[00:00:10.250] - Gordon
Hello.
[00:00:10.730] - Taylor
Hello.
[00:00:11.210] - Gordon
My name's Gordon from Drayson Design.
[00:00:13.130] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:00:15.290] - 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 as self- employed people in the last seven days. Welcome back.
[00:00:28.070] - Taylor
Welcome back.
[00:00:28.850] - Gordon
Yeah. It's been a good week this week, I think for me. Been a good week for you?
[00:00:32.990] - Taylor
Yeah. On the whole. Yes.
[00:00:36.510] - Gordon
[coughing] Oh pardon me. So for those of you who watched last week's episode, you'll know that I was, one of the things that I had to do during the week was to create graphics for the next episode or next episodes of This Week With because I'd run out.
[00:00:56.070] - Taylor
Yep. How'd that go?
[00:00:56.070] - Gordon
And that required me to do it all with variables in Photoshop. And really cleverly I put a link to a YouTube video that explains all how to do it with the graphics. So just had a quick watch of that and managed to do them very quickly and easily.
[00:01:13.206] - Taylor
Well done.
[00:01:14.070] - Gordon
So what I've done is I've managed to do all of the end of Season Two, which is going to be till the end of December, and then in January we start with Season Three. So Season Three is going to have a new background colour and it's already been decided what it is, but we're not going to say. Whatever colour you think it's going to be, leave a comment and we'll see if anyone gets it right.
[00:01:39.750] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:01:39.750] - Gordon
So we've had blue and we've had sort of yellowy orange.
[00:01:42.870] - Taylor
Yes.
[00:01:43.350] - Gordon
Okay. So what colour do you think is going to be next? There you go. Leave a comment.
[00:01:50.310] - Taylor
Sounds good.
[00:01:51.150] - Gordon
Yeah. So let's see, any news from you.
[00:01:54.810] - Taylor
Not this week.
[00:01:55.770] - Gordon
Okay.
[00:01:56.730] - Gordon
I went first last week I think, would you like to go first this week?
[00:02:00.030] - Taylor
Okay.
[00:02:00.510] - Gordon
Okay. Off you go.
[00:02:01.950] - Taylor
So my topic for this week is 'automating customers' email broadcasts.' So I have a client that I work with, and a while ago they asked me, "is there a way to show and archive all of their email broadcasts?" So with some email marketing systems they allow you to view the email in the browser, and the system they use doesn't have this functionality.
[00:02:32.130] - Gordon
Okay.
[00:02:33.390] - Taylor
And they were asking, "is there a way we can do it?" And I said, "Well, you can do it manually; you just copy and paste the text and then create a new page in the website."
[00:02:41.730] - Gordon
We don't like manual, though.
[00:02:43.950] - Taylor
No. So this was a while ago. And I stumbled across Integromat again. So I have Integromat set up for a bunch of different automations.
[00:02:53.550] - Gordon
So just for those who don't know what Integromat is...
[00:02:56.670] - Taylor
It's a bit like Zapier where you can create automations essentially and connect different services together. I had an idea basically saying that I could grab the email or the body content from the email and just watch for when a certain email comes from a certain email address and has a specific indicator, whether that says 'broadcast' or whatever it is in the subject, or something so that I know that it's from a broadcast.
[00:03:25.450] - Gordon
So something that's consistent each time.
[00:03:27.430] - Taylor
Yeah. And then integrate it with the website. So there's an integration or an app called WordPress inside of Integromat, and you can essentially create, edit, update, delete posts or pages. And basically the idea was to create a new post when it got a new email. So you can watch a mailbox for example, or there is an integration with their system that allows you to watch for sent emails. And yeah, using something like that. And it's all about kind of just making sure that you can integrate and automate things that are repetitive and don't need any sort of user interaction, but something that, you know, will save you time in the long run.
[00:04:13.510] - Gordon
So something, just thinking about this, one way of doing it would be to subscribe to the broadcast under a set email address that is just dedicated to this automation. So then any email that comes into that mailbox can then automatically have a post created with the content of it.
[00:04:37.270] - Taylor
Ahh, yes.
[00:04:37.270] - Gordon
That would work, wouldn't it?
[00:04:38.530] - Taylor
I mean, it's a bit trickier because they do use, I believe, Google Workspaces.
[00:04:45.370] - Gordon
Right.
[00:04:45.370] - Taylor
And so creating a new email address would require another account to be paid for, I believe.
[00:04:51.610] - Gordon
Well, you could just set up a standard POP account or IMAP account.
[00:04:55.630] - Taylor
Well yeah, I've already got MX records pointing to Google.
[00:04:58.762] - Gordon
Oh ok.
[00:04:59.410] - Taylor
You can't have more than one email provider.
[00:05:02.350] - Gordon
That would work if you weren't using Gmail though.
[00:05:04.690] - Taylor
Yeah, it would work if you're using an IMAP and you didn't have a limit, or it didn't cost you any extra to create a new account like we normally do. But yeah, if you're using Google Workspaces or Office 365, they cost per account.
