Roam Creators x Monetization (Audio Version)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Norman Chella (00:19):
This episode is going to be different.
Recently we had the first everRoamFM hangout.
Talking about Rome, creators andmonetization from redefining
what an author is to premiumknowledge based graphs, creator
possibilities, and types ofpotential jobs using Roam,
myself and 10 other Romans godeep on what it means to give

(00:40):
back to the world.
Through Rome.
Great stuff.
So if you are one of the 10,thank you very much for being
there.
I'm overloading the audioversion here, but note that this
is taken directly from thevideo, which is available on
YouTube.
So expect pauses fromscreen-sharing and clicking
through the graph and all ofthat.
If you'd like to see thesescreen shares, notes and more.

(01:02):
It's best to check out theYouTube link in the show notes
to this episode.
I just think a podcast versionof this will be very helpful for
the avid note taker.
So without further ado, keeproaming your thoughts and enjoy
this RoamFM conversation on RoamCreators and Monetization.
Yeah, let's just go straightinto it.

(01:23):
Alright.
So, uh, welcome to RoamFM'sfirst ever.
A hangout slash talk slashdiscussion, uh, slash otium, the
word I would like to call or theword I would like to, um, use to
describe the environment that Iwant to, uh, embrace in this

(01:44):
discussion.
So otium is the pursuit ofintellectual curiosity.
It is a word normally used inRoman forums from ages of ages
ago.
You have buildings where peopleare people who are broad in
their fields specialists, uh, intheir careers.
They come in and they know ifyou walk through the doors, you

(02:04):
can strike up a conversationwith anyone on any topic, in any
level of depth, any level ofwidth in terms of your
curiosity.
And you can engage inconversation.
That is the environment that Iwant to create.
So if you don't know much aboutRoam, if you haven't really been
using about using roam for thatlong, perfectly fine.
If you're a highly technical, ifyou're not that technical.

(02:26):
I I'm just asking welcoming toyou as I am to everybody else.
So welcome.
I want to talk about, uh, roamcreators, and in relation to
that, what the future of Rome,uh, can potentially be.
So, uh, some people who are hereearly, they've already seen the
screen, so welcome to my privateRome.

(02:49):
Uh, yeah, clearly I don't haveanything that is confidential on
here.
I think.
But it should be okay.
So on my sidebar, you have theinformation, uh, that is on the
eventbrite page.
So this is the, essentially thenarrative that we are trying to
go through.
So this is pretty simple.

(03:10):
I want to start things off withmy thoughts on the future of
Roam, from the perspective of acreator, if you're in the middle
of wanting to create.
Say, write a book or start anonline course or build a
community that is based off of aroam graph or do you know,
engage in public speaking, butyou have your roam graph up to

(03:32):
present, you know, things likethat, all the possibilities, um,
this in relation to what Romeresearch will be doing in the
future.
So from multiplayer to API to,um, to hyper graphic features.
Can I quote other people'sblocks into my graphs?
What are the possibilitiesbehind that we first have to

(03:52):
define what is a Roam creator?
So zooming in on this first one.
So, uh, to me, a Roam creator isan individual who uses Roam to
create something, to create X,right.
We can have many differentexamples, but.
The most base level is anindividual.

(04:14):
The uses roam the tool fornetwork thought to create
something.
So the foundation of their workis based off of their usage of
the tool Roam, which means thatwith a universal tool like room
research, especially with thepeople who are participating in
this group right now, our useswill be completely different.

(04:35):
So my uses are completelydifferent from yours.
Matt's uses are completelydifferent as you're based off
of, you know, you're doing yourRoam for teamwork course.
Right.
And RJs is completely different.
Coaching for singers Rob's iscompletely different, et cetera,
et cetera.
Yes.
I will be calling out people inthis group because I know you
guys, so it will be all hope.
You guys don't find that tooembarrassing or too awkward.

(04:57):
So what can it be?
The more that we engage in thistopic or no more that we have it
circulating in our heads.
I really want to ask everybodyhere.
If you want to speak up rightnow is perfectly fine as well.
You can always interrupt me ifyou want to say something,
expanding on the possibilities.
And I spelled that wrong, of acreator, what can they comprise

(05:21):
of?
What do they need?
Do they need an audience?
Do they need the tools that heneed?
Prerequisite skills?
Do they need to be a writerfirst?
Do they need to have technicalskills beforehand, et cetera?
So expanding onto this, what canyou make of Roam graphs?
I've already explained ordescribed a few and some we can

(05:44):
get into, uh, in greater detailwith a few examples.
So going into this, uh,presentations or keynotes or
public speaking's publicspeaking events, I believe we
have.
Tracy in the chat.
Yes.
Yes.
She's in here.
Hello, Tracy.

(06:04):
Um, where you've had the virtualsummit for Roaman journals and
in the midst of the virtualsummit for Roman journals.
So you've had a panel ofmultiple members who are
showcasing the way that they usetheir Roame to show how they
journal.
In that way or in that section,I remember watching this myself,

(06:27):
so I'm pretty sure I have a goodmemory of it.
Brandon Toner showed his Roamgraph and use the presentation
shortcuts to go back and forthbetween a bullet points to
showcase different parts of hisworkflow, or is it his use case?
How he journals in Rome?
So that's one way to create anexperience, especially.

(06:50):
You create an event, people comein and then you present people
to Roam.
The next one is diagrams,workflows and models.
I think with the advent ofdrawing, you can create
something here or there, right?
You can create network taught anetworked model, skinned, create
drawings.
You can create anything youwant, quick sketches.

(07:11):
Uh, I'm sure that I think Conortagged Excalidraw recently, just
this morning to see if there's away to create an API, to make
this a little bit more robust.
So for those who are more visualand they prefer a more artistic
way of articulating what they'retrying to express, this is
probably a very important one.

(07:32):
A paired this as well is amermaid diagrams.
I'm sure somebody else can chimein on this.
Cause I'm not a, I, not thattechnical enough to know how to
use mermaid diagrams, but.
We have, from a previous episodeof RoamFM, we have a Kahlil
Corazo who rebuilt the businessmodel canvas as a diagram within

(07:54):
row.
So in depth talk can, I'm surethat I can actually bring it up
right here in that talk.
Kaleo used the.
The business model, canvas andrebuilt it in Roam.

(08:15):
And this was once again,referenced in another episode of
RoamFM, um, uh, with the founderof Rome, CN, Jesse, who saw that
and saw its potential.
So use cases already is thatthose in the entrepreneurial
space, those in the startupspace find value in diagrams

(08:36):
shown in a room graphs because.
Once they can find ways to do bydirectional linking from the way
that they actually structuredthey startup to structured their
team on the business model,canvas in a room graph that can,
that could connect witheverything else that works
within the company.
So that's one way to articulatevalue for a roam graph and how

(08:59):
it applies to that startup.
So these are one of manyexamples, right.
Uh, but let's go a little bitlighter on the examples.
So books.
It's going to be a veryfascinating one to dive into,
and I'm sure a few of us areavid writers here.
Uh, if you are using Roam, I'msure you have written thousands
of words, uh, in what I call theRome Itch.

(09:21):
So the Roam Itch is theaddiction or the want to want to
write something in Rome becauseyou know that there's this like,
possibility, like, Ooh, what'sgoing to link today, right?
Or what's going to surface uptoday or from my, from the
thoughts that I've penned downwithin my graph.
How will I meet myself on thisday moving forward, or what will
I Delta a block to a differentday and, uh, send messages to my

(09:46):
future self.
So that to remind them of whattheir past self has learned, you
know, examples like this.
But back to this example books,we have the standard definition
of a book, which I will quickly.
Describe or demonstrate here.
And I don't want to be, I don'twant to degrade people in this

(10:09):
way, but to really give a quickanswer sample, this is a book.
A book is a closed context ofinformation with a narrative.
You have the tables of contents,the tables of contents represent
bullet points.
That spread out and detailedtowards more and more blocks,
more and more sources ofinformation related to

(10:30):
references that are brought allthe way through all the way to
the back.
So if you think about it, eachand every bullet point is its
own page.
And this is one graph.
The, the, the disadvantage of abook is that as we all know here
is we're all, all in Rome users.
It is very unlinked.

(10:51):
So.
Even if I'm reading this book,even if I'm following the
narrative, even if I'm followingthe voice of the researcher in
this hand, this is actuallyaltruism by Matthieu Ricard.
If anyone's interested in, um,then what if we could find a way
to visualize all the contents ofthis book in a way where they

(11:14):
can be linked to one another andcreate.
A open book or a linked bookwhere what you see on your
screen is a 3D version linked ofeverything that is written here.
Oh, I just realize I havemarginalia on the side.
Oh, that's interesting.
So, as an example, if I have alinked version of this book,

(11:39):
Then the text for this book willbe within the graph and any
annotations will be my ownpersonal notes.
So under the notion of, Oh, Ijust said the bad word, uh,
under the concept of SonkeAhrens is how to take smart
notes.
Annotations are my own blocks,resultant or nested under the

(11:59):
references of the books that Iam linking.
So back to this, if you're acreator, What should you
consider?
If you are a creator, then youshould consider an unlinked and
linked version.
And we already have a greatexample of this right now with,

(12:23):
uh, Luca Dellanna.
I believe that's his name reallysing a book called Equitas city,
which I will buy us very, verysoon, which is fantastic.
Which is amazing, right?
So I'm just seeing some activityin the chat.
So I will probably adress thatin a bit, uh, where I might as

(12:45):
well, just show it to you rightnow.
And I think this is the correctdirection for it.
So he is selling his book inebook format and ebook plus roam
format and then ebook plus Romeplus premium content format.
So, what this means is that heis selling an unlinked version
of the information and aunlinked and linked version of

(13:07):
the information.
The way that he wrote it wasthat he gave a quick primer as
to what Roam is.
And then from there he created alinked one.
He introduced the linkedversion.
But,

Rob Haisfield (13:20):
um, I, can I, can I just interject in here or do
you, I mean, what I'm reallycurious about with his book, um,
because he has an unlinkedversion of it that you can just
read linearly and a linkedversion of it.
I mean, is he just as, I mean, Ibought it because I want to see,
but.

(13:41):
I mean, is he essentially justgoing to be like adding tags to
each of the subhead, like eachof the subheadings in any, in
all the chapters and just likeletting you sort the book like
that, or, I mean, cause likeRoam organization is very
different than just adding linksto a linear thing.

Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, I, that's actually a verygood question and I have to say
that it depends because it's upto the author to see how they
will organize their notes.
Right.
So the assumption is that.
At least, at least how I woulddo it would be if, if I have the
unlinked book and then in thewrong graph, I have the start

(14:19):
here or the book narrative as afavorite on the sidebar of the
graph for the people who arealready used to reading the book
from the unlinked way.
And then it's up to you toexplore the contents of that
graph in your own way.
So let's, let's actually, let'sexplore that.
So I all, let me explain to youwhat I mean.
So let's go back to here.

(14:45):
So let's say this is an examplebook, right?
You have your initial version,which is the unlinked, which is
a PDF or a mobi or on Kindle orsomething like that.
And then you have the, and thenyou have the linked.
So on the linked you would have.
The start here page, whichprobably explains something
like, Oh, uh, go through thisgraph the book way.

(15:11):
And Rob you and I actuallytalked about this in our
episode, on RoamFM, where wehave to cater to the different
behaviors.
Of people exploring something.
So there are those who wouldfall for rabbit holes.
They see something that's prettyinteresting.
Let's just say, Ergodicity.
And then that somehow connectsto a gamification.

(15:35):
Right.
And then that's something I'llconnect to say.
I don't know, like a MarkRobinson or something like that.
That's one example.
What.
The author has to do when you'redoing something like a linked
version is to introduce multipleways to explore the graph.

(15:58):
So like the above, this is thestandard way.
And the next one is to go bythemes and topics a bit like
the, uh, what do you call it?
The index a bit like the indexof a book.
You have all the key words andthen you can explore it from
there.

(16:19):
This is very important becauseif Rob you and I bought that
same book, and then we are givendifferent sessions to explore
the graph ourselves, we willsearch differently.
Like you will be interested insomething completely different
within the same graph.
I will be something I'll beinterested in something else
that'll be very interested.
So we have to cater for that,like themes and topics.

(16:40):
It could even be resources.
It could be further reading.
People might only be high touch.
They would only go into thegraph to search for, you know,
ABC or a certain resource or acertain academic paper.
And they would go and leave.
I believe.
It was who was it?
There was a, there wasdiscussion recently on Twitter.

(17:04):
Uh, brought up by Joel Chanwhere a lot of academics would
go into and read somebody else'spaper.
To find people at the frontierof that field to connect with
them.
So that's already verypurposeful behavior behind them
trying to search a piece ofcontent.
We have to cater for them asauthors in Roam.

(17:27):
So that's probably one way to dothat.
I mean, if he's just going to,if the person is just going to
like add tags on top of thebook, I think that's a really,
really big, like really badthing to do.
I wouldn't say bad.
Maybe there's a lot morepotential behind that it's like
lacking.
Now you're just emulating thebook format and I think that's
not enough.

