Podcasts about aol cds

On the show today, my brother from another mother — Steve Friedman, is the Senior Advisor of Operations for SEER at the National Cancer Institute. (We'll get into all the acronyms later in the show because I know you're looking forward to that.) Steve was diagnosed back in the 1990s with testicular cancer while in his 20s. So he brings with him a profound perspective of progress, not just for young adult cancer, but for cancer policy, research, and institutional growth at the Federal level. While all those free AOL CDs back then drove us crazy, Steve put them to good use and found a community of his peers using what we decided to call "dial-up support." His storied career as a public servant, nonprofit leader, and cancer advocate isn't just inspiring; it's a perfect example of how we can make the most of the time that has been given to us.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Und darauf soll ich nicht rumreiten?

Welcome to another episode of Rick's Rambles! Remember those AOL CDs that used to come in the mail or inside magazines? In our fun facts segment, we dive into the history of AOL and its lasting influence on today's internet culture. Next, we take a trip to England to meet two Labrador Retrievers who've become the beloved mascots of a local church. This heartwarming story will remind you of the incredible bond between humans and dogs. In our Story Behind the Song segment, we break down the classic hit "Piano Man" by Billy Joel. And if you're in the mood for more nostalgia, we've got a bonus segment on the days when you could find records on the backs of cereal boxes! We wrap up with some quirky holidays of the week. Don't forget to share this episode and check out Ruby the Church Beagle on Facebook!

Send us a Text Message.If you're in your 30s, 40s or 50s, you'll relate to this episode! Jeremy Bradley talks about being a computer owner back in the 1990s and early 2000s. The systems were minimal and basic, and, you know what, they were perfectly fine! JB has a laugh talking about his family's 256 MB computer and having to uninstall programs just to free up space to use a scanner they got for Christmas. Plus, the era of dial-up internet -- with the AOL CDs and the squealing phone lines and the virus fears, JB reflects on how slow everything was back then. Could you tolerate that today? Probably not. Later, he talks about how many VCRs he went through as an avid TV watcher and the pain of finding two minutes of a video clip on the six-hour tape.

Who wore combats with bits hanging off them and inexplicably covered her wall in dolphins and free AOL CDS? Kate from LesBeMums that's who! She joins The Phonebox Podcast to chat about her love of Nirvana, Heath Ledger and why the heck were we so obsessed with end of the world movies?You can follow Kate and Sharon on instagram here or read their blog here.For more of me follow @brummymummyof2 on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and TikTok and follow the @phoneboxpodcast account on Instagram for polls and nostalgic fun.If you have any guest suggestions, topics you would like me to cover email admin@brummymummyof2.co.uk and be sure to tag so I can see where you are listening!#90s #90smusic #nostalgia Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bonus Blast from the Dial-Up Era Remember dial-up modems and AOL CDs that came in the mail? 1995 was a transition year in culture. Yes, there were iconic albums (covered in Episode 94) but there were cultural shifts that shaped the years going forward. Ted and Keith talk about: Dial-up days: The internet was in its infancy, and well, people weren't quite sure what to do with it. Just listen to the compilation from the "Today" show that featured to hear how confusing, hopeful, fearful, and annoying the early Internet was to the hosts of the show. Culture in flux: The Telecommunications Act and the Decency Act on media and the rise of social media were two laws that really brought us the reality we're living in today -- for better or worse. What was Keith doing in 1995? Short answer: a new career, attended a lot of live shows in Chicago, and found new music recommendations from a local VJ who had a localized version of MTV. What was Ted doing in 1995? Short answer: losing his hair, on the cusp of becoming a father, and knee-deep in grad studies at UPenn in Philadelphia. 1995. A year of transition.

Originally published August 2014Jan Brandt is a legend in the world of marketing. She singlehandedly led the famous AOL "carpet-bombing" campaign that put millions of AOL trial discs and CDs in everything from magazines to popcorn boxes to banks. AOL was able to leap to the front of the online pack, over competitors like CompuServe and Prodigy largely on the success of this campaign. Jan tells us how this strategy developed, the thinking that went into it and goes into great detail about what worked and what didn't. But she was also a very early AOL executive, so she is able to give us some fantastic background about AOL the company: its culture, its people and its visionaries–people like Steve Case. She takes us from AOL's beginnings, through its considerable growing pains (remember "America On Hold?") its rise to dominance in the dot-com era, and even gives us her perspective on the legacy of the AOL/Time Warner merger.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Why do our guest Gee Ranasinha say marketing is in crisis?  What are some of the most common marketing mistakes made by small businesses?GUEST INFO:Gee Ranasinha has been in marketing since the days of dial-up internet and AOL CDs. Today, he's the CEO of KEXINO, an award-winning marketing agency that helps start-ups and small businesses grow awareness, reputation, trust - and sales. A Fellow of the Chartered Institute Of Marketing, Gee is also Visiting Professor at a European business school, teaching final-year MBA students on Marketing and Behavioral Economics.Outside of work Gee loves to cook, listens to music on a ridiculously expensive hi-fi, and plays jazz piano very badly. Contact info for Gee Ranasinha  

