Thank you. I've been involved with IT since 1988, so I'm probably an old relic Compared to a new relics, which is great software anyway Back in the 90s. I implemented facilities maintenance management systems Globally for the federal government and I used to go around to all the embassies high commissions around the world Putting these systems training the staff doing all those things that you had to do The first couple years I spent time going to Kuala Lumpur. Most people probably know as KL for short in Malaysia and It was great. Now since the first time I went there in 1991 I saw the old turf club turning to Patronas towers up there in front of you Now for those of you who aren't aware Patronas is Malaysia's national oil company So it's a it's a large outfit and you You probably may have seen a fellow international formula one racing. They're there advertising use our oil Now the company who developed the software that I specialised in said look next time you're going to Kuala Lumpur Can you go there and spend some time with the vendor and show them how you're using it for looking after? Facilities for building sites and complexes and things like that. I said sure love to that would be great And so it was all arranged. Well, I got to KL for short and I gave meringue and we organised a meeting Then they asked me said, have you got an opportunity to help us out with a presentation for a building complex? Now where the Australian High Commission is it looks right across to Patronas towers And I looked at them and I'm on the phone at the time I said this wouldn't be for Patronas towers by any chance would it and I said no Okay, because that would obviously need a bit more presentation time well, the big day came and we were meeting and I Get picked up and we start driving around the outside road to the other side of the complex And we end up a building on the edge of the construction So you probably set up in the old picture up there at the top of the three o'clock position looking right down on the construction site I said, okay, this is interesting Then we walk into the foyer and the first thing I see is one of those beautiful architecture models of Patronas towers And the next thing I see is the construction managers for Patronas towers and I'm getting a bad feeling about all this thinking Where is this going? well, it so happens that The company and software I specialized in was used for looking after petroleum industry products as well as factories and a whole range of other different sorts of software bits and pieces and So it was common for these guys to try and think in that context of our petroleum Patronas towers that that was it So we go we go in there, and I'm thinking this is they said no, it's all okay So I'm just taking the word on the guest here. So I just do what I'm told anyway We walk into this meeting that's rolling from all day long So they've got a group of consultants to come in to a presentation and then the next one comes in and this is happening all the way along through the through the day So what happens is we enter this meeting and a guy gets up and he starts talking and when the first minute He starts talking about how you're going to use the software for maintaining an oil facility They haven't read it right, and I'm thinking oh, this is not good I'm thinking we're gonna bend this really ugly situation and the other two he's asked me and said at the end of the meeting I'll I'll introduce you and you'll get a chance to speak to them as well and kind of like the last five minutes Now there's one challenge when it comes to talking about petroleum plants as opposed to building facilities and things They're completely different as bill are talking about fishing in the Arctic for tuna versus trout fishing the snowy mountains The only similarities are water hooks and fish and that's about it the rest is completely different So for 20 minutes, so I sat in that meeting and there I Had to not say anything because of all the cultural sensitivities and then the turns for me He says and I have mr. Mundy here from Australia who is going to share a couple words with you What could I say I Stood there and I'm there and I said thank you very much for coming I hope you enjoyed the presentation if you'd like to see demonstration of the of the software Please call the vendors. We'd love to show it to you. They'd love to show it to you What could I do? I was caught in our situation. It was my own personal Apollo 13 experience with a bad ending It really was But I always find it in life There's lots of things to learn and it was a great story to learn out this one And it goes like this. There was number one how the vendor was seeing things Secondly, there was how the specialist that was me was seeing things and how the potential customer was seeing it It was a different view So it's a story of understanding what people people see So the question is how do we view things a? Guy goes on a construction site. He works for a local magazine and He's there and he sees the site supervisor and he's got to do a little talk and presentation and write an article up And he says look I need to interview three people So he says sure just don't take too much time. So he comes this first guy who's willing a concrete a Concrete Barrow full of concrete and he says what are you doing here? He says I'm even concrete Writes a few notes go somewhere else around the round the site comes across a guy He's got a trowel in one hand brick in the other hand. He says So what are you doing here? He says well, I'm building the brick walls. That's what I do. That's my job Goes away. He writes a few notes And he comes to this last guy and this guy's got a different colored heart hat on He's got a paper rolled up. He says so what are you doing here? He says we're building a cathedral Now what we're talking about here is different views and different perspectives and People see things in different ways So there are things just to understand when it comes to view firstly. There's obviously what we what we see Secondly, there's what we think we see and 30. There's what we perceive So in this picture, what do we see? Thomas the tank engine, right? He's sitting on the rails. He's looking at us. We see trees and surrounds around us We understand that we all know that's most probably Thomas the tank engine or a good look alike in that sense What about what we think we see all right, I want everybody to get ready for an exercise This is really important. I want you looking at the screen Don't look to the person left the right of you and what I'm going to do after one two three You're going to yield out the first thing you see you ready looking at the screen three two one Put up your hand if you saw the rabbit first Okay, put up your hand if you saw a duck first Okay, who can now see both Okay It's interesting how our mind can play tricks and on us and to we start slowly observing things Then there's the what we perceive and this is a classic example of well We know icebergs above the water, but it's known It's not until we actually do some study and understand that they are actually a lot bigger underneath the water So what do I mean to this story about views? In our case as wordpress practitioners, we have to understand views and when it comes to technology We really love and hold the things about wordpress We need to make sure that we can understand the view that we're seeing may not be the view that others are seeing as well So to me the wordpress community of people probably falls into three camps. We have Number one builds and maintainers there'll be people like plug-in or theme developers site support services and other additional services on there Thirdly, I call them buyers the second group. Sorry. Secondly the group buyers Buyers is anybody who's taken up that proposition say hey, I'm going to start using this tool and then thirdly are users Those who come to a website order something They come to read a blog make a comment. So there are three groups How we view wordpress is Determined on what camp we've come from and there is nothing wrong with that But there is a challenge for us in this room in particular those who provide wordpress as a solution And I call it attention There's what we know we understand about wordpress and this comes from our personal skills and our knowledge and what we've grown with the product and Secondly, there's what we need to share with our customers about what we know about the product itself So now we have to talk about the customers What are they saying? Well, when a customer has a problem or opportunity and technology involves is usually three things Some see a problem that needs to be fixed Other see something as a means to an end and thirdly some see it as an enabler to solve a problem So what we're dealing here with is a thing called view points How we see things from our point of view and how the customers see things from their point of view Can sometimes be completely different however When it comes to this area of view points There is an enemy and we have to be so careful of this enemy because they can damage the customer and Our reputation and dealing with So who is this enemy? Are you ready for it? Well, it's us and it's me We run the risk of not getting the customers viewpoint correct in helping them understand about what we're offering As our solutions. So we have to be very carefully careful of this. I Remember as a junior design Design draftsman here working in Sydney in Mill Perot for the company that made general electric refrigerators air-conditioning and cooling systems The general manager comes down to us one day and he says to he says boys before you go out on the shop floor Think about your design go out there speak to the people who make the equipment Go back inside do some more designing Then go back take your design to them and they'll tell you whether or work or not So it's an important point there of listening and understanding What the customer has to say and how they see things? So too many times it comes to WordPress we get taught we get wound up in the capabilities and things that offers and it's great I mean, it's one of the best tools out there So we can be our own worst enemy to us and our customers So what's the tool that we can use to sort of overcome this barrier and sort of help guide us in the right area? So that we can make Some really good logical choices and decisions for us and our customers I say it's architecture And you say what architecture now I call it the skill of designing something that is artful Functional manageable serviceable and enduring in other words designing something that looks good Is easy and logical to use Can be easily managed and serviced And it lasts a long time We care about architecture as it allows us to develop logical consistent approaches To deliver your solutions