NUF-Said 2.0 Process

It was the Summer of 2013, I was participating in my first term of Free Spirit Media. Mrs. Teresa asked the group in our morning circle if anyone was interested in being a part of a workshop that helped design a website for youth for 8 weeks on Saturdays. Zaharia, Paris, and I raised our hands to sign up for the program. Of course, the program was NUF-Said. When I came to the first meeting, I not only immediately felt a part of something that was bigger than myself, I felt how open everyone was to the ideas flowing through the room and the creativity brewing with more to come. In those first 8 weeks alone, I felt an attachment to the project that was as strong as the attachment I felt to Free Spirit Media in my first term there. At the last meeting, Dawn asked us if anyone was interested in being on the fall term team for NUF-Said, and I raised my hand as quick as possible.

In the Summer of 2013, I was preparing myself to go into my Sophomore year of High School, not entirely sure of how I was going to be able to stay dedicated to NUF-Said on weekends and Free Spirit after school without impacting my grades. It is about to be the Summer of 2015, and I am not only preparing to go into my Senior year of High School while doing video production classes with Gallery 37 and being a part of National Honor Society, I am also going to Northwestern for a Journalism Program over the summer, being honored by the Gary Comer Youth Center, being a part of a documentary series on Philanthropy in our communities with Free Spirit Productions, and part of a list of 18 teens from the Chicago area in The Mash called “18 under 18”. In other words, I figured out how to stay dedicated to NUF-Said and Free Spirit without impacting my grades.

I am able to say, with a clear and conscious mind, I would not have nearly as many achievements and opportunities if it weren’t for NUF-Said (besides, of course, my work ethic and sparkling personality; those qualities really helped too). While applying to Gallery 37, I had to write an essay about why I was fit to be a part of the classes, in my response I used our shared agreement from NUF-Said, “Take Space, Create Space” to explain why I was fit. All the instructors I meet from other Free Spirit Media programs through NUF-Said recommended me to be a part of the documentary series about Philanthropy. When I submitted my application to Northwestern, I didn’t only include my broadcasts from Free Spirit Media, I also included the editorial I wrote about my experience with User Testing for NUF-Said. On the National Honor Society application, I included Free Spirit and NUF-Said as programs that I participated in.

That is why seeing the site live is such an amazing experience for me. We worked together to make sure the website included media of all kinds so youth had more space to collaborate and could identify and connect with different media pieces. We held our own launch party at Street Level and received astounding feedback. We went to different venues such as the Young Chicago Authors’ Winter Block Party, and the TRACE Use Your Words Conference to promote the launching of the site, which were really awesome events and gained more followers of the site. We took charge of the site by welcoming new members, posting video content, sending suggestions to our users so that we could post their content more often and quicker, started groups, started adding resources for teens involving scholarships and workshops to the site, and so much more.

NUF-Said has truly shaped my character in so many ways and given me so many opportunities I couldn’t have imagined for myself. Due to that, my final blog post is more of an ode than an overall experience with this term of NUF-Said; either way here is to 2 wonderful years NUF-Said and I can’t wait to see what we achieve next term!

On a beautiful Saturday morning, webegan the meeting with the YEB Members sitting down at the computers updating time sheets, sharing media pieces from the site to other social media outlets, posting comments to media content, adding resources to the site, posting to the groups, inviting friends to join, and answering questions asked. It was a productive start to an energy filled meeting. There were bits of fun during the meeting with riveting discussions about the quality of the show Empire (I was on the “this show is amazing, and I love Cookie” side).

Nonetheless we got back on track with the meeting. As a group, we checked in with each other to see how each of us feels about the term thus far. The team has concluded that we are feeling pretty confident in the term so far; we are still feeling our family vibe with helping each other out in tough spots of the project, and we are going to keep having a positive attitude to bring an extraordinary team effort. Everyone on the team is super excited to see the site live and see how it will progress over time.

The NUF-Said team had exactly six days and seven hours until the official launch of the NUF-Said site. It was the most exciting of times; it was the most important of times. In the end, it is the least to say, the launch party was more than successful. These are the efforts done to make sure that the event was a success. 

