- Hello, everybody. Welcome to a new vlog.
I'm going to say at the start,
that I know this is going to be one
that goes over a day or two.
So that tomorrow, when I wake up
and realize I didn't finish the vlog,
or felt like I didn't give enough content for the vlog
just today, I set the intention from the start.
(upbeat chime) So that's what's going to happen.
I've dyed my hair again, you probably noticed
because it's looking real pink.
I feel like I need to do some more bleaching on it,
because at the top, it is not so colored anymore.
But hey, I'm really, really liking being back.
Feeling like myself again,
I feel like when my hair is pink or purple,
or like colored in some way,
it just makes me feel like I've got my shit together,
you know, and this is a week where I really need
to have my shit together.
Actually the whole next month or so is going to be.
We've got some big things going on at work,
huge project that I'm leading,
and lots of pages that we need to get produced
for our marketing site,
to go out over the next month or so.
Like up until the end of the quarter,
the end of September.
Last week was such a busy week.
Like one of the busiest weeks of work
that I've had all year. I feel like.
It's at a stage right now where there's,
I think I might have talked about it actually,
in the last vlog.
It's like just on the brink of chaos,
and there's so much happening
that there's just no time to get distracted.
And that's good because I get distracted easily,
when I'm not like fully loaded with stuff to do.
And I can tend to procrastinate.
And when there's this much stuff going on,
it's just not possible to procrastinate.
I find it really motivating personally,
but I also know that this is like a state of working,
and like being,
that makes it really easy to burn out.
So this weekend,
I very purposefully took a lot of time to relax.
I did a little bit of side hustle stuff and some writing
sorted out some finances, but for the most part,
I like watched Schitts Creek on my iPad,
I read a whole book, I went for swims in the pool.
Because we went to my boyfriend's parents place
for the weekend. That was really good.
And I feel like I rested enough
to be ready to tackle this week, you know?
Yeah. I've been spending my morning getting organized,
and like planning deadlines for things.
Like I said, we want to launch a lot of pages
for the marketing site.
I normally like to take my time with marketing site pages,
because I feel like when you're putting out a new page,
getting it into its best state for the start
gives you a bit of base to be improving from in future,
you know.
Normally we can take the time to get a page super right,
and go through my full design process with it,
try new creative things. But yeah,
for these pages, it's kind of like,
we need them to be up and existing on our site,
so that Google can start ranking them,
and they can start sort of having some benefit for us
in terms of SEO.
So, I am taking the mindset that the important thing is
to get up a page with the content that needs to be on it.
Of course I have standards when it comes to design,
and there's like a threshold,
that I'm not willing to go below
because that would hurt our brand.
Even though it might help our SEO to get it up sooner.
It's this balance that we've got to live with.
All right, this is the page that I designed last week,
about our email marketing features.
So this is a page that is designed to rank for
people searching for email marketing tools.
So it's a pretty simple page in that,
it's like doing the standard,
like content thing at the side,
content thing at the side, alternating thing.
There're a couple of special pieces,
like this thing here where you click,
automated emails and it shows you
the process for sending either a broadcast,
or an automated email.
We've got the other content hanging out over here.
And then there was this block here that's kind of new,
which is like telling you about some teaching content,
we have some internal links there.
Overall with this page, I think it's good,
It uses our design system,
I think it communicates the information clearly.
I've used the same style of image with little illustration.
So yeah, I'm happy with all of those things
that I've created there, and I think it's looking good.
But I know that if I'd spent a longer time wireframing,
I would have come up with new,
and like way more creative ideas
for displaying this content.
This was like a gut design.
It was going with the gut,
going with what instantly do I think will be the best way
to produce this, using similar elements
that we've already got somewhere else in our site
to make the code easier.
Thinking about all those things,
knowing that our deadlines are in place.
So yeah, that's the next few pages that I'm designing,
I'm having to keep that mindset.
I hope in future that we can go back
and sort of rethink, and come up with creative ways to
display content.
Because I think that honestly helps our marketing site
stand out from others, when I do take that approach.
But for now this will do the job just fine.
It tells people what they need to know.
It's easy to understand, easy to scan and skim.
So it's going to be like a helpful page for us as it is.
Friday, I did the hand off of this page to Corey.
