Podcast appearances and mentions of andrea ames

You can Watch or Listen to this episode: https://the6ways.com/36Information is widely available, and even more so in a world of increasingly AI generated content. So how can we still attract clients in 2024 and beyond? With community. People will always need connection and in this episode Stacey Simms and I are sharing 6 ways to use online communities to grow your business.Occasionally a helpful announcement for listeners gets added to the show so the timestamps below may be off by 30-60 seconds, but they should be pretty close.00:51 6 Ways To Use Online Communities To Grow Your Business05:17 #1: Community Around Podcasts09:28 #2: How To Promote Without Spamming13:29 #3: Combining Communities17:19 #4: Unlikely Fan Club20:47 #5: This One Makes Jerry Cringe25:03 #6: Free Up Your Time With This27:40 If we are building our own community, do you recommend doing it in a Facebook Group or on a different platform?Some REALLY awesome tips were shared in this episode – please think about who you know that would benefit from these, and then make sure to share it with them. Because WE ALL DO BETTER WHEN WE ALL DO BETTER.

It's always cheaper to keep your clients and customers happy than it is to acquire new ones, and in this episode client retention specialist Andrea Ames and I are sharing 6 ways to keep your clients/members paying longer!-----

Today we are discussing the topic of shifting from a corporate employee mindset to an entrepreneurial money mindset with our special guest, Andrea Ames – who has gone through this transformation first-hand and will be sharing her story with us. After more than 35 years working in and consulting with, big businesses in product design and development, Andrea now works primarily with small businesses and entrepreneurs, Andrea's passion is supporting amazing humans to be wildly successful! Her partner in life, Doug, describes what she does as “helping people to help people better.” She's got inspiring insights that can help anyone in their corporate journey.  Come join us as we uncover new perspectives and strategies for success beyond the 9-5 job! Our podcast is home to insightful conversations packed with useful takeaways that could potentially spark big changes in your life — something that no amount of money can buy.  Tune in to our podcast now! You won't regret it when you gain clarity about what matters most to you and how best to get there — all while having fun doing so. Plus, don't forget to share this awesome episode with friends who might benefit too! Herfinance Resources: Quiz yourself and learn about your money personality “What's Your Money Style? https://www.herfinanceclub.com/money-style-quiz. Access The Money Belief Formula: Mindset + Behavior = Financial Success. Transform Your Habits and Win With Wealth. Author: Susan M. Diamond https://amzn.to/3JnTtJh Visit our website and subscribe to our blog https://www.herfinanceclub.com/blog  Schedule a Complimentary Money Blueprint Assessment https://calendly.com/herfinance-club/money-blueprint-assessment Join our private Facebook group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/herfinanceclub Connect with Andrea: Website https://andreaames.com Facebook https://www.facebook.com/AndreaAmesClientKeepingCoach LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreaames/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clientkeepingcoach Special Offer? Herfinance Talk listeners are invited to attend Andrea's live “Buyers to Besties” workshop at no charge and receive a post-workshop, 60-minute accelerator session to develop an onboarding strategy using the results of the workshop https://andreaames.com/suerocks.

Onboarding a new client can be overwhelming for both you and your customer. Luckily we have a special guest who is a ninja when it comes to onboarding, her name is Andrea Ames. I wanted her expertise on this podcast to really help unpack and strengthen key pillars that you might be struggling with in your onboarding process so that you can get your clients to rant, rave, and positively refer your business.  As you listen to this episode you'll discover some of the key onboarding foundations: 1. How to set clear and concise expectations for your new client …so that they can comfortably navigate your program  2. Creating an atmosphere for positive client interaction  [in order to triple your customer lifetime value]   3. Simple hacks to consistent cadence of your programs [without client complacency] Contact Andres L. Ames on Facebook or Linkedin! Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreaames Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alames Get the Client OnBoarding Checklist: The 7 Pillars of a Wow Journey andreaames.com/pillars Also, make sure to hit the "Subscribe" button so you don't miss an episode! Love this podcast? Write a review and give it a 5 star rating! I would love to hear from you. For all the show notes and links: https://www.expertedgepodcast.com/blog/episode101 Connect with Colin on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/colinboyd/

In today's episode, I'm continuing my conversation with Andrea Ames. While Andrea's background in the corporate world as a technical content writer helped develop her expertise, there were still a lot of things she had to figure out. We dig into the ups and downs of her journey and how she experimented to figure out what her people wanted. She also shares practical ways you can improve retention in your business. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN TODAY'S EPISODE: What people wanted Andrea to help them with and how this led to some challenges Why she decided to focus on content and what the outcome of this was Why some of the traditional online marketing efforts didn't work with her audience How a mindset of experimentation helped her move forward Why most step-by-step programs don't work Why you must understand what your audience wants Practical ways to get people engaged How challenges and positive reinforcement can benefit your customers and your business The value of an unexpected reward The first question to think about when you're planning your strategy to help people stick around and make progress RESOURCES IN TODAY'S EPISODE: Andrea Ames | Facebook | LinkedIn BADA$$ Online Marketing University Free Privacy Policy BADA$$ Online Marketers Follow Bobby on Instagram

Today we're talking with Andrea Ames. Andrea's background is in the corporate world where she was a technical content writer for companies that were going digital. She came into the online space thinking she would help online entrepreneurs build their skills. As she's built her online business, she's had to face the challenge of defining her niche, but through this process, she discovered her strength is helping business owners with retention.  WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN TODAY'S EPISODE: What a technical writer is Why so many companies don't have documentation for their software products Why marketing doesn't end with the sale Why retention is so important Why it's cheaper to retain an existing customer than acquire a new one Why relationship marketing matters How content can be revenue generating What principles can help you delight your customers What assets can make a difference in your business The challenges Andrea faced when she transitioned from corporate to running her own business The money mindset shifts Andrea had to make  What caused Andrea to struggle with selling and how she reframed selling RESOURCES IN TODAY'S EPISODE: Andrea Ames | Facebook | LinkedIn BADA$$ Online Marketing University Free Privacy Policy BADA$$ Online Marketers Follow Bobby on Instagram

