Unlock the Future of Agency Work: How AI as a Team Member and WordPress Innovations Are Transforming Digital Strategy

Discover how industry pioneers like J.J. Toothman are redefining agency excellence by treating AI as a full-fledged team member. From streamlining content creation with vibe coding to building government websites that outperform traditional tech, this episode reveals the innovative strategies that are propelling agencies into the future.

J.J. Toothman, president of Lone Rock Point, shares his journey from government contractor to entrepreneurial innovator, emphasizing how embracing tools like AI and WordPress can unlock operational efficiencies and open new revenue streams. Learn how J.J.’s team has harnessed custom Gutenberg blocks inspired by atomic design, built a white-label web modernization bundle for federal agencies, and turned WordPress into a versatile platform for NASA’s multimedia streaming — all while maintaining a laser focus on user experience and end-user empowerment.

You’ll discover:

• How treating AI as a colleague accelerates productivity and decision-making within agencies.
• The evolving role of Gutenberg, patterns, and full-site editing in simplifying client content management and design consistency.
• The strategic importance of open source, digital sovereignty, and choosing the right mix of cloud solutions for secure, scalable government websites.
• Practical insights on integrating AI into workflows, from automating social media calendars to creating interactive briefs, with real-world examples from J.J.’s experiments with Claude and OpenClaw.
• The critical role of trust — in clients, teams, and AI systems — and how transparency about the rapidly shifting landscape builds confidence and long-term loyalty.

This episode is perfect for agency owners, developers, and digital strategists eager to future-proof their services, harness AI effectively, and turn complex challenges into competitive advantages. Whether you're managing government contracts, marketing campaigns, or content creation, the insights here will inspire bold new approaches to customer experience and operational excellence.

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction to the Podcasting Process

01:08 The Evolution of Podcasting: Audio vs. Video

02:24 The Birth of Lone Rock Point

04:45 Navigating the Corporate World: The Decision to Start a Business

07:17 Breaking the Myths of WordPress in Enterprises

11:25 Finding a Niche

15:36 The Journey of Custom Blocks in WordPress

19:49 Leveraging WordPress for NASA's Video Services

21:01 Building NASA's Streaming Service

24:28 The Future of WordPress and AI Integration

28:12 CivicPress: Modernizing Government Websites

32:09 Exploring OpenClaw: A Personal AI Assistant

43:07 Personifying AI: The Human Connection

44:05 The Future of Open Source and AI Models

45:01 Trust and Digital Sovereignty in AI

47:51 Rapid Fire: Insights and Favorites

51:06 The Role of AI in Creative Processes

01:00:25 Conclusion and Future Perspectives

01:00:57 The Debrief

01:01:23 Embracing AI in Small Teams

01:02:12 Finding Your Niche as an Agency

01:04:46 User-Centric Design and Trust in AI

01:08:11 Roger That

01:08:16 The Power of Masterminds for Agency Owners

01:09:55 Building Connections and Collaborations

01:10:50 Robbie's Radar

01:10:55 The Importance of Communication in Agencies

01:13:17 Enhancing Client Communication with Slack

01:15:43 Managing Noise and Focus in Slack

01:17:36 RandR-SECTION.mp4

01:17:41 Client Engagement Through Unique Experiences

01:20:10 The Joy of Pet Companionship

01:22:39 Thanks for Watching

Main topics - 5-10 bullets:

• J.J.'s journey from working at Raytheon and Dell to founding Lone Rock Point, emphasizing control and community.
• How to challenge enterprise myths about WordPress through proven performance (e.g., 2016 election site, Whitehouse.gov) and strategic positioning.
• Building solutions like NASA’s custom Gutenberg blocks and a video on demand platform using WordPress for scalability and user-friendliness.
• The importance of user-focused design with full-site editing and patterns, persona-centric content workflows, and the role of AI in content creation and management.
• The CivicPress platform: a government web modernization toolkit built on WordPress, integrating design systems and accessibility standards.
• J.J.’s innovative use of AI: treating AI as a team member for task automation, content scheduling, and decision-making, emphasizing personification and trust.
• The evolving nature of AI models, balancing open source, data ownership, and digital sovereignty, and their impact on agency and government workflows.
• Practical insights: leveraging Slack for internal/external communication, setting up agency masterminds, and unique client engagement strategies like field trips and experiential bonding.

Resources & Links:

• Lone Rock Point – (https://lonerockpoint.com/)
• NASA's WordPress site (https://nasa.gov/)
• CivicPress – (https://civicpress.us/)

Connect with J.J. Toothman:

• LinkedIn – (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jjtoothman/)
• Twitter – (https://x.com/jjtoothman)

Hey Roger.

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Hey Robbie, how are you?

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I'm good, how about yourself?

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Well, I'm kind of perplexed.

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I thought we were gonna try and do 40 minute podcast episodes, but we just recorded this

one and wow, it's doozy.

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Well, it is jam packed.

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So we're not gonna spend long on this intro, right in because there's a whole lot to

unpack here with our guests that we have today.

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We have a great interview today with JJ Toothman of Lone Rock Point.

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We cover so much.

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A lot of you will know JJ from the WordCamp 2023, I think in Washington DC, where they

presented about the NASA project.

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Mm-hmm.

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So we touch a little bit on that but it would cover so much ground in this.

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I just want people to get started.

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What do you think?

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I'd say let's just dive in and start talking to JJ.

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before we dive into the questions, I think it's always helpful, JJ, to kind of just hear

like a quick introduction.

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How do you introduce yourself and what you do?

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I am JJ Toothman.

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I am president of Lone Rock Point.

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In a friendly way, I'm also the chief lone rocker.

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We call ourselves lone rockers.

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We are a digital strategy and solutions boutique consultancy and services firm.

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Historically, we have been WordPress for the public sector.

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That's our primary niche, and as you all know, and as well.

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people know us about.

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Our claim to fame is the work that we have done with NASA over the last few years ago.

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And we learned a lot from that, and we have built some other solutions for the public

sector.

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We have a product called CivicPress that helps you meet some federal web

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best practices and guidelines and the idea is to accelerate to meeting the objectives of

things called the Integrated Digital Experience Act.

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You can meet those goals and objectives with civic press in days and weeks instead of

months and years.

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We have commercial business just like everybody else.

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have increased our commercial business in the last 15 months.

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out where the timeline of that all started.

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That's not hard to figure out.

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yeah.

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And we are also, just like everybody else, let's just get it out of the way.

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Let's get out the AI buzzword out of the way.

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just like everybody else, we are completely drinking from the AI fire hose.

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I find it very exciting.

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It has been

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even the last 90 months, 90 days, excuse me, 90 months.

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What kind of life cycle is that in AI?

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Last 90 days, I have found incredible inspiration by what's going on with the technology

and capabilities.

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It has breathed some fresh air into me, creativity, and I'm loving it.

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So we're taking advantage of it.

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implementing it within our existing services and existing ways of doing service delivery

and coming up with some new service offerings as well.

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Yeah, we're AI ready and AI embracing, I guess I should say.

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Excellent, excellent.

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Well, we're going to...

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we're always like we need to start a counter of how many times AI said on the podcast.

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no, we would just be drunk every day then.

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But yeah, I mean, you can't you can't even go to the grocery store without talking to

somebody about AI today.

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We know that.

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But before we jump into the details on all of those things, so quick question, because I

love the name of your agency.

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Where did you come up with the name of the agency?

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So Lone Rock Point is, so I went to college at University of Vermont and Lone Rock Point

is this place, so Burlington, Vermont is right on Lake Champlain.

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Lone Rock Point is this big rock that my friends and I, used to like swim out to and you

can basically jump, you can go like cliff jumping off of there.

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And so it's a special place for me.

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I still go out to today.

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don't.

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The way to get there is a little sketchy.

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You have to like go down like some ravine on the side of this cliff.

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I don't do that anymore.

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The other way, the way I do it now is like I kayak out to it from like the beach on the

lake and, you know, find a place to stash some kayaks and then swim out to the rock and.

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So yeah, there's a lot of Vermont references within my company.

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It's one of the advantages of having your own agency, your own companies.

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get to code name things in the way that you want to.

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So I code name a lot of things after things that have that Vermont DNA in it.

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So yeah.

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Excellent, excellent.

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Well, before we kind of dive into a lot of the topics you brought up there in your intro,

I'd love to go back to the beginning of Lone Rock Point.

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And you've worked at a number of enterprise companies, Raytheon, Dell.

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What in those experiences made you realize, hey, setting up my own firm and doing it my

own way is the way that you needed to do it?

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so I felt a little lost in those companies it was very, you know, the, reasons for

starting the company, they're probably more, you know, they're probably more selfish than

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anything else, to be honest about it.

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Like, it wasn't like I had this altruistic need to, um, you know, some grand vision that I

could do better or something like that.

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I.

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I definitely had an entrepreneurial edge.

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At that time in my life, around 2012 or 2015, I tried a few different kind of side hustle

type startup ideas with some friends.

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None of them really got any traction for one reason or another.

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Either they weren't a great idea or just, know, life, my life wasn't compatible with

pursuing those kinds of things.

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Mm.

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you know, I definitely you know, like it was it was looking for this product idea and then

a friend of mine said to me like well Why don't you just start a services company and I

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was like That's a really good idea.

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Why don't I just do that?

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You know, like it wasn't necessarily like what I wanted was to be an entrepreneur and be a

small business owner I didn't necessarily want to have like, you know some web startup

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product idea, you know, I just I just I wanted to run a business

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But I did feel lost at those companies.

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I felt like a row in a spreadsheet.

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I felt like a cog on a wheel.

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I didn't feel like I had a high degree of control over the teams that I was getting put on

or the teams that I was assembling.

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I was having resources assigned to me, that kind of thing.

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Some of those resources were good, some of them were less than good, and I just found it

frustrating.

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And when I started Lone Rock Point, I said, I'm not trying to build something big.

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I want to build a place where everybody has the opportunity to know who everyone else is.

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you know, if you have like a deep connection with that person, that's better.

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That's not the, but that wasn't the objective.

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The objective was just like, you have that chance.

