Connected and Confident: Karen Wickre’s Networking Guide for Independent Professionals

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Nigel Rawlins (00:00):
Welcome to another episode of Wisepreneurs

(00:03):
where I explore the journeys andinsights of remarkable
professionals shaping theirfields.
My guest, Karen Wickre returnsto the podcast after 50
episodes.
She's a well-respectedcommunicator, freelance editor
and networking expert with awealth of experience in the tech
industry as a journalist, andshe ended up working for major

(00:23):
organizations like Twitter andGoogle in their early years.
She joins us to share her uniqueperspective and wisdom on
cultivating, meaningfulconnections, excelling in
freelance work and pursuingpersonal and professional
growth.
Karen discusses the importanceof authentic networking, the
unique opportunities andchallenges of freelancing, and

(00:45):
practical suggestions formaintaining your confidence and
professionalism in a changingdigital landscape.
Welcome, Karen, to the 57thepisode of the Wisepreneurs
podcast, you were guest numberseven.

Karen Wickre (01:00):
Wow.

Karen can you tell us where you're from and
something about yourself?

Yes Nigel, I'm glad to be here again.
I'm Karen Wickre.
I'm in San Francisco, which istoday unusually hot for the
city.
We're often blessed with marineair and fog.
And so it tends to not be everas, as hot here as it does
California, but sure enough,climate change also comes to us.

(01:29):
And so we're having a hot spell,but anyway, it's a lovely day
here.
I've lived in San Francisco thisyear, it'll be 40 years and 39
of those years I've worked inthe tech industry.
And so I'm feeling These days,especially as things plunge
ahead into a new world of AI,which I know we'll talk about, I

(01:52):
feel like I'm watching a largepanorama, a kind of long horizon
of landscape of so many changesthat have happened in really not
even 40 years, I'd say 30 years,perhaps.
But anyway I'm feeling like I'veseen it all.
And I have seen a lot.

Fantastic.
I love San Francisco.
I've managed to visit theretwice.
Has it changed much in the 40years?
Would you say?

Oh, yes, quite a bit because when I moved here,
it was a well known touristdestination for sure, but it was
a labor town.
It was a working town in manyways.
Very strong unions and a lot ofport activity, for example and
that sort of thing.
And the big companies here thenwere banks.

(02:39):
Financial firms some lumber,even strangely enough lumber,
especially from up north of hereand kind of food importers, that
sort of thing very few of thoseare headquartered here anymore.
Now there are still, Chevron isstill our big gas company that's
here.
We have still a quite largeutility here, but in terms of

(03:00):
the economy, it is much moredriven by tech than it used to
be including a lot of techcompanies in the city, but
certainly in the region.
So yes, it has changed a lot inthat time.

What I've noticed is I've heard things about
Google having lots of employeesthere, and obviously a lot of
the tech companies that's drivenup rents and, that's changed the
nature of things.
How's that affecting do youthink?

It's not so recent.
I would say the big techcompanies were big 10 years ago,
15 years ago was when they gotbig.
Apple, much, much older, as muchlonger arc.
But I think that secondgeneration that included Google,
Facebook in particular had manythousands of employees.

(03:49):
Not all of them worked byheadquarters, and if they were
younger, they tended, if theywere based here, they tended to
want to be in the city.
So it is true that the demandfor housing at San Francisco has
not had enough housing for manyyears did drive up rents for
sure.

(04:09):
As, as often happens in an areathat's in demand.
I'm not defending the lack ofhousing by any means.
It's ridiculous that no onethought about this earlier.
But that's one reason amongmany, San Francisco has been a
destination for many people fromdifferent fields for a long time
but definitely having anemployee base that wants to be

(04:32):
in the city and a shortage of,rentable apartments and places
where there's no rent control.
So the landlords try to get whatthey can get.

Problem in Australia, There's just not
enough rental properties andpeople are getting a little bit
angry about bringing in migrantswhen, there's not enough
properties for Australians.
And,

Yes.

I was hearing one very famous American news
commentator who's gone out fromFox and he was saying you should
look after your own countrypeople first, make sure they're
well off so they can havechildren.
And be happy so they can havechildren.
You don't have to bring in allthese other people because it's
really, in Australia it's prettytough now to find anywhere.

(05:14):
And rents have gone up toridiculous amounts.
My wife and I are very lucky.
We own our own property.
And we're both retired, youcould say, even though

Semi, semi retired,

retired.
Yeah.
And I will talk to you aboutthat as well.
Since COVID we've seen a lotmore remote work.
So we were just talking aboutrentals being very expensive.
Obviously with technology today,you can work hybrid or work
remote.
And in terms of networking, areyou seeing how that's working

(05:45):
out in the tech world?

Yes, I think if there was any positive that came
out of COVID, and I realizethat's an odd thing to even
think about zoom came along,obviously, but other platforms,
too.
So we're now much more used tothe idea of video conversations.
And it, maybe in a way, it'seasier now because it's not

(06:06):
required in every instance ofwork the way it was for quite a
long time.
What's wonderful about that isthat we see that it's easier to
connect with people thanregardless of time zone, and I
know we're managing to do thathere today and tomorrow in our
two time zones, but the ideathat you can have a personal

(06:30):
conversation, a privateconversation a confidential with
somebody over video or even justaudio or dare I say phone it is
much more a familiar concept nowthan the idea that we have to be
in person to have a connection.
I think the quality is so good.
The technology is so good thatwe We can, I'm not saying it

(06:53):
should be 100 percent virtualbut it's much easier to connect
with people.
And the reason for not is notabout we can't get together in
person.
So that actually, I think hasbeen a big help.

