 Hello there and welcome to the live stream starting a little bit late today a few technical issues setting up over here But anyway, here we are So today I'm going to be talking about some of the things that have come up during the past couple of weeks in the take one tech Academy so in case you don't know the take one tech Academy is Something that you can join that gives you access to all of my online courses At a couple of the tiers we also have these weekly Q&A's in fact There's two a week twelve hours apart just to make sure we catch folks in different time zones and there's always really interesting conversations that happen in there and obviously also You know great questions that come up interesting solutions to those problems as well And I thought that for today's live stream I just go through a few of those things that have come up in the past week and just give you an insight into the sorts of things that we talk about as well So with that said although it is the take one tech Academy It isn't all tech and so there are a number of different areas that are covered So first of all we've we've got content and then we talk about tech of course But then there's also the business of content creation as well So let's just start off then with a few of the things that have been discussed of late So the first one then is going to be around live versus recorded video and This was a question that came up actually in a coaching course as well as the Academy Q&A sessions There is one-to-one coaching that I do in the Academy as well and the question was Would you favor live video versus you know live stream versus recording now? Obviously take one tech is thus called because I record all my videos kind of live to tape anyway So for me whether it is a live video or a live stream The process is pretty much the same except one is kind of just scheduled and I'm having to do it at a certain time But there is this replay value factor that comes in with live video versus recorded video If you look in your YouTube feed if something is a live stream Then you're gonna see that this video was you know streamed however long ago, so it'll tell you that the time When it was streamed basically and I think that this leads to a sort of subconscious feeling With people that if they're seeing something that was streamed two years ago There's an immediate implication that this is perhaps out of date Whereas when you see a video in your feed You don't actually see the date that it was posted until you've gone into the video by which time you're already kind of watching the video So I think that there is that element to streaming versus live record versus recorded videos But there's also another sort of expectation. I think with live streams where you know There is by the very nature of it gonna be no editing I mean, I don't do any editing in my recorded videos either But you're not gonna know that when you are just sort of seeing them in a in a feed So I think that there's this feeling that you know, if somebody sees it was a live stream Maybe they've got a different expectation. They're not necessarily expecting it to be a well-structured, you know, thought-out video This is something that I'm trying to get better at with my live streams Hence, you know preparing a little bit more for today than normal as well But I did also about sort of 12 18 months ago make a very conscious shift in the way that I was doing my live streams Whereas in the beginning I was doing kind of six videos a week that were recorded videos And then I'd have a weekly live stream and I was kind of treating that like a weekly check-in a community check-in that kind of thing So that it was a way for me to get that more interaction with, you know The folks who are joining live and that's not to say I don't want to do that anymore either But what I did do is made this conscious shift whereby first of all, I don't have a countdown timer anymore on my videos I haven't done for 18 months, two years, something like that And that's because, you know, people are either showing up to the live stream to watch it live And in which case, you know, they've likely had a notification that the thing is going to be starting at whatever time anyway So you don't really need a countdown to give people time to sort of come into it In any case, if people come in a bit later, they can always sort of play catch-up If I join a live stream, you know, a little bit after it started Sometimes I'll go back and watch on double speed to sort of catch up. You can do that during the live event as well Until I'm up to the the the the current time as it were But then also the thing is if people are watching on the replay and maybe they are new to your channel And they're clicking on the the thumbnail and the title with an expectation of what they're going to get in there If they go in and they're just immediately faced with a countdown. Yes, they can skip through it But it's friction that a lot of people just won't bother. They'll just completely skip out of it The other thing that I stopped doing on my live streams is doing the big check-in with everybody at the beginning Which you know live streamers like to do which is that you know, you're coming in You're gonna say hello to everybody in the chat and the reason why I don't do that right up front is because again It causes a disconnect for people are watching on the replay and like I say it's not that I don't I don't want people to watch live I certainly do but I'm just conscious about that replay value as well And in the beginning I would get maybe let's say I got 50 100 people watch something live In fact in the beginning I was getting maybe one or two But let's say, you know 50 people watch live You're gonna get far more people watching on the replay and I used to get with my live streams Maybe let's say 20 to 50 people watch live and then maybe I'd get a couple of hundred would watch it after the fact Playing catch up, you know over the following week or so, but then pretty much for me those live streams would more or less die You know, I wasn't getting huge replay value on them But when I shifted the way that I was presenting my live streams as basically, you know content first I've now been getting much higher replay value on my my live streams And so, you know now some of the top performing videos on my channel are in fact live streams In fact, the best performing video on my channel is a live stream It was a complete beginner's guide to to stream deck and I just got in it did the full tutorial first And then did all the chat sort of after that and as I say, it's just got a much better Replay value. So that is just my view on that live versus Recorded, I do certainly think that there is a place for for live streaming though as well, you know to fit it into your whole sort of content Ecosystem if you like that, you know having that balance between pre-recorded and live live streamed is is something to to think about Another thing that's come up recently is this new feature that there is in YouTube where if you stream in vertical format So in ecum live for example, you can stream either horizontal or you can set your aspect ratio to instead of 16 by 9 9 by 16 So you've got a vertical Output from ecum if you go into YouTube with with that aspect ratio Then what happens is when you're live streaming it's going to show up in the YouTube shorts shelf So that is when people are browsing on their device They're going to see it there in in that in that particular position with all those other vertical videos So the thinking is here that you know It's potentially opening up your live streams to folks that are watching you know on mobile and There is there is some obviously truth to that that is what is happening But I would be conscious or or cautious I should say about having that as your only Livestream so somebody in the Academy was sort of playing around testing this out as I would certainly encourage to test out all these New features when they come out, but basically was only streaming in vertical format To the to YouTube now what I noticed about sort of my behavior when I'm sort of browsing is that I've seen other people Doing this as well, and if it's not somebody that I'm you know Obviously taking a great interest in in terms of you know watching what they're doing and Seeing how they're getting on with things as with Academy members and what I was noticing about other folks who are posting these Verticals is that The although the live stream itself may well appear in the shorts shelf The replay of it does not the replay of it is just sitting in the regular feed And what that means is then when people are browsing through their feed they are then seeing rather than a Vertical a horizontal video that they might be expecting they then presented with a vertical video and the viewing experience of that on You know if you are watching in horizontal format either on a desktop or an iPad or something like that Then it's not ideal And so you've got this situation where if you've got a mobile and you're presented with a horizontal video It's no hardship to just sort of turn the device on its side And then you're watching you know a horizontal format video just like this one Whereas on the desktop, you know, you haven't got that option to rotate the whole thing around So for me personally and this is just my opinion I would be cautious about only streaming in vertical format with this idea that you're going to suddenly capture this shorts market because or the people that are browsing in the short shelf because again There is this whole replay thing whereby you're going to get far more on replay than on You know that are watching live and just to put that into context though. I mentioned some numbers earlier The the one that I said that has the highest number of views I think it's up to 50,000 views or something like that on that stream deck video And this is all relative to me and my channel I know that might be a small number for some a big number for others But the point is only about a hundred people actually watch that when I streamed it Two years ago nearly a year and a half But I've got now got 50,000 views on it So if that was just a vertical video in the long term that may not have stuck around So, you know I had such a good replay value after the fact so where I'm seeing people using this a little bit more effectively and There is some technical Requirements for this but is where they're basically multi-streaming their horizontal video also in vertical format as well So what I could be doing right now, which I'm not but what I could be doing is I could be taking my feed from Ecamm on my primary Computer over NDI into my secondary computer and in my secondary computer I could set that one to stream in vertical and then be having it streamed out from there I understand with OBS you can actually multi-stream in multiple formats That's I think on its way to Ecamm, but it's not there just yet So what that means is that you could literally have it so that you're streaming horizontal But then it's kind of like cropping down the middle and sending that out into vertical format So that's how I see that I would start to potentially use that and then effectively you've got two Duplicate videos on YouTube you've got one of them. That's the horizontal and one of them That's the vertical and but then you know I would say you're gonna probably just remove the horizontal the vertical one after the fact If it's not appearing in the vertical format, you know in the short shelf or whatever it is So that was just another thing that came up and that's again all of this my personal opinions. There are other opinions available Next up then is about AI repurposing and this is something that is just a continuously ongoing thing You know with well AI in general actually, isn't it? You know for the past year It's just really taken off with chat GBT and all these other tools now It seems like everybody is just trying to I'm gonna use the word shoehorn AI into their products Where it's like what can we do to be able to say our product has got AI included in it? And this is to various degrees of success in my view the problem that I have with The companies that are trying to just just basically insert AI into their things And there isn't really a problem with it because it's the early days It's gonna be in everything so they've got to make a start somewhere. I get it You know, it's got to be that everyone's got to get on board with it more or less But it's just the fact that these tools I don't think are quite ready for prime time yet And I'll give you an example, you know, I create my courses in kajabi And this is sort of indicative of what the the issue that I have with these AI tools in general In kajabi, there is an AI course generator tool So if you're in kajabi and you want to create a course about whatever it is Zoom we can masterclass or whatever you can just put in the title and then click generate course outline And it will generate a course outline for you It does do a reasonable job of giving you you know sort of modules and lessons You know categories and and modules and lessons within those, you know to give you a course structure But the problem is you haven't got that feedback loop. You can't really say to it There's a bit like a thumbs up or thumbs down. Did it do a good job? Did it do a bad job? But there's no way of sort of having that conversation and this is where for me every time hands down chat GPT is still the one that just wins for me because you can have that conversation if I've created a course outline Usually what I'll do is I'll do it the other way around I'll start with a course outline put it in and then use chat GPT to refine it But also sometimes might just say well give me a starting point But the point is you can have that conversation you can type into it You know to say maybe focus more on this area rather than that area or this modules to longer whatever So you can have that conversation whereas these pieces of software that have AI built in it tends to be very much sort of on rails There's not a lot of flexibility in terms of what you can what you can do with that Now that's kind of like broad AI, but actually the the thing that came up was about specifically AI repurposing And there's a couple of couple of tools that I've Checked out, you know as they've been coming out So things like opus clips for example is one where you can take your long long form video Drop it into opus clips. It will pull out, you know relevant short form content from that and I checked it out when it first came out I was advised that I should probably take another look at it because it's developed a lot since since it was first released And I have in the last last couple of weeks checked it out again And it's still just not there for me and the reason being that when I'm watching short form content on IG, TikTok, YouTube shorts or whatever I can immediately see the the content that is this AI repurposed content and for me it devalues it actually because it feels like it doesn't have a defined start middle and an end I am much more likely to be engaged with something where somebody has created some content specifically for that platform and they've been very conscious about what they're doing now That's not to say that you know, oh well We've we're creating you know hours of content potentially on a live stream Can we not take some things out of it? It's when but there is this for me Let me use the word lazy where somebody's basically just said right give me ten clips out of this long form video And yeah, they look all right. Let me put them out for me I did this and I got a series of videos out of a number of long-form videos that I put into test and really none of them I felt were Were right for for posting now could I have gone in and done some editing to them could have done this and You know, you sort of cleaned it up. Perhaps, you know Some of these tools do have the ability to go in and sort of adjust all of this stuff So so yeah, it is that is an option And I don't want to just completely say that you know Anybody is using these tools is not doing well. There are people who do it Well, and there is some content that I see that comes out from these that is there But it's just in general I find that it's not it's not adding as much value as actually just creating the content And that always brings me back whenever I think about repurposing my own content and again This is just me my opinion but whenever I think about repurposing my own content and there is this Inherent friction involved in doing