Season 4, Episode 12 - Group Episode - Getting Introduced to Podio

In this fun episode we dive into what it's like as a newbie to Podio and we're joined by Bavo De Cooman (from Quivvy) and Tim Castillo-Gill (from Future Solutions).  Both have recently joined the companies and both share insights into what it's like to get into the Podio ecosystem.

This is a fun episode and a must listen for anyone who has to onboard new employees into Podio. We get to dive into some of the challenges that learning Podio has for new people, and how both of the guys started to see the limitless possibilities that Podio has the more they learned.

Show Links:
Check out Bavo and Quivvy Solutions - https://quivvy.com/en
  Check out Tim and Future Solutions - https://futuresolutionsonline.co.uk/
Try out smrtPhone for free for 30 Days- http://bit.ly/smrtPhone-supercharged
Want to be on the show? Register Now - https://www.wearegamechangers.com/en/podcast/

Transcript

Narrator: 0:00

Welcome to powered by podio automation is everything. supercharge your business with podio. Get ready for another episode of supercharged with Jordan Samuel Fleming, your weekly dive into the awesome impact workflow and automation you can have on your business when it's powered by podio. Join us each week as we learn from the top podio partners in the world as we investigate system integrations and add ons and hear from real business owners who have implemented podio into their business. Now, join your host Jordan Samuel Fleming, CEO of game changers for this week's episode.

Jordan Fleming: 0:45

Hey, everybody, its Jordan, Samuel Fleming here host of supercharge. I'm here to talk all about the power of workflow and automation when your business is powered by podio. And this week, to the fun episode, because I am joined by two people in a group episode to talk a little about how new people come into podio. And this is particularly relevant if you've got a company and you're onboarding new staff. What are the some of the challenges involved with that? What are the things that that resonates with them or doesn't resonate with them. And so I reached out some my pull your partner friends and Mike from quibi tools and Pete from future solutions happened to both have two relatively new employees babble and Tim, and they joining me today, and we're just giving a bit of a newbie experience to podio it's really fun discussion, we learned a bit about their backgrounds, about how they transitioned into building into podio of where their confidence, you know, where they're getting confidence right now, and where they're still learning and how they're sort of seeing podio as people who are coming into the system, really for the first time and starting to work on it. It's really great kind of view from the other angle, you know, I I talked to so many people sometimes who are, you know, super users of podio. And, and people who, you know, they build lots of things and they've been building for years. They know it back and forwards. And and that is awesome. And there's a lot to be learned from that. But sometimes it's great to flip the script and talk to people who are relatively new and say like, how's it going? What's what have you found good, what have you not, you know, found difficult in this episode really does focus in on that. And I'm really grateful to the two of them for coming in and having a little discussion. It's fun chat. And, you know, of course, I was always you can reach out to their respective companies. I'll put all the information into the podcast notes. Finally, please, please, please, please stop what you're doing. And give a like, give a share, give a little review, it really does help boost our presence and make sure that more people can find the podcast and more people can learn about the power of podio. Now let's get to the podcast where I'm joined by Tim and Bubba. Let's listen in. what it was like, quite, quite honestly, so. So yeah, it's I don't know if you've heard the podcast before. But we're gonna just launch into it now. So I'm excited to hear about you guys stories. Why don't we just take a quick second, and you guys introduce yourselves? who you are. Tim wants to go first.

Tim Castillo-Gill: 3:26

So my name is Tim. I started my career as a music, music production and music performance. And then I move. Exactly, but it's a mistake.

Jordan Fleming: 3:41

Well, that's what I need to I did use it get Edinburgh. Yeah. So there you go. Okay, so I'm allowed to say that.

Tim Castillo-Gill: 3:50

But in money terms, it can be a mistake, you either make it or you may or you don't. And you have to be pretty, pretty impassioned to make it. So I don't think I was quite quite there. So I moved myself on to teaching at one point and was teaching for three or four years when taught in Brussels, taught in the UK and deaf, different places. And then I got more and more interested as COVID here with how technology is used in education, how technology is used more broadly. how technology can be, you know, can simplify things that are thought of as complicated. And then went into sort of teaching myself to code and then did a boot camp. So in the UK, there's various type of boot camps. I did one of those and came out the other end and got a job with future solutions with Pete and Izzy. And currently I'm learning the platform of podio and all the other sort of side things that go along like pw a and proc foun addresses babies.

Jordan Fleming: 4:57

Both of those friends of the show, so Fantastic Bob Oh, go ahead.

