Celebrating 11 years of Reclaim with Special Guest Lauren Hanks

All right. Good morning, everybody. We are starting out the day after Jim's awesome introduction

for the final day of DS106 Summer Camp. And I'm Meredith Huffman. I'm here with some awesome

people at Reclaim, chatting about 11 years of Reclaim hosting in general. And we've got

a special guest with us, Lauren Hanks, who also joined with Maren Deepwell and Taylor

Jaden. So hey, everybody, how's it going? Hi, welcome. Thanks for having me. I'm really

happy to be here. Hi, Taylor, Maren, Meredith. How are you? Yeah, pretty good. We've been

rocking the airwaves this week. And I was just listening to Jim. And I totally share

his joy about how much how much fun it's been. And I think, you know, I've never seen DS106

audio this lively. So it feels it feels really awesome to, you know, to get like, yeah, get

get this kind of session up here on the final on the final day, save the best till last.

And Taylor and I have been having lots of like nerdy chat about how brilliant audio

only is. Yeah, it's been really energizing, but not maybe less stressful than putting

on a real like a real this is a real conference, a putting on an in person conference because

there's there's just less overhead with something like this. Right. But yeah, it's been really,

really cool to be hanging out with folks in Discord and on the radio all week. So yeah,

and I think it always gets back to that idea of, you know, just feeling the fatigue of

always being on camera or always being in person. Like there's a different level of

exhaustion that comes with that. And so to kind of take away that pressure and still

have such an energizing event is really cool. And so to see all that activity and Discord

to have such a full schedule and just to really play with the different mediums is super unique.

And it's it's awesome to see. And I was actually just looking again at the event site today.

And I love that you all were able to embed the the radio stuff right there. Like that's

so cool. Oh, that's Taylor's magic. And, you know, I mean, big shout out to Taylor as well

for getting those transcripts like, you know, like I've worked with people before who are

this good that everything just looks like magic. But like seeing it all happening in

real time is just such a joy, you know, and we have like 100 people registered for this

event as well. And I think when we were starting to plan it, like I remember having this conversation

with Jim and he was like, do you think do you think anybody will come and register for

this? Like a free week long event in August on the radio? And I was like, yeah, of course.

I was like completely, completely trying to sound convincing that I thought it was so

gonna take off. And hey, it worked out. So, you know, kudos to Jim for giving us a heads

up that we could just go ahead and experiment. But I love that. I'm sure Jim was like, you

know, you had to convince him maybe the least out of everyone like event on the radio. He's

game, of course. But no, I do love this idea, though, because my one issue with traditional

radio is that I can't go back and listen to things that I missed. And so, you know, I

admittedly have not had a ton of time this week to be, you know, participating live.

But yesterday and this morning, I was able to go back and listen to a few sessions. This

morning, actually, I was listening to Brian's and it was really cool just to, you know,

pull up the recordings for something that happened on the radio. And so, again, I really

love that mix that has, you know, you pulled off this week. I think it's really cool.

And a lot of this came kind of organically as the event started taking shape. Because,

you know, Marion basically, at least from my perspective, Marion basically came into

an EdTech meeting and was like, how about radio summer camp? And I was like, oh my God,

I'm in. That's amazing. And she's like, we're gonna get 100 people to register. And I was

like, okay, sure, I would like to see that. And it did happen, to your credit, Marion.

But then as we went, we're like, do we provide recordings? Because some of the point of radio

is ephemerality, right? Like, or at least it might be for some folks. So, you know,

of course, the answer to that was just, can we provide the recordings? And then we'll

just ask people. And, you know, most people did want recordings of their sessions. And

it's really easy from my perspective, because I just go into the back end of the radio station

and download them and trim them a little bit. And then nowadays, there's lots of good software

for transcription. So that's pretty accurate. And like better than, the bar for me is like,

is it better than the YouTube automatic ones? And these are a little bit better. So hopefully,

they're useful to folks who want to use them.

Yeah, I was gonna say, and having that flexibility is really nice, too. You know, I think sometimes,

I was gonna say, too, like, there's this pressure for in person conferences and more formal

events, you've got to have something very smart and formal and cute, you know, something

sort of cued up to say, and you have to have a point and a vision and a lesson that you

know, someone can learn and take away. And there's merit to those sorts of sessions.

And I love them. And I love the professional development that I, you know, that you can

get at those sorts of events. But this is also very cool in its own right, in that there

is no pressure and okay, we don't, you know, have a perfect model or mold for each session.

And we'll just, you know, throw in tunes and chat and see what comes out. And so I love

like the community building that comes with that and the creativity that, you know, can

come out of those sorts of sessions, too.

Oh my gosh, so many.

Hi.

Sorry, I'm late.

I just like that everybody's joining in.

Yeah, I was listening and I went, I gotta step in even if I can. I don't know how long

I can stay but hopefully for a while. I didn't want to miss this. It's good to see you.

It's good to see you, Pilot. How are you?

I'm doing pretty well. I'm, yeah, I'm doing good. This week has been so much fun. It's

been really, really cool. I wish I'd been there's some stuff I wish I'd been more active

in chat for. I've been getting just more active as the week's gone on. I feel like I've sort

of come out of my shell, but it's all been super cool.

