Sana Tabassum - Building an 'Archi Brain', Behind the scenes of :scale and the Highs and Lows of being a Social Media Influencer

0042 - Sana Tabassum - Building an 'Archi Brain', Behind the scenes of :scale and the Highs and Lows of being a Social Media Influencer
===

Stephen Drew: [00:00:00] Hi there everyone. I am Stephen Drew from The Architectural Social, and I am joined here with Sana from Scale. This is round two. We have spoken before, and what we're saying to Sana, she was the first ever guest on The Architectural Social podcast, and I was so nervous because it's the first one I've ever done.

That it was 10, 10, 10 to 12 minutes. So it was nice and short and sweet. Hopefully we can talk a little bit more. Now I can, I've calmed down. I can get used to it. So Sana, thank you so much for being here. How are you?

Sana Tabassum: I'm good. Yeah. Thank you for having me again. It's good to see you here. Yeah,

Stephen Drew: no problem.

It's been a few months on, and in some ways so much has changed, and in other ways, we are still in that. It's lockdown number two, isn't it? Again, I need more horns and bells for the current coronavirus situation. But have you been all right then? [00:01:00] Everything good? You've been busy?

Sana Tabassum: Yeah, everything's good. How about you?

Stephen Drew: Not too bad. We talked briefly a little bit before this and I think one of the things that I do, cause I'm working currently full time at McDonald and the company, and I absolutely love the architecture social. And the thing is when it was created on furlough, it allowed me to spend so much time on it, and actually now I've been able to spend less time on that during the day.

It's been a bit of a balance. It's been a bit of a juggling act. And it was a really nice, pleasant surprise today. If I could do a little drum roll noise. You had your amazing Aki brain course, which you've done, which is absolutely fantastic. And so for anyone. That is within the architectural social check out the resources section and silence made an excellent course then, but if for anyone that's not in the architectural social or hasn't gone to the resource area section just yet.

So now do you, could you let me know why you decided to [00:02:00] set this amazing new course called the Archie brain?

Sana Tabassum: Yeah. So I've delved into productivity like over the past few months. It was really after I found. this sort of amazing app called Notion. And I went down the rabbit hole after that and just started, going into all these sort of productivity YouTubers and mindsets and acronyms and all these kind of things.

And I was just thinking how, it would have been so great to have this sort of tool while I was a student, because it would have made me so much more organized even more organized than people already think I am. So I think you are very

Stephen Drew: organized.

Sana Tabassum: So I think it's a great sort of, Stepping point or a base just for people to know about it, really.

Stephen Drew: Yeah, I think it's absolutely great. And so just in case anyone doesn't know you by by any means you sound that you have set up the scale blog to scale, I think, which is amazing. The great resource for students and architects alike, and anyone interested in architecture [00:03:00] and, at the moment you're currently busy doing your website, your magazine as well.

Perhaps for anyone that doesn't know 2Scale, do you want to let us know about that as well?

Sana Tabassum: Yeah, for sure. 2Scale is a blog and magazine. It's basically a platform for architecture students to, learn a bit more about the general lifestyle, how to cope with stuff like stress.

And, we even have kind of product software tutorials and productivity articles and things like that. So it's very much turned into a community. We're doing like a lot of guest posts and things. So it's very much sort of people led rather than me just doing. anything I want. Yeah,

Stephen Drew: amazing.

I love it. I love it. I absolutely think it's great. Actually, you're one of the inspirations between you were actually one of the precedents for the architectural social and And again, when we spoke many months ago, you're one of the first people I rang up about the idea and you've been there from the beginning.

And [00:04:00] actually, I'm sure if you've been listening to a few of these, it's like that hopefully is the sign of respect as well. My sense of humor, I always bring up your productivity. I always say if I could put all your energy into a potion, I would be a millionaire, but it's true. So how'd you get the time between.

doing all of this. You're busy in your part one, you've got your blog, you've got, you've done the Archie brain. Are you going to enjoy, have a nice Christmas at some point? Are you going to relax?

Sana Tabassum: I have been relaxing a little bit. I think before starting my part one, it was always a bit of nervousness.

I was thinking, how am I supposed to manage a full time job because. I had never been in that position along with the blog. And when I work on the blog, I really work on it as a job. So it was finding the balance between the two. And then also with all these, extra projects, at some points it was getting a bit too much, so of having to tell myself to just take a day out and just chill. So that's what I've been doing the past couple of weeks.

Stephen Drew: Good for [00:05:00] you. It's, I was kind of devil's advocate because actually on, because I think on Instagram, there's a lot of activity with 2Scale, which is fantastic because you have a very responsive audience.