To ensure the success of the launch, we had to do a practice run of:

The Overview

The Stations 

All of the other components of the launch such as the Q&A and Raffle Winner had to be spontaneous. 

Before we discussed the launch event and begun practicing, we did a quick check in of the events we would be attending and already attended to make sure that the NUF-Said Project was getting recognition. YEB members Xiao Mei and Hannah McEwen attended the HIVE is Five event and participated in the Youth Voices group along with Dawn Graham. The team participating in the event brought about curiosities of what the project is and how it will be in the future, which is always a good thing. Then, D’Angelo Smith, Kennedy Pulliam, De’Andra Hannsberry, and Hannah McEwen volunteered to attend the Winter Block Party at The Metro to represent NUF-Said. 

Now, to the practicing! 

First, we divided the team into a few different sections and had the small groups with a station leader. Each station leader went through what their station would be, what would be done at the station to get a sticker for the raffle, and any feedback the small group could give to the station leader. A lot of the station leaders got really good feedback and a better way to handle their station.

Lastly, we practiced the overview. Hannah stood in front of the team and presented her best to date draft. The presentation was pretty well conducted in the practice, Hannah had to edit it a bit to make it shorter, more concise, and add more pictures. Overall, the feedback from the team truly helped Hannah gauge on what the presentation should be like.

Today I want to share some “thoughts in progress” about our latest Youth Editorial Board (YEB) meeting. It was a really exciting meeting for many reasons. It was the first time we met after our first official Launch on January 30th. You should look at the pictures and read about the launch here. While the website is still not perfect, and will inevitably go through many improvements and iterations, the effect of having public recognition for our work, progress and contribution is palpable. Seeing others inspired by the project, asking many questions about it, suggesting ideas, and acknowledging the work of the team felt incredibly empowering and motivating.

So, with renewed energy and commitment, we dedicated our first meeting after the Launch to revisiting our goals. NUF-Said has done many different kinds of goal-setting activities over time. Before we even had the Youth Editorial Board, the design team held focus groups to envision what the eventual platform should look and feel like, and what features it might have. At the end of our first summer term in 2013 (the Youth Digital Leadership Lab!), the YEB members dreamed about what NUF-Said might be like in 2 years, and wrote job descriptions of their ideal jobs. Later that fall, they worked with Advisory Team members (staff from CYVN organizations) to imagine the kinds of campaigns the website could help facilitate that would address things like sexual violence or gendered school bathrooms. Starting this summer, with the skeleton of our platform in place, we began setting goals that are more concrete, such as how many visitors we want to come to the site, or how many comments we hope to generate. But since it was our first time doing it, we weren’t sure what those numbers should be. So we threw guesses out there, just to give us some direction. Um, for example, we said we’d have 100,000 home page view by the end of the year. Why not?

(photo of goals from the summer)

But this time is different. One of my favorite things about the NUF-Said project is its iterative process. We are constantly learning from our experience. This time, as we revisit our goals, we have DATA to draw from. Although the website was wasn’t officially live for the last 7 months, we were user-testing it and putting up content, so we could see what results we could achieve in that time with early pilot users. We have information about what we were able to accomplish.

This time, rather than committing to achieving all 18 indicators we’d listed last time, we asked the YEB if we should prioritize a few of them that are mutually related.

The team suggested focusing on media content pieces (“because that’s what people will come back for”), number of users, number of page views, listing of resources and events (because that’s also what people will visit the site for), and number of comments on media and discussion areas. At the Launch event, there was a lot of excitement about creating shared interest groups on NUF-Said, so we also prioritize making groups an active part of the website.

(our goals and priorities this time)

Once we articulated our priorities, we had to decide a goal number for each of them.

(I’m going to transition into present tense here, to give you a sense of the meeting…)

As I write down the priorities on the whiteboard, I can feel the YEB members eyes on it, trying to figure it out with me. This time, we have to think analytically, not just throw ideas around.

