[00:00:10.360] - Gordon
Hello.
[00:00:11.090] - Taylor
Hello.
[00:00:11.090] - Gordon
My name is Gordon from Drayson Design,
[00:00:13.190] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:00:15.450] - Gordon
And welcome to "This Week with Taylor and Gordon," a weekly podcast and vidcast where we talk about things that have affected our businesses in the last seven days. Welcome back. How's your week been, before we get into our topics?
[00:00:30.440] - Taylor
My week's been good. Yeah, I've been yeah, just getting away with it
[00:00:34.160] - Gordon
Getting on with stuff.
[00:00:34.950] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:00:35.300] - Gordon
Yeah. I'm, as you may or may not know, I am a magician as well as a web designer and graphic designer. And we are coming up to the time when I can get back to work in live shows. So that's sort of, that's taking some time at the moment. So I've been doing various emails for people to tell them that I'm coming back to work again and starting to take new bookings coming in. It is quite slow at the minute. I think public are being a little bit careful about, you know, booking something just in case it might not happen. So it's coming in slowly and surely, but it will be nice to get back to some sort of normality, really.
[00:01:26.680] - Taylor
Sounds good.
[00:01:27.280] - Gordon
And in fact, this last week, I've had problems with my car.
[00:01:30.880] - Taylor
That's not good.
[00:01:31.420] - Gordon
No, battery is a problem again. It appears that it's the stereo that's the problem. So they've disconnected that. And they're going to let me drive it around for a while and see if it's going to be fixed. So, that needs fixing before I get back to full time work as well. So let's talk about our topics for the week. Taylor. Do you want to go first?
[00:01:54.250] - Taylor
You go first this week.
[00:01:55.240] - Gordon
OK, so this week I would like to talk about "OBS" which stands for open broadcaster software. Now, this is a free software that you can go and download. We'll put a link in the notes for you so that you can do that. And it allows you to control the video of your Zoom meetings a lot better. So I realise that, you know, this is probably a year late. Last year would have been a better time to talk about OBS when people were now using Zoom. But for those people who are still going to be using Zoom from now on, if it's going to become a sort of a longer term thing, you're going to be working at home or Zoom has become more important in your business or your life, then you should make an effort to make the video that you are sending through Zoom a better quality and not just a better quality, but a more interesting video as well. So OBS allows you to create sources. Now, a source is going to be something like a video input. So something like a webcam that would be a source, but also a graphic, an image, would be a source. And if you've got more than one camera, then you can add another source. Now, hang on, you've got two cameras. How can you see both cameras at the same time? Well, OBS allows you to size one of the cameras and what it's looking at and move it to the side of the screen and then size the other camera and put that somewhere else on the screen. So all of a sudden you've now got two cameras on the screen? Well, I mean, why would you need that? Well, for me personally, because I'm doing magic, I've got a camera that looks straight down onto my desk, which means I can do things with cards and coins and and things where only my hands are seen. But that detaches me from my audience. I can no longer sort of keep eye contact with them. So by having a second camera, which looks at me and having that on the screen as well in a smaller box, it allows me to have both cameras running and to still keep that communication open with my audience. So that's just a really simple example. You may want to do screen sharing. Now with Zoom as it stands at the moment, if you want to screen share, you have to either be the person who started the meeting, because that gives you the administrator rights to be able to share your screen. Or you need to ask the person who is the administrator to allow you to share your screen. However, if you set up a video source, which is a screen, a computer screen from within OBS, all of a sudden you don't need that ability to to have to ask someone. You can just share your screen very easily and you can zoom in on particular parts of the screen. You can only show a little window if you don't want to show the whole screen. Same as you can with Zoom, in fact. But again, you can keep your main video, your main webcam showing so that you can keep that connection with your audience. And there's a lot more advanced things you can do, like bring in someone from Zoom into your video space. So if people are watching a speaker view on Zoom, then they can see the person that you're talking to or the person that you're interviewing, for example. And the reason I'm talking about it today is because I've been playing with this now since about November-ish time. And there's various add-ons that allow you to do additional things, which is really cool. Again, part