Who's going to start building it this week,
while I am moving on to wire framing and designing
the next page, ready to hand off to him.
I think like next Monday, actually we're going to try it.
No, not that soon.
But there's like this chain of events happening basically,
to get four pages out within the next six weeks.
And it all needs to go in order,
and be sticking to the deadlines in order to make it happen.
So we'll see, I'll keep you updated over the next
month or so, how we go on that.
In other news, you saw me talking in a recent vlog
about trying out mechanical keyboards.
I was using Mark's to see if I liked it,
and wanted to buy my own. I did like it in the end,
and so I have bought my own. I got this one.
I've got no idea what it's called,
but I'm going to put the name of it on the screen right now,
so that you can see what it's called.
I wanted one specifically that had media keys,
that's what I didn't like about Mark's one.
Because I like mute, and constantly adjusting volume,
or using the fast forward keys and things like that.
As I listen to music pretty much constantly while I work.
I am planning on buying some cute colored key caps for it,
because there're some cute sets around,
but also, let me come and show you the thing
that I bought over the weekend.
I watched the YouTube video about how to paint,
like just the inside of the keys,
so I bought a bunch of really cute colored spray paints.
Along with the primer, and the top coat thing,
to attempt to do that myself.
So we'll see how that goes.
We also just got in an order from Ikea, so that's exciting.
We got some new furniture built.
Got a new dining table, a new coffee table,
and a couple of other little bits and pieces.
Also I've been buying more plants.
I got an olive tree, to try and grow in some pots
on our terrace.
Apparently they can withstand the heat really well.
I can't, so I'm going to go back inside.
Anyway, I think that is your update
on everything and where we're at.
Now that I've done my sort of sorting out,
and getting things planned,
like communication, like everyone answered
who had questions for me, after I signed off on Friday.
That's all done.
Now I can dig in and get going on this wireframe.
So, I'll be taking the same approach as I did
to this email marketing page,
and partially limiting the amount of time
I spend wire framing, because otherwise
I'm going to start to come up with more
and more creative things,
and more, and more things that are more difficult to build.
So we'll time box it. Let's get this done.
(soft guitar playing)
Good morning everybody, it's Tuesday.
I don't know why I held up two fingers,
I guess because it's the second day of the week?
I don't know.
I told you this vlog was going to go over two days,
maybe that's where the two was coming from.
Anyway, last night I had my Spanish class,
which is still happening online,
even though the Spanish school is open,
our classes opted to continue with online lessons,
which I quite like, because it means there's less,
commute time to get there,
even though it's only a 10 minute walk away, but hey.
It's nice to end the Spanish class,
and go straight into like having dinner
and hanging out for the evening.
It was a busy day today, it's said to be another one today.
On Tuesdays, I always find myself working quite late,
and so I took some time this morning to get prepped
for a new episode of inside marketing design,
all set up ready to be launched tomorrow.
This one, which this episode will already be up
by the time you see this vlog.
So you should go and listen to this inside marketing
Denali episode. I think it's my favorite.
It's an interview with Adam Stoller from Base Camp,
and Base Camp just do things so different,
to any other company that it was just fascinating.
There're loads of like little nuggets.
Honestly, the episode could have been
like double the length. And I think when we actually talked,
we ended up talking for like two hours, but yeah.
It's only 40 minute, so you should go and listen to it.
I think I'd like for the next season to make it a priority,
to speak to companies who do things differently to the norm.
I feel like we've covered a lot of bases
in this first season of the show,
and I'm specifically looking for interesting
or unique approaches to marketing design in future seasons.
So I'll be asking people, I don't know,
in advance I guess,
before coming up with the episode lineup.
What's different about how they do things,
or anything special or unique,
so that I can pick based on that.
Today, is a lot of stuff the same as yesterday.
I didn't get as far as they wanted
with a wireframe yesterday,
but I'll show you where I have got up to,
and we'll be continuing that today,
because I need to get it done.
Also finally, hopefully, launching some of the
personalization stuff that I think I talked about
a couple of vlogs ago.
There's just been, I don't know,
hasn't been a focus to get it live,
but it needs to go live. So, I will get that done.
This week I also needed to set up some user tests,
but I probably won't do that today to be honest.
