I always like talking to Paul. Whenever I speak with him, I always get information that you don't see through his videos. And this Conversation is such an eyeopener on how he works. It's such a great conversation, so I hope you enjoy it as much as we did recording it. Here's The Conversation.
Paul's website: https://www.paulminors.com
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#apple #mac #consulting #coaching #training #business #tech #technology #minimalism #simplicity
Paul's website: https://www.paulminors.com
Post: https://macjunky.com/post/conversation-with-paul-minors
Newsletter: https://macjunky.com/newsletter
Contact: https://macjunky.com/contact
#apple #mac #consulting #coaching #training #business #tech #technology #minimalism #simplicity
Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00I always really like talking to Paul whenever I speak with him
00:03I always get some bits of information that you kind of don't see through his videos and in this conversation
00:10It's such a great eye-opening
00:13some
00:14Aspects of how he works and it's such a great conversation
00:19So I really hope you enjoy it just as much as we did recording it. Here's the conversation
00:27Well, this is the whole
00:29Point with technology, I think to to use it
00:37The best way you can right to but not overdo it
00:42this is the whole point and I
00:44Think you know are being in tech for so so long
00:48I've seen so many people what I would say make mistakes
00:53Right because you come into this
00:56Come into this as well with when working with your clients saying
01:02You mentioned it in the group call once about
01:06How do you do a spit like a little thing that you know? Yeah, but they just don't know
01:13Stuff that you think is really simply we forget that the stuff that we think is really simple other people find really impressive
01:19I had an example today. I spoke to a woman
01:22She was getting some help with Asana she's brand new to Asana and she said I I was creating some tasks and I created some
01:28Subtasks, which was amazing. I was like really that's the thing that impressed you subtasks
01:35It's interesting how I mean the thing is, you know what, you know, and you don't know what you don't know
01:41It's such a stupid simple cliched saying but I always say and I've said this so many times
01:47No question is a stupid question
01:50Mm-hmm, but there's a cravat to that unless you ask me three times
01:54Yes, then I'm calling you out
01:56And but no question is a stupid question because you don't know you don't know how to be a surgeon
02:01You don't know how to fly a helicopter. You don't know these things. You just don't so you have to ask so
02:08It's obviously it's in a different realm to you know from flying a helicopter to subtasks
02:14I get it, but the essence is the same you're still asking that's why and that's why we have jobs, right?
02:20Like it's funny. I sometimes catch myself thinking like how do you not know this?
02:24I get frustrated like why why don't you know this or why am I answering these simple questions?
02:29And I'm like, hang on Paul. This is what you're being paid to do
02:33People are paying you to teach them how to use technology. Like that's why you have a job. Don't complain
02:39If everyone was confident or as competent with you with tools and could pick things up quickly
02:44You'd have a normal job somewhere, you know, I would be doing something else. Yeah
02:48Yeah, absolutely. It's it's funny because my best friend flotilla. She's constantly banging on about the same thing
02:55It's like stop complaining
02:57Because if people and in fact people actually do say that in Twitter on Twitter at me
03:03It's like wait if if everyone knew everything you wouldn't be in in work basically, which is true
03:10that's what consultants do we go in and
03:13fix people's problems, so
03:16It's kind of good that people know that don't know those questions those answers to the questions. But how do you?
03:24Because you I've known you for a long time now for a long time even before you we knew each other
03:30It's been a few years. Yeah
03:32It's been a few years, but I've been following you because I got into this whole asana and pipe drive thing
03:38So I watched your videos and then got your course and then went into your
03:44masters
03:46So I've kind of followed you from the beginning almost and it's interesting how you're
03:54How you how our paths are kind of the same in a way and what we do
04:00However
04:02The way I do things is so over I think I oversimplify things sometimes whereas you don't
04:09You you you're kind of totally focused in a different way to to what I am. Not that they're
04:17Opposed necessarily. Yeah, not that there's a better or worse. It's just we know we each have different
04:23Preferences and it's what makes people interesting is that we're all unique and I think you know an example
04:28I thought about recently is I think you'd said something on Twitter about
04:31You hate automation and I was like what I love automation. Are you kidding like?
04:38Automation is so good if it helps me to save time and scale and automate stuff
04:43I don't want to do like and it's just one of those examples like you you you're sort of at the opinion
04:48Well, if I can simplify something enough where I don't need the automation
04:51That's and I agree, but I'm I guess I'm attacking it from the point of view as well
04:56Yes, obviously if you can eliminate a step or simplify it where you don't need it that that is preferable
05:00and I like that mindset because you're you're like
05:03The person I often have in the back of my head when I'm working on something or setting something up
05:08I think what would K do?
05:09But yeah, obviously, you know, sometimes that that is unavoidable. So you have to automate. Yeah
05:15This is the thing. I do not like automation for specific reasons automation is needed. I'm not a
05:23Kind of automation out that's it
05:25I never you're going to use it and automation means different things to different people I think and there are different types of automation
05:33So so I use
05:35Like a buffer type program that is automation. That's not
05:40It's it's not just it. It's not just an app
05:43It's it's automation in the sense that you're putting something in and you're automating it to go to two or three or multiple different
05:50Platform that is automation. So I'm not opposed to that kind of automation
05:54what I'm opposed to with automation and a thing that bothers me is that it's
06:00Depending on what you're trying to do. It's not human
06:03Right, so I have an email list. Of course, there's automation involved
06:08But the way I use it isn't isn't right. I know that I've got I've got a long way to go with that
06:16But I find a lot of people use automation
06:19Specifically in emails and it's not there's they've lost the human element
06:24I agree the connection of the sales of the whatever it is that they're trying to do and
06:29I was speaking about this yesterday in my group
06:33where I've stopped using Calendly because of that human that loss of human connection and
06:39I thought well, how can I simplify this? What what's
06:43What's the reason that I'm stopping to do this?
