Note: This transcript was exported from the video version of this episode, and it has not been copyedited

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:12:27
Kelsey Huse
And so it was this huge joke and we were all criticizing it. And as soon as I saw, I lost some breeder. I'm not a big Halloween person, but I said, This is my Halloween costume this year. Ever heard the.

00:00:12:27 - 00:00:20:18
Jenna Hanes
Know the phrase numbers don't lie? Unfortunately, that's not true. It's really easy to lie with numbers, even if the numbers you're using are real.

00:00:20:20 - 00:00:49:29
John Simmerman
Hey, everyone, welcome to the Active Towns Channel. My name is John Simmerman and that is Kelsey Huses and Jenna Hanes from Austin, Texas. We're going to be talking about leveraging social media content creation, specifically Tik Tok, to be able to move the needle in our communities and getting people educated, enhancing awareness, and more importantly, getting people engaged. Let's get right to it with Jenna and Kelsey.

00:00:50:02 - 00:00:53:19
John Simmerman
Kelsey and Jenna, welcome to the Active Towns podcast.

00:00:53:21 - 00:00:56:00
Jenna Hanes
Thanks for having us.

00:00:56:02 - 00:00:58:01
Kelsey Huse
Thanks, John.

00:00:58:04 - 00:01:08:06
John Simmerman
Well, hey, you too. I love having my guest. Just give her a really quick introduction. So I'm going to turn the floor over to the two of you. Let's start off with you, Kelsey. Who is Kelsey?

00:01:08:09 - 00:01:32:14
Kelsey Huse
My name is Kelsey Hughes. I live in Austin, Texas. I love riding my bike. I just got an e-bike and I love connecting through social media, particularly on Twitter. And more recently this year, I've been really into tech talk. I'm also a board member of Rethink 35, which is an organization fighting I-35 expansion in Austin and pushing for a better plan.

00:01:32:17 - 00:01:33:22
John Simmerman
Great.

00:01:33:25 - 00:01:57:24
Jenna Hanes
Jenna Hi, my name is Jenna Haines. I am a policy advisor for a city council member at the City of Austin, but I am only speaking for myself in this conversation. And honestly, I think what's more important about what we're talking about is the work that I've done as an activist and on social media and in person as an organizer.

00:01:57:25 - 00:02:05:05
Jenna Hanes
I think that is some of the most important and exciting work that I've done, and so I'm really excited to talk about it with you today.

00:02:05:08 - 00:02:06:23
Kelsey Huse
Yeah.

00:02:06:25 - 00:02:14:09
John Simmerman
Jenna, we'll stick with you for just a second. What was sort of your background coming into this and getting to into politics?

00:02:14:11 - 00:02:33:22
Jenna Hanes
Well, it was sort of a left turn for me. I was always interested in politics as I guess kind of a hobby, but I got a degree in video production and so that was sort of the natural transition to tech talk for me was that it was the skill that I had to provide to some of the organizations that I was working with at the time.

00:02:33:22 - 00:02:56:24
Jenna Hanes
It was a climate organization, so I worked with the Sunrise Movement and also the Citizens Climate lobby. And from there I got more and more invested into organizing and eventually my career switched over. So now I am doing mainstream politics, not not as much of the protest organizing, but I do have that background, which I think is really helpful.

00:02:57:01 - 00:03:00:24
John Simmerman
So, wow. Well, now, are you originally from Austin?

00:03:00:26 - 00:03:19:20
Jenna Hanes
I'm not. I'm from Atlanta, Georgia, and I'm a small town outside of Atlanta. And one of the things that I loved the most about that town was how walkable it was, how I could I never took a bus to school because it just wasn't necessary. And we would, you know, walk to restaurants for dinner and that kind of thing.

00:03:19:22 - 00:03:33:29
Jenna Hanes
And when I moved to Austin and losing that, that was a big transition and one that I was not used to relying on cars to get around. And so that kind of informs a lot of my politics surrounding urbanism.

00:03:34:02 - 00:03:48:02
John Simmerman
Wow. Interesting. Well, I'm sure we'll come back to a little bit of that in terms of I'm sure that that car street car culture shock that that that you have there. How about you, Kelsey? I mean, where were you from originally?

00:03:48:05 - 00:04:15:27
Kelsey Huse
I grew up in Enid, Oklahoma, which is a town of about 40,000 people, so similar to Jenna. I grew up riding my bike, walking around the neighborhood with my friends. But to me, the car was always a source of freedom because I could finally get out of the small town. So I have turned 360, and now I believe that not having a car is freedom, right?

00:04:16:00 - 00:04:19:25
John Simmerman
What do you think caused that 360 turn for you.

00:04:19:28 - 00:04:38:25
Kelsey Huse
I know the 360 turn happened because I lived in Philadelphia for three years. Okay. And I could walk to my friend's apartments. I was introduced to biking in a city environment. Okay. I was just in a totally different world, and it opened my eyes to what was possible. Yeah.

00:04:38:27 - 00:05:11:25
John Simmerman
Yeah. Interesting. Well, Jenna, I like to tease folks and say I'm a professional health promotion. Professional? Public health professional. With. With. Now a YouTube channel. So after 30 some odd years in public health, I find myself doing storytelling and interviewing people from around the globe and and producing videos every day, day in and day out. So props to you for for somebody who actually has a degree in doing this.

00:05:11:25 - 00:05:14:11
John Simmerman
I had to teach myself very, very quickly.

00:05:14:13 - 00:05:16:18
Jenna Hanes
Well, you're very good at it, so.

00:05:16:21 - 00:05:44:02
John Simmerman
Well, thank you. So actually, video is part of the reason why I wanted you both on the channel, because you are doing something very, very cool in in both in your own little niches in the ear in in what I what I'm pointing to are you trying to get to is this tick tock thing and the fact that you are, you know, producing this content and it's resonating with people.

00:05:44:05 - 00:05:51:28
John Simmerman
And Kelsey, I think this is how we actually finally got connected. Yes. Isn't that correct?

00:05:52:00 - 00:05:55:18
Kelsey Huse
I didn't know about you until the button skyward. Tick tock.

00:05:55:18 - 00:05:56:26
Jenna Hanes
Yeah. Yeah.