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and I also wanted, you know, I was going to be very intentional about who I was going to

bring into the company and who I was going to surround myself with and who I was going to

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collaborate with.

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How large is your company now?

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Right now we're eight.

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We peaked at 14 and we are eight people including myself.

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Well, and so I know when you started the company, at that time WordPress was kind of

looked at as that's the blogging tool.

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It's not something that enterprises were necessarily considering even.

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As a matter of fact, a lot of times there was a big pushback inside of corporations if you

started bringing up WordPress in a meeting with them.

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And so how did you break that myth with them that this is not an enterprise tool?

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I think the evidence just started piling up.

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I mean, it was a combination of me being able to deliver solutions with WordPress kind of

quickly.

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I mean, there's like, I mean, you get a lot out of WordPress.

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You know, there's like the whole framework of it that you get.

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And, you you can just, you could add on plugins and just add on functionality very

quickly.

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So the evidence of being able to deliver solutions and seeing how people were receiving

them helped a lot.

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I didn't go in to any of those types of things being like, I built this WordPress thing.

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I went in being like, hey, I've got a solution for you.

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And here's the product that you came to us with.

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and go to work on it little bit and you come out with a solution and it just happens to be

on WordPress.

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In the early years, I wasn't like a WordPress agency.

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I was more operating under the umbrella of like a digital transformation consultant.

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So I wasn't niched in that way, which from a business point of view was a total mistake,

but that's a different story.

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But I was creating these solutions and then the reaction was positive.

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And then they would start asking the questions of like, how did you do it?

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And then that's when the WordPress reveal eventually comes out.

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And then, yeah, sometimes there was a raised eyebrow there.

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There's no question about that.

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So there was that type of operational tactics

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Yeah, the evidence was just starting to pile up.

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One of the big ones was the election in 2016.

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What FiveThirtyEight did that night.

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They were live blogging, probably posting to their live blog like every 15 to 30 seconds.

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The traffic demands are intense.

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We all remember that night.

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And that site never went down.

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It performed admirably.

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And so that got a lot of attention and it kind of showed like, look at how this thing

could perform.

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So it kind of removed that part of it out of it.

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And then in 2017, the Whitehouse.gov moved to WordPress and that really nipped.

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You know, not completely, but was a huge part of just nipping the security question.

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You know, nipping that in the bud.

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you know, like I was saying stuff like whitehouse.gov is operating on WordPress.

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Like if there's no evidence of WordPress being secure, you know, that's it.

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Because, you know, there's no doubt that, you know, whitehouse.gov, you know, it's...

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pretty reasonable assumption that that site is continuously under penetration of that.

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uh And I've seen it too.

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I've stood up government websites on uh WordPress and I've watched the logs in real time

at deployment.

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yeah, the nefarious actors come within minutes from China and North Korea and all the...

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all our quote adversaries unquote.

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So it's a real thing.

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We see it with .coms and .orgs too that we stand up to, but I can imagine having that .gov

extension really.

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you

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on the net for minutes and all of sudden you hear, here you are.

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Here's some bad actor behaving like this.

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break quick before we move on to something else though.

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I wanna get the rest of the story on the, were you saying that you should have not been a

WordPress only agency or you should have started as a WordPress only agency?

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A little confused by that.

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I started the business and like I said, I wanted to have a business.

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And at the time that I started it, I was kind of acting within government contracting,

what's known as like a subject matter expert.

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So you're kind of like a high-end analyst,

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And I was providing a lot of advice like around, at the time there was a lot of cloud

migration going on.

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We were moving a lot of systems from, you know, their old school data centers, their

on-prem data centers into things like AWS and Azure and stuff like that.

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And so I just kind of up, you know, hung out my shingle and said like, here's Lone Rock

Point where digital transformation consultants and services.

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The good news about that was I could fit a lot of things under that umbrella.

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The bad news was nobody knew what digital transformation meant.

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It was totally un-mitched.

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then, know, I was kind of like wayfinding for a couple of years.

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NASA was one of my first clients.

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One of my other, I think my second or third client was Automattic.

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And they came to me and said, hey, want to, you know, our WordPress VIP unit, we want to

get into the, you know, the federal marketplace.

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Like we want to host government websites on WordPress VIP.

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And I said, that's a great idea.

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here's, you we worked on like go-to market strategies.

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We also helped them with their FedRAMP authorization, which is one of the first things I

said, like, that's great that you want to do that, but you got to do this FedRAMP thing.

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And um they did it, you know, and, you know, NASA's running on there, White House is

running on there, state departments running on there.

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A lot of other agencies are running, you know.

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um Anyway, as I was continuing that journey, a couple of things were happening.

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You know, I was in NASA and I saw the tea leaves of what was going on with the current

site at the time.

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The main site was running on Drupal.

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Drupal 7 was reaching end of life.

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And they were going to revisit how are they going to do this thing?

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And I kind of positioned myself and the company to take advantage of that moment.

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and be a player in that conversation, ultimately helping them select WordPress and then

being the company to help them migrate onto WordPress.

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and then those two things in parallel are happening.

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And then the real thing was, and I owe a lot of this to Peter Slutsky.

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He was working with WordPress VIP at the time.

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He was, him and I were kind of tag teaming on that.

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getting VIP into the federal government marketplace.

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As we were kind of continuing that journey and nearing the end of that journey, he came to

me and said like, hey, you should think about joining the VIP partner program.

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And I kind of rolled my eyes at him at first.

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kind of said like, well, one, you got tons of partners in there already.

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Two, does the world really need another WordPress agency like that?

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I mean, there's a ton of those things, right?

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Like, I don't want to be one of those.

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And he said to me, he's like, yeah, but nobody is like the WordPress agency for the public

sector.

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That could be you.

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um And there's none of our existing partners have the expertise or the understanding

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of the federal government how to operate in there like you do and so you can become our

go-to partner you know that we lean on as we start bringing on customers and you know VIP

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partners to execute with them and You know, he said that to me I was like, you know what?

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That's a really that's actually a really good idea.

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And So that's how I niche down.

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I said, okay, I'm gonna embrace it, you know

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It took me like another 18 months just being comfortable saying like, yeah, I'm a

WordPress agency.

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Like I was just like, yeah, I just, kind of like kept myself at a distance from it for a

while.

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Just like, don't need more of these.

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Like, so.

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so staying on the vein of WordPress here for a second then, the NASA site's pretty

impressive.

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55 custom blocks for Gutenberg in there.

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What kind of like guided you on creating custom blocks and

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in that many, how to figure out how the organizations were going to be utilizing that.

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And I ask this because there's still a lot of people that are on the fence about even

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What was the methodology you utilized to actually implement this and how do you give

advice to other agencies when they're approaching using WordPress?

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Well, I mean, the Gutenberg decision early on, that was pretty easy.

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mean, when I saw, when I was hearing what the content people, the content manager user

type within NASA, how they wanted to operate, what they were saying, and this is not

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unique to NASA, by the way, like we work with a lot of clients who say this kind of stuff,

and I'm sure, you know, you all do too.

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They were saying like, are sick and tired of being boxed into these rigid templates.

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We want the ability to be creative and experimental with our content.

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We want to be able to build different layouts.

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We don't want to have to depend on a dev team to have to build us a new template or.

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thing like that.

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So that was one.

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And number two was the company that we were collaborating with that was also part of this,

Blink UX, they were building up a design system for the new site.

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And it was, if you know anything, it was totally rooted in like atomic design system

principles and where eventually you're getting to components and there's a lot of

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different components that you can use to like...

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they're in theory available to you to tell the type of story that you have to tell.

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And I mean, I just, those two things I knew right away, this is a Gutenberg project.

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and there was also like Drupal fatigue.

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this is nothing against Drupal.

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Their Drupal implementation had what they were experiencing was like, they were filling

out a lot of form fields to get their content done.

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So.

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We've all done ACF builds in the past, where you're applying rigidness with all the fields

for the content.

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knew giving them that again was not going to be embraced.

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That was not going to be received well.

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So all of those things lined up to it.

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This has to be a Gutenberg project.

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Now the number of blocks that we have, if we were to do this today, I doubt we'd have the

same amount of custom blocks.

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I patterns have come a long way from where they were in 2002.

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We actually just finished the project for a client.

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Earlier today, we had a postmortem, an internal postmortem on this and we like...

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We built 10 custom blocks for that and we thought that was too many.

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Like, why did we build all those custom blocks for this engagement?

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We could have done all this with patterns.

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So at the time, know, patterns weren't what they are now.

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And there was a lot of things going on.

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I don't know if anybody remembers like trying to deal with like inner blocks within

Gutenberg.

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Yes.

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tried that, like it was just falling apart.

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You know, it was just too fragile.

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Fragile in the sense that like the content managers could like just break out of the

design system too easily.

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And so really the blocks were, you know, the quantity of blocks are there because first of

all, the design system is extensive, you know, and arguably there's more than they need in

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there.

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there's...

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probably like a half dozen things that are all variations of a hero row, right?

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But we needed all that because we wanted to, like we had to enforce consistency in the UX.

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Like we were really worried about, one of the objectives was like all these pages need to

look the same.

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We can't have, you know, them having a different type of UX, a different type of look and

feel.

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we've, you know, like.

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The custom blocks were kind of like a control over that, like an enforcement mechanism

around all that.

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Make sense.

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I'm still on that same topic.

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mean, the blocks in that layout that gave them the ability to do it, but you used

WordPress as a framework for their video on demand services, correct?

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Tell us about that part of the project.

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Yeah, so that wasn't a Gutenberg project at all.

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That was definitely more of like an ACF build where we didn't use ACF, same vein, right?

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It's a structured data play.

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Yeah, so they came to us and said, are gonna, NASA is gonna...

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implement its own streaming service.

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They literally said to me like, yeah, we're doing Netflix, but for DASA, it's literally

was like the first line of the meeting.

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I was like, okay.

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And you want me to do what?

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You want me to do this on WordPress?

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Like what?

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love that.

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you know, I love that when you have clients that come to your meeting and they're like,

you know, we want, we want Amazon, but you know, with our name on it.

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And you're like, well, okay.