I am a mentor for the Notion Advanced track of Tiago Forte's Building a Second Brain, Cohort 12. You can catch Weeks 1, 2, 3, and 4 in the previous weekend episodes. This is the cleaned up audio of the last of 5 mentorship sessions with Q&A at the end. Video version: https://youtu.be/emUfFWixQwETimestamps Recap of Last 4 Weeks [00:02:08] Shifting Perception to Sharing [00:03:07] IP's Personal Progress [00:09:38] How to Solve the Cold Start Problem [00:10:57]  The Invisible Pipeline and the 1% Rule [00:14:00] Peer Group Progress [00:15:48] Course Recap: Convergence vs Divergence, CO vs DE [00:20:41]  Your First Brain vs Your Second Brain [00:22:43]  Project Kickoff Checklist [00:24:06] Favorite Quotes [00:25:26]  Q&A: Denys on Learning in Public in YouTube [00:32:47]  Q&A: Meryl Johnston on Learning in Public [00:43:34]  The Resistance and Gratitude Journaling [00:46:04] Don't Just Write Essays: Remove Resistance [00:48:37] Three Strikes Rule [00:52:51] Guy Margalith on Fear and Your Second Brain [00:53:40] Organizing Files on your Mac [01:00:59] Swyx Twitter Journey [01:04:18] Tropical MBA and Balaji Srinivasan [01:09:05]  Closing Remarks [01:10:20] Transcriptswyx: [00:00:00] Okay, so we're in week five. I didn't know what to call it. So I just called it finale week. I, at this point I feel like everyone knows each other even.But feel free to say hi, if you're new you're still totally woke up and to jump around and visit the each other's sessions. I'm also going to blast through the housekeeping just because there's not that much more housekeeping left to do. And I will also want it to shout out what I did for last week's.Events which well that's Swyx week app, which was essentially right up my own experience of intermediate packets. And I broke my own journey down into eight intermediate packets. So that's tweet, tweet, livestream, blog posts, conference, conference conference, a job interview. And this took place over the course of a year.So it, it shocked me because even though I went through it, you don't, you never really think about intermediate packets dripping out over a year. And the thing that I really wanted to get across was that I think the way that immediate packets, which was presented last time was very much of a top-down thing.Like I want to do something big, let me work backwards and break it down into intranet, small things that can ship. But it also equally works for bottom up where you have no idea what the end goal is, but you're just like. That's just ship of small things, and try to build up to something big if the interest is there. Glen G says, paddle reminds me of bubbling off events. Yep. That's a very WebDev analogy and that's fully true there. The two directions of bubbling. I forget what the opposite of bubbling is in the dumb, but that's beside the point anyway. I wanted to offer that as my own perspective on intermediate packets.Oh, yeah. Dave says he is bubbling up NIST insider today. Yeah, totally. Yeah. We are bubbling ideas. That's great. That title doesn't resonate with me. So I just went with bottom up, but feel free to write your own policy. And I think that's something that we should talk about as well.Who's written stuff as a result of this course. And what post ideas do you have to share? You can feel free to throw that in the chat as well. Housekeeping, we've covered this plenty of times, but stupid questions are welcome. Often beats. Perfect. And then this is the discussion and not a lecture.Recap of Last 4 Weeks [00:02:08]All right. So we've covered all these 12. I think it actually works out without the 12. So it's cohort 12 with 12 items. I think so. I grabbed this, I went back to lecture one and grab this slide. And actually  the last week changed quite a bit, I think, but  the first 3 have been relatively stable.And it's quite a bit of content if you walk back and think about it. So I just wanted to acknowledge and pause for a bit and say I think the last five weeks have been a real blast in terms of flights and just a lot of ideas, especially if you're new to them for the first time. But even for me going through them the second time I felt like I just had a lot more to think about each on each in each time, because I've lived through it and I've had a year to really sit with it. I think it'd be interesting to hear from you in in, in the chat or if you wanna, if you want to speak up, I'm just going to pause here and it's just go was there, was there a particular idea that really stuck out to you during this these this whole curriculum w what's your favorite sort of takeaway that you really liked?Shifting Perception to Sharing [00:03:07]Speaker 2: [00:03:07] The one thing that I found which wasn't actually to deal with lessons wasn't to do with systems and processes. It was his perception for me. It's just been a shift in perception, but that's been the benefit of building a second brain, but I've taken that and I've applied that to everything. And I'm looking at, whether it be a task or whether it be something I want to do, what is the perception that motivates me most?And I've realized from second brain that all I came in, they wanted to share more and I wanted an output and I think it came from a selfish point of view of, I just want to share, I want to share, I'm going to attract more people, get more business, be a thought leader, et cetera. What I realized when I was sharing that circle and sharing, and here I'm not having that going a backwards and forwards.I like helping people and I look at even day-to-day friendships. I have conversations, anything that goes to the people I'm interested in they're gold as well. And I've realized that the perception was wrong for me to just look at output in isolation and say, oh, you just want to help her instead of, Hey, how do we respond most positively to actually get output?And for me now, I realized that for helping other people I'm building connections, like even the last week I've been really lucky people that they messaging me, ask them to connect. I've had zoom calls with people. I'm emailing people and we're all having backwards and forwards dialogue, but that wouldn't have happened unless I output in the first place to share my opinion, to actually attract those like-minded people as well.So that's where I say now to perception is going to help me. And I'm going to look at any future problem rather than just looking at like it's a task or a project on big into kind of alleviate and willpower and not having this battle that you have to get up every day and you have to do something against your will to finally get to the end of a journey.And for me, if there's that kind of, if there's those breadcrumbs of emotion for me and breadcrumbs of connection with people, I'll get more addicted to it. I'll enjoy it more. It will be easier for me all the time. And I think it will become more and more natural to do. swyx: [00:05:10] Yeah, that's brilliant. Thanks so much for sharing that.There's so many things I can go off in that, Diego and ended the his lecture by saying, chase what excites you and that's, I think that's definitely something that you're doing. I personally and th Speaker 2: [00:05:23] that's a good point. I think we have to shape it into a way that does excite you.It does not always naturally. That's what I didn't realize. It wasn't just, oh, that's, output is going to excite me. I have to find what does excite me and how can I tie that into output. And now what's going to, swyx: [00:05:41] I call it. So I call it a nexus of interest because it's not just X, if it only excites you and no one else, then you're just going to do it yourself.Ikigai and the Nexus of Interest [00:05:49]So you have to find the intersection. Okay. All right. A little bonus idea for you guys. All so, the internet is very In love with this idea of ikigai, because it's a foreign sounding word and we love foreign sounding words as thought leaders. So Zettelkasten and Ikigai, anything is not English.Speaker 1: [00:06:04] Sean, just real quick, my wife is Japanese from Japan. I've been married 27 years. But I asked her about Ikigai and she's what the hell is Speaker 3: [00:06:11] that? swyx: [00:06:13] I just wanted to share. It's not, Speaker 1: [00:06:17] it's real. But it's not just some secret thing that all Japanese people know about.So I just wanted to put that out there. All Japanese people do know about ninjas, but they don't know about Jesus, but they don't know about easy guy. So perfect. They're Speaker 2: [00:06:29] just not an air cold yet. That's all. swyx: [00:06:31] No worries. I was just going to say it's very invoke. And I think if it works for you, it doesn't really matter what the origin is, whether it's true or not.So my point is that it's this, there's this four circles. It says, what do you love? What you're good at, what you can be paid for and what the world needs. And I think that actually, it just, it really draws, drives down to...  What you love becomes, what you're good at, if you just do it long enough.And if you're good at it, you eventually start to love it so that this collapses into one circle and then where you can be paid for and what the world needs. Basically collapse the one circle as well, because the creator economy and just the internet economy has funneled, has created a lot of ways to make money for as long as you, as long as can supply the world of what it needs.They'll find a way to Speaker 2: [00:07:10] pay for this is 40, where you're going with this, because this reminds me of a conversation I had maybe a week ago about all peers and how I couldn't understand them. And I couldn't wrap my head around them. And when I did understand them, I realized that just done them naturally.And it wasn't a Eureka moment. And part of what we want to do is I want to help educate people and especially creative business owners to have more confidence in themselves. But what you're showing me here is actually making me realize that there's so many things that I do naturally. So even when I said, what excites me, that's in a conversation with you.But to me it would just be a given that it would make no sense to me just to talk. Self-serving really just about me. I'm going to empathize with other people, but. Th the point here is that it's sometimes I don't realize that I do things naturally and they're just in there and their parents were processed and not explain them.And that's one of the big things that I've learned here is to actually explain the full idea rather than what I do automatically that I don't even think about. And I think writing has made me document that better. This is really good. I like swyx: [00:08:16] this. Exactly. It's actually the advice that I give people.So B be sure that you're not only paying attention to  what excites you, but also what excites others.  The first part  of my sort of IPS is respond to others. It's very other oriented because that guarantees feedback that people are more people are the most interested in themselves.So if you're not appealing  to other people's self-interests, then. Yeah. People often, like when they start out re creating content online, they're wondering how come they don't get response. Like you're much higher. You're much more likely to get a response. Speaker 2: [00:08:50] And I heard this is in my newsletter today, which the challenge for people is to actually respond to people.If they've helped you, if they've saved you time, if they've made you think, go and respond to them. And I actually set a challenge to myself, the response. swyx: [00:09:04] Yeah. Pick up what others put down. I also have this.I refer to it so much that we have a shortcut for it, it's in our community. But yeah, you want to plug your newsletter actually, if people are, have like newsletters and blogs and stuff throw it in the chat so that we can actually see and sign up for each other and keep and stay in touch, but anyway,  it's a dance, it's not a one-way street. You absolutely are engaging with other people on that. I have a bunch of other hands now thanks, David. I'm gonna, I'm gonna move on to someone else. So who is this zoom? Doesn't show me your name Speaker 3: [00:09:30] and IP and Glen have their hands up.IP was first all swyx: [00:09:34] okay. IP. All right. Thanks guys. Yeah. IP's Personal Progress [00:09:38] Speaker 2: [00:09:38] Hey guys. I completely agree with what Dave said. It's the community aspect of building the second brain that has really helped me as well, this connecting to people and just to see what they're doing has really helped me. And one more funny thing I wanted to show you.I w I just did that swyx: [00:09:54] icky guy thing.What do you mean? What do you mean you did it? What do you mean you did? No, I thought icky guy it's architecture. I just hadn't been able to pinpoint, but I've always been in love with it. And this is something which I really want to pursue. And with building a second brain, what I've actually seen is it's, since it's relieved so much of cognitive overload, that.I can, that's helped me scale up like previously I could just manage one or two project at a particular time. Now I can see  by making it by making more intermediate packets, I can actually scale up my work. I can add this same moment in time. I can work on different projects, which I previously couldn't, so that's really helped me out.That's awesome. Awesome. Are you a practicing artist architect? Yes, I am. Yes I am. Yeah, that's awesome. I'm glad you really clarified that for yourself and yeah. Thanks for sharing that. Yeah, it's been amazing. Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. Let's see.How to Solve the Cold Start Problem [00:10:57] Okay. Something's wrong with my zoom because it really doesn't show names. But Glenn, go ahead.Speaker 2: [00:11:02] I, I read Pick up what they put down post. But I was wondering if you had a few more example or four could show something, cause it seems key and kick-starting things when you don't really have so much of a following yet and how you generally engage with people or  what it would look like for example, do you make a blog post or do you just respond on a tweet or do you, swyx: [00:11:25] yeah those are quite, those are most often the common examples. One of the key examples, say I do is write a book review. If an author puts out a book you want to go through it and jot down like your top learnings and then send it back to them, they would probably really appreciate it.And even if  you're not on social media at all, just emailing them old school style they'll probably read through your response and like either, really appreciate it probably make their day. And if you got anything wrong, they'll probably correct you and that's free consultation or teaching that you just don't get anywhere else.And I think if you do it often enough, or if you have a really high quality correspondence, then you become partners in the, you become collaborators, because then there'll be like the next time you're working on something, they'll send it to you first and go what do you think? Because. You don't have to be an expert.  You do have something that you don't have. It's just at the beginning of my mind, I say that a lot. This doesn't have to be a whole lecture on ethic of what they put down, but I, if anyone else has similar ideas that, I'm interested to hear them as well.But I think I can keep coming up with stuff if you want.  Does that help?  I can show you,  I'm still sharing my screen, so let's see. Swyx what it's node design patterns. So I read I got sent a review copy of this book, and then went through then I went through it and I just listed my top five learnings. And it really resonated with a bunch of people. I don't know if we can see the stats on this. And then they sent me the book, Speaker 3: [00:12:47] soswyx: [00:12:48] autographed and everything. I didn't have, I just had the PDF before, but not then they just send it to me from Italy. I don't know if this is like the most, this is the one that comes up for me now, because I didn't know them before. And I was just interested in this book, like no, no design patterns.And then, I started chatting with them and now they're. Some of my go-to people for no JS. And these are experts  at the subject. I think all it is just like looking for opportunities in which like you're interested in something and someone else has just put out something that's super relevant to them.And just going out all out and picking up on it, like actually trying out the demo, reading the book, giving you honest feedback. A lot of the times they're not going to bite, especially if they're the superstars celebrity type people, but some of them will. And you'll you start having an honest conversation between them.And I think if you focus on people who are like, just a little bit ahead of you and not like  the same celebrities that everyone goes for you have a pretty good shot at building your network. And it's often that forming that peer group, that's all you're all on like roundabout, the same level in your industry.And then you progress together over years that you build up a very strong bond. Cause that's, that becomes your cohort. And and that's all it is. I don't, I'm not a believer in any sort of growth hacky style. Like there, there are tons of like how to crush it on Twitter courses out there.The Invisible Pipeline and the 1% Rule [00:14:00]Speaker 2: [00:14:00] Can I add something in? Yeah. One of the things that I realized when I started with, whether it be writing, blogging, sharing stuff, is. The amount of people that consume information and don't actually interact with you, there will be tons and tons of people. And look, we just spoke a minute ago about, me challenge people to say, thank you.And Swyx doing the same thing that there's a term called the invisible pipeline, which is people consuming. And all of a sudden they may come along and pull your broker cars or whatever. I'm just like, yeah, I've been following you for two years. I love everything. But you may not know about those people.So I think you have to either have somebody specific in mind that you're going to write for, or you have to write for yourself what I don't mean produce content, whatever way you're going to do it. There has to be a goal or either you're really interested in and you're going to share it in your learning on your growth are there's so many mind, whether it be you a few years ago, you in the future are a friend who somebody who's obsessed about something.But I think there has to be someone in mind for. That kind of that white noise of emptiness initially, because it's not going to metrics game of subscribers and how many people and stuff like that. I think slowly you will build a following. It has to be authentic and true to you to get your true, the slow part of it at the start.swyx: [00:15:20] Yeah, totally agree with that. I pulled up my favorite version of this, which is the 1% rule. So 90% of people lurk on the internet. And then 9% actually comment or contribute and then 1% actually have original creations. So yeah, you're going to have a lot of liquors and, but they're still paying attention anyway.It just takes a while for them to come out. You've got, sometimes you've got to encourage them a little bit as well. I don't know if anyone else has like how do you start an interaction and build a following? I'm definitely not the only source I have my own perspective.Peer Group Progress [00:15:48]Speaker 1: [00:15:48] I'm  happy to share just since it's new for me. One thing, I did the Rite of passage program just prior to doing this and out of that, I met a cohort of people. And so now we meet daily as a writing group. So we don't necessarily have a common interest other than writing, but it's like this group of people that I went through the program with that I know I'm supporting them, they're supporting me.That feels really nice. The other thing I did ship 30 for 30 did it get super into it? But one thing I did get out of that I really loved my accountability partner. And what I learned was I could go up and start to follow some people on Twitter and reply to their stuff and give feedback and interact with them.And then it turned not all of them. Some of them will come and start to follow me, especially if I'm producing some content. And to give an example, I think I had six Twitter followers in my. Whatever 14 years on Twitter. Cause basically I wasn't on Twitter and suddenly I'm on Twitter.And now I have 96 followers, which is it's not necessarily the number but I now know that those 90 people definitely are from like me writing and producing some content. And in turn I go and look at those people and I'm like, oh, that person's producing content. Oh, that stuff's neat.And so it becomes very personable and fun. Like you slowly start to get to know these other people and interact with them. And, and some of them I've even hopped on like a zoom call with them or whatever, or, exchanged emails to have a lengthier discussion off.Whatever platform. I would say, there's the circle group up here and BA SB, maybe you have some particular thing that you're interested in. Glen. I don't know, like some topic area, whether it's coding or psychology or downhill skiing,or maybe the intersection of all three of those, downhills gears that coded, that are into psychology, cool group discuss existentialism issue, ski downhill, and then code about it later. No but you probably can find people that you Speaker 3: [00:17:38] can Speaker 1: [00:17:39] interact with. And I guess what I'm trying to say is like meeting some people where you have some similar background, like there's already a little bit of, I want to say vulnerability, but commonality, even too, you know people versus just going out and trying to meet complete strangers, which can work, but you might get more of the crickets or as Dave was saying the invisible pipeline.swyx: [00:17:57] So yeah. Basically connects with people who are like, eh, add to your level and share your interests, right? And yeah. Yeah, like a small group of 10 or 15, like people who are also going through the same thing. It's much better than like a hundred people who have no idea who you are and never interacted with you.Speaker 2: [00:18:14] I connect with people with strong opinions. And whether they agree or disagree, I think that's whether it be online or friendships. I think I want somebody to have a viewpoint and stuff. I don't want somebody just to factually and say, this is how I deal with this. And sometimes that can happen in coding and stuff like that as well.Somebody can share some amazing code, but none of our personality or the benefit of why they saw it, how they got the realization of what they're doing or how they're going to utilize this later on as well. Those little small things I do think really help as well. They're just for me, because we're in that kind of overload of so much stuff that, everything's a Google way, but I find I follow more people who are not along and say, yeah, I have that same problem.Yeah. That really annoys me as well. swyx: [00:18:59] Yeah, you shared sharing problems. I don't know maybe it's community. This is where we're trying to Speaker 1: [00:19:05] quick shot seeing you. I saw you bringing up Dave for a Rite of passage for people now that we've been studying this code pipeline to C O D and E that Rite of passage really focuses.It jumps in at D and goes to eat pretty quickly. So it's all D and E with a little bit of CNO, like Dave Burrell gives you like a 45 minute recorded essays. Like here's how to set up the second brain. Good luck. In terms of the having someplace to collect your notes and to use it, he doesn't go deeply into that part.And and then for others who are maybe considering it, you can sign up for his 50 days of writing essays. And really if you just want the straight information, just like building a second brain where all the information is up on Chicago's blog, Dave, for L's 50 days of writing That's a hundred percent of the information that's in the course, but really you're doing it for the the community and the accountability.Speaker 2: [00:19:51] I'm happy to share a notes on his 50 days as well. I only started it the other day and know, been documented each day and I'm just pulling out tips and what he does, how he connects with people and stuff like that far, my newsletter as well. swyx: [00:20:04] That's great. That's great. Yeah. Don't forget to you're collecting all this information.You're taking all this in don't forget. Don't forget that you need to practice it. And sometimes you can do too much learning as well. But no, this is great. I actually was a subscriber for this thing. It was going to be a book of a hundred tips and then he got to 50 and then he stopped.I think he, I think, cause he, he found some other opportunity that he wanted to pursue. So he just stopped at 50 and then turned into like an email sequence. Speaker 2: [00:20:27] She was pretty fun. I finally realized as everybody's talking to know what I do in chat now or progressively somewhere else, everybody can talkyeah. swyx: [00:20:38] Use the knowledge. There we go. There we go. Appreciate that. Course Recap: Convergence vs Divergence, CO vs DE [00:20:41] Okay. W we don't have to w we'll have more conversations as we go, Glenn. I hope that's okay. I don't hear from you again, but Yeah, let us know if you have This is this is an ongoing topic anyway, but I was just going to go ahead and try to recap a little bit more, and then we can just go to the general discussion. I think I'm also trying to try to go from super granular in the course to less granular and then least granular and congrats.Can you hit 101 followers? Nice. You can all get donation coats. But, okay so what, we're, what we're trying step back from everything and go really into is to understand the structure of code, right? Cod we diverge and then we converge. We defined what it means to capture, what the capture habit is and how we focus on to our favorite problems when they find how it means to organize with the para system. And then we try to emphasize converging as well with distilling progressive summarization and then expressing the intermediate packets.And then we defined a little bit last week on project completion, as well as project kickoff this week. So that's the rough structure of this, but I think the diamond shape is really important to me. And I hope that it really comes across to you as well. That our natural tendency is to spend 90% of our time here in the divergence space.Cause it's fun because you're always learning new stuff and you don't have to lock yourself down and delete things and commit yourself to a single phrase or a sentence or paragraph or essay. But the real work comes here and it is safe and fun. Yeah. That's, let's put it that way. Yeah. No, Speaker 2: [00:22:12] but it's safe.You don't have to expose yourself to the world. You still have a sense of achievement. I've spent hours collecting and reading and stuff like that, but none of that is, self-expression swyx: [00:22:22] right, exactly.  You have to realize that a bulk of the learning that happens comes  when you go through the act of distillation and especially particularly when you express and you get feedback, which starts to loop to go back again.The reason that people stop is they don't get feedback. And you do need that feedback to, to keep going.   That's something I wanna, I really want to distress.Your First Brain vs Your Second Brain [00:22:43] And then at the highest level, what we're really here about is I wanna, I should probably have presented this if I was any good at this this is what we, this is why we're here, right?Fundamentally understanding that the way that we are historically trained to ingest information is to put everything in our first sprain and then try to have a single threaded output that, that doesn't really have a system to it. And the way that Tiago phrases it is that, all the routine stuff to your second rate your your, the stuff that machines are good at.So your second brain, and then the stuff that humans are good at, which is all the fun stuff creative writing, problem, solving, storytelling imagination, generating hypothesis, free that up. And to step aside the flow of information. Me personally, I tend to extend this as well. The two things that machines to do better, better than us is storage and search. So it's not just remembering, but also recalling things. It can be pretty good at that as well. I love by the way, I love people who are dropping their profiles and blog posts and newsletter in the chat.If you do want to connect I'd be happy to follow up on there and I'm putting together a list on the slides as well, so people can follow up. Okay. This is not supposed to be there anyway. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So the final piece of content that Tiago talks about.So what do Speaker 2: [00:23:49] you feel is a dev all the tech problems. You have so many tech problems,swyx: [00:23:57] I'm thinking at a different level there. Speaker 2: [00:23:59] Oh yeah. Your friend's too fast for the machine. Yeah. Sorry. I forgot. swyx: [00:24:03] So go on our genius one and it's fine. Project Kickoff Checklist [00:24:06]What I really liked was the commencement style of Tiago covering how to kick off a project at the end of this course, which. I don't think we had doing cohort 10.But it was really, it would have been really helpful for me to have this mental model of okay, when you kick off a project there's a way you do this, assuming that you have set up your second brain, you first ignore your second brain first. They just bring up everything that you currently think, and then go through your second brain by going through the notebooks, searching for terms and then re rearranging things, moving things up in the para system towards your current project that you've just, that you've just formed.And I find that a, an interesting parallel to the project completion checklist that was featured last week. So you can see like a nice. One-to-one correspondence of of the, each of the sections here. And it's how you promote stuff to projects and how you demold stuff to archive or something that's not project area resource.But yeah, I just wanted to note this parallelism and I think it's something that when you have a functioning second brain and it's and it's set up to make you productive in your, in subsequent projects. Having a system like this helps you get up and running really quickly. And I saw, and I think, seeing it in motion in the demo that he did this week was really helpful.So I'll just leave it at that. Favorite Quotes [00:25:26] Okay. I'm not sure what I have after this. Oh, then I have coats. Ha my favorite part. Again, I really encourage you to collect coats, whatever resonates with you. This is just what resonates with me. So the first quote that I, that outlines is one from his slide, a modern piece of work isn't created, it's assembled, right? So we're not. We're starting from abundance. We're starting from a place of we have 80% of the work done, which is a quote from last week. We don't start anything before it's 80% complete some things, something ridiculous like that, which is obviously an exaggeration, but it goes to show how much work should be done ahead of time and through intermediate packets.So that when you're at, when you're embarking on a project, you're really doing final assembly. And that's a step change from how people normally view their projects in their creative endeavors. Second quote, your second brain is not a library. It's an idea factory. It's not the place to do research.It's where you take action. Again, so similarly I think I'm still here, so I don't want to say I've done everything that's been recommended here. I definitely treat my second brain as a library. I look at the stuff that I read and I store stuff in the right place, like a digital.Librarian I have my own Dewey decimal system and I just slept there according stuff there. And I don't really set it up for internalization or summarization. So I need to do more personally to, to make it a, more of an idea factory where I take action, because right now I just do a lot of just in case storage.And it's not meant to do that. You can do that all day long and not really produce more. So the goal is not storing more information that you're not, you shouldn't measure yourself by the amount of megabytes that you store in your second brain. It's about the output. Your first brain is the bottleneck, give it a different job, step off the flow of information.So this is the, this, the one that I really resonated with in this in this thing, right? This is the first brain and it's like the bottleneck for the information. And this is the second brain where it's doing a lot more fun stuff. Give up low value work. We know how to do it, but it gives us a false sense of security.This one's really, so to me it actually makes a lot of sense. I don't know how well it relates for you guys, but I do a lot of things that give me a sense of security. Like something that's familiar and comfortable. I just do it more because I know how to do it, and it's not really stressing, stretching my brain very much.I can listen to podcasts or watch a movie while I do it. And yeah, it's shallow work, if we really want to do deep work we have to push past that free our brains up to do the deep work. And finally the piece that we already talked about, chase what excites you and take some notes along the way.Tiago's  very much promoting an inspiration driven approach where you live life more in the moment than others. Among like startup founders and tech people there's this very, there's a very involved trend of being detached right.To meditate a lot, to be stoic and to not let your emotions wash over you in any particular good or bad scenario. And telcos took us like pushing back against that and saying you should live in the moment more and see what can see where that takes you. So I liked that spiritually.Even though I know that, stoicism has, its has its benefits as well, but I just want to center that in terms of What Tiago is saying versus what he's not saying. So he's not saying be dispassionate about everything he's saying, really look for what excites you. And when that comes up, use a second brain to, to pursue that with all your heart.So yeah, that's those are my quotes. So does anyone else have, of course they want to share.Speaker 2: [00:28:35] Let's see. I want to know what you do with the quotes. swyx: [00:28:38] Right now I'm Speaker 2: [00:28:39] having to use the lowest them. Cause they're just, they're somebody else's words now. So I just want to know where they go when you were tagged as a quote, or do you add journal boards?  