00:05:56:28 - 00:06:19:10
John Simmerman
And in fact, let's let's pull the Barton Skyway. Tick. Talk up here and we'll play this. And and in the beginning here, folks, Kelsey actually says Barton Springs Road. She means Barton Skyway in this. But. But yes, let's play this real quick. And that'll be a little sort of a reminder of how we got connected.

00:06:19:13 - 00:06:44:16
Kelsey Huse
To the city of Austin recently, put in these flexible bollards on Barton Springs Road. And as someone who lives in this neighborhood, I thought it was amazing because I can bike safer, I can feel more safer as a pedestrian. There's fewer lanes of cars, and the cars are also driving a lot slower on this road. But then I found out the neighborhood people who drive cars started a petition to remove them and have 619 signatures.

00:06:44:18 - 00:06:56:19
Kelsey Huse
And as a pedestrian, I want these. And so I started my own petition. So please go sign mine and let's get more than there's.

00:06:56:21 - 00:07:20:26
John Simmerman
I was like, Who the heck is this? We've but I can't remember how we got connected. I mean, I know I produced a video on Barton Skyway as well, but can you recall I can't recall how how that kind of all played out. I mean, it was all playing out on Twitter because I'm not on to end on TikTok.

00:07:20:27 - 00:07:26:09
John Simmerman
You repost your your tiktoks on Twitter so or I.

00:07:26:11 - 00:07:44:01
Kelsey Huse
Report, we call it, but I repost the ones that I want to push out more broadly on Twitter. So that was definitely one because a lot of people from Twitter signed my petition. Right? And I think that you deem me on Twitter. We should verify that. But I think yeah.

00:07:44:03 - 00:08:16:09
John Simmerman
Yeah, it may have been that because I was in the process of producing a couple of different videos and I think I, I think it was about the timing of when symbol tow from from Portland was in town. And so I was taking him around and we shot a little bit of video out there on Barton's Skyway, Barton Hills Drive past the Barton Hills Elementary Elementary, so he could see the protected bikeways there for the school because he's like, Oh my gosh, I'd love to have a protected bikeway, you know, to my elementary school.

00:08:16:11 - 00:08:27:01
John Simmerman
He's a elementary school teacher, physical education teacher, and does the bike bus there at Alameda Elementary. So I think that's how that all came together.

00:08:27:03 - 00:08:28:11
Kelsey Huse
And yes.

00:08:28:14 - 00:08:58:25
John Simmerman
And it's not that hooked up was new to me. I had already interviewed other Tik-tok influencers from around the country, you know, because it's really something that's taking off is urbanism on Tik-tok and is for for me, you know, being all gray here, it's it's like really, really cool to see that these these things that, you know, we've been in the trenches working on for many, many decades are being passed off to a new generation.

00:08:58:25 - 00:09:22:18
John Simmerman
And using leaning into a newer platform and video platform. Jenna, talk a little bit about that because, you know, you have that formal education in video product and you spent time in some some rather formal video production houses and producing, you know, sort of like that YouTube channel sort of stuff like what I do. What was that like?

00:09:22:19 - 00:09:25:28
John Simmerman
You know, discovering Tik-tok back in 2021.

00:09:26:02 - 00:09:47:28
Jenna Hanes
It was quite a transition between the two styles because initially TikTok did not even have a robust editing platform at all. You know, now there's an entire screen that you can go into where you can cut clips and rearrange them. When I first started making Tiktoks, you couldn't cut Tiktoks except at the very beginning and the very end.

00:09:47:28 - 00:10:13:04
Jenna Hanes
That's the only places you could trim it. You couldn't re-arrange clips. If you wanted to rearrange things, you would have to go back and actually click like redo and you would have to refill it and hope that it made sense. And that was definitely a big transition from working with, you know, I was a premiere pro user and that is certainly more robust than TikTok is even now.

00:10:13:04 - 00:10:41:00
Jenna Hanes
But that initial transition of basically that old style like record with a camcorder and export directly to a VCR, which is how people used to make home videos and stuff like that was definitely tough. But I saw, I think the potential in TikTok. I had been talking to folks about making my own YouTube channel or something along those lines because I wanted to get some of these political ideas that I had out in front of people.

00:10:41:02 - 00:11:03:12
Jenna Hanes
And it was pointed out to me that there is a platform that is massively growing during the pandemic and with people who have what I think they had six times their users in the first month of the of the lockdown, just because people heard about it. It was the new thing. And the most important piece is that it wasn't oversaturated already because people were intimidated by it.

00:11:03:14 - 00:11:28:11
Jenna Hanes
People are intimidated by the concept of filming. It's different from, you know, I don't know if I can curse, but before it started posting on Twitter is takes a lot less effort, you know, so when seeing that take off and knowing that I already had the skills of just structuring a video alone was it seemed like kind of a natural transition and it paid off pretty well.

00:11:28:11 - 00:11:35:13
Jenna Hanes
So I am really glad that I decided to do that. But at the beginning, I'll tell you, it's definitely a struggle.

00:11:35:18 - 00:11:40:24
John Simmerman
I we have to play Jenna This is one of my favorite ones from, from.

00:11:40:24 - 00:11:43:12
Jenna Hanes
Oh man.

00:11:43:14 - 00:11:46:14
John Simmerman
From your thing as.

00:11:46:17 - 00:11:47:29
Jenna Hanes
My most recent.

00:11:48:02 - 00:12:09:17
John Simmerman
Yeah. This is. This is freaking amazing. And I was. I was out at the big rally filming it, so that Adam could start releasing, you know, some of the videos from the big rally there. Right? And so I had my big cameras running and I was walking around with my GoPro and and getting some, you know, crowd reactions and all that sort of stuff.

00:12:09:17 - 00:12:21:19
John Simmerman
And then I turned all that stuff over to Adam because I'm too busy to edit it right now. And he loves editing it because he has a background in video editing. And so he's, he's making his way through it. But yeah, let's, let's play this.

00:12:21:22 - 00:12:41:03
Jenna Hanes
Welcome to your new normal. That's right. Austin residents are going to see a huge expansion in the highway that runs through the center of the city. This huge expansion is going to have a really negative effect on the environment of the city of Austin and the people who live here. It's going to worsen light pollution, sound pollution, air pollution, even particulate matter from car tires.

