Episode 212: Tips From The Legends of WordPress Podcasting

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Show Summary

Rob Cairns sits down with Nathan Wrigley and Bob Dunn to talk podcasting. Bob, Nathan and Rob have all had shows that have hit episode 200 in the last month so enjoy the amazing conversation from these Podcast experts.

Show Highlights:

1. Podcast origin stories.
2. Tips about recording your podcast.
3. Technical issues that have happened during your podcast.
4. How to get guests for your podcast.

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Show Notes

Hey everybody, Rob Cairns here.

Today I’m here with two good friends in the podcast world, Nathan Wrigley and Bob Dunn.

How are you gentlemen today?

We’re both waiting to say something ’cause we didn’t want to talk over each other ’cause we know that yes.

That’s exactly what I was doing, and I thought I’ll go for another second and then I’ll leave it in.

But you maybe I’m fine.

Oh good, glad you are good. Good Bob. It’s funny we got 3 podcasters here. I’ve all gone over 200 episodes on their shows recently and we all have nothing to say. This could be a fun hour.

And and I’m doing good.

To say the least guys.

I I often wonder how much more I’ve got to say, and maybe maybe I have literally run out.

Yeah, I actually say what I did. I actually figured it out roughly on our estimated episodes and when Meech had 200, that’s about a total of 150 hours.

Do you see what I did that you see?

Oh, but between the three of us, so that’s a lot of Bob, Nathan, and Rob.

Yeah, yeah.

Can handle when you really think about it.

Yeah, I’m I’m not sure it’s very wise.

And they and they get us all in small doses because we all kind of cross pollinate so.

It’s it’s been interesting.

Let’s start with Nathan Nathan.

Do you want to share?

You know, in the WordPress world we talk about the WordPress origin story, so I thought we share our podcast origin stories.

So let’s start with Nathan, what’s?

OK OK yeah.

So I I was building websites when when it was all tables really so I don’t know how long that ago that is but before CSS and then.

CSS came along and I ended up using a CMS called Drupal which I really enjoyed using and various other bits and pieces.

I used Magento for ecommerce and things.

I just found that seems were a much quicker way for me to build websites.

But then I got a bit fed up of using those systems for variety of reasons.

And I decided in about 2014 something like that that I’d give WordPress a try, had always been on my horizon, but I’d never managed to use it.

And really liked it immediately.

Fell in love with it and thought this is the one I’m going to keep using this.

And then it was about that time when Facebook groups were kind of kicking off.

I feels it was about that time.

So 2014 something like that and there was Facebook groups popping up for everything and one of them was a a plugin which I used.

And still used to this day called Beaver Builder and there was a a thriving burgeoning Beaver builder group which is still going.

By the way.

You can find it on Facebook.

And hung out in there and tried to answer some questions where I knew what I was talking about and but mostly was consuming knowledge from other people and struck up a friendship with, uh, a chap called David Walmsley who was producing YouTube videos at the time.

All about Beaver builder and I, I think probably.

Asked him a few questions and he was very helpful and polite.

And I think we ended up taking the conversation offline and out of nowhere.

I just I just sort asked him one day.

Do you fancy doing a podcast and it kind of blew me over?

He said, yeah, alright, let’s give it a go.

We’ll try try one or two episodes I I had no experience at all at that point, even public speaking, you know?

Never put a mic in front of my mouth or spoke out loud.

Kelly and we just thought, let’s give it a go.

So we decided to schedule a time and we thought let’s do a couple of episodes, put them out and see.

How it goes? And that was in 2016 and ever since then I’ve been doing podcasts pretty much every week, all about WordPress. So yeah, that’s my story.

Yeah, it’s quite.

It’s been quite the journey, and for those who don’t know, Nathan does this week in Motor Press, which typically run.

Right now it’s at like 10:00 AM Eastern Time, but usually 9:00 AM Eastern Time.

Britain seems to be.

A little behind on the DST clock change and.

Yeah, yeah I’ve I’ve heard that you’re you’re getting rid of daylight saving aren’t you?

Isn’t that, isn’t that?

A thing.

In in the US.

US is yeah yeah, the US they’re they. Yeah whatever it’s yeah.

You know I I’m like OK.

Yeah, supposedly that’s what they’re saying in the news.

Yeah, we we.

And so, and suppose it was God.

We definitely don’t overlap.

Sometimes we’re like 3 or 4 hours apart and sometimes we’re five hours apart, so yeah.

Yeah, and supposedly Ontario will move once the US moves, so Bob do something with those politicians down there.

Uhm, Bob, you’re you’ve been podcasting a long time and you and I have known each other a long, long time.

Probably over 10 years.

Now, how did you get into podcasting originally?

I’ve never asked you.

Yeah huh?

OK, so kind of stepping back as Nathan did, so I started using WordPress in 2007 and I remember in 2009 even before I started the Bob WP brand I was invited to a podcasting workshop and two of my colleagues and friends who were.

Actually, at their peak in podcasting at that time, so they were early adopters and.

They basically said Bob, you got to start podcasting and they had me at this workshop and poked and growled at me and everything.

And I was like, you know, and I I was doing a lot of workshops and they just felt it would be a good fit.

And so I walked away and said, yeah, I’ll certainly think about it and.

I wasn’t really enamored with the idea, was like it’s a bit overwhelming.

I was still running our agency or marketing agency, kind of on the latter end of that, but I had client work and I just thought man, I don’t know, you know, the blog seems to be working, so I I actually woke up five years late.

And it was.

It just dawned on me it just hit me.

At one point I said, OK, I’m going to do it.

Kind of like Nathan said it just.

Was something to do I put together this?

Horrifying little podcast called WWP Breakdown and it was supposed to be a play on words.

You know, breaking down word press but then having a breakdown and nobody really caught on to that.

But you know, I, I thought about myself.

So I did these little short podcasts and they were really.

Just basically regurgitating what I was writing about, and you know, talking about it workshops even then.

And after about, I think I did that for about 14 months.

I thought how this you know this podcast kind of sucks.

I’d listen to it and I think you know people really like this thing.

It’s not really.

Yeah, yeah, but yeah, I was talking about products and things like that so it was kind of a verbal review but a little bit more commentary thrown in and I just dropped it.

I said, you know, until I come up.

With the idea.

I I’m not doing this again, so I think it took me about 12 months or so before.

