In today’s episode, Joe talks to Morgan Lucas, a network engineer and author of RUNTCPIP.com – a blogging site that specializes in writing about tech, email marketing, and blogging with humor and informative style. She’s also a technologist well-oriented on Azure Cloud, Cisco, Juniper, Remote Support, and Programming.
They discuss freelance end-user consultancy, genuine connections through networking, the movie animation industry, as well as technical blogging and social media presence.
What to Listen For:
- 00:00 Intro
- 01:16 Welcome to the pod, Morgan Lucas!
- 03:07 The Cloud technology
- 05:10 Freedom working as an independent consultant
- 06:37 User testing for a streaming site
- 08:02 Pulling back from weekly blogging and social media
- 13:12 Working to make technical blogs more accessible
- 17:20 Connect to people online with sincerity
- 19:40 Why networking works
- 21:59 Warner Media’s marketing department
- 23:54 Animated movies mostly reflect our society
- 29:14 Full-time consulting for 2021?
- 29:51 Consultancy for larger companies while still helping small businesses
- 31:40 Find Morgan online!
Episode Resources:
- Visit Morgan’ website – RUNTCPIP
- Send Morgan a Tweet
- Morgan is on LinkedIn
- Leave an iTunes review or binge-watch past episodes
- Send questions to yo@wpmrr.com for the next Q&A pod
- Visit the WPMRR website
Podcast Transcript:
Joe Howard: [00:00:00] Hey folks, Joe Howard here this week, I got the opportunity to sit down with Morgan Lucas. Morgan is a systems engineer near a cloud engineer network engineer. You all know I’m not super technical, but she does some seriously technical stuff. It was really cool to get to set, sit down with her, hear about just some of that work and what she does as a consultant in these areas.
This was a very wide ranging conversation. We got to chat about that. Uh, we talked about, uh, really like how to. Genuinely network, how to do it in a way that really builds community and not just about handing out, you know, business cards at a, at a get together, something like that. And we talked about the movie business, we talked about, you know, some of our favorite animated shows and movies.
It’s we talked about a lot here, so I hope you enjoy this week’s episode. Uh, Morgan was a real joy to chat with and I think you’ll get a lot out of this conversation. All right. Without further ado, please. Welcome Morgan Lucas. Enjoy.
All right. We are live on the pod this week. Uh, we’ve got a great guest this week. Morgan Lucas, Morgan, why don’t you? Uh, give folks a little intro for yourself. Maybe some of the stuff you do with WordPress and maybe some of the stuff you do outside of WordPress, too.
Morgan Lucas: [00:01:25] Hi everybody. My name is Morgan Lucas.
First. Thanks for having me here, Joe. And second, what I do on WordPress is occasionally I will open it up. I will look around, I will say this webpage looked different two weeks ago and then I will close it and just kind of move on. So normally what I do is work on a lot of different tactical things, just because I like.
Putting my hand in things and seeing what works and what doesn’t. And I also do consulting work for some companies I’m working to work. I’m looking to work with some major companies in the future. I’ve already done some in 2020, so that was pretty cool. And I blog about it on my blog, which is run TCP, ip.com.
And I’m happy to read here.
Joe Howard: [00:02:06] Yeah. Yeah. It’s cool to have you. I, as someone who’s like, not as technical, I actually always really enjoy my conversation with technical folks because I get to learn a little bit more, even if I don’t totally understand everything. I’m always trying to do a better job, you know?
Cause I do run a technical company. I want to make sure that I am. Somewhat up to speed on some of these things. Tell folks a little bit, maybe even more about the technical aspects of some of the work you do. Do you kind of like, I don’t even know if this is a question, do you like specialize in certain like languages?
Or do you like, do you kind of prefer like more front end work or backend work? Where’s your kind of like area that you’d like to play in when it comes to technical?
Morgan Lucas: [00:02:40] So my area is basically network engineering and network administration, and that includes the cloud. Like most people. When you think of cloud think, Hey, it’s Amazon, AWS, which runs half the internet, but most of the time I’m working in Microsoft Azure and I’m learning about Google GCP and stuff like that because the cloud is the future.
