WEBVTT NOTE This file was generated by Descript 00:00:07.138 --> 00:00:08.188 Colin: Welcome to Build and Learn. 00:00:08.188 --> 00:00:09.208 My name is Colin 00:00:09.358 --> 00:00:14.488 CJ: And I'm cj, and today we're talking about content creation for developers. 00:00:15.808 --> 00:00:16.168 I'm. 00:00:16.318 --> 00:00:20.668 Realizing that the last time we recorded you had prepped us and told 00:00:20.668 --> 00:00:22.168 us that you're gonna be at Burning Man. 00:00:22.168 --> 00:00:26.902 And I saw like a couple pictures on Instagram of all the dust . I heard 00:00:26.902 --> 00:00:31.672 that there was a dust storm, so I know you probably got Dusty, but 00:00:31.677 --> 00:00:33.202 what else happened at Burning Man? 00:00:33.232 --> 00:00:36.642 Also, is Burning Man one of those, what happens at Burning Man stays at Burning 00:00:36.642 --> 00:00:39.852 Man type things or Yeah, like what can you 00:00:39.897 --> 00:00:40.477 Colin: A little. 00:00:41.067 --> 00:00:44.652 Yeah, I mean it's very interesting to see cuz I, this is my eighth 00:00:44.652 --> 00:00:46.662 year that I've been since 2008. 00:00:46.752 --> 00:00:51.557 And there's the meme of the okay burner or okay boomer for 00:00:51.562 --> 00:00:55.067 people who have been before and especially in the earlier years. 00:00:55.529 --> 00:00:56.754 Because it's definitely changed a lot. 00:00:56.754 --> 00:00:58.914 It was extremely rough this year. 00:00:58.914 --> 00:01:00.564 It was so hot. 00:01:00.654 --> 00:01:05.274 So, I mean, dust storms are par for the course, but like a lot of 00:01:05.274 --> 00:01:08.004 people who've been before, I think part of it was because Burning Man 00:01:08.004 --> 00:01:09.544 hadn't happened in a few years. 00:01:10.080 --> 00:01:14.430 It was like everyone shaking the rest off a little bit and even, you know, if 00:01:14.430 --> 00:01:17.010 you're having a hard time, you expect like everyone else around you to, 00:01:17.070 --> 00:01:19.020 might have some of their act together. 00:01:19.020 --> 00:01:21.550 But let's kind of like everyone getting back into it. 00:01:22.220 --> 00:01:25.340 I think this year the whole what happens at Burning Man stays at Burning Man 00:01:25.340 --> 00:01:28.940 is taking a different approach, which is that there's a lot more focus on 00:01:28.940 --> 00:01:34.190 reporting around like the impact of Burning Man, like environmentally and 00:01:34.670 --> 00:01:38.115 just in general because like, I mean, there's no getting around the fact 00:01:38.115 --> 00:01:42.165 that like, yes, it's fun, but it's also a pretty big impact to the planet to 00:01:42.170 --> 00:01:48.446 have this festival and, an event in the desert for a week with so many vehicles. 00:01:48.451 --> 00:01:51.892 We were fortunate enough to only take like three hours to get home. 00:01:52.162 --> 00:01:53.517 We left to, At the right time. 00:01:54.358 --> 00:01:57.748 Some people were stuck in line for like 14 hours to get from Burning 00:01:57.748 --> 00:02:01.434 Man to back to Reno which is a normally like a two hour drive. 00:02:01.434 --> 00:02:02.948 So it's been an interesting thing. 00:02:02.948 --> 00:02:05.168 It's something that I think a lot of burners are struggling with. 00:02:05.168 --> 00:02:08.708 The idea of like, should we still be going, should we still be doing this? 00:02:08.708 --> 00:02:11.318 Or like, are we part of the bigger problem? 00:02:12.163 --> 00:02:14.133 So, there's a lot of fun to be had. 00:02:14.133 --> 00:02:15.603 There's a lot of amazing art. 00:02:16.054 --> 00:02:20.089 Just the idea of building something from nothing out there is pretty amazing. 00:02:20.569 --> 00:02:25.101 But, at the same time, there's a lot of privilege and all of that involved in 00:02:25.161 --> 00:02:29.571 attending and going and being a part of that, you know, I spent way too much money 00:02:29.576 --> 00:02:33.861 on building shade structures and, having all the supplies and stuff that we need. 00:02:34.571 --> 00:02:38.081 We don't rough it by any means, but we're not in an RV either, so it's, 00:02:38.391 --> 00:02:42.518 very nice tents and shades and stuff like that that we've got set up, so. 00:02:43.358 --> 00:02:46.808 CJ: So it sounds like it was harsher conditions, general. 00:02:46.808 --> 00:02:47.348 Is that what you mean? 00:02:47.348 --> 00:02:48.818 Like by harder. 00:02:48.848 --> 00:02:49.178 Okay. 00:02:49.178 --> 00:02:51.518 So the conditions were just generally harder. 00:02:51.518 --> 00:02:52.058 I see. 00:02:52.343 --> 00:02:56.423 Colin: Yeah, I mean, it was like 105, 110 Fahrenheit almost every day. 00:02:56.944 --> 00:02:59.404 And then even at night you expected to get cool. 00:02:59.409 --> 00:03:03.424 And it did eventually, but it was just still hot at nighttime. 00:03:03.424 --> 00:03:06.094 And yeah, there's just a lot going on there. 00:03:06.094 --> 00:03:08.494 And it's what you expect when you go to the desert in the middle of 00:03:08.494 --> 00:03:12.809 August, but it's still, Yeah, it's it felt harder for a lot of people. 00:03:13.049 --> 00:03:14.729 Maybe we were just outta practice, but. 00:03:16.039 --> 00:03:16.309 . Yeah. 00:03:16.309 --> 00:03:17.899 So that was Burning Man came back. 00:03:17.929 --> 00:03:20.209 It was pretty relaxing for me. 00:03:20.209 --> 00:03:23.089 Like as much as it was rough and stressful, like it was good to be 00:03:23.089 --> 00:03:24.619 away from a computer for a week. 00:03:25.194 --> 00:03:28.358 So I get back into it and get in front of the screen when I come back and 00:03:28.363 --> 00:03:32.138 kind of think about just some time away, which could have been done on 00:03:32.138 --> 00:03:33.668 a beach somewhere just as easily. 00:03:33.673 --> 00:03:35.748 But, you know, choices, 00:03:36.153 --> 00:03:37.083 CJ: Yeah, totally. 00:03:37.173 --> 00:03:37.653 Totally. 00:03:38.343 --> 00:03:38.613 Yeah. 00:03:38.643 --> 00:03:42.815 I think I saw people on TikTok too, like posting from burning it. 00:03:42.815 --> 00:03:44.115 I'm like, So do you. 00:03:44.600 --> 00:03:48.650 Turn your phone on, make a TikTok, post it, and then turn your phone off? 00:03:48.650 --> 00:03:51.830 Or are people like just on their phone? 00:03:51.860 --> 00:03:52.910 I mean, I don't know. 00:03:53.452 --> 00:03:54.942 Yeah, it felt like 00:03:54.972 --> 00:03:56.682 Colin: Reception went away pretty fast. 00:03:57.072 --> 00:04:01.482 Like the more people showed up, there was like, you'd get maybe a text message. 00:04:01.482 --> 00:04:04.542 So probably a lot of 'em were maybe recording and then 00:04:04.542 --> 00:04:05.892 publishing when they got back. 00:04:05.892 --> 00:04:10.989 But and I think some camps had wifi somehow, like starlink or something. 00:04:10.989 --> 00:04:15.729 But you know, again, it's the old okay boomer, you know, it's like, okay, it's 00:04:15.729 --> 00:04:17.589 changed and we've got internet out there. 00:04:18.129 --> 00:04:21.729 You got people who are hiring private chefs and having their RV brought 00:04:21.729 --> 00:04:23.229 out for them and all this stuff. 00:04:23.229 --> 00:04:26.950 So it's definitely a display of capitalism for sure. 00:04:26.950 --> 00:04:29.080 Even though I think Burning Man wants to say that. 00:04:29.080 --> 00:04:30.160 It's the opposite of that. 00:04:30.545 --> 00:04:30.875 CJ: Yeah. 00:04:32.525 --> 00:04:35.855 That is actually like a pretty good transition because people 00:04:35.885 --> 00:04:38.885 were, even though they're out in the middle of the desert, they're 00:04:38.885 --> 00:04:40.865 still finding ways to make content. 00:04:41.315 --> 00:04:44.705 And this wasn't necessarily content for developers, but they were out there 00:04:44.705 --> 00:04:46.985 making content and getting those eyeballs. 00:04:46.985 --> 00:04:47.255 So 00:04:48.290 --> 00:04:51.710 Colin: Yeah, I think there was a lot more YouTubers, tickers 00:04:51.715 --> 00:04:53.210 and things out there this year. 00:04:53.270 --> 00:04:58.642 Trying to capture highlights so that they can get followers and stuff like that. 00:04:58.647 --> 00:05:02.174 But yeah, so I think, I mean, content, you know, the hustle 00:05:02.174 --> 00:05:03.554 I guess never stops with that. 00:05:03.559 --> 00:05:04.394 And you, you know, how. 00:05:04.889 --> 00:05:08.643 Goes as far as there's always another week, another video, or 00:05:08.643 --> 00:05:09.753 another episode of the podcast. 