06:45And the reason was the human connection, but also
06:49Because of what I do with tech minimalism people always book a call kick the tires, but they're not in it
06:56To hire you they're in it to go. What's this about? Like Jesus Christ. I've got loads of videos go, you know waste my time
07:04but again
07:05the other the other issue with that kind of automation is that they're
07:09Injecting themselves into my calendar and as you know, I have nothing in my calendar
07:14And try not to put I don't do back-to-back. I do
07:19Five tasks a day. I do one client a day if I need to and that's it
07:24So I when my mind is okay. What shall I do today? I don't want to wake up to oh shit
07:31I've got to do this because I didn't think about that, you know, so that that part of automation. I don't like
07:36But I understand
07:38There's a balancing act. Sometimes people come to me, you know, they're looking for help with pipe drive and they say I hear it
07:43Quite a lot. They say I want to automate my entire sales process
07:47I'm like, oh, okay. What do you mean by that? Like, what do you mean exactly and
07:51And I have to kind of reign people in and really challenge them because people like well when we move them through stages
07:56We want emails to go out blah blah blah and I often find myself saying the same thing
08:00which is you know, I do think automation is good at the right times and you know, if you've let's say
08:05You know consulting workflow. Somebody books are cool. They chat with me
08:08I'm not going to automate the follow-up there because we've just had a like a personal human interaction
08:13Like you just said I'm gonna follow up with a personal email
08:17Where I can reference what we talked about and say hey K. This is what we talked about
08:20This is what I think we should do next if you automate that, you know
08:23Number one, you're just not going to be as effective that selling and closing a deal because it's automated if you're much far better off
08:30Taking the extra few minutes to write something
08:33Meaningful meaningful and I think that's I guess if we're talking about sales. That's the time where
08:38You definitely do not want to be automating as while you while you are following up your pitching. I think automation comes in
08:45What I do for example is maybe I followed up with a personal follow-up
08:49Even I've tried calling them a number of times and they're ghosting me. They're going cold
08:53Then I'll say right. This is my final follow-up. I'll leave you on my newsletter list
08:57So then my newsletter kicks in they're gonna get my every couple of weeks a new video about pipe drive comes out
09:03So I'm kind of keeping them in the loop
09:06And then inevitably a lot of people come back and say hey Paul reaching back out, you know, I've been getting your emails that thanks
09:12They're really helpful. I'm ready to carry on with that project. And so I think and for me I found that's a balance that works
09:17Quite well, so you're not totally sacrificing all that human interaction and personalization, but you are using automation strategically to
09:25In the right way to keep those cold leads kind of warm and and until they are ready to ready to take that next step
09:32I think that's a great way of doing it and you kind of hit the nail on the head because a lot of people do
09:37Use automation the wrong way and I think that's where the the the thing with me. I hate automation
09:44There is another part of automation. I don't like
09:47And I'll come to that. But again, so many people sell automation
09:53As if it's like this you just did a post about passive income and it's not passive because there's so much work
10:01Involved, you know setting up these automation setting up these newsletters setting. I mean that this a lot
10:06It's not past learning as well. Just getting through the learning curve even having the skills to do it
10:12Yeah
10:12It's it's a lot of work and people don't realize that and I didn't realize that at the beginning as well
10:18To be honest when I started working like oh, I want to do passive stuff
10:22And then when I tried it was like wait, it's no this isn't simple enough. I'm not gonna do this
10:27So there's a lot so much work people don't realize but a lot of people
10:33Consultants try to sell this automation thing as it's this Valhalla of
10:39you know, and it's not because and
10:42And it kind of brings me on to the part of the automation
10:45I really don't like and the whole simplicity thing is that if something breaks in
10:52The chain depending on what the automation is
10:55You've got to try to figure out what it is and it's a pain in the butt sometimes
10:59And you've done you've done this thousands of times with your clients and they're like why isn't this what I mean?
11:04I'm sure of it because I get that with different. Yeah, so
11:08It's a tricky one because a lot of you know
11:11Obviously you hope that you've done a good job and it doesn't break for a reason that you are the cause of like in the automation
11:17You know
11:19Maybe you didn't think of a certain. Oh, you know if the data comes in like this
11:22We didn't think about how to handle it and then sometimes there is a bit of fine-tuning to make it more reliable
11:28but sometimes
11:29Like I had one the other day pipe drive server was down a client
11:33If he forwarded me the error email from Zapier said hey Paul, this is Eric
11:37Can you take a look and it says in the email?
11:39This was caused because there was a pipe drive server was temporarily unavailable
11:43And I mean I confirmed it and I went and had a look but that was just something that's just like outside of my control
11:49There was nothing wrong. Everything would have worked as planned had pipe drive server been working, right?
11:54But yeah, and if you have to troubleshoot some of these things and can we know I mean sometimes API's change and they don't tell you
12:01Sometimes yeah, that's a pain. I I don't want to I mean this whole thing about
12:08You know using social media. You're the product etc. I
12:12Kind of it's it's not the same but it's kind of to me in my mind
12:16it's kind of the same in the sense that you're
12:20Tied to an API you're tied to a network. You're tied to someone server going down you're tied
12:27so when that link it's one of those links breaks, then I
12:33It doesn't sit well with me. Hence this overall
12:37Notion for me as you know automation sucks
12:40It doesn't suck it
12:42Of course it works and it and it's good and there's certain automations that work
12:46So for instance if I'm sending out something I don't use buffer. I use popular, but I just use the word pop buffer
12:53If I'm using buffer and I'm sending it out and buffer doesn't work. I can go to individual
12:59Networks and just post the thing that I wanted to do very simple easy
13:03but if you've got a Zapier going on or
13:07What's the other one called?
