Special Episode [The Story So Far]

Hi all! Yes we are only a few episodes into this journey and we are doing a special edition episode?

It’s ok, we aren’t getting ahead of ourselves. We are doing this for a few reasons:

• We thought it would be fun to share how much we are having with it and also showing you the warmth and the openness that our interviewees have been. They are all very kind with their time and have so much passion with what they are doing or creating around them.
• Secondly, we wanted to enter the Rode Cast Podcast Competition.  We can win some really cool equipment! In the process we wanted to do a mashup anyway so people can see the fun we are having with it. We also wanted to see that we are just ordinary people doing something pretty fun, mistakes and all.
• Thirdly, did I mention the competition?
• Lastly, as part of our evolution of learning new skills, putting it together and editing the content so it would flow was invaluable.  A sprinkle of everyones voice, leave in some umms and aaahs and add in some extra cringe worthy laughing clips in between the bits takes some doing.

The competition is due to close and up to this point we were about to drop Episode 4. We snuck this one in so we can get the episode locked in and submitted.

With everything going on, we currently have a bit of a backlog, but thats ok as we are fitting it all in around our normal day to day. At this moment in time there are currently 2 more episodes  to edit and write blog posts for.

We also have more people already locked in for interviews. I think we have got a pretty broad cross section of people for our whole season so far. The thing that has been  the constant for everyone is that they all had to navigate their way through the recent epidemic. No matter what industry they are in, it has been affected and they have had to shape their way through it and out of it.

Going through the  raw recordings also jogged the memory banks as to the things we learnt and even showed how we have progressed n the short time we have been doing this. A little more refined each time and the quality of the questions also are bringing some good responses and conversations.

Some of you may ask also who the dog is on our promo pic! Well since Toulouse, our CEO is a little media shy, we have used a Stunt Double for all our associated Memes, Instagram posts and story’s. If you have noticed, we also have used some of his four legged fan pups through our brand building evolution as well. We share the love with pictures of all sorts of dogs. Well mainly Frenchies as he is our CEO after all. Plus he is our boss. (Hmmm maybe we need a profile page for him?)

Anyway, slightly off topic I know, but as we said, we are sharing everything we are doing along the way.   Seriously, the podcast thing is just a cool thing to do. When I originally suggested we do one with Lisa she didn’t hesitate and said yeah that could be awesome. From there, we just kept on going with it. This Special Episode  is indeed a really happy and fun episode to showcase our journey to date.

Live Work Digital to you all. Til next time…….Peace!

Luki & Lisa

How Not to Make a Podcast [Journal #3]

Ok then!

We are continuing to slowly build our  Live Work Digital  Podcast at a nice  pace. Currently we have just launched Episode 3 and at the same time we also just finished  interviewing someone for another future episode.  Lisa and I both got held up a little the past week. We were busy getting in our final assignments for this particular study period and it just was generally a busy week for both of us

One thing is for sure though We are having a heap of fun talking to people and we are so grateful for everyone that is willing to share with us their stories. We have halted the interviews a bit for the moment as we need to catch up and catch our breath. In short, we have up to episode 6 recorded so we are a bit backlogged. We aren’t really worried though as we don’t have a schedule and we are learning a heap of stuff about the process.  As long as we continue to build content and keep moving, we will find our flow and move with the current at our own pace.

Meanwhile we will continue to update our progress and what we have learnt as much as possible along the way. We have actually over 30 topics headings in draft that we want to write about and we are adding more along the way. It may take a bit to catch up I believe.

At the same time, we are slowly building and shaping our brand. It is interesting to see how our Instagram feed has evolved and changed since we started. We have been focused on our story and are hopefully creating some eye catching content with interesting visual images and music attached to the Story Feed. Throw in a #hashtag or 6, a sprinkle of Gif’s and slowly, we are evolving and spreading our reach outwards.

Our Vibe

Photo by Petr Sevcovic on Unsplash 

We are just learning what works and what people like and I am actually really enjoying building the content.  As we find out our vibe to find our tribe we will eventually find our tempo on the timing for our  posts and stories.

Trying to find what works is a little bit like moving into a shared house and buying a heap of fruit to put in a bowl to place on the kitchen bench, just to find out what is the favourite fruit of the household. Huh? What…… you say?

