[00:00:10.480] - Gordon
Hello.
[00:00:10.870] - Taylor
Hello.
[00:00:11.410] - Gordon
My name's Gordon from Drayson Design.
[00:00:13.300] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from the Creative Tinker.
[00:00:15.430] - 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.
[00:00:25.780] - Taylor
Season 2.
[00:00:26.350] - Gordon
Season 2. So yes, last week was the first episode of Season 2. We were trying to figure out the best way of...
[00:00:35.380] - Taylor
Categorising.
[00:00:36.100] - Gordon
Categorising all of the podcasts, instead of just having a number. And we've decided, what have we decided?
[00:00:42.040] - Taylor
That we would label each season based on the year. So January, from January, it will be a new season every year. And we're going to be, yeah, labelling it Season 2, but we're going to carry on the number just so that you can keep them in sequence easier.
[00:00:57.600] - Gordon
Yeah. Otherwise it gets really confusing where you, so we could give an episode number and you'd be able to find the episode from that because they're all going to be consecutive, rather than having to say, "Season 2, Episode 4," it just gets really confusing. So we're keeping the numbering going. We're just adding Season 2. And if you if you go and look at the website, you will see that our thumbnail has changed ever so slightly, just to indicate the new season.
[00:01:26.650] - Taylor
Yeah, it's going to be exciting.
[00:01:27.850] - Gordon
It is quite exciting because we started this when lockdown started last March and, you know, here we are in January, still going strong. Episode pretty much every week. We missed about two or, I think we missed two in total, for various reasons. And yeah, it's actually, I wasn't entirely sure we were going to have enough to say and enough content to be able to keep going after a few episodes. But, you know, businesses change.
[00:01:56.950] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:01:57.400] - Gordon
We learn new things, and so we are able to bring new content to you. Hopefully you're enjoying it as well. Please leave a comment and let us know.
[00:02:07.180] - Taylor
Yeah. We enjoy doing them as well.
[00:02:09.880] - Gordon
We do. We love doing them. It's actually quite, quite fun to know that one's coming up. I sort of make notes on my computer of things I think might be of interest to people. So, uh, so yes. Last week, I mentioned I had a rebuild of my computer. So the problem I was having was, um, if you have a computer for any length of time, you end up putting lots of software onto it and then some of that software gets taken off. And then you upgrade the operating system and you end up with files on the computer that aren't actually useful anymore. They don't belong to anything, they're just taking up space, and sometimes they cause problems. And the problem I had was that my computer was just restarting on its own accord, which, when you're in the middle of a project, is really unhelpful.
[00:03:04.100] - Taylor
Very much.
[00:03:04.550] - Gordon
Just having it suddenly restarting is useless. And I discovered that what I was needing to do was to basically take all of the data, all the files that, my documents off the computer; format the hard drive; start again by installing the operating system from scratch; bringing all of my data back again, and making sure I only bring back the data I need; and then installing the applications that I'm going to use. And that is an enormous job. It sounds like it should be quite easy, but it took me a week - Sunday through to Sunday. It was, and in fact, I've now started a back-up. We're on Friday and my back-up of the whole computer took until Wednesday to complete. So that' Sunday through to Wednesday just for the back-up. However, I am now, touch wood, touch wood, I'm now in a place where the computer is not crashing. It's a nice, clean system. It's got just the files I need on it. I managed to get rid of, or archive, so I use "Evernote," which I'm not sure I've spoken about before, but if I have, if I haven't sorry, I'll talk about it in the future. But I put a lot of my files onto "Evernote." I had a lot of asset files that I catalogued, which meant I could get rid of my downloads folder, my desktop folder, and I've got a temporary files folder. I managed to go through all of those and basically get rid of about, get this, 700 gigabytes worth of data.
[00:04:52.520] - Taylor
Wow.
[00:04:53.060] - Gordon
I mean, that is a phenomenal amount of data to get rid of. And it clears my hard drive allowing me to put more rubbish on.
[00:05:01.790] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:05:01.790] - Gordon
I'm hoping I won't. The aim is to sort of keep it nice and clear and clean now. It's sort of my spring clean is done.
[00:05:10.290] - Taylor
Even though it's January.
[00:05:10.340] - Gordon
Every now and then. Well, yeah, but it is sort of coming into spring. We're not quite there yet. But it is something that you should look at doing at some point. Maybe every two years, that sort of length of time, just because you get so much rubbish on the computer, it's nice to have a clean out.
[00:05:27.230] - Taylor
Yeah, definitely.
[00:05:28.170] - Gordon
Time for you to do it. Oh no, you just bought a new machine. Instead of cleaning your computer out you just bought a new machine.
[00:05:33.240] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:05:33.780] - Gordon
And then transferred the data you needed. That's cheating.
[00:05:36.240] - Taylor
All my stuff's stored on Dropbox anyway. So, I mean, I had them all organised in folders by client and then inside each client they were organised. So most of my documents aren't actually, I have very little on my documents because, I mean, it's more than I had last time. I had 128 gigabytes last time of SSD, and this time I have 256.