00:05:10.758 --> 00:05:11.538 CJ: Yeah, it is. 00:05:11.718 --> 00:05:15.868 It is definitely a hamster wheel, and I think a lot of people get. 00:05:15.978 --> 00:05:22.008 Burnt out super quickly and it can be really challenging to find a sustainable 00:05:22.008 --> 00:05:27.498 pattern and the sustainable set of habits to put out content on a regular basis. 00:05:28.218 --> 00:05:32.198 And if you want to, grow an actual audience, from what I've seen, you 00:05:32.203 --> 00:05:34.388 have to put out content for like years. 00:05:34.418 --> 00:05:39.098 Like it . Like you can't just write 10 blog posts and expect to. 00:05:40.378 --> 00:05:41.663 a huge audience or whatever. 00:05:41.663 --> 00:05:45.683 I guess it, it comes down to your goals with the content that you're creating. 00:05:46.221 --> 00:05:46.611 Colin: Right. 00:05:46.641 --> 00:05:46.881 Yeah. 00:05:46.881 --> 00:05:49.491 What would be some of the other goals that you might have for creating 00:05:49.496 --> 00:05:51.291 content other than building an. 00:05:51.696 --> 00:05:55.566 CJ: I think a lot of folks, one of the reasons that they start out is that 00:05:55.626 --> 00:06:00.786 they want to write down something that they learned for themselves later. 00:06:01.116 --> 00:06:07.151 So maybe you figure out some solution to some tricky problem and you write 00:06:07.151 --> 00:06:11.171 it down so that next time you have that problem in like three or four years 00:06:11.171 --> 00:06:14.621 from now, you can just look up your old blog post about how you did that 00:06:14.621 --> 00:06:16.631 thing, and then you have the answer. 00:06:18.116 --> 00:06:22.946 It seems though like a lot more people now are creating content with the 00:06:22.946 --> 00:06:26.366 goal of growing an audience and then trying to monetize that audience. 00:06:26.454 --> 00:06:30.542 Colin: I think on that first one, you know, I've come across stack 00:06:30.542 --> 00:06:35.702 overflows of like myself asking a question that I, and it's like, oh, 00:06:35.882 --> 00:06:39.872 five years ago I asked this question, and today I have the same problem, 00:06:39.902 --> 00:06:42.182 and whether or not there's an answer. 00:06:42.812 --> 00:06:45.522 Five years ago, or not, as, irrelevant, but I'm like, Oh, 00:06:45.522 --> 00:06:47.022 this question's so well worded. 00:06:47.022 --> 00:06:47.832 And I was like, Oh, shit. 00:06:47.862 --> 00:06:48.372 I wrote it 00:06:49.902 --> 00:06:50.262 CJ: Wow. 00:06:50.267 --> 00:06:52.572 They use the same exact words that I'm using 00:06:53.262 --> 00:06:55.482 Colin: what I would've described the problem as. 00:06:55.992 --> 00:07:00.669 But I see a lot of people do this too for like, not necessarily a 00:07:00.669 --> 00:07:05.199 pad, but to create a little bit of a presence for resumes or portfolios. 00:07:05.673 --> 00:07:05.973 So. 00:07:06.888 --> 00:07:10.008 You know, a future employer might come across your website and it's 00:07:10.008 --> 00:07:13.518 not just a link to your GitHub, but it might be a little bit of 00:07:13.578 --> 00:07:17.868 what you think about programming or how you approach problem solving. 00:07:17.868 --> 00:07:20.088 So I think, you know, those are all great, I think. 00:07:20.508 --> 00:07:23.508 I think a lot of people do start it with the intention of building an audience 00:07:23.508 --> 00:07:25.558 and then they realize how hard it can be. 00:07:25.888 --> 00:07:29.622 Or like in podcasting, we hear it be referred to as pod fading. 00:07:30.102 --> 00:07:33.972 So many people start podcasts and so many people don't get past that first. 00:07:34.527 --> 00:07:35.137 CJ: Mm-hmm. 00:07:35.977 --> 00:07:36.217 . Yeah. 00:07:36.217 --> 00:07:38.480 I think that was a, that's an interesting perspective. 00:07:38.480 --> 00:07:41.480 So we've got kind of like you're writing con or you're making 00:07:41.480 --> 00:07:43.312 content for your future self. 00:07:43.822 --> 00:07:44.752 Then you might have. 00:07:44.991 --> 00:07:49.311 This goal of making content to help you stand out when you're doing a job search. 00:07:49.701 --> 00:07:53.641 And then finally, you have the goal of creating content to build an audience 00:07:53.641 --> 00:07:55.131 that you might be able to sell to later. 00:07:55.671 --> 00:08:00.979 And I think, yeah the latter is like much, much harder. 00:08:01.069 --> 00:08:05.560 But in, in every single case no matter what kind of content you're 00:08:05.560 --> 00:08:07.390 gonna create, it takes work, right? 00:08:07.390 --> 00:08:10.060 You gotta like roll up your sleeves and get down to business. 00:08:10.065 --> 00:08:10.390 So 00:08:11.023 --> 00:08:13.603 Colin: And they all take a little bit of different types of effort, right? 00:08:13.603 --> 00:08:17.023 So we've got a few types of content here that we can think of. 00:08:17.520 --> 00:08:20.790 I think probably the lowest lift would be a tweet. 00:08:21.360 --> 00:08:22.440 So even just. 00:08:22.710 --> 00:08:26.100 Tweeting regularly interacting with other software developers 00:08:26.100 --> 00:08:27.700 or other people in your industry? 00:08:28.243 --> 00:08:30.793 Twitter would be a form of content creation, right? 00:08:30.793 --> 00:08:33.868 It's the original micro blog was the goal. 00:08:33.873 --> 00:08:36.508 And I don't know that that's necessarily how people approach it today. 00:08:36.508 --> 00:08:40.828 It's probably seen more as I'll write a blog post and then tweet a link to it. 00:08:41.221 --> 00:08:44.204 But some people like to drop their hot takes and their 00:08:44.204 --> 00:08:45.614 thought leadership on Twitter. 00:08:45.813 --> 00:08:50.482 Or even answering people's questions like an ad hoc stack overflow as well 00:08:50.482 --> 00:08:54.740 if in case people are like having issues with something in hot wire or whatever 00:08:54.740 --> 00:08:56.210 they might be running into that day. 00:08:56.953 --> 00:09:04.213 CJ: I think Adam Wa and Steve Sugar, like were super intentional about putting. 00:09:05.098 --> 00:09:11.788 Really quality tweets very consistently over a course of a, like a long period 00:09:12.268 --> 00:09:15.538 in order to grow an audience that they could then sell their, like, I 00:09:15.543 --> 00:09:19.888 think it was to sell refactoring UI or one of their other tailwind things. 00:09:20.398 --> 00:09:22.569 And that seemed to work really well. 00:09:22.629 --> 00:09:27.889 And so what I've, I, after kind of like that initial search, that was probably 00:09:27.889 --> 00:09:32.286 like three, four years ago now I've definitely seen a lot more people using. 00:09:33.141 --> 00:09:36.081 Purely to share like tips and tricks. 00:09:36.351 --> 00:09:40.308 And I do think that is like a really effective way to tweet if you're just 00:09:40.308 --> 00:09:42.078 making a bunch of original content, 00:09:42.747 --> 00:09:45.357 Colin: Do you think it works if you have the intention of selling 00:09:45.357 --> 00:09:48.177 though eventually, or like do you need to kind of go into it? 00:09:48.177 --> 00:09:52.497 Like even with this show, we are going into it as a fun project. 00:09:52.502 --> 00:09:56.517 Like Sure, we'd love to see it grow and maybe we do sponsors or something 00:09:56.517 --> 00:10:00.367 in the future, but like, I think for a lot of podcasts, and I guess for if 00:10:00.367 --> 00:10:04.477 you're like pulling together like a bunch of tweets or blog posts with the 00:10:04.477 --> 00:10:09.157 intention of selling, I do worry that it, it might not come across as genuine 00:10:09.157 --> 00:10:13.357 or like you, you know, developers don't like to be marketed too, right? 00:10:13.567 --> 00:10:17.488 Or the is a common refrain and there's plenty of books on that. 00:10:17.698 --> 00:10:18.481 I forgot the one. 00:10:18.511 --> 00:10:22.130 There's one that recently came out that escapes me, but like UnMarketing for 00:10:22.130 --> 00:10:23.570 developers or something similar to that. 00:10:23.570 --> 00:10:27.320 We'll, we'll find it and put it in the show notes, but that, you know, 00:10:27.650 --> 00:10:32.630 answering questions and building that like community of people who want to 00:10:32.630 --> 00:10:34.910 be around refactoring UI and Tailwind. 