00:12:41:03 - 00:12:55:28
Jenna Hanes
So what can we do about it? We can attend the wider won't work rally against expanding I-35 this Sunday at 11 a.m. in Austin. Greg Cassar will be there. I'll be there, and I hope you'll be there too, because this is not what Austin's future should look like.

00:12:56:00 - 00:12:58:15
John Simmerman
I love it. That is so good.

00:12:58:18 - 00:13:06:28
Jenna Hanes
Oh, no, not again. Kelsey, I don't know if you have this problem, but watching myself, I'm always like, Oh.

00:13:07:00 - 00:13:09:19
Kelsey Huse
No, no. A weird. It's a bit. Yeah.

00:13:09:21 - 00:13:31:03
John Simmerman
Well, so. TER So talk a little bit about that. I mean, that's one of the one of the things that a lot of people have trouble with in trying to produce content to try to move the needle, to try to influence others and try to tell the narratives and tell the stories. And I like to tell it, tell folks that yeah, eventually you get you get over it.

00:13:31:06 - 00:13:52:27
Jenna Hanes
You know? Exactly. I think that it's one of those things that you only get through it by getting through it. It reminds me of canvasing. I used to be a canvasser. In fact, I used to film videos in between houses. I would film clips for my tiktoks and that being a canvasser for No way prob, which was this.

00:13:52:29 - 00:14:11:03
Jenna Hanes
We were campaigning against this thing that would have allocated a huge portion of the money in the city permanently to the police. And so I'm sorry, I don't know if you can hear my cat hissing at me, but. Okay, she was trying to say, Hey, be inspired.

00:14:11:07 - 00:14:13:17
John Simmerman
This is a cat friendly environment.

00:14:13:19 - 00:14:34:11
Jenna Hanes
Well, that's that's good because there's a lot of cats in the videos, I got to say. Yeah. No, it was one thing that you get used to for canvasing, especially something as controversial as police issue canvasing. You get used to rejection and you start, you get through it and it stops bothering you. And that was really huge for me.

00:14:34:11 - 00:15:01:08
Jenna Hanes
Taught me how to network. It's been really useful and I feel like Tick Tock works the exact same way. I you film it, you feel embarrassed, you post it. Sometimes you get hate, sometimes you get, you know, no likes and you delete it because you're like, oh my gosh, how could I have thought that that would succeed? But eventually it stops bothering you really at all, which is good when you're making political content because you definitely get the the crazies.

00:15:01:10 - 00:15:31:12
Kelsey Huse
Yeah, absolutely. I try to embrace the imperfect. So even in my diary video, I know that I did that incorrectly, but I just let it be out there because it's it's a lot of effort to redo stuff. And if you look at my page, I'll film a lot of stuff of me sitting in my bed with no makeup on with a terrible phone angle, and it's kind of me telling myself I don't need to be perfect.

00:15:31:15 - 00:15:36:20
Kelsey Huse
It doesn't matter. And I so I think it's a good practice in general for me. Yeah.

00:15:36:22 - 00:15:58:13
Jenna Hanes
Because they'll find something you could use a supermodel with professional lighting, with, you know, perfect hair, and you could be an AI, and they would still find something to call fat or ugly. And it doesn't matter, right? Like that is bad is where you have to be just really resilient and really able to turn off the phone if it bothers you.

00:15:58:15 - 00:15:59:19
Kelsey Huse
Yeah.

00:15:59:21 - 00:16:09:11
John Simmerman
Yeah. I'm debating which which of your videos they should go to. You mentioned the Prop one, but you also mentioned the kittens.

00:16:09:14 - 00:16:34:04
Jenna Hanes
I well, I actually think one of the videos that I put in there was one of my earlier videos. I've since taken it down. Okay. It was the first video I ever had that kind of popped off like it. I think it got like 600,000 views and I was completely blown away and it it sort of really informed the way that I make videos after that.

00:16:34:04 - 00:16:35:02
Jenna Hanes
So if.

00:16:35:05 - 00:16:37:04
John Simmerman
Interesting, which one is.

00:16:37:06 - 00:16:39:18
Jenna Hanes
It? Is the Texas Grid one.

00:16:39:20 - 00:16:43:13
John Simmerman
Oh yeah. So let's, let's go to the Texas grid.

00:16:43:15 - 00:17:01:05
Jenna Hanes
I hope environmentalists are happy because the Texas grid is about to fail again in the summer, just like it failed in the winter. This is because Texas power relies entirely on wind and solar. And as you can tell right now, it is not windy nor is it sunny. This just goes to show that power supply is a systemic problem.

00:17:01:05 - 00:17:18:04
Jenna Hanes
That what you mean? The conditions right now are perfect for wind and solar and it's coal and natural gas that's failing us. I didn't hear any of that. This is an individual problem. Conserve your power. You're selfish.

00:17:18:06 - 00:17:32:19
John Simmerman
But what's really, really cool about that is, is the fact that there's comedy in there, there's snark in there, and that seems to be like one of the magic sort of bullets that you can use.

00:17:32:21 - 00:17:53:02
Jenna Hanes
Yeah, making people laugh. But I'll tell you that that informed that my structure for a long time after that, because the reason it went crazy is because it got a bunch of comments right at the beginning saying, Oh my gosh, I thought I was on the wrong side of Tik talk. Oh, my gosh. I thought that you were a Republican.

00:17:53:02 - 00:18:22:24
Jenna Hanes
I typed out a whole paragraph and I deleted it. And that is I mean, I knew this intellectually, but it hadn't really clicked. How much? If you give people something to grab on to and your video, they will talk about it. They'll keep watching to see where it goes. That's why I think embracing the imperfect, like Kelsey was saying is is such a great way to talk about it, because truly, if your videos are perfect, that means they're not going to get any kind of response because there's nothing to add.

00:18:22:27 - 00:18:55:13
Jenna Hanes
So on, I'll misspell something. I'll use the wrong photo, or for a long time I did videos where I would start it and the first sentence or two sounds like you're on a Republican TikTok and then it kind of takes a left turn. And I figured out that just if you give people a reason to to kind of knock out if they're scrolling haz and be like, wait, what's going on that really well will boost your success and get your message out to more people.

00:18:55:15 - 00:18:56:10
Jenna Hanes
So.