for our customers When you have an architecture it gives you three things number one It's going to provide you with a useful context to developing solutions and making good decisions Secondly, it's going to help you understand the capabilities needed for the future And thirdly, it provides you the best possible solution that will be artful Functional manageable serviceable and enduring so the customer is able to do what they will need to do So how do you get this? Well by creating a target architecture In other words, we need a target to aim at A tool to help us design something that will be able to meet all those goals that we want So what's an example of an architecture? Well at the beginning of July My wife and I decided to come to Sydney by train really it was my choice And the reason being it's the last time I came to Sydney I paid a good seven dollars or whatever it was to sit in the M5 tunnel on the south side And sit in a traffic jam for 40 minutes and I said that's it Well, we arrived at Central Station on our little journey and I think it's an amazing place I grew up in Sydney so we used to come here a lot and And that's why why it is anyway on our way back to Canberra We had to go through the station again. I took some time to take some pictures I looked around and came across some presentation boards So we then went downstairs and and grabbed a grab the coffee And so I'm down there and I had that you know that each day had to be scratched Oh, tell me about this how this all happened And here's what I had what I found out. I had that oh my goodness I couldn't believe this especially when we're talking about architecture here as well So it goes like this if you aren't aware So in the late 1800s a Queensland railway draftsman moved to Sydney to take up a job working for the railways Now he completed his studies in engineering and was soon promoted to engineer Sydney was growing the rail system was overstressed So they need to do something and do something for the future So the engineer submitted his design and came up with a three fold plant. You're going to love this He said number one develop a hub and spoke model. That's my modern talk on it using a central station Secondly he came up this plant develop a railway city circle to service the heart of the city Heart of Sydney And thirdly he said build a bridge across the harbour so trains could service the northern suburbs and allow trains to go to the northern beaches Yes, the beaches Now the guy who architected this was none other than John Bradfield Who was better known for his design of the harbour bridge and you probably have heard his name in that context before But did you know about the other stuff? Can you see the three problems that Bradfield was solving? Well number one he was bringing together a geographically disconnected rail network for easy access Secondly he was providing a platform for wait for it great technology term into operability Across Sydney the harbour bridge motor vehicles trains trams cyclists pedestrian ship all could facilitate and use this service And thirdly he was providing greater access to more places around Sydney So how did he do it? Well? He used existing design patterns And typically the big one was Underground tunnels allow trains to get to get in the not get in the way of above the ground I think mr. Slide the heavy Okay, he used he used existing design patterns And underground tunnels to allow the trains not to get away above ground And secondly he utilised the natural elements Of Sydney's sandstone and the wonderful foundation for building strong and stable tunnels And thirdly he incorporated proven processes There Where people could flow from going underground to get above on top of that the platform So the other thing about what he did too was if you have a look at the design that was put in place It's endured and it looks great and that's how central station is So what is this thing called a target architecture? He was aiming for something. It was going to be built over a long period of time Well having a target architecture for building Wordpress solutions is probably like having a brilliantly designed Sydney rail network designed in the early 1900s over a 50 year period Functional interoperable and usable scalable extensible. That's what they're doing on it now And integrated so that people can flow from all the transport systems of buses trains trams and ferries all into one so A target architecture is a view of a future state or something to be Or being developed So when it comes to wordpress, there is there is no one target architecture Okay, however There are ways to develop a target architecture particular to your needs and your customer's needs So let's look at the foundations for building a target architecture starting with the fundamentals Funnily enough, you might be thinking this is a gee whiz. Wow technology solution, but it's not A target architecture has three leagues vision values and principles and these guide the architecture So by having a vision values and principles around how we develop wordpress solutions What we're doing is we're setting ourselves up for success So how do I do this? Well, you start by doing some detective work about your own desired architecture And then when you've got a few understanding for that you can also start looking at your customer's architecture Now it sounds very meaty, but it's actually a really worthwhile exercise And look, here's what's worked well for me. I'm developing myself a project And eventually allowed to take it to market one day. And here's how I've done it I've worked out what I wanted for the vision for my project that fitted in with my goals And secondly, I've determined the what the requirements are That I need for that and I've put those back that those key activities into a mind map And then I've built a wordpress prototype assessing plugins based on my values and principles You'll see that in a minute So you set a target architecture In its own right So let's see how this is done with the work of a vision All right, like breadfield and his train problem. He was trying to solve You have to have a vision All right, his is a fully graded integrated train network at people called access across the city Now for you, you're going to have to have a vision for what you want to do with your architecture Really important Now for your customers, you're going to have to find out what their vision is And say if it's a greenfield site find out what architecture can help them Or they may already have an architectural model for their business Typical questions that come up when you've trying to find out this vision stuff What is the problem you're trying to solve? What is the problem you're trying to solve? What do you want this thing to do? Whether it's a service or it's an app or whatever or website Saying two to three five years from now The second question is why do you want to do it? You can't ask a what question without a why question and vice versa And the third thing is where do you see your business going over that period of time as well So when you get the answer to these questions, you can start working backwards And start seeing what's needed and look at things in a practical way So what's worked well for me is having a thing called a baseline architecture So that's the base where we start from and then looking forward And helping other people I can then determine what's going to be a target architecture to help them So ask questions about the vision and using your target architecture You're going to see whether WordPress capability can meet that vision So here's a way to assist you there. So here's that point I'll talk about number one Depending if it's you or your customers look at your own organization client or vision Understand the stuff there Secondly from the vision statement put together a high level view of key functions And thirdly assess key components required to achieve the functionality in mind Aligning it with the vision as well So this is all done in conjunction with part of that three-legged stool. I was talking about So this is just one part of it. But while we're moving to the other leg of the stool Let's talk about values Or when it comes to values corpora corporations rely on them to shape how they do things Now values are fundamentally a belief system. It's what the organization believes in I had one of those aha moments as a junior Architect and I went to the boss and said Where do we get the corporate values from and she was so nice. She said to me says have you had a look in the annual report? That'd be a great place to start She knew full world where they where they were but today most corporations organizations have been plastered on their website What they believe in So how do values affect technology architecture? Well, let's go back to the wordpress play back playbook Just so we can understand how they express it Okay, and we have looked at these two key statements in bold. It says we believe Great software should work with a minimum setup So you can focus on sharing your story Secondly, we believe in democratizing publishing and freedoms that come with open source Whenever you see that we believe that's a value statement people are after that information So as a practical example, how could we do that? all right, say that you've gone and put a submission in to nikey you know the sportship people And you've won a job to actually develop a specialized website for them How would you start trying to get and understand what they want in a system and that aligns with their values? And this is really important. Let's have a look at those nikey values First of all, you need to get to know the values Intimately Have a good mind about studying it inside out and get to know we use that to do this all the time with government stuff all the time The second thing is you have to get ready to do some aligning of things like systems qualities like Designability usability security learnability now this architecture thing actually does get messy believe you me And what's going to happen is your role is to turn chaos Into beauty and you need some sort of mapping exercise to do that So what we have to do Is we have our system qualities there the third thing to do which brings in this messiness is we have to do a mapping exercise and bring them all together Now see where they start aligning and picking off different things you can see there Easy to learn master the fundamentals. They're really big on that wanting people to get things early So you're looking and seeing what they expect in their systems. Why do we do this stuff? We think oh, this is just all words and stuff because at the end of the day the shareholders And also in the parliament the senators will come back and say so how did this align with that? It always comes back. So your job or our job is