Bavo De Cooman: 5:03

Okay, I'm Babu I, I actually I was also a teacher. I quit teaching three months ago. So I was a teacher, but I was always I was a language teacher, English and German. And so if I make English mistakes, that there goes the reputation of all Belgian English teachers now, but I always had an interest in it when it came to education. And I'm also a writer and a storyteller on the site for children's stories. And I was developing my own websites. And I got more and more into that. And I thought, I'm going to do that as a site profession, because I was looking like for new horizons. And then I had a good friend, Mike. And he said, Well, maybe you could do a few things. For me, maybe you can write a few texts for me, because I was doing websites and copywriting and stuff. So I started writing, writing text for for him. And he says, By the way, with your new site professional, maybe you'd like to work with this tool called podio. And I'll explain to you how it works. And it looks, it looks pretty interesting to me, because I'm still planning in the planning for several years of building my own, publishing my own books. So building that into podio, looked like a good opportunity. And then he started query tools, and I had to learn how that worked at cetera, et cetera. But it was still on the on the baseline. So globey, flow still looked a bit like Chinese to me. But now I've made the switch, Mike has has had to wasn't one man's business quickly was one man's business, we had to expand this team. So I jumped in. And now I'm also learning decoding stuff, it's good to have both the the digital creative stuff like writing a bit and designing a few things. And then on the other hand, learning the coding. So I've been doing support tickets and stuff like that. And now I'm starting to build the first project in podio. It's really interesting.

Jordan Fleming: 7:10

Nice. Well, I think, you know, this is, this is an interesting one, because I don't think we've ever had. And this I think it was actually Pete, who suggested this topic, which was, you know, we, I don't think we've ever had anybody on the podcast, to explore what it's like when you're first starting to learn podio, because most of the people that I have the podcast are either, you know, partners, like myself, Pete and Mike who have been around for ages and, and have, you know, built hundreds of systems and done all this stuff. And so don't really remember what it was like to learn podio almost, or what it was like to come to try and understand the basics, or people who have their own businesses using podio. And they've been using it for a while, I don't think I've ever had anyone who's quite so new. And so I'm quite fascinated to kind of look at the look at the new to podio journey, and identify a little bits of you know, what, what was some of the things that were confusing or difficult to really wrap your head around? I mean, that there's got to be a few of them. Can you guys think do you have? Do you have any kind of ones that stand out for you, as we sit here right now?

Tim Castillo-Gill: 8:30

And for me, I think the main one that I struggled with to begin with was maybe not like, specifically podio. So maybe this isn't answering your question exactly. But it was, it was the structure of a database, and how the relationships, how you should structure your relationships in order to make the most efficient use of a database and the tables within it. And that was my to the sort of architecture, I guess, if the database is a real learning curve, and I suppose that's that in some ways, podio makes that easier, because it gives you a gooey interface to actually see what's going on and see a relationship, and then follow the trace of that relationship you feel to wherever it goes. So in that case, for me, the hardest part yet is figuring out the architecture of an entire database. And some of them, you know, mind bogglingly complicated.

Jordan Fleming: 9:25

Did you do you then, in the work you're doing right now? Are you starting to build systems from scratch? Have you been building systems from scratch? yet?

Tim Castillo-Gill: 9:36

For me, I have not built anything from scratch other than my own tests, playing around and test things I've been really poking around in lots of I mean, obviously, it's mostly in Pete's work and seeing how those things, this trail of how things work, and we've been trying to make PRM diagrams Using lucid chart and his he's quite big on those as well. So you can sort of see the relationships quite clearly from a sort of big perspective, zooming out on it. So that's where we are. And that's how I'm trying to figure out the general sort of architecture of how the databases so bother you.

Bavo De Cooman: 10:19

Yeah, yeah, that's it relationships is a wreck is a recognisable thing. So in the beginning, I had this I have no, I had no clue of databases even so. So, in the beginning, when I learned what a relationship was, in my own apps, I started laying double relationships.

Jordan Fleming: 10:42

across the face,

Bavo De Cooman: 10:44

the forwards and backwards relationship that if you make one that the other ones automatically didn't realise. So in the beginning, it was really like building ugly things with podio bricks. So it's, like with Lego you can, you can build the Taj Mahal and you can build the ugliest building ever. And, and in the beginning, the blank canvas was a bit was a bit confusing. So it took a while for me to actually adopt it. So in the beginning, I was just writing text and not really using podio. Because what you have this blank canvas, I tried a few things, but there's like nothing on it. But then Mike asked me, so maybe we'd like to do a podio trainings because he there was a company working with podio. And he was doing podio training for that had no time. Could you take that over? said, Well, yeah, okay, so then I really dived into the interface. And then it started, then then release, I started realising how it actually works. That was a good starting point for me.

