Episode 236: Digital Marketing Version 2.0

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Show Highlights

Rob Cairns sits down with author Warren Laine-Naida to talk about his book Digital Thinkining Version 2.0

Show Highlights:

1. Why Version 2.0 of the book.
2. Digital Skills to help your Business.
3. We talk about all kinds of stuff on the web.
4. How to marketing your business on the web.

Show Notes

Hey everybody, Rob Cairns here. Today I’m here with my good friend Warren Laine-Naida and wea are going to  talk his book about his book Digital Thinking version 2.0. How are you today, Warren?

Hello Rob, how are you?

Doing well in Toronto?

It’s a little overcast at the time of this record, and we’re into rainy season.

And how was life in Europe?

Well, it’s another beautiful sunny early evening.

We haven’t had rain here.

I think in about 6 weeks and there’s none on the horizon.

So you’ve been on with me a couple of times.

We’ve talked with you and Bridget together willyard.

We’ve talked about version one of this book.

And I.

We’d go and visit version two when we talked last week, I hadn’t finished the book.

I’ve now finished it.

Congratulations on doing such a great job on the book, buddy.

Thank you very much.

That’s nice to hear very kind.

It was a.

It was a good read and.

The problem is my highlighter has found lots of spots in the books, so that’s a good thing even for somebody who’s been doing it a while, I always worn something.

So thanks again, much appreciated.

Great, good to hear.

So let’s jump into a.

A couple topics in the book the first one is.

Ecommerce and you spend a lot of time in this book talking about ecommerce, a chapter and the world has kind of changed in the last two years with the pandemic.

And I personally think the e-commerce onslaught was coming anyway.

The pandemic just made it happen faster.

Your thoughts?

What are your thoughts on that?

I I think so.

I think that you know a lot of the things that we’re that we’re doing now.

You know are eventually going to come.

And as you say, you know.

Whenever there’s a crisis, this.

This speeds up change.

Uhm, usually we see.

This in war.

You know we wouldn’t have computers or we might not have computers as fast if we didn’t have World War Two.

And you know, there’s lots of this sort of technology that comes out of necessity.

So certainly e-commerce through the pandemic, you know was for us at that time very, very important and interesting that you raised that question because I saw numbers about German e-commerce sales and deliver.

Trees, and they’ve actually gone down about 20% in the last couple of months.

And this is being attributed to the fact that while the stores are now open and most of the rules and regulations, at least here in Germany, have been relaxed and.

So yeah, yeah, I think on on one hand it’s it’s, you know it was good.

It is good that we can order things at.

Home, but I’m I’m wondering if there’s going to be a little bit of, if not backlash, people will look fondly on the days of going into a store and and if this is going to turn around, perhaps a little bit, but I think, as you say, this is.

You know ecommerce is is here to stay and there are so many benefits that yes.

I think you’re right.

You know it’s funny.

I was looking back at my Amazon Prime account last night because I’ve been an Amazon Prime user since the day it came into Canada.

I mean this.

And I think even before the pandemic I had actually as a consumer not as a web guy, I had increased the amount I was buying online and part of it is choice.

Part of it is price.

And part of it is time, so I order.

Yesterday morning I ordered a Mother’s Day gift for my mother. I, you know, and this won’t come out till after Mother’s Day. So I can say this.

I won’t say anything.

No me neither and uh, I ordered it on Amazon and I had it.

In five hours.

So that is not worth running around for it to price the time and gas and we all know with the mess in the Ukraine, gas prices have gone through the.

Yeah, yeah.

Roof so.

Well, here as well they’re 30% higher than they were. Perhaps a month ago.

Yep, so that’s a factor and I think I’ve done my Christmas shopping for about the last eight or nine years pretty well on Amazon.

So that’s a factor.

Yes, yes me too.

And it just kind of keeps on going, and that’s where I kind of stand, so I’m OK with that now as a.

Oh, I just wanted can I jump back?

Because what you said I, you know, I think that’s an important aspect.

And I mean there is a chapter in the book.

That is called ecommerce is not an online shop and I I think it’s it’s very important what you said that.

Of course.

Uhm, you know we use ecommerce for all of the reasons.

And because we’re shopping and like you say, it’s convenience.