to make sure that we get this stuff, right? All right So to get to the core values, you'll have to dig around and when designing solutions understand how your proposal will align with their values All right, so here's a food for thought. What are your values? And here I put some together which you may want to consider okay You need to understand your own values before you can understand someone else's values Our customers deserve the best platform for solution. That could be one We recommend the best solutions that will endure over time. That could be another one We believe in Australia and recommend Australian services. That could be another one So there's some values to think about But lastly, what about principles? Well We always need a compass to go in the right direction And we all need direction. Now if you don't think you need direction, then you're at the wrong train platform WordPress principles are found in its philosophy And we see there out of the box design for majority decisions not options drive for simplicity deadlines on arbitrary the vocal minority our bill of rights Really important that someone like WordPress has actually put them up there as a good guide for us to think about as well So how do we use principles? Well, let me show you from my experience how I use principles to choose hosting that I use for wordpress Well principles have been a key Factor in me determining from day one how I move forward with wordpress And so well in my journey I started hosting in the us as probably many of you may have done The price was right. Hey the internet was the internet. So why not? Well as my business portfolio grew of customers I was looking after I was also doing work with privacy for data for the federal government and parliament of australia And hosting came up on the radar in terms of keeping information in australia Now my us hosting provider had a really great chat service And they decided to move stuff to this indian subcontinent to keep up with the you know the daylight hours More or less, but there were some challenges became frustrating. It's still a great company But it was a trigger for me to say hmm. I think I might start looking at some other opportunities so Thinking about that too is also saying you know what this is going to be really awkward exercise as well So I started developing my principles And here's what I came up with okay hosting the website had to be in australia had to be 24 by 7 support Support had to be easily contactable. It had to be shared Hosting and potentially dedicated services And I had to have experience in wordpress It wasn't till I came to word camp in 2011 that I met alan harris from from wp hosting And I asked alan why would I host in australia versus why would I host in the us? alan gave me several good reasons and one being that google preferences local hosting so I thought well why not so From there I put my one of my websites as a prototype with wp hosting And then over time I eventually moved to a dedicated service with them So we have some an excellent working relationship and it's great to be helped to talk to someone via help desk or the phone And that has worked really well for my business following that principle That's an infrastructure or a wordpress type principle What about other principles about how you determine what plugging am I going to use? Okay, what about what theme am I going to use? I've gone through all those different things in those different areas making decisions based on principles I sometimes get it wrong. I'll be honest about that I've looked at some sizes up and then all of a sudden well that didn't work very well did it But as long as you have a guiding set of principles, you're going to have a compass to help you in the in the future So to sum up the three-legged stool vision values principles use these as a guide to developing a target architecture for you and your customers Today, we're really scratching the surface of technology architecture however My goal is to show you that building stuff that's going to be valuable For a long time requires three key elements. Number one is you need to see From the customer's perspective what they need to see. Okay The second one is establishing models for building your own target architecture for a baseline Then thirdly Building enduring solutions for customers and yourselves Based on proven tried and tested architectures you have developed WordPress has the ability to solve Many problems and it's up to you how you apply it to the situation hand Use it respect it. It's a really powerful tool But make sure how you use it and how you project it and how you put forward to help someone else's solution Is something that's going to last and endure for a long time Any questions? Thank you very much Chris. I'll um got some mics here if anyone Has any questions? Can you please throw your hand up now and we'll run a mic out to you? Awesome stories. Chris. I really enjoyed your storytelling style. Um, has anyone else got some yep Have you got a template for us about how to pitch for the government projects? Pitching the government contracts is really interesting There's a whole lot of boxes you have to tick off But if you go to os tender, I think they've got a lot of the templates there If you're not familiar with that and they put jobs up there all the time Number of bigger Canberra agencies who do that sort of work and do it all the time and do it very well And are in are in that space. So os tend is a great place to start And you can look at see how you do it there So it's they've got a number of things that have to be done in terms of meeting social obligations as well That's okay. So you just head down that path and They they always always make sure if you're going for a government contract that you answer the questions the way that they've got them there All right, a bit of a black up at once you get the style. It's all I make sense And it's actually quite simple because I know recently you've been helping out some evaluations for the tender for a department And some people just went off and Planet X And they had to answer the question that was there and it would have been easy. So yeah Follow that. There's also a digital Marketplace these days set up by the digital transformation office Yes, where there's a whole bunch of service providers and the government Just comes and picks people off there for pre-approved services Any other questions out there?  We've got a few minutes before we Break for the afternoon Nothing else. All right. Well, can you please join me in thank you and Chris


We're sorry that we can't be showing you Yankees baseball right now. It's surreal to think that we are in this time. Erin, you guys were actually supposed to be in Montreal right now. How are you doing? How's the family doing? Is everybody well? Yeah, we're doing really well. When I hear you say that, get a little bummed out, kind of looking forward to going back to Montreal, where I played so many nationally games and knowing it's kind of the eve of the regular season. So there's that kind of professional, personal frustration. But also understand that we're in a serious time and kind of just all trying to do our part. But our family's doing well. It's given us the time to spend more time with each other, drive each other crazy. But also have some really good times and laughs as well. So just trying to do our part. How are you staying safe and sane as a family? Yeah, so actually my wife and I, Laura and I just got to work out in upstairs. Kids are doing school distance, whatever the distance schooling over the internet. So they have their Monday schoolwork today. So they're up and busy and going. We're watching some Netflix stuff, catching up on some old baseball footage. I'm a little bit nostalgic, so I'm watching a lot of old things. I got the DJ LaMage walk up that's running on Yes right now. So trying to stay busy. I think I have to make a grocery store run today. So doing a lot of cooking together as a family. Kids made us brunch yesterday. So we're managing. Good, good to hear. Now, as far as Yankees baseball is concerned, I know there were a couple guys on the minor league side that tested positive for COVID-19. Do you have any update just on the Yankees organization? Is everybody doing OK? Yeah, everyone's doing well. Those guys are recovered. The minor leagues are still in quarantine, though, because as a result of those kids getting it. So I think they have three or four more days. I know Cash and Kevin Reese are being really vigilant and nourishment about taking care of those guys. So trying to keep those guys spirits up as much as possible in obviously a difficult situation. But by all accounts, it sounds like everything's going pretty well for them down there. Do you have any indication? Obviously, this is a fluid situation. But how often are you talking with major league baseball? Are there daily discussions, weekly discussions, as far as where the sport is right now? Yeah, I'm not much. I call Jean Afterman for my updates a lot. I talk to Cash. One or both of them, I'm keeping in contact pretty much every day. And trying to get updates, I think there's a couple more conference calls maybe tomorrow where you try and kind of update that fluid situation that you mentioned. But it is a bit of the great unknown right now. I wish you had a date for us where you would say, this is when we're going to start playing baseball. But obviously, we do not have that. I'm thinking, man, can we get kind of an idea of when? So I want that day just as much as you do. Now, how have you been keeping in contact with the players? Is there a group text? Are there face times? How are you guys all staying in touch? And how in touch have you been with the players? So I actually got over and actually, because Garrett Cole lives really close to me now where they moved. So I went over there and threw with him the other day. And then just keeping in contact, Marcus was in. And Timmy Lentek, obviously, in at the complex where guys trickle in a still a little bit. I know there were some guys trickling in this morning. I was going to, now that the weekend's done, was going to reach out to a bunch of guys probably just through text or some phone calls and just touch base and see how everyone's doing. But just kind of where you can keep in tabs on guys, checking in with coaches, like Matt Blake and Mike Harky are doing a lot, kind of keeping track of what the pitchers are able to do and logging that kind of stuff down and trying to keep in touch with them and what's exactly going on. So just trying to respect people's space and family and understanding what a difficult time it is, but also trying as best we can to keep those lines of communication going as well. Now you mentioned Garrett Cole. Yeah. If you see the video of him and his wife playing