I find it amazing.
I have podcast guests from manydifferent countries.
And we had a glitch with mycalendar which I've now fixed
now and it works, which isreally good.
And that.
works out the time zones for usbecause I have no idea about 20
different time zones

None of us do.

America's got several and even Canada's got
three or four.
I struggle with that, but now,we've got the technology that
will do that.
So in terms of I'll be honest,I've been running a marketing
services company for 20 years.
I rarely see any of my clients.
Occasionally I'll have a zoommeeting with them.
But most of the time it's email.
So in terms of networking, howshould you try and connect it?

(07:48):
And I might even think aboutyou, how many connections have
you got?
So it'd be a full time jobkeeping connected, wouldn't it?

Only if I were to go down a list every day and try
and hit everybody, which I don'tdo.
I don't recommend that.
In terms of I'd make adistinction here between people
we already know for whom it'sprobably easier to arrange a
video call.
And I'd be, more personableabout it.
I will say that one nice thingabout video is that we've gotten

(08:18):
used to perhaps a pet in thebackground or a baby or the
mailman comes or things happenthat they're a little bit social
lubricants for people, which Ithink is quite nice.
It's not just it's hard to havea strictly business only, agenda
limited, conversation, even ifthat's the goal of the call.

(08:39):
It's nice to have a little bitof surrounding around that, as
we're seeing here.
So I would say it's easier tohave, arrange, request, arrange,
and have video chats with peopleyou already know.
You don't have to know themwell, they don't have to be your
friends, but if you've beenintroduced, I think the polite
thing is to say, would you beopen to a video call?

(09:02):
And interestingly for friends ofmine who work in hybrid roles
for companies full time,sometimes they will say, do you
mind if it's just audio?
Because I can't take anothervideo call because they're doing
it back to back all day.
I'm not doing that.
I hope you're not doing that.
And yeah, it's understandable.

(09:23):
For people you don't know, Iwouldn't assume that's the
initial contact.
Email is always a good, I'd bean imperative, I think, default.
For the introduction, for the,here's what I'm looking for,
here's my question.
You can just set that up inemail, which doesn't demand a
synchronous exchange, right?

(09:43):
That gives somebody an idea ofhow they want, I'm too busy for
two weeks and then I have timefor this.
It just is easier for someoneyou don't know or just being
introduced to.
But for others, and for catchingup, and for re establishing
contact with people you alreadyknow, I think to say, do you
mind if it's video, is a politething, and many people will say,

(10:08):
no, that'd be fine.
Yeah,

I've just realised that I do make a lot of
connections to people I findinteresting on LinkedIn and
sometimes they want to connectwith me.
And then sometimes they want toget onto a video with me
straight away.
And I'm going, Oh, are theytrying to sell me something?
that's a bit of a concern and itputs me off.
Whereas I would like to talk tothem, but not on a sales call.

Yeah, exactly.

but it's

Exactly.
Yeah.
And not with, when you when youdon't know someone I find on
LinkedIn, it has many benefitsand I'm a fan of it.
But one thing is when people areessentially cold calling you,
cold contacting you and they dowant to sell you some service or
another, and it is easy enoughand I've always had good luck

(10:58):
with this, simply saying no, notinterested, or ignoring them.
And that's the end of it.
Occasionally, I will say,because some of them are really
cold calls, someone will, it'shappened more than once, someone
will say, could I based on yourprofile, could we talk to you
about your software developmentteam?

(11:20):
And I write back and I say, no,you haven't looked at my
profile.
The word software is not in it.
The word development is not init.
I'm a solo, consultant ineditorial.
It has nothing to do withsoftware development.
So please read, I occasionallywill say this, just read the
profiles more carefully.

And that's the interesting thing.
This is all about communication.
And you go back to being ajournalist, a tech journalist,
believe it or not, one of theearly ones, and female at that
stage too.
And then going, you've workedfor Google, you've worked for
Twitter, but now thecommunication is video.
And

Yeah.
Yes.
Yes.

that.
but we have our pictures and wesee into people's houses.
And as you mentioned before,there's all sorts of things
going on in their house.
The doorbell might ring.
Hopefully no one's going toclump past out my, outside my
door in a moment because mywife's grandchild's here.
So hopefully, I think I'vewarned him to be quiet.

Yeah.
happen.
Things happen in life.

So in terms of this, how do you think we talk
to people on our videocommunications has changed?
Because I get to see into a lotof places because I've done more
than 50 podcast interviews now.
And even though it's audio, Istill get to see their
backgrounds and some of them arequite interesting.
Some of them are just, wow,you're in a cupboard.

Yeah.
And some, I imagine, they pickeda designed background.
So you're not seeing in, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which I see that more withpeople at work wherever they
work.
The, they're at home maybe, butthey've got whatever they've got
in the background to hide thethe personal, but you and I are

(13:03):
beyond caring, I would say.

Oh we don't show the video anyway.
It's purely audio, which isreally good.
Okay.
You're not so happy with Twitteranymore?

No, sadly.
So I should say, I quit workingthere.
I left Twitter the company in2016.
That was after almost five yearsthere.
And a tumultuous time then, butnothing like the last year plus
has been.
Almost two years, isn't it?
This fall, maybe.
So I feel I loved Twitter asimperfect as the product was.

