Podcasts about mirro

I år skulle sångaren, dansaren, skådespelaren, komikern och imitatören och föregångaren Sammy Davis Jr fyllt 100 år. I ett segregerat USA banade han väg för andra svarta artister. Nu uppmärksammas han i en hyllningskonsert. Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radio Play. Rennie Mirro och Joachim Bergström berättar om sin relation till hundraåringen Sammy Davis Jr och hur de har inspirerats av den store entertainern, inför föreställningen ”Sammy 100 år” på Kulturhyuset Stadsteatern i Stockholm.

En tiempos de incertidumbre y desafío, la noticia de la delicada salud de Eddie Mirro ha resonado profundamente en el corazón de quienes lo conocen y aprecian. Eddie, una figura que ha dejado una huella imborrable en la vida de muchos con su dedicación y espíritu inquebrantable, se encuentra ahora en una situación crítica que requiere de nuestra más sincera y ferviente oración. Su lucha, aunque invisible a simple vista, es una batalla que enfrenta con el coraje y la determinación que siempre lo han caracterizado. En momentos como este, la comunidad se une en un acto de solidaridad y esperanza, elevando sus pensamientos y plegarias hacia el cielo para pedir por su pronta recuperación y bienestar. La oración, como un puente entre el corazón y lo divino, se convierte en una fuente de fortaleza y consuelo tanto para Eddie como para sus seres queridos. La unión de las oraciones colectivas no solo busca la sanación física, sino también el alivio emocional y espiritual en este proceso. La esperanza se convierte en un faro que ilumina el camino, proporcionando un respiro de paz en medio de la tormenta. En cada palabra de aliento y en cada oración sincera, se refleja un deseo profundo de que Eddie encuentre la fuerza necesaria para superar este desafío. La comunidad, con su amor y devoción, se convierte en un apoyo invaluable, ofreciendo no solo palabras de consuelo, sino también la certeza de que en la adversidad, no está solo. Que nuestras oraciones, llenas de esperanza y fe, actúen como un refugio de luz y fortaleza en este momento crucial, guiando a Eddie hacia una recuperación completa y renovada. Que la energía positiva y el amor que emanamos en nuestras plegarias actúen como un bálsamo para su salud y bienestar, permitiendo que pronto regrese con renovada vitalidad y alegría a su vida cotidiana. La fe y la comunidad se entrelazan en un acto de esperanza compartida, con la convicción de que cada oración tiene el poder de contribuir a la sanación y al fortalecimiento en tiempos de prueba. En esta hora de necesidad, unidos en oración, mantenemos viva la llama de la esperanza y enviamos nuestros mejores deseos para que Eddie Mirro encuentre la paz y la restauración que tanto necesita.Inf. https://www.instagram.com/p/C_PM6AfsgI0/#EddieMiro #LaComay #SpreakerFujitivo

Bogdan Ionita, co-founder of Mirro.io, discusses the company's performance management software and its revenue expectations. He highlights the importance of adapting to market changes and creating a positive work environment. Bogdan also explains the collaboration between Ztech and Mito, as well as the origin story of Mirro. He shares the challenges faced by the company and the failed go-to-market strategies. Bogdan emphasizes the HR-driven approach of Mito and the advanced features that help with employee development. Connect with Bogdan Ionita  - https://www.linkedin.com/in/cbogdanionita/Check out Mirro - https://mirro.io/For the Innovators Can Laugh newsletter in your inbox every week, subscribe at https://innovatorscanlaugh.substack.comPrevious guests include: Arvid Kahl of FeedbackPanda, Andrei Zinkevich of FullFunnel, Scott Van den Berg of Influencer Capital, Buster Franken of Fruitpunch AI, Valentin Radu of Omniconvert, Evelina Necula of Kinderpedia, Ionut Vlad of Tokinomo, Diana Florescu of MediaforGrowth, Irina Obushtarova of Recursive, Monika Paule of Caszyme, Yannick Veys of Hypefury, Laura Erdem of Dreamdata, and Pija Indriunaite of CityBee. Check out our five most downloaded episodes: From Uber and BCG to building a telehealth for pets startup with Michael Fisher From Starcraft Player to Maximizing Customer Lifetime Value with Valentin Radu Revolutionizing Parent-Teacher Communication with Kinderpedia ...

I vårat feta novemberavsnitt träffar vi det unga stjärnskottet Samson Mirro - frontman & sångare i The Blue Benders! Vi snackar om hans artist-täta familj, bandets framgångar i Scandinavian Blues Challenge, lysnnar igenom den nysläppta EPn och mycket annat! Dessutom "Bluespodden Tipsar" & som vanligt en "Från Norr Till Söder"! Tack för att ni lyssnar, delar & blir Patreon-medlemmar!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sigur ai folosit Easy Box și poate ai auzit de Regista și Mirro. Produse românești de tehnologie digitală inovatoare, în spatele cărora există o poveste fascinantă și niște oameni excepționali, cu care îți facem cunoștință în acest episod. Alexandru Lăpușan, CEO și fondator al Zitec, explică în episodul de astăzi rețeta care funcționează în cadrul companiei sale: a se gestiona cu grijă și înțelegere echipa, a se adăuga din plin încredere și empatie și a se lăsa la răcit până când prinde contur o plasă de sprijin pentru fiecare coleg în parte. În business, asumarea riscurilor și ambiția de a construi produse remarcabile, dublate de climatul bun din echipă și cultura sigură și caldă au generat produse și servicii inovatoare. Dorința de îmbunătățire și inovația constantă diferențiază compania lui Alexandru de concurență: “Nu facem body leasing, nu vindem oameni la kilogram”, spune liderul de la Zitec. Alex Lăpușan este CEO și fondator al firmei Zitec, o companie software cu capital românesc cu 370 de angajați. În cei 19 ani de activitate, Zitec a livrat, pe lângă servicii de cloud de înaltă calitate și performanță, CRM-uri (Custom Relationship Manager) și motoare pentru e-commerce, dar și platforme digitale arhicunoscute, precum Regista, Mirro și EasyBox. Regista este o platformă lansată acum 7 ani, destinată administrațiilor publice, instituțiilor de stat, care oferă suport si soluții de digitalizare a proceselor interne. Mirro, pe de altă parte, este o platformă orientată către dezvoltare, care se adresează organizațiilor și culturii acestora, construită în jurul ideii de evaluare și feedback continuu. Nu în ultimul rând, Zitec a creat arhicunoscutul sistem de livrare și depozitare, EasyBox, care a ajuns să ușureze viața a milioane de persoane, zilnic.--Hacking Work este primul podcast din România care vorbește clar, cinstit și curajos despre piața muncii, un produs multimedia oferit de compania de software DevNest și susținut de Medlife. Este produs de Pluria Romania, Undelucram.ro și SPOR - Școala Pentru Oameni Responsabili.Acest material a fost prelucrat cu ajutorul soluției software de transcript Vatis Tech, care asigură cea mai bună acuratețe în limba română (95%+).Ne găsești pe

Hackathon，即“黑客马拉松”，是程序员最喜闻乐见的赛事活动。它有着自由的形式：Hacker 们聚集在一起，紧密合作，发挥创意，持续编程，实现创想。作为一个已经举办了 5 年的赛事，TiDB Hackathon 2022 在今年的赛程设置上有哪些变化？拿奖项的项目都有哪些过人之处？本期的《创业内幕》，我们邀请到了PingCAP 联合创始人兼 CTO 黄东旭与TiDB Hackathon的三位获奖代表，一起来听一听他们的参赛故事。【01：51】四位嘉宾简单介绍【09：56】黄东旭介绍 PingCAP 和 TiDB Hackathon【15：23】选手参加 TiDB Hackathon 的热情从何而来【21：14】TiDB Hackathon 从第一届比赛到现在有哪些变化【27：44】Data Dance 项目：是否考虑过把项目进行落地【32：36】TiDB Hackathon 评选标准揭秘【35：15】Data Dance 的团队组建【36：16】Mirro 项目团队介绍【37：47】Mirro 项目：如何得到数据库与前沿领域AI结合的创意【47：10】MoreCat 项目：为何选择从 TiUP 组件入手进行设计【49：16】MoreCat 项目：一个优秀的包管理器需要能实现哪些功能【57：33】今年比赛的赛况、竞争压力【59：55】给对 TiDB Hackathon 感兴趣的选手的一些建议【01：05：54】推荐一本书（《经济学原理微观分册》、《任天堂哲学》、《编码：隐匿在计算机软硬件背后的语言》、《禅与摩托车维修艺术》、《乌克兰拖拉机简史》）《创业内幕》粉丝群已经开通在这里，你可以跟节目制作人/主持人直接沟通，也可以第一时间了解到GGV线下活动动态，见到GGV纪源资本的投资人，结 交其他互联网圈子里的小伙伴。入群方式：1）添加微信号"cynmxzs"（“创业内幕小助手”首字母）为好友，并在好友请求中标注“创业”2）把你的全名和职称发给创业小助手如果您想约访谈，请添加小助手微信，并附上访谈嘉宾简介，小助手将帮您对接。

Thank you for visiting my canning cellar! Salsa! here's the ingredients I used 10 lbs green tomatoes chopped 8 cups onions 2 teaspoons dried red pepper flakes 8 lg red peppers chopped 6 garlic cloves minced 1 cup dried basil 1 cup lime juice 1 cup lemon juice 1 cup apple cider vinegar 2 tablespoons salt 1 tablespoon cumin 4 tsp black pepper 1 tablespoon sugar I washed the tomatoes and used the serrated knife to remove the stem part and any other blemishes, and used my food processor to chop them up, not bothering to remove the seeds or skin. I did the same with the onions and the peppers although I did remove the pepper seeds, and mixed them in the Mirro pot with the lime and lemon juice, the vinegar, salt, cumin, oregano, pepper and sugar. I let this all simmer for about 30 minutes, then I drained it all using the large strainer. I used the smaller strainer to weigh them on the postage scale. After it all drained, I used the funnel and a measure cup to fill pint jars to 1/2 inch head space. I wiped the rims using a vinegar soaked lint free cloth, put on the lids, and did just a tad more than finger tighten the rings, which I find makes them seal better for some reason using this canner. I water bath them for 20 minutes for my altitude above sea level. I used the jar lifter to remove them after letting them sit with the canner cover off for about five minutes to help the contents settle down, and then put them on a dish towel covered table. The dish towel is to avoid shocking the hot jars when put on a cooler surface. I got 9 pints of salsa. For the sauce I used the same equipment I used earlier, only this time I did not chop the tomatoes first. Recipe linked below As an FYI, the salsa and the sauce drained out a lot of tiny pieces of tomatoes so be sure to have a really good strainer in the sink or you may have a mess in your drain. Thank you for visiting my canning cellar. Talk soon. Stay safe. https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_03/spaghetti_sauce.html https://laurelleaffarm.com/item-pages/farm/stainless-milk-strainer.htm

In this episode, Liz interviews Emily Mirro and Chad Hamilton from NeuroPace on the qualities of a great med device facilitator. Chad brings his expertise with sales field rep training, while Emily brings her experience in clinical education.

My Great Aunt proudly displayed an aluminum Christmas Tree in her front window for many years, much to the chagrin of my more traditional relatives. I thought it was great until those shiny trees soon fell out of fashion. Aluminum Christmas Trees are making a comeback, but you might be surprised what killed the fad in the first place! withinpodcast.com

In this episode of happy business Peter Salerno speaks with Dr Peng and Mirro about STEM Technology with guest from around the world.

On this episode of Happy Business Peter Salerno speaks with Dr Peng and Mirro and their students from Thailand Malaysia the Cameroons about STEMSEL and RunLink Technology.

On today's episode we talk about All-American canners.  I have two (a 921 and a 930).  On this episode I give my thoughts on both of them.  I also mention Mirro and Presto canners.  It is my opinion, that if you go that route, you should upgrade the "jiggler" from the generic one to one that can be set to different lbs of pressure.  Here is the Presto version.Enjoy!!Brianhttp://www.thehomesteadjourney.net/shophttp://www.thehomesteadjourney.nethttps://www.facebook.com/TheHomesteadJourneyPodcasthttp://www.youtube.com/c/3BFarmandHomesteadhttps://www.facebook.com/3BFarmNY/https://www.instagram.com/thehomesteadjourneypodcast/?hl=enhttps://teespring.com/stores/thehomesteadjourneypodcastBrian@thehomesteadjourney.netSupport the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/the.hjp)

On today's podcast, we welcome special guest Justin Mirro, the President of Kensington Capital Partners and CEO of their SPAC, Kensington Capital Acquisition II. On the podcast, Justin discusses:   - His career that ranged from test driver to engineer to investment banker and now an investor, advisor and SPAC sponsor focused on the automotive space - The underlying thesis behind the Kensington Capital Acquisition series of SPACs - Key insights into Kensington's SPAC merger with Wallbox at a $1.5 billion valuation - A discussion of Wallbox's business model, customers and competitors - And more

Vi gästas av Mirro Salim som är miljonär vid 23 och han berättar om hur man ska tänka när man startar företag, vad som får honom att tappa fattningen, resorna till Dubai och dessutom får han betygsätta redaktionens start-up idéerBianca Meyer åter i etik och livsfrågor som idag behandlar medberoendes dolda narcissismOch vi avslutar med att avsluta följetongen Felix Fyndar där vinnaren av det vagt rasistiska schackbrädet Christian rings upp och gratulerasBING BONG See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Welcome to this short bonus episode of My Canning Cellar.If you are new to canning you may want to know your upfront costs as well as continuing costs. Of course all costs associated with canning is subject to how you find your supplies, but I will break down my own costs from 2020 to now, the best I can without having kept any formal record. The jars I have bought are 4 oz, 8 oz or half pint, 16 oz which is pint and 32 oz which is quart. I have been given many used jars for free as well as some new jars. I asked for and received some through my personal Facebook page. My first canner was a McSunley Stainless Steel Water Bath Canner which is 21.5 quart and was a Christmas gift. I use this one for jams, jellies and high acid foods such as tomatoes and apples.I had an Amazon gift card so my Mirro 22 quart pressure canner cost me just 35.96. I use this one for everything else. I just ordered a Presto 12 quart digital electric canner and paid 223.36. I ordered this from Amazon as well, but fyi it’s the same cost on Walmart.com.  I splurged on this smaller canner for two reasons: because I tend to can large quantities for just my husband and I because I don’t like to run the larger canners at less than full capacity. I feel that’s a waste of energy both mine and the propane. I also want to can outside on the covered porch in the summers to keep out unwanted heat. I found that I was uneager to can a lot last summer because it was just too hot indoors. I have electric outlets outside and a sturdy table. lids  107.03jars  120.19pickling lime   11.92clear jel   8.98labels  10.14accessories   23.61book   5.96canners   259.32Total so far, not including any of the foods I bought just to can: 547.15, and I have bought miscellaneous items at thrift stores like jar lifters that I can’t remember the price of. I fell into the trap of two 3rd party sellers on Amazon that were advertising Ball brand lids, but they were not.  The boxes said Ball, but they were generic lids. I got my money back and was told to keep or toss or donate the lids. I kept them and will use them in the most desparate of times. Thanks for visiting My Canning Cellar. Talk soon….stay safe. https://tinyurl.com/4625ry4e  Presto 02144 12Qt Digital Canner, Black Stainlesshttps://tinyurl.com/8kjk465y   Mirro 92122 92122A Polished Aluminum 5/10 / 15-PSI Pressure Cooker/Canner Cookware, 22-Quart, Silverhttps://tinyurl.com/wy45nb5w  McSunley Medium Stainless Steel Prep N Cook Water Bath Canner, 21.5 quart, Silverhttps://tinyurl.com/yjhyet3b     11 Inch Canner Rack for Pressure Cooker, Canning Rack for Pressure Canner (5-Pack)

In this episode you will learn, how the scariest thing that ever happened to you can turn out to be a call for action and eventually, into "the best thing ever" to find your calling or “second mountain” in life. My guest is Justin Mirro, the CEO of Kensington Capital Acquisition Corp, a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) and the President of Kensington Capital Partners, a merchant bank that invests in automotive and industrial companies. 

proven reliable sourcesmy must haves of canning equipmentbooks I referencehow my canners functionwhat brand of canners I havebasic informationhttps://nchfp.uga.edu/index.html National Center for Food Preservationhttps://www.fda.gov/media/107843/download FDA shares canning tips and other linkshttps://nifa.usda.gov/extension Find your local extension agencyhttps://tinyurl.com/vwm2vzff McSunley medium stainless steel water bath canner, 21.5 qthttps://tinyurl.com/3jznw8jw Mirro pressure canner, 22 qthttps://tinyurl.com/hs7rv7sz 'The Amish Canning Cookbook: Plain and Simple Living at Its Homemade Best' by Georgia Varozzahttps://tinyurl.com/59yat7dt 'The All New Ball Book Of Canning And Preserving' by The Ball Home Canning Test Kitchenhttps://tinyurl.com/99jw7vm3 'Canning and Preserving Without Sugar' by R.D. MacRaeThank you to the following companies for the podcast arthttps://snappa.com https://spark.adobe.com

Stephanie Mirro is the author of the Immortal Relics Series and the Last Phoenix Series. She talks to us about why she switched her book covers, the challenges of defining your genre, and the marketing tactics that work for her. Find her at https://www.stephaniemirro.com/ or on social @StephanieMirro

Check out the latest episode of the Apex Students Podcast. We pray that you don't walk away without looking a little more like Jesus! Reasons to Endure.

This is our 3rd episode of our series about my album 'Life', I talk a little bit about the LABRFF awards and my music video for my second single 'I Love the Guy in the Mirro'!

