[00:00:09.670] - Gordon
Hello.

[00:00:10.960] - Taylor
Hello.

[00:00:11.410] - Gordon
My name's Gordon from Drayson Design.

[00:00:14.440] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.

[00:00:16.660] - Gordon
And welcome to "This Week with Taylor and Gordon," a weekly podcast and vidcast where we talk about things that have affected our business in the last seven days. And for those who are regular viewers, you will notice a slight change today. Taylor, can you tell us what the slight change is?

[00:00:38.470] - Taylor
Yes, so we are in different locations. However, we didn't want to miss our Friday episode, so we decided that we would just do it from where we are. So we are currently on Zoom. So hopefully the audio isn't too bad. So yeah.

[00:00:54.990] - Gordon
Yeah. And so I'm in my office. This is my office. Welcome, everybody. And this is where I normally do my, all my work. This is where the magic happens, as it were. And Taylor is at an unknown, undisclosed location and he is working away for today. But as he said, we wanted to make sure that we kept up with our show. So hopefully, fingers crossed, everything is going to work fine and technology is going to allow us to do this. It's quite nice test actually Taylor, because if we do have to do this again in the future, we should be able to know either how it works or learn lessons from this time and be able to do it better next time. So there are...

[00:01:49.870] - Taylor
Would you like to go first?

[00:01:50.860] - Gordon
Well, before we start, actually, there's a couple of things that we need to to discuss. Four, I think it was four episodes ago, back in Episode 49, we spoke about you doing your BNI introductions and you were going to change it up for sort of four weeks if you could, and make it different each week just so that you could a. keep it fresh, and more importantly, you could concentrate on a part of your business and focus on that for that week. And we said we would check back on it to see how it went. So how did it go?

[00:02:35.910] - Taylor
So I didn't get round to being able to write out kind of new scripts or things like that. However, I did kind of do it on the, kind of wing it kind of change it up as I went. And each week I said something completely different, not completely different, but I changed it from what I normally said and tried to, you know, bring in different aspects of what I do and kind of give people a bit more insight into kind of, yeah, what I do with my day to day life and the type of people that I'm interested in, you know, working with.

[00:03:09.630] - Gordon
And do you think it made a difference in how people were listening to you, they didn't sort of close off because they'd heard it all before and they were listening more intently?

[00:03:19.500] - Taylor
I think so, yeah, I think so. I think some of the stuff I said people found kind of interesting and obviously that, you know, meant people wanted to listen cos it wasn't the exact same thing.

[00:03:29.340] - Gordon
OK, well done. So are you going to continue with this experiment?

[00:03:34.380] - Taylor
Yeah, I'm going to try and keep changing it up a bit, kind of use it, what I had as a base and then kind of work on that going forward.

[00:03:44.430] - Gordon
Great. That's really good. Now, I'm going to assume I can't see, because we're in different locations, I can't see what everyone else is seeing. But I'm going to assume that you are on my left, which is the same side as you normally are. So I'm going to just turn and look at you and hopefully I've got the eyeline right otherwise we're going to be looking completely the wrong place. But it's going to be easier for me than just looking straight ahead and for our viewers, if I'm looking completely the wrong way, well there we go, there's a lesson learned for next time. So something else that's really important that we need to alert everyone to, is that our giveaway is still going on. So last week was our 52nd episode, which were we to have done one every week, that is 52 episodes, one year. So we had a giveaway. And if you missed that, then go back and watch last week's episode. The giveaway is still going on. We have two weeks that we are running it for and we're going to finish it, I think, about three o'clock next Friday. So that will be after the episode goes out. So you've still, we've still got one last chance for those who join us live to remind you to go and join in our giveaway. And you can join that by going to our website, Taylor, the address for that is?

[00:05:09.830] - Taylor
thisweekwith.co.uk/giveaway.

[00:05:13.940] - Gordon
That's right, and all we need you to do is to share our website and our social media and you will gain entry into our free giveaway. There was also another competition that we're running, and I'm still not sure we've discovered what or worked out, what the prize is going to be for that yet. But it's how long has the content that we've created in those 52 episodes? How long, if you were to add it all together, would it last? And we're looking for the audio side of it, not the video side, because the video has sort of headers here and there, but the audio has been cut. So it's just the just the actual episodes. So it's the length, the total length of the audio. And we are looking for you to leave your comments, sorry leave your estimates or estimations in the comments section on either Facebook or YouTube. So there we go. Don't forget those. They are still both going on and they'll both stop at the same time. So let's get on to our topics for the week. Taylor, would you like to start?

