone Communication, commonly called IROC2. Richard, welcome to the show.

Richard Guerry: Thank you so much it’s awesome to be here.

Joe Lavelle: Well, thanks for making the time to be with us today. Richard, before we start our discussion could you take a few seconds and tell the audience about you and your background?

Richard Guerry: Yeah, absolutely. So, in the 90’s, mid to late 90’s, I started teaching myself to code and create websites and I was fortunate enough to get a job in a small marketing firm, but it was all interactive based, but outside of Washington DC and I did that for quite a few years. In about, I guess it was 2005 after my son was born, I came up to New Jersey and was still doing that, but I’d been asked to go into a school to talk about a thing called sexting. I had actually had no idea what they were talking about. To be honest with you I thought it was a prank call.

It turned out it wasn’t a prank call, it was a nurse who found me through the internet and the way she found me was she did a search I think for like “internet kid safety”, and at the time I had my own consulting firm, but it was internet marketing, it just happened that one of my clients was kid’s safety focused. So, it was totally by chance that this nurse found me. But I said you know what, your school is 20 minutes from my house, so I’d be really happy to come in and talk to your students, but I just want to make a couple of things clear which is one I’ve never done this before and I know about technology, but I’ve never done what your asking me to do before to talk to kids about it.

And I said and two, I’ve never heard that word before, and if I come in and if I talk about that word for 60 minutes is that really going to give everybody information to know how to not be the victim of some other word that I might not know about. And so we had a conversation and she agreed that I would come in, so I did and when I talked to the students and parents that attended and the teachers that attended, I was actually quite petrified about how little they really knew about technology, even the back end of technology and how to use technology responsibly, and so I went home and I started doing some research. What is out there for people, because this was not something at the forefront of my mind. I was about making my clients money through digital marketing.

So, as I was researching things I found things like sexting and cyberbullying, but there’s a lot of reactionary information It was almost like we were waiting for something bad to happen, we where putting a label on it and we were writing and assembling about it. And the more I thought about that I’m like you know that’s like came out the matches waiting for the school to burn down and then having the fire safety workshop.

So, it didn’t make any sense to me. So after about a week of really kind of diving deep into this, I was finding lots of great information, but a lot of reactionary information. And so I had a really serious conversation with my wife and my family about obviously a significant lifestyle change going from owning a marketing firm and corporate world to starting a non-profit to help people, and so we agreed that that’s something that I was going to do, and so in 2009 I shut down my firm and I co-founded this non-profit with my wife. And as we enter our 10th-year program next year, we average about 215 programs per school year across the US and Canada. So, it’s been quite a ride.

Joe Lavelle: Wow…. I came to know Richard just a short time ago I attended a presentation that he gave, it was part of a program at my son’s school to do just what he’s talking about. To assist parents in understanding digital responsibility, and by the way, Richard was amazing, he gave 3 hours of great advice in 1 hour, so you have to put on your seatbelt and really listen, but it was fabulous.

Richard just as a background, I started this series a couple of years ago on a personal journey to get smart on internet safety and my thought then was I’m going to find the best technology out there to block all the bad guys and to install on my network and keep my then 10 year old son from getting infected by any bad things on the Internet, and now I stand 2 years later my son is weeks away from turning 12 and 12 is the year that we said he can do almost everything that little kids can’t do, one of which is to get an iPhone, if he demonstrated that he was responsible, and he’s done a pretty good job demonstrating that.

But I thought it would be the time now to update this series and say okay, it’s no longer about blocking everything out there, it’s about teaching a child and teaching myself how to use the Internet responsibly. Where do you stand on this balance between blocking and monitoring technology and then teaching responsible use of the technology?