[00:05:57.450] - Gordon
So you've got twice as much space.
[00:05:58.800] - Taylor
So I've got double the amount of applications I can run.
[00:06:02.400] - Gordon
Ok.
[00:06:02.400] - Taylor
Rather than space because I store everything on Dropbox, which is two terabytes, I think I get.
[00:06:08.700] - Gordon
To be honest, that's the one thing that stops me getting a laptop. One is I don't really need to move about much, but also the limited capacity of them has always been a problem. I mean, my Mac that I use is an iMac, and this one that I've got currently, has got two terabytes on it. I mean, I got rid of 700 gigabytes of files. You can't even get 700 gigabytes of files on your computer.
[00:06:33.540] - Taylor
Not on the actual computer. But if I have on Dropbox. I download, and it's actually better because again, I can archive all of my old client work onto a Dropbox. I know it's all stored on there and backed up, and I don't have to worry about it and I don't have to have it on my computers.
[00:06:49.380] - Gordon
This is true. However, I do a lot of graphics and a lot of video editing, and those files are enormous. I could get rid of one video edit and save 700 gigabytes on some occasions. So yeah, different uses, different space requirements.
[00:07:06.960] - Taylor
So this week I wanted to talk about a application I found on "Product Hunt" it's a web application.
[00:07:13.320] - Gordon
We spoke about that last week.
[00:07:14.680] - Taylor
Yeah. This is called "Savvy Cal". So a lot of you are probably familiar with "Calendly." It's a way of booking calls and meetings with people via, you upload your, connect your calendar, whether that be Google Calendar, Apple Calendar or whatever. And people can then make bookings, but only in time that you're free, basically.
[00:07:37.140] - Gordon
Yeah, it's a great little system. I've not actually used it, because I don't have a lot of online meetings or phone calls, but for those people who do it's a great system because it just populates your diary at the times you're available, which is great.
[00:07:52.110] - Taylor
However, I find this quite impersonal, you know, it's quite...
[00:07:57.240] - Gordon
Well, you send someone a link and then they go to a page and they pick a time and a date basically.
[00:08:01.370] - Taylor
Yeah, but it's very kind of, "here book a meeting with me" rather than, "hey, I'm available at these times" or whatever.
[00:08:07.740] - Gordon
OK.
[00:08:08.580] - Taylor
And so "Savvy Cal" what it does, is it personalises the booking invite. So you still send them a link, however you prefill all of their details. So you prefill their name, their email address, and you can even block off some time specifically for them, I think, so that you know, if you only want to see them, speak to them at certain times you can speak to them then. However, if they're a different type of client, maybe you're closer with them, you may want to open up your evenings a bit longer because you obviously know them better.
[00:08:37.890] - Gordon
OK, yeah.
[00:08:38.910] - Taylor
And it's much more personal because you're saying, "here book a meeting with me" and they've already got all their details filled in. And maybe, you've gone to the effort of saying, you know, "meeting with Taylor and Derek" or whatever, and they can see it in there. And so it's much more personal than just sending them a very faceless link, I think.
[00:09:01.440] - Gordon
So I don't know much about "Savvy Cal." Is it a paid for service? Is a one off cost? What is it?
[00:09:06.330] - Taylor
Yes, so it's a paid for service. I think it's $12 a month.
[00:09:11.400] - Gordon
OK.
[00:09:11.760] - Taylor
Which isn't pretty much any different to any of the others.
[00:09:17.760] - Gordon
Similar to "Calendly" I guess. Yeah.
[00:09:18.330] - Taylor
They're bringing out new features as Apple Calendar, well iCal is being integrated in soon. So when that comes out I'll probably...
[00:09:26.250] - Gordon
That's what we use isn't it?
[00:09:27.690] - Taylor
Move to it. But I thought it was a really, really useful kind of tool to make everything personal. And if you're using "iCalendly," it may be a good alternative, around the same budget as well.
[00:09:39.360] - Gordon
Yeah. As long as it's feature for feature or it includes the features that you're already using, then making it a more personalised...
[00:09:50.070] - Taylor
Experience.
[00:09:50.610] - Gordon
Experience has got to be a good thing.
[00:09:52.950] - Taylor
Yeah. I know, I read some of the comments and it says, you know, "I get complimented on my booking experience because it's much more personal, much, much nicer." And I think the UI as well is also quite easy to use.
[00:10:06.090] - Gordon
And I'm guessing it works for "Teams," does it?
[00:10:08.930] - Taylor
Um, I believe so, yeah. It probably would work for "Teams."
[00:10:10.360] - Gordon
I mean, it's not something we need, but it's interesting to know. So that's really interesting. OK, we'll put a link to that in the show notes so that you can go and check it out, find out if it's of interest to you. I'd like to talk about something that is cutting edge, really. I mean, it's so cutting edge that if I say, "GPT-3" to you, you probably won't know what I'm talking about. There'll be some people out there who do. But the majority don't. It's basically a service that allows artificial intelligence based on machine learning. Now there's lots of buzzwords in there, but it's a great technology. That's what it is. It's a service that other companies can use, and it's a technology that allows companies to create really good content. So, for example, I have, I think I have three different services now that I have purchased a lifetime deal for, which use "GPT-3." And if I give you an example of what it can do, I think that will probably help you to understand why it's really, really exciting.