[00:06:26.360] - Taylor
Yes. So my topic for this week is coffee shops and kind of changing your working environment. So in the UK, we have kind of had coffee shops opening up and kind of indoor areas. And I really miss this because I used to go and sit in coffee shops regularly. I used to go to different ones, purely because I enjoyed the environment that, you know, I would be in. So, you know, you get a different experience when you go to a coffee shop. All different coffee shops have different atmospheres depending on whereabouts you are, whereabouts it is. So one of my favourites is a Starbucks, which is just off of the motorway. And so most people that go there are either going there for a business meeting, or they're about to head off on a big kind of trip. And so you only really get people that drive. Whereas if you go into kind of town centre or if you go into like London, you're mostly going to get people that, you know that can walk or just pop into a shop. And so it's a different kind of experience because you have different types of people, you know you mainly more get adults and people with their children. Whereas, you know, in the town centre, you get people that are just kind of younger because they just, you know, walking around for "oh let's get a coffee or something." And I really enjoy it because I quite like the hustle and bustle and the atmosphere that you get, the noise, and it just gives me a different place to kind of work.

[00:07:56.900] - Gordon
Do you not find that it's distracting, though? It stops you from getting as much done during the day because I, you and I both work very differently. You are always listening to music of some sort while you're working. And I find that I can't do that. If I've got music or sort of sounds around me that are distracting, then I just I lose my focus and I can't concentrate as much. Do you find that the music is similar to the sort of the hustle and bustle of a coffee shop?

[00:08:33.350] - Taylor
So it's actually quite interesting, is there are a couple of websites out there that can re- that have recreated the coffee shop aura, or the sounds, and you can toggle on and off the you know, if you want to listen to certain noises within a coffee shop. So you have obviously the coffee shop background music, but then you have the chatter and you can change the pitch or the loudness of the chatter and the music. And you can then add in like, you know, a baby screaming or you can add in, you know, some business people talking and stuff like that. And you can really create kind of the environment. But I listen to all sorts of things. I listen to the radio, I listen to music, I listen to podcasts sometimes, I listen to YouTube videos, watch people on twitch, kind of live streaming, just kind of put them in the background. So I listen to a whole host of stuff and I find that it's, it depends on what I'm doing, some things, you know, I do pause it because I'm trying to focus or trying to figure something out. But on the whole, it's quite nice, it's just something that's in the background and I can block it out. When I'm in coffee shops, I normally have my noise cancelling headphones on. So I don't normally hear the audio, or if I do, it's very, very faint in the background, which again doesn't really distract me. So yeah, it depends on, I guess what I'm doing and you know, what mood I'm in I guess, all depends on what I listen to or what I do.

[00:09:58.670] - Gordon
And I guess you also have an advantage where you can just sort of put your hand in the air and say, "could I get another coffee, please?" And it's sort of brought to you, rather than you having to stop your work and go down into the kitchen, make yourself a coffee and, but I mean, that is...

[00:10:15.210] - Taylor
Some places yeah, some places do that, yeah.

[00:10:17.600] - Gordon
That's quite nice, though, to do that in, when you're working from home environment because it gives you that just a few minutes break doesn't it, to sort of clear your head and work out how far you've come that day and where you need to get to?

[00:10:30.680] - Taylor
Yes, so I mean, in some, most coffee shops I go to, I have to get up and go and buy a new coffee, which is normally my kind of like break where I, you know, just get up and stretch and things like that, which I obviously otherwise wouldn't. I mean, I have my timer on my computer that reminds me take stretches. But yeah, I have also when I get up for a drink, for example, that reminds me to, you know, stretch and just get up for a bit and have a breather.

[00:10:58.430] - Gordon
And of course you've got food on tap as well should you need it so. A bit more expensive, though, I'm guessing sitting in a coffee shop.

[00:11:05.750] - Taylor
It is. But I mean, if you compare kind of you know, the costs I have for my buying my coffee beans and then obviously the buying milk and, you know, just running the machine at home, it's probably you know, it's probably still more expensive, but there are still costs to doing at home. It's not exactly, you know, like it's free in that regard. But, you know, I guess I probably get better coffee at the coffee places, purely because they, you know, they're probably better than me making coffee, although I do try I have a special coffee machine that, you know, I can make espressos and things. It's not, I'm not the same level as they are yet.

