Episode 5 - Wired for Success with James Hicks

Creative Amplifiers

In this episode, we speak with James Hicks, the engineering technologist and creator of HicksNewMedia. An organization driven by discovery that focuses on supporting businesses and individuals in fully leveraging technology to increase their digital presence.

James' Links:

⭐️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jhicks/

⭐️ https://www.youtube.com/c/JamesHicks/

⭐️ https://hicksnewmedia.com

Merch Store: https://social.hicksnewmedia.com/en-eur/

⭐️ Get a discount here for James' merch using the Code: HMN50

Well, hello, welcome to the creative amplifier show where each week we're celebrating each every other week. I should say we're celebrating Ecamm content creators and we're sharing their journey and their insights. And I'm Lisa, and I'm here with my, my two guys here, Mr. Mark, Mr. Neil. How are you guys?

We're good. We're having a bit of a trauma, but we made it. Yeah, we are. We're having a little, we had some gremlins in the house, uh, little technical difficulties, but Mark is working it out on do it. Yep. Yeah. I normally host the show but the internet went out this afternoon and yeah I've got about 20 hamsters with wheels keeping the 4G going and coming in as best we can.

He's a trooper. So everybody's coming into my production today which is Insanity Portugal and we are on Starlink and this is the most amount of guests I've had in one production so fingers crossed everybody. We have a few comments. Um, if you want us to go to that real quick, should we have a look at the comments first?

All right, we have, who do we have here? We have Keith. Keith. Oh, it always does that. Let's make it full size. All right. Hi, Keith. Thanks for joining us. Hello, Dan. You're always here.

Hey there. Hey Dan. And, uh, well, you know who's coming up soon. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. I know. All right. So, let's go back. There you go. So, how's everybody? All, all good? We are good. Aside from our gremlins. We've had a busy week. We've had a good week. It's been fun. It's great to be here again, seeing all these wonderful, shining faces.

So yes, it's been great so far. Well, yes, Mark. Oh, he's be, because there's, there's, there's such a delay. It's like a upbeat, uh, but, but be Okay. So I might just keep quieter than normal . Okay. Do a beat can put your hand up if you wanna, if you wanna speak. Yeah, exactly. We have to do it like that. It's all anyway.

Or, or do a beatbox like you were about to do. So that's I'll stuff. That's fun too. Let's just get into our guests now. Yeah, let's do that. Let's bring our guests. We are very, very excited to have Mr. James Hicks. with us today who, hello James. Oh my goodness. What, who let this guy on the screen? Um, what, what to do y'all?

How y'all doing? Okay. Yeah, we're good. We're very happy to have you here. Yeah, we made it work. Thank you. I appreciate it. You're doing it. Yeah. You know, Neil sending me messages saying, Hey, you know, the link doesn't work. What? You know, send me another link. Wait a minute. That link doesn't work too. Come on now.

What's, what's going on with the creative amplifiers, but you know, here's the lesson in that, uh, you working through all the issues, you're finding a alternative means of getting it done. We got, we got star link. We got, we got AOL going some kind of way. We're going to have a scream and we won't have a show.

So I'm just glad to be here. We're happy to have you here. And this is what live is all about. It's the unpredictable. It is. That's all it. We wouldn't have it any other way. We would not have it. Yeah. That's part of the fun of it. It's like, it's the Tetris of making it work. Right. So let's just get right into it.

You are in engineering. Who's laughing at me? Engineering technologist. I want to know about your journey because you have a, you have a big history in tech and, and other things. So tell us a little bit about that. Wow. Okay. Born in 1916. No, okay. I was like, oh, I was like, did he freeze? Did I say something wrong?

I was like, how far we want to go back? Uh, been in enterprise technology the majority of my career. Uh, started. Back in the telecom world, so a GTE data systems before a lot of you were probably even born. Um, then I moved over to Hewlett Packard, gave HP 20 years, I gave Apple 10 years. I literally still have Steve Jobs quote in front of me in my studio right here talking about the crazy ones, talking about put a dent in the universe.

And I live that out every single day when I do this thing, press record, turn these lights on and have those conversations. Uh, 10 years with Dell, so again, around enterprise technology and really from an engineering perspective. That's why I have called myself an engineering technologist. The idea is to allow folks to have and utilize me as a resource to break down the barriers of understanding technology and how it really is infiltrating our mindsets today, right?

Either from a personal perspective or for a professional perspective. So I'm just here to Help. I'm here to heckle from the back of the room and you know, I'm here to bring some value. I hope and you do. I've, you know, I've been watching all that you do and I know now you're the founder of Hicks, um, new media.

And I'd love to know more about that and how that helps the, you know, what you do helps the community and take it away. So I started Hickstu. media about, wow, this is actually 11 years now. And the premise back in the day was really around digital consulting and technology publishing. So it started with WordPress.

I'm huge in the WordPress community. I know the leaders of the automatic. Open source project, um, you know, Matt Mullenweg and things of that nature. So, I've, I've gone from writing things in, in text and, and blog format to really I'd say if there was any blessing of the pandemic when the world stopped, that was when I really got into the video piece, right?