“You already have this constellation internally that is very capable, and you and me and everyone we know. But some of it is burdened. And so it has intense emotional charge that hasn't been released, or it has belief systems that are old and archaic and need to be discarded. But then once they're unburdened, the energy and the natural expression of that aspect of you is just available.” Sunni Brown   In this week’s episode of the Control the Room podcast, I’m delighted to speak with Sunni Brown, founder of Deep Self Design and Sunni Brown Ink. Sunni has been named one of the 100 most creative people in business and one of the 10 most creative people on Twitter by Fast Company. She is a best selling author, speaker, and expert meeting facilitator. We talk about the fallacy of using buzzwords in value statements, Cobra Kai, and the tango of co-facilitation. Listen in to find out what The Karate Kid remake can teach us about the complexity of people.   Show Highlights [8:23] The proven power of taking notes by hand [15:45] What is authenticity? [21:27] The fallacy of buzzwords in value statements [27:38] Cobra Kai, the more naive Karate Kid [36:47] The tango of co-facilitation [45:28] Dusting off your inner mirror   Links | Resources Sunni on LinkedIn Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers The Doodle Revolution SB Ink Sunni’s TedTalk, Doodlers Unite!   About the Guest Sunni Brown, founder of Deep Self Design and Sunni Brown Ink, is a best-selling author, speaker, and expert meeting facilitator. Fast Company has included her in “100 Most Creative People in Business” and “10 Most Creative People on Twitter.” Sunni, author of Gamestorming and The Doodle Revolution, leads a worldwide campaign advocating for visual, game, design, and improvisational thinking. She lists empathy, emotional intelligence, collaboration, and effective communication as some of her most sought-after leadership skills.   About Voltage Control Voltage Control is a facilitation agency that helps teams work better together with custom-designed meetings and workshops, both in-person and virtual. Our master facilitators offer trusted guidance and custom coaching to companies who want to transform ineffective meetings, reignite stalled projects, and cut through assumptions. Based in Austin, Voltage Control designs and leads public and private workshops that range from small meetings to large conference-style gatherings.  Share An Episode of Control The Room Apple Podcasts Spotify Android Stitcher Engage Control The Room Voltage Control on the Web Contact Voltage Control   Intro: Welcome to the Control the Room Podcast, a series devoted to the exploration of meeting culture and uncovering cures for the common meeting. Some meetings have tight control, and others are loose. To control the room means achieving outcomes while striking a balance between imposing and removing structure, asserting and distributing power, leaning in and leaning out, all in the service of having a truly magical meeting. This episode is brought to you by MURAL, a digital workspace for visual collaboration. At Voltage Control, we use MURAL to facilitate engaging and productive meetings and workshops from anywhere. MURAL gives teams the means, methods and freedoms to collaborate visually. Use their suite of facilitation superpowers to control the virtual room and solve tough problems as a team with their pre-built templates and guided methods. To see for yourself why companies like IBM, Atlassian, and E* Trade rely on MURAL, start your 30 day trial at mural.co. That’s mural.co Douglas: Today I’m with Sunni Brown, founder of Sunni Brown Ink and the Center of Deep Self Design, where she helps people design their best selves.  Welcome to the show, Sunni. Sunni: Can I call you D? Douglas: As long as you don’t call me Doug— Sunni: Dougie Fresh. Douglas: —I think I’ll be okay with it. Sunni: Okay. I might slip up and call you D. Douglas: D’s perfectly fine. So, how did you get started? How did Sunni Brown become Sunni Brown Ink? Sunni: Well, there were many roads that led to that incarnation, but first was that I could not keep a job. So I was fired many times. So there's, like, the shadow side of it, and then there's the accidental, you know, serendipitous aspects of it, and then there's the origin story, like the conditioning-from-family stuff. So there's all wrapped up in that, you know? But first and foremost, I could not—I got fired a lot. And when I say a lot, I mean definitely over 13 times. And so I was good at getting jobs, but I wasn't good at keeping jobs, which is a hallmark of entrepreneurism, but I didn't realize that at the time. I just thought that everyone was an idiot, and somehow I didn't belong in a cage or whatever. I was very unruly as an employee. It was actually legitimately hard for me to keep a job. Even though I was good, I was insubordinate. And so eventually I just recognized that, oh, I need to be my own boss. I didn't know the boss of what.  But serendipitously and sort of circuitously, I ended up in the Bay Area, which is rife with ideas and opportunity and innovation and potential, and that was a great place for somebody like me. And so I ended up working at The Grove, which is a visual-thinking company, and that was my introduction to visual literacy and visual thinking. I only worked there two years, and then I left and I started my own company, which again, I think—I mean, I think unless you have entrepreneurism in your family, it's almost always accidental. And it’s not— it's accidental and on purpose, but it's not necessarily something—it's, like, something that finds you and you find it, you know? There was a lot of ingredients that made that thing come to life. Douglas: So, tell us about the experience at The Grove. How did that shape what you're doing now? Sunni: It was a great experience in the sense that I was from—like, I had just graduated with a master’s in public policy, which always surprises people. But I was kind of working in the public sector, and I didn't even identify as a creative at that time. I didn't like the term creative. I didn't like the term artistic. I was very pragmatic and practical. And so I was not looking for anything of the sort, in terms of ending up at The Grove, and so I was very skeptical.  So when I was first there, I was just hired as the executive assistant because I had been other people's assistants, but I didn't always mention I’d been fired a lot. So I was very questionable about my job-acquisition ethics. But I did always end up getting jobs. And so eventually I was working for the president, which was David Sibbet, who's, like, the grandfather of visual thinking in the United States. And I was very lucky because I was mentored by him and then eventually mentored by Dave Gray and other kind of like—he wouldn't want me to call him a grandfather, but another godfather, if you will, of visual thinking. Douglas: Sort of a luminary.  Sunni: Yeah, absolutely. So those were events happenstantial. But when I first was at The Grove, I was really skeptical about visual thinking, and I thought it was kind of silly, to be honest. Douglas: So what was the thing that really changed for you? You said you used to think “it was kind of silly.” What really connected the dots for you to realize, like, “Wow, this is something deeper”? Sunni: Well, so, it was like application. I was first a graphic recorder. I don’t know if you know that about me, but I started as a graphic recorder. So a person would go and do live large-scale visualizations of auditory content. And what I observed in the process of learning how to be that, which did come naturally to me—it was a skill that kind of mapped itself onto my own skills readily, which was surprising—but through that process, I recognized that there was a lot of benefits of visual thinking that were happening to me cognitively. So I was remembering content really well. I was organizing it in my mind and on paper really skillfully. I was comprehending it and sort of like getting insights. And when you’re a graphic recorder, you go and you listen to every topic imaginable. So I noticed that my relationship with the content was really rich and really substantive. And I had to attribute it to what I was doing visually because it wasn't like I was special, you know? It was like, “Oh, my god, there's something meaningful to the brain about this way of thinking.” And that's when I became a convert. You know, I was converted. Douglas: That's incredible. It makes me think about something that I've been talking with a lot of folks about lately, this notion of multithreaded meetings, where when we're in MURAL and everyone is Livescribing and at the same time—now, it's certainly not at the level of proficiency and craftsmanship that, you know, you were taken to the job as a graphic recorder—but if we're all visually working in the meeting through MURAL or Mirro or any of these other tools and live capturing what we're hearing, we are unsynthesizing on the fly, we're adding nuance to what we hear because it's our own, like, filter. Even if we are attempting to be purist as possible, something's going to happen there. And when you look across the room of what everyone wrote down, you get this really rich picture of what was said, because it's, like, not only what was said, but this diversity of thought layered on top of it. Sunni: That's cool. That's cool that you're doing that. And absolutely. It makes complete sense, right? It's like this beautiful display of insight that is unique to each person. But it's not a thin relationship. It's a really thick relationship between you and what you're trying to understand. And that's why it's so valuable. And so, then, of course, I became an evangelist about that, and that was in a different chapter of my journey. And I'm really grateful for that, because at this point, I don't do anything without having some visual-thinking component. It’s just how I work and how I think and how I explain things to people. So it just changed everything about how I function. It's really grateful.  Douglas: That's really cool. You know, it also makes me think about active listening and how one of our skills as a facilitator for active listening is paraphrasing. And if you think about it, only one person can paraphrase at one time because if we were all doing that, it would be cacophonous insanity and the whole power of paraphrasing would be diminished because we're all talking over each other. But if someone's Livescribing or if the whole room is Livescribing, everyone's essentially paraphrasing but in a non-auditory sense, right? Sunni: Mm-hmm, yeah. That’s why I teach it to educators and then they teach it to students, because when you're typing—I mean, there's a lot of research about typing versus writing in terms of notetaking, and the research is very clear that when you use visual notetaking instead of typing on your laptop and just trying to, like, bang out as much as you can based on what the teacher’s saying, and similarly with handwriting, the knowledge and the insight is much, much deeper when you're using visual networking because you're synthesizing. So you're actively distilling content on purpose, and you're discerning what to believe and what to put on the page, and then you map it to some kind of icon or image so it comes to life. And so I think that that experience is true for everybody. I mean, I taught it all over the world, and it's not ever been somebody who was like, “No, I prefer my laptop typing in terms of knowledge acquisition.” Like, I’ve never met that person, you know? Douglas: Yeah, absolutely. You know, it also dawned on me. Has the research explored the notion of the spatial aspect of— Sunni: Uh-huh. Douglas: —handwritten notes? Because if you think about typed notes, it’s direct to linear; it’s always left to right; it’s up, down— Sunni: Yeah, totally. Douglas: —it’s squares; it’s edges. Sunni: There’s no structure. Douglas: Yeah. You have that structure is enforced upon you. Sunni: Right. Douglas: And if you're having to think through that structure or just flow through it and even move your hand to the upper right and over here and down, it's not so liberal—it's more liberating, maybe. Sunni: Yeah, that’s right. And Tony Buzan has this great page where he talks about that most kids perceive notetaking as punishment. They refer to it as punishment because that's how it feels, because they're confined and constrained by what you can do. And so when you make the page like a blank space, it's basically a field to plan, and then you can show relationships between things, and you can show spatial content that has an architecture that is inherently not in listing or in writing lists. And so there's, like, nine other things that he—He has a great book, Mind Map that he’s original. But it just describes how it’s like a black-and-white versus a color television. It's just a whole different world. And so it's universally impactful in that way.  So it was easy for me to fall in love with it after I got over myself, you know? I was like, “Oh, shit, this is like a power tool, and nobody knows it.” Like, very few people were interested in it or thought it was worth exploring, and it was sort of something you put on the side, like you go to art class and do that, or you be weird and do that. Like this guy— Douglas: Or these geeks in the corner of the conference just plugging away. Sunni: That’s right. And so I was, like, well, I would like to normalize the shit out of this. And so I was very passionate about it for a long time. And at this point, I've exhausted that passion. But I don't need to have it because other people have it now. So I’m like, “Cool. The torch has been passed, and more power to all of you.” Douglas: And we talked a little bit about that earlier in kind of the preshow chat. We both have books coming out on the non-obvious press, and I was asking you about— Sunni: Mm-hmm. Yeah. You’re writing the one I wanted to write, you old buster. Douglas: You know, you were writing a book on graphic recording. Sunni: Yeah. It was, like, rapid doodling. Yeah.  Douglas: Yeah. And I was curious to hear about that. And you said, “Oh, I wasn't inspired.”  Sunni: Yeah. Douglas: I mean, you were explaining how you kind of lost the flame a bit— Sunni: Right. Douglas: —because you've been doing it for a while— Sunni: Yes. Douglas: —and you know it in and out.  Sunni: Yes.  Douglas: And it's hard to take that kind of new— Sunni: Yeah. Like, the beginner’s mind. It’s such an important state of mind and that my relationship with that is not in that state. So I couldn’t strongarm my way into writing that book. Douglas: And I love how meta that experience for you and going through the conversation with the publisher was in relation to the topic you're actually going to write about, because you talked about not being part of your being or your state right now, the passion right now. And so it must have felt inauthentic. Sunni: It did. Yeah, it did. It felt forced, for sure. And I told him that I could do it. It's like, it's not that I don't have the ability to sit down and type some shit on a page that makes sense. Like, I can do it. But why would I do that? What is the value of a factory? Like, I'm not a factory. And I mean, I can be, but I don't want to be. And I just was like, fuck it. I'll just—you know, he can get mad at me. I mean, I literally woke up that morning. I was like, what if he sued me? I was like, I don't know what he's going to do. No idea what he was going to do. Because he had the whole—all of our books were going to be published in a certain time, remember? Like, all together. So I didn’t— Douglas: And then COVID happened. Sunni: That's right. And I was hoping that he would have considered that and that some of his other off—because you turned yours in on time, did you not?  Douglas: Yes. And— Sunni: Well, that's what I mean. So it didn't affect you. Ugh, god. Douglas: Well, we’re not on time. Sunni: Yeah, but you’re— Douglas: We turned it in, but then there was a lot of edits— Sunni: Right, right. Douglas: —so we’re still hard at work on it. But it’s great.  Sunni: That’s awesome. Douglas: I found working with them to be really fantastic from a— Sunni: Oh, good. Douglas: —get it right—let’s take the time to get it right. Sunni: Uh, yeah. He’s awesome, and he really impressed me that day. And so it was nice to arrive at the topic that I am interested in, I have something to say about. And for me, the most energetic time when I'm learning something is where I'm completely convinced that it's valuable. I have internalized quite a bit of it, but I haven't, like, reverse engineered what it is that I did. So it's like when I was a graphic recorder, I was doing that. I had some training, but I basically trained myself. And then I studied what I was doing. And then I was like, oh, wow, that's really interesting. So for me, it's like that was similar with the deep-self-design stuff. It’s like I've been applying and practicing this stuff for, like, 13 years, and now I'm studying what I'm doing because I want to teach it. So I apparently have these cycles of that. And I was not in that cycle with rapid doodling for problem solving. And I was like, why would I fake this? This is just completely not true for me at all. So thankfully, Rohit was awesome, and he was, like, “Great. I don't want you to write that.” And I almost kissed him through the screen. I was like, “God bless you,” because it was getting painful. Douglas: And what’s the title of the new book? Sunni: Well, I don't know yet exactly. It's still in process, but it's something about the “non-obvious guide to being confident,” or maybe “to enter confidence.” And then the subtitle is “without being arrogant or inauthentic,” something like that. Douglas: Yeah. And I love this notion of confidence is really important when it comes to facilitation. That’s why we both run facilitation practices just to get people experience with the tools and with new ways of doing things. And I also feel that authenticity matters so much. The authenticity allows us to be confident and vice versa. They kind of have this interesting dual purpose or this kind of linked connectedness. Sunni: And I’ve always been confused by, what is authenticity? What does it even mean? And it’s similarly with integrity. So this is just like a sort of weird question philosophically, which is, if you're authentically being manipulative, like you're totally committed to that activity, then that's not inauthentic. It's un-optimal. It's suboptimal for who you're dealing with. But, like, Trump is authentically an asshole. Do you know what I'm saying?  Douglas: Mm-hmm. Yes, I do know what you’re saying. Sunni: So I don’t even know when people describe—because I do often get described as authentic. My mother-in-law—well, she’s family so she could be blowing smoke up my ass—but she’s often like, authenticity is just your engine. And it took me a while. I was like, I don’t even know what she's talking about. But then finally, I came up with this definition, so I want to run it by you and see what you think. So what it is, maybe, is—and I’m sure there are people who’ve done this research, so I'm right on the edge of doing all this great research—which is your internal experience is matched to your external expression. So in other words, what I'm feeling internally—so if I'm feeling disappointment because somebody didn't respond to my text—when I talk to them, I say, “I'm experiencing disappointment about your lack of responding to me, and I'm interpreting it.” So I'm just saying what's true for me. I'm just speaking what— So I think that's what it is. And that's really hard for people, apparently. What do you love about it? Douglas: Well, you know, it's the same thing as like I think people as a society, we have been primed to not disappoint people and to avoid conflict, and so that forces people to be inauthentic— Sunni: That's true. So true. Douglas: —because they’re in pursuit of this vibe or this experience or to avoid. It’s like to minimize your— Sunni: Yeah. Conflict avoidance is huge, yes. Yes.  Douglas: Yeah. And it's the same thing as you get a birthday present you don't like, and you’re, “Oh, I love it.” Sunni: Right. Douglas: It’s like that incongruency of what you're saying and what you’re feeling.  Sunni: Yeah. Right. Douglas: And imagine you walk into a room and you know that you need to pump up that room and get everyone excited.  Sunni: Right. But you're not feeling it yet. Douglas: You're not feeling it. And there’s a pit in your stomach that you are not that is you're not being authentic. Sunni: Well, that, I think, creates anxiety, though, right, because when we’re trying to defy our actual internal experience, that is anxiety provoking. So that’s problematic. And it’s not like I nail it every time, but I definitely have a high fidelity to what my experience is and what my truth is, and then I share that. But I'm not undiplomatic.  So it's interesting what you're saying about the gift. When somebody gives you a gift and you don't really love it, but you're honoring that they gave it to you, that can still be an authentic experience because you may not love it, but you love that they gave something to you, that they thought of you, right? Douglas: Right. So why not? Why is it not customary that we say that? Sunni: I don’t know. I don't think our culture is skillful. I think our culture is really immature in a lot of areas. And communication and conflict is one of them, a big one. Douglas: Yeah. In our facilitation training, we often work with folks to think about how they can tap into their inner self. And you go much deeper into the internal family-system stuff. The stuff that we're saying to do is at least just check in. Sunni: Yeah, totally. Douglas: Does your foot hurt? Sunni: Right. Douglas: Does your stomach hurt? Sunni: Yeah. Connecting to your body. Douglas: Does it feel hot? Is there a tension in the room? Are you bringing that tension? Are you noticing it? Is that tension impacting you? Sunni: Yeah. Right. That’s so helpful, though, Douglas. People are so oblivious to their own states. And that is also anxiety provoking. When you’re divorced from your own experience, how could you not be stressed? How could that not be stressful?  To your point, I do go deep, and I love that. But it's also, what you're doing with people, that's a revelation for a lot of people. Just like, oh, oh, I do. I am hungry. Oh, I have no idea. Or oh, I am disappointed that I wasn't seated with my friend. You know, just anything. And then I often do at the beginning of sessions, I will have them name something that's true for them. And just that simple act of checking in, becoming aware of your state and yourself, and then declaring it, it's like returning to yourself just for a second. And it brings you into the present moment, and it's really helpful. Douglas: Yeah. Any time we can have some sort of presence-ing activity in an opener, it's really powerful. Sunni: I know. And you know what’s funny, talking about authenticity? I think I was with you one time when we—I have people often draw, like, just in virtual facilitation, they’ll draw some emotion on a sticky note. And I will just ask, “What is your state of emotion right now?” and then draw an emoji. And then, you know, the ones that are permissible, right—there's permissible, social, emotional experiences. So it'll be like, the craziest one might be that someone's frazzled, but they would never be like, “I’m depressed,” you know? Douglas: Mm-hmm. Sunni: No— So there's social norms in that. And again, it’s like, is that inauthenticity, or is that caretaking of the group, or is that not even knowing maybe how you feel? It's like, just, it’s complex, you know? Douglas: Yeah. It’s interesting because if you're intentionally trying to deceive you being authentic—there's different levels, are you being authentic to yourself? There is intention. And then someone else could perceive you as being inauthentic because you're like, wait, he's totally lying to me. So, yeah. Sunni: Mm-hmm. Yeah. That’s right. Douglas: And integrity, I think, is easier for me because I always define integrity—because it shows up on so many companies’ values statements, and I don’t even know—I think most of the time they don’t think about what it means. It’s like, oh, yeah. It needs to say integrity. Sunni: They don’t even know what it is. Douglas: Resourcefulness.  Sunni: They’re like, everybody wants that, for sure. Douglas: Integrity is just you do what you say you’re going to do. Sunni: Say you’re going to do? So, okay, what if I say I’m going to throw water on Chet when he’s sleeping?  Douglas: That’s integrity. Sunni: And then I do it. Douglas: You follow through. But if you say you’re going to build a wall and you don’t build a wall, that’s not a lot of integrity. Sunni: But that means that Hitler had integrity, right? So it’s like if you say—and it’s controversial, but based on that definition, that would mean that, that he followed through. Douglas: Yeah. But that’s the thing. I think people that take these words and they glorify them as being good qualities. Sunni: Yeah, they don’t mean anything. Douglas: And sure, if you have good intent—like, you had to combine them with other things because—that segues nicely into something that we were getting excited about during the preshow chat. And this is just good versus bad, and in binary thinking, how dangerous it is. Sunni: Yeah, it is. It's one of the thinking distortions. So there's a really great list of thinking distortions that has, like, eight on it. But this also segues into Zen practice, which is central to my entire life. But one of the thinking distortions is making things binary. And it's so tempting. And I do it even though I have a devout practice around not doing that, where I'm seeing the nuance. It's still, it's the brain. Like, we are wired to summarize very quickly for survival purposes. It’s not like we’re bad if we do that. That is just biologically, it's like a biological imperative. And so in order to soften that inclination to just label somebody as, like, stupid or smart; or a desirable, undesirable; or deplorable and undeplorable; or whatever, we have to practice. You actually have to activate the antithesis of that way of thinking by purposefully seeing the shades of gray. It is a practice, and it's super powerful.  And so I like that you're interested in that, too, because as facilitators, I gamify this stuff. I try to teach people that in gaming. That one in particular always blows people's domepieces off because they're like, “Oh, my god, I completely thought my boss was a jerk just by definition.” And I'm like, “Did you consider all the other facets of your boss?” And they're like, “No.” I'm like, “Why would you? It’s not a practice you have.” Douglas: You know, I think that it applies across the spectrum, too, right? A lot of times, especially folks that are brand new to facilitation, they're so curious. Like, how do I deal with difficult people? And that, first of all, is binary thinking. The fact that you’re asking that question means that you’re thinking there’s non-difficult people and difficult people. Sunni: You’re assuming. Right, yeah. And it’s funny because when I started facilitating, I never asked that question. I wasn’t worried about it. And I think that has to do with conflict avoidance, too. So if people are asking that question, underneath it is a fear that they're going to have to deal with conflict or perceived conflict. And conflict avoidance was not my family strategy. So I usually turn toward it and address it, depending on the depth of the wounding or whatever. But it's like, it's not fearful for me.  And also, I haven't encountered these “difficult” people. I know there are people that can talk over other people, and there are people that want to ask a lot of questions and sort of can derail some of your activities. I know there are people that try to sidle up to you and make alliances with a facilitator. But I don't think of them as difficult. I think of them as people, just human people. Douglas: What about the people that are desperately trying to help you? Sunni: Oh, I love those people. It’s always—that's so, so sweet because it’s like, how do you say “No, thank you. You're going to make it way harder on me if you try to help”? Right? Because when I was a graphic recorder, I used to always carry these big walls, you know? You got to carry these 32-square-foot walls everywhere, and you would not believe how many people tried to help me because I was 5’5” and they’d be like, “She can’t carry that up four flights of stairs.” And I’d be like, “It weighs two pounds. It's not hard.” But I would always just very gently be like, “No. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your interest. But it’ll go smoothly if I just do it because I've done it so many times.” But there are all those types in meetings.  But to your point, what does it mean if they're difficult? Maybe they just need something, and they need you to be aware of it. And you just look for the need, the underlying need, and see if you can support that or not. Douglas: You know, I really liked Michael Wilkinson's framing on this. I think in his book—I forgot. It’s so many secrets of facilitation. I can't even remember how many there are. There might be, like, let’s just say, so many secrets of facilitation. Sunni: They’re secrets? Douglas: Yeah, well, he's unveiling the secrets of facilitation. Sunni: What?! The secret teachings? Douglas: Yeah. It’s amazing. So, his whole thing is dysfunctions. How do you deal with dysfunctions? And so I liked that framing a lot better because there’s all sorts of them, and how do we think about addressing them as they happen? And the individuals aren’t dysfunctional. Sunni: Right.  Douglas: Maybe eliciting a dysfunction at that moment. Sunni: Yeah. Or like a malfunction, yeah. Douglas: Yeah.  Sunni: You know? A little breakdown.  Douglas: A little short circuit, which is an amazing— Sunni: And I have those, too, you know? Douglas: I mean, when are they going to come out with, like—so they've done E.T. with Stranger Things. They've done Karate Kid with Cobra Kai. When are they going to come out with the Short Circuit, like the modern Short Circuit? Sunni: Oh, dude. How can they top the original? It’d be so hard. It’d be impossible. Oh, my god, I’ve got to watch that tonight. It’s Friday night. Thank you for picking my movie. Douglas: There’s something about Cobra Kai that I was— Sunni: Dude. Douglas: —thinking about earlier. But— Sunni: Oh, my god, yes. Douglas: —I think it’s just this notion of this good versus bad. Sunni: Yes. Douglas: You know, I was thinking about that when we were talking about good versus bad.  Sunni: Yeah. Douglas: And it's really interesting to me how the more naive Karate Ki— even though, like, look, let's face it. Cobra Kai is like a series that is not really any kind of profound wisdom. But it's funny that the more naive version of Karate Kid was, like, Danny’s just like, and Miyagi, are just like the source of good. Sunni: Yes. Douglas: And now, the more modern portrayal, as they're older, they're much more complex, you know? Sunni: Right. Douglas: They’re both doing things that you’re like, why? Sunni: And that’s the truth about people is that we’re complex. And that’s what people don't want to grapple with, because it requires an awareness of things that can't be tucked into a box really neatly. And the brain, it does not like that. The brain is—I mean, sometimes it's stimulated by it. But ultimately, it needs a summation. And so it's like that's why you have all these characters that are easy to hate, like in Inspector Gadget. What’s the dude, Claw? He doesn't even have a face. He's just the bad dude behind the desk, without a face. And then when you look at comic books or graphic novels, they always go into their backstory. I mean, Black Panther, they nailed it by making those characters so complex. That, to me, felt relatable. So it's, like, so fascinating how that starts from storytelling when you're five, you know? Even Star Wars. But I love Star Wars because, dude, I don’t— Douglas: Hero’s journey.  Sunni: Yeah. Douglas: I mean, you kind of can’t go wrong with the hero’s journey. In fact, that's something Daniel Stillman and I talk about a lot, using that in your workshop design. Sunni: Mm-hmm. Hm, interesting. Like, taking each person through some transformational experience related to the content? Douglas: Yeah. Basically, from start to finish, we're going to go through this hero's journey, where we go into the abyss and come out together with the elixir. Sunni: Oh, that makes me just want to weep, it's so beautiful. And it's like even if you don't choose—because part of the journey, you have to answer the call. So life will probably summon you. But if you don't answer, then you don't go on the journey, you know? And I've always been fascinated by people that are not available for the journey, because it's just not safe. I mean, it's not, by definition. But for me, it's always worth it to step into challenges. And I think that is also a quality of entrepreneurs, is that we are kind of thrilled by freaking ourselves out. Douglas: Uncertainty, ambiguity. Sunni: Yes, dude. We’re like those people that like it. We're kind of into it. And over the years, I've had to temper my own instinct to do that. And I know you have too. I mean, I've been a workaholic for a long time, and I'm, like, in recovery. But it's also just because I like being challenged, and I like not knowing everything, because it's such a thrill when you get some new insight or knowledge. It's like, I feel like I'm like the Hulk. I'm like, whoa, I’m growing muscularly. I'm huge. But you could get addicted to that, so it's like every now and then I'm always, like, on a weekend I'm like, girl, you don't need to, like, read 40 sutras this weekend. You can just be an idiot, just be an idiot, you know? Douglas: Yeah. Just give the brain a little break. Go on a nature bath. Sunni: Yeah! You know, I told you I’m going to install my hillbilly hot tub. Is that okay to s—? You got—I know. I want— Douglas: My sauna’s getting installed right as we speak. Sunni: Oh, dude. That’s amazing.  Douglas: It’s important.  Sunni: It is.  Douglas: Yeah. As you were talking about this, some metaphors were coming up for me, around we're taking people through this risky kind of thing, and there is risk that you're taking. And it reminded me of rapids, right?  Sunni: Yeah.  Douglas: So whitewater rafting. And you always hire the guide so that you don't go kill yourself.  Sunni: Yeah. Douglas: Facilitation’s like the mental equivalent of the whitewater-rafting guy.  Sunni: Yeah, yeah. Douglas: If we're going to go on this risky mental journey, let’s make sure we have a shepherd or that guide to make sure that—we're going to wear helmets, of course, but we're going to make sure that we don't bash our heads on the rocks even if we have helmets on. Sunni: Well, and that’s why the facilitator is so important, because they have to trust you completely. And I don't mean they have to, meaning you can't conduct a meeting, but for a successful experience, they really need to trust you. And you, the way that I think about it, is that I demonstrate how I want them to be. So if something goes wrong, I will name that and own that, you know? If I don't have the answer to something, I will not pretend that I do. If I want somebody to collaborate with me, then I will invite them to come and collaborate with me, and then mimic that in their group. So it makes you more human in some ways if you're—I mean, there's every kind of facilitator under the sun, so it’s not like there's some gold standard or whatever. That's just my style, is I want them to understand that perfection is not what we're up to. We’re up to being humans. And so— Douglas: I think that’s authenticity, right there. Sunni: Yeah. Yeah, that’s true. But I could be being, like, what if I had an inner—because I have an inner perfectionist. I'm actually working with this part of me that is authentically perfectionistic, you know?  Douglas: Well, I meant the vulnerability you're talking about. Like, if you don't know the answer— Sunni: Yeah, let’s just name it. Douglas: —we’re going to talk about it. Sunni: Yeah. And I've been making so many bloopers. Douglas, you would not believe the bloopers on the United Nations project, because I'm learning as I go. And I told you that. It’s like we're leaping, and we're building our parachute while we’re falling. And the client’s not that aware of it. That is an internal awareness that Jessie and I both have. But for me, it's like, oh, my god—it's like I'm back to being a newbie, like, the stuff I do. Like, the other day, I just flung everyone into breakout rooms, just because I impulsively pushed the fucking button. It was like, what do you do? And then— Douglas: Well, that’s the world we’re in.  Sunni: I know. It’s so crazy. Douglas: It's going to happen, even—I've run the breakout rooms in Zoom daily— Sunni: Yeah, I bet. Douglas: —and I still hit things accidentally. And that’s partially because—here’s the thing. I don’t know if you've seen the book, The Design of Everyday Things.  Sunni: Uh-uh. Douglas: Oh, man. It's a classic design book. So great. Sunni: I know. I’ve heard of it. I don’t have it, though. Douglas: In fact, the doors that are poorly designed are actually named Norman Doors, after the author. Sunni: Aw. Douglas: Well, because he points out, don’t blame yourself because the door is poorly designed. Sunni: Right. Douglas: If there is a giant—like, you ever gone up to a door that has a giant handle on it? Sunni: Uh-huh. Douglas: And you’re supposed to just grab the handle and pull it toward you? Sunni: Yeah. Douglas: And you pull it, and then it doesn’t move because you’re supposed to push it? Sunni: Push it. Douglas: So on the push side, there needs to be a push plate, and on the pull side, there needs to be a pull handle. Sunni: Right. Like, you’re not the dope here. Douglas: Yeah. Exactly. You’re not the dope. He said, never blame yourself for bad design if someone designed it poorly. And so that's what everyone does. Like, my mom always tells me, I don't understand computers. I’m like, well, that means they didn’t design it so that you could understand it. Sunni: Aww, that’s very nice of you to say that. Because it does make people feel stupid when they can’t do things. Douglas: Yes. People always say they’re stupid when it’s like, man, someone did a poor job of getting you there. Sunni: Yeah. Douglas: And I think Zoom breakout rooms have a lot of room for growth. Sunni: Yeah. And I think they're working on that, and I know they're making new features and changes to how it— Douglas: Yeah. Sunni: Like, they just did the Gallery View. You can shuffle it around. Douglas: That’s right. Sunni: That's another thing, too, though. It's like all these new things constantly coming, so there's capabilities you don’t even know you have, and then there's some that fall off. So it's just a constantly changing environment. And so I've just made mistakes left and right, and then I remember what it's like to be a beginner. And thankfully, I have this foundational practice and that confidence about facilitating and making mistakes and just knowing that it's okay. But if I were a beginning facilitator, it would be so stressful. It’d be super stressful to try to step in. Douglas: Absolutely. And the thing is, you just found—in a way it's almost like fracking—you hit the depths of what's possible. You would become an expert in facilitation. And then this new fissure opened up because of remote, and now there is a new area to play in and a new area to fail in. But at the same time, you weren't building a parachute while falling. You know what I mean? You were in the squirrel suit, already at terminal velocity— Sunni: I was already in my gear. Douglas: And as you’re floating down, you’re like, “Oh, let me assemble a parachute, because then I’m going to float down even slower.” Sunni: That’s right. Yeah, that’s right. Douglas: So I think there’s something beautiful in that, right, because you can lean on the experience you have to then go into new, uncharted territory. Sunni: Yes. Douglas: And that uncertainty, while it’s scary, also leads to a lot of opportunity. Sunni: Totally. And that's why I love facilitating with expert facilitators, because we all know that. A lot of the stuff, a lot of the terrors and the weird delusions and the distorted ideas you have about the practice when you first go are gone. They're just burnt off by experience. And then, so, it's just, there's a lot of joy for me, because I online I always have a co-facilitator if it's longer than, like, an hour and a half. You know what I mean? And I love trusting the capacity of that person, because it's crazy, because the other day, Jessie and I were like, I could tell she was looking for something in the back end of Zoom, and I could see from her body language that she had no clue where it was. And so I just started talking. I was like, “Here's why we're doing this, and this is the value of it. And I ask the people questions.” And I was just doing it to fill in the gaps so that she could—because I looked at her again. I was like, “Okay, she found it,” and now I'm going to close. But that's like a tango that we have because we work together so often. But it's just, it’s very sweet. It's a very sweet process to have. Douglas: What you're describing is so much harder in the virtual space, too, because of the signals we have. When we're in the room together— Sunni: Totally. Douglas: —and vibing, whether it's Daniel or John or Eli or any of the facilitators I’ve facilitated with quite often, it's like you can feel it almost in the air. Like, we don’t even have to make eye contact necessarily. It's just like, “Oh, I know they're still riffing.” And then, you know, it's almost like when you can tell someone's looking at you. So when they're done looking at you and ready, like, better if you just got the— So I feel like what you were doing is a pro move to be tearing through the tools and trying to revisit the vague signals we do have in virtual. Sunni: Yeah. It's so funny you're talking about this because Jessie and I were talking about this this morning. When you're asking about my origin story, so part of my early conditioning had to do with hyper vigilance. So I was very aware of what emotional state people were in and what their next move was likely to be. So I'm really attentive to body language. And that, for me, is still very available in Zoom. I mean, I can tell—and Jessie was making fun of me this morning. She was like, “Oh, my god, girl. You name people that they have a question before they have even unmuted themselves or even know they have a question.” But it's because I'm watching their body language. When people are about to ask a question, they do things. They move forward. They lean toward the camera. They kind of, like, gesture in these bizarre ways. Sometimes they stop and start. And so for me, that visual and gestural information is still there. So I’d just be like, “Hey, Frank, it seems like you want to say something.” And then Jessie was just like—she was making fun of me, because she was like, “That is so weird that you—” but I’m so sensitive to it, you know? And I thought that was normal, but then I realized, oh, yeah, no, that's my trauma. Basically, that’s the gift of trauma. Douglas: You know, that was one of the things that really jumped out to me when you were telling me about internal family systems and giving me the whole low-down there, and I found it really fascinating that things that were previously traumatic or these—I can't remember the Internal Family Systems parlance—but these guards, these managers, that were created because of old wounds are part of yourself. And they can be, they can sometimes be disruptive, but they can also serve a function. They can give you superpowers that other people don't have. Sunni: Yeah, they do. Absolutely. They’re 100 percent really powerful. And that’s one of mine is I have a manager who's very watchful, and so it is a super power. Now, the problem is I can't turn it off. So, like, if I’m, for example, in mediating between my husband and his mom, it will kind of be exhausting for me because I know that they're going to have an argument 10 minutes before they do, because I can see where the tones are changing and what the language, how the language is changing. I can see them turning, body language turning away from each other. I can see a color of their skin gets redder and redder. But they're not, like you were saying, people are not aware of what's happening internally to them. So they're not yet aware. So for both of them, the energy, the intensity has to be a certain threshold before they even notice. But for me, I notice it way early. And it's exhausting because I'll just be like, “Dudes. I'm going to walk out now. Five, four, three, two. Okay, your mom's pissed.” It’s funny. But as a facilitator, it's really useful. It's a really useful skill, and I'm grateful for the spontaneous—like, going back to IFS, the spontaneous creation of these skill sets based on—and it’s not always from trauma. It’s just from navigating life, you know? But there is a spontaneous creativity that the body and the mind does to meet whatever circumstances are there. And that's why I have such gratitude for how wise and skillful all of our systems are. So even if a person is “difficult,” I respect that there's some aspect of what they're doing that is a protective function and that that's quite healthy for their system. So I just have a deeper, a kind of an abiding appreciation for malfunctions and for strategies that people have, because I'm like, dude, I am the same way. We're designed the same way. I get it, you know? And I just respect it. Douglas: Yeah. It's amazing to see what strategies other people use and which ones that we can authentically borrow versus things that maybe I don't want to touch that. Maybe that's not such a good tool for me. Sunni: Yeah. I wonder how many you can borrow, because there are qualities that other people have that I wish that I had. And I kind of admire that they have them, but I don't personally have them myself. Like, what example? Douglas: From an internal family systems, I doubt there's much borrowing we can do unless we do some deep, long work. I was thinking more from the surface level of, that's an interesting strategy. Ooh, I like the way that they're asking folks to… Who haven't we heard from next? I think there’s a lot of fun little prompts and questions and things that we can borrow from folks. But it's critical that we do it authentically. If it doesn't feel comfortable in your belly when you're saying it, maybe leave that one at home. Sunni: Right. Aww, I know. It's so insightful what you're saying about you can't really borrow them, because I always think about coaches and coaching and why would that work in terms of if you're trying to say, like, if somebody hires a coach to be more assertive, it's like, well, you could hack it. You could put on an assertive demeanor. But it wouldn't really be born of your essence. You wouldn't really be the source of it. So I always think it's interesting, the methods that coaches use to attempt to get great things from people. For me, it has to be natural for them. So you just want to unlock their natural strength. Douglas: I like that word natural. I think that's very similar to how I think about authentic, is of being natural.  I want to talk about the coaching thing for a second, though. You know, I think part of it is people not taking a robust definition of greatness. They've found some thing that they think is greatness, and then they're glommed onto it, and they're like, teach me how to… I think you were talking about, like, being more confident or whatnot. But what if people more generally said, “I just want to improve. And what does that mean to improve? And let's explore things more openly.” I think that kind of coaching can be really, really interesting, right? Let's see how I can explore where my strengths create weakness. In some of the coaching work I've done, it's about how I figure out what I'm not good at, and then is it something that I can improve on? And if not, if it's truly a deep-seeded weakness, let's delegate that. But let's let that be a part of my self-awareness. Coaching should be about becoming more self-aware. Sunni: That's right. And unburdening some of the parts of you, because you already have this constellation internally that is very capable, and you and me and everyone we know. But some of it is burdened. And so it has intense emotional charge that hasn't been released or it has belief systems that are old and archaic and need to be discarded. But then once they're unburdened, the energy and the natural expression of that aspect of you is just available, which is crazy because that's what Zen practice is all about too. Zen practice, there's the metaphor they use is like wiping dust from a mirror. So your mirror is already there. You can't change that. It's just who you are. It's part of the natural emergence of an incarnated being, is that you're like a reflection of the universe. And it just has dust on it. So the practice is about getting some of the dust off.  There was a big reversal of the way I grew up, which was, like, oh, you're born in sin. And I was like, wait. So I'm just fundamentally fucked up? I was like, oh, I can't relate to that. But people do, you know? And so I think the approach of assuming beauty in the person and then just helping them release some of their inherent capacity is just a really benevolent way to approach coaching. But it's not that common. Douglas: Sunni, it’s been a pleasure chatting with you today. And just want to give you a chance to kind of close out, leave anyone with any final thoughts. Or I know that we've probably got a lot of folks that are really interested in how they can find out more about your work and what you do. So anything they should keep in mind? Sunni: Well, I was thinking about your audience. They’re mostly facilitators, right? They’re people who are interested in that practice? Douglas: Yeah. Our listeners are facilitators as well as leaders that are interested in these techniques and how they can improve their meetings and their employee experience. I think, generally, the audience are growing into just a general appreciation of how meetings could be better. Sunni: Yeah. You're so good at what you do. If people are interested in a lot—I mean, you and I covered so many great topics that I'm like, “Oh, is our time up? It's so sad.” But deepselfdesign.com has some good resources on it. And my other business that is the original venture is sunnibrownink.com. Those are both resources. And you can find me all over the Internet. Outro: Thanks for joining me for another episode of Control the Room. Don't forget to subscribe to receive updates when new episodes are released. If you want more, head over to our blog, where I post weekly articles and resources about working better together, voltagecontrol.com.

Discutăm azi cu unul dintre liderii industriei digital - tech din România: antreprenorul Alexandru Lapusan - co-fondator ZITEC, implicat si in produse precum Regista sau Mirro, precum si investitor in mai multe start-up-uri. Alex e și vicepresedinte al ANIS, adică asociația patronală a industriei de software și IT din România.  Despre antreprenoriat, cum crești o companie de servicii care dezvoltă apoi și produse, despre leadership, decizii, relația industriei cu statul, pandemie, previziuni și multe altele. O doză concentrată. Enjoy! /Ediția podcast UPGRADE 100 Live este oferită de Banca Transilvania și BT Talks/

Author of the Immortal Relics series talks writing practices and upcoming projects.

Check out the latest episode of the Apex Students Podcast. We pray that you don't walk away without looking a little more like Jesus!

Fellowship And Freedom 8/18 Guest @truthandvibration The World Is A Reflection Of You, Just Mirro by Sindy Ashby

In today’s episode of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about remote work or distributed work. The topic of having remote or distributed teams is a hot one in the startup world. It is common for some startups that implement remote work policies to see increased productivity, efficiency, and fulfillment from their employees. However, the reverse can be the case when a remote team is not managed properly In this week’s episode, Steli and Hiten talk about having a remote work or distributed work, what the workforce could look like in the future, how the business landscape has changed and much more. Time Stamped Show Notes: 00:00 About today’s topic. 01:44 Why this topic was chosen. 02:10 One side of the trend line. 04:34 Another side of the trend line. 06:40 What the workforce could look like in the future. 07:31 How we’re going to get better at managing remote teams. 08:16 Why the growth rate of distributed companies is going to play a bigger role in the future. 08:56 Companies that have had success being fully remote. 09:43 How the business landscape has changed. 10:37 How the future of the workforce could look like. 3 Key Points: It’s so difficult to hire from a local areaWe’re going to find and learn how to hire productive team members no matter where they areThe growth rate of distributed companies is going to play a bigger role in the future. [0:00:01] Steli Efti: Hey everybody. This is Steli Efti. [0:00:03] Hiten Shah: And this is Hiten Shah, and today on The Startup Chat, we're going to do first of a few, and I know we've talked about this before at some point too, but I think this is a trend, and so the topic is about remote work, or what some are calling distributed work, and we just wanted to talk about it as a trend and talk about why it's so important right now and why so many people are talking about it. And, on top of that, I'm doing some research on the topic, by creating a report with my team at FYI, and we're partnered with a company called [Mirro] to do that, and before we even begin, I did want to give one shout-out because there's a newish podcast and blog by Matt Mullenweg from Automatic, and it's called Distributed, and it's at distributed.blog. One of the things that Matt, I believe, really believes is that he likes calling it distributed work, not remote work. I think he's got the pet peeve similar to mine of, put it as self-funded instead of bootstrapped. [0:01:09] Steli Efti: Yup. [0:01:11] Hiten Shah: But he's really talking about what most of us have been talking about as remote work. So distributed work, remote work, this is a trend. I know you've been doing it for years. I've been doing it for about 16 now. Let's talk about it. [0:01:24] Steli Efti: Yeah. And specifically, I think I'd love to talk about why it's seeming to be bubbling up even more so than I've seen ever before and becoming more and more of a topic. I see a lot of debate area kind of an echo chamber of ... Just recently there have been a bunch of articles about more and more startups leaving the Bay area or more and more startups starting to hire more aggressively remotely. I think recently there were big news that Stripe said their next big hiring hub is going to be distributed or remote, right? [0:01:58] Hiten Shah: Yup. [0:01:59] Steli Efti: And that was kind of a big announcement, for a unicorn startup to say that, that was, I think, traditionally very much based on setting up these large offices, right, and headquarters. And, so, I wanted to talk about why this is a trend and why I don't think it's going to die down, right? So the trend part on my end, from my perspective, is just that ... I mean, it's just like everything else. You go through cycles, but the trend plan is definitely going up in the sense that there's a bunch of peop...