I thought of do the woo and basically that was in the so I quit the one in 2015, started do the Moon 2016 and then there was a long journey between then and now. I think I’ve done like 7 podcasts.

And right now I have the one that do the Wu.

I mean, I still have that one going.

And yeah, that’s pretty much it.

Yeah, that’s that’s a bit of a ride.

Did you say 7 podcasts?

You’ve done seven different ones with different titles and different websites and all of that.

Yeah it was.

Yeah, and I think my longest lasting one was about oh, three or four episodes.

OK, yeah and.

Say, yeah, you’re really really trying things out, yeah?

Yeah, so you know and and the interesting little nugget I’ll throw in there is I started to do the woo and after about oh I don’t know 10 episodes.

I decided to go.

A different route with that podcast and made it what was called the WP E-commerce Shore show more of a broader ecommerce podcast, and I did that for about 180 episodes and I then I I think I had started do the woo.

While I was doing that one and after 180 episodes of that, I just decided OK, I’m gonna drop this.

This one.

Continue with, do the woo and you know see where it goes.

So it’s been a lot of juggling and different little short ones.

Yeah, yeah.

I started and stuff and yeah, it’s you know I.

I don’t feel there’s anything wrong with.

Venturing into something and saying OK, this doesn’t work even after a few episodes.

You know it’s like, yeah, whatever so, but you know it’s it’s been interesting I’ve I’ve tried a lot of different formats and a lot of different things.

And you typically do yours Bob on record, where Nathan does one live show and does the rest of his own record.

Yeah, you know I did live.

I hated it.

I did, I didn’t.

I was.

I just had a lot of issues and I don’t know if Nathan has this but.

I have a lot of guests coming from all around the world and the Internet.

Issues with live streaming really became an issue even with some of my hosts because of Internet connectivity, so I ended up actually dropping that for that particular reason because there was, you know, we were losing people sometimes in the middle of it.

Guests and stuff, and unfortunately that just was, you know, kind of the nature.

My audience and my guests that I had on and it just didn’t work.

Yeah, it’s curious.

The I’ve I’ve had a couple of times where the the platform has died so the the actual whole thing has just fallen to pieces.

One time we were about halfway through and it just stopped.

We didn’t know it stopped because we just carried on.

It was only about.

Half an hour after it had stopped that I realized, oh, the little record lights not flashing anymore because we just kept going, but.

But the in terms of the guests, most of it has worked absolutely fine. I imagine the bandwidth I only started doing the live thing about. I don’t know. 2 1/2 years ago or something.

Not that and the I guess the bandwidth is now a lot better and also the software that’s available now to do all these live streaming things is so cool and it’s just all in the browser and you know all of the difficulty in the setting things up and all of the different streaming keys and all that.

Pain has been taken away.

You don’t need to do anything, you just set it up once and then whenever you want to go live, you just click the button and it just goes out to all the platforms.

It’s so easy if you are.

If you’re thinking of going live again, I would urge it because it’s it.

I enjoy it a lot and also the the software is so good now.

Yeah, and I I did use.

Oh, what was it?

I can’t even think of the word.

Stringere bub.

Yeah, I think so.

Stream married.

Yeah and I used it for this was within the last year I used it for a few episodes and I just yeah there was just a few people that just the quality was very very.

The audio was cutting in and out a lot and and there was just a lot of issues around and I I I don’t know I’m old.

School, you know it’s like one of those you know.

Sometimes I’m very.

Innovative and creative and other times I just kind of fall back and I think, uh, Radio Times and I I like the voice only and it’s almost a a personal preference, probably for me.

It’s not necessarily always.

You know what is best or what what somebody else should do is just kind of works best for me.

Yeah, it’s it’s funny.

I I did a uhm a live show in December.

I did like a year end review and I was in a spot where I had GB down Internet.

Good apps?

Stream hard wired and the sweet folks at Rogers decided to invoke a maintenance window right at the start of my podcast, and I was hosting.

And it was like.

It was tough and then we we kind of got through it and but it was like that’s the problem with doing live is.

The 1st 20 minutes.

If anything can go wrong, it will and you just gotta roll with it.

Yeah, and I think and and one other thing just to kind of throw in with live.

Yeah, yeah, have no chance.

I think another thing you gotta consider is your guests.

For me, I have my guests a lot of my guests are first time pod.

They’ve never been on a podcast before in their lives, and a lot of them are developers that haven’t.

Even, you know, I had to.

Basically, pull teeth to get them on there.

That comfort level of them knowing it’s recorded and I can edit it and things like that, really.

Helps with them, and so again, it’s not necessarily the technology or anything, it’s just who I bring on because I know there’s been, you know, some of them have just had to start over at certain points and they you know, they’ve they’ve asked me even is this live and I’m like no.

And they go.

They just, you know, huge sigh of relief.

So again, it’s the people I bring on that really plays a lot a a big part into it.

Sorry if you just heard a helicopter.

There was a really big helicopter, just went past my window and it was very loud.

But maybe you didn’t hear it, I don’t.

Know didn’t even hear it, Nathan.

Oh no.

So it’s all good so.

You know, we’ve all been podcasting a while.

We’ve all tried different formats.

We’ve all played with.

Let’s start with Bob.

What would be one or two things when you started podcasting?

If you had to do over now, what would you have done differently?

I would not quit drinking alcohol.

I think.

No no no.

I’m sorry.

That was really just teachers.

But you know, I don’t think.

Yeah, it’s that kind of that answer that I don’t think I’d do anything differently because I’ve dabbled and tried so many different things.

Maybe you know I.

I could even say, well I I wish I would have started out doing it this way, but then I don’t think I would have.

Lived through the experiences.

Sometimes a complete failure that I knew that this wasn’t the right direction to go, so I I.

I personally I wouldn’t do anything differently.

I kind of wish I would have started it a bit earlier.

Looking back on it, but then again, you know, hindsight.

What can you say?

But I I don’t really think so.

Nathan, the same question to.

You, yeah, I think I’m pretty much in Bob’s camp there I I don’t really have too many regrets in life and and what I did was what I did.

I mean, there’s certain cool.

Things that have come along that I wish had existed then if that comes under the purview of that question, so there’s.

All sorts of clever software now that will transcribe things and you know the microphones have got more affordable and.

And things like that. And you know the computers got more powerful than the internet’s got quicker, but in terms of doing things differently, probably not a lot.