00:18:56:12 - 00:19:17:02
John Simmerman
Well, it's fine. Yeah. I mean, part of it's a hook, right? You are noticing that too, Kelsey is is like something that is like, you know, is almost like a hook. Or maybe it's a little comedy routine. You did a whole comedy routine on the on the silly shade structures, some Fritos or whatever they were.

00:19:17:05 - 00:19:22:00
Jenna Hanes
Did you see her Halloween costume alone? My gosh. Yeah.

00:19:22:02 - 00:19:23:07
Kelsey Huse
Loss of Brita.

00:19:23:08 - 00:19:24:21
John Simmerman
Does that give the background on it?

00:19:24:23 - 00:19:55:22
Kelsey Huse
Oh, well, some. Brita, I think, was some. Brita was announced when? May or June. Yeah. So anyone who takes the bus, especially in a hot place like Austin, knows how miserable it can be waiting for the bus in the heat. And so earlier this year, the L.A. Department of Transportation announced their new infrastructure for bus stops. And it was Blossom Brita, and it was supposed to provide shade and lighting, especially for women.

00:19:55:24 - 00:20:20:03
Kelsey Huse
But it's this shade structure made out of a mesh material. And in all of the photos that they use to announce it, the people standing under were not shaded. And so it was this huge joke and we were all criticizing it. And as soon as I saw Blossom Brita, I'm not a big Halloween person, but I said, this is my Halloween costume this year and I made it happen.

00:20:20:10 - 00:20:21:26
Kelsey Huse
Yeah, it was.

00:20:21:26 - 00:20:22:21
Jenna Hanes
Really good.

00:20:22:23 - 00:20:38:27
John Simmerman
And so the video that we have here is a perfect transition to that because I'm I don't know, Kelsey, I'm kind of with L.A. on this. I'm thinking the loss of Brito probably would be great in this environment. Let's let's turn this up and find out, you know.

00:20:39:00 - 00:21:03:05
Kelsey Huse
I don't know. Yeah, let's check it out. Let's check it out and it's 101 degrees outside. I wanted to show how much shade there is, which is 5 p.m.. So there's this awning. This is where you could stand against. It's really, really hot. Here are some benches under a tree. As you can see, there's not really a shade.

00:21:03:05 - 00:21:26:09
Kelsey Huse
Here is the sun's right there. There's some shade on these stumps, but they're very low to the ground. So people with mobility issues might have trouble with that. And then there's a bench over here completely untreated. I don't see how this encourages people to take public transportation.

00:21:26:12 - 00:21:27:13
John Simmerman
Yeah.

00:21:27:15 - 00:21:33:18
Kelsey Huse
So it's miserable out there. Yeah, In the summertime. It is awful.

00:21:33:20 - 00:21:54:20
John Simmerman
Yeah. And you're and you're, of course, in my neck of the woods, My neighbor out there, you know, on the south, Lamar at the broken spoke and, you know, and of course that's one of our most notorious roads in our in our city. And yeah, I mean, you have to treat people with dignity. You can't expect that, you know, But I don't know.

00:21:54:22 - 00:21:55:08
Kelsey Huse
You know.

00:21:55:10 - 00:21:56:27
John Simmerman
Maybe a little bit bigger law.

00:21:56:27 - 00:22:20:27
Kelsey Huse
Some breeds. I'd be curious what the city of Austin could come up with. But I think this type of video is what really inspires me to create tech torts. Okay? It's just my frustration and my day to day life a lot of the times. And so as you can see in that video, I'm really hot. My face is right.

00:22:20:27 - 00:22:27:14
Kelsey Huse
I'm frustrated. I'm waiting for the bus and I just feel like I want someone to pay attention to this.

00:22:27:19 - 00:22:28:12
John Simmerman
Yeah.

00:22:28:15 - 00:22:45:00
Kelsey Huse
And so I make a video about it and I can't. And then I think maybe my city council person will see this. Maybe someone who shows up at City Capitol will see this. Maybe Metro will see this. Yeah, but if you drive someone to see, John will see it. Yes.

00:22:45:06 - 00:23:11:01
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. So when you look back at it, these last, you know, two or three years of producing content and getting it out on TikTok and and bringing attention to some of these very important issues, what's been the uptake like, you know, been like and is it, is it just is it just city of Austin. People that are tuning in or are you getting a global audience?

00:23:11:04 - 00:23:41:26
Jenna Hanes
I'd say more recently I've been covering City of Austin specific topics and so the tick tock algorithm, which I am an evangelist for that algorithm, I think it's magic. It is the best social media content algorithm on the planet. And I think a baby against the grain here, but I think that that's a good thing specifically cause and this is why I'm an evangelist about it, if you make content on TikTok, that's worth watching for anyone, right?

00:23:42:00 - 00:24:09:03
Jenna Hanes
It will find the person that it's worth watching for and show it to that person. So that's why I like when I transitioned from making more national content or kind of Texas content to making Austin specific, covering Austin politics. It was a very smooth transition from showing it to everyone to showing it to people who knew what I was talking about that, you know, certainly shrank my audience.

00:24:09:03 - 00:24:41:14
Jenna Hanes
But at I don't need someone in Maine, I'm sorry, their cats are still attacking my set up. I don't need someone in Maine or in Washington to see my Austin content. And so, like a smaller viewership is natural. And I was fine with it. So I'd say when I realized that having a smaller audience meant that I was communicating with the exact people I wanted to reach, as opposed to casting a really wide net, getting a lot of viewers.

00:24:41:14 - 00:25:02:20
Jenna Hanes
But most of them were people that had nothing to do with the topic. I was covering. Like the Texas grid. I've been a lot happier with the set up that I have now, and that has been a really interesting candidate transition because of initially, I'll tell you, seeing numbers go up on the on the follower list and on the likes counter and stuff.

00:25:02:20 - 00:25:21:10
Jenna Hanes
I mean, that's incredibly rewarding. But like that is not what my goal was. And so dialing into a like I said, the smaller audience that is more focus on the issues I actually care about has been really, really rewarding in a more real way.

00:25:21:12 - 00:25:22:23
Kelsey Huse
Yeah.