00:10:34.910 --> 00:10:38.270 Right now, the Tailwind audience almost sells to itself, right? 00:10:38.270 --> 00:10:41.720 Because it's been built, but it wasn't always that way because. 00:10:42.215 --> 00:10:48.015 , they needed to build up an audience of who Adam and Steve were as developers first. 00:10:48.755 --> 00:10:54.559 CJ: I guess it's possible to go into it with the goal of selling, but I 00:10:54.559 --> 00:10:59.029 think one of the keys is that you have to be creating value with those 00:10:59.029 --> 00:11:03.049 tweets and by creating value that's like tweeting stuff that people. 00:11:03.544 --> 00:11:08.524 Would find useful in their day to day job and that they wouldn't already know. 00:11:09.094 --> 00:11:16.479 And so there is a rubus who tweets stuff all the time and it is amazing. 00:11:16.509 --> 00:11:18.249 And I'm gonna try to find her handle. 00:11:18.249 --> 00:11:20.079 It's like Shino Kouda. 00:11:20.339 --> 00:11:22.499 Colin: We'll put that in the show notes as well. 00:11:23.284 --> 00:11:24.623 What kinds of content do they. 00:11:25.403 --> 00:11:32.466 CJ: Almost always it's a screenshot of some code with like tips and tricks about 00:11:32.471 --> 00:11:38.339 how to use it and it's JavaScript and ruby tips and tricks, and it is solid. 00:11:38.339 --> 00:11:42.559 Another one is Sebastian from, I think he's at podium. 00:11:43.219 --> 00:11:43.399 Yeah. 00:11:43.399 --> 00:11:48.949 So Sebastian is also like making a course, I think, or maybe 00:11:48.949 --> 00:11:50.449 a book about tips and tricks. 00:11:50.449 --> 00:11:54.919 But Sebastian also is making tons of tips or sharing tons 00:11:54.919 --> 00:11:56.209 and tons of tips on Twitter. 00:11:56.214 --> 00:12:00.984 So yeah, just going back to the original point. 00:12:00.984 --> 00:12:06.684 It's kind of like, Tweets are a form of content and you can be really 00:12:06.684 --> 00:12:11.184 intentional about sharing tips and tricks that add value to developers, 00:12:11.484 --> 00:12:14.374 and that's one of the ways that you can kind of just create content. 00:12:15.514 --> 00:12:16.054 Colin: Definitely. 00:12:16.174 --> 00:12:16.414 Yeah. 00:12:16.419 --> 00:12:19.054 And I like that it's text and maybe an image, right? 00:12:19.059 --> 00:12:21.454 It doesn't have to be editing something. 00:12:21.454 --> 00:12:23.074 It doesn't have to be filming something. 00:12:23.074 --> 00:12:26.644 So I think it's a really great way to get started and then when you're ready 00:12:26.644 --> 00:12:28.894 to go and graduate from that, you could. 00:12:29.299 --> 00:12:34.885 Stand up your own blog, pop up a medium, do a sub stack those kinds 00:12:34.885 --> 00:12:37.105 of more longer form blog posts. 00:12:37.461 --> 00:12:41.991 Or I even would put in here newsletter type content for this. 00:12:41.991 --> 00:12:46.371 I think newsletters are really, really popular right now because you, especially 00:12:46.371 --> 00:12:48.901 for someone who might want to, you. 00:12:49.391 --> 00:12:53.692 It's amazing to say that email is still the best way to reach somebody, 00:12:54.082 --> 00:12:56.615 but you know, today it kind of is. 00:12:57.065 --> 00:12:58.422 And it's a really portable. 00:12:58.962 --> 00:13:02.592 Quote unquote audience that you can take with you versus, you know, on 00:13:02.592 --> 00:13:06.792 TikTok and Instagram, your audience is stuck, you know, inside of those systems 00:13:06.792 --> 00:13:08.082 and you don't have access to them. 00:13:08.082 --> 00:13:10.131 So as, as easily, right? 00:13:10.131 --> 00:13:14.064 You can still promote things in those channels, but there's been 00:13:14.064 --> 00:13:16.554 a lot of really great developer newsletters and blog posts. 00:13:17.039 --> 00:13:20.879 That I follow When I was doing our big like integration project, I 00:13:20.879 --> 00:13:25.409 found an entire blog around like strategies and theories and best 00:13:25.409 --> 00:13:26.999 practices around integrations. 00:13:27.004 --> 00:13:30.779 And like I read every single blog post on that blog 00:13:31.984 --> 00:13:32.404 CJ: Wow. 00:13:32.669 --> 00:13:35.639 Colin: I might as well draw a link to them in here as well. 00:13:36.188 --> 00:13:39.428 But it's a good example of like, extremely niche is probably doing really 00:13:39.428 --> 00:13:42.008 well SEO-wise for their agency, right? 00:13:42.008 --> 00:13:45.248 They're, they're an agency that does custom software 00:13:45.248 --> 00:13:46.818 development and, and integration. 00:13:47.609 --> 00:13:50.909 And so thinking about how that might work for you in terms 00:13:50.909 --> 00:13:55.319 of, if you're a freelancer, it might be a great way to go work. 00:13:55.349 --> 00:13:57.789 If you're an agency, it also might be great to get work. 00:13:58.259 --> 00:14:01.499 But again, if you're trying to get a job as a software developer seeing how 00:14:01.499 --> 00:14:03.459 you think about things is super helpful. 00:14:03.839 --> 00:14:08.369 But again, it might also just mean like, Hey, I wanted to learn this thing. 00:14:08.374 --> 00:14:12.249 I wrote some blog posts about it, because for me, learning something, 00:14:12.429 --> 00:14:14.879 a great way to do that is to teach it to somebody else as well. 00:14:15.904 --> 00:14:20.164 CJ: I think also blog posts give you a way to build like a series of content. 00:14:20.164 --> 00:14:24.604 So you could make several articles in a row that are all like sequentially 00:14:24.604 --> 00:14:28.654 building up on top of each other, and it almost feels like a way to write. 00:14:29.144 --> 00:14:34.694 Maybe chapters of a book or like essays of a book, but in chunks so 00:14:34.694 --> 00:14:39.194 you don't have to figure the entire long form book out in one shot. 00:14:39.194 --> 00:14:42.964 You can write about a very small, like niche topic. 00:14:43.544 --> 00:14:47.384 And then eventually you might be able to organize all of those 00:14:47.474 --> 00:14:48.644 into something like a book. 00:14:48.644 --> 00:14:50.654 But initially it doesn't have to be. 00:14:50.744 --> 00:14:51.944 Yeah, it doesn't have to be a book. 00:14:52.618 --> 00:14:54.688 There's a couple other newsletters too that came to mind. 00:14:54.688 --> 00:14:57.388 When I think about newsletters too, I think about two different kinds. 00:14:57.388 --> 00:15:02.488 There is like the kind of newsletter where someone is gonna send you their own take 00:15:02.488 --> 00:15:07.018 on something, and that is almost like a blog post, sort of top to bottom long form 00:15:07.018 --> 00:15:08.518 content that they've written themselves. 00:15:08.518 --> 00:15:12.448 And then there's another form that is like curated content throughout the week or 00:15:12.448 --> 00:15:16.288 throughout the month that gives you like a digest of things you may have missed. 00:15:16.758 --> 00:15:19.308 And so I really enjoyed Ruby Radar. 00:15:19.638 --> 00:15:25.049 That is a weekly newsletter curated by Andrew Mason and Colin, Jill Bear. 00:15:25.439 --> 00:15:30.629 And they will go through and find videos or tweets or blog posts, and 00:15:30.629 --> 00:15:33.179 those are the ones that are gonna be the ones that bubbled to the top. 00:15:33.179 --> 00:15:36.779 And so you don't have to be catching every single blog post or tweet as 00:15:36.779 --> 00:15:37.829 it comes out throughout the week. 00:15:37.834 --> 00:15:39.729 Instead, you can subscribe to these newsletters. 00:15:39.935 --> 00:15:44.010 There's also like Ruby Weekly and this brand new one from Lucian 00:15:44.010 --> 00:15:45.820 called Short Ruby Newsletters. 00:15:46.177 --> 00:15:46.677 That will. 00:15:47.287 --> 00:15:48.787 Links to down in the show notes. 00:15:48.787 --> 00:15:53.137 But yeah, I think like the curated newsletter has been really 00:15:53.137 --> 00:15:56.317 handy for me, like just being able to keep a pulse on stuff. 00:15:56.838 --> 00:16:00.198 But it's also an approach that you could take to build, again, 00:16:00.198 --> 00:16:01.578 probably to build an audience, right? 