Richard Guerry: It’s a great question. So, there are a lot of great tools out there that will allow you to monitor, allow you to block, and basically those are programs that can be used as a tool to help minimize risk especially when we’re talking about a 7 or 8 or a 9-year-old who might be using a family computer or the tablet to play games or watch YouTube videos about squishes and flying. So, these are great tools that will help minimize the risk. Certainly, there’s nothing that’s going to be able to keep everything out and also when you start putting filters on things, it does slow the process down a little bit. It makes a little harder for the adult who might be using that computer to actually find things they need to. But I would not ever say anything derogatory about software that allows you to monitor and block. The only thing I need to say is these are not kind of a one-off where you can just put it on and not have any communication with your child about the technology they are using. I like to look at technology almost like a bike with training wheels. When my kids were young, they would all start playing games or my daughter would start taking pictures, and whenever they would play games or take pictures, I had security on the devices as well. Not that I didn’t trust them, but I just, there is a lot of people out there who even adults get scammed, and so I would always sit with them and have conversations.

So, for instance, while my son was gaming and he’s talking to people, I would say, well who is this? I don’t know. What would you say? What wouldn’t you say? Are you talking about the game? Would you share personal information? And sometimes he got the answers right, sometimes he’ll get the answers wrong, but when you get an answer wrong that’s a teachable moment while you’re there and the filters is there to catch it in case something bad does happen, but you’re there to see it.

My daughter when she would take pictures, I would say would you take a picture of somebody that could get them in trouble, or if you think it’s funny, but that might get them in trouble, should you take that picture, do we take pictures of strangers. So, it’s all about having that communication while those filters are on, so that you’re continuously again in the metaphor raising the training wheels. The more they are learning and the more they are getting it right, the more they are showing the responsibility like your son, the more you raise your training wheels.

Eventually those training wheels are going to come off, those filters are going to come off, and so the hope is that while the training wheels were on and they were younger and we were there communicating, we were using the filters as a safety net, but we were also there to try and make sure it didn’t have to get used. So now that the training wheels are off, we’re hoping we have even installed enough information so they can make good informed decisions when we’re not around.

And so that’s kind of the way I look at it with my own kids and that’s the advice I give a lot of parents, because kids are very savvy today, a lot of them know how to get around those parental controls, don’t just use certain technologies, and so it’s really about trying to install the right thought process and mindset on how to be responsible with technology. So, even if they are using something, we’re not aware of, hopefully they are not creating a problem or a challenge for themselves.

Joe Lavelle: Richard, the phrase that you imprinted on my brain when you presented at my son’s school was “public and permanent”. Will you define that for our audience?

Richard Guerry: Sure. Public and permanent is what I call a foundation for owning a digital consciousness or mindfulness. It’s the understanding of not how to use technology today, but how to thrive with any form of technology through time. And what we’re trying to help people to understand is that if you maintain this mindset, this wisdom of public and permanent, when you turn on a digital tool that connects you to the world, you can create things that make you look amazing, and you can use the power of public and permanent to make that thing that makes you look amazing out there. You’re building a footprint, you’re building a portfolio, you’re building a legacy.

If you use technology the power of technology responsibly and you combine that with the power of public and permanent, making things public, making things permanent that make you look incredible then you can open windows of opportunity that past generations never dreamed possible. But if we’re taking a tool that is built for communication, platforms that are built for communication, we are putting things on these tools that we do not want the world to see. Well, then we might have an issue. And so where public and permanent can become an issue is that if we start creating things on tools and communication that we don’t want to become public and permanent, and the reason that that can be an issue is because you just created something that you didn’t want the world to see, you wanted to keep private, but you put it on a tool that is built for communication.

And so, no matter how hard you try to keep it right here and you might do a good job of that, there’s a lot of tools to try and keep things right here. The point is you put it on tool communication that was designed to help you send it out, and when we want to communicate with people, our friends, our family, our bosses, our peers, our teachers, our coaches, when we want to talk to people quick and fast and easy, we can and we love communication for that.