It’s the time you know, it’s the choice.

It’s it’s everything that that revolves around the shopping except.

The the The the subtitle of the book is, you know, digital thinking and.

Uhm, I can never pronounce this because it’s French and and I’m English.

Websites, online marketing and our digital Flannery and I think this is an important distinction in online shopping and offline shopping.

Because when we shop in real time on the streets in the High Street, wherever it is.

We’re shopping, but we’re really not, we’re strolling we’re looking it’s a social event we’re getting some exercise so it’s really you know we’re browsing as as an activity that we can do online but offline.

You know there’s something about that’s very different and.

It would be.

It’s a shame and interesting to see what replaces that once there are fewer and fewer stores which we already see here.

There’s so many stores that are now closed because of the last two years, and if that comes back because people like browsing, they like going to the mall and looking at things without.

Actually buying anything I wanted to throw that in there.

I’m sorry, just.

Oh, not not to worry and and while we’re talking about ecommerce, we always think about.

Or each tenant?

Tangible shopping.

I bought a shirt.

I bought it computer part.

And I want to throw this out there.

We’ve been doing ecommerce with restaurants in the pandemic a lot, skip the dishes Uber eats and I would say those have greatly declined in all of this because people want to get out and socialize with their astringents coming down.

Right?

Right?

So I would say.

Very much so.

Yeah, people aren’t doing as much online delivery for food and that is really a form of ecommerce and people don’t think of that.

That that’s very very true.

That’s very true.

I I think.

When it comes to food and shopping, it’s so much of a social aspect, you know.

You know, we we, we meet someone for coffee, but we’re probably not drinking coffee and it’s just this euphemism.

Whether it be shopping or eating or whatever it is for social contact.

And yeah, yeah.

So I’m gonna jump into another.

Chapter in the book and depending on the listener, this might go over well.

It might not go over well.

I think I know what you’re going to talk about.

I’m looking at a chapter called virtual Relationship, sex and and health.

And I wanna go to hell.

Sit different ball game because that’s not just the relationship part and we can go there.

We all know that.

About six months ago.

There was a website called Onlyfans and they went through a spiel where they payment processors.

Basically leveraged on them and said.

We’re not gonna accept anymore payments for.

Buying pictures were that were risque, well, we’ll leave it at that and.

It was kind of funny because they made all their money off risque pictures at the time.

I think what was happening was they had a large number of chargebacks from angry wives calling the credit card company and saying I didn’t buy this.

Or angry husbands?

If we were in trouble with their wives saying I didn’t buy them.

That’s right.

Yes, but that all said the virtual world does give some people some anonymity and they don’t have to worry about what people think and you kind of talk about that in the.

Right?

Book a little bit.

Do you have any?

Thoughts on that?

You want to share?

Oh, I could go on for quite a while about that I.

I think you know you touch on on on *********** or rotica or whatever else consenting.

Hopefully consenting adults are getting up to online.

And I think that’s probably, you know, the the most obvious or tangible aspect of, you know, the the dark side of of our digital culture, but probably only because it is relatable to still real time.

You know an and, but it’s it really is only one aspect of.

The fact that we spend.

So much time alone online you.

Know we’re we’re so connected but at the same time, so alone.

Uhm, there’s much we get up to.

In an anonymous capacity or with our actual name and profile?

Uhm, you know, I think that come anytime we want to do mischief, we will.

Regardless of you know if it’s online offline or how many locks are on the door.

I agree.

Uhm, and and I don’t think that’s that’s ever cheat that’s ever been any different.

Yeah, but I I think you know there’s definitely a you know a positive side because at the same time that.

Uhm, that technology gives us the ability to, perhaps, you know, instead of being the the burly truck driver to be the effeminate.

Uhm, waitress.

It does give.

Marginalized people.

An opportunity to participate.

In a way that they cannot do or might be unwilling to do offline.

Uhm, and I you know, I think that’s that’s probably important.

If it’s if it’s done sensibly, and that’s always the question, well, who’s you know how?

How is it done sensibly?

But you have to give adults credit for making decisions for themselves.

Uhm and and and technology, whether it be a website or a.

A sexual aid or the ability to be in contact with someone and to live out.

A consenting fantasy that has got to be in some way healthier.