00:16:01.608 --> 00:16:05.688 Even if you're not necessarily creating original content, you're 00:16:05.968 --> 00:16:07.608 just being a curator of that content. 00:16:07.758 --> 00:16:09.438 So that's kinda like another approach. 00:16:10.333 --> 00:16:14.533 Colin: I subscribe to a few different language ones just because I can't keep 00:16:14.533 --> 00:16:18.613 my brain in the node community, in the ruby community, in the rust community. 00:16:18.613 --> 00:16:23.703 So it's, it's good to have that and appreciate people like Andrew and Colin 00:16:23.763 --> 00:16:27.453 curating that so that we all don't have to do it on a daily basis too. 00:16:27.613 --> 00:16:30.638 We might as well use this time to amplify other creators. 00:16:30.638 --> 00:16:34.917 But Cassie I'm blanking on where she's moved to, cause I don't know 00:16:34.917 --> 00:16:39.337 if she's at Netlify anymore, but, her newsletter is great cuz it's 00:16:39.342 --> 00:16:41.017 got like a little challenge in it. 00:16:41.257 --> 00:16:43.957 It's got a bunch of the Roundup stuff in it and then it's just like 00:16:43.962 --> 00:16:45.247 something she learned this week. 00:16:45.277 --> 00:16:48.560 And so it's always something I look forward to when I get it. 00:16:48.620 --> 00:16:52.820 I think a lot of these I can kind of become blinds to the, like this week. 00:16:53.110 --> 00:16:56.090 What happened in Ruby, unless I'm like really paying 00:16:56.090 --> 00:16:57.581 attention to it, but it's yeah. 00:16:57.641 --> 00:17:00.431 casue.co/newsletter. 00:17:00.431 --> 00:17:01.851 We'll put that one in there as well. 00:17:02.241 --> 00:17:05.511 We'll just, I think our show notes for this week are gonna just be like us 00:17:05.511 --> 00:17:09.921 shouting out so many awesome rubus and, and programmers who are creating content, 00:17:09.921 --> 00:17:12.450 but yeah, that's a blog post newsletter. 00:17:14.610 --> 00:17:16.380 CJ: Let's talk about podcasting for developers. 00:17:16.380 --> 00:17:20.170 I mean, being a software engineer in software development in general. 00:17:20.935 --> 00:17:25.795 Is so text oriented that it's kind of surprising that there are so many podcasts 00:17:25.795 --> 00:17:30.625 about tech because you can't, It's really challenging to explain anything 00:17:30.630 --> 00:17:33.295 about programming over audio , but 00:17:33.395 --> 00:17:33.885 Colin: Yeah. 00:17:34.735 --> 00:17:38.125 CJ: it turns out there's like a lot of concepts that are around 00:17:38.125 --> 00:17:41.455 programming that don't actually require you to explain the code. 00:17:42.255 --> 00:17:44.895 Colin: Yeah, I think this is an area that we would love feedback on too. 00:17:44.895 --> 00:17:48.375 We've gotten a little bit of it with our show just as we're trying to figure 00:17:48.380 --> 00:17:50.090 out how we be more conversational? 00:17:50.090 --> 00:17:50.990 Do we wanna teach? 00:17:51.230 --> 00:17:55.520 We had a notion when we first started this, of like, what do we call it? 00:17:55.550 --> 00:17:56.990 What do we want to talk about? 00:17:56.995 --> 00:18:00.200 Like, how do we just, how do we not just do what's already being 00:18:00.200 --> 00:18:02.060 done out there with our show? 00:18:02.060 --> 00:18:04.820 Because there's already gonna be a show out there, so why, 00:18:04.880 --> 00:18:06.290 Why put the effort into it? 00:18:06.290 --> 00:18:10.500 Because like you said, I think everyone starts this with an intention. 00:18:10.500 --> 00:18:14.700 I, I've tried doing blogs before and I'll write one blog post and then I 00:18:14.700 --> 00:18:16.380 don't come back to it until a year. 00:18:16.920 --> 00:18:20.730 And with this show, we've really tried to create a schedule for ourselves. 00:18:20.730 --> 00:18:25.500 So we release our show every other week, but we re try to record every week. 00:18:25.530 --> 00:18:31.380 And so that gives us a catalog of back episodes that we can pull from when I'm 00:18:31.380 --> 00:18:35.550 on vacation, when you're having a meeting, whatever that might happen in the week. 00:18:36.360 --> 00:18:40.640 So that we don't fall off the wagon here on, on podcasting, but this 00:18:40.640 --> 00:18:44.030 is definitely gonna require more work than the other two options. 00:18:44.030 --> 00:18:44.310 Right. 00:18:44.802 --> 00:18:48.732 What does, what does our process look like to get the show out right now? 00:18:49.767 --> 00:18:53.067 CJ: We have a scheduled weekly call. 00:18:53.577 --> 00:18:58.107 We have a giant notion doc with tons of ideas that we might want to talk about. 00:18:58.107 --> 00:18:58.827 We've got. 00:19:00.072 --> 00:19:04.332 And a template that we use for some show notes that we're kind 00:19:04.332 --> 00:19:05.892 of using to keep us on track. 00:19:06.612 --> 00:19:08.712 And we sit down, we record. 00:19:08.717 --> 00:19:12.522 After we record, there's like an editing process and we've like talked 00:19:12.522 --> 00:19:15.942 to other external editors about maybe paying someone to edit or 00:19:15.942 --> 00:19:17.292 should we edit ourselves and then. 00:19:17.662 --> 00:19:20.272 You know, for the first couple episodes we experimented with different 00:19:20.272 --> 00:19:24.232 recording software and different editing software, and then ultimately 00:19:24.232 --> 00:19:25.762 you gotta like host it somewhere. 00:19:25.822 --> 00:19:28.672 So yeah, there, there it's a little bit more involved for sure. 00:19:28.722 --> 00:19:30.852 If you write a single blog post and it's. 00:19:31.392 --> 00:19:34.422 Useful for you and you go back and you can read that. 00:19:34.482 --> 00:19:34.872 Cool. 00:19:35.262 --> 00:19:38.532 If it's useful for a few other people, great for podcasting. 00:19:38.652 --> 00:19:42.402 Like I think it's, it's much more challenging because you have 00:19:42.402 --> 00:19:45.672 to be consistent and you have to constantly put out content. 00:19:46.002 --> 00:19:48.042 Otherwise, like it just becomes stale, you know? 00:19:48.042 --> 00:19:52.332 And I think people are much less likely to pick up and listen to some 00:19:52.332 --> 00:19:55.482 podcast that they see hasn't put out an episode in six months or something. 00:19:56.862 --> 00:19:57.712 Colin: Definitely. 00:19:58.002 --> 00:19:58.242 Yeah. 00:19:58.242 --> 00:20:00.552 I mean, like the blog post is gonna show up in Google. 00:20:00.552 --> 00:20:04.632 Most podcasts don't, so that's something to consider, even if you have amazing 00:20:04.632 --> 00:20:06.342 show notes and transcripts like. 00:20:07.212 --> 00:20:11.502 It's a format that personally, if I, unless I see an episode title 00:20:11.502 --> 00:20:15.582 that's really compelling, podcast discovery is not great either. 00:20:15.582 --> 00:20:19.752 Like I can't easily search for like all podcasts about integrations 00:20:19.752 --> 00:20:23.601 because that word means a lot of different things on the internet. 00:20:23.606 --> 00:20:28.431 And you know, I've kind of found them in like the syntax.fm podcast or. 00:20:30.561 --> 00:20:32.181 Change log, things like that. 00:20:32.211 --> 00:20:34.251 So we'll link some, some good podcasts. 00:20:34.461 --> 00:20:39.331 There's actually, I think Planet Argon just released a, a top 10 software. 00:20:39.331 --> 00:20:42.751 I don't know if it was software or rail specific podcasts that were 00:20:42.781 --> 00:20:46.541 like identified by the Ruby on Rails community as just like their favorites. 00:20:46.541 --> 00:20:50.291 If the show's not consistently coming out or if every episode is vastly 00:20:50.291 --> 00:20:53.381 different, which is another thing that we are trying to consider too. 00:20:53.386 --> 00:20:56.271 Like this episode is a little bit of a departure from you 00:20:56.276 --> 00:20:59.031 know, we're not teaching you or talking about codes specifically. 00:20:59.031 --> 00:21:02.451 We're talking about these meta topics around like your profession and how 00:21:02.451 --> 00:21:03.921 you publish and think about things. 