And I do actually, you have got me sometimes where I actually go through and I, one of the things, Once I always look on is to scale and it's rather embarrassing. So speaking to Emily Foster the other day, and I only just recently worked out on the stories. If you press your finger on it, it holds, it keeps the story on the screen.

Cause I used to watch all your stories, but Oh my, I can't keep up with so much. Yeah. That's why I used to do one. But also I'm not as efficient as you, but it's impressive what you do. Do you, so in a weird way, so the Archibrain and we can jump into a little bit, but you've gone down the website organically.

You've you've got your Instagram organically as well. And what you're saying now is you've made the course for the Archibrain, but so you mentioned, you wish that you had done [00:06:00] it that way. And so I'm interested because I am someone with. I haven't got an Archie brain.

I haven't got any brain right now. I need to get a brain and all organized to work all this stuff out. And I think I'm never a person that normally does lists and maybe I could benefit from them. Sometimes I go on my instinct and that serves me well, but sometimes I go wrong. So what's the kind of idea behind the Archie brain and using Notion?

Sana Tabassum: Yeah, I think, lists are like my lifesaver, to be honest. I make a list for every single thing you possibly imagine. But using notion and, this concept of building a second brain. I've called it an Archie brain because I've adapted the the concepts towards architecture students.

But I think it's basically a methodology and a way of working, if you think of it. Yeah. To put it very short, it's essentially working on things incrementally and putting things on the back burner and just letting it amount up over [00:07:00] time. And so rather than doing sort of a huge sprint and, overworking yourself, it's more about letting things develop over time.

And so you let your sort of background tasks be handled by the Archie brain in that sense. So I think for architecture students, it's really really useful because, you can plan stuff like your portfolio in advance because I found that in university, I was constantly, reviewing each sort of page of my portfolio.

So by the time I had to submit, I was ready. Every single page was pretty much done. Whereas I saw other people still working on, the first few pages of like their site research and things. And I was like, how have you not got that done yet? It's a thing in the past.

So it's just small habits and steps that you can take to be a bit be a bit more organized later on.

Stephen Drew: Very interesting. So I think I think it's really useful for anyone that hasn't looked at it and to consider this. And for me, I need to start [00:08:00] looking at the, I need to develop my Archie brain or an architectural social brain would.

Would be really useful. And so you touched upon Notion and funny enough, I remember looking at Notion a few years ago because I was doing a wiki page for my company at the time and you're quite right. It's a really good tool at the time. It was free. Is it still free then to use on there? Or what, how much does it cost?

Or is it really easy for people to jump in and do and use this software at the moment? Yeah,

Sana Tabassum: definitely. I think they only, when I started in like May, they had the free option and you were only limited to a thousand blocks, but they got rid of that. So it's completely unlimited. And if you do want like extra features to share with other people, you can get the I think it's the educational plan.

So it's even better for students, in that sense. So if you wanted to share with your, friends or your flatmates or whatever stuff you want to keep track of, then it's pretty useful.

Stephen Drew: I definitely need to look into it a little bit more. And I think it's I think it's [00:09:00] definitely great.

But I guess the iconic thing, while you talk about notion, really what you're trying to teach people is that methodology or that kind of approach. It does, you don't need to have a notion account per se, right? You could use something else. You could be Excel. It could be all this stuff, or it could be, it could, I'm imagining you can do it in different ways, right?

I guess the software doesn't dictate the process.

Sana Tabassum: Exactly. Definitely. It's more like the course is more about, putting all these sort of ideas and concepts forward rather than telling someone exactly how to do something because it works differently for different people. Some people prefer seeing everything visually, whereas other people like having that, list idea.

It doesn't depend on using. Using a tool or anything.

Stephen Drew: Yeah. It's really interesting. You mentioned that because I agree, actually, I think that so even when it comes to database or Excel, I always think of Excel at the moment, I always reminds me of the coronavirus track and trace, everything's on that thing, and I don't think it was the best way to do it but I quite like air table because [00:10:00] to me, I used to be a bit of a computer geek, I still am still love computers, but to me, the most.

The most, maybe the most the one, the software that isn't in the, initially the easiest to use, but there's the most into a configurable or hardcore, that would be the stuff that I gravitate towards. But recently I quite like air table to me. It's a fantastic example of Excel where it it does the bits that most people do really well, and then you have all these add ons, for instance, where you can see on the map people's locations and that is stuff that I've never been able to do in Excel, and it's so accessible, and that's what I quite liked about Notion is that actually, and I like to use, my mom never uses computers, but my mom could totally sap a notion and she could do it because it's quite accessible to all. So it's quite a nice time period to do all this stuff. And just to bring it back to as well, because you've got so many few things, so many things going on.