Most of the things run on the cloud, but I can’t get away without saying this, that the cloud is really just someone’s computer. And so cloud technology is just an extension of in-person hands-on physical networking, but I also do a lot of other things. Another thing I’m working on is a review of the galaxy beach that I got for Christmas and that’s going, but floor that I thought it would, but it’s still fun to go, Oh, Hey, I have to change 500,000 settings and windows just to be able to talk to somebody with the microphone.
Joe Howard: [00:03:28] Yeah. Yeah. I hear that. Uh, I’m always, I feel like I always have some content to Brite or update and the list never seems to. Go away. It always see there’s always something on the list, but also it’s interesting what you’re saying about the cloud. I think about the cloud when I’m using my iPhone and just kind of like, Oh, I can have as many pictures as I, as I want to on my phone, but I don’t have to have the biggest saving space on my phone because I can just like have all my photos on the cloud.
Like that makes it easier. But I think what you’re saying to me is the cloud, is it sounds cool, but it’s really just like a big Apple server. That’s hosted, that’s holding all my photos. It actually is a computer and hardware that is, is holding all that, does that somewhat correct? Yeah,
Morgan Lucas: [00:04:13] basically it’s just the cloud.
There’s also things like, imagine. I have an Amazon Alexa that I use sometimes. So I don’t use it. I’m probably, I’d probably just unplugged it. It’s like a little box somewhere, but whenever I talk to Alexa is going to take that stuff and it’s going to kind of sit it to Amazon, AWS, and they have all these functions and other pieces of technology that will parse what I say.
And then they will return. What I asked for because nine times out of 10, I’m saying, Hey, Alexa, play Paul Hardcastle radio on Spotify. And I’m sorry if anybody’s Alexa just started playing Paul Hardcastle radio out there. Nice. Got them.
Joe Howard: [00:04:52] Yeah. The cloud stuff is not something I have really like a super.
From grasp on, but I’m always interested to learn more, uh, especially just from, from people like, you know, a little, a little more than me and yeah. Sorry for the curve ball. This, we always kind of go off on a few tangents on the show. Cause someone says something really cool and I’m like, Oh, I want to talk about that more.
And so it sounds like you do some work in this area. When I think about this work, talk about more like fortune 500 companies, like bigger enterprise companies, most of the consulting you’re doing for like bigger companies or do you maybe work with some smaller companies as well?
Morgan Lucas: [00:05:22] So. A company, they actually reached out to me and they said, Hey, we noticed that you use our stuff.
And I was like, do you want to do some research for us for a week? And I said, Hmm, sure. Okay. I can put that on a resume. And then they said, well, no, you can’t because you can’t actually use our name, but it was like, but they said, you can say that we are a major screaming service. So I’m like, okay, cool.
Close enough. And so when I did that, that just kind of opened the door to me, really enjoying consulting work, as opposed to working for a company like nine to five. Like I respect the people who do that, but honestly, most of the time I do most of my work from like 8:00 PM to 11:00 PM. So I’m like that just doesn’t work with most people’s business hours.
And so she gave me the freedom to just do. Well, I want to do what I like to do, what I have to do around the clock. And I’m probably just going to have a great time working for you.
Joe Howard: [00:06:10] All right. So like streaming stuff. So I’d be interested to know like where that, where does that intersection happen?
Because it sounds like you’re more, you’d like to be a little bit more flexible with your schedule. Um, kind of the same way I like to work when I like to work. I’m not really working when I’m not working. That’s how I do things for a streaming service. So what kind of like work is going on from your perspective, in terms of the, like some of the consulting stuff you do?
I, maybe you can talk. Like about again, like exactly who the company is, but like what kind of work happens from like eight to 11:00 PM, uh, consulting work for a streaming company? Like what kind of tech stuff’s going on there?
Morgan Lucas: [00:06:43] Okay. So this part was a little less tech, but a little bit more user friendly.
Like, can you test our user interface if you want to see how you use this? And you want to hear any feedback you have. And so since I listened to podcasts most of the time, but I’m trying to sleep, I know most people are like, Oh, the pandemic, since I’m not telecom, I’m not commuting anywhere. I don’t listen to podcasts.