00:21:03.921 --> 00:21:07.391 But you know, I look for like, when does the episodes come 00:21:07.391 --> 00:21:09.641 out and have they had one? 00:21:11.071 --> 00:21:14.041 CJ: When you're thinking about, again, the goals for the content 00:21:14.041 --> 00:21:15.241 that you're creating, like. 00:21:16.361 --> 00:21:20.351 Is your goal with a podcast to grow an audience that you can ultimately sell to? 00:21:20.351 --> 00:21:24.851 Or do you want to, you know, sell ads for the podcast and try to 00:21:24.856 --> 00:21:26.771 like, you know, get sponsors? 00:21:26.821 --> 00:21:31.582 Is it to basically like generate leads for your other courses or content. 00:21:32.062 --> 00:21:36.952 And so I think for us, or at least for me, doing this podcast is just 00:21:36.952 --> 00:21:40.132 about like having fun and kinda like hanging out and chatting about whatever. 00:21:40.132 --> 00:21:44.353 And so we're definitely trying to figure out like the best way to go 00:21:44.353 --> 00:21:45.823 about it in the most entertaining way. 00:21:45.828 --> 00:21:47.743 And so if you have feedback, we would love to hear that. 00:21:47.833 --> 00:21:49.153 So hit us up on Twitter. 00:21:52.258 --> 00:21:55.588 But yeah, again, like in terms of types of content, podcasting 00:21:55.588 --> 00:21:58.618 is gonna be more investment than a blog post or a newsletter. 00:22:00.418 --> 00:22:04.498 Also, more more than a podcast, Well, podcast is just audio. 00:22:04.498 --> 00:22:11.338 So if we step up to include video , then I think the next, the next step up 00:22:11.368 --> 00:22:15.808 is, I don't know, what do you think streaming, like live streaming or 00:22:15.838 --> 00:22:18.178 prerecorded content is more challeng. 00:22:19.510 --> 00:22:21.035 Colin: I wasn't sure which one to put first. 00:22:21.035 --> 00:22:23.986 I think live streaming, there's a little bit of a learning curve. 00:22:24.695 --> 00:22:26.795 , but you don't have to edit afterwards. 00:22:27.125 --> 00:22:30.545 So I take that to be easier to put out into the world. 00:22:30.545 --> 00:22:35.825 Like you don't have to have overlays and all this crazy stuff to get going. 00:22:36.215 --> 00:22:38.165 Obviously you can grow into that. 00:22:38.165 --> 00:22:40.205 So I would say live stream's a little bit easier because. 00:22:40.775 --> 00:22:41.495 YouTube. 00:22:41.555 --> 00:22:43.145 I mean, I guess you don't have to edit. 00:22:43.175 --> 00:22:45.875 You could also just record and throw it over the fence too. 00:22:45.875 --> 00:22:50.385 But the better content is going to be edited just like a podcast might be. 00:22:50.385 --> 00:22:52.485 I'm curious when we get to YouTube to talk about. 00:22:52.855 --> 00:22:55.885 What you find with like episode length and things like that. 00:22:55.890 --> 00:22:59.135 Cuz in podcasting we try to aim for like 35 to 40 minutes. 00:22:59.584 --> 00:23:03.544 There are some shows that I listen to that are like three hours long and that works 00:23:03.544 --> 00:23:05.134 for me, but it doesn't work for everybody. 00:23:05.134 --> 00:23:05.434 Right? 00:23:05.884 --> 00:23:08.914 And then you have on the other end of the spectrum ticks, you know, 00:23:08.914 --> 00:23:13.144 or Instagrams or YouTube shorts that are super incredibly short. 00:23:13.144 --> 00:23:16.354 And so with live streaming you get video. 00:23:16.699 --> 00:23:20.119 You might have screen sharing, you might have other guests. 00:23:20.209 --> 00:23:21.709 So I think it's pretty compelling. 00:23:21.709 --> 00:23:25.549 And as we've like kind of graduated from written word to podcasting and 00:23:25.549 --> 00:23:29.569 live streaming, I think the benefit is that you really get to feel like 00:23:29.569 --> 00:23:32.899 you know the people that you've been listening to for a really long time. 00:23:32.959 --> 00:23:34.379 You know, it's a one directional. 00:23:34.987 --> 00:23:39.187 Mode of communication unless you send us your feedback, or engage with us 00:23:39.187 --> 00:23:42.567 on Twitter and all those other places, you start to like get to know people. 00:23:42.567 --> 00:23:44.937 Like there are people who I've made at a conference and I'm like, I feel 00:23:44.937 --> 00:23:48.057 like I already know them because I've been listening to their show or 00:23:48.062 --> 00:23:49.797 their livestream for so many years. 00:23:49.797 --> 00:23:53.397 And it's a weird kind of thing because it's like I have to remember like, they 00:23:53.397 --> 00:23:55.587 don't know who I am, so don't be weird 00:23:57.422 --> 00:24:01.622 CJ: So live streaming, definitely no editing at the end. 00:24:01.622 --> 00:24:05.072 I think some people are more intimidated by live streaming because 00:24:05.072 --> 00:24:09.242 if they make a mistake, They don't want people to see their mistakes. 00:24:09.302 --> 00:24:09.692 Right. 00:24:10.112 --> 00:24:14.312 And if they haven't practiced something a bunch of times before, they go 00:24:14.312 --> 00:24:16.862 and stream and they're sharing their screen and they're trying to implement 00:24:16.862 --> 00:24:21.032 something, and then they fumble, they're intimidated by people judging them about 00:24:21.032 --> 00:24:22.482 not being able to figure out the problem. 00:24:22.532 --> 00:24:26.462 I think that's actually one of the huge benefits of live streaming is 00:24:26.462 --> 00:24:31.502 being able to share your thought process about how you solve problems. 00:24:31.532 --> 00:24:35.162 And so when you encounter errors, you can actually like go through 00:24:35.167 --> 00:24:36.932 the, your like step by step. 00:24:37.502 --> 00:24:42.612 Process to track down where the error is and how to fix it versus when you're in a 00:24:42.612 --> 00:24:47.082 medium that's pre-recorded, like YouTube, you might do like 10 takes or something 00:24:47.487 --> 00:24:51.552 and like have zero errors and you, there's a lot of folks on YouTube that 00:24:51.557 --> 00:24:55.182 will go through and edit out everything so that it comes out flawlessly, 00:24:55.187 --> 00:25:01.191 which I think presents an unrealistic view of what software development is. 00:25:01.191 --> 00:25:01.401 Right. 00:25:01.401 --> 00:25:02.151 Like you're not gonna 00:25:02.161 --> 00:25:03.681 Colin: It makes you look like a genius. 00:25:03.891 --> 00:25:04.431 CJ: exactly. 00:25:04.611 --> 00:25:05.161 Exactly. 00:25:05.161 --> 00:25:09.021 I have done a little bit of live streaming, probably like, I don't know, 00:25:09.021 --> 00:25:14.811 25, 30 live streams and I, I think they're, yeah, they're great because 00:25:15.591 --> 00:25:22.611 you don't have to edit, but they also are, Much longer because you're 00:25:22.611 --> 00:25:24.381 usually figuring things out as you go. 00:25:24.711 --> 00:25:27.351 And they do have the added benefit of you're gonna run into errors 00:25:27.351 --> 00:25:31.521 and people will see that when it comes to YouTube and prerecord. 00:25:31.551 --> 00:25:39.651 I prefer that like format better because there are, Okay, my 00:25:39.711 --> 00:25:41.871 like my preference is to record. 00:25:43.146 --> 00:25:47.496 And then include or like keep the errors in the end result. 00:25:47.826 --> 00:25:51.966 But if, if it takes me like 10 minutes to figure out what's going on, then I 00:25:51.966 --> 00:25:54.846 will like speed it up so that someone doesn't have to sit there and watch 00:25:54.846 --> 00:25:58.486 me like Google around for 10 minutes to figure out what, what went wrong. 00:25:59.245 --> 00:25:59.515 Yeah. 00:25:59.520 --> 00:26:00.985 It also allows you to kind of like. 00:26:01.555 --> 00:26:05.245 Gather your thoughts, say something, maybe say something a couple different ways or 00:26:05.245 --> 00:26:09.025 a couple different times, and then take the best version of that so that you 00:26:09.085 --> 00:26:10.945 come out with a much more polished video. 00:26:11.425 --> 00:26:15.647 I think a great example of this is the fire ship io, like 00:26:15.917 --> 00:26:17.717 learn X in a hundred seconds. 00:26:18.077 --> 00:26:22.757 Those videos are so tight and so polished and they're like so high 00:26:22.757 --> 00:26:27.347 quality, but they're also, I'm sure insanely high effort to produce. 00:26:27.717 --> 00:26:32.257 I think that if you're just starting out video content, I would say try both. 00:26:32.347 --> 00:26:35.677 Like try live streaming and try pre-recording. 00:26:36.037 --> 00:26:39.877 And you don't necessarily have to go to Twitch for live streaming. 