[00:00:09.02] - Gordon
Hello.

[00:00:09.14] - Taylor
Hello.

[00:00:09.28] - Gordon
My name's Gordon from Drayson Design.

[00:00:11.29] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.

[00:00:14.01] - Gordon
And welcome to "This Week With Taylor and Gordon," a weekly podcast and vidcast where we talk about things that have affected our businesses over the last seven days. And welcome back if you've been with us before. And hello if you're new.

[00:00:27.14] - Taylor
Hello.

[00:00:28.13] - Gordon
Any news, first of all, we had the Apple announcement this week on Monday.

[00:00:33.17] - Taylor
We did.

[00:00:34.10] - Gordon
Lots of Apple Intelligence stuff. A new iPhone, the 16, which has been built specifically for... Well, with specific items and technology inside for Apple Intelligence. So that's very exciting. I made my order this morning, so that will be good. Hopefully that will be with me soon. And there were some other things. One of the other things I thought was very interesting. They got new watches as well. And the thing I thought was really good was the new AirPod pros are being certified so that they can be used as hearing aids, which is really interesting.

[00:01:19.02] - Taylor
That's exciting.

[00:01:19.18] - Gordon
Yeah, I need to hear more about how that works. I don't need it myself, but I love the idea that you have a hearing aid that you can put in if the one you've got is not working or if you just want a temporary one or your hearing is starting to go and it just helps. I think that's really good. So yes, that's all very interesting. And I think we should get straight on to our topics. Shall I go first?

[00:01:45.13] - Taylor
I'll go first this week.

[00:01:46.16] - Gordon
Okay, off you go.

[00:01:47.18] - Taylor
So my topic this week is Exploring your Industry.

[00:01:52.19] - Gordon
Okay.

[00:01:53.12] - Taylor
So I was talking, I've been talking back and forth with a friend who I've been friends with for a couple of years and haven't really stayed in touch. And I recently got an email from him; and we were just catching up seeing what the other had been up to, what they've been doing. He's in the same industry, so he's a web designer as well. And we were showing each other our starter sites. And it put into perspective how little I know of the ecosystem that I use, so WordPress. So he uses a completely different tools to me. He has completely different setups to me, the plug-ins he uses, how he goes about his workflows. And it put into perspective the fact that we all live in our own little bubble. So although I think I talk with a lot of the community of the WordPress and things like that, there are hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of users of WordPress that are in completely different circles and don't even know the circles that I'm in exist. And same for me. There are probably circles in other languages, in other parts of the world, in other areas that, again, I don't even know of and have been thriving, have their own group and are well known. And it was just very very interesting to see how someone else uses essentially the exact same tool to get a very similar job done, but in a completely different way. And yeah, just... Have you had this?

[00:03:40.17] - Gordon
Yeah, it's funny because once you get into, once you find a new technology or a new plug-in, you think, "Where's this been all my life?" All of a sudden, you realise there's a whole ecosystem, a whole community behind it that's been going for years and years, and you've just fallen into it because there was something you needed. So, yeah, you don't know what you don't know. I mean, that's so true. And unless you go looking and spend a bit of time doing some research, you may never find these communities.

[00:04:17.05] - Taylor
Yeah. I mean, look at WordCamp, for example. I went to WordCamp thinking, "I think I know quite a lot of people." And I walked past hundreds, maybe about over a thousand people that I didn't know. And it goes to show that there are so many different people using a tool I thought I knew pretty well. And even times I've had it where I've come across a new tool or a new product, And you're looking at the people that are in a group, Facebook, for example. "Oh, I have six mutual friends that are part of this group. How did I not know about this before?" Like you said. So it's nice when that happens as well, because you get to talk with someone that you may not have spoken to for a while and said, "oh, I came across this. I saw you've been using it or you've been watching it grow if it's a newish product. What do you think?" And things like that.

[00:05:14.20] - Gordon
And I think that that's what makes it exciting, right?

[00:05:19.20] - Taylor
Yeah.

[00:05:20.01] - Gordon
Because there's always something new to explore, a new road that you can go down and find out about something else. And in fact, sometimes we find these things out when a customer or client has a specific request or a specific need for their website, and it's something we haven't done before. And you think, "well, I can't be the first person to have this need. There must be other people." And you go searching and all of a sudden you find something brand new and you're thinking "this is wonderful," and you add it to your toolkit.

[00:05:52.11] - Taylor
Yeah, exactly. And it's really nice. I think this can apply in a lot of industries where we think we're at the top of our game, we think we know everything, and we actually find out there's a whole different world that we haven't explored.

[00:06:06.12] - Gordon
Yeah. Very good. And this has happened to you this week?

[00:06:10.26] - Taylor
Yeah. Like I said, I was talking to a friend who uses different tools to me, different stack, and we were just sending videos back and forth showing around our tools. And it was just interesting to see, although we had a very similar workflow, how things were still very different.