We changed the format quite a few times just to see how it worked and ended up sticking with what we’ve got now for quite a long time.

So no, not really.

I’m going to fire that back at you though.

Rob, what would you have done differently?

It’s a, it’s an interesting. I don’t have a lot of regrets, but two things I probably would have done was when I launched my podcast 3 1/2 years ago, I decided to have this brilliant idea of launching two of them at once and have never done one. I thought that was so wonderful and then.

I said, oh.

I wish I hadn’t done that, so I did roll the two into the one and the the other big thing, and.

I think we’re all here with kastos as a podcast.

Host I believe right?

Yeah, yeah.

And I think the one thing I did.

And I don’t think it’s a regret.

It’s a learning experience.

I would never have gone with a free podcast though, so I went with anchor originally and then about a year ago I kind of.

After talking to numerous people decided Kastos was my right fit and I shout out to the guys that cast DT Macaso so support is wonderful.

So I mean, but that’s all part of the learning experience in the journey.

Uhm, I’ve changed microphones a couple times, including recently again, uhm, you know I’ve changed.

Internet is definitely better.

Again, I’ve played with the format so.

I typically now do an interview show and then I’ll do like a solo 15 minute show when I rotate them, and that’s kind of the format I’m.

Sort of decided on and, but we’ve all played and experimented with the formats and that’s part of the fun of this, I mean.

I’m I love podcasting from that standpoint.

I hate blog writing.

By the way.

I haven’t written a.

Blog post in three years so.

Yeah I don’t like blog writing either.

No, I know.

And Barb, you still write some blogs, don’t you?

Yeah, Oh yeah, I’ll I’ll, I’ll probably do it till nobody wants to read him, which maybe it’s already happened.

I don’t know.

Yeah, so so I.

Gotta go, you know.

And we we’ve all kind of gone there.

Nathan, have you had a guest that really stands out?

Or somebody different that you really enjoyed talking to?

Well, do you know what I’m not going to answer that with a with a a guest that came on once I’m going to?

Answer that in the most bland way imaginable.

But it it’s true.

The the the chat that I do the podcast with is called David Wormsley.

He’s on every other week on the not the show that you’ve been on, but on the just the regular podcast that I do.

And uhm, and that?

That would be a person that I would like to thank because he’s been with me.

Sort through thick and thin.

You know when when yeah, I mean I.

I don’t know if he regards it as a joyous thing to do.

I think he still enjoys doing it.

I’m pretty sure he does, but there there’s absolutely no reason for him to.

Continue doing it, but we’ve built up a very nice friendship over the years we’ve done. Probably I don’t know 150 odd episodes, something like that together so.

Uh, so pretty much every fortnight every two weeks spend an hour and a half doing the podcast recording and probably about an hour and a half chatting before that.

So that’s been one of the nicest unexpected consequences I made that friend and I think we’ll be friends for life and also the the the the chap that.

I’m going.

To going to refer to as the the traitorous Paul Lacey.

Yes, I see.

Because it’s just a standing joke, he’ll get it.

Uhm he he came on and did the the live show with me for I I don’t know lots and lots and lots and lots of episodes.

Not as many as David, but that friendship has been really nice as well and we still talk on a more or less daily basis.

We don’t, you know, not like audible chat, but we we text each other.

Like every single day, pretty much.

And and those friendships that I’ve gained have been really amazing, and some of the some of the guests that I’ve had on.

I’ve ended up speaking to rather about as well, but it’s those two people.

I think that I’d like to.

Commanding mention.

Yeah, I and I.

Would agree with you there.

I know them both.

Wow, I chat with them.

Both 2 wonderful people, so you know, kidding aside, you know we just they.

They do a great job Bob.

Same question you.

Uhm boy, I’m the.

Same train of thought with Nathan I mean right now I have I believe 12 or 13 Co hosts that do various shows and they’re all amazing.

And you know, as as Co hosts, as far as guests, it is always hard to pinpoint, I guess because everybody.

Yeah, they’re they’re all unique, and they’re all great, but I will say I’m gonna throw out this and I know everybody gonna say yeah Bob sure well what’s new but Matt Mullenweg.

We’ve had him on the podcast.

I don’t know three or four times and I’ve had the chance to interview him and other Co hosts have.

And the thing I I don’t know what it is.

About Matt, I mean the guy.

I mean obviously very talented, but how he comes across on a podcast and you can throw anything at him and he just comes up with the most interesting.

Visionary ideas and thoughts and you know, sure, he you know somebody say, oh he’s you know there’s certain things that.

Are kind of.

You know on the plate that he always talks about, but we had him on a one of our podcasts where we’re talking more about the future and everything wasn’t just around word press, and it was.

Just I I just love listening to him share his experiences because you know who he is.

There is a wealth of stuff there that we probably don’t know.

You know more than 5% of it of who he really is, and every once in awhile a little bit of that comes out.

In some of these podcasts, and I think because of who he is, that maybe is part of it is just hearing.

Him and he’s always very honest and open.

I don’t care what anybody says, I don’t care.

You know, if you you know, if you have criticism or you have, uh, adoration for him, he he does have a way of explaining things that just like you know he covers it.

And he’s he’s always been gracious to go on.

I know a lot of the word press podcasts, you know he was just on NPR and you know it.

It doesn’t.

There’s no barriers for him.

It’s like he’ll he’ll come on so.

I know.

Yeah, you know that’s.

Matt and everybody will say yeah, OK Bob.

Are you kissing up to?

Matt, but I’m not it.

He really is an amazing guest.

Yeah, I I would agree with you.

Matt is quite the one of a kind a person having met him a couple times I I would attest to that.

It’s funny I I threw that question out.

I listened to both here.

I I tend to agree with you both for me.

Podcasting has been in the journey a lot of the people I’ve met now I’ve had good friends on like the two year we’ve both been on with me a couple times.

Bob and I did episode 200 together, which was a treat I’ve been on both your shows and different formats, and it’s the it’s the.

People I’ve had people come out of podcasts and have turned out to be amazing friends and colleagues that I probably wouldn’t have talked to if I wasn’t podcasting and I kind of looked at.

But then I was thinking about guests and I’m a pretty technical guy.

And recently in the last couple months I did a podcast with Matthias Venture or the lead Gutenberg architect.

And you know, Nathan our friend Paul Lacey is gonna say Oh no, not again.

Here we go with blocks again and.