preference tots underneath it, like you explained them swyx: [00:28:53] to us.They would be eventually quoted somewhere in one of my blog posts. That's my action. Or with tweeted. But I tried to tweet all the stuff. That's my words. Whereas if it's a blog yeah. That's Speaker 2: [00:29:02] exactly why I poured a war. That's why I would put my and perspective, on the need.And are maybe trying to see what question they're trying to answer. swyx: [00:29:10] Yeah. Yep. Sure, exactly. Okay. There's some conversation going on there. Does anyone want to share quotes? Okay. Emma D says I really like "productivity is for people with no leverage". Whoa. Who said that? Was it Tiago? Yeah, I think so. I think there Speaker 3: [00:29:24] was in the last or second swyx: [00:29:25] to last session.Yeah. Okay. I missed that. That's that's fire, man. I got nothing else to say apart from yeah. Good job. I'm stealing that one. Okay. Who else? Guy says guy, he went, why you, when you come on and then explain what your quote is. I started Speaker 3: [00:29:41] your, I've been following your practice of collecting quotes for my session.So first of all, thank you for the inspiration. I think it's really helpful to focus my thoughts, but one of the quotes that resonated was the purpose of this second brain. And Dave, you were hinting at it before as well. Like why are we doing this? And I, and Tiago mentioned it a little bit in the Q and a for this week.He said that you can use your second brain to be a better citizen, family member and human. And a lot of times we may use our second brain to collect these internet points in quotes. It doesn't really, it's like a, in a video game. It's nice. It doesn't really do anything. The purpose should be something bigger than yourself.And when you have that kind of purpose, it makes things a little bit easier and better to be of service to others that resonated with me. swyx: [00:30:22] That's really great. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. I'm very, I'm definitely easily gamified by internet points, but I know that there's more important things out there.Yeah. Glen says regarding meditation, it's rather the opposite of detaching. It's coming into closer harmony with the actuality of the experience. Whoa, whose audio Shante.John Glenn. What's the context? Speaker 2: [00:30:43] Adia. Shanti is a Rotter popular now swyx: [00:30:47] a meditation teacher. I think it's mainly popular in the states are well known, but he's also one of the few  legit teachers. swyx: [00:30:57] Got it. Cool. Awesome. Yeah, I think there's a place for both. But definitely at work I try to do the more detached and stoic thing.And then in my personal stuff I definitely live in the moment more. Alright. That's it for our featured quotes? I was, I didn't have actually much else to talk about I haven't done this yet, we all have homework and there's still homework today which is to fill out the second brain snapshot thing and get access to second brain habits.I think habits are just like trending in general. If there's one thing that's probably not, there's only lightly touched on is habits here. And of course, James Clear owns that one. I'm curious and curious if if you all have have actually done this, I didn't have thoughts on habits that you're trying to develop.But think that's definitely one of those things where.  Everything here that's in second brain is more or less conscious. And it's a  step-change approach every single time. Whereas habits are much more focused on what James clear says, like being 1% better every single day and being automatic, they point that you don't think about it.Part of that is definitely being having your identity change to, towards being someone who does the habit without even thinking rather than having a, be some heavy lifts, like you don't even count it as work anymore. So that's something I really appreciate with with the habit faction of the productivity group type.Okay. Yeah, I was just going to open up for discussion before, before we leave. And that was definitely, I was going to share all the slides. I think we have all the sights in slide five sorry. We have all the slides in zoom. I was also going to offer my discord.I usually run a pay discord. But I'm just going to share it with everyone here, if, as a thank you for coming along if you want to, continue the conversation. I have a small group of people who talk about this stuff and we share our work and we learned in public and we talk about just, all sorts of stuff.It's more coding related. But you're all welcome to join because you've been through this journey with me. And, and this is discord, so not everyone's on this cord and I understand that, but I'm in discord. It's it's a nice place to hang out throughout the day. Q&A: Denys on Learning in Public in YouTube [00:32:47] Okay. Yeah, I'm just going to open it up for general questions and answers or if anyone has a question that has a takeaway that they want to share about this course how they've changed in, in, in their perspective.Speaker 4: [00:32:58] Hi at first I wanted to publicly thank Sean for letting me use his learn in public posts. I used it to send to my newsletter subscribers about some thoughts I was having around learning in public so I could get feedback from them.And then I could actually do a public blog post on it. And when I discovered, when I sent it to my newsletter, subscribers is their idea of learning in public was gathering information and discussing it with other people. It really wasn't like producing work. So I need a different term for it, for my field.It's not, I, so it's given me something to noodle about, and it's just interesting. How things don't always translate the way you think they're going to translate. And then the one thing I learned in doing this course, I have this thing about always wanting to do everything, right?There's one best way to do it, and I'm going to figure out the way to do it and I'm going to do it right. And then I'm going to be super effective and productive or something. And what I got from the mentor sessions is each mentor took the BSAP course materials and really customized it for what they needed to produce, what they wanted to make in the world.And so Like you Sean were talking about you know, podcasts and blog posts and a newsletter. And I was like, that was awesome. And then I go to Ali and Elizabeth's session and they during YouTube videos and they're like, yeah, I don't do any of this other stuff. I just like, I use like these two pieces and this is what I use.And I don't worry about that. No, I don't worry about doing habits. I just do what I feel like, no, I don't do a routine. I just do whatever. I feel like I have energy for that day. Like, they're just like complete opposite of like a lot of other people. So it was really helpful cause it's just like, yeah, there's like no way to mess this up.There's here's a bunch of tools you can use them how you want. Pick what you need. This is how it works together. Don't get obsessed about, you know, notion or Rome or, you know, whatever, like just, you know, make life easier for yourself here. Here's an invitation, you know, and I was like, oh, this is so much such a relief, such a relief.I I've had a good time then implementing pieces of this in making my YouTube videos. And now I have a clear vision of what I want to do with it and how to keep adding onto it without punishing myself and trying to set up this really rigid structure. swyx: [00:35:23] So, yeah, it's is that your primary, medium? I actually don't know.Is it, is it, is your YouTube connected to P ancestors Speaker 4: [00:35:33] podcast page the high swyx: [00:35:35] CAS? I'm still not used to video podcasts. This is awesome. Speaker 4: [00:35:38] Okay. Well, I started, I said the podcast started with doing like interviews with people. And then this last season, I thought I'd make it more a narrative and actually do the work in public.Right. And like, you know, but I do have interviews on there with archivists and librarians and historians and authors and stuff like that. That was the first season. And. They're just like audio without the video component. And I can't believe you're going to watch this. Oh my goodness. Of course, swyx: [00:36:09] you're doing more.You are more on YouTube than I am. I'm just, I'm just messing around. Speaker 4: [00:36:13] I am so excited. I now have a hundred subscribers and I am like, oh yeah, I hit a hundred this weekend. And what's funny is in the statistics, like when YouTube shows you the statistics, like I know like people watched like 26 hours of my videos, like in the last week.Right. But like I have a hundred subscribers, right. Like I know how many people have watched and you know, it's really funny. So it is that 1% like that are actually interacting and commenting. So swyx: [00:36:45] it is, it is. That's why, that's why I think there's. That's what, that's the rule for general audiences? Because they don't necessarily have to have anything to say.But if the response rates are much higher, if you have a conversation with someone actively in that field, right. Which is why I always wanted to try to push people towards you know, picking what others put down in a sense of like, who else is doing this work? Who else can you bounce the energy off of so that you're, you're, you're both pushing yourself in, in, in new ways.So, so that's great. Thanks. Thanks so much for sharing. Yep. No, Speaker 4: [00:37:14] you're free to watch my videos. Now. I'm used to hearing myself talk now I'm watching myself so I can handle it. But that's the hardest part. swyx: [00:37:22] The imperfection piece, like this is, this is an ideal, right? Like, particularly cause you know, Tiago has to has the model, his behavior.We shouldn't, we shouldn't, we shouldn't think that we all have to do it exactly like he does. Because we all, we don't all teach building a second brain. We have other contexts as well. So I definitely view it as like a menu where you just pick off the stuff that you like. I really like para I really like the capture tool toolkit.I think 12 favorite fibers. The 12 number is bullshit. Yeah, Speaker 4: [00:37:52] I do too. I did seven cause then I had one for each day of the week that I could like pick up and look at, you know, and kind of unit one. When I journal in the morning, I could look, you know, so yeah. But yeah, I. Be a mentor in the next session.Oh, absolutely not now. There's swyx: [00:38:08] I think it, I think it really, Speaker 4: [00:38:11] this is all the stuff I don't use with this. Wonderful. Maybe I'll maybe I'll have more done, but I swyx: [00:38:18] don't know. Well, I mean, if you, if you just see like how disorganized I am, like you're, you're, you're doing fine. Speaker 4: [00:38:24] Beautiful though. I, I really love it.It made me like re I only subscribed for a few weeks, but it it, it inspired me to be more I don't know what the word is. I guess it's vulnerability or just sharing in my newsletter part. So rather than just saying, oh, here's the latest podcast, here's the latest blog post, you know, and, you know, a couple of nice things.So it was just like, oh, I'm just going to dump. And just like, just really talk to people. Like I'm actually talking to somebody on the other end of this email versus, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. swyx: [00:38:54] Right, right. To your friends, right. Your friend, and, you know, make a, a letter to your friend would be like, you know, like here's, here's, what's going on in my life.And then here's some other, like, so recently what I've done, just, just to show people I forget, what's the CK thing. Oh Speaker 4: [00:39:09] God. Like I just moved my oldest daughter into her first apartment. Right. So like, you know, like talking about that a little bit, it's like, oh, you use, I can use convert kit swyx: [00:39:19] kit too.It's awesome. Yeah. I reluctantly use it. There's so many bugs. Oh, it's not Speaker 4: [00:39:23] as bad as MailChimp. That thing is awful swyx: [00:39:26] booking software, as you see all the bugs and you're like, I could fix that, but I can't. Speaker 4: [00:39:30] Oh, I do have to tell you something funny. Cause I used to script to edit my videos. And when you switch like the temporal switch or whatever, but the the transcription transcribed, like the automatic transcription instead of Denise Allen, it calls me Sid Sydney salad.swyx: [00:39:45] That's bad. It's Speaker 4: [00:39:47] really funny. No, it cracks me up. I put it on Instagram. I was like, oh, I didn't say just scripted it. I, you know, I wasn't going to say it, but it was just like my transcriber's like Sydney salad. This is Sydney salad swyx: [00:39:59] with PAs. I don't know if anyone else uses district, but you can train it.You can, you can train it. Yeah. Speaker 4: [00:40:05] I noticed that. Yeah. You've looked into it every week. I learned something new and descript to make my life easier because then at least once a week they update the software. So they're constantly like, Hey, restart it, restart it. Can you restart it again? We added more updates.I'm like stop. And they add like new swyx: [00:40:21] buttons. Oh, there we go. Yep. Right there.Yep. Every time. Well, they're, you know, they're hard for your, for your money? No, Speaker 4: [00:40:32] no, it's a great product. I, swyx: [00:40:34] i, I wanted to show people like so the, the way I do my newsletter now is I don't just drop the link. I tell you why, why. My pitch for you reading it. And then if you're not going to read it, I'm going to tell you the, the, the punchline anyway.So I don't know. I'm just like innovating. I'm just like messing around with it. Cause I don't know if this helps people or not, but it's just to kind of let it out. I would want, so that's, that's just, that's just my only guideline. So yeah, too Speaker 2: [00:41:00] pitchy, swyx: [00:41:00] just give me a link is what Speaker 2: [00:41:03] it's it's too salesy or too pitchy.Just giving me a link. Yeah. Well, I, I, I like a description and a little bit of kind of what's in it before you click. swyx: [00:41:13] Yeah, exactly. Like I just, like, I want to do things that are different from everything else I'm seeing out there. So that's my only thing. It's just like, don't even do Speaker 2: [00:41:22] that Speaker 4: [00:41:22] the same way and there's no other, there's no other genealogists doing what I'm doing.There's nobody yet. No, I'm it. I'm the only one doing this format of podcasts. There's two guys that do like a. I'm just going to say the boomer show. I'm sorry. They're just like two older guys and they're just talking, you know, and it's fun and it's, it's horrible, but it's just, it's, you know, swyx: [00:41:44] if you like, if you like storytelling, have you, have you come across them off Speaker 4: [00:41:47] the moth?No. Oh no. I mean, my kids listened to it Speaker 2: [00:41:52] and handling, Speaker 4: [00:41:53] oh wait, let me, let me write this down. Hold Speaker 2: [00:41:58] on. She's a great book called everybody writes and she has a newsletter. She has a newsletter, which she writes as a letter to you. So it's not, and I know you started doing the same thing. It's a real newsletter.We're real content. That's kind of, it's completely separate. It's nearly like a blog post and an email, but it's really, really good. And she sends it on the Sunday. Speaker 4: [00:42:21] Oh, let's do that. Okay. I've been using the, do you know the story grid format from who's the guy that wrote to do the work, the guy that works with him?swyx: [00:42:33] I have no idea. Speaker 4: [00:42:36] Yes. I don't know where my book is. Yeah. You know, the S the story grid. I use that book somewhere. The whole idea of conflict and the, the number of beats per minute. I don't have it down at all, but I'm like, I, it was one of those things. Like I could either wait till I get it perfect.Practicing it on my own, or I could just start producing episodes and people will. Yes, the story grid book. That's, it's fantastic for developing nurse narrative storytelling. swyx: [00:43:09] Okay. That's awesome. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Well, thanks for sharing. Oh, I was just going to finish the thought with if you find a really good story to tell you might want to go on the math and then tell it because they, they really, they really like good stories and you, I'm sure you have a ton.I have a Speaker 4: [00:43:27] ton. I'm doing gene genealogy research. Yeah. I have a swyx: [00:43:31] ton. Cool. I'm gonna, let's see, let's see what they did. Q&A: Meryl Johnston on Learning in Public [00:43:34] A bunch of, a bunch of people commenting. I want to answer some questions. Meryl Johnston says, what about working in public? That's actually a title of a book that someone who has, has built but that's, that's more on open source.But yeah, it's, it's absolutely a thing building in public working public producing in public Speaker 3: [00:43:48] was suggesting that I'll just quickly jump in. I was suggesting that for Dennis, when she was saying that the public term didn't resonate with her group, you are suggesting a different name for that. Yeah.I came across working in public. Cause as a concept before I, before I heard of your concept, Swyx with the learning in public. So I've done the work in public before with public podcasts to share accountability of what I'm working on. But I like the framing of the learning in public. Yeah. That's something that I've actually taken away from, from the, from these courses, trying to get things out there earlier, even if I'm learning, if it's something that I'm learning about and trying to think through and making my own knowledge face more public.So that's actually something, an outcome that I really am happy about with the course that I got my own notion, my personal blog page up using notion as part that was one of my intermediate packet tasks. That's awesome.swyx: [00:44:46] Yeah. I like the framing of learning because if you just come across like that, no one can get angry at you for them.If you've got stuff wrong, then then you, even your strongest critics can just become your, your teachers, right? Like if you, if you just listen to what they're trying to say, some people get really offended when, when you get things in their domain wrong and you just go like, yeah, I'm just, I'm just learning this thing.And, and, and listen with an open mind. I think, I think you can learn something from almost everybody. So that's, that's something I, I, I prefer the term learning rather than building or working, but they're all in the same vein, which is, you know, do, do more put stuff out earlier and get more feedback.Are there so congrats on doing that. Okay, awesome. Thanks Merrill. Let's see, Dave Dave says, I think it could help giving members of the same, the group, same guidance, guidance on how you see effective learning. Maybe share your process with them. I'm not sure is that, that address to be Speaker 2: [00:45:38] no, that was the Denise. That was both the name. I think the name is somewhat important, but I think actual guidance on helping frame things. Cause I think we have the idea of airway is the best way. And also theater people who are doing it, not your way will think their way is the best way on thing. You're going to lead by example and say, this is how I do it this way.And this is why it's so good. And this is why it's so helpful, kind of, you know, dangled the carrot in front of them.The Resistance and Gratitude Journaling [00:46:04] swyx: [00:46:04] Cool. Very cool. Steven Pressfield is also known for the war of art which I feel like it would be a travesty not to mention that because it's, as one of the most cited books for pushing through the resistance that I feel often you know, so I have a commitment to myself to publish one blog post a week.And today I did it. Literally sometimes I get unblocked and then sometimes I feel the resistance and I don't push out anything in between May 28th and June 7th. I didn't, I didn't write anything. So I did technically miss a week. But I just, I pushed out the one I knew I could deliver today just for this group, essentially.That, that I thought like, yeah. Okay. I felt guilty about last week having poor internet issues. So I just wrote up what I was going to say anyway. But yeah, War of Art, really great for identifying the resistance and saying like, it's a, it's something that everyone, everybody deals with.Okay. Dave, Dave has a screenshot here. I don't know what the screenshot says. Quick to open. All right. Am I going to regret opening this, Dave? All right. You want to talk through this? What is this? Speaker 2: [00:47:02] You have some brilliant. If it was like, like a side profile in a year or something was like, I'm in the room.This is at the end of my newsletter. That's going out later on today. So I just thought it was quite relevant to share what we were talking about. Derek could have, you know, actually I'm panting people and that's what I'm trying to do. And that's what I'm trying to encourage. And that's kind of prior to the forum, I thought I'm going to put on the bottom of my newsletters is people that have inspired me or given me a voice or helped me out.I'm going to try to actually kind of those people as well to mention them. swyx: [00:47:35] Yeah. Yeah. That's really, that's really great. Yeah. So I think a gratitude practice is really helpful, particularly for just like enjoying life in, in Just, I think sometimes when we feel down, when we don't, we don't necessarily remember how, how lucky we are sometimes.So having a gratitude journal like that can be, can be really helpful. It's like Speaker 2: [00:47:53] you wrote this newsletter today. It really is. You're talking about gratitude minors that are starting to put technology on how I went on the tour and looked at old famine houses in Ireland from the 18th century on how technology back then was a blacksmith and a forage and a hammer and how we're.So, you know, we've luxury of kind of multinational media company of 20 years ago. We've more reached than they data right now from our laptop. And I was talking about how we needed to kind of be grateful and actually shared it with the world as well. This is so strange. It's like take a screenshot to my machine today.swyx: [00:48:32] Well, I mean, I I'm saying it based off of your prompt, so I did have something to go off of. Don't Just Write Essays: Remove Resistance [00:48:37]Oh, I should mention for those people who are starting on new blondes you might get caught in this. I I'm currently in this trap, so I'll, I'll show you something I'm struggling with right now, which is that everything I write is basically an essay.Some of them are very high. A very high impact. So for example, this was a very, this was a very highly traffic blog posts of mine. And people expect quite a lot out of it. But some of them are just tutorials, like how to do X and it's just my notes for myself. So I think, I think there's, there should be some kind of hierarchy in your, in your blogs.If you're setting up a blog of like something, that's an essay, something that's a tutorial or something, that's a note. So I don't think I necessarily do this very well. But I want it to give you an idea that like having some kind of separation of like, okay, these are essays. I don't have to put these out constantly, but notes are very low bar that I don't have to be a big deal.They can just be like a three you three sentence thing. And, and that's something that I see, I see coming up a lot in, in other people's work. So I think I may have covered this, but I just want to cover it again. Who's the guy that does five years. I care. There we go. This guy I may have talked about this, but a lot of these tiles are just like PIL, and then you just kind of block this here and that's, that's, that's an intermediate packet, right?Because that's a, that's a reusable thing that you can you can come back and tie up into a bigger blog post, or just use that as a reference for yourself. So that's, that's one form of Tio. The other one I did not cover in previous sessions is Nikita Boulevard. If there's, if there's a proper Russian speaker here, let me know.But this is, he has his own Wiki, so he just throws in like, okay, I'm interested in writing writing prompts. Great. And it's just, it's just updated over time, you know? I'm gonna, I'm gonna drop the link here so that you can see it. Glen says, it looks like he's using dead. John. I think he's using GitBook maybe then John's the, the trading tool.I'm not sure, but like having a place essentially where it's not a big deal to drop a piece of information and store it somewhere. And this is a public second brain, essentially. Right? I really like this compared to what I have. I just have a bunch of messages. And I feel restricted. I feel restricted.I feel the resistance, you know, like every, like, AF especially after I have a good one, then the next one has to top it and I, and I never do. So then I just stopped writing for two weeks. So set yourself up so that you don't Yeah, fall into this trap, essentially because I'm facing it right now. And  it's a real problem that I'm dealing with.So I like this, I like this approach. I like the TIL approach. And just any other way, which in which you can unblock itself from, from publishing something out there that doesn't have to be a big deal. Okay. Okay. I'll give you one more example and then I'll shut up, which is this, these CSS-Tricks has been doing this a lot again, so I, you know, I'm very developer focused, but here, this blog post is one paragraph.Sorry. No, well, it it's, it's riffing off of someone else's blog posts. Let me, let me see if I can find a better example for you. Cause I don't think maybe I can just find his work. Speaker 2: [00:51:32] I know what you're talking about, but do you like swyx: [00:51:34] those posts? Well, he's, he's adding his commentary, you know, that's that's it it's it's it doesn't have to be a big deal.So maybe you don't, maybe you don't like it just cause like it's, it's, it's so minor. But it's actually substantial part Speaker 2: [00:51:46] of the behind CSS tricks that, that I find the value is to go and look for something. And then I learned that their article, I would be thinking, great, I'm going to get what I've used to.I'm going to get to swyx: [00:51:56] detail in here, look at this, like it's someone else's blog posts and he's just taking the most relevant parts. And then it says link to the blog posts. So it's a form of progressive summarization, but it's a blog post for him. But like, Hey, you know, he agrees. That's why he's quoting it.Speaker 2: [00:52:12] Well, I do agree with that, that if it can be as short as possible card is too much of that going to influence I'm writing a blog, it has to be at least 800 awards swyx: [00:52:23] know, I'll ask you what Speaker 2: [00:52:23] SEO bullshit swyx: [00:52:25] stuff. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So I really like this. I really like this idea of like, just removing resistance, you know, it doesn't, it's not about this format.It's not about my format or whatever, but just if you feel resistance like I don't Speaker 2: [00:52:38] think for people to start note though, I think for people starting now, you need to be cautious that this is not a shortcut to publishing more and more, and you haven't given it that time to kind of marinade in your consciousness as well.Three Strikes Rule [00:52:51]swyx: [00:52:51] Yeah. So yeah, th I would say, I would say to something on the order of like, that's why, that's why I have the three strikes rule. Right. Something, I, I definitely think about a lot in terms of like the first time you come across, the first time you come across something, you've just heard about it.So you don't have that much of an opinion. The second time you've started to explain it, but you also found it useful to, to explain the second time and the third time you have enough of a context to start writing about it. So I find, I find this very helpful for moving that, that diamond leftwards because there are natural positions for the diamond to be all, all the way shifted to the right this diamond the code diamond, right?Like the natural position is to be all the way here. We need to, we need to find ways to move it all the way, all the way left as much as possible to, to try to convert more. Okay. So, IP says 35 principles post. You got it coming up. I do have a search on my site. Okay. So, yeah. All right. All right.Guy Margalith on Fear and Your Second Brain [00:53:40]So I'm gonna, I'm gonna leave it there in terms of like the content that I have. But I wanted to leave some room for a guy since you're, since guys here. Not to put you on the spot again, but like, people love no last time you took over, what, what do you normally cover in your session?Yeah, I just recap Speaker 3: [00:53:55] yours actually. No, I mean only partially joking. I I've gotten such wonderful content today from you and also from others, Denise in particular. So thank you for that. I'm actually going to quote you. I hope you don't mind Denise in my session tomorrow. For me it's tomorrow, I don't know for others.So I would say the, the one big takeaway I got from your sessions and from Tiago sessions and from taking the course again and teaching it is something that's been really bugging me about my second brain. And I couldn't really articulate it as clearly until this until probably this week. There was a, in the premium Q and a, for those who are in the premium option for building a second brain Tiago had, well, one of the, I think one of the students also had a fantastic quote and I'm going to piece it in the chat here because it really resonated with me.And here I found it and just bear with me for one second. While I pasted in here, the student was Andrea Ames and she said she was talking about fear, fear, and your second brain. And for me, this really resonated you're talking about the resistance a bit. Swyx and for me it's that resistance is fear b