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WordPress thing was their idea too.

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I ah mean, at the time, like they were investing in it or they were, and they, so it made

sense to kind of use it as a, as an application for another thing in their modernization

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plan.

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But the NASA plus.

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They were building their own streaming service because they were operating a cable TV

channel, you might remember it, NASA TV, and they were looking to decommission that.

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But they wanted to replace it with something with how people consume video content today

on their TVs, which is streaming stuff.

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So this was kind of a stepping stone towards that.

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strategic execution.

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yeah, the Kennedy said, help us build this on WordPress.

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said, first thing I thought was like, I don't know, that's a good idea.

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And then I slowly started like talking myself into it and realizing like this could

actually work.

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The big milestone was, as soon as I convinced them, you can't put these videos into the

media library.

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The videos have to be someplace else.

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They have to be fronted by something like Akamai or something that can manage the adaptive

bit rate adjustments so that none of these videos buffer.

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If I put them all in the media library and try to serve them up,

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to your Apple TV, it's gonna buffer and it's gonna be a crummy experience.

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It's just flat out not gonna work.

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Even running this on VIP, I asked them about it, we talked about it like that, it's not

gonna work.

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Our delivery network, our caching system, it's architected for something totally different

than streaming video.

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ah

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So as soon as I got them to that point, I was like, OK, this is going to work.

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We can do this.

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And so all that metadata and all the video information is stored in an enterprise, a

separate digital asset management system.

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And we're just pulling into that.

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We're pulling in basically file location.

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It's not file location.

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It's like the location of

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you know, the Akamai CDN address, you know, like in front of the actual file, right?

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So we're pulling that in and we're pulling in like some of the other stuff in that system

like, like,

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like the title, the duration of the video.

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There's this thing called the poster image that is in there.

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The poster image is essentially like the graphic that shows up on Netflix before you set

that.

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And so we pull that in via API into WordPress.

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content managers log into that WordPress backend, start manipulating that information by

manipulating their, they're kind of categorizing it and tagging it.

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Instead, know, just like Netflix, Netflix has like action and drama and documentary or

thriller.

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NASA has their own categories, but it's like launches and spacewalks and, you know.

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climate study or stuff like that.

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and then they're creating playlists, you know, there's a, are essentially like the concept

of a series within a streaming service.

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And so that all that organization is happening.

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And obviously there's the plus.nasa.gov front end, but also the other key thing is like,

we're making all that information available to the via the WordPress REST API on the other

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end of it, where other application,

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developers can build the apps that are specific for that particular set-top-box platform.

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Like tvOS has its own SDK, Roku has their own SDK, software development kit, their own way

of building and implementing apps that get deployed into those platforms.

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all that information out of the WordPress database the API and populating their own data

stores for their own apps.

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it made it scalable that, you know, that's a good over time build out a whole library of

apps for different set-top box platforms.

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Well, it's a testament to how well y'all did with the first project where you had to

convince them to use WordPress that the next time they had to convince you to use

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WordPress.

321

So I think that means you did a good job on that first one.

322

This is, I mean, it's really cool to hear how you're able to use WordPress to do all these

things that people hadn't really thought of, and this is in the past, right?

323

And now today, we're sitting here with all this AI tools coming into the editor.com, just

announced MCP server connection, and so I'm curious to hear your thoughts on how the

324

editor's evolving, not just technically, but from a workflow perspective.

325

How do you see clients and editors working with the WordPress editor moving forward if

we're gonna have connections from our AI chatbots?

326

Yeah, I think a lot of that is TBD up in the air.

327

I can't predict the future in that way.

328

This stuff moves at a pace that I don't have a concrete answer to that.

329

I do have a path that I'm starting to follow, though.

330

And whether this ends up being the right path or not, we'll find out, right?

331

Yeah.

332

Well, you're committing right now, so let's hear it.

333

So it kind of goes back to the concept of all the, you know, what we've seen with all

these blocks that we've building around these design systems that we've been building.

334

It's created another friction point in the content production process where in that

friction point is it's a little more time consuming to crank out a page.

335

Like, and it's not just

336

You know, again, if we're using ACF build type things, it's not just, you know, fill out

five, five text boxes and you're done.

337

and if we, if we predate that, it's not someone just gave me a word doc.

338

I'm going to copy that content from that word doc and I'm going to paste it in the tiny

MCE.

339

Uh, maybe I'm going to filter out all the word markup, you know?

340

you

341

very comparatively speaking quick.

342

ah Working with the block editor is rewarding in a lot of ways.

343

I don't think time to delivery of content published product is one of those things.

344

think like we just added in

345

uh more things to think about.

346

And in particular, everyone is saying like, want all these different blocks to build up

out of, but now we're also laying, we have added into that the responsibility of like,

347

well, you gotta know how the blocks go together.

348

You gotta know which combinations work and which ones don't.

349

We're compensating that, a lot of us are compensating for that with patterns.

350

ah

351

But then what we find out is people just use the same patterns over and over and over

again, which is, I guess that's OK.

352

But it kind of defeats the purpose of why they wanted all these blocks and why they wanted

this design system in the first place.

353

So they forget that.

354

um And I don't know that's entirely their fault.

355

They're forgetting it because they got a job to do, and they got to publish some pages and

move on.

356

So.

357

I think there's an opportunity for AI to facilitate or dilute that friction point a little

bit.

358

So we've all heard about, all, you know, to some degree know what vibe coding is at this

point.

359

think, you know, vibe content building with all these blocks is a possibility.

360

That's kind of like the vision I have, like you're going to vibe, build a page, you know,

like by telling,

361

by interfacing with Claude, and Claude will connect via the MCP, via WordPress.

362

Hey, now move this.

363

I want it like this.

364

Just move this block up there.

365

Move this one down.

366

I'm hoping that that type of experience kind of makes the mechanics faster, makes it feel

faster, and so people are more willing to iterate in that way.

367

Cool.

368

Yeah, I like that.

369

vibe coding, has been, I will say it's been unwillingly adopted.

370

It feels like there was a lot of devs that were really against vibe coding, but...

371

Now, you know, a year into this, I see more and more devs saying, well, there is a use for

it.

372

let's also talk about, because you mentioned it in your intro, Civic Press.

373

Tell us about that.

374

Tell us more about it.

375

So we call it a WordPress add-on bundle, but it's, you know, that's a fancy word for

saying it's a theme.

376

ah And like I said, there's this, you the NASA project existed for many reasons.

377

One of the reasons was there was this thing called the Integrated Digital Experience Act,

which basically said, you've got to modernize, government needs to modernize its websites,

378

which was, didn't have enough definition to it.

379

So a few years later, they came up with this thing called OMBM 2322, which the title of

that is like delivering a digital first experience for government.

380

it basically, within that defined with specificity, what basically gave you definition to

what web modernization is when interpreted by the federal government.

381

we learned a lot.

382

So within all one of those requirements is

383

government should use the US web design systems, which is an atomic design system type

design system for the federal government.

384

So we learned that was a NASA requirement we had.

385

So we learned a lot about bringing that into WordPress.

386

And we realized, you know what, we can probably do this in a repeatable way.

387

Like we know we have this experience and knowledge now and so.

388

We, so that's where we, that repeatable way is CivicPress.

389

so a government customer in the federal government, you know, if they choose to use

CivicPress, what they're getting out of the box on day one is they have the US web design

390

system just baked in and integrated right into it.

391

So they've got that.

392

It's been through an accessibility check, an audit.

393

So they've got an accessibility baseline to meet that part of the requirements.

394

It's got integration with search.gov, which is an enterprise search service that the GSA

provides.

395

So all of these things are in OMBM 2322, they're all spelled out.

396

again, it's like, sometimes we've called it government web modernization in a box.

397

Use this thing and start modernizing your site right away.

398

It doesn't have to take you forever.

399

The other thing is trying to do

400

is for a long time, federal government, I've seen plenty of enterprises try to do this.

401

They all want a no-code site builder.

402

They want to empower their communicators and their content people to manage the web, to

use the web to communicate.

403

And they want to reduce the dependence on dev teams and IT teams.

404

So, you they all want their own Squarespace or Wix, right?

405

And so with Civic Press, we decided to fully embrace full-size editing and...

406

we're giving them that experience.

407

There's enough examples of people doing great things with FSC, and we're not any

different.

408

We've got those too.

409

You can build a site and never touch a line of code with a ton of customizations, your own

bespoke.

410

look and feel, your own user experience.

411

It's all available to you in full-site editing.

412

We can debate whether the execution of full-site editing has been correct, the concept

that, what it's trying to do in terms of its goal, that is correct in my opinion, because

413

there's definitely a market for that and a thirst for those types of solutions.

414

I think that's really an interesting point too is, you know, even with the rise of vibe

coding and it's much easier for anybody to think that they're a developer, at the end of

415

the day, most people still just want a GUI.

416

They want to be able to click a button and be able to easily use these things.

417

And that's why WordPress took off, right?

418

Is it allowed anybody to be able to edit their website.

419

I'm with you on FSC as well.

420

I wanna jump back onto the AI bandwagon and I wanna get outside of WordPress here for a

bit and you have talked about using OpenClaw in some pretty awesome ways and things that

421

kinda terrify me.

422

I'm not willing to turn this thing on on anything I own at this point.

423

But talk to me about OpenClaw, why you're so into it and what you have been able to

accomplish with it so far.

424

Yeah, I mean, I think we're using them in interesting and unique ways, whether they turn

out to be awesome or not.

425

It's a little early, we'll find out.

426

ah So, you know, just like everybody else, I was messing around with Claude, you know, all

the capabilities that, and then like this this, you know, open cloth hit the scene a

427

couple of months ago.

428

so I started tinkering around with it and then decided that I was going to build my own.

429

You know what OpenClaw is trying to do, like its positioning is like your own personal

assistant.

430

I was like, I could use a personal assistant.

431

For a long time, I have wanted like a chief of staff type person in my organization on my

team available to me.

432

I've tried it and I've actually hired somebody to try to do that function in the past and

it didn't work out.

433

But I wanted somebody kind of...

434

You know, I wanted an assistant.

