GEAR / Home Studio Set up
Depending on your disposition, setting up the home can be exciting, scary, overwhelming, some, or all of the above. I’ve put together a straightforward list, you can find tons of videos on YouTube if you want to explore.
At the most basic
- Get off the laptop camera and mic. A nice Logitec (yes, they’re back in stock) looks better and has a better microphone.
But seriously, Between Zooms, Teams, Workspaces, Skypes, WebExes, Google Chats, Family get-togethers, etc., Invest in yourself. Get a real setup.
- Camera - My personal favorite, the Sony a6400 with the 16-50mm kit lens. Why my favorite? The Autofocus rocks, it has a clean HDMI out, and with a plugged-in DC adapter, it goes all day. And sure, you can go nuts with lens, this is to get going with one click, good capability doesn’t break the bank. BONUS - This is a great Camera too!
- Microphone - My personal favorite right now, the Shure MV7. It has USB and XRL connectivity, and the App/USB/Auto will work for most people to get started. Sounds awesome. AND BONUS - with a high-quality stationery Mic, as you move around, it’ll bring you back to frame during your event.
- Get the Signal into the computer - The Elgato Cam Link 4K (Yes, they’re back in stock) is rock solid and just works. Plug the HDMI from the camera, into the Cam Link USB Stick, plug it into your computer, and the nice camera’s now a webcam. Or, if you want multi-input (which is goodness, add a laptop, iPad, GoPro, et), pass on the Cam Link and go straight to the ATEM Mini. The Shure MV7Mic connects via USB
- Sound - I recently upgraded from the Behringer U-Phoria audio interface (no longer available, this looks like an invalidated similar substitute) to the Rode RodeCaster PRO. Many reasons, and overkill for most. The Behringer is no longer available,
NOTE - You might consider a powered USB Hub, take the stress off your computer.
Lots more detail here. Lots to explore on YouTube depending on your level of interest.
Podcasts
Guest Appearances on other Shows
Jeff Frick - Intentionally Evolving with Technological Transformation | Transforming Work with Sophie Wade - Ep101 2024-Jan-26 - Sample Listen - Spotify
Future of Work with Jeff Frick | Tech Proof Podcast with Adam Pastana and Ben Larson - Ep40 2023-Oct-29 - Sample Listen
Hsu Untied interview with Jeff Frick, CEO of Menlo Creek Media and Work 20XX | Hsu Untied podcast with Richard Hsu - 2022-Sept-29 - Sample Listen
Jeff Frick, Menlo Creek Media | The Embargoed (pod) with David Oro and Kevin Wolf - Ep32 2022-Mar-22
The Successful Entrepreneur's Mindset with Jeff Frick - Part 1 | The Datapreneur Podcast with Uttkarsh Kohli - Ep04 2021 -Sept
The Successful Entrepreneur's Mindset with Jeff Frick - Part 2 | The Datapreneur Podcast with Uttkarsh Kohli - Ep05 2021 -Sept
Mr. Jeff Frick with Menlo Creek Media is talking Digital Twin and Increasing Your Digital Footprint | The Industrial Talk Podcast with Scott MacKenzie - 2021-Feb-24
Other shows On Work, Workplace and the Future of Work
The a16z Podcast with Steph Smith - Sample Listen
About Place with Ryan Anderson - Sample Listen
Beyond Work with Nellie Hayat - Sample Listen
CISO Stories with Sam Curry - Sample Listen
CultureOps with Ben Gateley - Sample Listen
The Dataprenuer with - Uttkarsh Kohli - Sample Listen
Everything CoWorking with Jamie Russo - Sample Listen
Flex Perspectives with Rob Sadow - Sample Listen
Getting Hired with Andrew Seaman - Sample Listen
Happy at Work with Laura Hamill, Tessa Misiaszek and Michael McCarthy - Sample Listen
Human Factor with Michael Esau and Simon Humphreys - Sample Listen
Hsu Untied with Richard Hsu - Sample Listen - Full Episode
Information with Jessica Lessin - Sample Listen
Looking Forward with Ryan Anderson - Sample Listen
Now of Work with Jess Von Bank and Jason Averbook - Sample Listen
Modern People Leader with Daniel Huerta and Stephen Huerta - Sample Listen
Open Sourced Workplace with Steve Todd - Sample Listen
Outside In with Charles Trevail - Sample Listen
Problem Solvers with Jason Feifer - Sample Listen
Redefining Work with Lars Schmidt - Sample Listen
Remote First with Daphnée Laforest - Sample Listen
Remote Show with Tyler Sellhorn - Sample Listen
Remotely One with Rick Haney and Kaleem Clarkson - Sample Listen
Tenant Experience Network (TEN) Podcast with David Abrams - Sample Listen
Transforming Work with Sophie Wade - Sample Listen
Weekly Take with Spencer Levy - Sample Listen
Workplace Innovator with Mike Petrusky - Sample Listen