(13:35):
I always, I loved it for a longtime.
It was a wonderful publishingplatform because it was real
time because it was open andessentially not just
asynchronous in terms of time,but asymmetrical in terms of who
you follow and who follows you,right?
It didn't have to havemutuality.

(13:56):
And, so that meant, we couldfollow politicians and
celebrities and whatnot.
But also, some people reallyshined at Twitter.
Interesting conversations,comedians trying out material.
And then the value of real timein the case of a suddenly

(14:17):
emerging event.
Whether it's a natural disaster,whether it's a protest or a riot
or just unexpected newsbasically.
There's nothing like oldTwitter.
And I loved it for all thosereasons.
I loved the clever people thatwere on it.
I loved just lots of thingsabout it, but I don't love it

(14:40):
anymore and I feel that the newowner has ruined a lot of things
about it.
It, what's ironic to me isTwitter was always widely
misunderstood and because itwent public.
In the same time frame asFacebook.
Wall Street and pundits andanalysts were always comparing

(15:01):
the two services and they reallyare not at all the same service.
Unfortunately, people didn'tunderstand that to Twitter's
detriment.
And so there is not anotherservice like Twitter was.
Nothing has come in to replaceit.
I don't think anything will.
Other things approximate, partsof its features but a lot of the

(15:24):
people that I followed onTwitter have gone and so I look
at it.
I would say I, I, what I did inmy case, I did not want the new
company taking over my handle,which I had for 15 years.
I had 16 or 17 000 followers.
Not that they were all lookingat what I said.

(15:44):
I understand that.
But anyway, I had, it felt likea home.
So I pinned at the top of myTwitter feed, I think sometime
last year, I'm not here anymore.
Here are all the places where Ihave accounts.
You can find me there.
So I do look at Twitteroccasionally just to see kind of

(16:05):
what's the zeitgeist, butthere's less of it.
There's certainly individualpeople that are at accounts that
I look for there.
And then I look to see, arethey, have they gone somewhere
else?
And some have and some haven't.
I, in the world of real time, inthe world of journalism, It's
hard to replace Twitter becauseat least it still has that

(16:28):
quality.
Probably he would driveeverybody away if if it didn't
have that aspect anymore.
If there was some kind of timedelay or something, then it
would be like all the others.

Yeah, I'm still getting my head around the
changes.
What I think was interesting washow many people he got rid of
and it still runs.
And I think that's aninteresting lesson from a
business is, Oh, do you needthat many people, even though
it's sad that a lot of peoplelost their jobs.

Yes.
It does still function, I wouldsay, though, on the money making
side.
There's no sales team to speakof anymore.
There's Lindy iaccarino, andgood luck to her.
But there were actually peopleselling, not just individual
ads, but a lot of ongoingactivations and accounts.

(17:17):
And by the way, there was awhole trust and safety team that
is gone.
And so there's no reliablequality control.
And in the vacuum of respectedand known advertisers, they're
now a lot more unsavoryadvertisers.
It's interesting now, you cannotunfollow or complain about an ad

(17:37):
unless you're paying eightdollars a month.

Yes, and that's

So,

Yeah, whereas in Australia, 8 a month is like 14
or 15 or even more.
That's one of the issues that Ihave.
It's so expensive to get thatblue tick and, I've got
subscriptions to a number ofplaces and it just gets to a
point where I've got too manysubscriptions and regular
payments.

Yeah.
Same.
Same.

yeah, my, my big issue is I do follow a lot of
people because I'm veryinterested in authors and people
who are experts in a particulararea, but finding them is very
difficult

I agree.

There is a program, I think it's called
Blackmagic or something, thatyou can pay for and then you can
follow so many people and it'llshow if they've got something
and you can track them.
But in the old days, you used tohave all these other programs
that you could actually followparticular people in your lists.

Yeah, yes, that's right.
I looked the other night afterthe presidential debate just to
see, and there certainly weresome political pundits and
opinionators right away.
But I could also find thatelsewhere, and it just wasn't as
compelling because I know thenumbers have dropped.

(18:55):
And the fact of the idea that ifyou simply pay, you're verified,
takes away, as imperfect as theold Twitter verification system
was, and believe me, it wasimperfect.
The idea that anybody can pay tobe, quote, verified is, it just
goes against, it makes it a lotless useful.

Yes it's, there's a trust factor in there, but
whether they're trustworthy.
Somebody told me the other day,just to avoid Twitter until the
presidential elections over, hesaid, there's just going to be
so much stuff flying around.
But I mentioned

I think that's right.

I mentioned that, My politics has changed a little
bit since I've been looking atTwitter because I'm beginning to
see things and I'm going, Oh, Iused to think that, and now I'm
seeing this.
And I think what it does, it canexpose issues.
And then, maybe because I'molder anyway but it shows up

(19:49):
people doing something.
Now you've got to be verycareful because if you're only
getting a snippet, you'reprobably not getting the whole
context.
But it can draw attention tothings that we thought were
right.
For example, COVID.
Should we have been locked downduring COVID?
I now believe we shouldn't have,but we didn't know at the time,
so we were all frightened, andso we were happy, and take the

(20:10):
injections, and now we're seeinga lot of stuff coming through.
It wasn't safe for you, andpeople are dying, and you're
going, oh.
It really forces you to evaluatea bit more.
Now, not everyone does.
They just believe it.

If you're thoughtful about it and you look
at the sources behind whateverthe posts are I agree that can,
you can learn a lot.

And that's how I use it.
Let's go back to LinkedIn, whichis probably a big home for you
now, isn't it?