Yeah, and I think, you know, the beauty of recordings and stuff is that you can go back

and listen to them. And, you know, hopefully the this I don't know how long the channel

will be around in Discord, but maybe we can keep the conversation going there, too.

Yeah, 100%. I actually, just because of how timing had shook out, I wasn't able to attend

the Doctor Oblivion session on Wednesday live. And I was super bummed because it one sounded

amazing and I was really hyped for it. Just from everything that you had said leading

up Taylor, and the discussion in Discord looked really great. So I'm really glad that the

recordings exist. Because I can't wait to go back and listen to that.

I just have to I have to thank Jim again for being pretty cool about the whole thing. It's

not I haven't had many bosses that I've deep faked audio for a radio show of so I knew

Jim would be down.

Like two, two, three max?

Yeah, only the one.

Okay.

So.

Well, that was kind of the point, I think when Meredith and I dreamt up this session

today, you know, because like, it was reclaimed kind of 11 year anniversary recently at the

end of July. And, you know, I thought the DS106 Summer Camp, which at that time was

still like an unknown, you know, would be a worthy addition to some of the crazy and

fun stuff that you've all been doing as a team. And I think Meredith recently been touring

actual conferences as well, with with Jim going

Don't call them actual conference, call them in person conferences.

In person conferences. That's right. So I wonder, Meredith, like, I wonder what it's

like for you now, like you've spent a couple of weeks with folk like, you know, sweating

by the sounds of it in very hot weather. And now you're like on the radio.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I was joking with Jim yesterday, he and I are on week three

of conferencing with WP campus at the end of July, the last two or July 31 through August

2 at Georgetown University in DC, which was super fun. We it was incredibly hot that week,

like 80s 90 degrees, heats with thunderstorms every day. So it was just a lot of fun to

see everybody in the WordPress sphere of a community. And we went to WP campus last year

as well in New Orleans. So that was super fun to catch up with folks. I met there last

year and I'm just getting to see the what folks are working on in the community. And

then the last week we were at DH 2024 in Arlington, Virginia, with George Mason University. And

that was super cool as well. It was a full week's worth of conferencing in person and

hybrid. Also super warm, but also in the midst of a tropical storm. Towards the end of the

week in Virginia, we got a little bit of a Debbie I think was the storm name or whatever.

But that was really cool. We had a coffee hour on Thursday towards the end of the week.

And so we got to catch up with a lot of folks in the community as well. And it always took

me always takes me by surprise about people who come up and are like, hey, I know reclaim

I host my site with you or I've had a hosting plan with you for years. And it's super cool

to get to talk to people and also hear kind of the feedback that they have about the team.

And it's just rave reviews overall. So I give major kudos to the entire team for helping

keep the reclaim name going as a good community support. So that was just kind of the last

couple of weeks. And I'm grateful to not really have to be on camera as much. I mean, we're

in to give a little bit of a background on the setup. We're in StreamYard. So we're on

camera with each other internally, but it's all on radio. So we only are hearing the audio.

But it's different to not have to be like on camera for this conference. So that's been

really fun. And getting to moderate is always really, really a good time to. So I was moderating

with Tom Woodward session yesterday and a couple more throughout the week. So it's been

awesome.

Wow. So for those of you who are on the radio and listening live to the session, we have

a stellar lineup in the session and more people joining in. So we now have Taylor, Pilot,

Meredith, Lauren, and Justin. So hello, Justin, as well. It's great that people are joining

into the call as we continue here. But I wonder, particularly Pilot, if I'm going to put you

on the spot as you can't stay with us for that long. It's been 11 years of reclaim,

and you've made a big contribution to getting the team where we are. Do you want to share

like one or two kind of high points, either from this week, sort of things that really

resonated with you or things that have recently happened? Just as I think, we've had an awesome

year. Year 11 has been awesome.

Yeah, we've had a really, really good year. We've super missed you, Lauren. I would say

that that's probably the low point of the year. But I'm just trying to think. It's been...

Oh, no. Maren, you can't ask me to remember things without warning me first. That's not

fair. God.

I said this week or this year.

This week or this year.

It's a recent memory.

That's true. This week has just been really great. I've gotten to... I got to moderate

some of the sessions that I was moderating were actually pre-recorded. But I got to,

I guess, not moderate because Dave handled it all himself. But I got to, I guess, sort

of host Dave for me a session on Tuesday. And that was a ton of fun. And also to be

there for the EdTech Mansion and to all of the sessions that I was part of, I would say.

But yesterday afternoon, that was also I was saying that sort of as the week's gone on,

I feel like I've come out of my shell a little more. I got to catch the tail end of Shannon's

session about Dream Teams and Apollo 13s. And I got to be there for AI Cryptid Hunting

and Talky Tina, which was really, really great. This is just... I actually, you know what?

My personal high for the week was getting to DJ, to do the lunch DJ on Wednesday because

I was really nervous about that. Everyone at DS106 has such great music taste that it

makes me feel very shy about sharing what music that I like. So getting to put on a

mix of songs that I really enjoy and then having people talk about it in the chat and

finding out, oh, I'm getting to share Orville Peck. People are finding out about him for

the first time. It was really nice. It made me feel much more confident and part of the

DS106 community. And it's making me feel much more confident also about my session later

this afternoon, which I was worried about. That was... I'm feeling, you know, shy about

how that's going to go. Because it's sort of an experimental thing for me. I've never

done... I've never played this game before. I've never run it for anybody in the company

before. I've never done live game jamming on the radio or anything like that. So big

week for me is what I'm saying. Did I answer your question, Maren?