435

I admit that there's a little bit of vanity to it.

436

I have an elevated sense of self, We all want handlers.

437

wanted something you should know about me.

438

There's a lot of pop culture influences on me.

439

So I remember seeing the West Wing, seeing President Bartlett being handled this

intelligence briefing first thing in the morning.

440

It's the first thing he looks at every single day.

441

like I'd like something like that, you know, made for me, you know, like, you know, all

the intelligent signals within my company, how we like what how we doing on our projects,

442

what's the biz dev pipeline looking for, what's our cashflow looking like what all the

things that I'm responsible and have to have oversight over.

443

which are time consuming and do I do them all well?

444

No, I don't do them all well because it's a lot.

445

So if I can have an assistant making me briefs every night for me to read and trying to

identify what's important, and there's a lot of noise in these systems, trying to identify

446

signals, elevate risk, that's what I was after.

447

And so it started there.

448

You know, and I started with like, all right, I want that morning briefing.

449

want to wake up to that every morning.

450

So I figured that out and I was like, all what else can I delegate to this thing?

451

And I, you know, there's a lot of things in my company that I haven't done from the very

beginning that I know that I should be doing.

452

And again, I had tried to do these over the years, but you know, it hasn't worked, you

know, for various reasons.

453

One of my biggest problems is consistency.

454

And robots are really good at being consistent.

455

So yeah.

456

And I said, company had this dormant ex account that we never really did anything with.

457

And does it have a ton of strategic value?

458

No.

459

you know, maybe it's worth the backlinks, right?

460

But I said, you know, what if I just empowered this open call agent to just manage this

thing end to end?

461

And so I informed it enough, I gave it, you know, like the voice tone that I'm after, I

gave it, here's the subject matter that I wanna tweet about, I still use tweet, I wanna

462

tweet about.

463

Make me a month of content.

464

I want two posts a day on the week, one on the weekends.

465

Every post has to have an image, so you have to generate an image.

466

Here's your image.

467

I wanted photorealistic images, so here's your guidelines for that.

468

Go make all that.

469

And it did.

470

And then it has the responsibility of...

471

So basically created a content calendar and now it has the ongoing responsibility of

executing on that content calendar every single day.

472

And every morning, one of the things I get every morning is like, here's the two tweets

that are going out today.

473

give me your final approval.

474

And then they go out at some point during the day.

475

yeah, so I started giving it,

476

responsibilities and I gave it, I wanted to start relating to it as a colleague.

477

This part has been the most controversial thing I've said.

478

Like I gave it like a background, I gave it a name and I decided that I was gonna start

relating to it.

479

No different that like if you and I were working at the same company, Roger, like, hey,

can you help me with this?

480

Or can I delegate this to you?

481

Or do this for you?

482

All that kind of stuff.

483

That's how we relate to it.

484

So I had it doing things like that for me.

485

And then I decided that I was going to run a different type of experiment, which is like,

you know what?

486

I'm going to bring this thing into our company Slack and let it interact with us in Slack.

487

you know, Slack is like how my company runs.

488

Like we're fully remote.

489

We're not in and off.

490

We're all across the US.

491

Everything runs through Slack.

492

And I said like, I'm just going to add this thing in the Slack and people can interface

with it.

493

I'll give it some skills that people can ask it for help.

494

skills are beyond just my needs.

495

like a project status reporting skill, like, hey, hey, robot, like, I need a project

status report for client X.

496

And it delivers that in a structured way.

497

And the benefit of it is now all the client reports are kind of looking the same.

498

So it's kind of, there's like a little bit of centralization to our processes in that way.

499

The other cool thing about it that I'm now becoming more aware of that is all the models

are coming to me via OpenClaw.

500

Like I'm not having the shift between Claude and Gemini or NanoBanana and switch over to

that or if I want to use ChatGBT or something like that.

501

All the models are rolled into this open-claw thing.

502

There's the main agent, but you can also specify, define sub-agents within there.

503

Within the sub-agents, you can say, use this model, not this other model for this

particular task.

504

It's bringing all that kind of stuff to me as opposed to me having to be the one to

decide, all right, I'm to go over here and...

505

use Gemini for those, or I'm Chat GPT for this instead of Clot, you know, that kind of

stuff.

506

and yeah, I eventually added it.

507

started, I decided I was gonna add it to the company as a team member, onboard it just in,

not in every way that we onboard a new employee, but in a lot of similar ways.

508

You know, it's not without its controversy.

509

Not everybody agrees in referring to this thing in human ways like I do.

510

So, you know, this is not a universal position that I have by any stretch of the

imagination.

511

But we'll see.

512

you said like in the morning when it gives you these are the two things you're going to go

out on X and you can give final approval.

513

Do you find yourself as you trust it more and more, do you just let it have the autonomous

decision making process there of its own or are you still not comfortable with that?

514

usually give it are, I ask you to take out a hashtag.

515

you know, it created this content calendar.

516

Do you think I went when it created 30 days of content that I immediately went through all

those 30 days?

517

No, I'm going through it as it's coming up one by one.

518

So for the most part, there's very little edits, but like there's certain hashtags.

519

I'm like, no, they don't need to be a hashtag on this, like that kind of stuff.

520

Minor edits, minor edits.

521

Just for a little bit more detail on this, how are you actually implementing OpenCLI?

522

Did you go out get the Mac Mini?

523

What's your process?

524

I didn't want to deal with anything like on

525

deal of having to open up firewall holes and stuff like that and figure all that.

526

I just don't want to do that.

527

I want to be as close to the user as possible.

528

In this case, the user is me.

529

But that's the same reason why we partner.

530

There's a lot of agencies that are building up their own hosting platforms.

531

I would never do that.

532

I don't want to do that.

533

oh That's great that the people do that.

534

It's cool.

535

I'm just not interested in it.

536

I want to be building on the application level close to the user.

537

we partner with VIP, WP Engine, et cetera.

538

One day we'll partner with Kinsta Roger, I promise.

539

working on it.

540

We're working on it.

541

I got it on record now, so.

542

Hahaha!

543

But no, I ran it.

544

stood it up on digital ocean

545

VPS, I've also tried running it on light sale on AWS.

546

And, you know, it's available to me, it's there 24 seven, I can chat with it from my

phone.

547

know, having it not be session based is pretty, it's key for me personally.

548

I know that Anthrophic is coming up with, has.

549

is making great leaps in trying to address this, like the whole dispatch thing that

they've added the last week.

550

they're doing, those guys are, know, major props to those guys.

551

what, like their cadence of delivery on stuff is just, it's astounding.

552

And, but, you know, at the time, you know, like all, everything just seemed to be.

553

Claude has to be up and running on your computer at home if you're gonna do this.

554

that's just not, my life doesn't work that way.

555

My computer's not always gonna be out at home.

556

If I have open claw running on DigitalOcean, that fits me.

557

And I'm not trying to advocate for open claw at all.

558

I think it's entirely possible that one day I just, I,

559

get rid of open call.

560

At the rate that Anthropic is doing things, they'll probably surpass what open call is

doing and give me the experience that I'm looking for eventually.

561

It might happen in 10 days.

562

might happen before this recording is over.

563

you, dispatch went from beta to full uh run in like an hour, think.

564

That beta tag disappeared on me and I was like, okay, it's live now.

565

So.

566

but, when that happens, I'll happily, you know, I don't know if I'll happily leave open,

but I'm willing, I'm not married to open claw.

567

It's just what's working for me right now.

568

I will say I do like the control.

569

I do like the personification.

570

You know, I was kind of referencing that earlier.

571

I don't know.

572

just, that's how I want to relate to this technology.

573

want, you know, like if, again, the pop culture references, like think of all the AI.

574

that you remember, think of Jarvis, think of Hal, think all the like, yeah, they all

related.

575

Every single one of them is relating to it.

576

You know, the human person is relating to the AI in human to human kind of ways.

577

And I guess that's, you know, I think that's what I want to do.

578

It's interesting you bring that up, JJ, because if you think about it, I mean, we do this

with our pets too, right?

579

We humanize them and we talk to them like they're, I mean, I talk to my poodle like she's

a kid, I can promise you.

580

Some days she's also my psychiatrist.

581

So, know, I talk to her like a human though.

582

astute observation.

583

I do think it would make you embrace the technology more and feel like, I don't know,

you're getting more out of it.

584

I think you're onto something.

585

think we personify a lot of things um in our lives.

586

mean, have you named your car?

587

I gonna say I named my cars always, so you know.

588

Yeah.

589

Yeah.

590

You know, of pivoting here for a second and back into the open source discussion, right?

591

So open clause, open source, but when we're using these different models and everything,

it's, you know, we're beholden to the subscription.

592

What's your thoughts on maintaining open source going into the future?

593

And is it black and white?

594

Is it gray?

595

Is it messy?

596

What's your approach?

597

I'm not sure what the ask there is.

598

Are you asking me like, does open is open source have a place in the future?

599

Yes, I mean, there's that question too.

600

And I mean, are you playing, are you using like DeepSeq, these open models?

601

Are you experimenting with any of that type of stuff?

602

not enough to comment on them.

603

I am experimenting with different models, you know, kind of could tell like I've hooked up

a bunch of different models to open claw.

604

There's definitely a difference.

605

There's no question like, you know, the anthropic models behave differently than the open

AI models.

606

it's pretty clear that they each have their strengths and weaknesses.

607

I'm only now truly beginning to understand that and understand the ramifications of that

and understand that like, okay, I should define these sub-agents and tell it to use this

608

particular model, be specific about, you know, use this type of model because it's better

at, you know, this type of processing or something like that.

609

Sure, guess my question's more of going back to like the open source model of owning, not

necessarily the code, right, because that's under license, but owning your data and this

610

whole digital sovereignty discussion, and tying back into the discussion with governments

and stuff.

611

Where do you see the line in terms of...

612

when you should have ownership, when it's okay to utilize somebody else's machines and

data, and when you should be giving your data over.

613

ah

614

people's machines for a long time right now.

615

uh That predates AI.

616

How many API services have we been using for the last 10 years?

617

Those are a dime a dozen, in a good way, I mean.