One problem we struggle with is how many views to expect. Dawn looks at the analytics page in the Wordpress backend to find out how many views we have now. It’s not clear, because the site hasn’t been live for long, and had been offline for some of the time. In the summer we said we’d have 100,000 pageviews, a goal we’d promised to one of our funders. We weren’t sure if that number was too high or low. So to structure our problem, we have to use the information we have available. I propose one version:

"Ok, so say, if we get our 75 users on top of the 134 we already have, we have 211 users total. How often can we expect them to come to the site?" I add playfully "How addicted do we think they’ll be?"

"Maybe 2 or 3 times a week" says Dakota. He’s a student from Columbia Links and it’s his first day being part of the YEB. Earlier, during the icebreaker question, he said he’s interested in a future career in advertising and web marketing.

To answer this question, he has to think about his own online behavior, to consider what’s realistic.

"Is that how often you might want to come to a site?" I ask. People around the room nod. "We might need to remind them through other media, through twitter and facebook shares like you guys said earlier. Ok, so…. 211 times 2 times… 12 weeks…" I write down the numbers on the board with multiplication signs in between them. "How much is that?"

"5064" Dakota says immediately. He holds up his phone, using it as a calculator.

We discuss if that number should be our goal. A few YEB members suggest 7000, just to give us more of a push, imagining that maybe some people will visit the site more than twice a week. I write that on the board. It’s not a perfect calculation, but it’s an estimation based on some real variables, which makes it feel totally different than the imaginary 100K. In the process of coming up with it, we realize that pageviews aren’t just a mysterious large number: they are connected to the number of users we have, the kind of content that is available, and how well the site is marketed. It’s humbling to consider this complexity.

(the list of our final priorities with strategies for how we will achieve them)

.

As we were calculating our new goals together, I remembered a talk I saw this summer at the International Conference for Learning Sciences, in which a scholar from University of Toronto - Indigo Esmonde - showed how community members were doing and learning math together as they participated in activist groups organized to understand and resist local budget cuts. Remembering that made me reflect on the kinds of skills we were developing in NUF-Said that went beyond the labels we already attach to it: youth media, participatory design, social networks. This past year, some of activities the YEB members said they learned most from were budgeting our promotional funds, researching and comparing prices on marketing materials, figuring out how to persuade others to participate in user-testing, and developing a content calendar for social media shares. At this meeting, our icebreaker question was what is your dream job. Youth said things like Lawyer, Math teacher, Detective. It made me wonder how the range of activities we were engaging with at NUF-Said could be useful across disciplines. In a complex, project-based collaborative activity, there are really roles for many kinds of interests and strengths. And different levels of goal setting (dreaming, visioning, targeting, planning, strategizing) are valuable no matter what you do.

           In these past two weeks, NUF-Saidhas officially launched, and attended Young Chicago Author’s Winter Block Party. Both of these events made an impact to our ever-expanding project.

           The NUF-Said Launch Party was held at Street Level Youth Media, on 1637 N. Ashland Ave., on January 30th and it was a blast! YEB member Hannah McEwen gave an entertaining yet descriptive overview to the project. Following the overview were the stations such as helping guests sign up for the site using the code “LAUNCH”; a Collaboration Station where guests were able to join and create groups that identified with in the site and collaborate with other groups on the site; and a “Write It! Snap It! Share It!” station where guests got a chance to write their passions on our business cards, take a picture with the business card, and post it to their social media as a way to contribute to our #WhatsYrPassion Campaign. Also, if the guests completed all the stations they were entered into a raffle for an Amazon Gift Card. Afterwards, we gathered around for an informative and heartfelt Q&A hosted by the NUF-Said YEB members. It is the least to say that our launch was pretty amazing.

            The next day, the YEB members and project coordinator, Dawn Graham, represented the project at Young Chicago Author’s Winter Block Party at The Metro. The project captivated a lot of people whether by contributing to our #WhatsYrPassion Campaign on social media to people coming back and asking for another pin to wear or pen to use.

Social media has quickly become one of the faster ways to voice an opinion, promote your work and reach out to people all over the globe. The web is like the wild west, anyone with internet access has the ability to upload material, seek out information or “troll” others. I look at that as smaller issue, the real issue for me developing an effective strategy to use social media to provoke thought, conversation and change. Although I’m no expert, I’ve outlined a few steps that has helped me throughout my time of helping to manage several social media outlets for organizations I’ve been associated with.