of my children's show, in normal real life is we make a bunny rabbit appear, a real live bunny rabbit. Well I can't do that on Zoom because it's just not fair on the bunny rabbit to have to come in and do all these shows. So I've got a little image of a bunny rabbit, which is PNG so it's transparent all the way around and I have created a little animation, so this bunny rabbit comes on from the side of the screen and I'm sort of I can pretend to the children, I'm sort of looking, where's the bunny? And the bunny then jumps over my head, comes to the other side of me so I can now look on this side. And all the time everyone's saying "he's on the other side of you." As I turn around again, he jumps over the other side and then disappears off the screen. And you can do very simple animation like that very easily with OBS. Now to do that and to get a really smooth transition from one scene to another. So, for example, a scene would be one camera as a webcam and then another scene would be, for example, your screen share, where you've got your screen with you in a smaller box. That would be a different screen. Now, normally you would just sort of fade between them, but you can do really clever things with add-ons. And one of the add-ons that I've been using is called "Move." And it allows you to to automatically, you don't even have to set anything up, you just have to add your video sources into a second scene and it will automatically animate between your two scenes. So your full screen webcam will shrink down and become a smaller box and your screen share will grow and come onto the screen to fill the screen, if that's what you're scene requires, and it allows you to animate bunny rabbits, for example. And there's lots of other things you can add, like lower thirds so that you can have your name on your webcam the whole time. That's something we've both done, isn't it?
[00:08:11.830] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:08:12.700] - Gordon
And it makes a big difference. In fact, I've had people comment and say how much they like the fact that it's got your name, your company name or your Web address or whatever it is, on the screen at all times because people like to know who you are and they may not know you. They may, if you're in a general meeting then it's nice to go, "oh, Gordon, can you can you give us your opinion on this?" Without having to say, "oh, gentleman there..." And it doesn't matter what name you've given yourself. So if you're using the same device with more than one person, more people in your family, sometimes you end up with sort of men coming on. And their name is Jessie because their daughter Jessie has been doing home schooling and that's the last time that they used Zoom. And so all of a sudden you've got this man and, you know, they could be called Jesse. But, you know, a bad example, maybe Mary would have been a better name. And he's called Mary. And it's like, well, hang on, that's not Mary, but, you know, and it's you know, it's not great for someone to have to say to you, can you just change your name so we know who you are, please? So by having your own name there as a placeholder, that you've put on there as part of your video, makes it so much nicer. And then the last thing I wanted to talk about with OBS is, if you have to turn off your webcam while you're in a meeting for whatever reason, maybe you're, you know, going to the toilet or you've got to, you know, sneeze or whatever it is, you've got to do, by turning off your video camera in Zoom, you end up with this little square image that you've preset, whatever that might be. And it looks a bit naff really doesn't it?
[00:09:57.590] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:09:58.120] - Gordon
So we've come up with some really cool holding screens. Now, I've got different companies, so I've got different branded holding pages and these holding pages can have different text on them. So I have one that says "I'll be with you in a minute." So, you know, if I'm not quite ready for a meeting, but there's people there and I need to let them in, I can let them in and just have a holding screen saying "I'll be with you in a minute." And it's all branded, you know, it's got my image on it so they know who I am, it's got my text, it's got, you know, background that all fits with my style and my company colours and branding, which we spoke about previously. And that text can be whatever you want it to be. So I've got one that says "Just going to the little magician's room," which I think is a nice sort of funny way of saying I'm going to the toilet. And there's another one that says "There's someone at my door, be back in a moment." Which, you know, does happen when you get deliveries during a meeting. You can't leave people standing at the front door, especially if it's a delivery. You have to go and deal with it. So these little holding screens and they're not little, they're full screen, are really good and they promote your brand. They show that you are really good at keeping your company on brand, keeping the quality of what you are outputting, even if it's just on Zoom, really quite high. So, anything you want to add to that?