And I’m here like, well, I was supposed to go to sleep. And so there’ll be like, Hey. Is there anything that our interface could have done better to make this a little easier for you to use podcasts? Because they’ve started buying a lot of podcasts companies, which, you know, good for them, because I’m not going to say that some of my suggestions were implemented because it was a few months ago and they could still very well.
Be in development, but they were very interested in my feedback, how easy I found it to use the service, the play podcasts. And so it was just a lot of user testing. How do you use this? Why do you use a, like this there’s something another company is doing that we could be doing? Like she’ll be by them or should we just use what they use?
Joe Howard: [00:07:43] Yeah. We’re a little bit more in my area of expertise now. Just more like user experience stuff. Yeah. I think a lot of that is, is so important, especially where like, Coming from, from someone like you, who has probably used a bunch of different tools. You’re like, you know, what’s gonna work and what’s not gonna work.
So that kind of work sounds important for them. Yeah. I’d love to hear more about some of the technical blogging you do too, or just like the blogging in general. I think we talked a little bit before this. It sounds like you’re doing some blogging. That’s not as tech specific. So that sounds like you’re doing maybe a little bit of both, but the thing I wanted to talk about first was last year, you were blogging once a week.
Or I guess that was your goal is to blog once a week. And this year, a lot of people saying, okay, what more can I do? What else can I do to get in front of people? You know, grow my audience, that kind of stuff you are taking the opposite approach or a different approach. You’re actually. Stepping back a little bit and blogging a little less frequently.
I thought that was super interesting. I’d love to hear a little bit more about that and kind of the reason behind that
Morgan Lucas: [00:08:42] I’m basically on social media. I’m basically stepping back from a lot of things. Not only from blogging, I still enjoy blogging. It’s just. Quality or quantity, you know, I’m not going to say the work I was putting out once a week was bad, but I do realize that it was pretty short.
And at that point you can just add things to a post over time, keep it in the drafts and then push it out. So when people see that as new posts, they get really excited because there’s something they can sink their teeth into and pulling back on social media because I was on LinkedIn and I’m still on LinkedIn.
If you want to connect with me, just, just tell me where you’re from. Cause people don’t and I’m like, Hey. Stranger. So they say that you have to post once a day to all LinkedIn, to be in front of the algorithm. And I thought, you know what, man, I don’t feel like that. So I’m going to post like, Two or three times a week, but it’s just not going to be something I’m trying to say this diplomatically.
It’s not going to be something boring and businessy that’s about as diplomatic as I can get it. Like I will just post something like, Hey, I just totally made an HTML CSS, JavaScript gallery of the 4,500 Disney mocks that I own in my pantry. So come look at it. And I actually did that. So. Like, so I was just like, Hey, I’m going to make stuff that I like making.
And I’m going to play around with stuff that I like playing around with and you can stick around for the ride. And a lot of people have stuck around and I deeply appreciate that. It’s was like, even people. Because in our world, people are bombarded 24 seven with their on Tik TOK. They are on tech talk.
I’m not on Tik TOK. I am old at 28. I have no idea what the children are doing. So they’re on Tik TOK. They’re on napChat they’re everywhere. Like I use Twitter, LinkedIn, and a bunch of Slack communities. And that’s about it. My people are being bombarded. It’s like. The way to stand out is to not bombard somebody, like let them come as they are, let them hang around for as long as they want to.
And you don’t always have to be in somebody’s face. That’s what I find the most difficult part about networking is I don’t want to be in your face. I just want to be paid and be left alone and maybe make a friend or two down the road. Like I don’t really being in someone’s face all the time. It’s not my style.
That’s why I’m a network engineer, because I don’t have to do that in theory. Like you still need to have people skills, but I’m not going to be on a stage or anything.
Joe Howard: [00:10:58] Yeah, I think that is one of the most important things anybody can learn about themselves is what you said about LinkedIn. It’s like, okay.
A lot of people are going to say that. Okay. I read this thing about LinkedIn algorithm. I got a post once a day. Okay. I guess I’m going to go post once a day because I want to whatever, expand my network. But you said. Like man, screw that. Like I’m, I’m going to do what I want to do. And that to me is like most important piece of anything that anybody does, because I feel like people think I got to get everyone in my audience.
