Systems & Content Manipulation

Tommy: The Daily Talk Show.

Josh: It's The Daily Talk Show, episode 860.

Tommy: What is happening, Gronks? What is going on? Happy Tuesday.

Josh: Uh, thank you, TJ. Uh, you were just saying that you enjoyed some porridge. So what you had?

Tommy: Yeah, yep, got up early, you know, took Bodhi to the cafe. Oh mate, those, uh, ooshies are back. I thought the finest—

Josh: I saw on an article on news.com.au That it was saying Ooshies were gone. Oh, Disney, Disney Ooshies or something.

Tommy: It's got you at a headline level. Oh, speaking of, I just got a kiss from Bodhi. Let's show him your Ooshies. Come on, there we go. He's got a handful.

Josh: Oh, great.

Tommy: A handful of Ooshies. They're Disney characters. So, no, no, no, here's me reading that, going a little bit beyond the headline only because I've got a son that's interested in them. Otherwise, I wouldn't care. It's something about like claiming them online that they've removed in the other states. It seems like they've done—

Josh: There's Toy Story and stuff like that. It looks like there's some cool characters.

Tommy: Avengers. You like Captain America. There's a guy from Up. What else is there? There's Star Wars.

Josh: What do you have to do to get them? So, for people who aren't familiar with the Ooshies, how do you describe them? Or Ooshies, or however you pronounce it.

Tommy: They're little bits of blub and, uh, sorry, it's just going mad here. Hang on a second.

Josh: Shut the fuck up! How'd you go?

Tommy: It wasn't far off. I literally thought I was hearing myself as I was saying it.

Josh: I don't know, did it work though?

Tommy: Uh, no. Do you want to know what I said? I've muted myself. Amy, seriously.

Josh: No one takes you seriously around there, do they?

Tommy: Seriously, I'm doing the show right now. Yeah, Ooshies are little blob-like things. They look like little— it's almost like if a kid had attempted a plastic mould toy and you poured in some, like, little silicone into something and then you pop out this toy. They are cool though.

Josh: How do you get access to them? So you have to spend like $30 or something, or what's the deal?

Tommy: Exactly. It's just spend money to get these little things. They're high-priced toys. I think it's, it could be $30 and over $30 and you get one, or they might have limited it. So this is where I'm just, so okay, now that couldn't be right. I spent $60 the other night. Sorry, sorry, $50. Yeah, I reckon it's $30 'cause I spent $50 and I got one. I reckon if I spent another $10, I would've got two.

Josh: Sure.

Tommy: And so here's the thing though, When you're young, Bodhi, he's a chip off the old block. He's spoken to the bloke at the cafe shop and said, can you get me some of these? Said that yesterday, said that yesterday. And the guy's like, oh yeah, okay. He loves Bodhi. And then rock up this morning and he said, Bodhi, I've got a present. And he had 3, 2 out of packet and 1 in packet. And you should have seen this kid, he lost it. So excited. And so, the coffee shop guy is his dealer. He's getting him mushies and he got them off a person that came to his coffee shop. Oh, really? And said, "I don't collect these. Does anyone in your family?" And he said, "Brody does." Brody does.

Josh: It'd be good to, I mean, you could start a bit of a scheme for anyone that doesn't have kids. Send them to PO Box 400. Abbotsford, Victoria, 3067. Yeah.

Tommy: Yes. Yeah.

Josh: If you've got some, PO Box 400, Abbotsford, Victoria, 3067. Yeah.

Tommy: And they go to Bodie. They're going to get put in Bodie's room.

Josh: I'll cheque to make sure that they're not limited edition.

Tommy: And then what about just over sending stuff in the mail? Did you see that Trump had a parcel or a letter sent to him that had ricin in it.

Josh: What's ricin?

Tommy: Ricin is this toxic lethal agent.

Josh: Really?

Tommy: But it actually comes from beans. It comes from canola beans.

Josh: Does this make you fart? Is it like the, uh, beans?

Tommy: Ricin is a lectin and highly potent toxin produced in the seeds of— sorry, castor oil plant. Ricin, communist. And most people would know ricin from Breaking Bad. Breaking Bad, the TV series.

Josh: Is that how they made rice?