Uhm than than denying it and then possibly.

Hurting yourself or others by playing this out.

Come real time.

Yeah, of course.

I’m sure I’ll be crucified from one side or the other, but uhm.

Uh, our our our desires have have always been there and we will find some way to to express those desires in one way or another and possibly online is a safer place.

Yep I would.

Yeah I would.

I would agree with that and one of the parts, you say not CHF health and I want to kind of take the health discussion in a different way.

A lot of people have been able to contact with therapists online.

Right now I’ve done some of that.

A lot of people have been able to have virtual doctors appointments.

We’ve rethought how we do things.

Uhm, I had a good friend who had knee replacement surgery and did group Physio online on a zoom call every twice a week for 10 weeks.

So there and you know that was a benefit because she didn’t worry about.

Getting to the hospital.

’cause she wasn’t driving.

At that point.

So there’s all kinds of benefits like health wise to doing stuff online in a disorder.

Yeah, and I think that’s really important.

It goes back to the oh, I’m sorry.

It’s OK, go ahead.

I I I.

Was going to say there’s you know there’s there is that saying it it’s it’s it goes something like you know for effective effective medicine requires a village something like this.

Medical care requires a village.

You know you can’t do it by yourself, and that’s that’s definitely an advantage to come to our online connectivity.

Because if we are not actually living in a village, uhm, we are connected to the whole world, so we do have that capacity and capability.

You know, if I think about, you know, perhaps doctors or patients who are.

Uh, disconnected physically in some out of the way place, or you know you do not have access to information or or a therapist.

Online certainly offers these in a way that that our real physical world is struggling to.

Yeah, and we talked the other thing I want to jump onto is you have a chapter and a comment in the book about using your devices.

And so when we think devices, most people think about.

The computer, the laptop, the iPad, the Android tablet, and the phone.

And I would argue there’s so much more than that.

What about that Aliaksei device sitting behind on your desk?

What about the G device sitting on your desk and I’m not going to say the names because I’ll set them off for everybody.

Right?

Yes, exactly.

What what about that doorbell sitting on your front door that shows you who’s coming up to your door?

Yes, those are all digital devices that we need to think about and nobody does.

Yes, well I I agree uhm.

I mean the phone is something we always have in our hand.

But you know?

We have our digital assistance.

Which we.

Are not all using as well as.

We as we could.

Or we probably will probably in the same way as you know, we went through this.

This process of understanding and perhaps learning our mobile devices.

Uhm, but there’s our our, our, our digital assistance.

That we could use better.

There are all the smart home.

Some things we have, you know we have a washing machine that is connected.

You know to the Internet and you know, so it can.

We can download cycles.

It can communicate with me if it’s got a problem or if it’s finished.

You know they’re all of this smart watch.

Things that we can do, we can.

Track our sleep.

And our health and the list is really endless.

Coffee machines, you know.

Refrigerators, dishwashers.

So if you’ve got the desire and you have the resources, so space connectivity, money, you know you can really have these devices connected across across every need and desire.

Is it?

But not everyone can do that.

Uhm which?

Probably a more interesting question than what can we do with these as well is rather what can those who do not have these not be able to do?

And and unfortunately, having all these devices brings in the whole privacy discussion too.

Like is the doorbell.

A video doorbell private is your digital assistant.

Listening to you what you’re doing and where that stands with privacy and their privacy advocates.

I’m probably either too new school or too old school, but you know, we all.

I always have this module in my class.

We will always talk about online regulations and privacy.

I mean the things that we have to have, but.

You know, I always raise an eyebrow when someone says they’re very concerned about this, but at the same time, have no qualm in using this.

They sort of expect that I get to use it, but I’m completely protective and we don’t have.

We never, we’ve never had.

Uhm, in our offline in our pre digital world.

Uhm, if people wanted to find information about you, they would.

Uhm and dumb.

I don’t think that’s changed anymore.

And if you’re using a device or if you’re online or if you put something online or if you search for something, I think you need to accept and understand that this is information that’s open to anyone.

And if you’re concerned, then.

Half of me wonders why you’re concerned.

And the other half of me wonders.

Well, then you have a responsibility to protect your privacy in some way.