(17:48):
So hopefully that gets your mindthinking.

Yeah.
I mean, I guess just some of mydoubts there, um, and I can
largely shut up after this, butI just think this is such an
interesting area, you know, isthat like with my public roam
graph, you know, like I was, Ihaven't been working on it as
much lately, but when I wasworking on it, like, I um, was

(18:13):
using a lot of page references,a lot of block references and
organizing things kind of withthat.
Like, my goal was, I want peopleto find information that they're
looking for, even if they don'tknow what they're looking for
relatively quickly.
Um, problem with that though is,uh, one aspect yeah.
In particular, is that blockreferences, I think, uh, tend to

(18:35):
be relatively low signal for thereader, you know, like they,
they see a block reference andthe block reference would bring
them to some other area of thetext, you know, but like you
click on you, but like, younever know when to click on that
with like a page title.
You it's generally a little bithigher signal is especially if

(18:55):
you take, uh, Andy's notesabout, um, Evergreen note titles
seriously, where like the pagestyle is supposed to give people
like a scent of like this I'm onthe right path here and I want
to follow this.
So it's like, I almost wonder,like, I, I'm not sure if Rome
really even is the best way todo something like this.

(19:16):
Or if something like obsidianpublish would be better for a
nonlinear book,

it could be.
One way to do that is if there'sa.
Like an API from Rome to Obsidanpublish.
It could be possible.
And actually now that you'vebrought that up, if something
like Andy's notes promotes youto pick, say atomic ideas as
page titles, then maybe you haveto rewrite the page headings for

(19:44):
a book.
If it's a linked version, right.
So I think I, hopefully Iexpressed it well enough.
Like if I, like, if I go throughany book, these titles or these
headings, um, they don't drivehome the point.
They only give you a tease as towhat this chapter will be about

(20:06):
or what this paragraph will beabout.
And the assumed behavior is thatyou will just continue reading.
But if your goal is to capture.
People's time on your graph eachand every page needs to stand on
its own.
Each page needs to connect very,very well.
So your goal is to, you know,make it be so attractive that

(20:29):
each page is like, Ooh, whatabout this?
Ooh, what about this?
Not to, not, not to the point oflike being all clickbaity, but,
but more of according to whatyou said, like Andy's notes,
like to have atomic ideas aspage titles, maybe, maybe that's
one way to consider it.
Never thought about that.
Actually, I actually shouldwrite that down.
So, uh, let me see a quick lookat the chat.

(20:56):
Uh, cause sometimes I, okay.
I'm seeing some points oncopyright.
Ah, yeah.
Uh, I will be bringing upcopyright later on.
Uh, cause that is something thatwe do have to consider for
certain services.
That I think that would make aRoam career, but maybe are
impossible, uh, because ofcopyright issues.

(21:19):
So maybe not even research, justany book.
Oh my goodness.
Yeah.
Um, let's see.
so as I'm just reading this outloud, uh, for the recording, uh,
Brian Toh says, I'm not sureabout how the graph looks like.
I think the graph also needs todetail how the writer wrote the

(21:40):
book, micro details and thethinking to go into the graph
and you can sell in the processof thinking really well.
So, yeah.
Um, uh, annotations and evenversions of how the book came to
be is probably one way oflooking at it.
Like that's actually a.
A possible, that's actually oneway to actually, uh, see if it's

(22:03):
worth even doing a book version,like a graph version of the book
in the first place.
Because if you just find theexact same text in the graph and
nothing more, it's, it's apretty shallow graph.
You have to say like, likethere's elements of rewriting
the page titles.
There's also elements of.

(22:23):
Making sure that there arethings beyond the book that you
can find that it's worth payingextra.
So in the case of the Ergodicitybook, that's nine pounds, nine
euros, and an extra 20, 20euros.
That's, that's quite a jump,right?
That's like three times theprice.
Like what do you, as, as a, as aconsumer of something like this,

(22:47):
What do you expect from adding abuying something that's worth
three times as much as justbuying the book by itself?
Things like link references,things like annotations, things,
like what happened in betweenthings like where did the author
mess up?
Like what did it result infailures, et cetera.
So meta details is actuallyvery, very great.

(23:09):
Yeah.
So as a, uh, just to check, um,Oh, that's actually, yeah,
reading the Roam graph versionwill be pretty good.
I will try to save the chat forthe text, chat for this video
and put it in the notes forthis.
And after that, I'll copy itover to the RoamFM graph.
So anyone wants to refer to thetranscript, which I will do a

(23:33):
transcript of this call as well.
Then I will do it there.
So.
That's on books.

Mat McGann (23:43):
Got some thoughts Norman.
When I think about a book, um,it's like someone's got their
brain with all their thoughtsand knowledge in it.
And you could think of that asa, um, Let me feel people call
their databases a second brainor whatever it might be.
But, um, when they go to write abook, I kind of see that as

(24:04):
trying to flatten their wholecomplicated network of ideas
into a one, one dimensionalline, essentially, so that they
can hold your hand and walk youthrough all these ideas and
hopefully have fun along theway, and you can enjoy it,
whatever it might be.
So, um, There's this problem ofmapping one dimension to like a,

(24:27):
a graph, right.
And the natural way to do that.
Like if you didn't have to startwith a book, I would imagine the
natural way would be the graphexists.
It's like a mini Wikipedia orsomething.
Right.
Everything's connected all theconcepts and then there's a
start here, but then it'sessentially just sort of tracing

(24:47):
a journey through that.
Graph like jumping from plot toplot or whatever it might be.
Um, and that opens up adifferent opportunity, which is
multiple stories, among thesame, um, network.
Right?
So this is just the new idea orsomething, but given a knowledge

(25:11):
base, Um, yeah, maybe we canturn it around just to be
interesting, but rather than abook and then just linking
things, uh, start with aknowledge base and then you can
have multiple books, which areeach different journeys through
the graph.

That's actually pretty good point to do it
actually.
Yeah.
Okay.
I got it.
Okay.
Right.
Yeah.
So it's like, just like, if Idon't know why I have to, my
immediate image that comes to mymind is as like.
A galaxy.
And then your goal is to getfrom one side of the galaxy to
the other, but then just manydifferent ways to do it, but
it's still the same galaxy.
So yeah, I like a knowledgebase.

(25:47):
And then you have all theknowledge is the same, but
multiple books and narrativesthrough that, like multiple
threads.
Oh, wow.
I think that like tripled orquadrupled the work behind
writing the book in the firstplace, because then yeah,

Mat McGann (26:05):
If you had the question in the first place,
it'd be quite straightforward.
Much more easy to write thebook.
Then, then there probably is nowjust write a book from scratch
and it might be easier.

Um, exactly.
So you might have to think oflike, what is the primary most
easiest narrative to think ofthrough this knowledge base and
then have that as your AmazonKindle.
So book whatever, but then.
That's obviously the easiest oneto follow.
So that's for the masses toread, but then once you're in
the graph, you have moremultiple different perspectives,
multiple different versions,multi, multiple different

(26:37):
narratives bolted up from books,or that we're already unwinding
the definition of a book at thispoint.
That's insane.

R.J. Nestor (26:46):
Norman.
Do you mind if I normally, doyou mind if I jump in here for a
second, one of the things thatcomes to my mind, because I do
so much coaching of, ofcreativity is a lot of the
hangup for people, is that theydon't, you know, they look at a
book and they don't understandhow you get to a finished book.
Uh, the it's one of the reasonsthat people love.
Cause I also come from theater,leave love the behind the scenes

(27:07):
kind of stuff is they love tosee how things are put together.
I think this concept that we'rekind of fleshing out here really
feeds into that.
There's a lot of desire to knowhow things are put together.
And it's really good for theworld, too, for people to see
that the creative process is nota linear process.
You know, you have a, you havea, there's a lot of chaos by

(27:28):
design and should be so that Idon't know necessarily know that
it is more work per se, to havethe graph.
In addition to the book, thegraph is the, the reason the
book was able to come to be.
And so I think that you'reabsolutely right, that.
It's cool to be able to seedifferent potential journeys.
It's cool to see directions youmay have started and then not
follow continued down, uh, or,you know, various things like

(27:51):
that.
I think that's just in myexperience with the way people
like to watch behind the scenesstuff and be engaged with behind
the scenes stuff.
And, and I think that that wouldbe something that would be
really valuable and useful andinteresting to people.

Yeah, I think it's, I think it's cool being
able to go down those paths,but.
Um, I also just want to pointout how incredibly challenging
it is to write in a nonlinearway for other people to read and
enjoy, you know, like a AndyMatuschak, I think is one of the

(28:24):
few people.
Successful at this.
Um, I think, but even then, likeI talked to a lot of people who
were like, I just can't reallyfind myself enjoying this.
I prefer just reading like along linear thing.
And like that, I think that toan extent just means that a
nonlinear book is for, and who'sinterested in that sort of

(28:45):
thing.
Yeah,

it's true.
Yeah.
I agree.

I have my, um, you know, I've.
Since more or less ditched mypublic roam in favor of a I'm in
favor of a digital garden.
That's just based on pages,which I write in obsidian.
Um, and you know, I'm trying todo nonlinear writing, but like,
again, it's just, it's very,very challenging to do it in a

(29:12):
way that's comprehensible toothers.
Note titles, page titles thatyou link through are incredibly
important, but, um, Yeah, Idon't know.
I think there's just a lot to besaid about this digital medium,

Mat McGann (29:29):
Random in some of Taleb's writing he talks about,
um, he kind of gets angry atthese modern authors who would,
um, who sort of write a bookthat's that's highly structured.
That's sort of encroaching ontextbooks and his he's disgusted
by that.
He's disgusted by a lot ofthings, but he's disgusted by

(29:51):
that because, um, to him, it'sall about the narrative and
it's, it can go anywhere atonce.
And it's like the main concernthere is really keeping
someone's attention and it justthere's, you don't need that
access to all the otherinformation like you would in a

(30:11):
wikipedia kind of set up, it'sall about just getting someone's
attention and taking them from ato B.
And so I think you're right,Rob, you just maybe just have to
focus on that single journey andhope you can utilize the things
in some other way.

So wait, wait, I'll wait about, about that.
What if the book is the chosennarrative, the primary narrative
for the book, but the graph thatcomes with it, it's not a graph
of that book.
It's a graph of the authorsfindings in that field.
And every other parallelnarrative comes in there.

(30:48):
So you do have the behind thescenes, you do have the
annotations, you do have thefailures, but the purpose of the
graph is not to showcase.
Oh, it's just a linked versionof the book, but rather the
foundation of which that bookcomes to to fruition, maybe
that's one way to like angle it.

What I was meaning.
And that the idea of being thatand I've pre and Rob's right
there may, the market may belimited for that because people
do need the narrative.
I'm thinking because I havethree kids of the frozen 2 on
Disney plus there's frozen 2.
There's also the making offrozen 2.
But of course, yeah, thedocumentarians doing the making
of frozen too also created theirown narrative through that.

(31:29):
It isn't as though the it's justa big old pile of here's what
they did.
Um, That said for myself whenI'm creating and writing in
Rome, whether it be creativewriting or just content creation
or whatever, the path that'slaid down there.
I don't know that my particularpath be interesting to anybody
else, but I know that I aminterested in seeing the way the
journeys that other people have.

(31:49):
So there may be, it may be thecase that, like Rob said,
there's just the sort of thingthat's interesting to the people
that it's interesting to.
Um, but I do think that thereis.
At least a market.
Uh, and, and like was said inthe chat here, I think that
there is value to in thevulnerability component.
Being able to show that thecreative process is not a linear

(32:13):
process and the way that a lotof times it's perceived to be.
So as a coach from the coachingstandpoint, that to me is a
really useful and interestingangle.

I also want to point out that, um, Another
challenge of nonlinear books.
And, and so I, I will say, Ithink that this direction of
like the Roam, the Roam graphbeing like the behind the scenes
of the research, like.
That builds the book and maybeeven like linking out that
research to sections in thebook.
So that way people like are ableto know, like, it's kind of like

(32:44):
in a really big set offootnotes, like, um, but I think
that, uh, something to point outis that that's a challenge with,
uh, this nonlinear format is,uh, the idea of like
prerequisite knowledge.
You know, like if you're justlooking through all the

(33:05):
backlinks for a subject, a lotof times you're not going to get
the prerequisite knowledge andyou're going to jump in halfway
through, um, you know, in, soit's not really building in a
reliable way.
And I think that's a challengethat any nonlinear writer,
writer needs to consider.
I think that Nick Milo's lightskit, which he uses with obsidian

(33:27):
publish is actually.
Um, one of the ones that's maybea little bit better at this than
others.
Uh, just in the sense that heactually like on his pages,
he'll like include a buttonthat's essentially saying next,
you know, to sort of have likelittle linear, some linear flows
within the, uh, hyperlinkedgraph.