Jordan Fleming: 11:49

And interesting, actually, because the data I mean, you've you've, you've hit on a really fundamental thing that you learn as you go with podio about, you know, data structuring is a critical part of a good if you're going to build a good podio system, how the data is structured, and the hierarchies that you create and the and where you're going to keep, you know, the end business objects and how you're going to relate to them. That's an important thing. And you both have, you know, with Mike, with Mike and Pete, and, Izzy, you do have, you know, some very experienced developers who understand the concepts of data. Okay, it was there any, as you started to learn best practice, from looking at some of the systems they built or talking to them? Was there anything that that that went, you know, that was either surprising or kind of went against what you would have thought was intuitive? Or did it? Was it like once you heard it, you went? Oh, yeah, that makes sense.

Bavo De Cooman: 12:49

Yeah, I think the last one or like, yeah, like insights coming? Like, divine insights, like, Okay, this is how it works. So when we are solving things, so Mike shows me your problem, I have no, no clue what I have to do. And then he step by step with good practices, shows me how to do it. And I say, Well, is it that simple, like, especially the CWA, it looked like very, very difficult to me, but when I, when, when, when I hadn't worked with it yet, but now it really makes sense. And I can, and I can read it brick by brick. And before that, I had to I had to make demos of query tools, showing globey flow breaks and was like, I don't know what the hell is in there. But now I can actually actually read it. So it's a good thing. So he's actually Mike is actually training me I'm doing a few things on my own, which I can which I can already build. And then he helps me few hours a day to do a few support tickets and from support tickets, I get to know the client setups and I immediately get to know the good practice so I'm actually learning with the good practice in mind immediately that's a very good thing.

Tim Castillo-Gill: 14:15

Yeah, I can I can second that's there's there's a moment I had actually had an A moment the other day where it was with Izzy that I was chatting to him and he was he was talking about how the core of a lot of his of the a lot of the workspaces he does or the organization's he does is, is this contact app. So everything you know, so you've got people and always that names that have phone numbers or whatever, always coming out of these contacts apps, but then you might want another area of this person that isn't so free and open. There's not shared with everyone so you have another app. That is like another DBS check or whatever it is or their, their I think they use the example of maybe they have what's called when you do something bad or work whenever you have like a you get a disciplinary or something you don't want that to be open to everyone. So you have a different app that's not shared with everyone, but it's related to that person. So all these people, so all this information is always been fed by this context app. So you have these sort of core apps that you'll find related in, you know, maybe all, if not quite a lot of these apps, or these tables in, I always get the whole app table thing, if you want to get back to the podio kind of linguistic thing, the app on a table is taken me quite a while, like, obviously, it's just an app is a table a table is now but why they call them an app, not just to take

Jordan Fleming: 15:41

notes, a table denotes almost a static bit of data on AP to denote something that you can actually work with, I think, but but interesting, you know, I think, you know, when you're those data principles are important, but also just the experience of, you know, of how much I think it helps to have people showing you best practice on a routine basis. Because I, I think that's got to be probably if you if you get when I first started using podio, I built our first systems when I first started using podio. So I was figuring it out. And there was nothing that anybody could do, like I was the one figuring it out. So I didn't need to be taught as I was building the apps. Now they were horrible. But whereas if you get parachuted into what I would consider a mature environment, like it's already built, it's already doing this, and you got to work in it. The learning curve, there's a little different, it's a, it's a different thing, because you're not just walking in and figuring lots of stuff out, you're actually having to look at relatively already developed workflow and app structures and data structures, and decide and figure out what you can and cannot do with it. Right. And that must like he just he just if we take a step back and think of cuz people bitch all the time about the podio interface and how it's not changed in a long time, and it hasn't, but I like it because of its consistency. But I don't think it's necessarily easy to learn. What was your experience? getting to the point where you felt like you could whiz around podio, right, because there's difference between kind of going in and knowing where to go and being able to, you know, just fucking fly? Well, how did you find that experience?