It's probably worth, I'd love to talk a little bit about on the, to scale blog. Because there's a lot [00:11:00] of work that goes into that. So with the Archibrain, it's a course that I think everyone should check out, because what you're talking about is how people should get organized. And that's currently on the Architectural Social.

It's open to everyone. It's a free course that you've made, which you should be applauded for. If I had my soundboard in good, sorry, my soundboards in the other room, I would have the little crack noise, but there you go. But what I was going to go on to, but the scale is a very interesting, different thing, because that's like your real project.

So it's the Archie brain has been this methodology that you listen to, and you wanted to share how you felt about it. So you made this course, but the two scale is almost like the business aspect of it. As in, there's a lot of moving parts. And we've talked about it briefly because you have guests, people writing articles.

Now it must be. Really fun to do that, but it also involves people getting involved, it involves coordinating and it's a [00:12:00] lot of work. What have, what's your experience been with it? What have you found that succeeded and what have you found that's been challenges that you've learned or overcome?

Sana Tabassum: With the guest posts, I think, I found early on that many people. often say that they want to write something and then they don't end up doing anything. So that's one thing that you just need to keep in mind and just, not get disheartened by because people do end up getting busy and things.

I think also the difference between sort of a regular guest post and how I'm doing things is that, it's not just a submission form. Some random person reviews it and it gets stuck up on the blog. It's very much a learning process for the people writing it too. I'm not like an expert in writing, but I'm offering that kind of help and guidance just for them to really be able to Write, not better, but in a way that will actually engage the audience as well.

Um, it's a lengthy process at the moment, but I quite like it. And I've the people who have written for the blog at the moment are really appreciative. [00:13:00] And they're really interesting to speak to as well because everyone's got these different experiences that I don't have.

I think that was the main goal of it, and it it blew up even more than I could have imagined in the beginning. Yeah, I think it's been a good experience. It does get a bit out of hand if there's too many people all at once. But I think the sort of insights they provide is invaluable.

It's worth it.

Stephen Drew: I agree. It's really interesting way of looking at it. And I felt the same with the architectural social. I do enjoy it. And I do think there's even things that I've learned. So for instance, you remember at the start, I would review everyone's CVs and portfolios. I'm conscious even now there's one or two that I haven't looked at.

And it's that thing of. What I've learned is you can't be there like Superman all the time doing this stuff. But it's the challenge that I'm trying to work on the Artificial Social is there are so many people and you're right, people get busy. And what I don't want it to be is when someone feels obligated to say stuff all the time, they can dip in and dip out.

But then there's also [00:14:00] the other challenge of, trying to stimulate people to do ideas that they've wanted to do, and they felt it's not possible, and they don't know where to do it. And my way of looking at it is just do it. So when we talked about the course, I'm like, Yeah, go for it. Go for it. And you've run for it.

And this, to me, it's really delightful because it's content on the architectural social, but it's actually something you wanted to do. And I think there's a good, there's a good, we've got the book club going on. And the book club's been for a few iterations. But currently we've got the architectural experiment and we've got Emily Foster on board and they're going to help reshift it for next year, which would be really cool.

And so it's a little bit of a more accessible book club. That's what what Nilda and Emily have talked about, and I'm really happy to foster that idea. But like you, if anyone is listening to this and they have an idea. For the architectural social or to scale, I think, please get in contact with me.

Or I'm sure [00:15:00] some of you say you'd love to hear from people as well. Definitely. Ideas for the blog.

Sana Tabassum: Yeah. I'm still getting to work with different people. So it's where we've had all these different side projects as well that are in the works. So I think definitely reach out.

It's not an exclusive thing on either, either side. Yeah,

Stephen Drew: yeah, I agree with you because I'm sure hopefully people don't feel obligated to do these. It's not like you have to do it or anything like that. I just think that sometimes if anyone's feeling a bit shy about it or thinking, oh gosh, I shouldn't ask or I shouldn't bother stay or I shouldn't bother sign it, then you, my viewers, you should reach out because it's a little bit like when I was doing the CVs and portfolios because half of it, yeah, you've got to.

Get your CV and portfolio. If you're looking for a job, tip top about half of it is approaching people and asking questions. And one of the reasons why you've built your course on, on the architectural social and your blog's been always there, but I think in terms of the Archie brain and your [00:16:00] involvement, that purely comes, from me reaching out and then you also then reciprocating nicely and being like, yeah, sure.