Tracy Winchell (33:52):
Until we are better at, um, managing images
in Rome.
Yeah all this is an academicgame that week.
We can, we can say it's a crimeshame that people, people don't,
uh, that, that too many peoplepay attention to the eye candy,

(34:13):
but it's reality.
You know, people expect anonline to be rich in video and
images or some sort of audio,but they prefer the eye candy.
And whether that's that'sdiagrams.
Or, um, a quick snapshot of amessy notebook where you

(34:38):
actually worked through aproblem or a whiteboard or
whatever.
Um, pictures are a must, uh, aspart of the structure of any
sort of long form writing inRome

to that point.
Um, Art of game design is a bookthat I think does this
illustrates that point reallywell?
Um, it's like sorta like atextbook.
It really should not have beenwritten as a linear book.
It would have been great in anon linear format, but it's
like, um, but it's like theyhave this index, they have these

(35:18):
X pages, right.
Which, you know, have lots ofsubheadings that are very
descriptive.
But like when you're flippingthrough this book, you see,
first thing you see on everypage or the headings and the
pictures and the call out likeboxes of texts that are in like
different colors and stuff.
So it's like re so my point hereis that it's really easy when

(35:42):
you're flipping through this tosee very quickly.
This is what I'm looking for.
I'm interested in this.
So I'm going to stop on thispage and like explore it a
little bit, you know, like, uh,it it's like giving the there's
there's cues beyond just thetexts.
Like I think things like havingheaders are incredibly important

(36:02):
for letting people quickly skimit.
It's interesting.
See an image skim a page is thisinteresting, you know, and on
and on.

Yeah, that, uh, the mediums that go beyond
writing, uh, yeah.
Are, are highly important.
And I think the use case goesbeyond that even like far, not
only for any book, but likeacademia for scientific
research.
Think of one of my previousepisodes with Cherry Sun was a

(36:33):
greater support for imagesbecause she dealt with a lot
with her.
Her cultures, which he isworking on.
I think she's working on fetalcells.
I believe like for research,like biological research, it's
just, you know, amazing stuff.
But when you have limitations indoing scientific research,
because you cannot say upload,or he cannot view images

(36:55):
properly, they're not formattedproperly, or you can't really
shared them out loud, uh, sharedthem out to other people then
that not only harms theexperience of the Roam creator
in adding value to the graph,but it also harms the experience
of the consumer or the readergoing through to graph and

(37:15):
thinking, Oh, like you'reexplaining this, but I don't see
a diagram.
I don't see a visual aid.
I don't hear an aural aid.
Right.
You hear an interview withsomebody else, but where's the
conversation like I would liketo hear proof.
I would like to see findingsbeyond writing.
Um, actually, uh, A quickquestion, actually, for Rob, I
know you're doing your gardenand Obsidian publish.

(37:38):
Do they have support for likereally good support for beyond
writing, like visual mediums?

Oh, um, yeah, I don't know yet.
I'm not using them Obsidianpublished for my garden.
I'm using a Jack.
Somebody made an, I made a fewhacks on top of it with the help
of people that actually know howto do those hacks.
Um, but it's honestly, there's.
I've put a lot of thought intowhat I think would be a really

(38:07):
good UX for a nonlinear, uh,digital garden.
I'm not there yet just becauseI'm not technical enough to make
it.
If one of you is then I'd loveto talk to you about it.
But I think that there's a lotof things that could be done.
Um, again, beyond texts that,uh, with the UX that makes sense
nonlinear reading better,because again, it's just kind of

(38:30):
getting at this idea of, I wantto help.
I think of this nonlinearwriting as a book that
rearranges it's pages for youbased on your interests, you
know?
Um, and I think that's kind ofits best format, at least in my
head.
Um, And, and part of that meansyou need to encourage certain

(38:52):
exploratory behaviors andreaders readers.
Aren't used to just clicking ona ton of links from a page that
takes one to two minutes to readon its own, you know, um, It's
like, there's just, um, I, butyeah, there's a lot of
exploration that needs to be onlike a hover previews.
For example, that's somethingthat helps people explore better

(39:15):
because that reduces the effortnecessary to click on a link and
see if it's worthwhile.
Right.
Um, but you know, if you add toomany of these exploratory
measures, then people lose trackof where they were get
absolutely lost.
I don't know.
I think there's a lot to be donethere, but, uh, but no, uh, I
think that obsidian obsidiandoes allow for like images.

(39:38):
I'm pretty sure it allows forYouTube embeds.
Um, but beyond that, like ifsomeone really wanted to hack
together a nonlinear, like anonlinear book that has some
level of structure to it, aguided track that's.
And that's one of the productsthat I'm working on.
It's like a client company, aI'm working on their onboarding

(40:01):
right now, but that's reallylike one of the best places to
go for that.
Um, it's not going to be apretty website, but it'll be a
website site.

Uh, just, uh, looking at the chat, Mridula
saying.
Just thinking about whateveryone was saying about
nonlinearity.
I think a possibility is tohave, say an appendix button,
which allows people to gothrough a rabbit hole if they
wish similar to a latex buttonat the bottom of a slide where
you can go to the mathematicalappendix, if anyone wants to see

(40:32):
during a presentation.
Okay.
Like an appendix button.
So I'm not really familiar withthis, but I'm assuming it's a
bit like.
It's sort of like a popup tableof contents or like a popup
narrative that allows me toexplore in a certain linear
fashion.
To prevent me from getting lost.
Is that close to what's beingdescribed?

Mridula Duggal (40:52):
Yeah, it's similar so often.
So I can only tell you becauseI'm coming from an academic
perspective.
So I have to do a lot ofpresentations, right.
And we have during thepresentation, you're not going
to take everyone through yourderivations of how you got to a
specific formula.
Right?
So what I, what we often end updoing is against the big formula

(41:13):
that we arrived at.
You kind of have a little buttonover there which can like take
you to like a 15 slide, right atthe end of your presentation,
which is the appendix where youhave all the step by steps
written out.
So in case anyone is interested,they can go through the
derivation if they really want.

So, so if you look at, let's say, if you
transpose that into a book,Would you say have an appendix
button for each chapter or eachblock or each paragraph?
That would be interesting.

Yeah.
Why not?
Because a lot of books do,right.
A lot of books have likeendnotes or footnotes, which you
mean like, okay, you can findthis footnote now from here, go
to base and know.
So,

but, but the thing is right, but the thing is
with a, with a book it's, it'svery surface level, all they'll
will say is something like, Oh,I got it from this source.
And then that's it.
Right?
It'll prompt you to go furtherreading or whatever.
Right.
It will just tell you, Oh, I gotit from this, this, if you do
the same in a roam graph, notonly can you do something like.
Uh, this is the source where Igot it from.

(42:15):
You can also nest the blocksunderneath to say, how did I
arrive at this paragraph?
Or how did I arrive at thisblock?
What did I ref?
What did I reference fromanything else to arrive in this
final form of this book?
And I think that's, that's maybeone way to, to, to address what
Rob mentioned about like, notgetting too lost if you give too

(42:36):
many exploratory options, butrather limit the amount of
exploratory options to.
If you have arrived at thischapter, this is a button to
take you to, how did I arrive atthis chapter?
I can maybe limit the amount ofreferences to however, number of
blocks or fields or whatever.

(42:57):
Maybe that's the one way to doit.
So I wish I had, like, I wishI'm really good at Rome roam
drawing tool.
I don't know if you saw onTwitter, my roam drawing sucks.
So I'm just gonna pretend it,it.
I'm not, I'm just, I'm a greatdrawing, but I would assume that
it would be like a one timeline,which is the book.
And then the graph is a, a notchon each chapter and you limit

(43:21):
the amount of notches from eachnotch so that people don't get
too lost.
And then we are essentially

it's like describing is like a centipede
if you want.
Okay.

Yeah.
I mean, like a centipede, yeah,yeah, yeah.
Like I said to Pete.
Yeah.
And then if, if we're going bythe centipede analogy, If each
section is two legs, then youcan think of two different ways
of exploring that same block.
Right?
It could be one scientific one,which is, Oh, you go to the
index of the resource oracademic piece that you should

(43:52):
read for further reading.
This is for the people who wouldlike to read that.
And the other way is what is theanecdote or what was the
conversation that prompted youto arrive at this block?
Now that will be prettyfascinating because one that is
quite creative in terms of how,or like the behind the scenes of
that block and two you limit,right.
It's only just those two ways,right?

(44:14):
It could be that, um, I that's,this, this is why I'm bringing
this up.
Um, because this kind of model,or this kind of framework, or
this kind of referencing sourcesto arrive at these blocks, it's
not just for a book.
It could even, it could be for atalk.
It could be for a scientificpaper.
It could be for the makings of avideo or a film.

(44:38):
Right.
Um, you have different ways toarrive at each section of this
finished piece.
This finished product may be oneway to prevent people from
getting too lost is to onlylimit exploratory options per
section to like two to three.

(44:58):
And then.
Not let the graph grow too bigfrom there.
Yeah.
So maybe a bit of a rant or alittle bit of a crazy deep dive
into what is possible, but, um,as much as I'm saying this out
loud, uh, I think it's good thatpeople are really, really
talking about this.
So, you know, if anyone has anyextra notes, If anyone has any

(45:23):
extra notes from this talk fromyour own personal graph.
I mean, I'm going to put this upon the RoamFM graph and totally
just add it in later on, you cangive me a Mark down file and I
can just edit it and put itunder your name.
Um, and we can swiftly move on.
Cause uh, books took quite anumber of time.
So let me switch back tosharing.

(45:46):
So, um, A lot of what we justtalked about will also, uh,
would also applied to researchdeep dives.
I don't have a proper name forit, but I just called it
research deep dives, academics.
I'm sure do.
Mridula you could probably chimein if you, if you'd like, um,
when you have research, when youwant to do research on a field,

(46:09):
you want to make sure that.
You have all the resources set,you have a hypothesis.
You want to explain it, you havean abstract.
And then from there you write itout.
Maybe there's a way to do it.
Like a, some kind of workflow.
Sure.
But then when you have a roamgraph version, Oh, you probably
would want to do this more in acollaborative manner with a team

(46:32):
or by yourself.
Uh, but it's a lot easier, but,but maybe if you could, I could
just ask you something like.
What was the difference betweenyou researching something with,
and without Rome?
Like, were there any changes inyour workflow as a result?

So I think the biggest change for me, and I
think I've said this severaltimes before is that I was
someone who used to only usepaper and pen and use that.
And I think one of the biggestissues I had was.
Because I was thinking aboutlike different angles of
approaching the same problem.
I would often have randomthoughts and yeah.
And I have an issue that if, ifI'm thought that it doesn't fit

(47:12):
on a particular page, it's notgoing to go on paper at all and
I'm going to lose the thought.
Yeah.
And I think that's something,that's an issue that I grew up
and kind of dealt with for me.
Right.
Because that's at that pointbecause I took care of the
organization, but sort of speak,I was able to like, just dump my
thoughts.
And then as in when theirrights, like would block
reference them and go back andforth between.

(47:34):
Because I'm working on multiplepapers at the same time, which
are kind of related, uh, itbecomes easier to just go back
and be like, Oh, could they saysomething I thought about with
respect to this paper, but it'salso, you know, and for the
other paper that I'm working onand I can kind of link those
ideas.
So I think that was the bigchange in the way that I was
working.
With and with our room.

Uh, so to, to, to check that graph is the graph.
If you're doing your researchin, is your personal graph,
right?
Yep.
Okay.
All right.
So it's not like a, like acollaborative team graph or
anything like that.
Like it's not one where you havemultiple authors.

Not right now, because my co-author's
unfortunately don't use roam,but,

Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
That's an important distinctionthere and, okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
Thanks for sharing that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That, that's very, veryimportant distinction because
later on, we probably have tostart talking about.
Different types of entities thatactually interact with a roam
graph, for example, number ofauthors, are there any clients,
uh, who's the audience, etcetera.

(48:40):
So if you, if it's a privategraph and the only constant
connection between all thesepapers, all these thoughts are
what you think of and yourattention, like what you choose
to pay attention to.
Then I guess that makes perfectsense.
So like, Deep dive research deepdives are definitely your

(49:00):
specialty.
So if anything, if you have anynotes on this, like, I would
love to see them, uh, later on,uh, after this.
So, um, moving on to courses.
So we have quite a few, uh,participants in this call that
have courses as well.
RJ, I'm adding yours in, cause Iknow you are coming up with one
later on, um, and.

(49:23):
Uh, from Tracy's Roamanjournals, too, Mat, uh, uh,
teamwork roam online course,too.
You know CortexFutura's and ofcourse, Nat's, uh, courses are
definitely one of the the mostinteresting ways to build, say
under the core of an informationproduct courses or online

(49:47):
courses, right.
There are really, really goodways of doing that.
So.
And this is just, these are justexamples.
So I, I'm not sure if anyonehere in the chat has anything to
say about what are theimplications behind making, uh,
an online course about Roam andmaking an online course that's

(50:09):
built on top of Roam.
There's a huge distinction therebecause if you have a cohort or
a group, and they're all sharingthe knowledge base in one shared
room graph, what are theimplications?
So, you know, that's somethingto give you something to think
about really.