Drew Hendricks was a philosophy major who started in the agency world after building his first website in the 90's and never looked back. Today, he owns Nimbletoad, a full-service digital marketing agency that specializes in website design, SEO, and PPC. Recently, Drew expanded by founding Barrels Ahead, an agency where he adapts his love for wine and developed an organic growth marketing framework to address the unique needs of the wine and craft industry. Drew's conversation with Jason is filled with useful tips from all his years as an agency owner. He shares his secret to convert more proposals as well as why you should be quick to respond when potential clients reach out to you. Agency Owner vs Entrepreneur. The mastermind has really helped Drew understand the difference between being an agency owner and being an entrepreneur. Most agencies come to be as the result of a problem and he has seen that many agency owners focus on being an authority on that problem, instead of being an authority on your agency. Too many people are stuck in actually doing the work rather than kind of treating the agency as the project, he says. If you want to be a business owner then that needs to be your top priority. You can't do both. The secret sauce for proposals. Over the years of writing proposals, Drew has learned something that worked really well to help position the proposal, defray the pricing, and justify it through very objective terms. In the pre-talk process, you will usually ask the client who their competitors are. Then use tech tools to assess competitors' spending on SEO or PPC. When you show this data to your clients you can say, this is how much you need to spend to compete with them. And if they don't want to spend that amount? Then you let them know that maybe they should be playing in a smaller pond. Show enthusiasm. In a world where showing genuine excitement over something is supposed to make you uncool, dare to be different. If a potential client contacts you, call them as soon as you can. Don't be afraid to look too anxious. They'll appreciate the quick response. And that goes for other aspects of the business too. Our guest says he has interviewed many people and forgot the last time someone mentioned they were excited to work with the company. Sponsors and Resources Agency Dad: Today's episode is sponsored by Agency Dad. Agency Dad is an accounting solution focused on helping marketing agencies make better decisions based on their financials. Check out agencydad.money/freeaudit to get a phone call with Nate to assess your agency's financial needs and how he can help you. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Become an Authority on Your Agency and Use This Secret Sauce for Proposals Jason: [00:00:00] What's up, agency owners? Uh, excited to have you listening to the show today. I have one of our long-term mastermind members who has grown several agencies over the years, and really has taken… Today, we're going to talk about the amazing things that he's learned over the years and applied them to his current agency that he's doing right now. I think you're really going to love this episode, so let's get into it. Hey, Drew. Welcome to the show. Drew: [00:00:35] Thank you, Jason. Thank you for having me on. Jason: [00:00:37] So you're the first guest to, uh, actually be in the intro on the mountain, waving back to the drone. So I was just watching that. I was like, oh, there's Drew. So well I digress. Yeah. So tell us who you are and what do you do? Drew: [00:00:58] Yeah. I'm Drew Hendricks. Right now I'm running two agencies. One's Nimbletoad, which is a generalist agency. And the other one is a brand new venture called Barrels Ahead, which is sort of the culmination of everything I've learned over the last 30 years of running agencies. Jason: [00:01:12] Yeah, that's awesome. Uh, and you actually started an agency before me. So tell us kinda how did you get into it? And, uh, it tells us kind of the origin story. Drew: [00:01:24] Yeah, it's, uh, it's, it's kind of an interesting story. So in college, I majored in philosophy and ancient Greek with the goal of becoming a professor of philosophy. And upon graduating, I ended up, um, finding myself in San Francisco and, um, kind of biding my time until I could go get a PhD. And ended up getting a job as a stock boy at a winery and realized I had a really good palate for wine. And from then on, I just sort of started reading everything I could about wine and learning everything I could and figured out that, um, it's super interesting, and there was just so much knowledge that could be done there. So I ended up sticking around for 10 years in that wine store, revamped it to, um, change the name, rebranded it. Wrote one of the first, um, websites back in '90, '95 or so. Wrote a wine auction site. And from there in '98 started the first, um, agency, which was, um, Intellect; which helped independent wine stores compete with, um, better-leveraged chain stores. Like right then BevMo had just started launching, Trader Joe's was coming up in the ranks, and then Total Wine. So we helped wine stores with their marketing. Jason: [00:02:33] Wow. That's incredible. And especially going back to '95. Hell, man, I remember back in 95, we were all getting the AOL CDs for the free internet. Drew: [00:02:44] No, it was, it was, that was definitely the time. Jason: [00:02:47] What was it? Progidy? Drew: [00:02:52] Oh, wow. Pardon? Jason: [00:02:23] Or, or it was Prodigy, right? Like if… Drew: [00:02:56] Oh my God. Before that, no, in college it was Prodigy. I had a Prodigy account that was, you know, there was… In college, I remember the first day that I, that we actually got connected to the internet and I found it so interesting. I went to the school library and I was able to connect. I went to Gonzaga… went to Gonzaga and I was able to connect to the UCSD library down in California. And from there I could get out to a library in Europe and it blew my mind that I was able to go from Gonzaga, to UCSD to Europe. And from then on, I kind of caught the bug and right then HTML, it just started coming into it. And we actually wrote one of the first, um, one of my first philosophy, um, presentations actually at hyperlinks in it back in '92. Jason: [00:03:38] So Front Page or Dreamweaver? Or just plain text editor Drew: [00:03:45] Dreamweaver. It was Dre… but it was, this was precursor to Dreamweaver. Jason: [00:03:47] That's true. Yeah. I guess it was like Netscape Composer. Drew: [00:03:51] Yep. Yeah, it was making… My mind doesn't go back that far as far as the tools, but yeah, it was a lot of, um, Pearl scripts and CGI scripts. Jason: [00:04:01] Yeah. Well awesome. Well, let's, let's talk about kind of the journey or what are, what are some of the lessons, since you've had several agencies over the years. What are some lessons that, um, you'd like to share with the audience listening in? Drew: [00:04:17] I think one of the biggest ones that, and this is one that I only recently have come to the realization of... And it's actually been through this mastermind group, your mastermind group that really helped me realize the difference between an entrepreneur and an agency owner. And the importance of what an entrepreneur is. Because we usually start… most of the agencies that I've founded were the result of a problem. Like, I'd see a client would come in, they'd have an issue and I'd figure out how to solve it. We'd build them a site. We build them like a web platform. And then I figure, man, well, I can sell more of that. And then I become an authority in their problem, but not really even an authority on the actual agency. So what happens is we end up building, we have 10, 12, 15 clients, all, all very different problems, authority in all these different problems, but not an actual authority on running the ads. And I think this last iteration, we took the best of what we knew about and what our skillset is at Nimbletoad. And we're finding experts now to actually perform the processes that we do. Whereas I can now sit back as an entrepreneur and solve the problem of what actually can make that agency grow. And I think too many people are stuck in actually doing the work rather than kind of treating in the agency as the project. Jason: [00:05:36] Yeah. I mean, isn't that so true with, you know, I look at running an agency and kind of like six stages of climbing a mountain, right? So from the staging part, before you embark on, you know, making the climb to base camp; to the climbing, the crux, you know, the crest all the way to the summit. And right in the middle, right? Like it's kind of right in the middle is where you actually start working on the business. Like, that's how you can kind of get to the next level rather than in. And, uh, like I was saying in the mastermind, it's like in the very beginning you're constantly, always thinking about the what and how, and I'm like, no, no, no, you should be focused on who, who can do it? Who do I need to hire? … everyone else but you. Drew: [00:06:24] Yeah. That was a huge learning curve for us and, and for our agency. Figuring out actually that I, I, although I can do it, I'm not the best person to be doing. It was, it was a huge, huge step. Jason: [00:06:36] So how did you get over that? Because there's a lot of people listening right now that they struggle with that. Like, they're literally like, well, no one could do it as good as me. Drew: [00:06:48] You know, it was learning. It was learning to say no. And learning about where do you want to go? Cause really, like you said, would that plateau, if you're trying to be the authority in everything, you're an authority in nothing. So you really have to pick your battle. And if you want to be the best web developer out there, or the best SEO person, go get an in-house job at another agency and you can be the top dog for SEO. But if you want to run a company, that needs to be your top priority and you can't do both. Jason: [00:07:17] Exactly. Yeah. I, I tell people too that like 80% is better than you doing your full thing on it. Because cause you're doing a thousand different things, even if they're not at your a hundred percent, they're still ahead of you because you're doing so much, so many other things. So I'm like just, if you can find someone to do 80% that you know, to get there. Or I was interviewing someone not too long ago, um, who was also the mastermind Canopy guys. And, uh, he was struggling with, you know, delegating, um, and everything had to flow through him. He was like the toll booth of everything that had to go through on operations. And finally, uh, Brian, his partner went to him. It was, his name is Brian as well. So I was like, how did you guys start an agency, Brian and Brian? And he goes, look, I just need you to document 50%. And then that's a good foundation the team can take and build. And it's changed everything for them. And now they're, you know, their, their agency is well, you know, into the summit and beyond. Drew: [00:08:23] Yeah. Those guys are rocking it. Jason: [00:08:24] Yeah. Um, one thing I want to ask you and you, you talked about this, uh, I was just thinking about it. I know, I didn't tell you to pre preplan for it, but you did a incredible what's working now. Um, you know, at the digital agency experience, not too long ago, about proposals, um, of what you've learned. So tell, tell the listeners a little bit about that. Because I thought that was brilliant. Drew: [00:08:49] You know that I'm glad you brought that up. So we, over the years of writing proposals, we, I have figured out, now I don't want to say it's a secret sauce. But it's something that's worked real well to help, um, position the, um, the proposal and defray the pricing and justify it through, um, very, um, objective terms. So what happens in the, um, pre-talk and this is the secret sauce guy. So, you know… Jason: [00:09:17] Listen in. Drew: [00:09:20] So what happens in the pre-talk is you always ask who are your biggest competitors? So if it's an SEO person you're going to ask, um, who do you want to outrank? Or if it's a, um, pay-per-click or if it's even a local business, you need to get a list of the top three or four people that they want to actually outrank and compete against. So then in the, in the proposal stage, you take those three competitors and you run them through your tools, whether it's SpyFu or any of those business intelligence programs; which will give you a good idea of what those competitors are spending on SEO or spending on pay-per-click. This allows you to come up with a proposal and a pricing of that proposal with instant justification. So then when I walked in person through the proposal, a list of the competitors is the first thing. I'm like ok, we went back to our desk, put pencil to paper, you guys want to compete against these people. They're spending X on SEO. This guy's spending X on SEO. And this other third competitor is not spending anything on SEO, but he's spending a ton of paper. So, if we want to compete against these three people, this is where you need to be. And instantly, suddenly the… if the retainer is 10 grand a month, that may be what it is. And if they go, whoa, that's way too much. The instant objectification is, well, you may need to play in a smaller pond cause these aren't your competitors. Jason: [00:10:46] As an agency owner, it's hard to know when you have to make those big decisions. And I remember needing advice for thinking like hiring or firing or re-investing and, you know, when can I take distributions without hurting the agency? You know, we're excellent marketers, but when it comes to agency finances like bookkeeping, forecasting, or really organizing our financial data, most of us are really kind of a little lost. And that's why my friend Nate created Agency Dad specifically to solve these exact problems. You know, at Agency Dad they help agency owners handle the financial part of their agency so they can focus on what they're really good at. Nate has spent years learning the ins and outs of agency business. He understands everything from how to structure your books, to improving the billing process and really managing your financial efficiencies. Agency Dad will show you how to use your financial data to make the key decisions, you know, from making your agency more successful and most importantly, more profitable. If you want to know how your agency finances stack up to the rest of the industry, Agency Dad can tell you that you know how to do that. A lot of my listeners have already gotten their free audit from Agency Dad. If you haven't yet, go to agencydad.money/freeaudit before August 30th and get your free financial metrics. Also, just for smart agency listeners, find out how to get your first month of bookkeeping or dashboarding and consulting for free. It's time to clean up your agency finances and listen to dad. Go to agencydad.money/freeaudit that's agencydad.money/freeaudit. I think it's so brilliant. It's such punching him in the mouth. Uh, you know, I feel like, well, you know, it's kinda like shit or get off the pot. Um, you know, it's like, do you really want to compete against them? Because, and it's, and it's really compelling. Like I never thought about when you, when you shared that, like, that's really interesting. Like, I wish I did that on their proposals. Like if you really want to compete against them, because at the end, like I used to, like, I don't care who your competitors were because, you know, we were in the design business, right? Like, I didn't want to be sidetracked with designing something that looked like someone else. But like with the SEO or the pay-per-click, like you're talking about, like in comparing them… And then hitting them in the mouth going you know what? Maybe, maybe you need to go play in a smaller pond. Like that's fine. +Drew: [00:13:30] No one wants to hear that either. So it's, it's the best objection saying well, that's our pricing. Or it's the best refusal or rebuttal? Jason: [00:13:38] Oh, yeah, no, I, I love it. I mean, uh, we can end the interview now. I think everybody would be happy. Um, what's, what's another strategy, um, that, that you've learned over the years, uh, that you want to share with the audience? Drew: [00:13:54] You know, I would say be quick to respond. So many people worry about, oh, if I'm too quick to respond they're gonna think I'm too anxious. Or let's set up another date, I want them to know that I'm busy, but that's never worked out for me. I think you gotta be genuine. And if you really want it, show your enthusiasm. And actually the other thing is, and this ties into anybody outside of the agency, even applying for a job. We've been interviewing for an operations manager right now. And I've been through so many interviews, I cannot tell you the last time someone actually ended the interview saying I'm really excited about this position. I feel like I'd be a great fit. I can't wait to work for you. And the same thing when you're seeing a proposal or you're talking, everybody plays hard to get. If you're excited about winning the client, be honest and be enthusiastic. Let them know that you are stoked to be doing this. And I don't see that too often. Jason: [00:14:47] Yeah. It's such an easy thing. And like, if I wish we could actually have the permission to use, uh, the cut from Vince Vaughn in Swingers, when, you remember? When, when the one guy gets the girl's phone number. And he goes through his friends with how long should I wait? And they're like seven days, eight days, two weeks. And he's like calling her like over and over again. Like we've all seen that. And, uh, you know, I took, I took the approach you took, Drew. So if someone reached out on our website, I literally would call them while they're still on the website. And I would always call and I would say, hey, this is Jason from Solar Velocity. I'm so sorry. It took me so long to call you back. They're like, I just hit submit. I'm like, well, that's how pumped we are. Like, we really want to chat with you. And like, thinking back, we won so many deals. Like we are almost a quarter way done the deals when they actually would be like, hey, you know, we're still getting proposals. Like the first proposals from reaching out to people. I'm like idiots, you guys watched the movie swingers. Drew: [00:15:57] Yep. Yep. That is definitely did show enthusiasm and ask, ask for the sale. Jason: [00:16:03] That's an important thing too. Ask for the sale, you know, um, I'm doing training for you guys coming up, uh, around sales and like one of the parts that as I was doing this training, I was like, when we're auditing our salespeople, um, which you should be doing weekly. You know, one of the things you should be looking for is, is your sales person asking for the sale? Like that's the most important part. That's kind of like giving away everything and then going all right, well, chat with you later. Like ask for the freaking sale. Brilliant, awesome. Drew, this has been amazing, man. I don't know. What's taken me so long to get you on the podcast. So I'm so glad. And I'm glad that we actually saw you on the podcast on the mountain waving. Drew: [00:16:55] Oh, yeah. That' not….for listeners that don't know Jason's got a mountain's house, Swenk mountain. It's quite the climb, but beautiful view looking over the, over the lake and that's awesome. Jason: [00:17:10] Yeah, it was, it was fun. Especially the first year, you've been out there twice. And the first year it was kind of fun. No one really knew what to expect hiking up and at high elevation. And, uh, it was kind of fun watching… Drew: [00:17:23] Yeah, cause you were at like 10,000 feet or no? Jason: [00:17:25] Uh, no, the, the, the top of the mountain is, uh, 8200. Drew: [00:17:31] 82? See, I get the elevations all messed up. I was talking with another member of the mastermind about going over engineer paths on, on, on my podcast. Jason: [00:17:39] That was 13,000. Drew: [00:17:42] On the podcast. I talked about how we went over a 10,000-foot peak. I think it's a little higher. Jason: [00:17:48] Yeah. So the one we took the ATVs? Uh, yeah, that was 13,000. Um, so you were way up there above the… Drew: [00:17:56] That was an incredible experience. Jason: [00:17:58] Yeah. I'm so glad I can't wait for you guys to come back out. Um, is there anything I didn't ask you, Drew, that you think would benefit the audience? Drew: [00:18:07] I would say just figure out what you don't know. Figure out what you don't do and start there. I think there's a TV commercial that… maybe Matthew McConaughey was talking about that, but. Don't say yes to everything and figure out what you don't want to do, and then find a referral partner to refer that out to. That's so important because you don't have to actually lose the business. You can get the business back with a referral to another agency. Jason: [00:18:33] Yeah. Awesome. Or I'll say all right, all right. Um, where, uh, where can people check out the agency? Drew: [00:18:41] Go to barrelsahead.com and you can find me on Twitter at @DrewHendricks. Um, Facebook @DrewHendricks. Jason: [00:18:50] Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Drew, for coming on the show. You've rocked it. You killed it. A lot of really good, uh, information and strategies that people can go execute now. So if you guys liked this and you want to hear more of this and be surrounded by really cool people like Drew and so many others. Uh, I'd love to have you guys all check out the digitalagencyelite.com. Should be scrolling up or for the listeners. I mean, it's pretty easy name. That's why we picked it: digitalagencyelite.com. Go there, check it out. And it's an amazing group of people growing and sending the mountain faster together rather than all alone by your lonesome self. So, and until next time have a Swenk day.