catch. Who do you think shot that video? That was you? Yeah. Very impressive. That was very impressive. Hey, I had to do something. So I figured I'd film them. They're a pretty athletic duo going at it right there in the front lawn. How about it? And I know that you were at least six feet away from them because you didn't want to be in the line of fire there. No doubt. Now as far as some news that's trickled out over the past couple of days, Aaron Judge had been down here in Tampa and he revealed that in addition to the fracture in his rib, he actually had a collapse lung as well. That's scary stuff, Aaron. Yeah, I mean, I think that the thoracic outlet, he didn't have that, but that's oftentimes what's associated. So it's just making sure that that was healed because that's when we have the concerns of flying and all that. So cleared in that regard and hopefully now, I mean, obviously again, one of the good things hopefully this is a time where he can get the proper rest to allow that bone, allow that rib to heal properly and hopefully when it is time to play ball that Aaron's with us. And John Carlos Stanton seems to be on the mend doing a little bit more stuff as well, right? Yeah, she's doing great. She's probably, if we were to start spring training games up tomorrow, he'd probably be ready to go. So he's been doing really well, hitting now for a few weeks, but running pretty much at full speed outside and changing directions and doing all the things necessary to get into a game. So he's good and that's the one, I guess silver lining is a chance for guys to get healed up through this time. Now you mentioned a grocery run that you're probably gonna have to do for the household later today. What's on the list? What are the top items, the top requests? I don't know, but the list is building this morning. And then I will grab that list and go do my duty there and hopefully pick up. We're stocked up pretty well. So obviously a lot of mouths around here to feed, so we need to be stocked up well, but I'm not sure exactly what's on the list, but I gotta pick it. I'm on it today. Best chef of the Boone children. Wow. Brandon. What's his specialty? Well, he capped in the breakfast ship pretty well yesterday, although it was good to see Sergo and Bella really jump in and Bella did a lot of the dishes, which is sometimes a challenge to get her to do that and she was on top of it yesterday. So that was good to see, but it was good to see them all pitching in and doing their thing. That's awesome. Nice, nice. One food you couldn't live without in this quarantine kind of stage or trying to stay at home. One food you couldn't live without. I'll sit. Laura capped in the, she made tacos last night and they were really amazing. We did these taco different kind of shells and bowls and stuff that, it was amazing. So I'll say Mexican food and on top of that, I mixed in some chips and guacamole yesterday, so I like my chips and guacamole. If you pull those away from me, that's a little rough on me. Now homemade guacamole or pre-packaged guacamole? No, the fancy guacamole from like the Fufu grocery store, you know, the expensive stuff. Oh man. Now, are you been watching on that? I need to get on the homemade. I see, I do the homemade. I like the homemade, but you have a lot more mouths to feed than I do. No, but you know, one thing we have been doing a lot of is a lot of avocados, so slicing those up as part of breakfast and doing them a lot of different ways, you know, some little olive oil and some sea salt and pepper and maybe even a little hot sauce on it. That's really good, but I gotta start stepping up and getting into the guacamole a little bit with the avocados. I'd be happy to do a tutorial with you. We had a lot of time, so. We'll get back on Zoom and do a little tutorial. I like it. Are you binge-watching anything right now? Yeah, I am. So, all American. Season two is out now. I watched season one last year, so I'm seven episodes into season two. Laura's been watching Grey's Anatomy a ton, so I've been kind of loitering on that and watching a little bit of Grey's Anatomy with her. We watched this show that was a little bit, it's weird. I mean, Tiger King or Tiger... Oh, I saw the ad for that. I'm dying to watch it. I've heard it's insane. Yeah, you need to take a shower when you get done watching it. We watched about five episodes last night. It's, I don't know what to make of it. I'll see how it turns out and then make a final call on it, but it was a little crazy. And have you officially lost your mind and joined TikTok yet? Well, so TikTok with Bella has been a big thing in my house now all winter long.  I'm giving you my moves here. I got like three moves and so I jump in and rain on her TikToks every now and then, but yeah, I'm a little over it. And last, but certainly not least, how upset is the Boone household that they have halted production of the Bachelorette due to the coronavirus? So I am, I'm a little upset with that. You know, I miss typically that season because the Bachelor obviously falls during spring training. So yeah, I know as you know, Phil and I watch that when my wife's still watching with us, but we're the nerds that tend to watch that without missing it. But Bachelorette usually runs during the season so I don't have a chance to watch it anyway. So out of sight, out of mind, I guess. You're gonna make it through. Before I let you go, any message to those right now like yourself that are missing Yankees baseball, how they get through this difficult time with all the craziness that's going on? Yeah, so first of all, we're in the eighth inning. We're down three runs here against the Mariners. I think DJ is gonna get a walkoff hit here pretty soon. So you turn that on and check that out. That'll be some fun and pass the time a little bit. But, you know, we're all bummed, you know, that we don't have, especially with opening day coming up, you know, we're getting close to that point and all that goes into that to have it pulled out from under you is difficult. But we also understand this is all way bigger than baseball bigger than us. And it's incumbent on all of us to do our part right now and try and, you know, get baseball back to us sooner rather than later. And hopefully when we do get back and start that quest for a championship, it'll make us even appreciate our Yankees baseball and our sports and everything we probably take for granted every now and then. Hopefully it makes us appreciate it that much more. But for now, do our part. Stay away, stay in, stay safe and enjoy family and friends right now at the house. Erin, thank you so much for joining us on the New Look Yes Network. Awesome, thanks, Meredith. Take care of yourself. You too.


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Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode on the being human podcast Scott St. Marie here and We'll get right to it. This is a very very important topic one that hits real close to home So I'll get right to it because we're all lacking a little Patient It's true though This isn't a 15-second clip my friends, but we're gonna get real deep and I promise you I promise We're gonna I'm gonna hit you right in the feels right where you live and that's what happens when we cry What is crying crying is that moment in time? Where something hits right where you live at that particular moment like you couldn't get from the left by a quarter of an inch to The right quarter of an inch it hits you in the exact Spot where you're living You know when you have that day And it's been a heck of a day So much happened The boss didn't look at you and you put in all that work Co-workers gave you a dirty look just because you walked in with a bit of mud on your shoes big deal You didn't eat the lunch so you felt a little edgy and then you went and got lunch And you got a delicious burger from five guys, but then the burger dropped on the sidewalk You went home for dinner Nothing was made. You didn't have anything in the fridge You sat on the couch thinking my life today was terrible Then a friend calls you and says hi How are you? And you're like good good good. You see it in one of those days, and they're like hey, no How are you? It gets you right where you live and This question is perfect for actually that little scenario that just came out of there, so I'm gonna read a question from a subscriber today, and it's something that we've all experienced and One reason to turn on your notifications on all platforms Not for my need of attention but for for your benefit if if ifity if off if You had a question that you wanted answered on this podcast I put in the community tab on YouTube, which doesn't show in people's feeds I put hey if you have a question here's my email I put in the community tab and then people sent me emails with questions. How cool is that? Internet's wacky wonderful, so if you have a question Turn on the notifications and subscribe like whatever ask a question in the comments And I think this is a theme that I'd like to pursue Where it's a question answered something awesome and then a meditation Because why oh? Yes, we create space in between pieces of content space with the meditation, right piece of content Soak in the content the message for myself to take a break with the meditation creates space in between information Shun space in between information That's what we need, but you're on tiktok. You're on CBC news. You're on CNN. You're scrolling through it's a scroll Massacre it's information after information. It's article after article headline headline video video picture picture We'll smith slap we'll smith slap from the left angle. We'll smith slap from the right angle. You can't Create space. We need space man So that'll be yeah, some kind of recurring theme. I think it'll be cool so Let's answer this question And if you have questions again email is on YouTube and stuff scott st. Marie calm slash contact My question to you is oh gosh scott can't read day Hey Hi there hope all is well hope all is pretty well today had a ginger tea glass of water here Went to the gym this morning had a great swim Man, there's someone next to me swimming. They were making waves Don't make that many waves in a public pool. Okay Phelps you got frickin daffy duck feet making splashes I'm choking on water on the right lane chill Okay, so hope all is well my question to you is how do you deal with loneliness after you've tried coping skills x y and z? You've exercised cried it out written in your journal called a friend. They tell you the same thing Your time will come don't rush It's God's timing and usually when it's bad. It's not always bad sometimes It's just a fleeting moment But when it's bad it turns into a story about how I'll never get to experience love and what it's like to be a mother Which is all I've ever wanted. I Told my friend today. This process is no longer hopeful and beautiful. It's a burn that haunts me daily So maybe my question is different. How do you deal with living with the fact that what you want most in life is not guaranteed I? Think we should focus on the first one and I'll comment gently on both of them especially the second one because You know, I don't want to overstep and and say something that because that's a sensitive topic, you know and I Can only take people as far as I've been You know with with coaching and things like that I'm not a therapist. So if someone if someone is like Scott. I'm dealing with this. I'm like, you know what? It's my job to support people in the way that I feel is best for them In my experience and if what's best for them is to be like, I think that question is for somebody else That's definitely what I'll do So I'll leave it maybe I'll say a few things about that but the loneliness piece is huge Think about that scenario everyone about going to work and you've had the mud on the shoes people giving you a dirty Look your boss didn't notice you.  