00:26:39.877 --> 00:26:42.937 If you wanna just start with YouTube, you can stream to YouTube and you 00:26:42.937 --> 00:26:44.737 can do a pre-records on YouTube. 00:26:44.737 --> 00:26:49.948 So that's yeah, I dunno, that's kind of like where I would start. 00:26:49.948 --> 00:26:53.218 Colin: With live streaming, I found, I mean, there was a while that I was 00:26:53.218 --> 00:26:58.573 just going on Twitch and looking for, Like people that I would like to watch 00:26:58.963 --> 00:27:02.413 and like you mentioned, like some of them can be a little bit like they're 00:27:02.413 --> 00:27:06.733 putting on like a live show and whatever they're doing, there's, they've got 00:27:06.733 --> 00:27:11.593 crazy triggers and emos and, and hype trains and all that stuff going on 00:27:11.593 --> 00:27:12.823 because they have such an audience. 00:27:12.823 --> 00:27:16.063 But two of the ones that I found that were really interesting, especially 00:27:16.063 --> 00:27:18.463 during Covid and now as I think they're. 00:27:19.593 --> 00:27:24.243 Like a permanent fixture was Mastermind io and Coding Garden. 00:27:24.243 --> 00:27:28.863 These are two channels where they literally run like true boot camps 00:27:29.043 --> 00:27:31.413 fully, like for free, live streamed. 00:27:31.413 --> 00:27:36.022 And there's like GitHubs and co like Google Docs and all sorts of 00:27:36.022 --> 00:27:38.212 documentation for you to fall along. 00:27:38.212 --> 00:27:40.192 And I think like you can't just jump in anywhere. 00:27:40.192 --> 00:27:43.083 I think you're supposed to like start with the cohort and fall 00:27:43.088 --> 00:27:44.433 along, but they're like scheduled. 00:27:44.763 --> 00:27:45.243 Obviously. 00:27:45.248 --> 00:27:48.303 That means that the persons streaming has to be online at a certain time. 00:27:49.178 --> 00:27:49.508 Right. 00:27:49.508 --> 00:27:53.078 And versus YouTube, you don't have to be like, Oh, I gotta go live stream. 00:27:53.078 --> 00:27:55.688 But something's happening in my life that doesn't let me do that. 00:27:55.688 --> 00:27:59.288 Like with podcasting, we can move this around with YouTube, we can move 00:27:59.288 --> 00:28:00.848 around the editing and the shooting. 00:28:01.118 --> 00:28:02.888 With live stream, you are live, right? 00:28:02.888 --> 00:28:05.078 That's a big thing that we have to think about. 00:28:05.083 --> 00:28:07.148 But you also get live feedback. 00:28:07.148 --> 00:28:09.788 So when they're doing the bootcamp, people are asking them 00:28:09.788 --> 00:28:13.418 questions and other students or the instructor can answer live. 00:28:13.823 --> 00:28:18.413 Even some podcasts I listen to now live stream, the recording of it, and then 00:28:18.413 --> 00:28:19.793 they're taking live questions, right? 00:28:19.793 --> 00:28:23.033 Like having people ask us questions right now probably would throw 00:28:23.033 --> 00:28:26.813 us off a little bit, but it could make a more interesting show too. 00:28:26.818 --> 00:28:30.173 So it, it starts to create more of a conversation as we get into these 00:28:30.173 --> 00:28:32.313 more challenging to create content. 00:28:32.668 --> 00:28:36.273 Is that you start to get this like back and forth, that podcasting doesn't have. 00:28:37.001 --> 00:28:41.441 We are listed in a podcasting player that has comments, but I went through 00:28:41.441 --> 00:28:45.191 and I was hard pressed to find any comments left by anyone else on 00:28:45.196 --> 00:28:46.961 any other podcast that I listen to. 00:28:46.961 --> 00:28:50.781 So that feels like a build it and they will come situation where it's 00:28:50.786 --> 00:28:55.446 like, Maybe if Apple did that in Apple Podcasts or if Overcast did 00:28:55.446 --> 00:28:57.096 it, maybe enough people would do it. 00:28:57.096 --> 00:29:00.906 But trying to get everyone to move over to a different podcast player just 00:29:00.906 --> 00:29:02.826 to leave comments is, is a challenge. 00:29:02.826 --> 00:29:06.915 Whereas YouTube has comments, Twitch has comments and like you mentioned, 00:29:06.915 --> 00:29:10.575 you can live stream on YouTube just as easily as, as on Twitch too, depending 00:29:10.575 --> 00:29:12.225 on what audience you're trying to reach. 00:29:12.705 --> 00:29:13.280 CJ: Yeah, totally. 00:29:13.490 --> 00:29:16.990 When you were learning how to code, did you use video at all? 00:29:17.500 --> 00:29:20.540 And like, do you use video now to learn how to do certain things? 00:29:21.060 --> 00:29:21.860 Colin: I do still. 00:29:21.860 --> 00:29:26.750 Yeah, so I would say when I was learning, that's actually a good question, but 00:29:26.750 --> 00:29:31.850 definitely like day to day I will still go look for a video like I. 00:29:32.870 --> 00:29:35.480 Really love, like there's also other ways you can make content 00:29:35.480 --> 00:29:40.430 as video for things like similar to like Go Rails and Egghead. 00:29:40.910 --> 00:29:44.580 I think you can become a contract like content creator on Egghead. 00:29:45.251 --> 00:29:47.801 And then I used to use Plural Site a lot too. 00:29:48.976 --> 00:29:51.886 And so just being able to find, like, I think for Pluralsight, there was 00:29:51.886 --> 00:29:55.186 one thing when I was doing a node a few years ago, it was like, I need 00:29:55.186 --> 00:29:59.356 to do Jot token authentication with Node, and it's like, okay, there's 00:29:59.356 --> 00:30:01.216 a video specifically for that. 00:30:01.756 --> 00:30:03.676 I've wasted two hours doing this. 00:30:03.681 --> 00:30:08.196 I'm gonna just pay for Pluralsight and use this video that some creator is getting 00:30:08.196 --> 00:30:11.616 paid from Pluralsight for making, which is another way to think of it, right? 00:30:12.006 --> 00:30:15.276 These don't have to be all private or public videos. 00:30:15.276 --> 00:30:17.176 They could be, pay walled. 00:30:17.861 --> 00:30:22.511 As a part of something like Pluralsight or, Chris has done a really great job 00:30:22.511 --> 00:30:27.131 with Go Rails and you see some, I think like Ruby Katas and some of those other 00:30:27.491 --> 00:30:29.501 things that have existed in the past. 00:30:29.731 --> 00:30:34.461 CJ: For me, I think it was in college, I had this realization 00:30:34.461 --> 00:30:40.211 that that I could learn things way better from video than from reading. 00:30:40.621 --> 00:30:43.481 And so everyone has different learning styles or whatever. 00:30:43.691 --> 00:30:47.861 For me, I was really struggling in this linear algebra class and I found some 00:30:47.861 --> 00:30:53.091 MIT open courseware video series about linear algebra, and I was like, Holy mo. 00:30:53.976 --> 00:30:56.796 This makes way more sense than trying to like learn it from the book. 00:30:56.796 --> 00:30:59.646 And I feel like the teacher probably wasn't giving very 00:30:59.646 --> 00:31:00.486 good lectures or whatever. 00:31:00.486 --> 00:31:02.856 And so that for me was like the beginning. 00:31:02.946 --> 00:31:06.746 And then when I deployed To Afghanistan and I was like 00:31:06.956 --> 00:31:08.246 doing all this networking stuff. 00:31:08.546 --> 00:31:12.176 I found these things called C B T Nuggets, which were like C B T stands 00:31:12.176 --> 00:31:15.386 for like computer based training, like really old school stuff. 00:31:15.416 --> 00:31:20.165 But this guy, Jeremy Chira made these C B T nuggets about all this Cisco 00:31:20.165 --> 00:31:25.475 networking stuff and I would just, Devour it like tons and tons and tons of videos 00:31:25.475 --> 00:31:27.065 and hours and hours and hours of videos. 00:31:27.095 --> 00:31:30.245 And I like absolutely love learning from video. 00:31:30.605 --> 00:31:34.655 And so for me that is like the number one learning style. 00:31:34.685 --> 00:31:38.705 And as a result I feel like super passionate about creating video content. 00:31:38.795 --> 00:31:43.764 And so Yeah, I think having talked to some devs, a lot of them say, Oh, 00:31:43.764 --> 00:31:45.174 I never learned anything from video. 00:31:45.444 --> 00:31:48.174 I can, I can't like pick up these concepts from video. 