Bavo De Cooman: 17:37

Yeah, knowing that notifications is actually your inbox, that is one thing. And that, that it's like a reverse email system. So instead of emails being pushed to you, you're pulling up the you're pulling in the index, you want the updates you want to follow. So that was a good thing. So So learning that following smartly, and then you get these notifications, and this is like your inbox, then having the tasks, the tasks as as reminders, that was a good one. So to immediately go to the right context, and just getting to know the zones. So the interface is when you first look at it, it's it's weird, but there's so little on it that once you know what every zone means, then you can you can get started. So have. So this is my important stuff. Here's a tile, on my on my right side panel, in my activity, I see the things that happened. And if I unfollow a few things, it's going to become relevant. And same thing for the notifications. And then you're good to go. Yeah,

Tim Castillo-Gill: 18:53

that's I agree with you Baba that I think that a lot of like, the actual different elements of podio is fairly, as long as you get to know where they are, what they kind of do, they're kind of useful at the task thing is quite interesting. Because if you're in an app, and then you set a task, it's sort of attached to that item or that Yeah, so that's, that's this, there's certain things which you can do, which aren't necessarily like, you'd could take advantage of more, or I could take advantage of more. But I just don't think of doing it. So it's, it's, there's that part of it, which is I just think of a task being the big task, right? Like it's just a big list. I don't think of it attaching it to a particular item, which I'm sure would be extremely useful. You know, if something's got a bug or something, it's particular to that item. And then then that's perfect use case for it, I guess.

Jordan Fleming: 19:42

Stop. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm just going to interrupt this amazing podcast for a couple of seconds. I know if you're a regular listener. You've heard me talk about the game changers supercharged masterclass series, and I've already had a number of people give their details in with the form and comment attack me saying when can we get involved? Well, life has happened. moving house lots of things going on. And although I promised to get up the first modules in June, it is going to be the end of July now July 2021. But I am super excited about it. This absolutely free masterclass series is going to go through a bunch of great modules, the fundamentals of podio, the fundamentals of great podio design, great ways of using globey flow and extending podio. It is distillation of using use of my team, myself included, of designing podio. It's our attempt at bringing together some best in class principles of podio design, it's really an exciting proposition, I can't wait to launch it, it is coming soon. Go over to www.we are game changers.com go to the master class sending your details will let you know as soon as the first module is up, I guarantee the first modules are going up and to July 2021. Now, back to this awesome podcast, when contextually understanding what you need to do is an important part of, of relationship relationships. In podio, whether you're using the podio native tasks up the top, or whether using a separate task app, you almost always have the the task you create, whether it's an app item or a task in the podio system, it's always going to be related to the things that matter. Now we choose to use a task app. And I'm surprised to hear you say tasks, because I would have thought both Peter and Mike wouldn't be using the podio task, they'd be using a task app.

Bavo De Cooman: 21:40

And the reason we do that, but we use that to it we use them both. So

Jordan Fleming: 21:46

yeah, logic is to why do you have curiosity? Do you have logic as to which one you use when?

Bavo De Cooman: 21:54

Well, that by renaming the word task reminder. And so when I did my first when I was investigating podio for for my first of all, your training, that's what we came up with that actually it's not the task is not a to do item because it to do the item has detailed information and maybe link documents and stuff. But the task is a reminder, I have tomorrow I have to look at that I have to read the document. And in two days, I have to write part of it. And then I have to mention my colleague. And so these tasks are just reminders that bring you to the right context. So in that respect, the word task is maybe even a bad word. But now the to do apps are actually like, I don't think there's like a mike should correct me if I'm wrong. But there's not really a native to do app where everything is we have several. So we have we have a help desk app for for client tickets. And we have a few backlog absolute, let's say we have five, six to do apps. And then we use reminders if necessary to do that. And views. So also, to follow up a few views to check on the new ones. For the two dues and set reminders when necessary. Personally, I

Tim Castillo-Gill: 23:27

think it's the it's the same, this is the same besides. So I think I think the tasks mainly, mainly are used just for small things, you know, like yeah, I don't think I'm probably like, using them more than anyone else to be honest. So just this little, like, I've got to remember to, you know, to do my put my notes into daily stand up or something, it would be something like really random, whereas actually we have we do as you say, Jordan, we have, like an app for

Jordan Fleming: 23:55

I will be very surprised. Yeah. I would have been shocked back to actually

Unknown: 24:01

without a

Bavo De Cooman: 24:02

question. It's true. It's it's, it's really powerful. it to me that was one of the things that actually got me into podio because before that I had been experimenting with task planners, I I've been doing a subject with a free and open subject with students with investigating productivity apps. And then you have this task planner and that task planner and this one was task planning functionality, etc. And I had never found a good task planner. And then there was podio and it's it's you have this platform and then they have somewhere they have a full blown task planner that actually is perfectly well thought out. So like for the recurring tasks is is really well done. So yeah, I find it I find it striking how podio can sometimes surprise you like oh, it can do that too. Like so like that like having a full blown task planner or like having a cat board where you can rearrange the order of cards, things like that. So things that I was was thinking of using an external app and then realising actually podio can do it as well.