Well, to see what everyone likes  I will be able to see which fruit disappears first. If only the pears a left in the bowl and start to go rotten, then I know I wont need to buy any more pears. If green apples are the bomb, then I will buy more green apples next time. (You will see throughout this journey that I like my analogies…boom!)

Photo by HOTCHICKSING on Unsplash

I am diligently putting into practice some of the things I had recently learnt from Jason our SEO Guru on Episode 3. I will share this information on a blog later in the week, along with the other things I have learnt through my research. I have also been reading and listening to other blogs and podcasts during the week.

I feel we are starting to deliver a good base of information and content and the only thing stopping us really is that we don’t have enough time in the week to do more on it. The important part though is to ensure we have the content for further episodes. With this base, I hope we are now portraying that we have some substance behind what we are trying to achieve. The next step now is to reach out and connect with other bloggers and other podcasters.

It is not an accident that we chose Anchor.fm for our podcast platform and WordPress as our Blog website. Both of these platforms have vast communities of people just like us doing the same things. Part of a spreadable network is to find as many roads and intersections as possible that we can explore and connect to others. By default we are already part of these communities. WordPress in particular has a vast community of connected bloggers that are in the tens of thousands.

At the end of the day, most blogs don’t have a podcast attached to it and most Podcasts don’t have blogs connected to it either.

The other piece of this puzzle is the traction we are also gaining from our LinkedIn profiles. We commenced testing our reach a couple of weeks ago just by me updating my profile to include the fact that I was finishing my degree later this year and also adding Podcaster on my list of titles. The other thing I did also was started a 30 day free trial of LinkedIn premium. Haven’t really used it much except for looking to see who is looking at my profile. Not sure I will have the time to really test the waters with all the other functionalities of the premium subscription, but will check out further in the next week. The one thing I do know is that on a Friday, there is no point in posting a blog. It barely gets any views. Whether this is because of the lockdown situation time will tell, but that was an easy observation. I will just post a meme of some sort instead.

Ok folks, thats it for the moment, Until next time…..

Love you all,

Live Work Digital

Luki

Episode 3 Jason Borg [SEO Specialist]

For Episode 3 we have a bit of a change in pace. Today we would like to introduce to. You Jason Borg, our new resident SEO expert. Now he probably would say that he isn’t an expert, but in mine and Lisa’s books, he definitely is. For the uninitiated SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. What does it really mean though you ask? Well, listen on and hopefully you can learn a thing or two. Both Lisa and I did.

Jason is also studying at Curtin University and Lisa has crossed paths with him before whilst doing other subjects. Technically, he is a Digital Analyst by trade and he currently works with Beyond Blue in the digital team there.

In short the reason why SEO is so important for your website is that people need to find it. With websites, beacons need to be built which guides traffic through the doors. If you are willing to play the long game, then these traffic lights will always lead people there. Through our interview with him, he attempts to de-mystify the hocus pocus that is SEO and gets us down to the nitty gritty basics without the technical woo hah explanations. Sometimes known as a dark art, SEO  is often left on the too hard basket. At times, it can look like everything is ok on the surface, but are all the pieces of the puzzle connected and linked together? This is the reality of SEO.

Photo by Lester Hine on Unsplash

SEO is a massive concept, but today we will give you the basics of what we have learnt and we hope the information is useful for anyone that listens to the episode. It would take a long time to master this dark art. What we can do however, is learn the basics and continuously improve and learn the mechanics along the way. If you need to know how and where to start, then this is the episode to get you at the starting line.

We will be implementing some of the concepts that we have learnt through Jason’s teachings. Along with other learnings that we have come across. We will document our journey and share it with everyone in up coming blog posts. It is hoped that through this, we will learn and continue on this journey into a Digital Lifestyle.

Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

Enough of the introduction. Lisa and I hope you get a lot out of this episode and it provides you with some easy to understand insights on SEO.

Love to you and all as always.