Step #1: Find Your Voice I think the best thing to do before jumping into managing other pages is to first establish your own presence on social media. It’s not necessarily about over sharing every moment of your life, social media is already filled with thousands of users who do that everyday. I like to find what is going to set me apart from what everyone else is sharing or provide a new angle on a issue. These things are more likely to start conversations and be shared with others. It all boils down to staying true to yourself and not using social media to portray something that you are not.

Step #2: Know Your Audience It’s vital to identify who you are trying to reach. I’ve found the best way to do this is to take inventory of what interest they may have (this is usually transparent on fb, twitter etc) Also look at what post gets most of their attention. Although it’s important to narrow down your audeniece be careful not to exclude others based on gender, race etc. Find out what’s their source of info on a particular topic and how that source uses social media.

Step #3: Vary Your Content As I mentioned earlier, the web is the wild west. You can find every source of media from pictures, videos, podcast and more. The easiest thing to do is to update your status or send out a tweet, at one point social media was used purely that before adding the ability to upload videos and other content. I always find it good to have a mix of content to keep things interesting.

Step #4: Exploring Current Events and Providing Social Commentary This can be a tricky one for most people but it’s one of the most effective ways to provoke a conversation but it could also isolate others. Everyone has something to say regarding pop culture, politics or even the weather. In an open forum you have to be prepared to take in every response whether you agree or disagree. The key is striking while certain topics are hot or shedding light on something new.

Step #5: Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously Online A quick way to get clowned on social media is by taking yourself too serious. Learn to laugh at others as well as yourself!

Off-Task Talking is when peer groups get into conversation that does not always involve what they are supposed to be doing. Off-task talking is only acceptable when you know when it's time to stop. Most peer groups don’t know how to do this… But most peer groups aren’t The NUF-Said Youth Editorial Board! We are just as passionate about off-task talking as we are about on-task talking. I suppose I have a positive feeling about off-task talking because as a talk show fan I love conversation.

I remember my very first day at a NUF-Said meeting at the YOUmedia center. I started talking with Hannah about the drug problem in schools, then we went into sharing very crazy and unusual CTA moments, and somehow that conversation evolved into anime! We all connected immediately. Off-task talking was good for us because when it came time to work and when real problems about launching the new site came up, we came together and offered real solutions. Alex always seemed to take the lead.

As a group launching this site, we really bonded through off-task conversation. We’ve talked about gay teen suicide, Hip Hop, getting lost, getting into fights, living with a talented family, should I stop saying the phrase “turn up”?, anime/manga, religion, LGBT rights, defining racism, exes, etc.

Off-task talking really brings the team together as if we’re the new “The Office”. We’re random AND funny. I've even spit some poetry! I really like when we asks questions on slips of paper and we go around the room. One time, we had to make a rule to not elaborate while we were responding to keep things moving. People kept talking and we all had to keep saying “No discussion!” It was funny. We’re probably the watered down version of “The Real”.

As the YEB we figured that we can’t present the most amazing and exciting website to teens all over Chicago without a bang! We decided that the best way to show off NUF-Said was show it all over Chicago. We want to make it known. We decided what things teens are into and that would be the best way to get them hooked to the website. We came to the conclusion that we should have buttons, stickers, posters, t-shirts, wristbands, pens, etc.

Different people signed up for different task of what they would search for. We used several websites to search for the cheapest service. We took screenshots showing different prices for the merchandise and shared them with the group. Deciding which design to pick for the sticker seemed to be most difficult because everyone had their own opinion. For the sticker, the YEB decided to go with the tower-like design with a black background. For the t-shirts, we chose to go with a simple design. We decided to have a small design and possibly a name on the back. We haven't really talked about what is going on the wristbands, but they would probably have a hashtag and the website on it with the NUF-Said symbol.

Our budget was $1,500. Since that was our budget, we decided on 500 1 inch buttons, $50 worth of pens, 1,500 business cards, 1 banner, 200 3.5 inch stickers, $200 worth of team t-shirts, $130 worth of wristbands, 500 posters, and $250 worth of prizes to give out. That leaves us with $325 for workshop snacks.