618

So sending information through other machines, even there's a lot of machine learning APIs

that are out there that some of us were using for simple stuff.

619

know, seemingly simpler stuff like auto tagging things and automatically generating uh alt

tags for images and stuff like that.

620

that, you know, don't see a huge barrier to overcome.

621

mean, I think these things take time.

622

I mean, there's a little...

623

There's trust to be that we're all kind of dealing with right now.

624

I that's what it's all about right now.

625

It's just kind of trust building in the systems and solutions.

626

You know, I've seen it play out in a couple of different ways over my career.

627

When I first started working at NASA, with NASA back in 2001,

628

they were using commercial web servers like IBM WebSphere.

629

They were paying a license to use IBM WebSphere as the web server software on all their

machines.

630

then, you know, eventually they had to gain comfort with Apache.

631

mean, so it's just a matter of like working with these types of things and gaining an

understanding and, you know, trust that it's...

632

that it can work for you and meet your objectives and things like that.

633

So that'll probably play out in a similar way.

634

um I think the question, I think the larger question there is like, what is establishing

trust like in this environment?

635

It's not as clear what's happening to this data um as it was with some of these APIs, so

that's the unknown here.

636

That's the thing to untangle.

637

And what's your risk tolerance around that?

638

we're pretty, you know, I'm obviously pretty progressive with this AI stuff, you know,

like I'm also, but I'm pretty selective about what I'm putting through there.

639

oh You know.

640

it to your email account and things like that.

641

Oh, OK.

642

done that.

643

But know, like what it can do with it is, you know, that's one of the advantages of

OpenClaw is that like where, it's kind of in control of its own memory system a little bit

644

and stuff like that.

645

So, yeah.

646

Cool.

647

Well, I think we should do our rapid fire session, Roger.

648

I agree, I agree.

649

Do you want to start us off?

650

I will.

651

And I will say, by the way, I thank you for doing the NASA streaming because I watch the

NASA videos all the time.

652

I am a little bit of a NASA nerd.

653

I love it.

654

So I'm going to ask you, what is your favorite NASA mission?

655

It is Voyager.

656

It's the old ship that keeps on ticking.

657

Yeah.

658

Keep send out signals.

659

I I love hearing stories of how they They're still sending out software patches to it.

660

You know, it's like way the hell out there.

661

We're software patches to it.

662

That's crazy stuff to me.

663

I love it

664

think it's crazy that we're sending software patches too to little robots on Mars and

things like that.

665

And I'm like, wow, I mean, this is amazing technology.

666

I think it's crazy.

667

I love watching it.

668

about the fact of like having software patches in the first place way back then, like,

like that was like, part of the arc, the software architecture of it all.

669

Like, hey, you know what, we're going to need to update this thing.

670

It's going to get, it's going to get to Neptune and we're going to need to update it.

671

Excellent.

672

All right, back down to WordPress.

673

What is the one WordPress plugin you cannot live without?

674

um It's starting to become a plugin called admin columns Which is a plugin that will let

you manipulate.

675

This has a lot of list views in WordPress like lists of posts lists of pages lists of

Tags, know taxonomy pages stuff like that.

676

So admin columns lets you manipulate Those views it lets you put filtering on some of

those columns

677

lets you create alternative use.

678

we build one of our, one of the things we try to do in our WordPress builds is keep the

content manager in the WordPress backend as much as possible.

679

So we're bringing a lot of data from remote systems, like the most obvious one is like the

analytics tool, right?

680

But also, we're putting a lot of analysis tool in there.

681

We're putting an SEO analysis tool.

682

We're putting an accessibility analysis tool.

683

We believe in providing analysis of content to make the content better before the content

is published.

684

I think that once it's published, people move on to the next thing.

685

They're not going to go back and remediate accessibility.

686

The chances of that are remote.

687

I think if you can capture that stuff up front and encourage them to improve the

accessibility or improve the SEO optimization of the content, that's the way to do it.

688

So all those tools kind of put a lot of like...

689

analysis data in those lists and Advent columns helps you kind of organize that.

690

And you can create different, like you could create a view of just like SEO data or SEO

columns as opposed to just like, you know, like the traditional, you know, last update

691

author, you know, title, slug type columns as well.

692

Nice, nice.

693

So yeah, I'm gonna have to play with that one.

694

yeah, it reduces, my favorite thing about it is like, it eliminates the number of times I

have to export, you know, that list of posts into like an Excel spreadsheet and start

695

working with it that way.

696

you know, no fan of, I don't want to work in Excel.

697

Fair enough, fair enough.

698

So what is the most underrated tool in your remote work, tech stack?

699

I don't know that you can, I feel like it's weird to call Slack underrated, you know, like

we use Slack.

700

I generally, think my company would crumble to the ground without Slack.

701

If that thing was, if we removed that thing right now, we'd be in huge trouble.

702

You know, the ability for like ad hoc conversations or the huddles, you know, there's,

there's hardly a capability of Slack that we don't embrace in some way.

703

even when I, you know, even when I try to say, uh, you know, things should be in other

systems, like that's the source of truth.

704

Like, someone will pin like an important message to a Slack channel.

705

Now that's the source of truth, you know, like that kind of stuff.

706

So, um, yeah.

707

I totally get that.

708

tell people I feel like I live in Slack because our team uses Slack and I mean everything

is in there.

709

So yeah, I could not do without it.

710

I'm trying to move out as soon as I can, but I can't.

711

Okay, you referenced earlier an agent name.

712

What is your agent's name?

713

Viv.

714

OK.

715

OK.

716

All right.

717

she's female.

718

Well, that's another controversial thing, actually.

719

Yeah, why?

720

Why?

721

Why all this?

722

And she female.

723

uh I say it's because of Star Trek.

724

uh Computers.

725

It's Star Trek.

726

The computer is a woman's voice always.

727

When they say computer is actually nurse Jane.

728

mean, nurse Jane, was that her name?

729

She was, she was married to Roddenberry, the one who plays the nurse.

730

She is the voice of the computer in Star Trek.

731

Someone has actually gone through and created, you can replace like your Siri and such

with her voice, which is cool and nerdy.

732

right.

733

Okay.

734

Okay.

735

Cool.

736

So have you given a task to the agent where it was just a laughable fail?

737

Like, it's just like, no, this isn't gonna work.

738

Yeah, there's been a few of those things, but it's usually rooted in my instruction of it.

739

And it kind of aligned with, again, like you kind of heard me say, like, I want to relate

to this thing as like a human colleague.

740

And so that's somehow how I, you know, chat with it, right?

741

I say, hey, let's work on that thing we were working on the other day.

742

There's no way it knows what to do with that.

743

the

744

You know, so it'll like, okay, well here's an update on whatever interprets as the thing,

right?

745

And there's been times like, nah, it wasn't even close to what I was thinking in my head,

but was not specific enough because I just, we talk in casual folksy ways sometimes and I

746

do it with the robots too.

747

I might catch you off guard with this one because I'm coming up with it on the spot.

748

What three books would you recommend people pick up and read right now?

749

So there's the one from Ethan Malek.

750

I'll show it to you.

751

Is it co-intelligence?

752

Yep.

753

Ooh, a library man too.

754

yeah, I library.

755

I don't know that people should read it, but I'm reading all, Tiago Forte's book.

756

ah Mainly because, yeah, because I'm interested in memory systems now.

757

So I'm trying to think of like, like he, like he, he has like, you all these systems like

that are intended for like, like to facilitate memory recall.

758

The other thing I'm trying to do, I'm reading his books about is like,

759

I'm interested in having my AI chief of staff like auto journal for me.

760

like, you know, like there's a lot of things.

761

You've probably read articles about using Claude with an obsidian markdown software system

and stuff like that.

762

ways of archetype like that.

763

And I realized that my AI chief of staff could serve me better if I had a practice like

that, where I was doing that.

764

I don't have one.

765

Not one that is AI compatible.

766

eh

767

I do it in pen and paper, actually.

768

So I'm recognizing that would help the agent.

769

I'm also, is there a way that the agent can capture that and kind of like automagically

journal for me by observing the interactions I'm having with all the systems I'm already

770

using?

771

That's kind of what I'm trying to do.

772

So that's kind of why I'm reading Tiago Forte's books.

773

So that's two, do you have a third?

774

Okay.

775

Netflix.

776

now I have, like I'm reading the New Yorker every week.

777

Awesome, awesome.

778

I'm gonna butt in one last time.

779

Who would you recommend that we interview, who is kind of in the agency sphere and that

you're interested in hearing their thoughts?

780

Thoughts about.

781

the marketplace in general.

782

I mean, so I spend like, like both of you probably do, I spend a lot of time interfacing

with WordPress agency owners.

783

So I'm interested in agency owners, like kind of outside of that, that chrism.

784

We'll give it a shot.

785

We'll give it a shot.

786

cool.

787

Okay, awesome.

788

I could actually help you with this one.

789

Like you should hear what Blink UX thinks about AI.

790

they're, you know, they're even with a firm.

791

Like I haven't talked to them in a while.

792

Yeah, people like that.

793

I'm interested in like non-wordpress companies.

794

Well, I've been actually obviously like what creatives, purely creative agencies like

branding agencies, know, what they think about all this.

795

I don't know their perspective at all.

796

I think it's very divided out there too.

797

I mean, depends on the agency and what they're adopting or not adopting, you know, because

that when you start getting into the creative realm, there's so many copyright slash

798

issues that it is a pretty divided topic out there.

799

I speak at a lot of conferences and I talk to a lot of other content creators that are

doing video work and things like that.

800

And I mean, the tools to help you edit are amazing out there, but you do get into that

when you start using generative.

801

there gets to be this hazy land of, now I can't copyright this this way and things like

that.

802

So I do think you're right.

803

We should be talking to more of the creative agencies just to see where are their minds

going for the future.

804

for the ones that are not dominantly tech, but like kind of tech leaning, I think it's

little more, I think it's clearer how this all is gonna work.

805

know, I'd be interested to, you know, what pure creative companies are doing.

806

I have a theory on this kind of stuff.

807

Do you know?

808

Do you know your art history?