Being able to actually, again, I say turn these lights on, press record and tell stories with folks and have that, that conversation about things that matter and things that resonate because I can put anyone on the other side of this camera and they may say, I don't, they don't have anything interesting to say, but give me 15 minutes with you and we can have a conversation and hopefully it's above the noise level.

Hopefully it's actually, again, it's positive. Hopefully it actually will cause folks to have a move to action. So again, so. Tech, technical publishing, technical consulting, digital publishing, all this stuff from a contextual perspective for about 11 years. And then really since the pandemic was at 20, God, when did the world stop?

2020? 2020. That's when I, uh, that's when I went all, for the most part, all video. Yeah, it went all video and, and really talk to people within my industry, right? So the business of technology, talk to people within my industry who are either designing systems, be it either hardware, software services and things of that nature about how we can leverage technology to be better.

So this, okay, so what you just said is a reflection of your tagline, which is, I want to get it right, to enlighten, entertain, and educate. Which is what you're doing. Oh my god, she's done her research. I love that. I told you.

You just got cool points right there. Take the cool points I gave to Mark earlier and put them in your bucket. Yeah, I will. I'll just be here. 50 points for Lisa. Talking about new technology and AI virtual reality coming. It's here. Ain't going nowhere. It's here. How does that reflect how you are going to enlighten, entertain, and educate people?

Like how are you? How is that making you shift what you do or what you teach or what you, uh, tell people to use? I'm just curious because it's a factor now, obviously. Yeah, and interesting enough, it's, it's not making me shift. It's making me just make people more aware because it's already been here. And again, folks within the enterprise and, uh, technology world have been utilizing artificial intelligence for a long time.

We've been using a lot of these technologies before they became more commercialized. Before you started seeing them on these CNNs of the world. And before it started becoming more common sense conversations, we've been delving in these aspects already. So I now tell folks. Now that you see this, now that you have access to it, now that it's easier to accomplish whatever goal it is you're trying to accomplish with technology.

Don't be afraid of that technology. Leverage that technology and understand that there are pros and cons to any and everything that you do. The machines aren't going to take over. It's the ones that are going to be, the ones that are going to be ahead of the curve in terms of knowing how to leverage technology are the ones that are going to succeed, right?

Because. The, the growth is really at a hockey stick kind of trajectory right now. So things are happening so fast, especially around, uh, Lisa, you mentioned about AI and things of that nature, things are happening so fast that only those that are willing to take the time, energy, and effort to stay aware of what's going are going to be the ones that continue to succeed from a long term perspective.

If you just sit by and be and let it go by and let it happen to you, so to speak, you're, it's going to overtake you and unfortunately you're going to be left behind. But if you want to continue to be a coach, if you want to be a subject matter expert, if you want to be someone viewed as a, as a trusted advisor, have that onus to stay in front of it.

So you can actually answer those questions just like you were asking, you know, what does it do? How does it affect me? How can I leverage it? And things of that nature. So that, that's really what I'm, what I spend a lot more of my time in terms of instead of not shy away from it, but what's your particular niche?

What's your particular industry? These are tools within those silos or those categories that can fit. The needs that you're trying to either do for yourself or do for your community or do for your business. Yeah, I completely agree with you because if you have the knowledge and understanding of how to just do it the right way and combine it with the AI as a as a tool then I think you On top, you know, so I completely agree.

and so I mean, think about content creators, right? There're, there're so many, I don't know if you guys want to go into that as well, but there so many platforms, tools, either from hardware, even on a software perspective that make our lives so much easier. If there's something that can take away. Cycles within your workflow, at least take a look at it, especially the editing cycle.

Oh my God. Edit editing is why I got all this gray hair, right? You know, you know, the Da Vinci's and the Adobe's and the, and the final cuts. Oh my gosh. Right. That that'll put years on your life. So if there is something out there to help you. With your time to market, so to speak, why not take a look at that?

And why not see if you can leverage that piece of technology? So Neil and we were all talking about your big Opus clip user. And I think Neil, you went out, you had a few questions you wanted to ask if you want to jump in because we all love that Opus. Yeah. So you were one of the first people that I sort of tuned into who sort of embraced.

It's the best Opus clip for repurposing content. And I was just thinking about how, how is that fitting now into your workflow? And, and as you mentioned, people should be embracing these types of tools to really just cut down on the hard work that it is for the editing. I mean, to repurpose that content manually, it's having to go through your clip in final cut and find the right bits.

It was just, we're just painful. So that, so people are, I'm like you, I think people should be embracing the technology in order to. Um, make their lives easier and if you don't embrace it, then you're just going to be left behind and you're going to be doing it old school. But in terms of Opus AI, I know you've had some conversations with the development team and engineering guys there and I've watched some of your shows around that.

How, how is that working for you now and how are you integrating that into your sort of day to day? I love that question. Again, I love the research, right? Um, yeah. So, in all full transparency, I've been a brand partner with Opus since day zero. So, before they started doing the content, the generative AI content clipping functionality, they were doing another project.