(50:31):
Uh, so paid talks as well.
Uh, so this is one example.
So thank you guys for being hereand Rob's recent one, uh, on
queries.
So if you're a power user ofquery, so I'm sure that you've
been to, uh, Rob's talk as well,more and more people are finding
value in being in this closedevent space where we talk about

(50:54):
Rome, or we talk about thingssurrounding Rome or things that
can overlap with Roam research,the tool.
And, or the team and, or thefuture of the tool.
So that's another way ofcreating things and communities
as well.
So communities is more of a, ofa, a product or the result of

(51:17):
findings on a roam graph thathave second order effects.
So if you have a community, youdefine your audience, for
example, um, Uh, Oh my goodness.
Academic Roaming on circle aswell as Nat's course community.
So they're all built on thecommunity and they're everything

(51:39):
in common is in Rome.
So.
If you're a Roam creator andyou're trying to build a group
and it has to be an and Rome isinvolved in, in some way you
have to define what is theinvolvement of Rome?
Is it just, everyone has a Romegraph and you come together or
is it that community is built ontop of a knowledge base.
Uh, and that knowledge base isbuilt on Rome technology.

(52:01):
Another example is Roam CN.
So I'll just put Jesse's here.
So to give an update, Uh, RomeCN is the Rome China community.
And to have over 200 membersadding contributions to the
shared Rome, China Rome graph.
So think of the implications ofa collective intelligence.

(52:24):
When you have the resultantblocks of over 200 members using
Rome research, I need to askJessie about how she actually,
uh, inputs the information.
Is it a matter of just likesubmitting markdown files or is
it just a matter of tellingpeople, Oh, I'd like to update
or do they actually have 200authors on the same graph?

(52:45):
Cause that's a, that's, that's awhole other set of problems
right there.
So while we're talking throughthis, just have a think to
yourself.
What else can you make with aroam graph?
And you can totally, uh,interject if you'd like.

Well, well, so I'm really curious about this
idea of online courses built ontop of Rome, you know, like, so
not about Rome, but on top ofRome.
Right.
And I guess part of my curiositythere.
It has to do with this relativedifficulty, uh, for new users,

(53:29):
you know?
So it's like, um, I've trieddoing collaborative databases
before, like, uh, like one timeworking with the client.
Um, I actually made like aquarterly report for them in a
Rome database and, uh, and thechallenging thing.
Yeah.
In order to really use that.
Well, People need to know how touse Rome.

(53:52):
Well, you know, like, and, andlike, they need to know, um,
One, they need to know, likeeven just proper roam
navigation, you know, like thatyou can open up pages, you can
open up stuff in the sidebar, etcetera.
They need to understand properindentation, you know, um, in
order to make sure that when youadd in a whole lot of users,

(54:14):
that the knowledge is stillgoing to be structured.
But then there also needs to belike some sort of common just
agreed upon practices, you know?
Cause like Rome, doesn't justhandle that for you.
Like you maybe need to say like,Oh, we're going to, when you
make a page, like try to buildit on top of a index page or
something, you know, like, likejust stuff like that.

(54:36):
Like, like it feels as thoughRome is.
It's very challenging to createa collaborative knowledge
database on for if people don'tknow how to use Rome, uh, at the
start.
And also if they don't have somecommon agreed upon rules.
So I'm, so I'm just curious,people's thoughts about that,

(54:57):
especially Mat.
Uh, since I know you've beentalking about, uh, publicly
about collaboration and Rome,um, I know that there's things
like queries you can do to.
Uh, make pseudo notificationsand all that, but like, it still
seems to require a lot of, um,agreed upon workflow knowledge.

Mat McGann (55:20):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, our team is small, whichis helps this four of us, um,
that are using it.
Uh, one, one breakthrough that Imade was, uh, That you can't use
daily notes at all.
Like that, that just ruinseverything.

(55:40):
And, uh, so I, I think I talkedabout this on our call with
Norman.
Um, team graph has to be insideout, so you don't put stuff into
daily notes and then kind ofpoint to stuff out in the sort
of knowledge base.
You have to put things into theknowledge base and then pull

(56:00):
them in.
And display them on, on thedaily notes.
I found that that means thatsomeone just enters and then on
that day, it's sort of justshowing them the important
things that's happening in theknowledge base relevant to that
day.
So once input goes out into theknowledge base itself, it's
slightly easier because it'sessentially like a Wikipedia

(56:21):
thing.
And if you had a whole bunch of,well, that's how Wikipedia has
made now that I think about it.
But, um, people naturally.
Uh, build their own pages and,and conceptualize things.
However, they would like.
Um, and they're kind of free todo that on the outskirts and,
um, um, things like tech sprintswith built into Roam as well.

(56:45):
They're highly structured andeveryone sort of as agreed on
how that should work.
And that's quite easy because noone wants to break that.
Cause it, it breaks howeverything works.
So, um, One, one thing, when yousaid building on indexes, that's
probably the hardest thing,which is you don't necessarily
know when new things have beenbuilt and, uh, what to look for

(57:10):
to find certain things thatthat's a continual challenge
that, um, that we're working on.

Yeah.
Uh, that our, our episodescoming out soon, by the way, uh,
I'm working on that and, um,I'll be doing the transcript.
So don't, don't worry aboutthat.
Cause I used the transcript toactually edit the episodes, so
that's fine.
Um, but yeah, I remember, Iremember when I heard the
analogy of, uh, when trying tounderstand, uh, team roam, so

(57:41):
this is from our, uh, episode,uh, uh, upcoming episode, rather
that huge differences indefining what a collaborative
graph can be.
And that's because of thatinside out an analogy.
Normally, we always start as aprivate graph.
Like for personal graphs, wealways start in daily notes.

(58:01):
It's always, it's always fromthere.
And I think that's because youstart, uh, each and every day is
a reset and you start the daywith the daily notes, with an
empty page, and then youimplement the system.
But when you have a team graphor when you have a collaborative
graph, and this is from like howI understood it from our
conversation.

(58:22):
Um, the systems are already inplace and people are working to
make it happen when they openedthe graph.
So

Mat McGann (58:30):
Not necessarily though, the, the systems, uh,
emerge.
Right.
And, and I think one of the keysto doing a team graph is that
you need to be okay with chaos.
There's going to be a minimumamount of chaos.
Absolutely.
And, uh, by volume, maybe even,maybe even like 50% of your

(58:50):
pages are.
Junk, but that's okay.
They're not important if noone's linking to them.
Right.
So yeah, I picture it as kind oflike a, um, like a, just a, just
a star field or something justlike the night sky.
And then as people link thingsup and reference things, you
start to get the structure as itpulls together.
And, um, it's fine that noteverything is linked up.

(59:13):
Um, once you, once you acceptthat, You have to sort of tread
the barrier, the, the edge ofchaos, and that's where all that
the beauty is.
Cause then you get all the niceconnections and the structure
emerges.
And so trying to fight for astructure won't work.

(59:34):
I think we failed trying toenforce the structure.

I can't wait to work on that episode cause uh,
Just to see how different it isfrom then.
And now once you've beenbuilding your course, so.

Tracy, I'm, I'm curious, uh, your take on this
too, because if I'm not wrong,you're on the roam team in a
support role.
Uh, so no.
Oh, okay.
I thought you were for somereason.
Um, nevermind then

Norman Chella (01:00:09):
now, well, what were you going to ask actually,

Rob Haisfield (01:00:11):
well, I was going to ask the, um, I know that the
Rome team uses a, acollaborative database and I've
also seen them talk a little bitabout how they do just about
everything.
I think from the daily notes,which is opposite that you was
talking about.
So I I'm, I mean, it's not likethere's a lot of ways to skin, a

(01:00:33):
cat, of course, you know, but,uh, especially within Rome,
that's kinda like whatcharacterizes Rome, but, um,
but, but yeah, it, I justthought that was interesting.

Oh, that will be really fascinating to see how
the Roam research team uses Roamresearch to do collaborative
work.
Like I think the biggest, themost interesting thing to see
what are the overlaps betweenMat's system and the Roam
Research system?
I think that'll be pretty cool.

I mean, Juvoni uh, I don't know if any of you
follow Giovanni on, on Twitter.
But he's talked a little bitabout, um, the differences
between obsidians, uh, thedifferences between obsidians
product development and Rome'sproduct development.
And I saw that, um, I saw CatoMinor posts, one point that he

(01:01:22):
felt like, um, a year in orhowever long he's been in it.
And it feels like it's more betanow than it was before, because
there's just so many, like halffinished feature, half baked
ideas and all that, you know,and, and Juvoni was saying like,
he thinks part of that's justbecause like, Rome uses Rome to

(01:01:43):
develop Rome.
And that inherently does lead toa certain amount of
non-structure.
But yeah.

I think I saw that exact tweet before.

Brian Toh (01:01:54):
The funny thing also is that, um, I know that the
Roam team themselves, they havemultiple graphs, so not just
their own team graph, but theyalso have their own personal
graphs that they're working.
Doing their own individual notesand their own individual
thinking on.
And you can see this also in theway that Conor does it, because
like Conor was kind of like, um,he, sometimes he puts things

(01:02:17):
out.
He puts things out there andhe's thinking on Twitter, but
he's not.
Yeah.
Uh, just thinking about, um,within the graph itself, and
then when you don't think withinthe graph itself, Other people
can not see you, the rest ofyour team can't, can't see it.
And, uh, yeah, just, it's justinteresting to see.

No, no.
It's it's that's no, it's notthat I'm shocked.
It's just that, I'm justwondering about the implications
of that.
Right?
Cause normally we would think,Oh, all information about this
team is closed within this oneshared graph, but then.
Naturally speaking, if you're onthe Roam Research team, you're

(01:02:59):
probably going to have your ownpersonal graph anyway.
And then anything related to thecompany that you work for in
this case, Rome, we have acompany graph.
But Conor being Conor he's goingto be tweeting a ton each and
every day because conversationslie at the foundation of all of
his thinking processes and hisway of gaining conversation is

(01:03:21):
all of his tweet threads and allof his findings and all of the
flaws and the improvements andthe hacks from other people that
he finds and discovers onTwitter.
I mean, I can't believe that heonly just found out about 42,
just a couple of days ago thatthat blew my mind.
Yeah.
But yeah,

Brian Toh (01:03:36):
Purposefully like, um, ignoring it for what goes
on, on what he needs to do.

Yeah.
Oh, okay.
I thought he'd be keeping tabscause.
I mean, it'd be pretty cool tojust like,

Brian Toh (01:03:50):
yes, yes.

Yeah.
Check out a few features hereand there, but yeah.
Um, collaborative graphsprobably still in progress.
We're seeing many differentways.
Like Mat's system is differentfrom Roam Research's team
system.
I'm sure we're seeing hybrids aswell.
If they're going to havepersonal graphs plus their
social media, Twitter graphs andtheir shared graphs, um, I will

(01:04:12):
ask Jessie for her, how she doesher roam CN graph.
And maybe that can spark someideas for anyone thinking of
doing something collaborative.
And I think that's veryimportant for everybody here in
case you want to do somethingthat involves another person
other than yourself, going intoa graph.
So that's, uh, I will bring itup later.

Brian Toh (01:04:32):
I would like to share so on community graphs that, um,
that there was one for the, Iwas in the last building a
second brain cohort and I set upa community graph where we can
just kind of like much.
And the thing that I kind offound is with that is the idea
of engagement where, becausethere are no pings, there's no
programmable attention of anysort that, um, It just kind of

(01:04:55):
died.
and similarly to how you use aforum, you would usually only be
like, from my perspective, Ithink I'm only usually active in
a forum that I am alreadyinvested in, or I have prior
communication with.
And it's not, it's interestingto see other people's notes, uh,
and different perspectives onthe same thing.

(01:05:16):
But if it's not connected towhat I am learning or what is,
what my main kind of focus oroutput is, if it's, if that
community graph is not connectedto my own personal graph and
having to jump back and forthis, is a huge deal as well.

That's friction, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Jumping back and forth.

Mat McGann (01:05:37):
Yeah.
My, my, my personal iscompletely separate from my
company and it kills me everyday.
So, um,

Wait.
So actually actually on that, onthat note, Matt, how, what
percentage of your blocks builtin your personal graph would you
want to have copied over to yourteam graph?
Like, do you think a lot aboutwork-related stuff in your
private graph and then you, younormally have like the, the
situation where you're like, Ohyeah, I should just copy these
over.

Well, I made my, I had my personal graph and
obviously I had my work stuff inthere and then I thought.
I want to move everything I wantto do like a health horizon
graph.

Yeah.

So I built that.
And then one day I sat down andwent, all right.
And I just Mo like copied andpasted everything I'd mentioned
about health horizon on mypersonal across, and from that
day, they've been totally.
sealed from each other that,that anything to do with
authorize and just goes in that,the company one and, um,
hopefully they can solve graphlinking one day.

Yeah.
Yeah.
When it gets hypergraphic, uh,then Brian's problem from that
will be gone?
Cause you can just easily linkbetween graphs.
Um, anyone with a Roam graphwill be the audience for any
Roam creator.
Because anyone with access toanother person's room graph will
want to link it back to thatblock.