But you have to understand that same exact tool that allows you to communicate with people fast, it also allows those things you don’t want to be seen by the world to get out fast and even if you don’t want it too. And so we say is again if you have this mindset of what I am putting on a tool built for communication, I would be okay lining up public and permanent and not just like oh my gosh, what happens if it goes public and permanent, but more how do I use that mindset and the power of this tool to make myself look incredible, then you can literally use any form of technology you want, you can use any app you want, what we can do is limit our own risk.

When I often look at technology, I use analogies like and as you know like fire and the cars, the two things I use a lot. I love my car, it gets me from A to B, and when I need to get from A to B, if I’m driving defensively, I lower my risk. I can’t control what everybody around me is doing, but I’m lowering my risk. But if I get in that car and texting & driving or drinking & driving, I might never get to B because I’ve just increased my risk and everybody else’s risk.

Well, technology is the same principle. If we drive technology responsibly, you can get from A to B and B might be a job, it might be a scholarship, it might be going to college, you can get from A to B and you can get there quickly and you can get there in an entertaining way and you can do amazing things to when you get to B and have some incredible things happen. But if we’re doing things that can get us in trouble with that tool, we never get to that job or that scholarship because we derailed ourselves by drinking and driving. We put things out on that tool that prohibited us from getting to B.

So, if we can change our thinking and the next generation thinking from how do I hide something catastrophic to myself on a tool that was built for communication to how do I use a tool built for communication to communicate to the world that I am amazing. Well we will find that you can do some incredible things that past generations would never dreamed even possible.

Joe Lavelle: Outstanding. I teach a class from time to time on social media and the thing I harp on all throughout the classes I’m teaching is just be nice.

Richard Guerry: Yup.

Joe Lavelle: If you need to confront somebody, if you need to be mean, don’t do that in public, do that offline, pick up the phone, handle your conflicts somewhere else. But let’s put that over. What are some things to consider before being cruel on the Internet?

Richard Guerry: Some of the things that I always like to think about is one, because I’m human and I get upset obviously. I often make the joke I’m a New York Jets fan, so I’m quite frustrated quite frequently.

But the things that I always try and think about is one I can’t be half the person I’m about to be cruel to. I mean I have no idea of what is going through their head and now I’m communicating through a device, I’m not looking them in the face, I can’t see their emotions or their reactions, so I have no idea what’s going through their head. What might do to themselves, God forbid. Would they do something, do they have a mental health issue or is there something they might do to themselves and how would I feel about that for the rest of my life knowing that I might have been the contributor to that tragedy, and then the other side of that what might they do to me, and it’s very unfortunate but you don’t have to look hard in the press anymore to see people walking into schools, malls, churches, synagogues, night clubs, Vegas with weapons, and honestly the last thing that any person needs to do is put themselves on some lunatics list because they are being cruel to them online.

And another thing I often think about is besides that person I’m being cruel to, I often ask my audiences, I’m like you guys have a relative who may not be all together there like a crazy uncle or just someone who you love them, but when they come to the holidays you might be like oh man, they are coming. The point is you and I have friends and family that love us and will defend us. Well so that the person we’re being cruel to and we have no idea who those people are, and so the last thing we need is someone else’s uncle knocking on our door with a bat.

And then the final thing I always like to think about is to my friends and family, I might be great most of the time, but to billions of people who do not know me, if I’m online saying horrible things then the interpretation of who I am to billions of people who don’t know me is that I’m not a very nice person and when a majority of the world sees something online and makes an interpretation that you’re not a nice person then it’s going to be very difficult for good things to happen because we are a global market and there are a lot of people to select from for a job or a college or a scholarship, and so if the interpretation of us by people who don’t know us is that guy is just flat out horrible then that person is probably not going to have a very good opportunity for good things to happen to them when they want them to happen to them.

So, those are three things I really like to try and reinforce when I’m talking to people. We don’t know who the person we’re talking to truly is inside, what they might do to themselves or someone else, who are their relatives and friends and what they’re might be doing and also what is the world’s interpretation of me if they see me putting out cruel stuff.