Yeah, you really did. You answered the challenge beautifully.

Oh, good. Good. You know, I was wondering, I was worried that I was... I was worried

I wasn't verbose enough. I was worried I didn't make it last long enough.

I really... I want to say hello to Jim as well, who's just joined us as well. So I think

very many people in Team Reclaim are now here. And Jim, we were just going around the room

saying hi to each other and just sharing some highlights from the week and from the... from

year 11 in Reclaim's history. So I had... I put Pilot on the spot slightly unfairly.

And we were all just having fun listening to that.

Me too. I was having fun listening to that. Pilot, you rose, as Maren said, beautifully.

And I'm looking forward to your session this afternoon. Creative. I love it. Let me know.

I mean, I... if you have a way to call in.

Yeah, I mean, we're going to be hosting through StreamYard just like this. And I figure sort

of like the session that you just hosted, we can put the StreamYard maybe in the Discord

chat or maybe I'll DM it to people who ask for it. But I want to thank Taylor and Jason

from the Reclaim team and Shannon and Eric from the Discord who have already volunteered

to be part of my weird, hopefully fun experiment. But there will be lots of room for people

to call in and talk and take part. Part of the idea of this is it can... it can just

be, "Oh, hey, that's fun. I want to be part of it."

It's a brilliant conceit. And I think if I'm going to answer your question, Maren, that's

what's been amazing about the S106 Radio Summer Camp this week is so many cool, completely

different approaches to doing radio from Banana Man's song to the creepiness of talking Tina,

right, to Dr. Oblivion AI. I mean, it was an impressive showing on the part of so many

people, many of them Reclaimers, I might add. So it was... it was beautiful. I mean, Meredith,

you're from what I understand, DJing this summer. I mean, the lunch hours, right? Is

that true?

Yeah, definitely. I feel in the same way, Pilot, a little bit about nervous, like, taste

of music. But I have a couple office playlists that we played at co-work that I kind of want

to run through again, get some throwback vibes there. And then I'm gonna stick to my old

gold of lo-fi for one hour.

Which is always good, too.

Yeah, yeah.

Hey, I did an hour of Scott. And if that didn't scare everyone away, no one asked for that

anymore. I wanted to hear it. So I think I think I've set the bar low, we can all jump

over it, you know.

I was going through my playlist on Spotify, too. And I'm like, do people really want to

listen to my gym playlist? Or do I just want to do like, like, office playlist or something?

But my taste like goes from like, video game music, lo-fi music to like, top 20. Like,

it's just all over the place.

I do have to say that the co-work playlist I have memorized subconsciously. Because there

were it was like years, I feel like where every single morning you and I would come

into the office, open up and turn on Spotify. And it always started with one song. And then,

you know, just went in order. And so now it's like, I have all of these random songs that

aren't a part of the same album, but I know what's coming next. I listened to the playlist

the other day, and I was surprised that I was still able to pick it up for the most

part. So yeah, that's, you know, just something you don't really expect to learn as as while

you're on the job, but it was awesome.

That's always that's always fun for me. I have a playlist of songs that are not not

the co-work playlist, but that are like my background songs of anything that I've found

that I've put on loop for like, a couple hours at some point goes on the playlist. And then,

you know, I like them. So I put them on other playlists. And then when I listen to other

places, I go, this isn't what comes next. This is wrong. That's not what happens. What

are you talking about?

I mean,

I really love that. Sorry, Tyler.

I was just gonna say something doesn't feel right here.

I really love that we also had song requests this week. And we you know, like, particularly

on Monday, because we weren't really officially starting the event till lunchtime, Eastern

time, and I was kind of just playing tunes and so many people on discord and on Macedon

and in our internal slack channel, like the me song requests, like, sometimes I was kind

of slightly like, do you have any tunes? But like, you know, it was really awesome. And

Justin, I want to say thanks to you. You made me so happy on Monday with your song choices.

And I was like, I was like, yeah, there's a fellow 80s music lover. I was like, yes,

thank you for those. I really enjoyed that.

That was really fun.

I was in Long Island that morning, I'm getting ready to fly back and I hear I'm not with

you. That's when I knew like, you know, the 80s vibe was strong on the radio right now.

Plus, you know, the temperatures and I think you were playing off that Justin, that was

very fun.

It's a cruel summer, Jim.

That's right. Banana Rama? Is that who that is?

That's Banana Rama. Good memory. I couldn't miss.

Say Taylor Swift.

Yeah, yeah, I'm from a different era. A different cruel summer. I couldn't couldn't miss the

opportunity to say hi to Lauren today. Obviously, year 11 for Reclaim has been a zany and wild

one, including for me. You know, I I got to know Reclaim from afar in the beginning. Eleven

years ago, I obviously knew Tim and Jim. And then over the years, got to know folks like

Lauren and Meredith, both working indirectly and, you know, coming into co-work, seeing

you guys live all the way to in 2024, coming in as an inmate myself. So it's been an exciting

year full of change. We certainly miss you, Lauren. Miss our talks. Lauren and I used

to used to connect pretty regularly and at the same time, really glad to see that you're

doing so well in your new role. But you definitely missed.