(01:06:57):
So they're most likely to wantto, you know, pay for access or
want to access for that lateron.
So yeah.
Then we don't have situationswhere, you know, you're, you're
thinking of like, Oh, I ended upthinking about work today in my
private graph.
Oh, I should just copy over toblocks instead of that, you
could just like, just blockreferred over to the team graph,
then it will make perfect sense.
Um, I will bring that up lateron, uh, after this, uh, Cause I

(01:07:21):
wanted to talk about filteringlike filtered graphs, because I
think that's one way to considerlike hypergraphic possibilities,
but yeah, back to this.
So we are already one hour plusin, but you know, you don't have
to, if you're like, if you wantto go to sleep, right.
If you want to take a break tohave a coffee or sleep, or if

(01:07:42):
you have an appointment orsomething like that, I'm not
forcing you to stay.
So, you know, please, uh, uh, itis a.
It's it's for you to come andgo.
So if you only interested instaying and that's fantastic,
but yeah.
Uh, thank you Brian, and ifanyone else it says has any
extra notes as they are hearingthis conversation, as they're

(01:08:05):
writing away in their ownpersonal graphs and are willing
to add it.
And, uh, I will email you guyslater on in which page to add
this on, and then I can justnest it under your name as a
page, and then we can talk aboutit later on.
So.
Um, in relation to everythingthat we talked about just now,
then it comes to what are thedifferent types of graphs that

(01:08:26):
we can actually create.
So we've already starteddeciding on, um, packaging value
through the format of a graph,but then there's different types
of graphs.
So for example, if you have aprimary graph, our primary graph
is you selling access to agraph.
Or the value add is, or the endgoal is the consumer or the

(01:08:50):
audience wanting to gain accessto a graph.
So the graph is the product.
That's what I mean by a primarygraph.
A secondary graph is when youhave a graph that uses that is
the back end or the thinkingengine for a creator to sell
something or to make something.
So an example would be if youhave the author from before and

(01:09:12):
he used a roam graph to create abook.
Then that graph is nowsecondary.
You're not selling the graph,but the person is the book that
is based off of the graph.
Um, an example would be, uh, ifR.J.'s his coaching system is
based on graph, the value addedwould be.
Him selling his coachingservices through people, but

(01:09:33):
then the CRM, the setting up thecalls and interactions, the
transcripts, and all of theresources will be in a graph
then technically in yourbusiness, your graph is
secondary.
So that's one way to think aboutit.
And tertiary is when value isadded towards a client's graph,
which I will bring up later on.

(01:09:54):
But think of this as aconsultant.
If you have someone who has agraph and they are having
trouble doing a graph, or theyare having trouble trying to
gain more value out of their owngraph.
You come in as an outsider andyou add value to the graph or
you pay, or like they pay you tohelp with their graph.
I'm seeing examples, examples ofthis, like.

(01:10:15):
Uh, growing over time, justlittle prompts of tweets here
and there are people needinghelp with all the chaos in their
own graphs.
Would you be willing for someoneto come in and see how things
are doing if your graph and seeif you can make more sense of
it?
There is actually some level ofinterest, so that graph becomes
tertiary.
So you can think about that, uh,over time and a inspiration for

(01:10:39):
this tertiary graph would bethat, uh, Conor quote tweeted
this, which is the, which iswhat he calls the state of X
graph.
Um, essentially if someone whois trying to build an industry
report on a field wouldinterview 30 experts, summarize

(01:11:00):
all the findings, compiled theirresearch and, and put them all
in a roam graph.
Then.
Uh, then either someone wants toget an access to that.
And then from there they would,you know, either pay that person
to further add more value intothat graph.
That graph becomes tertiaryinitially it's primary, and then
it becomes tertiary.
So that's one example.

(01:11:23):
Yeah.
So many different ways to thinkabout it.
Uh, and that leads to what arethe different kinds of jobs?
Uh, creators redundant.
Cause it can be anything.
So consultant we've alreadyjust, just mentioned, can you be
a roam consultant?
It could be possible, right?
It could actually be possible.
Like if someone, if a companyreaches out to you and says,

(01:11:47):
Hey, I'm interested in startinga roam research graph database,
but I don't know what's the bestsystem or I have a startup and I
want to get it set up.
hat's the best way.
If I have a startup, a fourperson team, I approach Mat
because Mat has a system ondoing a startup system on his.
Own graph database.
I want that for my own team.
How do I do that?
So you act as a consultant.

(01:12:08):
Another one is the librarian.
So the librarian is when youhave a, for example, a, an
employee or a member of yourteam managing your graph for
you.
So an in an in house consultant,essentially the inhouse Roam, or
the person in charge of the Roamdatabase.

(01:12:30):
They are in charge of doinglinked references.
They're in charge of doingfindings.
They're in charge of stuff, thedeltas, the queries, et cetera.
They're in charge of ensuringthat all the information is up
to date and they're in chargeof, you know, all the attributes
and the metadata if necessary.
Um, it's a lot of informationwrangling, which can potentially

(01:12:52):
turn into a service and this maybe coming in for way later.
Oh, good night.
Good night, man.
This may be coming in for later,but I think we're going to be
seeing more of this in thefuture.
The more that Roam researchbecomes really mainstream, or it
becomes very normal in terms ofparking all of your knowledge in

(01:13:14):
that one graph.
The scribe is the rudimentaryversion of that.
Um, I act as the scribe a lotfor a lot of my RoamFM episodes
because I want cleantranscriptions.
I would add transcriptions ofeach episode into that.
So I act as the scribe, writingdown what people have said in
each episode and putting it in agraph for everybody to see.

(01:13:36):
So that's a very basic level, ajob, and, Oh, manager's the same
as before.
And, uh, as mentioned before thepresentations, et cetera.
The Rome, orator or lecturer,someone who performs information
or expresses information orsomeone who does a keynote on a

(01:13:56):
field with a roam graph, uh, as,uh, as like an assistant or as
the way to compliment them,trying to explain it.
Um, yeah.
Uh, other, uh, other, um, Otherobservations include Roam as

(01:14:19):
part of a job description.
I need to find a tweet for this,but I remember that listen notes
to the podcast company isstarting to host all of their
knowledge on to run research.
And one of the prerequisites wasexperience of not Roam research,
the tool.
And I believe this was justearlier year.
So we are seeing room researchactually held as a requirement

(01:14:41):
for a job, which is.
Pretty interesting.
I don't know.
Oh, podcasts notes.
Yeah.
Okay.
Thanks Brian.
Yeah.
Not listen notes to the podcastnotes.
Ironically, the podcast guy, Ididn't know the name of the
company, so we've alreadystarted podcast notes anyway, so
podcast notes and, um, yeah, SoI won't go through most of these

(01:15:06):
other than, uh, let's see.
Yeah.
So other use cases include aroam as a service, which, uh,
which I believe.

(01:15:27):
We did brought up the copyrightissue.
So it does apply here as well.
I did bring it up as a serviceto scribe a book into Roam
format, but then how do you paythe author?
Where are the rights?
What are the borders betweencopyright?
Like how do they gain ownershipof this linked graph that
everyone can get access to itand ref refer back there.

(01:15:49):
That's right.
Like, what is the.
Where is the border behind, likethem being able to protect their
own IP.
So scribing as a service for abook, turning into a room
format, probably impossible.
Uh, for now there's an articleabout about Google doing, trying
to do the same, trying todigitized every single

(01:16:10):
publication.
I think it's over like one, howmany millions of books, but they
can't release it.
So they have an archive ofdigitized books, That cannot
release it.
It's like in a warehousesomewhere it's like in a
storehouse all the way in GoogleHQ or whatever, but they can't
release it because how do youpay all of the authors?
Right?
How do you pay, uh, all of thewriters as well?

(01:16:34):
And that does bring intoquestion the moral values of
authorship.
So I'll, I'll bring this upagain.
And what I mean by this is.
And I don't know if anyone'sgoing to have any thoughts on
this.
So I brought up this, of courseI was, uh, having lunch with a

(01:16:58):
friend and it was a group of us.
And then one of the people thereis a PhD and I brought up Roam
Research because obviously Ilike to pitch a roam research to
everybody else, because if youare a roam research user, you're
going to do this naturally it'sas natural as breathing.
So I brought up the notion of.
The unlinked and linked booksdiscussion that we brought up

(01:17:19):
earlier.
I just thought that, Oh, youknow, to my friend, my PhD
friend, if you were to write abook, what if you do a linked
version?
And he was worried from a moralstandpoint in that, in doing so,
uh, we start and we have tostart redefining what is an
author.
So if you're an author and youhave your books on Rome, Are you

(01:17:43):
an author of a book or are youan author of a knowledge base?
So it's, it's, it's a bit, alittle bit different there
because when you have something,as you know, all the behind the
scenes information, all theirresearch notes, the annotations,
et cetera, put onto this onegraph for everybody to gain
access to it goes beyond justwriting a book and then getting

(01:18:04):
it sold to other people.
It goes to I'm selling my entireexperience as a package.
Are you going to pay for mypackage.
Sounds pretty weird innuendoright there, but are you going
to pay for that experience andputting it on a public graph and
exploring it on your own.
So it changes the definition alittle bit.
So I just thought that maybedon't even have to discuss it,

(01:18:27):
but as Rome creators, thepossibilities of what is
considered a creation throughRoam have broadened.
But to what extent can you say,put a paywall behind a graph?
To what extent can you make thisbook free?
But the full experience is apremium.

(01:18:47):
To what extent can you build anonline course and then have
members on the shared graph ornot?
Right.
Do you want them to be?
uh, and, um, And yeah, in thefuture, we have to think about
these things because, becausethere are elements like the, uh,

(01:19:10):
the Roam API coming up.
So there's going to be thei roamDepot with a marketplace, all
these creators and developersand workers trying to build
extra additions, add ons on topof one's roam graph.
So it's not going to be justwriters and creators on a public
graph.
It's going to be people.
Building like people like peoplelike roamhacker, like people

(01:19:33):
like 42 do like building thingslike 42, but yeah, it's going to
be a paid option potentiallyright.
On a marketplace.
So that's going to be a wholeother can of worms to open.
Cause then what to think aboutthe implications behind?
How do you pay for someone who,how do you pay for this tool?
That's going to be in used everysingle graph in like 80% of all
the roam graphs in the world.

(01:19:53):
Right.
Like the think about that, I'msure Connor and the team are
thinking about it, but the roamapi there's multiplayer, there's
hyper graphic features likefiltering, uh, like reffing
referencing a, a block outsideof the graph into somebody
else's graph.
And I wanted to bring up thenotion of filtering.

(01:20:16):
So filtering is when or afiltered graph is when I have my
private graph.
And I create a premium graph inmy account, and this will house,
this will house all of thepremium information.
I would like people to pay for,for example, the linked version
of the book or every singlepiece that I created.

(01:20:39):
Write a linked version of that.
Let's just say, but instead ofcopying over all the information
from graph one block to theother.
This graph will, will have thesole purpose of only filtering
or referencing or blockreferencing all of the relevant
blocks in my private graph.
So it's only a graph full ofblock references and nothing

(01:20:59):
more, and maybe pages fornavigating through, say a
narrative or navigating throughdifferent exploratory options.
It could be possible.
So that was pretty much all ofmy notes.
Right.
Like, I've been thinking aboutthis for so long.
Uh, I'm seeing notes from, uh,one of the writers of

(01:21:21):
everything, the everythingbundle who wrote about Roam
research's possibilities from,uh, redefining what a writer can
be, what a writer can do, whatan author can do do can they do
a paid membership subscriptionthing, uh, for their roam graph
and many more, more so with thatsaid, That is pretty much it,

(01:21:45):
like, if you are going to be aRome creator, if you're going to
use Rome to create somethingthat represents you, what would
it be and how would Rome beinvolved in it?
That is the closing question.
So, yeah.

(01:22:06):
Is there a, would anyone like toadd anything?

Prab Randhawa (01:22:12):
Hey guys, this is Prab can you, can you hear me?
okay.
Perfect.
Um, so I, I was trying toremember where I look up, I saw
this, uh, I started in between,I think Conor retweeted it, but
somebody was able to figure outthe content creator, getting
paid on code in github and Whatthey were essentially doing from

(01:22:32):
my understanding, and maybe notfully accurate, but what they
were doing is installing Gumroadon top of github repo, and then
the content creators themselvescan sort of do their license or
sell their code into the largernetwork.
And that may be a potentially aparallel in the near future.
Maybe a medium future where.

(01:22:53):
Yeah, a creator once the APIsand stuff are available, a
creator by Gumroad or a similartool and sort of license or sell
to the broader community graph.
That could be just one way Ithought I wanted to share, but
it could be, it could be veryinteresting.
Definitely.

Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, there's single a lot of,a lot of synchronicity between,
um, uh, Gumroad and Rome.
That's actually a very goodpoint.
Like if you could actually buildthe landing page and the
transactions, et cetera onGumroad.
And that is the layer on top ofthe service that you're giving,
which is for example, thelicensing of a tool or something
like that.
I think that.