00:25:22:25 - 00:25:52:17
John Simmerman
And Kelsey, your approach has been a little bit more, as you mentioned earlier, being out there and and basically experiencing life and expressing your frustrations and putting it out there. And this is a22 video series that's a little bit of a success story. So let's let's play this and we'll talk a little bit about this and how surprised or not surprised you were at the success.

00:25:52:20 - 00:26:24:15
Kelsey Huse
Welcome to my new series, Austin 311, where I love requests to the city of Austin asking for them to update pedestrian and bicycling infrastructure and they respond, We're at the Ann Richards School for Girls. This is a new middle school and high school building in South Austin. Next to it, an adult, which is very popular. And over here you can't see, but there's a bus stop over there and the school put on these new nice ramps out into the street.

00:26:24:17 - 00:26:50:00
Kelsey Huse
However, as you can see, this one does not have a crosswalk and there is no ramp on the other side. So I loved the request explaining that. And I said I just walked across and a car did not slow down for me. This is near a school and must be fixed. They responded to me at this time there not a mechanism to build a new ramp right away on the other side due to that driveway unless there is a new build there.

00:26:50:02 - 00:26:57:23
Kelsey Huse
So essentially not our problem. You can deal with it and get hit by pass fix.

00:26:57:25 - 00:26:59:13
John Simmerman
Get over it. Come on.

00:26:59:19 - 00:27:20:29
Kelsey Huse
But but in July I went for a walk and oh my gosh, there was a ramp. How did this happen? So I emailed the engineer back. I said, I'm so happy about this ramp. I just saw it. I made a video about it. Here it is. How did this happen? He said, We got safe, wrote the school to help pay and build it.

00:27:21:06 - 00:27:41:02
Kelsey Huse
Crosswalk coming soon. Yay! A month later, the crosswalk was painted. The pylons were put in, the signs told the cars to slow down. This is a huge improvement and I've seen the girls in the school across the street using it and I'm so happy that it's a lot safer now. We will one win.

00:27:41:05 - 00:27:43:25
John Simmerman
Hey, you got to take those, right? You can get them right.

00:27:43:28 - 00:27:45:12
Jenna Hanes
I know. This is awesome.

00:27:45:13 - 00:27:47:11
Kelsey Huse
Yeah. Thank you.

00:27:47:14 - 00:27:58:13
John Simmerman
And Jenna, this this kind of touches into your day to day life because you are, you know, an employee, you know, working for one of the city council members.

00:27:58:16 - 00:28:27:12
Jenna Hanes
Yeah. And we are, you know, very proud of 311. It's a bunch of very hardworking people that do their best to connect folks within the city to the folks within the city, to, you know, constituents and residents that need their assistance. And I'm glad to see that they made that connection so well even in the first video. And I think that what I love about the transportation and public Works employees at the city is how creative they are.

00:28:27:12 - 00:28:48:14
Jenna Hanes
And so when there wasn't funding within the city's current structure, they they found an alternative solution. And that, I think, is really indicative of where Austin is at, which is that there's a lot of change, Nina, but there's a lot of will to make that change. And that is just such a great place to be at and it's a great time to be working for the city.

00:28:48:16 - 00:29:32:13
John Simmerman
Yeah, and just for, you know, the viewers and listeners, you know, that are, you know, tuning into this and going, oh, you know, why aren't there isn't there money for this? I think it was estimated that the the sidewalk work backlog and this is just of unbuilt sidewalks is well over $1,000,000,000 in the city of Austin. And so there's, you know, part of the challenge with a city like Austin that grew so incredibly quickly, like an amoeba, horizontal expansion, very car centric, a lot of these very, very simple, very, very fundamental safety facilities just were overlooked.

00:29:32:15 - 00:30:05:13
Jenna Hanes
Yeah. And the tax base in Austin, too, there's a real challenge for any Texas city because Texas has banned income tax. And so with the limitation to exclusively property and sales tax for localities and additionally a 3% cap on revenue increases every year, there is almost no way to, you know, if we need more sidewalks, more ramps, more crosswalks, the only place to take that money is away from another department.

00:30:05:13 - 00:30:24:02
Jenna Hanes
And, you know, we're we challenge people every year to balance the budget. I think it's a great practice. And it also gives us a lot of information about what people want the budget to look like. But at the same time, it's it really is great evidence of how much if we need good things to happen in one area, we have to have fewer good things in another.

00:30:24:02 - 00:30:40:13
Jenna Hanes
And that. Do you sacrifice parks? Do you sacrifice fire like fire fighters like there is there's real, real challenges when it comes to balancing those things. And I'd say the city is working as fast as it can to update the infrastructure.

00:30:40:16 - 00:31:07:23
John Simmerman
Yeah, and and to kind of address one of the key challenges that is out there is the difference between capital dollars and operational dollars. And much. In fact, every single time, you know, a major bond has been put forth over the last few years that, you know, is tied to enhancements for safety, enhancements for walking and biking facilities.

00:31:07:25 - 00:31:38:27
John Simmerman
You know, those bonds have passed, you know, with flying colors. Yeah. You know, it was a couple of years ago, I think it was the 2020 election. You know, Prop B was a massive investment out. And, you know, that was on the heels of a 2018 bond and a 2016 bond. So, you know, three bond elections in a row of massive amounts of funding going towards enhancements of bikeways and sidewalks and pedestrian crossings.

00:31:39:00 - 00:32:06:11
John Simmerman
These are all the things that need to take place. Those are capital dollars, though, that, you know, those that bond, that bonding is is is funding. You still have to figure out to your point, their agenda. You still have to figure out a limited amount of budget coming in on operational dollars. In other words, there has to be some funding for staff to be able to ramp up, to be able to accelerate, you know, the build out of these types of things and throwing around dollars.

00:32:06:11 - 00:32:43:17
John Simmerman
You know, you look at the bonding funding that the city has raised, the voters have actually approved dating back to, I believe it was 1982. It's like 1.6 or $1.7 billion worth of funding associated with active transportation and trails and bikeways and things of this nature. And I got these numbers from my interview with Ted Siff with the Austin Outside, who has been one of the, you know, advocates, community advocates that have been putting a lot of these bonds forward, helping, you know, move these things forward.

00:32:43:20 - 00:32:51:11
John Simmerman
But we're throwing big numbers around. But if we're going to throw big numbers around, we're going to have to throw, you know, this kind of big number around.