I'll have a chat. We didn't know each other, but it sounded like a conversation. This is. It's feeling ideas out. And I think that's like my biggest thing is that I think right now is that I would encourage, especially anyone doing a really difficult time to go out of their way and to do stuff because you feel better from it when it's done.

And you've got something to show for it because doing a course like the AkiBrain or doing the Scaled Logs you've always got something there, but I'm sure you feel the same as that. I love the architectural social, it changes as I go along. And I talked to you a little bit earlier about now I love these live streams, but then I want to keep the community feel and when something's live on LinkedIn and YouTube, it's really hard to get that.

Tight knit feeling, but on the other side, then you've got more exposure from using these platforms. So it's I'm constantly learning myself and I make a lot of mistakes and [00:17:00] it's quite interesting. Do you feel that as well? Have you learned a lot from the website and what's not worked as well?

And what about LinkedIn? What about Instagram and LinkedIn in particular, Sanne? I'd love to hear your, any pearls of wisdom on that side of it, especially Instagram, because you are the guru, in my opinion.

Sana Tabassum: All right, I'll tell you about Instagram, you can tell me about LinkedIn, how about that?

Stephen Drew: Oh gosh, okay, will do.

Sana Tabassum: I think yeah, no, definitely. Like when I first started the blog, the idea was also to have this design challenge aspect of it or like a competition thing. But that never worked out because I felt like it was. It's a lot of time and effort. I did try mini challenges here and then, but I don't know, like people in architecture can be so shy.

It's very hard to get anything out of them. And it's only after like you actually build personal relationships, even if it's over social media, that they then start, coming out with their shell.

Stephen Drew: Do you know what it is? Yeah, because [00:18:00] we've got a competition in the architecture social right now and I don't know whether we're going to have any entrants because everyone's busy or shy and so I actually put a little post the other day quite meekly hey do you want me to extend this and stuff but you're right you'd think that everyone but it's not that everyone it's that we're all human we some people are busy some people are shy And I found the same thing of I'm not too sure whether people have time to do the competition bizarrely.

Sana Tabassum: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you start questioning yourself because you think, there's this amazing idea I have, but then people don't really say anything or do anything yeah, in that sense, it's a bit difficult, but I think with with time, because the whole sort of engagement on Instagram has grown so much, I think people are a bit more willing to, put forward their opinions and share their own sort of experiences as well.

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's going okay. I think with Instagram, I think many people have said, you're always online, you're always posting stories and stuff like that, [00:19:00] but it's really not true. Out of my day, I probably spent about a couple of hours. But that's not, there you go, a

Stephen Drew: couple of hours,

Sana Tabassum: but that's not reflecting, my whole day.

It's just the specific things that I want to share with people or, it's not, it's nothing like, Oh my God, I'm doing this amazing Drawing or render or whatever, it's nothing like that, it's very much I'm also in this sort of dilemma, I want to do more renders, I don't know how, someone help, what kind of, tutorials do I watch and things like that it's me asking them for help as well.

Stephen Drew: Yeah, that's really well put, I think that. That's where I'm really careful on LinkedIn because I don't think on the architectural social, especially this week, it's about being absolutely terrible, but I'm still, buffer for anyone out there's a really good, like scheduling thing, but I never have the time to fill up the queue.

So my buffer is always empty, but I, what I try to do on LinkedIn, because I do think I'm all right at LinkedIn, but LinkedIn is a bit of a different world than Instagram [00:20:00] and cause on LinkedIn. There's, I've got two theories and I'm not too sure, and I've got nothing to back them up except gut instincts.

So take it as Steve's food of thoughts, not like a wisdom or nothing I can't scientifically prove them. But what I can do is I can base these upon things I post and how many people get views. So to give you a good idea is that. I can typically post a job ads on LinkedIn that I'm working on, and they'll get between 2000 to 8, 000 views from that, I'll get about a hundred messages, and sometimes there's one or two people that are really good for the job.

So there is, so now I am at that point where I get a really good conversion rating. But I have 26, 000 connections and most of them are in architecture. And even now I'm disconnecting with people that I've added in the past, which are not related to architecture. Not because I'm like an exclusive club or anything like that.

It's just [00:21:00] more that I, if they're not in architecture that's the value that I can offer is within architecture. And you do get a lot of hits there and, but what I find in terms of recruitment, it's often what's called in return on investment on time, ROI. Okay. And so on LinkedIn, if I post a job ad or I post something on the architectural social to get attention.