Are you creating a solid recurring revenue stream for your agency? Dan Sundgren has been involved in the digital marketing industry since he became one of the first employees at Google around 2003. After years of witnessing the rise of that tech giant, he eventually started his digital agency, FreeGren, which specializes in SEM, SEO, SMM and Website Development and Maintenance. He sat down with Jason to talk about the lessons he learned at Google about breaking the rules and how there's always a different way to look at things. He also talked about his decision to work with contractors rather than having employees, and why recurring revenue is the goal. 3 Golden Nuggets Breaking the rules. Working at Google for many years since its beginning Dan had the opportunity to witness how that company grew, broke many rules, and created a new paradigm for corporations. One of the lessons he carries with him from that time is that you don't necessarily have to follow hard and fast rules. There's always a different way to look at things. And it's good to remember that you can flip things on their head and think about it differently. Working with contractors. Another learning experience with Google was the way they took care of their employees. However, Dan and his partner decided early on that they would work with independent contractors. To do this, Dan spent years building a network of trusted partners that have now worked with him for years. He relies on them to do the heavy lifting. It has its own complications, as Dan admits, but he exclusively works with people he can trust. After all, it takes years to build a reputation and a name and he doesn't want to sabotage that by doing crappy work. Recurring revenue is the goal. Like Frank Kern a few weeks ago, Dan talks about how he chose to scale slow and make sure his agency had solid recurring revenue streams for PPC, SEO, website maintenance, etc, where it is very repeatable. Now this gives him the tools to make pretty accurate forecasts, to the point that he can tell where his agency will be in 12 months. Sponsors and Resources Wix: Today's episode is sponsored by the Wix Partner Program. Being a Wix Partner is ideal for freelancers and digital agencies that design and develop websites for their clients. Check out Wix.com/Partners to learn more and become a member of the community for free. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM Contractors vs Employees and Remember that Recurring Revenue is the Goal Jason: [00:00:00] Hey, agency owners. Welcome to another episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass. I am Jason Swenk and I have an amazing guest, Dan. We're going to talk about his building his agency over the past four years. But also what he's learned. He's one of the very first employees at Google. Um, I think he was telling me back in 2003 or 2004, he can correct me in a, in a second. Um, and we're going to talk about really amazing things. So I can't wait. Um, but before we get into the episode, I want you to do something. I want you to take a screenshot of the podcast and then upload it to your favorite social media. Tag us, so I can give you a shout-out for listening to the show. And let's go ahead and jump into it and talk to Dan. Hey, Dan. Welcome to the show. Dan: [00:00:53] Thanks for having me, Jason. Jason: [00:00:54] Yeah, man, excited to have you on. So tell us who you are and what do you do? Dan: [00:00:59] Uh, my name is Dan Sundgren. Uh, I started an agency over four years ago with a partner of mine, Scott Freeborn. The Genesis of our agency is FreeGren. After a long and laborious naming process, we mashed our names up at five o'clock and decided to call it good. And we named our company FreeGren because we're a 50-50 two-headed beast. And we've just had a blast last four years building our little agency up here in the Northwest. Um, Scott came from Dexcom Media. Um, my experience was with Google, and AOL, and Merkel. Uh, worked in-house and built teams for 20 plus years. Done quite a few things. And, uh, managed, in my estimation, over a billion dollars in paid advertising. Which at the very least gives me some scars on my back to figure something out, uh, you know, in the future. So, so that's what we're doing. Jason: [00:01:58] So I have one question that I have to ask, are you the one that would send out the AOL CDs to us? Dan: [00:02:04] Yeah, no, I, I think, I think, yeah, those were the… Jason: [00:02:09] For all the old people. Uh, for us to get on the internet, AOL literally used to send out CDs so we can get on the internet and they give us like 50 hours. Dan: [00:02:18] Yeah. The stacks of CDs, just carpet bombed in, in the mailboxes. Yeah. Jason: [00:02:24] I love it. Well, um, tell us, uh, you know, what, what did you do for Google? Um, and tell us a little bit about the early days. And did I get it right in the intro? Was it 2003 or four? Dan: [00:02:39] Yeah, I started, um, towards the end of 2003. Jason: [00:02:43] Wow. It must have been crazy seeing all that growth. Dan: [00:02:48] It, it was wild. Um, we were, obviously, we weren't public yet. Um, we would go down to campus in Mountain View because we started the Seattle office, a handful of us to really support the sales operation. The engineers weren't even here yet. And, um, we have these global sales summits down there every year for the first three years, I think. Which were, we would like rent, Google would rent the village of Lake Tahoe and just run wild and engineers would be running around with bottles of booze and it was a, it was a wild time. It was a very wild time. Um, got to meet chef Charlie who's, I don't know if you know the backstory, but Larry and Sergei hired The Grateful Dead chef. So chef Charlie was the guy who invented the entire food ecosystem at Google with just this gorgeous spreads and sushi bars and, you know, the works, right. That was his Genesis of, of like taking extra good care of people with their, you know, their stomachs. So it was really crazy to watch them reinvent the way companies even think about employees. Really, that's what they were doing. Jason: [00:03:56] I love the movie Internship that features Google like pre-show. Is it really like that? And you're like, no, it's just a lot more drinking. Dan: [00:04:07] I was, again, I was in the sales team, so, yeah. Um, so there was definitely, there was a definitely a class system at Google. Um, and I think there's still, it's very engineering-run. Um, sales is sort of, I think in the big picture at the company sales and marketing and sort of a nice to have, I guess we've got to have those folks. But really the brain it always has been is with engineers. It's an engineering-driven company. Um, not all tech companies are though, right? Some are very sales rooty. You know, um, some are a little of both. But they're still the hardcore… The engineers are running it. We know what's best for the user, blah, blah, blah. And I, you know, I don't know what it is today because it's so big, but… Jason: [00:04:53] Yeah, well, I remember, um, my dad was my stockbroker for many, many years. I remember when Google was about to go public and I said, I want to buy stock. I want to buy a lot of stock. Um, and he goes, no, no, no. $45 is way too much. Dan: [00:05:12] Reverse Dutch Auction. Yeah. I remember they came out with that and the engineers again decided, and Larry, and so you're like, we're smarter than the market. We're going to do a Reverse Dutch Auction and all the brokers were like, you can't do that. Like why not? And they did, they've constantly done things that are contrary to what you're supposed to do. Which I always found super refreshing, especially when I was working there. But I've watched them for the last 17, 18 years… geez. Continue to do things that sometimes you scratch your head and like… There's always something, right? Like Jason, like, oh, no broad match modified is going away. Or there's a big algo(rithm) change. I'm like, yeah. Okay. They're, they're just going to keep, I mean, of course, they're constantly…. Jason: [00:05:58] So, what, what have you learned from them and your years at Google? And did you guys call each other Googlers? Um, what did you guys…? Dan: [00:06:08] Googlers, yeah. I got my… Right behind me is my hat. See the new that's called a Noogler hat. Jason: [00:06:11] Oh, it is true. Dan: [00:06:16] You had to wear it your first day. It had a propeller. Jason: [00:06:19] Oh, that's funny. That's… Dan: [00:06:21] Yeah. Around campus. So it's, it's a real thing. Um, I think what I've taken away is that you don't necessarily have to have hard and fast rules. There's, there's always a different way to look at things. Um, there's always a different way to flip things on their head and kind of think about it differently. But, um, they inherently do obsess over their employees. They, they take ridiculously good care. And again, now it's 150,000 people, definitely different company, but it was clear from the get-go that this was a new paradigm of corporations. Of… We want to take care of every need you have. And your personal life as well. I mean, nursing station and dry cleaning and like… All that stuff, it all kind of adds up to you feel like you're in a very comfortable environment that you don't have to worry about a lot and you can just do great work. And really they have the 10, was it the 10 per 10% time or 20% time? Sorry, 20. Which again, one of those little Google things like take a day every week and just spitball stuff. Like, you know, that was unheard of, really. HP and Dell weren't doing that. Jason: [00:07:31] No, no, they were too corporate. Dan: [00:07:36] Yeah. It, you know, and so we, we try to like, with our little agency, we don't have any employees, actually. Um, we built a virtual agency from day one, Scott and I, um, have very, very deeply in, in trusted partners. And we rely on them to do a lot of the heavy lifting and the nitty gritty. But that's for, with 20 years of vetting really good partners that we've entrusted those people as part of our company. But they're independent contractors. Jason: [00:08:07] Yeah. Well, let's talk about that because I mean, you're, uh, a couple of million in revenue. And it's just you two, but you guys use contractors and strategic partners. And a lot of people are like, well, how do you do that? Right? Like what, like walk us through that a little bit. Dan: [00:08:27] Yeah. That's probably the hardest thing to do and also the most important. Um, luckily I've been very involved for 20 years in, uh, marketing, uh, networking groups. So, um, we have a group up here in the Northwest called Seattle Interactive, and, uh, um, I've been on the board of that since the inception. There's another group in Portland that's fantastic. It's um, they, they throw a search fast every year. It's SCM PDX, and I'm sort of the Seattle liaison there. So over the years. Um, I've slowly built this base on, you know, LinkedIn for instance of four or 5,000 people that I've met and talk to and, you know, kiss babies and shook hands and work the floor and how it got out there. And, and through that Genesis, you start to build, um, a couple things, a big, big network. But also, B, uh, sort of the spidey sense of people that you would want to work with and you can inherently trust and, um, you can feed off each other in a positive way. So you can kind of weed through a lot of that. And the metamorphosis of that great network is when we started this, I had just started calling people and I was like, so-and-so is really good. We should talk to them. And putting those p… those building blocks in place, and those partners are with us today, four years later. So, yeah, but it's hard and there's challenges, right? Not having employees versus outsourcing. Um, I'll be the first one to admit that when we were looking to scale a little bit and, you know, when people tap out, as far as their time and what they have to give you, because they have other clients too. We have to find some bench strength and that's, you know, we were very, very careful and meticulous about that. Jason: [00:10:21] Um, so how are you always recruiting that talent then and making sure like you can fill…? Dan: [00:10:30] Yeah. Uh, it's through, through my network, um, asking, you know, just literally asking around and talking to different folks, remembering people. Oh, you know that, I remember that guy was a WordPress developer. I met him. He was solid. Kind of, we interview and vet them like you might an employee, but for what they do as a contractor. And we have some hard and fast rules. We are myopic; I'll admit it, like we are US-based. We, uh, we just are myopic that way. I want… and even selfishly I'd like them to be on the West Coast. And even more, it would be great if they're in the backyard in Seattle or Portland. Because there's just so much great talent and good people. And then, you know, there's sort of that affinity. And, um, when you build a big network, you have a reputation to uphold and you know this as well as anyone, right? Um, your, your name is your brand, is your worth, uh, to sort of the greater… thing out there, which is business. And, uh, I take that pretty seriously. Like you, you know, if you spend 20 years nurturing a career, you don't want to sabotage that going, you know, by going out and doing crappy work and not taking care of clients. And, you know, because the word kind of gets out and you just don't want to be that person. You just want to continue to keep that bar high. Jason: [00:11:56] When you're an agency partner with Wix, you want unlock an entire digital ecosystem for creating, managing, and growing your agency. Get the full coding and design freedom to create anything your clients need. Along with the tools to manage and collaborate with your team seamlessly from anywhere. And when it comes to growing your agency, you can get matched with new leads every day and earn revenue share for every website you guys create. They're backed by the Wix Industry, leading security and site performance. You'll also have a dedicated account manager on standby 24/7. So you can reach your goals and start setting new ones. See for yourself, head over to wix.com/partners. And re-imagine what your agency can accomplish. Well, it takes what? 20 years to build a brand? And one second to tear it down. Dan: [00:12:56] Yeah, right? Yeah. Good adage. Jason: [00:12:59] Right? Like, we've seen that with many, I mean, I used to work for Arthur Anderson out of school. Right? And so we saw, you know, that was one of the biggest brands out there in the consulting practice. And then foom! You know, gone. So it's, uh, it's, you gotta be very, very careful, um, at that. Um, what is, this has all been amazing. I love to kind of see the origin story and how you kind of tapped into that. Is there anything else that I didn't ask you that you think, you know, the audience would benefit from of what you've learned over the past four years of have grown your agency, and congrats, very quickly? Dan: [00:13:45] Thanks. Um, well, a few, a few nuggets. I think that, um, and again, uh, I'm super transparent and love to share like you, so nothing's sort of off the table there. Um, but some nuggets that we picked up, um, from the get-go and still hold true are… Like the recurring revenue piece to me is the goal. Um, I just don't, I don't know how these web development shops go out and build their book every year. I, it's a head-scratcher it just seems like a nightmare to me. That's just my 2 cents. Um, so we built, um, really solid recurring revenue streams in for PPC, SEO, website maintenance and hosting. Um, where it's very repeatable it's, um, we can, we can forecast with it pretty well. Um, let me, I can tell you probably in 12 months where we'll be, you know, in the big picture and, um, it continues to build on itself. And we built our agency purposely pretty slow where I, I call it like we're, like a snake, right? Like we'll eat a big mouse and then we'll just, we'll take some time and digest. And, you know, we won't worry about getting a new client until we get that one dialed in and really plugged in and make their phone ring. Then we'll move, we'll move into the next, next mouse. And so we built it really slow on purpose with that recurring revenue in place. So that we have a predictable business model and that's, that's kind of been something that's been really critical to our success, I think. Um, and then do, you and I were talking before the show, uh, one of the best things you can do is figure out what you don't know. Like what are your blind spots? Um, and what's, and what's coming, right? Because, um, I was selling 88 x 31 banners in 99. And that was it. And 468 x 60s. So clearly things have gotten a little different Jason: [00:15:40] A little bit. Little change. Dan: [00:15:43] A little bit. Uh, yeah, it's always changing in, in social media and like, um, all the new flavors of media. You're still trying to reach an audience, but there's just different ways to do it. Different platforms, what's up and coming? Um, You gotta break some eggs to make an omelet. And you know, if Pinterest is something that we should try for our clients, let's give it a chest. Let's not be afraid to just, I don't want to stay like, this is what we do. These are the four channels we, we only know. Um, but also not, you know, spread yourself too thin and try and stay in your lane a little bit. So it's that balance, right? Jason: [00:16:16] Yeah, it totally is. Yeah. I mean, I totally agree with you on recurring revenue. Like it's… We all want, like, we all get into the agency space or create a business for predictability and freedom and money. But a lot of times we create this kind of prison around us and we don't have predictability. We don't have freedom, we don't have money. Right? Like, and we keep hiring more people. Um, but, uh, you know, when you actually start figuring out some of that. Like our, our agency, we were 80% project-based. And how we got through it and how we create a predictability is we just created a huge pipeline. Like I was chatting with a good buddy of mine a little while ago, and he was talking about how he's starting to resent some of his clients. And I told him, I said, look, buddy, like you're resenting your clients because you have a lead generation problem because you're too reliant on the existing client base. Rather than having a over abundance of people coming to you. And then you just pick it up. And then charging what you're actually worth. Um, so, but I, I agree with you on the recurring revenue. And also too, like, if you're not always learning… Like that's always been a core value in our agency and our business now. Even when we bring on people in the mastermind I'm like, you have to always be like, am I, what am I learning today? What are the lessons that today taught me? Or what are the lessons that the mistakes that I made last week or two seconds ago? Which happens a lot. That's what my team tells me a lot. Dan: [00:17:56] No, absolutely. And knowing when to say no and stay, when I say stay in your lane, Jason, is like… If a client came and said, hey, do you guys do TV and radio? We just, we trust you implicitly with the digital. I would be the first one to go. You know, we absolutely don't have any core expertise. That's just that staying in your lane, you know, that's, it's hard enough to stay on top of what we do do. Um, but maybe I could find a partner or, you know, maybe I could, I could vet, ask around that around town, whatever. Um, I think a lot of you get in that trap of no, let's do everything, you know, let's do 15 different disciplines. Um, and if you do want to get into that, you know, subject matter experts, either employees or contractors and get someone good to really do the work. Don't pretend you can, you know, learn on the fly sometimes if you're going to slot that in. Jason: [00:18:50] Yeah. And when you go to your clients that like, they give you that great honor, and be like, we trust you explicitly to do this and you go, hey, we don't feel comfortable with it, but let me connect you to two or three people. Like you, like, you're the connector. Like they will always come to you and they're coming to you for a problem and they'll keep coming rather than you take on a project that you just totally botch. And then it's just, it's over. Dan: [00:19:20] Yeah. Yeah. And then you're setting yourself up really, if you, if you take that, that other path, I think. Um, and trust, is it, I mean, that's, I guess if one, I mean, that's the big one, right? That's the cornerstone of everything is, is trust. And you probably hear time again from the best client relationships are that just it's like relationship. Like you've gone through the fire, you've broken some eggs to make the omelet. You've, you've fixed things that have broken. But you know what? That's good because it's like the Nordstrom thing, right? When, when you go to Nordstrom, I dunno, I haven't  been in Nordstrom for years. But their whole mantra was you don't like it? We'll, we'll take care of it. Like we're just going to take care of it, and you just know that when you go in. Um, it's that white glove service, you know, things are going to go haywire, but we will fix them. We'll make it right. We'll, we'll answer our phone. Um, I can't tell you how much negligence we continue to run into in the agency world. It's kind of, it's kind of disturbing, still, to take a client from an agency off the road and… They have no idea what they're getting. They just been stroking a check for 10 years. The guy won't call them back. They don't, they don't know where their Google analytics and their data is. They have no idea what's going on and they're paying like eight grand a month for 10 years. And the guy that won't courtesy call them back and it's still happening. And that's kind of why we started our, our shop because, um, Scott, uh, worked at a company and a lot of that was happening and you're just like, that shouldn't still be happening. Jason: [00:20:59] Yeah, I, it's amazing. So many people go to me as they're starting out and they go, uh, what's, what's the secret to scaling fast? I say, you have to be better than everyone else in the service that you deliver. Like, because I see so many, uh, these people will be nameless, but there are so many people that are really good at marketing themselves and selling. But then on delivering they fall down. And they're like, why can't we grow? But then they keep putting out content to show people that… I'm like, good gosh, like, your model is broken. Like, take that dog behind the shed and shoot it, like stop. You're not built for this, so… But, uh, yeah. It's uh, yeah, so it's a, it's always a breath of fresh air when I find people that can deliver results and that actually care, you know, uh, about that. So congrats on your success. Um, what's the website address where people can go and check out the agency? Dan: [00:22:05] It's free. freegren.com. Jason: [00:22:09] Awesome. Dan: [00:22:09] Or, or Jason, you can go to nobullshit.agency. Jason: [00:22:14] Oh, I like that one better. You should lead with that one. Dan: [00:22:18] And, and you'll, and you'll end up on our, on our homepage. Jason: [00:22:21] There you go. No bullshit dot agency? Oh, I love that. Yeah. Go there. Use that URL. That's way better. Dan: [00:22:29] You know? Um, it's, it's, it's a little, I guess, you know, it'd be a little bit, yeah, you know, in your face. Jason: [00:22:36] No, no. Like, like the people that you want to work with, just since you said that, like the people that you don't want to work with, they'll be the ones that get offended. It's kind of like what I say on the mastermind, like on our mastermind page, like our first core value is no douche bags. And if you're offended by it, well, you're probably not going to do well. Dan: [00:23:03] Yeah, yeah. We use the Tommy boy quote, you know, I will, you know, I can trust the butcher and put my head up cow's ass, but I might as well trust the butcher, you know, that, that old quote. Jason: [00:23:12] Exactly. I can quote that whole movie. Guarantee it's the best part. I got time. Dan: [00:23:23] Yeah, the movie quote. I can talk and movie quotes probably for a good five minutes. Jason: [00:23:27] Um, I think we should just come up with a podcast just to talk movie quotes, do it. Dan: [00:23:33] We should do it. We should do it. That'd be a challenge. Can you, how long can you talk and movie quotes? Jason: [00:23:36] Oh, I could do it for a long time. I mean, I just go back to the eighties and nineties movies that I grew up on, you know, exactly Happy Gilmore, Billy Madison. Dan: [00:23:49] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Jason: [00:23:51] All those. Sorry. We're so derailed. What about hosting? Dan: [00:23:56] I like derailing. Derailing is good sometimes. Jason: [00:24:01] Well, awesome. Well, everyone go check out, um, nobullshit.agency. I love that URL. See, I even remember it. I don't even remember the other one. So, yeah, that's memorable. So go check that out. And um, if you guys want to be surrounded by amazing agency owners, because look… We all have blind spots like we talked about and other people can see them a lot better. I want to invite all of you to go to the digitalagencyelite.com and, uh, see if you qualify to be with the best agency owners all over the world, sharing what's working now. So you guys can grow your agency and scale it a lot faster and create that predictability, that freedom and the money that you want, and really the impact that you can have on the world. So go do that now. And until next time, have a Swenk day.