And and that’s not meant as a bad thing.

Paul and I’ve talked about this at length that were kind of in different camps, but.

I got on one day with Matthias and Birgit Polyak, who’s well known in the WordPress community and we talked about what I actually did when I moved to Gutenberg and that, and we broke it down and it was more like 3 people sitting around having coffee, shooting the the the technical stuff.

Saying, what could we have done better and what could we have done here and what I would say is about our community.

Is one of the things I’ve always said, and I find this even more as a podcaster is people are so welcoming in our community generally, not everybody, but as a whole.

So when you go and say, you know I’d really like to talk to you, or I’d really like to do this, or I’d really like to do that.

People are so open and that.

Makes our community a pretty special place.

So that’s kinda yeah.

So Nathan, have you you were talking about you had a live show where you actually your service stopped working.

Is that the only time you’ve lost a podcast in the middle?

Uh, yeah I.

Don’t I honestly, I I think the if anybody does listen to this and sort of things.

I’d like to start podcast the the technical boundaries of it are so small these days.

Yes, I think you really have to try quite.

Hard to mess it up in that I I just started with Skype actually and I had this bit of software on the Mac called I don’t know it was like E Cam recorder for Skype and I think I did about 150 episodes just recording through Skype and it was absolutely fine and we’re now using a piece of software called Zen Caster and basically unless your computer.

Crashes or the Internet dies.

You, you’re going to succeed, and if the Internet dies, which it has a couple of times, I’ve just rescheduled it and done it on another occasion.

So I’ve really had very, very few catastrophes.

There’s been a couple of episodes where I’ve listened back and I’ve thought is is that one?

Is that one gonna go out or not?

And I won’t mention any names, but there’s been a couple where I just thought.

Actually, I don’t know if that went as well as I would need it to have gone.

Uhm, so whilst that wasn’t a technical catastrophe, it might have been a failure on my part to ask the wrong questions or it may have been that the guest wasn’t quite as prepared as I would have liked or something like that.

So I think maybe I’ve done that once, possibly twice, but I’ve always reached out.

I had one guest actually who communicated with me after the recording was about a month after the record.

Thing and said can we do it all again?

I don’t think my answers were that good and so we did it all again.

Which and I thought the first one was absolutely fine, but I thought, OK, let’s let’s give it another shot.

But you really you.

You don’t need anything.

You need a.

You need a computer of some kind.

It doesn’t have to be.

I mean, for audio it really doesn’t have to be a good.

Machine you need a a mic, but you don’t need anything more than a $30 Mike. I guess the more money you spend the better it will sound, but you don’t need a fabulous mic. You just need a quiet spot and the the time and a booking system get a booking.

System yes, yes and no.

So the.

Helicopters hey Nathan.

I know exactly.

Yeah, right on cue, the yeah get a booking system so that you don’t have to when you communicate with guests you don’t have to do that whole email thing.

You can just send them the link and hopefully they’ll book onto your show.

So no, no total catastrophes particularly.

Bob, have you had any yourself you weren’t sure?

Oh man, let’s see I’m I’m thinking back ’cause I’ve I’ve used about every podcast platform.

I mean, I’ve I’m on Riverside dot FM right now, which I absolutely love.

I would never go back to any of the other ones after using that one, and it’s been really good it actually.

Records locally and then hit.

Come if somebody drops, you know we’ve had people drop.

Yeah it’s it happens like you said Nathan, it’s almost like the one thing I’ve learned is well, let me tell you this and then I’m going to end up.

With that, as far as far as.

Really catastrophes I I did do.

One of the Nathan Things one time.

There was a lady on one of my other podcast Mother E-commerce podcast.

She was dumb lived in.

She had a, uh, she was a store owner and she ran the store beauty products and it was all the IT was all produced in Ghana in the villages, in Ghana and Africa and really fascinating and you know at some point we I realized I didn’t turn the record button on.

About about 40 minutes into it, I’m we’re just talking away and I’m looking down and I’m thinking.

Oh oh.

You know, did I say something or try to make up some story later and I just I stopped.

I told her you know well, I said I blew it big time and she was so gracious.

I mean, she was just like, Oh well, let’s just reschedule.

Will that work?

You know?

And I’m like, well, OK, you know.

And very, very gracious so that.

That was a you know those kind of and that was total.

Stupidity on my side.

I mean nobody to blame but me and my brain so you know, that was, uh, probably the other one.

Like Nathan said, most the most things are out of your hand and stuff.

But yeah, it’s it’s and and one of the things I I found out and Nathan when you’re talking about the technical stuff.

Is I I?

I know there’s some podcasters out there that are going to really come.

Uhm, scalloped me now and and make faces which is nothing new but they I I feel like people put too much pressure on guests.

You know, it’s like, Oh my guest didn’t have this podcast. I’m like this mic. Or they use their air buds and I told them 100 times. You know there’s all.

This stuff and I found that.

Yeah, it’s I listen to things.

I go back like Nathan mentioned and sometimes I listen to maybe the quality thing over.

You know that’s.

A little rough, but on the other hand, first of all, I they’re my guests.

You know, I think of if I have a guest in my house, I want to treat them well.

I don’t tell them you know, do this, do that well, don’t sit over there.

You know it’s like.

You know, be comfortable.

Enjoy yourself, at least to whatever extent, and that’s how I am with guests, so I don’t want to pressure them and worry about the technical part so much.

And you know they’re already a lot of times under stress already because they don’t do this very much and they’re just, you know.

I’m fortunate to get them on there, so adding on I give them, you know, show notes with the technical stuff in it, but I don’t.

Azure them I.

You know if things break if things go off I just say hey don’t worry about it I can edit.

We can always let’s restart let’s do this whatever.

I had one.

Young man, who you know he must have restarted his answers about 8 times during the thing.

The guy was nervous as all can be and.

Yeah, it’s just you know technical wise.

You do the best you can. We’re not NPR’s. We’re not, you know, whatever other big podcasts, and if it isn’t exactly up to what maybe we think of as our own standards is podcast. Or sometimes you gotta.

Let that go a little bit.

Yeah, yeah, that’s.

No, I would.

I would agree with you.

It’s funny because.

In 200 episodes, I think only once have I.

Gone back to a guest and said I really didn’t like this.

I think we should re record and actually in this case the guests declined.

It was all kicked off at me.

So you know that happens.

Yeah, I remember that time.

I knew that was coming.