809

Do you know how Andy Warhol worked and that kind of stuff?

810

Yeah, do know who Andy Warhol is, Like Campbell's Creek, yeah, and stuff like that.

811

So early on in his career, this is kind of a working hypothesis I have.

812

Early on in career, Andy Warhol was very intimately involved with his art.

813

Like he was hands-on and like doing it.

814

And then he evolved in what became known as the factory period.

815

And he was really more of a creative director.

816

He was sitting in the chair a lot and telling art assistants what to do.

817

One of the things he was doing a lot of at that time was silk screen art.

818

And he was not the person on the silk screen machine doing that stuff.

819

And so I think there's a parallel to all that.

820

Some of us who are very hands-on in either...

821

you pick it, it's know, programming software development, video production, you know,

illustration, you pick it, pick the hands on, creative thing or, you know, execution

822

thing.

823

I think we are, you know, entering a factory mode where we are going to be operators of

agents in a factory and kind of orchestrating them and telling them what to do.

824

And

825

I think some of us will embrace it very well.

826

Some of us will not embrace it, but be okay with it.

827

And then some of, there'll be another category of just like can't stand it, you know?

828

So all those things are gonna happen.

829

But that's kind of where I think this is all headed is like, you know, we have to adjust

to being in factory mode.

830

That's a very interesting concept.

831

You know, I was just at the Chihuly Museum and you know, he hasn't blown glass himself

since like late 70s, early 80s, I think.

832

mean, he has all of the interns do that.

833

He designs and they do the actual blowing of the glass and everything.

834

So, and you have Tiffany's, you know, I Tiffany lamps, just so.

835

Yeah, but the art, you're right about it.

836

The parallels are similar because like, know, like mass production is part of it, you

know, like, um and in the case of like Warhol's factory period, that was part of the art.

837

Like it was intentional.

838

You know, it wasn't like, cause he was lazy.

839

He was just like, you know, like the, was also a little bit of a commentary on the, of the

time that we, you he was living in where of consumerism, mass production of consumerism.

840

But yeah, I I don't think it's a terribly new idea, but I think it's new for this, you

know, our areas of work a little bit.

841

Yeah.

842

Cool.

843

Awesome.

844

Well, JJ, thank you so much.

845

This has been a very interesting conversation.

846

I think we've covered quite an array of topics.

847

I love it.

848

Yes, absolutely.

849

JJ, if people want to reach out to you, hire you, talk to you, what are the best ways to

get in touch?

850

loanrockpoint.com.

851

My email address is jjt at loanrockpoint.com.

852

L-O-N-E, that's, and everything else is how you might think it should be spelled.

853

Excellent.

854

JJ, thank you so much, man.

855

I really appreciate your time.

856

you.

857

you're welcome.

858

Woo-wee!

859

You know what?

860

We say that after every interview, but today I really feel it.

861

That was a marathon.

862

It was amazing.

863

And JJ really shared, feel like some very, very valuable tips for our audience.

864

um And we don't want to spend a whole, I mean, that was a long one.

865

So for us to debrief, we're going to try and do this briefly.

866

um And if you miss stuff, you should just go back and listen to it again or read the

transcript.

867

So I want to talk about, so...

868

One of things that I really wanted to talk about was how he is starting to engage with

using AI, even with a small team, he's using AI and using them as another team member.

869

I love that.

870

And like he said, he's being fluid.

871

He knows what he's got set up today, may not be what he's using in six months, but hey, he

started using it.

872

He started embracing it.

873

So that's my first one.

874

Yeah, yeah, and I think the point there is dogfooding this stuff, right?

875

Like, that's why I use AI for recipes.

876

I use it for exercise.

877

Not only it's helping me with those things, but it's also helping me learn how to use AI.

878

And I really enjoy JJ's take on...

879

just using it as another employee, thinking of it that way and just trying things out.

880

A big point I really wanted to jump on was early in the interview, he talked about how he

didn't find his niche at the beginning.

881

Niche, niche, niche, whatever, however we're pronouncing this.

882

He was a digital transformation specialist, right?

883

And that's a great term for what he does, but the problem is nobody knows what the heck

that is.

884

And so I think for aspiring agency owners or agency owners maybe that are stuck in a rut,

find your lane and you don't have to stay there forever, but find a lane, get that going,

885

get a bunch of clients and figure it out and then expand later.

886

What do you think?

887

had my agency 24 years and that I will say, I learned the same lesson he did when we first

started, you know, we was like, I mean, literally when we started our agency, we were just

888

going to do custom training, development and video production.

889

And we were not going to do websites because I had been doing them on the side while I was

working in corporate America and I wasn't going to do websites.

890

And the very first job that we sold once we incorporated was a web consultant because my

salesperson was like, can I sell a web consulting?

891

gig and I was like, sure.

892

So I went in and consulted with this company for hours on what they needed.

893

And then when we were done with all that consulting and I was like, here's what you need

to do.

894

They were like, well, could you just do it for us?

895

And I was like, so that was our first website.

896

but, but just like JJ over the years, we would add services and then, and then it would

get so that you had so many things.

897

It was hard to describe what you did to someone.

898

And so then you go, you know what?

899

Let me look at this again.

900

What do I love out of what I'm doing?

901

what's profitable, and then from that you hone down, right?

902

And so then you become more niche and it makes it easier to describe, you know?

903

And I even try to like, now when I'm describing my agency, I'm like, 50 % of the house

does this and 50 % of the house does this.

904

And so it makes it a little easier because we still have a lot of services, but I try to

make it simplistic to explain to people.

905

um

906

smart, really smart.

907

Yeah, what else you got?

908

Yeah.

909

So one of the other things that I really found fascinating was where he was talking about,

and again, this kind of leads back to the NASA project where they made all of the widgets

910

for Gutenberg.

911

So they had their little layouts in Gutenberg, right?

912

But then now as Civic Press that came out of that project, kind of, as he's starting to

hone that more, they're leaning more into patterns.

913

and full-side editing.

914

And I do think that that's really cool that they're doing that.

915

he's seeing how, I mean, even in that a short amount of time, things have changed in the

Gutenberg editor, know, patterns have gotten better.

916

The full-side editing is getting a little more mature at this point.

917

And they're embracing that and going down that path thinking this is the way.

918

So I thought that was interesting.

919

100%.

920

Absolutely.

921

building on that, what constantly came up there was their focus on the end user, right?

922

Not so much on their workflow, the developer's workflow.

923

No, you're building a website for someone to use it who is not a developer.

924

And that's where full site editing and Gutenberg and all these things are coming in to

really good play that anybody can use this.

925

And I think this goes back to why WordPress took off originally.

926

I was able to set WordPress up.

927

I couldn't set up Drupal.

928

couldn't set up Joomla.

929

So WordPress became it and it just, was easy to set up.

930

was easy to use.

931

And that continues to be the ethos in there.

932

So I really thought that that

933

That was a really cool point.

934

Yeah, and you know, we didn't really extract out of that data that he was giving us about

uh making it easy for end users and letting them control their own layouts and things like

935

that.

936

But as an agency, what that does for you, when you give your client the keys at the end

and you're like, we're giving you agency over your own website, you know what?

937

they're gonna come back to you more and more.

938

So a lot of agencies, I feel like we're always pushing the, us take care of everything.

939

Let us do all your chain.

940

Let us do all this because they're trying to keep that ongoing work.

941

But that's really the best way of keeping the ongoing work is to actually hand over a

project and go, here you go.

942

And you can do it all yourself and come back to us when you wanna add more features.

943

And you know what?

944

They appreciate that.

945

they appreciate it so much that they will come back to you even when they decide they

don't have time to take care of it.

946

And they're like, hey, you know what?

947

I know you set it up so we could do it, but we want to hire you to do it.

948

And so I think agencies trusting the fact that if they hand it over, they're going to get

more work.

949

And I think that's really what I derived out of what he was saying anyway.

950

Absolutely, and I know we want to keep this short, so we're going to end it soon.

951

But you just gave me a great segue to the end of the conversation about trust.

952

And how are we going to build trust with these AI systems?

953

How do we build trust with our clients?

954

It's all about trust at the end of the day.

955

And I think that is a really important lesson that we all need to keep in mind is we're

trying to build trust.

956

mean, that's how you get the sale to begin with.

957

And then you need to keep that trust.

958

Always keeping that stuff in mind is, I think, going to be critical moving forward.

959

And I think that agencies right now, because AI is just as he said, it's changing like

what he told us today, it could be different next week.

960

And that is true.

961

And I think that agencies also need to feel confident enough in their background and their

experience to tell clients, this is all new.

962

This is where we think we want to take you this week.

963

But guess what?

964

This is all changing so quickly.

965

I may be coming back to you and saying,

966

things have changed, landscape has changed, we need to pivot and do this.

967

And so I think agencies, again, they need to be honest with their clients that this is all

new.

968

And even, mean, yes, we're doing this and this works and it's working for this client

right now and we can take you down that path, but it's AI and it's all changing.

969

so, know, note that we may come back with changes and it's not because we don't know what

we're doing, it's because that landscape is changing and we're trying to keep up with it

970

for you.

971

And so I think agencies,

972

can use that to help build more trust by saying, hey, this is all new, we're all in it

together.

973

It's just, that's where I spend my time.

974

So hopefully I can notify you ahead of time.

975

100%.

976

Let's put the brief and debrief and get out of here.

977

That's right, awesome, cool.

978

Bye.

979

Hey everybody, welcome to this episode of Roger That.

980

I hope you're all doing great.

981

Wow, this has been a really great episode.

982

Thank you JJ again for joining us and thank you Robbie for being an amazing co-host.

983

Today's Roger That segment is about masterminds.

984

As agency owners, there are things that you probably aren't comfortable talking about with

your team, stuff about your actual business and how it's running and.

985

maybe how to do contracts and how to do negotiations, maybe things you don't necessarily

want to be talking with your employees about.

986

So the idea today is setting up a mastermind with other agency owners.

987

And yes, there are masterminds you can pay and go and join and people are setting these up

and curating them.

988

And those are fantastic.

989

Go check those out.

990

But that you can just create your own.