[00:11:48.350] - Gordon
Very good. Is that all you want to say on that or is there anything else?

[00:11:51.450] - Taylor
Yeah, that's, I think that if you have the opportunity to kind of move about and change your location, it can be good because it doesn't become, you know, boring and monotonous. I know that, you know, people in the building industry, they probably, you know, they quite like it where, you know, they work on a project and they switch projects and they're in a completely different location. So that daily commute that they were doing to one location or one site, they've now stopped and they're going to a different place. And so it's similar kind of a concept, I think. And so, yeah, if you can try and, you know, keep it fresh and change it up, it will really help, you know, not become boring or, you know, getting into that kind of slog, I guess.

[00:12:38.250] - Gordon
Very good.

[00:12:38.250] - Taylor
How about you for this week?

[00:12:39.540] - Gordon
Well, so this week I did something that I wasn't expecting to ever do for this particular subject. There is a children's magic convention that I go to every year called "Trix in the Stix." That's T R I X and then S T I X. And it really is in the sticks. It's in the middle of nowhere. It's one hotel and that's pretty much it for miles around. It's a very nice hotel, was quite an expensive hotel, but it's very nice. And we have, I guess about 150 I don't know the exact number, children's entertainers from around the country and in fact, other countries come down. We've got a family that come from Dubai every year, and there's other people who come from different countries. And we have lecturers from America and Argentina and all over the place who come, and we have sort of a full day and sort of an evening before the convention starts with shows and things. And I go to that, I've been going for sort of four or five years now and last year was obviously cancelled because of covid, because it happens in May and we all shut down in, what was it, March, wasn't it? So they did something online. They had just, you know, sort of a community chat and a few videos, and that was pretty much it. But this year, they made the decision to not go to the hotel and to do it all online. And this has actually been a really big change for them, because previously, when you have people turning up at a venue, in a hotel in this case, you are limited on space. You've got the limit on space for the room that you have the event in, or the rooms, that you have the event in. But there's always going to be a main room. So however many people you can get into that, that's going to be your hard limit. Plus, you've got to have accommodation for people because there's nowhere else anywhere near. So you've got to have enough accommodation for people. Then you've got lecturers and people who are performing and you've got to fly them in if they're coming from another country. And you've got to make sure that they are you know, they've got everything they need, their luggage has arrived, etc, etc. And so there is some very hard limits on this convention and it can't really grow without moving to a new venue. So this year...

[00:15:31.590] - Taylor
Do you think they ever like, do you think they ever thought about that and thought it would get as big as it did?

[00:15:34.740] - Gordon
Yes, no they did think about it and they planned for it in fact. They always decided that it was going to be a small convention. They didn't want it to get big because sometimes you lose the atmosphere when you grow something too big and having, I don't know the exact number, let's say a hundred and fifty, having one hundred and fifty people means that you're going to know all of your costs. You're going to know how much it's going to cost to put this convention on year after year, because it's going to be very similar to the previous year and because they are a limited number of tickets, they sell out really quickly. So they normally sell out a year in advance. So it's one of these conventions that people always want to go to and it's going to be a sought after ticket. Rather than getting to the point when it's going to be really big and you're going to have lots of empty seats because they're hoping for more people to arrive. And, you know, some people don't make it or, you know, cancel at the last minute and so forth. So they've made this conscious effort to keep it small, keep it select and make it an event that's something that people really want to go to. And they're always going to be sold out. Even if tickets do come back at the last minute, they have a waiting list. And so those people buy the tickets from the waiting list and it's always going to be full. However, this year, because we are unable to meet in person, they decided, you know, a while back with enough time to plan, that they were going to put it virtually online. And so Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, they had the convention and it was all online. It was mainly on a Facebook group that you paid your normal, no, I'm not sure if it was a normal price. No, I think it was, I think it was cheaper. But you paid to become part of that Facebook group which gave you access to all the lectures and all the links to the Zoom meetings for those that were going to go on Zoom. And they had three major advantages. The one, one was they didn't have a limit on the number of people they could have attending. And in fact, that comes on to number two. They are having all the lectures and all the recordings that are going to last for 12 months until their next convention, so they can continue to sell tickets even after the event and give those people access to all the videos so that you can catch up, basically. You can't watch it live, which means you can't, you know, ask your questions live. You can talk in the comments, but that gives them the opportunity to have unlimited tickets and to sell, which is great. And the biggest advantage is they can get some big names in children's entertainment industry to this convention lecturing because everyone is doing it remotely. They're all doing it from home. They've got all their own equipment. They've got all their own Zoom setups, because most of these people have been doing virtual shows for the last year and they're being able to do all this without having to pay people for flights and accommodation and everything else that goes with having top names come to a convention like this. So we are getting people who are lecturing, not only lecturing, but attending as well, who would never, ever normally be able to attend. And that's basically showing everyone, the world, in fact, how Trix in the Stix is run. So even though it's this very small exclusive event, it's being, the doors are being opened up, just for this year only, to anywhere so that they can see what goes on. And hopefully that will make it an even more sought after ticket once people see what it's like. And it's a very different magic convention to all other magic conventions.