Oh, you were part of that.

And thank you.

Me taking somebody off.

What else is new Weibo?

And then the and then there was a a case recently where I was recording on Zen Caster.

I took a bit of a power blip on the host site and it was like 5 seconds and then by the time the router came up and everything else, and then Castro went on and continued the recording.

So I thought all good except for one problem.

It dropped the whole last 50 minutes, so we had to.

Go back from record and uh, my 2 guests were gracious as gracious so it wasn’t a problem, I mean, but that’s the only two times I’ve ever lost and I.

And by the way, Nathan, you kind of touched on equipment a little bit.

I would agree, like just kind of start, you know, get a mic.

Find a service.

Find how you’re gonna record.

Even if you start recording on something like zoom, we we know after experiences and not the best platform to do a podcast on but start somewhere and then just kind of improve.

And you know my theories talked to other podcasters, most of them. And I’ve talked to both EU about equipment and stuff over the years.

Are more than willing to share what they do and what they use and what they like and and keep learning, I mean.

Because of Bob, I just added a euphonic to my podcast stack, which is one of those neat little programs that levels out the audio, for example, so you’re always looking for an edge and and just talk to people.

I’m going to nerd out now.

I’m going to tell you what I do if that’s all right.

For head

Yeah, whether you like it or not.

So you’re using Xen Caster for recording?

Yep, Robert and Bob using what was it again Riverside FM?

I’m using one called clean feed.

If you’ve come across this clean feed is great and but it doesn’t record into the cloud.

You have to basically.

Keep clicking save every sort of like 10 minutes or something, but one of the one of the things that it does is it.

Enables you to so I could take for example, so there’s three of us on this call, and we’ve each got a separate audio.

Track you can take that and put it into something like logic or audition on a separate track so you can consume the audio out of the browser and shove it straight into your editing software.

And I found that to be really cool ’cause it means I don’t have to then kind of re import it at a later date and download it.

It’s all just going in in real time.

Uhm and and I what did I buy recently?

I bought a new mic which I really like.

It’s the sure what’s it called.

It’s like the poor relation of the one that all the big boys have. It’s called an M V7 and I.

Would I like that?

Can’t see nice when that’s the one I think I’ve been referring to some people that didn’t want to do the merge.

Yeah, yeah, now that you’ve got, have you got that one?

’cause that’s the that’s the really nice one isn’t.

Yeah I’ve got.

I think this is about half the cost.

But what’s really nice is it’s got soft, so it’s got a USB connection, so there’s a little Mac App that you can.

Well you more or less have to download the Mac App to make it work.

It’s got an Excel R Connection as well.

The traditional 3 point in one, but so that you can do all of the you can do all of the limiting and adding a base and clipping and all of that kind of stuff.

On the fly so you don’t have to do it in post production with an edit.

Uhm, that’s really cool and then another bit of software which I’m sure you’ve both come across is called descript, which is just like it’s their sound studio.

Oh yes.

So it’s totally view.

Do you?

Like you just throw an audio file at it, and it transcribes it in real time.

And then you can.

Edit the words.

So let’s say for example, I say the sentence I like cheese and I didn’t mean to say that I can actually highlight the words on the screen, click delete on the keyboard and it will remove the corresponding audio.

Which is just cool.

Mm-hmm so if you say, erm, a lot, you can search and replace erm, with nothing you can just say OK, find every time I say erm and just replace it with just delete it.

So that’s kind of nice.

That’s a nice pic.

It’s called descript.

Yeah, I use that one I I actually I don’t do any editing in it right?

’cause I kind of have my own workflow which is crazy in its own way but but the thing I do like and I kind of interjected it there.

Is a sound studio they have this thing that will actually you can run through a track and it will clear up the echo and sometimes it’s not really.

It doesn’t do it well.

Other times it does it wonderfully.

It’ll clear out background, ECHO and a little bit of that.

Some extra noise in the background.

If they’re somebody you know not using, maybe they’re using the air pods or something like that, and it sometimes it’s phenomenal.

It does, it changes.

It almost sounds like they were in a studio.

This is I’m just looking it up right now.

This is this is on a Mac, is it?

It’s a dedicated piece of software.

Sound Studio 4 is what I’m looking at is.

That it.

Yeah, it’s it’s a little button.

You just when you upload your file, you just toggle a button on your track and then you can adjust the level.

Of what it does, because sometimes it can really do weird things.

So you have to, you know you have to list kind of pick out parts and stuff like that because especially on people with heavy accents sometimes really heavy accents.

It doesn’t work quite as well, so it’s good when it works so.

Yeah so so funny and and I’m kind of the rogue guy here.

I do all my podcasting on the window.

Machine so you know, yeah.

And and and the point of it is like for me I know Windows so well.

I know Linux so.

Uhm, I could do it on.

A Mac, but I figure.

Why at this point at my age?

That explains a lot rob in.

Oh, thank you.

I’m leaving now.

No, you’re not, you’re not.

But it, but it’s true.

It’s like used to.

Tools that you’ve God and we all know.

When this business people like to shiny tool syndrome.

And I always say to people, learn what you’ve got and use it effectively and make it really really good.

And then when you want to improve on that.

If you’ve got a reason to.

Do it like my latest toy that I’ve added to my mix as of yesterday.

I didn’t have it on Monday.

I now take my mic and I send it through a Behringer input box which is USB to my laptop.

So I go I go XLR from my mic to the Behringer and then the Behringer.

To the laptop so.

I’ve now got the audio mixer in the middle of the chain, and I’ve actually.

Yeah I bought the Behringer that has two inputs.

Not that I need them, but who knows down the road what they’ll be doing?

So yeah.

So I constantly I’m obsessing about the latest thing to buy.

I want to buy some things which will allow me to go out on the road when well.

I mean, we kind of are at this point fairly optimistic about COVID, but obviously for the last couple of years we’ve been inside and being in the House has been all the all the options that we’ve got, but I’m kind of keen to get back to.

To word camps as I’m exploring all of these portable bits of kit.

There’s there’s a company who produce all sorts of great portable audio equipment called zoom, and they produce dozens of different microphones, but they’ve got this thing called the P4, which is it’s.

It’s like the size of your hand, but you can plug 44 microphones into it and basically it’s a tiny little.

Portable podcast studio.

So you need that.

A power supply which can be batteries and and your microphones and you could you could be in any coffee shop, any bar, anywhere.