It's fun and what I really do is I provide presentations and workshops to students parents corporations businesses and All around mental health emotional health The big topic I always bring up every presentation for the last three four years is Loneliness is something that we don't talk about but everybody feels it from time to time and some people more than others and If we look at depression and anxiety These some of the time slash a lot of the time are symptoms of loneliness I Know even if you look at physiological symptoms This is where it gets interesting Obesity increase increase risk of heart attack and heart disease increase psychological stress and cortisol levels high blood pressure Increase heart rate all of these things Loneliness this book by John catch Yopo human nature and the need for social connection It's one of the best books. I've ever read if you don't have the patience for a book. It's all good. I get it He's got a TED talk. I would highly recommend looking at this dude he spent so much of his life learning about loneliness and I take so much of it to heart because It speaks to me so much so Loneliness my friends you said you've tried X Y and Z for coping great Then some expression work cried it out written in the journal called a friend You know loneliness is something that requires necessarily a coping skill There's a pretty clear antidote to loneliness human connection genuine human connection You know, we have what's called these fringe friends fringe friends on Facebook People that are just there and but you would never dare speak about something real deep with them a real deep rooted concern That comes from daily living and what it's like to be a human and suffer They're just there The antidote to loneliness is to find someone who gets it who understands who knows So hear this definition and then you might make sure you're seated for this one everyone make sure you're seated Don't be standing for this definition Loneliness isn't the absence of people It's the feeling that what you do and what you share doesn't matter to anyone I know I heard someone his name is John. He was just like hmm interesting. I Heard another person right there her name is Jen. Yeah, Jen. I heard you go Interesting, I'll say it again. It's not the absence of people.  What did I just do for eight hours? What was that all about?  They don't know me It's just a mismatch. They don't they don't they don't understand what's going on. It's a different Frequency I thought opposites attracted. I thought just because she liked Batman and I like Superman. We would have been a fit but the sense The gut feeling of oh that person knows oh they know even meet that person and You're just like wow. I feel like I can tell you anything. I Had the best compliment I've ever received in my life the best one I was in Charlotte with a good friend of mine. We're at a bar and Yeah, we're at a bar Poof man almost it was a rooftop bar almost jumped off, baby. That was a Was a scene but it was fun. It was fun and Met these people and she said to me man. You haven't met a stranger in your life and I and I didn't know what I've never heard that expression before and Then when my friend told me I blushed man. I was like wow That's exactly How I would like to be perceived and how I actually thought That this connection was going when I meet new people few It's not that I think I'm good with people. Oh, that's a good thing that they feel safe and comfortable to and That is that antidote to loneliness when you meet someone who understands where you click And then you're not going through life alone Now there's a loneliness and loneliness That aloneness is something else that loneliness is like. Oh, man. I just got I got a thing It's a deep thing in the chest and it's that emptiness because I see the neighbors and there's a distance between me and the neighbor There's a distance between of relatability between me going into Walmart and seeing the lady in a school They're getting white bread at Walmart. You know what I'm saying two different worlds That's the loneliness piece. I can't talk to the lady on the scooter about certain things So it's to find people that Get it and that's why peer support is so big for depression and anxiety. I Thank goodness that I know people who deal with anxiety. I I am so grateful for the last few years of knowing some people that had been through what I'd been through with Spiritual stuff and depression and all of that Because they could hold me for the time So if you're going through depression or anxiety and you meet someone and they're like, oh, man I got a panic attack too. Yeah. Oh my gosh when I was at that concert and then the clown came on stage It was a slipknot thing, but they had a clown costume I was so triggered because I had the clown thing. I had the clown thing too. Oh my god Just to go back and forth with people and there's a sense It's not necessarily just a thought everyone. It's a felt sense that they're like, oh You can you get it you get it? Oh, I'm not the only one I'm not the only one and those people are out there. They're everywhere and Sometimes it just takes you or it takes me to say it out loud, right?  So the loneliness thing. I'll say it one more time It's not just the absence of people People were reporting feeling lonely before COVID before we got isolated and all that stuff in Canada and everywhere else Except Florida lucky Florida But it's the feeling that what you do and share doesn't matter to anyone Make sure you find people that appreciate what you do appreciate who you are Appreciate what you share with them when there's a reciprocal relationship when there's less judgment When there's not a whole bunch of expectations in a friendship You know those friends that you didn't don't talk to for five years and you talk to them It's like, oh, you're still there for me. I'm still there for you.  They can be your best bud. I have soulmates and they're my buddies Definite soulmates. He's on WhatsApp right now. Let me send him a message I'm gonna send him the word penis see what he says Man, we know each other since we were two years old I've known this other guy for the last five years this other person since 2015 Three people in my life for sure that just get it And you know how you can tell when someone's a real friend There's no political correctness. You can make big mistakes with your speech and they know. Oh, yeah He's just that's that's he just messed up or he wasn't thinking or that's just him There's no judgment or shame there It's only Understanding I can say anything to these people that I wouldn't utter on YouTube or I'd be put in prison right now That is so important for me and I believe for every human being to have a Person in your life that is there other than a therapist because guess what when you leave that room They're gone someone in your life that you can express the most outrageous absurd thought and They're there. I am so blessed to have people that I can talk the craziest shit to it's the best So that's a piece on loneliness that we have to decipher everyone. It's not necessarily just to cope with it It's to take an actionable step to how can I bring people into my life? Where I can talk about bad bad things too and they don't judge me How can I bring people into my life that want the best for me and I want the best for them? I want to inflate them and they want to inflate me and when I feel deflated they take the pump and They pump me back up so I can keep on rolling baby. That's what I'm talking about That's what people do. They're there for encouragement to pump you up. They're there for sharing Relatability for understanding for compassion They're there for softness and gentleness and guess what you can't have one person do it all You can have multiple groups and some of that is for family some of that is for Co-workers some of that is for spiritual leaders and the church and the community and religion You got to dip your toes in a few things to get the juices flowing all together for the thirst to be quenched So listen, I'm happy for you because the loneliness is there But that is something that you can actually take steps towards an antidote Which is getting people that get it Finding those people they're all over the place. They're looking for you too.  That's all I've ever wanted That is a topic on every woman's mind in their 20s and 30s That is a stress that I can't empathize with so I don't necessarily want to comment on it That is a stress man and there's controllable factors and there's uncontrollable factors just like finding friends to Decrease this feeling of loneliness, you know, there's and excuse me hold on When I talk too much without breathing I Burp That's the thing too. It's about people with the loneliness, but finding a purpose to like with the guitar I feel less lonely when I play guitar because I'm creating. I'm sharing. I'm expressing and it's not about me anymore It's about something bigger than me. Oh You know what this is come on Hear that hear that that's an E I Was raised up believing I was Somehow unique Like a sin like a sin no like a snow Oh, I gotta play this for you. I gotta play this song for you Hold on and some of you might already know it Hold on Because this lyric got me it really got me and I think it'll help you and then you can listen to song Send me an email again being like Scott. I'm bouncing up and down to the song All right, here it goes. Let's go. I was raised up believing I was somehow unique Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes unique in each way you can see and now after Some thinking I'd say Rather be a Functioning of fun. Oh, that's a minor a functioning cog in some great machinery Serving something beyond me Okay, I Just when I think of loneliness there It's it's about expanding your reach You think about that. I was raised up believing that I was unique as an unique snowflake But now I'm thinking that I could be part of something bigger than myself. I was at church on Sunday and The priest it was a gospel of oh my gosh or Actually Apostle something I forget but it was about You being able to do up your own belt When you're a kid and when you're growing up and as you get older your pants get bigger Which is a funny thing to put in a bio.  