I mean, if you’re concerned with your children privacy, then I would wonder why your Facebook is full of pictures of your children.

You can’t have it both ways.

I, I think it’s one of those things we pay for because people we expect for some reason we expect that and we get so much from every provider in every device that these things are.

You know I’ve got a smartwatch that does so much for me. It costs $20. Google provides 99% of its services for free.

Well, they have to get something from this and that is information about us.

And if if you’re not willing to sort of get you know this, give and take then I think you’re being.

People being very naive.

Uhm, I’m probably the guy at the part with the little desk that says, you know, convince me that information about you is so important that that you need to be worried about being, you know, logged on Incognito.

You know, I I.

I think we have an overinflated idea about the value of our privacy.

Because I don’t think we’ve ever had privacy.

Uhm, not at all.

If we have a credit card, we don’t have privacy, you know, I mean.

If you use the, if you use loyalty card in the store, you don’t have privacy.

There’s so many.

Things yeah, yeah.

The reason they give you stuff is in exchange for your data, I mean.

There’s always been that, yes.

And if you walk into a store, you don’t have privacy either because you’re on video camera.

I mean it the only way you’re gonna get true privacy is to go living on the moon in a bubble and cut yourself off from.

Work I mean.

Exactly, yeah.

I believe that.

Yes oh good OK?

I I’m in that camp, uhm, let’s jump onto your chapter about page builders.

One of the things that I really liked was you talked about Gutenberg as a page builder.

Now for those who listen to this podcast.

I know I’ve been in the Gutenberg camp for almost a year now.

I’m heavily invested in Gutenberg and then you go on to say use a lightweight theme so.

I do, uhm.

I have gone with Cadence, theme and cadence blocks which are pretty lightweight.

Uhm, and then you talk about the other page builders.

Right?

We are certainly getting into a no code environment whether we want to admit it or not.

What do you feel about page builders?

Well, I’ve I’ve done over 300 websites for countless clients, and one of those websites uses a page builder.

And that’s elementor.

Yep, no other website from no other client has used anything.

Close to elementor.

Which tells me that you know if you’ve got 300 websites running and one you know, then obviously you don’t really need them.

I think I mean they are tools.

They are means to an end and what I love about UM seems and.

I guess specifically Word press is that it enables people to build websites who otherwise might not be able to or might not want to.

So if if it means that they are going to be excited about using their website and updating it and seeing what they can do, and if that means elementor or bakery builder or adivi or God knows what else then.

Use it and I applaud you and I will help you where I can.

I don’t think that these things are necessary, but OK.

I mean I can build websites I could like code a website and dumb.

I only use a tool when it’s necessary.

You know, I’m not a power tool guy, you know?

So I we have a hedge here that goes around the house that is, that is a monster and we’ve been here six years and I fought this hedge tooth and nail with a hand Clippers until this year.

And I finally bought them an electric.

Hedge trimmer now I still have a manual lawn.

Mower which I push back in.

4th, so that’s me in a nutshell.

I will do what I can with basic tools until I’ve reached.

That edge where I can’t.

I need something more and I’m the same way with websites I.

I was a long term a long time Drupal user builder built all the websites with Drupal.

I’m umlah and I only got into WordPress in 2013 because they were the ones that had a mobile friendly theme.

Team alright, so that saved me time.

But I tell you, when they came out when when WordPress switched to the Gutenberg blocks, I had serious emotional trauma.

You and half the community.

Oh my goodness, I I downloaded and started using classic press.

You know I wrote letters to my senator.

I fasted.

But but I’ve come to like them.

And you know, if I had to choose, then again, I use Gutenberg blocks.

Or I am using Gutenberg blocks until I hit a wall that says I.

Can’t do what I want to do with Gutenberg blocks.

Then I will look for options.

Until now I haven’t got to that point, which doesn’t mean I won’t come to that point, but I just haven’t got there yet.

So for me, if you’ve got a page builder, I’m wondering.

What it is that you need to build and is it a default?

It’s almost like a knee jerk reaction.

Now it’s like OK, I’m going to include this theme and I’m going to download elementor and I’m going to, you know, by myself up.

It’s a it’s like well have.

You thought this out?

Yeah, I think it’s a case of old habits are hard to break, right?