On this episode of Forking Around Town, Tracy Guida recaps on her food-filled week with stops at places such as The Ranch House Grill, Mirro’s Pizzeria, and Tibby’s New Orlean’s Kitchen. She shares about her new weekly giveaways on her blog and her plans to attend the Florida Strawberry Festival. Subscribe, Rate, and Review the […] The post Forking Around Town: Food-Filled Week with Stops Around Tampa Bay appeared first on Radio Influence.

On this episode of Forking Around Town, Tracy Guida recaps on her food-filled week with stops at places such as The Ranch House Grill, Mirro's Pizzeria, and Tibby's New Orlean's Kitchen. She shares about her new weekly giveaways on her blog and her plans to attend the Florida Strawberry Festival. Subscribe, Rate, and Review the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, and TuneIn Radio. Follow Tracy on Twitter and Like Forking Around Town on Instagram The post Forking Around Town: Food-Filled Week with Stops Around Tampa Bay appeared first on Radio Influence Tampa Bay.

Dennis and Alicia visit Parkview Mirro Event and Conference Center to talk with sound technician Ryan Lentine about what goes into setting up sound for major events in the state-of-the-art venue.

ARTIST, SKÅDESPELARE, 46 år. Född och bosatt i Stockholm. Debuterar som Sommarvärd. Inför publik och med ett åttamanband på scen avslutar artisten Rennie Mirro Sommarsäsongen 2018. En musikalisk föreställning om identitet och tillhörighet. Om att ha uppfostrats av kvinnor och svikits av män. Rennie Mirros Sommar handlar om att söka sin identitet. Mellan fotboll och balett, Stockholm och New York. Men framförallt om hudfärg. Svart eller vit. Om känslan av att inte höra till. "Innan jag blev pappa kunde jag aldrig se den trygghet, kärlek och acceptans som fanns i mitt liv. Jag såg inte ut som någon som jag skulle tillhöra." Rennie Mirro berättar i Sommar i P1 varmt om de kvinnor som uppfostrat honom. Mamma Francine, farmor Marylyn, moster Hinda och rullskridskoåkande förskolläraren Sadie. Om uppbrottet från New York som femåring, uppväxten i kollektiv och saknaden av pappa Eric. Han berättar också i programmet för första gången om hur han som barn utnyttjades sexuellt under flera år. Och hur han tog steget att våga berätta om det. I programmet medverkar på scenen Rennies pappa Eric Bibb och systrarna Sarah Dawn Finer och Zoie Kim Finer och kompisen Joachim Bergström. Om Rennie Mirro Känd från publiksuccéerna Singin´in the Rain och Jesus Christ Superstar. Turnerade i Sverige tillsammans med Karl Dyall och föreställningen From Sammy with love, som även spelades på Apollo Theater i New York. Började som klassisk balettdansör, i många år anställd på Operan. Har fått utmärkelsen Guldmasken två gånger som bästa manliga musikalartist. I höst aktuell i musikalen On the Town på Smålands Musik & Teater i Jönköping. Har medverkat i flera tv-serier och varit producent för tävlingsbidragen i Melodifestivalen. Är sedan några år teaterdirektör för Teatern Under Bron i Stockholm, som under sommaren spelar svensk nyskriven dramatik. Länkar Rennie Mirro berättar i sitt Sommar-program att han som barn utsattes för sexuella övergrepp. Om du själv, eller du som anhörig, behöver hjälp eller råd kan du bland annat vända dig hit: Barnens rätt i samhället. www.bris.se Inte ensam aldrig glömd. www.inteensamaldrigglomd.se UMO är en webbplats för alla som är mellan 13 och 25 år. På UMO kan du hitta svar på frågor om sex, hälsa och relationer. Bakom UMO står alla landsting och regioner.  www.umo.se Brottsofferjouren för unga. www.ungaboj.se Rädda Barnen - global barnrättsorganisation. www.raddabarnen.se   Producent: Henrik Johnsson

The guys talk about groin injuries, college basketball, and blue bonnets. They also talk about the Raiders moving to Las Vegas, Dave Chappelle, and wearing leggings on a flight. Follow the show on twitter: @passthegravypod, @AlexJMiddleton, @ChrisHogan82, @RobertBarbosa03

Join Alex and Tigs for the 2016 halfies where they talk about Dark Souls 3, Devil Daggers, The Division, Doom Enter the Gungeon, Far Cry Primal, Fire Emblem Fates, Firewatch, Hitman, Hyper Light Drifter, Kirby: Planet Robobot, Mighty Number 9, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, Overwatch, Oxenfree, Pony Island, Punch Club, Quantum Break, Ratchet and Clank. Rhythm Heaven Megamix, Salt and Sanctuary, Severed, Stardew Valley, Street Fighter 5, Superhot, That Dragon Cancer, Total War: Warhammer, Twofold Inc, Uncharted 4, The Witness and more on this episode of Griefed! Recorded on Tuesday June 28th 2016.

Vi har samlat lyssnarnas tips på låtar som översatts till svenska och denna fredag tar vi ett ordentligt grepp om detta ämne och frossar i översatt text och så kollar vi in syntolkad parkteater. Vilka är de bästa tricken när man ska översätta en låttext till svenska?  I veckans upplaga av Wilsons vecka har en expertpanel tagit på sig att granska, lyssna och sjunga med i olika coverversioner genom tiderna. Gäster är musikern Anna Järvinen, som nu översätter sina svenska texter till finska, DN-kulturskribenten och melodifestivalexperten Hanna Fahl och musikern Jonathan Johansson.Vår reporter Alfred Wreeby besöker Stockholms Parkteater som ger en föreställning som syntolkas i kväll i Vitabergsparken. Hör skådespelaren Rennie Mirro och syntolkaren Eva Lagerheim. Dessutom ska vi reda ut begreppet trojansk feminism. Maria Brander, Expressen och kulturjournalisten Tobias Norström kommer laddade med det bästa de tycker att veckan har att erbjuda i nöjesväg.

00:00 Roulette (6.21.02 - Bonnaroo, Manchester, TN) 05:31 Headphones and Snowcones* (10.4.02 - House of Blues, Chicago, IL) 08:00 Coming in from the Cold > 13:45 Hurt Bird Bath (2.2.02 - Park West, Chicago, IL) 21:03 Much Obliged > 29:20 Hajimemashite > 34:10 Much Obliged (Songs for Older Women) 34:38 Get Down > 43:25 Glory (7.22.02 - Cicero's, St. Louis, MO) 45:46 Carry That Weight** > 47:27 The End** (12.31.02 - The Vic Theatre, Chicago, IL) 52:56 Ask Me No Questions (2.4.00 - Bell's Brewery, Kalamazoo, MI) Total Broadcast Length 57:15 Notes: * debut; with Mike Mirro on marimba, Jake Cinninger on drums ** debut (The Beatles); with Josh Quinlan on saxophone

Listen Live from QSJ Radio:http://13traffic.wix.com/qsjradio#!playandchat/cdk6No Dead Air is a show dedicated to radio shows that keep playing the same BS, and talk about the same BS. This show airs Tuesdays Live from Virginia at some local events, and in studio. All shows are live, with a chance for local Artist to shine. Chat with us!http://13traffic.wix.com/qsjradio#!playandchat/cdk6Artist are encouraged to send music to QSJ Radio for Airplay. Also to send e-mail for request for interviews. QSJRadio@gmail.com To Listen Live to QSJ Radio click this Link:1st Mirror. http://tunein.com/radio/QSJ-Radio-s199652/ 2nd Mirro. http://69.4.230.78:8100/listen.pls

Breeze Dollaz: @BreezeDollaz https://twitter.com/BreezeDollazMusic: https://soundcloud.com/breeze-dollazListen Live from QSJ Radio:http://13traffic.wix.com/qsjradio#!playandchat/cdk6No Dead Air is a show dedicated to radio shows that keep playing the same BS, and talk about the same BS. This show airs Tuesdays Live from Virginia at some local events, and in studio. All shows are live, with a chance for local Artist to shine. Chat with us!http://13traffic.wix.com/qsjradio#!playandchat/cdk6Artist are encouraged to send music to QSJ Radio for Airplay. Also to send e-mail for request for interviews. QSJRadio@gmail.com To Listen Live to QSJ Radio click this Link:1st Mirror. http://tunein.com/radio/QSJ-Radio-s199652/ 2nd Mirro. http://69.4.230.78:8100/listen.pls

00:00 Intro* > 19:55 Miss Tinkle's Overture > 24:51 Mulche's Odyssey** > 31:48 Dr. Feelgood > 35:55 13 Days (12.6.02 - Otto's, DeKalb, Illinois) 40:25 Bad Poker (12.7.02 - Rave Basement, Milwaukee, Wisconsin) 41:53 Padgett's Profile*** > 47:52 De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da^ > 48:55 Padgett's Profile (12.12.02 - The Vogue, Indianapolis, Indiana) 50:51 Empire State^^ > 53:51 JaJunk& (12.13.02 - Canopy Club, Urbana, Illinois) 69:16 Carry That Weight&&% > 70:51 The End&&% 76:25 Her Majesty&& (12.31.02 - Vic Theatre, Chicago, Illinois) Total Broadcast Length 77:22 Notes: * with I Got Love (Nate Dogg) jam; Robot World, Out of Order and Mulche's Odyssey teases ** with Waiting Room (Fugazi) teases *** with Sweet Child O' Mine (Guns 'N' Roses) teases ^ one verse (The Police) ^^ debut; with improvised lyrics & with Mulche's Odyssey teases && debut (The Beatles) % with Josh Quinlan on saxophone

På Stockholm Stadsteater hyllas entertainern och The Rat Pack-medlemmen Sammy Davis Jr. Vi tar tempen på Karl Dyalls och Rennie Mirrors premiärnerver och pratar om framgång och utanförskap. Hur mycket "skrytdansar" de på ett vanligt discogolv och vad tycker de om premiärmingel.

In From the Rain - Through the Mirror

Discuss this episode in the Muse community Follow @MuseAppHQ on Twitter Show notes 00:00:00 - Speaker 1: You start with some seeds of an idea. Basically, it might be some sketches or a picture of a whiteboard you took or a voice memo, and what you want to end up with is, say, an essay, and there’s several steps to the creative process. And one of the things that’s exciting about the new text feature plus blocks is you can see it as a trellis for that growth. 00:00:23 - Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to Meta Muse. Muse is a tool for thought on iPad. But this podcast isn’t about Muse the product, it’s about Muse the company and the small team behind it. I’m Adam Wiggins here with Mark McGranaghan. Hey, Adam. Mark, I’m pleased to report that Metause has broken into the top 200 charts on the technology category in Apple Podcasts. It’s a per country breakdown. I’ve been using a little thing called PO status that essentially sort of charts your position over time. Some countries were there pretty consistently, other places like Germany where I live, we kind of pop in and out at the whims of the algorithm essentially. That was quite surprising to me in a lot of ways, cause I just still think of this as, you know, me and you were having a chat sometimes with guests, just people we like to hang out with and seeing our logo alongside these what I consider to be kind of giants of the podcasting world like Cortex and Accidental tech and so on is kind of a thrill actually. 00:01:20 - Speaker 1: Yeah, I continued to be really pleasantly surprised by the reception we get to the podcast. It’s actually just at a family event about a week ago, and people would come to me and say, Mark, hey, it’s great to see you. By the way, I love the podcast, like, whoa, OK, I didn’t know you were listening to that, but that’s cool. So yeah, it’s been fun. 00:01:35 - Speaker 2: Nice. Yeah, and I also want to maybe make a little request. First of all, a huge thanks to all the people who have tweet recommendations or a lot of folks tell me that they do more kind of in person. Reminds me a little bit of our episode on social media where we talked about something going viral slowly kind of through word of mouth, sort of the ideal thing, and I think there’s a little bit of that here, which is great. But actually, if you haven’t had the chance to recommend us, you can actually help by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. They make it a little hard to do, but if you go to the new podcast page and go to the Apple Podcasts, I’ll link that in the show notes. You scroll down to the bottom, I think you can tap write a review if you’re on your iPhone. I’m sure Spotify has a similar thing. We only have a few reviews. In a lot of countries, sometimes none, so even just taking a moment to drop in a star review in one sentence of what you think you like hearing these weird guys talk about, if nothing else, will soothe my vanity. So our topic today is text. Now that word even is so rich for me and many of the reasons I got into computing and tools for thought, and so on. The impetus here is we’re just now releasing into beta for all our pro members a text blocks feature, so essentially changing our text cards today, which are kind of these Post-it notes things, pretty basic, to something that is a little more inspired by the notion Rome craft world of things. And maybe we’ll describe a little more of that vision later, but of course I always like to start with the absolute fundamentals. So Mark, I have to ask you, what is text, and I mean not the dictionary definition, but what comes to mind for you with that word. 00:03:11 - Speaker 1: Well I’ll give you a very marked philosophical answer, which I’m sure we’ll hear echoes of in the rest of this conversation. Now, if you think about conveying information, there’s sort of a necessarily most primitive form, which is a string of 0 and 1’s, you know, you can’t reduce the dimensionality beyond a line and you can’t reduce the base beyond two, right, or else you have no information. And then in the case of human acceptable information, it’s perhaps a string of human readable characters. So in some sense it’s the most basic fundamental primitive way to communicate information. So that’s one of the reasons why I think it comes up so often in Tools for Thought, but we’ll talk more about that throughout the podcast. 00:03:51 - Speaker 2: For me, the word text, I think, makes me think of plain text or files that end in .txt and for a very long time, that was my whole knowledge management system was a folder full of text files. Maybe at some point I did mark down or something like that, but plain text is just one of the most fundamental formats on a computer. It’s how code is usually represented, it’s a very durable and long-term format, it’s very flexible, you can do Aski art and things like that, yeah. But I guess going back even before sort of the digital side of things, I really think of writing things down in any way at all as the original tool for thought. And in fact, it feels like almost all of the things that build upon that are essentially variations of ways to write things down. Ways to externalize thoughts from your mind. I think we’ve talked before about even something as simple as using a stick to draw on the dirt and I don’t know, cavemen drawing a picture of a horse on the wall of their cave, and certainly you have this whole history of, I guess there’s sort of written language, which of course is an extension of or a mapping of spoken language. And that leads you into the whole world of alphabets, but actually even before alphabets, you have logograms, things like hieroglyphs, you know, you have a picture of a duck, and that means the word duck, for example, and then you have all these technologies for mediums for writing on, mediums for writing with, for reproducing those things, clay tablets, styluses, papyrus, paper, pens and pencils, printing press, whiteboards, posted notes, etc. And then language, which we typically represent in modern times with alphabets which stand for sounds roughly, but are actually very abstract, you know, they’re pretty far removed from the pictures or diagrams we once had, and I think that leads us to one of the dualities I wanted to talk about or I’ve been thinking about a lot in terms of this muse product direction, which is the duality or the spectrum of symbolic versus spatial and visual. 00:05:46 - Speaker 1: Yeah, this could that something really fundamental, which is formats that are optimal for conveyance and translation and reproduction and storage, which I would say plain text, especially for that category versus formats which are optimized for matching how our minds work and think, which is closer, I would say to the music model of it’s multimedia, it’s free form, it’s kind of messy, and so. Forth. And so there’s constantly a tension, I think, between having a tool that better represents and better works with how we tend to think versus having a tool that, for example, can persist that data over hundreds of thousands of years, or just a few years in the case of today’s software. And I think kind of grappling with that, not to mention just the complexity of actually building such a multimedia canvas is a lot of what the tools for Though space is about. 00:06:35 - Speaker 2: Yeah, I would argue that at least the current tools for thought space, which is maybe a little bit overindexed on building sort of Rome clones and variations, and I think there’s probably much wider space to explore. I’m certain there’s much wider space to explore, but those, of course, yeah, Rome notion, they’re in the same vein of, yeah, plain text files, marked down, Emacs org mode. Very symbolic oriented and of course symbolic representation, yeah, mathematics, written language, of course, even programming is just an incredibly powerful way to do things, but this spatial and visual side, I mean, we talked about this with Anne Lohr back in the episode on thinking in maps and sort of diagrams and literal maps in some cases, as being a spatial and visual way to represent things. Or there’s something like data visualization. Of course we can’t go in an episode without mentioning Brett Victor, and I was just rewatching some of the humane representation of thought, where he talks about the invention of the modern chart or data visualization. I think it’s in the, maybe the 1700s, 1800s by William Playfair. And this idea of creating a chart where you got time on one axis, and some thing that goes up and down, like money or population or some other thing on another axis, turned out to be a really powerful way to tap into our spatial reasoning and a much better way to get overviews and see patterns in data, but that would be invented just like everything. So that’s an amazing tool for thought, I think, an example of in that sort of spatial and visual side that we think is Maybe under explored in the digital realm or right at this moment in the digital realm. 00:08:16 - Speaker 1: Right? And I also think there’s an element of time and process here. So there are some use cases where you want a very visual and spatial end product. A map is perhaps the canonical example of that, but I think much more common is a case where the process along some of the Steps asks for such a format. So for example, if you’re eventually going to write an essay, the final artifact is going to be plain text, essentially. But I find at least it’s quite hard to start ideaating and brainstorming and sketching an essay, like basically in a text editor, you know, maybe I’m going for a walk or I want to be giving myself a voice memo or I’m sketching some ideas in my notebook, or I’m drawing some diagrams, right? And so you have this process where often I find in the beginning stages of ideation, brainstorming, sketching, outlining, you can really benefit from this freeform spatial multimedia model. But then you have the issue of if that’s step one, but the final step is plain text, how do you navigate that jump basically? Do you jump tools? Do you have some kind of conversion step? I think often what people do or often what people have done in the past is they just kind of punt on it. And they find a tool that’s like flexible-ish enough to do some of the brainstorming and like presentable enough to do some final publishing. I think notion is actually a really effective example of that where it’s really nice to do the whole process in one tool, even if it’s not ideal for either end. Or sometimes people, I think they jump tools like they do some sketching in the notebook and they have an outline for their essay, and then they go type it up, they basically got to retype up all their notes. So I think there’s an interesting potential for tools that allow a more gradual and continuous process where the shape of the content evolves from a messy sketch to a typed up essay, for example. 00:09:57 - Speaker 2: Yeah, and there may even be some value to the transcription process. So in the coming up with what you’re going to write for a long form prose piece, let’s say you’re a journalist or you’re just writing a blog post for your own personal thing, of course, in the end it is going to be this linear one dimensional starts in the top left for left to right language readers and ends at the bottom right and flows very linearly, but when you’re figuring out what to say, maybe you draw on your whiteboard, you’s catching your notebook, you use index cards that you can move around on a table. And maybe you find what you want to say, but then actually sort of transcribing that fresh into, I don’t know, your writing tool or whatever works. Maybe that works OK in a lot of cases. There are some examples in the digital realm. I think we’ve spoken about them or linked to them before, but this company Literature and Latte makes one of the maybe best known kind of dedicated long form writer’s tool, which is Scrivener, I think it’s really intended, especially for novelists, fiction novelists. But they also have another tool called Skel, I believe it is. I’ll link that in the notes, which is kind of cards on a canvas, Post-it notes, desktop thing, maybe it’s not as sleek and modern as Muse, but I’ve run into people who use Skel in the same way you might use Muse, and notably they’re both from the same company. And they’re intended, but they’re just for those different stages, precisely like you said. One is this ideation, you’re figuring out the arcs of your character and maybe even want notes that aren’t even going to be sort of in line to the story. There’s backstory about a particular character or a place. You’re not necessarily going to just have a paragraph where you say so. So it was from here, they’re this old and what have you, but as a writer, having that floating around on the edges as a reminder while you’re near your other kind of plot elements can be useful. So that’s another example of the nonlinear free form, and then eventually you somehow collapse it down to this one dimensional long form prose format. 00:11:48 - Speaker 1: Yeah, I do think there’s just a ton of potential in that type of tool, and I feel like we’re only just beginning to explore it as an industry. We kind of take for granted that you’re gonna be starting with like a text buffer and you’re gonna type stuff in and that’s that. And I think it really impacts our ability to develop creative ideas, and I do believe that as we develop more tools that are more aligned with how we’re thinking, they’re more multimedia, they’re spatial, they’re free form, we will in fact have better ideas. That’s one of the big bets of news. 00:12:15 - Speaker 2: Yeah, thinking about the linear kind of top to bottom flow of text or symbolic language, I also had me thinking a bit about terminals, or reppel, sometimes they’re called. You know, when you think of computers, text is like really foundational, and then the terminal, at least for Unix folks like us, that’s a place where we spend a lot of time, it’s a venerable, it’s sort of a way to have a conversation with the computers the way I think of that a little bit, a little bit of the gliders, man, computer symbiosis, but I always find it interesting if you dig into why does the terminal. Work this particular weird way with a lot of control characters and whatever and then you get into this TTY thing. What does TTY stand for? Well, that’s short for teletype and these like teletype things date back to the 1800s, their stock tickers, that sort of thing. They were essentially these ways to have again the computer or some automated device produce a linear stream of symbols. I think later they were adapted to mainframes, maybe in the 1960s or something like that. And then even when you go to word processors, whether it’s like the WordPerfect and whatever in the 1980s or Xerox PARC and there what you see is what you get word processor, and even today Google Docs still has this quality. You start in the top left, you go top to bottom. That’s kind of it. Except, I do think a breakthrough or, and maybe this is less at the symbol level, but it is at the overall corpus level, is linked. Let’s see you had wikis first, I think the web with hypertext, you could argue is clearly the biggest and strongest example of that. And a lot of the excitement also around tools for thought right now, notion first, you know, sort of a modern wiki in many ways, Rome with its backlinks, lots of others have focused on the linking elements of things, and so now you do get a graph of your knowledge and so. The individual documents are still these linear streams of text, but you can kind of pop around between them and the web, I think, takes it even further and Notion I think does this reasonably well also, which is letting you put multimedia elements in images, video, that sort of thing. Although in the end I think notion is still very much inherits that sort of top to bottom, typing into a word processor kind of thing, and the web has more free form, but of course if you really decompose it, you know, you hit view source in your browser, in the end there’s a top to bottom linear document made out of characters. 00:14:36 - Speaker 1: Yeah, that’s interesting. This is clarifying for me that there’s a couple of dimensions at play here. There’s the dimension of what’s the datum type, and by datum I mean like the atom of information, which could be a text paragraph, it could be an image, and then there’s a dimension of call it like interactivity or freeformness, if that’s a word. 00:14:54 - Speaker 2: Unstructuredness maybe. 00:14:56 - Speaker 1: Yeah, and the examples that you gave are interesting because when we think of text, we often think of the straight up plain text buffer and sublime or whatever, but you gave the example of a wiki. Reppel, I would include social networks like Twitter in there. There, the datum is still text, but it’s very rich and interactive in other ways, right? And I think that that’s compelling because there’s all these nice properties of text as a datum, but there are a lot of limitations with plain text as a pure linearization of text datums, right? And again, this kind of gets into what I think we’re trying to do with Muse, where we really like text as a datum, and I think it’s really important, perhaps the foundational one. But you don’t want to be limited to putting just text just in a line. 00:15:38 - Speaker 2: Yeah, Twitter’s a great example. I hadn’t thought of that one, where of course as text first, it’s even famous for that 140 characters, now 280 originally started with essentially sending SMS messages before they kind of adapted to the mobile client world, but I would argue that its value and richness does come not just from the text, but from the links, from the images, from the video. And furthermore, that there is this atomic unit that can contain all of the above in a particular container, which is the tweet, which often is represented with this card, you can invent that. And actually that’s a nice note for what we’ll get onto later, which is sort of the block text concept, and that is an atomic unit, and then of course, news has its cards, so I think all of those sort of relate a bit. So in thinking about the importance of text and what we might like to do for use again, we love text, we believe in it, we just think it’s so well handled or supported, or that’s where a lot of the interest, innovation focus has been on computing tools and we saw the iPad and it’s particularly. The pencil, which as we talked about in the iPad episode here recently, was kind of the thing that starts to make it potentially a different type of computing tool that’s unique and so we wanted to take advantage of those making another kind of text first tool on the iPads it felt not quite right. But having done that, having invested heavily in the spatial and visual side, now we think, OK, we have these text cards, they’re pretty basic. Text is still really important, what can we do to bring that in? And in some ways I kind of draw the spectrum or something like that on digital products as you have the increasing number of I don’t know, tools for thought or something like that that again I think are very influenced by the notion and Rome side of things but are again lineage going back to Emacs org mode and work flowy and all that sort of kind of stuff tend to be text first. Yeah, you can do some multimedia, but the multimedia is in line with the text. That’s the focus. It’s on desktop computer, you’re using a keyboard, keyboard shortcuts, etc. And then you have the world of, I’ll call them digital whiteboards, which I think people often do want to categorize news as, that’s kind of what it looks like at first glance. I don’t think it’s actually quite right or that’s not at least our long term vision, but you have something like Mirro, for example, or fig jam, or even like these sketchbooks like good notes, I think you and I have both used quite a bit. That essentially allow you to do very free form stuff. It’s spatial. You can drop in images, you can sketch, maybe you can do so collaboratively, but notably I think all of those that latter category, you can put text in, but it’s not fun. It’s basically the same as putting text in photoshop. I mean, imagine trying to write a blog post in Photoshop with a text tool. It’s miserable concept. 