Digital Freaks Become Reality

For the past eighteen months I’ve been working online for a digital marketing agency. I suppose you could say I’m a static digital nomad. While my newfound profession allows me to work from anywhere in the world, my love for Cambodia and my little furry friend has resulted in my setting up residence in sleepy Kampot and getting the fastest internet connection the country has to offer installed in my house.

I knew relatively little (read none) about the world I was stepping into when I got a job as an SEO blog writer through an online platform in September 2016. But like most things I turn my hand (fingers) to, I picked it up soon enough. I’ve always loved writing (this blog is exhibit A) and it wasn’t long before my boss began to offer me a diverse range of writing tasks.

But who is this boss? Karyn started Digital Freak a few months before bringing me on board and is based in Melbourne (along with almost all of our clients). Over time, as I began to do more work, we started to get to know one another. Time passed, I took on more responsibility and our Skype message conversation began to be so long that trying to find a password or task shared just a few days before resulted in my entire computer becoming overwhelmed and crashing.

Before long we were talking about more than just work, growing closer in both our professional and personal lives. We learned about one another, talked outside of working hours (which is saying something considering we’re both workaholics and have been known to be at our respective computers into the small hours of the morning), and eventually began to call one another friends. When I knew I was coming to Perth to see my sister, therefore, I knew it was time to hop over to Melbourne. This is the tale of how Digital Freaks became reality.

There’s a difference between knowing someone in messenger form, commenting on one another’s Facebook posts and the (very) occasional work phone call. I won’t deny that I was a little nervous of meeting Karyn. I had joked several times that if we met and didn’t get on, the business would implode. I maintain that statement is true. Luckily for both of us, Digital Freak stands strong. After over a year of talking to each other every day, sharing stories, thoughts, hopes and dreams, I was standing outside her apartment building, pressing the intercom and about to come face to face with the individual who set my life on an unpredicted, yet wonderfully enjoyable trajectory.

At 7am, after only an hour’s sleep and suffering from jetlag aren’t the best circumstances under which to meet someone for the first time but considering that, I think we did pretty well. Karyn was kind enough to open her home to me for the week, share her evenings and time with her son and allow us the opportunity to get to know each other on a deeper level. And yes, I know what you’re thinking. We don’t have a typical employer-employee relationship but it works for us and it works for the business. I trust her implicitly and I hope she feels the same about me.

The unorthodox nature of our friendship continues. Only a few hours after I landed, I found myself in my first ever public yoga class; a three hour ‘urban retreat’ alongside Karyn followed by lunch. Feeling refreshed, relaxed and in touch with my inner zen, we returned to her apartment and continued to find our footing with one another in the same room, city, country and time-zone.

After a visit to Melbourne’s annual Moomba festival and a good night’s sleep, Karyn and I were back to doing what we do best: working. Except this time, I was able to interrupt her with a knock on her office door rather than the ping of a Skype message. I fell seamlessly into the routine of working at her dining room table, shouting questions down the corridor and discussing clients, strategies and the future of the business during our regular coffee breaks. The evenings involved more getting to know one another and various wines I’d brought from Margaret River, a memento of my roadtrip the week before.

Attending Karyn’s BNI meeting on Thursday was a definite trip highlight as it allowed me to show my face to about half of the company’s clients. I also got to meet one of our partners whom I’ve been exchanging emails with for the past six months. Another first-time experience was attending a book launch of client, coincidentally scheduled during my trip. The week was rounded off by a four-hour photoshoot with yet another client. This was somewhat sprung on me (Karyn, I’ll get you back for this) and while I accept that my LinkedIn profile was in desperate need of being updated, I was a little nervous, never having felt at home in front of the camera lens. The girls at Blush Creative were fantastic, however, and managed to make me feel relaxed and comfortable as they snapped away.

That evening I also had some time to spare so I popped into the city to meet up with a friend from Cambodia. Mel lived in Kampot for six months and it was great to catch up with her in one of Melbourne’s countless bars, reminisce over our time in the kingdom together, talk about our friends and update one another on our lives.