Joe Lavelle: Great advice, thank you for that. One of the things that I’m most concerned about personally is gaming. My son’s online time right now is predominantly spent gaming. Is it possible to communicate safely while gaming?

Richard Guerry: Communication in gaming is part of gaming today. It’s not like when I was growing up it was basically not that I want to age myself, but it started out as a stick in an orange button that it went to a pad and two red buttons and there was absolutely no communication. But today a lot of the games especially Fortnite, there’s a lot of communication, and in many ways the communication enhances the game, and so to say to a group of people don’t talk to people in gaming, it’s going to fall on deaf ears because a lot of the games require or incentivize people to do it to enhance the entertainment.

But what I like to say to people is we talk to strangers every day. We might say something in the grocery store, or what I like to use is Dave & Buster’s or I use an arcade as an example. And what I often tell people is if I took a room of people to Dave & Buster’s and we went to that arcade and we spent the whole day there, and maybe there’s a role-playing game and it’s two player and there’s a stranger playing and our kid goes up and says can I play and the stranger says sure.

Now, we’re standing behind our kid watching them and they are playing the game and maybe they are learning some cool stuff, maybe they are talking with the person they are playing with and they are learning some neat stuff and they might be thinking, I want to come back with my friends to show them all the cool stuff I’m learning. As a parent standing behind my child, I’m not really worried because they are just talking about the game, or I often I’ll use the example of those race car games where there are 7 to 10 different race cars and you might be in one of those race cars, but you’re racing all these strangers, you have no idea who they are.

But if you’re standing behind your child and that child is talking to the people around them and they are just talking about the game, again red flags aren’t really going up, everybody is just having a good time and they are just enjoying the gaming experience and they’re communicating about the game and that’s the key. But I often ask people if somebody turn to you or turn to your child after 30 minutes and said where do you live, where do you go to school, what’s your cell phone number, what is your email address, here is a box take it. I often ask people especially in elementary is I say are you going to take the box and of course they’ll say no.

But you’ll be surprised how many people forget that very basic thinking that they would apply at the local arcade when they go into the global arcade, which is the internet or online gaming. And so if we can keep the same mindset that we would in Dave & Buster’s, I wouldn’t say something to someone that I don’t know and I wouldn’t take something from someone I don’t know. If you could apply that same mindset in the game, keep the conversation to the game then the risks of something bad happening go down tremendously because we’re not oversharing personal information and we’re not taking things from people that might make them think they have leverage over us.

And so, it’s very simple, but sometimes the most simple tips are the most important. If we can apply that same mindset, help our kids apply that same mindset, so they don’t get tricked them to giving personal information. If we can tell them listen you don’t respond to something that makes you feel uncomfortable and you don’t say anything beyond talking about the game, then the risks of communication in gaming stay low and they could enjoy their experience.

Joe Lavelle: Outstanding. Richard, how can parents like me use technology to open windows of opportunity versus closing them?

Richard Guerry: Awesome. So, what I often try and tell people is look, if you’re going to be online or your kids are going to be online I might say to my child what did you create today that made you look amazing. If they were on social media, did you put something out there today that made you look beautiful that might enhance an opportunity, did you create something that made you look positive or might make somebody feel better? My whole thing is if my kids are going to be using social media, they are going to be using technology and they are going to be on their posting then I want to make sure that they are posting something positive.

A lot of people at the end of the day, at the dinner table, might say how was your day or what did you do today, what was the part of your day, and these are normal conversations that happen offline. Well, if we can apply the same kind of thinking to understanding that our kids are in a different world a lot of the times during the day, we might ask them, so what did you do online today? What did you put online that was positive today? Did you make a positive impression? Did you make somebody feel good today? Did you do something that might have been uplifting for someone today? These are the kinds of things that I would try and ensure and that I’m asking my kids to make sure that when they are online and they are putting things out there and they are tagging their name to it, they are continuously building a positive footprint, a positive legacy. So not just colleges and jobs, but even future family members one day. When they go to look up who their digital forefathers were, they may discover that they were pretty awesome people.