00:18:27 - Speaker 1: It kind of reminds me of when you need to annotate PDFs for like legal forms, you gotta go like annotate, insert text, and it gives you the chunky text box, you know, you can do it, yeah. 00:18:37 - Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And I actually had the opportunity to speak to product people from both Miro and Fig Jam recently, and they confirmed, yeah, text is not something that’s important to us. We think it’s useful to drop in the equivalent of a Post-it note or a little title or something, but it’s just, that’s not what we’re doing. So I think or hope that the hypothesis we’re exploring here with this beta is that bringing these two together, richer tech support. And this visual spatial sketchy environment could be something really powerful and maybe a more useful thinking tool than either of those apart. Although I’m very conscious of the, let’s say the opposite side, which is uncanny valley, right? Sort of like not very good at editing text, but the text gets in the way of the free form stuff, that would be the downside of that, and that’s why I want to explore it through this beta. Now it’s Ben, our colleagues Yuli and Leonard, both of whom have been on the podcast before, they’re really driving the vision on this, doing some incredible work, as always, and I know you’ve been more heads down on the sinking side of things, so I think you got a chance to try the text blocks beta recently. What was your reaction as someone who is coming in a little bit cold or a little bit fresh to the idea? 00:19:52 - Speaker 1: In the most recent beta of the text blocks, I think I got a glimmer of something really special. It’s this flow where you have a series of blocks of text, sort of like a to do list or a brainstorming list, and you can move the blocks around, and the list automatically reforms, and I really like that because before I used to do this sort of thing with the pencil because then you can do lasso select and you can move stuff around, but it’s always so. to use the pencil for everything, or I could do these lists on a desktop, but then, you know, you’re sitting at your goofy office chair and stuff, and it just doesn’t feel very creative. But with this latest beta, I think we’re getting close to feeling like the text tools plus the blocks, plus how they are manipulated is a really natural extension of how you’re thinking, where you’re saying, oh, this idea I should move down or move up, and you can basically do that in the app. So I’m pretty excited about it. 00:20:45 - Speaker 2: Yeah, and you hinted there at um one of the core ideas, which is why we’re calling this text blocks, which is the blocks concept, I think. I don’t know where it started actually. My first real encounter with it was notion, although I feel like the computational notebooks that I used well prior to that, like IPython and Jupiter had a model like this more for the purpose of kind of almost calls back to the reppel type environment or this top to bottom execution flow, but this idea of stacked cells, it was almost like a spreadsheet that only went in one dimension, worked surprisingly well and of course the thing that makes it a notebook. is that it’s not just code, but you can drop usually mark down cells in there and you can move those around and have the explanations in line. It works out to be a pretty natural way to work to have this structure of the top to bottom blocks, and then within that you can have, in the case of freeform pros, you can basically just type however as you would in a normal text buffer. And so then I think notion, as again, my first real encounter with that, took that idea of essentially each paragraph is a block, and that by itself, it was just text. There’s some things that are cool about it for like reordering lines and stuff, but I think it wouldn’t be worth the hassle because it can be confusing when you switch between character select mode and block select mode. There’s still lots of ways that something like notion, roam, or craft behave in a way that’s quite different from the Google Docs word processor, them, whatever lineage of text buffer editing, where I think it starts to excel is when you bring in other things that aren’t text. So, images, video, links. Tables, convent boards, and I think this is part of the power of modern digital computing. You can do these multimedia documents, you can illustrate things, you can drop in screenshots, etc. Google Docs, for example, I use this kind of an internal memo thing for a long time. You can put images in there, but it tries to make it kind of a giant character. They’re very weird to work with. It’s just it feels wrong. And having these stacked blocks where most of them are texts, but they can be other things like images and Video and so on, somehow that makes the whole thing, even though it’s still a text first environment, it feels much friendlier and more natural to this multimedia world we live in now. 00:23:02 - Speaker 1: And I think we’re also getting a line of sight on this grow a document use case that we’ve been striving for for a long time. So this is the idea that you start with some seeds of an idea. Basically it might be some sketches or a picture of a whiteboard you took or a voice memo, and what you want to end up with is, say, an essay, and there’s several steps to the creative process. And one of the things that’s exciting about the new text feature plus blocks is you can see it as a trellis for that growth, right, where you start with Line, which maybe is initially just like one or two word snippets, or maybe it has some pictures thrown in, or maybe it has some handwritten notes thrown in. And then as you go through, you’re rearranging, but also sort of expanding each of these blocks. So your little block that says, you know, to do insert paragraph about food here, that grows into a full paragraph on the essay. And likewise, your little picture of a whiteboard of some diagram gets replaced with a nice diagram that you create, right? And that way the essay sort of organically grows and critically it also Happens in one place. So there’s no point where you need to jump from your notebook to your brainstorming tool to your authoring tool. You can sort of do it all in one place. And I don’t expect that you would do the full creative process in Muse. I think you would probably stop at like the sketch or the outline or the draft phase, you would move to an authoring tool and a publishing tool for the final step, but even the idea of growing the whole meat of the essay in Muse is really exciting to me. 00:24:24 - Speaker 2: Absolutely, and I’ve done this kind of writing workflow myself, and I’ve heard from lots of folks writing in to support or just that I talked to casually that they use Muse in this way for their own writing workflow. Jeffrey Litt showed something like this for his newsletter, previous podcast guest. We have a fiction author that described a similar way of working through sort of plots and character development and things. Now I think in the current kind of text cards thing, they’re basically like Post-it notes. And what I do like about that, and I do this in the analog world as well, I know I have a lot to say on the subject, but I just don’t know the structure. I don’t know the table of contents. I don’t know where to start. So you can just take a stack of index cards or Post-its and just write down the first thing that comes into your head, you know, the seven word version of it, pull the Post-it off the stack, set it aside, right the next thing comes into your head, and do that until you got 20 of those. Now go arrange them on a wall or something, right? And you might start to see a pattern emerge or a narrative arc or something like that. Right. I have used Muse for that for years now with the kind of post-it cards, but it’s like you said, you stop pretty early because once I have the rough ideas roughly in the order I want, and maybe a few scribbled arrows and highlights and things like that, I go, OK, I’ve made it this far. I don’t want to do any more substantial writing. I don’t want to do any really amount of big investment in the words. It’s really more just the high level concepts, and I want to go over to my writing tool. Now with the text blocks, potentially, you can do more of the long form writing. Again, it’s not a full-fledged text editor, never intended to be, but you can at least get a lot more of the core ideas written down and then basically use your select tool, just grab everything, hit copy, pop over to a writing. Tool like Kraft Ulysses or your WordPress blog or whatever it is, paste it in and then go and do your more substantial wordsmithing. But at that point you’ve got the flow, the order, the structure of the piece, maybe some of the major phrases and opening sentences of each paragraph and that sort of thing. And now you can go and start really putting the meat on the bone. 00:26:25 - Speaker 1: Now we’ve talked about jumping to a full-fledged authoring and publishing tool for writing, which I do think you’re gonna need to do if you have an external audience, you’re gonna want to create a PDF or something similar. But I’m saying is that often for internal communications within a company, you can get by with just using the ideation and brainstorming tool as the quote unquote publisher. So we see this a lot internally with both muse and Notion. People create muse boards or notion documents and use those as the final artifact that they’re gonna share with their teammates because yeah, they’re a little bit sketchy, but that’s fine. We recently had a good planning session where we used a beta of the text blocks and it was really cool to see that and it’s actually nice cause it kind of correctly reflects the state of the ideas. You know, it’s this notion that you don’t want it to seem too rough nor too polished, because the ideas are sort of in this intermediate state, which I think the muse boards with some text cards and some highlighting and some images and stuff that show which is nice. 00:27:23 - Speaker 2: Fidelity, the representation should hopefully convey the level of polish of the ideas as this uh carefully crafted plan intended to be conveyed to a wide audience versus a thing that we sketched together in an hour of a planning session. Right? It’s a really good point on the publishing side of things. And I think that any idea that you want to express, again coming back to that, writing something down as the original tool for thought, externalizing an idea, and you can start on one end of the spectrum is just you want to express it for yourself. And that’s the sketchbook, that’s what M is focused on today. It’s just, let me get this idea out of my head, explore it on the page, see if there’s legs, develop it. But I never intend to share it, at least not in this form with anyone else. The other extreme is I’m a journalist writing a piece for The New York Times or I’m a documentary maker and I’m going to put my thing on Netflix and it’s going to be consumed by potentially millions of people. And so there’s going to be a very high degree of polish and a whole long process going from ideation and sketches to drafts and drafts and revisions to Some maybe post-production process to make it really polished. So those are the two ends of the spectrum, then you have a lot in the middle, and I think internal memo culture accompanies is a very big, I don’t know if you call it a publishing, it is a type of publishing in a way. So for example, at Hiroku, I think we typically use GitHub and just. As a way to kind of publish memos, email, of course it’s a classic kind of internal memo. I’ve used Google Docs in the past, as I’ve mentioned, at Muse we use Notion pretty heavily, but more and more we use Muse just depending on what the item is. But Muse makes it hard to publish. We don’t offer a good or easy way to screenshot or PDF, that sort of thing. Again, that’ll be coming in the future, since our focus really has been on that individual ideation point. But yeah, if you think about, OK, when I write a memo in notion for my teammates, well, I only have 5 teammates, or there’s only 5 people in the muse team, which means I have 4 colleagues, so there’s a total of 4 people who are going to consume this, and I want it to be comprehensible. I want to respect their time. I want them to be energized by the idea. I want them to just understand what I’m trying to say, so it’s worth a little while. to make sure I’ve got my thoughts together and it’s not just a stream of consciousness that no one can follow, but it’s only for people and people I’m pretty mind melded with and we have a lot of context, so it can be pretty rough. And on that same note, we do share muse boards internally even though there isn’t great mechanisms for that yet, and it works well because again it’s sketchy and it’s It starts as this individual ideation, but it doesn’t take a whole lot of effort to cross that threshold to something that I can give to you or Leonard or all four of you, and you can understand because you have this context and we’ve already talked about these ideas before and this is just another iteration on an overall philosophy of what we’re trying to do with this company and product. 00:30:18 - Speaker 1: Yeah, super interesting, and I like that you mentioned spectrums because one of my favorite intellectual tricks is to look at spectrums or grids and interrogate each of the points on it or along it. And now that you’ve talked about spectrums, this kind of connects back to one of the original impetuses from you, which is to speak in terms of spectrum. There’s a lot Software for the extremely populated side of the spectrum. This is like enterprises where you have Lassian wikis and so on, just because there’s such a big amount of money there. And there’s a fair amount of software for the individual side, if for no other reason, that’s kind of the base case and you kind of got to start there before you add collaboration. But we had this hypothesis that a lot of the creative magic happens. In small groups, maybe it’s 3 to 30 people. It’s the whiteboard, it’s the brown bag lunch, it’s talking over dinner at the summit, and what would it look like to have a creative tool that really embraces and supports that. And if you back into the amount of fidelity, it’s probably this intermediate level that not coincidentally, Muse tends to work with. So I think there’s another way to look at how text blocks and the other features around it can support the type of group creative thinking that we want to see more of. 00:31:29 - Speaker 2: And I’ll make a mental bookmark to do an episode some time on our vision for collaboration. I know you and Leonard have been doing some deep sketching on that just recently here and some exciting ideas shaping up, but I think one of the core constraints that makes it interesting is that point in the spectrum where you’re talking about. I ideation to share with this small group of colleagues and that’s very different from, I don’t know, a presentation you could argue is something that is intended either for a larger audience or maybe you’ve got your keynote deck for your client, you want to press them because everything is super polished. You don’t need to impress your colleagues or hopefully you don’t need to if you have the right kind of team. Instead, what you want to do is really get those amazing ideas flowing. As Nicholas Klein would say, get the creative collaboration going, turn my ideas into our ideas. I think there is a big opportunity with digital tools to allow that to happen for these small teams, but on a remote basis. Now, what are the challenges ahead for trying to bring text into this visual and spatial environment? 00:32:35 - Speaker 1: Well, there are some interesting nitty gritty design issues with text. So one that we’ve been grappling with is text is only sort of spatial. So think about an image, an image definitely has a two dimensional representation. You can make it bigger or smaller, you can translate it, it basically works, where text, it’s really linear and you need to choose some way to wrap it, and by the way, the wrapping might change depending on your font or even your text engine. So we have a little bit of an impedance mismatch between the very visual spatial original conception of muse, where you just to be concrete, you could basically take a picture of your iPad and that’s how you would expect it to render in all cases, versus text which people expect to kind of reflow basically. And so how do you reconcile those two worlds? I’d say that’s basically an open design question for us. We have some ideas. Another related issue is that text, especially small bits of text, they don’t quite map as neatly to the card block idea that we’ve had throughout Muse, because Again, for something like an image or a PDF or a video, it feels sufficiently substantial that you want a card that has a different background, it has borders and so forth, it feels like a distinct item, whereas if you had a one word item on your to do list, for it to be a whole card, it’s like a bit much, which is one of the reasons that I think our current Text implementation feels a little weird in some cases because you have this like basically huge card for one word, just it’s kind of missized, but then you have these new items, I guess we’re calling blocks which are very related to, but they’re not exactly the same as the cards that we’ve had on boards previously, for example, perhaps they’re transparent or translucent. So figuring out how to evolve the mental model and the design interactions to support that is another tricky design problem. 00:34:29 - Speaker 2: Yeah, those are two very significant and concrete ones, and I think it does reflect going back to this symbolic versus spatial. The nature of a diagram, the fact that the circle is next to the arrow is very significant information. That’s important. You can’t put the arrow under the circle and now the same thing will be conveyed, but one value of this one dimensional string of characters is that you can display lots of different ways. The web is very good at this with responsive design. If I open something on the phone, it reflows everything. So that I can read it comfortably in that format, but if I open it on a big wide screen monitor, things look different there. But the text content, if I was to take a screen reader or just read aloud, a particular piece of text content there should come out the same, no matter where it wraps the words, no matter if I have the font size cranked up to make it more legible or something like that. And so now we have this mismatch. 00:35:23 - Speaker 1: And Adam, you also alluded to another big set of challenges with text, which is editing. So there’s two pieces to this. One is, as we introduce these text blocks, you have the issue of text at the block level versus text at the character level. And with a traditional text editor, all the manipulations are done at the character level or they’re basically macros for doing character level manipulations, you know, you double or triple click or whatever it is to select the whole paragraph, but that paragraph is two indices essentially at the character level, right? Whereas we want and use to be able to support manipulations at the block level to be able to reorder whole items. But then sometimes you’re kind of crossing that boundary, like, what if you want to select one whole block and half of the next block and delete it? Does that actually do that or is it like both blocks or just disallow it, you know, that’s the kind of design stuff that we’re grappling with on the text front. And then there’s the whole like actual editing in the sense of adding and removing. Characters, which, as we’ve talked about on the podcast before, is quite difficult on the iPad because people have different input modalities, they might have voice, pencil, touch, or keyboard, and even the keyboard is potentially not as high like throughput as a desktop keyboard for various reasons. So figuring out how to allow effective editing that also embraces the different input modalities that you have with the iPad. 00:36:47 - Speaker 2: Yeah, as we talked about in our iPad episode recently, the multimodal aspect, you’ve got a keyboard, a trackpad, a pencil, your finger, voice input, potentially, or some combination of those, probably you don’t have all of them. You have some subset of those. On one hand is part of what’s exciting about the platform and opens up a lot of new possibilities, but it also makes it trickier in some ways compared to the more known form factor and even posture of the user when you talk about desktop systems. Right. Yeah, I’ve used a folio keyboard for a long time, but I recently picked up the magic keyboard, which is kind of this thing that the tablet sticks to magnetically and has a little trackpad, and then you can pull the tablet off when you want to do tablet mode stuff. It’s really great. I see now why I got good reviews. The price feels disproportionate to me. It costs significantly more than one of the smaller test iPads that I have that I use for QA on Muse, so I’m not sure. that’s really something I’d recommend broadly or even we can expect users to have, but some kind of hardware keyboard is fairly commonplace, whether it’s a simple little Bluetooth keyboard or using a folio keyboard or something more like the magic keyboard, but it does mean you’re in typing mode versus reading, sketching and rumination mode. And maybe that’s OK, but what I found in my own testing of text blocks is that I tend to go into typing mode and I type a whole bunch of stuff, I’m moving them all around the board with my finger, but essentially it’s a bunch of texts, and then I pull the tablet off, grab the pencil, now I’m highlighting, now I’m Rearranging, and I think that works OK, but I would love something a little more fluid moving back and forth, but I think that’s probably out of scope for us. I think that remains an unsolved research problem to be tackled if the tablet’s truly going to become a new kind of creative tool. 00:38:33 - Speaker 1: Yeah, a super important open research problem. It’s not gonna be in scope for us for this iteration, but I do think it’s very important for us to solve it for the iPad if the iPad’s going to realize its full potential, which we know again alluded to in our last episode. I mean, just to give you a couple concrete ideas. I don’t know I’ve even told you about these before. I mean, so maybe this is your first time hearing them, but one thing I would like to see is a tool for much faster and slicker input of voice. So I always has like this voice thing, but it’s kind of slow and it’s laggy, and it’s like, OK, you’re entering voice mode and then you’re exiting, it’s like a whole thing, right? And what I would like is a tool in our toolbar that’s like the red ink or the eraser, where you press your finger down on the iPad, you say two words, take it off, and then you get a text card where your finger was, where you just said, I think of how good that would be for like building a to do list or doing some brainstorming. And another thing I would like to see is, I think the pencil is actually potentially very good for editing text in the sense of cutting it and manipulating around. So you can imagine a sort of exacto knife type tool where you can basically cut the paper, and then you can imagine a finger tool where you can move the cut pieces around, right? And the pencil is actually very good and precise for that, maybe even better than the keyboard. Again, both those, there’s just very little exploration of such input modes on the iPad to date, and it’s kind of a shame, but I do believe we will get there eventually. Maybe it’ll be us, maybe it will be someone else, but I think we need to see that to realize the full potential of text on the iPad. 00:39:59 - Speaker 2: Yeah, I don’t think I’ve heard you mention those ideas before, but I do find both of those exciting partially because there is sort of incomplete or let’s say implementations that exist on the iPad today that hint how those could be good. So in the case of the sort of voice quick input, I do use create a new text card, tap the voice thing, say three words. You wouldn’t want to do anything long form but for more the Post-it style thing, particularly when you don’t even care what the capitalization or punctuation is, and I like it quite a lot. There’s probably a little psychological hump to get over with talking to your computer, but that’s totally a thing you can adapt to, I found. Yeah. But yeah, you’re right, it takes enough tapping and special things to get in there that sort of nullifies the convenience probably. And then similarly with the pencil scribble, which is a feature in iPad OS that essentially allows you to do handwritten input, and we do have a pencil tool for that in Muse that some folks use, but it does have some downsides and challenges, but one thing it does have is the ability to essentially, well, scribble out words to delete them, and that feels great. I really love that. Now in practice, I don’t use that mode. Enough to kind of really that be part of my life, but again, you could imagine seizing on some of those sparks of something that feel good and this fast and precise and expanding on that either in a research context or in product development. Well, I guess that’s how we’re thinking about text overall, so I’m excited to see how this beta evolves. Now we’re trying something not completely new but a little new in the sense that this beta is very rough. It works, but there’s a lot of problems, a lot of quirks, a lot of bugs, but we really wanted to get it out as early as possible to our pro members to try it out and give us input not just on does it work, but how do you see this direction as making sense. Again, coming back to this. This is bringing together text and a visual spatial environment. Is that something really powerful, exciting, new, opens new vistas in your own creative work, or is it a weird uncanny valley where it’s sort of not good enough at text to use much? And so what we’d love is to get you to try it out and yeah, give us your thoughts. We did a version of this once before with what was called the Infinite canvas beta, later became flex boards, and it was similar in the sense that And the infinite canvas work was going to be a huge investment in engineering and design work. I think it ended up taking us something like 3 months of wall clock time to get it all done. So we really wanted to feel a strong sense of product validation, or this is valuable to people, you know, we’re a small team, we have limited resources, we want to make sure we invest them in places they’re gonna be useful, and that worked really well because we gave, I think it was just a test flight kind of beta, but we basically gave this pretty janky prototype. to people, but got this instant powerful response of this is great. I have to have this. This is so much better than what’s there today, even in its rough form, and that gave us both the energy to push forward to the bigger project, but also gave us useful context, things about disorientation and getting lost on bigger boards and stuff like that that fed into the final design. So we’re hoping to do something similar here and actually if this pattern works. Sharing data is pretty early to both validate the direction, but also really get key feedback from people. That’s something I’d like to make a really regular habit of. So yeah, if you’re listening to this in, I guess, summer of 2021, when the beta is still running, yeah, we’d love to have you try it out, try it for your workflows, and give us basically a thumbs up, thumbs down, is this a worthwhile direction. 00:43:34 - Speaker 1: Yeah, and I’ll be looking to see if the text blocks beta passes what I learned as the Wiggins product management test, which is, you suppose the feature is going to be going away and how mad would customers be about that? Would they really fight for it, because it’s easy to say, oh yeah, this is fun, this is nice, but where the rubber hits the road is, we’re thinking about not really adding this to the product and the reaction that you want to see is absolutely not, you know, I’m gonna fight you basically. That’s the level of excitement we’re hoping for, but we’ll see, you know, that’s why we do a beta. 00:44:01 - Speaker 2: Yeah, that’s right. I think it’s important or one of my values product wise is to keep things streamlined, simple, minimal, just what you need, not sprouting a million features, but of course you also have to try a bunch of stuff over time to find the right things, and so having a bit of a willingness to kill your darling. I think is the screenwriting term for this, which is, you might really like the idea, probably you can tell from our voices we’re excited about the direction, but we want to see that it truly adds something worthwhile to the product rather than just, it’s a nice idea, but in practice it doesn’t pan out. Well, let’s wrap it there. Thanks everyone for listening. If you have feedback, write us on Twitter at museAppHQ. We’re on email hello@museapp.com. I mentioned at the beginning, reviews on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere are much appreciated, and I’m looking forward to hearing all your feedback on whether text and muse makes sense. And of course, in general, we’d love to hear your thoughts on the philosophy of text and digital tools and tools for thought and spatial and all those other things. So please tweet at us if you have a reaction. All right, see you next time, Mark. 00:45:09 - Speaker 1: See you, Adam.