Thank you, Justin. Yes, it's good to see you all. And I think, you know, this this year

has been one of self-discovery and reflection, to say the least. And I think certainly the

hardest part of change, especially one like this, is just the people that I work with.

You know, I really miss working with the Reclaim team. I miss our regular chats, Justin. And

I miss just like, you know, the tinkering and the the the projects that, you know, Reclaim

can be a part of. I miss the community like, you know, there's just so much. But, you know,

it's it's also put me in, you know, Maren can attest to this, too, because we talk pretty

regularly about this idea of working identities and how that shifts throughout your life,

throughout, you know, even your day, depending on what what you're doing. But I think I see

a lot of overlap in how I think about that for myself right now, with even just reflecting

on Reclaim over the last 11 years. And you can see that even in the artwork. And so I,

you know, I was listening to Brian Mather's session from earlier this week and, you know,

hearing Jim, you talk with him about his own aesthetic and how it's changed, you know,

and like the artwork right now for Reclaim is beautiful, like the the greetings from

Reclaim, the postcard stuff that has come, like, it's just so cool. And I think it captures

the many different identities that Reclaim has embraced through the years. And I feel

so proud to have been a part of that legacy. And also just to see like, with the different

products and the changing technologies and the different services that have been added

through the years as the team has grown. Meredith, you just said this earlier in this session

that you're able to go to conferences and people can say, Oh, I know Reclaim, I have

an amazing experience with Reclaim. And the fact that, you know, 11 years in, that's the

feedback and the response. And that, you know, that was the whole mission on day one, and

year one. And so yeah, I just feel really proud to have been a part of it. I, you know,

I still check in very often and creep on Discord. And, you know, I'm so proud of the WHMCS work

you've all have done. Like, I just, you know, I want to at some point talk shop and, you

know, catch up on all the projects. So it, yes, it's, yes, I feel very proud to have

been a part of it. And I miss it. But I'm, you know, I'm also just trying to figure out

what my own working identity is right now. So

I'll tell you, Lauren, your ghost was pretty strongly felt this week. Because, I mean,

the DS106 Radio Summer Camp was amazing. Maren, Taylor, hats off, major kudos. But I had a

lot of flashbacks to the work we did with Maren in 2021, with the OER by Domains. And

I think for me, when I think back on Reclaim's 11 year history, I think back on moments like

these that we had this week, where we just give it a shot. We roll the dice, we have

fun. And oftentimes, it leads to really good things, both amongst us and with the community

we support. And I love that. And I don't want to lose that for a second. Because, you know,

OER by Domains 21 was a highlight for me in my career at Reclaim. I mean, we just, we

nailed the online conference. And this week, we nailed the audio conference. Like, and

that's cool to do. Like, as a small group. I don't hate it. We did it again. Exactly.

We did it again.

We'll get them started. There you go. That is why the last session is only five minutes,

Jim, because that's what it's going to be.

But no, I think, Jim, to your point, it's, you know, when you set your sights on a big

hurdle, there's challenge involved in that. And it usually involves a lot of moving parts.

And maybe there's stress involved in like the setup. But when you get to the point and

you can cross that hurdle, there's, you feel that that reward that that comes with it.

And yeah, I, I agree. I think when I when I look back on my time at Reclaim, OER by

Domains is certainly a highlight because it just it brought together. It was just this

culmination, I think, of all of the pieces that are I've really enjoyed with Reclaim,

you know, the community, the the pushing the boundaries of tech, you know, blending modes

of communication, like all of it. I think that, yeah, that was just a really cool event.

And it's it's cool now also to see how you've built on it. Now we're, you know, involving

radio and the same event site and playing around with how pieces are archived and kept

around. And yeah.

For me, it's one of the greatest, you know, assets that this organization has, which,

you know, I've not come across very often. It's like an extremely high level of digital

skills in every shape or form. And we use them every day all the time. Like I often

tell people, you know, because they can't really imagine like what a hosting company

really does. And they're like, what do you actually do? And I'm like, well, we have an

in-house radio station. And like that's like a really fun, you know, like little vignette

to share with people. But a lot of people on Discord were commenting this week about,

you know, how much joy they get from actually using the technology in different ways rather

than just the standard formats. And there are not that many conferences or organizations

out there that do anything beyond default. You know, like we even talked about the dreaded,

you know, Teams calls this week. And like I had a bit of fun with the metadata I put

into this when I was six saying, you know, it's not a Teams call, like sit back and relax.

And I think it's really a testament to how on it this organization, this team is that

you can kind of organize something kind of out of thin air and everybody just jumps on

it. Like Monday morning, I'm there, you know, and everybody's kind of learning and doing

it and kind of understanding that you can't be perfect. You just got to do it. And I think

that's like an attitude that is so gold dust for me.