Joe Lavelle: That’s awesome, I love that advice.

Richard Guerry: One of the things that I don’t think we do enough yet and it’s nobody’s fault, it’s because we’re the first. One of the things I always say is we are the first digital generation. We are creating the learning curve for every generation that comes next. I often use athletes as an example as today we’re all learning about concussions because early athletes got hurt. At the time we aren’t really concerned to worried about them, but it took people to get hurt for us to understand concussions and now we’re learning from it. And the point is the first generations pays the price for the next generation and as the first digital generation, this is what’s happening.

We are creating statistics of promise and pitfalls every day for the next generation to learn from, and one of the things I think because we’re so new at this a lot of people don’t really understand is their legacy. And for our youth, it’s not really their fault because biologically studies show that their brain has to be 25 years old to think long term. But what I try and do is open their minds and help them think long term in the moment. Because what we are doing today as the digital forefathers for every generation that comes next, it is going to be looked at for the same reason we want to know who our ancestors were.

It’s why sites like ancetry.com exist except people today are happy if they see a photograph or an autograph or a signature. Future generations are going to want see a lot more than that and they’re going to have the ability too, because of the technology we have, and so I try and help youth to understand in that moment: what are you leaving behind for future generations to discover about you? And certainly that’s not an easy thing to remember.

So, the tip that I give them and I give your audience is the next time you see a commercial for something like Ancestry.com or Myheritage.com just take a moment to reflect as a leader, or a role model, a parent, a mentor to somebody younger than you, and then ask that person younger than you what do you want your children or your grandchildren to one day discover about you when they go to these far more powerful sites to do a project called the family tree?

And in those moments it’s just a good reminder when you hear that commercial, it’s a good reminder to go back to what I was just saying earlier to encourage your kids to post things that make them look good or helps someone or uplift someone. Encourage them to post something that is encouraging for the world, and again it goes back to them building that footprint, building that legacy, not just for colleges and jobs which is going to be vital for them. But also for future generations to know where they come from and for today’s digital users to be proud of that.

Joe Lavelle: Outstanding. By now Richard, parents are listening and saying I need this guy’s help. How do people engage with you and IROC2 to use the tools you have there and maybe even book a workshop?

Richard Guerry: So, our website www.iroc2.org. That’s basically the flagship site for our non-profit. There’s also information at www.publicandpermanent.com and that’s really our digitally leave behind. And the way we typically work is what will happen is I’ll go into a school and we start opening the mind or building this digital consciousness, and so if somebody wanted to book us for community or school, they can go to our website and they can contact us to and inquire how can they can bring us in. But also in addition to that we have an on-demand platform where you can go in and parents have an opportunity to actually show their kids a video version of the event.

Now, certainly videos are never going to be the same as live, but the videos do talk about a lot of the key points that we do in our live program, and again it is designed for people who might home school or don’t have time to come out to a live event or just don’t have it in their community, it’s a way for them to watch it online. And we have a code watch now one word WATCHNOW that gives any user who wants 10 days of access to our videos 50% off, so it gives them a way to really own it and it’s very inexpensive and really that money goes to a non-profit.

It’s a way they can watch it at home and then any school bring us in, they get a 100-days access plus lesson plans and activities. So, we go in and talk to school, yesterday I had 3,300 kids as you saw it’s a lot of information to drop in an hour or two, so we don’t want to just come and drop this information and leave.

We come in, start this way of thinking about technology, and then we give school resources to continue reinforcing it. And so those resources are available on iroc2.org, if you just go to our on demand platform. So, if you’re a parent you can get the 10 day, if you’re a school you can get the 100 day or you can bring us in. That’s basically how we try to disseminate our information and we’ve been very fortunate, this is our 10th year program which we’re really proud of. We average about 215 programs per school year across the US and Canada, and I’m blessed to do this job. Hopefully it’s helping a lot of people.