Welcome back to episode 18! There are so many scare tactics going on right now in the media. This past weekend I watched a couple of segments of the news and instantly went into FEAR mode. Then I caught myself and said girl, why did you even watch that?? This is what I decided…#1 stop watching the news, #2 continue forward thinking and what can I do to lean into serving and giving hope and be the example of what’s possible during these timesI’m excited that my guest, Andrea Ames agreed to come on the show because she is all about helping businesses keep their clients and grow retention revenue through a focus on the “forgotten funnel” of customer onboarding, product adoption and customer success, retention and advocacy. Today’s episode is all about how customer retention strategies can help your business during a recession.“Don’t give everything away for free but obviously support your community...” At minute 1:50, we’re talking about business growth, customer acqusitions and how customer retention strategies apply to online businesses. Hear what Andrea is offering for her customers right now to help during this uncertain time.“You need to be really aligned with your audience...” At 12:20, Andrea shares the key components of a retention strategy and we dive into why onboarding is so important along with measuring retention and customer progress. Plus, hear how to give customers a good experience without overhwleming them and creating perfect products!“People need a lot more support right now around mindset and tactis for focusing...” At minute 21:46, Andrea shares how to use brand ambassadors that promote their expereinces and success in your programs and she shares the biggest customer retention issue that businesses face.“Be open, be willing to learn…” At 37:55, we’re talking about the opportunities for growth for small business and entrepreneurs in our current situation and as always...we are ending the show with Michelle’s Hot Minute, a round of rapid fire questions!If you want to connect more with Andrea, you can find her on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and on her company’s website. Until next time, happy marketing!