Now what I've learned is that I can post. Something completely irrelevant that is within architecture. Maybe I post to your blog. I will do that because we get along with each other and you've been helpful. And then there is traffic, which will go to your website. It will typically be between 50 to 200 people from that because 3, 000 people will look at it, 200 people will really click on it and you notice like then.

Five or 10 people are really engaged. That's the reality of the situation. But where I was going with this is that what I've learned is that I can post to Foster's and Partners website, but you don't really get a return on [00:22:00] investment on that as you being helpful, but the content that I try to do now is.

Always post into the architectural social website. So this is partly the way I've done it is that when I can't show someone some aspects because of the private community, I've tried to build parts of the website, which are accessible to all as in a talks area. An article area, and there's big gains to that because then you're bulking up, you're using LinkedIn to build up the architectural social.

So Google ranks it for number one for the architectural social because people go there. And so in that way, success is success. But on Instagram, because I'm not so known because I've been on LinkedIn for six years. No one is going on there or very little. So the way I've done the Instagram is that I now post a little bit of my blogs and talks, but I don't know how I feel about all that.

The bit I enjoy the most is posting students and academics work on [00:23:00] there because I think it's nice to showcase him and then getting. Getting the word out there for that individual. And the other bit that I do doing on LinkedIn as well, it's exactly the same thing because me posting their work on Instagram is how it's nice.

But me posting it on LinkedIn because of who I am and working with. Clients and architects is probably more valuable. That's where I really enjoy it. So to answer your question all along about way, LinkedIn for me is so valuable, but it's taken me a few years to get here. So my tip for anyone, and truthfully, though, if you're not a recruitment consultant, you don't need to have a huge architectural network, but every time you meet someone in real life, my advice would be on LinkedIn to add them.

Follow up with a little no, because even if you forget in the future, you'd be like, Oh, it was great to see you at MadCon. I will talk about MadCon in a bit, but you just, you say a little bit about how you've met each other and then you pick it up in the [00:24:00] future. The other thing you can use LinkedIn for, which I hopefully I'm sure a lot of people have picked up my messages is that I do use it to message everyone.

I add saying who I am, the architects of social, and I will try to message people. And I'm a bit guilty right now because my LinkedIn message inbox. So I haven't got my bell here. So you just get on my phone all the time, but my LinkedIn inbox is really crammed, but that's just because I've been.

Building up the architecture social. So it's a really good tool to use, but I think compared to what you do, your brief isn't quite like that. And I think the scale to scale is more of that magazine. People can enjoy the content. So in that respect you're probably going to get more of your audience on LinkedIn, on Instagram rather than LinkedIn.

Is that right?

Sana Tabassum: Yeah, I think that's true. I think even now I, I probably Use LinkedIn as a sort of tool for myself rather than the blog specifically. So I think it's something that [00:25:00] I didn't really pay attention to while I was a student and it was only after or while I was like looking for jobs and, getting myself down about it.

I started to think about, okay, what I need to do is just network. So I think it's a great sort of personal tool as well.

Stephen Drew: Yeah, and I think what the other thing you could think about LinkedIn is that there are a lot of directors and companies and the one thing I like is the same thing as when I was trying to do this, the CV talks and portfolios is that you can probably speak to most directors and message them and talk to me about this.

I'm sure as you've done a little bit, if you talk to them over two scalers, that people are actually open to it. And this, that's why this is the same thing about your CV and portfolio. You have to be able to be out there and message people when you do it. Try to make it a bit more personalized. Hi, David.

I really like David Smith's architects. I really like what you've done. I thought that your recent project was quite interesting. By the way, here's my CV portfolio, or by the way, here is the architectural social, or by the way, here is [00:26:00] to scale. That's what I try to do. Obviously you can get a little bit busy, but I do think there's a value on all these tools, but the truth is though.

It doesn't matter if you've got an Instagram account or LinkedIn, people have got to be interested in what you're offering. So it's actually the content are too scary, not so much Instagram. Do you know what I mean?

Sana Tabassum: Yeah, for sure.

Stephen Drew: And so you can't be seduced in my opinion, but if you just I just want to set up a new Instagram account to do it.

You need to have solid content.

Sana Tabassum: Yeah.

Stephen Drew: It's got to be our mission. And so with to scale, it's because it hadn't really been done and it's because you wanted to see the community and guest blogs and share wealth. And you've got your discord, but remember I asked you about discord

Sana Tabassum: and

Stephen Drew: for anyone listening here.

What did you tell me when I was said I'm fancy setting up a discord.