I gotta like, do grow this as fast as possible. I like to think about it more as the there’s like a popular book out there, or just like concept about a thousand true fans. I’m sorry. I can’t like quote exactly who it’s from or who thought of it, but it’s the idea of like, if you have like a thousand true fans, you can.
Do whenever you want to, you can actually like make a good living. You can do what you want to do instead of quote unquote what you’re supposed to do. Right. And you can have that audience of people. Like be the kind of people who want to follow you as opposed to the kind of people who may want to follow me, as opposed to kind of people who may want to follow other people.
You don’t need 7 billion people to follow you. Yeah. You need your thousand people and you’ll be happier probably if you hit those thousand people or like people who you really like, and you really wanted to connect with and they are following you because of the genuine stuff you’re doing. Not because of.
The stuff you’re supposed to do, quote unquote, because LinkedIn told you to, you know, so I think you’re on the right track with that stuff. Right. And
Morgan Lucas: [00:12:26] people who are like, I’m trying to gain the algorithm on LinkedIn. I’m like, dude, Microsoft owns LinkedIn. They probably change the algorithm every five minutes.
And nobody knows. So you might just want to give up right
Joe Howard: [00:12:36] now. Yeah. Yeah, totally. We do a lot of content marketing, so like we’re pretty dependent on Google for like sending us a lot of traffic to, you know, the WP buffs blog, uh, and. Yeah, same thing. They probably change our algorithm 50 times a month.
Probably a little micro changes all the time and the thing where we can do well, we can put out really good content. You know, we can optimize and do that kind of stuff. But a lot of it is just like, do you have the best content out there? Are you answering people’s questions? Are you adding value to people?
So we really try to focus more on that and less on the like gamification of SEO stuff. So yeah, I’m with you. All right. So you talked, I’ve done a little blogging and correct me if I’m wrong. Do you kind of keep your technical blogging on to your own website, which is just run TCP, ip.com and the technical writing happens there, and then you have.
Another blog where you write some not so technical stuff on medium, sort
Morgan Lucas: [00:13:28] of, kind of like I have exported of like blog posts to a medium, and one of them was about, and I had originally written this on Ron TCP, ip.com. Right. It was about the commercialization of animal crossing, new horizons, like companies are buying copies of this game and making their stuff and they’re using it to advertise to people.
And I’m like, and I wrote about that in July and I just made my medium blog and I think December, and I was like, So it’s about what I feel like writing. Sometimes I’ll put it on both. Sometimes I’ll put it on neither, but I think I am trying to keep it technical on my blog, but I’m working on making it more accessible for people because I will go back and look at what I wrote and I’m like, okay, I can barely understand this.
How is the person, what they’re they’ve got to understand. So I’m like, so I’m honestly trying to. Right to my audience to make sure that everybody’s understanding another industry I feel is really interesting. I followed for years at this point is like movie marketing and the business of making movies and all that stuff.
And so I actually wrote about that when Warner brothers, they said, Hey, we’re still going to release tenet in August, 2020 movie theaters were closed. Be damned. We’re going to release this movie because too. So, and I wrote about that and I’m like, okay, cool. Yeah. But funnily enough, I did not write about how Warner brothers decided to put all their movies and HBO max in 2021, along with the co theatrical release, I probably should have written about that.
I think at this point it’s been beaten in hammer to death though. Helps write about what’s interesting. And the key point of that is because I would like to work with Warner brothers one day. I would like to work with Warner media. That’s why I care enough to write something like that. But if it’s just an industry I don’t care about, then I’m probably not going to keep an eye on their business.
And if I don’t keep an eye on their business, I’m not going to write about it because I just don’t think it’s interesting. But Warner brothers is one of many companies I do think is genuinely interesting and I would like to support them.
Joe Howard: [00:15:21] Yeah, that’s cool. I mean, it’s really cool that you’re. Thinking ahead.
I think a lot of people have companies in their mind that are like, Oh, that’s a cool company that I want to work for one day, but they don’t, they don’t really know the procedure of like, how would I get a job at like my dream company? I like this idea of like doing some stuff on your own writing about them, you know, starting to do some blogging and like getting into that world with the tools you already have in your tool belt.