Andrea Ames has been a content leader for more than 35 years. From her early work as a technical writer, she has gone on to guide huge content teams and to become an advisor to other content leaders. Some folks might get jaded after three and a half decades in big enterprises. Not Andrea.  Her enthusiasm for her work is always contagious and inspiring. Nowadays she focuses on helping content professionals become more effective and businesses more successful. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/andrea-ames/

Andrea Ames Andrea Ames has been a content leader for more than 35 years. From her early work as a technical writer, she has gone on to guide huge content teams and to become an advisor to other content leaders. Some folks might get jaded after three and a half decades in huge enterprises. Not Andrea.  Her enthusiasm for her work is always contagious and inspiring. Nowadays she focuses on helping content professionals become more effective and businesses more successful. Andrea and I talked about: her background in technical communications her work at IBM, first as an information architect and later as a content strategist, and how being a "pattern-oriented person" suited her for her information-architecture work at IBM the challenges of working at a huge scale on digital content experiences, helping 2,000 to 4,000 content creators be strategic and consistent different uses of the term "information architecture" at IBM and the ensuing "mud wrestling around terminology" and ultimate agreements and alignment on it how stakeholder relationship management is the key to content strategy her approach to selling ideas to stakeholders, asking: "Am I the right person to be making the ask?" "How do I relate to the people around me and especially the stakeholders to whom I am trying to sell something?" how she instills and develops professionalism in her teammates, which gives them the credibility to influence their colleagues the importance of being experimental as you try to implement ideas, because "there is no one right answer" her "quarterly exec technique" - a quick chat at least once a quarter with the highest-level executive that you can get access to - ask them about their biggest challenges and then experiment with content ideas that can help address it the importance of building a personal brand the benefits of having a polarizing personality - helps sort out who wants to work with you - "be the team member you want to have on your team" how to navigate these dynamics when you're in a more junior role the importance when you are in a strategic role of making sure that the folks doing the implementing get credit for their work the importance of tying content activities to business results the role of content in a digital business: "That's the conversation. That's the relationship with your customer." Andrea's Bio Recognized in 2018 by Relevance as one of the Top 25 Marketing Thought Leaders, in 2017 by [A] as one of the Top 25 Masters of Multichannel, and in 2016 by MindTouch as one of the Top 25 Content Strategy Influencers, Andrea Ames is a sought-after keynote speaker, workshop leader, consultant, and coach, as well as the author of numerous journal and magazine articles and two award-winning books. A 35+-year veteran in post-sales customer and content experience and the founder and CEO of Idyll Point™ Group — a customer retention and content experience strategy consulting and coaching firm — Andrea's passion is helping digital businesses to grow through retention revenue by making their customers wildly successful with their offerings. Andrea is the Executive Editor of STC's Intercom magazine, as well as a Certified Online Training Professional (COTP) and the curriculum designer and Program Chair for the UCSC in Silicon Valley certificate program in technical writing and communication, where she also teaches content design and architecture, human factors, and usability courses. She is a Fellow and past President of STC, a Distinguished Engineer of the ACM (the first content professional to achieve this distinction), a Senior Member of the IEEE, and a member of numerous other professional associations. You can connect with her on LinkedIn, where she is most active, or on Facebook, Instagram (@alames), or Twitter (@aames). Video Here's the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/nraRGSMtBos