When there’s a message you want to convey to a large group of people, one of the foremost ways of achieving that goal is by facilitating a workshop. Word of mouth travels fast in modern society and getting a message to a room full of people can boost support for any cause, if done correctly. Below are steps that you - being an individual, group, or whole organization - can implement to develop, plan, and facilitate a good workshop.

Find a Purpose: Why is your message important? Why should I care? When will you put your plan into action? These are all the question that your audience will ask, and they’re the one’s you should have answers to! If you don’t know why someone else should care enough to spread the word, why should they? Rehearse a speech about what your cause, company, organization, etc. does and why it matters. If possible, weave in short anecdotes and/or comments that will engage your audience and let them know that you really care about it, too. When an audience is treated positively and notices a certain drive in what you do, they may be more likely to get pumped about the message as well.

Focus on an Audience: Granted, there are a lot of types of good exposure, though there are some bad avenues of exposure as well. Learn to gauge how good an opportunity - or an audience - is for your message and cause. If you, say, had a message regarding health, it may not be the best decision to find endorsement with a company that produces junk food. Identify the main audience or audiences for your message and plan content around people of that sort. Then, plan ways to convince people of other audiences to care about your cause more. While you relay your message to new audiences, the support of your main audience will still be behind you.

Identify a Venue: Once you know your audience, determine a location that would be convenient and comfortable to them. For example, if teenagers in general are your audience, they may not be comfortable having to travel too far or to places that are not welcoming themselves. Look for a creative venue for a creative audience, look for a studious venue for a studious audience, and so on.

Develop an Agenda: Now that you have an audience and a place to have them go, what are you going to do? Plan activities, speeches, lessons, etc. to fill up the day. Do you just want to convey a message, or do you want to build relationships and brainstorm from there? Some instances may be more receptive to fun games and icebreakers, while others may involve a more serious breakdown of a problem or focus from the start. And don’t forget to include a break and/or lunch period!

Think Like a Consumer: When you go to events, or even just see a commercial, what do you think about? Do you remember catchy jingles, important points, or something else? Try to think of strategies that will get your audience to remember the experience and share it with others. Like, a social media campaign. Set up “Selfie Stations” with great scenery or lighting and have a hashtag or handle to draw attention to your cause while engaging your audience. Or have a fun and unusual giveaway, something that will stand out amongst all the miscellaneous memorabilia your audience may have.

When the NUF-Said program was introduced to me by a coordinator from my program, I automatically agreed to participate… Partially because it was a way to engage myself in something new & the rest because I enjoy meeting new people. But I had absolutely no idea what I’d got myself into. Although I didn’t really care since, I knew that nothing would be to overwhelming(well atleast I thought) lol. But, of course, it all got better with time.

The first meeting that took place was one that I almost found to be defeating. We begin with attempting to guess which quote matched those who were in the room, but I didn’t have a quote because I didn’t participate in the previous activity. And I began to feel unprepared which then lead to me getting upset with myself for forgetting to do it. Which is when I learned,from a fellow participant, that the task was one the I didn’t have to do. And after she helped me, I begin to open up to her & the other program members- because I am shy you know!

Once I got out of my shell, the rest of my teams members did also. We can slightly thank the Ice Breakers for that lbs. The meeting went by smoothly. The people in our group liven the atmosphere of our space. There’s various personalities amongst us, some alike & some different, and because of that we were able to come up with awesome ideas. It really took us no time to completely understand what it was that was being asked of us in regards to testing the website and how to go about doing so. Once that was done, the ball was rolling!

The ‘Testing Protocol’ was something I had trouble explaining to others since I didn’t grow with the website from such as the other youth did. But our coordinator Dawn was awesome with providing help and feedback. She made everything, and her way of explaining things in an understandable manner, via text btw, was amazing. Having a coordinator like her is always a blessing because she’s one who can relate to us teenagers because we’re close in age but also because there’s an equal level of respect.

I’m glad that I had the opportunity to be apart of this project because I enjoy it. Even though I’m not active daily, the website is awesome & provides awesome outlets for artistic & opinionated youth. And being new to the team didn’t make me feel uncomfortable no did it take me longer to break out of my comfort zone and be me. So I’m proud to say that being the ‘New Kid’ wasn’t bad at all.