Discuss this episode in the Muse community Follow @MuseAppHQ on Twitter Show notes 00:00:00 - Speaker 1: Titles of books are probably one of the best sources of inspiration for messaging. Book covers are so inspiring to me because it’s a visual and a title and the title’s so short and it captures the entire thesis of the book. 00:00:22 - Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to Meta Muse. Muse is a tool for deep work on iPad and Mac. This podcast isn’t about Muse the product, it’s about the small team and the big ideas behind it. I’m Adam Wiggins here with my colleague, Mark McGranaghan. Hey, Adam. Joined today by Hilary Maloney. Hi. And Hillary, we on the Muse team often like to work from interesting, inspiring nature locations with sometimes limited internet connectivity. Hui in particular is famous for this, at least on our team. I understand that while you were working with us recently on a project, you got to do a little work in the less connected parts of California. 00:01:01 - Speaker 1: Yeah, so I spent a lot of my time climbing and traveling around California in a camper van and got to do quite a bit of this project, traveling down in Bishop and I’d work in the mornings out of the van and then kind of go about my day. So it’s really cool to work, you know, flexibly with this team and see that you guys have that as part of your working style. 00:01:24 - Speaker 2: Now, how do you fit together your day kind of interleaving, obviously these very different activities of going out into, I guess bouldering is the, the official term for it. Yeah, exactly. Sort of going out and doing that, which I’m just gonna assume in my head that it’s like this documentary Free Solo that you look exactly like that guy climbing up the side of the mountain there in Yosemite, but do you do that kind of like you like to work early and then do the physical stuff later or the inverse? How do you put it together? 00:01:54 - Speaker 1: Yeah, I’m definitely a morning person, so I like to get up really early, especially when I’m camping, you know, if you’ve ever been camping, you naturally wake up at like 5 a.m. And so I like to get a few hours of work in the morning when my brain is fresh and then kind of go about my day and being really physical and active, I think is almost part of my process. We can talk about that more, but I think, you know, being in your body is so important to doing creative work and having ideas. And so yeah, I tend to kind of start in the morning and then that physical experience is really important for me. 00:02:32 - Speaker 2: Yeah, same here, and I think I didn’t realize that and I don’t know, my twenties maybe when I was, you know, get my career started and was more about being at the computer and being focused, but later, yeah, that in your body, as well as maybe almost paint that as the inverse, which is actually getting out of your head, which is when you do very intellectual work all the time and you’re almost unaware of your body, almost to the detriment of your physical health. But if you go do something particularly that’s really demanding, whether it’s something like bouldering, for me, a really intensive hike, for example, with a lot of elevation change or run, anything like that, it sort of forces you to leave the higher plane of your mind and go to a more primal state, but I think that actually is better for when you return to your mind, somehow your ideas and your creativity has rearranged itself. I don’t know, it’s like, there’s something to it there. 00:03:26 - Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. I feel very seen by that. It’s kind of a necessary part of the life, you know, and doing hard complex work, and I’m definitely drawn to, as you described, those very intense experiences as well. Even sometimes walking isn’t enough. I need to run or surf or climb or something that’s like very physically demanding, and you’re exactly right. It’s really about getting out of your mind as much as it is getting into your body. 00:03:56 - Speaker 2: And tell us about your background and in particular, maybe even how you would label what you do. I think I’ve heard you refer to yourself as a strategist. Tell us what you do and how you came to do that. 00:04:08 - Speaker 1: Yeah, so I’m a brand strategist and researcher. My background is really in kind of classical brand marketing and advertising. So I’ve spent a lot of my career working in advertising agencies, but I also really love working with startups, so I do a lot of side projects as well. And I really think of myself as a marketing generalist. Maybe you guys feel this in software, but I think a lot of fields are becoming super super specialized and there’s routes you kind of take to specialize in your career and I’ve tried to stay really broad, so I do quite a lot of of marketing work and like to do messaging, which we’re going to talk about, but I also do a lot of advertising and different skills within the discipline. Yeah, so how did I start in marketing? I actually studied journalism and that just got me really interested in storytelling, but found pretty early on, I liked applying that to brands, and I like being at the intersection of communication and really business and business strategy and kind of the why behind it. 00:05:14 - Speaker 2: Now, is this a, you tried your hand at, I don’t know, when I think of journalism, I maybe I’m thinking of investigative journalism, but going out into the field, researching a story and then writing. You know, a medium form piece about that. And did you try that and find it didn’t work for you and then you somehow stumbled into this brand thing or was it just more like, I don’t know, there’s certainly probably more commercial opportunity, not journalism is not known these days for being like a growth industry in particular. 00:05:40 - Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. For me, it was in school. I was in a pretty good journalism program and we did a lot of field work as part of our program. I studied photojournalism specifically, so I was doing a lot of photo stories and reporting and coming back into, we had critiques, almost like art school style critiques with our photojournalism program and My professor just recognized in my work that I was drawn to telling stories about businesses in our community and in particular in a documentary style journalism class, I was producing a lot of work that was like going behind these businesses and telling their stories, and my professor actually kind of pulled me aside and he was like, I think you need to go into more of like an advertising path with your kind of natural. Interests. So actually in school, I made that pivot and started taking some marketing and advertising classes and then started working in the marketing field at a startup actually is my first job. 00:06:46 - Speaker 2: Anything we’ve heard of? 00:06:48 - Speaker 1: Probably not. It was called Parlour. It was an interior design app, so actually kind of interesting. I’ve had this red thread in my experience of creative tools and creative communities, but it was a workflow and e-commerce app for interior designers, so very specific, but we made it into beta and then we just didn’t find enough scale kind of in the right amount of time. But it was a really, really fun marketing experience and a really fun brand to build. So it was really exciting and, you know, you learn a lot in startups and not finding market fit, and I definitely learned a lot. So it’s a fun fun place to start my career for sure. 00:07:31 - Speaker 2: Well, that’s good you took the positive lesson from that. I feel you could take the negative one, which is, boy, these startups are unstable and uncertain, and it kind of sucks to pour a bunch of creative energy into a thing that ultimately falls flat in the marketplace, but it seems you took it more as learning experience and just a chance to try something that’s kind of high risk, but high risk means sometimes it doesn’t work out in the end. 00:07:53 - Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. 00:07:55 - Speaker 2: So I’m very pleased to say that Muse 2.0 is out. We launched a couple of days ago and I’ll link the launch memo in the show notes. You can read that for all the goodies, MacAs, sync, text blocks, etc. Now, as part of that, we have an all new website, and if you go look at the homepage, you can already see we’re talking about the product quite differently, the Muse 2 product quite differently to how we talked about Muse one. So that naturally leads to our topic today, which is messaging. Now the project you did with us, Hillary, was working on our messaging. And where we landed is sort of 3 parts. The first is dive into big ideas. So this is our brand messaging, it’s aspirational, it’s why you might want to use the product without telling you what it is. And then we have two more product level descriptions. One is a very short one, that’s tool for deep work, and then there’s a slightly longer one, which is flexible boards for note taking, whiteboarding, and connecting the dots. And we’ll try to use those on our website, but also on our App Store page and our Twitter bio. You even heard it in the podcast intro, especially anytime someone, especially new comes across our product or company and they just want to know really briefly, what are these folks about, what is this product about? So congratulations Hillary on the successful result. 00:09:11 - Speaker 1: Yeah, I’m super happy with where we landed, and it’s exciting to start seeing it coming to life across the site and different places that we’re using that marketing language. 00:09:22 - Speaker 2: So if we go to the definitional element here, tell us maybe for someone who’s a designer, engineer, founder, someone who’s in the tech world but maybe doesn’t necessarily know what that term means. 00:09:35 - Speaker 1: I define messaging as a system of communication that’s rooted in strategy. So, you know, it sounds like it might be limited to just like copywriting or headlines or that kind of thing. I think the most important thing is that it has a strong point of view and that it’s maybe rooted in a moment in time for your business. So maybe you’re thinking about a particular audience that’s critical to your growth kind of right now. A new product is a very, you know, common reason why you would revisit your messaging and really thinking about your positioning relative to the category. So there’s a lot of that research and context that goes into creating that system of messaging. And I think that’s something Adam, you and I spoke about pretty early on when you were kind of running into this problem of how do we articulate news in this really simple way. The solution is really to create a system of brand, product, taglines, just longer descriptions that you can use, so it’s much more than kind of one line, it’s that system and the reason behind it. 00:10:47 - Speaker 2: And one of the exercises we did in the kind of early part of the project was to look at some comparable products, either, yeah, competitors or pseudo competitors, but others that are just in the creative tools space or the sorts of products that people who also use Muse or might use Muse would also use. And that was illuminating to me and talking about that point in time element you mentioned that I think is important, which is, you gave the example of notion. And I think their website a couple of years ago said something like, your team’s source of truth, and I remember when I saw that, that really clicked for me, that resonated. I said, ah, OK, this is like a modern team wiki, it’s a place to put all your kind of internal documentation about your company. OK, I got it. But I think at that point in their existence, they were targeting people like me, basically startup people at small and medium sized companies. Now, you pointed out and looking at their current messaging and you had some screenshots of their website, you’re guessing, paraphrasing here, correct me if I’m wrong, but from the outside it seems like they’ve transitioned to trying to message to the enterprise. They’re moving to these larger companies because they basically have completely owned the startup market. Everyone knows what notion is and uses it, they don’t need to convince anyone through. Website. So now this new category that they’re expanding to, which is these larger, more kind of traditional or conservative companies, and they need different messaging. And so for me, I look at the notion’s website now and the stuff they say there doesn’t speak to me at all. I’m like why do they are messaging worse, but it’s not worse, it’s just different for a new audience. Is that the right interpretation? 00:12:22 - Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, and I think they have right now a line around for every team, and so when I see that, I can see that their strategy is really about moving beyond technical teams in the organization. And if I had to guess, Notion might be experiencing a ton of love for the product among just technical teams where they have a really strong brand, and now they need to build that same sort of traction within more teams in the organization so that there is that enterprise value. That’s just my total assumption based on the messaging, but I do tend to do that like you said, you know, in our discovery process, we Looked at a lot of different companies in the space and at this point in my career, I kind of go through the world just interpreting strategies and problems brands are trying to solve based on their commercial or some kind of ad that I see or something, so. Yeah. 00:13:24 - Speaker 3: Yeah, I also appreciated this idea of identifying a point in time for the messaging, because I feel like one of the challenges we had before was it just felt so daunting to think about the messaging from Us, which is this product that we aspire to be working on for many years, and we have huge ambitions for, and how do you summarize that all in one word or even one sentence. But this project, I feel like we’ve cut scope, as Adam would say, when in doubt cut scope and say, OK, for this product and this launch, what’s the message that we want to communicate to these new users? And that seems much more doable. 00:13:55 - Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe to that point in time element, while we were less strategic perhaps about choosing kind of our muse 1. X messaging. So there we identified that we’re a tool for thought, and we have this second level message, deep thinking doesn’t happen in front of a computer. And so that was kind of the core, and then we also described the product as a spatial canvas, that’s kind of the product description, and then the more aspirational, the category is tool for thought. And I think that did work really well for us at a point in time, which was that term was maybe on the rise, particularly among a particular niche audience of people, and because we were early on, that worked really well, but I look at it now and I go, OK, well, we want to be a little more accessible, and so our website is kind of like, if you don’t know exactly what is a tool for thought, If you’re not one of those very small, you know, number of people on that inside club, it doesn’t really give you a lot of information, it sort of pushes you away. And again, I think that’s fine when you’re early on and you need to build a smaller audience, and it’s OK if it’s sort of niche, and so one of the goals for this project was to be slightly more accessible. Now, it’s not mainstream by any sense, I don’t think news would ever be that, but we wanted to go a step further into making it comprehensible. You don’t necessarily need to know who Doug Engelbart is in order to get benefit from use as one example. I think that’ll still always be our core community. We certainly will use tool for Though in a lot of contexts, including in describing this podcast, and so on, but it’s a chance to, and so if you think of that point in time and the problem that we’re trying to solve, it is, how do we take what we think is a great product and make it a little bit more accessible while still staying true to what we’re all about. So Hillary, I mentioned earlier, this kind of brand or aspirational message versus, you know, what is your product, what category you were in practically, what does it do? You talked about that quite a bit and the difference between the brand message and the product message as we work together. How do you think about that, broadly? 00:16:01 - Speaker 1: So brand messaging is really about creating a feeling or an emotional pull toward your brand and product is much more functional, leaning into the features and benefits of using the product. And as companies get really big, even, you know, like Fortune 100 type companies which I tend to work on more in my full-time job, brand gets really far away from product where in many cases it’s not even rooted in the product. That happens in categories where products are really commodities, so that doesn’t happen as much in tech, but a good example of this if you think about candy. A lot of candy is the same. You’re not going to really talk about the benefits of the product. It’s sweet. Exactly. Even that, like, you know, gummy worm commercials that are just about like crazy, you know, fun, these brands tend to create a mood or some kind of character, something that just helps it be relevant to people and just be liked, and then there’s not really anything they could say about the product that’s compelling. 00:17:14 - Speaker 2: You know, in our brand episode we talked about Coca-Cola, maybe as one of the purest brands they’ve invested for, I don’t know, over a century now, I think in associating with Americana and Santa Claus and friends and family and good vibes and I don’t know, support the war effort during World War 2, yeah, happiness, but it’s sugar water in the end, and yeah, it’s got a certain flavor to it, but you know, it’s sort of the ultimate commodity, but they built this incredible brand around that. They don’t need to spend a lot of time talking about. This is a beverage you can drink that tastes sweet and also has caffeine in it. 00:17:49 - Speaker 1: Exactly. So I kind of come to tech with this extremely broad lens on brands, and I think this category requires a lot more respect for product communication than you typically see in like marketing. So I tend to be among my like marketing community, a little bit of an outsider on that, like when I get the chance to work on, you know, more tech brands like I’ve worked on Dropbox in the past and we transfer in many cases in a more traditional agency setting, you know, I’m the one asking like, what does the product do and how do we turn that into something. So I think when I started this Muse project, We want to, of course, have brand messaging because Muse has a really strong brand, but I think just coming into where you guys are as a product, there’s so much education to do on just what the product is that it was like fairly clear to me that that was where we needed to start. And where we landed and kind of the messaging hierarchy, and that’s really, I think, what can be helpful is how do you think about brand and product messaging relative to one another, which one should you lead with? And we landed with. big ideas as the lead message on the website, but there’s so much more focus, you know, if you think of the total kind of share of messaging in the hierarchy that we landed with, there’s a lot of product messaging there and product education there. And then as people go deeper, they get into those, you know, what are the principles behind the product, who’s the team, what’s your background and the research perspective, and that starts to really build a lot of that more emotional pull to muse. So it’s definitely both. It’s just like how do you get into the details of working out. Again, your point in time as a brand and what’s the most important thing you need to do. And I think for us, it’s a little bit of category, creation, right? Like this is kind of a new kind of product and also just education. So we definitely think over the course of the project started going more into focusing on product communication, but I’d be curious, Adam, what you thought about this too because I know this is something we debated quite a bit. 00:20:10 - Speaker 2: We did, and coming back to those comparables, again, one of the early pieces of kind of research you did was just looking at, you know, I gave you a list of what I thought of as being, again, competitor is the wrong word for it, but sort of tools that are in our sphere somehow, because they are again, other ones that people who are customers and users use, they’re just ones we like, we just think they are a good team or have good brand or whatever. So one example of a smaller team we talked about a bit was My Mind. So if you look at their website, they are very heavy on the brand messaging, right, which is, I think the opposite of most technical products, particularly apps, you know, if you go look at Bear notes or Obsidian or one of these many kind of text oriented note taking tools that really lead with, here’s what this thing is and what you can do and here’s a screenshot. And then the brand stuff, you know, what’s our manifesto tends to come later. Whereas my mind really leads very heavily with a visual style, with a, you know, reclaim your mind, and here’s all the things we’re sort of fighting against in the world, and you have to really scroll quite a bit before you find out what actually is this thing? What, what do I use it for, what platforms even run on? And it was kind of nice to have that as a bracketing thing. Here’s a very extreme investment in brand, that’s a technical, you know, productivity software tool that’s in our kind of world, and then we had others that were on the other extreme, which again tends to be most, but I think especially a lot of iOS apps that are especially if it’s just made by a small, you know, one or two developers where they don’t have some big highfalutin thing, they’re just like, hey, here’s an app that Lets you do X and then here’s a screenshot, and hope you like it, click here to download it. And so having that spectrum. And I think for us, one of the things we were trying to incorporate into this project is what we’ve learned over the last several years of trying to explain. This weird product. And one of the things I’ve learned is that we’ve tried lots of different things we can kind of put on a website or on an app store page or whatever, and none of it quite seems to capture it well, and maybe it’s because we haven’t quite found the right words. Some of it is that we’re trying to do something that’s pretty new, and so therefore, there isn’t just a brief summary, but I do think a big part of it is what you ended up calling the brand messaging. Which is, we know that someone who, for example, listens to a couple of episodes of the podcast first and then tries the product, is much more likely to find success, not because we explain in any way how the product works, it’s more that you know how we’re thinking about it. And what our values are, what our culture is, and sort of if you’re drawn to that or you just like it, but you have it in your mind, and then you go to use the product, you know this is something different. There’s a different set of values that go into it, and so you’re not likely to bring the same preconceived notions that you might expect from another, I don’t know, iPad app. So with that kind of top of mind for me, I came in and said, and you started to talk about this difference, and so my perspective was maybe we should lead with the brand messaging. Maybe, you know, it doesn’t necessarily need to be pages and pages' worth, but maybe that first above the fold thing should really be about. Here’s how we think about having good ideas. Independent of the product we’re building, and then you read that, and if it resonates with you, you scroll a little further and then we explain, by the way, we have this product, and I think we explored some of those ideas, but you ultimately were on the side of, actually, we really should lead with the product messaging and the brand stuff goes a little later. 00:23:41 - Speaker 1: I think one other great example to think about is Apple as a brand, you know, we talked about Coke and I think sometimes these big brands that we all have so much experience with can help us just add a little more context to these very esoteric ideas of, you know, product and brand, and I think Apple is one that we might assume really leads with a lot of brand messaging, right, because they just have such a strong brand, we’ve actually combed through. All of their marketing, especially their website, but even their marketing commercials, their events, all of these things, most of what they actually say is about the product. And that’s something I’ve started talking a lot with my team of strategists at work is Apple is really a product marketer, and it’s really interesting when you look at that in detail, because the way that they actually express all these brand ideas that we have extremely strong associations with like creativity, right, design. Those things are all implicit. They’re in the style of everything they do, the actual design of their products, right? They never really say those words, and I think that that really gets into strategy and brand, even messaging kind of can push you toward how do we express this implicitly, right? And not everything needs to be in explicit terms. So that’s something that I think we started to talk about actually at the end of this project. That is really important for people to think about as they think about how do they want to express all of these things, right, about you as a company, when your audience has so little time, a lot of it needs to come through in that more implicit communication style. 00:25:31 - Speaker 3: Yeah, Hillary, it’s a very astute observation. I’m scrolling through Apple.com now and it’s just completely about products and they actually get very detailed, you know, they’re bragging about their chips and their cameras and their batteries and everything, and there’s nothing about design even though of course the design is beautiful. 00:25:46 - Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, design is one of those things, right? You can’t really say I’m good at design and have someone trust that, you have to demonstrate that your design is excellent, you know, right. 00:25:58 - Speaker 2: Yeah. Thinking about Apple’s kind of marketing and brand and whatever also makes me think of their pretty famous. I think Steve Jobs led campaign Think Different, and that would be pure brand marketing, right? It’s doesn’t show their product at all. It shows these. Great thinkers from history, but many of whom were maybe counter to the status quo of their time, and coming back to your point in time thing, that wouldn’t work for Apple now because they are the computing monopoly, but back when they were the very small David to the Microsoft Intel PC Goliath, that was great messaging. It basically said, being not in the majority being one of this kind of smaller group is something desirable. You stand apart. You don’t stand apart by using an iPhone these days, so that messaging would not work for them now. 00:26:54 - Speaker 1: Right, exactly, that’s when they were kind of they had this challenger brand strategy and another good example more recently that I think just is a great example of what we’re saying here is that campaign they did behind the Mac. And the only thing they said was behind the Mac, and then the actual imagery was what communicated like this is something people use for certain kinds of work, but they never, you know, described it in any more detail than that. So, yeah, another recent example. They definitely do a lot of brand marketing for sure. It’s just something that I think we don’t always really realize is how much product they talk about because their brand is so strong. 00:27:38 - Speaker 2: So I think one thing you learned working with us is we’re very about creative process. I’d love to dig in and see how creative people do what they do, and you had a pretty kind of specific process that we went through together. Tell us broadly what that is. 00:27:52 - Speaker 1: For this project, we had 4 phases. So we started with discovery and then we did a phase of strategy work and that involved what do we want our positioning to be. We talked about our persona, our kind of this inspiring ideal customer that could help us think about the messaging that would resonate with them. Then we actually went into the writing and then finally we did some user testing at the end. I think this process for me really reflects my approach as a strategist, maybe would be different for someone who’s primarily a writer that also has some strategy process. So, you know, actually thinking about it now, maybe it’s a bit. Scientific. I like to really have a lot of research and discovery that allows me to say, here are a few possible ways in or hypotheses, and even ultimately, we had, I think, 3 different versions of the messaging that we put into testing with new customers and we wanted to validate that it kind of landed on their ears in the same way that it did on ours, and that testing is, you know, really important and something I’ve just learned. In my career and come to really value in the process. 00:29:10 - Speaker 3: Yeah, I really appreciated the structure that you introduced for this project. Again, with marketing, it’s so easy, I think, to sit down and start typing stuff, you know, like tool for thought, big ideas, you know, HTML mockups, and I really appreciate that we started with, OK, first, let’s like understand reality with discovery, and then it was defining the problem, what are we trying to do here? And then it was coming up with multiple options and you can’t actually have a design decision unless you’re choosing among multiple options and then we picked one and validated with testing. So, I thought that was a great strategy. And on the discovery front, one thing that I really enjoyed was the industry survey that you did. We’ve alluded to it a little bit, but I think that would actually be worth talking about in and of itself, just because I think it’ll be interesting to our listeners who are in this space. 00:29:54 - Speaker 2: Yeah, that’s right. So I guess that first discovery phase was really immersing yourself in our world, which included listening to a bunch of the podcasts and reading all the memos and so on, but also kind of, you know, maybe snooping around our Twitter sphere and all that sort of thing. And I think one reason that was useful actually was. You’re an outside perspective, but you also do know creative tools, as you said, you’ve worked on things like Dropbox and we transfer and so on. So you know the space very broadly, but the niche tools for thought, community, all that stuff was basically new to you, so you had fresh eyes, so there was quite a bit of time where you were doing that. But then, yeah, you kind of went on from there to this, basically came up with some sort of slide decks and documents for us that tried to roll up how you saw. The industry we were in and the customers that we could choose to try to address and what order we might want to go after them. And I think one piece of this was, Mark, are you thinking of the two axis grid here? Yeah. You know, maybe you want to describe that for the listeners, of course, visual thinking things doesn’t translate super well to a podcast. 00:31:01 - Speaker 1: I’d be curious actually, Mark, to hear what you recall now and what has landed with you and then I can go into a little bit more of the process behind that. 00:31:11 - Speaker 3: Well I think one of the axes was individual versus team. And that makes a lot of sense to me, because we’ve long identified since before we started the company, that there was this critical pull over time towards teams because of how software pricing works, is something we talked about in the podcast a lot. And I think there are different ways we might have cut the other axis, but it was something like early stage, late stage, creative process, you know, informal versus formal, that sort of thing. I’m not sure actually what we ended up with. OK, we’ve pulled it up here. How close was I? Yes, personal and teams and knowledge management versus creative process, which I think is sort of the flip of that of what I just described. 00:31:54 - Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is what we call in strategy, like a 4 box and we use these for all kinds of things, but this in particular we used for the category landscape. So we wanted to look at, you know, here we’re looking at, I think, call it 25 brands and we looked at quite a few. This is just kind of a good number to get a general lay of the land. 00:32:17 - Speaker 2: Just to give a feel for that, that’s sort of notion, air table, it’s things like Rome and Kraft, it also includes something like Mirro, fig jam, so, these are all probably not necessarily our listener knows every one of these, but they’ll probably be familiar to a lot of folks who are in our sphere. 00:32:35 - Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So we kind of first created that list of, you know, all of these brands in the category or maybe slightly adjacent to it, to understand. We looked at all of these brands in a lot of detail, really going through their websites, and it kind of goes back to what we were speaking about with Apple, right? With notion, you might have a sense of notions brand or messaging. It’s really important to actually take that step and go through their site and say, oh, they’re not actually saying what I expected them to be saying. And so that’s a really important part of the process and not making assumptions based on your own experience with the product or your history with the product. So, I went through websites of all of these brands and then saw kind of what naturally are the axes that emerge, and what are the kind of themes that we’re seeing across their messaging. And so the big thing that I found and Mark, to your point, this is really Because of a natural dynamic in the category around pricing, personal versus team is kind of the most apparent one. And then maybe the less obvious one was that some products really position themselves for what we’re calling knowledge management, and a lot of them even say that explicitly. I think knowledge management or second brain, this kind of language is a little bit of a niche, but definitely growing, and we all have talked a lot about that. And then the other side, and I think what we got a lot more interested in for ourselves was. These tools that are really more for like just a day of work, you know, your creative process and helping you dive into a really rich hour of thinking. And that was a lot more interesting and that started to present a white space that we could have some messaging that would be more unique and ultimately, I think dive into big ideas really does that. Right? That’s so different from messaging that’s like, organize your notes forever. You know, we don’t really want to say anything like that. 00:34:39 - Speaker 2: For sure. That was a big insight, I think, which is it’s very easy to naturally align ourselves with, again, the Romes and obsidians and crafts of the world, or even some of these more nichey products like Devon Think that I take a lot of inspiration from, or my mind as we mentioned earlier, but even though some of those are fairly recent. I think Evernote is a mainstay in this space. They’ve been around quite a while now. It is all about remembering. Like Evernote’s logo is an elephant, which is, or, you know, we’re supposed to have long memories or whatever. And yeah, I think Obsidian has a similar thing, what do they say, like, notes you’ll pass on to your grandkids or something like that. It’s all about this longevity. And that you create this big knowledge base and you keep it over time, and the fact you can still find and pull up a note you wrote 5 years ago is the argument, and that really is the opposite of how people use Muse and where we think the value is, which is really about this active thinking, this point in time, it’s your desk, it’s where you make a mess for the thing you’re doing right now. And you know, I like to have and I think many of our users and customers like to have their boards as a kind of artifact or almost a memento of your thinking, but the thinking you did a couple of years ago, it’s just interesting for historical reasons, it’s not an active part of what you’re doing. And so when you look at that, you say, well, we, especially with our messaging around tool for thought. But also I think just generally people would naturally kind of put us in that sphere, but that gives you totally the wrong idea. We’re not about organizing, we’re not about long haul, long term, we’re about that active thinking that in a way is almost a little more transient. 00:36:21 - Speaker 3: I also just love, by the way, this as a general intellectual technique. We’ve talked about it on the podcast before where you generate a list of items and then you come up with two axes for them. So you get 4 boxes or maybe 9 boxes, and then you see which boxes are blank, and you sort of suppose that there must be interesting things you could do there. And sure enough, we have this literal white space for muse positioning, where in this creative process and personal square we suppose that you should be able to have a really great products. So I just find that a useful technique in general. 00:36:50 - Speaker 1: One other thing that we did in that discovery phase, and maybe it’s worth mentioning kind of my process there is really to look at what’s sometimes in the strategy world we call the four Cs. So the company, and Adam you mentioned, I had my own kind of podcast binge of metause and reading all the memos. The competitors, so we just described that in the category, which is closely related to competitors, but it’s more of that broader picture. And then the fourth one is the customer and there I did a lot of, you know, reading customer feedback and quotes and tweets and kind of pulling them out there. And in fact, one of the words that emerged that people use a lot naturally to talk about news is flexible. And flexible is a word that kind of made it all the way through our process into the final user facing copy in the end. So, a lot of things from that discovery phase informed ultimately the messaging. 00:37:55 - Speaker 2: And maybe we can speak to that, what was it, the 2nd or 3rd C, I guess the 3rd C which is category, because this is one we’ve perpetually struggled with, which is I think it’s really important to put yourself in a category because it’s how people know right off the bat what you are, and then you can go from there to differentiation, but everything we’ve sort of ever tried has just been wrong, and to some degree it’s maybe we need to kind of create a category which is sort of digital ideation tools. Traditionally, people do their kind of thinking, externalizing their thinking on sketchbooks and whiteboards and things, and so doing that through computing tools is relatively new. There isn’t a very established category for that. And we did end up with, yeah, you mentioned the flexible boards, which is part of what I was thinking with this, so this longer description of the product, which is flexible boards for note taking, whiteboarding, and connecting the dots. The last one’s interesting, we can come back to that, but the other two actually kind of imply category, right? Note taking is, and I’ve got mixed feelings about that for various reasons, because, you know, when you think of note taking, you can think of a lot of different things, many of which don’t necessarily give you an accurate. Picture, but it is the closest thing to a category that we fit a well established category that most people would know that we fit into. And I think whiteboarding, either that’s putting us in a category of physical whiteboards, but I think also it sort of works because we do have this emerging category of mirro, Millanote, fig jam, mural, basically digital whiteboarding, and especially collaborative whiteboarding has become a thing in the last couple of years, and that was not the case, you know, a year and a half ago when we were coming up with the Muse one messaging. So yeah, tell me about how you generally think about category, and then how you thought about trying to help us solve that problem. 00:39:44 - Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it was very apparent to me when I started working on this project that Muse is creating a new category or it’s part of a few brands who are creating a new category of product. And I think that’s why messaging has been challenging because there are a lot of things you need to do. You need to tell people what world are you even in, you know, like, where am I? 00:40:10 - Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Is this a hat? Right, a restaurant, exactly. Is it a hotel? 00:40:17 - Speaker 1: Yes, so where am I? You know, what is this? What makes it different or when should I use it? Is it for me? There are a lot of questions to answer, and I think something that’s really exciting is the category is becoming a little more established. You mentioned a lot of products and we’ve, even as we were continuing to work on this project, we would see new things launching and new sites that we were kind of sharing with each other as a team and I love seeing more kind of competitors, so to speak, because it starts to alleviate how much work you need to do to describe to people what this category is. 00:40:56 - Speaker 2: So that’s part of this concept of positioning which I think Mark and I talked about in the episode, which is you’re positioning yourself relative to other things that people may already know. So there’s a bunch of companies that are doing a roughly similar thing. Actually, we even talked about this with Puran who’s doing kind of spatial canvas type thing that in many ways is Similar to Muse in terms of category or in terms of like what the product is, and he’s got the same, yeah, messaging challenges. How do you explain what this thing is, but it’s almost like the more of these kind of open canvases for thinking exist, then the more likely someone is to have stumbled across one or two of them. And then the more likely it is that they can, oh, it’s one of these, it’s kind of their mindset, and then you can go from there to, OK, so what makes your special or different. Exactly. And that’s like a way easier problem than let me explain to you from scratch a thing that you don’t know what it is or why it needs to exist or whether it’s something you’re interested in. 00:41:53 - Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And I think the spatial canvas category is kind of formalizing and taking shape, and I think that’s a really good thing for Muse, and the note taking whiteboarding and connecting the dots, the intention there isn’t so much to say like that’s our category as it is to say like, hey, if you’re a person that has these needs, this is what you can do with Muse and note taking and whiteboarding are more kind of Approachable and familiar ways people might understand this need that they’re starting to observe, you know, as they shift to working more virtually or just needing to be more organized and having tools that support that part of their process, they might start to understand that need through words like that. And that’s again something we just saw in reading how people talk about news. 00:42:49 - Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think part of what works about it is that if you read note taking and you immediately think, so this is a competitor to Apple notes, you know, that’s probably not quite right, but at least it does tell you again, kind of what corner of the universe you’re in at least, and then you read whiteboarding and that might also lead you to think, OK, this is a competitor with, you know, one of these more collaborative oriented. Whiteboards like a fig jam or a mural, and that’s also not quite right, but you put those two things together and you’re kind of, you know, in the right county, I guess, um, and then you can go from there into the details, and hopefully the details actually will help you narrow in, but you hopefully start from a place that, again, is roughly in the ballpark, I guess. 00:43:32 - Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:43:33 - Speaker 2: Mixing my metaphors here. 00:43:35 - Speaker 1: To me, something in that description that alluded to the powerful text features was important. I think that is a differentiator for Muse. It’s not just something where you can kind of like scatter around cards and look at them, right? You can do some pretty powerful things with text too, and I thought that was important to represent in the high level description of the product. 00:44:01 - Speaker 2: And connect the dots is an interesting one as well, because that’s probably one of the most frequent phrases we hear from customers when they talk about how they use Muse, which is, yeah, I guess it implies this. You sort of lay everything out and you’re trying to find the pattern, and you’re trying to find the people often jokingly refer to the, is it always sunny in Philadelphia meme with the like serial killer board thing with like yarn connecting, whatever. It’s kind of the Hollywood version of this, but it’s a literal connecting of the dots when you see this sort of thing, which is like some kind of thing that’s up on a wall, that has all the things you know, and you’re trying to put the pieces together to solve the case, it’s usually how it is. So, for whatever reason, that’s a phrase that people use a lot. So, our hope at least would be that we put that right on the front page of the website, and again, it’s not that that’s going to completely 100% tell you what this thing is, or whether it’s for you, or whether you would want it, but if connecting the dots in your work sounds like a thing you would like to be able to do, or there’s a thing you do do, or there’s something you need to do, now, you know, we’re narrowing in on the right kind of person for this product. The last piece I think is worth uh mentioning there, we sort of diverted from the creative process a little bit, but I was interested to pursue this all the way. So we spoke about dive into big ideas, we spoke about the flexible boards, then we have tool for deep work. Now, how’s that different from a tool for thought and what caused you to think that that would be a good sort of medium length or short descriptor for the product? 00:45:39 - Speaker 1: Deep work is an expression that kind of came to me, you know, and I, I really liked that it was something that already exists in culture, but to me deep work also, we’re using it to describe the product, but It has kind of like an emotional appeal to me. I think that’s, you know, in Cal Newport’s book, why the title is so salient and actually just as an aside, I think titles of books are probably one of the best kind of sources of inspiration for messaging. There was actually a moment in the Muse project where I was just like feeling a little stuck and Just went to a bookstore and was just reading all the titles, and book covers are so inspiring to me because it’s a visual and a title and the titles so short, and it captures like the entire thesis of the book. And I just think that is like the coolest thing. So that’s kind of a go to source of inspiration for me, and I think that book has been around for a long time now, the deep work book, but I think it really created an understanding of a big gap in modern work and, you know, in many ways my interest in deep work was also very much informed or maybe validated by the brand persona that we wrote. And we can talk a little bit more about that, but the work idealist is kind of the brand persona that we created for Muse as part of this project. And one of the things that we have in that is that this person who we really want to build our messaging for, right? Their work requires strategic skills, creativity, intellect, and they actively design their day around that focus work. There’s also an old Paul Graham essay about the manager’s work versus the maker’s work. A classic, classic, right? And I only started reading Paul Graham recently, but I remember kind of coming to that insight articulated and nowhere near as nice of a way. But when we first shifted to remote work in 2020. And I was working with a lot of, you know, project managers and, you know, me as a strategist creating so much work, I was feeling this tension of like all these people who just needed me to be in meetings all the time to kind of report out updates and it felt so personal. I was like, I need time to work, you know, and so that deep work idea, I just think is really a deep, deep emotional desire of people that we want to build this product for. And I think it’s also, you know, similar to big ideas, quite universal, you know, we have a point of view on different customer sets that are good for you, but we also know that tons of different kinds of professions. need this tool. And so we wanted to use language that had a kind of universal nature to it. And I think deep work does that. And the last thing I’ll say is, I think there was a little bit of a choice we made intentionally to position Muse for kind of cognitively demanding work, so to speak, or complex work. And that’s actually how I got to big ideas. I was like writing. I’m like, Muse is for complex ideas, you know, it’s like, we don’t want to say that complex, but That really is what it’s for. It’s most useful for like big hard problems that you’re trying to work out, and I felt like deep work and big ideas were two interesting ways to articulate that while still being fairly accessible. 00:49:28 - Speaker 2: The pairing there is interesting, which is big ideas might be what you’re working on, right? You’re working on your product that you think is going to change the world, you’re working on your nonprofit that you think is going to do great good, you’re thinking about impact, etc. and then the deep work is how is that you feel that you need to do these cognitively demanding things and We live in this world of distraction and what have you, and yeah, being pulled into meetings among other things, just to pick a small example, and that you need to really take control of your own time and your own process, and your own work life in order to do the top line thing that you want to do, which is have that impact your big ideas, bring your big ideas to life, that sort of thing. 00:50:09 - Speaker 3: I also think these are really important because they connote things like being immersed, even being engulfed, consequential, creating, and I think it’s a subtle but important contrast to collecting, categorizing, cross-linking, organizing, which is the mode of a lot of traditional other tools for thought, and I think it’s a really important difference with what we’re trying to do with Muse. 00:50:32 - Speaker 1: Absolutely. 00:50:34 - Speaker 2: The other thing I’ll note there is, so deep work obviously is a not only a relatively new idea, there was this book, although I suspect a lot of folks know the term, or at least can intuit it, but I think a lot of folks have probably picked up through osmosis what that term means, even if they haven’t read the book or even are aware that there’s a book. But it’s interesting to note that I think deep work and Tool for Thought are both Let’s say nichey terms, but I think deep work is much less niche. Yes, for example, if you just do a Google Trends search, dual thought doesn’t even show up, doesn’t even, uh, doesn’t even rate, or as deep work does. As just one example. So, maybe this, again, coming back to the point in time theme a little bit here, which is, you know, we were very early on really getting started, very, very niche audience of people, particularly coming out of the independent research world, you know, that was absolutely The right way to categorize ourselves and talk about what we’re doing. Now, we need something that is still niche, but maybe a layer up the accessibility chain, or a layer up the, kind of how likely is it that this term will be known to someone or resonate with them. So, I think it’s still a niche term, but just less niche. 00:51:47 - Speaker 1: Yeah, and Adam, one thing you spoke about early in the project, and I think we kept coming back to this is it’s very important that as we try to be more accessible, we don’t land in a place that feels very generic. And so I think we wanted to negotiate between the two and kind of land in a really nice middle ground and I think I feel like we’ve done that and Landed on something that still reflects kind of the aspiration and and really inspires you to use Muse, but it keeps it as a product that’s really designed for a certain kind of work, and it has a strong point of view and we’re not trying to be everything. We’re just trying to communicate like one very specific part of, you know, kind of your process and your work life that can happen here and can probably happen here better than anywhere else. 00:52:42 - Speaker 2: Yeah, that’s right, I almost forgot about that, but when it comes to those really generic or what to me seem like really generic ways to market productivity software, it’s tough. Productivity software is very abstract, screenshots of it often look like just kind of white rectangles on the screen, and it’s hard to tell them apart maybe at first glance. But there are some tropes that I think that productivity software marketers reach for without realizing it for listeners who are thinking about, you know, writing some messaging for your productivity app, here’s some things that I would encourage you to avoid. One is organize your thoughts. I don’t know why everyone reaches for that. Even, you know, reviewers talking about Muse or whatever, but I can’t count the number of apps that I’ve seen describe themselves that way. And it may be a good term or it might make sense, but when everyone says it, it no longer has any meaning. It’s a cliche. Another one that’s in that category is the everything in one place, which we’re just talking about the, maybe notion has a little of that going on, maybe that works OK for them because they’ve broken out of the mainstream enough, or I’m not really sure, but I feel like so many, uh, whether it’s project management tools, notes, knowledge bases. I don’t know, enterprise, storage solutions, whatever, it’s everything in one place. You’re tired of like switching between all these different apps, just put everything into our app, and then we’ll take care of it all for you, and you won’t need to switch apps anymore. And of course that sort of thing is actually the opposite of what we like to do, which is like, just be one tool in your tool chain, and then we think great creators, you know, put together a lot of different tools to make their custom workflows. But putting that aside, I think even if you do strive to be a kind of everything app or put it all in one place, that term or that approach to speaking about a product then used so much, to me it just your eyes just roll over it because you’ve seen it so many times. 00:54:35 - Speaker 1: One I would add to that is unleash your creativity. Oh yeah, I know, yeah. Yeah. That one’s pretty common and, you know, it’s not wrong. It’s just exactly like you said, it’s like, once too many people have said that, it’s just not unique enough. A lot of this is, it’s an art and a science, and the process for sure is helpful. And Mark, you made a great point that adding the process to it really adds like a degree of rigor, I think, and like, I really need that. Process around the creativity, cause otherwise it can just grow into this huge thing that’s hard to really push it through into something really clean at the end. But at the same time, there’s a degree of intuition and how does it feel when you hear it, that’s extremely important to this process. So I think that kind of art and science piece is important. 00:55:39 - Speaker 3: Yeah, which, by the way, reflects how we’ve often talked about the creative process on the podcast, which is not that you have a series of steps that linearly follow from each other. It’s more like you collect up all this raw material and you chew on it and you go sleep and you go rock climbing and you come back two weeks later, it’s like, oh, now I realize we should say is X. 00:55:57 - Speaker 1: Yes, it’s definitely so interesting how similar that is across all different kinds of creative work, kind of moving between. Structure, getting out of structure and the structure can really help, and then you also have to get outside of it um to kind of get to creative and fresh ideas. 00:56:17 - Speaker 2: I think you briefly mentioned there this persona, which I know there’s some discussion in the design world about the usefulness of personas as kind of a generic stand-in for the person you’re designing for your target user, target customer. He, I think it was really helpful to try to describe in general terms, the kind of person that muses for. And so, as I mentioned, there’s the category struggles that we’ve had over the years. Another struggle we’ve had is the clear description of who is this product for. And, you know, it’s nice when you go to, I believe the jargon for it is verticals, so that is to say if your product is for writers or architects or academics or software engineers, that makes it pretty easy because on on your website, you can say, we are the best thinking workspace for interior designers. And it’s just people know pretty instantly if they consider themselves an interior designer or not, and if you’re not, well, you close your web browser and everyone saves some time, and if you are in that category, you go, OK, well, I’m one of those, so I’m gonna keep reading this is for me. And our various attempts to try to do that around vertical really doesn’t work. So for example, we have a pretty big, I would say probably maybe the biggest category of people that use our product to tend to be product, people of some kind, product designers, product managers, founders or other kind of like product oriented CEOs or whatever. So that’s a big category, but honestly it doesn’t make up probably more than 5%. So we have a very diverse set of architects, writers, doctors, attorneys. Game designers on and on, so we can’t use that easy shorthand, then you do still need to have some way to know who you’re trying to speak to. And so you came up with this work idealist persona, and I really like this, or I find it useful, and we don’t specifically talk about this, for example, on our website, it’s more a tool for us to understand. Who we’re trying to speak to, so that then we do, for example, write copy for the website or for the app store or something, we can write it with that person in mind. 00:58:28 - Speaker 3: Yes, and another aspect of Hillary’s research that I really appreciated here was this notion of change over time. So it’s the personas and the user segments that we had previously had good success with, who were now looking to connect with and who we might address in the future. There’s a Particular diagram and one of the PDFs that really stood out to me, which is a series of concentric circles. And I think the innermost one was like people who follow Adam and Mark on Twitter and tweet about Doug Engelbart, and the outermost is everyone who uses an iPad and a Mac, and we’re, you know, somewhere in the middle there, right, but it’s a progression over time. 00:59:03 - Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So the work idealist, you know, we spoke a little bit about There’s someone who actively kind of designs their day around this deep work idea. And one thing that I thought was important is that we think about like, they do actually hold quite progressive ideals toward work in general, and I think that gives us permission to have these kind of aspirational ideas kind of embedded in how we communicate. And in many ways it’s sort of built into what the product is, what you guys are building, right? It’s like you have this kind of core belief that there is a much better way to work on ideas that hasn’t been served yet in the market. So I thought like the work idealist and even the name of them like. It’s important that we sort of ground ourselves in something that’s a bit kind of idealist and aspirational as we start going to a broader market, because we don’t want to lose that kind of belief that is so important to who Muse is. 01:00:12 - Speaker 3: I’m also now remembering, I forget what they call this, but there’s this phases of adoption. Is that relevant at all to where there’s like pioneers and laggards and stuff like this? Does this sound familiar? 01:00:23 - Speaker 2: You might be thinking of the crossing the chasm, kind of there’s the early adopters and then the pragmatists, and then the late markets, and then the, what is it, the laggards, something like that. 01:00:34 - Speaker 1: And just in general, like how trend curves work definitely come into play in product adoption curves and the Crossing the chasm book, which I have not read, but you know, loosely familiar with the concepts, I think really applies that general notion of and the science on how trends move through society, it applies it in a really practical way to product marketing. That’s exactly what marked the diagram you’re recalling there kind of outlines just like the evangelists that we want to start with, but recognizing we need to get beyond them, right? And they’re not going to know everything that, you know, your Twitter followers know. So how do we expand the way we communicate, keeping our brand intact, and I think the work idealist, it kind of sets up this inspirational kind of character that we can think about on that path. 01:01:25 - Speaker 2: Right. And certainly part of what I liked about this persona is that it describes me, and I think it describes everyone on our team, right, which is someone who seeks meaning through their work, and you know, maybe a lot of us in creative fields, and especially tech, we’re lucky enough to have that we can kind of be a couple rungs up on the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, where our work can be not just a way to put food on the table, but a way to, yeah, do something that we think matters in the world. And so then we’re mindful about, you know, for example, choosing what problems we work on, what company you’re gonna go to work for, or maybe you start companies yourself, or maybe you’re a freelancer, and you have the luxury of choosing projects that you think are more important, or speak more to you, or are more li