00:32:51:14 - 00:32:53:20
Kelsey Huse
Oh, gosh.

00:32:53:22 - 00:33:19:25
John Simmerman
So the State Department of Transportation to start is, you know, saying that they're going to jam a an expansion of I-35, you know, down the throats of of Austin. Once again, the fact that I-35 was built in the first place was a bit of a controversy that, you know, shouldn't go unnoticed. But, you know, right now they're saying, what is it, 4.5 billion?

00:33:19:27 - 00:33:48:14
John Simmerman
I think that's a gross underestimation. I'd say this is definitely a $10 billion, if not more project here. And it's problematic. Kelsey, you're on the board of this institution, this organization, Rethink 35. Talk a little bit about what we're trying to do from, you know, from a movement standpoint to let people know about what this expansion really is.

00:33:48:16 - 00:33:53:27
Kelsey Huse
From a movement perspective. We just held a rally, which was, I think, a huge success.

00:33:53:27 - 00:33:57:01
John Simmerman
So which is that video that we of Jenna's that we watched?

00:33:57:06 - 00:34:19:24
Kelsey Huse
Yeah. So Jenna made a promotional video for us and we had hundreds of people come out and it's really amazing to me how many people still have hope that we can stop this thing. And I have the most hope that we can. But also, I wouldn't be doing this, but we have people at all levels of government who are with us.

00:34:19:27 - 00:34:45:21
Kelsey Huse
We had Greg Casar come out, who was a US congressman. We had two of our state representatives and their support. We had so many City council people speak at the rally, community advocates. And so we're in this current time one where Texas has published their final plan. They plan to start construction early next year and we're trying to stop it.

00:34:45:24 - 00:34:54:05
Kelsey Huse
So the current plan is through a lawsuit and more details to come on that. But in general, we need people to be making noise.

00:34:54:07 - 00:35:07:14
John Simmerman
Yeah, and you just mentioned our representative, Greg Cassar, former city council member as well. Let's let's hear from him because this is him at the rally.

00:35:07:16 - 00:35:30:23
US Representative Greg Casar
And I walked in to this rally just with this incredible new surge of hope and energy, because I thought back to over eight years ago when I became an Austin City Council member and there wasn't a majority of us standing up against I-35 expansion, there wasn't a rally of hundreds of people ready to stand up against tax. Don, this movement has grown so much.

00:35:30:23 - 00:35:41:08
US Representative Greg Casar
It's brought so many people together. And I know that together we can win. What do you guys think?

00:35:41:10 - 00:35:52:04
John Simmerman
Yeah, I mean, what an inspirational day that was. Congratulations, Kelsey. I know that you've put a lot of work. I know the entire team put a lot of work into this.

00:35:52:07 - 00:35:54:25
Jenna Hanes
So incredible. Just so well done.

00:35:54:28 - 00:35:57:02
Kelsey Huse
Thank you. Yeah.

00:35:57:04 - 00:35:59:06
Jenna Hanes
And Greg is a great speaker.

00:35:59:08 - 00:36:30:14
Kelsey Huse
Oh, Greg is awesome. I do want to bring this back to tick Tock, because part of our strategy for the rally and for other things is that as a team, we'll put together what's called a social media toolkit. And so we have a Google drive. We'll throw in images. So images of the expansion generated things means and then we'll put a document together of talking points and we'll send this toolkit to different activists or influencers on TikTok.

00:36:30:16 - 00:36:37:04
Kelsey Huse
So I think Jenna was one of the people I sent that to this time because I knew she could make an amazing video.

00:36:37:07 - 00:36:41:27
Jenna Hanes
So all those photos and all those images were from that.

00:36:41:29 - 00:37:06:01
Kelsey Huse
But yeah, the big one with all the rogues, like looping around her. Yes, that one was from the toolkit. So it's this new strategy that campaigns are using to create a toolkit, send it to a lot of people who want to spread the message. And I think a recent one I made a TED talk about because they sent me a toolkit was the Sierra Club.

00:37:06:03 - 00:37:11:08
Kelsey Huse
They sent some information about the Texas State props that we voted on in this last election.

00:37:11:08 - 00:37:46:11
John Simmerman
Right. Yeah. Yeah. So let's lean into that a little bit with the two of you. You know, now with a little bit of experience in tech, talk a little little bit of experience producing this sort of content to try to move the needle and grow support for initiatives. Any sage advice in and for for people around the country, around the world who are watching this or listening to this and would like to try to grow their movement of any additional points other than the toolkit.

00:37:46:13 - 00:38:14:17
Jenna Hanes
I think the best thing that we think is so good at and the thing that makes them so successful online is the varying jumping in points that they provide. Like it's such a deep rabbit hole, right? Like understanding why this is happening, how it can be stopped, that kind of thing. There's so many complex answers. You could talk for hours about it, and I'm sure we could right now.

00:38:14:20 - 00:38:55:28
Jenna Hanes
But they provide sets of information that are for the person that has no idea what's going on and wants the most basic intro to, you know, someone who has maybe done tried to stop a highway in another city and wants to see how it applies to Austin. You know, their website has all this information. They provide content that targets people with different levels of knowledge and different experiences with activism, and they also provide ways to get involved that are anything from signing a petition to making calls to actually showing up in person to actually being an organizer.

00:38:55:29 - 00:39:14:10
Jenna Hanes
Those are all things that you can access. And so it allows people to find exactly what they're looking for. The first time they look, which means you're not trying to get people attention over and over and over, because the first time people you get someone's attention, that's the time they're the most likely to act. In my opinion.

00:39:14:13 - 00:39:47:05
Kelsey Huse
I would say if I'm thinking about advice for people who want to do similar to Rethink 35, we have really found another organization doing work that we really respect and we formed a relationship with them and gotten a lot of advice from them. That organization is Stop Tech Start I 45 in Houston, so I have just received so much wisdom from the people in that group about how to handle volunteer or how to do canvasing just everything.

00:39:47:05 - 00:39:53:15
Kelsey Huse
And so I think just reach out to someone you admire and try to form that relationship.

00:39:53:18 - 00:39:59:03
John Simmerman
Yeah, very good. Very good. Any additional ones? General advice.