That was four days ago, five days ago and more on today's CrossPolitic Daily News Brief This is Toby Sumpter. Today is Friday, August 20, 2021. Politics of Sex Conference We really believe that the Fight Laugh Feast Conference is unlike any other conservative Christian conference in the world, maybe even the universe. We here at CrossPolitic believe that we in the West are suffering from a really bad case of BS runs. From Fox News to CBN, we suffer fools gladly, and serve our flattery up with slick hair cuts and big boobs. Haven't you had enough of that already? At the Fight Laugh Feast Conference we don't promise to always be right, but we promise to be afraid of no truth and to tell it unvarnished with the sharp edge always pointed ourselves first. The whole world began with a wedding in a garden, and the whole world is heading toward another wedding in a garden city. Sex is political, what happens in the bedroom never stays there. We are building cultures and kingdoms in our families, in our living rooms, at the dining room table, and yes, in our bedrooms. So join us in Nashville, TN Sep. 9-11 with Voddie Baucham, Douglas Wilson, David Bahnsen, Doug TenNaple, George Grant, C.R. Wiley, Gary Demar, Ben Merkle, Summer Jaeger of the Sheologians, Nancy Wilson, Bekah Merkle, A.D. Robles, Darren Doane, and more. We kick off with beer and Psalms on Thursday night and close it all out with a family style Sabbath dinner Saturday evening. What about the people falling from planes? That was Four, that was Five Days Ago Play Audio Why does that matter? We don't know The Talban is Having an Existential Crisis? https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1428322103040876544?s=20 Play: 0:03-0:19 Safe Passage for Americans? Play: 0:44-0:53 Safe Passage? Safe Passage? There are reports of 10-15,000 Americans still in Afghanistan, and reports today that the US State Department is charging American citizens to be evacuated. You can COVID vaccines for free. You can get stimulus checks sent around like AOL CDs coming in the mail (back in the day). But you can't get safe passage back home when your country suddenly pulls out of a terrorist region. This is one of the legitimate jobs of civil government – protecting the lives of the innocent. Punishing criminals and bad guys. https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1428008787521150978?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1428008787521150978%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.foxnews.com%2Fpolitics%2Fuk-mp-shameful-biden-afghan-troops-ran Play: 2:19-3:03 Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat It's so Bad Even the British Parliament Holds Biden in Contempt for Afghan Debacle https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/uk-parliament-holds-biden-in-contempt-for-afghanistan-withdrawal/ The United Kingdom's Parliament on Wednesday held President Joe Biden in contempt for his withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, calling the move "catastrophic" and "shameful." Members of Parliament, including some who served alongside U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, accused Biden of "throwing us and everybody else to the fire" with his decision to withdraw. They also attacked Biden for his "shameful" criticism of the Afghan National Army and said it was "dishonourable" to blame Afghanistan's fighting force for the Taliban's takeover. Chad Robichaux is Also Embarrassed for America Play Play Bomb Threat on Capitol Hill https://www.wsj.com/articles/congressional-office-building-evacuated-after-police-find-suspicious-vehicle-11629383785?mod=hp_listb_pos2 When asked about it, Biden said that was like four days ago, or five days ago at least. Fight Laugh Feast Magazine https://flfnetwork.com/product/fight-laugh-feast-magazine/ Our Fight Laugh Feast Magazine is a quarterly issue that packs a punch like a 21 year Balvenie, no ice. Order a yearly subscription for yourself and then send a couple yearly subscriptions to your friends who have been drinking luke-warm evangelical cool-aid. Every quarter we promise quality food for the soul, wine for the heart, and some Red Bull for turning over tables. Our magazine will include cultural commentary, a Psalm of the quarter, recipes for feasting, laughter sprinkled through out the glossy pages, and more. Psalm of the Day: To the Word – Isaiah 8 Play Remember you can always find the links to our news stories and these psalms at crosspolitic dot com – just click on the daily news brief and follow the links. This is Toby Sumpter with Crosspolitic News. You can find this and all of our shows at Crosspolitic.com or on our app, which you can download at your favorite app store, just search “Fight Laugh Feast”. A reminder: if you see news stories and links that you think we should cover on the daily news brief, please send them to news @ crosspolitic.com and don't forget to check deft wire dot com where we are constantly posting all our stories. Support Rowdy Christian media, and share this show or become a Fight Laugh Feast Club Member. You always get a free Fight Laugh Feast t-shirt with a membership and remember if you didn't make it to the Fight Laugh Feast Conference or Rally, club members have access to all the talks and lots more. Join today and have a great day.