13:10Integra mat integra mat
13:11so if you have one of these things and it goes down your client is going to call up like you've just mentioned and
13:19You've got all this headache
13:21To me, that's not simplicity
13:24That's more headache than than anything. So I don't know how this has happened. But I've my business is in such a
13:34Bubble in it on its own where I
13:37Don't really worry about
13:39External influence so much and it's happened accidentally in a way and I love it
13:46So I don't have to worry about those kind of things and and I choose not to work was with
13:53Certain type of clients as well. It's going back to this. No thing
13:58Yeah, I think a good way to summarize it is like and this is something I've as you're talking I'm thinking in my head
14:03This is something I've done in other areas of my life
14:05But I think I've always tried to be as self-sufficient as I can right? That's why I wanted to
14:11Work for myself in the first place. I was like, I don't want a job
14:13I don't want to
14:14Have a boss and someone tell me how much I should get paid like I want to be my own boss and set my own
14:20hours and make as much as I want or as little as I want and you know just have the freedom to make my
14:23Own decisions and work where I want and travel if I want and just be self-sufficient not tied to somebody else
14:28That was kind of even why I started my business
14:31But I've kind of carried that through to different different decisions that I've made like, you know, I'm
14:37My master asana and pipe drive programs that I created about a year ago. Now. I created an online course element to those and
14:45I looked at a few of the online course platforms like teachable and you know a few others, but I was like no
14:51I really I want to keep it on my website again
14:53I don't want to be beholden to some
14:55Another company because I'm already using, you know, inevitably you have to use a few bits of software to run your business
15:00So if I can keep this in my under my umbrella, right?
15:04It's always herbal to me and I think yeah that self-sufficiency is something that I've tried to steer towards when possible. Yeah
15:11It's funny. I I tweeted something about it. I'm sure you saw it own your audience and
15:16Yeah, it's such a big thing. People don't realize this you're using all these platforms
15:21Giving away all your information all your content or all your
15:26SEO juice to these companies who'd really don't give a shit about you to be honest
15:31They're there to make money and keep eyes on that. So I just started my
15:37community
15:40That's a topic for another discussion, but I was trying to figure out how I can keep it under my own umbrella and
15:48So I was really looking for the right
15:51Simple tool and stuff and I and I came across circle and which is really nice because you can add your own domain and stuff
15:57And it's working out quite well
15:58If I leave circle the domain matters so I can point everyone to the right place
16:04So those little things really matter because owning your audience is such a huge thing. You have a massive email list
16:12and that's owning your audience because I I don't see you posting so much on Twitter or
16:20LinkedIn or social media necessarily no barely and
16:23That's because you own your audience and and I think people listening in gotta understand you have to own your audience
16:31because if you don't your
16:34Your hands are tied because if they kick you out for instance, I mean, did you know this thing about I mean
16:41We spoke about this before and you I think I mentioned it in one of your group calls
16:47About YouTube changing their TOS and
16:50The TOS basically says if we think if we think your channel isn't financially viable we can cancel your
16:59Yeah, that's crazy
17:01Mmm, so all these I saw somebody tweeting the other day. He was saying his personal Google account was shut down
17:08Yes, and he couldn't he tried to talk to somebody at Google to figure out why he just wanted a reason
17:12What have I done?
17:13What terms of service have I breached and they couldn't they couldn't say anything. So we don't support personal Google accounts
17:20you need to post on the forum and
17:22I don't know how that was resolved or whether it was resolved to be I don't think like what?
17:26You can just have your Google account shut down
17:30Yeah without
17:32Yeah, this is the you know
17:34Another problem I have with big tech and and again own your audience is the same thing as own your data
17:39I mean if if you don't have control of your data because everything's in the cloud and so on
17:46And this is why when I was kind of in the rabbit hole learning about starting an online business, you know
17:52Probably back in 20 sort of 14
17:55listening to podcasts and reading blogs about building audiences listening to kind of the Pat Flynn's and
18:00physical podcast things like that the the common sort of theme that kept coming up was
18:04You know the importance of a newsletter list and a lot of people saying, you know
18:07I should have started my newsletter list earlier
18:10For exactly that reason, you know, yeah, you can you can be a Facebook influencer or any Instagram influencer
18:15But you don't own the audience whereas with an email list. I've done it. I started on MailChimp MailChimp
18:21I decided wasn't right for me after a few years and I'm now on convert kit and I could just take that list and take
18:26It with me
18:27But it doesn't matter what what tool I use
18:30And so yeah in hindsight
18:32I'm glad I put the the time and the energy into the newsletter list early on because it's worked out well for me and as
18:38You've as you mentioned. Yeah, I don't really do much social
18:40It just it doesn't really suit the type of clients or type of audience
18:44I'm looking for anyway, like, you know, if I'm talking about productivity
18:46How many people are that you're trying to be productive or on Facebook or even especially my clients?
18:51My clients aren't searching for help with a sauna or a pipe drive on Facebook
18:55maybe maybe there's an argument to be made about doing more on LinkedIn, but
18:59What I'm doing at the moment works for me and it's it's enough so yeah, well again, it goes back to how much is enough
19:05You don't want to you know, go crazy with the whole
19:08loads of work thing
19:11This discussion came up yesterday about yeah, I only work with three clients at a time
19:15I don't want to do any more than that. So how much is enough that to me is enough, right?