Yeah. One thing I want to, I guess what I want to plug is that in a couple of weeks,

I want to say two weeks from now, we're going to be doing a stream that is going to be about

how to set up your own online radio station like DS106. Not just how to connect with DS106

and take part, although presumably that will at least be implied by how to set up your

own radio station and get started using it, but how to fully, you know, get going. Taylor

just put the link in the chat. Thanks. Thank you, Taylor. But the idea of making this something

that's available and accessible and pick upable by anybody. And one of the things that I've

just been super impressed by from everybody on the team I guess, especially you Taylor,

mostly because I work with you in ed tech frequently. And so it gets demonstrated to

me frequently is just everybody on the team has this great ability to find something new

and go, yeah, I don't really know how this works. But give me a couple hours. I'll figure

it out. I will, I'll, I'll, I'll get it. And, you know, it's not like instant expert that

doesn't happen. But the creativity and the ability to pick up new things and make use

of them so quickly has been really cool and inspiring to see. And I don't know, I think

this week is a huge testament to that, I guess.

That's why personally my favorite part of working on this team is that reclaimers aren't

afraid of that kind of thing, in my opinion. And I've worked with lots of great people.

I've had the privilege of working with lots of great people. And my favorite people like

to give that response of like, I don't know, let's try it. You know, and I think that's

a really constructive way to think about the work when, especially when you're trying to

encourage creativity, which we do a lot here at reclaim. That's one of my, again, one of

my favorite things is that creativity is celebrated not just by this company, I think, and the

people that work at it, but the community around us, they celebrate it too. And that's

really encouraging.

Agreed.

100%.

I have to say I was, you know, and Maram was like, months ago now, it seems like, you know,

in the rear view mirror, I'm going to do this conference, you know, and I was, you know,

I don't know what I was doing, you know, who knows, I was out sniffing glue somewhere,

right? Oh, yeah, it's great, right. And what I started to realize as the day got closer

and closer, it's like, so they're going to do an all audio, all radio conference for

five days. And we all know how crazy audio can get, and how complicated it can get. I

mean, just look at Taylor on a call, right? Like, his setup, sometimes with Jitsi.

That's his own doing.

Yeah, I'll be the first to admit, don't do what I do.

I mean, I'm joking there. But like, really, the fact that I when I was tuning in, which

was a lot, I did not get a sense of like, you know, the technical problems and Meredith

can attest to this, even at WP campus, right? Trying to do zoom and hybrid, they were a

mess. Like, this was seamless. For an audio experience on the radio. Oh, my God, like,

there's that you have to also take your hat off to is, you know, we're kind of always

about futzing on the radio. It's part of the kind of, you know, philosophy of DS 106 radio.

But another point where you all did not disappoint and making it happen and making it seamless,

like really a great job. And I know how hard it is. So firsthand, so well done.

One of the things that I'm sort of hoping, or that I've been hoping thinking about, just

that came out of a brief conversation on mastodon is whether this will inspire more talk sessions

on DS 106. Because right now, I think that there's a lot of playing music, there's radio

DJing, which is great, and there should be. But one of the things that I was talking about

with Sarah and Iteki on mastodon was like, the session that I'm hosting today is synchronous,

let's say. It's happening live, which means that if you want to participate, but you live

in a time zone where that's not feasible, for some reason, then you don't get to. And

to do something like this in the morning, if there's a, if I could find a time that's

like, yeah, no, I'm just going to host a talk session on DS 106. And we're going to talk

about this and come on in. Or I'm going to host a game on DS 106. And we're going to

play and anyone who's free, come on in. The ability to have more sessions like this, where,

you know, the conference is really good. And I think in some ways, really crucial for making

sure it's organized, making sure people know when and where to show up, what's going on,

what the session will be about. But to get people feeling more free and more comfortable

to do these sort of one off podcasts, one off broadcasts, where they can talk about

what they're excited about and what they're passionate about, would be really cool.

Can I ask a question to maybe put you all on the spot a little bit? Because I am I know

in the past we've done, I'm gonna, I'm gonna keep saying we and just, you know, but there's

been reclaimed today, right, which is like a whole has a whole archive of podcast episodes,

but then these recordings are, are stored somewhere else right now, right? Like, what

is it listen? Is it? It's a different domain, but I'm just curious.

Podcasts dot.

That's right, podcasts. So like, do you see yourself merging these two brands or spaces

or do you?

Let's start a new one.

I'm laughing.

Let's start a new brand.

I'm laughing Lauren, because I made that sub domain, I think on Friday before the conference.

I wanted to know. Because they both seem, you know, podcasty a little bit.

I have things that I think we're going to talk about this internally and figure it out,

because I do think it's time for a reckoning of the reclaimed media empire on brands, because

we're not really using reclaimed today enough as a brand right now. And I don't want that

to go away personally. But I think it may be interesting to kind of re recycle and like

maybe we have audio only content and that's reclaimed today and we use the theme song

and everything or not. Like maybe it's still video content. I don't know. We have to figure

that out as a team. But yeah, for now, I just needed a place to put that tool we're using,

which is called Castopod. And I literally installed it on Friday. And so that's what

it is. But we can move it if we need to. And that's part of the reason I didn't. I've mentioned

Discord that you can actually take the link. There's an RSS link in that tool and put it

in your podcast player, which is why I wanted to use it, because that's how I listen to

kind of this stuff. But because we didn't like submit it to iTunes or anything like

that or whatever, Apple podcast directory, we can move it and merge it or I don't know,

we can do all kinds of things with it. So we may end up doing something like that.

One thing about... Go ahead, Lauren.