that. I've got to somehow go through all these things then there's Editing involved and so on and it's far more easy. I would think to just say right Well, what are the clips that I want to capture? What are those points that I want to make maybe even use opus clips or something like that to go and actually find those Points of interest in the video, but then just record the video as a one-minute video And you could even drop it into chat GPT or something like that and say give me a script even that is You know a concise one-minute video with a beginning middle and an end rather than just something that feels like you've Just got a glimpse of a conversation, which is my bones just Fallen off its attachment. Sorry about that. Let me just plug that in Yeah, rather than it just being a sort of like little glimpse of a conversation I think that With ecam being able to just hit the record button in vertical format. It's actually not that much of a Difficulty to just go and record something that is a lot more intentional again just my view But I certainly value those intentional videos as opposed to something that has been Chopped out from from that the other one that I tried recently was cast magic And this is something which takes your long-form video, but then the idea is that it turns into blog posts into LinkedIn posts You know little what do they call them? Audiograms and things like that again I'm finding that with this as with opus as with all of these other things where they've just they're leveraging the back-end power of AI But they're giving you this front-end which I get is you know making it more potentially user-friendly and so on However, it loses some of that ability to sort of refine it and so again I come back to chat GPT all of these tools whether it's cast magic opus or whatever You could still do all of this with chat GPT But have that additional power of being able to have a conversation with it being able to you know prep it in In advance with a whole series of things such as the voice you want it to be in the tone You want it to be in even training on your own thing and that's something for me That is just at this stage missing a little bit from these tools I'm sure it will get much better very quickly because that is just the nature of the way that AI is developing chat GPT 5 if you've seen any of the the little previews of of that and the the the full-on AI powered robot Can have conversations and do things. I mean we're nearly there guys. It's going to be quite amazing But anyway for the time being I'm still holding off on using any of those AI tools and accept chat GPT That's the the one I'm kind of sticking with at the at the moment The next thing then is talking about interview shows. So This was something that came up in a couple of ways actually. So first of all, there's somebody in the Academy that is Running their own sort of Academy style thing So where they're running a course and then they've got this ongoing Follow-up after that on a subscription basis But then they were looking at potentially putting out some of that content as Also creating some content which would be a live discussion So, you know having this the sort of things that happens in their their private sessions in there You know group sessions their masterminds their Q&A's and so on and then sort of bringing that on to a live stream And the question was how does that fit if Really that is then kind of being used as a tool by the The owner of the community to promote the community, but people are paying to be in it But then they're also sort of being potentially asked to be on this, you know on a on a live panel type discussion and For me it was a case of you know, this could be completely reframed really It was the early stages of this whole community being set up And so for me it seemed that well, this is almost like a benefit to early adopters So the people that are in there already, you know, it's something that they can be a part of it gives them ownership of Going forward, you know this this almost like this elite group as more and more people join I actually don't think that if people are in a community They have any particular issue with if we're you know promoting it because it only makes it stronger It's like everything I do to make the take one Tech Academy more appealing more stronger It just benefits everyone else, you know the people that we have in there all experts in their field in their own business professions And so, you know, it's quite often that in a take one Tech Q&A session It's not me that's answering a question necessarily It's somebody else who's got a wealth of experience in you know, whatever it is social media marketing SEO In AI for example with David. So, you know, there's always, you know other elements that come in So actually I think that doing anything to promote the in my case this Academy, but I'm talking specifically about an Academy members Academy Then I think that's you know, there's there's no issue with that and also Don't forget that there is you know a cache a potentially for them to be involved in that and it's all exposure for them As they are all professionals in their field to be able to come on and put their expertise in their opinion across as well I mean, whenever I'm asked to go on an interview show or a panel show or something like that I generally usually take the opportunity depending on where it is I don't think there's many that have come up that I think no, that's not really a good fit But you know, it's basically it's it's all another opportunity to reach out of your existing audience to a large audience and especially if they are you know members of a Accountability group an Academy or something like that and they are business folks then You know, maybe they don't have a platform of their own to to help with that exposure And so many would be more than happy to do that. So so yeah, that was just something that came up related to Interview shows just recently. The other one that came up though was around the sort of technicalities of interview shows Where it was somebody who was doing something slightly different They were just going to interview an expert every week where they themselves are the expert that help business owners In fact with their sort of infrastructure and systems and processes and so on and so we're going to be interviewing people who are experts in those fields and how to go about sort of structuring that and The actual question specifically as well was Would you use ecown versus Riverside for an interview style show that was going to be recorded? So I thought I'd just talk about this a little bit because it has come up a number of times With with other folks in the Academy as well And ecown live is the live production software that I use to make all of my live streams All of my videos all of my course content I use it in my zoom calls as well to sort of level up my online presentation. So all the stuff that I'm doing here Today for example with these graphics is a combination of ecown live and I'm keynote And so you've got a lot of versatility in terms of the way that you can lay out your they call them scenes So you can have you know yourself Some things like I've got over here on which side of the side And you can have yourself and multiple guests you can have yourself and a guest and screen sharing whatever for me ecown is really intuitive and easy to use and It's easy to create these different layouts When you are using ecown lives interview mode What happens there is you send that out a link to somebody they go to the browser clicking on that link And then it's basically like a sort of web Browser based meeting type Environment so they're gonna select their microphone They're gonna select their camera and then that's gonna feed into ecown And you you can then have the you know the two of you or up to ten guests In fact on the screen at the same time in ecown And you've got all of the production in ecown that you're doing as the host and you can switch scenes and all of that Kind of thing one of the potential drawbacks of of ecown interview mode is that there is no local Recording for the guests themselves unless they have the ability to somehow record themselves which a lot of folks are not gonna necessarily Be competent in doing or just not have the need for it usually So all you are relying on then is the internet connection to bring in that feed into into you Now what Riverside offers is Riverside FM. I think it is is basically a Particularly for podcasting but interview type shows Where it's the same kind of thing they have a link to join the show and they join in the browser exactly like ecown But what is slightly different there is it does actually record locally to that person as well And then after the show has finished Then although your boat you know you are recording as well. You can see the live feed Then it uploads their video file after the fact so that you've got that sort of backup in case that fails That said I've never had a major failure in that case with with ecown What I will also say is that they are working on a oh and sorry I should also say the reason why I don't use Riverside myself is what it lacks is the versatility and the the the range of layouts basically whatever you can imagine almost Weird thing to say but most almost whatever you can imagine in ecown You know you can build that out in terms of scenes So whether you want you know three people in a screen share or five people or ten people whatever it is or bring On some other graphics you can do it all in ecown. It's live production software Whereas with Riverside you are a little bit more limited in terms of the layouts that you can have And the graphics you can use on screen and all of that kind of thing So that's why I don't personally use that What both of those have in common though is when you're sending out a link It's a link to a browser and it's a potentially unfamiliar experience to somebody who's joining You know, they've maybe never been on an ecown likely live stream before if they're outside of the ecown group or interview I should say and so it's just this little bit of unfamiliar Unfamiliarity But what I will say is that coming down the line Imminently is a full zoom integration with ecown and what that's going to mean is whilst at the moment You can certainly use ecown into zoom and so that means that anything you're doing with your live production in ecown You can sort of feed that into a zoom meeting. That's what I do day in day out But what they're working on is this integration where actually you'll just run the zoom meeting within ecown itself, but what you'll have is your participants list will all then be available to you to bring into your production So that means that going forward you'll be able to just send somebody a regular zoom link At this stage, I think most people have been on a zoom call if they haven't got the desktop app Then they're sort of more familiar with it than some other, you know, less popular type things than ecown interview mode So most people know how to access a zoom call. So it's going to be to have that sort of Intuitive nature to it, but then you'll just be able to still make your production in ecown You'll be able to put their picture in one place your video in another, you know That their video in one place your video in another it will bring the audio in and so it'll be fully integrated So I would say that when that comes out as I say fairly imminently Then I understand they're just waiting for zooms approval for the for the app integration something like that And then it'll be ready for for beta That then I think he's just going to change the game honestly Because now, you know our virtual conferences our virtual events and so on Interviews will just be able to use that zoom. So I'm really yet really looking forward to to that So so yeah, that's a few of the things that I've come up During the during the you know the week in either the Q&A sessions Related to content specifically and also during some some one-to-ones that I've had it as well Incidentally coming back to the the interview thing the other question was about sort of connections But I'll actually get on to connectivity in the the next session before I do I'll just will say now that I've gone through a little bit of this. I will just say a couple of hellos. So Hey George, great to see you. Thanks for thanks for stopping by by the way I note that you've got your picture from my creator camp. So everyone who went to ecown's creator camp There will be another one this October as well All had their headshots done and I love it when I see the avatars from that because kind of reminds me of creator camp every Time I see them, but yeah, great to see you here the rocking round table Tuning in just to thank you. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you Your roadcaster videos have helped me so much. Well, I'm really pleased to hear that I'm glad they've been there club being useful for you. Hey, I lean great to see you as always I've got to give you credit. I mean I talked earlier on about me dropping my my countdown It was actually seeing a tweet of yours and it was something like Why do live streamers punish people for being punctual something like that? I can't remember exactly but It was your your comment there that just just triggered me to think Yeah, why do we all have countdowns on our live streams? I don't know I only did it because other people were doing it and I kind of copied what everyone else did So so yeah, I've got to thank you. I lean for Illuminating the way for me with that one. Hi Michael great to see you as well Just filmed 50 odd shorts for to release next month. Great work. Congratulations. And Yeah, it I do favor the the intentional custom Made shorts rather than repurposing ones. Hey done great to see you here. Thanks for stopping by as well And let me go a Timothy great to see you Timothy. Thanks for stopping by as well I'm clicking in the wrong place here doing some weird Doing some weird stuff in here. Let me just say hello Timothy great to catch you live think that one is up and hello Kenneth from South Carolina Thank you for all your road podcast information. You're very welcome. I'm glad it is all all helpful By the way, if it looks like I'm a little bit off Of everything today. It is because I'm as you can see in a bit of a different setup It's actually just another part of my studio. So here we go. It is over here I'm kind of my regular setup is where I'm in out. I've got the wrong one But yeah, my regular setup is over here and I'm kind of sitting with my back to it I'm using here an old It's like a let me see if I've got a better camera angle Right this one. There we go. That's a little bit better. Um on on here. This is actually a What is it 2000? It's the 2014 MacBook pro. I'm not streaming from it. Don't worry before I get worried concerned messages from folks What I'm doing is I'm just using it purely as an ndi monitor. So I've got my regular computer over here Um, which is sitting over there And this is basically the screen in front of me here is just mirroring the screen of my laptop over there and then as you can see I've got a I've got my teleprompter in front of me, which is my old lily put teleprompter with my my iPad mini over there as the the screen so that I can see my feed basically So that's what you're seeing in there. So, but if you're wondering why maybe today I started about five minutes late And also I seem to be looking all over the place It's because it's still not entirely clicked in yet as to where I should be looking and by the way This sort of set that I created behind me um was for some other general content that I'm going to be creating But I am just testing it out For the moment with this stuff that I'm talking about here. So I thought I'd just give it a little trial run Hey, Laurence, great to see you. Thank you for stopping by A huge fan as you know, I have noted your new agenda overlay Do you have this for sale on any of your platforms? Do you know what? I don't actually at the moment, but what I will do is maybe next week I will do a live stream about About how I made this because it is just this thing that I've I've done a few times before I talk about it It's kind of immersive presentations. So all of the graphics that you're seeing over which side is it that side That is that is just keynote. And so I'm actually rooting my live video through keynote into ecam And so that's giving me all of these animations and so To sort of demonstrate that if I just click my little button to go to my next slide in