Tommy: No, no, no, but someone poisoned somebody with ricin in that show. And so I had no idea, but when I heard that, I was like, wow. And so the thing is, it can form naturally, but for it to be in a, you know, the powder form in an envelope, it means that they'll say— I just, from what I read, it had to have been made with the intention of doing that. And so, I mean, this is where if they can't find the person that sent that—

Josh: I mean, snail mail, Trump, or no, no, no, I got—

Tommy: it got flagged by the FBI, which—

Josh: how much mail is Trump actually opening? Oh dude, only not much, if any.

Tommy: You know the Queen still has to sign stuff? She like, she spends signing stuff. The Queen, yeah, has a period of time where she goes through and signs things. Like she has to sign off on stuff. It's bizarre. I mean, America, yeah, you got to think that they're still doing cheques in the mail, like you're actually getting your paycheck in the mail. It's, um, Yeah, I mean, this stuff is changing very quickly. I was chatting to a lady at the park yesterday, and, um, she was a nurse— she was a nurse, still is a nurse, but hasn't worked since the start of the pandemic. And, um, and he's going to go back, but she— where she worked, she said that the ward has been turned into a COVID ward. And, um, she was saying that since they've overhauled all their computer systems Like it's forced people to go hard, as in from a security perspective. Oh no, no, just from processes and all the systems that they use. Yeah, which I mean, there's a lot of this going to happen. You're starting to realize, ah, it's a bit outdated. I guess it's like the working from home thing for the businesses that weren't equipped.

Josh: You're in trouble pretty quick. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm loving all of the, um, you know, we've got project management tools, like we've got so many fucking tools going at the moment. Yeah, but I'm loving it.

Tommy: How do you, how do you make a tool stick? So it could be, I don't know, layman's, like, I think we're probably trying to use some of the more expensive tools out there, but like, even what are the basic ones that most people would use? Say like Notes, or say like any kind of note-taking system. How do you make these things stick, do you think?

Josh: Well, I think like there's a difference between the personal thing of like me doing something in Drafts and then getting everyone on a team to use something. So for instance, like a Trello, or if someone's using Trello like as a business, I think like it comes down to the actual use of it. Like everything needs to go into it, and I think that it needs— and everyone needs to— it can't be just like part of the team. Every single person needs to be doing all of their work, like interfacing through that.

Tommy: Yeah. I mean, I've had some conversations with people that aren't probably in our industry and mentioned a few names, and it's just not like— a lot of that chat goes over people's heads if they're not having to use it, right? It's like, yeah, I mean, most— yeah, I guess what was some in, say, for a big business like Envato when you worked there, what were you— what was it like?

Josh: Not a crazy amount, like it was, um Slack. Yeah, that's just like a messaging thing, but there wasn't any sort of really crazy project management style stuff. Yeah, a bit of Trello in regards to like having boards around content. Yeah, that's probably the, the only thing. But email, like, we have never— as a business, I've spoken about email a lot— we've never gotten to a point of like, we don't send internal emails.

Tommy: Yeah, we're slacking.

Josh: I mean, but like, none at all. Like, you want to be sending internally, like normal. Like, think about when you work, you know, when a radio station, you would get it.

Tommy: You know, when an internal email comes, when someone said, can you just put that in email, because you just want a paper trail of it.

Josh: Yeah, I mean, but think about it, like, when you work for bigger businesses, you have so many— like, there were massive blowups at like my last job where people would like do big reply alls I remember one reply all where someone said, hey, I'm putting together this PowerPoint. I just want photos of everyone's pets from the office.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: And everyone was replying all the photos of their dogs and cats. And then someone's just like, this has got to stop. Yeah.

Tommy: Well, I mean, the other side of that is where a conversation in person could have gone down much better than a passive email. So when I worked at Kiss, do you remember this storey where I wrote an article? Oh yeah, it was about a video that I'd created, and I took the job at Kiss, and one of the provisos was I can sort of be a contributing content creator. They couldn't hire me as someone who just created content.

Josh: You were, you were hired as a digital content producer, but they're like, hey, this is sort of moving into this new direction where it's a bit of hybrid Like what Christian Hull did really well, which is putting yourself out there in the content, not just talent.