00:39:59:05 - 00:40:03:13
Jenna Hanes
I mean, we can get into tech talk, editing, specifics if you want to.

00:40:03:16 - 00:40:06:29
Kelsey Huse
I want to learn most actually.

00:40:07:01 - 00:40:27:02
Jenna Hanes
I think if you want to pull up one of the kitten videos, that's a great example. Yeah. My rule, which is viewer retention, is everything. And I call these guys I got two right here to pick from. I think take this one. They're my little viewer retention machine.

00:40:27:08 - 00:40:36:13
John Simmerman
Yeah, I'll let you just sort of talk over it because really what what becomes obvious through this is you have costars.

00:40:36:16 - 00:40:47:01
Jenna Hanes
Yes. Yes. And I know I looked like a real cat lady. Right now I've got four cats in my house right now, but they are Fosters. And I to.

00:40:47:02 - 00:40:49:02
John Simmerman
Say you're fostering them, right?

00:40:49:05 - 00:41:01:10
Jenna Hanes
Yes. Well, he he's actually featured in the video we're watching now. So he he did stick around. He won me over. But this guy's going to her permanent home pretty soon here.

00:41:01:10 - 00:41:05:01
John Simmerman
So thank you. Thank you for for doing that. Yes.

00:41:05:03 - 00:41:26:10
Jenna Hanes
No problem. It's great because you get what I call perma kittens because the moment they're not kittens anymore, they're out of my house. So they're so good for these videos. And the great thing is it's a symbiotic relationship. I if anyone comments asking me, oh my gosh, like, where the heck can I get that kitten? I'm like, Here's the link.

00:41:26:12 - 00:41:49:14
Jenna Hanes
And it has it has made it so that a lot of the kids will have adopted out some of their adopters, found them through a politics video on TikTok. And that has been really successful because there are so many kittens in Austin, Texas. You're you're getting me on my Animal Services soapbox, which you don't want to do.

00:41:49:16 - 00:41:56:25
John Simmerman
But but I think what I think point, though, Jenna, is, is this is that it humanizes the experience.

00:41:57:00 - 00:42:23:15
Jenna Hanes
Yeah. Yeah. There's there's so many ways to accomplish that too. I tend to try to go for a more professional brand, but I've seen people do. There's another example. There's a woman whose account I can't remember. If I can, I'll send it to you. But she starts every single video. She puts her phone down and starts putting on lip gloss.

00:42:23:18 - 00:42:41:09
Jenna Hanes
And what it does is it makes the video feel like you're on face time with a friend. Right. And it is just I had always really enjoyed her videos and I never really process that. She did the exact same thing at the beginning of each of them. But it really makes them, like you said, it humanizes the person talking.

00:42:41:09 - 00:43:07:24
Jenna Hanes
And when you're talking about something as wonky as highway expansion or a video is about elder care and about, you know, the city of Austin in-depth budgeting processes, you know, you need a human element and just being a human talking about it is not enough, not with attention spans the way they are right now. Yeah. So the kittens help.

00:43:07:27 - 00:43:37:15
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. And you know, for, for you Kelsey, with your kind of you really leaning into the challenges that are out there, you're sort of humanizing in the, in the realm that you're like bringing us along with your walk and taking us along with taking your cat on a ride, you know, taking to the grocery store. But I do want to I do want to play this video here that you sent over today.

00:43:37:18 - 00:43:40:22
John Simmerman
I haven't watched this, so hopefully you're not cursing the entire time.

00:43:40:22 - 00:44:11:11
Kelsey Huse
Hopefully I'm not. If you care about stopping the I-35 expansion in Austin, which is set to begin next year, then listen up, because I have yet another action for you to do. And yes, this is a tech start rendering of Riverside and I-35, everything 35 volunteer Photoshopped cars for how many lanes there will actually be. On Monday, Tech Start published their final environmental impact statement, which is something that we were expecting in response.

00:44:11:11 - 00:44:36:25
Kelsey Huse
Austin area Texas legislators released statements. Most of them praised truck stop for altering the plans to make them slightly better. The only one that actually opposed the plans was Do you know? HINOJOSA If more of our Texas reps speak out against the plan, it could pressure the federal government to step in and stop this project, go to rethink 35 dot com and click the red banner at the top.

00:44:36:25 - 00:44:42:04
Kelsey Huse
She wrote a letter. Please, please, please, just take 5 minutes to do this.

00:44:42:06 - 00:45:02:04
John Simmerman
So when you put a plea, you know, an action item like that out. Kelsey I know you're putting it out on TikTok, but then you're cross posting it to other platforms, including, again, Twitter, Twitter, Twitter, Twister. I've been calling it Twister lately.

00:45:02:06 - 00:45:03:18
Kelsey Huse
That's not bad.

00:45:03:21 - 00:45:18:01
John Simmerman
But what's what's that response been like? I mean, is it crickets? Are you are you are you, um, do you immediately see a little bit of an uptick in in people, you know, doing the call to action?

00:45:18:03 - 00:45:43:15
Kelsey Huse
Absolutely. And I can usually watch the amount of letters that come through after I post something like that. So yeah, it's been really successful. They only drawback is Ticktalk releases special features to you as you grow your audience. So one of those features is link in bio and I don't have that feature because I still need 1000 followers, so please follow me.

00:45:43:17 - 00:46:03:20
Kelsey Huse
But that's why whenever we have it down there, when we have a call to action, I ask the people who do the website to put it on the banner so I can screenshot it and point to it, and that's been really helpful. Another thing about that Tik Tok video that not a lot of people know is that that led me to actually meeting my Texas rep in person.

00:46:03:20 - 00:46:25:29
Kelsey Huse
She invited me to the Capitol to talk about my 35 right now, which was incredible. So Gina Hinojosa invited me to talk, and I told her about the history of our campaign and where we are now and what happened is she ended up speaking out against the project after that meeting. She spoke out against it at a town hall where she was the only rep on the stage to do so.

00:46:26:01 - 00:46:38:08
Kelsey Huse
And then she sent in a video for the rally, which she would have been there if it wasn't a special session. And then James Talarico also supported us after that is awesome.

00:46:38:11 - 00:46:43:25
Jenna Hanes
Wow. Like I said, that algorithm will connect you.

00:46:43:27 - 00:46:45:12
Kelsey Huse
Absolutely. Yeah.