The weekend was downtime. Karyn and I aren’t known for taking time for ourselves but we managed to drag ourselves away from our screens, bundle her son, Corbin, into the car and hit the road. To the Twelve Apostles, to be precise. Majestic, iconic and thoroughly worth the 3-hour drive.

We then set off weaving our way back up Great Ocean Road, talking about our hopes and dreams for the future, life plans steadily mapped out in front of us and growing more defined the closer we got to the city.

I’ve never been a planner. Unlike Karyn, who has a ten-year plan. After my time in the city, however, I think I can see my future. For those of you in England reading this, I’m afraid it looks like I’m moving further away. Melbourne was an amazing city but more than that, this job and this company is presenting a great opportunity to me. I’ve always been lucky in my ability to do jobs I love but I have never enjoyed my work as much as I do with Digital Freak. It’s interesting, challenging and a constant learning curve, one I am yearning to travel further along. There’s no set time frame for this next step but I think it’s safe to say, at some point, it’s happening.

And on that note, for those of you who want to visit me in Cambodia, start booking your tickets (Karyn, that includes you!)

Here are some pics of my time in Melbourne and if you’re on Instagram, search #DigitalFreaksBecomeReality to see a few more.

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Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves

When considering the nature versus nurture argument, I find it very interesting to look at myself and my younger sister, Molly. While we were brought up in the same environment (nurture), we are very different people in many ways (nature). That said, we also have a lot of similarities; you just have to look a little harder to find them. While I love to travel, my sister is most definitely a home bird. I have a cat, she has a dog. Molly is making her way as an artist while I struggle to draw a stickman. We’re following very different career paths and yet, over the past few weeks, we’ve come to realise we can lend our individual skillsets to help one another. Rather than sisters doing it for themselves, therefore, we’re doing it for each other.

I suppose we are both creative; she with images, me with words. For the past year, I’ve been working for a digital marketing agency, writing blogs, websites, social media copy and much more. I have learnt what is required for a business to rise through the ranks of Google and land at the top of relevant search engine results pages and capture the attention of customers. And now my sister wants to do exactly this with her new website.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is simple enough once you know what Google’s PageRank algorithm is looking for. You need to deliver the information it is seeking in a straightforward format which it can identify and analyse to determine your page’s relevance. While Molly had a great website built for her by one of her friend’s, Google would have struggled to recognise its relevance before I got my hands on it. You see, Google can’t (yet) read images. It relies on text to understand what is on a page. Therefore, beautiful though Molly’s website was with images of her artwork, as far as Google was concerned, it was empty. Now, however, we have added in the relevant tags and alt text and meta descriptions which allow Google to scan the Internet, pick up keywords such as ‘pressure print’, ‘oil painting’ and ‘British bird greeting cards’ (all Molly’s specialties), and push her website up the pages of results whenever a relevant search is googled.

It’s a great feeling to not only be able to help my own sister but also to see the positive results in what I’ve been doing for her (using an analytics app kindly lent to me by my boss). It’s also validation that I really do understand what I’m doing. And the best part about this is that it’s a two-way street. While I may be helping Molly, she has skills to offer me too. Or, more specifically, my charity.

I am always looking for new ways to raise money for SKOPE, my education charity I run in Cambodia. Between us, Molly and I came up with the idea of her creating a charity greeting card as part of her British bird range from which the proceeds will go to SKOPE. We’re considering it her way of saying thank you for my help. And yet she’s helping me too. We are now both in positions where we are excelling within our chosen careers and able to offer support and help for one another using our specialised skills.

The cards Molly will design shall feature a Cambodian bird and are due to be available in her Etsy shop within the next couple of months. Hopefully, by that time and with my continued SEO efforts, she’ll be landing high up Google results and attracting more web traffic and more customers. We both benefit from helping one another. I’m sure our parents are reading this and wishing we had realised we would have benefitted from being friends as children so we could play together rather than fight. But it’s better late than never, right?

Molly and I are doing it for ourselves in our separate career paths but we’re also now working together, offering our unique skillsets to support and better the other. We’re two sisters who are doing it for one another.

 

Oh, and in case you hadn’t already clicked, here’s a link to Molly’s website and her Etsy store.