19:20But yeah, the only audience thing is is such a huge thing and your your tech stacks quite
19:26On point as well. It's quite minimal in a sense because you you did the my row thing, which I saw
19:32Yeah, which I looked at and I was like wait, this isn't that dissimilar to mine slightly different tools, but
19:38Yeah, it's it's not a huge amount. I mean to rattle off the things that I use. I mean firstly with all my
19:44Productivity tools. I stick to a lot of the just default Apple stuff. Like I use Apple mail Apple calendar
19:49Yeah, Apple notes. I have tried a lot of the third-party clients for mail and notes
19:53I was on Evernote for years. I actually really like the simplicity and the reliability of Apple products
20:00Especially with mail clients mail clients can be really
20:02Touch and go with search and and sending messages
20:06So I just find that Apple ecosystem really rock solid and that being in the Apple ecosystem a lot with my you know
20:11Having the phone the Mac. It works really well and then
20:14For project management Asana my CRM pipe drive
20:18Email list convert kit, you know
20:20Email list convert kit, you know, and then zappy is kind of the glue that holds all of it together. So, um
20:25Yeah, it's not it's not a lot really, you know, I call that, you know, those are the main building blocks
20:30Yeah of my business obviously there's some stuff in the background and calendly and stuff
20:34But the the big pillars of my business are run on those tools. Yeah
20:38Yeah, you don't need that many tools and this is what i'm trying to kind of you know hammer into everybody
20:45Everyone sees all these tools
20:47My job is to go and find those tools don't do as I do do as I say
20:51So I use a bunch of tools not because I want to is because i'm interested in tools and that's my job
20:57To find the right tools for the right client
21:00So people say well you use this and oh you just said you use that and like yeah
21:04I use these tools because I need to test them out and check them out for you
21:08So so i'm doing the job so you don't have to waste your time
21:12Right and I love doing that stuff because that's why I do what I do
21:17But like you said
21:18the apple stuff
21:20Just works
21:21It really does just work. Uh, the notes app the I mean i've just found an app called craft
21:28and
21:30I I use base camp, but i'm actually going to stop using base camp because of craft
21:35Because the thing that I was using base camp for
21:39I can do in craft
21:41Okay, right and not so nothing to do with the recent controversy at base no
21:46We'll get into that. We'll get into that
21:49We'll definitely get into that because I have a lot to say about that one
21:53Um, but no I use I use hey email. I love it. I really do like it. Um,
21:59But there's an issue with hey that I don't like again nothing to do with the whole base camp debacle
22:04I'm thinking of moving back to apple mail because as you said, it just works. Yeah
22:10But again, it's
22:13Okay, can we can we dig into that now so why
22:15because because you probably saw I posted about it fairly recently as well as considering switching and this is what i'm looking at hey and
22:22how I how I went about the decision I decided to stick with apple mail and I kind of talked about my thought process but
22:27I because I do know you're a big fan of hey, so why are you thinking of switching back?
22:32Okay, i'm a huge fan of hey, right? I really am a huge fan of hey, but there are certain things
22:40There's certain things because the simplicity I don't like and I like I prefer the simplicity of apple mail over it
22:46But what I don't like
22:48Okay, what I said in a tweet recently is you marry the person?
22:54You hate the least
22:56Right, you dislike the least not hate dislike the least
23:00And you use the software that you dislike the least they're the same thing
23:05Right to me. So it doesn't mean that I don't I dislike. Hey
23:09Or dislike apple
23:11I just think hey is a bit
23:14too
23:16closed in
23:17I have to work the way they work and that that it wasn't a problem necessarily. I I do love using it
23:24So i'm really torn apart as to me wanting to go back to apple mail because there are certain features that I am going to miss
23:32Absolutely. Yeah, so i'm really thinking long and hard whether I should do the switch
23:37But if I did do the switch it would be apple mail it wouldn't be anywhere else
23:42now
23:42The thing with hey is that it's a service. It's not a skin for email
23:48Right. It's two things in one. There's a skin and there's a service
23:52so what's the backbone of
23:54If I move over to apple mail, what's the backbone you're going to use? Is it going to be your own domain?
24:00Uh your own um server, you know where your domain is hosted, etc, etc that I would never do again
24:06Never ever what were you what were you on before? Hey, did you were you g-suite?
24:11Oh god, uh, I was I was on g-suite then I moved over to fast mail
24:19Uh, and then I went to hey now I still have fast mail because of my archive email that will never change
24:26That's my backbone, right? So
24:28When it comes to my service
24:31The service is fast mail because I really like it
24:34Um, it's solid it works. It has a great feature set. But again, that's just the backbone
24:39I wouldn't be using the skin of fast mail
24:42No, so the skin of fast mail or the skin for the email would be apple mail. It wouldn't be anything else. I've tried
24:49Oh jesus, um mail pilot
24:51then um
24:53They keep changing spark
24:56All of them right and they all have nice features on mail is another one
25:02Hmm, but they're just complicating things and I think people complicate email
25:08We had this discussion with somebody in your group. Um this week about oh, yeah. Yeah, stop complicating it
25:15It's email communicate forget it
25:18Yeah with hey
25:20I was really interested when it came out. I mean first of all, I thought it was really cool that a company
25:26Went back to the drawing board with email. They sort of said okay
25:30Google and microsoft and apple, you know, they've had their way of doing email for years
25:34If we were starting email again in 2021 with the challenges that we have now
25:38What would make email great?