It’s people get into the habit of doing things one way and they don’t see that.

Maybe there’s a better way so.

Well, it’s interesting as well, because you know, I’m I’m an old, I’m an.

Old white guy.

Just like you.

There’s a few of us out.

There and and we can’t change.

We’re old, we’re white or guys, so there you go.

Uhm, and you know we and people much older than us built the Internet armies building websites in an agency in 1998, so you know, we’ve sort of.

Helped build and put together this online world and you know, I I spend a I don’t spend a lot of time but I spend some time in discussions with people much, much younger than myself who will explain to me then why I don’t understand what’s going on otherwise.

I would use a page builder.

I think.

I don’t know, you know, like you weren’t born when we were building websites that wasn’t even Dreamweaver then, so I don’t know.

It’s it’s like I say, it’s almost a knee jerk.

It’s like this is what everyone is using, so we’re going to use it and we’re not going to talk about it.

So so true.

Also, we talk about in the book.

Online learning or e-learning?

Oh yes.

I have some hard thoughts on that.

One I I know you quite well.

I have a.

A good friend of mine in Nova Scotia that teaches workplace education courses that have gone online because of pandemic.

And then I have a number of friends.

Of mine who are educators who teach.

Youth online.

And my personal opinion is.

Truly hard to teach kids at an elementary school level.

No matter how much we want to protect their.

Health online they.

I think the online learning.

Curriculums are suited better for people that are are more mature learners.

Do you have any thoughts on online learning?

Uhm, I I do, yes.

I’ve taught many years in class and then with the pandemic we went online and I was very much in favor of this because otherwise the classes would be canceled.

I’ve been now teaching online mostly, but we’re starting to get back into class teaching here in Germany for the last two and a half years.

And uhm, it’s it is two different types of teaching.

Uhm, the online is, you know you require from the teachers a much higher level of preparation in a different format of learning and material.

Uhm, you’re also, if not physically.

In a way, you feel that you’re in a much smaller space.

UM, and anyone who’s taught UM in class you come, you, you, you unfold in the physical environment.

You stand up, you move about you point, you run over.

It’s like you know I’m Phil Donahue.

In a classroom I I have a whiteboard.

We have flip charts.

You know, there’s a Beamer you can go to a student and help them physically on a keyboard.

Discover that key.

And it’s done instantaneously.

A lot of the OR a great deal of the in class learning is it’s ad hoc.

You know you have your your.

Uhm, your program and then you start to develop this on the whiteboard and and the students are involved.

You know, putting together posters.

There’s there’s a really a big social element and a creative element to the offline.

School room online.

You are limited to you know there we have like online whiteboards.

This is fine if you have the ability or you have the resource of an office that you can.

You know you have a whiteboard and you can move about in, but many of us don’t.

You know we’re having to teach a classroom.

2030 students and we’re in our small kitchen office. Perhaps an and you’re sitting for a long period of time, as are the students.

Uhm, so there are so many difficulties that I find.

In e-learning, UM.

In in comparison to the to the in class.

Definite benefits, I mean, I can teach students anywhere in the world, and students who are immobile or or sick can still participate, which is which is amazing.

And, uhm, I find with the different age groups and the different needs, it really is very need oriented seniors.

I teach we we cannot do this online.

We’ve tried it does not work, children I’ve taught.

This is really.

Difficult because children have a very short attention span.

Where it seems to work OK is somewhere in the middle vocational students or people who who are doing continued education.

So people who are used to being online for extended periods of time, it seems to work.

The last thing that that is very interesting and frustrating with e-learning is because of the pandemic.

We have assumed, well, not all of us, but some people have assumed that an online classroom is the same as an offline when it comes to uh, periods of time.

The e-learning was never meant to be signed on at 8:30 in the morning and you leave the classroom at 3:30 in the afternoon.

That’s that’s a physical school.

That’s a physical setting where people can get up and move around and go from room to room.

But doing this online, which a lot of schools do.

Is extremely detrimental to the learning process.

That’s my ramp for the moment.

And then the and then the other thing we’ve got to consider is not everybody’s Internet connections is equal and they go down like I was sharing this story with you before we went to record how I was doing the talk last Friday. And my Internet connection decided to go down in.

The middle of it all.

This this is this is a good this.