I have been on LinkedIn many years and I have
to say it has, I think itbenefited from COVID and it
benefited from the loss or thethe changes at Twitter as well.

Yeah.
One of the things I have, goingback to Twitter, and then also
the same issue with LinkedIn, isposting.
One of the things I strugglewith Twitter is people are just
posting stuff, it's just post,post, post, and it's not
necessarily useful, it's just anopinion or it's almost automatic
in some places.

(21:11):
I'm finding it the same onLinkedIn and there's obviously
little templates for puttingyour posts together, make a hook
and then make it this and thenmake them click.
So you scroll down and make themstay there.
And I'm looking at that and I'mthinking, Oh, that's pretty
boring or it's not relevant.
And that's the other big dangeris that there's a massive

(21:32):
information just flowing all thetime.
That again, you

everywhere.
From every source.
Yeah.

And then you've also got people on Twitter and
on LinkedIn selling, and I'veinterviewed quite a few people
and they've taught me a lotabout LinkedIn that I didn't
know.
There's people selling coursesand we're getting more and more
people putting stuff out, and ifeveryone's putting six or seven
things out a day, where do doyou look?
So what do you think'shappening?

That's too much.
I do think LinkedIn, as I say,benefited partly from COVID in
that it was another way toconnect with people when
everybody was not going tooffices and maybe looking for
jobs and maybe relocating andall that.
That sort of normal professionalrange of things.
But they do have, I don't knowif you know this they have a

(22:19):
large editorial team atLinkedIn, about 60 people.
They have podcasts.
They write their own.
post material about a variety ofthings, and they boost peoples
that are, they tend to be,professional focus.
It's not about everything in theworld.

(22:40):
It's and to their credit, Iwould say they've stuck with
that, which may make it seemmore boring, but they're not
everything to everyone.
But it is a de facto kind ofdirectory of people it, who, who
are in.
a sort of professional world, Iwould say.
I know for me, when someone saysto me, do you know so and I
immediately go to look LinkedIn,see who they are, how I'm

(23:04):
connected, that sort of thing.
That's probably not true inevery place in the world, but it
is true, I think in a fairportion of what we would call
white collar jobs, professionaljobs.
So it does have that value.
But yes, that also means I thinkmore people are on there to sell
or to connect.

(23:25):
I've always, for a long time,I've had I have a, just a whole
queue of people I've neverresponded to who say, you have
an interesting profile.
I think we should connect.
Like, why?
What, yeah.

No, I'm seeing it too.
I've got three sitting in thereat the moment and they're all
developers from a certaincountry and I'm going, oh,
they're gonna ask me if I wantsome web work done or SEO work
done.
And I'm thinking, yeah, I'vegot, I subcontract I, I use
freelancers myself and, I reallyhave to trust them and not have
to run them through.

(23:58):
I've got to spend severalhundred dollars before I really
know if they're any good, and soI really don't want to respond
to some of them.
I have, and then I get thatemail, and I'm going, oh no, so
now I'm getting that list, andthat's going to be annoying.
So it'd be nice if they had alittle button, oh no, they do.
You can say, I don't know this

They do.
Yes, you could, and you couldsay, I don't know, and you could
also say, ignore the message.
Depending on where you are.
Yeah.

It was interesting that's where I find
most of my guests on LinkedIn.
So when I connect with them, Iexplain that I have read their
book, or I've read severalarticles, or one of their
articles I found really good,and explain which article it
was.
Or in the case of a philosopher,I think she lives in Holland.
The Netherlands.
I don't know what we call itanymore.

(24:42):
It used to be Holland, wasn'tit, when we were kids.
And she runs Love andPhilosophy, It's a podcast, It's
brilliant.
And she's quite brilliant.
So I've connected with her, andI wanted to talk to her, but I'm
not game yet to have her on thepodcast, Cause she's.
really deep into the philosophyand I, I can get my head around
some of these subjects, but Ireally need to reflect and think

(25:04):
and read.
I've read your book.
I've read your book twice now.
and I think that's how I reachedout.
No, I've got the Kindle versionand I bought the physical one
and I can't find where I put thephysical one.
I've got too many books now.
But I will always buy the books,or I'll have read their articles
or would listen to theirpodcasts.

Yes.

Anyway, one of my guests was Hazel Edwards, who
wrote a picture story book 40years ago called There's a
Hippopotamus Eating Cake on MyRoof.
And a friend of mine introducedme to her, so I interviewed her
on the podcast and she's writtenover 220 books.
And she's still going.
So I went up to a, an event inMelbourne where she was

(25:43):
presenting her new book, whichshe called Authorpreneurship.
And one lady came up to me andsaid, Oh, I was a guest on your
podcast.
And I didn't recognize her atall.

Oh, wow.

that's the danger is you can see the face, but in,
in reality, it's somebody else,but she told me a really
interesting thing aboutLinkedIn.
There's a little bell on theprofile.
And if you press that bell,it'll always tell you in your
feed, whether they've writtensomething.
And I didn't know that I didn'tsee it.

Oh, I didn't know that either.
Yeah.
I didn't, I did not know thateither.
Yeah.

So that'll come up in your notifications.
So the ones I really want tofollow now I can, but I'm going
to have a big notification list.
I'm keen to anyone I'veinterviewed to go in and if they
put something up, support them,which is, you know, how you get
some traction.