[00:05:16.990] - Gordon
And does Integromat allow you to take the HTML from the email?
[00:05:21.370] - Taylor
Yes. So one of the things is you can either grab just the content, or you can grab the actual body HTML, which is quite cool. So if you've got a styled design that's been created, you can pull that straight in and just...
[00:05:35.050] - Gordon
And just create a new post.
[00:05:36.190] - Taylor
Yeah. Exactly.
[00:05:38.050] - Gordon
Amazing. That's really cool.
[00:05:39.430] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:05:39.610] - Gordon
So is this something you're going to be doing?
[00:05:42.850] - Taylor
It was something that I discussed with them, and at the moment, we've got a big launch going on. So it's something that's going to be discussed, I think at the next stand up meeting, and then kind of looked into a bit further down the line, maybe at Christmas time once the launch has kind of has settled and all of the other stuff has been done.
[00:06:03.610] - Gordon
Okay. Is a stand up meeting similar to stand up comedy? Is it sort of like a brother of it?
[00:06:10.510] - Taylor
It's like a weekly Monday meeting. I'm not part of it.
[00:06:13.570] - Gordon
And everyone has to stand?
[00:06:15.370] - Taylor
I guess it comes from when you used to have, be in the office and then people used to have a stand up meeting where you'd all gather around in a meeting room or something or everyone's, you know, in the main area. Everyone just stands up and listens.
[00:06:28.630] - Gordon
Like you see in the cop shows where they say, "gather around" and everyone comes around and stands waiting to listen to the updates.
[00:06:35.710] - Taylor
Basically. Yeah.
[00:06:36.850] - Gordon
Ah ha. Very good. I've not heard that expression before. Cool.
[00:06:41.110] - Taylor
So, yeah. How about you for this week?
[00:06:42.850] - Gordon
So, I think I mentioned last week that I was waiting for a delivery.
[00:06:47.050] - Taylor
You were indeed.
[00:06:47.950] - Gordon
And the delivery arrived, and I haven't had time to play with it too much yet, but I thought I would show everybody what it was that I got, and explain why I got it. So, it's, well it's this. Now those of you listening on the podcast, I'll describe it for you. It's a sort of a cylinder that's not very high. It's got a little clamp on the top. There's an on/off button on it, and there's a little charging port, and it has a screw thread on the bottom.
[00:07:23.230] - Taylor
The way I would describe it is think of an egg timer with a camera mount on it.
[00:07:29.770] - Gordon
Okay.
[00:07:30.910] - Taylor
A rotating egg timer that spins.
[00:07:33.250] - Gordon
I just noticed, is that a spirit level? I think it is. That's new, I haven't seen that. So the idea is that you either put it onto a flat surface like this or, because it's got the screw thread, you can put it into a tripod. And I actually purchased a tripod as part of this package so that you can have this sitting on top of a tripod. Now, what use is this? Well, let me explain. The idea is you can put a mobile phone into the top here. I haven't got one because I'm recording with my phone, but the phone will sit in here upright or landscape, portrait or landscape. And then what it does is it connects using Bluetooth to the software that's in the actual phone that's in there. And the software controls the movement of this. Now it's called a "Pivo" P-I-V-O. And the idea is that it can move and rotate 360 degrees, and the software allows it to track people. So it's got three tracking settings. It can either track somebody's face; it can track a body or an object; or logically, the last tracking object is a horse.
[00:09:00.170] - Taylor
That's very... useful.
[00:09:00.170] - Gordon
That's what it is. You get face, body, horse. That's the three tracking options you get. Don't ask. I've no idea. But obviously, horses are very important when it comes to filming them. And the idea is that because it's on a tripod and it's tracking you, it's turning to face you wherever you happen to be. So you can be doing a talk, a meeting; you can be moving around and the camera can be moving with you, so that it basically follows you and keeps you in the frame the whole time, which is really quite cool. Now, why do I want this? Well, as an entertainer, it allows me to just set up a tripod, put my phone in it, and film my show; so that I can review it to see how I did, to see if there's anything I could improve, see if there's something I said that I quite liked and want to put into the show. It's a really easy and quick way to make sure that I'm always in the frame when I'm filming myself. Now I did buy sort of nearly the top package; it was one down from the top package, and it came with a few extras. So for example, it came with this mount, which is for mobile phones. The original mount that it comes with will unscrew and it's just a clamp, so you just screw it and it will hold the phone in place. You can undo that by unscrewing it and replace it with this one. The advantage with this being that it's got a ball head mount so that you can tilt it up or down or you know, ooh you can go all the way to the top apparently, and you can turn it. Ooh somebody's trying to call you. You can turn it this way if you want to have it portrait, this way if you want it landscape. So that's one of the mounts. Another mount is this one, which is again to hold a phone, but also it has an activity camera mount as well. This is a GoPro Mount, basically, and lots of activity cameras have that mount, so you can basically put it into the base and put your activity camera on top and use that to follow you. And obviously, if you've got your phone in here and the phone is doing the tracking, then the GoPro or whatever camera you have on the top here will get high quality video, even higher quality than your phone by tracking you as well. Now there's two more things I want to say about this. Three more things I want to say about this. The package I bought also came with a case. And I bought... The top package is like a vegan leather case. And I decided that I didn't want to spend an extra $70 just to get a vegan leather. So I went the one below and it's a nice case. It's got all the padding inside, and it holds everything, including the tripod. And one other thing that it comes with is this, which is a platform. And as well as the platform, you get this, which is a plastic box. Basically it's sort of, you can see through it ever so slightly this plastic, and you can form it into a five sided box so that the front is open; and then you can put your Pivo sitting down in the middle of it. You've got the base plate, which will then go onto the Pivo. And last of all, you've got a USB light and this light will sit on top, although I say it's a light, although I don't see any light fitting, but maybe it's in the box. But the light fitting will sit at the front, and it basically then allows you to point a camera at the Pivo, and you can put whatever you like on the platform and it will spin 360 degrees so you can get a 360 degree object film, which is really cool as well.