Is really important, I mean.

I I think you know we should spend a lot less time worrying about our online privacy, which is a, uh?

Which is a privilege I don’t.

I do not believe it’s a right uhm, and we should then perhaps spend more time thinking about.

The requirements of our society going forward, if they are going to be more and more online then who are we marginalizing?

Because not every child has a device at home.

Not every home has wireless or the capacity for more than one or two people to be online at the same time.

Right now in our home, three different people are online doing different things now.

Not every home can do that.

So if you don’t have the resources, if you don’t have the access to to this then you cannot participate and access usually means very honestly money.

In the same way that if you want to help the environment and drive an electric car, you’re going to need more than the price of the car.

You need a place to plug your car in.

And not everyone has that.

Not everyone owns a home.

And not anyone, not everyone lives in a building where that is available.

Maybe there’s two plugs, but there’s no more, and there’s twelve people living in the building, so access and you know this is access is a privilege and it needs to be turned over to a responsibility.

And we could talk about that for a long.

Time I mean.

This is these are very frustrating things I think and yeah, yeah.

I I agree with that I’m I’m actually of the belief.

You know, without spending a lot of time on the Internet should be treated like electricity and water.

We’ve gotten to that point as a utility, and we know back many, many years ago, governments forced running.

Water and electricity into rural neighborhoods and they subsidized that and I truly believe the Internet should be handled the same way and as we go to this more online centric world, we’re actually discriminating against people who don’t live in major Metropolitans.

And that’s a problem.

It really is.

Yes, we’ve the the the the plate has turned.

You know when I first was online there was AOL OK and and.

Because of the of the phone prices you wrote your emails in Word or whatever we were using.

Then you logged in, you copied the material from where you put it in the email you sent the email and when it went through you logged off.

Yep, because online time was then a privilege and it cost money and expensive.

Uhm, now at that same time because.

Talking pre 2000.

At the same time, most of the reservoirs of of potable water.

So water that we can use and live on in the United States were at very acceptable levels.

20 years later.

These same reservoirs are sitting at, you know 40% capacity.

At the same time, we are sending gigabytes of data.

24/7 across the Internet, and we’re not thinking about the price, so I find it really interesting that we have two different worlds.

You know where we started that we had.

Perhaps, for example, lots of drinkable water, but we had to pay to be online and now.

We’re in a very different world where drinking water is starting to be possibly a problem.

And dumb, but no one thinks at all about the price of what we’re doing online.

Yeah, and I think our cost is a little cheaper. I mean, I’ve been doing this long enough that I remember the days of doing stuff with a 300 baud modem where I wrote my email offline and I uploaded it using a mail program just downloaded. I’ve been through the compuserve’s in the genies of the world, so we.

Yep, Yep.

You know, for people who.

Are under 30.

They’re not gonna remember those.

I’ve been through what I considered the first social network and that was IRC Internet relay chat.

We’ve all a lot of us old timers have been.

There and we’ve.

Been to watch the cycles and people say oh.

Internet’s expensive, and I say.

I don’t know about that because I know in the days when we.

Uhm, had dial in services I was paying for a second phone line which was 40 or 50 bucks a month at that time, so I don’t think they’re proportionately more expensive.

I think it’s just the case of getting the technology there.

I know when we are in Canada a couple of years ago, you know we’d living been living in Germany for 30 years.

And I did a one year sabbatical in Ontario and we were very naive.

Because you know any infrastructure prices in Germany?

Are very, very cheap.

They’re not cheap.

Uhm no.

And then you know we went to Rogers to get our packet.

You know which included our phone or cable the whole thing, what we were paying a month in Ontario we were not paying that for an entire year.

Of the same services in Germany, we were speechless.

I mean we were we were numb.

It was so shocked.

Uhm, and we were very happy when that year was over.

I’m sure it’s one of the biggest problems in Canada is it doesn’t matter who you go with that the pricing is worse than most places.

I’m sorry.

Obscenely prices, yeah, but it doesn’t.

Seem to bother people.

Uhm, though at the same time I think even in water shortages people would sneak out at midnight and water their lawn.

I don’t.

I don’t think it doesn’t bother people.

I just think it’s a case of.

It’s not been handled.