Other shows On leadership, creativity, marketing, music, infosec, privacy, general interest
a16z with Margit Wennmachers - Sample Listen
Armchair Expert Umbrella with Dax Shepard and Monica Padman
Blazing Trails with Michael Rivo - Sample Listen
Cloud Giants with - Sample Listen
The Dataprenuer with Uttkarsh Kohli - Sample Listen - Full Episode
Dead Sugars Produced by WBUR
DrZeroTrust with Chase Cunningham
The Embargoed with David Oro - Sample Listen - Full Episode
Follow your Different with Christopher Lochhead - Sample Listen
From Start-Up to Grown-Up with Alisa Cohn - Sample Listen
Hsu Untied with Richard Hsu - Sample Listen - Full Episode
The Industrial Talk Podcast with Scott MacKenzie - Sample Listen - Full Episode
Keep Rolling with Jake Briggs - Sample Listen
New CISO with Stephen Moore - Sample Listen
Provoking Thought with Ryan Anderson - Sample Listen
Recode Media with Peter Kafka
Revisionist History with Malcolm Gladwell
Shifting Privacy Left with Debra Farber - Sample Listen
Smartless with Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, Will Arnett
Studio Sherpas with Ryan Koral - Sample Listen
Sway with Kara Swisher
Taking the Lead with Jennifer Tejada - Sample Listen
Team Apart with Ryan Roghaar - Sample Listen
Tech Proof Podcast with Adam Pastana and Ben Larson - Sample Listen - Full Episode
Voices of Athena with Priscilla Brenenstuhl - Sample Listen
TED Talks
There is so much quality content on the internet, and TED Talks are one of the best sources of insightful, thought-provoking learning. A few of my favorites to highlight (note, once you watch the Ted talk, be sure to dive into more videos from these folks.
The puzzle of motivation - Daniel Pink - TEDGlobal 2009
Spoiler Alert - Modern knowledge workers are motivated by Autonomy (we have the freedom to do what we want), Mastery (we’re getting better at our jobs), and Purpose (the why behind what I do).
The Power of Vulnerability - Brené Brown - TEDxHouston 2010
Spoiler Alert - Vulnerability as a Super Power, especially for leaders. Might sound counter intuitive at first. General Patton certainly didn’t show vulnerability. But watch and listen, not only Brené but many successful leaders, and you’ll be amazed. Leadership today is about getting the best from your people, not via formal command and control, but inspiration and enablement.
Paint a picture of the mission, with lots of “why”, put your people in a position to do their best work, help remove roadblocks, and get out of the way.
Are we in control of our own decisions - Dan Ariely - TED EG 2008
I first saw Dan at a Ford event at the HQ in Dearborn, Michigan. His work and his story are amazing, not sure how many talks you’ll be able to find in this rabbit hole, but well worth the journey. Really highlights how framing the question has more impact on the answer, than the answer as a demonstration of differences in belief.
Great example, Organ donor status on driver’s licenses (click here for the story). He also gets into why we do what we do, short-term payoffs vs. long, in the simple context of health, diet, and other actions we take as humans. Amazing. Google “Dan Ariely” click “videos” and enjoy the ride.
The mind behind Linux - Linus Torvalds - TED2016
Fascinating interview by Chris Anderson (not an easy task if you watch some other Linus content on the web). I was struck first by the pragmatism, captured in the line Ted chose in the opening description “I’m not a visionary, I’m an engineer….I’m looking at the ground, and I want to fix the pothole that’s right in front of me before I fall in.” Linux is certainly one of the first and largest global, computer-connected communities, working on a problem together, open-source. And while Linus started by building everything he built because he needed it for himself, when he opened it up, and others started contributing ideas, based on his start, the power & magic of open-source software development emerged, and the expansion of open source across problem sets continues to accelerate.
theCUBE
With over 12,000 segments and over 7,000 executives, the sheer quantity of first person insight available in theCUBE Interviews is unmatched, and way under utilized in my super biased and humble opinion. See for yourself by checking for your favorite executive in theCUBE Alumni Database . For those less familiar, here are some interviews with names you probably know. Here are some interviews from names you should learn. And of course, you can search and find your favorite.