Tommy: Which I think they should— I mean, it's— I mean, radio industries is, yeah, probably a bit, uh, not worth going down there. But I always thought that they should be sort of looking for, uh, hiring content creators as brands so they build up a sort of stable. But it's not their model there in the radio business, I guess. Um, and internet's irrelevant really. For them. No, but anyway, I— so I put this video— I put this article out on the website, and it was about a— it was about Amy and I going through my old stripping box of, uh, you know, toys. And so I was like, my, you know, my outfits, some photos from when I was stripping. Anyway, I did this article, and this guy who was— I don't know what he was, head of something wrote me this passive email. Fuck, I wish I kept all my emails like you do. And it was just slamming me on a group email and saying what, just like, this is unacceptable to be posting a personal article on our website. Like, just, I get how he saw it like that, especially when it's this type of content, right? And so, I mean, this, he He was 20 metres away from me. That was the problem where he could have come up and asked me a few more questions, because the best thing is there's nothing like a victory over email when you're in a chain. I went around and spoke to him, and I was hot. I did. I was, I was hot. But you know when you go like, yeah, just curious, but you're fucking fuming? Yeah, your heart rate's going.

Josh: You know, I've been just wondering about this fucking email that you've just sent.

Tommy: Yeah, you're gasping. I wish I had the footage. And then, um, and anyway, I got back and I—

Josh: What did he say?

Tommy: So you said, 'Mate, I was with the family.' He's very like, you know, at that point you've gone from the sort of hero in email to like, 'Yeah, no, look, no, it's, um, yeah, look, I don't think it's right.' Like, just sort of match— probably matching how I was, just a bit weird. And then the best thing was the big, big boss, uh, DB from the, you know, ARN, emailed back and said, mate, it's all good, leave it up, good work, Tommy, or something like that. And I was just like fucking moonwalking around the room, just like, you're a fuckhead. And it got left up.

Josh: Yeah, I mean, yeah, this— the, the Slack, uh, the Slack attacks we used to have at my last job where, yeah, reply, um, channels would be frowned upon. A lot of blowups there. But the thing with Slack is if you're a remote team, I don't know if this is across the board with other businesses, but they would— like, there was a time at Envato where they were discouraging in-person conversations, like water cooler convos, And they were saying, have them— this was just, this wasn't like top-down type of thing. I think this was just someone sort of trying to spearhead it within the business. It's like, any convo should be happening on Slack. And their reasoning was, if you have a remote team, if you have 50% of your team that aren't in the office, if you're having a conversation— like, when you have a conversation in the office, people overhear it, and you can sort of interject or you can add your two cents. If you're remote, you don't get to do that. And so their point was the water cooler office banter, that sort of thing, should happen on Slack so that it feels sort of more equal. What is—

Tommy: what does water cooler banter on Slack look like? What would you— what would it— if we're just to build out a scenario now?

Josh: Well, there's a lot of— like, so there's two things. There's the business side of stuff So like the obvious thing, which is just like, hey, I've got this, I've been thinking about this idea. But then there's the other one where it's like, there were so many, when businesses first get Slack, for people who don't know, Slack is like an instant messaging tool where you have all of your employees on it, you can write and things like that. Facebook have a product, Microsoft has a product that's similar, but you can create a channel, and a channel is like a focus. So it's like a group. This is what we're going to talk about in this specific Slack channel. And when Envato specifically first got Slack, there was a channel for everything. Like, if you liked Pokémon, there was a channel. There was a channel for— and so it just becomes this outrageous cesspool of channels that no— cesspool's probably not the right word— a lot of channels that no one's actually engaging in. But yes, to your point, I think the water cooler stuff is— it's like, um, you know, like they would do spot— there was, uh, one channel which was around music curation. And so you'd set up a, um, shared Spotify playlist, and every week it was someone's turn to curate 5 songs that they would add, and they would Slack and say why they added them.

Tommy: I wonder if there's any scenarios— maybe you've experienced this— where you kind of have banter with somebody through an online platform within your business, but then you meet them. And so in person, there's all the insecurities that one may have, or like, just a bit shy. But online you might be, you know, it's like the catfish.