On the show today, my brother from another mother — Steve Friedman, is the Senior Advisor of Operations for SEER at the National Cancer Institute. (We'll get into all the acronyms later in the show because I know you're looking forward to that.) Steve was diagnosed back in the 1990s with testicular cancer while in his 20s – so brings with him a profound perspective of progress, not just for young adult cancer, but for cancer policy, research, and institutional growth at the Federal level. While all those free AOL CDs back then drove us crazy, Steve put them to good use and found a community of his peers using what we decided to call "dial-up support." His storied career as a public servant, nonprofit leader, and cancer advocate isn't just inspiring; it's a perfect example of how we can make the most of the time that has been given to us. Enjoy the show.Follow us on social media:Out of Patients: @MZOutofPatients on TwitterMatthew Zachary: @MatthewZachary on Twitter & FacebookOffScrip Media: @OffscripMedia on Twitter & FacebookPrivacy Policy and California Privacy Notice.

I've often described a career in IT as "long stretches of soul-crushing depression, punctuated by brief moments of manic euphoria, which are inevitably followed by yet another long stretch of soul-crushing depression". How do we, as IT professionals, remember to (as the old song goes) "accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative, don't mess with Mister In-Between.” In this next episode, Doug and Leon explore how our religious/moral/ethical POV offers ways to help keep us positive in our work lives; and how our tech experiences tell us when we hit a rocky stretch of road in our faith journey. Listen or read the transcript below. Intro (00:01): [Music] Leon Adato (00:32): Welcome to our podcast, where we talk about the interesting, frustrating and inspiring experiences we have as people with strongly held religious views working in corporate IT, we're not here to preach or teach you our religion. We're here to explore ways we make our career as IT professionals mesh, or at least not conflict, with our religious life. This is Technically Religious. Leon Adato (00:53): I've often described a career in IT as long stretches of soul crushing depression, punctuated by brief moments of manic euphoria, which are inevitably followed by yet another long stretch of soul crushing depression. How do we, as IT professionals remember to, as the old song goes, accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative latch on to the affirmative and don't mess with Mister in-between I'm Leon Adato. And the other voice that you're going to hear on this episode is my longtime friend and partner in podcasting crime, Doug Johnson. Doug Johnson (01:24): Hey, how you doing? Leon Adato (01:26): I'm doing okay. Um, and before we kick off this topic, which I am really excited, I'm celebrating the chance that we have the fact that we have a chance to get to this. Um, I want to do some shameless self promotion. So Doug, bup bupa! Yes, exactly. Again, celebrate. So Doug, why don't you kick it off? Who are you? Where can people find you? If they want to know more about Doug Johnson (01:48): I'm Doug Johnson. I am the chief technical officer for a company called wave RFID, which is my side gig, actually becoming a real company. We hired our first employee. Oh my gosh. Leon Adato (02:00): Celebrate! Doug Johnson (02:00): I'm going to have to be an. Whee! Okay. Uh, I'm also a web developer for Southwestern health resources. My day job. Uh, you can reach me on Twitter's at Doug Johnson. That's D U G J O H N S O N because there are so many Doug Johnson's in the world. I had to drop the O, that's just the way it is. Uh, you can a website way by rfid.net. If you want to hear what we're doing and I'm an evangelical Christian, but not one of the crazy ones. Leon Adato (02:28): Got it. Okay. And, uh, just to close the circle, I am Leon Adato. I'm a head geek. Yes. That's actually my job title at SolarWinds, a company that has nothing to do with solar or wind. It's a monitoring software vendor, uh, based out of Austin, Texas, you can find me on the Twitters at Leon Adato. I haven't dropped any letters. It's all the way it sounds. My website is a Datto systems.com where I wax philosophical about things, both technical and religious. I identify as an Orthodox Jew and occasionally my rabbi even admits to knowing me too. Um, now if you're scribbling that stuff down, stop it, put your hands back on the wheel, pay attention to the road. Uh, we will have show notes out and all the things that we talk about, the links, even to the lyrics for accentuate, the positive are going to be in the show notes. You can find them there so you don't need to write them. All right. So I want to frame this topic before we get started, there was a tweet that came out as tweets do a little while ago from Anna the distracted gardener. She's actually taken it down. I think it created so much, uh, uh, traffic that she needed, muting wasn't enough. She deleted it, but, uh, it reads like this. My eight year old in the car today said, do you want me to throw the confetti in my pocket? Me; No, not in the car. What? Wait, why do you have confetti in your pocket? My eight year old. It's my emergency confetti. I carry it everywhere in case there's good news. So reading that just made me think, yeah, there, there are unexpected moments where we have to celebrate things. And what if we're not prepared? Now, perhaps carrying a bag of emergency confetti around in your pocket is a little extreme, but yes, I actually do now have a bag of emergency confetti in my pocket. Doug Johnson (04:17): I may have to do this. Leon Adato (04:20): I have it, I can't wait till we start traveling because going through TSA is going to be a really interesting conversation. Doug Johnson (04:26): That will be interesting. Leon Adato (04:28): sir. What is this? What is it? It's my emergency. Confetti. Your, your what? Doug Johnson (04:34): Oh, man. Leon Adato (04:36): Do you want to keep it? Yeah, I kind of do like I get, I'm just, I'm waiting, right? It's either going to go wonderfully gloriously fun, or it's going to be the reason why someone has to post bail for me. Doug Johnson (04:46): Exactly. They're going to smile or I'm going to have to come down to the airport. Leon Adato (04:49): It's going to be a cavity search. It's going to be something like that. Right? So, uh, Doug Johnson (04:54): Ooh! You need to eat confetti before you go that way. Leon Adato (04:56): Oh man. No, no, no, no, no. Okay. This took a weird left turn. Um, so there was, that was part of it. The other part, I was listening to an episode on NPR. And once again, we're going to have links to the episode in our show notes, um, where they interviewed Lee Horton, how he and his brother, uh, were released from prison after 25 years, uh, having been wrongly accused. And he had said some really amazing things about just the experience that he had being out of prison and having just typical experiences day to day. And so we're going to play those clips. Now, Lee Horton (05:36): When we got out, just to tell you this story, we went to the DMV a couple days later to get our license back. And me, my brother and some and another man, man, who was committed, we stood in line for two and a half hours. And we heard all the stories that everybody tells us the bad things about the DMV we had the most beautiful and all the people were looking at us cause we were smiling and we were laughing and they couldn't understand why we were so happy. And it just was that, just being in that line was a beautiful thing. It was a wonderful thing. I mean, I was in awe of everything around me. It's like my, my mind was just heightened to every small nuance and having an onion just to cook your food with becomes priceless, just having a stove and to be able to just look out of a window, just to walk down the street and just inhale the fresh air, just to see people interacting. We, I didn't see children for years, no children. And then I see a little boy running down the street and, and it, and it woke something up in me, something that I don't know if it died or if it went to sleep. One of my morning ritual is every morning is I sent a message of good morning to every one of my contacts. And that's like 42 people, family members. I sent them good morning, good morning, good morning, have a nice day. And they're like, how long can I keep doing this? Leon Adato (07:16): And all of those things really got me thinking about the nature of joy and celebration. And, maybe that we overlook opportunities to celebrate that, that we might be, you know, we might be missing and, and we might be not, we might be worse off for it. So I wanted to talk about all of that. Um, that was really where the whole idea of this episode called emergency confetti came from. Um, so Doug, I wanna, I want to hear your thoughts about what needs to be celebrated when you celebrate, you know, all of those things. Doug Johnson (07:51): One of the big problems that I had when I saw this, I was like, I thought, Oh, what a cute little girl, that's so great. And of course I immediately thought about confetti out, glitter all over the inside of the car and all that kind of stuff. And the problem, and the problem is for me is that my, uh, general take on the universe tends to be that it's all gonna go bad. Um. Leon Adato (08:14): Right. Doug Johnson (08:15): Well, I mean, I do have history, but remember that, you know, I'm, I'm a tech, chief technology officer. I'm also a web developer with, uh, for the marketing department, which means I'm the only person in my department that has any tech chops. And so I, most of my job, my life is spent anticipating disaster. Um, you know, I mean, I get to create good things all the time, but, but the reality is I'm the one who has to figure out what's going to go wrong. That's what they hired me for. And so I'm always looking for something to go wrong. Years ago, I was a camp director at a, at a boys camp up in Canada, 25 years of this stuff. And I eventually had to stop doing it because I used to love it. And then I liked it less and less because I was spending my whole time trying to figure out what could go wrong. And when you've got a couple of hundred boys, a lot can go wrong, Leon Adato (09:08): Basically. Yeah. They're basically mistake generators. I mean, when the concept of chaos monkey came from somebody who was a director at a boys camp, somewhere in upstate Allegheny forest or something like it has to be. Doug Johnson (09:20): It doesn't. But the problem is over a period of time, when you really, after you've spent years doing this and you really are looking for people to really get in trouble, it really sucks the joy out of it for you. Leon Adato (09:33): Yes. Doug Johnson (09:33): And that's why I ultimately stopped doing it. But, you know, it's like things and things do go wrong. It's not like you're just being a nervous Nellie. It's like, things really do go wrong. I've got stories. Believe man. You know what, um. Leon Adato (09:47): When the story ends, when the story in the middle of this story says, and then we got the epi pen. Doug Johnson (09:52): Yes. Leon Adato (09:53): Like, you know. Doug Johnson (09:55): Bad things are gonna happen. You know, that the kid that the ADD kid that was sent to camp without his Ritalin, because his parents were hoping that it would help him straighten out. Leon Adato (10:04): Yes. Doug Johnson (10:04): What could go wrong? Leon Adato (10:05): Because Summer camp is also therapy. Exactly. Doug Johnson (10:08): Yeah. But, and they didn't tell us either. Leon Adato (10:11): No, no, why would they do that? Doug Johnson (10:13): They didn't want so, so here's the, Oh, nevermind. In any case. So. Leon Adato (10:17): That's how double blind studies are done. Doug Johnson (10:20): Exactly. Well, we were doubly blind and boy, we eventually got the information and it straightened out, but geez, some low wheezing. I mean, usually using us as an experiment was not all that great. And it wasn't good for him either, but you know, and there's, there's the whole thing, like, uh, in, in the world of programming, would you, would you rather have an optimistic programmer or a pessimist program? Leon Adato (10:41): I just, I'd never thought of it that way, but yeah. I really want, I want Abe Vigoda as a programmer. Like I really don't. Okay. I just dated myself. I know. Look it up. If you don't know who Abe Vigoda is. Doug Johnson (10:53): He's still alive too. Isn't he? Or did he finally, I think he's still alive. I didn't get, well, we'll let you look it up. All the talk. Okay. But basically what it comes down to is everybody sells the optimistic program because you make all these wonderful things happen. And I go, no, you want a pessimistic programmer? Cause he'll find the error. But he doesn't think that's the only one he'll keep on looking till he finds all the errors that he could. He'll still know that there's more. So if you want something to work, you don't want an optimistic person. You might want an optimistic architect, but you don't want an optimistic programmer. You know, it's like one of the reasons why I love QA engineers, uh, regular programmers, they're all like I can make that work, QA engineers. I can break that. Right. They're great. You know, and, being a dev, I love my, my QA guy is my safety net because he's gonna, he's gonna break my stuff. And I thank him every time he does. So, and everybody knows about demo gods, everything works perfectly. You do a demo and it blows up. Right Leon Adato (11:52): Right, right. Okay. So I got, I got to ask just as a side note. I mean, because again, there's, there's concept of, of, of celebration or at least giving thanks and things like that. For people who've never seen it at certain types of conferences, I'm thinking like Dev Ops Days specifically, there is an actual shrine off to the side of the stage where people give their talks and demos and people will routinely bring offerings and place them on the shrine. They're placing an offering to the demo. God, whether it's USB sticks or CD rom drive, I've seen people leave AOL CDs as like, you know, very, very retro kind of things. And I'm always as a, as a religious person, I'm a little conflicted because this is really on the, I mean, I get it. It's a joke. Right? I don't think that anybody really thinks that there are demo gods, but I just like the image of an Orthodox Jew on a stage with a shrine to the demo gods off to the side is always just a little like. Doug Johnson (12:51): It's on the edge. It's right there on the edge. It's like, I want one of those happy cats that raises their hand up and down all the time. But those are, those are like a shrine also. So you just, it's just, you know, you want to be careful. I, I am a, uh, I am a minister in the church of the flying spaghetti monster. I am, I am somewhat conflicted only because now the church and the flying spaghetti monster does not make you give up your main religion, but every now and then I'm like, I just wonder if I should pull out this card at church and see what the pastor has to say about it. Because I just found out that I actually, I could do weddings if I actually went and registered with my County, I could do weddings. Wouldn't that be weird with a pirate hat? Leon Adato (13:36): Okay. In any case. Okay. So, Doug Johnson (13:39): So in scrum retrospectives, right? I mean the whole point of scrimming retrospectives is you're supposed to get together and, you know, look back at the last two weeks and talk about everything that went well. And they all 99% of the time, they're always here what went wrong. It's always, it's rarely celebration. It's almost always let's fix what went wrong, no matter how good it was. So again, so my default is things are, I assume things are going to go badly. Leon Adato (14:10): Right? So I was thinking about this as you were talking about it. And, and the, the thing that came to mind was the character of Leonard snort, who in the Flash, uh, mythology on comic books is, uh, captain cold. And he was famous, at least on the TV show, the CW TV show of the flash. He would say, make the plan, execute the plan, expect the plan to go off the rails, throw away the plan. And I feel like this is what you're talking about is it's not that, you know, everything's going to go to hell and a handbasket, so why bother even trying like, no, you make a plan, but you also have a healthy dose of, you want to say cynicism, you want to say pessimism, but you have a healthy dose of whatever that is to know that things are not going to go as expected. Okay. But we're talking about a celebration. We're not talking about regret, which is a whole other episode that were going to get to. Doug Johnson (15:02): Oh yeah. But so the, the same, the same attitude though, can carry over into the spirit world. I mean, you know, it's like, so here I am, I'm a Christian. I know I should pray every day. I know I should be doing, I have really good intentions and yet I don't execute all that. Well, in fact, most Christians don't, um, you know, and Christianity is based on the fact that we're all have a sin nature so that we're, you know, even with Christ as our savior, we are constantly battling against this sin nature. Even though, you know, we, we have victory through Jesus and I can sing the song. The fact is we are still have the sin nature. And all you have to do is just look around and you can go and see the, all the leaders that are going. Uh, I mean, there's just a lot of stuff happening in the Christian world right now. Uh, that's just really down. It just shows that even the, the main guys who you thought had it all together, they don't either. And it just, you know, it just, it, it, it can be depressing. Leon Adato (16:03): Yeah, yeah, no, no. I can see that. And so, so obviously this is a, a big, um, deviation from, uh, Jewish thought where, uh, there isn't that original sin or sin nature that, um, the, the challenges that we face the, the idea of free will and the idea of, um, the challenges to ourselves are more like hurdles. They are more like, um, the, the, what we are on earth to do is to improve ourselves perfect ourselves. That does not mean that we reach perfection. It just means that we are continually trying to make ourselves better. And the only way that you do that is by facing challenges. And sometimes you're going to trip. Sometimes you're not going to make it. Um, and I think that feeds into the overarching concept that we're talking about today, about celebration, but it is one of those theological deviations between Judaism and Christianity is that, um, it isn't, it isn't written into the software that sin is the default setting. So, um, I can see that, but okay. I still want to get to like, where's the happy stuff? Where's, I got this, the confetti. I'm ready to go. Doug Johnson (17:12): Okay. Okay, good. Glitter, glitter, glitter. Okay, here we go. Work. Guess what things actually get accomplished? We actually make stuff. Are you ready for this one? This Friday? After several months of working through this whole thing, I took code live. And when I got up on Saturday morning, because it processes overnight, it didn't work. And when people went and checked it, they said it, it worked. So I didn't have to fix it because it worked. And I Leon Adato (17:47): Want to just emphasize for people might not have heard that you pushed to production on a Friday. Doug Johnson (17:52): Oh yeah. But I do that. I do that anyway, because I'm the, see, I'm the only one. So the, so the reality is I would I push on a Friday after hours because that gives me all of Saturday and Sunday to fix it. It's just me. I'm the only geek. Leon Adato (18:10): Okay. Doug Johnson (18:11): No, I, I know you never push on Friday. Leon Adato (18:13): No, I was going to say that Charity Majors, who's the CTO of honeycomb, honeycomb IO. And again, we'll have a link is a big proponent, you know, push, push any day. It doesn't get, why is Friday different than. Doug Johnson (18:25): Right. Leon Adato (18:26): Another day. If you're not comfortable pushing on a Friday, you shouldn't be comfortable pushing on a Tuesday either. Doug Johnson (18:30): True. Yeah. I never pushed code except for after hours because I've just, I've had enough things go wrong in my life that I want at least a few hours to fix it. When nobody's watching. Leon Adato (18:40): There we go, ok. Doug Johnson (18:40): So there you are. So, um, you know, but so it worked and, uh, wave RFID. We have happy clients. They love us. They think that the stuff that we've done for them is great, you know, and we're getting, Leon Adato (18:52): They pay you. Doug Johnson (18:52): And they pay us, right. They, they not only give us money, but they tell us they like us. I'll take as long as I get the first one. I'm okay. But boy, getting both of them is nice, you know, and sure. Uh, when I push code and things go, well, guess what? My coworkers are happy. They're like, thank you for making this happen. I'm going don't thank me. It's just my job. And they go, but I want to thank you. It's like, Oh, I'll fine. And then, Leon Adato (19:17): Because you are still a curmudgeon. Doug Johnson (19:20): I mean, I was just, yeah, they know that. And, and, and, and finally, you know, we get to, we have a chance to do good things. We just hired our first employee. This is the guy that we wanted him a few years ago. He screwed up, he went to prison for