Well it’s yeah I.

We’ll leave it.

I think that I mean you know there’s we do our things.

We pay our taxes and at the same time we have to worry about these things and wonders.

Well, wait a second.

The people who are in charge aren’t they paid to do that?

I mean, how much do we have?

To worry about.

I think we.

Have enough to worry.

About so yes I I I I.

Agree with your point there, yes.

And and you know, it’s it’s funny because we going back to the topic of education.

There’s so many ways you can buy courses online.

You can jump on YouTube and watch your video, I mean.

I like to share the story of my son who’s now 30.

When he was 17, learned out how to string his first lacrosse stick by watching the YouTube video, and then he just did what they showed him how to do.

You can find help with a million of one software packages on YouTube, all free for the taking I mean.

Uhm, it’s all there.

It really is.

Yep, Google offers so many courses.

For free, you know there’s $12.00 courses on Udemy for WordPress.

Uhm, I’ve actually signed up for one of Google’s new courses. They have a certificate program for digital marketing and ecommerce that they run through Coursera and it’s $25 a month.

Which is.

Quite cheap if you you know if you think back how much you spent for your university degree.

Towards some Python courses I’ve taken.

$25 for the course exactly.

No, that’s that’s great.

Uhm, I think for education that’s really important, because if you know if if we can we never stop learning and and for anyone for any reason wherever they are, if they can access the Internet.

Uhm, it’s just it’s incredible when one considers that when we were in school, you have to rush down to the library and hope that the volume of Encyclopedia Britannica was still there and some other kid hadn’t borrowed it.

Now we have access to anything that we ever hoped.

We need.

Your dream to learn.

It’s it’s right there and it’s mostly free.

It’s incredible.

It’s funny, I still have an old encyclopedia site, but you mentioned it’s free, but the one thing you gotta watch for is misinformation as well.

Yes, uhm, we’ve always had to watch for that, I think.

Uhm, I think we’re dodging our responsibilities there.

That’s something that’s part of our, you know, the part of one of my courses.

Uhm, you know we used to be.

We used to be smart enough to know the difference between you know what we’re being told and what it really meant.

You know fake news used to be called propaganda, and we understood the reason that someone was saying something.

And I think we’re shirking our responsibility on that, because, you know, there’s misinformation and fake news and things come.

Everyone has an opinion.

Everyone has a need to say something to get what they want.

And, uhm, I don’t know.

I I.

I feel that a lot of the talk about fake news is a bit of a bit of trying to distance ourselves from our responsibility to listen and to make judgments based on.

Knowledge, and perhaps it comes down because we just don’t have enough knowledge or not willing to make a stand.

Uhm, I don’t know.

We’re also perhaps lazy.

I mean, I think a lot of people will look at something and take it for what it is without checking sources without checking a day without thinking.

Why is this information there?

What’s the point of this information and should I take it with a grain of salt or not?

We could talk about that for a long time as well.

I don’t know.

I don’t know, I’ve yeah.

I don’t know.

Yellow journalism we used to call it.

We used to understand why something was being written because everyone and everything has an agenda, whether it be a store, a government, a media channel, our wife or husband, everyone has an agenda and based on the agenda we will say and do things and it’s up to us to understand what that agenda is.

And if we should listen or how hard we should listen?

I don’t know.

t’s a conversation that we could.

Go on and on with to be honest.

We could we could have a.

Episode we’re here.

On Tuesday afternoon, folks.

Yeah, and we’re still here the following Tuesday after.

And we’re still here.

Warren, thanks for joining me and talking a little bit about the book.

If somebody wants to buy the book, get ahold of you, reach out to you.

How’s the best play?

Uhm, well I’m the only Warren Laine-Naida neither in the in the whole world so I’m really easy to find on Google.

I’m usually on Twitter all over the place.

Uhm, I have a deal on the book for listeners of your show.

If they go to my website.

They can get the Digital Thinking Version 2.0 book and I will have it sent to them for half price.

There’s a button there by now on sale and it is half price, and I will send it directly to your door.

That’s an amazing deal, and the book is well worth the read.

I suggest you get it sooner than later because You’ll learn some things.

Thanks Warren.

Have a great day.

Thank you Rob you too.

Thanks for having me.

 

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