Sana Tabassum: I said, look, it gets a bit quiet. I, I literally took the time to, go through these different tutorials and see how to set it [00:27:00] up in the best way possible. But it's just dead. No one, like I said, people are pretty shy and no one really engages.

So I'm, I have been thinking about how to, maybe I just have to put myself forward, but it's not that much of a priority in my mind right now.

Stephen Drew: No, I don't think it is. And I agree. And what I've learned is that maybe you don't need the discord if other things are working and the other ones of advice, pearls of advice that you give me, which you already said earlier, as I asked you about guest articles, you said quite rightly, you're like, Don't expect a massive queue of them.

Yeah, true. But it's really interesting. And I guess for anyone listening here is these are, I guess you're showing your thoughts on these, Sanaa, and I'm trying to tell you my experience, but really it's about. Finding the magic for stuff. So I don't know. For hope, probably my version of the architectural social is very different than for other people.

And I [00:28:00] think lately maybe I think for me, I don't feel, I feel like this stuff on there, but I, and. I, but I feel like I'd like to see a little bit more conversation going, but maybe everyone's just busy. So I'd better calm down a bit. You

Sana Tabassum: can't know, isn't it? Yeah.

Stephen Drew: You just don't know. You just don't know.

Like you as a creator, I've got that bug where I just want to keep going. And you've got to, you've got to, you've got to stop a little bit. Very interesting. All right. So me and you we've, we need to develop a new like AA course for creators. Yeah. But you do need to balance though, do you ever feel, I felt a bit like, especially a week or so ago, I remember I was like, Oh my gosh, I'm running out of steam here because I love it.

But do you ever feel like, Oh my gosh, if I don't stop, if I can't take a break, cause if I stop, it won't go ahead. Do you ever feel like that?

Sana Tabassum: Yeah, definitely. A couple of weeks ago I had a huge burnout. I was like, no, I can't do any of this. Just forget it. [00:29:00] And even the other day, I was taking the time to just re evaluate what I'm actually doing.

Because I feel like I have that problem where I'm just saying yes to everything or every idea that pops up in my head. I'm just like, okay, I'm doing it. But then everything piles up and then you think, oh, I don't have time for this. I don't have time for that. So it doesn't really, the quality becomes poor, and then you just don't have the time to do everything correctly.

Yeah, definitely I feel you on that, that it does take a lot of effort. And you do get those times where you just feel like, it's just, I need to take a step back and just refresh. Yeah,

Stephen Drew: it's and I had a really interesting conversation with Alvin on the podcast as well, because he's actually really re engineered projects by people, and I actually applaud him for it, because to me, it takes a lot of guts to say, I'm going to change the formula, because And In one sense, and this is my interpretation.

So Alvin, if you're listening, this is my [00:30:00] interpretation, but yeah, the really successful Instagram where people were posting their work and he was kind of serve this purpose, but he's hang on. I'm don't want it just to be this anymore. I don't want it just people to post their projects.

That's fine. But I don't want it just to be Instagram eye candy. I'm going to turn it into something different. And it takes a lot of guts then to go on YouTube where you've got like 20 subscribers because you started from scratch. It's as, whereas it's surely it feels quite comfortable to have 5, 000 followers on Instagram, right?

Whereas to do something completely different is to me just takes a lot of. Guts!

Sana Tabassum: Yeah, definitely. What do you

Stephen Drew: think about it?

Sana Tabassum: Yeah, I think I've really been loving Alvin's videos so far and they're so cool because when we speak it's every week or every other week and it's always just about Mad Collective, so we don't get to know that other side of each other and I think, yeah, it was really cool to see that he's also bringing in his own [00:31:00] interests with film and videography and things and actually using that to drive his, work.

platform, as well as his YouTube channel. So I think that's a great step to be moving towards. And I think he underestimates himself. I think he's doing a lot at the moment, studying and working on the YouTube channel, working on projects by people, and then also doing the Mad Collective stuff.

So really just, applaud him.

Stephen Drew: Yeah, Alvin, give yourself a break. There's a video, Alvin, I think you should watch, which is called something to do with the four burner theory by Alvin on YouTube. Oh, wait, it's your video. Give yourself a break. You can't do everything, but he's such a nice guy. You're doing really well.

You've got to find your voice. And sometimes I remember it was moving away from architecture to recruitment. It was quite a big step. And, the idea of doing the architecture of social, it was a bit like. Maybe I feel like, maybe I know what I'm doing and then you get that moment like, I don't know what the heck I'm doing.