Keynote with a bit of luck. What should happen? Let's try this There we go a little bit of an animation there. So so that was just a keynote animation in that using the magic move tool And yeah, let's let's crack on with some more of these things But I'll do a demo Lawrence of how to how to create all of this How I created all this stuff. So maybe that'll be my live stream next week. I've been working on A number of different things like this. So I've got this agenda one. I've got some other scenes and some other animations. So I literally just Honestly, this whole thing was just finished. I would guess about 10 minutes before I went live. So I've I've got some more to add into it And then I'll I'll share it with you for sure. And then I'll I'll just make that available as a free download actually so Um Next up then, uh, let's see where we are. So Hubs and docs so as well as the content kind of stuff I've mentioned at the beginning, you know, we talk about content content creation content strategy and all that kind of stuff We do obviously also talk about tech, uh, you know, the cabling the wiring the lighting the cameras and microphones and all that kind of stuff And then we also talk about business. So, uh, in terms of tech, yeah, there are all kinds of questions that come up because It's you know, all very well if you are creating content if you're leveling up your video your online presence and so on Then yeah, there is the the obvious things like the microphone Maybe the lights the camera, you know, those are the the three core things that you need obviously But then suddenly we get into this situation of oh now we've got to connect all this now We want to add in another another camera now. We want to add in, you know In my case a what is it a sixth stream deck? So I've got two three stream decks on my regular desk I've got two pedals down on the floor and I've got another stream deck just over here on this one So when you start adding in all these things then suddenly you've got to connect them all and where do you connect them all? And and there's always teething problems that come along when you're trying to Sort of iron out the the you know the installation process And there was this question that came up recently in a couple of ways actually so first of all What is the difference between a hub and a dock? You may see people talking about hubs and docks and which one do you need? So just to understand the difference there A dock is something which um, I mean it comes from you know, obviously think about a docking station I don't if you remember those old style ones with I used to a What was it? Yeah, I think in IBM think pad and it would just slot onto this You know with a big clunk onto this docking station And that's where you plug in all of your different peripherals And then the the computer just docks into it. We're a little bit away from that now I don't even know if you can still get those types of things But the point is the dock is for connecting all manner of different things to your computer. So that could be other usb devices For example, but it might also be your ethernet connection. It might be your display using either display port HDMI or whatever it may have audio in and out as well. So something like the cal digit ts4 or ts3 Those kind of things those are docks Because they have all of those different types of connections on the back a hub In by contrast is basically just a way of bringing in multiple usb thunderbolt Connections into your device. So Using cal digit as an example. There is the cal digit element hub, which I use and that's basically got a thunderbolt 4 Connection that goes into my computer But then it's got, you know, three usb c sockets and four usb a type sockets So there's no monitor output. There's no ethernet. There's no audio or anything like that unless you plug them in via usb And so that is the difference there between a hub and a dock a dock is for connecting multiple different types of Cables whereas a hub is for connecting that kind of more of the same And you might well have, you know, like in a network hub as well Which is basically multiple network connections coming in with a single network connection out for example Now when it comes to actually setting these up or considering which ones to buy The main thing to look for is really this sort of power usage That you're going to be putting through this thing Because it may well be that You know, it hasn't got enough power to power all the things that you're plugging into it And that's for the reason why, you know, I use the cal digit element hub That is you know, I've got a good power supply And just to let you know what's plugged into that I've got my two roadcaster pro 2 usb's going into Two of the usb c sockets I've then got Three of my stream decks plugged into three of the usb a's What else have I got going into that? I've got something else going into that But basically those are things that you might think of well They're all quite sort of you know power hungry type devices and I have no issue with that with that at all Now my hub I'm actually sorry my dock. I'm actually using not the cal digit I'm using a wavelength And the reason I'm using that is because it's got multiple monitor outputs And that was the reason why I bought that one in particular Because yes, it does have the power, but it also allows me to connect multiple displays now with my mac mini that I had previously The maximum I could connect to that was two And so by using the wavelength dock I was able to power as it was at the time four different monitors Now I'm using the the wavelength dock still with my macbook pro m3 Max or whatever it is m3 max. I get always get the names of these mixed up But yeah, now I've basically a powering as you can see from over here. I've got my main monitor I've got my macbook itself is down there I'm powering my teleprompter, which is where is it up there somewhere I've got this monitor, which is kind of like my av and there's also one just out of shot Which is like a vertical format monitor that I have for my communication stuff and and so on there So yeah, the wavelength allows me to to connect all of those And incidentally the reason why I can connect that more monitors is always a question that comes up Is if you have got a limit like as I say with the mac mini being two monitors Then there is some software called display link and that allows you to basically run More monitors than that you can get you know up to I don't know There is a wavelength dock that allows you to plug in five. I think So you can connect more monitors than you would ordinarily be able to just from the limitations of the computer So so yeah, but there was this point that came up where somebody in the academy was having issues Where they felt like maybe the power of the dock wasn't sufficient because it seemed like it wasn't There were some issues with some of their devices and I said, well, it might be the the dock It's always worth checking these things But it could also just be an issue with the device itself And it was one of those cal-digit element hubs that they were having the issue with and When I explained that I was powering all of my things through that and they weren't you know doing anything More than that. It was a case of well, let's check on the device itself then and incidentally up until recently I was also having my cal-digit element hub But then I was running my wavelength dock in through that as well So I was kind of daisy chaining them now the thing to note about that is you can daisy chain as in run One into another into another into your computer for example The thing to note about that is to be conscious of the speed that you've got with each of those devices So the cal-digit element hub is a thunderbolt 4 Hub whereas the wavelength dock is thunderbolt 3 So you wouldn't want to put the thunderbolt 3 one first and then put the cal-digit after that Because then you're basically throttling the thunderbolt 4 So so I had it where the cal-digit element hub thunderbolt 4 was going into the computer And then I plugged the wavelength dock from there into the element hub and yeah, that that did work Did work fine as it is now. I've just got more ports available So I've just plugged them both direct in if you can go direct in it's always always going to be better Less less potential for failure Um, it's also worth checking. You know where you've got things plugged in. I did have one issue Dock related which was when I When I got the stream x the first time and I had the road caster pro 2 When I plugged the stream x in and the road caster pro 2 at the same time I got this weird thing where one of my channels dropped out on my road caster pro 2 It just didn't show up and I actually contacted road and said is this you know a bug or something like that? And they were like no we've got no clue about what you know, it isn't something that they you know It wasn't a bug I was asking, you know could can you use the two of them together and they were basically saying Yeah, you should be able to plug them in without any issue and it turns out in that case It was the fact that I'd got them both plugged into to a dock and that was a point in which it I either overloaded the the usb bus bandwidth or whatever it you whatever you want to call it Wriggling for the right to him there But basically when I plugged it in somewhere else everything worked fine So it is always worth checking these things out. Um, but but yes, uh, it's It is sometimes the devices as well, not just the not just the dock so but just be sure to get a powered dock if possible Incidentally another incidently one of the exceptions to that is my Streamdeck pedals. I had a weird thing happen with that where I'd use one stream that pedal for the longest time And then I decided to add in another stream that pedal And in doing so I was kind of moving around where things were plugged in and I unplugged my first one And when I plugged it back in it stopped working And thought that's a bit a bit weird. So I contacted Algato and they've got excellent customer service They sent me a new one. I sent them the old one back Um, but then then shortly after that the the second That the newer one that I'd bought originally that one also failed So I said well, I'm I'll send in you another one and they replaced that one as well And they said that there was no sort of known issue But I suspect that it was a like hot swapping issue like pulling the cable out of the of the powered dock When the computer wasn't powered down now these days You don't expect to not be able to pull a usb socket out of something when it's plugged in But since then I've been extra cautious to make sure that it isn't You know, I'm not removing any cables from specifically those pedals Unless the computer is powered down But also I've just taken to not actually plugging it into a powered dock As such it's plugged basically into the back of my monitor, which has got its own little built-in usb USB hub thing built in so anyway, that's another little issue there Another tech thing that came up Funnily enough with Three separate people and this is related to the new Elgato prompter It was a weird because it was literally three people within the space of a week had this exact same issue Which was that when they were looking in their Elgato camera hub software The the bit that was about the prompter the prompter little tab was grayed out and just wasn't showing up and Yeah, they They in some cases had it working and it stopped working and then in other cases They were just going through the setup and it wasn't wasn't there But in all cases Redownloading the software, but also the latest beta which had some some updates to it I'm just going through a complete reinstall process Did the trick I should say that just doing a complete reinstall of the original software Didn't help and There was something in the system settings Which was a little toggle that you have to grant access to it now They'd gone through and done that to give it access to For the screen recording for the prompting Using it as a screen functionality But yeah, it was just one of these really strange things and it just goes to show sometimes, you know Switching it off and on again to in a complete reinstall And certainly making sure you're up to date with the latest software Does actually help but there must have been something that happened with you know some sort of update or something that came out That kind of temporarily broke that for for a few folks So so yeah, that was just something else that came up with the prompter that I thought was worth mentioning because if you're having The same issue with it then I would totally understand the frustration if you can if it seems that everything is right, you know All the boxes appear to have been checked. It's all enabled in system settings But it's just not working in as I say Grubbing the latest beta and then doing a complete reinstall And removing it first of all and reinstalling it Did in fact help in those three three cases eventually So yeah, elgato prompter. That's just something that came up Another one is bandwidth issues and this has come up as a an ongoing thing with one particular Academy member where they have got ongoing, you know, they're right out in the sticks and so they just have issues with with general connection There was someone else though that I was speaking to just yesterday In fact who was talking about this This was one of the ones that's doing their interview show and they were concerned about bandwidth and And rather just connections in general and the question was this was somebody who had not really done or hadn't done any live streaming before and it was kind of like a Potential, you know worry is well, what happens? What do you do if your connection goes down? What happened you do if you have any issues on live streams? And the fact is Stuff will happen, you know live. I haven't got my live happens Ecamm t-shirt, but yeah live happens these things do happen. And in fact somebody posted In the it was told me in fact in the in the ecam group just a couple of days ago Where they posted a short video that was taken from live tv where somebody was on live tv and then Somebody's mic dropped out and stopped working and then about two minutes later Suddenly all the main studio lights sort of dimmed or went out and there was like this string of technical failures within the space of three minutes and the hosts were The host actually could tell that she wasn't too happy about it She said something like is this everybody's first day up in the gallery sort of thing So the fact is this stuff happens, you know, and it happens on whether it is a A little youtuber's live stream like i'm doing here or whether it is some multi million dollar, you know tv enterprise This stuff will happen and it's just a case of you know figuring out how to To sort of manage those kind of things when they happen Now obviously if your internet just completely goes down and you've lost lost, you know connection entirely then Okay, the live stream is done until it comes back With that with ecamm if your stream does drop, you know, it will reconnect And if your connection goes down for more than you know at a certain time There is an option there to just sort of rejoin the stream So that is that is always an option But it is just a case of being prepared for these things really And that is being prepared for when these things happen But also the you know taking a few steps if possible to try and you know minimize the The impact of those kind of things So what I mean by that is in terms of internet connection one of the things that you might consider is speedify So speedify is a service where you it's a subscription service that basically It will combine multiple internet connections that you have so if you've got your home internet But then you've maybe got maybe a second home internet if you're going to be really You know from a different supplier you can do that But it can also tether to your mobile. So I've got my unlimited bandwidth unlimited data. I should say on my 4g phone So I can tether to that at the same time And what it's going to do is it will combine those connections And then prioritize the live stream to Your primary connection But then you can say well if this fails then I want to go over to my secondary connection But it can also do things like your you know Your live stream might be going down your primary connection But any other things that are talking to the network that aren't maybe mission critical Those can all go to that