[00:20:08.400] - Taylor
Surely that's bad for you though cos that means the prices of the tickets are just going to go up because they're going to be even more sought after.

[00:20:15.630] - Gordon
Maybe. I mean, I'm in a lucky position where I've already paid for the hotel and it's been moved to this year and it's going to be moved again to next year. So I've already paid for my hotel. And because the last time we met in real life, myself and Paul, who we had on one of our episodes, my double act partner, we actually lectured at the convention. And part of the sort of the compensation for that, is either to have our money back on the convention that we lectured at or to have a free ticket for the following year. And we both chose to have a free ticket for the following year, which means that we haven't actually cashed that in yet. So the next convention that is going to be next year in May in real life, we've already got the hotel paid for and we've already got the ticket paid for. So, you know, we've, in our case, it's not going to affect us. But, you know, the price will rise.

[00:21:23.070] - Taylor
For next year.

[00:21:24.330]
Well for next year it won't rise. But the year after it might. But, yeah, the price might rise. But I think the value that we get from it will also go up as well. As, you know, you get more and more better people wanting to attend. You know, the level of the, what am I'm trying to say, experience and creativity goes up. Then obviously the value of the convention also goes up and therefore you're going to be mixing with a different type of children's entertainer, which can only improve everyone who attends. So, yes, the price might go up, but also the value will go up as well. So I'm not too worried about it. It's one of those business expenses that for as long as I'm able to and for as long as I want to, I'm going to continue to pay for. Yeah, so, yeah, I think that's everything I want to say on that. It's it's been an unusual week with that looking at a screen all week instead of actually seeing people in person because, you know, a lot of the social interaction is a big part of the experience. But, you know, we'll be back to that soon enough, I'm sure. So that's everything I want to say. Do you have anything you want to add, Taylor?

[00:22:51.680] - Taylor
No, apart from just to make sure you kind of share the giveaway that we have going on, you know, we really appreciate all the people that share it. You know, we try to give something of value that we think people might be interested in. And I'm sure lots of other people would be interested in what we have to offer. We also have our special mystery prize, which we haven't sorted out yet, but hopefully it should be really, really good.

[00:23:18.510] - Gordon
Next week. We'll sort it out for next week when we announce the winner. Oh no, we'll be announcing the winner the week after because it finishes after next week's show. So you've got next week until I think it's three o'clock, and then the following week will be the announcement of all the winners. And we will then sort out all the prizes and make sure they get to you. So thank you very much for joining us. As always, you can, like, share and subscribe on Facebook and on YouTube.

[00:23:49.960] - Taylor
You can also go to our website thisweekwith.co.uk where you can find all of our past episodes and also if you go to /giveaway, you can find our giveaway instructions on how you can enter.

[00:24:01.180] - Gordon
It's really weird, actually, because I'm looking at a window here and I'm hoping that when people are watching this, they can just see me looking at you because that will be much nicer than looking at a window.

[00:24:14.590] - Taylor
I'm not sure which way I need to look.

[00:24:15.820] - Gordon
I think you need to look to your right. I think. So if I turn to my left, you turn to your right, hopefully we're now looking at each other.

[00:24:26.330] - Taylor
Hopefully.

[00:24:28.060] - Gordon
Leave a comment below. Tell us if it actually worked. We'll be able to see when we watch it back anyway. And for those who are interested, the transcriptions are coming on a pace. We are adding those onto the website now. We've done about five or six, I think now. So, you know, it's going to take a time to get all the transcripts for all the past episodes done. But we are working on those so go and have a look and let us know what you think. Until next week. Thank you for joining us. My name's Gordon from Drayson Design.

[00:25:08.310] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.

[00:25:11.370] - Gordon
We'll see you next week. Goodbye.

[00:25:13.030] - Taylor
Bye.

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Show Notes