[00:11:34.520] - Taylor
Powerful.
[00:11:35.120] - Gordon
And powerful, yeah. So, for example, one of the services I've got is, I can go to it, I can type in the name of my business and I can type in a few keywords as to what I do. And it will then go off, do it's artificial intelligence, come back and it will give me, in human readable form 15 ideas of blog posts that I might want to use on my website.
[00:12:07.940] - Taylor
That's really good.
[00:12:08.660] - Gordon
I mean, it's amazing. I'm giving it very little information, just my company name, and maybe... For example, if it was Drayson Design, I would put in "Drayson Design" as my company name and then 'building websites and print design.' Simple as that. And it will come back with really, really clever and smart ideas as to what I can do for blog posts. And it's, it looks like a human has looked at this, gone away, researched it, come back and said, "right, I've done some research. This is what I've decided." And you look at it and you think, "how is this? How is this possible?" Artificial intelligence is getting so clever. Another example is, it will create email headlines for you. And the advantage to using GPT-3 service is that it knows what converts well, what gets people to open your email. So not only is it taking what you are writing about, and putting it into a really clever, giving you different versions of a headline you could use, it knows that these headlines are likely to get people to click on them. It's not just a random you know, "we don't know how this is going to do, but give it a go." Another thing is for it to rewrite content or write content. You can actually create a blog post now, using just a few keywords, maybe a paragraph of content that you want to talk about, a summary, if you like, it will then expand this summary and write a whole blog post for you. Landing pages is another thing it will do. It's, social media posts, ideas for Instagram posts and Facebook posts. It will create adverts for you for, again, Facebook, Google, anywhere you need adverts. And it knows about the rules for those adverts. So it knows that the advert it's going to create is going to be compliant. It's a really, really interesting service. Something we saw the other day that was mind boggling for GPT-3, is creation of graphics or images that fit what you're looking for. And what it's doing is, it's not going away and doing a search for graphics that it thinks might fit, it's creating these graphics. And an example that I saw on this page was an avocado shaped chair, I think that was it, an avocado shaped chair. And it had created a chair that looked like the inside of an avocado and it didn't get it from anywhere. It physically created it from nowhere, from scratch, from resource images that it had picked up, like a picture of a chair and a picture of an avocado, it had merged them in, it had made it look like it was real, it had added shadow and... Just amazing. What was the other one? There was something, I'm not going to get this right, but it's something like a wax crayon taking a dog for a walk. I mean, you're not going to find an image like that out there already, but this created one for you. I mean, if you can imagine just creating a blog post or an idea, a concept, an image that you want to demonstrate something in an article, then you can use this sort of technology to create perfect illustrations and graphics for you. And of course, because you're creating them, there's no copyright.
[00:16:03.630] - Taylor
Yeah, exactly.
[00:16:05.130] - Gordon
It's a phenomenal...
[00:16:07.080] - Taylor
A very good service.
[00:16:07.080] - Gordon
I can't really describe it in enough detail for, hopefully you to see how excited I am about this, because if they can expand this service and make it available to the masses, it's going to be a game changer. What I'll do is, if I can find the link for the graphics one in particular, I'll post that in the show notes and you can go and have a look and have a read of the article because it is fascinating.
[00:16:36.060] - Taylor
Yeah, definitely.
[00:16:36.870] - Gordon
I mean, I sent it to you. And what did you think about it?
[00:16:39.730] - Taylor
I thought it was really good, it looked like a real image and I thought, you know, I didn't think it was created by AI.
[00:16:44.650] - Gordon
Yeah. It is amazing. Oh the world we live in today, huh? 2021. Huh. That's all I've got to say. Have you got anything you'd like to add?
[00:16:53.270] - Taylor
I think that's everything.
[00:16:54.330] - Gordon
Fantastic. Well, thank you for joining us. And as always, we can be found on Facebook and on YouTube, please like, share and subscribe.
[00:17:04.920] - Taylor
You can also go to our website: thisweekwith.co.uk where it has all of our past episodes, video and also audio.
[00:17:11.790] - Gordon
All of Season 1 is on there.
[00:17:13.860] - Taylor
Yeah. And you can watch any of the past episodes, or the current episode.
[00:17:18.780] - Gordon
Yes. The current episode is always on the front page, to make it nice and easy for you to find. And of course, you can listen to it on your favourite podcast application, whatever that might be. And if we're not on it, please let us know and we'll see what we can do about getting ourselves onto it for you.
[00:17:35.700] - Taylor
Wonderful.
[00:17:36.600] - Gordon
Thank you very much for joining us, as I said. Please join us again Friday at 1 o'clock next week. Until then, it's goodbye from me, my name's Gordon and I'm from Drayson Design.
[00:17:46.680] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:17:48.910] - Both
Goodbye.