secondary connection. So again, it's just keeping your You know primary connection clean for your Your live stream for your zoom call or whatever Excuse me and what it also does is it does act as a vpn as well So the funny thing is I was paying for a vpn service And then when I found out about speedify, it's actually cheaper than what I was paying for my vpn in any case So and it's kind of like it's a kind of a side thing that people don't really mention But yeah, it's also a vpn as well. So if you've already got a and vpn is virtual private network It's basically a way for Routing your thing through some somewhere else particularly So yeah, if you're already using a vpn You might consider taking a look at speedify because it's it's going to replace that but also give you this added Failsafe on your your connection as well That's not going to protect you if everything goes out Obviously, you're still going to potentially lose But it's just something that you can do to help reduce that that impact Sometimes it's only like a momentary drop in connection as well, which would otherwise Disconnect your stream for example, but in this case, it's going to have that little backup there in place The other thing then that's for internet connection is actually power So I always recommend using a ups an uninterrupted power supply Um, and what that does is it's basically like a box that sits on the floor somewhere wherever it is And you plug it into your wall outlet. Um, but then it's also got connections for you to connect power inlets, I should say for you to put in Uh sockets for you to plug in your computer your things like that And basically it's got a big battery inside and when the power goes out Then it's got the power to sustain your your devices for a certain amount of time I would say get a you know, reasonably large one. Um That doesn't really help you if you're just looking at this and you're new to them What is a reasonably large one? Then I would say I think mine is about is it about 3,000 milliamp hours or something like that not milliamp hours? Um, three, uh Let me think now. I I'm not I'm not up to do a screen share either to actually show you anyway Look for the number 1,500 and above but I got one that is 3,000 if it is milliamp hours Anyway, but what that will do is that will power. Um, I've got my my main key light plugged into that and my Key light and fill light. I've got my computer plugged into it my monitor my router as well And I've got another one in the house because I'm down in a little cottage at the bottom of the garden And so I've got an extender coming down to here. So I've got a wi-fi setup in here But I've also got one in the house, which is actually where the main line comes in So I've got the the router in the house that is on one of those as well So so basically if there is a power outage then Things are still going to stay on my internet connection is going to stay on my computer is going to stay on And even the the the the main lights that I need to not put me into the witness protection dark mode So yeah, having something like that in place is going to just give you a little bit more peace of mind and confidence So as I say this question came out specifically because of you know, what do we do if if we lose bandwidth during a live stream? It's a case of just accept that that might well happen and just sort of get on with it Really, it's the thing but put some steps in in place So next up then is what else we talk about we this is a recurring theme all the time Gas gear acquisition syndrome. This is this feeling of or not a feeling It's just a thing of you know, when you get into doing these things it's it's talked about in photography It's talked about in various different fields, but especially in live streaming and content creation This thing of always needing some other little bit of gear or Needing something else and I would say that in the beginning There is a more of a necessity now That's not to say, you know, you can't start with what you've got you totally can For example, you know when I started my channel, I was using a 10 year old camera I was using the same short mv7 that I've still got on my regular setup now And that was kind of looked like the one thing that I purchased was that one of the two things I purchased the mv7 And the the stream deck for me to do my my switching and so on And those are the two things that I purchased and the majority of the the videos on my channel in the first year Were made with just that really so I hadn't been out and bought anything else in particular Oh, I guess a couple of lights. In fact, the light that I'm using here is one of the first lights that I had Which is just you know, like $50 for two softbox I've put a different bulb in it now a different light fixture inside it, but Yeah, it's I didn't you don't need to go out and buy Lots of equipment to actually just make a start and start creating content Or to level up your video setup for your online meetings and so on But there is a sort of upgrade path that I think you should be considering Because there are certain things that you can add in that are going to improve your setup That are going to improve the quality of the the video the audio and all that kind of thing Certainly with me with the roadcaster. I didn't need a roadcaster in the beginning. Do I need one now? I could probably manage without it But I can tell you what for what I'm doing on zoom calls and virtual events and things like that The roadcaster is just an absolute game changer and makes things so much better So there is this thing of there are certain pieces of equipment That will really help to elevate what you are doing But of course they need to come at a time when you are ready for them But it came up recently where somebody in the academy was saying Oh, you know, I've heard about the the roadcaster pro 2 or the roadcaster duo I need to think about you know when to add one of those in and honestly for what this person was doing I said really probably you just don't need it. It's um, you know, your audio sounds good You've got a good setup going into your computer The roadcaster whilst I am a super fan. It's kind of like my favorite bit of tech That that I'm using right now honestly But it does has got some complexity to it. You know, it's it's an immensely powerful consumer grade device with pro level features And what that means is, you know, there's a lot to misunderstand about it as well My whole live stream last week was all about, you know, roadcasters troubleshooting And that's not to say that it has issues But there are user issues that come with trying to take on something that is, you know, really quite complex And, you know, people can book calls with me Consultation calls so I get people booking like ad hoc calls. You can find a link in the description But a lot of those calls are about Audio audio routing audio processing and those kind of things. So actually, you know, I love the roadcaster You know, I'm a huge evangelist of roadcaster, but it isn't for everybody though So that's not to say that, you know, you you don't want to get caught out with a gas Which is seeing that everyone else is using something and then feeling that you necessarily need that in your setup There is another thing about gas though, which is Um, in the beginning and this came out of a conversation again One of my one to one sessions with an academy member. Um, they said like it just feels it's never ending You know, they bought so the uh stream deck they got the roadcaster Then they didn't have the place to plug things into so then they needed to buy a dock and you know Or or a hub so bought the caldage element hub and then they had that but then it was a case of oh wanting to Add in a teleprompter and the screen and then there was these other things It just felt like this never-ending thing of uh, they've got one thing But now they need something else to use that thing. So they've bought the teleprompter How do I mount this now? I need to figure out a new way, you know of mounting this thing up Um, now I need to figure out how to get this monitor into there and there are all these different, uh Little small purchases that seem to go into, you know, getting the one thing that you actually want to work You know, if you see what I mean, um, I will say that I believe that the gas Uh, the the requirement for gear Um, it does have a plateau like I would say that in my studio. I felt like I'd got the perfect setup Um, like a year ago where I felt like I've got all the different pieces that I wanted were in place Now everything I'm adding in is, you know, a nice to have like I mean doing this here is a completely different setup Well, I don't really need to necessarily do that I did it because I wanted to have a different look and feel to some of the other content I'm doing in other places Um, but I'm just trying it out here today. Um, but you know, totally I don't need to have, you know, a second mic a second mic boom, you know Different camera setup and all that sort of thing. So I believe that there is a sort of plateau to it But then it comes to is it something you really enjoy doing? Um, and this was something that came up just yesterday in the session Where you know saying it's just so much fun though, isn't it? You know to to use all this tech and to figure out how to get it all to work together Um, and that is totally where I'm coming from with it as well There is a huge amount of enjoyment that you get from getting all this equipment setup getting all working right and then You know having it work for you as well delivering value Obviously, it's an expensive hobby if you're not using it for revenue generating activities But if it is all in support of you know growing your business expanding your reach You know youtube as a an inbound marketing tool for example, which is how I see it You know all of this that's i'm doing on youtube is to spread love and spread value But also it is To attract people into things like the take one take academy into my courses into my consultation services and so on So it's not completely altruistic But yeah, if you know if it is an investment in your your business and certainly, you know aside from youtube The stuff that I use in here is predominantly not used on youtube It is predominantly used in those courses in my coaching calls in my online presentations and webinars and stuff like that So, uh, yeah, it's all it's all from that point of view just a business expense Another thing to just think about this and put it into perspective is and I keep using this example of You know during covid lockdowns everybody was forced on to zoom and it still is astounding How many people have not made any effort to actually improve the way they look and sound on zoom? And it's actually a really important thing. It's not just about You know Vanity in terms of i want to be able to look good or have good quality picture quality An audio quality. I can't do anything about this, but I can I can change the background and lighting and stuff But what I mean is it's not just about You know looking good for looking good sake On camera. It's actually about getting your message across. I had another call with somebody who was A lawyer doing court depositions and You know wanting to level up the way that they those things are coming across And you know, it's it's if you've got a jury and they are shown a video from your side Which is really well produced and there's another one which is a let's say a sort of crappy video with poor quality audio Yours is going to carry more weight with them without a shadow of a doubt. You can't help but be influenced By those kind of things and it's the same if you're doing an online presentation You know if you're going into an online meeting for a sales meeting or whatever Then then if you can sort of well people wow people with your Your setup your graphics and things like that it definitely carries over into You know their perception of you and it's only like You know, why do people dress smart in their business meetings? Maybe not everybody but you get the idea Why do big companies have these big fancy offices and it's like yes part of it is for You know the comfort of the employees, but also it is just a status thing to sort of show off their Their status in the in the in the marketplace And so it's surprising that when people came into online video wholeheartedly through force during the the the lockdowns That that yeah, it's just surprising that people didn't invest anymore And if you think about the cost of a you know a new business suit and new set of shoes or whatever it is A pair of shoes. Do you have a set of shoes? I think you have a pair, don't you? Then then yeah, you know a new camera and a lighting setup But easily just be you know less than the cost that you would spend for one new business suit. So Yeah, it is surprising that people don't put more effort into this kind of stuff So I think that gear acquisition syndrome is only really a problem if you've got this feeling that I need this thing before I start or I need to have this before I Can do it and I'm not ready to create this content I'm not ready to level up my online thing until I've got this camera or that camera You can literally use your iPhone And you know get a better quality picture out of that using something like camo Software to to take your video camera from your phone into your computer That is going to improve your setup immediately And then just add in a couple of lights. It doesn't have to be a full set, you know studio set Doing something to improve things is gonna is gonna help and then just have that that upgrade path in mind as you're as you're going through that So so yeah, I think that gas is a good thing. Just just be conscious of it and don't let it be a barrier to doing stuff Hey rich, great to to see you here. Thanks for thanks for coming in looking to see There's my Thing over here. It's one of the way Sorry, I've just got to move things around a few things around on my my screen Yes, Michael the adjust in time I should have that tattooed somewhere on me. That seems to be the story of my life that does Um, hey done Uh, your content is very helpful. Oh, thank you very much. I'm really pleased. Hi Michael I'm really hope to catch up with you soon. I'm sorry. We didn't get to catch up yesterday But yeah, I'm I'm here and ready when whenever you are. So that's all all good Um, I've got one of those thinkpads with a dock It's amazing to think back um to think back to think back to um to those Yeah, it was it was quite a quite a quite a chunky thing by here by comparison But uh, it felt felt state of the art with the the little red. Um, what do they call it? The little red mouse nipple in the middle of the thing. I never really got used to those. Um Hey, great to see you here. Thank you very much. I wears my mouse I'm uh, yeah, there we go. Um, you've got one of my master classes. Thank you for what you do Oh, thank you. I'm hope you're uh, hope you're getting a value out of it Docs for uh m1 and m2 need display link. Yeah, so if you basically if you're Attaching more than the limit of the number of monitors that you've got then yeah having a display link Doc is going to give you the ability to catch uh to to output to more of them Like on the um on the m1 mac mini there is one hdmi port But if you just get a regular dongle, which is usb c to hdmi or usb a to hdmi You can plug a second one in um on that, but it's just yeah if you go above that limit of the number of monitors I know you I know you know, it's michael. I'm for the benefit of others. Um That's dangai have you try uh, yeah, so the stream deck mobile app Um Is it's actually really good. I'm going to do a whole uh video about that just one second I'm going to do a whole video about the the stream deck mobile app because one of the things that They did when they updated it actually last year. I need I need to have made this video a long time ago actually It used to be that the stream deck mobile app was limited to 15 actions on the mobile With the new updated one, uh, you can have up to I want to say 40 um, I think it's 40 you can have um that in terms of Uh, how many buttons you can have I think it might be even be slightly more than that Maybe it's an eight by eight grid. Maybe it's 64. Yeah, I think my I think it's actually 64 isn't it? It's an eight by eight Uh eight by eight grid anyway, but the point is you can have far more actions on it but the other thing that you can do which is cool is um, you know how on an iPad You can open multiple apps and have them side by