Andrea Ames Andrea Ames has been a content leader for more than 35 years. From her early work as a technical writer, she has gone on to guide huge content teams and to become an advisor to other content leaders. Some folks might get jaded after three and a half decades in huge enterprises. Not Andrea.  Her enthusiasm for her work is always contagious and inspiring. Nowadays she focuses on helping content professionals become more effective and businesses more successful. Andrea and I talked about: her background in technical communications her work at IBM, first as an information architect and later as a content strategist, and how being a "pattern-oriented person" suited her for her information-architecture work at IBM the challenges of working at a huge scale on digital content experiences, helping 2,000 to 4,000 content creators be strategic and consistent different uses of the term "information architecture" at IBM and the ensuing "mud wrestling around terminology" and ultimate agreements and alignment on it how stakeholder relationship management is the key to content strategy her approach to selling ideas to stakeholders, asking: "Am I the right person to be making the ask?" "How do I relate to the people around me and especially the stakeholders to whom I am trying to sell something?" how she instills and develops professionalism in her teammates, which gives them the credibility to influence their colleagues the importance of being experimental as you try to implement ideas, because "there is no one right answer" her "quarterly exec technique" - a quick chat at least once a quarter with the highest-level executive that you can get access to - ask them about their biggest challenges and then experiment with content ideas that can help address it the importance of building a personal brand the benefits of having a polarizing personality - helps sort out who wants to work with you - "be the team member you want to have on your team" how to navigate these dynamics when you're in a more junior role the importance when you are in a strategic role of making sure that the folks doing the implementing get credit for their work the importance of tying content activities to business results the role of content in a digital business: "That's the conversation. That's the relationship with your customer." Andrea's Bio Recognized in 2018 by Relevance as one of the Top 25 Marketing Thought Leaders, in 2017 by [A] as one of the Top 25 Masters of Multichannel, and in 2016 by MindTouch as one of the Top 25 Content Strategy Influencers, Andrea Ames is a sought-after keynote speaker, workshop leader, consultant, and coach, as well as the author of numerous journal and magazine articles and two award-winning books. A 35+-year veteran in post-sales customer and content experience and the founder and CEO of Idyll Point™ Group — a customer retention and content experience strategy consulting and coaching firm — Andrea’s passion is helping digital businesses to grow through retention revenue by making their customers wildly successful with their offerings. Andrea is the Executive Editor of STC’s Intercom magazine, as well as a Certified Online Training Professional (COTP) and the curriculum designer and Program Chair for the UCSC in Silicon Valley certificate program in technical writing and communication, where she also teaches content design and architecture, human factors, and usability courses. She is a Fellow and past President of STC, a Distinguished Engineer of the ACM (the first content professional to achieve this distinction), a Senior Member of the IEEE, and a member of numerous other professional associations. You can connect with her on LinkedIn, where she is most active, or on Facebook, Instagram (@alames), or Twitter (@aames). Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/nraRGSMtBos

Do you want to make a huge impact with your audiences in a way that feels easy because you’re just simply being yourself?  This episode is an interview with Andrea Ames. She is a keynote speaker, author and content leadership coach for corporations and entrepreneurs. We have a great discussion on how to present oneself strategically and authentically in-person and online. We talk about: What it means to be an effective leader How to view your role (if you’re en employee) in a way that directly helps you to build authority and influence so your initiatives are supported & prioritized Why you already have what you need to develop yourself into a more powerful leader and voice in your industry Making your mark as a speaker and what it means to own your style and your stage presence The significance of avoiding mixed messages while having the ability to look and be at your most credible, attractive and authentic when you communicate with your audiences  

On this episode of Marketer-to-Marketer, Jessica Best, Douglas Burdett, Andrea Ames, and Vishal Khanna sit down to discuss customer experiences and how the marketing team can shape them for the best possible result.https://emktr.co/m2m0204

Are you tired of running the rat race of constantly needing to find and sell your services to new clients? Good news is there’s a way out of the race, and it’s called retention.   Here to discuss building powerful client relationships that lead to thriving rates of client retention is Andrea Ames, the founder of Idyll Point Group and the host of the After the Sale podcast. Andrea is a client retention expert, and in this episode, she’s sharing her top three phases of the relationship building process that makes for an excellent client experience that keeps them coming back for more and your business flourishing.   In this episode you’ll learn: Where creating an exceptional client experience begins in your client’s journey How to begin looking at your current client retention metrics and start moving the needle, plus why client retention is so critical for the success of your business Andrea’s top tips for creating an outstanding onboarding experience that wows your client and helps you operationally What to do after the sale that keeps your clients coming back for more and spreading the word about your services To get all the recommended resources mentioned in this episode and connect with Andrea, click here to go to our full show notes.   To keep the conversation going, ask questions, and connect with other like-minded aestheticians building thriving careers, click here to join the free Spa Marketing Made Easy Podcast community.

Today I’m talking to entrepreneur Andrea Ames on the two shifts she made to make her first launch possible. If you’ve been sitting on your hands and waiting to start something, this episode is for you! If you enjoy this episode and it inspired you in some way, I’d love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway. Take a screenshot of you listening on your device, post it to your Instagram Stories and tag me, @jameswedmore. I want to invite you to help contribute to this podcast by submitting a question for the Listener Question of the Week edition of The Mind Your Business Podcast. All you have to do is go to http://jameswedmore.com/QA and record a question (under 4 minutes or less) that could be featured on an upcoming episode! In the episode you’ll hear: • What was keeping Andrea from taking action and how she overcame the resistance • The two massive mindset shifts she made last year • How fear will mask itself using logic • What really matters even more than results • How Andrea is seeing herself (and her business) differently now and the new story she tells herself around her ability to sell For full show notes and links, visit: http://mindyourbusinesspodcast.com/podcast/227  