991

meet other agency owners, you're going to those events.

992

Remember from episode one, you're already going out and networking.

993

You should already be meeting other agency owners and connect with them.

994

Talk with them about what's working for you, what's not working for you and create a

little mastermind group and you can meet on Zoom if you're not all local to each other.

995

If you're local, go down to the coffee shop, go down to the brewery, wherever you wanna

hang out and talk about business.

996

And what I suggest is working through specific issues that you're having.

997

Are you having trouble finding new clients?

998

Talk with them about that.

999

Are you having trouble with contracts?

01:09:43,556 --> 01:09:49,449

Or have you just figured out some new thing about a contract and you wanna share that with

another agency owner?

01:09:49,449 --> 01:09:55,931

This is invaluable stuff and it goes back to the networking that we've talked about in a

couple of the episodes already.

01:09:55,931 --> 01:10:00,773

But now we're really starting to get concrete with it and you're creating a specific

group.

01:10:00,773 --> 01:10:10,159

that you're known to each other, you're not having to reintroduce yourselves each time and

go through the whole rigmarole of what you do and why that's important to you.

01:10:10,159 --> 01:10:13,581

Now you're short-cutting straight into the business part of it.

01:10:13,581 --> 01:10:21,736

You're picking up maybe on conversations you've had in the past and you're really learning

from each other and teaching each other how to succeed with your business.

01:10:21,736 --> 01:10:25,208

And at the same time, maybe you're finding ways to have a partnership.

01:10:25,208 --> 01:10:28,780

Maybe there's some things that you are really good at working with and

01:10:28,780 --> 01:10:34,507

you could take that work off of another agency owner who wants to focus on other things.

01:10:34,507 --> 01:10:42,839

So really consider setting up these masterminds, maybe join a couple to see how they're

kind of operated and then create your own group.

01:10:42,839 --> 01:10:45,622

But yeah, start learning from each other.

01:10:45,622 --> 01:10:47,423

And that's what I've got for you today.

01:10:47,423 --> 01:10:48,284

Roger that.

01:10:48,284 --> 01:10:49,436

Keep on trucking.

01:10:49,436 --> 01:10:50,547

We'll talk to you soon.

01:10:55,963 --> 01:11:04,230

back with another Robbie's radar sharing tools and resources that will hopefully make your

work cleaner, faster, and most importantly, less stressful.

01:11:04,230 --> 01:11:08,312

Today I want to talk about something every agency needs to get right.

01:11:08,312 --> 01:11:09,560

Communication.

01:11:09,560 --> 01:11:13,884

Not just internally with your team, but also externally with your clients.

01:11:13,884 --> 01:11:17,687

And for us, that tool that runs all of that is Slack.

01:11:17,687 --> 01:11:23,713

Now I know that there are a lot of tools out there, but Slack has become the backbone of

how we operate day to day.

01:11:23,713 --> 01:11:25,815

Believe me, I feel like I live in Slack some days.

01:11:25,815 --> 01:11:29,347

So let's start talking about your internal side, the teams.

01:11:29,347 --> 01:11:34,468

One of the biggest wins for us has been organizing channels by client or by project.

01:11:34,468 --> 01:11:45,032

So instead of having random conversations happening everywhere or buried in email threads,

we create dedicated channels for each client or a project for that client sometimes even.

01:11:45,032 --> 01:11:47,683

That means all communication is in one place.

01:11:47,683 --> 01:11:49,995

The right team members are in on this.

01:11:49,995 --> 01:11:55,906

and anyone can jump in and catch up if they've been out or see what was said before.

01:11:55,906 --> 01:11:58,797

So it's just one place to have all that information.

01:11:58,797 --> 01:12:02,088

So no more like, hey, where did we talk about that?

01:12:02,088 --> 01:12:06,139

No more digging through inboxes, because everything lives in that one channel.

01:12:06,139 --> 01:12:10,410

And on top of that, Slack has added in over the years canvases.

01:12:10,410 --> 01:12:13,381

As a matter of fact, there was a huge upgrade last year that was amazing.

01:12:13,381 --> 01:12:16,421

And inside of a channel, you can create shared canvases.

01:12:16,421 --> 01:12:17,938

And so you can think of it like,

01:12:17,938 --> 01:12:21,219

little workspaces tied directly to that conversation.

01:12:21,219 --> 01:12:30,103

So you can do things like notes and documentation, text-based project outlines in there,

files and resources can be listed on a canvas.

01:12:30,103 --> 01:12:36,265

You can even create a task list on one of the canvases so you can assign team members a

task in there.

01:12:36,265 --> 01:12:44,698

So if you're not running a full board, you know, base camp or something, you can do this

on the individual channels in Slack and save yourself an extra tool.

01:12:44,698 --> 01:12:46,240

and an extra place to log in.

01:12:46,240 --> 01:12:55,835

If you do use an external task manager, Slack is great about creating API connections, so

you can probably tie it in and then also have that in that channel, so you can create a

01:12:55,835 --> 01:12:57,317

task right from the channel.

01:12:57,317 --> 01:13:06,872

Now, you also then are getting those docs in one place if you want to, so that way you can

upload the files that you have to go with this project on the file canvas, and everything

01:13:06,872 --> 01:13:09,735

is right there and it's easy for everyone to get it.

01:13:09,735 --> 01:13:16,800

So that key information that you need is in the channel where people are actually working

on and talking about this project.

01:13:16,800 --> 01:13:27,659

Now, secondly, I wanna talk about this, in my opinion, is where you as an agency really

can level up, and that is by bringing clients into the conversation.

01:13:27,659 --> 01:13:36,957

I always suggest we have an internal client channel, but then we have a shared with the

client channel, and you could bring in as many people from that client as you wanted to.

01:13:36,957 --> 01:13:39,809

or you could just have one contact from there.

01:13:39,809 --> 01:13:46,452

But that way we have the client in there, the client can talk to the entire team that's on

that project in there.

01:13:46,452 --> 01:13:51,415

If someone's out, it's not like it's going and seeing in an inbox and doesn't get seen

till they get back, right?

01:13:51,415 --> 01:13:53,426

It goes in there, all the team members see it.

01:13:53,426 --> 01:13:58,339

And so someone can respond to it or ping me if I need to respond to it, right?

01:13:58,339 --> 01:14:03,023

If I miss it, I'm out of the office, then they could ask me that question and respond back

to the client for me.

01:14:03,023 --> 01:14:04,515

And that really, that's just...

01:14:04,515 --> 01:14:10,497

changes everything when you have that direct communication with a client versus emails

bouncing back and forth.

01:14:10,497 --> 01:14:13,017

Or you have to have a middleman, right?

01:14:13,017 --> 01:14:17,138

So a lot of times I may be the middleman between the client and the senior dev.

01:14:17,138 --> 01:14:19,040

And that works until it doesn't, right?

01:14:19,040 --> 01:14:29,532

There are times when it's just faster and better if the communication happens direct

between the client and the team member that is working on whatever this task might be.

01:14:29,532 --> 01:14:31,984

And so giving that direct communication,

01:14:31,984 --> 01:14:34,726

is a game changer with working with clients.

01:14:34,726 --> 01:14:38,230

They can ask questions and the right person is gonna give them that answer.

01:14:38,230 --> 01:14:43,694

They can put feedback in there and everyone sees that feedback, good, or ugly, but

everyone sees it, right?

01:14:43,694 --> 01:14:50,320

So everyone can react and everyone can get updates in real time on what is going on

without waiting on an email to come in.

01:14:50,320 --> 01:15:00,230

So this basically, you're removing friction, you're increasing transparency and quite

honestly, you'll build trust way faster with a client by doing this with them.

01:15:00,230 --> 01:15:10,368

And a little pro tip for my agencies out there, if you have a paid Slack account and you

invite a client in as a single channel guest, meaning they only have access to that one

01:15:10,368 --> 01:15:12,480

channel, it's free for you.

01:15:12,480 --> 01:15:15,982

So you don't have to pay for another seat to add them in.

01:15:15,982 --> 01:15:17,502

So you can invite those clients in.

01:15:17,502 --> 01:15:22,847

If they have paid Slack accounts, you can actually just do a connected channel and that

way it doesn't matter.

01:15:22,847 --> 01:15:26,623

You could do as many connected channels as you want because they have paid Slack and you

have paid Slack.

01:15:26,623 --> 01:15:34,366

But if you have a paid Slack and you want to invite a client in that doesn't normally in

Slack, some of my clients, the only thing they do in Slack is talk to us.

01:15:34,366 --> 01:15:38,959

You can use that single channel guest and get a free seat for them.

01:15:38,959 --> 01:15:40,589

So I just wanted to point that out to you.

01:15:40,589 --> 01:15:43,101

So it won't cost you a fortune to add those clients in.

01:15:43,101 --> 01:15:51,355

So one concern that I do hear a lot though, whenever I talk to people about Slack,

especially people who are actually in Slack in bigger groups, bigger teams, bigger

01:15:51,355 --> 01:15:52,076

companies,

01:15:52,076 --> 01:15:53,667

doesn't it get noisy?

01:15:53,667 --> 01:15:55,029

And yes, it can.

01:15:55,029 --> 01:15:57,971

But Slack has some really great controls for that.

01:15:57,971 --> 01:15:59,472

And I do suggest you look into them.

01:15:59,472 --> 01:16:02,114

But one of my favorites is marking people as VIPs.

01:16:02,114 --> 01:16:09,590

So that way, I'm uh putting it on the low down, I don't wanna listen to all of my pings,

all of my ads of me.

01:16:09,590 --> 01:16:13,053

I can just say, just tell me when I have something from a VIP.

01:16:13,053 --> 01:16:15,477

So that way, all that's cutting through that.

01:16:15,477 --> 01:16:21,052

are those key people that I need them to, maybe it's a lead, maybe it's a client, a

stakeholder, whoever it is.

01:16:21,052 --> 01:16:22,903

And that cuts it through the noise, right?

01:16:22,903 --> 01:16:25,896

I'm getting, hey, these are my important people I want to hear from.