Jordan Fleming: 25:15

What did you guys think podio was? Because, like, out of curiosity is I mean, people always come and say, come to me and say, Hey, so is podio CRM. And you're like, Well, yeah, I can. Yeah, I can be you can build a great CRM. Oh, it's a project management tool. Yeah, you can build a great project management tool. But is it one? No. Use but you can build one, my stock answer is nobody, you can build one. But almost everybody who doesn't understand the power of a system, a platform that you can build multiple business kind of process in, thinks in terms of tunnel vision, software apps, I buy Microsoft Office, to get Word, Excel, and whatever else shift a to pile into it now, and I just care about what I buy. I buy Asana, because it tells me it's a project management system, I buy it, Salesforce, tells me it's a CRM system, what was your way with podio? As we all know, those rules are completely broken, because it can be any of those things, all of those things together, combined with everything else. So what did you think when you first were coming into podio? That it was supposed to be? And how surprised Were you with jet like as the Bible as you were sort of saying like, Oh, shit, it can do this? did have you both felt a and I'll go to Tim first. Have you both felt this kind of like, what the fuck holy? Wow, it can do everything moment or what? What's been your experience?

Tim Castillo-Gill: 26:45

Yeah, I mean, that when I first arrived at podio, that was part of my interview process was to basically come accustomed to it. And then Pete sent me some what looks what seemed like a complicated task at the time, but it was fairly simple in hindsight, is, is that podio is like, yeah, like you say, when I first arrived at it, I thought, well, this is a way of structuring data. I mean, I think, and that's basically, I guess, it kind of is what it is, in some ways. So I don't think I described a delegate was I think, perhaps it was purposefully not described as anything by P or Izzy, specifically, they just said, it's this thing and go and find out what it is basically, and what I came to it and I could move these different fields, date fields, title fields, text fields, whatever it was, and calculated fields, I had no idea what that was when I first arrived to it. So I was like, two plus two plus two. Is that is that gonna give me for a bit? So that was my first what was my first arrived to podio? I was like, Okay, well, what, what is this? And that was my expectation. That was my sort of expectation as I came to the interviews, okay. So they're going to ask me to take some information and structure it somehow, because that seems to be what podio does. So it wasn't described as a CRM, or a project management tool, or any of those things. In hindsight, in answer to your question, have I had like a heart like, Whoa, kind of moment? Yeah, sure. When I see, it mostly comes from the when I see is he or piece because I am sure Mike does the same thing. But he's there. These are the people I've seen their work of. And I've seen the different contexts that they've used podio. And they go, like, all the different ways that it can be used. It's sort of like going, Okay, well, this is a database. And if I forget pw A, which is a huge part of what makes podio useful, in some ways, it just structuring data, is it really useful, and then being able to see it quite nicely in a nice UI is quite nice, because when I was when I was learning how to develop, we did, we touched on databases, and we used mostly code based databases where it was a bit sort of behind behind the curtain, you couldn't really see, unless you tapped in the right keys, you couldn't really see what you were looking at, certainly couldn't use the mouse, you know, because obviously, it wasn't the user interface. So podio for me was like, I can see what I'm doing, I can see the data that I'm putting in, I can see the labels, you can see the the items and the values. So that for me was like, Oh, this is great. Because I actually never really liked that part of the coding part of not being to see what I was doing. So for me, that was what podio was. And then pw a I'm sure is that it's just another conversation, I think,

Jordan Fleming: 29:39

well, I'll go to Babel first and then we'll touch on bw actually, so go ahead, Baba. Yeah,

Bavo De Cooman: 29:45

well, it looked a bit like like, like in the like, data set like an like a big, big collection of interconnected Excel files, something like that. So and the interface not far off from what it is I mean, yeah, yeah, but so and the interface was empty. And so it was like a boring set of data. And then but you could do every and everything with it. And once you start actually seeing how things are built, then you start realising, okay, you can actually build something with it. And especially when with with pw a, like that, you can build an app that can fill in all kinds of information automatically, and you just click a button. And it's like, it's like making making an applications with just globey flow and podium. That was really surprising. That is, so that's for something that normally I would think, Okay, this needs this and this and this, and this, and this, and this in this field, it's just like, okay, that's, here's the button, and all the fields are filled in from referenced apps