Josh: It's like, yeah, do you think that's going to happen heaps though? Think about all the, like, the connections that we all have at the moment, and it's all, it's all based on— it's going to feel very weird, like, being in the same room.

Tommy: I know, but then that's— yeah, there has to be a blend. Yeah, that is life, but there has to be a blend of being able to experience both. Like, I even remember going back into the studio, um, where last time, where it's like it felt odd to look at you as a human from the other side of the room. Like, that's just— and that's not— we've done so many shows so close together, but it just felt weird, right? It's like there's a difference between having someone on a screen and the eye contact that you may or may not have. Yeah, like I can look at your eyes now, but I don't feel like I do when I'm looking at you in real life in the eyes.

Josh: That's very, you know, like, don't you reckon it's like, yeah, I, I just— a two-dimensional square right now.

Tommy: Yeah. And sometimes I even do shit like pull up a thing in front of your face, like, like if I'm looking, like sometimes I leave Is it that?

Josh: I never do, right?

Tommy: Like in a meeting, just put a piece of white paper in front of your face.

Josh: Yeah, just reading something, just holding it up, just, just having a bit of a— just, yeah, yeah, working out the, um— no, but I remember, are you a guy that, uh, has an issue with laptops in meetings?

Tommy: Um, I, I, I probably haven't had enough meetings to be annoyed about it, but I definitely have felt the effect of what it, what it's like when it— when you've got a room, let's say there's 5 people in the meeting and everyone's engaged in their computer. I was listening to, um, this guy talk about even just having, say, you and I in the studio. If the guest— say if we have a guest who's opposite to us and then there's a screen behind us, and so the guest watches that screen and then we're watching a screen Mason's bringing up something, you know, you shitting yourself, and then we're watching that. But when we're— so we're crossing our gaze. There's a difference in having one screen that both sides look to, because there's something in, say, you're looking at the screen, the same screen as me, and then you look back at them to say, ah, look at that. Like, and so there's a connection being built, uh, that you don't need to feel.

Josh: Where'd you hear this? It was just Joe Rogan, dude. Like, he has the one screen. Is that—

Tommy: that was it, dude. That was the example that looking— that his new studio has two— oh no, he said his new studio has one screen so they can both be looking. And then you're like, you know, you look back like, mate, how good is that? Like nudging your buddy. And those little micro moments are actually building rapport and, you know, setting a nice confiance for a conversation in a room. And so that's where you're kind of like, this is you're limited because you've got so much stimulus. And there's— and as much as we're trying to communicate, there is still, um, things, those elements that aren't a part of it.

Josh: I mean, you're a big Joe Rogan fan. Have you been keeping up with all of the stuff that's happening with Spotify?

Tommy: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's— I think it's all like— if you— have you watched any of the takes on it?

Josh: No, so I read there was an, there was an article that said— I just copied and pasted some of this— a group of Spotify staffers are now reportedly pushing to introduce direct editing oversight over the Joe Rogan Experience before the episode goes live. That includes content flags, trigger warnings, references to fact-checked information, or simply refusing to publish an episode at all. So they're saying Vice first reported that Spotify employees had conducted more than 10 meetings to discuss possible changes. Those discussions included proposals for the outright removal of additional podcast episodes. I mean, yeah, what's your take?

Tommy: First of all, they won't do it. He's making too much money. Like, he's signed the deal. And so I've heard—

Josh: What about if you've got a bunch of employ— Like, so employees within a business can be very powerful. So, you know, if you've got a noisy group that are all talking about it, and if Spotify is saying, you know, we're a woke business, we're, um, doing all of these things— if they are what they say, that Spotify say they are, don't you think that potentially they could lean to some sort of version of what, what's being described?

Tommy: I can imagine that the pressures of a bunch of staff coming and saying, this is how we feel, and yeah, you could imagine how it is. But I just don't feel like the investment that they've made with someone like Joe Rogan that they're gonna, you know, like, what do you think it could look like?

Josh: So for instance, there, um, Joe went on Instagram and did an apology about the Portland fire stuff that he mentioned. Did you see this?

Tommy: Nah, what did he say?