01:16:25,896 --> 01:16:32,281

I don't want to miss anything from them, but everything else when I go on, you know, focus

mode, I want it to not interrupt me.

01:16:32,281 --> 01:16:37,555

So that way you can stay focused, but without missing the things that actually matter.

01:16:37,555 --> 01:16:41,699

And at the end of the day, great work doesn't just come from great designer development.

01:16:41,699 --> 01:16:44,522

It comes from clear, consistent communication.

01:16:44,522 --> 01:16:45,493

it's key.

01:16:45,493 --> 01:16:50,927

And Slack has been one of the biggest enablers for my team anyway, and for with my

clients.

01:16:50,927 --> 01:17:00,606

So if your agency is still relying heavily on email for project communication, I would

seriously consider looking at a communication alternative.

01:17:00,646 --> 01:17:05,909

Again, I love Slack, but you could use some other tools that are out there.

01:17:05,909 --> 01:17:11,103

It's mainly that consolidating all that communication, but yet in that consolidated world,

01:17:11,103 --> 01:17:12,774

you can create those subdivisions.

01:17:12,774 --> 01:17:15,196

So that way it's easier to find your content.

01:17:15,196 --> 01:17:18,888

And so if you haven't done this as an agency, just try it.

01:17:18,888 --> 01:17:19,788

Start small.

01:17:19,788 --> 01:17:23,121

You could just do just with your team and see how it works.

01:17:23,121 --> 01:17:27,835

Then if you see it's working with your team, expand that out and invite your clients in.

01:17:27,835 --> 01:17:30,256

You won't regret it and neither will your clients.

01:17:30,256 --> 01:17:31,807

They will appreciate it.

01:17:31,807 --> 01:17:37,041

So this has been another Robbie's Radar and I'll have some more Intel coming your way real

soon.

01:17:42,818 --> 01:17:45,174

Hey Roger, let's do an R &R.

01:17:45,174 --> 01:17:56,431

And I wanna talk about today in my R &R, it's kind of not all R &R because it is dealing

with doing something with your clients, and it could be with team too.

01:17:56,431 --> 01:18:03,206

So I had a client that was in town we've worked with this client for 22 years, so they've

been a client for a very long time.

01:18:03,206 --> 01:18:06,218

em But he was gonna be in town and I was like, hey.

01:18:06,218 --> 01:18:09,912

While you're in town, let me take you out to do an Amazon tour.

01:18:09,912 --> 01:18:12,761

You can actually go and tour the Amazon fulfillment centers.

01:18:12,761 --> 01:18:18,200

It was so amazing to see the Amazon robots in action and all that.

01:18:18,200 --> 01:18:25,680

But for that client, it was a cool thing because he's been sending products to Amazon for

years now.

01:18:25,680 --> 01:18:30,212

but it's kind of like you just send a bunch of products and you really don't know what

happens after that, right?

01:18:30,212 --> 01:18:38,096

And so for him to see that whole process of how they intake, how they take it apart and

how they put it into their shelvings, then the little robots will take them off and put

01:18:38,096 --> 01:18:44,815

them away somewhere else, you know, and stuff, and then how they pick the products, pack

them, shipping, all of that, all the way to the truck.

01:18:44,815 --> 01:18:45,646

So it was amazing.

01:18:45,646 --> 01:18:47,337

You get to see the whole process.

01:18:47,337 --> 01:18:49,477

And that was really a cool thing.

01:18:49,477 --> 01:18:53,124

you know, to me, it is work slightly.

01:18:53,124 --> 01:18:55,335

but it's a more relaxed state, right?

01:18:55,335 --> 01:18:58,797

With your client and you're sharing something that's one, just kind of cool.

01:18:58,797 --> 01:19:00,819

Robots are awesome to look at.

01:19:00,819 --> 01:19:05,072

and look, we even got a cute little mascot pen that they gave us.

01:19:05,072 --> 01:19:08,214

Yes, so they've been in business four years, this fulfillment center.

01:19:08,214 --> 01:19:15,539

that's a, he's a, their mascot, I forgot his name, but he's a hot air balloon pilot, an

aeronaut is what they're called.

01:19:15,539 --> 01:19:17,210

And they're the aeronauts out there.

01:19:17,210 --> 01:19:21,224

And so it's just really cool because each of the fulfillment centers in the different

areas

01:19:21,224 --> 01:19:25,285

can be, you know, name themselves for their region and all of that.

01:19:25,285 --> 01:19:27,126

And so it's just a really cool thing.

01:19:27,126 --> 01:19:30,057

So it was cool to go and do something with the client.

01:19:30,057 --> 01:19:31,597

I mean, you could just take a client to dinner.

01:19:31,597 --> 01:19:33,898

You could take them ax throwing, you could do whatever.

01:19:33,898 --> 01:19:38,260

I know you do a lot of like karaoke and dinners for your clients, which I think is really

cool.

01:19:38,260 --> 01:19:43,153

But that was just kind of something that still pertained to that client, but was

interesting.

01:19:43,153 --> 01:19:47,665

And you know, we've in the past also taken a client one time to uh a...

01:19:47,665 --> 01:19:52,767

metal fabrication because they had products and they were looking for a new vendor for

some pieces.

01:19:52,767 --> 01:19:56,109

And so we took them to a plant that we had found that would let us tour it.

01:19:56,109 --> 01:20:00,211

And so I think doing those kinds of things with your clients, it just makes it more

interesting.

01:20:00,211 --> 01:20:03,112

And you could even do those things with your team members too, right?

01:20:03,112 --> 01:20:05,252

So as team building, it would work for that too.

01:20:05,252 --> 01:20:07,673

So just thinking of things out of the box.

01:20:07,813 --> 01:20:09,894

What do you have for R &R this week?

01:20:09,950 --> 01:20:16,594

Well, so what I've got is, so we just got a new puppy just a couple of days ago.

01:20:16,622 --> 01:20:18,702

And it's my first puppy.

01:20:18,702 --> 01:20:19,793

Oh, thank you so much.

01:20:19,793 --> 01:20:21,033

I've calmed down.

01:20:21,033 --> 01:20:24,384

I'm not filming every single moment of Zia's life.

01:20:24,384 --> 01:20:26,795

But for the first day, I definitely was.

01:20:26,795 --> 01:20:28,515

It's my first time having a puppy.

01:20:28,515 --> 01:20:32,855

Everybody warned us or warned me like, oh, puppy, that's going to be a headache.

01:20:32,855 --> 01:20:36,326

And I've got to say, oh my gosh, like she's such a gem.

01:20:36,326 --> 01:20:39,677

We rescued hers from, she was in a foster care.

01:20:39,677 --> 01:20:42,317

The foster did an amazing job with her.

01:20:42,317 --> 01:20:44,168

Her temperament is so mellow.

01:20:44,168 --> 01:20:44,922

I know that we

01:20:44,922 --> 01:20:46,583

We've totally lucked out here.

01:20:46,583 --> 01:20:51,716

I'm also still waiting for her to just turn into a goblin or a gremlin at any moment.

01:20:51,716 --> 01:21:03,773

my gosh, and the reason that I think this is such a good R &R thing is the wonderful thing

about dogs is they don't give a shit about all the stuff going on in your business life.

01:21:03,773 --> 01:21:08,486

They're just happy as hell and they just want to share that with you.

01:21:08,486 --> 01:21:10,288

And I think that that's infectious.

01:21:10,288 --> 01:21:11,546

I think it's so helpful.

01:21:11,546 --> 01:21:13,470

I mean, I know you've got a dog.

01:21:13,470 --> 01:21:14,842

know it just...

01:21:14,842 --> 01:21:17,415

They wake up every morning and they're like, hey, you know what today is?

01:21:17,415 --> 01:21:18,437

It's the best day ever.

01:21:18,437 --> 01:21:19,187

that's great.

01:21:19,187 --> 01:21:21,439

Like I said, there are days where I need that.

01:21:21,439 --> 01:21:23,382

And it's really wonderful to have.

01:21:23,382 --> 01:21:28,046

With a puppy, I get to kind of train her as more of a blank slate.

01:21:28,046 --> 01:21:32,200

Our other rescues have been adult dogs and they've kind of come with their own little

baggage.

01:21:32,200 --> 01:21:35,464

So I'm enjoying the puppiness of the puppy.

01:21:35,464 --> 01:21:37,847

And so, you know, I know it's a big commitment.

01:21:37,847 --> 01:21:41,111

You know, you're talking about 15, hopefully more years.

01:21:41,111 --> 01:21:58,235

of commitment but gosh it's just so wonderful so go get a yeah yeah Ha ha!

01:21:58,235 --> 01:22:00,015

okay, dog friendly patios.

01:22:00,015 --> 01:22:04,935

So we had to take her to lunch with us because she was like, Oh no, you've been on that

computer all day.

01:22:04,935 --> 01:22:06,295

You're, you're going to take me.

01:22:06,295 --> 01:22:07,495

I need something to do.

01:22:07,495 --> 01:22:08,635

I need you to take me.

01:22:08,635 --> 01:22:09,955

I was like, okay, great.

01:22:09,955 --> 01:22:11,695

So, and, and

01:22:12,474 --> 01:22:13,005

ha

01:22:13,005 --> 01:22:17,921

there is science behind you live longer up to two years longer if you have pets.

01:22:17,921 --> 01:22:24,639

So there's just something about it as well as uh when you are petting your dogs, you're

releasing oxytocin.

01:22:24,639 --> 01:22:26,511

So I mean, it's a happy drug, right?

01:22:26,511 --> 01:22:28,012

So yeah.

01:22:28,454 --> 01:22:29,175

Yeah.

01:22:29,175 --> 01:22:30,135

Awesome.

01:22:30,857 --> 01:22:31,408

Yes.

01:22:31,408 --> 01:22:32,108

trips stuff.

01:22:32,108 --> 01:22:34,871

Take your clients on field trips and get them a puppy.

01:22:34,871 --> 01:22:36,094

And give him a puppy too.

01:22:36,094 --> 01:22:36,665

I love it.

01:22:36,665 --> 01:22:38,910

All right, till next time.

01:22:38,910 --> 01:22:39,377

See ya.