25:41Uh, so I just really like the fact that somebody was willing to take on that challenge and I looked at the demo video
25:46And there was some really interesting features. It was a completely new way of managing email like with the um,
25:50The screening list screen you've got your great box great feature
25:54Yeah
25:55Really interesting. Yeah, because obviously yeah, I mean with spam now
25:59And that inspired me I started blocking people more
26:01So if I if I I can't screen people before they come through so sometimes I get cold outreach emails
26:06I just block them now and that was actually something I started doing
26:10Since watching the hey demo. I was like, there's this feature in apple mail. I haven't been using it
26:14I'm, just going to block people. So if they follow up again, it's just going to get deleted instantly
26:19Yeah, and so I kind of picked that up. Um, but and so there's a few features that I was really interested by
26:24the thing that one of the big
26:26Things that I couldn't get past though was that you can't move across your archive
26:30I think you had that concern when you originally signed up. Yes, and yeah, I know that they're saying well, it's a fresh start
26:36okay, that's nice, but
26:38In the real world. I have to refer back to emails a lot, you know this thing
26:44And not not just in the short term, but sometimes it's like oh, you know
26:46I need to find an email maybe from 6 or 12 months ago
26:49So i'm gonna have to still use apple mail and so now I would have to use two tools and
26:55If i'm putting on my simplicity hat
26:58That's not really
27:00Simple. So that was a big reason. I couldn't make the switch and and the other reason as well is that
27:04I actually the way I do email works really well if I was somebody i'm not drowning in email
27:09I do not have hundreds or thousands of unread email if you are someone that really struggles maybe something like hey
27:15Would be more useful or that's why I sometimes recommend same box
27:20I think same box is a useful tool for somebody that's drowning in email. I don't use it. I don't need it
27:24I don't receive hundreds of emails and I get 20 emails when I wake up tomorrow morning
27:29I'll probably have about 20 emails in my inbox. It's really manageable. So there are some good services out there
27:34But I I just kind of concluded that hey
27:38I didn't need it
27:40the
27:41The feature set that I like
27:43Um is the screener
27:45Uh, and I mean the three main features is the screener the paper trail and the the feed
27:53Believe it or not
27:54And and it's yes you can
27:57um
27:58Duplicate those in a way in apple mail, but you have to kind of hack it
28:03And i've never been a fan of hacking things to try to figure things out
28:07Like when I was using apple mail, I never had any folders. It was literally archive an inbox and that was it
28:12That's the best way to do it
28:13And people say well, how do you find something like well search for it?
28:17You know the follow-up question. Well, how do you know what to search for? I'm like you didn't ask me that question. Did you?
28:24Like if you lose your keys, you're not going to say what am I looking for?
28:27You're saying i'm looking for keys. So you type in keys, right? So
28:31anyway, um
28:32But they have some really
28:35Honestly that comes up if they have some really really cool features looking at it now
28:40It's hard to go away from it because of that screener I don't get hundreds of emails
28:45But the emails that I don't want to see I don't want to see and this really does work
28:50And that's the beauty of it. Um
28:54So if I was to move back and I am thinking about it, um
28:59It will only be apple mail because in this past two two weeks
29:04The and we're going to get onto that now the reason why I was started thinking about it
29:09Is the whole notion of oh shit. My email is on a platform. What if that platform?
29:15That's the only reason I was thinking about because of what's going on
29:19So, can you get your email out? Yeah, you can export it. That's not a problem, right?
29:23So, okay
29:24It it wasn't a oh shit. I got to do it now. It's kind of yeah
29:28Can I move my data out if I do what tool would I use?
29:32So I looked at spark again and there's one thing in spark I hate
29:37Actually is the sidebar. I don't want to see the sidebar
29:41The folder list and i've contacted them for over a year
29:45Can you please give us the option to hide it and they won't and that's the only reason I don't use spark
29:50Because I think spark is probably a really good one after mail after apple mail
29:54then there is um
29:56So with apple mail, you just have your inbox the thread, uh, sorry the list of messages and then the message so you don't
30:03Okay, i'm gonna try the sidebar. Don't use
30:06I use shortcuts to navigate. It's uh, I think it's what command one to go to the inbox one, two, three. Yeah
30:12Yeah, it depends on where you put them as to what the commands do
30:16Yeah, so so yeah, I just use the commands so it's quite easy now
30:21Let's get onto this whole base camp thing because I really want to talk about this
30:25so
30:26um
30:27I personally don't think base cam is doing anything wrong
30:31The way they did it is wrong, but I don't think they're doing anything wrong and the way I said the way I
30:38Said it on twitter was if you're coming into my house
30:42And i'm asking you to take off your shoes and you say why you ain't coming into my house
30:48It's my house
30:49It's my business. I run my business the way I want to run it
30:54And if my business changes into the way that you were used to it or then by all means you're more well
31:00You're welcome to leave
31:02That's the basics the the basis of me thinking base camp is right
31:07Okay. Now
31:08We don't know the whole story and we never know the whole story. I don't think we will ever now
31:13uh, casey
31:15Blah blah, uh wrote in the verge of newton casey newton. Yeah newton, right?
31:20Yeah
31:21yeah, he did but
31:24From
31:27I don't hate journalists, but I hate some journalists and I hate sometimes the way they
31:33um
31:34Report things without knowing the whole story now, they know one side of the story
31:40They don't know the other side of the story
31:42So they will report that one side the problem with that is now everyone's got that one side in their head
31:48And that's a problem. I that's a problem I have with that
31:52Kind of reporting so i'm not saying he's wrong
31:55i'm, just saying
31:57Wait until you hear the full story
32:00yeah, but
32:01What they have done what base camp have done and said listen
32:05This list. Yes stupid. Let's get rid of it. Now. We're changing it. We don't want to talk about this that and the other
32:12In the office or on office platforms
32:16I don't think there's anything wrong with that
32:18They're not saying you can't talk about it they're saying listen we're here for work. Yeah
32:23I mean if if you had you you hire, um
32:28Um external people, right
32:31And if they started talking forget politics and forget any of that if they started talking about
32:36You know my feet smell and blah blah blah in your in your private slack. You're like dude. You're here to work. Come on
32:43Right
32:44And I think yeah, and I equate it to that
32:47I agree. I mean when I asked you about on slack last week, and I had a conversation with a friend of mine who's um,
32:53A hey customer and a base camp follower. He's read all the dhh. Jason freed books over the years
33:00I would call him like a fan of the company or he
33:02Was a fan of the company. We had a conversation yesterday, which is we both arrived at a similar conclusion, which is that
33:09the policy itself
33:10we I yeah see the logic to it like
33:13let's
33:14I even would have done it differently and said look maybe we're not going to ban
33:18political discussion on the work platform, but let's just
33:21Just be a bit more respectful a bit more mindful. I just think the way they went about it
33:25It could have been a lot better
33:27Um, I think the intent the intent was right, which is let's keep base camp our project management tool where we work
33:33Let's keep it focused on work. Maybe there's there might be some political aspects to that sometimes, but let's just try and keep it focused
33:38so I think
33:40Um, no, I agree. I don't disagree with the logic. I think it wasn't executed. Well, um
33:45The they posted the new policy publicly before even sharing it with their employees, which I don't think is fair
33:52um, and overall I feel I feel a bit disappointed and I feel like it's a bit it's very hypocritical of
33:59dhh and jason
34:01Who have spent years writing books telling everyone how to run their companies how?