Other Interview Shows
As a practitioner of the craft, and someone who really enjoys listing and learning to smart people, I watch a lot of interviews, both for the straight up, sit in the seat and watch enjoyment, to breaking down various nuances in the guests, hosts, and production style. And through the magic of YouTube and the World Wide Web, we can enjoy everything from Robin Williams and Jonathan Winters on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, to Elon Musk's 2 hour sit down with Joe Rogan, And my current favorite, (and recently nominated for an Emmy), Hot Ones with Sean Evans, introduced via Casey Neistat'sepisode on the show (see below), and think Charlize Theron & Shaq's episodes are gold. Have to give a shout out to Howard Stern, who was the first to take the non-tradtional long form interview off traditional media when he left terrestrial radio (and the FCC) for SiriusXM in January 2016 in a package worth approximately $100M a year.
Covering more of the business and tech sectors, have to start with Kara Swisher. She's been doing it a long time, she get's great guests, gets into the big questions that matter. I'm a fan of Jon Fortt, beyond his super solid CNBC interviews with CEOs and Captains of Industry, he's building out a number of projects, from the "The Black Experience in America" focused on moving "The Talk" Black Fathers have with their children, to "The Couse" to make more resources available to all, to Fortt Knox, his new YouTube channel focused on entrepreneurship. Recently, turning into Christopher Lochhead and his "Follow your Different" podcast, including a recent episode with Dr. Cedric Alexander, after attending one of the 'Category Pirates' meet up.
Netflix, Spotify and YouTube (below)
The impact of applied artificial intelligence will be as transformational as the internet. And while the engineers at Google maps are working hard on the algorithms to do better routing, timing, updating, etc. to make your next trip smoother, and the engineers at Gmail are working to hard on the algorithms to guess your reply to any particular email, and suggested it to you before you type anything, you can play the "Train the AI" game at home.
Netflix has been using AI for years, not only for the suggestions it makes, but little things, like which thumbnail to use. And with every engagement (watch, search, like, save), the machine should be getting better at matching you with content you like. It's in Netflix best interest (retain your attention) to suggest things you'll enjoy.
Spotify has invested considerable resources in music "discovery." Based on your actions, Spotify slices and dices via a number of metrics, to serve up a bundle of options, hopefully, helping you "find what you're looking for" and keep listening. Again, it's the attention economy, so they want to make the match, and keep you consuming.
So put the AI to work. Train it to your tastes. It's easy, all you have to do is click.
Search, Discover, Consume, Like, Share, Comment, Click
Works for YouTube too, but let's highlight a different media 2021 concept via YouTube.
YouTubers
YouTube is the platform, YouTubers are what make is happen. If you haven’t used YouTube to answer just about any question, you should give it a try, chances are you’ll find more information than you ever thought possible, it's becoming the new google search. And the media properties on YouTube get massive viewership that rival more 'traditional' media like Movies and TV. Like so many others, Casey Neistat (12M Subscribers or Subs for short) opened my eyes to the world of YouTube publishing. There is even a small industry built around reviewing Casey's methods.
A few lessons learned.
- Consistent, authentic, quality output, over time, builds an audience - Casey’s popularity exploded with his daily blogging, a crazy endeavor, that paid off in spades. Casey's video on hitting 10,000,000 Subs (you might have seen me wearing the 10 Million shirt), reinforces that getting to 10M was easier than 1M, and 1M was easier than 100K, and 100K was easier than 10K, and so on, you get the message. Watch it here.
- Viewers watch what they want, when they want, on what every device is handy
Appointment based viewing is so pre-TIVO (1997), compared to watching what you want, when you want, on the device that's handy. Except for a small percentage of special categories, appointment based viewing is a shrinking percentage of our total media consumption.
- YouTube's AI is trying to match me with more media that'll keep me watching
I don't need to search, YouTube will do it's best to keep suggesting more content, that it thinks I'll be interested in (and keep watching), based on my prior behavior. YouTube is really motivated to keep me onsite watching, and is investing crazy quantities of resources in that pursuit.
Less me searching, more YouTube AI suggesting. - The Collab (Collaboration) - No longer a zero sum game, 1+1=3
When media was synchronous (before the DVRs, TIVO, VHS, or Beta machines), and you had 3 choices at 9p, choosing one meant the others lost. Zero-sum game. Not any more. In an asynchronous world, with millions of media choices, It’s actually in our mutual interest to introduce our audiences to each other.
So while my personal YouTube adventure started with Casey and Boosted Boards in Manhattan, through the process of his collaboration with other creators, and the YouTube algorithm making suggestions, my network of YouTube media consumption grew along multiple interest axis including
- World of personal electronic vehicles (PEVs)
OneWheel (76K), Super73 (19K), The Float Life (13K), Tristan Ervin (12K) SlyDogStroth (10K) ShredLights (1K), (Boosted Boards (39K), and more, - Tech reviews
Marques Brownlee (MKBHD)(14M) - Filmmaking and photography tips and tricks, drones
Peter McKinnon (5M), DJI (1M), Skydio (22K) - Internet news and commentary
Philip DeFranco (6M), BEME News (306K), Louis Foglia (800), - Music
Rick Beato (2M Subs), TwinsTheNewTrend (800K) , Professor of Rock (270K) - Awesome eye candy content creators
Jesse Wellens (10M), Dan Mace (750K) - Science and Technology
Mark Rober (18M)
And of course,
Interview Shows including one of my favorites, Hot Ones with Sean Evans (10M)!