I’ve hired a few people at my company who they were on my radar before I ended up hiring them. Like one is like, I’m thinking about it came from like some Twitter DMS and some stuff that happened on Twitter. One happened, you know, I recently hired someone who I’ve been talking to for like almost a year, you know, on and off, not serious conversations the whole time, but like, It happened.
It doesn’t have to, you don’t just like apply for a job. And then a week later, like you have that job. Like a lot of times it takes time. And I think like getting into that world yourself is a good way to one, like potentially get noticed. But also even more than that, I think just like get into the world and learn more and maybe like meet some people who are connected to that space because someone wrote, read your articles, who like, well, I know a person at Warner, can I introduce you?
And you never know what will happen. And so I think like optimizing your luck. Maybe it’s how I think about it to like, Hey, who knows what could happen in the future? You know? Right.
Morgan Lucas: [00:16:46] Just like another thing I do with people is I have a spreadsheet is it’s not particularly organized, but it’s a spreadsheet.
It has people at companies and industries that I would like to be in. Yes. You’ll link to their LinkedIn and get, check it maybe once a week, if they have a post, you like the post, you don’t go all the way back. And like every post from the past five years, because not only is that insincere it’s creepy and it shows you don’t know how to use your time very well, but you could probably automate that.
But either way, they’re not going to know what’s automated. It just looks weird. And so I’ve actually made, I’ve actually met quite a few people at like large companies, like Warner brothers, like Disney. I have connected with people just because I hung around. And genuinely liked what they had to say, because there’s some people they’re going to find every person who works at this company and they’re going to either follow them or try to connect with them, or they’re going to put them in a list and they’re just going to go down there and just like everything they say, and like, that’s not sincere.
Like, look, I’m one of those people who think that if you’re capable and competent for a job, you should be able to be hired for it. You should be able to apply and be hard for networking. I actually hate networking. I think it’s insincere only, and it should be about your talent and not going to know, but I understand that’s the world we live in.
And unfortunately we just have to play the game, but you can kind of play it on your own terms. You don’t have to like everything that somebody posts, but you can didn’t we just find the people at a company that you like, the people that you like, not just the company and you can just follow them. I was like, isn’t it a lot better to like the people to find people that you click with even rarely or on occasion, and then just interact with their content, leave them a post, say congratulations and actually mean it.
If you don’t mean it, don’t say it. There’s going to be other opportunities for you. So don’t feel like you have to jump on the first one that comes around when it comes with interacting
Joe Howard: [00:18:36] with somebody. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Um, yeah. In some ways I feel a lot like you do. And one of the, probably one of the reasons that I ended up in the WordPress space, because I feel like the WordPress space, it’s a great community of people.
Friendly people who want to build something cool together in the form of open source software. And I feel like a lot of people don’t like that networking vibe of like, here’s my business card. Like you bring a hundred business cards to a meetup and you’ve got to hand them all out. And then like, that’s what networking is.
Like people in the WordPress space are not about that kind of networking. It’s much more about like the community and because everyone has that common feel, I feel like. Whatever the networking that happens in the WordPress space is a lot more genuine. It really is just like most people who are like, again, like quote unquote in my network in the WordPress community are really just my friends.
Like, they’re just people, I like hit up with a Slack DM or like, we shouldn’t email to you, like, Hey, what’s up? Like, how was your family? Like, how’s everything during, during COVID you’re doing okay. Like it’s that kind of community. And that feels much better and much more genuine to me. So yeah, maybe like the pursuit of.
Community over networking or just, yeah, maybe like updating that vocabulary. It could also be helpful for people who are like, feeling like you. I agree with you. I’m not like I used to do that networking thing because I thought I had to and it turns out like,
Morgan Lucas: [00:19:56] yeah, I also hate the rhetoric of, but what’s in it for me.
If I help you, it was like, In fact that you help somebody get to live in a capitalist society and make money. That shouldn’t be what’s in it for you. I mean, I did, to an extent that maybe you’re not going to recommend somebody for a CIO job that you barely know, I guess that. Who does it hurt for you to pass along a link to somebody like on Twitter, actually follow somebody who works at this grocery company.