This was the message to Paul or St. Peter and God almost needs to do up the belt for you and he's going to pull you in a place that you don't want to go Isn't that something It has everything to do with The feeling of control and our need for control and the ability and the need almost for Surrendering at the same time and you said God's will and leave it up to God I don't I don't think God wants us to just lay back of course and do nothing about it. It's your will So I'm just gonna eat potato chips. No, we know deep down that we can take the right steps To make certain things happen. I'm looking to find friends I'm I'm trying coping skills. I'm gonna meet new people. I'm gonna put my best foot forward gently Slowly in due timing. That's comfortable for me by pushing the limits and expanding the waist size once again And with the motherhood and everything too, you write the columns of what's in my control and what's outside of my control What's in your control is a lot and do the timing based on what's in your control What's out of our control is God's will God's timing. You know what I'm saying? What can you do that's in your control looking for dates? How many dates can I go on in a week? What's enough to push my limit? What's too much? What's too little? What am I comfortable with? you know It's literally about doing everything you can with and reason that's in your control to Advocate for yourself and get what you really want Now what do you want versus what God wants? That's a whole other topic But you think about it if I woke up tomorrow see I'm on a different end I don't necessarily know exactly what I want, but what's funny my friend who wrote this question is My uncle was a history teacher for a long time and he said I'm like, I don't know uncle Bob Of course, I have an uncle Bob. I don't know what I want to do Everyone like this person he was 14 years old He knew he wanted to be a doctor this person was 20 he knew he wanted to be a gynecologist He just knew it. Yeah, I wonder why I was sick.  I'm going to med school at university I'm gonna do my residency and I'm gonna get a family practice.  We're such a forward-thinking culture We're never pleased about where we are You know If I'm not pleased as a Single male, I'm not gonna be more pleased as a father and a wife and ten kids No To find happiness with what we're doing right now in this moment to who we are now That's the practice and then take things as they come put your best foot forward into what you can control What you can't control Have a layer of God and spirituality there for you But take a right step forward and I think you know through meditation and focusing That's what I do with people. I don't think people know what I do. Yes, it's the public speaking But when I coach one-on-one we're in a call I just don't know where God starts and where I start where he ends where I end What do I want? What do I control? What do I want to really happen? There's look at his book right here.  Tell me about your mother. You don't have to go into that right now. That's not what I do anyways I'm not trained for that stuff. What do I want? What can I really control? How many dates should I go on? I don't I don't know. I don't know I'm the one you come to when it's like and I'm I need to find someone else for me too And I don't know and when if you were to come to me my friend And I don't know you sit with that You feel what's there and I guarantee we lead you into being like, oh Oh Okay, that's what I can do now. Oh, yeah, that that feels right Take it easy Be gentle, you know this loneliness thing and these concerns are so human Especially in the world. We live in today with social meat and everything.  We all get that feeling Sometimes it hits us even when you have all of life Figured out the point of being human is will always search for more.  It's not a race go at your own pace Sit with yourself a little bit but offer yourself that kindness because in this question We're going on like 30 minutes here in this question.  I'm never gonna be a father. I'm never gonna be happy. I'm never gonna be able to do this My body's in so much pain. I'm never gonna be able to play this again Done. That's enough You've gone down the rabbit hole. That's enough. You've dug. There's nothing down there. Stop digging. What are you looking for? When you find yourself in that loop an awesome quote is I think it was by Nietzsche. He's like the most courageous thing to do sometimes is to stop at the surface We think it's courageous to dig deep all the time and to see what's under no It's sometimes the most courageous thing to do. I can't be a mother. I'm never gonna find love I'm never gonna get a date. That's all whatever it's done Enough back to the task at hand and what I can control That's a critical part of me that you know what that needs to just stay over there Let me keep doing what I'm doing for now What's right in front of me Keep up the great work and thank you for your question my friend and uh This was fun And if you have any questions remember scotsaintmarie.com and free videos and courses and personal coaching All the links are are there if I can be of service to you Take care


Hi. My name is Nathan Roach. I'm the Marketing Director at Accelerant. We're an agency for agencies here in the Drupal ecosystem. And I wanted to share with you what we've learned about account-based marketing, which is quite, oh, sorry, good? A little louder. Who here has heard of ABM or account-based marketing before? Hands? Okay. All right. And who out of those who have just raised their hands have tried it? Okay, good. Disclaimer. I am not an expert at account-based marketing.  Some of those results and I'll openly talk about what we feel isn't going so well. This is the team. I'm not the one architecting this whole thing. At Accelerant, we have Piyush, Madura, Shirayoshi Shank, and Priyasha, each of them with their own roles all contributing to making account-based marketing at Accelerant something that could work. So I could never do it on my own for sure. How did this start? Well, sales and marketing, we have a very interesting relationship typically and traditionally, right? And this approach to marketing will not work if these teams are siloed. And my leadership at Accelerant recognized this early on and actually sent myself and my sales director on what we call our honeymoon trip. We went from London to Melbourne. We started in India and spent all this time together talking, going to conferences, and aligning what our perspective is on how this approach could work and what it would take to bring it together. So the first thing I would say is that this cannot just be a marketing-led initiative. This has to be a collaborative effort and that alignment has to be there from the very beginning between marketers and salespeople. What is account-based marketing? Well, you can see here that, I mean, this is a typical flip-my-funnel visual, wherein you see on the left a traditional approach to demand-based marketing, right? Typical marketing funnel, let's say. Account-based marketing, in a sense, inverts this. The mentality is flipped. You can see that you rather start with a list of accounts, high-value accounts, and your marketing operations flows from that from the beginning, not the definition of a loose audience and then creating content from awareness consideration and decision throughout that funnel in order to convert them at the end. Rather, account-based marketing starts with the accounts named and known at the beginning. So why, I mean, why do this? What are the benefits? There are numerous ones up here and you can see a lot of them are quite similar. For sales, alignment. Sales teams don't feel that they get the right support from marketing teams, the right leads, the right collateral, the right message. Marketing teams have difficulty planning campaigns that are outside of sales priorities because ultimately our job as marketers is to, you know, produce qualified leads to the sales team to drive revenue. There are many, many different reasons and headaches that this can solve and reasons to pursue it. And we found that it is a process. It is a crawl-walk run process. It isn't something that you can just jump into with your team and a tool stack and within a month you figured it out. This transformation will take a long time. Lots of trial and error. I hope we're probably towards the far end of crawl at this point by no means are we anywhere near run. Learn from the mistakes from other companies like some of the ones I'll share today and maybe your transformation to executing this campaign will be a bit faster than ours. Two things. At the end we learned these two things that adopting a process, this campaign, this approach to campaigning, there's virtue in pursuing it just to stimulate a change in priorities. It's not that you're going to take account-based marketing and at the end all of the results are going to be crystal clear with all the metrics you want but if you go on the journey your teams will be more focused and more aligned and that process is the means to get to that end and we found that even though we're not seeing right now the perfect results that we expected it has changed our mindset totally as a company certainly as a revenue team and it also helps you to ask is what I'm doing right now really valuable is the activity that I'm pursuing today this email that I'm sending or this workflow that I'm building or this landing page that I'm launching what is the end who are we trying to communicate with and you know that from the very beginning because you've started with a list of identified accounts you go from how do we communicate with our target marketplace to how do we communicate with the right account to how do we communicate with the right people at that account in this sense it's very humanizing you go through this process that goes from a spray and pray approach to messaging and you get down to the level of the individual the issues so many tactics budgets it's expensive success by accident is one thing I mean you'll run this these campaigns and great things will happen but not the great things that you intended or expected one of those things was our linked in valor ship for example we didn't expect it to go up because of more frequent linked in publishing but it did and and and of