(01:23:33):
Yeah.
I think that opens uppossibilities.
Like hopefully we can get thatout, like, and test it up to see
if it's possible.
At most we can do with a Gumroadis I think Shu Omi is doing this
where you pay for access to hisnotes, which is on a graph.
Like, you know, it's.
It's straightforward.
It's understandable.
Right.
But then how can Gumroad tape,how can gum road care for

(01:23:56):
licensing per usage of a tool?
And if they worked it out, Ithink there'll be a fantastic, I
think I would love to hearConor's take on that actually.
Like, can he implement that oris that just going to be an API
thing?
It might just be, it might justbe API thing.
Hmm.
Okay.
Right.

Brian Toh (01:24:16):
I mean, there's, there's the assumption that the
graph is not evergreen.
The graph is carved like fixedin a fixed state already.
It's just linked is, uh, it'swhat you call the second, uh,
secondary already.
It's linked.
It's linked already.
It's just, it is final andthere's no further updates.
Unless it is you kind of like,you make an entire new graph,

(01:24:39):
like this version, this graphversion one, this graph.

Yeah.

Brian Toh (01:24:43):
And then you, you, you charge for the next, the
next, uh, like you kick everyoneout and then everyone that pays
for, to get accessible to allyou just take version two.
And then, um, only these lawscan be seen by these particular
people.

Oh god limit access to blocks?
It is.
I'm sure it could work.
Like I I've had a fewdiscussions on Twitter on a pay
per block view, which is yeah.
Insane.
Um, yeah, but I think

Brian Toh (01:25:21):
The guys are also the ones that, I mean, to me one
block does not really make mucha difference.
What matters is the context ofthe block?
What matters are the links thatthe block goes to?
I don't care for the rightthing.
The one block in itself, as muchas I care for the Automic, like
a little bit, but no, I don'tcare.

(01:25:43):
I care for the context.
I care for the links, which iswhy I would, I would go into a
graph.
And if not, I'll just kind ofGoogle it.

See.
Yeah.
See, that's funny to me.
Right?
So that's why I think pay perblock is too, too, too atomic
that is worthless.
Like you would want to pay pereven page or just pay for the
whole graph because theassumption is that every single
block within that graph helpswith allowing this one block

(01:26:16):
that you're interested in a becomplete.
I that's that's the, like, Imean, I, I don't know, like it's
maybe pay per blocks a littlebit too much right now.
Cause we're not even, we are noteven at that stage yet.
Like this might be thinking alittle bit too far ahead.
It's just that on what Prab wassaying, uh, licensing via

(01:26:37):
Gumroad it can work.
I'm assuming that updates canalso, you know, update really
well.
If you need like extra, uh,Extra additions to whatever the
service or whatever the tool canbe.
They can add it to your graph.
And I think it'll be prettyeasy.
So, yeah,

Tracy Winchell (01:26:51):
that's right up.
Rob's alley because, uh, it'ssort of a gamification.
Do you earn points to get, tosee that missing piece of that
graph?
Or do you actually buy it?

Oh, like a pay to win thing.
Yeah.

Another tricky one is, uh, I don't know where I
saw this.
I think it was yesterday.
I was buying something ongumroad.
Yeah.
I think it was a Gumroadproduct.
To be honest, I think they weredoing a seminar or webinar or
something like that.
And the question had asked me iswhat do you think this is worth?
And I was like, Oh my God, what?
Um, that was a very cleverquestion to ask.

I mean, yeah, that's very Gumroad thing
though.
Right?
It's like, there's like the,there's like the base price and
then there's like the minimumprice.
Right.
Which is like the like$5 plus orsomething like that.
It's like, Oh, you can pay howmuch you want.
Right.
It's like, what do you think?

Is it, I think I thought it was creative.
I think something like thatcould also work because, uh,
from the content creatorperspective, it's often.
Um, where to price your productor service is, uh, especially
for new beginners is quite the,it's quite the challenge.
So what that does is sort ofpunted until you've tried to
figure out what people arecomfortable paying and maybe go

(01:28:10):
for that range.

Yeah.
It also serves as a very goodwide net as well, because I
mean, it's, there's like biasesagainst trying to price
ourselves.
Or trying to value ourselves andwe put ourselves as a price
that's a little bit too low.
And then sometimes we havecustomers or a certain subset of
the audience who thinks that weare worth more than the price
that we put on ourselves.
So I think it's, it's prettyinteresting.
I'm just wondering from a roamperspective, can you do that per

(01:28:36):
block?
I think no.
And I think it would just beeasier to just do that for
access and then that's it.
And then maybe have afluctuating price.
Like the, one of the things Iwas thinking of was if like, if
I just put myself as an example,cause I'm planning to do this
anyway.
I'm planning to create a premiumgraph of every potential book,

(01:28:59):
every potential fictional story,every potential article I've
ever, written, linked with eachother into one graph.
And it's a fluctuating price, orit's a price that increases over
time.
The more I put a completedproduct in, um, to balance
against that, like undervaluingof myself.
Like that's, that's one way oflooking at it and I was going to

(01:29:20):
test it, uh, later on, uh, overtime.
But it's, it's good to know thatmaybe Rome doesn't even have to
care about this part because youhave Gumroad tech or somebody
else is going to come in withlike a really good payment
system that works really well.
Like, are we going to pay withcredit?
Right.
If I put like a thousand dollarsinto block access dollars or

(01:29:42):
something like that, then I cantake bits of premium from other
people's graphs, et cetera.

I don't think this is in any way sustainable
for the author, you know, it'sjust like a lot of work.
Um, you know, like I, I honestlythink that something to the tune
of, you know, like the sort ofsystem I implement.
I implemented with roamhackerfor Rome privacy mode.

(01:30:09):
I think that could work prettywell with sharing a public graph
where you're essentially saying,like here's a list of the pages
that I don't want people to see.
Um, and it's just going to.
Make it, so they can't seeanything that's tagged with that
pager indented beneath it.
Like, it's the same thing asessentially like late, like

(01:30:30):
really just this idea of beingable to write a query, you know,
and say like the results of thisquery will not show up for pers
for a person.
Right.
You know, I think that's thegeneral idea, uh, that makes
this sort of easier.
Like I see a lot of people gethung up on things like a first
degree and second degreeconnections and all that.

(01:30:52):
Um, honestly, I think just thatindentation side of things,
numbers a lot, uh, it like,like, I mean, I don't know.
I think that.
A lot of users, a surprisingamount of users.
I'm working on a video on thisright now, but like a surprising
number of users just don'tunderstand.
But indentation literally is howyou convey connections in Rome

(01:31:14):
and like that you kind of justhave to do indentation, You
know, like they don't get that.
Right.
Um, but, but it's like, that'sjust how it works, you know?
So like I, so like I think asystem like that.
I would just sort of drivepeople to do a little bit better
within Rome.
I think that any public Romewriters should be doing
something like that.

Yeah.
So some level of standards, uh,in a public roam graph will be
fantastic.
I know what you mean.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, we are in the beginningstages of, from like very, very
early stages only just got outof the beta.
Like, um, and then the API beta,or I guess you could say the

(01:32:03):
beta API, has only just comeout.
So maybe there's a way to fixall these things or fix all of
these different mindsets.
Uh, uh, some people may justchoose not to index so much.
Maybe they choose to visualizeit in a little bit differently.
Maybe they choose to be verypage heavy.
Oh, I prefer block heavy.
I prefer indentation.
That's just how I work a lotmore and a lot of block refs.

(01:32:26):
I mean, we talked about this onTwitter, but like, um, the, as
much as the power of Rome liesindentation, which is probably
the most empirical way ofshowcasing, Hey, this block is
related.
It doesn't seem that way atfirst glance, like to.
Like at the surface level, itjust looks like.

(01:32:48):
A bullet point in a bulletpoint, but in robe and
indentation meets so much, andthen you just have to worry
about teaching them.
So, yeah, I'm excited for thatvideo actually.
So yeah.
Now, um, we, we are finishingup, but if you want to, you all
want to chat perfectly.
Uh, I'm perfectly up for it, butI just wanted to close off with

(01:33:10):
a little announcement for RoamFMitself.
Um, uh, I, I will test out.
Uh, one of the Rome creatorbusiness models by making the
RoamFM graph premium.
And what I'll be doing is I'llbe doing the show notes and the
transcript, uh, up for free onpublic, on my own website.

(01:33:33):
But if you want to see thelinked version, it will be in
the RoamFM graph.
So people can still get accessto the information, but I'll
just have it in the RoamFM I'mgraph.
Um, if you're in this call, Hey,you, you, you get access for
free.
So don't, don't worry about it.
Uh, I, I want us to be like the,I want to be the Guinea pig for

(01:33:58):
a paid graph over time.
So the current, the currentthought process is as Conor,
we'll put it into variable.
Cause even he read, he write,come into this as well.
It's a$5, one time price to getaccess to the graph.
So I'll be running that forquite a while.
And then later on, I might justdo like just$1 a month

(01:34:19):
subscription for anyone elseoutside of this call later on.
And for previous guests on theshow, it will be free access.
So, I mean, we have already acouple of people who have
already guessed it on the showhere.
Uh, so you don't have to worryabout it.
Um, but for guests who have beenon the show, it will be free.

(01:34:41):
So.
I have all your emails.
So later on, I'll give youinstructions or I'll let you
know, right?
Like, Hey, you now have accessto the graphs.
It is now closed, but you haveaccess as a viewer.
Um, and the reason why isbecause I want to Oh, okay.
Yeah.
See you Rob.
Yeah.
Um, and the reason why isbecause I want to make this

(01:35:05):
sustainable, uh, Roam FM isbecoming a lot bigger than just
a podcast.
Uh, It's more like a beacon ofattraction for weird Romans too.
Oh, he's doing the, I saw thatBrian's doing a hand version of

(01:35:29):
my logo.
Um, so RoamFM is becoming a lotbigger than just the podcast.
It's becoming this account thatpeople follow for just welcoming
people into the community.
And I want to sustain that.
Which is why I want to put a paywall behind the biggest time
time-suck of the entirety ofRoamFM, which is the maintenance

(01:35:49):
of the graph.
So with the payments, what I'mdoing is I will, I will use that
to sustain more talks like this.
So you guys are, you guys areall in, so you guys can come in
for free.
Of course, and

Dude I'll pay.
Nice to have access to mine justto proof it, but if I need to
know something from anotherguest, why shouldn't I pay for
that too?

You can make us the payment Guinea pigs.

I'm proud of you.
And I think this is a greatidea.
Just make sure that youunderstand that, that when I
buy, when I buy somebody else'sinterview, um, that's valuable
to me.
So make sure you give yourfriends the option to support

(01:36:49):
you.

Okay.
Sure.

R.J. Nestor (01:36:52):
Yes.
Agreed a hundred percent.

Alright, well, I will.
Okay.
So what I'll do is I'll, I will,uh, it's it's going to be on
Gumroad.
So Prab thanks for the amazingcoincidence and bring up
Gumroad.
Um, but I will, I will do a.
Um, I'll add a coupon for get afor those who attended the call

(01:37:15):
to cap it for free, but up toyou even want to do a lot more.
Um, this just that in thebeginning, it will be like a one
time price later on will besubscribed.
Cause I've been talking withthem another upcoming guest who
is another fellow podcaster, uh,Alban from Buzzsprout, uh, that
we might do like a subscriptionto like.

(01:37:36):
Different tiers for just access.
And then another one is a littlebit higher for events like
these.
Um, I will play the role oflibrarian, scribe and deep
thinker through maintenance ofthis RoamFM graph.
So being able to.

(01:37:57):
Sustain, like have food on thetable to allow me to do this
would be fantastic.
So that's, that's my bigannouncement.
So I'm just letting you guysknow beforehand.
So there'll be new pages withinthe graph.
So one is like one is calledRome Interesting.
And another one is called futureof Rome.
So Rome interesting.
It's just interestingconnections that I find just by
running around the graph andseeing what happens and Future

(01:38:20):
of Rome is more on specificelements of the transcripts of
episodes that I feel would bevery important.
If you want to think about whatis happening in the future of
Rome research, or maybe it'sjust tweets that I'm noticing
from here and there.
So think of it as like a curatedfeed of anything Roam related

(01:38:40):
and you guys have access to it.
So.
Yeah.
And, um, you guys, honestly,thank you so much for being
here.
Uh, I don't want to take toomuch of your time.
So the talk is officially over.
Uh, if you want to message mewhatever, you can always tweet
at me or just DM me.
Uh, I like either on my personalTwitter, a Twitter account or my

(01:39:01):
RoamFM account.
So this will be, uh, fantastic.
And yeah.
Thank you.

So if anybody's interested in doing, um, a
course, um, I, um, happy toshare what I'm learning in that
space.
So I'm happy to just visit withyou about, about that.
Promised that for sure early on.

(01:39:29):
Um, if I can just share, um,even data.
About, um, how I put thingstogether, uh, to sort of pave
the way I'm happy.
I'm happy to have thatconversation with you and tell
you that you know, what thenumbers are, what we're, what
hasn't worked yet, uh, where I'mheaded.

(01:39:50):
So, uh, I just want us to wantus to be able to support
ourselves in this community, andI'm really proud of you Norman.
Thanks for putting thistogether.