34:07To have the best corporate culture how to reward your employees and it turns out they've got all this dirty laundry
34:13They've got and they you know, they value their customers, but they actually keep a list of funny customer names
34:19um
34:20So it just feels really hypocritical that they've been telling everyone how to operate their businesses for years
34:26And all this has been going on in the background
34:28I I don't disagree with that at all
34:31I don't think they should have had that those names even though I have a funny name and I don't care to be on that
34:35List, but that's a personal thing
34:37Uh, I I actually wrote about you think do you think you're on the list?
34:41I doubt it. It's not that funny, but it's
34:45Did you read I wrote a blog post yesterday about why I'm called?
34:50So I have no problems with people saying you know, you can call me oy I don't i'm not tied to my name right
34:57Your name isn't anyway. There's something else but um
35:00I don't agree. I don't disagree with what you said. I think the way they went about it
35:05Was absolutely wrong
35:07but
35:08I don't agree with everyone saying um
35:13I'm leaving because well i'm leaving because our policy changes something. Okay, we're changing our policy
35:21And just because you've written books about the way you work
35:27And then you've changed the way you work now and saying new policy. I don't see a problem with that
35:31It's like well people grow
35:34Businesses grow and they're changing. I do have a problem with them posting it out in public
35:40Yeah, uh, but it's been going on for a while from what I get as well with people leaving
35:45I I think this is the straw that broke the camel's back
35:48It sounds like some employees have there's some underlying frustration and this was the final straw. Um, some employees mentioned
35:55You know in casey's uh reporting they after the list came out and it was it had been a few years but some people tried to
36:03set up a an internal group to talk more about diversity and some of these issues in the workplace and
36:10Jason and david kind of shut it down and now we're not doing that and
36:15a few people saying they felt like they're running the company just for the fun of it and they don't if if your
36:22Agenda doesn't fit with that then they're gonna kind of get rid of you or they don't care
36:27Um, so I I just I mean, yeah, I think you're right. We're only getting one side of the story, but my impression is that
36:33There is some deeper
36:35Unhappiness there and this was just the final straw
36:38That that a lot of people could well, yeah, I mean it does sound there's definitely something. Wow
36:43Yeah, I mean there's definitely something else going on that. We don't know and i'm reserving judgment
36:49Until I hear everything
36:52i've posted on twitter about entitlement people leaving due to entitlement now
36:59And that's not me just saying because it's base camp and I like them or whatever but it's about
37:05The people leaving if you actually what read their twitter for the past two or three years and the things that they've said
37:14Screams entitlement for them leaving
37:18And it's hard to explain
37:20I'm from the older generation, right?
37:23um, so the way I think of things is different to
37:28You know these 30 year olds 20 year olds and whatever
37:33and I think
37:34Not all but I think um a handful of them screams entitlement
37:39Just just does not because of what i've seen now and what's happened now
37:44It's because of I followed these people and when I read their twitter i'm like
37:50Really nothing to do with this base camp issue. This is before way before even this came out
37:57They're posting stuff and i'm like you really think like that. Are you kidding me?
38:02And then when this comes out and everyone's shitting on base camp
38:06I'm, like have you read their stuff in the past?
38:10Dude, no, there's this doesn't compute. There's something else going on. And that's why i'm saying i'm reserving judgment
38:16I'm, not saying they're right
38:17But I am saying the right part is it's their business and they can do whatever they want rightly or wrongly rightly or wrongly
38:25Um, I don't have a problem with that
38:28so
38:29Even I was like, can I take my data route?
38:33Right, you have to you have to look out, you know self-preservation. You've got to look after your own data your own clients, you know
38:40so I mean
38:41You know, we've just been talking about hey before, you know, and I bet they had some big plans for this product
38:47I mean how old it's what less than six months old. I don't know. It's pretty new product. Um, it's a year almost a year
38:52Oh really nearly. Yeah, so
38:54they've probably they I know they've got plans for things they want to do with hay and
38:59Man, that's all down the toilet now. I mean
39:01They're always kind of gone busy for the next year. Yeah, their ios team's gone
39:06Yeah, and how do they even hire new people now with the with this on this burden on their shoulders?
39:12Who are they going to attract?
39:14Well people who stayed there they're going to attract those kind of people
39:18So i'm not saying there's anything wrong with the people that are there. It's a challenge but um
39:24it's still a I mean
39:26There's no way I would get a job there question
39:29I don't question like the company will be fine, you know
39:31And and i'm sure a lot of their customers base camp and hey customers probably have no idea what's happened
39:37um, so i'm sure they'll come through it, but yeah this next year or next
39:42Half a year. It's going to be
39:43I think it's just yeah, I think it's just the fact that it's been aired out in public. That's yeah
39:50um divisive
39:52Thing that's going on with everybody you don't some people like totally on one side and other side and some people can actually talk about it
39:59Um like an adult whereas you see stuff on twitter. You're like, are you kidding? He's serious
40:05And again, it's the younger generation
40:07Gotta be honest. There's some older people as well
40:10Um, there's one guy and i'm never gonna use base camp products
40:14You don't know the whole fucking story just you know, I mean on the flip side, you know
40:19Okay, everyone's quick to bash on base camp
40:24for what they've done and switch away from their products, but
40:27Look at what facebook's done. Look at what the kind of stuff that google does like are you deleting facebook?