Jordan Fleming: 31:01

have been surprised. I'm so sorry for interrupting you been surprised by just how much automation you can squeeze into business processes? Yes. Wow. It's amazing. I mean, I, I'm used to it now. But I still sometimes when we turn over a system, to one of the clients, and they're just like, like, you know, like, holy shit, because all of this, all of the automation and the workflow, and, you know, just to every five minutes you save by having something presented to you, with everything filled in properly, and double blah, blah, and all these manual things. And, you know, a process which a monkey could do by filling in paperwork and creating a PDF and emailing it, someone takes a human being 15 minutes. And, you know, yeah, that must as part of your understanding of podio, pw A's is necessarily going to play a big part of it. How has your I mean, you kind of mentioned the Bible, I think he said, You can now read the, you know, you can read brick by brick, etc. Kind of like when you're a musician, if you're a musician, I've always wondered why you could read a store. Yeah, show score on a plane and just be like, Yeah, I got it, like, it's fine. Other people would be like, like, but so with, with pw a, you know, how has the How is that? How's the experience been kind of getting to know PDO? with web?

Tim Castillo-Gill: 32:43

It's a it's a, it's a roller coaster PWB. In some ways, it's like a dream come true in other ways. It's a it's a sort of head against the brick wall moment. Some of it like some of it works beautifully. And some of it you go like, Well, why does it do that? Why do I have to do that? First? I think more and more over the last, maybe the last four weeks? Specifically, I've, I've been in this job for? This is my eighth week, I think so. Over the last four weeks, I think that the first four weeks was me just getting to know everything. And the last four weeks has been quite TWA focused, and more and more is kind of gone. Okay, now I get why you have to do that it sort of makes sense. To begin with. I was I learned in my in this boot camp that I did, we did everything in a text editor. So it was you had to write everything. So this the block system, in some ways, feels very rigid. And it's rigid for a reason. I can't understand why it is. But it's always frustrating. If you've got like, Yeah, I'd really like to do that, then. Or I'd like to use this, you know, in this case, PHP function, and it's not available. Well, those there's some frustrations, but at the same way, you've got to go. Yeah, but I'd have to do with authentification I don't have to deal with, you know, like all this other stuff that obviously PwC deals with. And so it's a bit of a push Nepal swings around about situation for me.

Bavo De Cooman: 34:08

Yeah, that's always thinking of how I'm going to construct it. So because the danger of the pitfall of podio. And probably also, the great thing about podio is like it's so flexible, that you can build anything and so you can also build really shitty systems. So, when working with globey flow on tickets, I get this good practice of making the flows as simple as possible and also splitting up. So like having short create, create and update flows. And then having manual flows that do just this task is for this manual flow and this task is for that manual flow. And that way it's a it's It's easier to understand the structure of it, instead of having this super long flow that if this happens, then do this. And if that happens, and that and if this happens and that and so they can, they can sometimes become extremely long. And the process has become for Mike. Also a learning curve has become a shortening them where possible. And I think that's a very good practice to start with.

Jordan Fleming: 35:26

Have you. Sorry, just to follow up on what you're just saying? I'm an interrupting bastard, by the way. So like, no worries, because and it's my podcast, so I'll fucking do it if I want it right? No, have you found that as you've grown in your, in your pw a, you're supposed to call it bw a now Bob? Oh, trust me, I'm with you on the global COVID. But I'm getting used to calling a PwC. Now Actually, I'm there now. So have you found that as you develop your pw a and potentially your proc foo Oh, that's, that isn't one we'll get into today. But your view a knowledge, your understanding of why podio data hierarchy needs to be certain ways. It's sort of like, you learn, you level up your learning here, which makes you go Oh, and then then you kind of you know, it's a constant of evolution. Because more you start to build. What I would say is more advanced workflow, you know, more complex workflows that maybe need to work together or or need to work across a larger environment, the more your understanding of podio structure and what is going to work and what isn't, evolves. So do you feel like every time you level up in your pw a understanding, you're levelling up in your podio understanding as well.

Bavo De Cooman: 36:48

Somewhat here, like, the way apps are referenced, and to think of maybe also learn to think of, I should make a view for that first, and then bake that. Take that view? Few things like that. But like, I don't think I have I have gotten to the point you're, you're explaining that. You really see I had I had already I had already a good basic understanding. So no big changes yet. But I also haven't done too complex projects yet.