- Dalila Ngubani, Youth Ambassador

As with most learning processes, the hallmark is whether they lead to further questions and further solutions. For me, the NUF-Said web site met that bar in this beta testing phase by inspiring deeper thought about how it can potentially function as a hub for the engagement of the youth whose voices we seek to amplify.

We know that teens today live their lives online, so we have to acknowledge that there is a lot of competition for their attention. How do we persuade them that the NUF-Said site is not only worthy of that attention, but that it also provides an experience unique from other online aggregators? Our edge is networking with other organizations that support and encourage Chicago youth; this networking should allow the NUF-Said channels to be constantly updated with the freshest, most current and most provocative thought that teens are engaging in and being engaged by. And as advisors, we also can be consistently on the lookout for activities, events and opportunities that will provide meaningful experiences for teens and post them to the site’s calendar so that youth view it as a go-to resource for educational and personal enrichment.

Making sure NUF-Said.org focuses on an intuitive ease of navigation and accessibility via the devices—i.e. smart phones, tablets—that teens most rely on for their online connections is also critical to the next stage of site development.

But, of course, having a great site doesn’t guarantee that we’ll have great site traffic or web presence; I’ve yet to see a blog or website that hasn’t faced the challenge of building audience online. Therefore, in addition to using key words that will maximize search engine optimization, the promotional efforts of our youth participants are critical. And, from what I’ve discovered of the youth ambassador and editorial board member I’ve had the pleasure of working with one-on-one, as well as what is revealed through the writings other NUF-Said teen crew members have posted here, these creative, dynamic thinkers are more than up to the challenge. They are fully engaged in both their school lives and their extra- curricular pursuits, so who better to bang the drum among their peers, imploring them to take a look at what the NUF-Said site will offer (once the bugs are worked out, of course)?

To that end, the use of social media by the youth ambassadors and editorial board members is an effective way to drive site traffic and increase web presence. Asking their Snapchat, Facebook (less favored by teens), Instagram, Twitter and other social media connections to join and follow NUF-Said.org is a good start. Once those connections are engaged, the goal will be to get them to engage new connections as well. We also should tap the partner organizations to make sure that they encourage the teens in their network to engage with the NUF-Said site, too. And, our ambassadors and ed-board members should be tasked with becoming evangelists for NUF-Said.org within their individual schools. We can launch online campaigns with the potential of going viral—think our version of the ice bucket challenge—that our NUF-Said youth crew can promote at school. We definitely have the talent among the NUF-Said youth crew to create something awesome!

We can also reach out to other youth forums/sites nationwide (and indeed, globally) via the web to drive traffic from their sites to ours.

The possibilities are endless, and endlessly exciting.

Assisting in the development of NUF-Said has been an interesting and enlightening experience. It seems as if many adults often view the youth as second class citizens; the NUF-Said project aims to change Chicago’s perspective on youth representations. The brilliance of NUF-Said initially overwhelmed me. From the first meeting, I felt the presence of young intellectuals whom wanted to not only make a difference, but change the world.

As time went on I found that the project basically spoke for itself. The demographics which would soon run NUF-Said.org were the same intellectuals I met initially. I admit, I was skeptical about the talents, people, and discussions that could be held with “new millennium youth” on an online community. Although I’m familiar with educated and conscious youth, I also know how the internet can turn creative comments into scrutinizing criticism. As time went on, I was more than elated at seeing the brilliance produced, managed, and created on NUF-Said.org. Its unique structure creates a community of people that can be comfortable as consciously intelligent. I love that it also allows the youth to make connections with not only each other, but mentors, older peers, and resources that are legitimately for their benefit. I think that it creates opportunities to close the generational gap that seems to plague communication amongst us today. My only regret is not cherishing the chance that I had to use my full potential to help more with NUF-Said.