awhile. We just got him. We've gone through a lot of work to go ahead and be able to take care. But we're, you know, his wife keeps sending me emails, like, thank you for doing this for him. I'm like, he's going to make our job better. Believe me. It's like, you know, but you know, and so, yeah, it's more work because of the, you know, I had to put some guard rails in place on his computer use and some stuff like that. But the reality is he's happy. He's not, he was working as a janitor since he got out of jail. He's perfect. He's really happy to go back to working with, uh, computer code and stuff. So that works out and, and, you know, in the church realm, guess what people really are trying to be better. I mean, just as you said, you know, most people aren't sitting there going, Oh, I'm sinning I might as well just keep on sinning. Some do. I mean, you know, but, Leon Adato (20:18): Right. Doug Johnson (20:18): But, but most Christians really do want to improve and if they can stop beating themselves up, then they can go ahead and, and do that. Leon Adato (20:27): And do it even faster. Right. Doug Johnson (20:28): Right. And the nice thing is that in the bounds of all that stuff, there's work, that people do that to help other people, the youth group was raising money, so they could all go to camp. Right. So they came to buy every year. Well, it's supposed to be twice a year, but they come, you can hire them for 4 hours. They've never done two. So this year I hired two teams for 4 hours, 8 hours of kids coming here so that my yard, my garden could be set. And as I'm sitting there telling them how much this, cause my, my strength and that is not what it used to be. I, I, I can't do. And I just telling them how, how great it is that they're coming to do this for me so that I can do this gardening, which I, I love gardening. I mean, I got a fan test and, but I couldn't do it if they didn't come. So they get a blessing and I get a blessing and they get money and I get to garden. And it just, every time I told these crews what they were doing for me, I would end up, you know, tears coming down my face. I'm going, they must think I'm a crazy, really crazy old guy, but it's just, it's right. Leon Adato (21:29): And they'd be right. Doug Johnson (21:30): And they'd be right. But yes, but they don't know how. Right. Leon Adato (21:34): Right, right. But the other thing I want to underscore there is that, you know, I think thinking back to, you know, teenage years, there's a lot of work that you do that, you know, is just, you know, forgive me, but it's, it's shit work that somebody made up just to keep you busy. Doug Johnson (21:49): Yup. Leon Adato (21:49): Like really, you know, it's, it's useless and it's, it's really, they would be better off just to hand the money to the organization as a donation. Then you coming out and doing this completely meaningless, pointless stuff, but to come out to somebody who says, no, no, no. The thing that I want to do, the gardening is you are enabling that this is the part I couldn't do. And very clearly letting them see that means that there is not just work and not just payment, but purpose. Doug Johnson (22:19): Yup. Leon Adato (22:19): And that, that is huge for a lot of people, let alone kids, but it is a really big deal for, for folks to know that the work that they're doing is meaningful work, that it has an impact on somebody. So, yeah. I mean, when you say blessing, it it's really, you know, the full meaning of that word. Yup. Doug Johnson (22:41): Yeah. I mean, and that's true back in the worker. I mean, how, I'm sure you must've had at least one job in the past where you wondered why the hell you were doing it Leon Adato (22:51): Occasionally Doug Johnson (22:52): Once in a while, but you know, but it's nice having work where you're sitting there going, I know why I'm doing this. I'm the person to be doing, you know, I'm, I am overpaid where I work, uh, for my day job. But the reality is for the kinds of things that I've had to fix over this last year, I may not have had to work really hard, but they couldn't have found one person that knew all of the different things that I knew to fix all of the stupid things that they came up with this last year, I'm going, you know, so they might have Leon Adato (23:22): Been paying for the hours, but they were paying for the experience. Doug Johnson (23:25): They sure as heck got that. It was just funny. Like every time I'd feel bad about, I really should be working harder. They'd come up with something, Oh, we need this website up in, Oh, let's see a week and a half. Uh, and it has to be match all. And I'm like, okay, well, guess what, I can do that for you. But so, uh, it's, it's been pretty amazing, but so big, big blessing in the spiritual world with Christianity, we get to start all over again anytime. Well, we did, we did the whole, the whole thing. We confess our sins and we get, we, we get to go back to ground zero. Got it. Not quite like not, not, not the Catholic, you know, every week kind of thing, but again, still it's, it's all built in there. Right, Leon Adato (24:07): Right, right. I think there's, I think many faith traditions have, I know Judaism does has a, the ability to, let go of the past too. Um, it's not quite wash yourself of your sin of your sins, you know, so to speak, but to, to be able to make a fresh start unencumbered by the mistakes. There's, you know, a lot of people think of heaven as a zero sum points game where it's like, well, if I've sin twice and I've done one good deed that I'm still negative one or whatever it is. And that, that really isn't how the calculus works. It's, you know, there's, there's this concept of taking the things that you have, where you've missed the mark, which is a better translation for the Hebrew word of a Chet or a sin, and really transforming them into a blessing like double because it, the, the, the time that you missed the mark actually drove you to do the good thing. Had you not miss the mark, you would never have been driven to do this, this, um, positive thing. And so it, it actually retroactively makes the quote unquote sin a blessing also. So you get to rewrite the past in a way and Recode it, to something positive, even though it wasn't at the time. Doug Johnson (25:36): Yep. And yeah, and it just comes down to things that look bad today. You may look back and say, that's the greatest thing that ever happened to me. All right. You just, you, you don't know. Leon Adato (25:47): Right. Right. And I find that faith does a really good job of framing that, um, there's a lot of stories of, you know, the quintessential, like I was stuck in traffic and I was swearing at the person ahead of me and whatever. And I was half an hour late. And what I found out was that had I gotten there on time, you know, fill in the blank, there was an accident, there was a robbery, there was a, this or that, or the other thing. And although I'm telling the story in broad brush stroke, that makes it sort of apocryphal. Um, the reality is that people have experienced that all the time where, you know, I missed my flight and then whatever I'm, you know, not necessary to say. Um, so we have lots of those stories where a, a seeming inconvenience at the moment that we are cursing about turns out to be a blessing, in fact, because it saved us from something much worse or, or horrible or whatever it is. And so again, I think faith helps to reframe that. The other thing that I think faith offers, and this is one of my questions for people who, um, you know, I don't, I don't believe in anything. I don't need any of that, whatever it is that faith offers, if nothing else, it offers a structure, it offers a protocol to handle things. Now, of course, grief is one of the first things that comes to mind. Cause when we're wracked by grief, when we're in the middle of a real crisis, the last thing that our brains can can do is say, well, just do whatever feels right. Do whatever comes to you. You know, no, that is not the moment that we need that. And, and so that's there, but again, because we're talking about emergency confetti, I also think that faith offers us a really interesting structure to process joy in the sense that it tells us, you know, when to celebrate what to celebrate, how to celebrate it. Um, and the secret, I think for faith is that it's in the small moments, not the large ones, um, big moments often just take care of themselves. It's your birthday, your anniversary, whatever you again, you know, I just, you know, you just go with what you feel it with. Feel like, you know, it's, it's a big moment. Okay. But you know, Judaism looks at moments like waking up in the morning is a cause for celebration. You actually say, before you move, as you're waking up, there's a blessing that you say, you know, thank you God for letting me wake up and getting out of bed and going to the bathroom. Okay, Doug, we are men of a certain age and man, you just need it not to work once to realize that all of that working the way it's supposed to is absolutely a cause for celebration, crack out the confetti because whew, everything moved, you know, it's great. In fact. Doug Johnson (28:39): He's going to hate me if I start doing that. Leon Adato (28:40): Right. Doug Johnson (28:43): Excuse me, Doug, what's all this glitter all over the bathroom floor. Well, I had this conversation. Leon Adato (28:51): Right. Celebrate the small moments. Celebrate the small victories. Right. Um, so Judaism actually looks and says, you know, you should say at least a hundred blessings a day, a hundred, thank you a hundred moments to, to celebrate. And when you think about saying, you know, a blessing for every, you know, every piece of, bit of food that you eat, and again, you know, the different things that you go through the day hitting a hundred, actually, isn't that hard. Um, but the underlying message is that these are moments worth celebrating that I going back to Lee Horton, you know, he, he said, just having an onion to cook with was a miracle. And I don't know that a lot of people think about that. They like, Oh, well, thanks. I'm so glad I had that onion ready, but they don't think of it as a miracle. But when you hear him talking, you know, he means it. He means it sitting, standing in line at the DMV was a joy, a real joy being with friends, having time like it. I think that faith gives us the recognition that these are moments that are definitely worth celebrating, not for weeks and weeks. Again, they're small moments, but there's still good ones. And I also think that faith puts boundaries around the big moments. Yes, there are big moments and they're worth celebrating, but, uh, it, it reminds us that there has to be a beginning and an end to even those celebrations that you have to move on if for no other reason than to make room for the next celebration. The next thing. Doug Johnson (30:23): It it's a lot of people get, they'll get caught up in their one success. And then, you know, when the next thing comes is not a success, then they're disappointed. And then it starts to spiral down and they can never move on because again, they just, they went, Oh, that was my big shot on it. I had my big deal. And that was it. And nothing else, you know, it's, it's a lot of what Christiana does talks about being, you know, again, the same thing that you're saying gratitude for everything being grateful, uh, it, there's a, in everything give thanks, uh, is in the new Testament and just, it's hard to do, uh, you know, rejoice always pray constantly in everything. Give, thanks for this is the will of God for you through Christ. Jesus. All right. That's what you're talking about. Yours is a little, a little more systematic and that's, I kind of, I like the idea of actually building some of those reminders into place. Like when you get up and doing that. And I, I may add this to my, uh, my, my list of things that I'm taking away from this, but yeah, Leon Adato (31:23): I will make sure that there are in the show notes, there's a link to the English, uh, English version of those. Because they really are. I mean, some of them are, are interesting. Like, you know, thank you God for giving the rooster, the, the understanding that it needs to crow in the morning, which is really saying thank you for, for putting boundaries on the day. Thank you for creating natural rhythms to the day that helped me fit into those rhythms. And I think especially after the last year that we've had where the running gag is, time has no meaning. I don't know what day it is. I don't know what you know. Well, yeah, but the rooster still knows to crow in the morning to wake everyone up. Like there's thank you for putting those structures in place. Doug Johnson (32:05): Of course, when I had chickens, we would pick which roosters to put in the pot based on how early they got up. So. Leon Adato (32:13): That's just natural selection. Doug Johnson (32:17): The one rooster we had at the end, he'd get up around noon, light a cigarette and go, [coughing], but Oh well. In any case. Leon Adato (32:30): Um, just, uh, you know, in terms of, yeah, those sell it, making room for celebrations and otherwise you get caught up in the last thing and it wasn't as big as the, the other thing Elizabeth Gilbert gave a Ted talk a few years ago now, after she'd written eat, pray, love, and the pressure was on for her to write something else. And they said, well, you know, what, if it's not as successful as eat, pray love. And she has this whole wonderful Ted talk again, it'll be in the show notes that talks about inspiration and that pressure and the idea that, you know, somehow if, if you don't continue to build on, it has to be bigger and better than before. No, I'm sorry, but it can be the same as before it can be smaller than before and still be worth celebrating, still be worth the joy that it brings. Doug Johnson (33:14): Oh, I mean, think about it for being an author. I mean, just any author, most authors that you love have maybe one or two books that were like really great. And then they've got, and then you find out they've got a whole back catalog that you didn't even know about. Um, that's just, and, and some of them are good. Some of them are not so good, but it's, you know, but the fact is they put their rear in the chair and they went ahead and pounded out the words. And as you say, it's worth celebrating the fact that they've got that they were able to go out and accomplish that it's an accomplishment, even if it wasn't death of a salesman, Leon Adato (33:51): Right. Or yeah, a New York time bestseller. And the other part about that, and Doug, you know, you're a writer, I'm a writer. Like we know that, you know, that even the things that were best-sellers may not have been the writing that they personally loved the most, or they personally derive the most satisfaction from it. And one of the best questions I hear people ask authors is no, no, no, I know which of your books I love, but which of which of your works do you love? That's, you know, when they talk about the writing, that was the hardest to do. And when it finally came out, it was, it was good, but it was such, it was such an effort that when it came out, it was that much greater for it. You know, those are the things, again, the, the moments that are worth celebrating most may not be the biggest along the way. And so I transitioning to the tech side, right? That's that's the faith side, but the tech side, I like to think that I try to bring some of that into my technical it sensibilities that when something goes, well, I know that I need to stop and celebrate that that no matter how big or small, you know, I was thinking about the line from, uh, the TV show, Bosom Buddies, and now we do the dance of joy because, and it's goofy. And, and my family will tell you, cause I work from home and of course it's been 2020. So it's been this nightmare hellscape pandemic, but okay. You know, that, there's a lot of moments when I come running downstairs and I am literally unintelligible. I'm just like, [unintelligible noise example], and my wife is like, good for you, honey. And I go running back upstairs to try to do the next thing, whatever it is. And you know, you've got to take a minute to, to just recognize that, um, the other piece that I think I, I get from all of this, that big successes, you know, those, those, again, the book, the, the major program, the launch of the new piece of software, the whatever it is, those are big moments that were comprised of small achievable moments of joy that simply added up, not necessarily sequentially either. You know, it's not about getting, you know, winning the trifecta or whatever it is. It was just, you know, enough things went right in a row or, you know, at a time to allow this thing to happen. Um, and I'll, I'll finish this thought just to mention that right now, I am actually programming something, which is not my natural state of being. And I will continue to remind people that I am not a coder or a dev or a programmer. I am be like a script kitty is probably the most complimentary thing you can say, no one will ever weep with joy at the beauty of my code. In fact, the nicest thing anyone's ever said about something that I programmed was, well, it ran right, which for litter, because that's how I feel right now. Like the default state of everything I code is not working. So when something works, when a variable actually is the thing that I wanted it to be, when the page loads, when, you know, I get a number at the end of it, that I was actually expecting, it really is a cause for celebration for me. And it is deeply humbling, but it's also a reminder that, you know, these, these celebratory moments, these, these moments are really tied up into small things. Not necessarily, you know, again, as I framed it at the beginning long stretches of, you know, soul crushing depression, punctuated by a brief moment of joy. I think the moments of joy are in there. And I think that it's up to us to, to recognize them and find them rather than just expect them to sort of beat us over the head or, Oh, that wasn't big enough that couldn't possibly be settled celebratory again, going to the bathroom worth celebrating. Trust me, anybody who's ever had gallbladder surgery knows worth celebrating. Doug Johnson (37:46): Oh yeah. But yeah, I mean all kinds of how to and, and life hacks in that really say, you need to go ahead and give yourself positive reinforcement. So it's not, as I said at the beginning, it's not my default state. Uh, one of the things I'm getting, just having this conversation is it's going to remind me to go ahead and try and give myself kudos for the small things along the way when I'm working on stuff, because you know, it can get depressing when you're working on something and big pieces of it don't work. But when you get that little thing that does, it's like, it's hard to remember. You're going, okay, good. Now I can move on to the next, as opposed to taking that moment to go ahead and say, woo, maybe I'll get, maybe I'll do a little glitter. Leon Adato (38:31): The other piece I'll add, there's a, another writer who said that, you know, basically I think of as a monkey, you know, I'm just a little monkey who needs a lot of rewards. And, the best work I do is in a café where every time I write a good piece of script, I, I will buy myself a cookie every single time. It's not good for my waist, very good for my output because I I'm so excited for the next thing, the other piece. And I just, I, you know, we're in the lightning round. So you know, that my last thought is that the same writer said, um, I like to write the fun parts first. I have an idea. This is a, a script writer. And they said, um, I have an image of the high points, the big moments in this script. And I'm so excited about it, that I write it first. A lot of people will tell you, you have to write the story from start to finish. No, I write the most exciting, the most compelling, the most interesting moments first, because then I have this beautiful scene and I've got to get there. I have to get the audience from the start of the story, to these moments. And these moments are so exciting that I have to make the whole rest of their journey worth it to get there. So again, by looking forward to the celebration, by looking forward to the thing that I'm already excited about, I make the rest of the journey, which could be again, long stretch of soul crushing depression. No, it is. I'm building up to this great moment and I have to make every moment before worth the journey. So that's another piece of it. Anything that you want to leave everyone with for this episode. Doug Johnson (40:03): Don't be like me. I'm depressed most of the time. Be happy. Do glitter. Leon Adato (40:08): Do glitter. Don't do drugs. Do glitter that I love it. Yeah. Don't don't eat the glitter. Doug Johnson (40:15): No, don't eat the glitter. Definitely do not. No, it's not. It will not take care of your COVID Leon Adato (40:21): No, or anything else. Really? It's not roughage. It won't, your didactic. Your digestive tract will not. Thank you or me. Doug Johnson (40:28): Although, well, you never know. It might sparkle when it hits the water. Nevermind. Leon Adato (40:33): Okay. Outtro (40:35): Thanks for making time for us this week, to hear more of technically religious visit our website, technically religious.com, where you can find our other episodes, leave us ideas for future discussions and connect with us on social media.