course shifting morale exhaustion with trying something new and getting sales and marketing constantly to read a line and the line and the priorities you agreed upon and not get distracted by an events calendar or the latest idea right but first we had to get organized we brought agile practices to the marketing team because before we weren't doing this we use Jira at our company for development projects but the marketing team never wanted to touch it for just so many reasons and we forced ourselves into this transformation and spend good for us it wasn't easy but now we're running marketing sprints and using the same product to that our development teams use and we have internal resources for agile training so that helped and if you work at a development company using agile methods this can be easier because they can help you to do it we we had to align our KPIs and set goals sales goals marketing goals how marketing team members contribute to those goals quarterly yearly annually and these KPIs for these roles are aligned on closing that new business meaning that marketers to have dollar amounts associated with their activities if you're using an account-based marketing approach you can at least factor the basics and track as you go but without these goals in sight it's a bad idea to begin for us we segmented our let's say account groupings in different ways we do a lot of business with Acquia and Acquia partners as an agency for agencies so we divided our tiering between Acquia partners and not Acquia partners and we were able to break down our tiers with parameters that allowed us to or organize these lists of target accounts because not every list of account of accounts are going to be treated the same there are going to be certain attributes and similarities for example that you have to consider when you're launching your campaigns this is Shashankar our growth analyst and when I asked him what the most significant takeaway has been for him regarding this approach he said it's been about team alignment he worked in sales previously and now was on our marketing team full-time so it was great to have someone from the sales world joined to become a marketer and and he saw that that that alignment really helped and certainly coming from a different team he was able to bring a sales perspective into marketing that we previously didn't have I'm going to get into some of the tools and techniques generally this is how we started some of the the tools that we use to isolate the right lists to track progress we are actually moving now from HubSpot COS over to so that will be interesting and lead forensics and lead feeder I would suggest looking into both of them has allowed us to track and maintain whether or not our message is resonant and we're reaching the accounts that we've chartered to reach that makes sense so this was our beginner stack and we were using our HubSpot dashboard to track engagement across tiers so we built in HubSpot away to see our contacts at these accounts visiting these landing pages opening these emails engaging on our platform and ultimately spitting out these reports which are segmented by tiers to show how we're doing in our campaigns you can do that in HubSpot but you can do that in other technologies like Motic for example this is a lead feeder dashboard just to show you an example these are companies that visited accelerants website just recently and it's matching the data within lead feeder the lead that comes in so these are not converted accounts these are people who work at these companies who are visiting our site and you can isolate where they're coming from and where they're going on your website sort of track performance so if I'm running an account-based marketing campaign and I'm targeting a handful of accounts am I seeing in this tool that the individuals that we want to be visiting our platform and engaging with our content are they coming how long are they staying is it working it's a way to mark your website audience with the strategy of your campaign right so this is an ad group example everyone knows that LinkedIn is becoming pay-to-play right you if you're just publishing content on LinkedIn and you're not targeting audiences and boosting that content you are going to stagnate and others who are putting a budget behind it they're going to accelerate much much faster and I would say that if you spend all week creating a piece of content or coordinating content for a campaign and your man hours are going into this and the designers hours are going into this etc. and you're producing then a piece of content which you'll then just publish and send out there into the ether and hope that it does well it's non-contextual and you wasted all of that time and all of that effort to just publish something which maybe gets three likes from people you really don't care about versus creating content which is highly strategic and targeted maybe short or maybe more affordable a part of your budget is going to be promoting that to the right audience right and then tracking the results of those ads for example or native LinkedIn posts it's just an example of uploading a list isolating a list of target companies or account lists and individuals at these accounts and if this sounds complicated you can simply search this and see that LinkedIn gives you the steps one after the next so it's not complicated it's it's very very easy they give you the spreadsheet and the parameters of what to upload and you build your lists and they match it and you run your campaign but these are a few things that are interesting so in October we looked at our LinkedIn follower count and we were retrospecting and saw that we had over at that point 5,000 followers or is the previous October here before we had 500 followers on LinkedIn and this was perhaps success by accident maybe because we were increasing our publishing on LinkedIn and our activity but we found that that activity was resonant to audiences and that it was reflected in fact they are following us you can see on the right there is an ad that we ran particularly targeting Aquians regarding what we do with their teams as an awareness approach to our partnership and you can see the amount of reactions and engagements all from this this target account so if you do your list building well and follow the LinkedIn parameters that's the sort of engagement that you can see at a particular company on the top you can see a piece of content over a period of time that had no LinkedIn ad budget and then you can see the change on the bottom of that same piece of content only with with a budget behind it boosting it as a native piece okay first your target audience right this is how you would begin and then you would focus on the biggest accounts in terms of big in terms of relevance to you within that group and then within those accounts key people because decision influencers and decision makers ultimately this will distill down to a handful of people right that go into buying your product and then move together with sales and not in silos so start with an audience then go to the companies then look at the people working at those companies that you're looking to converse with and then move together with sales to make that happen this is Prashya our marketing operations manager and she's she's seen that our efforts now moving together we've seen like some of the examples I just shared real results where before we were struggling with just typical inbound marketing lead gen this feels more targeted and the reports are more meaningful okay so there's something called an abm play and this is like like a campaign or an approach so what you see here is lead to opportunity that means that they're in the system and they're a lead and you're looking to convert that lead into an opportunity right and there could be let's say a campaign of content topics that you could expose them to sequentially and target them with sequentially that would nurture them from one stage to another stage right so this is another way of organizing your campaigns are they a lead and you're looking to convert them to an opportunity or are they an opportunity and you're looking to to close that opportunity right so there are different approaches that you can use this we actually have not started yet and I know the sounds complicated and lots of spreadsheets and details this is part of the the the concern when you start abm that you can tactically just fractionate and go everywhere and then get nothing done at all this actually in all honestly we have not started to do yet simply because we're focused on the baseline of operations and we have to be careful how we further segment our campaigns and approaches or we'll try to do all things and then get nothing done if you have a larger team perhaps that that could work better for you abm content planning so this is our old content plan i mean maybe this looks familiar to marketers here who were responsible for blogging and running calendars based on let's say seo strategies where you are isolating the type of content description of each piece the keywords that you want to include and you kind of rinse and repeat and cycle through and then when the time comes you go to another slew of topics does this process look familiar to any of the marketers here and how many of you are mapping buyers journeys or you're looking at content planning from the perspective of where your prospect is on their journey to closure okay and another you can plan content topics like this it's a great way to organize it and you can see here right the way our old buyer's journey was sort of like a topic generator and the new one it it's it's similar but it's a little bit more targeted and it begins with an icp and then we're able to use let's say the sections of this buyer's journey to plan frequency let's say in the beginning you need more awareness pieces and you find towards the end you simply need a few bottom of funnel content pieces in order to close them it can help you to organize priorities in the calendar and it keeps all the topics focused with your accounts in sight the the temptation is well each account each company is unique therefore each company should have their own buyer's journey right each company is unique with their own teams let's let's create a buyer's journey for each company and content and we'll send them on that nurturing path well good luck with that maybe your team is bigger than mine but it would be impossible to fractionate down to the company that content rather that's why we grouped in tiers right in order to do this so we have let's say three calendars tier one tier two tier three do you see how you can simplify it this way is that real abm well they they're calling it abm light which i think like i said is on the far side of that crawl phase maybe there are ways to