Also today though, exciting news,
I'm going to be speaking at Figma's Europe conference,
they're doing a virtual conference,
and it is free for people to attend.
Which is really cool.
So I'll leave the link in the description,
you should go and sign up to come along to it.
As some of you may know, Figma sponsor my channel,
which is really great.
This channel is powered by Figma,
and so I'm always happy and proud
to be promoting a Figma thing.
They are a product that I use to do all my designs,
and they're a great company.
And I'm excited to speak at their conference.
I'm going to be doing my talk on how to self promote,
and how to build your reputation through it.
And the fact that it's not actually scary,
or like gross to be doing some sort of self promotion.
I first ran it as a workshop at Epicurrence,
a few years back.
And since then it's been evolving,
presented it as a talk in a bunch of different places,
and it just gets better, and changes a little bit
each time I do it.
Yeah. It's going to be fun to do online,
because I have not presented a talk online before.
I have been like a guest on webinars and stuff.
But today, the reason I brought it up, is because
I have like a tech check,
with someone from the Figma conference team.
So they'll be showing me how that's all going to work,
which would be good.
Because I didn't want to show up and be like,
what's going on here?
And like I said, you should come along to it.
I think it's September 17th, let me me confirm that.
September 17th, and it is in like the UK time zone.
But I think even if you're not in Europe,
it's in the afternoon, Europe time.
It'll be in the morning, if you're in the US or whatever.
You can check it out yourself on the website.
Also this morning, I went for a run,
which is not something I usually do, to be honest,
for our team retreat.
So, back backup.
(rewind sounds)
Twice a year, ConvertKit has a team retreat.
The last one was in February, in the US.
The next one was meant to be in September, in the UK.
But thanks to Covid, obviously that's not happening,
so we're having like a virtual retreat instead.
It's the first time we've had to do this,
and we know it's not going to be quite the same
as being together in person,
but it's going to run for three days,
and they've got some great sessions lined up
to try and foster some of the same community,
and conversation that happens
when you are in person at the retreat.
So, I don't know, I'll put back when that happens,
about how it's gone, or maybe I'll vlog my way through it,
if you're interested in seeing how a remote company
runs a retreat like that.
As part of the retreat, we are doing a five K run together.
When I say together, I mean everyone would do it
individually, whenever fits their schedule
over the three days,
so that I'm not ending up having to like run at midnight
because it's whatever time in the US.
Everyone tracks their five K run in Strap,
but we have like a little running group,
and everyone's training right now, and it's super fun,
and like encouraging.
So I've been taking part in that.
I'm not a strong runner, I am incredibly slow,
and I get exhausted very easily.
But it's been fun to have a reason, I guess,
to get back into it, and to feel that encouragement.
So, yeah, that's what I did this morning.
And then working on the episode,
now I'm going to open Slack for the first time today.
Let's see how many notifications I have.
Not as many as I thought, that's good.
Still a lot, but it shouldn't take me too long
to get through things.
I'm going to start my workday by diving into all this,
and seeing what people have got for me,
and then getting on to the work that I planned for myself,
let's go.
(upbeat drums playing)
Right, making myself a coffee,
to get in to my afternoon work.
It was a morning of, like I said,
catching up on people's needs and stuff,
but now I can get stuck into that wire framing.
Check out our new dining table though.
I'm really pleased with it,
we just need to get some chairs that match,
because these ones do not, but they will do for now.
(upbeat rock music playing)
Okay everyone,
I think I have a wireframe that I'm happy with.
I think I'm happy with it.
Usually I like to finish something,
and then sleep on it before sharing for feedback,
just so I can do another review myself,
and I don't know, sometimes you just spot things
the next day, or sometimes later in the afternoon,
or whatever time you can spare.
Like sleeping on something, putting it down for a while,
and coming back to it with fresh eyes is always a good idea.
But, in the interest of time
with this very quick project we're working on,
I've shared it with the teams,
so that they can hopefully get all their thoughts to me
by tomorrow, so I can start moving onto the design phase.
But I will show you the wireframe.
So, the page, did I explain? I can't remember,
is like a Linktree comparison page.
Basically, ConvertKit landing pages
are infinitely more powerful than Linktree pages
for using as a LinkedIn bio.