The Clap Christopher's terrible Star Wars jokes (puns) James respects BonJovi, but doesn't like them 1bigliar TikTok isn't down! Angry black woman still angry and still black Bill Gates gets divorced, why at this age? Windows 95 was fine Apple wasn't great at this point Internet Explorer 96% browser share Chrome is as bad Internet Explorer ever was Brave is fine, but eh. Married, divorced, re-married, divorced, and finally re-married James hasn't used AOL... this century AOL dialup still works? Quaker Oats box filled with AOL CDs Christopher is a proto-hoarder Clutter-pocalypse Garages are for cars Rumpus room Yahoo and AOL get sold for peanuts Jeep baby stroller Harley-Davidson trucks Yahoo and AOL are not poster children for capitalism Poor old Sears Amazon screws the little guy CEOs never fail Company Boards are dumb Moral hazards and capitalism Christopher's auction problem Farmers' Almanac Stealing the Sears Catalog to look at the women in their sexy underwear My parents' weren't getting the Victoria Secret catalog James has weird hangups Winners get divorced? Divorcees are quitters Divorce rates by profession Reasons for getting divorced Men control the marriage in the beginning, but women slowly take over Smart people don't get divorced Post-show Porn is gross Do "adult bookstores" still exist From porn to Disney Bill's porn stash Bill invented the internet for porn Christopher struggles with saying "penis enhancer"