Luki & Lisa

How Not to Make a Podcast [Journal #2]

Photo by Jonathan Farber on Unsplash

Ok, so we are now on a bit of a role and we will soon be dropping Episode 3 of our little Podcast Channel. It has been fun so far and we are in the process of doing more interviews. As I write this, we did our first Zoom interview with a dynamic chap who is originally from Albany, but is now residing in Bali, following his heart and his passion. His story will resonate with a lot people.

The thing is, now what? What do we do with this thing? Our plan is to build a 10 episode season with 10 people and then we do a summary of the things we have learnt so we can share the main points to everyone. By this stage, we will have enough to develop an e-book or a training course, but we shall have to see how we feel when we get there. The other point is, neither Lisa or I have been interviewed as well! The plan is to do a special interview Bonus Episode as a bookend at the end of the first season. I suspect, we both have more of a story to tell  when we get a chance to ask each other some hard hitting questions.

Photo by Clark Tibbs on Unsplash

Eventually we  need to start setting some goals about what we want to achieve out of this thing, What do we want our Instagram account to achieve? Do we just want to gain as many followers as possible and as quickly as possible? Where does LinkedIn sit in with all of this? Are we in a hurry? Not particularly. We want to be able to research and build on our knowledge base and then share what we did. We can then see whether the strategies we are using are working. We can also see what is not working.

Our journey seems to be continuing because we both want to see where this takes us. We both agreed today after discussing our recent interview recording that if we both had wanted to try this podcast thing out separately, then it wouldn’t have gotten this far. There is no expectation for either of us to push each other to get done. There seems to be a natural flow about how we work together on this little podcast thing.

The beauty of our partnership, is that we both are on the same page on most things we have done up to this point. We will keep things fluid and by the time our first season is completed, I am sure we will have figured it out to some point. There is no pressure for Lisa to add content on the blog even. I am enjoying the sharing and the writing and learning a bit more about myself along the way.

So, where too from here? It is well and good that we are creating these episodes, but there is no point if only a few people listen to it. The key for us is to keep things steady and pointed in the right direction. We are also being mindful that it doesn’t put too much stress and pressure on our normal weekly routines. For me its easy, I just fit it in amongst my driving. Lisa still has her normal Digital Life business to keep going.

At this moment in time, we actually have actually locked in a confirmed 7 episodes and about to lock in an 8th. This covers a broad range of people and their stories, but we want to make sure we don’t miss out on an opportunity to showcase a specific topic which relates to living or working in this digital lifestyle. The episode we are editing covers SEO and someone who works in the corporate space already. in fact, it is someone who Lisa had connected with through another subject at Uni.

I will share my thoughts and feelings along the way here because it is coming from a good heart space within me. Our brand, whatever that may be, is evolving and developing on it’s own and even though we did not set out to develop a brand, we are creating one through our sharing and our connecting with business owners.   As we do more interviews and we develop our followers and build a tribe of like minded thinkers, then we will evolve into our space.

For some, this airy fairy way to navigate through the venture would not be a suitable fit. This might be the case, but our Collective Intelligence forms the cornerstone of our brand and our way of thinking. The end result seems to be working. I think what is important is the thought process and how we can evolve at any time. If people are seeing what we are doing and have an opinion on it, then as a result, by default, they are learning about themselves and starting to get some ideas into their own picture.

Lisa and I seem to work in synergy with each other blindly fumbling our way through it, but still learning some really good lessons along the way.  I said to Lisa the other week that we have a unique style of conversation that is  “Professionally Unpolished.” Bit of a weird statement, but as we continue to define our audience, this will change. We want to capture an audience where they know that we are just learning along the way.

There will come a time  when we definitely need to set some clear and defined goals. This is so we start to have an idea where this is headed. For the moment, there is no pressure to to get to an end date by a certain timeframe. I think it is more important that we are both enjoying the process than the project itself. What becomes of it after, and how it impacts on business new connections for Lisa and opportunities for me, then that will naturally present itself  when the time is right.

From my point of view, the path is getting clearer. Luki Soeradinata, Podcaster/Blogger. This is where I am headed.

Until the next Journal post, Go your own way!

Live Work Digital,

Luki

Why Working from Home is Not for You.

Working from home has to be the dream lifestyle right? There is no commute, there is no uniform standards and you set your own breaks. What a life this would be.

In recent times there has been a need to shift the workplace into the home environment. This of course is not by their own choice. Different industries needed this to happen to ensure that not only people were able to be safe whilst doing their jobs, but also to ensure that business was continuing as normal as possible.

Working from home can be a lonely affair at the best of times. Traditionally, people who worked from home were generally small business owners and freelancers. The recent shift has dramatically changed this working landscape.

With the digital technologies now available, the Australian Government had already flagged this potential shift in how people would work in the future with recent studies highlighting this trend. Teleworking occurs when employees are able to perform their duties within the confines of their home environment. An agreement is reached where this occurs.

I will cover this topic more in another post, however this article will be more on my experience as a small business owner where I had a home office setup.

A lifetime ago, I was a Franchisee Bookkeeper with a well known brand. Yes, there will be more to this story also on another post.  I will also explain the reasons why and how as well.

Okay, so I had this home office decked out with 3 workstations, a decent printer and whiteboards. The office furniture was also not the cheap ones you get from Officeworks or Kmart, but they were bought from a business which sold ex-corporate office furniture. We had just moved into a new house that  we had just built so we had in mind that the space which was normally earmarked for a formal living room at the front of the house, was always going to be an office. We just put some double doors on it and it was virtually ready made., It was also right at the entrance of the house as you walked in.

It was perfect. I didn’t have to go anywhere if I chose not to right! I could not be more wrong. The best part of working from home was that I would save money on fuel and time. I am not sure whether timing was an issue but, I had started a new business and started this new adventure with a brood of 3 young kids. At the time, my boys were roughly about 2, 4 and 6 years old. In some ways it was perfect as I was available if needed with the kids at any time. Thank goodness I didn’t have a pet as well as I know that would be just as big a distraction.

Photo by Allie on Unsplash

In other ways, it made my life difficult. My time working in the home was one of the most difficult times in my life. I spiralled into a situation that I could not control. There was no separation between work and home life. It became a major issue in my relationship with my family.

Here are my 10 reasons why Working from home may not be for you:

• It is a lonely life
• Being a small business owner is not easy
• You need to be disciplined with your work day
• If you don’t have structure, you can get distracted with other things
• It is strangely a very tiring experience
• You still need to dress up for work
• Clients come to visit at your home
• There is no one to make you accountable
• You need a good Internet Provider
• Work doesn’t stop at 5pm every day

Here is my experience in a nutshell. I found it difficult to separate the home and life balance. I wanted to work from home because I was close to the family and wanted to be available for my young kids and my wife. What I didn’t realise was that no matter how structured and disciplined I was, I was always drawn to the guilt of not being able to be switched off totally from my work.

Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash

Life became a rolling ball of momentum that I was not able to stop. When you take into consideration of the mechanics of starting up a new business, plus the fact that I was learning this bookkeeping caper on the go. Say what?!  Yep you got it. I had never been a bookkeeper in my life. I mean, I flunked out of University the first time because I hated Accounting so much. I did the relevant courses of course, but I was new to the industry and I had the steepest learning curve you could ever have in starting a new business.

Oh yes, I had never used MYOB or any real accounting platform before in my life and I didn’t really know too much about GST and BAS. What was I thinking?

Looking back at the whole experience, it was a pretty stupid thing to do, leaving a perfectly good job to get into something I didn’t like and to something I had no experience in doing.  This is a bigger story than I can cover in this particular blog post, but I am hoping you get my drift.

Working from home needs to have a certain amount of driven responsibility and adaptability. Unless you have both, you will find it difficult to be productive on a day to day basis. Who is going to push you to and who is there to guide you when you have a business question.  Do you have an office space big and airy enough to work in? Do you have a window? Depending on the window, this even maybe a distraction for you.

If you are not careful, the boundaries of home and work life become blurred and you end up alone and working away until all hours of the night.

Photo by Burst from Pexels

One major piece of learning I got from this experience was to ensure that no matter what I did, I would never do something again where my heart wasn’t in it, This didn’t meant I was never going to try different options again, but it meant that I needed to be more measured in what it is I was doing in the future. If I was a painter or an artist and I loved doing it, working from home would be perfect.

10 years later, I am able to give you some reasons why working from home is not for you!

Find what you love!