And we have a new feature called collections
that will let you do a similar thing to a Linktree
list of links added to any ConvertKit page.
So, this is my wire frame, and the page goal is to
showcase how we compare, and how we differ from Linktree
and try and convince people to use us instead.
So this will be a big image, maybe an illustrated graphic,
potentially a video one day too,
whenever we have time to create that.
Starting with a quote, and then I've broken down the content
into three steps.
This is always part of the wiring process, honestly,
is synthesizing the content,
and figuring out the best way to group the information
to present on the page.
So this is what I came up with.
We talk about the fact that it's got everything you need,
and that you can do it all for free.
Because basically there's a lot of ConvertKit free features
that you have to pay for on Linktree.
I think about customizing,
and then I think about the other ConvertKit features
that you can make use of as well.
Three extra points, I think this is nice.
One, they couldn't fit within all this other stuff,
but two, I think it like breaks up the page a little,
you've just gone two columns, to now go three,
it's like a break for your eyes, I don't know.
This weird carousel, we've used this style elsewhere
on our site.
This is not the thing I'm trying to do with this page,
in the interest of time is make it quick to build,
by reusing elements from elsewhere.
So this will show four different types of a link,
in bio page, and that is not the image that will be used.
That's just an example that I pulled from elsewhere.
This is just all wireframe,
even though there's some like colors and heading,
styling, and things in it.
This is just how I wireframe.
Anyway, then we go to this comparison tree.
I don't know if I really like comparison tables,
but they seem to be effective,
and so I'm begrudgingly including it in this one.
Although I feel like they look really fake
when you just have everything ticked in your columns,
So I'd like us to make sure we include something
that Linktree has that we don't.
Just to show that we're being honest about this,
and also to make it more helpful for people
to actually make a choice.
And then we have our end with another quote,
just for some extra social proof.
Hopefully we can get some people who are like,
they might recognize from Instagram or whatever
to give us these quotes, so they'll see that their peers,
(small bell chime) are using it.
So yeah, this is my page, and as you can see
all these dots around, I've left twelve points in envision,
for the team to look at, read and respond to.
Hopefully they like it. We'll see.
My afternoon now that I've done that,
I'm really happy that I got that finished actually,
it was worth putting in that focus time for.
But my afternoon is going to be spent writing.
I need to get a post up with an agenda
for our marketing meeting, which is happening in two hours.
So yeah, I have them first, very quickly,
and then another post as well.
This is the thing I think I talked about in the last vlog,
remote work, so much writing involved,
so much communication.
But it's good, because I think it forces you to
get your thoughts clearer. And I definitely feel like
I've become smarter since having to write everything down,
and like synthesize it first myself rather than just being
like, Oh, I've got this idea. Get on a call,
let's chat about it.
I think it is really good to have to write things down.
So, let me go do some writing, using my fancy keyboard,
which I am really quite liking.
I figured out how to turn on the backlight,
can you see that there? What fun.
(calm instrumentals playing)
All right, is the end of the Workday,
I've written several thousand words today.
We had a great meeting doing,
I can't refer to explain what we were doing,
a pre-mortem for a project, which is where we like try
and think ahead to anything that could potentially go wrong
with it, or go very right with it,
so that we can be aware of those things at the start.
Yeah, it went well. I took all the notes during it.
I just like wrote up the notes.
I like to group my notes and themes, so that I'm not just
like posting the raw notes.
Because I don't feel like that's super useful for people.
So yeah, took a bit of extra time to do that,
but now it's done.
And like I said, written several thousand words,
but it was a productive day.
I got lots of stuff checked off my to do list over here,
which is good.
Now I need to go water the plants, and take the trash out
and then chill for the evening.
So I'm going to end the vlog here.
Thank you for watching, and hanging out with me.
I hope you're still enjoying these and just,
you know, seeing what I get up to,
a little slice of my Workday.
If you've got suggestions for anything particularly you want
to see me talk about more in depth in future vlogs,
please let me know, because I am very open to suggestions.
And if you don't say anything, you're just going to
keep seeing more of this.
And that's what will happen.
Thanks for being here, thanks for watching.
I hope you have a really good week.
And I'll see you in the next vlog. Bye.
(upbeat pop beats playing)