I don’t want to like drop him off here. I’m going to drop into amen. If they don’t like it, I’m sorry. At zero grocery. And there’s some California where they like have all these good products that they’ll, it’s like. Being a milkman, but it’s with groceries. If that sounds kind of odd, it’s like they will send you things in glass containers.
They’ll send you things in glass containers to eliminate waste. And that’s a really cool concept. If I lived in California, I would try it, but I don’t want them in Florida. So actually I sent a referral link that somebody had posted because I follow a recruiter on there and I just stuck it on a Slack channel.
I didn’t know these people in the Slack channel. I just thought, Hey, maybe you can do this. Cause I know I can. It was like, maybe you can do it. So if you want me to make an introduction to you, I totally will. And I actually did find like two or three people and I let the recruiter know and quite a few of them got interviews.
Like it didn’t hurt me to do that and nobody paid me for, but okay. Someone got
Joe Howard: [00:21:17] helped. Yeah, I think that’s a good outlook. Everyone has that outlook, but we could use more of it in the world, I think. And yeah. It’s you pass along enough. Goodness. Externally, you will get good in this back. You know, I, I know that it may not be something you’re like I’m doing a quid pro quo for or something like that.
But if you put out good in the world, usually you get good back as well. So, um, I’m with you on that. Um, I wanted to dive more into that. Warner brothers thing, it sounds like you’re like really into. Movies, obviously like you’re a technical person. That’s kind of like a professional background, but you’re really into movies stuff.
I want to know, like what your what’s your dream job at Warner? Maybe not Warner brothers Warner media is what I think you said it, but maybe like the movie side of things at Warner, what would be your dream job there? Is it more technical stuff? Like, is it in like their streaming department or like doing engineering work for them or is it maybe more.
Actual like movie stuff. I don’t know.
Morgan Lucas: [00:22:15] Okay. Fun fact. Before I decided on this background, I was about to set up this interview with my Spider-Man at the spider verse poster, because I have one in my room, but I know it’s not Warner brothers, but I’ll say, can I use, cause I have like five or six movie posters in my room.
And I was like, do I use this one, this one or this one? I was like, no, I’m just going to use this. I just liked the idea of supporting a movie company because movies have been a big part of my life for absolute ages. The part of their company that I really Oh, I, I, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to advertise everything, but go for it.
Birds of prey. I really love birds of prey and I wish I’d gotten more attention in the greater scheme of things, but then COVID came
Joe Howard: [00:22:51] and what are those, what are the, what are those figurines called there? I can’t really Funko pops. Funky. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Nice. But the
Morgan Lucas: [00:22:59] part of their company that I really admire is like the marketing segment.
I was like, They haven’t done some really great marketing campaigns, especially with their monster verse and their DC extended universe stuff. Like it would be an honor to just be able to support any one of those, any aspect of their company. But those are the parts that I really pay attention to whenever they have a new movie come
Joe Howard: [00:23:18] out.
Yeah. Would you consider yourself like a comic book person and like, Superhero nerd, so to speak. Is that kind of your area of fandom?
Morgan Lucas: [00:23:28] Absolutely not. The most I do is I watch, like I watch like two comic book YouTubers on YouTube and that’s about the extent of my knowledge. All of my knowledge comes from them.
So I’m like, I like the movies, but I can’t say I’ve read a comic book in about. 10 or 11 years. I’m sure. They’re great. It’s just, I a to look at the movies and I can’t keep all that paper in my house.
Joe Howard: [00:23:51] Yeah. Yeah. I hear you. I’m like, what are some of the movies that you’re, you’re more into? Um, yeah. Like, are you into like specific like genres or just like, are there some Warner brothers specific or Warner media specific things you were enjoying?
Morgan Lucas: [00:24:05] I really like animated movies. Those are, I know it’s not a genre, so. Medium. I really like animated movies and breaking down how they actually kind of reflect our society because really recently. So if you kind of noticed animation has been mainstreamed, animation has been super, super wide and yeah. Hey, Hey everybody who watched this far, I’m one of those people who concerned with social justice.