Given all the chances, I did bare minimum to help and support the NUF-Said team. This has truly saddened me, but I learned a number of valuable lessons as well as making more connections through NUF-Said. I learned that given the chance the youth will communicate, create, and discuss what’s happening in the world. It seems as if they rarely are given this chance amongst today’s society, which only wastes their talents and knowledge. I also learned to listen. The saying, “…age isn’t anything but a number” is perfect right here. Younger people have experiences and they can truly be profound. All you have to do is listen. I had some of the same conversations on air for True Star Radio that presented themselves on NUF-Said.org. Lastly, but most important, I learned the importance of making yourself available.

Searching on NUF-Said.org is mind raveling. The deep topics such as politics, love, hate, assault, manipulation coming from the members of NUF-Said makes me want to do more to prevent it. It opens my eyes to how ‘mature’ experiences are happening even younger. As the oldest of 9, I often worry about my siblings and their ability to effectively communicate their experiences safely, freely, and properly. NUF-Said and its team is the start of a new generation of intellectual people that also want to change the world. I would love to work with them again, giving 110% and encourage anyone else to do the same. I’m also excited to be a part of something that can possibly save as many as it helps.

When we were little kids, we was weird crazy kids. But as most of us get older, we begin to become ordinary people. I'm no different from the rest of the people. Hi, I'm D'Angelo Smith and this is a story of how I got my true self back. When I was a little kid, I was a very weird kid. I use to say funny things, run for absolutely no reason, and flipped literally off the wall. My family said I needed help but it was natural for a kid to be weird. Just not that weird. Over the years while I got older, I became wrapped up in the world and felt it's problems getting to me. From that moment, I lost my natural weirdness. I felt so plain and simple. I wanted to be the way I used to be when I was a kid. Years have passed and I got only a little bit of my old self back.

When I heard about NUF-Said, I wanted to be part of something that'll help bring everyone's voice and talent out there. During my time with the NUF-Said kids, I realized that I was saying what was on my mind. Also I started making jokes and acting up. I felt like I was becoming my old self more and more each day. If it wasn't for NUF-Said, I wouldn't have became my weird self again. Thanks to them, I was really happy that I got back my weird self and now know what I want to have as a career. After being with the people at NUF-Said, I've decided to have a career in comedy. I know it's a hard profession, but I believe I can make my career happen. When I made people laugh, it made me feel good that I can make people happy rather than them feeling sad or mad. So that's why I want to become a great comedian and make everyone laugh and smile.

It’s 10 o’ clock at night. You have two quizzes, a test, homework for other classes and an essay due the following morning. On top of that, you have a history of being a serious procrastinator. You have no idea how to finish all of this work. So at this point, your only options are to suck it up and pull an all-nighter doing the work, or take a huge hit to your academic career by not doing the work. Most people would take the first option, and unfortunately, there also are people who take the latter. But for those who decide to stick it out and do the work, they have to stay on task.

Everyone struggles with staying on task. It’s like it’s embedded in our DNA to put off our important work until later and do every other unimportant thing there is to do in the world. To make sure that you stay on task and don’t have to pull all-nighters all the time, below are some tips that have helped me, so try them out for yourself.

I am a NUF-Said Editorial Board member, but I’m also very involved in other activities. So when I’m in for a late night, these tips are very helpful to that work, too. I usually don’t get a lot of work from NUF-Said, but when I do the tasks assigned to me, I’m always doing them late Friday night after I go hang out with friends. I know that doesn’t sound very responsible, but I like to have fun occasionally.

Getting back to the point, how do you stay on task? Now if you’re like me, at around midnight on a week day, you shut down. Your brain refuses to do anything that has to do with math, literature, science or history. If you’re up late and cannot do any more work, go to sleep. It’s not like you’re doing anything productive. But here’s the catch: if you go to sleep at around midnight, you should get up at around 2 or 3 in the morning and finish the work. One or two hours of sleep should be good enough to stay on task and finish your work.

If you’re not the type that can get up and finish your work, listening to music is another good way to stay on task. It keeps me from getting up after doing a couple of homework problems and walking aimlessly around the house. However, do not play your absolute favorite song in the world on the loudest volume possible. You’re not going to get any work done because you’ll be having your own concert. Play music on a low volume to the point where you can hear it, but still focus on your work.