Discuss this episode in the Muse community Follow @MuseAppHQ on Twitter Show notes 00:00:00 - Speaker 1: Infinite canvases are essentially like a different document format. The screen represents a camera that’s floating above a surface, and there are things on that surface, and those things can be anything. You can move them, you can duplicate them or resize them, and that each one of these types of thing on the canvas also has its own rules about how it can be changed. 00:00:26 - Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to Meta Muse. Us as a tool for deep work on iPad and Mac, but this podcast isn’t about muse product, it’s about the small team and the big ideas behind it. I’m Adam Wiggins here with my colleague Mark McCrannigan. Hey, Adam. And our guest today is Steve Ruiz of TL Draw. Hello. And Steve, I understand you’re a little bit ahead of me on the fatherhood journey. You’ve got a 315 year old. What do I have to look forward to in the coming couple of years? 00:00:55 - Speaker 1: Oh man, a kid is what, like 1.5? 00:00:58 - Speaker 2: That’s right. 00:00:59 - Speaker 1: Eventually they will start drawing, they’ll start playing with words, and they will grow ever more interested in iPads, and also, everything will be an iPad, every computer, every device, everything with the screen will be an iPad. That’s my prediction, yep. 00:01:17 - Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, already is the case that trying to keep screen time limited is a challenge. Now, of course, we can also look forward to having built in beta testers for our software. You got a chance to do that yet? 00:01:29 - Speaker 1: Yeah, actually, my daughter has probably spent more time with tealra than anyone else, and I’ve learned quite a lot by watching her kind of poke around and try and draw, try and make different things. She really likes arrows, but the touch targets are too small and mobile. That’s one thing that I need to work on. 00:01:46 - Speaker 2: I’m reminded of a scene in one of these Steve Jobs biography movies where I believe it’s his daughter comes in and tries out Mac Paint, and they sort of show this maybe hypothetical idea that he was sort of inspired to make software and a computer generally that was easy enough that a young person could be creative with it. 00:02:04 - Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, if you have, uh, they’re kind of hard to schedule or bring into the office. I don’t think the agencies do 3 year olds, but toddlers are excellent beta testers. They won’t tell you what’s wrong, but you’ll definitely see it. 00:02:19 - Speaker 2: So you’re working on TLDraw. Tell us about that project and your background that brought you there. 00:02:24 - Speaker 1: Yeah, so Tal Draw it started out as like an open source project, I guess it still is an open source project. It grew out of kind of earlier open source work that I did with a library called Perfect Freehand, which is an algorithm for creating like digital ink, so pressure sensitive or variable width lines, takes a whole bunch of input points, and comes up with a whole bunch of output points that kind of describe a shape that surrounds the input points. So, perfect freehand, I kind of started working on it pretty publicly on Twitter. So posting all these in progress GIFs and talking about the different ways that I was trying to solve this problem of doing pressure sensitive slash variable width lines. You can’t really do that in the browser, like it doesn’t have any primitives for like lines that change their width. So, hence the whole like journey into trying to figure out how to do that kind of programmatically myself. It works, it works super good. I would recommend it if you have anything to do with the browser that needs to have a kind of a cool ink. And it’s being used all over the place. It’s used in Draw.io, it’s used in Excali Draw, it’s used on, I think NextGS Live uses it in their product. It was one of these situations where The status quo for like a pencil tool or a pen tool was like so poor on the internet or on the browser especially. That any improvement sort of would have been well timed and perfect freehand just happens to be an improvement that is pretty good. You should use it. That’s what I say. So, I’d been working on perfect freehand, I’d been doing some integrations with like other diagramming tools like cala Draw and I guess in along the way of making perfect freehand, I built a couple of these. Canvas playgrounds almost, places where I could test this thing out or try out the different algorithms, see where it was going right or wrong. And I’ve done that a couple of times for Perfect Freehand, also for like a kind of an offshoot of this project called Globs. But anyway, I just made enough of these sort of infinite canvas editors that once Perfect Freehand was pretty much done, I started working on that kind of a framework. Originally it was gonna be like a programmable design tool that I could use both together with direct manipulation, but also with like, you know, programming, in order to help me figure out problems like perfect forehand or problems like cool arrows or something. And once I started posting that, On Twitter, saying like, oh cool, I’m looking, I’m kind of making almost like a figma that you can program, or a figma that you can put anything on the canvas that you want, and I’m doing it in React. That story suddenly got pretty popular. Like I had folks reaching out to me and saying like, hey, we’re building something that kind of needs this kind of canvas. Can you open source this or can you share this or can I hire you? So based on that attention, I was like, all right, well, maybe this is worth proceeding with. I took some time off between jobs. I was gonna start a job actually at Adobe, and I thought, OK, I’ll take some time off in between and I’m just gonna work on this project, make it open source, spend 6 months on it, and then, yeah, see what happens. Worst case scenario is that I’ve made something really cool open source, worked on something interesting in this space, and I should say there’s really very, very few open source kind of canvas UI type of tools out there. And none of them that were using this kind of react driven canvas. 00:06:04 - Speaker 2: It’s interesting that you got that initial demand, you might say a product manager lingo might be it’s sort of market validation, you know, don’t build it until you already know people want it. Even before you got into the project itself, did you have a sense of why people wanted it or had they tried to build it themselves and discovered it was hard? Had they not built it and they just hoped someone else would do it for them? It just they liked your other work and they just thought if you did a good job on this other library, maybe you do a good job on this library too. What was the core of their demand, I guess. 00:06:36 - Speaker 1: Yeah, my theory about this or my guess about this is that this was 2021, so not too long ago, 18 months ago maybe. We were still middle of the pandemic, seemed like everyone had started using these apps like Miro or Mural or I think Fig Jam had just been released and The place for online collaboration was starting to just be the sort of the whiteboard, you know, abstractly like this 2D kind of surface that you could move around on and interact with people and co-create this type of surface. And the tools in that space were pretty mature, like again mural fig jam was new, but it was already, you know, built on good bones of FIMA itself. And so, As normally happens with like successful general products, like you start seeing different teams wanna carve off verticals for that, say, like, OK, cool, Mirro is great. Mirro is for everyone, Miro is for everything. What if it was just Mirro for project managers? What would that look like? Can we steal a billion dollars off of Canva? Can we, you know, take a little bit of that giant market from FIMA or something? The issue there is that all of these tools, pretty much anything. That wants to use that kind of canvas UI, it’s a tough engineering problem. And there’s like a ton of uh functionality maybe of like a canvas like that that is like, it’s almost like a text editor that it just has to be there in order for it to feel complete. And if it’s not complete, it’ll feel broken. But if it is complete, if it has those like table sticks features and all that, then congratulations, no one will notice because they expected them to be there from the beginning. And maybe you ran into some of this with Muse as well like. Selection should just work, like Undo reader should just work, the cloud stuff should just work. And some like really gnarly, like logic puzzles involved in these type of things that we take for granted in something like Mirro or fig jam. Yeah, like they’re they’re just gnarly problems. Never mind the whole like, how do I render this thing. So when I started saying like, look, this is something that you can use as like a starting point, where all those problems are gonna be solved. Now it’s just about picking like, what do you want to put on the canvas, how do you want these things to interact with each other. I think that story of giving someone like good open source starting place, that was like the compelling story. It’s just like the same with maybe like prose mirror or a code mirror. Text editors are super hard, no one wants to build one themselves. I mean, I don’t want to build a text editor myself ever. But I do want to make apps that include them, and I do want to do stuff with them, and if I can do that on open source work, then all the better. So, I think that’s where the validation started clicking in, or like pre-validation. I didn’t have an idea really, but I did notice that there was a demand for this kind of thing, because, yeah, it was becoming more of like what software looks like, especially around collaboration, like it looks like a canvas. 00:09:30 - Speaker 2: Fun little parallel story there from the Hiroki days, which is a very early version of Hiroki that was mid-2000s, 2007, 2008, had a text editor in it, but yeah, we had to implement that from scratch in the browser and you know, pretty quickly you exactly as you said, all these table stakes things you just expect to work, particularly in programming editors, you know, we had to implement it and that’s not the differentiated or wasn’t the differentiated part of the product at the time. But it wasn’t long after that that the AC editor, I believe it was, was kind of the first really solid open source in the browser code editor, and that seemed to unlock a kind of explosion of people seeing that. I mean, I know GitHub used it in the early days for some of their stuff, but lots of other projects did as well. Suddenly people saw, oh, there’s a really good code editor that covers that table stakes stuff. Now I can build this weird project idea that I had that I haven’t been doing because I don’t want to have to build a whole, you know, fully functional text editor first. That’s just too hard and isn’t the core of the idea. So maybe there’s, if your hypothesis that the canvas is a foundational type of some kind, as you said, how software is just starting to be, then maybe there’s a similar explosion that could be unlocked with the right canvas tool kits. 00:10:52 - Speaker 1: I hope so. I released this thing in November of 2021, so after, I think I started working on it full time in like July, so not too much time. It got pretty popular, the initial usage. 00:11:07 - Speaker 2: You talking about the open source or because I know, I guess I should describe that. 00:11:09 - Speaker 1: While I was developing this, I was posting about it on Twitter a lot. You’re gonna hear me say Twitter a lot, probably during this interview. 00:11:19 - Speaker 2: I think we could have done a build in public episode with you if we already did it with the maker of Canopio Club. Yes, so it’s a similar kind of concept which is showing your work in progress as you go and obviously it’s a very visual domain and yeah, people like that. They like those little bite sized pieces and they like to see the journey. 00:11:39 - Speaker 1: Yeah, I’d started thinking like, this was right when GitHub sponsors had come up, and I guess the media that I was consuming was largely like sponsor driven. Podcasts, YouTube channels, etc. And I was really interested to see if that kind of model could work for programming. Programming does not lend itself well to YouTube streams or videos, even like the educational stuff, I think it can work, but it’s not like a sponsor model that kills, it’s like a course model or something. 00:12:10 - Speaker 2: Yeah, from what I’ve seen that typically people who have programming YouTube channels, then you have an upsell into buy my course, so they put the more basic stuff online, you find it, you watch it, you get to the end and you like the teacher, quote unquote, and then you think, well, I want more, I want the intermediate level stuff, then you go buy their course that’s behind some paywall. 00:12:29 - Speaker 1: Yeah, which is great, and I’ve certainly bought, you know, courses and books as well, and especially if you have an education budget, you know, consider spreading that around, don’t let it go to waste. But I was kind of thinking about the type of content that I could post every day almost, or the or the type of content that required like a very low level of engagement with, like, much lower than by my course, and even like a level of engagement where just clicking like was like the correct. Appreciation for this type of content. You know, I’ve seen folks who are making like really amazing involved educational material, not just in programming, but in other stuff too, and it always feels bad where like all I can do is just click a little heart, you know, it’s like, oh man, like this is worth way more than that, kind of feels awkward. So anyway, I kind of made user content, educational content when I worked at a company called Framer. So that was all very involved as well, very kind of produced. Took a lot of time to make, and I didn’t want to do that anymore. So, the kind of the place where I settled in terms of like the kind of content that I would use to drive interest around Tealro before I had released it, like, while it was under development, was just like these eight second gifts. These gifts that maybe had like, you know, were at 150% speed, didn’t take very long to make at all, and certainly didn’t take very long to consume and just be done with, and, you know, just clicking that little like button was, what more could you do? Like, it was perfect. And so I was posting this a lot as I was working on Tealraw and at the same time, I had made the like TealDraw.com a kind of sponsorware. So the only way to access this was to be a GitHub sponsor. And there really wasn’t any like floor for that. You could give me a $1 and, you know, have full access. It wasn’t even like a $1 a month. It was just like, give me something and you can come in. And that worked pretty well. I got like a couple 100 sponsors, which certainly wasn’t enough for like a tech salary or anything like that. But it did show that people were interested in this and it was like a good thing to come back to as I was developing it. I was also a good motivator for making that content. 00:14:46 - Speaker 2: And to come back to that product manager style validation, here’s the next step. People parting with money any amount, the number doesn’t even matter that much, is just such a hugely higher bar and saying they like it, clicking a like button. Telling you they think it’s cool, even using it. Parting with your hard earned cash is just the ultimate measure of validation. So I don’t know if this was intentional, but it seemed you’re following the product management playbook kind of market discovery in this journey. 00:15:18 - Speaker 1: It was not very intentional. Again, I was kind of just playing with this before going to take a job at Adobe, but, you know, I liked making the content, I liked being able to share this before it was ready and get that like feedback from people. And I liked that those people were a little bit motivated as sponsors, and somehow it just really like ended up in a kind of warm place. It felt like there were a lot of people on Tal Draw’s side as I was making this and like wanted to see it do well and wanted to You know, be a part of that. I spent a lot of time asking folks on Twitter like, how should this feature work, you know, this, here’s how it works in sketch, here’s how it works in FIMA, here’s how it works in Miro. What should happen when you try and resize a group of shapes where one of them is rotated? I don’t know, like, does it skew? Does it smash? Does it lock the access or uh aspect ratio and then resize that way, so. There was a lot of like kind of audience involvement in a sort of a musical sense. And yeah, that carried right into the release in November, where I made everything open source, like overnight. It had previously been closed source. I’ve removed all the kind of the sponsor walls around Tealra.com. And just said, like, there you go, release, you know, there was no product hunt launch. I didn’t post it on hacker news or anything, but other people did. Enough that I had to ask like product I’m like, can you just stop posting these? Like, I would love to do a launch sometime in the future, but I don’t want to do that. And then it was like at the top of Hacker News for a while, like, for like a majority of the day, it started. Getting a ton of attention on GitHub, like in terms of stars and interest from people there. My Discord started exploding. It was, it was like a really interesting week as this thing made its way around the internet. And just as like a free diagramming drawing tool that had I poured a lot of like, I guess, attention into the microinteractions to sort of add up to a canvas tool. Yeah, it was fun, and bunch of cool contributions started coming in, and I was thinking, I don’t know, maybe I don’t go to Adobe, maybe this is like a good Maybe I can make this into a little microsas product for myself. And then what happened was, since it was open source like folks started building with it and I started seeing a lot of interesting projects that started being used or built around Tealra and getting some amazing contributions from people who are kind of using it. And noticing like where it needed to grow and and how it needed to change, and a ton of feature requests and suggestions and will it do this, could you make it do this? Can we contract you to come over and integrate it here or there? And also interest from like investors and other people who are kind of working on similar projects, but there weren’t many. It was a really exciting time. Eventually, the interest was enough. And I had some conversations with, I guess people whose advice I could take that this might have legs, this idea, kind of like this bet that we’re living in a moment where, for better or for worse, there’s a lot more remote collaboration. People want to do interaction or like collaboration through software more and more that needs to happen somewhere. The canvas is probably the place where that’s gonna happen. My bet was these apps, there’s just gonna need to be more of them. It will be impractical for every team that wants to make Miro for project managers or fig jam for doctors who wanna collaborate on annotating images, like, it’ll be impractical for every one of those companies to also build Miro or also build fig jam, which at the moment is sort of, there are no primitives, so, yeah, good luck. Like if you want to do that type of software, like your work cut out for you. If you want to do that kind of software then. Yeah, there’s really nowhere to start except from scratch. So, there’s Tal Draw the startup, that’s just Teal Draw the company Teal Draw Inc and TealDraw GB now also. 00:19:28 - Speaker 2: Well, congratulations, and at the moment is this, the story you told up till that point, it sounded like it was very much a solo effort doing kind of everything yourself, one man show. Is there a team now or is that still to come? 00:19:42 - Speaker 1: Yeah, it was pretty much just me, probably like 99% of the code in the project was just written by me over those couple of months between July and November. I have had amazing contributions from a lot of people on the GitHub repository. And those continue to come in, we have a nice little community growing. But yeah, now I have a team. I’m up to, I just hired my first employee, and I have two other contractors who are taking up different parts of the project. We’re growing it, for sure. 00:20:13 - Speaker 2: Oh, congratulations on your new job as a manager, I guess. 00:20:17 - Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. I have no experience, but so far so good. 00:20:22 - Speaker 3: So when you open sourced TLDraw, were you at that point specifically positioning it as a platform for making verticalized canvas apps, or was it more open sourcing the app and then people discovered that you can mod it basically and do their own thing? 00:20:41 - Speaker 1: Yeah, so I had picked a kind of a point to chop the app into two, in a way. I was saying, OK, here’s a rendering layer. Here’s a, basically like, put react components on the canvas. I call that the kind of the core layer. And then on top of that, I built a kind of an application that would use that core layer, which implemented things like selection or erasing or different types of shapes. And my guess was that other teams would want to build on that core layer and say, OK, well, you know, Tealro’s cool, but we’re gonna make a different app, so we’re just gonna use the same render, like react Canvas type of render. Um, I was completely wrong. I think there’s maybe one team that ended up doing that. Everyone else just forked Teal Draw. I picked the wrong place to chop, essentially, that what I thought was unique to the app, to TealDraw. Ended up being more general than I thought. And so things like the selection tool where you, you can whatever hold shift and click things and now they’re all selected or draw a box in order to collide things and select them that way. Turns out that’s the same for every canvas and I just gotten it right and followed all the conventions that I saw in other apps who had also reimplemented the same sort of logic and whatever an eraser is an eraser is an eraser like. So the part of the task, once I did decide to keep going on this was to basically start over, like within 6 weeks of releasing, I was like, all right, let’s start over, let’s make this for real. And let’s make that abstraction point that like, where can I chop this? What can I say is general versus what is specific to til draw and move that way up so that it really is, you could get more for free without having to fork it. 00:22:31 - Speaker 3: That’s interesting and that’s super surprising to me. I feel like for these complex problems, it’s basically impossible to design a framework de novo, and people try this all the time, but it very rarely works. Instead, what happens is you have an application that works well, and then basically you copy and paste that 2 or 3 times, and then you look at the discs and the things that aren’t the disks become the framework. And that sounds like it’s basically what you ended up doing with this. 00:22:55 - Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:22:56 - Speaker 2: I think that was a story with rails as well, where there was a bit of they kept writing these kind of crud apps with a model view controller framework, and once they’d done it a few times, it became pretty clear what should be extracted from that and be common to all of them and what would be different. 00:23:12 - Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. Well, even though I did pick the wrong place to chop or the wrong abstraction, it was part of the kind of the DNA of this project from the beginning to be something that other people built on. And so, once it was evident that like folks just were using Tera the component, which I should say that we did distribute the complete app as something you could put inside of any website. So it was like also something that you might like drop into your video chat app, even if you didn’t want to change how it looked or worked, but you just wanted to have it somewhere other than TDraw.com. But yeah, once it became evident that folks wanted to say like, Teal jaw is perfect. We also want to add like a shape that represents a person. You know, and that like looks like an avatar and has like that type of data attached to it. How do we do it? And my only answer was like, smash that fork button and then own this thing forever, because like, I just, it’s not built for that, or start from scratch essentially again, like, maybe not zero, but still very close to it. So yeah, version 2 is much more kind of Anticipates those kind of stories, and I had no idea folks would want to do that, but looking back, I guess, yeah, now it’s obvious. 00:24:30 - Speaker 2: I see that’s where you are today. I’d love to hear a little bit of the backstory there. You mentioned briefly working at Framer, which is a very interesting product. It’s been through a lot of iterations and itself has its own canvas aspect, and I know you’re actually even relatively new to the programming field, so tell us a little bit about the journey that brought you to Teal Draw. 00:24:48 - Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess, you know, it seems like everyone I talked to has a non-traditional story about how they got into this kind of tech field. For me, I studied art. I studied, uh, you know, painting for undergrad and then grad at University of Chicago. So I had a tiny bit of like technical experience building like portfolio websites, but that was pretty much it. It wasn’t until I had turned 30, I was now living in Cambridge in England. Kind of broke, realizing I should probably make some money in my life and have a career that has a little bit more speed to it. So, yeah, I kind of shut down my studio out out near Cambridge and started looking at different ways of using that same creativity and I guess industry, I suppose. So I started out in design, and then I quickly learned about like prototyping as a place where the tiny little seed kernel of technical skills that I had had from all those WordPress sites that I’d in the Bush administration could be brought over and applied. This was also like 2017, the idea of like designer who codes was like, even for someone just crashing into the tech scene like was very evidently like hot and so that essentially became my brand or my story as I came in. I was an extremely active user of Framer’s first product, the Framer, now Classic. So typing out coffee script code and making things spin around when you click at them. And my first couple of jobs here in London were essentially, yeah, like prototyping. Like I was brought in because one way or another, they wanted to be able to build something before they actually brought engineers on to build it. And so this Kind of approach to design and approach to programming of like discovery mode of like, well, we’re not even sure what this needs to be, but let’s start hacking something together. Yeah, that was essentially what I have been doing my whole career and still what I’m doing now. Ended up working for Framer doing their education, which was an interesting break from actually like shipping designs or shipping prototypes and instead trying to figure out. How do I talk to people about this, or how do I show how to do this type of work? And instead, like, how do I present this to other people? How do I communicate, like, what makes a good prototype? How do you go about that and specifically how do you do that with Framer. I wasn’t so good at that job. And so afterwards I went back into design and prototyping for a company called Play who’s making a design tool, another design tool for iOS, which surprisingly like, you wouldn’t think that a design tool fits on a phone or on an iPad, but it does. It’s a pretty cool one to check out if you haven’t. That was a fun opportunity to kind of rethink all of the creative software experience. As a designer, you kind of can’t help but think about the tools that you use because of their software too, and you’re designing software. Play was like an extreme example of being able to rethink features like a layers list or an objects list that haven’t changed since. I don’t know, Adobe Illustrator, and say like, OK, well, how do you do that on the phone? How do you do a properties panel when there’s, you know, the size of an iPhone to work with? That was a blast for me, and it was during that contract when I started doing the open source work around arrows and around a perfect freehand, and then eventually healra too. So, that’s sort of the abridged version of my kind of path from Design and technical design, or increasingly kind of technical aspects of design until now I’m, I guess, not too far away, but they definitely do more programming than design and now managing too, it’s fun. 00:28:49 - Speaker 2: Not to mention it seems like there’s an evolution there from prototypes which are by nature or even by definition throwaway, and then going to something that’s an open source library, other people are building on it, you need API stability. There’s going to be, I mean, so far the project’s pretty new, but you need long term, it’s quite the opposite of that prototyping, so I imagine you’re growing new skills there too as well. 00:29:12 - Speaker 1: Yeah, to be honest, this is also a place where I think the team that I’m building is gonna Do a lot of the heavy lifting because my relationship to software is still very like disposable, kind of like crumple up and and throw in the trash, just do lots and lots and lots of sketches until it resembles what you want. Not to say that Tilra isn’t like solidly built and, you know, we’ve fixed the bugs and it it has good abstractions and solid API and all that. But yeah, definitely there are certain problems that you can’t quite as easily start over with. So, I will be slightly hands off on the on those problems just because different skill set for sure. But the community side of things, I mean, managing not only the open source, like an engineering project, but also as a community project has been really interesting too. That’s probably closer to the work that I was doing at Framer in terms of education and doing a lot of work with the community and a lot of work on Twitter and uh chats and such of kind of unblocking people as they’ve been working with at that time, Framer now and with Tealro turned out to be decent training for those sort of Open source relations manager, open source project, open source maintainer, culture or role. Luckily we haven’t had any drama with Tera, but it’s still a little bit chaotic and fun. 00:30:36 - Speaker 2: So our topic today is infinite canvas or perhaps infinite canvases. So I think we’ve explored this a little bit already in talking about in this new world of kind of, yeah, the whiteboard brought into a digital space and made collaborative and that is increasingly feels like a foundational piece of many pieces of software. So yeah, I’d be curious to, you know, kind of go to the fundamentals here, which is certainly how you Steve or Mark how you define. What is an infinite canvas, and then we should probably also talk about the name, cause that’s an interesting thing. But let’s start with definition. Steve, what do you makes one of these canvases what it is and different from other types of software? 