About our Guest:https://www.cmu.edu/epp/people/faculty/kathleen-m-carley.htmlPapers mentioned in this episode:Carley, K. M. (2020). Social cybersecurity: an emerging science. Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, 26(4), 365-381https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10588-020-09322-9The Advertisement at the end was from the mid 1990s (1995) and was used to advertise the America Online (AOL) web service.  Even in Australia everyone ended up with dozens of AOL CDs that were supposed to help us get online somehow.  The Audio from the start of the episode is from the Prelinger Archive.  A Movie from 1968 explaining the US perspective on the use of Psychological Operations (PsyOps) in another country to influence the feelings of the populace. https://archive.org/details/Psycholo1968_2

Aufgebrochen, um den Folgenlängenrekord zu brechen, sprechen wir über AOL-CDs, alte und neue (IT-)Technik und unsere verworrenen Programmierer-Wege aus grauer Vorzeit ins Jetzt. Nebenher zeigen wir was clip-path so alles kann und haben neue Hörbuch-Empfehlungen für euch. Eigentlich sollte der DAZN-Praktikant unseren Sendungstitel schreiben, aber wir wurden leider von seinem Wish-Pendant wyld weggeflext. AMK!

Netzlexikon G wie Gaia X / Berliner Aktionskünstler verursacht angeblichen Stau / Netzlexikon I wie Inkognito-Modus / Forscher stellen Bildung von Filterblasen infrage / Netzlexikon W wie W3C / Was wurde eigentlich aus den AOL-CDs?

Holt die AOL-CDs raus - es ist Zeit für eine Zeitreise! Tik-Tok-Tik-Tok-Tik-Tok! Schauen wir gemeinsam zurück auf die Entwicklung der (a)sozialen Medien. Egal ob Knuddels, Easyland, Mein-Schüler-Studenten-VZ oder Kwick.gell (fragt nicht – hört einfach selbst!): Wir lassen nichts aus - nur das, was wir nicht kennen! :) Ihr wollt diskutieren, dann addet uns gerne auf ICQ: 324 477 465 (Tope) & 394 795 251 (Ammar).

This week, Swanson, Kiorein and Stairmaster are joined by the lingering spirit of Death as they discuss The Big Bang Theory ending and Netflix adding commercials. Then, they talk about the new shows coming to Fox and The CW in Guess Who's Coming (to the Fall TV Lineup?) Later, they sit down to discuss the new animated show from Matt Groening, Disenchantment. Discussions include forgotten AOL CDs, walrus sex, untraceable murders and Danny Glover's rap album.

"Seid ostwestfälisch und schaut Euch erstmal an was mit diesem neuen Dingen passiert" - Thorsten Ising über Hypes im Digitalen Marketing. Facebook und das iPhone sind gerade erst gut zehn Jahre am Markt und dennoch nicht mehr wegzudenken. In den letzten 20 Jahren hat sich durch das Internet und Smartphones unsere Kommunikation, unsere Arbeit, unser Leben massiv verändert. Wir gehen mit Thorsten Ising auf digitale Zeitreise. Alles begann mit dem Commodore Computer und AOL-CDs mit denen man 30 Stunden freies Internet ergattern konnte. Anschließend hat er das Aufkommen von Facebook, Google, WhatsApp von Beginn an in seine Beratungstätigkeit einfließen lassen. Diese Reise machte ihn zu einem der absoluten Experten für Online Marketing und Social Media in Deutschland. Die gelernte Fachkraft für Lebensmitteltechnik ist heute Dozent für Social Media-Management u.a. bei der IHK-Akademie Ostwestfalen und im Vorstand beim Bundesverband Community Management. Mit Thorsten Ising spreche ich in dieser Folge über Vorteile/ Nachteile von digitaler Kommunikation und digitalen Medien Digital DetoxDigitale Herausforderungen in Unternehmendie digitale Zukunft Wearables, Internet of Things und SprachassistentenThorsten beste Tipps für wirksame Kommunikation Du möchtest mehr über die Folge und Thorsten Ising erfahren? Hier findest Du eine Zusammenfassung der Folge und "DIE 10 Fragen an": http://miteinanderreden-podcast.de/2018/07/25/thorsten-ising-digitale-kommunikation/ SHOWNOTES Webseite / https://www.thorsten-ising.com Facebook / https://www.facebook.com/ThorstenIsing Twitter / https://www.twitter.com/thorstenising LinkedIn / https://www.linkedin.com/in/thorstenising/ XING / https://www.xing.com/profile/Thorsten_Ising?sc_o=mxb_p Instagram / https://www.instagram.com/thorstenising/ Blog / https://www.ti-on.eu Interview Svenja / https://www.meinesvenja.de/2013/12/04/100-000-leser-mann/ Interview https://www.meinesvenja.de/2016/02/17/reichweitensteigerung-solide-und-langfristig/ Interview: https://espresso-digital.de/2017/03/03/thorsten-ising-chatbots-iot-und-andere-entwicklungen-sind-dabei-extrem-spannend-und-geben-neue-impulse-fuer-das-digitale-marketing-cebitdma/ Interview: https://shadownlight.de/lebensnah/starke-menschen-interview-mit-thorsten-ising.html 10 Fragen an: http://miteinanderreden-podcast.de/2018/07/25/thorsten-ising-digitale-kommunikation/ Website Michael KUNDENFOKUSSIERT: http://www.kundenfokussiert.de Michael bei Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michael.lorenz.923724 Michael bei Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michaellorenz_official/ Michael bei Twitter: https://twitter.com/heyhomilo Michael bei XING: https://www.xing.com/profile/Michael_Lorenz3 Michael bei LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-lorenz/

This week, we throw a few thousand AOL Cds into the time furnace and head back to 2000 to have a look around and watch its second highest-grossing movie:  Gladiator with special guest Diana McCallum! We first go over a stupid racist submarine and then parse the game of thrones WWE tale featuring dream wheat that is Gladiator.

On today’s episode, there’s a robot in the works to fold your laundry, Apple has a new iPad app for learning to code in Swift and Windows can now kill off bloatware. Matt gives us his impression of the Vimium browser plugin and we have call-ins about AOL CDs and products that help you find your phone.

Summary:Jan Brandt is a legend in the world of marketing. She singlehandedly led the famous AOL "carpet-bombing" campaign that put millions of AOL trial discs and CDs in everything from magazines to popcorn boxes to banks. AOL was able to leap to the front of the online pack, over competitors like CompuServe and Prodigy largely on the success of this campaign. Jan tells us how this strategy developed, the thinking that went into it and goes into great detail about what worked and what didn't. But she was also a very early AOL executive, so she is able to give us some fantastic background about AOL the company: its culture, its people and its visionaries–people like Steve Case. She takes us from AOL's beginnings, through its considerable growing pains (remember "America On Hold?") its rise to dominance in the dot-com era, and even gives us her perspective on the legacy of the AOL/Time Warner merger. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.