I'm you make enough as you go along and you're readjusting it. But the [00:32:00] bit of the advice that I would give for anyone, but like any projects or anything is that. It's a bit like the architectural social logo. I've changed it like three times. I hope he knows better, but he's just going to change it and keep going.

But if you're obsessive about, Oh, I've just got to, I can't set up the community until I get the perfect logo, then maybe it would have taken three weeks and and then you just it's just a logo. Whereas if you've got a good idea, you can reinterpret it and you can. You can make it look better.

You can tweak it and you can work out what's going on. And no one's going to say

Sana Tabassum: anything either. Isn't it? No one's going to be like, Oh my God, you change your logo. Wow. I'm out of here. It's not like that at all. So yeah,

Stephen Drew: yeah. And often you get more compliments and you can actually bring people involved in there.

And that's the clever thing that you do really well. And I try to do here is get people's feedback. And so I might even do like a cheeky question tomorrow. What should we call. The architectural social show. Cause I had so many I had so many suggestions, but now I think like the running joke is that we'll never have a name for it.

It'll just be like the [00:33:00] 75th architectural show, the pink architecture show, I don't know, but it'll just be, I think I'm in a clever place, but that came from a conversation in the community. And, that's the kind of thing that I like that community involvement. And I like Lin as you go. And actually it's probably with cause the Mad Collective for anyone that doesn't know, the Mad Collective is what I call one of them super bands, where it's like all the rock stars of Instagram are just going into one big, like band.

But so can you tell me, so we've got yourself to scale in there. Who else is in the Mad Collective sauna?

Sana Tabassum: So we have Alvin, of course, from projects by people who brought the whole thing together. And then we have Hamza from Two Worlds Design. So he has his own podcast. Okay. And then we have FA from Arc ae, so that's his own sort of company brand.

And then we have Gabriel from Arc Logbook. It's spread out all over the world really. We've never really met in person. We didn't know each other before this. [00:34:00] It was really interesting to start this, all online and virtually. So what we're doing basically is just doing monthly symposiums We have a couple of different side projects going on as well.

And essentially the drive is so that us as content creators can collaborate together and put in all our sort of Ideas and backgrounds and, we all have different interests as well and see how we can combine that and produce some, valuable content for people.

Stephen Drew: Yeah, it's good. And actually speaking of that, Gabe wrote a bit of a dark horse actually because He's readjusted his Instagram a few times and I really like his new look.

I always feel like his fonts are quite sexy. I'm like, Ooh, damn, that looks good. So Gabriel, I'll be out in the Arctic social and my next logo, please help me. No, it's really good. And, I like it as well. And I do need to get to know Gabriel a bit more. I've spoken to him briefly because he had his own mighty networks and then he turned it off.

And then he had one of the groups on [00:35:00] the, onto the social as well. And Gabriel, I absolutely love what you do. I just, the thing is I've learned, even with, in your miniature group within the architectural social, isn't it? So it's really hard to get a group in the group because You have so many different, your time everywhere that actually really your time should be spent on the scale blog.co uk. But having your Instagram, then having a mini one on the architectural social, I didn't think. I don't think it's as successful as your other ones, and that's not nothing to do with you.

That's because I don't think that is the right way to go. So actually it's quite cool that now I really, that's why I love your Archie brain course, because it's a totally different medium. It's basically combines what you've done before, and it's an accessible format for everyone. People can find your website from it.

So to me, in that way, it's more of a success story and it's more of something unique for the social, which is still very much you, but [00:36:00] different. It's not a copy of a copy, if

Sana Tabassum: yeah. Yeah. I think it's something that's unique for the platform as well. So I think it's a win on all sides, really.

Stephen Drew: I love it. I'm going to promote it to the cows come home, but it is good anyways, but I will promote it to the cows. Come on. If anyone hasn't checked it out, please do check it out because it's free and not many stuff like this with this rich information is free and life is a good testament to sauna and her website.

So the other thing I was thinking is worth touching on is because we've talked about the mad cotton, but in typical mad fashion and I love the name by the way, I think it's. Brilliant. It reminds me of mad magazine, but mad car, a mad the mad collective has the mad con and the mad con is the mad convention, which is a bit like a comic con of the mad world.

And so that's going to be a digital online event. Now I've been terrible at setting the zoom event test on the weekend, but I think we're preliminarily going on the architectural social for that. Is that right?

Sana Tabassum: Yeah. [00:37:00] So I think we're hoping to host most of the events on there and drive people through the social as well.