[00:13:16.685] - Taylor
Yeah definitely.
[00:13:16.910] - Gordon
So if you're doing e-commerce, that sort of thing, where you want to see all the way around an object, it's a really easy way to be able to do that. So that's one thing. Second thing I was going to say is that... Oh the tripod, that's the second thing. The third thing is that this comes in three different models now. This is the silver one, which is the middle model.
[00:13:41.730] - Taylor
Okay.
[00:13:41.730] - Gordon
But when I bought it, it was the top model. So, like a week ago, two weeks ago, I purchased this. It comes in a red and a silver. The red one is the entry model. The silver is faster, so it will rotate quicker. And since I've received this over the last two days, there has been a Kickstarter announcement with a brand new version. And the brand new version not only has the Pivo base here, but it has the mount which also rotates up and down, so it will be able to turn left and right, and tilt up and down as well. And again, that's all controlled by the software. So that's sort of an addition that they've just added to the new version. I don't think I really need that at the moment, but it's something that is out there. If this is the sort of thing that might be of interest to you, then that is something you can look into. And the last thing, I remembered what it was now, is that when I bought this package, I also bought some software that is very specialised. It's called "Pivo Tour," and the idea is with the tripod, you can set it up in a location. It's got a remote control as well, so you can hide, click on the remote control, and it will start capturing 360 degrees image. And then you can move the tripod to another place in the room and do it again, and then move it to another room. And you can build up a 3D tour of a building. So, for example, if you've seen any of these high end houses that are on sale, quite often they'll have 3D tours available. And the idea is that you can see in a video frame, uh a video... It's not a video, but it's like a still image, that you can drag round and look 360 degrees. And then there will be markers that you can move to so you can see another part of the house and you can go into other rooms.
[00:15:51.690] - Taylor
Like Google Street View.
[00:15:53.190] - Gordon
Yeah, a little bit like Google Street View, although it does allow you to have more than one floor.
[00:15:58.830] - Taylor
It's a Google Street View for a house, kind of thing.
[00:16:01.590] - Gordon
Yes. And I think Google Street View does indeed have buildings built into it now as well, which I think is using a similar sort of technology. But, it's something that I feel that I can use for my customers as Drayson Design. We can do 360 for products. We can potentially go out and do a new office. We could do a video tour of the office, but an interactive one where people can look around and see what they want to look at. So that's another reason why I purchased it. It's got lots of different options. There's also one last thing, which is it will allow you to do social media videos, the sort of gimmicky type things where you can have somebody jump behind a tree and when they come out the other side, they're a different person, or they got different clothing on, or something like that. And there's another one which is apparently very popular on TikTok, which is where you have a video of somebody walking or skipping or jumping or whatever. And there's a still image of them and they come along and they sort of go into that still image and then continue on and then go into another still image. And I don't know what the effect is called, but have you seen the effect I mean?
[00:17:21.510] - Taylor
Yeah, I've seen it, I'm not sure what it's called though.
[00:17:21.510] - Gordon
I don't know what it's called, but you can do that with this as well, which is a really nice, quick and easy way to create interesting videos, which is what you need for social media. So I will be having a play with this in the next week or two, and I'll report back and hopefully I'll have something to show you. Maybe I'll send you to an Instagram so you can go and have a look and see what sort of social media videos it can do.
[00:17:50.670] - Taylor
Okay, that sounds great.
[00:17:52.110] - Gordon
So yes, that's me done. Anything for you? Anything else?
[00:17:54.570] - Taylor
No, that's everything from me.
[00:17:55.650] - Gordon
Great. Well, thank you so much for joining us. As always, we can be found on YouTube and on Facebook. Please like, share and subscribe.
[00:18:04.590] - Taylor
You can also go to our website: thisweekwith.co.uk to find all of our past episodes, and search for any topics that you're interested in that we might have covered.
[00:18:12.930] - Gordon
Yes, we've got the transcripts completely searchable, and we will see you next week at 1pm on Friday. Until then, my name's Gordon and I'm from Drayson Design.
[00:18:24.450] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:18:27.030] - Gordon
Goodbye.
[00:18:27.570] - Taylor
Bye.