Thank you now.
Uh, the floor is open.
So if anyone wants to bring upanything perfectly fine, I'll I
will stay here until the lastmember is standing.
Uh, otherwise Tracy, we canprobably like, think about that
as like a talk or another RoamFM hangout, and then bring an
audience in to talk about likefindings behind trying to set up

(01:40:24):
a Rome, Rome of course.
Um, cause I'm sure a biggeraudience will be interested in
like, a large use case orexample, if you're willing to
share the numbers.

Sure, happy to do that.
It seems a bit meta, to do this,I'm sure I've been toying with
the idea to create a Roam graphto create a Roam course.

You could do that.
Collaboratively actually is areally good idea.

R.J. Nestor (01:41:02):
I know.
I was just, when I was doing thetask management course, I was
just literally just making itall up as I went.
I mean, I think it turned outokay.
But it was, I didn't know what Iwas doing.
I've never been worked onteachable.
Well, thanks.
I appreciate it.
I mean, I've taught stuffbefore, um, I appreciate it.
I knew how to structure itstuff, but I'd never done it

(01:41:23):
that way before.
And I certainly didn't, youknow, so, no, I think that would
be a really valuable resource.

Yeah.
Yeah.
Maybe even a separate group orsomething too, because for me,
the hardest part was, uh,between my ears, like, and, and
I've got 30 something years ofexperience in video editing and
that was stressful for me.

(01:41:52):
Um, but yeah, I actually had acoach in terms of content
creation who helped me puttogether the marketing pieces,
but the actual creation of thecourse, it's the hardest thing
I've ever done.
And I've, I've, I've done somereally cool high stress, high
profile, a winner take alleverybody's watching stuff.

(01:42:16):
And it's the hardest thing I'vedone easily.

Yeah.
I, I don't know.
I, I've not, I've never been inlike, I've thought about making
courses before about to make itsurrounding her Roam to me is
I'm completely like blind aboutit.
I have no clue what to evenconsider.
At first I would think that it'sthe same principles.
That's just starting any onlinecourse or creating the materials

(01:42:41):
for an online course, exceptthat.
I would think of the Roam assecondary.
So I just use it as the backend.
I wouldn't show their Roam graphto the user, but then if you
want to make it primary, thenit's like hybrid, right?
It's like the product course andthe primary, which is the graph

(01:43:02):
that people get access to.
Oh wow.
Even managing that sounds like aload.

You.
In my experience, you can eitherbuild a journal and a graph
about building a course, or youcan build the dang course.
I tried to do both and it justwasn't possible to take my

(01:43:32):
interstitial frustrations andput them in a form that I've
felt comfortable sharing.
You know, cause I thought aboutit and I thought, yeah, you
crazy girl, you used to get abuild is stupid.
so I don't know.

R.J. Nestor (01:43:55):
Sorry.
It's so easy to head down those,uh, those pathways.
Cause there, especially withRome, there's like.
Oh, a trillion differentpotential applications of the
thing.
And so every, every littlejourney is a potential new
aspect of the course.
And, you know, just the mere actof figuring out what to which, I

(01:44:15):
mean it's central to any kind ofteaching and instruction, but
it's still a, you know, Romeitself has a lot of that going
on.
And I think that that's, as I'mdoing the course, that's coming
up, that I'm working on the,your road to Rome.
That's a.
I'm I'm, I'm doing it because Ilove doing that kind of stuff.
But figuring out when I'm tryingto help people recognize what
their own journey through thething is, it's hard because you

(01:44:38):
don't, you've got to cover a lotof stuff, but you also got to
not cover a lot more stuff andfiguring out what you're
covering and what you're notcovering is is, is a real
challenge.

Oh, it's even more insidious to me because
those rabbit trails become anexcuse for.
Doing something else instead ofalone.
It's total Steven Pressfieldresistance.

Oh, and now it's like bi-directional resistance,
which is insane.

Yeah.
So to me, there almost needs tobe more than just teaching in
tutorial.
There needs to be a supportgroup for us, you know, first,
second, and third time, aproduct creators, even inside
this very narrow niche of Rome.

Yeah.
I'm seeing, I'm seeing the, theteaching model of building a
second brain or Rite of passage.
I think Brian, you can probablychime in on this, uh, the way
they do their cohorts isdefinitely 10 out of 10.
It's closed off groups within anumber of weeks.

(01:45:51):
You have the course and then youhave the, the.
The intimate instructions fromthe instructor themselves.
Maybe it's like closed sessionswhere they're talking to each
other and the support group isfellow students.
Um, yes.

That's, that's probably going to be my, my
premium journaling product.
That's the, that's going to bethe up, sell from, Uh, the Roman
journal, self pay scores.

Absolutely.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, I think, yeah, I thinkthat's probably the best bet.
Um, so like in my head, if hypergraphic features come out, if
you have a graph for yourcourse, that premium section,
that premium version people canblock ref their interstitial

(01:46:45):
journaling.
As examples, they block graphthem into that graph as
examples.
So previous cohorts can showcasehow they have journaled to
success or how they havestarted, or start the habit of
journaling.
You ask them like, Hey, can youblock ref the first day that you
started journaling?
Because my students are havingtrouble trying to start with

(01:47:05):
like, what's the best way to dothat.
And if they could share a blockthat they don't mind sharing,
you know, it's like a little bitof vulnerability, but enough to
get things going.
Then you can show that as a casestudy of this is how people
start journaling.
You don't have to be flawless atjournaling from day one.
Don't worry.
Right?
The most successful as journalpeople more successful are

(01:47:27):
writers who start journalling.
They start with crap on theirfirst block, right?
They start like barely anythinglike a mess up of words.
Like if I like, if I couldpotentially block ref the very
first diary entry.
From like 10 years ago, 15 yearsago into your graph, it might

(01:47:49):
help somebody because I mean, tobe fair, I was a very different
person from like 10 years ago.
So even, I don't want to read myown notes, but, um, but it's,
it's not even about the contentitself.
It's about the proof of actionand the proof of action from
someone relatable.

(01:48:11):
Which is very, very important.
Uh, and yeah, and the use caseof journaling that vulnerability
helps with being relatable.
So I think, uh, I, I think likeonce you go, once we go
hypergraphic, like you can go somany different options.
Like I am just waiting, I can'twait to go hyper graphic.
Like I wanna, I want to refother people's blocks so hard.

(01:48:33):
Okay.
So the thing is, okay, so here'ssomething right.
And, and.
I mean, I've been recording thisentire time and we'll probably,
I'm going to post this somewhereon YouTube of whatever.
It's okay.
I'll just have this out here.
Um, I act very differently asRoamFM Twitter and as someone
who is doing like an episodewith someone and, uh, Tracy, you

(01:48:57):
can probably relate or chime in,um, I'm a lot more calmer when
I'm just talking, say with justyou one on one, and we're
getting very introspective oncertain things.
We're getting deeper on seriousissues, et cetera.
When we're in a group settingand I'm talking about Rome, like
my voice goes like, okay, crazy.

(01:49:19):
It's insane.
And that reflects a lot in myTwitter account.
Like I make a lot of randomjokes.
I banter with people.
Even if I have moments where Ido a long tweet threads stuff,
like things that are veryexciting to me, roam related
half of the time, I feel likeI'm just messing around.
And for some reason that'sattracted people.

(01:49:41):
Yeah.
But, um, I mean, I'm sure that'svaluable in some way, because,
uh, there, there is a certainthat there is a certain, uh,
There's a certain image orimpression of Roman cult, uh, in

(01:50:01):
that the barrier to becomingpart of it can be scary to some
people who are starting uprooting for the first time.
Yeah.
It can be definitely like I canattest to that.
Um Hmm.
Well, to be fair, I think I wasthere before someone actually
coined it, which is weird.

(01:50:22):
Yeah.
Anyway, so.
Even just seeing the hashtageverywhere.
Right?
It's like, you're meant to, itsounds like it, it's almost like
a mandate.
Like it is mandatory for you totweet anything about Rome
research by hashtagging roamcult.
And I made a joke tweet, likemaybe last month or something
like if this tweet, if a tweetis talking about roam without

(01:50:45):
tagging roam research orhashtagging roam cult, is it a
tweet about roam research?
And I set that as a, like ajoke.
I just I'm just, you know, Ijest.
But I remember thinking tomyself after I wrote that tweet
because obviously I thought itwas funny.
Isn't it true?
Right.
Like in my head I was like, Ohyeah, it could be.
Yeah.
So I think

that's true because it's funny because it's
true.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I got to hop off.
I wish I could sit here all daylong and visit with you guys.
Thank you so much for puttingthis together.
It's so good to see y'all someof my face.

No worries.
Thank you, Tracy.

Brian Toh (01:51:24):
Yeah, that's actually a couple minutes, like two
framework per se.
I kind of want to be able to tryand work on the, I kind of want
to hear your opinions on ifthat's okay.

Sure.
Yeah.

Brian Toh (01:51:36):
I think first things first, like as a creator, like
your creator is not just withinyour content, your create is not
just within the text.
I think that the linksthemselves are the monetizer.
I like what you're monetizing.
You're not monetizing thecontent itself because like all
my things would be writing andlike essentially, essentially

(01:51:57):
all database of knowledge is thesum of what you think about
something and like, just, and,and what, and your references.
And it's interesting that youmention the work of a librarian
because why can't I sell agraph?
Because I'm not selling content.
The content is is belongs tosomeone else.

(01:52:17):
I'm not selling the content.
I'm not giving them the entirebook, but I'm selling them the
connections the book is beingbased on.
So essentially if I say I've gotergodicity, right.
And I'm thinking of ergodicityI'm explaining, where did this
come from?
Who is this person?
Who is this person at firstsaid, this what inspired him?
And I'm changing all thesethings organically.

(01:52:38):
In an ever-growing kind offormat.
Wouldn't that be um, kind ofwouldn't that be a modern,
digestible uh, thing in itself?
I'm not monetizing theergodicity, the book, I'm
monetizing my notes on the bookand that's the concept with our
digital garden, but inadditional, because the digital

(01:53:02):
garden is one that kind ofcaptures thinking in your own
words.
Right.
Like a Andy also kind of putevergreen notes are atomic and
they are in your own words.
That's, that's how he phrasedit.
Yeah.
You're not monetizing content.
You're monetizing being able tolink the references.
You're monetizing having apersonal, not just a personal

(01:53:23):
Wiki, but your own personal, andthat is your, So that's
something I was thinking aboutalong this costs.
Like the links themselves aresomething that as, a product.
Yeah.
And, um, so sometimes what theydo have you guys watch it,
midnight gospel on Netflix islike this kind of podcasting

(01:53:47):
show.
It's like a cartoon and it goesvery deep.
And I think it would be veryinteresting to count just like
have say, like.
Uh, do you guys know a Netflixparty?
It's just this extension thatallows you to sync with your
thing, that kind of things.
Imagine, imagine watching a filmand then with some phone

(01:54:08):
extension or just having thegraph next to it.
Because right now, Roam is avery text-based thing, but what
if we go in opposite directionof like, instead of trying to
transcribe a book, but we aretrans, we are taking from visual
audio to text.
We are using as the movie plays,we are going towards, uh, like

(01:54:29):
the notes are, are showing up alot.
Okay.
Right.
Okay.
In the sidebar.
And then you're, and then theguy sees something, he gets,
this guy sees something.
It's just like, they're like,mm.
They just pause.
And then you, then you go, yougo for your exploration.
That kind of thing.
I think, I, I think that it willbe something that is very cool.

(01:54:51):
And it's something that I wouldlike to experiment, um, in the
future I, in the future.
Yeah.
And especially for dancemovement, because if I'm able to
do, if I'm able to break downdance movement into like
choreography and then to segmentthe blocks and I'm able to
search the blocks individualblocks and thread them together

(01:55:13):
and be able to interpret and,um, dissect my own movement,
there'll be.
That would be crazy for me.
And the second thing was insteadof thinking of like a book as
kind of, so there's like onemonetization framework of that I
was thinking about just having,and you can probably do that for

(01:55:35):
your, for your podcast itself.
Actually, I think the originalthought link reference was, um,
was Roam FM's graph with like, Iwas listening to the podcast
while looking at yourtranscript.
I think the first few episodes Iwas looking at a transcript and,
uh, And then I think at thepoint of time, you set it as

(01:55:56):
read only.
So I kind of copy and paste intomy own graph.
And then I was able to tag, Iwas able to just like, I was
able to just double,parentheses, and like double
records.
And I was able to just see like,Oh, you're talking to, I can't
remember who I think time.
Yeah, and you're talking to, andI was able to such like, see

(01:56:16):
every single instance of whatshe has said as I am listening
to the thing.
It just creates a new visualexperience for listening to a
podcast or listening tosomething and thinking about
that.
Um, second thing is like, I'mworking on an ebook.
It's like, it's called so busy,just like little, little bits of
like my own soul.
And I'm thinking I am going tostart working on the organically

(01:56:39):
from.
A graph in itself.
And like what I mentioned in thechat where it's kind of where
the daily notes are going to besort, like my change log.
And again, usually from the roamchange log in itself.
um, where.
I'm working on the book and as Iam working on a book itself.