And that's also a way of collaborating because that's the sort of main driver of the whole convention really is to get all these different content creators and platforms to work together. So I think yeah, I think that's, that works great, really. Brilliant.

Stephen Drew: There's no pressure if it changes, but of course I would absolutely love the Madcon to be on there.

And we worked out some stuff today where we can actually invite people in now, isn't it? To the thing and a few others, but it's probably worth mentioning for the Madcon, wherever it is, I would love it to be on the Artificial Social. Please be on the social.

But I should mention, cause you did email me. I would love to do one or two events there. So I was thinking that maybe what we could do sound there is something that cause I've done talks about CVs and portfolios, but maybe we could even do a drop in workshop where if someone wants to talk about their CV and portfolios we would ask them to remove their contact details.

But I could do something where it's like a live event where [00:38:00] people bring their projects and. We have an open discussion and I give them my thoughts. Maybe that's a, an event that we could do. So like a CV and portfolio workshop. The other thing that we could do and I will announce it here now is that I will ask one or two architectural practices that I work with as well, because I did have Claudio Collins on the podcast before I'll try to find out if anyone.

Once they get involved in the mad con to talk up in the air. Cause I know a lot of architectural practices are busy, but I will try. I think that would be good. And it's probably worth mentioning that actually on the architectural social. Now we do have more and more employers on there. I think actually an architectural practice called design studio posted a part two job on there.

So it is definitely worth checking out. So the more and more employers we can get on board with the architecture community in the MADCON, I think would be great. So I am 110 percent behind you with that, but you're, you've got the Archibrain, you've got the list and you, I think you've learned, you've got to manage me now.

I need [00:39:00] to, I've got very bad time management, so you're going to have to, you're going to have to chase me.

Sana Tabassum: Yeah, for sure. I'll do that. Don't worry,

Stephen Drew: we will get it done. Okay. So we have coverage here, the new course in the architectural social. com. And there's also a link I'll do as well, a link as well.

A pretty link sauna. I'll do a short one. I'll do an, I'll do it. Architectural social. com forward slash Aki brain. I'll do that one. And we've got your bitly link as well, which we're going to share in the. The comments and the podcasts of people, anyone listening, you should check that out right now and let us know your thoughts.

And anyone that writes to me or writes to Sila and says what they think of the course, we'll get extra brownie points. I will honk my horn in appreciation. I need to get my bell back here. I can't, it's in the other room. It's in the other room. But so we've got the architectural social. com. We've got the Archibrain on the architectural social.

com. And we've got your website, which is two [00:40:00] scale blog co UK Yes. No. Okay. Two scale blog.co uk. Alright, fantastic. We, you, we can find you on Instagram, which is two scale. You are on LinkedIn as well. So of as, but you are actually working as a part one at the moment, isn't it? So I think for anything to scale relate is the best thing is to go direct on your website or.

Contact you on the artificial social as well, right? Yeah,

Sana Tabassum: definitely. Yeah. Retouching wherever.

Stephen Drew: Wow. What's that funny noise? Is your boiler breaking down?

Sana Tabassum: No, it's these fireworks. . Absolutely. Hey,

Stephen Drew: fireworks. Fantastic. Yeah, that sounded like someone was knocking on the door. I've been watching The Walking Dead a lot lately, so anything I hear like that The new

Sana Tabassum: season?

Stephen Drew: No, not today. No, I didn't watch it before. I'm on season eight right now.

Sana Tabassum: Okay, cool. I haven't watched any season either.

Stephen Drew: Yeah. Oh, don't say Oh, do you know

Sana Tabassum: what happened to Rick in season 9? No.

No.

Stephen Drew: What else do you do in your spare time?

You're on Instagram too much, aren't you?

Sana Tabassum: I yeah, I [00:41:00] think I am.

Stephen Drew: Don't worry, it's just very difficult right now in current times. I've got to go. My current thing is because I like working in an office and I've actually put I've got to. Get back in the gym. I've got diet and everything because sitting here working on the architectural social and working on just a lot of my time.

I just like the way you're on Instagram that I put on like over a stone, man. So I've totally got to go on a diet. Hey, we're all, no one's perfect. That's what I'm trying to say. No one's perfect, but new year, we can all change it. Thank you so much, Sana. Everyone can check out all the amazing stuff you've done.

I am absolutely one of your biggest fans. I think it's amazing. You've done a free course on the Artistical Social. Open to everyone. And the blog is, of course, awesome. Thank you so much, Sana. Have a fantastic evening.

Sana Tabassum: All right. Take

Stephen Drew: care. All right.

Sana Tabassum: See [00:42:00] ya.