Yeah.
So It, I have to say this about,I have to say this about
LinkedIn.
They, because.
They do have a following.
I've been a quite, I don't knowwhat it is, half a billion
people around the world,something like that.
And a few years ago, I thinkbefore my book came out, I think

(26:53):
I was working on my book,someone from LinkedIn editorial
reached out to me and they'dseen an article I'd written.
That was called Build a MightyNetwork for Life, or something
like that.
And they said, could youessentially rewrite that for us?
I'd written it for anotherpublication.
And I knew this wasn't a paidjob at all, but that was fine.

(27:16):
I was able to rewrite it.
I posted it.
They, they promoted it.
And within three days, this wasjust a post, right?
For three days, that thing had ahundred thousand views.
And so that's the power ofLinkedIn when there's a
juggernaut going, or when youhave a following.
I didn't have that big offollowing.
So it was really their promotionthat, that did that.

(27:39):
But I would say on a smallerscale, something more
interesting recently a friend ofmine, I've done a couple of
LinkedIn Live Sessions, becausethat's become a part of LinkedIn
now is to have these kind ofwebinars that are live, right?
And conversations.
It's essentially a zoom call butit's called LinkedIn live and
it's through LinkedIn.

(27:59):
And so one of the hosts I was onwith, it was a Q and A.
She said, you should postsomething every week on linkedIn
and I thought I, I'm not reallywriting anything long form.
And she said it it would be goodand she goaded me into it with
the hashtag Wickre Wednesday.
And so I have been followingthat.
And so I have been posting not,a few paragraphs yesterday was

(28:23):
one paragraph and, people dorespond.
There's a bit of a readershipthere and people say, oh, I like
what you're posting.
So it, again, I guess it goes tothe power of LinkedIn.

you mentioned about you introduced somebody to
somebody and you didn't hearback how it went.
And it's a little bit aboutetiquette,

Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah.

I've read that one.

Yeah, that's right.

I did read you one about the hot weather.

Yes.

So how long's that been going on?
Wickre Wednesdays.

Oh, maybe six weeks, not very long.
But I'm going to try.
I'm going to try and keep it up.

It's good to hear your reflections on things,
because it's your point of view.
If I was to do mine, golly, whathave I read that particular
week?
I've got so sick and tired ofreading.
I mostly read non fiction.

No, me too.
But sometimes it's just whathappened to you or what's your
reflection on a small experienceyou had.

Yep.
Yeah.
Now I probably should put someof those things in because
something happens every day.
One of the interesting thingsnowadays, and I've probably
mentioned on the podcast, Irarely leave the home apart from
going for a walk or going to thesupermarket.
Now I live in a small countrytown.
Most of my life is online, doingonline training which I learn
stuff, or reading books.

(29:39):
My wife goes out into the worlda lot more than I, I do.
I rarely go to Melbourneanymore.
And if I do, I take a bus and atrain because I really don't
want to drive anywhere.
But I rarely go anywherenowadays, so my life is the
social media feeds that I'mgetting in.
My podcast interviews, which, Ican have two or three a week,
actually which is reallyamazing.

(30:01):
And to connect with people inSweden Spain Belgium I am
talking to the most amazingpeople in the Czech Republic.
Three now

Oh, wow.

I have never met such an intelligent group of
people who are really doing bigthings in the world.
And they've come through acommunist era and it has done
something to them.
It's made

I bet.

sharp, intelligent, insightful is that
the right word?
Insightful.
And they're writing interestingbooks.
So I'm pretty excited to talk toanother one, coming up.
Soon, who talks all aboutknowledge management and
personal knowledge management.
And I find it difficult to find,sometimes I find it difficult to
find people to talk about someof the topics I want to talk

(30:49):
about.
And that's the danger of mereading so much.
Even though I've run a marketingcompany, I rarely read about
marketing or business because Ifind them boring books.
There's a lot just telling,

Often.
Yes.

Do this.

Yes.

And the ones who are teaching you, some of the
ones, there's people who aretelling you how to write posts.
What happens if a thousandpeople write the same type of
framework?
And I'm going, oh, flick.
I don't want to

I know.
Yeah.
They won't.
They won't.
A thousand people will readthat.
They won't follow the advice anddo it.
Yeah.

So that's what I'm finding.
So what do you think the bestpractice is for being on
LinkedIn?
To get a following, youobviously have to post
regularly.

Yes.
Yes.
But not everybody is there forfollowing.
That's true.
Yes, it's the same on anyplatform.
Frequency helps you, go wider.
More people see what you do.
If it's regular and it'sinteresting in whatever way,
it's clever in whatever waypeople will notice.
But it's a long, it's a longgame.

(31:53):
whatever whatever the platformis.
The days of, ginning up yournumbers to get more followers is
that's ancient times now.
So I think for most people, theimportant thing about LinkedIn
they may get interesting ideas,read something that they hadn't
thought about and learn from itand that sort of thing.
And that, or they may post andhave something to say.

(32:15):
All of that is fine.
I think what's important forpeople who are there.
is to be sure that theirprofiles are fairly current and
descriptive.
And it's not just about gettinga job.
It's also about remembering thatbecause it is a lookup directory
for so many, people are lookingfor speakers, subject matter

(32:39):
experts, board membersvolunteers you People who could
write commentary aboutsomething.
It's much more than just foryour job.
And I remind people of this whohave been at a kind of stable
job for a long time.
And they think, they have verylittle on their LinkedIn.