00:31:15 - Speaker 1: Yeah, well, especially on the web, we are used to a kind of a document metaphor that, well, the web is just built for, which is kind of a vertically scrolling infinite page. Infinite canvases are essentially like a different document format. This idea that there are two dimensions or kind of almost 3, you know, you can move left, you can move right, you can move up, down, you can zoom in and out, and that the screen, what you’re looking at kind of represents a camera that’s kind of floating above a surface, and there are things on that surface. And those things can be anything. And in a drawing app, those things might be little lines that you’ve drawn in a visual note taking app or canvas-based note taking app, those would be different notes or different headers or different flags or in a whiteboard, they might include arrows and texts and sticky notes and all that. The actual things on the canvas don’t matter. It’s mostly about Stuff on the canvas that you can view, or if you’re able to, if you have the correct permissions, then you’re able to directly manipulate. You can drag things around, you can move them, you can duplicate them or resize them, and that each one of these types of thing on the canvas also sort of has its own rules about how it can be changed. So maybe it’s a video, maybe the aspect ratio of that video can’t change, even though you can’t change the size. Whereas maybe it’s like a rectangle and you can change that aspect ratio or the sizes. And whatever you wanna call these things on the canvas like shapes or primitives or elements, the thing that you do with an infinite canvas is, you know, to manage these and read them or arrange them or put the canvas into a state where it represents something. So, obviously, again, like whiteboards are pretty clear, like you wanna do a retro and you’re moving sticky notes around, and maybe voting by stamping things. And the important thing also is that, unlike a document where you’re only seeing a very small part of infinitely scrolling page. The canvas works really, really well for collaboration. The idea of having multiple people working on the same surface is pretty natural. You just represent them by their cursor, wherever the cursor is, that’s where they are. Um, you can do things like follow people around. I suppose you could do that on a vertically scrolling page, but it might not be as fun. Yeah, so that’s why I think it’s been picked up so readily by, again, like whiteboarding or diagramming or or places where you need to have more than one person editing the same document. It’s not like something with text where, as I’m editing text at the top of the document, all the other text is being pushed down the document. 00:34:00 - Speaker 2: The elements are relatively independent of each other. Yeah. 00:34:03 - Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. You know, you can have independent experiences on the same document that are just in different places. And I suppose the idea of place is also a big part of this, and potentially a big part of this. The idea of near and far, of close and distance, or like it quickly drifts into like video game territory of your cursor is your avatar, or maybe you have an avatar and you’re moving that avatar around this top down view of an office or a space and jumping into video calls with people close to you. So yeah, that infinite canvas, that’s kind of a long definition of how I see it. It’s just a found an infinite 2D plane and you are a little camera represented by a cursor. Moving around, moving over that surface. Mark, what do you think? 00:34:52 - Speaker 3: Yeah, I have a pretty similar take. I’ve often called these multimedia canvases, cause I think there are two dimensions going on. So one is the canvasness, which is at least 2, sometimes 3 dimensions and the freedom and flexibility to place content items wherever you want, like you were saying with relative independence. The second axis is multimedia, so Which types of media the digital document accommodates. When you lay it out like this, it’s interesting because this actually captures the whole universe of digital document editors. So for example, a classic plain text editor is at the sort of bottom left of this graph where it’s very limited to one content type and it’s very linear, a spreadsheet in contrast. Has pretty limited content types. It’s basically text and numbers, maybe a little bit of color, but it’s quite high on the canvasness. You have this flexibility and freedom to place things and by the way, as we’ve talked about in this podcast, that’s something people love about spreadsheets. It’s not just a calculator, it’s just a place where you can put stuff, people like that. Then you can go all the way out to the top right where I would put like muse and TL draw where you have a full 2D canvas and it’s highly multimedia. You have handwriting, text, images, videos, links, whatever. Or you could kind of go back down and say we want lots of different media types, but we don’t have the full flexibility. So I would put notion in this category, for example, of you basically have whatever media type you want, and there’s, there’s a little bit of flexibility, but it’s pretty much a linearized document. So in this view, the multimedia canvas is simply the fully generalized final form of a digital document. 00:36:38 - Speaker 1: It’s good to be here at the end, yeah. 00:36:40 - Speaker 3: And all the others are sort of specializations of that space. 00:36:45 - Speaker 2: One element you touched on there, Steve, which also I think fits in with the multimedia side as well as you talked about the elements, you know, we call them cards and news just because I think that works for us visually and particularly with the touch screen. It feels like an index card moving around on a desk or something, but yeah, the elements have a certain sameness and I think this does go back to Illustrator, which in many ways was the original Infinite canvas to my mind, but you know, maybe sketch and. FigMA and Framer kind of modernized that a little bit, but when you lay down a bit of text or add an image or add a rectangle in, for example, sketch, you can click on and select each one of them. You resize them the same way as you said there might be slightly different rules around resizing. There may be snapping or other things, but in the end, You can do the same things with all of them, and I think that’s really important and it’s actually something that to me comes actually from file systems. This is what’s great about files. It doesn’t matter what’s in the file. You can always delete it the same way. You can copy it the same way. You can put it in a folder the same way, you know, inspected size, that sort of thing. There’s this uniform container. And then over the years, files have gotten more capable and contained more and more different types of things, including, you know, things like video that the original creators of the file system probably couldn’t have even pictured being possible on a computer, but because it’s this general purpose container and as a user, I feel that gives me a lot of agency and power because even if I don’t know the specific type, I know exactly how to manipulate it. 00:38:16 - Speaker 3: This is reminding me that there’s potentially some secondary axis here. So one is collaboration, which we’ve mentioned, and we almost take that for granted now when we think about modern software, but you know that is a separable axis. The other is this notion of inline editing, which I think is actually pretty essential to what we think of as a modern multimedia canvas app, in contrast, you know, with the typical file manager like Finder, that’s actually very high on multimedia and quite high on. 2D flexibility, especially on your desktop, but you don’t have the inline editing, so it it feels like a totally different experience. 00:38:50 - Speaker 1: Yeah, this ability to not only move, delete, organize, copy, hold alt to clone, to directly manipulate content, but also It’s not only about making choices about where a thing is, or its relationship to other things, but it’s the place also to make stuff and to edit it directly. And yeah, one of the bigger kind of challenges with tealra was deciding how to allow interactions within shapes versus interactions with shapes. So, for example, you have a video, you can click on the video and drag it around. But you might also want to like pause the video or change the time of the video, and thinking about, OK, well, how do you transition from a shape that is, I call them shapes, whatever tail drops I’m gonna keep using that word, too hard to deprogram a shape that is Acting like a shape versus in a shape that is acting like a video, and that you can interact with with like a video. And yeah, it turns out that there’s a pretty good rules around that, like how to make it consistent, which works just as well for like text as it does for videos, as it does for, I think I have a code sandbox, you know, running on the canvas and teal draw in one of my example projects. The joy of using a kind of a web-based canvas of rendering stuff using the web, although that sounds like such a bad idea to render things in HTML and CSS, but it really does give you the ability to just put anything that can be in a browser on the canvas and interact with it. 00:40:29 - Speaker 3: And this also brings us to the why now and why is this hard. Like if this is the fully generalized form of digital documents, why didn’t software start this way? I think a big part of it is just that it’s hard. Like we talked about how it’s hard to write a text editor, but what if you now need to write a text editor, an image editor, a video editor, and audio editor, and they all need to be in the same thing, you know, it’s, it’s quite difficult. And then on top of that, you got to actually render all the stuff and make it manipulable and fast and responsive. It’s just quite difficult. I think that’s a big reason why. We haven’t seen it until relatively recently. I also think there is an element of people just, they don’t fully realize the expansive possibilities of the software, perhaps when they’re starting from a very limited. World. But OK, I constantly bring up this analogy of like a woodworking shop. Could you imagine if you had like a woodworking district and you had a shop just for like your chisel work and then a shop for your saw work and then a shop for your standing work and like you had to take this, you know, quote unquote file of a project and bringing it across to these different buildings. That’s kind of the world that we live in now, and you can’t even look at two things at the same time, like you’re standing and your chiseling work. That’s kind of the world that we’ve been living in with respect to software for a long time. And yeah, it takes some work to bring all those things into one. Workshop and to learn all the tools and to keep them all maintained and stuff, but that’s what you really want as a creator. 00:41:43 - Speaker 1: Yeah, especially in the browser, it’s like. Every 10 years, I’m told that you just have to forget what you knew about like what you can do and what you can’t do just because it just gets that much better. Certainly when I was Poking around with WordPress websites in college, the web was not a place where you could make a kind of a dumb driven canvas and make it like fast and good and perform it and do all the things that you need to do with pressure and multi-touch and all that. But it is possible today, and I think that when a platform is mature enough, you know, for you to have like an anything app, kind of a place where you can just put anything. OK, cool. Videos, yeah, put it there. Text, we’ll put it there. And that’s always sort of been the promise of the browser. It’s just been really constrained to this document format that is increasingly showing its limits. I think one of the newer APIs that I was looking at from Google, you know, involved like transitions, like kind of iOS style transitions between things, you know, that absolutely explodes the notion of the web page as a page and hopefully Tera also kind of demonstrates that this technology could be used. By the way, like, the idea of a rack driven canvas, not to keep coming back to framer, but That’s where I saw that this was possible because their, their canvas is driven by react and is driven by the dumb and like surprised me with the fact that it worked and that it could be made secure and all that. So, I don’t think I would have come up with this project without having seen it been done by people more capable than me than considered that as a possibility. It’s like, hey man, you could put anything on here. Like, why aren’t we? 00:43:26 - Speaker 3: This was an important data point for me in believing 4 or 5 years ago that these multimedia canvases were going to be really important because anywhere you had anything that was like multimedia canvas, if you squint, people loved it and they were using it for all kinds of stuff. I mentioned the example of spreadsheets. Another example is using tools like PowerPoint or drawing programs to do like whiteboarding basically. We’ve also seen this more recently with FigMA. FIMA is obviously a design tool, but people will use it for a personal note taking just because they really like the ability to put different stuff on a canvas. 00:43:56 - Speaker 1: Yeah, I think one of my first creative software experiences was with Hypercard, way back in the day. I think it was still Hypercard, like Apple Hypercard or not macromedia or Flash or anything like that, but yeah, there’s this idea of like, that is not an infinite canvas, that’s just a glorified slideshow. But it’s still like I’m like, man, you can make games with this, you can make presentations for this, you can make You know, animations, if you just click next fast enough. Yeah, um. A little bit of Like giving users a little bit of room to run, you know, it’s always like the best, just because, yeah, suddenly you have Doom running in Microsoft Excel. Yeah, and I think with TLDraw, I mean, folks have made a slideshow app, like a slide editor app with TLDraw, which apparently didn’t take too much work cause it already had like pages and you’re just have a UI for moving between pages and I’ve seen it used to do video annotation, like you pause a video at a certain time and just overlay like teal draw and be able to edit, like, you know, this guy’s gonna run over here or whatever, and it’s been used for like wikis. One of my favorite stories about this actually is that there are two products that compete with each other. They’re both for Dungeons and Dragons game masters or Dungeon masters. And when you’re telling or running like a story campaign or a story world game, you have a bunch of locations and people and, you know, items and all this stuff and they might have relationships to each other, etc. And so there are two pieces of software, one is called WorldAnvil, one is called Legend Keeper, and they both are essentially wikis, custom wikis for people who are running these games. And Legend Keeper shipped a whiteboard view of their like wiki, essentially. Based on TalDraw, like 6 weeks after I shipped TealDraw, like open source it, like immediately, they seemed to be like immediately, oh cool, this thing that we wanted to do for like 2 years, like, let’s just do it. Like we could just nail this, and they did. And then about 6 months later, World Envil released their canvas, their whiteboard view of their wiki, which was also based on Tealra. And I had been, I’d been telling people I’m like, someday there’s gonna be a product. Or two products that are competing with each other, similar features, and the thing that they’re not gonna be competing over is like how well the eraser works or how well the select tool works. They’re gonna be competing at that higher level of, yeah, like the features that they built that are unique to their products because both of them are gonna be using TealDraw. And then it happened 6 months in, it happened that I was like able to point to both of them and I love that. They’re both wonderful products and then their communities are always posting. Like I kind of lurk on their Discord channels just to see people’s like whiteboards, and yeah, it’s like 200 individual characters, you know, in a big family tree structure or like alliances between things. Yeah, definitely not what I expected when I was working on Tealdrop, but that’s the whole point, right? It’s like to see where people take it. 00:47:06 - Speaker 2: That’s great and I like the Dungeon master and world building aspect. We have some new customers who do a similar thing for their sort of dungeon mastering, but it is in a way the purest form of knowledge management. Yeah, you have this complex world, you need to keep track of stories, characters, yes, it’s all made up. There’s a version of this for sort of fictional worlds as well, right? Like, yeah, if you work on some franchise like Star Trek or whatever. to keep some shared knowledge base of all the canonical everything that has ever happened, timeline and characters and rules for the universe and things like that, but yes, it is a mix of obviously textual, kind of more linked wiki knowledge graph style stuff. But obviously diagrams, maps, drawings, all of that can and should be a part of it, but traditionally the digital tools that we use tend much, much more towards those that text and that linear top to bottom document, and it’s not even top to bottom, it’s really about the inline. It’s about the text that flows left to right and it wraps when it hits the edge of the screen and it keeps going down until you get to the bottom and any multi. The media you add tends to kind of float awkwardly as sort of a big character or something, but I think when you look at something like the Dungeon Master use case which so purely and in this made up realm captures the complexity of what you can do with computers in terms of tracking knowledge and what you might want to do, and quickly you see that text is a big part of the story, but it’s not the only part. 00:48:38 - Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think related to this idea of constrictive media types and layouts is the notion of premeditated workflows versus totally in the control of the user workflows. So typically with software, you have workflows that are Designed by a product manager or whatever, and they write down the software and that’s that. So you can imagine for world building, you have a database table that’s like characters and database table that’s equipment and you know, if you have something that doesn’t have a common database, well too bad, you know, email the product manager maybe able to add it in a year. But people really like the ability to craft the software to their use cases and motivations. I think this is a big draw of The multimedia canvas, you can just do whatever you want with it. You know, if you have a different way that you think about equipment or characters or whatever, you just put it on the canvas and and do whatever you want. And I think that’s an important aspect. But the other thing here is you can go down a layer and change the actual programming, which is one of the things that sounds like it is really exciting with TLDraw. And again, people, when they just give them a little kernel of power and capability and you meet that. With some motivation, people do all kinds of stuff. I’m reminded of the Half-Life game engine. I don’t know if you guys know the story, but the game itself was great. It was very successful. But this game engine spawned off all kinds of stuff, you know, that critically, the original creators did not anticipate, design, approve, or even know about, right? Just someone else, they took this kernel of power and made something new. I think that flow was so great. 00:50:05 - Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. One of the opportunities of having like a multimedia canvas is the ability to extend it semantically, almost, and you see some of this discourse around like the idea of notion-based editors, block-based editors, right? Is that like text is a primitive, images are primitive, but you start to kind of wrap these things up into more specific domain specific or just project specific and more meaningful blocks, right? And those things can interact in ways that maybe have to do with like what they are. So in the kind of the Dungeon Master example with something like Legend Keeper, the things on the canvas that they added were parts of your wiki that you can put on the canvas. And so the character on the canvas, you know, you can drag out a character from your wiki and put it on the canvas, is not just an image of that character, but it’s sort of is a representation of it. And It could be that dragging a character onto another character might produce a different outcome, might suggest a different user intent than dragging a character onto a location, right? Now suddenly you’re able to extend this surface metaphor into something where those same basic interactions, those same basic direct manipulation actions can be like meaningful in a way and produce different outcomes based on what you’re working with. Um, it’s not just text, it’s not just images. Now, we have people, we have places, we have things, and they might have their own rules around them. 00:51:34 - Speaker 3: Yeah, I think this idea of extending the content types in the canvas is super cool. We explored this a little bit back in the day with the prototypes that led to Muse in the Ink & Switch research lab, and I remember a couple that were really fun. One was a person. Which is represented as like an avatar and a name, but it was so useful to be able to have someone on the board and put them next to tasks or put people in a group, or, you know, put your current work under your picture. It’s like a great primitive, in other words, maps and locations, something that actually people use all the time for planning purposes. But I think there’s an important sell to here around extensibility. So there’s one thing you could do, which is draw out the notion of a box and say, we as the creators of this program could put different things in this box, you know, notion could put different things in their block abstraction. And just that is useful because then you can manipulate these in standard ways and link to them and so on. But then users being able to extend it is so fun and powerful. I remember with our prototypes, because this was back when we were doing the prototypes in JavaScript and people could just kind of write the stuff like a react component. And it was people were so excited to be able to write their own things, you know, things that were too specific and niche for the central, you know, controllers of the framework to ever worry about or even think of, but people felt so empowered to write their own components. This brings me to a problem that we’ve been noodling on for several years and and to my mind it’s still a critical open question. So when you’re trying to build these end user extensible digital document systems, there’s a few deerrata that you want. OK, you want it to be very fast, you want it to be safe in the sense of end users aren’t gonna be injecting wild stuff, you know, and other users' data or something. You want it to be approachable cause you want end users to be able to actually use this thing. You don’t want to give them some like, you know, assemble or guide and say go have fun. And ideally, I think you want the extensions to not feel like a totally different world, like some limited, slower, neutered, you know, subset of the platform. You really want to feel like the extensions and the platform itself are like written in the same way. And in fact, if an extension does well, it can be promoted into the platform. Or if a piece of the platform is, you know, not finding a lot of use that can be sliced off as an extension. And I just think it’s very hard to get all these things at the same time and it’s not clear to me how you do it. So for example, C++ can be very fast and It can be safe. Maybe Rust would be a better example of something that’s very fast and safe. But then telling end users to write their components in Rust, that’s a little bit harsh. And JavaScript in our experience can be very approachable, it’s very flexible, but it can be very hard to make fast, especially at the 120 FPS level that we’re targeting from use. So I’m just kind of curious if they that problem statement kind of resonates with you, and if so, how you’ve been approaching that. 00:54:25 - Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that’s a really good summary of the problem of extensions. Um, which some of that is gonna be true for any products, right? Like it’s true for a text editor as for a video conferencing infrastructure. I don’t know, whatever. In the case of Tealra. I’ve addressed this in kind of three design decisions. One is to use React for the canvas again, because I think the development story there makes up for the performance story. And the performance story is pretty good. It’s never gonna be as good as something like custom webGL canvas that was written in a systems language, right? That’s not gonna be possible. But on the other hand, uh, you can put things in there that you just can’t put in anything else. You can put a mapbox map or you could put a, you know, YouTube video, like as we’ve talked about, and you can do that, you can offer those things fairly easily. So, in the case of Tealra, all the shapes that you and I’m kind of referencing this next version that’s gonna be launching soon, all the shapes that you see. When you look at teardrop when it loads up, those are essentially extensions. Those are all custom. We wrote the user facing app kind of at that same level as you would write your custom plug-ins and your custom things. And I was pretty good about not cheating, and of course it’s easy cause we can change that lower level, you know, that core level in order to facilitate things that don’t work yet, but um all the shapes are custom shapes or plug-ins. And then the shapes themselves, these sort of like plug-in shapes. are all based on like uh primitives that the lower levels do share. So, for example, you have something like a box, right? A box rotates in a certain way, it resizes in a certain way, it hit tests against like points and lines in a certain way, and all of those things are different than if it was like a pencil shape, like a drawn line. All those answers are different. However, they’re all the same. Every box is gonna hit test pretty much the same way as every other box. Every line is gonna hit test the same way as every other line. So when you’re creating these custom shapes, when you’re creating these extensions, you’re able to just sort of inherit all that functionality from kind of the base, right? You say this is a box, all right, job done. This is its model. It has a width and height just like a normal box, but it also has a latitude, longitude and a camera zoom. And then the next question is like, well, what does it look like? And you say, well, it looks like a map box component, and it uses that data from the model, and that’s pretty much all the code you have to write, because all the other parts of that box in terms of its behavior and such are just their default, right? If you wanted to make something crazy and unique or if you wanted to make something that was very different than all of the primitives that we do share, things like whatever boxes, lines, polygons. Then you can also access those same primitives, those like lower level primitives to say, OK, well, here’s my squiggle. It has 3 ups and downs. Here’s it’s like outline that you can use for hit testing, and here’s how it resizes and all that. But most of the time, the custom shapes that we’ve written are just boxes, mostly just boxes with react components inside of them. So that’s the authoring experience, or the like developing story there, which itself is a developing story as we try and push like what you can do with these type of shapes. Then separately, it’s like, how do you do that, especially in a multiplayer situation, how do you allow multiple people to be using their own custom shapes, especially if they’re sort of end user credable. At the moment, the answer is, well, you don’t. The way that I’m thinking about this is deferring to sort of the implementer level, is that TealDraw as a SAS product might someday have its own extension markets like you might find in Figma where you can download stuff. But in the short term, this is primarily infrastructure tool for other teams to create apps with. Those folks would be the ones defining, you know, OK, well, here’s my person place thing shape. Those folks would be also guaranteeing that everyone who’s using the app has access to those same shapes. And so it wouldn’t really be like end user developer who’s making those extensions. 00:58:38 - Speaker 3: Yeah, so each instance of the TLDraw derived app chooses its extension ecosystem and curates those and makes sure that they’re safe, and it’s not every individual Joe, you know, injecting JavaScript into everyone else’s computer. 00:58:52 - Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. There might be a future where we want to solve those types of problems or like create those types of marketplaces. And there are a ton of interesting questions about like, well, how do you distribute those shapes in like a multiplayer situation with people who haven’t installed the plug-in. What happens if you copy your squiggle shape from one project into a different project that doesn’t have that squiggle shape? Those are all questions for later down the road. I think the primary thing that I’m going for with this version is just giving other developers the tools that they need in order to build the experience that they want for their users to have that involves this sort of canvas. 00:59:27 - Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think that’s a very reasonable and practical set of trade-offs, you know, react, curated by the instance, makes a lot of sense. It is fun to think about the fully general world. 00:59:37 - Speaker 1: Oh, totally, yeah. 00:59:39 - Speaker 3: Of arbitrary extensions. 00:59:40 - Speaker 1: I’ll get there eventually. There’ll be some cool streaming JavaScript modules, you know, that are pulled in at runtime in order to, you know, we’ll get there, don’t worry. happy not to be thinking about that yet. 00:59:52 - Speaker 2: I think of the time, certainly. 00:59:54 - Speaker 3: And your experience with React is that it’s fast enough. My recollection, so this was a few years ago, but my recollection was that React or React like systems on the web for this canvas use case was Not fast enough. 01:00:09 - Speaker 3: More like was very close. It was right on the line in the sense that if you kind of did anything weird or made a little performance mistake, it’s very easy to throw the flags, not meeting even 60 FPS. I don’t think we ever could try to get to 120 FPS because the browsers on the iPads don’t support 120 FPS as far as I know. 01:00:34 - Speaker 1: Yeah, that’s true, that’s true, but it’s like plausible for 60. 01:00:37 - Speaker 1: Yeah, I think Chrome goes up to 120, and I mean you could try out on Teal Draw, even though the current Tealraw.com is sort of the first version, and that ha