Unknown: 37:34

Yeah, start getting there.

Tim Castillo-Gill: 37:37

Yeah, I think I think I'm, I think I'm so certain Well, a similar chain, similar train as Baba, where I'm going have I like, if I write a flow in pw a, and I want to get hold of a piece of information from podio. I guess I'm impatient, I suppose, in the sense of just, I need that piece of information, go and get it for me, in some ways, so just like, if I'm going to use you go and do this thing for me, and I want to do what I want to do on it. So in some ways, I'm spoiled, I guess in like, if I wanted to do everything for me, and then I'll just sell, I say, you know, I'll take this, this and this, and I want to add that to that and that whatever I'm doing, and then I want to update that item. And I want you to do everything else will be pleased. And it's not quite it's that I don't know if so in that sense, I'm not quite there in the way that you're saying. Yeah, you need to balance up the sort of their their the architecture of polio and how you've designed your database or your apps or whatever, to how you write a flow. I don't know I don't think I'm not quite not quite there with with with that balance, or with that sort of realisation I guess maybe

Jordan Fleming: 38:53

after eight weeks, you're not there yet. have a word with fucking Pete, man. I don't know. But I think you'll find as you're just as you guys continue to grow your skills, you're you you're you will probably come up with your own style. And it may be one you slightly inherit from Mike and Pete and Izzy because you will inherit is it's you know, their companies. So they're going to show enforce a certain element of style. But you'll also come up with your own on your own feel for what is good for what is good. You know, we'd sort of like we know it when we see it. And we know when we feel it and I'm sure you'll find you know that you've got that just out of curiosity as as some as people who are, you know, only a few months into your polio journey. Do you have anything that you just really, that really you don't like? Or things that you found really frustrating that you had to kind of work to get over just out of curiosity, you may not and that's fine, but sometimes people do and I'm curious,

Bavo De Cooman: 39:59

too. text and writing and the description fields. So the text, the multi line text field. And if I'm a writer, you know, and I know. So my cousin Mike has an idea. He thinks in like very short pieces of text, I write out all kinds of ideas and stuff. And then I want to rearrange and and, and cut and paste and put this here and put that there and drag and drop and, and also, yeah, I'm a bit of a chaotic person collecting ideas from everywhere. So if you do that type of planning, in a podio app, it's terrible. So, so you, you write something, you style it a bit, because I'm, like, for example, I take a title, I wanted to have this colour, because it's visual recognition, especially if it's long. And then I copy and paste something style is gone. have to rearrange that. So that that one doesn't work too. Well. The Superman menu helps a bit. The Superman you extension. A bit. So I've learned to for that for actually for more complex planning and ideas to just move move out of podio for a short while. And and then, yeah, so keep that out and just have a summary in podio, or something. And I'll link read this blog post about connecting notion to polio.

Unknown: 41:42

virus.

Bavo De Cooman: 41:44

But the thing was that I was I started experimenting with notion then. And I was doing too much in notion and then I returned to polio again. So yeah, in the end, it's just going to be for just a few things. Like, for example, if you content planning, like for newsletter, or for website articles and things, which is also what I'm doing there, content planning does not work well in podio. So I just link, I just add the links. But I make sure I, I keep the overview in podio.

Tim Castillo-Gill: 42:16

Yeah, Tim, yeah, for my end, the I guess my main, my main thing is, as you already kind of touched on was the calculation fields they take, sometimes take quite a long time to do something, and then you have to sort of, I guess, it's one of the quirks of podio. But maybe that should be really should just get hold off, which is you kind of have to put a timeout or whatever, you have to just give it some time to sort of sort things out, which just makes everything really slow. If you're a client, you want something to happen quite quickly, if it's slow, it feels inefficient and kind of old, in some ways. If you're, you know, the old the slower something is the older it feels in my head at least. So the quicker something is the more modern, it feels the more contemporary or whatever, so I think they need to sort that out. And pw a wise I'm so used to seeing different colours. pw a just is quite a bland set of colours and a wish, for example, and if an endif had the same colour, so there were different colours to the rest of the blocks, if it was blue, and f is blue, E for each has red ended, or whatever it's called continues A B is also red, so that there's some kind of matching up with the colours. Just give it give me something No,

Jordan Fleming: 43:30

I'm only laughing I'm only laughing. I'm not laughing at your concept. I'm only laughing because right now, in in smartphone, I'm working on a project internally, where we are redesigning the call flow system, and one of the things we're doing is bringing each type of block will is gonna have have its own colour, so that you have a visual reference to the type of block you're using. And so I'm not laughing cuz I think it's a dumb idea. I'm laughing because I'm doing this. We're doing this right now in smart.