side or rather have two apps side by side You can actually open two instances of the stream deck app and what that means is you can have it controlling Two computers at the same time effectively because you compare it with multiple computers You can have profiles for the different computers. Um, and so then you could have you know on one iPad Actions for one and actions for another down the other side The other thing that you can do which is pretty cool using that same same idea though is uh, for example with my stream deck plus I use my stream deck plus uh to switch profiles on my regular stream decks So, uh, there's a button on stream deck for switch profile Well, if you go down and have a look in the settings of that you'll see that you can actually select the device that you're switching profiles on as well So, um, you can use one stream deck to change profiles on another Um, so one of the ways that you can do use the stream deck mobile app on the iPad for example Is you can do that thing opening two instances. Um, but one instance might well just have You know eight buttons or six buttons because you can choose how many buttons you want on it And that might be just to switch the different profiles That are showing on the other side of the screen. So, uh, it's long overdue for me to do a video about that But um, yes, I have got the iPad app and it's uh, it's a great, um Sort of travel companion as well Um, uh, I don't I don't tend to use it here though in the the studio as such Unless I've got something where like, um When there was a new road product announcement and I created scenes with effectively the b-roll for all of the different things And so as I was doing the live stream, I wanted to just be able to click into the b-roll and it play and then come back to me Sort of thing. Um, so if I'm doing stuff that is Where I need to create a lot of scenes in addition to my regular scenes Then I'll use the mobile app for those kind of things sometimes because I can just build it out and then Just tap to go from one to the other what obviously the mobile app lacks is tactile buttons And because I like to be able to just reach down And press the stream deck button, um, then uh, then yeah, it's a from from that point of view It uh, it it obviously can't match having an actual button to press. Uh, just reaching down like that and pressing a button Um, so so yeah, that's something that I uh, I do use and I recommend checking it out There is a um An always free version, which I think you get six buttons or something. Um, but then it's a subscription I want to say it's 25 dollars a year. I can't remember exactly but um, yeah, and it gives it to you on the on the mobile So there we go somebody asked me um in a Was it in a q&a or maybe it was just on a call about whether they could use stream Whether stream deck could control their phone and it's not that way around. It's it's the other way It's you're using your stream deck to control the phone as I say, I'm I'm sure you know Know this, um, but uh, there we go Hey, Jeremy, great to see you here um The gas always comes to an end Once the beams run out. Well, yeah, there is always that yes There is there is often spikes in gas attacks related to uh, to come I guess as well Hey, Eric, great to see you here. Thanks for coming and The IBM thing. Yeah, that was uh, they were really quite quite something when they came out for the the size of them I remember the um, uh, the first announcement of the uh, the iPad air what a revelation that was Where steve jobs walked on to screen with uh onto stage with one of those You know internal document envelopes He just picked it up and pulled it out I'll never forget how mind blown I was when I saw that what a revelation it was when it came out Anyway, let's let's move on because we've talked about some content Conversations that have happened recently. We've talked about some some tech conversations as well I suppose I should talk about whilst we are If you want to check out the take one tech academy, uh, you'll find the link in the description take one tech.io slash academy Um, but in here you'll see Um, uh, all that is involved in it. So it gives you access to all of the current and upcoming courses stream deck roadcaster, um ecam Uh, one of the upcoming ones is actually a studio masterclass So people ask me about, you know, the studio build and studio setup So that one will be coming soon and also an automation masterclass because uh, that's something I do all the time It's also one of the hardest ones for me to put together actually because it's a case of where do you draw the the line with that? So I use keyboard maestro for so much on my computer But there's almost kind of no limit to what it can do. So um, for me, it's kind of Figuring out how I want to tailor that down to make sure it's covering Uh, you know, you're covering what people need to know giving people the tools to sort of go ahead with it without without Covering everything because that would be impossible Um, then we also have uh workshops. So, um, I've just put a little bit of a poll out in the take one tech academy community the take one tech network And uh, yeah asking about, you know, what folks wants to see coming up. So probably the next few months are going to be Actionable workshops where we cover things like creating lead magnets putting together, you know A business plan for a course and things like that and then the technical implementation of that So it's not just about tech, you know, some of this is the more sort of business focused sorts of things Then we've just wrapped up a kajabi accelerator course at the beginning of the year Um, uh, and then we've got an ecamm one that's going to be coming up Shortly as well, which will be I've got the ecamm masterclass which i'm right now in the process of updating big update to that coming end of this month Um, but the the ecamm accelerator is rather than the masterclasses which were all Pre-recorded learn at your own pace. The accelerator is going to be a one where it's kind of a cohort based course So that is coming imminently as well And then we also have the the group coaching the group q and a's I mean, it's called a q and a but as I said, it's it's not really just about questions for me It's a case of bringing together the the hive mind if you like of everybody else and all of their experiences So these are the three different levels professional tier gives you access to all of the online Learn at your own pace sort of courses The premium tier then gives you access to Those accelerator courses, but also the weekly q and a's as well. So more of the kind of live interactive stuff as well And then there's the elite coaching level which is basically flexible in terms of the time requirement From your perspective, but it's a case of you know, having one to one time as well as all of the other things as well So you can find that all at the the website and then down here You'll see the different tiers here and you can switch between obviously annual And monthly there and then if you're interested in the elite coaching That's a case of just having a conversation First of all because I want to make sure that you know I can offer maximum value to you and you're going to get out of it what you need So we can have a little conversation and talk about that So some people I see a couple of hours a week Others are you know a couple of hours every two weeks or an hour every two weeks or a couple of hours a month Whatever it is and that's sort of flexible to in line with whatever your your goals are Moving on then to the sort of business side of conversations and some of the things that have come up this week One that's being talked about a lot in different circumstances actually is Lead magnets and if you're if you've got a content business and you're looking to you know Grow a business out of the content you're putting out there either on youtube linked in or wherever it is Then you need to have some way of transitioning people from that To your your product essentially now, of course, there is the blatant promotion like I've just done Is one option But the idea of lead magnets where you're giving something of value for free in exchange for an email address To grow your email list now. This is something that I wish I'd done Sooner or with hindsight I should have done sooner with my channel and making sure that you know every Every live stream every video had some sort of call to action in it Um, uh to you know to go and get a download or whatever and you'll note that you know, that's what I'm doing Lawrence asked earlier about these graphics Wrong side these graphics And so I said, yeah, well, I'll do that as a live stream next week And then I can make this available rather than make it available as a paid template I could say well, I'll just make the template Live during the live stream and then make it available afterwards and that then becomes a lead magnet because Um, you know people will go and download that they'll exchange their email address for that That that value that content And then um, that leads to you know promotional opportunities Further down the line. So if I if somebody's downloaded one of my keynote Assets so I did another one earlier on where I uh, I had the the little pop outs that I use in my my live streams I did a demo of how to make those made it available And then I've had people going and you know regularly just downloading those things So then when I've got, you know, a keynote masterclass, which I do have To to promote Then then obviously I've got people I know are interested in keynote So the idea of lead magnets is something that you can You can do at all different levels and you may well just focus on having like one core thing that you want to talk about So I'll give you an example If you are doing anything with kajabi building a kajabi business Then one of the kind of leaders in the field of that Is graham cochran and he's got a youtube channel graham just called graham cochran And he does loads of stuff all about entrepreneurship and online business But basically every single week that he does his podcast his live stream on youtube or his recorded video on youtube There is the the kind of the same call to action to go and grab his free guide or whatever it is So you can certainly just craft like one main product that is in or one Main lead magnet that is in line with what you're doing You know, I've got several on my website. If you go to take one tech.io slash resources You'll see that there's a number of different guides and Free templates and things like that that you can download from there. They're all effectively My lead magnet. So, you know, that's in exchange for email and then I will consciously be You know potentially be sending out emails at some point in the future with stuff that you may be interested in so That's how lead magnets work, but the question specifically arose this week because There is a couple of us. I'm speaking at ecams leap into tools and tactics Later on I'll send out an email to everyone about that This not this month actually next month and somebody else is also in the academy is going to be speaking there And so they were saying about you know, well Creating the the lead magnet and my advice was This is I guess kind of related actually If you're doing a speaking event like having something to to to promote there in terms of you know, a lead magnet to offer is important But this this person is just in the process of getting everything set up with their business and their website and everything like that It's kind of like early stages of it. Um, and so my advice there was The priority is You don't need to have your whole website set up If you have got something that is like time restricted like this The priority should be just get a landing page and your lead magnet because then at least you can be capturing emails and during the event You can say, you know, download my free guide on whatever the topic is Maybe put a qr code up on the screen You know to make it easy for people to to grab that either they might be watching on a desktop They can literally just scan it with their phone or they can take a screenshot Get that after or there's even, you know screen grubbers that you can get are on the mac for example and windows i'm sure but I know on the mac that you can basically just select the area of the screen and it will go to the link as well Excuse me Um, so so yeah having a lead magnet ready and that was my advice was Get that to be the priority create the lead magnet first Create the landing page for the lead magnet and then you can focus on building out all of the other website stuff around that because The key is that just at the time that you're going to be delivering this content You want to make sure that you have that ready? So then we were talking about well, what is a lead magnet and People can overthink this really a lead magnet. You might think well before I remember downloading something Which was like a 20 page document about something or other with a complete guide And so I need to make something like that Well, it didn't really have to be it can be literally anything you could have a A checklist of 10 items that you just say this is a checklist of 10 items that you're you know, you can run through every time Well, I've got one very similar to that. I've got my live stream checklist Which I think is about 40 items, but nevertheless, it's just a series of checks to run through every time you do a live stream I've got it available on my website The the live stream checklist and people download that you know regularly So it doesn't really matter what the thing is as long as it's something that potentially has value Um to somebody that it's going to save them doing it if you know often people will say right Well, I'm quite happy to you know, just exchange my email for a pdf That's just got this checklist in rather than me having to listen to you talk through it and and type it all out You know, so if you're running through something on your live event live video or whatever it is So anything that's going to save somebody time, you can you can use that as a as a lead magnet And as long as what you are Saying people are going to get is what they get when they get the lead magnet Um, there there is no no has no issue there. You know, it can be whatever What you want to avoid is saying Um, this is a 10 step guide. It's going to tell you absolutely everything you need to know You don't need to look anywhere else this is going to tell you all the information that you need to do x y and z and The other thing that I see people do is where they've got like it looking like a thick book Almost they've used some software to just put the image of the lead magnet on the front of the book So you feel like oh, I'm going to get some big heavy Book and then actually what happens is when you get it It's not really a thickness of a book It's it's like a single page or something and it doesn't deliver on expectations So always make sure that you are positioning something and it is delivering on those expectations when somebody actually downloads it as well and also Not promising something but then the other thing that I see happen a lot is they'll say this is the solution You you've got this problem Here is the solution and then you get the lead magnet only to find out that that is literally just a lead in two Oh, but now you need to buy this other product So as long as you are being conscious about that and ethical and and it's it's delivering on expectations Then really it can be whatever you want it to be somebody mentioned Could you Actually, you know if you haven't got anything prepared at an event maybe but you want to offer something You could offer a like a follow-up workshop or something like that as a lead magnet And that is certainly an option if you haven't got anything together To to offer something like that I would probably say with hindsight that is not really a lead magnet as such because the point of a lead magnet is something That is there that is just continually attracting You know new New leads kind of things so all of the ones that I've got on my site You know every day there are new Email sign-ups into the various different things that I've got on my website And that is regardless of whether I'm doing an event or something So so yeah, there's a bit of a difference there that said it is a good way to capture things But with you know ai these days You know chat gpt is is everybody's friend You can certainly use that as a starting point I would never take anything out of a chat gpt