Doing the podcast, I kind of like the idea of doing a bit of.

That in the future, yeah, I I I took my.

What is it my broadcaster pro?

Oh, you’ve got one of those nice.

Yeah, I took that on the train when I went and set that up because you can record right into the train and you can have 4 mikes on.

I’m going to be taking it to word camp Europe as well, doing some podcasts there.

So because you don’t, you know it has a SIM card that what we call hold tons of it and it’s really.

Oh yeah, yeah.

Really got a lot of nice control into it and then I’m gonna also.

By the road go. I think it’s called GoPro. It’s like it’s a wireless transmitter. So you plug the transmitter into like your iPad and then you have two two mikes that you hook on to your lapel then not the tiny little lapel monks or these square mikes. Or you can add a lapel mic.

To it, and then I’m going to have some of them have that for a little bit more mobile.

Going around to different booths and stuff and doing little short podcasts with people.

What’s that called the road GoPro?

Yeah, some GoPro.

There’s a few different ones.

There’s one for video and stuff, but it’s, uh, three little box squares you’ll see, and it’s some something that I’m going to.

I’m I’m I’m going to be getting here soon to try out at Wordcamp Europe.

Isn’t isn’t Amazon your friend on that one?

Like it just ended.

Yeah, yeah, it’s like you know I’ve.

Anyways, yeah.

Ha ha ha.

Yeah, you could really go down a rabbit hole.

There was me saying don’t waste your money on all this technical equipment.

But yeah, I think once you’ve been doing it for the length of time we all have, you do kind of get sucked in sometimes to thinking how you could improve it.

Yeah I’m yeah, I’m looking at these bikes now they look.

Yeah, that’s.

It that’s it.

Good yeah, yeah, and that’s The thing is, knowing what you need, you know, I’ve I I lived on a cheaper bike.

For years and yeah.

You know it took me out many years before I even upgraded to the Mike I.

Tab and yeah, you can spend money left and right and stuff, but you know yeah, you you want to make sure you’re you’re doing it for a reason, just not because it’s shiny.

Yeah, that’s right.

Yeah, it’s true.

One of the things I did recently too was ’cause they do some live stuff occasionally is I actually went out and bought LED lights that sit on the tripod.

So when I did the live show this past week, on Monday, Nathan I wasn’t at home, so the lighting in that room is really good, but when I do live stuff at home, I find delighting really bad.

So I’ve got these two LED lights.

They sit on tripods, 6 foot tripods and I turn them on and that kind of helps with the lighting just a little bit.

So I mean, you can spend all day buying stuff, it’s just it’s.

Yeah yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I recently bought some lights and I love them.

And and Bob talked me out of 1 this week.

Bob, you talked me out of buying something this week or last week so.

Yeah yeah, yeah.

There you go.

I was looking at a stream deck, Nathan and Bob and I got talking about it.

I’m like no, I don’t need to spend a.

Couple on it so.

I’ve got one.

I highly recommend it.

Hey Jerry, what do you?

Use it for.

Shall I tell you why?

Yeah, so so a stream deck?

Imagine like basically a little keyboard.

In my case it’s got it’s got 3 rows of five buttons and what you can do is you can map those to virtually anything.

So you can tell it that when I press this button do a thing.

So as an example, I’ve got it on.

Now I can press the button and I’ve got some lights come on right and then I can dim them.

And yeah, OK, so you can do lights.

That’s brilliant.

But what I’ve also done is I’ve mapped it to all the keyboard shortcuts that I’ve got to use to edit.

Audio Zero and in some cases some of those keyboard shortcuts are like really awkward.

3 keyboard, 3 keys that are nowhere near each other, so that would take both of my hands.

And when I’m editing audio, I’m basically using the mouse and the stream deck to just do the things that I need to do.

So it might be like a ripple delete or something where you take a chunk and you just delete everything inside that little bit that you’ve highlighted, and then everything after it gets pulled back and that on that on my software takes like 3 keys, but I’ve mapped it.

Onto the stream deck so that it just.

Does this I just have to press 1 key and honestly I reckon it probably saves me like 4 seconds a year so it’s totally worth.

It yeah, you know.

That’s funny.

Right?

I’m just gonna say what what I was telling Rob is and I have one and I use it for, you know I have a few buttons on there.

I use quite a bit, but what I also found is making a.

Point to use it.

You know, it’s like I’ve been doing this one thing for so long.

Long and then I think, oh, this is so slick I can do this.

And then I forget I have that.

Damn button on there.

Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.

I’m still doing that thing over and over and over, and then every once in awhile I remember to use it so it’s for me.

It’s retraining my brain to say that, OK, I have something here.

I need to start doing it this way.

If I could only remember to do.

But I I’ve recently so for years I’ve been working on a Mac book, so you know the laptop and and the laptops got the track.

Is it called a trackpad that rectangle at the bottom that you move your fingers around, and the trackpad, touchpad or trackpad?

Yep, hutch pipes.

But yeah, so I’ve been using that habitually.

To move my mouse for ages, you know for literally a decade.

And just, you know, six months or so ago I bought a Mac Mini which is a you know you need a separate monitor.

You need a keyboard and a mouse and and and I didn’t have any touchpad and I was by muscle memory.

It was literally hysterical I would reach.

Into empty space and try to touch something that wasn’t there and I did it honestly like 100 times.

I was just so habituated to doing this this one thing on the trackpad and it was a real kludge to do it on the the mouse.

So eventually I I broke down and got a trackpad for the, you know, like a wireless one for that, but it was.

Yeah, I I did the same thing with my when I was I used my iPad and my wife would be on her.

Now she has an iPad, but she’d be on her laptop and I’d go over and I I touch her screen.

Oh, just do this and it’s like, oh wait, wait a minute I’m on a I’m back on a laptop here why am I touching this screen?

Yeah, yeah, that’s right, yeah.

I think it’s total idiot, you know, so yeah, interesting.

Are yeah.

I have a friend.

I have a friend who teaches small children at school, you know, like primary school and they say that most of the kids.

So the the budget for primary schools in the UK probably doesn’t extend to many iPads.

It’ll be like desktop computers probably.

And the kids rock up at the age of four or five and they just they have no idea what the keyboard is for and they just touch the screen.

And why won’t it?

Move OK.

Yeah, it’s funny when we talk about that because.

I do editing and.

I have a touchpad on my laptop.