I had All of the founders. I had young, I had Libby, I had gr, I had all of the, the core team literally sitting in this room. We were hashing some things out. We went out for drinks, all, all that stuff, right? I'm not gonna say that I was the one that helped them to pivot into going into that different direction and actually doing a generative ai.

But we had those conversations. So I, I advocate for them. I, I don't like the word influence. I like, I use the word advocate, so I will tell other folks, other creators, similar to you guys as well, you know? Take a look at what Opus Clip is doing because they really are at the forefront in terms of using artificial intelligence to find those maybe viral moments, those moments that got a good hook to it, those moments that have a good trend analysis, that sort of thing to where when you cut it up into 30, 60, 90 seconds and put it out there on multiple social media platforms, that it has an opportunity To resonate with your community.

It's not going to guarantee that you go viral. It's not going to guarantee that you now go from 20 subscribers to 200, 000 subscribers, but within that conversation, using their generative AI, it will allow you to actually have a clip of content that will actually resonate with your community. There's a handful of platforms that are out there doing it today.

As we sit March 4th, 2024. Opus is definitely near the top. Again, there's a couple of other companies that are out there that are getting real close, but The iteration from the team at Opus, they all come from Tik Tok. So they know what they're talking about. So they know, right. So they know what, what, what actually hits.

They, they know where you get that dopamine hit from. They know about that swipe left, swipe right. So again, right. They know how it subconsciously works with consumers and works with users. So they are integrating that into the platform. Constantly, not platforms aren't, but again, just the, the rate of evolution that I'm seeing at OpusClip is presenting and delivering solutions to marketplace.

It's pretty cool. Pretty cool. It is. And I use it, um, sorry, I was just going to say, I use it pretty much exclusively now for my. Repurposing content. And I noticed that the version three, I just did a video on it recently about their updates and, um, the fact now that they've got hook, engagement, flow, and all these, um, AI, um, workflows that tell you how well your video is going to come across to a respective audience.

You've got the genres now where you can select what particular genre your video fits into. So therefore, it'll adapt and refine what it's actually going to spit out based on your potential audience. So I'm loving it and it's working for me and I use it for some of my customers and they heard about it through me, through you guys, you know, so it's great and people are just really, really using it.

I'll say this, I'll say this and I'm not going to drop any, any NDA bombs or nothing, but get yourself an affiliate link. Get yourself an affiliate code for Opus because I have one. Okay. Cause cause cause there may be some announcements. Okay. Uh, Opus clip coming relatively soon. I'm just, I'm going to put that out there.

I'm just, I'm just going to drop that right there in the middle of the crowd and just say, okay, we can talk about it offline when we're going to talk about it on the, on the roof. I'm not going to get myself in trouble, but just get yourself an affiliate link and continue to promote that particular platform because they bought to do some things that's going to shake up the world.

All right. I'm just, I'm just going to log off. I'm going to log off now. All right. Yeah. Well done. Drop the mic. So, thanks James. So, I want to roll back because before you can get Opus clip or putting, piecing things together, you have to do your show. You got to do a live show or recording. And I'm just curious what your process is going live using Ecamm, uh, what, like, what's your process?

Because I've watched your show. Um, watch what you do online. And so if there's any little tidbits you want to share or just a quick overview of how you, you know, what you do out there into the world, that would be wonderful. Yeah. And 80 percent of it is pretty static, but you know, there, there's always that 20 percent of in terms of scheduling or in terms of are we live or are we recorded at that kind of thing at the Onset, 35, 000 foot level, know what you're going to talk about, know who you're going to talk to, know where it's going to go when you put the thing out there, meaning every piece of content may not need to go on LinkedIn, may not need to go on Facebook, may not need to go on Twitter, I'll always call it Twitter, I'll never call it X, so there it is, uh, and understand where your audience and where your community is, I am assuming that a lot of us here are.

Have a community that lives on YouTube. So again, probably 98 percent of the content that we push out is going to go on YouTube. But again, that may not also need to go on LinkedIn. I may not need to go on other platforms. Think about the show. So Lisa, you say you watch what I do, my team knows Sleep Show.

Social impact of sports that doesn't go on LinkedIn. The audience there doesn't resonate with the conversations that we have on that particular session. So that's just YouTube. That's just Twitter. That's just a Facebook page as well. Um, so know the content, know where you want to put it, have a run of show.

Folks, don't just come out here winging it, have some bullet points in terms of what you're going to talk about, know where your CT, your call to actions are, know what promos, know what links, know what you're going to do before you actually turn the lights on. Now, most of the time you may not go down the exact run of show, but at least you have something to fall back on and you have something to look at.

I'm looking at my sheet and it has my run of show typically for a show right now and you can. You can get back in line with where you want it to be and where you want it to go during your, during your session. So you gotta have that, right? You can't just wing it. Don't wing it. That's, that's what we do.

You, you can't wing it into our, what we're going through today with our technology. At least if you have a run of show and you got to have to skip over something, at least you know where you're going. Yeah. And so the flow can keep going. So I agree with you. I'm,...