accelerate and automate some of this but in terms of content creation and content planning we don't see another way to do it um we would waste too many man hours trying to accomplish all of those things okay the content board so i already had mentioned that we um transition to agile marketing as a framework in our department which is great because then you can take that buyer's journey and then you can plan out with sprints how long it's going to take to have a complete cycle for the tier for the tiered campaign from awareness to decision so you're able to plot out and estimate timelines this way and then track it through sprint cycles so you can answer a question when is the campaign for tier three going to be done when is that content going to be ready you can break it down into sprints and you can estimate that time okay so madura's point here regards um getting granular and specific and understanding our buyers and our customers the the topics that you're writing about or the videos you're creating the webinars or podcasts that you're planning when you're thinking about the accounts and the people at the accounts and what's resonant to those individuals you get very specific into what the content is really going to be about it isn't we're going to write broadly about this case study or this aspect of how we delivered something or produced this white paper and then they'll convert and the leads will come no you're thinking does this person or these this group of people at this company what will they make of this it's like a sanity check and that's what i said in the beginning that this process enables you to think and it's just what i'm doing right now really affecting that bottom line that kpi that i have will this piece of content really be resonant to this audience or are we making a mistake in our our planning and social media of course can be a huge a huge help and i'm not so sure if the marketers here work at an agency or a larger company do you both work at agencies the ones who raise their hands yes so i would ask them do you find that most of your most relevant traffic is coming in through social media channels or organic organic okay but if you were to target let's say on linkedin for example these audiences with a paid campaign and include that in your budget would you be able to plan a more robust social media strategy would you be able to with the visuals with the content would you be able to convert because you're putting your stuff directly in front of your predetermined buyer versus banking on your buyer's potential web searching habits okay um yes yes these are all very inspiring and uh i think every single marketing tactic or strategy that's ever been created both some kind of increase in performance but but certainly you will know very soon whether or not your content is resonant to your target audience if you're running a linkedin campaign with that content in front of that audience you will know whether or not it's working or not so the performance comes down to how good are you at failure and then representing that content or reworking your approach to then seem more impressions that turn into clicks and visits our social media strategy right now is look we've got this isolated list of accounts what well what do we do and this is sort of interesting because if you're looking to target individuals at accounts let's say an awareness campaign i want this department at this company to know that we exist and to know what we do right so how do i do that do i tag their account on twitter and like publish their most recent blog say we see you you know we see you come like us follow us i mean odds are the department you're trying to reach is not behind that twitter handle you're gonna have to go deeper into the individuals that work at this company to see what they're publishing if they're publishing where that is maybe it's medium and maybe it's on forum somewhere else at that part of the research it's it's quite important so these are for example things we look for parameters do they do this content reflect our culture and values does it emphasize partnership is it Drupal centric is there an element with our ecosystem in aquia shared circles or networks which we pull on maybe they go to the same conferences like you all hear and if so we should look at the individuals that fall under these parameters and find out what they're producing what they're writing and if it's new and newsworthy sharing that out and that is a way to begin an awareness campaign on social right so this is basic social media 101 but would it look different for you if you were to start with those accounts from the beginning it becomes a little difficult because it turns out that what we market towards let's say agencies as our core marketplace a lot of agencies don't write really great content they're busy writing content for their clients so you you sort of have to factor in and think what are they doing or how can I find out more about what they're doing that's interesting how do I communicate that how do we make that resonant to the right the right people and what am I publishing on my platform am I using this target accounts list as a check for the kind of thing that I'm going to read to you maybe there should be parameters social media practices that you outline which aren't just about best practices generally but best practices in light of the audience you have to be reaching this is Shirayu she's our content marketing associate and she heads up social media and from her perspective being able to see our channels that we see more engagement from the right audience is something we really haven't seen before because for so long we were simply publishing reposting what we were writing what we thought would be resonant now that it's more targeted and more focused we can see those likes those retweets from the right people I'm as I said not an expert but these folks here are I would say follow them on social media and follow what they're writing join their newsletters does anyone recognize any of these folks up here this is a new and emerging means of marketing and these five are some of the first to be really writing about it and open sourcing that content okay so another thank you to Matt at Burn in Gray I don't know maybe some of you know him he doesn't go to Drupal cons yet but Matt Skinner that's his Twitter handle he's really helped us as a consultant to focus our efforts with account-based marketing and you can find all sorts of people out there who are doing this and and trying this out he's been our our guy and it's been quite productive so far well thanks thanks everybody can I answer many questions because most of you here have not used account-based marketing before when we do we need to speak Oh okay you have to walk up and oh sorry to make it awkward and now everyone has to line up please go ahead very nice talk probably this is more about details is what I understand you talked about getting to the right person within the account and they're talking so right LinkedIn if you look at LinkedIn you have sales navigator like my team sort of getting their heads around how it works how do I reach out in a particular large account how do I reach out to the CMO or the CXO right reaching with a specific message look at how he's going to respond do you have any thoughts on how that works right I have a few I think the temptation is to bring an outbound approach into LinkedIn where it's well I'll just email them or email them and I think we all know those of us who are on LinkedIn that sponsored LinkedIn posts and your inbox filling up with even sometimes relevant content is not exactly a way to reach you personally it's simply just another email inbox which we now have to manage and that marketers are now saturating with their content so I would say I'm not I don't have tons of advice on how to do it perfectly but I can tell you what I think you shouldn't do and that would be to take an outbound approach into email and start reaching out to these people keep in mind it's not like you can start with a group of 20 accounts and then cycle through emailing all of their CEOs in one week it's a well nobody answered I guess I have to find another 20 accounts that that wouldn't be good it's a long game so I would say it's it's also one of mathematics if you if you know a company is of a certain size and it meets the parameters of the minimum LinkedIn campaign can you figure out the odds that someone did see or did click are you using lead forensics or lead feeder or other tools to see are people visiting from this account and who are they are you running content with you know really resonant and relevant content for download that will then capture who they are to do the work for you that's inbound of course applying inbound to it but I suppose the only solid piece of advice that I have is do not go aggressive outbound on LinkedIn if you're trying to do account-based marketing anybody else I know it's kind of weird walking up to that microphone in the middle of the room well I'm who has been following this is this the first time raise your hand if it's the first time account this is the first time you've heard of account-based marketing okay well I'm very happy to be the first to cause you a world of trouble and trying to figure this out don't get discouraged and I would say just as my last piece of advice the process of trying to get there will be helpful because your sales and marketing teams they have to align even to begin the conversation it's a great way for marketing to approach sales and sales to approach marketing let's do this thing together that thing that you need to do together would be something like this so Nathan would you say that this works better for like larger companies or is there like a certain level that you need to be at right sort of start you know working really well for your work well the the as we said LinkedIn is really pay to play and the kind of budgets that you need for let's say targeted ads is expensive so to creating the content for those targeted ads but my team were only what four or five people and I can tell you our marketing budget isn't through the roof so and even if you were to do this and of course there's LinkedIn biddings it all depends on your industry it's all contextual as to who you are and the kinds of clients that you're looking to get but if we can do it so can you four or five people and it's not the only thing they're doing so anybody else I'm really glad that this is a new topic to I think most people here follow these folks they know what they're talking about in a way that I don't so and if you if you have any other questions after this please find me after or find me on LinkedIn or Twitter or whatever I'd be happy to help and to share anything that we went over here with you and to talk about it thanks