00:46:45:14 - 00:46:54:01
John Simmerman
Yeah. Good stuff. What have we not talked about that either of you would like to leave the audience with?

00:46:54:08 - 00:47:24:01
Jenna Hanes
I'd say the value of visuals, you know. You know, this year you were telling us about trying to keep things interesting, switching between formats, that kind of thing. And I've noticed the when you're talking about, like I said, wonky budget policy, the value of having something for people to look at. Like I said, talking about, it's the same reason that you want to have something interesting or confusing in the first 3 seconds because people need something to grab onto.

00:47:24:01 - 00:47:46:27
Jenna Hanes
And I think I shared a video about Prop A from back when I was a canvasser that had some of the the kind of on screen demo that I'm talking about. Right. Ever heard the phrase numbers don't lie? Unfortunately, that's not true. It's really easy to lie with numbers, even if the numbers you're using real. Let me give you an example.

00:47:46:29 - 00:48:17:17
Jenna Hanes
So in my city, a right wing group is trying to divert a bunch of funds to the police from other social services. Their justification is, guys, it's only 1.2% of the entire city budget and the police are currently understaffed. They need it. And yeah, all of those numbers are technically real, but they don't tell the truth. They got that number 1.2% by dividing the lowest possible cost estimate of this measure, $58 million by the city of Austin's overall budget, $4.5 billion.

00:48:17:20 - 00:48:37:21
Jenna Hanes
But it's super misleading if you take a much more accurate estimate, 120 million and divide it by the portion of Austin's budget that can actually be moved around 1.2 billion, you get 10%. Both sets of numbers are real. Only one of them tells the truth. This measure wants to cut 10% of city service money and give it to the police.

00:48:37:23 - 00:48:39:02
Kelsey Huse
Yeah.

00:48:39:05 - 00:49:07:20
Jenna Hanes
And that video, I think, was was very successful. And it it was because I gave some BS like imagine that video without something on screen to look at. It's me talking about percentages and 48 million versus 120 million and it's not interesting like genuinely and so the addition of just something on screen for people to grab on to is makes a huge difference.

00:49:07:20 - 00:49:45:14
Jenna Hanes
And that is what makes tech talk so useful. It's the whole point of tech talk is that you are constantly evaluating the time that you're spending on each post. That's not how Instagram works. That's not how Twitter works. When you're on TikTok, the person scrolling is actively making a value judgment about what they're watching. And I think that is why Kuala 80, or at least I won't say quality because I'm there are people with much better tiktoks out there than me that do that don't necessarily do as well.

00:49:45:16 - 00:50:05:27
Jenna Hanes
But engaging content is makes a huge difference in how well your content performs. And I don't think that there's too many other I think that it's much more of an effect on TikTok or really any video platform than most other types of content.

00:50:05:29 - 00:50:34:14
John Simmerman
Yeah. So Kelsey, really most of your content that you're producing and putting out there, you're trying to get action, you're trying to get engagement, you're trying to to move the needle. And in some ways you don't. You don't want just a thumbs up. You don't want a lot, you know, you know, it's like, yeah, I want eyeballs, but really, you want somebody to sign the petition.

00:50:34:21 - 00:51:07:17
John Simmerman
You want somebody to show up to an actual rally. And and so close this out here by talking about, you know, leveraging that philosophy of of the content that you're creating and the other members of the team. Because really, for you and for this movement, you're really wanting action. You really want people to get engaged and actually show up in IRL, you know, in real life out on, you know, at a rally.

00:51:07:20 - 00:51:30:26
Kelsey Huse
Yeah. While I was planning the rally, I got advice from another Rethink 35 volunteer who's ran rallies for hundreds of thousands of people. And the main thing he told me was people will show up if, number one, they believe it's important for them to show up. And number two, they know someone else who is going to show up, who they can meet there.

00:51:31:00 - 00:51:57:24
Kelsey Huse
And so I was always keeping those things in mind as I was creating content. And for me, I think the relationship building and letting people know that I want them to be there, I'm expecting to be there has been huge for me. So I've made relationships with people on Tech Talk and I met them for the first time at the rally and I was DMing them, you know, a week, days before, Hey, are you going to be there?

00:51:57:24 - 00:52:16:02
Kelsey Huse
I can't wait to meet you there. I'm on Twitter. I met so many Twitter friends for the first time at the rally, and it's because I really made an effort to form that relationship with them and reach out to them and let them know I really care about them being there. It's not easy.

00:52:16:04 - 00:52:18:02
Jenna Hanes
It's just really impressive.

00:52:18:04 - 00:52:39:22
John Simmerman
Yeah, I mean, it's it's way easier, especially when you have an algorithm working for you to to do a little bit of the work of of getting the content in front of the eyeballs that, you know, are going will resonate with those eyeballs. It's a whole nother thing to get them to the next level to actually through and sign a petition to actually show up in person at a rally.

00:52:39:24 - 00:52:41:10
John Simmerman
Kudos once again.

00:52:41:17 - 00:52:42:07
Kelsey Huse
Thank you.

00:52:42:11 - 00:52:50:05
John Simmerman
That will fabulous event and thank you both so very much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast. It's been an absolute joy and pleasure.

00:52:50:07 - 00:52:51:20
Kelsey Huse
Thank you, John.

00:52:51:22 - 00:52:52:08
Jenna Hanes
And really.

00:52:52:08 - 00:53:06:28
John Simmerman
Fun. He thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode and if you did, please give it a thumbs up to leave a comment down below and share it with a friend. And if you haven't done so already, I'd be honored to have you subscribe to the channel. Just click on subscription button down below and bring that notification spell.

00:53:07:00 - 00:53:34:07
John Simmerman
And if you're enjoying this content that I'm creating, please consider joining my team of Active Towns Ambassadors out on Patreon. Patrons do get early and ad free access to all of this content, and it's very much appreciated. Well, until next time, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity health and happiness cheers and again sending a huge thank you to all my active towns ambassadors supporting the channel on patron buy me a coffee YouTube super thanks.

00:53:34:14 - 00:53:45:10
John Simmerman
As well as making contributions to the nonprofit and purchasing things from the active towns store, every little bit adds up and it's much appreciated. Thank you all so much.