[00:06:30.04] - Gordon
And you don't have to mention any of them, but did you find any tools that you wanted to look into any more?

[00:06:35.24] - Taylor
He had a big collection of AI tools. He had a Notion document where he'd written down all the AI tools that he'd come across, try to have them all as unique so they're not the same functionality and give notes about it. And he basically tries to go through a couple of them a week just to try them and test them and see where things are going.

[00:07:02.23] - Gordon
And then by the time he gets to the end of his list, he could go back to the first one again and find it's completely different because of how quickly things are changing in AI.

[00:07:10.21] - Taylor
Exactly.

[00:07:11.26] - Gordon
Very good. Anything else you want to say?

[00:07:13.17] - Taylor
I don't think so.

[00:07:15.04] - Gordon
So my topic this week is, I got a new job. Wow. Yeah, I got a new job. Now, I'm not changing any of the jobs that I already have. So my businesses that I run aren't going anywhere. They are exactly as they are. But an opportunity came along and I looked at the skill set that was needed for the job and thought, I have most of the skills that are needed to do this and I think I will enjoy it. And it's basically an hour a week. So it's an after-school club and it's teaching drama for a company called Drama Kids. I happen to put the T-shirt on for today. There we go. For those watching, I'm wearing a Drama Kids T-shirt, and they have a very specific way of teaching, a specific style of teaching, and a way that the material that they have has to be presented, and they have a curriculum. And so the drama bits, I'm fine with. I've been doing drama forever. The working with children and teaching them, I do on a weekly basis because of my job as a children's entertainer. So that bit I can do. It's bringing them both together to do teaching and teaching children. But it's the curriculum and the method of teaching that I need to learn, and that's slightly out of my comfort zone at this moment. I've done one lesson as a Studio Assistant, they call them. So the principal of the drama kids area took the class and I assisted her. So you always have a Studio Assistant who helps out, basically, and make sure that they deal with everything that the teacher is not dealing with. So the teacher has the responsibility for all the children. But if you've got a teary child or shy child or someone who doesn't want to join in or someone who's being disruptive or whatever, you've got your Studio Assistant who can just go in and try and manage that situation while you're dealing with everyone else. Part of me thinks that would be a really good idea for my children's entertaining to take someone along with me to be an assistant to help with that sort of thing, carry the equipment in, that sort of thing. That sounds like a good plan to me. But as I said, it's a little bit outside of my comfort zone in the fact that I've never taught a class of children on a regular basis. I've done magic workshops, that's teaching children, but I haven't done it on a regular basis where you're seeing the same children week after week, but you're doing different things with them. So as a children's entertainer, I do very nearly the same show for different children all the time, unless, of course, I get rebooked, in which case I go and do slightly different things for them. But doing this different material for the same children is a complete, on its head, upturn for me. And I've got to get my head around that. Plus, there's all the other things that go with teaching children on a regular basis and being in sole charge of them, which I never am as a children's entertainer. Parents are always in charge. I'm just the entertainer. But as a teacher, you're in sole charge. Therefore, safeguarding comes into play and you've got to know all about that. You also need to have first aid training, which, again, none of this is required for children's entertainment, and it is when you're a teacher. And so I'm learning a lot of things that I pretty much already do or know, but I'm learning it in respect to this new job. And this came along mainly because the opportunity arose and I thought, "Oh, that would be great. I'd love to do that." And that's something that I alluded to, I think it was last week when we were talking. But the great thing for me is that I get to see the progress that the children that I'm teaching are making. I can see how they're growing into different people. And some of that is to do with the drama. Drama is great for bringing confidence to people and for creativity and for speaking and annunciating and projecting your voice and all these different things, standing in front of people and talking, which is a big fear for a lot of people. You get those skills when you do drama. And by teaching it to children who are primaries, in my case, they grow up with those skills, and it gives them a really good footing for the rest of their life. So I love the idea of seeing the changes in these children as they come to class and as they grow into more confident people and knowing that I've had a tiny, tiny role in that. But I am learning new skills. I'm adding to my skillset, which is effectively what I wanted to talk about here. So I have a certain set of skills. I'm starting to sound like that film, aren't I? The one where the daughter is kidnapped. I have certain skills. I will find you. Liam Nieson. It's a great film. But there are certain skills that I don't have and I'm going to have to learn. And it's always good to put yourself in a position where you're not in your comfort zone. You're just slightly outside it and you're having to learn new things because that way you're not only learning new things, but you're also progressing as a person. You're adding to what makes you, you. You're adding to how you are a more interesting person. And it also gives you the skills to be able to go into new situations. Once I've got a really good understanding and practical knowledge of how safeguarding works, I will then be able to use that in other situations and be able to know and look out and understand how it all works, because I've been trained. And that's pretty much where we're going with this, adding to your skills all the time. It doesn't have to be a practical skill like learning a new computer language or being able to write in HTML without any code help programmes, by doing it yourself. It's not just those skills, it's also dealing with people. So I'm now going to be dealing with parents on a regular basis, which I don't do currently. I deal with parents on an irregular basis, where I maybe see them once or twice during the year when I go to different parties and they come to pick up their children because their friends have booked me because of their party and so on and so forth. But now I'm going to be dealing with parents on a weekly basis and making sure I tell them what we've been doing and enforcing the fun that we're having, because children very rarely will tell parents what they've done. I remember when you were younger coming home from school and I say, "Oh, how was your day?" And you'd go, "Fine." "And?" And that's all you would say. You never told me about what you did. And so one of the things that we do is we talk to the parents and say, "So and so was really good. Today, they did a great little mime about being an animal that was hatching from an egg" or whatever it was. And that gives them a conversation starter so that the parents can then talk to their children about what they did and learn about how their children are spending their time in the after-school club. And again, with drama, especially with Drama Kids, they have distinct differences in some of their classes. So they do Saturday Club, where children come to drama school, and that's what they do. They spend an hour or however long the class is doing drama, whereas the one that I'm doing is an after-school club in a school. So the children are coming from class. They've been in class all day. They'll come, the first thing they want to do is have their snack and have their drink. And it's like just spend a few minutes just unwinding because the school day is now finished. And that's very different to having kids coming in and being dropped off by their parents. So there's all these different things that I'm having to learn. And I'm actually really enjoying it so far. You know, nothing's gone wrong yet, which is probably why I'm enjoying it. As soon as something that is out of my comfort zone happens and I have to learn how to deal with that situation, then maybe that's going to be a little bit more tense. But the good thing is I've got a good team I can go to afterwards and say, "look, this is what happened. This is how I did it, I dealt with it. What's the best way to have handled that situation? What would you have done?" There's all sorts of things like if a child falls over and hits their head, I've got to now fill in an accident form and talk to the parents and let them know what's happened. And all of these things that I don't, as an entertainer, do. Maybe I should. I'm there to entertain rather than to be in sole charge of them. So it's probably not something that I should do because I'm there to entertain. And quite often you'll have parents who stay if the kids are younger or they'll go and come back. And it's only a couple of hours and there's lots of other people around. So someone else will let them know or someone else will ring the parents and say, "So and so has had a fall or is not feeling well. Do you want to come and pick them up?" That sort of thing is not my responsibility as a children's entertainer, but it is as a teacher. I've just got to get myself into the mindset and get some experience with this new situation. And then I think I'll feel a lot more comfortable going out and doing this. I'm still quite nervous at the moment because it's very new to me. And I think whenever you do something new, you're very nervous.