Oh, I was just going to say, I sort of, I think struggle is the wrong word, but I guess

I like grapple with that concept a little bit between wanting to protect the projects

as they are and keep the archive there and, you know, Reclaim Today name, for example,

versus consolidating everything into a space that's maybe more findable, you know, and

has a record of everything that's ever been created versus keeping them separate because

they are projects in their own right. And it gets to the idea around archiving work

in general. But like, you know, I'm curious how you all think about that now, 11 years

in with so many different identities around Reclaim hosting, Reclaim TV, you know, the

archiving, the podcasts, you know, there's so many places where Reclaim exists and where

do you combine in the spirit of access and findability and ease of use versus like, we're

acknowledging that these are different entities and we like them that way because they're

their projects in their own right. You know, like that's such a hard thing to try to wrap

your head around, for me at least.

I mean, yeah, this is something that I've been thinking about a little bit. And Taylor,

not to make this sound like a threat, but in the new year, I'm going after reclaimed.tech

with a hammer and nails.

Reclaimed.tech, I feel bad for that domain. I love the domain name. And I've treated it

poorly by just, it's my space to install something.

Yeah. Well, that's what I'm thinking is that in the same way that we have community.reclaim.hosting,

which Lauren was your awesome work as a landing page for all of the different ways and places

that people can get in contact with us to be able to turn reclaimed.tech from what it

is, which is currently like, and this is good and archive of the work that we've done with

our flex courses, with our workshops, the resources that we've made available to take

it and, you know, keep it that, but also make it a place that shows off the catalog of our

work.

So you can go here to say, oh, reclaim.tv. Okay. That's cool. Archive.reclaimed.tv, podcasts,

whatever, to have a place that is a landing page and a jumping off point to see all of

the work that we've done and to be able to navigate it cleanly. And just to what you

were saying, Taylor, this is going back a couple of steps, but to reclaim today and

making that audio only audio podcast.

One of the strengths I think of reclaim today has been that it's very in the moment. And

Jim, I think that you use this more than anybody else, but to have reclaimed today as a way

to get people together, get them talking in a room room. I just made air quotes on the

radio, which was an amazing choice of mine. But to get people together without saying,

all right, well, we know we stream every Friday. If you're not free at 10am, we could find

a different time. But you know, for the most part, we have the set schedule. And you know,

we try and plan this out about a month in advance. And you know, when are you free to

be able to say, no, I'm going to get five people talking together, which I think is

sort of what we were talking about with making DS106 have more impromptu conversational sessions

on DS106, conversational sessions on reclaim today, the ability to have it be impromptu

like that, and just get going is really cool.

And I would say to kind of tie what you're saying here to something we've been talking

about more generally, you know, we're not super afraid of just trying things around

here and I think we're better for it.

I think that's how people are talking about that in the chat of having a space to play

and get started.

Yeah. And that's very much how we're in the situation we are right now where we're like,

hmm, so we have these things and maybe we need to rename them or move them and I don't

know and we can figure that out. But I do think it's at least for us, the right answer

was to just make the stuff and put it where we can and then figure that out because reclaim

TV definitely has a personality now.

Like this is the year where we've streamed every single week with that. I think we've

skipped like three weeks all year.

And I think the only skip in the case of like there is a holiday or something like that

people just simply will not.

Or radio conference.

Yes.

Yeah.

But on the other token, reclaim TV has no set length or format really. Right. Like sometimes

we go on and chat about something we're about to do. Like last week we did a preview of

the summer camp and then of course we made an audio version of that. Whatever. Don't

ignore that. I shouldn't have even mentioned that diversion. But sometimes it's like me

just like trying to set up a tool and like pilot like asking questions and me going like,

I don't know, let's try it. And sometimes we get a guest on.

I like to think I serve the function of a live rubber duck for Taylor.

And sometimes we get a guest on who we were dying to talk to about their project. Like

it's all of those things. We've talked about, you know, like those guest focused episodes.

Maybe those are reclaimed today because to me that feels like what reclaimed today has

been. But I don't know. We haven't been consistent with it. So it's something we'll have to figure

out. However, we wouldn't even be having this conversation if we're like, you know what,

we can't stream every week until we come up with a solid brand strategy. And again, there

are a million reasons why that could be the right decision. But I don't think it was for

us in this case of let's try to build community through video or audio in this case.

I just want to say that I'm a little concerned that my retro computing sessions haven't been

plugged here. I think that's...

So I gotta say, Jim, on your retro computing sessions, the biggest regret of my summer

is that your retro computing sessions happen when I'm off on Friday.

That's kind of...

You're like, will anyone go? And I'm like, I'll do my stupid retro computing that no

one else wants to watch.

And I feel like I may be the only other person at the company who's as interested in it as

you. So I appreciate them. I'm listening to them while I'm on camping.

The streams have opened up. I don't know how retro computing is completely on brand, but

given our albums and VHS, it kind of is. But at the same time, I think we've made a certain

amount of space with these streams, with this conference in general, with us genuinely engaging

with something that excites us. And I think that brings out the best of us, no matter

what we're talking about. And I think people like that.

I think it's funny how much the tinkering on the side that you mentioned earlier, Lauren,

for me is in many ways the center of the work we do. And it's funny how centers and what

pays the bills aren't always the same. But if we can find a way to marry them well, the

two can coexist in ways that keep, I think, the culture we have together and moving forward.