[00:11:31.370] - Taylor
I don't think so.
[00:11:32.290] - Gordon
No? So, OBS, go and grab it. If you are likely to be doing Zoom shows in the future and just have a little play with it, it's got its little quirks, but it is reasonably easy to start using. And I guarantee that you will have people telling you how much more professional your image is. So, Taylor, what would you like to talk about this week?
[00:11:57.730] - Taylor
So I want to talk about automation and I have been...
[00:12:01.060] - Gordon
Ah, we like automation.
[00:12:02.290] - Taylor
I've been working on a couple of automations, so I installed an app called "Alfred." It's a Mac app, so it only works on an Apple device, but it's a spotlight replacement. So Spotlight is an inbuilt Mac app or feature where you can search your entire computer, you can search the Internet just by pressing command spacebar, and you can do a search for pretty much anything, calculations internet, certain websites. And I have Alfred, which is kind of a more advanced version of that, which adds a lot more capabilities and functionality. And I was working on trying to automate some things so that I can run Web hooks or kind of cool automations from my computer, without having to open up the application, without having to kind of manually do stuff like that. And I was working on that. And, what I managed to do was, I managed to... So, the first one was SodaStream. So we have SodaStream in our house and every time we use the SodaStream, we just record it: say who it is, the date we did it, what flavour it is and how many pushes we used. And then from that we can track a lot of things about how much it costs per drink, you know, how often our drinks last and the flavours last, the canisters and things like that. And I'd set it up for the phone.
[00:13:29.260] - Gordon
I should point out we're not really sad and that it's something we do because it helps us in our life. You know, we know we can budget for when we're going to need a new tank of CO2 or or when we're going to be running out of flavours and make sure we order them in time, because these are things that need to be sent to us normally. So we want to make sure we're ahead of the game. But it's also we are both very analytical people and we like statistics and we like to see who's drinking what and whether it was a good investment or not, basically. And by using something as simple as a SodaStream to, you know, test our skills and create a system that allows us to monitor this, we can then take those skills and use them in bigger projects that are much more important, that you should definitely be monitoring.
[00:14:21.910] - Taylor
Yeah. So I've set up a pretty simple web hook, which basically is on the phone, and I set it up on my phone, my dad's phone and my mum's phone. And you can ask Syri basically say "SodaStream," it will say which SodaStream flavour did use and how many pushes did you use? And you can just say it and it will then go straight in and store in a Google Sheets, which was great. However, I didn't take my phone to the SodaStream machine when I went down, or by the time I got up, I would be sitting at my computer, so I'd rather just do it on my computer. So I wrote a little web hook where I can put in the information and it would just send that, same way, through a web hook which automatically gets put into a Google spreadsheet. And it works really, really well. And I thought, you know, is there anything else I can do? And so I am now, I can now add a new lead. So if I get a new lead for websites, I can type their name, their email address, the company and where I got the referral from and all from just within the spotlight. And then it will just automatically put it into my Zoho CRM without even me having to open Zoho CRM and manually add all the stuff like that. It's still a manual thing where I have to add all the details, but I can do it from where I am, so I can still have email open and see all their contact details without having to flick back and forth, which is really nice.
[00:15:46.690] - Gordon
And automation is all about making your life easier.
[00:15:49.390] - Taylor
Exactly, yeah. And what was the other one that I did? I think that was it, yeah. So I did the SodaStream and I did the Zoho CRM. But I'm also working on using a new piece of software called "Proposify," and it's basically a proposal software, which makes it really nice, and you set out, you can you can design it and style it in your own branding, things like that.
[00:16:12.880] - Gordon
So this is for sending quotes to people.
[00:16:14.260] - Taylor
Yeah, well, it's kind of like upping my game in terms of the quality that I send them out in. And I think...
[00:16:20.750] - Gordon
Cos first impressions count.