[00:18:41.20] - Taylor
Yeah, of course.

[00:18:43.03] - Gordon
And I try and plan as much as I can, which alleviates some of that nervousness, because at least in my mind, I've got a good solid plan as to what I'm going to be doing during the class. And so as long as I've got a good understanding, I can keep the class moving and keep it going. And if something's not going very well with this group of children, we can move on to something different, which is exactly what I am when I'm doing children's entertainment. I know exactly what I'm doing because I've done it so many times. I've got lots of different games. I can move to a different game. I can move to a different trick. I can do something completely different if I'm not getting the responses that I'm expecting. So, yeah, it's very exciting. If you have children, no matter what their age, look up Drama Kids, because the more I hear about Drama Kids, the more I am impressed with how they have thought these things through an awful lot, and they know what they're doing. And it does, as I said earlier, it really does help with children's growth. It helps with their confidence, which they may not get in a class of 30 kids. We had five children at today's class, and that's because some were off sick and others weren't able to make it for whatever reason. But it's really, really good for their confidence and for their creativity. So I think every kid should have the opportunity to do drama, at least, because it gives them an outlet for these sorts of things.

[00:20:23.19] - Taylor
Yeah.

[00:20:24.01] - Gordon
Anything you want to add to that?

[00:20:26.06] - Taylor
I don't think so.

[00:20:27.08] - Gordon
Okay. Hopefully you got something out of this episode. There's lots of theory going on today really wasn't there? New experiences for both of us. You with finding a new community and new tools and so forth, and me taking on a new role. So, yeah, a Quest for Discovery was today's underlying theme. Thank you for joining us. As always, we can be found on YouTube. Please like, share and subscribe.

[00:20:59.01] - Taylor
You can also go to our website thisweekwith.co.uk to find all of our past episodes.

[00:21:03.24] - Gordon
And we should be on all of the major podcast platforms, so you can listen to our episodes whenever you like. I am not going to be here next week, so there won't be an episode next week. I'm away. I'm going on holiday. I need a break. Been working a lot through the summer, so it'll be nice to have a break, but I'll be back the week after, so we should be with you then. Until then, my name is Gordon and I'm from Drayson Design.

[00:21:29.28] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.

[00:21:32.20] - Gordon
Goodbye.

[00:21:33.02] - Taylor
Bye.

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Show Notes