Josh: So he's saying that If I'm paraphrasing, not knowing too much about it, but he said that there was some sort of group like that were setting fires in Portland or whatever. I think they were like left-leaning or whatever. But it turns out to be it was fake news. And he mentioned it on his podcast. And he's actually on Instagram. He does a video apology on Instagram about it and says, you know, it won't happen again. I just thought it was interesting. Seeing someone like Joe Rogan do an apology like that, I think he's very good at— like, he did a very good apology.

Tommy: Yeah, um, he's quite genuine, I think. I mean, these people— free speech is great, but also if it's not true, you have to, you know, be able to say it's not. And so yeah, I could imagine it moving towards those trigger warnings and things like that.

Josh: What about the grey area on all these things? So, so much of like— so from a business perspective That like there's, um, like there's an area which is like belief systems. And so how do you think a company determines what their belief system is?

Tommy: Well, usually it's top-down, but, but it's becoming very societal-driven. It's like, uh, cultures. If you have progressive people within your business, it's going to be progressive because your people make up the company. It's not just the name.

Josh: And so, and so would you say, like, I guess there's two different angles. In one way, Joe Rogan provides the light and shade, and he's the paradox or the, um, the contrast or the, like, the, the difference of Joe in the sense of he's him sort of flipping but or oscillating between right-leaning ideas and left-leaning ideas, like all of these types of things I feel like can be a bit confusing when, you know, when you're trying to put a lens on it because you don't know where he fits. He's not like an Alex Jones, who's right-leaning. It's not like— it's— he plays in this area where I think he, he's actually going to create more friction within, within Spotify.

Tommy: Well, yeah, definitely. 100%, I agree. And then the, the, the problem of his approach, which I think it's a great approach, but the, the problem with it is people over the side of left or right won't listen to the full conversation because they're seeing the problem at hand, or the, the—

Josh: well, you can see the damage that it can do, right? So like one piece of misinformation you could get, especially if you're at the level of Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan could change an election like that. Like, that's like, I really believe that to be true.

Tommy: I mean, it's crazy. Imagine, without getting into it, the political side, but like how he'd be feeling about this pressure now working. Like, you take a Spotify deal and you think that it's just like it's a licencing deal, but did you think about their employees coming out and saying they don't like the content that's on the show, and the network's just signed a $300 million deal. What a fucking— what a clusterfuck.

Josh: Yeah, I mean, what a clusterfuck. The Spotify CEO Daniel Algozisring appears to be pushing back from a business standpoint. The reason is fairly obvious: Rogan's audience likes his direct, unedited style and could quickly abandon the comedian-podcaster if he's edited I mean, that's the thing is it's like—

Tommy: Definitely.

Josh: Just because you're an employee of Spotify doesn't mean that it's for you. Isn't there about like, maybe a better strategy is bringing more people on the platform that reflect your perspective or views rather than trying to edit someone else's.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, definitely. Like 150 employees came forward at the, The book publisher of Harry Potter, what's her name?

Josh: J.K. Rowling.

Tommy: J.K. Rowling. She's releasing a new book and 150 people at the publishing house that's doing this book came forward and said that we don't believe, you know, like we don't want this book published. We feel, you know, unheard. And it's, you know, this, whatever she was in the media about, not transphobic stuff or whatever. Well, yeah, it was like, she was saying something around trans rights are bleeding into women's rights, and, and that sort of blew up, right? And then the CEO of that business decided to publish it, so went against the, the, the noise that was coming from those 150 employees. So it's— I mean, this is where people can be noisy. I don't think there's anything wrong with the noise happening and then the decision being made from top down, and— but it's like still creating a conversation around it if that's what it's going to do.

Josh: Well, it's like systems in general. Like, I think about the, um, people having issues with Amazon and how they treat the labour force. But if you look at it broadly speaking, Amazon pays workers within a warehouse context more than, you know, their counterparts. Like, if you look at, um, you know, other retail giants in the US They're just as guilty, if not more guilty, in regards to underpaying staff. And so, it is this, it is a weird area. I wonder where it will land with, especially around content. Like, how do you create, like, can you have a diverse range of voices on a single network? Or or even a platform. So for instance, Spotify, Apple, all of these companies going in and creating content— what's that going to do to culture? Like, Tim Cook, yeah, famously was like quoted around, um, the Apple TV+ content, and they, they pushed back on all these sex scenes and really sort of, um, filtered the types of content that they were putting up. And so I do wonder, like, I see the power in independence, I see the power in having definitely different options, and I do worry about, like, I think Joe Rogan was the biggest independent podcaster in the world ever, and then he chooses—