and just create a lead magnet from it But if you're struggling to come up with ideas You know give me 10 ideas for lead magnets on Your topic then it can certainly come up with a few of them and give you an outline And then you can put your own spin on all of that. Um, so it doesn't need to be overly complex Is the the point about this But Definitely have something and if you are creating content for youtube whether or not it is a Long-term career goal or ambition or you're building a business out of it It is quite good to be thinking about you know just a way to capture Email addresses rather than just watching subscriber numbers and things like that because there's a lot more value in you owning the in you owning the your own database Incidentally with discord Which is there is a link here With discord one of the things the steps I did there was if you look in the description of this video There's a way to go and join the take one tech community which is in discord But rather than put the direct link in to join in discord It actually sends you through to a page on my website Where you fill out a form with your name and email address And then it gives you the link for discord after that and the reason is I want it to capture those email addresses of people Joining the community as well so that if something happens where discord goes away or I go away from discord I still have all of that contact information. So need to be very conscious about Building and protecting your email list of contacts Next one was about pricing products and this was sort of linked to this which was having a A pay course and then leading into a follow-up with a subscription model for ongoing support and The the question around this was specifically that the industry that this person's in The tendency is for people to Not necessarily value these things on an ongoing basis in this particular profession Where you know, there are other options available that are lower cost People generally don't pay as much for these kind of things And my view on that was well if you're doing something to differentiate yourself from that anyway in terms of the quality of the content Um, then then yeah, there's there's no easy answer for this by the way There's no kind of oh, this is how much a subscription should be this is how much this should be or whatever you know a standalone course but If you're doing something to differentiate yourself from the rest of the The crowd then there's no issue with your pricing model being different to somebody else's There's also this thing of do you want to do something that is a much lower cost and is attracting, you know hundreds of people Versus doing something that is more niche and not niche but more exclusive. I should say in the same niche Where you are charging more but you've got fewer people because in that sense You know, maybe those people are going to get a better quality of product By definition anyway because they're getting sort of more attention But it's not actually affecting the bottom line as such because you know, you've got fewer that are paying more than a lot That's paying are paying less. So There is no easy answer to this in terms of when it comes to pricing Uh, but it's a case of just looking at what the value is that you're delivering to people As well versus what it's worth to you necessarily So this is another trap that people fall into when they're creating a course. They might feel like well It's it's something that comes easily to me. I don't feel that this is difficult. So therefore, you know, it's um I shouldn't be charging a lot for it because it's it's easy Which is actually the wrong way around because what you want to think is, you know What is the impact that it's having for the people who are doing it? So if you are Overdelivering on the value that you're giving to people whereby They're getting, you know, a much higher Return out of it than whatever they're putting in. So if they're Now putting x amount in terms of financial cost then how much You know value is it delivering to them? In terms of value add to their business to their work to whatever area it is So always think of it in terms of The the person doing it and making sure that you're delivering over delivering on value in that respect Rather than thinking about it just purely from your own perspective because that will always be a little bit skewed Now the other thing I guess kind of related to this as well is If you are thinking about creating courses and course content Don't need to look at what other people are doing in terms of Thinking that that needs to be some benchmark. Um, I'll give you an example So my ecum live masterclass, which is 140 videos or whatever it is I'm rerecording the whole thing as we speak well not as we speak I'm doing this now, but you get the idea this week and next week And I'm just rerecording the whole thing with all the latest updates and everything But you might well think that you might want to do an ecum course and oh well, Alex got his and it's 140 lessons It doesn't really matter. Um, first of all, uh, whatever your course is Is still valid If you think that you want to focus on one sort of area of it And it's like a three lesson course or a ten lesson course. It doesn't matter The volume is not the signal of quality. Um, that's just showing, you know, how many videos there are in it So it could well be that you've got a higher quality product with fewer videos in it. Um, also It may well be that fewer videos is more attractive In fact, I can tell you it perhaps is and it's one of the things I'm changing with my ecum course Is that yeah for some people they go into a course and they're faced with 140 videos It might be like, oh, this is just too overwhelming. There is far too much I don't want to have to sit through 140 videos before I can even get started So one of the things I'm doing in my course with the update is I'm adding in some quick start guides So basically, you know, five different things right at the beginning Which is if you're using ecum for live streaming Here is your quick start guide because you may not need to know all of the different features of Widget overlays or this overlay or that overlay or whatever it is, you know, all the different things If you just literally say I just want to make a live stream Well, here's how to do it. So I'm putting in sort of quick start guides from from that point of view So all of this is to say that yeah, of course does not have to be You know a complete masterclass it could just be focused in on one little area of it as well Maybe it's not the complete guide to Let's keep with the ecum To using ecum. Maybe it is just this is the The ultimate live streamers beginner's guide or something like that 10 lessons on how to get up and running streaming with ecum so You can be sort of focused in on on different areas Um, that's what we're getting away from pricing But it's kind of linked to that because I think people think that there is some inherent value in It's got to have this many lessons or whatever sometimes less is more And it might be that you could charge a premium for something that is really concise and hyper focused and as long as you're conscious of What value is delivering then that is the key the key factor into into that Another thing which is business related and this is more come about because it's kind of related to my business so the next two in fact are related to Take one tech and some things that I'm doing but then They that this is the reason these things came up, but they are applicable to everybody So you may well know that I use kajabi for all of my my courses. It's where my website is hosted as well I now as well as my discord community The take one tech community there. We also have the take one tech network Which is just at the moment just for academy members a way to bring people to together And that is a kajabi community Within kajabi now one of the things that I love about kajabi is the fact that it is an all-in-one platform It's also great for sales funnels. For example prior to kajabi. I was using click funnels, which is a Sales funnels platform. I think that kajabi does a better job of of of it than then click funnels Honestly, so it is my course hosting platform. It is that I do host my podcast there I will be switching that out to captivate when I relaunch my podcast But for me it is the is the the course the website And all of those kind of things now. It does also do all of my email as well however One thing that I've been working on this this quarter is actually being better at my email because full disclosure I've mentioned this several times on the channel. I've not been doing a good job at My sort of onboarding. So when people download a lead magnet, there isn't a natural onboarding sequence The market segmentation or sorry list segmentation I'm not doing a great job of that at the moment in terms of Okay, what you know who's interested in what so if you signed up for a lead magnet about Streamdeck for example Is it really relevant that you get an email about a new roadcaster course, you know, perhaps But maybe not maybe that's something you're not interested in And so one of the things that I've been doing this quarter is planning out all of my different Different sort of paths that people can take into my content On the routes that they take to make sure that they get what they're expecting or get what they want to get after the fact I'm also going to be doing a Regular newsletter as well. So starting that up but making sure that people are seeing what they want to see in that And not just suddenly starting to to flood out with it with that to people who are maybe not expecting it I've been on email lists before Excuse me I've been on email lists before Where I maybe signed up to something like three years ago And then suddenly I start getting weekly emails from them and I think like oh, I get it You've just you've just updated your systems And now I'm just suddenly starting to get these emails and it kind of feels a little bit strange because You know, you weren't expecting it and then suddenly you start you you're just in this list So I want to be conscious about how I do this and make sure that you know, I send out a A sort of re-engagement sequence asking people if they Still want to hear from me if what kind of content they want and all of this kind of thing So I was trying to map out all of these different paths that people can take into the content into the courses into the academy And then figure out, you know, the routes that they can take what content they want to see And I was trying to look for a bit of software that could allow me to plan all this out Because I couldn't do it sort of visually in kajabi Um, and then I thought I'm kind of being crazy here to actually be looking for a bit of software To help me plan out something that I'm gonna then gonna implement in kajabi and about this time I was sort of having this little quandary thinking about what to do. Um, I Convert kit was something I already knew about but it just sort of came up several times in the course of a week So I thought let me take a look at it. I will do a whole video all about convert kit But what I love about it is um, it's got this visual automation Interface to it. Um, so I can do exactly this thing that I want to do Which is basically plot out these paths that people are going to go into so they fill out this form They get this lead magnet, then I want to add this tag Then I want to put them into this sequence Then I want to move them over here and and all these things So it's got a very very visual interface which works well with my my way of my way of thinking um, the other thing that convert kit does which you can't do with kajabi is It's got um, I'm going to get the name of this wrong But it's basically like dynamic insertion of content into your emails. Now if I'm going to send out the same email Announcement for example But I want it to be slightly different for my academy members versus people who have already bought courses versus people who have downloaded my stream deck icon packs Versus people who are just you know downloaded a lead magnet for example at the moment in kajabi I would kind of have to make four different email broadcasts for each of those Different groups what convert kit allows you to do is basically as you're going through and creating your your email By the way, I prefer the email editing interface in convert kit over kajabi as well It's more of an inline thing. So you're actually editing the text in the email If you've used kajabi, you'll immediately understand this But the way it works in kajabi is you have different blocks of Either text images and things like that and they appear on the screen But then to edit them you're kind of editing in a text box off to the side and then it's updating it in that so This is more intuitive. It's just a bit more like editing a real live document In convert kit, but what it's got is this thing where you can put little blocks of text into your emails But then you can say okay only show this to people who are you know tagged with this thing or in this particular segment So for example, if I've got if I do an email A newsletter that is focused on stream deck. I might want to mention You know, hey, if you want to learn more about stream deck check out the stream deck Masterclass, but I wouldn't want to show that if somebody's got the Stream deck masterclass already because they've already got it So having these these dynamic email content thing is is really great. I watched a great video I'm forgetting where it was now. It was josh specter interviewing somebody Uh, I'm forgetting the name. I can't reference this. I'm sorry to check out josh specter's channel recently But what they were talking about was Having segmenting of your audience At the time that they sign up. So when somebody signs up to a A newsletter when they sign up to one of your lead magnets or whatever Take them into a quick questionnaire afterwards to say, hey I just want to make sure, you know that I'm sending relevant content to you after the fact Would you mind answering a couple of questions, you know, uh, what what industry are you in? What are you looking to get out of? Whatever it is, you know, just just a few simple questions that you ask afterwards and apparently You know, most people will take those extra steps because they feel like I'm giving you my email address And so therefore Yeah, I actually would like to have a little bit more control over what you're going to send me afterwards So people generally will take this these steps to do this But then the genius of this is let's say, um, uh, you know, like people who book calls with me some of them are business professionals in, you know Lawyers real estate agents real estate people Sports coaches a surprising number considering my physique surprising number of sports coaches that I work with as well So if I understand what those people are doing, um Then what you can do is you can use that dynamic test text feature in convert it to basically Be saying the same thing, but in a slightly different way. So if I am launching a new A new course or a new thing, which is all about how to level up your online Thing in zoom, for example, or in your whatever it is I imagine I could write the exact same text from a sales point of view But all those who said that they were sports coaches, you know The entire block of text could be if you're looking to really maximize your impact in your online sports coaching business The academy is for you It only gets shown to those relevant people The next block down might be if you're looking to really maximize your impact in your next court appearance Or, you know court deposition or whatever Uh, court appearance sounds a bit wrong. It sounds like they're the accused or something But in your you know, you get the idea It's tailored to those people and then they're only seeing the one that's relevant to them So there's a real power in segmenting and then this dynamic insertion of content. So Yeah, I'm just in the process right now I'm in the process of a lot, but I'm in the process of just migrating my all my email Marketing to convert it all my transactional email will still be done in in kajabi, but there is a really great Oh, thanks rich rich has just dropped in the link to That josh specter thing it was it was rich you told me about it actually and it was a really great insight. So Definitely check out that if you're into Market segmentation growing your email list and all that kind of stuff It was a really really valuable thing