Joe Lavelle: 200 plus workshops a year, I’m curious what are the top 3 or 4 concerns of parents these days Richard?

Richard Guerry: Number one, what age do I give my kid a cell phone. That is always going to be a variable question, it’s really based upon the child and it’s based upon the family and I know that sounds kind of like a cop out, but it really is true. I mean I’ll tell you from my own experience at the time now that we’re talking my son is 13, my daughter is 11 and my son has a phone, my daughter doesn’t. It has nothing to do with he’s a boy and she’s a girl, it has to do with they have different levels of responsibility and I would put her in charge, if they were home alone, she’d be in charge as far as the babysitting goes, but as far as understanding the power of technology, having open lines of communication and doing everything, as you had said earlier, doing everything we have asked him to do, he has done it and she is just not there yet.

So, every child and every family is different. I would say when you feel like your son or daughter is responsible enough to power on a tool that connects them to a billion people they don’t know and you feel comfortable knowing that they are not going to create something that could cause them problems or let’s reverse that, you feel comfortable knowing that they are going to use that tool to enhance their lives, that’s the time to give them the phone.

Some other things that we get are about security, and as far as security goes the parental controls and filters, things of that nature. Going back to the start of this conversation, I would never say anything derogatory about parental controls, I will just say that parental controls are there for you to monitor and see what your kids are doing, but you have to participate. If I did put parental controls on my son’s phone and let’s say he did send out a text that could get him into trouble and I got a real-time copy of it, what am I going to do about that halfway across the country, it’s already out.

So, parental controls I look at like a fire extinguisher. The goal is to teach them fire safety so you never have to use it, and if a parent is listening and you have parental controls maybe look at where they’re going, look at who they are talking to, look at the time online, and then from that information you can have communication with your child and say why are you going to these sites? what are you looking at? Hey, you are online X amount of hours, let’s cut that back to this. You can use those tools to communicate with your child, but it’s not about just putting them on and hoping they do the job, because that is not what they are built for.

And then screen time is another thing I got a lot of questions about especially when it comes to gaming and when it comes to social media, As I said earlier we are the learning curve for every generation that comes next and our non-profit, our programs focus on social responsibility. But there are certainly other things like addiction, being desensitized to things like pornography. There are a lot of studies that will come out of our generation.

When it comes to screen time what I often recommend to people is use the tools that are out there to monitor screen time and if you see that if your child is on it for an extraordinary amount of time, show it to them. Show them the report, because I have personally seen kids who are athletes and have other interests be shocked when they see how much time they really were online, and just seeing it black and white has helped them to scale back their time, they realized they had a problem. And a few people that I know personally who have done that, they found that their kids are sleeping better, they were actually doing better in school and they found that they were having less fights with their parents, but it came down to them having to see in black and white how much time they were really online and there are tools out there that will allow you to do that.

Joe Lavelle: Awesome. So, we’ve covered a lot of information very quickly. One thing I want everybody to remember and even write down right now website addresses two of them, the first one www.iroc2.org and then www.publicandpermanent.com. We’ll have both those links in the show notes and you can easily click over there. Richard, it was so great to have you on our show, thanks for stopping by and sharing all this great wisdom with us.

Richard Guerry: No, it’s a privilege. I really appreciate you offering the platform to get this information out there. I really appreciate it, and just for all the parents out there who might feel stressed or alone, you’re not. Every day I try and put myself out of a job and it doesn’t matter what community I am in or what parent I’m talking to, sometimes people feel like they are all lost or they are overwhelmed, you’re not, you’re going through what a lot of parents are going through. There’s no such thing as being the bad parent, you just do what’s best for your family and you’ll be fine. If anybody does need help, those websites he just mentioned please feel free to reach out.

Joe Lavelle: All right. Well, Richard it’s certainly our pleasure to have you and that wraps this broadcast, on behalf of our guest, Richard Guerry, I am Joe Lavelle and we’ll see you soon on intrepidNOW Lifestyle.

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