Tommy: you could say he's still independent, but no, he's not because he's getting the paycheck from—

Josh: yeah, but I mean, this is the thing, like, when does something become no longer independent? I think that one thing that most people aren't considering enough is the power that companies like Spotify will have over podcasting if we just hand it to them over in a, like, on a platter. And so at the moment we're like, Spotify is great, great for podcasting, listen. But like, podcasts started as a democratised tool to communicate, and so it from a technical perspective, it's an RSS feed that you subscribe to and it's got audio connected to it. And it's like, the beauty is if you look at something like The Social Dilemma, which has algorithm, you know, the Facebook, Instagram, all these different social networks have algorithms, and it's changing the way that we are consuming content. Spotify is going to do this exact same thing.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: And so I think that we need to be very careful in regards to how these bigger players play in the podcasting space, because even if it's not— so using the Joe Rogan example, even if they don't edit, if they then decide that Joe Rogan's content isn't safe, um, and then says, okay, so it's not as safe, so we're not going to push it through to our algorithms, it's the same fucking problem. And so I think that there's— there would definitely be a push for an independent solution to podcasting where it's just like right now, if you're listening to the, to the podcast on a podcast feed, like, you see everything, right? You get a, you get a feed that isn't being impacted by algorithms. It's exactly as it happens. And that's what I think needs to stay with podcasting.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, it'd be great. Anyway, um, we've just signed a $300 million deal with Spotify, so, um, we'll be, um, we'll be—

Josh: yeah, I think it was only $100 mil for—

Tommy: oh yeah, $100 mil. But there's the— he could— he is sort of set to make at the end of it. I mean, he might pull out. Imagine if he just did a year deal and then just pulls it all off.

Josh: Yeah. I think the other thing too is like, do we— people buy into the rah-rah of all of that sort of stuff, and you see it so much where it's like playing into what's happening. I think it's good for elevating the industry, so there'd be more money around across the board. But I think that if we, um, it's like Uber. So when Uber first came, uh, you know, to Australia, or, you know, started, it was this exciting thing that was finally disrupting taxis and the bullshit system and all that sort of thing. And so if you look at it from Spotify perspective, it's like, finally, yeah, somewhere where you can get all the things and it's easy. And it's like, and they're looking after creators and they're, you know, they're, they're putting money into this stuff and they're promoting it. But then think about what happened with Uber is all of a sudden they start paying their drivers a little bit less, a little bit less, and all of a sudden all these other things start changing. And, um, the thing that people forget is it's like with Uber specifically, it's like, guys, you can't be surprised for one that this is happening because they're a business, but then two, I wouldn't be worrying about the fact of like how much they're paying their drivers. Look at their 10-year, 20-year plan. Like, drivers aren't even in the equation.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: And so I think that if you look at that example, think about how we perceived Uber at the start, or Facebook, or all of these things. Yeah, the exact same thing is going to happen with Spotify.

Tommy: You hand over your catalogue to Spotify, and in 5 years you're no longer hosting it because they've worked out how to take all of your episodes and create compelling content.

Josh: Yeah, well, what, like, so you should think about it. So if you're, if you're, if you're a music artist and you're on Spotify, you get paid, right? We don't see a cent from Spotify when it comes to podcasts. So yeah, yeah, podcasts are very, very cheap for Spotify. It's not costing anything to have them there. And so just as creators, I don't know what the solution is. I think it's like building something independently. We're doing a bunch of exciting stuff from a tech end which we'll start talking about in October. But it's something to be wary of.

Tommy: But if you do have Spotify or, you know, Apple Podcasts, Too Much Tully has just dropped a new episode every Tuesday. This one's great. Jess and Tully sort of get into the weeds together and they're chatting about all different stuff. Jess is shining. She's killing it. Tully's killing it. Go have a listen. Too Much Tully.

Josh: All right. It's a daily talk show. See you tomorrow, guys. Have a good one.

Tommy: Love ya.