to watch that was actually just at the right time for me So, uh, so yeah, so so convert kits really great for that. What else does it do that? I'm just trying to think oh, so it integrates with kajabi So in kajabi when somebody submits a form on your website, you can say also send this through to a third party Service so I've just toggled it on so that when somebody completes a form in kajabi. It gets Triggered into convert kit as well. Um, and yeah, that all updates seamlessly They will also Do a a complete service for you at no charge if you sign up with convert kit Link in the description Affiliate link in the description I should say When when you sign up with convert kits, they will migrate everything from kajabi for you So they'll go through and set up all the forms or the tags and everything like that I personally didn't do that because One of the whole reasons why it's taken me so long to get better at my take one tech email Is because of the friction involved in kind of sorting it all out and getting more consistent with my tagging segmenting the forms and all that and naming convention So I actually use this as an opportunity to have a complete overhaul of all of that So that when things go into kajabi a convert kit, I'm not just copying over, you know, two years or three years worth of This um unplanned Tagging and segmenting so so that was the way that I went with that But yeah, I highly recommend checking out convert kits. It's I'll I'll be doing a whole video You know about this when I've got it all set up to to show you how How I've set things up Let's have a look Harold so great to see you here. Thanks for stopping by I was able to add two six foot extensions to the stream deck excel cable So that I could use the deck on set a distance from my mac. It's interesting that is because Elgato road all these companies will tell you Always plug your devices directly into your computer. Don't use a dock Don't use a hub. Don't use an extension Um, but actually oftentimes they do just work, don't they? And it's interesting that you've got a stream deck excel One of the chaps in the academy has Is a is a another coach in a particular sporting field and they've got their main setup that is, you know A bit like this, I guess, you know, they've got this computer in front of them a wall behind them But then they've got like a demonstration area where they do demonstrating this their Uh, their their sport and so Yeah, they've got a stream deck or we're thinking of having a stream deck pedal But we're concerned over the distance it was away and yeah, it was a case of yeah try it with an extension cable You are probably likely going to be right. So the fact that you've got two six foot cables on an excel Um, which you would imagine takes more power than a regular stream deck is very reassuring To hear that it's it all works. Well, so so yeah Um, now I mentioned that the uh, I'm pointing the wrong way I mentioned that the last two so convert kit is one that I've been trying out and it's a question that comes up because It's funny in the academy We've got a number of people that are using kajabi and that are doing something similar to you know What I'm doing sort of building out this Courses the subscription the academy and all that kind of thing And so it's a question that comes up about sort of email And how to to do this so that's why I've been talking about it a little bit recently there just because of you know I'm always sharing my progress. We're all on a We're all on a journey. So I wish to share what I'm learning along the way too Um, but another one that has just come up really recently and it's funny because somebody asked me about this I guess it was last week on a coaching call and they said what do I use to manage my content? and The processes that I've got in place for that is For about 15 years, I guess I've been using omnifocus and omnifocus is a task management system a task planner task task task management app. That's the word and it's based on David allen's getting things done methodology, which there is If you if you're into It's productivity. You've likely heard of David allen and the gtd It is a thing It's a way to sort of manage your tasks and so omnifocus were kind of built around that And that is how I've been sort of capturing ideas and then you know, they they come into Videos to make and then you know making the videos and all that kind of stuff and it sits in Omnifocus, that's how I've been using this up until now And in fact when somebody asked me a week ago That was the answer that I gave I said well really I just use omnifocus to manage the you know capture ideas and so on And then I've got a whole text file system Which is based on just text files dot txt and then I use a really quite an old application Which is long being promised to be updated, but it hasn't been for a while Which is called nv alt and that is just a really lightweight interface that just links to my dropbox and can find any file That I've got on there until I can search and it's really a lightweight text file management system And then I've got my file system on my computer where I've got a structure to my documents My filing system in there that I know where to find things So those are kind of like the ways that things are stored, you know notes in text file notes tasks in omnifocus and The you know just a regular filing system And it was only actually after I had this call with this person and kind of explained what I did What I do and it's been this system for me has been unchanged for as I say 15 years That I realized that I do actually have a little friction point and that is With organizing All of the components that go into my videos, so I don't really I don't script videos. I mean this is not scripted, but I've got bullet points for example So ordinarily this would be maybe in an outliner Maybe in you know a little text file or something like that for my regular videos on youtube I don't I just don't script them at all and The the videos the channel is called take one tech because I make all my videos in one take with no edits But actually it might well be take two or take three or take four tech because it's not always the first one And the bit that I screw up is the beginning So I've been thinking recently I should just actually script my intros because those are the bits that are arguably the most important You know when somebody clicks on a video and they come into them um It should be a sales pitch for the video effectively And it you know with me, although I tried to do that in my videos, you know This video we're going to be talking about x y and z you know that kind of thing I don't script it at all I just say it and so that's the bit that feels unnatural and so that's why it is often not the first time It's the second time and I just you know The first 30 seconds are a right off I just start it again do it again do it again And then it's and once I'm actually getting into the content in the flow as it were then then it's fine Um, but I've been thinking I should probably just actually script those beginnings And so just at the time that I have the idea putting a bit more thought into the planning Would be something that I should I could benefit from the other thing then is as I've got more and more videos When people ask me about a video and say, you know, hey If you've got a video on this or maybe I see somebody asking a question in the ecamm group And I think I made a video about that. I could just post it There's a friction involved in that because I've then got to go and find it And although you can search in youtube it involves opening youtube studio and so on and getting it that way So, um, I've been thinking that I need to have a better more robust system than that Now this brings me on to Notion because I was talking about this with somebody in the academy yesterday Or a couple and then also on a couple of calls this week. I've been talking about Notion, uh, you could say I'm I'm late to the party, but we are where we are, you know People have been talking about notion for content creation For uh, you know for a long time and how it is a great all-in-one system the friction I've had with notion before is, um, this idea that It can do everything but I don't want it to do everything because I've got my omni focus I've got my filing system. I've got all of these other things and the other thing about it is Because it is by definition, you know a very versatile complex piece of software potentially Although, you know user friendly, but what I mean is it can do a lot There is then potentially a lot to learn about it and I'd always found that I think I first downloaded notion about It was probably actually about three years ago. Maybe two and a half years ago. I downloaded it I started to look at it and it was a case of I haven't got time for it now It's it's it's not going to replace my existing system Um, it's only this last week that I thought, you know what this could solve my content management problem Which is, you know tracking everything also putting in my intros maybe being a bit more intentional about, you know Calls to action. I want to do my live streams a little bit more planned out So things like which side is it this one? Maybe I need something in notion to tell me which way to point as well But being a little bit more intentional about my live streams every week because they are also something that apart from me Creating a rough outline. I don't really generally create graphics for them or anything like that Whereas I think that there is some benefit to doing it. Maybe not just this kind of stuff here But you know some other more more intricate stuff with talking about audio routing and all that kind of thing. So, um, yeah getting more Intentional about the planning of it. There is also this thing of you know, I'm working with a number of brands Brands will send me products for review And so being able to track those kind of things a little bit better as well in terms of email communication versus The content versus the assets versus, you know, the products And so this week actually I have taken a huge deep dive into notion and I feel like I've made a massive about of A massive a massive amount of Progress with it because what I've been able to set up is I've got a content database which basically lists my my ideas, but then also things that have been recorded One of the things I now realize about Omnifocus is yes, it's great for tracking things to do And then once you've done them, you can check them off But then after that they've kind of disappeared, you know They they go into an archive and you don't really have a view of all of that Whereas the benefit of doing these kinds of things in notion is that You've then got, you know, all of the stuff that you've put into your video It might well have been moved into a done state as in it's been published. It's finished But you've still got all the information there. So if you need to refer back to it So for example, I've created my database so that I've got a link to the original file as well So that yeah, it's on youtube But here's the original file if I need to get that or if if at some point I decide to take somebody on to do Some repurposing I'll have a link to all of the files there I've also then created from after that a product database that lists all of the products now I say all the products it's the bare bones of the the database So I'm going to populate this as I go and I'll probably get somebody to back populate with all of my old stuff as well But like, you know road podmite usb the stream deck the Holding keyboard that I've got on my desk. Those are all products and so now All the videos that I make are linking to the product database So they're basically anytime I've mentioned a product in a video I've then got that linked back into the database So if somebody If I want to find out, you know, all the videos are made about the podmite For example, or that included it not on screen, but like an actual talking about the product Then now in my product database, I can go to that product and see a list of all of those videos But then that's also linked to another database Which is all of the manufacturers. So road, agato, ecam, you know, all the people that I talk about And I've got a database of all of that now So also I can see all the videos that were made about road products, agato products and things like that as well Then I've got my contact database, which is basically Contacts at all of those different companies Contacts in the academy all of those kind of things as well So then it's uh, you know, when I got to that point of building that out Then the templates that you can set up for videos, uh, you know You can have checklists of things that you need to do and so you can start to make a task management System out of that as well and have that to be all managed. So at the point where I got to there I thought You know what I could actually replicate omnifocus We're getting things done in uh in um Notion and so that's what I'm actually in the process of doing now is just replacing Notion nvult Actually my file system for a large part because I'll just have things embedded in the in there that itself The file will still live somewhere on my computer But actually as the resource will be in in Notion Things like books. I'm reading. I'm reading. I'm I'm trying to read a book A week this year because I seem like I slacked on my reading last year So I'm kind of a two books ahead so far I had one good week where I read three. So So yeah tracking those that's also another thing I always have this moment of There's a book that is on the tip of my tongue that I want to tell somebody about And so having it all in Notion with you know the the link the thumbnail the title the author If I can remember what was that book I read by whoever it was Mahaley chicks and Mahaley for example flow His his book which is a great book Then then yeah if I can't remember the name of the book I can search by author and all that kind of thing So, um, yeah, it's actually turning into I can totally see now with a few videos that I've dug into it how How powerful it is and it just took getting over that that hump of You know getting past the the barrier of oh, they just seem so much into it And it's funny. Actually, I watched a few videos about Notion for content creation, which was the original thing that I was looking at for You know looking to use it for and there was something about the videos that I watched They didn't really help me Uh, I felt like it gave me a view of what it can do But it didn't just get me over that little first few steps of getting into it And so often when people are making tutorial videos, they'll miss out certain bits not intentionally They just have an assumed knowledge and so they say, oh, well, we just created this database And now I can show this and this without actually showing it. I know that's what I'm doing right now I will do a full tutorial when I've got it set up with more step by step Um, but um, but yeah, when people when people had dedicated videos about Notion for content creation It didn't really do it It didn't really answer the questions for me and get me to the point where I could actually have the app in front of me and start to do it um I should have thought I don't know why I didn't immediately But actually it was cat molder hills videos that I went to um, uh last last weekend I want to say um, and she's got a series of four videos That were from two years ago. So things have changed a little bit since then But this was four live streams where she said we're going to go through and one after another You know for 90 minute live streams build out this content database Actually, I watched one and two and it got me it got me up and running and so that was that was the impetus I needed to to do to you know to get things up and running so Notion is something that just came up in the academy because I was giving a little bit of a demo of it and talking about it And I know that lots of other folks use Notion Um, and or or are trying to use Notion So what I'm going to do is once I'm it's not ready for demoing now I've still got all sorts of Stuff that I wouldn't share on a live stream in there But I will uh, I'll get it all set up and then I'll show you Where I'm up to with it on a on a later live stream and how I'm using it for Not just content creation, but also for managing the business and all of those kind of things as well In fact, there was a question that came up just yesterday as well specifically about um, not yesterday It was a few days