(01:56:59):
The network itself goesorganically.
It goes in this direction andankles, little bit by little
bit, little bit.
And then the changes are beingshown.
I think, I think that would besomething worth monetizing
itself because there's contentthat, and my own research would
go into that.
Yeah.
That my own research and my ownnotes will go into that.
I think that's something worthmonetizing stuff because it's,

(01:57:21):
instead of building it backwardsfrom a book, you are building it
ground up to a book.
And that's the first buildingblock and people can see the
context and people can see that.
So I thought that was that'ssomething I intend to do.
And I'm going to try and Guineapig that as well.

So a couple of things, there are number of
points, but in the verybeginning, I do agree to a
certain extent what we'reselling is not knowledge.
What we're selling is thearticulation of said knowledge.
So if like, we'll just take avery good example.
Okay.
So let's say I, it Brian, you,you, you.
Like pick a topic that youreally like to write about.

(01:57:58):
Let's just say dance let's saydance.
Okay.
Let's say dance and Oh, okay.
R.J.
see ya.

R.J. Nestor (01:58:08):
Take care.

Well, we'll head off in a bit.
We'll head off in a bit, but,but I, I do want to close off.
I'll probably wanna close offinto points.
Okay.
So.
Because I'm sure everybody elsewho is watching this up until
now will want to hear.
Okay.
So the first one is, uh, we areselling the articulation and the
connection of all of the, uh,Knowledge and insights that we

(01:58:40):
gained as a result of ourjourney through the same
knowledge.
Right?
It's like, so as much as someonewould pay to access this graph
knowledge, it's not, they'repaying to access this graph of
true tacit knowledge.
It's more like they are payingto access our version of that
knowledge.
Like the conclusions that wecame to.
Right.
So I do agree.

(01:59:00):
And the example I was going tobring up was like, okay, Brian,
let's say you write a book aboutthat dance.
Right?
And let's say Nassim, Talebwrites a book about dance.
Okay.
How, who would sell more bookson dance?
I mean,

Brian Toh (01:59:18):
of course he would, but that is in a sense just then
that also boils down to themarketing and no longer put up
because of how you market yourown personal journey, I guess.

But then we know Taleb.
I assume talent.
By the way that he articulatesany topics.
Right?
So the way that you would writeabout dance would be maybe with
more visual aid, maybe with moreanecdotes, with more stories
because you actually dance,right?
Tyler May be not a dancer,right?
He's a dead lifter, right.
He talks a lot of stuff onTwitter, which is fantastic, but

(01:59:55):
he will be extremely technical.
He'd be looking at academicpapers.
He articulated, he wouldarticulate the topic way
differently than you would, andthat would attract a different
set of audiences, so that canjustify putting a price on it
because people want to know whatTaleb would think about this
topic, right?
Yep.
Okay.
So the second one was, I think,I think I missed one, but, but
on the, on the concept of tryingto sell or put a price on a

(02:00:21):
graph growing from from theGenesis block all the way to its
completion.
I have a feeling you can dothat.
And then closest model will becrowdfunding.
So imagine that you have alanding page for saying, Hey,
I'm going to write a book aboutthe following.
Okay.
You have to write downeverything down to detail.
I'm not talking about like theactual blocks.
I'm talking about a timeline,like people like you're asking

(02:00:43):
people to commit, to pay money,to be with you all the way until
the end.
Right.
They need to know what they'repaying for.
So it's like if, say you.
Let's say it's like 200 pages,20 stories.
Let's say, I don't knowsomething like that.
Right.
You want to know like what'shappening every week?
What are you doing?
Week three.
What are you doing in month one?

(02:01:04):
What are you doing?
Month two.
It's a bit like investingtowards this result, this
intended output.
And the reason why is because ifI'm paying for an empty graph on
day one, I want to know why I'mthere in the first place.
Like I want like I'm I paid tosee the first block on day one

(02:01:25):
of your page, right?
Like, are you going to do a livestream?
Can I talk to you when you'rewriting these blocks?
Um, you're doing a change log,right.
So I can keep up with it.
So that's perfectly fine.
What can I expect?
What am I paying for?
Right.
Like, I want to commit.
Through my money.
I want to commit through theexperience of this graph growing

(02:01:47):
over time.
So I want to be there with youwhen you had a bad day in
writing.
I want there to be with you whenyou are researching this
following story or thisfollowing topic.
I want to be there with you whenyou have like a live chat with
your fans and followers on thesecond week of the second month.

(02:02:08):
To get an update, like what'shappening.
If you're making any changes, Iwant to know.
Right.
So it's a bit like crowdfunding,right?
It would be cool.
Like you're crowdfunding newgraphs.
I think that'd be prettyawesome.

Brian Toh (02:02:17):
So why can't that just be a finished product?
The way that I kind ofenvisioned it was like the, now
that you mention crowdfunding.
I think it is, but it's like atthe same time, I just kind of
feel like, man, I'm just alittle shit.
Just, I just, I, I'm not goingto sell it for, I'm just going
to sell it for like five,$10.

So that's the thing.
That's the finished product,right?
The finished part is thejourney.

Brian Toh (02:02:41):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Then I'm telling kind ofcapsulate the journey.

Yep.
But, but here's the thing you'reasking people to pay from day
one, right?
If you're halfway through thejourney, you're three months in
and you want other people topay, do they, how do I justify
paying the second half for thesame amount?

Brian Toh (02:03:04):
I don't really understand.
What, what do you mean

So, like we said, like where we are selling that
journey, right.
The encapsulated journey.
right.
Let's just say six months.
Right?
Okay.
You, you market to people andyou're like, okay, I I'm, I'm
running this book.
I'm ready to get in public.
In this graph, You pay, you getaccess to it.
You simple$5, something likethat.
Right.
Pretty simple.

(02:03:29):
Three months in lots and lotsof.
Setups delays, maybe live chats,life events talks to everything.
That's three months ofexperience that has already
passed.
Now you can't access it anymoreif I just found your book for
the first time I want to pay.
Yeah.
Right.
So

Brian Toh (02:03:49):
just the book, the graph itself is also kind of a
finished product.

Okay.
So then now we're talking about,is it ends there?
It's just like, okay.
So now I only paying for access.
Yup.
Okay.
Okay.
So then, so then it's lessabout, so now it's less about
crowdfunding now it's moreabout, Hey, do you want access
to this graph?
This is what I will do.
Right.
And that's it.

(02:04:14):
Yep.
Yeah.
I think it will work.

Brian Toh (02:04:16):
I think this was kind of the rough idea, but I like
all the other, all my inputs.
I am constantly block,referencing my own journals.
And like, kind of the purpose ofthis is like I'm writing about,
um, chapters of just puts alland then goes and does in
different styles, metaphoricalnarratives, um, just even live

(02:04:39):
conversations that I have.
Yeah.
And just writing, writing allthis different stuff.
And it's really like, I don'ttend to really make big bucks if
this is just kind of somethingthat I really wanted to do for
myself and my own soul, My ownsoul.
I just thought it would be cool.
And that like, do they just havelike, got me thinking on and off

(02:05:00):
a lot, like, Hmm.
I think, I think that'd be cooltoo.

Yeah.
It's, it's a possibility, right?
It's an option, right?
It's an option.
And it's only really likeputting a price on it.
It's it depends on yourwillingness and your
vulnerability in doing so, andmaybe someone it might help
somebody else to see yourjourney and growing that craft.
Like, it'll be like, seeing,like, it'll be like, it'll be

(02:05:25):
like you getting the seeds for aflower and someone paying to see
you nurture it.
Yup.
Right.

Brian Toh (02:05:35):
I'm looking at a bit like streaming, like where I'm
just kind of doing things, but.
Is being recorded and likepeople are watching me do things
like watching them for somethingthat wasn't even like
retrospective.
I actually do have one questionfor you.
Like, do you dive into otherRoam graphs and like what makes
you want to dive in to theirroam graph?

Um, I, I was about to start reaching out to
people to see if they would wantme to like individual private
graphs, if they would want me tolook into their private graphs,
um, And I think you were one ofthe people who actually asked,
uh, but then there's one otherperson as well.
So I was actually going to reachout about that.
Uh, but that's for another time.

(02:06:17):
Um, so, so for, for the, for theperson watching this video, um,
yes, this is recorded.
Okay.
So, so probably Brian doing all,all in, right.
We're going all in.
I did, I did mention in theinformation for this event
recording.
Okay, perfect.
Okay.
So anyway, um, yeah.
That I made a joke tweet.

(02:06:39):
I made a tweet out and said, dopeople want me to look into
their graphs to bring up anyprompts, bring up any questions,
bring up any blocks of interest,anything like that?
So a couple of people, um, uh,brought up, uh, interest in such
and, uh, I haven't actuallyformally done it.

(02:07:03):
The most I've done is withpublic graphs, but those are
already all, shall we say,public shared databases.
It's just, you know, it's just,uh, a deposit of knowledge.
I can't really play around withthat, that much.
Right.
It's just something like, Oh,that's cool.
You know, like a, like a publicbook, like

Brian Toh (02:07:20):
Brendan's one.
And you just kind of go in andjust

like, Oh, that's cool.
Yeah.
It's like, Oh you, yeah, thisis, this is more about, this is
something more intimate andsomething maybe even private and
confidential.
So like, I have to be verycareful about it.
So, but I'll at least talk, I'llat least talk to you through
what I think I might do.
So say that, uh, let's say thatI'm, I'm doing this to your

(02:07:45):
graph, right?
Let's say that you invite me asan author or a viewer to your
graph.
And I'm like, okay.
Uh, I would probably ask you,what do you expect from me as
I'm talking out loud while goingthrough your graph.
And then in response to thatanswer, I will start picking up
blocks of interest.

(02:08:05):
So it'll be like, Oh, why isthis block nested under this
block?
What does this mean?
Oh, this is about a story.
Oh, there's a block ref here.
What does that mean?
Oh, why do you, why did youembed this block under this,
underneath this block?
Right.
And.
These are important because one,it gives me it, sorry, this is
important because it gives metwo points of interest.

(02:08:27):
One is the content that iswithin each block.
And to how you view Romefeatures.
Your rationale for blockreferences may be different from
how I view Roam blockreferences.
And maybe you don't even useembeds.
Maybe you don't even use pages.
I don't know.
Right.
I mean, you just right.

(02:08:49):
See, like, see your pages atall.
Like, I'm going to ask you why.
Right.
I'm going to ask you why not?
I'm going to ask you like, Oh,this person's name keeps coming
up.
Why?
Right.
Like I see, I see the word sador I see the word crying a lot.
Right?
Like the last seven days I seethe word depressed a lot.
What does that mean?

(02:09:09):
Tell me, right.
Okay.
So.
I'm going to play the role ofthe questioner inside your head,
and I'll ask you why.
And from there it will be aconversation where we, the, both
of us play the third partyobserver of your private room
graph.
So I will force you to confrontyour thoughts.

Brian Toh (02:09:32):
Yeah.
That's also fun.
I love it.

So, so that's what I think would happen.
Okay.
And then the service then wouldjust be like just the
conversation and.
And a transcript and a backup ofthe talk, right?
So I'll just give you all thefiles.
There'll be up to you, what youwant to do with it, like the
transcript and everything.
And then you can do whatever youwant with that.
And I'll just leave it at thatbecause all I'm looking for in
that moment is the engagementbehind, like, I'm not gonna copy

(02:09:59):
stuff from their blocks.
Cause I think that's toopersonal.
Is that too much against myprinciple, but, but there's gold
in the conversation between youand me.
If I look into your graph and Ifind things that I resonate
with, and then I'll write itinto my own graph thinking, Oh,
I was just looking at Brian'sgraph today.
He talked about the following.

(02:10:19):
What do I feel about it?
Why do I disagree with him?
Why do I agree with him?
What is this reminds me of, if Iwould have faced this same
situation in my private graph,how would I address it?
Right?
Yeah.
If I had a, a lot of chaos dueto the following feelings or do
the following fields, how wouldI address it?

(02:10:40):
Who should I talk to, to helpaddress this?
Right.
Like if I, if, if, for example,we're talking about Alexander
technique and you brought it upa lot in your graph, and then we
leave the conversation.
I might just bring up MichaelAshcroft right.
I might just bring up somebodyelse.
I might just bring up withsomebody else.
The conversation where me andyou talking about your graph and

(02:11:03):
this is the secret behindRoamFM.
Yeah, the conversationsconversations can be linked.
Yeah.
You can do it by directional,linking in conversations.
That is the secret behind thispodcast.
And that is the secret behindhow I use Roam Research.
Like there's a reason why I playaround a lot on Twitter.
Like everyone's conversations,everything is a conversations.

(02:11:26):
If everything is a conversation,then everything can be linked.
And that is a secret.
So like, you know, that's mythought process.
Yeah.
No worries.
Yeah.
And we'll probably end this off.
So, uh, yeah.
We'll see, Brian, thanks somuch.

(02:11:49):
Ah, yeah, it, it, it is quitefar.

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