Discuss this episode in the Muse community Follow @MuseAppHQ on Twitter Show notes 00:00:00 - Speaker 1: We have to make sure that if you’re a brand new obsidian user, it feels accessible, it has infinite depth, and you can go as deep and crazy as you want, but that that surface level is intuitive and inviting to most people, and that’s a really hard thing to balance. 00:00:23 - Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to Meta Muse. Us as a tool for deep work on iPad and Mac. This podcast isn’t about me use the product, it’s about the small team and the big ideas behind it. I’m Adam Wiggins here with my colleague Mark McGranaghan. Hey, Adam. I joined today by Stefan Ago of Obsidian. How’s it going? And Stefan, you’ve got some nice recipes up on your website alongside various blog posts about tools for thought and technology. Tell me a little bit about pillowy Swedish cinnamon rolls. 00:00:55 - Speaker 1: Oh, that’s a good one. So I grew up in France. My mom is half American, half Swedish, my dad is 100% French, and my mom is. A teacher, later in life she became a professional baker. She was always cooking and baking throughout my childhood and taught us a lot. And she was also trying to infuse the household with her American culture and her Swedish culture as well, because I lived in France until I was 17. And so, One of those things is a Swedish cinnamon roll. I think in the US, you know, the kind of cinnamon roll that you’re used to is probably derived from that. It’s usually made with, you know, cinnamon or cardamom, and I came across this technique which is common in Asia called tanghong, which is a technique for making bread out of a, it’s almost like a very, I don’t know if anyone knows what a roux is, which is also a French technique, which is a mix of flour and water that you use to make gravy and other types of things. You use basically a very Like a slurry of water and flour that you don’t darken at all, and you put part of that into the dough. And what it does is somehow, I don’t know all of the chemistry of this, but I think what it does is it encapsulates some of the moisture into the flour, and so when you mix that into the main part of the dough. The dough stays really soft and fluffy and pillowy, and it’s just a really amazing texture. And so I discovered this technique and I think, you know, it’s used for like milk buns and different things in Asia, but I thought it would be a good fit for the Swedish cinnamon roll that I always love to make around the holidays, you know, in December, even though I live in Los Angeles now and it’s not so cold, it’s just a kind of a nice memory. And so it turned out to be the perfect fit in an interesting fusion of two things. And so I put this recipe out. I don’t have very many recipes on my website, but it started to become a little bit of a section, and so I decided to post more of these because they’re really fun for me and very iterative. I like to incorporate techniques that I find online and get feedback from people who try it and. Iterate on them, so maybe it will become a more important section of my website. I think there’s only 2 or 3 recipes on there right now. 00:03:28 - Speaker 2: Especially like the I guess cultural mashup aspect of that, obviously drawing from your own heritage but also reaching outside of that. I always find, I guess as a person who’s an immigrant myself and I’m raising my child who has two parents from different countries and is living in a third country, so maybe not too dissimilar from your upbringing. And yeah, I think there’s just a lot of, I don’t know, interesting, you know, if we say everything is a remix now, you know, this kind of remix of fundamental cultures, I just think there’s a lot there. 00:04:02 - Speaker 1: Yeah, being able to pick and choose techniques, ideas from different cultures and like bring them together is really fun. That’s how I grew up, and so it just comes naturally to me. 00:04:13 - Speaker 2: And tell us a little bit about your background in the professional world. 00:04:18 - Speaker 1: Well, so today I’m the CEO of Obsidian. Obsidian is an app probably a lot of your listeners will know about in the tools for thought kind of space. Before that, I’ve been an entrepreneur my whole life. I’ve run lots of companies, probably the most well known of them is called Lumi. We built a platform that helps entrepreneurs and Teams collaborate with manufacturers, particularly in the packaging space, so it’s a really interesting problem of There’s so much manufacturing capability in the world. Like there’s all these factories that are out there that can make things, but I find that the interface to access that capacity is Very confusing and difficult, and the idea behind the company was what if we could make it as easy to interface with factories as it is to interface with cloud computing. And so that was a really fun adventure. We worked on that for about 8 years, sold the company, and then I found myself having a little bit more free time to think about things. I have been using. A variety of different journaling and wiki type of software for a while and Obsidian came along, founded by Shia Lee and Erica Shu back in 2020. I started using it pretty much right away. It slotted into what I was doing perfectly and. I was using other tools before that and kind of had mashed up a few different things together. And Obsidian just sort of did exactly what I was trying to do by scotch taping all these different solutions together. And so I just fit like a glove right away, started using it, became close with the founders and started working on community contributions to the app. And Eventually, once I was leaving Lumi, they brought me on as the CEO and it’s a very small team. We’re only, you know, 6 people full time. So that title probably like yours, Adam, holds maybe a different meaning within our group, but it’s been really fun and I’ve been on it full time now for about 5 or 6 months, which has been really great. 00:06:32 - Speaker 2: And it must be quite a dramatic experience to come. You’ve obviously started your own company and scaled that up and been the leader there, but coming into a tool that’s already established itself, at least within a particular niche, already has a big audience of fans, already has an existing team, plenty of culture and values and all that sort of thing. Obviously you We’re already resonant with that culture and values coming in, but to suddenly be on the inside and particularly to have this vested authority, all of a sudden, did you find that disorienting? How did that challenge compared to the challenge of starting something totally from scratch and sort of building every piece of it versus needing to like, I don’t know, bootstrap all the context or build the moral authority within the team? 00:07:15 - Speaker 1: Well, I’ve never worked at a company that I didn’t start until now, so it was surprisingly natural because I Had developed this relationship to the founders over a long period of time, very gradually, very organically just through chatting with them and reporting various bugs with the app and, you know, building some community contributions and things like that. So it was surprisingly easy and very natural. It was just really like, instead of spending, you know, a few hours here and there working on obsidian every week. What if I was just doing that full time, and I do think it’s a At least in my mind. When I was thinking about what’s next after Lumia, my default would have been to start another company, but I couldn’t think of anything that I Thought was more exciting than obsidian. And so that to me, at least in my own head, it says a lot. I don’t know if it says a lot to other people, but it does say a lot that I would rather kind of go and help build this thing, which I think is is such an amazing app and community than try to start another thing from scratch right now. 00:08:28 - Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think that entrepreneurship, you shouldn’t start with, I want to start a company. You should start with, I want to solve a problem or have an impact on the world or go to a place where I can contribute the most. Really starting a company should be your last resort. If there’s really no other way to accomplish, I agree, 00:08:47 - Speaker 2: that’s what you want to do, then you say, well, damn it, I guess I have to start a company. 00:08:51 - Speaker 1: Oh well, I have so many people come to me for entrepreneurship advice and my first advice is don’t do it. Most of the time. I’m constantly like trying to convince them not to start a company. And part of it is just me kind of probing to see how much they actually care about whatever they’re doing that, you know, they can deal with that because that’s pretty much what you’re going to get from the world, like 99% of the time is like, why does this exist? or why are you doing this? But I kind of took my own advice here and I think a lot of times it’s better to go, you know, put more wood behind fewer arrows. 00:09:26 - Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it’s also a really unique opportunity because getting the chance to, for example, I hired a CEO at Hiroku after we’ve been in business for a few years, and that was a really great opportunity to work with someone much more experienced and with knowledge about the spaces we wanted to move into. For me, that was a new experience, yeah, always being an entrepreneur and then kind of Leading or being a co-leader in it until I’m done or don’t have anything else to say and then I just sort of leave. It’s really tricky to bring in a new leader, but it can also be an injection of new expertise, new perspective, new direction, new vision, especially because very often the kinds of people that like to start something are not the same. People or don’t have the same skill set or just passions to want to scale it up, to want to see it grow wider, address, be available to more people, or just the natural kind of management responsibilities that go with managing a team, and existing product, a big base of customers who just seem to have an endless list of bugs and feature requests. It can take a different personality type. So when that can be done well, I think it’s really great to bring in an experienced leader at the right moment. 00:10:34 - Speaker 1: Yeah, and I was so impressed with Erica and Shea. People might know them as Silver and Leak out, which is their name online, but they’re a little bit younger than I am and have such a mature point of view on how they want to build the business of Obsidian from the start, they Made the decision not to go down the VC path, and I’ve, in my own businesses over the years have literally tried every different method of funding any business. I’ve bootstrapped companies. I’ve gone the VC route. Did Shark Tank, did Kickstarter did every different thing you can imagine, loans like if I type your name into YouTube with Shark Tank right now, will I get a 00:11:12 - Speaker 1: clip? You’re gonna find my co-founder Jessie. I was not brave enough to go on there myself, but she’s great, and you should watch that episode. But I think they took a very mature path really thinking about the long term, which is aligned with kind of what the app is trying to do, and having the experience of going through all of those different ways of building a business. I realized it is really hard to run a bootstrapped company and try to grow it kind of on your own. And I think that the approach that we’re taking with Obsidian is definitely hard mode in a way. It seems surprising that you could just easily get millions of dollars, but if you have a good enough idea, there’s investors like banging at your door trying to give you money and it actually takes a lot of Fortitude to say, no, I don’t want millions of dollars. We’re going to just do it, you know, ourselves, we’re gonna grow very carefully and organically and in an almost like selfish way, because I’m such a fan of obsidian first and foremost and a user of it, you know, pretty much every day, have it open in the background of my computer if I’m not using it actively. I almost selfishly wanted to just kind of help ensure that obsidian continues on that independent path and continues to build kind of in a very thoughtful way. And what could I bring from a business standpoint to the table to create the structure that would enable that to continue being a priority. 00:12:45 - Speaker 2: And it’s going to lead to this later, but since we’re sort of on the topic now of the kind of the mechanics, which includes, yeah, financing, team size, but business model, obviously, it’s what I would call a prosumer model. There’s the free product you can download and use, and then there’s the sort of services, subscription services like Sync that you can sort of add on to that once you’re getting value from the product. So I feel like prosumer is something that has like a longer ramp up, but you need to kind of like do that upfront investment, but it also doesn’t have a very good shape for venture because it doesn’t necessarily have that big kind of unicorn in 10 years shape to the graph that say like a B2BAS company might. And then the middle ground there often ends up that companies like this basically finance it through just doing a bunch of consulting projects in the early days. I think maybe like yeah, the 37 signals folks is one example. I’ve done that with multiple businesses to the point you’re willing to reveal how does obsidian strike that balance? Have you been successful enough that you’re just able to finance on customer revenue or that early upfront investment feels like it’s got to come from somewhere? 00:13:50 - Speaker 1: And when you say prosumer, I think in my head, at least I think of prosumer as a market as a user type, but From a business model standpoint, I would say freemium is more the term that I’ve come to. Is that what you mean when you say prosumer, do you mean freemium? 00:14:06 - Speaker 2: No, because you can have a freemium B2B and you can have freemium B2C. So music is one of the main areas like yeah, podcasters and DJs and whatever. This is actually you’ve got people who are often hobbyists or aspiring professionals though realistically. Maybe many of them are never going to make a living from it, but they are willing to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on gear on software, etc. So classically B2C, you can’t get anyone to pay for anything. You just monetize with ads or whatever, and then B2B, you know, you get those big sort of company contracts where they’re paying thousands or tens of thousands a month. And so I think of prosumer as being that kind of in between state of like Dropbox is a classic example, like pay $10 a month. Yeah, you get access to like, yeah, again, audio and video stuff, etc. I don’t know, maybe you don’t think of yourself that way, but that’s how I would slot it. 00:14:54 - Speaker 1: Well, I don’t, but I’m trying to kind of come around to your way of thinking of it like in that world, definitely, you know, Apple Notes and OneNote or some of these kind of apps that come shipped with the OS would probably be the consumer one like everyone just has it by default and it’s free, it’s bundled in. Obsidian has a Freeman model so you can totally use Obsidian for free and for personal use, but it is a little more advanced, it has more complexity to it than an Apple notes. It’s trying to, you know, give you a little bit more power user type of features, I suppose, and maybe that’s where the prosumer angle comes in. I think for us in terms of what the kind of broader. Goals of what we’re trying to do are we’re really trying to democratize these tools like we’re trying to make it easily accessible for people to think using these tools and so we don’t feature anything behind a price, so it’s not like There’s a pro version that you pay $10 a month for. The capabilities are behind a license type. So if you are using obsidian for your business, then you need to buy a commercial license. So that’s a little bit of a unique point of view and it has to do with kind of the values that we have around really trying to democratize access to these tools. The capabilities like sync and publish are paid add-ons, but There’s tons of free alternatives that are out there that may even be better for whatever use case you have. And so in a sense we’re competing with a bunch of free alternatives to our own services and we’re OK with that. A lot of the people who upgrade into some of those additional services, they’re doing it because they want to support Obsidian as a company as well. 00:16:51 - Speaker 2: Interesting, the commercial use kind of concept. I assume it’s to some extent is a honor system is quite the right word for it, but yeah, no, it’s an honor system, 00:17:02 - Speaker 2: right? Hard to tell if someone’s truly using something professionally and I think a lot of software again creator type software, if you think of like image editors or something like that, they might have things like water. Marks or something like that, that maybe an individual who’s just screwing around to make a meme, they’re OK with that, but a company would never put up with that. 00:17:19 - Speaker 1: So of course they’re gonna, but we don’t do any of that. Well, hopefully we don’t have to resort to any of those weird tactics. Like I don’t want to do that. That it’s surprising how well the honor system works actually. I think that most companies, we have a lot of great organizations using obsidian that really care about privacy and so they tend to go down the obsidian path more so than some of the other like cloud-based providers that are out there and not encrypted. And so I think that if you’re one of these organizations. You actually do care about reading the license, a lot of the software that you use, and if it says you need to pay $50 a user per year, we don’t get into that much friction, to be honest, when it comes to that. And the only friction that would come up would be everyone who’s in between who are like small, you know, couple people startups who from an honor system standpoint, they’re just probably using obsidian for free and it’s not a big deal. 00:18:21 - Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and classically, it’s been said that Fremium is almost an update of the old system which was used piracy as your sort of free version, so you pirate in Photoshop when you’re, you know, a university student that can’t afford anything and then later you have a real job at a real company and they want to be legit, so they buy you a license. 00:18:39 - Speaker 1: Exactly. Yeah, I mean, that was me. If I didn’t pirate Photoshop when I was, you know, 14 years old, I probably wouldn’t be doing the job that I’m doing now. But, you know, now today in 2023, I think it’s probably a better From a top of the funnel standpoint, piracy is not a great like method of trying to gain users. You might as well just give your app for free and then, you know, try to convince the people who can pay to come and join that tier. 00:19:10 - Speaker 2: Another example I’ve always liked that’s kind of a variation maybe on the the watermark sublime text, where when you buy a license, the only thing it does is remove the unlicensed text that’s in all caps from your title bar, which you probably don’t even notice that much in regular use. If someone’s looking over your shoulder or you’re pair programming on a screen share, it just, yeah, it looks like you’re kind of not serious about your tools and not investing or maybe just remind you of like, hey, this is a tool you rely on, it makes sense to support the creator or creators of it. 00:19:41 - Speaker 1: Yeah, so blind text is a huge inspiration to us. It’s great. 00:19:45 - Speaker 3: That reminds me sometimes you see these YouTube videos where people have the please license your windows sticker on their desktop. 00:19:52 - Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, that’s hilarious. 00:19:57 - Speaker 2: Well, I’d love to hear a little bit about how you think of obsidians fitting into, you know, we’ve talked about the tools a bit, but we self-identify, that is to say the Muse team and to some degree could switch as being part of the tools for thought community scene, whatever you want to call that, you know, your website, you call yourself a second brain. There’s obviously the concept of note taking. You’ve already mentioned Apple Notes, for example, although you know you could argue the degree to which a very simple notes app like Apple Notes is even in the same category as a knowledge graph or a wiki. When you think of that sort of category of software, how do you think of obsidian’s place within it? 00:20:31 - Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think that. What most people are familiar with when I try to explain obsidian to someone who’s never really thought about using a tool like this, I go back to Wikipedia as the touchstone because I think everyone’s been on Wikipedia. People understand that most file systems, most structural systems are hierarchical or chronological, and so they’re linear in one of those ways, but they understand. Even if it’s just sort of intuitively or emotionally that Wikipedia is not organized like that. I mean there are some hierarchies in there, but it’s a web of links that you can click through and everything is related to something else. And I think that is really what I mean, even the term when you say personal wiki, it’s jargon, but if you say it’s like Wikipedia, then it becomes not jargon anymore and it’s like creating your own Wikipedia is oftentimes what I use as a description for obsidian to, you know, non nerds basically. And I think that’s a powerful analogy that, you know, somehow hasn’t permeated into tools like Apple Notes though, you know, I heard recently they’re making a new journaling app, but we’ll be curious to see what they come up with there. Um, but it is like one extra level of friction that maybe those like really basic tools are not looking to do. And once you start to link ideas together, what can you do with that? What new structural concepts does it open up? And it sounds so simple, but at least For me and my thinking, it totally changes the way that I organize my thoughts. There’s some people out there who are geniuses who can do this purely in their mind, but I don’t know. I just don’t have the like RAM in my brain to be able to maintain lots of different ideas at the same time. And so having this tool where I can kind of break down a problem into smaller chunks and then Remix those little chunks, however I want inside of a note is a really powerful and very basic concept. And then everything is layered up on top of that. So graph views, canvas views, you know, backlinks, like all of these different add-ons and things that can enable some new kinds of workflows, databases, like you can kind of go ad infinitum on top of that basic concept, but it comes down to. Links between notes and this kind of bottom up organizational model. 00:23:07 - Speaker 2: I think you actually perfectly teed up our topic today, which is Evergreen notes, and partially I like this term for a lot of reasons comes up, but it’s also a back reference to one of our first guests we ever had on the podcast, Andy Match. We’ll link that in the show notes, but you have a great blog post titled Evergreen Notes Turn Ideas into Objects you can manipulate. 00:23:29 - Speaker 1: Yeah, Evergreen, I think that Andy’s notes about that that he’s published are really great, and what I like about my definition is just turning an idea into a memorable chunk of text, but memorable to you, like a meme that is a meme inside of your own thinking. How can you take An idea that you had or read and turn it into a memorable chunk. Like sometimes I think what we love about good quotes from like famous people or from books is that they are in a way an every green note because they take a feeling or a concept and turn it into this like memorable little chunk of text. And at least in the way that I write for my own personal thinking, having that little chunk of text, like you said, everything is a remix. That’s an evergreen note in my system. And I can use that in the context of a sentence that might start with, because everything is a remix, you know, this thing that I found is interesting for that reason, and I use everything as a remix as a link in that sentence. And it becomes a very natural way to compose ideas together, but I want to try to make it kind of more relatable to People who haven’t thought this way in the past, and that was the purpose of that blog post was try to explain that if you can externalize ideas and you can create your own little memes inside of your system, then you can touch those ideas, you can rotate them, you can. Manipulate them in a way that personally, I find that my brain doesn’t work that way. I don’t have the capability to just do that purely inside of my head. I have to externalize it in order to be able to manipulate it. 00:25:17 - Speaker 3: Yeah, that’s been my experience too. Or at least I think you can fool yourself into thinking that you can manipulate these things in your head, because you can hold what, 7 things in your head? It’s like, oh, look, I have 7 things in my head and I can even combine them in different ways. But it’s sort of false because once you write down 20 or 30 things and have them as discrete objects, that’s when you have the Ability to rapidly play with new combinations. It’s one of those things that works unreasonably well, just writing it down, because it takes it out of your head and it frees up one of those 7 slots to put something in and it makes it possible for you to quickly pick up new objects to put in those 7 slots from your written down items. 00:25:56 - Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you can break your ideas down into smaller and smaller pieces, you can also build up more complex ideas that you feel have a stable foundation. Like you can build ideas on top of each other into thinking more complex thoughts than you could otherwise think, which I think is exciting. That’s really fun. Yeah. 00:26:18 - Speaker 3: This idea of being able to build up more complex thoughts because you’ve written them down, it reminds me of this idea of automation and programming, where sometimes it feels like you don’t really need to automate it because it’s basically going fine when you do it manually, which again, is true as far as it goes. But really what happens is you have some capacity to do stuff manually. So if you automate it. You can add your manual stuff on top of that, so you basically open up the ceiling to be able to do more stuff as a computer user. It kind of has the same feeling to me as this idea of writing stuff down to free up more mental space. 00:26:51 - Speaker 1: Maybe I should give an example so that people who are listening can understand what I’m talking about. I was reading this book by Murakami, I think it’s called What I Talk About When I Talk About Running or something like that. And he likes to run marathons and write books. And so he, you know, kind of compares the two, and he has this phrase that is a very memorable phrase in the book, which is pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. He says, basically, when you sign up for a marathon, you’re basically signing up for pain. But it’s your choice to decide whether you want to suffer that pain or not. I was going through a very painful time at the time and so it kind of resonated with me. And then an evergreen note that I wrote in obsidian was pain is information and my thought about pain as information was I think children learn this at an early age. If you touch a hot stove, you know, that’s information that don’t touch hot things, you know, you’ll burn yourself. But in general, like pain is a signal from your body. It could be a physical pain, it could be emotional pain that gives you information. And then, There’s this phrase like knowledge is power. So, you know, if you gain enough information through pain, can you build knowledge off of that? By the transit of property is pain power? Like that that was a question that I was asking like if you are able to understand pain and synthesize pain, is it a path to power? It has a lot of connotations, but can you become more powerful by having more painful experiences? So this was kind of just like a train of thought, but like each nugget is an evergreen note. So pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional, pain is information, you know, knowledge is power, pain is power. Like you can kind of try to explore these ideas. You don’t necessarily need to agree with them. Like there’s tons of evergreen notes in my obsidian that I don’t agree with, but I’m trying to turn them into a little meme for myself that I can come back to. And maybe I’m still trying to figure out my opinion about that thought, and I’m trying to use that little fragment of text in a sentence where I’m agreeing with it or I’m disagreeing with it. I’m trying to weigh the pros and cons of it. I’m trying to mix it with another idea. Maybe this idea is not as strong as this other variation of the idea. And I just find it a very useful, you know, way to kind of think about these things and hopefully that example makes sense. 00:29:27 - Speaker 2: The self memes, including accessing maybe yeah, books you’ve read, quotations, yeah, everything is a remix, the running book, I think of ones that I referenced with some frequency like the man in the arena quote, these serve not only to, if we do think of ideas as these little notes, which are essentially objects that we can break apart and then use to do almost like Arithmetic or something like that and explore in ways that are more complex and interesting than the ideas would be on their own, but also can build up that pyramid and then encapsulate actually a lot of kind of sub items under one so everything is a remix or across the chasm or something like that actually contains a lot to it and you could read a whole book in many cases or whole section or think many deep thoughts on that, but eventually if you bubble it up into that meme, it almost reminds me of like a scientific citation where if I’m writing a paper about a complex topic and I need to reference another complex topic, I don’t need to go and restate that whole complex topic. I just referenced the paper and for a very small number of tokens I get essentially all of that brought in if you already know the paper or you know the meme or you know the quote. That basically can just serve as a reference to all that. If you don’t know that well, then you can go and explore, go down the rabbit trail there, which again, I guess does bring us back to that kind of Wikipedia linked knowledge, knowledge graphs, scientific papers as citations like, yeah, these are things that exist in other forms, but this version of it for the personal environment, the personal notes tool, personal knowledge base that has this highly manipulable component, I guess that’s what it feels like is truly new with tools. Likesidian. 00:31:09 - Speaker 1: And maybe the difference there between what you’re talking about and Wikipedia itself is that Wikipedia will reference specific books and places and, you know, concepts or terms, but it doesn’t really have like memes inside of Wikipedia because those are very personal kind of interpretations of an idea. One school of thought could have many different like sub ideas within it and those ideas don’t really tend to make their way. Into Wikipedia in that same way, but the concept of being able to kind of like manipulate them is similar. Am I making sense? Like Wikipedia doesn’t really contain interpretations of an idea, because it’s not trying to do that, it’s trying to be an encyclopedia, so it’s trying to be objective and not subjective, but these evergreen notes are intentionally subjective. 00:32:00 - Speaker 3: The evergreen note examples that we’ve been talking about have been very granular, aphorisms of a few words. Do you also have evergreen notes that are huge sprawling pages in which you’re creating stuff over time, or do you really prefer the granular style? 00:32:16 - Speaker 1: Um, I like really granular, I mean this is just me personally, you know, I’m not dogmatic about this. People can do whatever they want. I tend to have small fragments that I can compose into bigger fragments, so. Yeah, I can’t really think of, you know, really huge evergreen notes that I have. What those turn into is journal entries or stream of consciousness type of things where it’s like playing with Lego blocks. It’s like I’ve got these Lego blocks which are my evergreen notes, and then I have a session where I’m going to think about these like 10 different evergreen notes and combine them together. But that thing is not an evergreen note. It’s just a stream of consciousness, a thought process in my system, it lives as a date stamp with a name, and it’s just like on this day, I had these thoughts about these evergreen notes, but the evergreen notes are not time stamped, they hopefully have longevity. 00:33:19 - Speaker 2: Now longevity, I also feel like it’s an interesting fork to explore here. Some Mark and I have talked about as some of the listeners will know and talking about software longevity and sort of digital preservation and the challenge of bit ros and how quickly files and applications and whole systems sort of cease to be accessible. He talking about kind of your own personal knowledge systems and obviously I know that this is a big part of what. built on, which is just a folder full of mark down files and that’s plain text and now marked down as an extension of that is something that has really stood the test of time in a way that almost any other format you can think of hasn’t. How do you think about evergreen notes, durability, and especially in the context of your personal notes and how long those need to last. 00:34:08 - Speaker 1: It’s a very high priority. I would say that we are kind of plain text maximalists, like even more so than markdown. Markdown is definitely kind of this system that seems to have permeated enough and has lasted long enough that, you know, we feel comfortable using it as the kind of default markup in obsidian, but I think that we’re in this era that’s a very Unusual time because Digital files have only been around for 70 or 80 years. And that’s not very long relative to time. People have been writing things down for thousands of years and so we’ve started generating a huge amount of digital data. How much of that digital data is going to still exist 1000 years from now? It seems like on the one hand, we’re able to capture a lot more than we ever have been able to, but how much will be retained is the question. And my framework for this is just the Lindi effect. I just want to think about what has existed for a long time and can we use that as a proxy for, you know, hopefully something that will last a long time. And my gut feeling is that if computers are still around in 1000 years, plain text will probably still work, you know, maybe some other dramatic thing will happen where computers are not still around, but we’re trying to make decisions within the context that we know about right now. And so that’s also why sometimes I say like files are much more important than apps. We care about the file that you create in Obsidian much more so than the app. The app is ephemeral. Like the app is not gonna last forever. I think it’s a fallacy to think that you’re gonna design a tool that’s gonna last forever. Maybe like a chisel can last forever or something like that, but a software app is probably. not operating systems change, users change, things are changing so quickly. I don’t really care what kind of chisel someone used to, you know, inscribe hieroglyphics on a pyramid or something like that, but they were able to communicate some information that has stood the test of time. And so that’s why Obsidian is writing to plain text files that for now in terms of what we have for digital information is the you could open. An obsidian file on a computer from the 60s, which means that hopefully it will also work for a computer from, you know, 200 years from now. 00:36:38 - Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that and it touches on a few things of very much of interest to me. I mean, one is, I think that from a user perspective, putting aside how long of a duration you expect or want or would be desirable in your data, your work, the things you’ve created, ultimately, I think, especially here talking about creators, people using tools or productivity software to make. Things you really care about your work, not the tool, and obviously people can get excited about the hot new tool and they do, and that’s a lot of fun, but ultimately I care about when I’m using a piece of video editing software to edit a video or I’m using a word processor to write my PhD dissertation. I care about what I’m creating way, way more than the tool itself. As software creators, as tool makers, it’s very easy to have a certain kind of egocentrism, which is the tool is the important part, or maybe this even just comes from programmers where we think, well, the program is a complicated, interesting, important part and all of those bits we write to disk on behalf of the user, that’s kind of a secondary thing, but I think the user perspective is really the inverse of that. 00:37:40 - Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think That’s why the term tools for thought kind of rubs me the wrong way sometimes because it’s putting the tool at a higher level of importance than the thought in a weird way. And I think that the question that I’m wondering about is like, what are we doing on a civilizational level when I say we, like everyone who’s involved in Making and using tools for thought right now. What’s happening right now? Because it does feel like there’s something brewing, there’s like something that’s happening right now in this area that hasn’t, for some reason it wasn’t happening 10 years ago or 20 years ago. It seems to be happening right now. And I do think we’re inventing some interesting new tools, and we’re making some interesting decisions about society or humanity in some way. And I feel like the things that We’ve been kind of talking about in this conversation are the things that we’re doing. We’re trying to unlock a way that people can have thoughts that they haven’t had before. Like maybe some of these tools can open up ideas and allow people to think more complex thoughts or accelerate their progress towards some sort of creative output that they wouldn’t have otherwise been able to get to without these tools. So that seems kind of cool and important. And then the other part is How did those ideas or creations or whatever you made the outputs of the tool last for a long time, hopefully. I mean, maybe you make something very ephemeral and it’s not meant to last for a long time and that’s fine, but if you want them to be able to, they should. And I think that we’re at a turning point, like the printing press or something where we have the opportunity to kind of design these tools to hopefully pursue at least one or both of those goals. 00:39:27 - Speaker 2: Part of what I find so interesting about this, yeah, tools for thought scene, whatever you wanna call it, is just caring about the ability to Use software and computers first of all, as a thinking tool, which I think has only very rarely been something that’s on people’s minds. We’re usually thinking much more pragmatically. Here’s a calendar, here’s email, here’s a to do list, something of that nature. And I’m not sure that all the things that these different tools are trying, whether it’s sort of canvas-based tools, more tech orient. tools, things using space repetition, all that sort of thing, that those things were impossible to do with computers 10 or 15 or 20 years ago, but for some reason, people just got really interested in it right now and there’s some excitement around it and some sexiness around it and maybe some commercial opportunity around it as well, and that just has a bunch of people thinking about it. And regardless of the specifics of any individual product or project, I just love that there’s so many people thinking about the problem from that perspective. How can we use computers to help us all think thoughts we didn’t have before, like you said, be able to do more with our thoughts, be able to do more with our productive philosophical and creative efforts. 00:40:41 - Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think what’s new about computers in this respect is that every paper-based physical based system for thinking was kind of bound by the limitations of physics and physical objects, making it more linear, like a book, you know, is linear in nature. I’m always amazed when people get into the settle cast and like slip box concept that this guy literally did what I’m talking about with Evergreen notes, but just like have these little pieces of paper that were cross referencing itself. It’s a nightmare. It’s so cool that someone tried to do that, but literally, you know, one person did that because it was that complicated. And so we have the opportunity now to do things like canvas or graphs or things that have infinite levels of depth and nonlinear, non-hierarchical structures because we’re not bound by the three dimensional space when we’re, you know, working with these digital files and so that’s a really cool thing. How does the output of whatever you came up with. Like, it’s a means to an end still, like the canvas view, for example, in Obsidian or Muse, like, to me it’s in service of creating something at the other side of that, that is probably not a canvas in itself, like the canvas is not the output, the canvas is the kind of playground to arrive at an output. 00:42:11 - Speaker 2: Yeah, and that has been, I think a challenge in just marketing a product to a wider audience that is fundamentally for thinking, which is the output is the epiphany. The output is the the idea that you wouldn’t have had, as you said, and there may be pragmatic. something where again you’re working on your PhD dissertation or your grand idea or your software product or whatever it is, and the thinking tools help you to achieve that and maybe you’re copy pasting some things out of it, but in a way to me it’s almost a feature that Whatever it is that plain text file that canvas or whatever form the thinking space is taking, or even going to the physical world, right, the whiteboard or the sketchbook, it’s sort of a feature that my sketchbook I can’t turn that into the finished artifact because the sketchbook is the place to have loose thoughts. In a way that’s open ended, that’s safe and private, that is just messy and combinatorial, and then when I feel like, OK, I’ve had the aha moment, this is the thing I need to say or do, now I’m going to move to those more kind of production tools, but that can seem confusing, I think in some cases because it sort of seems like you’re doing extra work and why. And I think of it as you’re doing the work you’re already doing in your head, but you’re doing it through this externalized form, as you said earlier, and that that is a help, even though it may in the sense of like what it looks like to an external person, look like I’m doing more work, but you have to do the thinking either way with or without the help, with or without the aid. And then there’s also that, how do you turn this into like a more Production thing for consumption by other people or execute that idea and that should just be a separate set of tools. 00:43:48 - Speaker 1: It is hard to be messy in a digital form, and I think that’s kind of we’re trying to make that gradient between messy to finished smoother in a way, at least with the obsidian, it’s kind of a Implicit goal of trying to bridge those two things in a way that feels like continuous. 00:44:09 - Speaker 2: Yeah, I know this is something you’ve you’ve touched on with some regularity mark is the idea of like not having there be too discreet of a transition from, OK, now I need to take something that’s kind of transcribe it or take it from my sketchbook and move it to, for example, a digital form. And what’s in there, I’m taking it somewhere else. I think the reality is most production pipelines, if you want to call it that, do have multiple steps, right? I write a script for my movie and the script is in a different tool in a completely different format from shooting on film and then editing that down and then how I’m actually going to distribute that to my end audience is also, you know, uses a different tool, but making those steps less jarring is, I think, very desirable. 00:44:52 - Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you correctly point out that in practice, you’re almost certainly gonna have separate discrete tools, and now that I’m thinking about it in terms of explaining the products and marketing can be quite difficult because, OK, in the ideal case, you have one Uber tool that like magically morphs from a messy idea sandbox into a finalized, you know, edited movie or something. OK, sure. We know that in practice you’re gonna have to have a discrete step there where you say, Develop an outline and use, for example, and that eventually goes into the film production process. That is kind of explainable, like you do need to introduce this extra step that people often skip, unfortunately, but it’s in fact even harder than that because in many cases, what you’re doing with something like muse or obsidian, in my opinion, is you’re basically rewiring your brain, you’re introducing new thoughts into your head and you can actually throw away that artifacts, but it’s what’s in your head. So now you gotta explain to someone, oh, you know, it’s actually just that your neural net weights have been updated. And then furthermore, it’s often the case that these are not in your waking conscious mind. You’re updating the weights in your unconscious mind and explaining that is very, very difficult, you know, source, trust me, bro. 00:45:58 - Speaker 2: Now I’m curious, you mentioned trying to make that process of starting from the raw and unfinished and messy and moving to the more sorted out and organized, smoother, what sorts of things in practice has that looked like for your product? 00:46:13 - Speaker 1: I think for us it’s being nonprescriptive about how the tool works and really working on the primitives. So, Obsidian has a point of view on malleability and extensibility that I think is pretty unique. We try to get the basic things right like text entry, just like even that problem is actually really, really hard just actually making an editor that feels fast and responsive. I think a lot of people get frustrated with other tools that just don’t give them the feeling of they can type as fast as they want anytime and that basic problem is one that we Retain as like one of the most important things about obsidian. And so there’s a handful of these things that are kind of like the primitives like we think links are really important and being able to quickly link between files is really important. We added a new primitive with Canvas, which is like spatial relationships. But all of these different aspects of obsidian, you know, the next priority is extensibility. So the first priority is like let’s get the basic thing. The basic experience as good as possible for 90% of the use cases, but then everything else is a really long tail that is quite unpredictable and very different from person to person depending on how they think, depending on the kind of work that they do. Are they academic, are they creative? Are they using PDFs all day long? Like what are they doing in their actual workflow and how does the tool adapt to that? And so. We just accept that we’re not going to be able to, you know, put all those features into the app and instead what we’re gonna do is just make it really, really extensible so that people can build those things on top of Obsidian and take them in all the different directions that they want and assume that basically there’s going to be very little overlap between which specific plugins any given person is going to be using. I think that I personally have an inclination towards making, you know, these really well designed, opinionated tools that have like a way to use them. Like that’s what I’ve done a lot of my life. But obsidian has challenged me to really think the opposite way and say like, what is core, what is something that everyone needs, and then what is everything else? And recently, like AI has also been this kind of big interesting topic that I think a lot of us have been playing around with these different tools for chat GBT and so on to kind of use them inside of our tools. Like right now there’s probably like 15 different AI plug-ins for Obsidian, and they each have their own like little different take, whereas if you look at some of the other products in the tools for Though space. They’re each implementing it kind of as a first party thing into their app with an opinionated point of view. We don’t have an AI like first party AI integration right now partially because it kind of conflicts with our privacy and values, but if you want to use one of those tools, you can use any of the 15 different open AI integrations that exist. And actually one of the things that I’ve been enjoying is using Chad GPT to make plugins. So the other day I had an idea for a plug-in inspired by someone on Twitter had created this really nifty kind of prototype demo of a stream of consciousness writing experience where the words fade out as you’re typing them, and it just like is very immersive way of writing just like basically one word at a time. And I thought that was so cool. I thought it would be an interesting experiment to ask Chat GBT to make me an obsidian plugin that does this, and it’s not perfect, but I was able to get to something that basically replicated that, you know, within an hour. And so that really speaks to the malleability of the software. Like, can you take this thing and shape it to, you know, what you need as a tool for your process, knowing that maybe your process is even going to change over time, like over the next 5 to 10 years as you evolve as a person. 00:50:14 - Speaker 3: Yeah, it’s been really cool to observe the obsidian community with the plugins. There’s so much cool stuff that people have been trying. I’d be curious, is it your vision for plug-ins that they’re mostly kind of content oriented versus behavior oriented? So for content, I think of, you know, rendering basically and the MySpace backgrounds and that sort of customization, whereas workflow behavior, I could imagine something like every day you take all the Check items from your to do list that haven’t been done and move into a new document that you create with today’s date. Do you see both those as being in play for plug-ins? 00:50:48 - Speaker 1: Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, there’s literally 1000, I think we just crossed 1000 plugins for obsidian, and they do everything under the sun. If they don’t do something, if they’re trying to do something that we like don’t have an API for, that’s something that we should add an API for. Um, so I would say most plug-in, at least half of the plugins do what you’re describing. They’re workflow oriented, they allow. You know, syncing from other systems, they allow, you know, pushing out to other things to do lists like different view modalities for like Kanban or dates or like all kinds of different things. So we try to make it as open ended as possible as far as what plug-ins can do. 00:51:31 - Speaker 2: Yeah, and malleability is a big topic for the researchers at I and Switch, and certainly something I know from a lot of that research is that you do always have this trade-off as an extensible as possible system like you’re describing. If there isn’t an API for something, you should make it, but inevitably that does mean that people are gonna try and do everything to the point that the more extensible it is, the more easy it is to end up either completely shooting yourself in the foot. But perhaps a little less dramatically than that, deleting your data or something like that is more like just this conflict between you install these 5 different plug-ins, the whole interface gets really weird and janky. Now they’re writing in with bug reports about like this button doesn’t work right, but it’s because they installed some plug-in that messed with it in some unexpected way, right? Famously, this is like the difference between like Apple and Android, right? The iOS world is very locked down. You want to customize it, we’ll let you change the background or something, but that’s kind of it, so that they can make sure that experience is really curated and always kind of, you know, just works, so to speak, and then there’s the Android world which is more open-ended, but then is more famous for being basically a little bit janky. How do you think about that trade-off? 00:52:43 - Speaker 1: It’s definitely a trade-off. It definitely has its downsides, but I think that There are for the most part too few tools like obsidian in other spaces that give you that kind of freedom. So I think it’s also a reaction to what most tools that people are used to don’t have that malleability to begin with. So we’re OK with carving out this section of the market where people can have a little bit more freedom at the cost of, yes, you can shoot yourself in the foot for sure. The only thing that we can do is kind of provide the guide rails like what we try to do, for example, we just recently completely revamped the developer documentation. I mean, there’s basic things like how do you capitalize the text on a button, you know, like because we’re open-ended to plugins, like there’s different guidelines on Apple OS, the interface guidelines say that you should always title case your buttons, whereas on the Google interface guidelines it says it should be sentence case, and those are. Just two different opinions that these two different valid and viable and large platforms are choosing. So if you’re a plug-in developer, which one do you use? Like there’s all these like basic decisions you wouldn’t think about, but they make the app feel less cohesive overall when you’re using it if people are capitalizing their buttons in different ways. And so, There’s an effort that we need to make, which is to kind of help developers have really good defaults when they’re kind of building on top of obsidian and guide them towards things that are going to feel intuitive and cohesive to obsidian users while not limiting their freedom. Similarly, we have to also make sure that if you’re a brand new obsidian user and you’ve never used it before, that the kind of like. Top level, it feels accessible that you can understand how this app works, even, you know, with no plug-ins, it makes sense to you, but then it has infinite depth and you can go as deep and crazy as you want, but that that surface level is intuitive and inviting and accessible to most people, and that’s a really, really hard thing to balance. 00:54:59 - Speaker 3: Yeah, I think this is such a rich area, like plug-ins, extensibility, programmability, cause there’s so many variables that you’re dealing with, and at least with our current technology, there’s no way to satisfy fully all deerra at the same time. So you gotta explore the trade-off space and do the best you can and try to push out the frontier. So yeah, I’m very excited to see that you all are giving that a shot. 00:55:21 - Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely like the idea of the core app that’s sort of very cohesively designed and it has more of a top, top down’s quite the right word for it, but it’s designed by one organization that can, you know, for example, use the standard capitalization on its buttons, but then there is a wider world or a deeper world that you can go out to, but you kind of know when you’re crossing from the relative safety into a bit more of the frontier. We talked about this a little bit with. The creators of Raycast and their plugin system and a lot of what they do is because there are so many of their users and certainly obviously the developers are developers and they can kind of work with them on the pull request and their review process is less, telling them what they can and can’t do and more saying, well, look, it’d be a bit more idiomatic or it fit in better or I think our users would appreciate it more if you made these changes, even potentially working with them on the code. And then of course, obviously you’ve got something like Apple that has this, you know, very heavy-handed and opaque review process, maybe there’s something like the browser vendors with their browser extension reviews are a little bit looser, but how do you think about that curation of that official List that you can submit your lugging into, is there really kind of strict guidelines? Is it more of a, you know, just what you feel is best for the community or you really just trying to filter out true malicious actors and it’s fine if it’s kind of heterogeneous in terms of the style and approach. 00:56:45 - Speaker 1: Yes, so we do have some strict guidelines that have to do with like security, for example, we will obviously like take plugins out of the directory if they have malicious code or anything like that. And so those guidelines are part of the submission process. So we do check for that before we Include a plug-in in the directory. All of the plugins for obsidian 99.99% are open source. And so there’s a little bit of kind of community validation around that as well. There’s certain principles that are important to obsidian, for example, around privacy, so we don’t allow plugins to collect any telemetry data within the app because we think that that is just part of the kind of Set of values that we care about, you know, a different platform may not care as much about that while still carrying a lot of extensibility, but to feel native to Obsidian, it really needs to work offline and have some of these principles built in. So those are the things that we don’t compromise on where we’re saying no, you know, your plug-in cannot be part of that directory. Actually, it’s almost never that we encounter bad actors. I mean, maybe it’s just because we’re small or the community that we’ve built is friendly and so on, but we don’t really encounter that many plug-ins that really stray outside of those guidelines. The next level is like more of a, I guess, of an editorial question which is what stuff bubbles up to the surface if you’re someone who’s brand new and is kind of asking the question, what can I do with obsidian? That’s where things, I think we could do a much better job and those are things that I’d like to work on over the next few years is. How do we surface the realm of possibilities that is there and right now, you know, the most like simple heuristic is just looking at the number of downloads, like you can see that some plug-ins have been downloaded way more than others and that gives you some sort of filter on which ones are better than others. But I think over time, we probably will get involved in curating a little bit more from an editorial standpoint, not from a who’s allowed in, but rather what do we promote, what do we want to showcase some of the interesting things that people have built and the stories behind them and how they connect to other different parts of the app. So I’m not sure if I’m answering your question, but I think that that’s kind of like trying to find that happy medium. 00:59:12 - Speaker 2: Yeah, well, certainly being relatively niche, having a relatively tight knit and friendly community is just a benefit of if you’re either early on or just a, you know, an independent software company that isn’t necessarily going for the mass market, you know, now, nevertheless, I do think that those values like for example, being able to work offline, that is something that is, you know, fairly unique in this industry right now where cloud software is the norm. And presumably someone doesn’t want to get in there and write a plugin for a piece of software if they don’t have some, you know, vibe with the core principles there, but I could still easily imagine as you grow, having people come in and just say, well, yeah, of course I’m going to access this. Cloud service because I can make a useful plug-in with that and then you come back and say, well, actually this isn’t consistent with our values. 00:59:59 - Speaker 1: Well, by the way, that’s not a requirement. There’s lots of plugins like the open AI plugins, like there’s maps plugins, there’s all kinds of plugins that communicate with cloud providers like so we don’t prevent that, but we do prevent telemetry data and we do require plugins to disclose when they’re using network data and for what purpose. And so, The guidelines are fairly open ended. Like people can really build things that heavily modify obsidian, and we’re OK with that, but we do get involved in, you know, making suggestions on the code when we review a plugin or developers will often ask in our Discord channel, what’s the right way of implementing something and you know, if it’s not already in our developer documentation, we’ll work with them or try to improve the documentation. And then there’s kind of a more subtle question that I think we want to work towards, which is what feels obsidian, like what is going to make a plug-in intuitive to a user? It partially is the interface, partially their expectations coming into what obsidian is like as a platform as an ecosystem, and we definitely want to encourage. You know, some developers, for example, are amazing at writing back end software or dealing with like really complex data problems, but they might not be as used to doing the front end part. And so when they go about implementing the GUI part of their plugin, they just need a little bit of extra help with the CSS or something, or what is the right kind of approach to designing this UI for this plug-in. So, Those are things that, I mean, we’re still early on, I would say, and how do we kind of strive towards like making things cohesive um while still giving plugin developers as much freedom as possible, but we definitely skew more towards the freedom than the cohesiveness. 01:01:51 - Speaker 2: I’d love also to ask you about a feature you launched pretty recently called Obsidian Canvas. Obviously this one caught our attention since Canvas is a kind of fundamental docume

STORYTIME |Bedtime Fairy Tale Stories for Kids & Teenagers in English|Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/once-upon-a-time-out/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy