Episode 149 Warren Laine-Naida Talking About His Book Digital Thinking

Show Notes

Episode 149 Warren Laine-Naida Talking About His Book Digital Thinking

00:00

From the center of the universe, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This is the SDM show with your host Rob Cairns. The SDM show focuses on business life productivity, digital marketing, WordPress and more. Sit back, relax, grab your favorite drink and enjoy the show. Here is Rob.

00:18

Hi Everybody, Rob Cairns here. I’m the founder, CEO and Chief creator of meeting ideas that stunning digital marketing. And today’s podcast I sit down with Warren lane Nadir, the author of digital thinking, and talk about his latest book, sit back, relax, grab your favorite drink and enjoy the podcast.

00:47

Hey, everybody, Rob turns here. I’m here with Warren Laine-Naida today. And he’s the author of Digital Thinking, How are you today? Hey, Rob, I’m really good. Thank you for inviting me. No, it’s a pleasure. And it’s a great book, which we’ll get to, eventually, you’re welcome. tell our listeners a little bit about your background. And you know, what got you into the digital world?

01:14

Oh, my God. Um, well, you know, long story short, I’m 94. I was I came out from Canada, to Munich, Germany, and I was cooking. And I was doing chocolate sculptures. And about that time, you know, you could make a website, you could get web space and make a website. And I thought it’d be a really great idea to build a website. And that’s what I did for my chocolate pieces. It’s, you know, it was a scary website, you know, 9495 when it was finished. And, you know, that led me to working for agencies during the dot, you know, the.com boom, 99 2000. And I basically, you know, I’m still here, I’m still doing the web.

02:16

Yeah, it’s funny, you know, everybody’s got a bit of a story. And, you know, most people say, Oh, you just got in at the web. And I said, No, I, I was in the communications game in the days of places like Delphi and compuserve. So, you know, I go way back to AOL. You have mail. You, you have Vale. And it’s funny, because I don’t think I’ve ever shared this on my podcast. But the first website I ever did was the HTML website to give friends resources. So they stopped calling me on the phone for help. There you go. That’s the original FAQ. site. Yeah. And we all we all did a little bit of that. So now you do a lot of WordPress work. How did you translate from HTML and Drupal and Drupal Drupal? How did you transition from HTML to content management system received?

03:19

Um, that was a hard poll, I really rebelled. I didn’t want to do it. You know, we were all doing HTML and you know, JavaScript, and then, you know, even in, you know, 2000, you know, you get some of these, you know, freelancers coming in using dream weaver, and we were like, Oh, this is, this is from Satan. And as long as I could build websites for clients that did not want to, you know, update them. I did a lot of websites and flash. html, but then, you know, clients needed to access the sites themselves. And you know, that’s when I started getting into Drupal. And the WordPress, the big decision for WordPress, there was 2012 when I was back in Toronto, and you know, there was, there was something happening in Toronto at some big web event. And Ethan Marcotte was there and he was talking about responsive web design. I thought, Oh, my God, this is great. And WordPress, I think it was 2013. They had the first CMS that came out with the responsive theme. And it was a no brainer. And it was just like all of my sites started going into WordPress and I had some sites in Yuma. But my last Drupal website went into WordPress in the spring of this year, and now I’ve got like, two dozen clients and they’re all on WordPress.

04:55

Yeah, and for those who don’t know WordPress is powering summer 1042 50% of the web depending on you listen to them while they go. Yeah. And so as you’ve moved into WordPress, have you stayed away from the whole Gutenberg? Are you using a page builder?

05:13

I have all my goodness. Okay. I yeah, I am really anti page builder. But that probably is because I build websites for so many years, you know, by hand, you know, it started with, you know, server side includes, you know, with with style sheets, I’m very comfortable doing that. But it’s just a tool. So, you know, if the client is saying to me, Look, I want to be able to do these things with my website. And I understand that, that’s going to require a page builder, because they’re really going to want to be able to do different things with every single page within their site. Okay, then we’ll use a page builder. But if they’re not going to be doing that, then there’s so much you can do with Gutenberg. I mean, and I’m not a big fan of Google blocks, I really am a big, you know, CSS guy.

06:13

06:15

yeah, it’s, it’s whatever is whatever is required, then we’ll use it. But I’m really against just jumping in with a page builder, and then realizing, well, you know, every single page is looking the same, because just don’t mess with a widget. You know, then I don’t like that.

06:30

Yeah. pretty old. I’m, I’m actually in the process of transitioning from a page builder to box, believe it or not. So yeah, that’s I think that’s the future, I think, kind of the way the markets going to shape up is, the big page builders will survive, I think the small ones are all going to disappear. Within a couple years. Gutenberg is starting to mature a little bit. And there’s enough block add ons that if you want to do it with blocks, you can almost do everything with box at this point in time, if you choose to go that route. So

07:09

I agree, there’s, there’s so many things that the blocks can do that I have not yet needed them to do. And I’d rather not, especially with the with the Google core vitals at the moment, and wherever that’s going. I’d rather not add unnecessary weight to my website with a page builder or with a plugin. I really, I try to hold them down as long as I can. And yeah,

07:39

yeah. So let’s dive into the book. I’m just mentioning before we started recording, I really like the the readability of the book, I don’t find you get into digital books, and many of them are what I call a hard read. And this one isn’t a hard read, which is great. Why did you write the book?

08:01

Oh, well, you know, when the lockdown came in 2020, I had a lot of books on the backburner, and I thought people are home they want to read. So I had two novels. were dying to be written. Yeah. And I wrote those in 2020. And then I have been putting blog posts on my website since 2015. And I really thought it was a good idea just to get as much as I could, you know, into a book and make it available because I do a lot of teaching, make it as a make it available as something that I can give out of classes. It’s, I think, really, for content marketing, it’s really important, you know, to to get material like this together, allow people to have it free on Kindle, you know, and things like this. I you know, that was really my main motivation. I’m, I’m almost 60 you know, I just want to get all of this material that I have together in one in one place. And so that was that was the big motivation. Yeah.

09:15

And it and it because it’s written recently, it’s really up to date. One of the things that I really love is on the back end of book, you have this comment that says This book contains no cookies. I really think that’s a nice side. And we know we know what Apple’s doing in the cookie world right now and driving all US marketers up the wall. Right. So you know,

09:38

that’s,

09:39

it’s this a good GQ. Good comment. Yeah, yeah. It’s making it harder and harder to be a content marketing. I think what’s what Apple’s doing right now, personally, but

09:53

Well, it’s not just apple. I mean, it’s, it’s really going to be I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s the big three or the Big Four. I mean, yep. So you want to but the the future of content marketing is really the future of the future of the present, it’s going to be already very siloed. And so cookies will still exist, we’ll just call them tokens. And you will still, you know, receive ads you will still be marketed to, but it will be in within the silo of your choice that you have opted into a token. And you’re either going to be a Google person, you’re going to be a Facebook person, you’re going to be an Amazon person, or maybe and because I’m not an Amazon person, I always, I’m not an apple person. I always think the big three But okay, if you’re an apple persons, you got the big four. And, and that’s where the future will be. I always think of it like the rollerball movie, James Caan the 70s, you know, there was energy, there was food, there were the big four companies, and they will always fight with rollerball. And I mean, we probably won’t get to rollerball. But I really think that that’s where the future is going to be. It will make it very tough. Or it’ll own it’ll make it only possible to market to an audience within that silo.

11:11

Yeah, I would agree with it’s getting really, really hard. If you’re, you’re marketing out of that silo, there’s no question. And, and the problem with content marketers is we all have this love hate relationship with Facebook, we all do. Every one of us. I have I have the biggest hate relationship with Facebook right now. Because Facebook has decided to take anything from my business domain and say, I don’t meet community standards lately. So yeah, and and there’s no point in appealing because once you get there, you get there. And people say to me, as a marketer, why are you still on Facebook? And I said, because I run I run ads for clients, I think I actually think in the next couple of years, Facebook might become yesterday’s news, believe it or not, I think it’s headed that way.

12:07

It could do I mean, to be honest, we’re having the same problem with Google. That, you know, long running a Google Ad accounts, for example, are starting to experience hiccups. And ads are not being approved. Accounts are being warned, in ways that never happened in the past. And I you know, I don’t know why they’re doing softer than possibly to shake out the little boys and girls. And it just becomes much more difficult to, you know, to do work as we as we’re used to, which may be a good or a bad thing. But I think you know, for, you know, for people like us, you know, freelancers, and you know, this, the very small, small businesses, it will just make it very difficult to do business.

13:07

It is one of the things you’re talking about in the book a lot early on in the book actually, is online learning and teaching, and you spend a fair bit of time to feelings, somewhere online learning is going to go down the road. Now that we’ve already been well,

13:24

oddly enough, when I was when I yeah, just before I put out the book, I was just starting to do a lot of online teaching. All of my teaching in the past has been in the classrooms. And, you know, some classes over zoom. But in the last 18 months, pretty much all of my teaching has been on zoom, I’ve been teaching for the last 18 months, pretty much, you know, five days a week, you know, four to six hours a day in front of zoom or some sort of some other proprietary elearning software, depending on the school or the business that I’m working with. And that really isn’t what elearning was intended to be. When MOOCs came out these massive online courses, at least that’s what we call them here in Germany. You know, they’re really on demand like Udemy or other courses, you you pay you watch, but because of the pandemic, all of the, you know, you know, presence classes that we had had to go online, and they were, you know, we’re still expected to do you know, for six hours so you’re talking and students are looking and everyone’s staring at a screen and I’m hoping this isn’t where this is going. Long term. Because we don’t have the capacity for that. It’s a completely different type of teaching. I don’t think anyone really gets the benefit out of it. But it’s almost like we’ve taken that necessity to be in the office for six hours and move that online. So well, you need to be on the screen for six hours. And because it’s being recorded, then it can be seen. Were you on the screen for six hours? What did you do for these six hours? It makes it a little more difficult. So I’m hoping that’s not where it’s going. But it’s certainly where it’s been for the last 18 months. And if you have the capacity to do this, this is fine. We see it in schools where they don’t have the capacity to do that. And while that’s another, another conversation,

15:47

no, I would agree. I also think like, I have a lot of teachers in my circle, one of my best friends is a elementary teacher in Ontario, I have, I have a couple of people who teach adults as well. And I, I personally think online learning is better geared to a mature audience than a younger audience to kids. Personally, I don’t think they have the capacity to spend eight hours in front of a device learning they had, they seem to have it for everything else, but for learning. They just don’t have it. And I think if you’re doing like, half day courses for a mature audience, I don’t think it’s as bad personally.

16:34

I think yeah, it’s, it’s a bit of a catch 22 if I think of my own children, they can sit in front of the computer for eight hours without blinking or eating or needing to, you know, go to the toilet. But, you know, look what they’re doing on the screen, they are constantly being challenged to click on something or move or respond or talk with their friends. And that is very different than what we’re offering. In our in our courses. We can’t create that sort of, you know, entertaining learning environment. I mean, we could if we had the time, but I mean, speaking from, you know, as a teacher, myself, it’s sometimes challenging enough to create, you know, six hours of PowerPoint slides, let alone an interactive environment for the kids. So they can, but it requires a different type of content. And for our age group, or even, you know, the people, you know, half our age, they’re still able to, you know, to look at slides, they’re still able to, perhaps read print for longer periods of time. So you can still get away with offering more traditional, let’s call it white board learning online. But yeah, for the kids I teach, it needs to be bite size, it needs to be, you know, you talk for five minutes, and give them activities for 10. And you just need to keep repeating this. And that is really draining as an educator.

18:17

Yeah, it sure is. I want to jump on to another quote in the book. You make a quote later on in one of the later chapters, and you say, conversation is king. And I so like that quote, because a lot of content creators have been going on and on for years and saying content is king. And I keep saying no, no, no. If there’s no discussion around that content, who cares if it’s even? What’s your thoughts on that?

18:47

Yeah, I mean, they’re not I don’t think they’re completely wrong with content is king or queen. I think the idea of offering good content is to create that connection is to get the conversation started, and to give added value. And, I mean, that’s exactly what you have with a conversation. This is why social media is so successful. Because we’re able to converse we’re able to put something out there, people are able to respond, and then you have this back and forth exchange. So I think content is king was very good for for the print or the monologue of television, of films of music. But in the dialogue of content that we now experience, and this could be anything from you know, YouTube or tik tok, where there’s that, you know, that that observer that the audience and producer interaction the content between Comes the conversation. I think we see this no other better place than probably Twitter. You know, you say something, and it’s it’s shared. And now what you said, is now content for better or for worse. So I think, you know, conversation is simply the content of the 21st century.

20:18

Yeah. And by the way, I, yeah, I will quote you. And I would agree that Twitter is a conversational network, despite what people think that don’t understand Twitter. I think Twitter’s more conversational than any other network out there, actually. So yeah, I would agree, I would swipe. That’s why I like Twitter so much. So the other thing you you focused on, and I was really glad to see you touch them just kind of touching on some highlights was, when you talked about all the digital stuff, you went back to something very simple and said, before going to do a digital project, we need a bit of a project management scheme and all this or we need to manage that project. And I think, in the agency freelance slash hire, even in companies I’ve worked for I’ve seen, they don’t do a really good job managing their digital projects do that.

21:18

Mmm hmm. I’ve seen good examples. And I’ve seen bad examples. I think what really trips a lot of us up is this is the speed that’s necessary or the speed that is expected these days. There used to be time to research to explore to test and test again. But you know, what I see with with a lot of projects these days is that it needs to be done yesterday. So you lose that. And I see that even with Google ads, you know, basic things of, you know, we need time, we need a budget to explore keywords to understand the market. And, you know, that’s just not really, there’s a lot of people just don’t have the budget for that. It’s the idea that proper project management, it’s not learned. Sorry.

22:32

No, it’s okay. It’s so true. I I come from before I got into marketing, I come from an IT background. And I come from an IT background as a project leader. And believe me, most people don’t even management don’t know what deliverables are asking for. Yeah. Yeah, in the corporate world, unfortunately, the tool choice is Microsoft Project. And we all hate Microsoft Project. Everybody hates Microsoft Project. And they go to it because it’s the de facto tool because most of these companies are Microsoft shops. Right? So it’s easy. We I worked for a CTO that he wanted Microsoft Project set up his way not to properly manage the project, if you get what I’m saying. So he wanted in more so a reporting structure. So the biggest joke was the day before your update project plans were Do you watch yourself in your office and change your project plan? So they fit his format? Yeah, it was that bad. And it’s like, that’s not project management, despite what he calls it. That’s reporting. But you could have done that reporting in any tool. Thank you very much. So, yeah. Do you have a tool you like for project management now that you work for yourself?

24:01

You know, to be very honest, I don’t do as I don’t do the level of project management. Now that I’m working for myself, or I’m working alone, as I did when I was at the university managing projects, because then my core competence was project management. And we had, we had our own tool at the at the university for that. I’ve used oh my goodness, I’m going to forget all the names. I’ve used a variety of, of those of the project management tools that are out there. But for myself, I don’t I don’t use them as much anymore simply because I’m by myself. And I’m gonna sit there and I cannot remember I know it starts with a T I’m grow old Trello Thank you. Thank you can’t believe I used tools and I can’t remember the names. But that’s probably my go to. And I know it’s not perfect, but it’s something I’ve been using for a long time. So I’m, I’m comfortable with it. But yeah, yeah,

25:17

I think the big thing with tools is, and I’ve said this, with many people is decide on the tool you like, get to know that tool really well. And stop jumping tools around, there’s too many people do what we do. And they like to shiny tool syndrome, they find a new shiny thing, and they’re off, and they spend more time learning the tools, the managing the work, and that becomes they have an issue with someone to another subject, and we kind of touched on it a little bit already. And that was responsive design, but I more want to jump into the mobile first. Okay, what do you what is your feeling on? We should be thinking mobile before we think, in office these days, or, or at a laptop or at a desktop?

26:06

Um, you know, I’m, I just I assume mobile first. But you know, I would go one step further and just say device agnostic. And, I mean, a lot of us have smart TVs at home, but probably very few of us use the TV as, as an internet device. Where we’re what we’re looking at websites, I think most of us use our mobile phone. That is that is the go to that is what we use first. But I think all pretty much all systems are, you know, it’s, it’s understood that it’s going to be used on a mobile phone, it’s going to use a desktop or a laptop. But I think the mobile first is still very relevant. Because, you know, it’s, it’s where we are, you know, if it’s either going to be a phone, or it could be a smartwatch or something like that. But I think it’s it’s not just so much the device. I think it’s also the fact that we are simply mobile creatures, and we are doing so much of our work and our communication, our entertainment, on the on the go, you know, even our cars. It’s, it’s, it’s kind of crazy.

27:33

It is. And you know, I was, I tend to agree that mobile first is a big deal. And I know when I need something, the first thing I reach for is my phone. Like really quickly, if you want to do a Google search, I don’t go running for my laptop or my desktop, I reach for my phone, because it’s probably within arm shot. And if I don’t reach for my phone, honestly, I have an I have a Samsung tablet, I’ll probably reach for that real quickly. Like it’s just, it’s just become the point that we want to do. We want to keep in mind that most searches are not done on a desktop or laptop. And by the way, we need to think about things and you talk about this in your book about voice devices like your page. cagey. I’m not gonna say a word because it’s one right next to me. or, or, or the havior. And I’ve deliberately not saying the words, because every time I do I set them off like, Yeah, but but I mean, I, how many times do we say to our device, play this by this do this? Exactly. You know, tell me what the weather is today. I mean, I don’t even look at the weather channel. I have my device. Tell me what the weather’s

28:53

Exactly. I think that’s some that’s really important. Because I mean, this, this is the mobile aspect. You know, we’re walking around, you know, our apartment, et cetera, et cetera. And I think it’s really important as well, because it should, it should help us to remember because I don’t think we ever we don’t I don’t think we do. Unless we’re on Twitter where it’s always an it was, you know, politics is always going to be an issue. That Yeah, like the web is supposed to be. It’s supposed to be inclusive. It’s supposed to be accessible. It’s supposed to be diverse. That’s, that’s, you know, the dream. And, you know, Voice Search when we have our devices or personal assistance from wherever we have them from. This frees up our hands, it frees up our eyes, it frees up so many things that we take for granted. And if you’re elderly, if you are challenged physically in any way And you’re fortunate enough to still be able to speak voice makes you very mobile, it really enables you. So then you can still shop, you still can then communicate, you can organize your day, you can still be, you know, you can still participate in our society, which is, you know, which is, you know, at least in the in, probably, for all intents purposes, a digital society, or really getting in there. So, I think this voice is really, really important for those people who are maybe on the sidelines. The only thing you know, where that really needs to go is being on the sidelines is often a question of finances, having that sort of digital divide based on, you know, do you have Wi Fi? Do you have the money for a device, etc. And it might sound a little 1984, maybe a little dystopian, but it would be really great if if these devices were, you know, available to everyone before some of the other things because they can help. And that’s where you become very mobile. Of course, we might just be opening a Pandora’s box. But I mean, I suppose, look on the positive side that it might help, rather than than hinder.

31:34

No, I wouldn’t, I would agree. But I think pricings becoming less and less a barrier. And I’ll give a give a couple examples. You can get the a device or Digi device for the basic one for under 50 bucks Canadian now. So that’s not an issue. You can get a smartphone, when they pixel for a came out. Now we’re into the fivay, the foray sold for 475 Canadian without a contract. So there are choices out there now, that are not the flagship models, but they’re just as good as the five ship models, and they work. Well, they work really well. I mean, I I refuse to spend 1000 bucks on a cell phone anymore. I’m just not No, no, no, no, I have my first I’ll go ahead. And I’m looking at a pixel for a, and I’m going to tell you, the camera and the forays better than most cameras and $1,000 phones.

32:38

So I agree with you, the devices are probably not so much the problem. And I mean, if I compare, you know, my time in Canada, and how much we were paying for internet and electricity, or how much we’re paying here, a lot of the problem is getting that device to work, and what doesn’t internet access cost you every month, etc, etc, etc. And that’s, that’s a really big divide. And, you know, we go back to E learning, or, you know, General learning during a pandemic. And the question might not be that, that not every child has has a laptop, if they are lucky enough to that’s great. But even if you do, and you have mum and dad also working at home, which we just went through for the last 18 months. The question is then Oh, wait a second, the wireless is not strong enough to enable two or three people zooming online. You need a more expensive one. Well, can you afford that? Or does your does your neighborhood it does the part of the city you’re living in? Does it have the broadband? Does it have the glass fiber? Is this something that every community has? Or is this only for nice communities in Los Angeles, in Toronto, in New York? So you know, these levels start to arise?

34:16

Yeah,

34:17

it is a big issue. I mean, there is a plan in Canada right now where they’re the government’s working with the telecom providers to try and get high speed internet access out to rural areas. That would be really great. Yeah, that is that is that. So when the pandemic started, that was funny. A lot of people had this dream that they could go work at the cottage. And I remember hearing this, I said, Oh, really, they’re assuming the internet access at your cottage is going to give them enough speed to work and do their job and do zoom calls and do everything else. Well, I can tell you, my mom has a cottage and I was saying before we recorded in Quebec outside of Montreal, and they do not have their internet is subpar compared to what we get in the states and not in the states in the city, compared to the cottage, and we’re headed to a point where they’re in the process of putting fiber into that area action as well. That will change. But that’s as big a problem as anything is, is the access there. Now with devices, I think, you know, with the whole laptop issue, I think what’s brought that down a little bit is the advent of the Chromebook. And I really think Chromebooks have actually dropped the point of entry quite a bit. I think the key was devices, like bad is not to go buy the $200. One, spend a little money and get a good one. But yeah, they it’s not the same entry as a laptop and not to same upkeep as a laptop. But there’s, there’s a multitude of reasons to go that way. Right? Oh, for sure. For sure.

36:04

I mean, you know, with a small laptop, or even with your phone, you know, you can update your WordPress website. Or you can participate in an online class or do dammy and things like that. If if you have the, the speed and if you have the data plan, etc, etc.

36:26

Yeah, it’s so true. And one last thing I wanted to talk about in the book, you and I’m working on a headline right now that says SEO build it, and they might come. I like the word might. So I’ve always had everybody’s taking the approach, oh, we’ll build a website, we’ll put it up there people visit will make 1000s of money. And I say, wait a minute, how are you going to get traffic? And one of the things I say to people is, if you’re going to get traffic, have you thought and realize that SEO is a long term proposition? Yeah. And they say, Well, I don’t want to pay for ads. And I say so you’re prepared not to get traffic for six months? Mm hmm. What’s your thoughts on that

37:20

whole Neff? Ah,

37:23

I teach a two week long SEO course, once a month, and that’s all we talk about for eight hours a day? Um, yeah, it’s it’s definitely a long game. But before there was SEO, if you wanted to build a business, and build a client base, it took time, every thing that that is worthwhile doing takes time. I think you know, we have this sort of fantasy that because we can put it up the internet, it will be found? Well, mathematically, if you look at how many people are on the net, and how many websites are and how many they visit, in a given day, no one’s ever gonna see your website. It’s just not mathematically possible. So you really have to go back to the mom and pop. And you know what Seth Godin wrote years ago about permission marketing, you know, you have to really understand who is interested in your product, and or service? And what are they going to be looking for? And that’s not written in stone? What are they looking for today? What are they looking for on their mobile phone? What are they looking for, you know, next Tuesday, because this is in flux. And, you know, getting people to find your website is one thing, but getting them then to stay on your website, and to make a purchase, and to talk about it. And to bring other people. These are really all steps. And it never ends. You’re always fine tuning. And you add that to changes by Facebook, changes by Google, et cetera, et cetera. You’re in it really for the long term. But I think I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Because every every hour you spend trying to better understand the SEO is an hour that you’re investing, understanding the people you claim to want to serve. And it also helps you understand what it is you’re doing and what is your competitors are doing. So it’s it is really I think it’s a really good learning experience. It can be frustrating, but probably no, no, no more frustrating And then doing business and, you know, competing against the hardware store across the street ever was. It’s just virtual.

40:08

It’s so true. I describe marketing, and I have a catchphrase I call marketing like dating, you don’t expect to go and get married because you’ve gone out one day? Well, building a relationship, when you’re marketing is exactly that it takes time. You have to work at it. It takes effort. For sure. And that’s, and that’s a big deal. Yep. One of the things I don’t think you talked about in the book, and I was just trying to think about, we talk a lot about web sites and why they matter. You didn’t talk, I don’t think about any security or walking down the websites in the book, I don’t think would you have any take on the security side of it? Or do you just choose to stay out of that side of it, or?

40:58

I didn’t. In this book, it will be in the next because we touched on a lot on this in, in the following the following two books I did with um, Bridget Willard, Bridget, I know that for a small business and nonprofits, so there, it became more important because these were step by step, you’re going to build a website, what do you need, and the digital thinking I didn’t get into security too much. Because this is much this isn’t something you can think about. It’s not esoteric, you know, security is on. So your security is extremely, you know, extremely important. And it is certainly something that that I deal with, with with my clients. And I think, you know, we talked initially about page builders and plugins, etc, etc. And I think as these things become, you know, more every day, and a larger group of perhaps unknown, smaller companies are making this making these products for us, and we just start to use them because it’s easy to click and install, security becomes even more important. Yeah, and, you know, a hacked website or broken website, with no backup, this is not uncommon, unfortunately. So I think, you know, if it was, like, go back to our bricks and mortar store, if we had a hardware store on Chestnut Street, we would make sure that we locked the door, and we’d probably go back and shake it. But because it’s a website, and we built it by clicking and clicking, and then throwing, you know, some ads out there, maybe we don’t take it as seriously, but we should, we should, you know, rattle the door and make sure that, you know, our website is up to date, the plugins are up to date, you know, that whoever is working on our website, we have a service level agreement with that, you know, we’ve got our backups, you know, these are sort of common sense things. But I think because websites are so easy to make, maybe we don’t think about them. Now, it’s so true.

43:16

Could you give listeners free, quick, easy takeaways to better digital thinking? As we wrap up, my

43:24

goodness, three quick ones. Um, yeah, we should warn me about that. Um, okay.

43:37

I guess the first one would be certainly, what we talked about conversation, it really get involved. You know, social media and marketing and everything we’re doing online. This is this is a relationship. This is relationship building. And, and I think, you know, that’s probably the first thing, respect, and, you know, and the normal things that we would do in any relationship, that’s the first thing. The second thing is that, I think, and I think most people do this, I think, you know, what I see on Twitter, and my other social media networks is astounding, that everyone seems to be so willing and excited about sharing their knowledge, you know, 100 page ebooks are being given away. I think this is great. And, you know, I would encourage anyone, you know, who, who, you know, who’s, who’s not doing that to do it, to share the knowledge because then we’re all better for it. And yeah, the final thing, perhaps Oh my goodness, I don’t know what the final thing is. Keep on learning, I guess I think that’s probably the most important thing, keep on learning but but take some time away from the screen and pick up a paper book. Because we learn differently. And our brains grow differently. And the neurons that are necessary to grow are different. When we have something in our hand, and we’re reading something on a piece of paper than they are when we are looking at a screen. It’s a completely different type of content and experience. And it helps us in different ways. So take some time offline.

45:42

There you go.

45:42

Yeah. And I would agree with to keep on learning. And I’d take that even a little bit more and say, and when you learn something, implement one thing you learned just don’t learn for the sake of learning, right? There’s many people, I people in my circle. Implementing. Yeah, this conversations been great, Warren, I think people should go out and get your book digital thinking it’s a good read, it kinda lays a little bit of a blueprint for people. So I think that’s great. If someone wants, wants to get a hold, do Where can they get a hold of?

46:20

Well, my great SEO success was taking the family name of my wife, and appending it to mine. So if you look for Warren Lee nyda, I am the only person on the planet with that name. There’s my SEO when and if you want to find me, just look for Warren Laine-Naida. And in Google, and you’ll find me I’m on Twitter. I’m on everything. Thank you, Warren. Have a great day. Thank you, Rob. You have a great day too. Bye. Bye. Bye.

46:56

Very special. Thank you to Warren for joining me on this edition of the SDM show. Please check out his book Digital Thinking on Amazon. It’s a great way to help you with websites on marketing and more. So help your business succeed and check out this book today. Thanks for listening to the SDM show. It shows the production of stunning digital marketing and all rights reserved. Rob can be reached by email at VIP at stunning digital marketing comm on twitter at Rob currents on his website stunningdigitalmarketing.com and on his website there’s links to all his social media platforms. This show is dedicated to my late father Bruce Cairns. Dad, I miss you very much. Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars make your business succeed.