(for comparison, Traditional Media on YouTube)
CNN (12.5M Subs), BBC News(10.2M), Disney (5.25M), Universal Pictures (4.86M), New York Times (3.5M), Wall Street Journal (3M),Washington Post (1.7M), Los Angeles Times (457K)
Casey introducing me to these folks didn’t reduce my engagement with Casey at all, only reinforced his position in my mind as a trusted conduit of info. Some of my favorite Casey segments. You will give you a feel for his style.
- What would you do with $25,000 -
this was the one where I started to see the power of this type of show. - Bike Lanes by Casey Neistat -
This was one of his breakout videos on YouTube (Over 27M views) - Do What You Can’t - Love this.
- Make it Count - The video he did with Nike, and the back story is amazing.
- Snowboarding with the NYPD -
Everyone loves snowboarding in Manhattan - Aladdin Magic Carpet Prank -
Collab with Jesse and a Boosted Board - Star Wars Speeders in Manhattan -
Collab with Jesse and Team Super 73 - Silver Surfer in NYC -
Collab with Jesse and a Boosted Board
Guest appearances on other shows
It's fun to swap chairs and be the guest and I've been invited on a few shows along the way.
Scott and I got into the world of digital twins, leadership, competitive levers, and professional personas on his show
the 'The Industrial Talk Podcast' with Scott MacKenzie (Amazon, Audible, Spotify, YouTube).
Uttkarsh Kohli invited me to his new 'The Datapreneur Podcast' and when the first question is "What's an Entrepreneur?" you know we're going to cover some serious ground. Divided in two, Part 1 on Spotify and Part 2 on Spotify.
Books
More to come, but need to start putting these somewhere.
In no particular order, the "why" for each coming soon.
DISCLOSURE - These are Amazon referral links
Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors, Stephen Ambrose, Anchor, 1996
Nothing Like it in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869, Stephen Ambrose, Simon & Schuster, 2001
Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West, Stephen Ambrose, Simon & Schuster, 1997
Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach, Macmillan Publishers, 1970
The Man Behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley, Leslie Berlin, Oxford Press, 2006
Troublemakers: Silicon Valley's Coming of Age, Leslie Berlin, Simon & Schuster, 2017
Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship and Betrayal, Nick Bolton, Portfolio, 2014
The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin, H. W. Brands, Anchor, 2002
The Nudist on the Late Shift: And Other True Tales of Silicon Valley, Po Bronson, Broadway Books, 1999
Building the Cycling City, The Dutch Blueprint for Urban Vitality, Melissa Bruntlett & Chris Bruntlett, Island Press, 2018
How Will You Measure Your Life? Clayton Christensen, James Allworth & Karen Dillon, Harper Business, 2012
The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, Clayton Christensen, Harvard Business Reviews Press, 1997
Tulipomania: The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions it Aroused, Mike Dash, Crown, 2001
Germs, Guns, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Jared Diamond, W.W. Norton, 1997
Ikigai, The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life, Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles, Penguin Books, 2016
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Simon & Schuster, 2006
Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company, Andy Grove, Currency, 1999
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari, Harper Perennial, 2018
The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1952
Oh, the Places You'll Go! Dr Seuss, HarperCollins Children's Books, 2011
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race, Walter Isaacson, Simon & Schuster, 2021
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, Simon & Schuster, 2011
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America, Erik Larson, Crown Publishers, 2003
The Path between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914, David McCullough, Simon & Schuster, 1977
Moby Dick, Herman Melville, Richard Bentley (England) Harper & Brothers (US), 1851
Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors, Piers Paul Read, J.P. Lippincott, 1974
Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution, Janette Sadik-Khan & Seth Solomonow, Penguin Books, 2016
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, Ballantine Books, 1995/1997
The Jungle, Upton Sinclair, Doubleday, 1906
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck, The Viking Press, 1939
AOL.com, Kara Swisher, Three Rivers Press, 1999
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, Ashlee Vance, Ecco, 2015
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, Tim Weiner, Anchor, 2007
Devil at My Heals: A Heroic Olympians Astonishing Story of Survival as a Japanese POW in World War II, Louis Zamperini, David Rensin, William Morrow Paperbacks, 2003