40:33Are you deleting instagram? Do you still use whatsapp?
40:36You know, I don't use I don't use any of those
40:39for
40:42Did you see the um the signal blog post that um, they did you see this
40:50Which one you're gonna see this so signals, uh put out a blog post a couple of days ago saying
40:55we um bought some facebook ads
40:58Oh, no that one. Yes. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I did. I mean it's um
41:03Oh, wow, they're doing some really cool stuff. Um, they were shut down though, weren't they facebook?
41:08They were shut down because it's like well, you know
41:10We don't want you to tell everyone how we do it because that's what they were trying to do
41:14so as you say if people are
41:17Quick enough to shut down a company that they kind of use
41:22Yeah, but they're still using those kind of companies like facebook and so on. Yeah
41:27Hypocrisy is good. It is good after this what call it 10 years of you know
41:33massive technological development with software and social media
41:38And all the all the issues that that's brought with it. I mean obviously these products are
41:43There's good and bad sides, right, you know, there's no question these products
41:46It's it's a net good for the world to have social media. We have access to so much information and connectivity now
41:51It's incredible, but it has brought with it a lot of issues, which
41:55The world is figuring out. Um, it is nice though to see companies
42:00prioritizing privacy and just
42:02A good user a good customer experience and well privacy, you know
42:05You've got apple at the forefront of privacy in their products. You've got signal coming out with
42:10Uh encrypted and private private messaging
42:13um
42:14Browsers, is it the brave browser, you know?
42:17Privacy now is a legitimate selling point for more and more products
42:21It's kind of it's just kind of nice to see like the world is slowly
42:24moving in that direction and more and more people are going yeah, I don't need facebook and
42:29It's just kind of nice
42:31Yeah, a lot of these new products. Um
42:35not all of them, but
42:37Some of them are actually coming from these big companies
42:40Saying, you know, we didn't I don't agree with that. So i'm going to build something privacy focused, which is quite interesting
42:47Vivaldi, uh browser who just come out with a new um
42:51Okay, we've got to track back a little bit. Google came out with a new
42:56technology to track people without using
43:00Yeah, instead of using cookies, so they're like hey, we're not going to use cookies
43:05Isn't that nice of us but then they're bringing out this thing called flock f-o-l-c, I think
43:11And which is going to track you even more than the cookies would
43:16So now browsers are coming out
43:18Saying we don't want flock. So I think brave has stopped it. Um, um
43:25Firefox has stopped it. Vivaldi is actually stopped it, but it's also stopping cookies as well
43:31It's sandboxing it
43:33So yeah, like you say i'm so happy that these companies are coming out
43:37To kind of on our side on the consumer side because these tech companies have got so
43:43freaking big now
43:46um so quickly and I can't
43:49Stop thinking why that has been especially with facebook
43:55Because from what I understand facebook was given money by the government
43:59um at the early stages and there's a lot of yeah, yeah, so
44:04I wonder if um
44:06I wonder if because we're still in really the early days of the internet really how does
44:11Like mainstream internet like people have been on it since the early 2000s
44:15That was when everyone kind of got an email address and social media became a thing
44:19so it's really still so young and
44:23You know the internet came out as this like under the freemium model, right? How are we going to pay for this thing?
44:27Well, we're going to run ads everywhere and we're going to give everything to users for free
44:32And that's I think that's partly the answer to your question. How did it grow so quick?
44:35Everyone gets everything for free now information tools software
44:39Who would say no to that?
44:40But then now we're realizing well, actually I don't feel comfortable giving away access to all this data and information
44:46And so I wonder if like I don't know what the time frame would this would be if it's 10 20 30 40 years
44:52But with something like with the emergence of cryptocurrency coming along
44:56I wonder if that will support the change in the
44:59Economics of the internet. So like could we have an internet 20 years from now?
45:03That's less ad based and more streaming based
45:06So you might have a browser that is loaded up with bitcoin
45:10And as you click around and read the news or go onto any site you're going to pay fractions of a cent
45:16To browse the internet and you're not going to care because you're you're going to get off and you're going to have paid
45:21I don't know sense to read an article or watch a video and cryptocurrency
45:26Supports that because now micro transactions are possible
45:29And so we might be able to move away from an internet and and the market will vote for this
45:33You know the market gets to decide
45:35And facebook facebook may be forced into a position where they lose customers because everyone starts going
45:40Well, i'm going to start streaming my content and I don't want to go on a platform that sells my data
45:45And where I see ads everywhere and I think people will vote with their wallets. It's already started
45:50You know, it's already started, um company called library lbry
45:54um
45:55I know i've known about them for a couple of years now. I've got some of my content on there, but
46:01Again, I wanted to put it on my website, but it's it. It's like a youtube. It's so they changed
46:06Sorry, they rebranded
46:09To odyssey odyssey being the public face of library library being the back end of it and the the protocol
46:16so whenever you watch
46:18a video
46:20The content creator gets paid
46:22So there's no ads
46:23The quality of it is amazing. You can even live stream. They just released live streaming
46:28And the sec is trying to stop them
46:31And the funny thing is the people
46:33lobbying the sec are
46:36google facebook
46:38Why this the sec is only trying to stop it because of these lobbyists
46:42They're they're stopping they're saying that
46:45Well, the reason is because they give away library coins and the sec says it's against
46:51Some sort of weird rule that they have which actually it isn't
46:55But but they're being lobbied by these big tech companies
46:59For the sec to do something. So they're just coming up with stupid shit
47:03yeah, and if it goes through because if you read the
47:08The actual complaint the sec if it goes through it actually stops all other cryptos
47:14And that's why big companies
47:16Crypto companies are now on the side of library
47:21And they've got just as much money as these big tech companies. So there's this big thing going on that no one really knows about
47:28You know, it's quite interesting
47:30Yeah, so yeah, just check out odyssey.com
47:33or
47:34Lbry
47:36Which is library, which is the protocol and again, you can live stream on it
47:40You can get paid on it people are getting paid loads of freaking money and it's like bitcoin. So the prices are going up
47:47Yeah, so i've got some library coins in there because I uploaded stuff and been watching stuff and I get coins
47:54Like I don't know how it works, but I got coins, you know, it's simple economics like people just getting paid for what they've produced
48:00you know, it's like
48:02You know not this freemium model and there's this you are the product kind of thing happening in the background
48:06Yeah, I think um again the the free thing. I mean you put out a lot of free content
48:12And the reason I do also as well and the reason we do it is advertising it purely is right in a way
48:18Of course, you're there to help people because your your videos do give out loads of
48:23information
48:24um, mine is slightly different but
48:27We give out all this free information
48:29To help people
48:32But it it is also advertising for people to understand what we do and maybe maybe one day you'll hire us, right?