So. There’s a warning. I’m going to start talking about it. So like a lot of animation is it’s super white and they have definitely okay. And they have definitely improved over the year. It’s like, like I said before, I have movie posters in my room. They’re all animated. I have marijuana. I have Kung Fu Panda and I have my favorite movie, which is Spider-Man into the spider verse.
They’re all animated and. There’s such a scope of Chandra’s that you can do with animation. I know I mentioned mainstream ones just now, but there are also some really cool in the animations, like, look at cartoon saloon. If you have Apple TV, plus go look a Wolf walkers, because it’s really good. And it’s really sad.
I was like, so the more indie animation that comes to the forefront, the better it is for everybody. Because again, I like Disney. I like Warner animation group, but they’re not the end all be all of animation. You really have to expand your scope and you really have to look beyond their defined a bunch of diverse, interesting movies that can open your perspective.
Joe Howard: [00:25:23] Yeah. I used to watch some, some anime growing up, some of the stuff was like kind of mainstream. Like I watch a lot like dragon ball Z when I was, when I was a kid, like, I remember like five o’clock every weekday, like God. Got it, check out the new drag Mozy episode. And so that was like a big thing for me growing up when I was, when I was younger.
And then I watched the, you know, I I’m having trouble remembering the names of all the movies, but like the, something about a maid, like the maid service, something maid service, and like tote, Totoro. Like I watched all those movies when I was a kid and they still actually like, hold it like really. Fun place in my heart.
Whenever I see, like, as someone who watches anime, they have like a Totoro backpack. And Mike told her I like love is so cool. So I don’t know if you were into that stuff as well, but I remember fondly that stuff.
Morgan Lucas: [00:26:14] Yeah. I will watch an animated movie before I walk in and may series because I feel like, I mean, it’s totally fine.
It’s just not my thing. Cause they take like all the too long, I was like, look, I don’t watch a whole bunch of television first. So anything that has like 30 episodes, I’m like. Cool. All right. So maybe I’ll walk, maybe I’ll finish it in like two or three years. So
Joe Howard: [00:26:34] yeah, actually that was the one thing I remember about dragon Bozi it was like, you have to watch like 10 episodes for like anything to like actually happen.
Like it’s like an episode would start with like one of the characters, like powering up and then it would end like with them finishing, pairing up and you’re like, nothing really like happened in this episode. Like, okay, it’s all cliffhangers and stuff, but anyway, still enjoy the show. I, we talked, just talked about like anime for 10 minutes.
This is great. And I love talking about random stuff in the show. I want to come back a little bit to the what the next kind of year for you looks like in terms of 2021. Cause we talked a little bit about you maybe blogging a little less and maybe with higher quality this year, which I think is a really good move.
And I think. Most audiences will take that trade off, you know, maybe a little less frequency and announcements or content, but maybe some higher quality content. I think a lot of audiences would, would appreciate that. What else is 2000? What else is 2021 hold for you? Do you think, do you think it’s, um, you know, you’ll continue to do a little consulting here and there continue to blog.
Anything else? That’s kinda big on your calendar. I know it’s COVID stuff. Most people would have a lot of stuff paused, but anything else, digital, maybe you’re thinking about this year.
Morgan Lucas: [00:27:43] Just because I logged once a week, it doesn’t mean that it was bad quality. I mean, after all I was in an article for tech target and I actually won a fully paid conference trip because of my blog.
And the funny thing is, yeah, if you’ve ever heard of Grace Hopper
Joe Howard: [00:27:57] convention, I haven’t, but tell me about it. I was like,
Morgan Lucas: [00:28:01] it’s the world’s biggest collection of female technologists and it’s mostly software oriented and like front end, which is still a very important part of technology, but they saw my hardware networking blog, and they liked me enough to give me a four day pass.
I just had to get to Orlando. And this was in 2019 where we could still get on airplanes and go places. So 20, 21, I would like to do consulting. Full-time just two or three companies a month. You pay me, I’ve looked at your user interface. I see what needs improvement. Look at your backend. I see what needs improvement.