Ready to Positioning Your Business to Profit? Go to-->>> http://positioningtoprofit.com/Patty: Welcome to episode number four of Her Legacy Podcast on this episode we have Andrea Ames the incredible Andrea Ames. She and I met at a conference that we were at we sat together just happened to you know meet up with some other women. We had a friend in common. Went to dinner. It was a phenomenal time and just talking about the old war stories of what it was like to be in corporate.So Andrea has this amazing background and came from big companies she used to work at IBM and now she's ventured out on to her own. And this amazing transformation that she's going through and the cool thing about it is she's also bringing her corporate background and parlaying it into what she's creating now with a Membership Retention Strategy that she has to this is a membership that she's created helping people who have a membership retain their customers really cool.Right. So in this episode were going to be hearing from Andrea her insights around what it's like to transition and what it means and how she came about to create this really unique process the system in this business says she is molding for herself. So on this episode I really enjoyed myself love talking to Andrea she's really great people and I'm sure you will find a lot of nuggets in here as well. So here we go.Patty:All right. And so is Andrea right I just want to make sure. Yeah because I've gotten into trouble when I've said Andreas I suppose Andrea Andrea Ames welcome to Her Legacy Podcast.Andrea: Thank you so much for having me so excited to talk with you Patty.Patty: OH MY GOD. Totally so I love your energy number one. And we met at a conference not too long ago and we sat and had dinner and we had so much in common.So I believe there are no mistakes so I'm so happy to connect with you because not only do we share worst stories having been in corporate but we also just to have complementary businesses I think and I'll go more into that. But first let's get a little bit braggy shall we.Tell me what is your superpower?Andrea: I think my superpower is I'll call it influence. Many people have said I love your energy. And so for me I like to take that energy that passion and get people moving get them excited about something get them working on something interestingI use it in my teens at corporate and I'll tell you it's a polarizing kind of superpower because some people are like yeah it's also let's go far away Andrea and some people are like oh my god she makes me tired.Patty: What's your read for that? You know so being in corporate I mean can you give us a little snapshot because here's the deal. I am very passionate about the topic of building your legacy and I find that what we women especially Gen-Xers and above comes to this crass point where we were brought into this whole world of go to school get a good job climb the corporate ladder and as women I feel like we were in a way trailblazers right.And I know you're definitely a trailblazer in your particular niche but then what happens is across crossroads. I'd love to get your corporate origin story if you will and right that epiphany that epiphany of when you were like I can't do this anymore.Andrea: OK. So it may not be so much an epiphany as a slow maturation process at the end. We'll see how that pans out. So I was in corporate for about 35 years and I my background is all in content. So I started out as a technical writer. I worked for a university for a while. I've worked for investment banking firms I've worked for government agencies I've worked for a supercomputer center. I've worked for software development companies.Most of the last 20 years or 25 years was all in high tech but it's always been about content and it's actually always been about post sales content. So my area has really been helping companies to create a content experience that's going to help them retain their customers and I'm super passionate about not giving people a big promise in your marketing and then dumping them off a cliff right.I like and have a nice bridge and actually delivering whatever the transformation is that the companies you know promising. So my last corporate job was at IBM and I had been a freelancer for a little while before that and I had been at IBM for about 12 years 12 and 1/2 years. And I really thought I was going to retire there. And it was September of 2015 which just so happened to be the month of my fiftieth birthday.What I will tell you I didn't really connect the dots until I looked back on it two years later which is why I say wasn't so much an epiphany as kind of a long slow realization about what was going on but in just September of 2015 I took the month off and there was a program at IBM at the time for me to be able to do that. And so it was fantastic and I spent the months looking for a fix to my productivity problems. So I felt like I'm not productive enough. I'm not getting enough done. I need to be more productive I need to be have bigger impact.And so I spend a bunch of time I signed up for a program called Life hack boot camp and it was amazing. And I it really pulled together a whole bunch of. I've always been a little bit of a productivity information junkie. So I have like thePh.D. In productivity but I never really felt like I had you integrated and implemented it. So I went through this whole process I went through the life hack boot camp. I went back to the office. And I didn't feel like anything had really changed. I was feeling this. I was definitely more productive.But I still felt this like really deep sense of dissatisfaction. And I mean I was in my ideal job. I was the top ranked content person as an individual contributor. I was not a manager in IBM OK Company of 425 thousand people at the time and I was what's called the senior technical staff member which is a role you can't be promoted to.It's a role you have to have approved by a committee. Basically you have to have a technical package. It gets reviewed et cetera. So I had a lot of validation about my value and my worth. Within that environment and I felt like I was in a corporate role I was supporting upward of thousands of content people helping to build content strategy within the company doing a lot of coaching mentoring.I was just like truly my ideal my dream job. Yeah. And yet I felt dissatisfied and I realized that maybe it wasn't a productivity problem in the end it wasn't that I wasn't doing enough. It wasn't that I wasn't having enough impact I was just kind of done with the the environment. And in fact I didn't even realize it until I was outside the company.So in 2016 IBM started to call people back to physical corporate locations geographical locations. And since July or August of 2010 I've been working remotely from my home in Maine. So I started IBM at Silicon Valley lab in Silicon Valley San Jose California. Great move back to Maine. My step mom was sick I really wanted to be here for her and and it was great. I loved working remotely. There were still some people toward the end you didn't know that I wasn't in California anymore because I'd never actually met themI worked with people all over the world so they didn't know if I was in Maine or California or Timbuktu and I love what I was doing I loved being remote and IBM decided that it was better for folks to be co-located. So I knew since I was permanently remote that there was an excellent chance that I would be asked to move. And so I started kind of putting some filler out talking to some folks in other companies about changing jobs.And you know I went through about six or eight months of Simon Sinek's start with Y book going through his course. And I like to look back on it now and I recognize this mid-career crisis thing going on that I in the midst of it had no idea what I was going through but I really started I think more than discover what my why was and what I was really meant to do in the world. I needed to validate it and because I knew. I mean it's its kind of frightening actually how deep seeded a knowledge I had about what my gifts are. I want people to be successful.I love seeing people grow and be successful and in just about anything I've ever done. So I'm a beekeeper I'm a quilter I'm a content person. I am in. I was. I'm a scuba diver as a hobby. A kayaker like in all these states I've been run a couple of half marathons. So I do like all kinds of things and I'll tell you I sit down with someone at a conference or whatever and we'll start talking about something and we'll get on my dogs for example we'll start talking about my dogs and I'll say Oh yeah. And I do this and I do that and we start talking about like what are the best ways to train dogs and how I'm excited to give them tips.Tell them what's worked for me. Listen to the issue. I'm not a professional dog trainer but I have some experience in it. This person's interested in it. I love to share that knowledge right. I'm kind of a teacher in my DNA to a large family. And so in my soul searching in 2016 that's really where I ended up it's like you are meant to take what you know and give it to as many people as possible impact as many people as possible with you whatever it is whatever knowledge you have and help them to gain new levels of success wild success in their life. I mean that's kind of where I ended up. And so I'm looking into all these companies and thinking to myself OK I could go to company X or company Y and it even smaller scope more.I had an idea some impact even fewer people. Yes I'm impacting in other companies so that's awesome. But what if I just went out on my own. What if I take those gifts? Start a business and really impact a much bigger scope of people.And so I left IBM in July. I declined their offer to move. They were going to move me and everything and I said No I think I'm going to resign. And I it really hit me. Then last summer when I left the company this is what I was meant to be and it started out the past year has not been easy.Patty: Can we talk about that though. Can we talk about? Because I think it's so important for everything that you said it was the validation. I think that's such a key concept because validation looks different for different people in you.And what was interesting what I'm reading and you feel free to say it's like the whole corporate technical check the box certifications whatever MBA you know whatever it is that you got like that takes care of that. But it was the emotional connection that you needed to get to find the deeper reason of what moves you and what motivates you and what fulfills you. Isn't that interesting?Andrea: Absolutely. And what I found. Yeah what I found so fascinating about that was I had it all along but I wasn't connected to it right. I was in my head I wasn't really connected to my gut which I think is a really it's a subtle but very profound switch that flips holding me.Patty: Totally. I've found for me personally I tapped into the more feminine energy on my side when I became an entrepreneur and not the male energy which was being the driver at work and being tough on the outside exterior. And it was about the results is about the numbers and this that and I know with the organization you are and I imagine that was definitely the case because at the end of the day it's qualitatively quall like quantitatively.Those are the numbers that matter. Right. And so it was switching things up. So with that in mind I want to get to what did you go through when you first left that job and you're officially an entrepreneur? And we think we have all the answers and there were like holy shit like truth is right in front of me. I'd love to get your worst story there.Andrea: So something in me said get some help with this. And so before I even left my job I would say it was March maybe or April. I got a therapist. I hadn't been in any kind of therapy or anything up to that point but I went into this therapist eyes and ears what's going to happen. And I realized that for the last couple of years I cannot get out of my own way.So this was kind of where the productivity thing was happening. I was unfulfilled. I didn't feel good about my job at IBM and so I felt like I was a productive really what was happening was that there were some mental thing going on that wouldn't let me progress because I think because I was in the wrong place so I went into it I said I can't get out of my own way I'm not getting things done the way I used to.I need help with this because I'm going to be leaving my job and if I can't get myself together in my corporate environment where I have meetings I have structure. I have all these things around me that are help actually helping me to deliver what's going to happen when like there's nothing going on I can get up every day and do nothing because I'm in business for myself I get to call the shots and I am a super structured person.So I wasn't so much afraid that I wouldn't put structure in place for myself because I did. But I was I was really afraid of like what if I don't do the things I need to do. What's interesting is that was exactly the right thing to be afraid of. For all the wrong reasons like they were the reasons I had were not the right reasons why that was going to happen but it did happen.So I get out of my own and I will cut myself a little bit of a break and tend to be pretty hard on myself. But I was at IBM for 15 and half years. I was totally driven as you were saying and I suspect I was pretty burnt out along with everything else. And so I decided I'm leaving mid-July.What if I take the rest of the summer off like I just give myself a break six weeks and the beginning of September I had a conference scheduled and then I'll jump back in men I'll work on my business and so on and I thought yes and I'll spend the six weeks creating content and getting ahead of things and content marketing and blah blah.No none about happened. I did take a break which was good. And. What's interesting is the the last week of July so I'd been on my break for what seven days or something ten days. My mom got sick and she had congestive heart failure. And be known to us. And it was very serious. And my sister and I ended up spending about five days in the hospital with her. She's great.Now she is better than she was before in fact her heart's more healthy. But she was very sick until the end of September. So I had given myself a break and yet I had to spend this time with my mom and not that I begrudge the time with her but I felt like am I really getting a break. And I thought you know what I think this is the universe saying you need a bigger break than six weeks you need 10 weeks right. You need to be there for your mom you need to be taking this time. That's what you're here for. And I was so grateful that I had put that time aside because then I didn't feel the pressure of oh my god I'm not making money. I'm not creating content I'm not doing all these things that need to be done so. .All during that time I'm seeing my therapist and I'm basically saying and I can't get started I can't get started and she's saying what would it look like to just not do anything. And maybe that's really what you need right now. And as you know I spent the time the first six months pretty much doing nothing. And I had some consulting clients because I'm fairly well known in my industry and so some people heard I was going out of my own and immediately were like come and help us. So that was great. I didn't have to market myself I didn't really have to do much. So I had a little bit of income I did some consulting projects but I realized I don't like to sell. And I think mostly it was I don't like to sell to people I know.So it was really weird. Like I know this industry I was president my professional association like I'm really well-known I talk to these people I go to conferences I know them individually. And now I've got to sell something to them. And that felt super weird and I also realized I had been giving away what I was now selling for 30 years. I had been sitting down. You know I'd give a presentation at a conference. Especially I love doing at the end of the day because I can say we got to clear the room let's go to the bar. We can keep talking. And I would sit down with one or two or five people usually a small group and they would tell me what was going on and say you know I really liked and you said this because I got this problem at work.And I would help them I would sit and do hours of free consulting in the bar mean because I'd love to help them. I was very called to help them with their problems and I see problems and I can't help myself. So I felt like I've been giving this away for 50 and half years from IBM and even longer before that. And these are my friends right my friendly colleagues. And so now I'm going to say hey come join my coaching program for hundreds of dollars or whatever thousands of dollars. It just felt really weird so I had a lot of things going and mentally that made it really hard. And as you were saying I left my job saying I'm at the top of my game baby.Right. I am smart. I've been in business for a long time. I know all the things. In fact I had started taking some courses online signing up for courses on online marketing and so on because I was interested in it for a variety of reasons even before I knew I was leaving IBM. That should have been a signal. You know sometimes I'm a little dense and don't really like I don't watch my actions closely enough clearly. But I was like I know all the things I've like given myself the online mini MBA. I'm ready to go.And yet nothing was happening. And one of the things I really wanted to do was I had joined at the end of 2016 Steve McLarens Tribe Program and I really wanted to create a membership group for my Content Strategy peeps. Right. I said this should be so amazing it would be this amazing community and it would just be so like my growingly awesome.Patty: Legislator leader. Thank you so much for checking out today's show we're about halfway done but I wanted to give you the opportunity to engage further as this episode incites some creativity in you if you're interested in leading your own Dent the world leaving your legacy. I have a very special three part video series for you. It's what I call the Business Trinity an as enterpreneurs. We are looking to create a sustainable business.And what I have found is three distinct pillars to make it happen. So I'm sharing that with you. Absolutely complimentary. Head on over to businesstrinity.com. Again businesstrinity.com . Grab that three part video series for yourself. It includes some downloadable in there and will walk away with clarity on where the opportunities are so that you can meet your legacy. Let's continue with the show.Andrea: And yet here I was December of 2017. Nada. You know I I've been to tribe live I had gotten all jazzed up six months later nada. So I it going into 2018 fell very very was starting to get very hard on myself. What's wrong with you. You can't get out of your own way. Like you know all the stuff. And I had a I belong to a mastermind and I one of my hats he calls I said OK here's the deal I'm having a really hard time getting out of my own way. Clearly I'm not like the best salesperson or at least in my head I can't sell.So how do you guys deal with mindset stuff. I got this big list of stuff from Tony Robbins stuff a book called Thou Shall Prosper. And like all this stuff and I started reading it and at the time I also got. I I remembered hearing and Amy Porterfield podcast episode with James Wedmore and he was talking about the fact that he was starting this new podcast where he had this podcast called Mind Your Business. And you know they were joking around about how it was woo and so on and I'm super left brain corporate makes you even more left brain has shouted their minutes and say it's like right brain that doesn't even exist.It's the size of a pea. Yeah. I was like oh I'm not Woohoo so I never went listen to it. But at the beginning of this year I did I think it was maybe February or March. I sat down I went back to the beginning. Some of it was way out there for me. It was so far outside my experience I just had a really hard time grasping it and I'm like you know what. There's so much here that he's saying that resonates so much with me and. And that was really I think the turning point for me was it was. It's been so hard because what's between my ears I have such deep employee grooves in my brain and getting myself out of that employee mentality putting myself in an entrepreneurial mentality and also really really reconnecting with that confidence I have in myself and my ability to do these things.I mean it's really what I find really fascinating is I I look at what I do with my corporate clients. I look at what I did in corporate and all the things I say to my corporate colleagues in coaching them and I say things like if you sit there and say I don't get any respect I'm a victim the technical people are the ones who get all the respect. That's exactly what's going to happen. Right. So I hear this and I say Duh if you sit here and say it's hard for me to sell I can't sell to my colleagues. Well that's exactly what's happening.Right. So it's of course you think context. Same problem same question. Right. That whole mindset thing and putting yourself in the right place and creating the right thoughts for yourself like this is all putting words around that is totally new to me and feels a little weird it's almost like I'm putting on a suit that almost fits if I go back and I look at the suit I wore when I was coaching my corporate employee peeps. It's like hello I've had this suit on the whole time.Patty: You have and it's a part of you. So when I to interject really quick because I absolutely want to stress that this is one of the key elements is that the success that you've had in your corporate career gives you the foundation the confidence. But once you transition into this entrepreneurship it's a whole nother ball of wax and I will say dare I say that I've never grown as much as I have as it was when I left my job.It has grown exponentially because to me and I know if you agree Andrea it's the marriage of the wholeness of left brain plus right brain. Yes that's what gets you to be a bigger person a better person. The bigger the impact and that's finally finding the the courage and say you know what I am a bad ass. Let me go. Let me roll this out. And it's scary because you're standing by yourself.Andrea: Yes.Patty: And it has been the organization like your cocooned in protection. If that makes sense.Andrea: Exactly it totally makes sense. And in fact I would say for me it's been a logarithmic change between corporate and entrepreneur and it's ninety nine point nine nine nine percent of it has been between my ears. Timing is all about who I think I am. It is not has nothing to do with anything that's going on externally.It's all about who I think I am who I'm creating myself to be who I'm projecting in the world and how I'm showing up to people and I will tell you so it's you know mid September and I am going to say that it took me until the end of August. So for the last three weeks I have really been fully in my entrepreneurial state.Patty: I love it.Andrea: That's how long it took. So anyone.Patty: Say you haven't heard of her mission and be kind to yourself. You know what I mean that there is no timeline in your timeline whatever it is you want to be but because of that you're so much richer in your experience and you can help other people since you love helping.Ok so I want to transition because I want to hear about your program member keeper so you've been doing some corporate consulting and now you're transitioning to serve fellow entrepreneurs which I love that 100 percent. So tell me more about what member key person is all about.Andrea: Well it's interesting because my focus in corporate while my background is in content my focus has really been in service of customer delight post sales customer delight. And I think there's value in that not only for your customer but there's value for that for that.In your business as well. In other words the more delightful your customer is you get more delighted your customer is in there probably delightful as well because we are delightful customers with the more delighted they are the more success they're having the more progress they're making the better transformation they're getting then the more likely they are to refer people to you. So that's revenue for you. The more likely they are to agree to be a case study or to give you testimonials.So there's all this Stew McClaran calls it the circle of awesomeness. It is a virtuous cycle and it comes from really paying attention to what happens after they give you their credit card or they paid on a PO or whatever. I mean it works it works just as well in corporate as it does in an entrepreneurial state. So my program member keepers is focused on people who want to work creating or have created membership groups.And I've focused on them because I realized that the way I took care of my corporate community inside IBM was really a membership site membership group. I had regular a one on one meetings called group meetings excuse me I had regular Q and A's. I delivered regular content. It wasn't nobody was paying me directly. Those people were not direct clients. I mean IBM was paying all of us to be there but I was essentially hosting a membership group and I thought wow I've been doing this for like close to 15 years.And so I thought this these these folks really speak to me. And I think I can really help them especially when I attended tribe live last year and this year in 2017 and 2018 and the two biggest concerns I heard from people were around them feeling overwhelmed with their content and their customers feeling overwhelmed with their content. Since most membership sites are information based that's the product right.And if your customers are coming in and they're getting overwhelmed they're leaving. So there goes your recurring revenue. Now there goes your opportunity to make a customer that's engaged that's gaining impact from your program that's successful and that will then close the loop on that virtuous cycle and give you testimonials referrals etc. So member keepers is about helping people with their membership product after the sale.So I don't talk about marketing except how you can use that after the sale relationship with your customer to kick off your next marketing cycle or to feed into marketing and sales. So it's really about like how do you help that person. I'm called to help people. I want to help people help people. So all they're getting very Medha. Yeah yeah well that's really the the most important thing right. Are you delivering on that transformation.Patty: Well my gosh so good because people think oh I got them to buy and then that and then that's it. They think the sales stand and it's like that's the beginning of a real opportunity to continue the engagement to build the trust him more importantly build a community because people will come for the content but they get to stay for the community.Andrea: Exactly exactly.Patty: That's so smart. And so you're you're preparing for your launch and have you had any beta or any experiences with people taking advantage of that content so far.Andrea: So my. So this will be this will be scary for your entrepreneurial folks. I have no content. So this is my beta launch that's coming up here in a week or two. And I have 35 years of corporate experience 35 years of content that's scaled for corporate from my consulting and so on. But I don't have any content that's really specifically scaled for entrepreneurs.And so what I'm doing in my beta is I am going to do a lot of person to person interaction. So I'm going to do some laser coaching. I'm going to do a lot of Q and A so my beta members are going to see probably more of me than the folks who will come later because what I'm really trying to figure out is what do you need.What do you want what are the problems you're facing today. Let's talk about it a little bit. Let me try this on. How does that work for you. OK let me explain it a different way. And so as I refine the conversation I'm having with those folks I can also then reach into my little corporate bag of tricks pull out the answers and then create tools and cheat sheets and training and so on. That's very specific to the entrepreneur membership site owner and that's what I want to do is not take my content is if it's one size fits all.But I wouldn't really deeply understand what my beta members need and I want to make that content extremely custom to that group of people and then expand on that. So that's my that's my plan. I love I love that relationship building of getting to know people and really understand what their problems are and sort of working out the solution together. And so I think that's what my that the rest of this year is going to be focused on in my membership group.Patty: So smart and I love the fact that you're being ballsy you're just getting out there and saying Okay let me find this proof of concept. And the only way to do it is you're not building all the content and then waiting for the tribe you're building with the tribe and that's how that's going to be so much more powerful because you're speaking directly to the problems and you're providing the solutions because that's what we're in business you know entrepreneurs provide solutions.So it's very smart and I love the fact that it gives you the permission to just explore experiment and you have the proven track record so I have no doubt that it's going to absolutely crush it. And as you're going through those iterations you're just going to really develop something really robust and relevant. So I love that.Andrea: And I am super excited about it.Patty: I can only imagine. All right so tell me what's a personal development or growth habit that you have.Andrea: When I was in corporate I like to put something new in my portfolio every year. So as a person in content portfolio something you have along with your resume to actually get another job if you change jobs and so on. So I like to look at what's happening in my field and pick something pretty far out there and then try to figure out how to work a project into my day job that will give me an example of this new thing and show I'm capable of this.I'm doing this new and exciting thing. And for me I'm a pretty I am pretty ballsy. I'm a risk taker. I love to do the new stuff. Don't make me do anything. Two or three times because I get bored. I love to look ahead and see what's new. What's exciting and I think for me that's really the that's also a challenge for me and that is in this initial phase of my business I'm a soloprenuer so there's a lot of things I have to do over and over again.There's a lot of mechanical things and operational things. And so what I do is I try to approach everything I'm doing as a new learning experience. So how can this be a new thing for me. How can I go into this. I love that you said you can be experimental because that's exactly how I look at this. I'm like you know what if I get one person in my group if I get a hundred people in my beta group if I you know fail amusing little air quotes here.To me it's a learning experience right. And every call might be totally different. Every tool I put out might be totally different. Do I know how to do a online launch. No I've never done one before. No idea how it's going to turn out and I'm excited about that as opposed to being in a little bit of fear there. But I really need to look at it as Hey I am learning so much.Like I mean this is where I thought I had an online MBA. No not even close. I'm getting it now as I start actually taking action and doing the work. And I find that exciting. So for me personal development means setting myself up to keep to stay motivated to be progressing to continue the momentum. And for me that means I need to be learning something new.I need to be trying things I need to be on experimenting and so I try to look at these projects I don't really like. Like keeping my books and so on. Oh I get a chance to learn Quicken or whatever. Right. And some people may think why would you want to do that.Well you know right now I know Quicken and I can talk more intelligently to my accountant and that gets me jazzed so often to find the things that motivate you and then sometimes it's about reframing or casting. The work you have to do even if it feels ugly and like you don't want to do it for casting it in that new frame so that you stay motivated and keep that momentum up so that that's kind of the challenge for me and sort of what I'm working on between the ears.Patty: Perfect. OK. And if your life were a pick a song that represents your life. What is that song.Andrea: The first thing that popped into my head was Journey's Don't Stop Believin yeah I just going to go with that.Patty: I love it great song. I love us. Every time it comes out especially like I remember when the White Sox won in 95. That was like the theme of the whole year. It's just such a bad ass song. I love it. And a last question for you after all is said and done. What do you want your legacy to be.?Andrea: Wow. I think I sorry. I would love for one person to say I remember Andrea she really helped me with whatever.Patty: Yeah I love that. Every time I ask that question Andrea you're not alone. Good people get misty eyed I'm like am I get to see them cry because that's my favorite. It's the truth. Like her work is so meaningful and it's so important and it comes from the heart and this is what this podcast is about. It's celebrating what we're doing because it matters so much. So.Andrea: I think what you're doing is incredible and I think your focus on folks coming out of corporate your focus on you know the perhaps the more experienced of those who are coming out of corporate focusing on women. I think this the Venn Diagram there is like a a super powerful energetic nugget that is.I mean if we can. It's almost like splitting the atom. Right. If we can take that and we can break that apart and exploded into the world. Holy crap we are just going to have this. It will be amazing the impact will be felt by everyone here. I think what you're doing is so important.Patty: I love it. Thank you so much for those words so tell tell the peeps how they can find out more about you member keepers what's the best way for them to connect with you.Andrea: So you can follow me on Twitter. I'm aames you can go to memberkeepers.com. And if my programs open the sales page will be up and if it's not those there's a waitlist there so that will get you on my waitlist and get you signed up for my newsletter. And I also have a free Facebook group if you search for Member Keepers in Facebook.You'll see my Facebook groups so I invite anyone who's interested to join my free Facebook group and get into the conversation and I am really looking forward to connecting with some of your audience in one way or another.Patty: Andrea so important I'm going to be joining the Facebook group I think the work that you're doing is absolutely essential. We didn't talk about the nerdy stuff but your solution impacts the lifetime value of those customers. For the entrepreneur and so it's absolutely vital. People only focus on cost of acquisition. They don't understand LTV lifetime value so what you have to what your value proposition is very important.Andrea: What I'll just I'll just add one geeky thing to that and that is it costs five times more to acquire a customer than it does to retain one. So if you're focused in all of your time on marketing and sales that's marketing sales is very important. Obviously your product doesn't matter if you don't have any customers.But once you start getting customers you have got to split your focus somewhat and spend some time on making those customers wildly successful because that is going to be have so much more impact and the leverage you will have on your time you can spend five times less time with that for the same revenue and value. So yeah it's its huge when you start getting into the "gigi" numbers and things, it's youPatty: It is really significant so I cannot wait to see Member Keepers evolve. And I'd love to have you back on for an update on what's transpiring with your tribe.Andrea: I would be honored to come back.Patty: So thank you so much for being on her legacy podcast. We appreciate you.Andrea: Thanks Patty.Patty: Thank you