48:38Probably that's that's the way it is and I and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. The problem I find is that some platforms
48:46Put ads on that
48:48right
48:49And the problem I have with youtube
48:53And this isn't taking anything away from you or your content because you put your stuff on youtube and you get ad revenue from it
49:00There are ads on it
49:02the problem I find is that a lot of
49:05other type of content
49:07They make content so they get loads more ads
49:12So people watch clickbait stuff. So people watch it and they make money, right?
49:18So then who you're making content for are you making content because you want to make money or you're making content
49:24Right for the algorithm and that's where the internet has gone wrong
49:30Because these big companies because they make so much money
49:33They don't mind giving away a few for people to buy a car and whatever and that's the problem with the internet right now
49:41It's the advertising. That's a problem
49:43I've yeah, I use adblock everywhere because I don't want to do
49:48Something I had in the back of my head from years ago. Do you remember matt cutts from google?
49:53Do you ever watch any of his videos? I recognize the name, but I don't remember
49:57Matt cuts was uh, I think he's like a goo. I don't know if I don't think he's still there
50:02But he's like a google engineer
50:04On the seo organic side right what was in the early days and he put out videos explaining
50:10These are the seo updates that we've had and these this is how to deal with them and that kind of thing
50:14And he just said something really simple once which is like, you know
50:17When you're producing content, whether it's a blog post on your website or a video
50:21Just make it good for a human being like don't worry too much about the algorithm
50:25This is kind of my my interpretation of what he was saying is like don't worry too much about the algorithm
50:29If you make good content for humans that people find engaging that's useful and valuable
50:35The algorithm will reward you, you know, you'll get
50:38Better rankings and more eyeballs on your stuff. So just just produce good content and I was like, huh?
50:42That sounds good
50:43that sounds like a good philosophy like rather than trying to understand how google ranks stuff and optimize for keywords and do all this research and
50:51What's the optimum video length? I don't care about any of that. I just think about well
50:55I want to make a video about this new feature in asana
50:57Yeah
50:58I don't care if youtube prefers a longer video because that keeps people on more and it's more opportunities to sell ads
51:04If I can communicate my message in five minutes, that's what i'm going to do. I'm just going to produce good content that
51:09the
51:10viewer on the other end finds useful and that's what i've
51:13I just heard that years ago and it's something i've tried to
51:17Stick with over the years. Yeah. Well, that's the thing when I watch your videos. It's not click baity
51:22It's like here's some information
51:24and by the way, we we spoke about this, um yesterday in your slack about
51:29um buymecoffee.com
51:32Should we ask for
51:34As consultants, does it devalue?
51:37Your brand your your worth if you ask for donations now
51:42Yes, it can
51:44But it's not too dissimilar to what you're doing
51:48With youtube ads you they're not paying
51:51But you're getting you're getting some money for the work that you put out there and you're not doing it for the money
51:57If it covers some things fantastic and that's the whole point of donations
52:02Right, so
52:04I don't see a problem with that. What I do see a problem with is a lot of youtubers as you say
52:09clickbait stuff
52:11I'll make it just over 10 minutes
52:12You saw I mean back in what a couple of years ago everything was 10 minutes and three seconds
52:18Because it was over that 10 minute mark
52:20And there were even some
52:22That was I don't even know what yeah, this is how little I know. I was like, why is that important?
52:25Is that because that's when you get a second dad or what? Yeah, you get more you get more
52:30Um in video ads or whatever it was and there was loads of people pushing this. There's a guy a big guy
52:36It's called roberto. Blake that was pushing it back then he's changed its tack now because now he has the followers
52:42He doesn't have to yeah
52:44So a lot of these gurus that talk about youtube and how to game the algorithm
52:49They're all saying make it 10 minutes three seconds and there were even videos that were like six minutes long
52:55But there was black
52:56For the rest of the four minutes just to get over that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah
53:00And you're telling me that's not gaming a system. Yeah
53:03You know what? I mean? So I just can't be bothered as well like oh
53:07All the work that goes into trying to understand these algorithms and look what works today
53:12They're going to change it in three months. Anyway, it's going to all be different
53:16but this is going back to
53:19But this is going back to what you were saying
53:21What I was saying about owning your audience and you saying get an email list early on because that's the only way
53:28you can
53:30Carry on doing your business if any of these kick you out or whatever
53:34So you have to go back to what we're saying owning your audience and it's yeah, it's it's a huge thing
53:40Definitely on your audience. I think that's the takeaway from from this simplify own your audience
53:47and
53:49Don't automate so much
53:53Unless you've been it it's been a great chat. I I always love talking to you because we um
54:00Chat on um
54:04Slack all the time but to actually have a conversation like this is is always great. Uh,
54:10When we do it, we've done it a few times now and yeah. Yeah. No, I really enjoy our chats and and thank you for
54:16Inviting me on uh to the conversation. Yeah, absolutely anytime. Well, have a great day and
54:23We'll have a conversation another time
54:25Thanks. Okay. Ciao