I usually use 2 dual.

27 inch screens ’cause rob needs real estate. That’s just the way there’s.

And one of the things I’ve done is I did it originally for photos I went to what’s called a what com touch pad?

So there are touch pads that are designed for editors and I found that it’s so much easy using the tablet editor from a space perspective.

That I actually use it when I do video editing and when I do podcast editing, just ’cause it’s easier than using the mouse so.

Yeah, yeah yeah, there’s a lot of there’s a lot of things like that, yeah?

And I’ve been using.

You know, I’ve been using it for a couple years now and it’s it was recommended to me by somebody a professional photographer actually.

And it just I find it makes my life easy.

So yeah.

Uhm, let’s jump into getting guests.

Nathan, you do?

Uh, as we know a weekly show called this week in WordPress, UM?

Do you find it hard getting guests on that show or do you find it easy?

How do you go about doing it?

General, yeah.

I have a.

I have just my own story about this and that is that at the beginning when I started my podcast and maybe you guys are the same.

When I started the podcast, I had to reach out to everybody and very often that would be met with kind of.

Yeah, I can do it or no, I can’t do it.

And you know, there’s a bit of a toss of the.

But after you’ve been doing it for a certain amount of time, there seems to be some moments on critical moment where the the people somehow start to ask you.

If they can come on to the show and that that has been my experience broadly, but that’s usually when there’s one person.

The the live show where we’ve got three people.

That’s a little bit more, and so there’s still a bit of outreach in that and asking people to come on and.

But on the whole, that calendar gets booked up all by itself, so I think I think it’s just one of those things that the longer you do it, the more the more chance you have of.

Of getting your roster filled without you having to do too much outreach, but certainly in the beginning there was quite a lot of hours spent writing emails and trying to persuade people to come on.

Bob, what’s getting guests like for you?

’cause you typically try to reach out to builders who aren’t as well known?

How did?

How does that feel?

Yeah, it’s it’s interesting because I I don’t know if there’s any one way of explaining how I do it at this point, because it’s a lot different and.

But if for people that don’t know my podcast I have, I do two episodes a a week and I’m actually moving to do more than that.

But that’s another thing I I I don’t need to get into, but.

Each one of those episodes are a little bit thematic, but they’re very broadly thematic too, so I have to we have to match the guests to the show.

So if somebody a lot of times I’m pursuing people, I’m sometimes I see somebody that just intrigues me talking on Twitter.

I don’t even know them from Adam.

I’ll I’ll look them up.

I’ll spend the time research them a little bit and I’ll think, oh, they’d be.

I think they’d be interesting to have on, so I’ll reach out one way or another, and you know I may get blown off or I, you know, they may be interested.

I have Co hosts that sometimes think of different guests because they’re doing again, maybe, uh, a specific show like one of our shows is more around the business business side of it.

We have one show where we’re all our guests come directly from woocommerce.com.

So it’s yeah.

It’s it’s, it’s, uh.

I’m doing what I’m doing, it’s.

A lot of work, you know, it’s uh.

A lot of, uh, looking for the right people, and then if I get, I do get people that want to be on it, then I have to match them up with something.

I might say you know, well, you’re not a fit at all, which unfortunately is about 90% of the emails I get because they don’t even talk about woo commerce, but.

The other 10% that are, you know.

Once that actually makes sense, I’ll say, well, you know, I think maybe you could fit in this one, or why don’t I put you kind of in the Rolodex or whatever you want to.

Call it because.

There could be a potential ’cause I’ll think of a topic we’ll think of a topic and I’ll start thinking.

Who did I talk to around that topic?

And so I’ll reach out to those.

People go back to him or I’ll reach out to some people that I haven’t talked to.

So it’s yeah, it’s it’s a lot more complicated.

A lot more work on my end, but also I’m in the position where I’m more of a productionised than a podcaster these days.

I mean, I have a my co-host running a lot of this.

Those so I’m doing a lot of that back end work which I love doing and I love kind of I I I I I like the challenge sometimes, sometimes it can be frustrating and especially if you have cancellations and stuff like that and you have to wing it.

But you know, I’ve got a creative group of Co hosts, and I can always do things myself, so it’s.

Flexible, but.

Also very topic specific in lot of cases.

So true, I find for me it’s just kind of.

I do a lot of networking anyway, so I’ve pulled guests out of the post status community.

I’ve met people on Twitter where I’ve liked something they have to say I can remember Brian Gardner.

Nathan, he was on your agency sub.

But and if you remember the panel you did with Brian and Nick Diego, you and Paul Lacey and Brian said, I’d love to continue this conversation on Twitter that he had such a great chat and I I reached out to Brian and said, you do want to continue the conversation, when, where, how?

Yeah, yeah.

Like and Brian said to me before we went to record, I opened my mouth and stick foot in it and he said yeah, basically you know so.

You know it’s finding those opportunities, rob, that’s your you hit it on because that’s the thing you gotta be like.

Whoa, this is perfect.

This is what I would been thinking or or spur the moment thinking.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and it was like the one that I alluded to that came out with.

Matthias Burgard approached me and said, you know, she was a big inspiration in my getting rid of a page builder and talking in the background said we really should talk about it.

Let’s do this, you know.

And it’s a lot if it’s how you treat people.

If you’re gracious with people.

When your understanding and you treat them well on social media, they’ll treat you well and that’s something I kind of live by, right?

So you gotta, you gotta kind of massage it and find those opportunities so.

Be nice, be nice is the key isn’t.

It just yes, yeah.

Gracious yes.

So it’s so true and you know you’ve hit it on the head.

And like you know, being nice is the way to be.

So yeah, kind of want to wrap up with one more topic and it’s funny.

I had somebody say to me last week you do a 50 minute show.

And it probably takes you an hour and 10 minutes to do, and I just kind of chuckled and said, really?

So I’m gonna start with Nathan.

What’s the typical show take you and I know your production schedule is probably a little different than bobs where you know some of this stuff, not this week and WordPress, you probably record out a little more you do your shows.

You do the show for the Tavern.

What’s the average time you put into a podcast and how off how far in advance do you record out?

Except for the live show?

The OK, so there’s a few.

There’s a few things there.

Some mistakes that I continue to make the.

The one that I did with David we we write show notes beforehand, and so that’s there’s probably a good hour in in that just the writing of the notes and the research and things.