So it's fun. And I think this conference is a really great example of where we are 11

years out. You know what I mean? We haven't become corporate shills. We're not asking

for your social security numbers on Discord. But we would appreciate them.

Yeah. Yeah. That's the last four, at least.

I must say, I'm a little bit disappointed that we've managed to talk about 11 years

of Reclaim for 46, nearly 50 minutes, and no one's yet talked about blogging. I mean,

I know Blog More Di is coming up.

That's next session. That's next session, Maren.

I know. I feel like this is 11 years of Reclaim.

Blogging is every session.

Like, absolutely, Taylor. Thank you. That is it. Right. So I really feel like I've

got to go. I really feel we have to kind of, you know, because we have several blogs, like,

and we have our own blogs, and everybody's listening, you know, hopefully has a blog.

So I feel like we should talk a little bit about that. And Lauren, I must say, I kind

of miss your blogging because, like, I am an avid reader of your blog. And, you know,

like, I feel like if you get anything from the session today, a little injection on the

blogging energy is what I think is needed here.

I know. I know the peer pressure. Once again, I will pick it up. But yeah, it just going

back to what I was saying earlier, this idea of having a working identity. And it's for

so long, I, you know, lived and breathed Reclaim and will always be like the for life, you

know, feeling about, you know, have that feeling around Reclaim. But so much of what I wrote

about was related to my work at Reclaim. And so I have come close often to writing and

then I'm like, well, you know, you just you feel this, this pressure in a different way

to say things right. And I have to, it's my it's a, you know, beast of my own making,

I have to strip that down and deal with that. But yes, that is something that I'm very aware

of. But the other thing I wanted to say too, in doing all of this, reflecting and, you

know, thinking about, you know, who I want to be and what kind of impact I want to have

on the world and my work and all of those things, you know, you can't help but compare

contrast where you came from to where you are now. And one of the things that I really,

really appreciated at Reclaim as both an employee and a colleague that I now very much try to

carry into my current position is just really celebrating the work that we do, celebrating

the work of others and lifting up voices in the community. And I think, you know, as much

as we joke and did joke about blogging at Reclaim, like, it was a clear avenue to do

those things. And I started at Reclaim right out of college, I grew up with blogging being

very much the norm. And as a result, I had my boss, you know, and my colleagues writing

about the work I was doing and feeling celebrated. And then, you know, as our team grew doing

that with others, and then, you know, highlighting voices in the community, and that just became

my norm. And so now with my current team and my current position, blogging is not, you

know, doesn't have the same. I, you know, it's not, it's not a central blog there.

It's not part of that institution.

Right. I mean, there is, you know, there are blog posts and things, but it usually is with

the purpose of highlighting an event coming up or something like that. Like there's a

goal, something that we're marketing, which, again, has a has a purpose, but there's not

as much narrating, like, hi, I'm thinking through these things, and it's not perfect

yet. But I'm just gonna write about it anyways, and document where I am in this moment. And

I think there's a lot of value in capturing that. And also, like I said, highlighting

and celebrating work that you and your peers are doing. And so that's something that I'm

trying to bring in slowly now into my team. And, you know, just figuring out how we can

do more of that highlighting. But yeah, so I, in other words, all of that rambling to

say I do really appreciate that I learned that at Reclaim. And it's something that I

think came from blogging.

Have you all blogged today? Have you guys blogged yet? Justin, have we hazed you about

blogging yet? We haven't.

Yeah, we've only touched on it so far. I await the adventure.

It's coming. Get ready. Set up your blog.

I'm the one being peer pressured to blog. Justin is at Reclaim now. He should be blogging.

I don't know. I think laurenhanks.com is a little stale at the moment. So we need new

content or we need to invoice her one of the two.

Oh gosh. Okay. That was a low blow. Sure. Yeah, I can start paying.

That's right. Only free if you blog.

I'm going to put in a support ticket first on how to access my space because I think

it's been migrated a few times. Yes, I don't know any of my passwords.

You're on a server named after you. What do you want? Okay.

The documentation is not clear. I will be writing in for assistance.

I have monuments to your work. No, I was very close to writing to support

on the day of the WHMCS work just to add to the chaos. But then I thought that might be

a little bit cruel. So there. I saw you write in saying, I can't log in. I didn't get any

advance notice of this. Yeah, I didn't see the 40 emails I got around

this. I'm not blogging right now, but should I

want to blog? How exactly am I going to access my account? Can you take me through that?

Can we have a call? Can you get on a call with me right now?

You have a phone number. Exactly. 24/7? No?

I have to say, I think I'm kind of so new to this whole hosting game. And I always thought

I've been a customer, a paying customer, I hasten to add Justin, of Reclaim for a very

long time. Ever since I met Jim at the OER conference in Edinburgh all that time ago.

I think I actually looked into my emails recently and that was the day I signed up. And so I've

been there ever since. And it always looks so slick from the outside. And I thought,

"Oh, I'd be curious to see what it looks like on the inside." And Lauren, I can tell you,

I was there on the day of WHMCS and I must say I had no meetings because everybody was

busy. But I've never witnessed such a slick operation of such a big systems change. And

I've been part of some of the most messy ones of those. And kudos to this team and kudos

to Meredith and Pilot and Taylor for masterminding all of that.