I help you migrate to a cloud or help you. Or I work with small businesses and I help you. Well, I guess I really can’t help small businesses this year because it’s COVID. So besides that, in theory, I could help you with your Juniper stuff, because even though I’m certified in Cisco and Microsoft and comp Tia, I’m working on my Juniper Junos certification because a lot of vendors like that, smaller, more our cart system to what Cisco offers.
No offense, Cisco. I love them. You’re great. So I want to do consulting full time. And I just kind of want to stick to my smaller micro-communities and build some more genuine relationships with people and just help them out where I feel the need to. Yeah.
Joe Howard: [00:29:14] I think you have a good goal for 2021, continuing the work that you do that allows you to work flexibly around your schedule.
I mean, I love that. So it sounds like you may be looking to continue to do consulting, but the flexibility in the like timing and. All of that sounds like it’s sounds like it’s pretty important too. When you’re talking about working a full time consultant in this year, is that, are you, are you interested in like, like a, a full-time job or continuing, just consulting for multiple companies and maybe not working 40 hours a week?
Um, and working fewer hours,
Morgan Lucas: [00:29:52] I turned to consulting simply because I could not find a job in my field after college. And this is like networking. This is the biggest deal. Like. So I turned to consulting out of necessity other than want. And at this point I look at a 40 hour work week and I think, you know what, I’m good.
I can still help people and probably make more money with freelance without having to work 40 hours a week somewhere. So if it comes along with a reasonably flexible company, because there are, there are good companies out there who understand that the job has a, it’s not a replacement for an identity or personality.
They understand that. Hey, even though we have money to make an, a business to run, you’d probably rather be somewhere else than sitting here for. Like 75% of your week doing. So if a company is open and reasonably flexible life ad, I’m not against talking with them, I’m not against working for them, but I prefer consultancy where I build up a relationship with these larger companies where they can pay me large flat fee straight up so I can give more concentrated, appropriate, help.
To a few companies, as opposed to helping everybody everywhere all at once and wearing myself thin. And most importantly, you know, giving bad services, something that I don’t want to do. So five people paying me $2,000 is better than 20 people paying me. About $200.
Joe Howard: [00:31:11] Cool. I think that’s a good place to wrap up.
I wish you the best of luck this year. Honestly. I don’t think you need much luck. You sound like you’re doing great. I know a lot of people, I know a lot of people in the WordPress space have kind of like turned to consulting maybe because they couldn’t find a full-time job. And it was like the best thing that ever happened to them because they’re like, Whoa, this is great.
I can work when I want to. I can do the work I like, and I can still. Make good money doing it. So it’s kind of the best of all, all the, all of that. Um, so I don’t have any doubt that you’ll continue to rock it this year. Why don’t you tell folks here on the podcast where they can find you online, maybe links to your blog or social media, that kind of stuff.
Morgan Lucas: [00:31:47] I am on Twitter at Ron TCP, ip.com. And if you want to follow me on LinkedIn, the URL, like the end part, where you put the name is L L Morgan, and just told me that you come from the WordPress podcast and I’ll be happy to connect with you. If you want to review the podcast on iTunes, definitely, definitely be appreciated.
Joe Howard: [00:32:06] Uh, WP MRR. Dot com slash iTunes redirects you right there. If you are on a Mac or Apple device, I read every review. So I will give you a big hug next time. I see you, hopefully later this year, if you give us a review and if you are a new listener to the show, uh, we’ve got 120, 130, something like that, old episodes in the hopper.
Uh, go ahead and binge some old episodes of the podcast. Uh, if you’re looking to learn something specific, just go to WP mrr.com forward slash podcast. We have a search bar right there. So you can search for pricing pricing. Uh, and yeah, go ahead and up your game in that area. If you have questions for the show, just shoot them into yo Y o@wpmrr.com where you can find me on Twitter at Joseph H.
Howard. That is it for this week on the pod. We will be back in your podcast players again next Tuesday, Morgan. Thanks again for being on. It’s been real. Thank you for asking
Morgan Lucas: [00:33:04] me to be here, Joe. I’m glad I took some time out of my
Joe Howard: [00:33:07] day. Excellent. See everybody.