And then we get on a call and we typically start at 9:00 AM on a on a Wednesday, and we probably speak.

For about 2 hours about what we’re going to talk about.

And then we record it and that takes about an hour, so there’s probably about four hours before I finish clicking record.

And then it has to be edited and all of that kind of stuff, so that’s that’s.

That’s typically what it.

Takes for that.

I can be really obsessive with editing and that can take me hours and hours and hours and hours and certain episodes I I literally just get the bug and get rid of every almond smooth out every single join in the audio and it.

It’s I don’t know what’s going on with me, there’s just no benefit at all to anybody, but I just habituate on it.

Uh, in terms of the schedule.

Oh dear, I sometimes I am literally recorded seven months ahead.

So I’ve got episodes now.

Uh, if if I record a podcast episode with you today, it’ll go out at the end of August.

Uhm, and that’s just stupidity.

I don’t know why I’ve allowed that to happen.

I did it a couple of years ago and then.

I just blocked the calendar off.

And then I said, I’ll never do that again.

That’s just ridiculous.

Getting so far ahead because it might be that the topic has gone stale.

You know, by the time six months has gone past, but somehow I’ve allowed it to happen again.

Uhm, because I I don’t ever go into my calendar system and say OK, stop allowing it for another six months.

But after this episode is over, I’m going to go and do that.

’cause you’ve reminded me to do it.

I I’m holding my tongue here Nathan.

I’m not even gonna comment on that.

So am I.

But I’m absolutely miles ahead sometimes and then other times I might be like I, I’ve got a record one the day before it.

Goes out, yeah.

Because I’ve got nothing in the Ross.

And so basically what we’re learning here is that I’m hopeless with my calendars and organizing things, and that’s the way I am.

Bob, how do you kind of like how do you answer the all?

It’s easy to produce time and how do you kind of schedule?

I know yours is a little different.

Yeah it is, it’s an.

And I I was thinking of that because I used to always struggle with people that were mentioning things and they were outdated by the time podcast came out.

And so I was always.

Trying to anyway so my I record on every show I record on Tuesday and I do this with Co hosts.

Typically there is some planning time we gotta get everything in place.

I gotta make sure my hosts are good to go, you know, setting up all that stuff like I don’t know how much time that.

Takes then so we record when we record.

On Tuesday, we’ve published Thursday morning early, so it’s a fairly quick turn around when I record.

On Thursday, I published the next Tuesday.

So that’s a little bit gives me a little bit more.

Leeway, yeah, that’s nice.

And we pretty much uh fortunately my co-host sometimes will have a pre chat with some of the guests depending on the guests.

We don’t make it a habit but.

Occasionally it’s just it just has to be done and then we so we do the podcast, which just typically can be about a, you know, an hour or so or whatever.

And then my I’m.

I’m like Nathan, I’m neurotic with editing.

Probably, you know, if you think of from recording to actual ending, I probably take a day to a day.

And a half.

To do that and that doesn’t, yeah, and that includes.

I also send out my.

Transcripts to be human generated at revcom.

So I pay for, you know, quick turn around.

Obviously I need that.

And I do some final editing on it, but they really clean it up.

Obviously ’cause you you pay a lot more for it to be done that way rather than a I, you know, a machine generated, so yeah, so it’s it’s a process and you know, like Nathan said, it doesn’t always go smooth.

You know I.

I pretty much am on schedule though I.

Can’t Ding around, you know I gotta do something.

So sometimes I’m hustling to pull something together or.

Thrown in some different hours just to get things out on time, but it is fairly quick and you know, people gotta understand that that are listening that this is every.

This is what I do.

You know this is I.

This is not some side gig or in addition to running an agency or working with.

Clients this is my entire life, so I I have, you know, I I don’t want to use the word luxury but I, you know have the luxury of dedicating that time to it.

Yeah, I would say you know it’s it’s funny but.

The way I kind of run, I find if it’s an interview guest, I’m probably into the episode for four to five hours, typically by the time I do the record.

By the time I do any pre chat, by the time I do some research, if I have to, sometimes I don’t always know the guest.

Well I did one last week.

That flowed really well.

And I didn’t know the guest well, but the conversation because of the pre chat went.

Amazing actually.

So you know, sometimes you have to do those things and it just takes time and I can remember when I first started.

I used to do a checklist, printed out in Word for every episode, and I checked them off.

Now I just do it in my head.

You know, it’s like Bang Bang Bang Bang.

What needs to be done gets done.

And  it just takes time.

It’s a it’s a timing endeavor, but for me it puts years on my agency, so it’s it’s worth doing.

So I and I like doing it, so that’s that’s kind of the key there.

So guys, thanks for joining me.

It’s been a great pilot.

Insights Nathan.

As somebody who wants to get a hold of you listener podcasts.

How is the best way?

I was going to say something facetious then, and I just thought, no, I’ll just say the normal.

Yeah, I was going to say through their ears would probably be my preferred method of listening.

The podcast can be found at https://wpbuilds.com/

Alternatively, if you like, if you like the stuff that they do at WP Tavern, that’s you can find it there as well. There’s a different one. It’s called https://wptavern.com/podcastand.

Twitter I  don’t understand Twitter, but I have an account and I pretend to use it.

It’s @WPbuilds but don’t expect.

Anything frankly ’cause I could come the clue.

He does answer once in a while.

I can now reply yes, but I don’t know how to.

I still don’t understand how to see where the thread began and who replied to.

I don’t get it. I just email me at admin@wpbuilds.com that’s easier. So yeah, let’s.

Go with that.

Let’s see.

Is it Bob?

Let’s try to hear your podcast to get ahold of you, please.

Well, since I do understand Twitter, unlike some people know, I’m just hitting me with them.

Just give me a constant dig.

Nathan is going to go when he’s an old man.

He’s going to go to the people who don’t understand Twitter home.

They’re all going to sit around and avoid Twitter, but.

Seriously, @bobwp on Twitter or at on Twitter https://dothewoo.io/ is the site.

And yeah, I’m on slack.

You can find me, usually BobWP here and there on various slacks, Post Status, Woo Commerce, WordPress.

All those good places you can find me just about.

I have both their podcasts in in my podcast catcher and listen to them regularly, and if you want to learn a little bit about WordPress Woo commerce, follow them, add them, make it easy on yourself.

Thanks, guys, for joining me.

Have a wonderful day.

Thank you.

 

 

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