Is fear holding you back for being honest about the effectiveness of your content? If so, you are not alone. In this episode, Andrea Ames and Bert Van Loon walk through the history of content in their fields and how re-engineering your focus and skillset can be the best path into your marketing success. https://enterprisemarketer.com/podcasts/m2m/season-01-show-12/

Andrea Ames and Ed Marsh discuss the evolution of the technical communication field, the number of job titles for technical communicators, the frustrations of proving your value, and laugh a lot.Andrea Ames, Content Content podcast episode 21 guest Andrea is the CEO of Idyll Point Group, after a long stint in content strategy and content experience strategy at IBM. Mentioned during this episode: Idyll Point Group on Facebook Andrea’s Content Hacker podcast Don Day and Michael Priestley on the beginnings of DITA part 1 - DITAWriter Don Day and Michael Priestley on the beginnings of DITA part 2 - DITAWriter STC Intercom magazine editorial calendar Amy Porterfield's podcast Michael Hyatt's Lead to Win podcast Michael Hyatt talks about his fear of speaking

Who said a discussion about Intelligent Content can't be as entertaining as it is educational? Definitely not our team at Enterprise Marketer! In our 50th episode of the podcast, Jeff Julian hosts and Pamela Muldoon deals a game of Texas Holdem with our special guest Joe Pulizzi, Andrea Ames, Carlos Abler, and Vishal Khanna. During the show we talk about the future, insights from a new author, define what a Content Engineer is, and have a great time.CONTENT OFFERS We hope you enjoy this content from the Intelligent Content Conference. If you would like access to the amazing session recordings from the event, check out this offer from the Content Marketing Institute: http://contentmarketing.go2cloud.org/SHEThis year, we will be back at Content Marketing World, recording more shows and teaching people about video marketing in our podcast booth. If you would like to join us and save $100 on your registration, visit this page to register: http://contentmarketing.go2cloud.org/SHGBIOGRAPHIESJoe Pulizzi - Joe Pulizzi is the founder of Content Marketing Institute, a UBM company, the leading education and training organization for content marketing, which includes the largest in-person content marketing event in the world, Content Marketing World. Joe is the winner of the 2014 John Caldwell Lifetime Achievement Award from the Content Council. Joe’s the author of five books, including his latest, Killing Marketing coming September 2017. His third book, Epic Content Marketing was named one of “Five Must Read Business Books of 2013” by Fortune Magazine. You can find Joe on Twitter @JoePulizzi. If you ever see Joe in person, he’ll be wearing orange.Vishal Khanna - For the majority of his 15+ year career in marketing, Vishal Khanna has been his organization’s only resource for marketing, communications and media relations. He received the 2015 Content Marketer of the Year award for his groundbreaking work in science content marketing. A former North Carolina Writers’ Fellow, he is currently the marketing and communications resource at HealthPrize Technologies, a digital patient engagement and brand loyalty platform for pharmaceutical brands.Andrea Ames - Andrea L. Ames, M.S., is a Senior Technical Staff Member and Enterprise Content Experience Strategist/Architect/Designer at IBM, where she enables strategic use of IBM's high-value content assets for the most client delight and success and highest business impact. She is a Fellow and past President (2004-05) of STC, a Distinguished Engineer of the ACM (the first technical communicator to achieve this distinction), a Senior Member of the IEEE, and a member of numerous other professional associations. She is the Program Chair for, and designed and teaches in, the UCSC in Silicon Valley certificate program in technical communication; has published two award-winning technical books and numerous papers and articles; and speaks regularly at conferences and professional organization meetings.Carlos Abler - Carlos Abler is Leader of Online Content Strategy for 3M Global eTransformation. Carlos leads a content marketing enablement framework called Content-2-Customer (c2c). C2C supports acceleration of content culture, focusing on champions and initiatives emerging from leadership, corporate CoEs, business service groups, divisions and vendors; activating roadmaps of content excellence cross-functionally and on a global basis. Carlos has a 30 year track record of directing and creating mixed media communications, in a wide variety of disciplines, for a diverse range of clients and purposes; including marketing, theater, entertainment, education, information design and civil society initiatives. Past clients include, Thomson Reuters, Microsoft, General Mills, AARP, Johnson&Johnson, History Channel, Smithsonian, Columbia University and Gyuto Tantric University. Awards include Webby Awards, WSIS World Summit Award, Bronze Anvil, W3 (Gold, Silver, Best in Show) and Communication Arts Interactive Annual for Information Design.Pamela Muldoon - Pamela Muldoon brings over three decades of marketing and media experience to her various roles in the content marketing industry. Her passion is helping brands and individuals get the right content in front of the right audience at the right time. As a content strategist she works with B2B companies to tell a better story while ensuring sales and marketing work together to reach their audience. She merges her background of radio, voice over and podcasting as a consultant and coach, believing that audio is still the most intimate form of content you can produce.

When customers want better content experiences and a personal voice to our brands, the first company you might not think of for an example is IBM. During the 70s, 80s, and 90s, when personal computing started to take off, brands like Apple, Microsoft, Packard Bell, and Compaq were seen as the cool kids. IBM, well that is the machine your father used at work. In this episode, Jeff talks with Andrea Ames, Content Strategist, Architect, and Designer at IBM, about how her team is changing the way IBM approaches to content creation, design, and customer experiences. Enterprise Marketer has partnered with the team at the Content Marketing Institute to provide helpful content to our community through their affiliate programs and events. By purchasing content or registering for their events through us, we may be compensated for this transaction. These proceeds go back into building the community and compensating our contributors.Be sure not to miss out on a great opportunity to purchase the video versions of each session for the Intelligent Content Conference that features great content from folks like Andrea Ames, Pam Didner, Buddy Scalera, Matt Balough, and many more amazing speakers. Click here for your offer: http://emktr.co/ICC17Content Also, we will be at Content Marketing World and we hope you can make it as well. When you register, use promo code SQUARED100 for $100 off the price of your ticket and let us know you are coming. We want to make sure you have a wonderful time and to make sure we get you a special gift for being a member of our community. Go to this link for more information about the event: http://emktr.co/CMWorld17BiographyAndrea L. Ames, M.S., is a Senior Technical Staff Member and Enterprise Content Experience Strategist/Architect/Designer at IBM, where she enables strategic use of IBM's high-value content assets for the most client delight and success and highest business impact. She is a Fellow and past President (2004-05) of STC, a Distinguished Engineer of the ACM (the first technical communicator to achieve this distinction), a Senior Member of the IEEE, and a member of numerous other professional associations. She is the Program Chair for, and designed and teaches in, the UCSC in Silicon Valley certificate program in technical communication; has published two award-winning technical books and numerous papers and articles; and speaks regularly at conferences and professional organization meetings.Job Title: Content Experience Strategist, Architect, & DesignerLinks:Twitter: https://twitter.com/aamesFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/alamesLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreaames/Instagram: http://instagram/alamesWeb: http://thinkmorewriteless.wordpress.com/Corporate: http://ibm.comhttps://enterprisemarketer.com/podcasts/enterprise-marketer-podcast-conference/52-andrea-ames/Short URL: http://emktr.co/EMPC52