00:31:48.174 --> 00:31:51.324 Instead, I have to like have written texts like from a book 00:31:51.324 --> 00:31:52.284 or from a blog or whatever. 00:31:52.289 --> 00:31:55.434 But I think if you, if you look at the data, a lot of people are, 00:31:55.524 --> 00:31:59.124 especially people who are early career right now coming into 00:31:59.124 --> 00:32:00.864 tech, they're learning from video. 00:32:00.864 --> 00:32:02.394 And so if you want. 00:32:03.129 --> 00:32:05.589 Help those people come up to speed. 00:32:05.769 --> 00:32:08.289 If you again, want to create content for yourself later to go 00:32:08.289 --> 00:32:11.829 back and refer to it, then creating videos is a great way to do that. 00:32:12.519 --> 00:32:13.989 Just the other day I was making something. 00:32:13.989 --> 00:32:15.699 I was like, Oh shoot, how do I do this? 00:32:15.699 --> 00:32:16.419 I totally forget. 00:32:16.449 --> 00:32:17.799 Oh, I made a video about it. 00:32:17.799 --> 00:32:18.339 Nice. 00:32:18.819 --> 00:32:19.449 , and then went back. 00:32:19.449 --> 00:32:21.189 I was like, Okay, nice. 00:32:21.219 --> 00:32:21.879 Let's like watch 00:32:21.939 --> 00:32:23.409 Colin: That's some time travel right there. 00:32:23.439 --> 00:32:26.289 You just watched your past self, he, your future self. 00:32:26.319 --> 00:32:29.150 And I mean that, I think that would be a big difference too, 00:32:29.150 --> 00:32:30.200 between livestream, right? 00:32:30.390 --> 00:32:34.010 I is that you, you could pause livestream, you can re-watch the recap, 00:32:34.010 --> 00:32:36.140 but like you said, it's unscripted. 00:32:36.140 --> 00:32:40.755 It's not gonna be super tight like, When we did the bootcamp, I mentioned 00:32:40.755 --> 00:32:42.915 this, like we inverted the courses. 00:32:42.915 --> 00:32:47.325 We started out with lectures in person and then sent everyone home to do the 00:32:47.525 --> 00:32:51.585 the project, and everyone had the same questions, so we inverted it and did 00:32:51.585 --> 00:32:56.505 videos as the lectures so they can stop, rewind, go two X if they need to. 00:32:57.185 --> 00:33:00.665 and then we'll just answer questions in class and actually work together 00:33:01.055 --> 00:33:03.335 because then they can watch it as many times as they want. 00:33:03.335 --> 00:33:05.495 And they're not like, Oh, like they don't feel bad asking the 00:33:05.495 --> 00:33:06.665 same question over and over again. 00:33:06.670 --> 00:33:11.105 Because like with your linear algebra example, sometimes the lecturer 00:33:11.105 --> 00:33:13.145 might be explaining it, right? 00:33:13.175 --> 00:33:16.505 But you might need to hear it from a different perspective or you 00:33:16.695 --> 00:33:17.825 know, just a different approach. 00:33:17.825 --> 00:33:22.535 And so I might go find multiple content creators and listen to each of their 00:33:22.535 --> 00:33:23.945 perspectives, cuz someone might. 00:33:24.480 --> 00:33:25.260 Do it the hard way. 00:33:25.260 --> 00:33:27.450 So it might do it the middle way, and then it's like, Oh, there's 00:33:27.450 --> 00:33:28.710 actually an easy way to do this. 00:33:28.950 --> 00:33:31.740 And you kind of get like a full world built around that. 00:33:31.895 --> 00:33:32.405 CJ: Totally. 00:33:32.405 --> 00:33:37.585 And I think that's a great point of encouragement for anyone who's worried 00:33:37.590 --> 00:33:41.765 about creating content that has already been created by someone else. 00:33:42.155 --> 00:33:45.395 Like the video you said about using jaw tokens with node right. 00:33:45.965 --> 00:33:49.865 There's per, you can probably have 20 people make videos about how to 00:33:49.865 --> 00:33:52.775 use jaw tokens with Node, and they're all gonna be a little bit different. 00:33:52.775 --> 00:33:56.795 And so don't be intimidated about creating content that someone else 00:33:56.795 --> 00:33:57.965 has already made a video about. 00:33:57.995 --> 00:33:59.745 Just Make it your own. 00:34:00.345 --> 00:34:01.365 Do your own take on it. 00:34:01.370 --> 00:34:04.605 Obviously, don't copy exactly what they did, but make your own take on 00:34:04.605 --> 00:34:06.495 it and people will find that useful. 00:34:06.495 --> 00:34:09.530 And you'll find an audience that resonates with your style. 00:34:11.750 --> 00:34:15.110 Colin: I would say that, that most of the content that I do find tends to 00:34:15.110 --> 00:34:19.490 be like, build a blog in five minutes or make your first API in rails. 00:34:19.495 --> 00:34:19.700 Right? 00:34:19.705 --> 00:34:21.250 And then there's tends to be. 00:34:21.700 --> 00:34:24.640 A very fast fall off on content after that. 00:34:24.640 --> 00:34:26.860 Like how do I secure the api? 00:34:26.890 --> 00:34:29.650 How do I make it so that I can do oau? 00:34:29.680 --> 00:34:31.900 How do I make the API perform it? 00:34:31.900 --> 00:34:32.110 Right? 00:34:32.110 --> 00:34:36.680 So if you wanna be one of these people making content, like the well is deep. 00:34:37.271 --> 00:34:42.101 And you know, usually you gotta go off from video into back into blog posts 00:34:42.101 --> 00:34:46.631 and text and docs land to just figure out these more complicated concepts. 00:34:46.631 --> 00:34:49.931 And I think you guys at Stripe do a really good job of this, and a part 00:34:49.936 --> 00:34:54.521 of your content and video creation is the immense number of videos 00:34:54.521 --> 00:34:56.631 around very specific things, right? 00:34:56.636 --> 00:35:00.941 Like, this is how you do cust, like special, like checkout, right? 00:35:01.031 --> 00:35:03.371 In this situation or with. 00:35:04.596 --> 00:35:06.636 You know how to use payment intents for this reason. 00:35:06.636 --> 00:35:10.266 And so there's all these very specific things that, sure, I could go read the 00:35:10.266 --> 00:35:14.256 docs and then like try to reason around it myself, but sometimes it's just 00:35:14.256 --> 00:35:18.666 better to see like, Oh, this is possible and now I know I can go and do it. 00:35:18.936 --> 00:35:22.596 Versus, you know, a lot of times I might have a ticket assigned to me and 00:35:22.596 --> 00:35:26.196 I have to go check the docs to see if it's even possible before we build it. 00:35:26.586 --> 00:35:28.776 But if I can go watch a video and see like, well, CJ just 00:35:28.776 --> 00:35:30.606 did it, so yes, this is how. 00:35:30.771 --> 00:35:32.841 Long we think it's gonna take us to build. 00:35:33.261 --> 00:35:36.561 Obviously a lot of these videos are short, you know, a bridge version. 00:35:36.561 --> 00:35:38.751 So it's not gonna be like, Oh, the video's five minutes, it's 00:35:38.751 --> 00:35:40.041 only gonna take us five minutes. 00:35:40.041 --> 00:35:43.371 But you know, famous less words, but yeah, I think you guys 00:35:43.371 --> 00:35:44.451 do a really good job of that. 00:35:44.451 --> 00:35:48.231 And is video your primary content that you create these days? 00:35:48.851 --> 00:35:52.641 CJ: we're trying to experiment with more stuff recently. 00:35:53.201 --> 00:35:56.741 We're writing some more articles, so we've published like series 00:35:56.741 --> 00:35:58.701 on Dev dot two slash Stripe. 00:35:59.430 --> 00:36:00.120 I've also written. 00:36:00.945 --> 00:36:04.275 Over the years, I've written like a handful of blog posts that I put on my 00:36:04.275 --> 00:36:09.916 website, but I'm also super interested right now INTS and YouTube shorts. 00:36:10.216 --> 00:36:12.346 So maybe we can like transition into that. 00:36:12.406 --> 00:36:12.766 Yeah. 00:36:12.796 --> 00:36:19.546 So the challenge with YouTube shorts and TikTok is the video now has to be. 00:36:20.251 --> 00:36:20.941 Vertical. 00:36:21.691 --> 00:36:27.101 And that is not how most people look at their monitor when they're writing code. 00:36:27.800 --> 00:36:31.580 But there is definitely a trend, especially if you go on TikTok and 00:36:31.580 --> 00:36:33.720 you look for the hashtag dev talk. 00:36:34.481 --> 00:36:39.301 Or if you, yeah, go on YouTube and search for developer content inside 00:36:39.301 --> 00:36:43.081 of the shorts, you'll find there's a lot of people making content 00:36:43.081 --> 00:36:45.841 for devs in this vertical format. 