(33:00):
But I say, but you could be, ona panel or at a workshop or
conference or something likethat.
And it's, and by the way, no jobis too stable anymore.
And you want to, I would say atleast quarterly update your
chronology, and even if you'rein the same job, but maybe you
have a new title, maybe you havedone a new project, maybe you've

(33:21):
got some new volunteer work orcertification or something like
that, but that open block at thetop, this sort of blank field
that's about you, that's alwaysreally important.
And I've, I have said this tomany people, if you want a hint
that you might be looking for ajob, or if you want to say Up

(33:42):
there, I'm open, I'm pursuingnew opportunities, or I'm
passionate about subject X.
That could signify to people,even if you're not formally and
officially looking for a job.
There are lots of ways to do it.
It's that open field where youdon't want to repeat your job

(34:03):
chronology that we see belowanyway.
You want to have somethingthere.
In all the different things I'vedone, like this is the driving
force, this is the passion, thisis the thing that I'm really
interested in, and now I'mlooking at, something adjacent
to it and asking questions aboutthis, that, or the other thing.

(34:23):
It gives people a sense of, ohthey're interesting they're
current they're going in a newdirection that I hadn't thought
about.
Something like that.

Maybe we should start talking about AI because I
use it.
It's been out now two or threeyears and I'd like to find out
if you're using it.
But with LinkedIn, I often buysome prompts to use for images,
because I'm not very good atprompting, but I noticed there
was a huge amount of ones youcould use for LinkedIn.
You can have a LinkedIn socialmedia manager, which will tell

(34:55):
you what to do, and then a wholerange of prompts that'll write
all of these instructions foryou.
And I'm thinking, the thing I'mhearing is, we should write with
our own voice, but if you useAI, it's going to be fairly
mechanical.
And I would suggest, probably anawful lot of posts on LinkedIn
are now AI driven.

(35:16):
I write, I've got to put one outtoday, a little article on my
podcast guest who's going out,but I use AI to help me draft
it, but then I've got to spendabout two hours cleaning up to
say what I really want it tosay.
What's your experience with AIso far?

Yeah.

far?

I have to say, I'm probably using it less than you.
I, I'm reading all about it.
I've subscribed to way too manyAI newsletters to even keep up
with.
So I'm paying attention to thecompanies and what the
capabilities are.
And there are some valuable usesfor sure, you're suggesting,
around outlining something,something, a first draft of

(35:56):
something.
Fantastic, I think.
All of those things can beuseful, especially if someone
is.
Just in a bottle about what tosay or trying to summarize, some
long, like a transcript orsomething like that.
Fantastic.
But I'm a long time editor, so Iwould never just let go whatever

(36:16):
the machine spits out.
Never.
And so I would always then say,okay.
I get the gist, or I see thatthe important thing is at the
top and then the second mostimportant, so on, but then I'm
gonna rewrite it just as you'resaying

Oh, golly.
Without doing that you can I gotit to look at the transcript of
our last talk and describe you,and it called, this is a word
that drives me nuts when I see,seasoned editor.
I'm thinking, I keep thinkingsalt and pepper.

That's funny.
So I like seasoned.
I like seasoned because it's notsaying old

yes I know,

Seasoned.
Seasoned is one.
Veteran is another.
Veteran is another one you mightuse.

One of the other uses of AI is how to do
something, how to connectsomething, how to solve a
technical issue.
So it does all that as well.
How, what's the best way orwhat's a program that will be
better to use than this.
Or I had to check my calendarthe other day when we had
trouble, I said, because I madeseveral bookings through the

(37:20):
same calendar that you used andwe had problems with.
So I had to use AI to doublecheck the times and check with
the people.
Was this calendar workingproperly?
And it was.
And then I contacted the companythat SavvyCal, which I'm now
using.
I said, look Karen found this,what's going on?
And they told me how to fixthat.

(37:41):
that's, But AI also helps mefigure out things like that.
So the benefit is instead of theold way of, say, doing a Google
search and then looking throughand figuring out, you say to AI,
can you just tell me what thetime zone is there if it's here
in Australia?
Bang, you get an answer.
Or, can you turn this intolowercase, or can you format

(38:03):
this for me, or tell me how toformat this on WordDoc, or
something like that.
I think it's a handy littletool.

And not so little.
And already not so little.
Just in terms of the size ofthe, of how much has popped up
in the last year.
It's just astonishing.
It's the biggest sort of techchange I've seen in all my
years.
Yes.

I think it's getting better and better, but I
think the way to look at it isit is a prediction machine.
And that's the sort of thingyou're going to get, it predicts
what you're after.
So if you put a simple promptin, you're going to get a fairly
simple response that

Right,

okay, but it is where we have to learn.
Where good communicators have tolearn to prompt it in such a way
that you get a better output ora more useful output, not just
an output.
So I think that's going to bevery interesting.
All right.
What I'd like to go on to isbecause we're older and we're

(39:04):
more mature and we don't alwaysknow how to describe ourselves.
And I have a problem.
Like I say, look, I work withover fifties, but really.
Most of my clients are oversixty, but I do have a whole lot
of younger female clients.
I generally work with women.
So what I want to talk about isbecause we're older, how do you
structure your day?
How do you structure your week?

(39:26):
How much time do you spendworking?

It really depends for me on who's in need and
who's paying, right?
Both things.
And so I've had busy times wherethere are deadlines.
I do a lot of writing andediting.
So sometimes there are deadlinesfor, a company's announcement or

(39:48):
a kind of opinion commentarythat somebody now is going to
pitch to certain news outlets orsomething like that.
That's what drives the busyness.
But most of my time is notfilled with deadlines because I
don't have a lot of clients atany one time who need something,
typically.