Tim Castillo-Gill: 44:04

Yeah, and it probably wouldn't be that hard to do through some kind of Chrome extension or something. Right, like, you know, the super menu and things is I don't I've not written a Chrome extension. So I had no idea how difficult it is. But it seems like something that would be quite easy to do. But who knows if it is,

Jordan Fleming: 44:19

I think Chrome extension maybe but I mean, I can tell you right now that I mean, you can you can put you can usually put a skin on a developed system, you know, change the visuals, as long as you're changing the overall functionality, or anything. The skin can usually be done relatively easily. It's when you start screwing around with everything else that it becomes, you know, people sometimes they're like, well, can't you just put this inside of that and put this over there and you're like, yeah, okay, just that. I see an ad hours. Like, you know, come on you telling me? Hey, sure, sure. Is there anything we've said? surprised you? Is it kind of interest? No, I I think it's just interesting. I think it's, you know, I think it's you, you know, you both what's the product tell you what did surprise me. And I wonder if if this is because you're both working within the environment you're working, or maybe it's your backgrounds. But you both came with a sort of with a database heavy feel to you, in a sense of like, you both describe podio. And most people will come to me and describe podio as a business thing, like a CRM, or a project management or whatever, you both came right in with this notion of like, you know, of data and tables and data, you know, that that's what podio was to you. And that surprised me a little because most people when they first come into podio, or unless they are, unless you're data scientists or or AI people who build databases and SQL, or other fucking systems, most people don't think of their data in that way. And you both kind of came came to the, to the field with that in your in your, in your brains, but maybe that's also slightly biassed by the word, you know, the companies you're both gone into, are people who are going to talk about it like that all the fucking time. I mean, he's, he won't shut up about it, right? I mean, you try you try. So that surprised me. But But, you know, it's fun to I just, I don't remember how podio was, I saw a screenshot the other day of podio when I first got involved with it, what it looked like, and it's not that dissimilar, by the way, it's it's the but there were some big differences. And, and it really took me back. And, and it's nice to think of, of when I first got involved with podio. And I think what's interesting about this conversation is, you know, is getting a perspective of people who are new to podio. And understanding maybe some of the, to me, my biggest takeaway is, if you're going to bring people into podio, particularly into an environment where it's already built pretty well, you need to give them some method of playing to understand the fundamentals of podio. If you're going to train your staff to really be able to use your system, well, they kind of have to play and get to know podio. That's what I take about. It that makes sense?

Tim Castillo-Gill: 47:36

Yeah, it does. It does. I think it also, like you say with the bias, I think actually, obviously, there is a bias to maybe myself and her brother member, welcome to it. But also, we haven't found podio we've been sort of led to, I guess, speak for myself. I was someone said, right, I've got this job, you need to use this platform, and I have gone. Whereas I've listened to other podcasts. He was Jordan, where people have gone like, Oh, I found podio dabbled with it left, it came back again, you know that there was a bit more sort of organic pneus about it or something. Whereas we've sort of just gone, somebody has gone to us, sorry, this is what we're using. You got to learn how to use it, and just crack on and work out what's what. Yeah.

Jordan Fleming: 48:22

Interesting. Interesting. Well, listen, guys, I really appreciate you coming on. I will of course, for those listening, right now, I will of course, pop both company websites into the podcast page and into the description of the podcast so that you can find both both, I mean, quickfee and quibi. Tools. quibi is a consultancy, query tools is an amazing system for that you can really understand your podio system in a way that no other system will let you do. And I highly recommend you check. Check it out. And of course, future solutions, like quibi are a great consultancy. And, you know, they have a tremendous they're based in the UK, Ababa, you're based in Belgium. Yeah. And, you know, they are our two phenomenal partners who have a long history of building great things in podio. And I highly recommend you check them out as well. So guys, thank you so much for giving us your insight as newbies to podio really interesting journey and it was also a pleasure to meet both of you. It's a pleasure. Thanks for having us.

Narrator: 49:37

You've been listening to supercharged with Jordan Samuel Fleming. Subscribe today on iTunes, Google Play or Spotify for your weekly dive into how you can supercharge your business by making it powered by podio. Be sure to check out our website we are game changers.com where you can learn more and arrange a 30 minute call with Jordan Dale view understand how podio supercharges you