00:36:46.486 --> 00:36:50.176 YouTube shorts, there is like a really hard requirement that it 00:36:50.176 --> 00:36:54.016 is one minute or less for TikTok. 00:36:54.766 --> 00:36:59.806 You can go up to 10 minutes, which most of my YouTube videos are under 10 00:36:59.806 --> 00:37:04.006 minutes anyways, and so I, yeah, I've been experimenting a lot with like, how 00:37:04.006 --> 00:37:08.836 can I take this video that I already made for YouTube and edit it into a vertical 00:37:08.841 --> 00:37:10.486 format and make it useful for TikTok? 00:37:11.926 --> 00:37:14.896 and it definitely needs to be much tighter on TikTok. 00:37:14.896 --> 00:37:17.206 Like people's attention span is shorter. 00:37:17.476 --> 00:37:20.456 They're already in that, quickly scrolling through stuff and getting 00:37:20.456 --> 00:37:24.296 all those dopamine hits, and so you've gotta like, provide value in 00:37:24.296 --> 00:37:25.976 the first three words or something, 00:37:26.486 --> 00:37:27.536 And if not, like people are gonna 00:37:27.596 --> 00:37:29.336 Colin: and you need so many jump cuts. 00:37:29.336 --> 00:37:32.126 Jump cuts and, and music. 00:37:32.181 --> 00:37:35.421 CJ: I've probably only posted like 30 TikTok tos, but it's, 00:37:35.451 --> 00:37:39.141 it's definitely something that I'm experimenting with because I, I do 00:37:39.141 --> 00:37:43.370 think that especially people who are just kind of curious about tech. 00:37:43.925 --> 00:37:46.745 Are who are on TikTok already and they're, maybe they're learning about 00:37:46.745 --> 00:37:50.915 how to cut an onion and they're learning about how to , you know, I don't know 00:37:51.275 --> 00:37:52.835 how to train their dog or something. 00:37:53.225 --> 00:37:55.055 Then they might also land on this stuff. 00:37:55.055 --> 00:37:59.285 And so providing really beginner ruby content, like what is, 00:37:59.285 --> 00:38:00.485 how do you do a hello world? 00:38:00.515 --> 00:38:02.075 How do you loop over things? 00:38:02.075 --> 00:38:06.490 How do you, you know, Work with array, that kind of content 00:38:06.811 --> 00:38:08.581 seems to do better on TikTok. 00:38:09.091 --> 00:38:13.741 And then, you know, people, I, my hope is to push people from TikTok over to 00:38:13.741 --> 00:38:15.451 YouTube for the longer form content. 00:38:15.601 --> 00:38:20.990 But yeah, if you are, you know, TikTok, native and you don't want to go with the 00:38:20.990 --> 00:38:25.340 YouTube, then I think a lot of people are having a lot of success just popping open 00:38:25.340 --> 00:38:28.610 their phone and talking to their phone and giving their tips and tricks directly 00:38:29.090 --> 00:38:30.650 into their phone and then posting that. 00:38:30.655 --> 00:38:31.070 So, 00:38:32.105 --> 00:38:32.555 Colin: Nice. 00:38:32.825 --> 00:38:36.275 So you are seeing people talking about, and maybe even trying to 00:38:36.275 --> 00:38:38.735 teach like snippets, tips and tricks. 00:38:38.735 --> 00:38:43.065 Kind of like Twitter on TikTok cuz I've only seen both on TikTok and 00:38:43.065 --> 00:38:48.485 Instagram and I, I'm not TikTok native, so I'm like, I see Usuallys through 00:38:48.485 --> 00:38:50.555 Instagram or they get sent to me. 00:38:50.555 --> 00:38:55.655 But like day in the life of a programmer type like lifestyle things. 00:38:57.475 --> 00:38:59.815 make it like the edited YouTube videos. 00:38:59.815 --> 00:39:02.035 They're like, Oh, look at how perfect my life is. 00:39:02.035 --> 00:39:05.935 And it's like, this is not how a day in the life of a programmer goes every day. 00:39:05.965 --> 00:39:06.175 Right? 00:39:06.175 --> 00:39:08.515 It's like, sure, you get to, if you're lucky enough to be 00:39:08.515 --> 00:39:09.805 a remote worker or whatever. 00:39:10.165 --> 00:39:14.065 It's like usually more of like a lifestyle vlogger type content. 00:39:14.065 --> 00:39:17.275 So are you are seeing more tips and tricks in addition to that type of 00:39:17.400 --> 00:39:20.425 CJ: Yeah, so there's definitely that style content where it's tips and 00:39:20.425 --> 00:39:22.405 tricks about, you know, the soft skills. 00:39:22.735 --> 00:39:26.215 There's also a lot of content that is around, like, how can 00:39:26.215 --> 00:39:28.315 you be really great at Excel? 00:39:28.315 --> 00:39:32.710 Or like, you know, once you do this, This trick inside of air table, your boss 00:39:32.710 --> 00:39:35.320 is gonna love you forever or whatever, and then they like show you that trick. 00:39:35.590 --> 00:39:39.460 Or one person will just like go through and solve leak code problems on TikTok and 00:39:39.460 --> 00:39:41.410 like, that's kind of interesting to watch. 00:39:41.770 --> 00:39:44.860 So I don't know, there, there's a bunch of different ways you could go with it, 00:39:44.860 --> 00:39:48.720 but yeah, I think the easiest and the lowest barrier to entry is just to pop 00:39:48.720 --> 00:39:50.280 open your phone and give tips and tricks. 00:39:50.280 --> 00:39:54.870 But if you wanna do screen recording and kind of edit it up and post it, then 00:39:54.870 --> 00:39:57.180 that's also I think, pretty successful. 00:39:58.270 --> 00:39:58.750 Colin: awesome. 00:39:59.030 --> 00:40:01.820 I think if you are thinking about doing content creation, 00:40:01.820 --> 00:40:03.630 I hope that this was helpful. 00:40:04.141 --> 00:40:05.401 I would definitely encourage it. 00:40:05.911 --> 00:40:10.981 Again, we're podcasting about tech themes and there are many people who have done 00:40:10.981 --> 00:40:13.721 it before us, so don't let that stop you. 00:40:13.771 --> 00:40:17.161 Coming up with an, a unique angle is, is probably a good idea. 00:40:17.161 --> 00:40:20.120 But don't let that stop you from starting. 00:40:20.541 --> 00:40:22.431 And then I would say probably. 00:40:22.851 --> 00:40:25.201 Things that we've learned is like, put it in the calendar. 00:40:25.961 --> 00:40:28.331 I think you, you have a little bit of a schedule. 00:40:28.331 --> 00:40:31.211 Can you share that real quick before we wrap up in terms of 00:40:31.211 --> 00:40:34.481 like how you think about your week and, and how you create content? 00:40:34.996 --> 00:40:38.836 CJ: Yeah, so I generally try to pack all of my meetings for work 00:40:38.836 --> 00:40:42.856 into Mondays and Tuesdays, and then I spend all of Wednesday recording 00:40:42.861 --> 00:40:47.566 video, most of Thursday recording videos, some of it writing, and then 00:40:47.571 --> 00:40:49.876 Fridays we're recording podcasts. 00:40:49.956 --> 00:40:52.006 I'm like doing Twitter spaces. 00:40:52.036 --> 00:40:55.615 We didn't even talk about Twitter spaces, but you know, polishing up, editing, 00:40:55.735 --> 00:40:56.965 getting, getting all that out the. 00:40:57.490 --> 00:40:57.910 Colin: Awesome. 00:40:57.920 --> 00:40:59.750 Live, live stream podcasts, right? 00:40:59.750 --> 00:41:02.350 Or with, with audience participation. 00:41:02.900 --> 00:41:04.401 But yeah, definitely get out there. 00:41:04.401 --> 00:41:08.811 We'd love if you are doing a show, if you have a YouTube or a live stream or 00:41:08.816 --> 00:41:10.951 a podcast, definitely send it our way. 00:41:11.365 --> 00:41:14.600 We're gonna be putting a bunch of links to some of our favorite podcasts, 00:41:14.600 --> 00:41:17.849 Live streams, YouTubes TikTok, Instagramers, all those things. 00:41:18.279 --> 00:41:19.714 So you can check them out. 00:41:20.189 --> 00:41:23.759 And thanks for tuning in to another episode of Build and Learn. 00:41:24.149 --> 00:41:27.539 If you're keen to learn a little bit more, it's kind of a different type 00:41:27.539 --> 00:41:33.239 of content speaking at conferences, then tune in Next time we'll be talking 00:41:33.244 --> 00:41:38.128 about writing call for proposals and submitting talks to conferences 00:41:38.128 --> 00:41:39.718 and how that whole process works. 00:41:39.718 --> 00:41:41.757 If you are keen to get up on. 00:41:43.352 --> 00:41:46.832 CJ: And as always, you can head over to Build and learn.dev to check 00:41:46.832 --> 00:41:48.542 out all these links and resources. 00:41:49.442 --> 00:41:50.912 That's all for this episode. 00:41:51.872 --> 00:41:52.472 Thanks again. 00:41:52.682 --> 00:41:53.282 See you next time. 00:41:54.437 --> 00:41:55.147 Colin: See ya.