(40:09):
So really the day is more I'malways up early.
I'm an old workhorse in thatway.
So I'm always looking at myemail and seeing what's come in
overnight and reading some ofthe thousand newsletters that I
get.
Plus the socials.
In the morning I'm always doingthat.
But like right now I'm helping ajournalist I'm doing research

(40:32):
for him on a book he's writing.
So the pace is slower.
But there are times that,there's a particular thing he's
writing about that I need tolook into for now, because
that's going to be useful to himas he's writing, as opposed to
things that I know are comingup.
So I would say, I'm not evensure I track it so much by

(40:54):
hours.
It's a part of every day.
typically goes to some kind ofsomebody else's project that I'm
doing.
A part of the day is, for me,having to do with mentoring and
making introductions to people,because I'm called on that.
And then a part of the day ishitting all the New York Times
word puzzles, because there arenow quite a few of them to get

(41:17):
through every day.
I'm very religious about that.
Doing other things and having afairly new dog.
I just recently adopted a newrescue dog.
There's some walks involved too.

That's fabulous.
So it's a more relaxed week.
I call myself semi retired, butI probably spend 50, 60 hours a
week, but it's not just on thecomputer.
It's also reading and trying towrite and doing the podcast.

that's right.

We have a choice about what we do

Yes, to me, in some cases I have long standing
clients as you do.
And when they call, I'm gonnajump in with them because we're
familiar with each other andthat's part of why they have me,
is because we don't have to gothrough a lot of preliminary to
get to whatever it is they need.
And sometimes it's that, it'snot really a choice then, I'm

(42:10):
gonna help them because they'vecalled.
And then in terms of somethinglike this book project, I
actually I knew the guy who wasdeveloping his proposal for an
agent.
And when he told me about it, Isaid, If you're successful in
getting a contract, I would liketo help you with this book

(42:32):
because I'm very interested inthe topic.
I know a lot about the topic.
I can augment, what you'relooking into and he said, I
would like someone who's like athought partner.
And I said, honestly, I am thatperson.
And so that, that's how we, Ijust, I said, this is
interesting.
Somebody else's book might'vecome along and I would have

(42:53):
said, and I have said, I'm notthe right one for that, because
there are just times that I justknow.
It's not going to be thatinteresting or maybe the setup
is too complicated or something,but yes, we get to choose.

I think that's the secret of, being a knowledge
worker or somebody who usestheir knowledge later in life,
post work is to choose thethings you want to do and
develop the lifestyle you wantto do, but San Francisco is a
fabulous city anyway, so goingfor walks there is wonderful.
I used to

It is.

Going down to what was it, the harbour down
there?
That was just beautiful.

Oh, Embarcadero,

Oh, yes, that's just lovely.
And they've got a lovely marketin there.
I went in there one time, theyhad a mushroom seller there.
I couldn't believe how many

yes,

Is he still there?

Yes, still there.

I'd probably be eating a lot more mushrooms if
we had a mushroom market likethat.
I have to travel 100 kilometresto Melbourne to get to a decent
market, unfortunately, andthey're all getting a lot more
commercial now, and not asinteresting, and prices have
gone up too, so they're not asgood.
But I think America is a betterplace for food, or good food if
you want to search it out.

(44:09):
And they deliver it too.

True.
In California, at least, thegood food is local.
Much good food is local.
And lots of places, they deliverit.
That's for sure.

Yeah, no, you can get really good meat delivered.,
Talking about jobs yesterday, Ihad a phone call that was pretty
vague.
And I thought, Oh, I said,somebody wants a website or
something.
I'm thinking, do I really wantto do another website?
It was actually my butcherringing me and saying that he
had my delivery that I had to goand pick up.
And I thought, Oh, that was sucha relief.

Yes.

The point I really want to make is thatwe
really do need to choose thework we want.
I do medical websites as well,and I do a lot of their writing
for them, believe it or not, onfertility and infertility and a
range of other, for some reasonI'm able to write this stuff.
Don't ask me why.

That's good for you.

But I also can write about horse chiropractory,
chiropractic,

Yeah that's the beauty of being a writer is that
you can do reading and researchand barring the most technical,
perhaps you, you can get thegist and come up with something
that also makes sense to the nonexpert.

Mm.
Oh, that's what I like to do.
But I also, if I'm writing oneof those technical ones, I also
find a subcontractor or aneditor.

Yes.
Yes.

can put their eye through.
And believe it or not, there's alot of retired medical
specialists out there who are onthe freelance platforms.
And so when I wrote thefertility ones, I hired a
gynecologist in America to viewit and just to get a different
viewpoint and the specialist Iwas working with looked over it
as well.
So that was three pairs of eyesand yeah, no, it was amazing

(45:48):
what you can do.

Huh.
Yes, it is.
It is.

Now, is there any other topic you'd like to cover?
Because we've probably beentalking for about an hour
already.

We, we, we have quite a bit.
I'm trying to think don't knowif you want to use this or not,
but I'll I'll tell you twothings I'm involved with here to
see if you're familiar withthem.
One is Chip Conley's newventure, new ish venture called
Modern Elder Academy.

Yes, I've heard

know about that?
Yeah.

of it, yeah.

You might enjoy it and some of your clients might,
They, because they have onlineclasses about dealing with life
transition.
Chip is a successfulentrepreneur who made his bones
here in San Francisco.
But he's got the religion now ofwhat he calls modern elders.