You're giving us so much credit. Kudos to Chris.

I really am so impressed with the whole team. It was amazing. And we should give a shout

out to the infra team actually, who've been not as much on the air this week while we've

been having fun.

We hide them away. We don't want them to face the whole operation.

They have to go in their infra room. No, that was well done. I had almost nothing to do

with it. And the infra infrastructure team, and especially Chris, just carried it. I would

agree. I've seen lots of these types of transitions and I was honestly a little bit dumbfounded

by how well it went.

He did an amazing job on the back end. But then again, Meredith, you did a great job

on making sure that documentation was up to date and that we were prepared for what was

coming. I mean, just so everyone knows out there, we changed our billing system because

our old one was woefully out of date. You didn't hear that on the radio. And then we

got this updated to the latest and greatest. And it is a major switch for us. And it's

a testament to 11 years on. It's taken us 11 years to switch the system.

Just I don't know. I mean, it's a joyful team to work with because there is not a lot of

grief we give each other. We understand there's a lot of forgiveness. There's a lot of trust.

And there's a lot of just good work that people are doing. And that's one of the things I

think why Reclaim right now is coalescing in such a great way that we have so many people

on the same page going in the same direction. And it's great. All this talk about teams,

all this talk about the work we're doing. It's really just it's fun. It's still fun

after all these years. Can you believe it?

The best feedback that I forgot to share in Slack, but I'll share it now about the billing

system upgrade that I saw was a very close friend of mine who lives in the same town

as I do, manages a hosting account for her parents who have a business. And she logged

in and was like, "Hey, when did you guys change themes or whatever?" And I was like, "You

didn't get like 80 emails?" She's like, "Oh, my parents email is on the account." I was

like, "Oh, well, great." She's like, "Oh, you did some kind of upgrade?" I was like,

"Yes, we did some kind of upgrade." So from perspective outside, it went relatively smoothly,

I think.

Yeah, I think the only reason I kind of knew that it was such a big deal is because I had

been a part of so many internal conversations for so long, and it had been this looming

thing that was coming for us for years. But that's the only reason that and I think the

communication that you all put out, regular email saying, "Hey, this is coming." It was

very helpful, but otherwise, I don't think I would have known the significance of what

was going on. So yes, that is a testament that it went off without a hitch. And it was

also cool because I saw Jim and Meredith in person in Georgetown the day that it happened,

or the day that the maintenance is going on. It's like, "How are you guys? How's it going?"

And I think at the time, you all were just sort of holding your breath like, "So far,

so good, but don't jinx it."

We're sitting in the lobby of the hotel, just typing away on our computers, manic.

It was very good. And I think we approached it in a very methodical way that helped a

lot with that. And we were reflecting on it. And it's been almost a year since we started

the project of testing and retesting and importing and all that sort of stuff that Chris and

then for team started working on. And then maybe four months ago, it picked up that we

were, Paila and I were collaborating on the communication side of things and finally setting

the date for all the work.

I do want to say, just also to give a shout out to you, Taylor, because at the very least,

you were the one who gave the inspiration for what our communication strategy ended

up being. I think you mentioned it sort of offhand, the idea of we're sending out emails,

but also creating an arc of far out from the work, just announcing this is going to happen.

Here's the general gist of what's going to go on. And then as we get closer to the date,

giving more specific information, the closer we get, the more actionable this is going

to be, reminding you that this is happening, but also giving you the documentation is coming.

Here it is. We're going to send you more documentation after the fact that will be for the steps

you need to take after the fact. Here's stuff you need to do to prepare or you don't need

to do to prepare, like making sure that people are receiving information consistently, but

also in a way where they're receiving it as it becomes relevant to them. They're not getting

everything a month out and then forgetting about it.

It's a progressive disclosure, right? That's like the term for that. And thanks, but that

was just me saying it would be cool if we did it like this. And then you and Meredith

did it and did it beautifully, I think. So it's really important part of the migration

process is that it's communicated well. And I think overall it was communicated pretty

well. I shouldn't say overall. I think it absolutely was communicated very well. We've

had very few in the whole, given that this affects literally every customer, we've had

very few questions about it.

Wow. Well, I just realized that we're nearly out of time. We have one more minute left.

And so Meredith, maybe we'll hand it to you in a minute, but I just wanted to say, Lauren,

it's been such a blast to talk with you. I think you're one of the first people from

Reclaim I got to know, and it's so fantastic that you are still active in the community.

So I hope we'll get to see you back on Reclaim TV or maybe on Reclaim Radio for a little

bit more fun soon.

Yes. Thank you all so much for having me. It's been awesome catching up and I promise

I'll blog one day, but thank you. This is an impressive event and I'm so happy to be

a part of it.

We'll send you an invoice for one blog post.

Thank you, Taylor. Awesome. Well, up next, we've got the blog or die session that Jim's

running. And if folks in the chat or anybody in the call here, if they're interested, check

the discord for the summer camp thread and you can join live with us or just listen along

however you'd like. And then after that, I'm up for some lunchtime tunes and then pilots

on to close out the session.

So you know it.

Yeah. So super exciting day and thanks for joining and we'll talk soon.