Cheers,

Luki

Why I knocked back an Internship.

I knocked back and Internship recently. A couple of years ago, at the age of 48, I decided to go back to University. Now it has been 27 years since I left for a year off from my Bachelor of Business degree. I left because I was lost and was defeated doing something that obviously didn’t interest me. In fact I had no idea what to do so I aimlessly just meandered along and let life take me with the tide.

And as you guessed, I never went back to it. I did 3 years of a 3 year degree with one year to go. What a dropout! What a waste of time.

I wished I had of just travelled looking back! Jumped on a plane and head to Europe or the States and then rent a van to cruise through a while. Oh life would be so different wouldn’t it!

Photo by Kevin Schmid on Unsplash

I decided that I was going to make sure I finished this course in the 3 years even if was going to kill me! Can I do it in the 3 years? I mean, is pretty much full-time study. Bloody ridiculous goal I would have thought, if it wasn’t me that set it. Fast forward everything until now and I am literally on the verge of finishing this damned thing. I had a bit to prove to myself really and it feels bloody amazing that I am now so close.

So this degree was going to set me up to work in the online space. Some people would argue that I don’t need a University degree to do anything online and it was going to be just a waste of time. I am also sure my family were also thinking the same as I struggled to complete  many things  in my life. When it wasn’t really the shiny thing I was actually looking for, the gloss wore off and I would continue on my search for my Holy Grail.

I needed to sow the seeds to the next part of my life.

 Image by congerdesign from Pixabay

This was however the thing that would give me the grounding that I needed whilst I set myself up to be working in a space that I was drawn to. I was drawn to all things online essentially that had to do with media and communications. I was fascinated  with the concept of stories and listening to peoples stories and how they impacted others.

So for those people that are looking and waiting to see me fail again (including myself) take a seat in the back row and get ready to clap me on stage at my graduation.

Earlier this year, I thought I would look at dedicating a day a week to do maybe an internship. There are a couple of places online that will enable me to work with startups and freelancers to get experience in SEO, Online marketing, social media blah blah blah. There were some genuine offers, but most of the people on those sights were just wanting someone to do the work for free. I realised playing around online  working on various things through the years, I realised I had learnt more than I realise. I mean, heck, I built a live online e-commerce website for someone on a major commerce platform.

We just built a podcastchannel from scratch!

There was a couple of reasons why I didn’t end up taking that pat. Sure, the stuff I did was going to be good on my CV, but was it going to get me to where I want to be?

• I wasn’t sure I want to work in the corporate field again (Actually no I didn’t)
• A couple of the companies outlined some of the things they wanted me to do, and it was tasks that I could do, but it wasn’t going to be much of a mentorship type setup.
• A lot of time was going to be dedicated to someone elses work. I was busy as it was driving and studying in between kids and travel

In the end I changed my mind and turned down a couple of apprenticeship opportunities.

I decided I was going to hire myself and setup some things online which I could build and grow and nurture. Through building the blog and podcast, I realised I knew how to do a heck of a lot of stuff already.

At the end of the day, I set on this journey so I could live a life where I was not stuck in the one place or office or life. I wanted to be free of the constraints of a suit or higher management telling me to conform to there way of doing things. You must be dreaming I hear you say! You bloody better believe it. Whats the alternative?

Photo by camilo jimenez on Unsplash

Can you tell I am a very visual kind of guy right?

I am learning a lot by building this blog and it is something that I can build and document to show others, my journey. So much so I am enjoying adding content and topics t write about. Right now, I have 32 topics in draft in the backend of this baby.

I know that right now, at the beginning, very few people will even read this article if any. Someone asked a question on the University online discussion board the other day about how to get a portfolio together and whether they needed one. Hell yeah! This blog is my live CV.  Every letter I type and every person we interview to how we work our strategy on social media. It is all part of my Portfolio.

How fortunate I am that I found Lisa through the course and we are on this journey to wherever it is it will take us to.

So if you are offered an internship, tell them to stick it! No, I am kidding. Do what you feel is right for you and when it is right for you. I made a decision to knock back an internship, because I had a plan.

Thanks for reading if you got this far.

Cheers,

Live Work Digital Rocks.

Luki