One other tip to stay on task is to work with a partner (one of the nice things about NUF-Said is that it encourages team collaboration). Not only do partners help you stay on task, but you can get the work done twice as fast. This does not mean work with your best friend or the person you have a crush on. You will not get anything done. Find someone that you’re cool with and you know is a good worker so that you can get what you need to done.  

These tips really help keep me on task and hopefully, they will help you stay on task, too.

On Oct. 25, 2014, all the youth involved with the NUF-Said project came together for a workshop on quality media and youth participation. At this meeting, every aspect of the program was covered—what would be expected of us, and how we could meet these expectations. The meeting started off slow… first we covered business. But it was what happened after the business that truly surprised me.

Besides rules and expectations, the day would give rise to teen voices. There were many ideas being thrown around about the site, social media, engagement and fostering a safe space. At first it did not look like there would be much discussion going on, but there were a lot of creative ideas just waiting to be tapped. When you are in a room with 20 or 30 people, it is pretty easy for a couple voices to dominate the conversation. There were instances where that happened, but for the most part everyone got to say their piece. To be a true collaborative effort everyone has to be creative and have their own ideas. Every idea cannot be the same or lack innovation. In this case, the flux of ideas, came from all parts of the room.

It is important that when you come together and meet new people that you are open. It becomes a problem when you hold on too tightly to your idea. Being a part of a group is all about making concessions and compromises. When someone stands up and makes an alternate suggestion or is a critic of your idea, they have the best intentions in mind. When one person suggests something, it gets the collective brain of the room churning, and out comes a better product.

True teamwork does not thrive on just one idea, but on the ideas of many.

I have been with NUF-Said since the beginning of the website. I have gone to every meeting I can to make sure I can help make this website the best one for all youth in Chicago. However, for the first time I had to take on the NUF-Said role in a different way. Since I was busy with something else on Saturdays, I hardly could make it to meetings on Saturday this term. I really wanted to stay in the group and help out, so I was presented with a new job that would keep me part of NUF-Said and help even more to let it grow. I had the title Ambassador. Now it was new to me and I was like, “What do I do now since I am an Ambassador?” I had to help spread the word of NUF-Said to different people around the city and I was like, “Easy.”

I soon found out that was not so easy as I thought. Talking about NUF-Said was kind of hard to explain to others without making it sound so cheesy. However, the more I talked about it, the better I got with it. I had friends ask me a lot of questions that even I didn’t know but answer to the best of my ability. Being a Ambassador for NUF-Said was fun but I would feel better if I was in the meetings a lot. I will return to see what others have done to the site to really push it to be the best website for youth.

Did you know that 3.6% of adults in the United States, equal to about 7.6 million, have antisocial personality disorder? Most people are uncomfortable with socializing with other individuals around them, and it usually takes a lot of effort to get them to speak. This disorder usually comes from things that has happened to a person in their past, or a crime or terrible event that has occurred in that person’s life.

Being an antisocial person, I don’t talk that much to individuals that are around me. it usually takes a big event for me to speak out loud, or a large debate about something that I strongly disagree about, and even then I don’t say that much. I usually would rather write out anything I want to say, or if I wanted to express how I felt I would usually draw. When I joined NUF-Said I pretty much did not want to get the chance to know about anyone, but as I continued to attend the sessions I grew interested in everyone. After seeing how interesting everyone was, and seeing how pumped they were to actually make a change and set a better example for the youth in the world I began to open up, more bringing new ideas to the table and receiving great feedback. NUF-Said also has brought back one of my talents that I had let go of, and that talent is drawing. I’ve been drawing ever since I was 5 years old, but once my junior year in high school came, I stopped due to my favorite art teacher leaving the school. Without him, I had no one else to show my art to and actually get feedback that would help out with future drawings. Joining NUF-Said has changed that.

NUF-Said has allowed me to speak more into the project to bring youth together and has given me the opportunity to design the t-shirts which has got me back to drawing and showing several designs to my peers. The feedback is very helpful, and it reminds me of the old days when I had my art teacher viewing my work. Thanks to NUF-Said my social skills are starting to improve, and with that I’m gaining new friends everyday.