ago now about you know a crm Uh recommendation for managing, you know some sort of business and actually Notion could well be Be good for that and the benefit of it all being in one place Is that it is it's just got that sort of seamless thing to it You know everything can talk to each other you can pull in information From from everywhere Um, so let's see where we're up to with this Um You've got seven including your I'm not sure what that's a reference to Um 30 seconds you've got seven including your experience. I'm not sure what that's uh What that is uh related to Um, the total value of what you present is fantastic But is it human to keep up with the the updates? How do you plan to do this? Um Well, if you mean the updates to content There is always going to be a lag there. So yes, it's uh, it's tricky. I mean that's my ecamp I'm not sure if I'm missing the context of this by the way. So, uh, correct me If I'm if I'm going off on the wrong the wrong tangent. Um, but um Yeah, in terms of keeping up with updates to uh, you know software, um as a Course creator, um, you know, my ecamp course is out of date. That's why I'm doing a complete Re-recording of it. Um, but um, yeah, uh, it's it's a case of that's just a thing if you mean yourself, uh, or one How does one keep up to date with updates of of of things such as you know New releases in notion or or whatever it happens to be again. I'm not sure of the other content context of this this question um Yeah, that's just an ongoing process, isn't it really and um I'm not necessarily feeling like you have to update things and be you know completely on the cutting edge of things As I said, you know before I dived into notion today not today talked about notions that before I dived in this last week Um, you know, I was still using the exact same methodology with omni focus As I have been doing for you know, 15 years So you don't necessarily have to always be up with the latest thing and this is something that comes up in academy conversations of You know watching all of these Livestreams, you know potentially in the ecamm community if you're in the ecamm community There are lots of things there. There's lots to learn There's lots of people teaching new stuff and they're an ecamm are so great at putting on free workshops to help folks out That there's always something else to learn How do you actually um, uh, how do you actually get get time to actually implement it all? So I'm very conscious about the things that I do take my time to Take on And try and weigh up the cost cost benefit and yeah, this this notion experience And that's that I'm having at the moment Is uh, is something that is going to really pay dividends in the in the long run and I'm still going to use the getting things done methodology. I'm still basically going to use my omni focus system I'm just migrating it into into uh to notion So I don't know if I've answered your question there or even if I got the context of the question But uh, thanks rich for dropping cat's playlist. Uh, yeah cat screwed some with uh, all she's got loads of other notions I haven't dug into all of her notion stuff yet either because um, yeah, it was never something that really interested me So I never really watched that stuff before but uh, yeah that uh notion for content creation playlist If you're just thinking about it, I highly recommend watching that as a sort of starting point to get you into it Things have moved on a little bit in two years, but that will definitely get you up and running Hey, Rob. Great to see you here. Thanks for stopping by. You may have questions for you about zoom. You're welcome. You ask ask away um Client I'm building a studio for is exclusively on zoom with her audience. Uh, you've never used zoom. Uh, well, um That's yeah, I mean basically eliminate zoom from the equation and if she's a mac user The uh, the the thing is ecam is the secret source Um, so using ecam virtual camera into zoom, um, you know, you're fantastic at that and I know I know that if you're uh, if you're doing anything in terms of her set, it's kind of look phenomenal Uh, yeah, I love your your projects that you've done like building out studios for people is just phenomenal So she's going to certainly look and sound amazing. Um, and then um, and then yeah adding ecam into that It's really there's not there's not really a much to zoom if you're using it for You know online presentations if you're going into an audience where they're coming in on zoom just take ecam into that Then then yeah, but if you've got any specific questions If not now you can always, you know, you can always hit me up and ask me any any questions You want rob about uh, sort of the technicalities of implementing that When the zoom integration comes into ecam it's going to be just on another level because then what you're going to be able to do is The zoom participants You'll be able to bring those people Into ecam as I mentioned earlier. It's going to be just uh, yeah You just have in the same way that you've got interview mode You've got the list of uh interview guests that are in the green room You'll just have the list of participants and you'll be able to just say right I want this person there So for workshops and q and a's that kind of thing where you want to bring people up to ask questions But you want it in a nice produced environment. Um, then then yeah, it's going to be great for for that Um, and yeah, she will use ecam to create presentations and we'll do virtual camera and mic It'll be good to go. Yeah, the zoom part is actually You know, it's relatively relatively straightforward And like all the stuff that I've been doing today with these Graphics on screen. Um, I've got a few videos on the channel about that. I did the ecam live advanced Um Workshop on the ecam channel and also the ecam tools and tech Workshop I did last year on the ecam channel And in both of those I talked about immersive presentations that thing of where you know, the graphics coming like I've done today basically Graphics are coming on screen. Um, so all of that is just built out in keynote And ecam is kind of like the conduit for that and then also when I'm bringing up the chat I'm doing screen sharing and all of those kind of things. So um, yeah, it's uh, it's It's a a match made in heaven heaven ecam keynote and uh, and and and zoom soon to be And then couple that with the stream deck And and people often ask me as well why I use keynote And why don't I just do this stuff in itself because ecam has got shape overlays ecam's got text ecam has Some limited animation you can have the fly in from the left from the right. Um, the thing about it is I want ecam to be the production environment And keynote is the presentation environment. So anything that i'm doing where I want to um, you know, bring in different content Like I've bought in today with these different pop outs and things like that That for me is unique to this particular live stream It's so that's why that sits in keynote and it's something that I can create a template for and I can go through and change it It's also then very easy for me to go through my presentation and just literally repressing a button on my stream deck to go from one Uh, one thing to the next when you start building out all of that stuff in ecam What happens is ecam gets really bloated. Um, and then instead of just having uh, like now I'm running this whole stream today Uh from one stream deck plus I've got my main scene. I've got my scene that's got keynote in it I've actually got a screen share scene. Which is this one Uh, I've got a couple of camera other camera angles just because I had them set up Like that. Um, and then and then a couple of other things to start and stop the stream So actually, you know, this could well be just going into zoom right now And you could literally have you know eight buttons or 15 buttons or whatever it is. Um, and uh, and just be running things You know from a from a stream deck. So that's another advantage for me of keeping the presentation aspect in keynote Because then you're just basically pressing and and that by the way is one of the buttons is just basically next So next next slide next, uh element of the the presentation. So yeah zoom ecam Keynote is a winning combination or powerpoint. You know, it's the same thing. Um, so yeah Um, uh Hey, Florence. Great to see you here. Oh, I've got my mouse in the wrong place. There we go. Thanks for stopping by I'm glad you like the new background. I'll I'll still be using my old background as well regularly probably as well. Um, this was just, um, I'm just doing a bit of a test of it today test out the process of This slightly weird setup of having an old iMac an old macbook Which is uh, effectively just um an ndi monitor for my main computer. Um, and then my ipad sitting in my Old teleprompter over there. Um, so I just wanted to put this Little setup through its paces. I'm going to be starting a new podcast Which is a solo podcast as opposed to my live streamer backstage podcast, which also will be resurrected Um, but for my solo podcast, I'll be using this. I'm also doing some some short form content on Tiktok and ig for example that I'm going to use this this background for so yeah, that's uh, that's the the reason for This alternative setup a little bit of a different thing and also to show how you can Obviously create multiple different scenes and setups with a completely different look and feel um in the in the same room I've also Incidentally while we're talking about it repurposed. Um, uh, my light so what is normally my key light is effectively now It's I suppose it's still my key light, but I've got this other one that is a lot closer to me here And then the lights on the back rather than the the colored light that I tend to have on my back wall I've got a sort of warmer color light on the off to the side And those are those same Those same same lights that are normally sort of purple on my back wall But I've used the nanolink app on the desktop So I've set up different scenes so basically with a push of a button It changes all the tone of the light and everything like that And then I just kind of move them into a slightly different position to to give this different look So I'll do a full video about that and how I've set this up And I've got this extra mic which is my pod mic usb And that's just permanently attached to my desk But then when I'm not using this one it kind of folds out the way and I bring my other one in from the from the other side Um, so there we go. Uh, that is uh, just a little aside as most things are Most things that I talk about on my channel. I'll just rabbit holes ultimately Um, you like the razzle does a lot of keynote. Yeah, it's it's good It's got much better animations than you've got naturally in in ecamm The forced into microsoft teams is that okay for us There is an issue with microsoft teams when we're doing things with ecamm Um, you can use your virtual camera into microsoft teams without any problem Where it is potentially a problem is if you've got a scene setup that is something like this Where you know, you can see I'm on one side The content is on the other and the reason for that is that teams does this thing where It it tries to fit everybody that is on the screen In the teams window It tries to fit it into the to whatever shape the window is so if you have got Let's say you've got four people on a team's call And your window is kind of a square shape Depending on you know, it's going to be different for every person who's viewing the call every person who's on the call They may have their teams window full screen or they may have it, you know Squashed into the corner or a different shape and what teams will do is it will basically Squish the side of everybody's video What I mean by squish it not squish it not squash you in But basically crop the edges so it'll just take like the middle square part Basically, or the you know the middle square part like that because what it's doing is it's trying to fit everybody into that window whereas with zoom The default behavior of that is it's going to maintain the aspect ratio So if you were to have a completely square Zoom window on screen and there were four people in it You would get like a bar at the top and bottom of your zoom window because you've just got four You know horizontal people in those those windows That with teams though because it does this thing of trying to fill up the screen It's not expecting that what you're going to be doing is potentially having a scene like this where you're sharing your screen Now there is a way that you can get around this But it's a case of everybody has to do it on their own end So you have to say that if you're going to be doing a presentation Then you need to be if you're not going to use the native screen sharing If you're going to do all of it through ecam and you're going to use ecams You know live production quality, which is why we use it Then you would need to tell them to on their On their on their side To change it to i'm forgetting the term now. It's um It's it's the three little dots at the top corner of your window and it's uh Like use original aspect ratio or something like that. I forget the exact terminology now. It's that long since i've used teams um But yeah, it's unfortunate that it doesn't just automatically fill their their screen so That's something you have to instruct them to do on their side if you're going to do a presentation with Teams just figure that the best experience is for you know, somebody's team's window to be filled with people Whether or not it's cropping them or not. So that's just something to be aware of apart from that It's got all the same functionality as um, you know the others in terms of The audio you're going into a meeting platform. You can use all of ecam The meeting platform is it's kind of almost secondary really for me Whatever platform it is It's just all of ecam that does all of the the heavy lifting and uh makes things look great so So yeah, that's what i'll say to that but we can have a talk about the implementation of it and I know we've got calls coming up so I can uh I can talk through that process specifically for how to make sure people are seeing it correctly in um If there are any other Questions then feel free to to drop them in otherwise Do check out the take one tech academy the whole point of this live stream today was just to talk about Some of those kind of things that we talk about in our weekly q&a's in the academy because it's not just limited to tech So don't think it's just like how do I uh sort out my audio routing on my roe caster It can be as broad as you know content business If you are using kajabi if you're using other platforms if you are not creating courses at all But i'm just looking to use this equipment and this tech in your business as well It's all around that as well and business processes and so on as well Uh, that is the best option michael Tell them to go on to zoom. Yeah, I would definitely recommend that to say that you're going to get a better experience But I know it's not always possible. It depends on who you're working with and where you are And if you're going into other corporate things then that then yes, sometimes they're built those platforms So it's not always as easy, but yes, if if it's all possible. I would certainly recommend And that option as well. I definitely as well when zoom integration comes to ecum too Okay, with that said then thank you very much for for tuning in. I hope you've found some of this interesting If you've got any questions, feel free to uh Head over to the discord. You can find a link to that in the in the chat and also in the description Um, I'm terrible at keeping up with comments on youtube. It's a fire hose and so often what happens is They don't get attended to so definitely the discord is a much better place to ask questions and get them answered in a conversation Rather than just Comments disappearing into the ether, which is what happens whenever I respond to something I never know whether it's been read whether there's any follow-up or anything like that YouTube needs to really work on their tracking of Comments basically For creators because I think it's it's lacking in many departments Thanks so much for tuning in though. I'll leave a link to some other content over on this side I've also as always got to say a big thank you to all of my channel members and take my take academy members Of course, let's not forget them as well. Thanks for all of your support. Really appreciate it and I'll see you all next time