(46:41):
Essentially, people over 50 andwho really, a lot of significant
things happened to people intheir 50s, 60s, and 70s and even
80s, but these things are notculturally acknowledged, right?
You could be an empty nester.
You could be going through adivorce.
Your parents could be ill orgone, and you were their

(47:04):
caretaker.
Your children may have left,right?
You may be out of a job orlooking to do something
different, even if you have achoice about it.
In other words, it's a hugeperiod of change all these
years.
So He has now established acouple of physical world places

(47:24):
where people can go and takeworkshops and bond with similar
people in Baja in Mexico and inSanta Fe, in New Mexico, in the
US.
But I would say the onlinecourses and his books, and he's
a super productive blogger.
So his material appears everyday on LinkedIn and on his blog.

(47:48):
It's the same post, but it's, itgoes out widely.
So it's an interesting, I wentvery early when he was first
launching the place.
so it's been five years sinceI've been to a formal week long
workshop and that's the kind ofmeat of what they do.
So that's one.
And more recently, I'm justkeeping an eye on something.

(48:13):
I was introduced to a friend ofa friend who has a new startup
here called OpenWater.
Group.
And it's meant to be amembership club with chapters
focused on over 50.
So in this case, it's, meetpeople in person have an online

(48:34):
community to connect about newbusiness ideas, consulting life
itself but more a focus of who'sdoing interesting
entrepreneurial things and thatsort of thing.
We have to see if this is goingto be successful, because I know
it's very hard to launchsomething when there's not quite
enough people in the communityto do it, and they're trying.

(48:59):
In fact, I'm going to a cocktailevent next week in San Francisco
to talk about networking to agroup of members and prospects.
And so I'm happy to help them.
I'm, and I'm curious to see howthis sort of thing goes.
But the point is there's moreand more of people paying
attention to over 50.

As I look back, 50 is so young.
A lot of people get to 50 andthey think they're old, and I'm
thinking, no

no, I agree.
I agree.

That's why, yeah, and I think most of the 50 year
olds are going to be quitedigital by now, because, you're
a little bit older than me, butnot a lot, but we, In our
households, when we wereyounger, I think we had, you
might have had colour TVs, but Ithink we had a black and white,
and I can't even remember if wehad a phone in the house.
We spent most of the timeoutdoors.

Yeah, I spent, I was bookish, so I spent time
indoors reading, but it wasreading books.
that were

Real

physical.

Yeah.
No, it was the same with me.
I read a lot of books when I wasyounger.
But I remember when I went tohigh school, I went around to
one of my friends place wholater became a doctor and I was
stunned at how many books he hadon his bookshelf.
I thought, wow, I thought I reada lot.
Gee, he read 10 times what Iread and maybe that's why he
became a doctor.
Yeah.
So I think.

(50:17):
I think the fact that there aremore people over 50, 60, 70, 80
and older alive today.

And in better shape.
statistically, anyway, I think

and living longer.
And that's one of the reasons Ibring on people to talk about
longevity is, we want to keepour cognitive ability We want to
be able to think and still dostuff that we find interesting,
and mainly I'm aimed atprofessionals, is to be able to
keep thinking, to be able toread, to think about what we do
and maybe do something maybeearn a little bit of money from

(50:51):
expertise.

Exactly.

Yeah.
All right.
Thanks Karen.
How would you like people toconnect with you

they could find me on LinkedIn.
I am there.
I would encourage everyone, notjust for my purpose, not just
for me.
But, don't just use the cannedLinkedIn language when you're
reaching out to a stranger,right?
Because that doesn't give us anyincentive to say, Oh, of course
we should be connected.
I'd like to know more about you.

(51:17):
So be sure and say a reason,that has some relevance and
focus for that person thatyou're asking.
Otherwise, we can communicatewithout having that connection
on LinkedIn.
We can still do that.
But anyway, LinkedIn is a way, Ido have a website that is just
my name, karenwickre.com com,where there's some things I've

(51:37):
written and about the book andthat sort of thing.

Now, we should mention the book.
It's still for sale as a Kindleversion and a physical book as
well.
Where can they get that from?

The the biggest, easiest place probably is our
favorite global retailer,Amazon.
I encourage people to find itanother way.
There, there are independentbook sellers and at bookstores
it can be ordered throughbookstores too.
It just depends if you have aneed for instant gratification
or not.

Yeah I've got to say, I find Amazon amazing.
I can have stuff delivered thenext day.

yeah.

I'm just saying, how do they do it?
And that's changed the nature ofcommerce because there are a
couple of businesses out therewho will deliver the next day.
Uh, cause Amazon's, Amazon setthe standard.
So my wife bought somethingonline the other day.
It said it was delivered.
She only received one packagethe other day, but she didn't
receive the second package, soshe's had.

(52:35):
No communication.
Whereas if I get something fromAmazon and it's the wrong size
or it's not what I want, I cantake it back to the post office,
which is just up the road andit's all organized and refunded.
I'm thinking, wow, we've got alot to learn.

It's a huge, it's just a more logistics operation
than we can comprehend.
Yeah,

But it teaches us, you've gotta be able to
think differently about businesstoday.
Before you go, I should ask you,what's the name of your dog?

So my new dog's name is Franny.
I'm calling her Franny, FranOrita as nicknames that she's
already earned.
She's a four and a half year oldStaffordshire Terrier mix.
There's a lot of those in theBay Area, and she's very sweet
and very calm and medium energyis perfect for me.

That's right.
She's been talking to us duringthe program.
So I thought we'd better findout a little bit about

yes.

Karen, thank you very much for being my guest
again, 50 episodes later.

so happy to.

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