[00:16:21.850] - Taylor
Yeah, exactly. And if you kind of show that you know what you're talking about, you provide lots of information. You know, even if people don't read it, they like to have, and know they have that information.
[00:16:30.920] - Gordon
Yeah. Gives them peace of mind that they've chosen the right person.
[00:16:33.850] - Taylor
Yeah, and proposify has an integration with Zoho, which allows me to, every time I create a proposal, it will create a new deal in Zoho CRM, which I can then track and obviously send out reminder emails and all of the other things like that.
[00:16:47.030] - Gordon
Ok, so these are all skills that are going to become really important when you have a customer come in. He says, "look, we've got something that needs doing and it's going to be a very manual process. We're going to have to do this sort of seven times a day" and you can turn around and say, "well, no, hang on, we can probably automate that." And then find a way to make your customer's life so much easier.
[00:17:12.020] - Taylor
Yeah, exactly. And it's really useful, although it takes you know, there's always that kind of thing that says, you know, why do something manually, you know, that would take you half an hour and instead why not, you know, find the automation that would take you two hours to do, which, you know, can look like a bad trade off. But there's two main reasons why that's quite good is, one, you're learning how to do it so you can do it quicker next time. But two, you have it in place, so if you need to re-use it, then it's there.
[00:17:41.030] - Gordon
And the other thing with automation is, as long as you've got it right, it's going to make less mistakes than you would if you did things manually. So, yeah, I have lots of automation, as we've discussed in the past with OBA: online booking assistant, for example, is being one of my automations. I just have to put details in once and from then on it will send everything it needs to, out at the right time with the right information. So, yeah, we like automation and these are sort of automations that are triggered at the time when you need them on this occasion. So, as opposed to being something that happens at the same time every day, for example, you know, turning on your heating system, there are automations that we have that do that. But, you know, that happens the same time every day, depending on the day, weekends it changes. But, you know, you just set it once and forget it, whereas these sort of automations are actually more powerful because you're customising what information you're giving it and it's then taking that information and doing whatever you told it to do.
[00:18:52.070] - Taylor
Yeah, and there's a new integration that's come for Integromat, which allows me to create a new post automatically from some sort of source. So what I can do is for every time I log a Strava activity, I can automatically create a new post and populate all the data.
[00:19:12.710] - Gordon
So you've got a website that is your sort of your life log.
[00:19:15.800] - Taylor
Yeah, it's not finished. It's currently still in progress. But that's what the end goal will be.
[00:19:20.540] - Gordon
And something like putting in your Strava run or your Strava cycle or whatever happens to be and creating a whole post just for that one thing is the sort of thing that you just are going to get bored of and stop doing right? Whereas, if it's done automatically...
[00:19:40.820] - Taylor
And I'm already putting in the data per se because I've already recorded it and obviously Strava records all the data as you're doing the activity so I still technically am putting in the data, but it means I don't have to do it twice.
[00:19:53.180] - Gordon
Yeah.
[00:19:53.840] - Taylor
Which is the nice thing.
[00:19:55.260] - Gordon
Yeah. And it leaves you time to work on new automations.
[00:19:58.620] - Taylor
Yeah, exactly. I think that's everything.
[00:20:02.630] - Gordon
Fantastic. Well thank you very much for joining us. As always, please like and subscribe on YouTube and Facebook.
[00:20:10.250] - Taylor
You can also go to our website thisweekwith.co.uk and find all of our past episodes on there.
[00:20:15.110] - Gordon
And we did check, you can see Evernote, if you do a search. If you were watching last week, you'll understand what that's all about. So thank you for joining us. One o'clock on a Friday afternoon, every week, is when we go live. So if you want to join us live, that's when it will be, and we're on YouTube and Facebook. Until next week, my name is Gordon and I'm from Drayson Design.
[00:20:40.310] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:20:42.920] - Gordon
See you next week.
[00:20:44.030] - Taylor
Goodbye.
[00:20:44.540] - Gordon
Goodbye.
