An Interview With Yas, Freelancer in Content and Communications

The newest part of our blog series ‘An Interview with …’ asks Yas, freelancer working in content and communications, about her work, business and experience of learning about data and technology

Working with data and technology can be difficult and overwhelming for a lot of people. So, we at Taught By Humans are running a series of interviews with professionals to help demystify these topics for you. How are data and technology useful and/or significant within different roles? How do people learn about data and technology and their applications? How can we keep our knowledge of data and technology up to date? Our interviewees will be helping us to answer these questions and more.

Our newest interviewee is Yas, freelancer and business owner working in content and communications. She answered a few questions for us relating specifically to her experience of working with data and technology, using it as a freelancer and her perspective on methods of learning.

The Interview

Can you start by giving a bit of background into who you are what you do?

Yeah, sure. My name is Yas. I live in Bristol, and I’m a freelancer. I work in content and communications, and that’s what I’m doing at the moment. So I’m self employed.

Why did you decide to work in content and communications?

I just really enjoy talking to lots of different people. That’s what I like doing: I like networking. I like meeting new people, I like making new friends, and I find it really interesting to jump from industry to industry, because it gives me a really good overview of lots of different stuff that’s going on in the world. So I’ve come from a really interesting journey, because I used to work in education where I worked in schools in both the UK and abroad, I’ve worked in the financial industry, I’ve worked in robotics. I’m currently a freelancer in communications but I also work in film and television as well, doing content and writing there, too. So a really broad spectrum of stuff that I’ve done over the last 15 years of my life. It’s been a very interesting journey. And I think what’s drawn me to communications is that communications and content marketing is something that ties together any industry, and that means that it doesn’t matter what industry you’re working in. Communication is really key to any industry. And I think that’s why I like it, because it could almost be described as the centre of everything.

So what have you learned through your roles, especially in communications about what motivates people? And how do you think we can use this understanding to motivate learning and data and technology?

I think it’s all about management, really, it’s about people management. And it doesn’t matter what skills you have, because skills can be learned. You can go into a job completely cold, and you just learn something new. But managing people and talking to people is something that some people have, and some people don’t as well. I’ve definitely had cases where I’ve had managers who are a little bit difficult, and there are managers who have been really, really good. I think that, generally, and I’m speaking on behalf of myself, a lot of people don’t learn well through criticism. You can still get a high output if you really, really push people, but in the long term, it may not have as good an effect because it then causes trust issues, and then it causes low confidence. So I think it’s a lot of it is about managing people well.

When I used to work in education, I was working in a school in Bristol, and the headmaster of the school and my direct manager were both really, really good managers. They always had an open door policy. Even though they were both extremely busy, they always made sure that myself and my team were comfortable and happy in our job. Something that really sticks in my head is my manager would always make clear that we could ask as many questions as we wanted to, no matter how big or how small, which always made me feel really comfortable. And because I was comfortable, I learned really, really quickly and picked up my job a lot faster. And when it comes to data and technology, we’re surrounded by it. We’ve got smartphones, we’ve got laptops, but just because we’re all surrounded by it every day doesn’t necessarily mean that we are experts in it. But it’s about being comfortable enough to ask, and not being judged. That’s really important, especially with data and technology, because there’s a very high expectation of the things you know or should know. But actually, sometimes people don’t know those things and that’s okay. And it’s always okay to ask. So it’s really important for people who are going into learning about data and technology to have the confidence to ask questions.

You’ve also worked in the past with robotics companies: RoboPro, Bot-Hive. Can you explain a bit about what they do and what your role with them looked like?

RoboPro, unfortunately, doesn’t exist anymore. But at the time, it was a magazine that was reporting on the latest robotics and AI news, whether that was software or hardware. That’s where I first came across robotics and found it really interesting, because this was going back maybe five or six years ago. A lot robotics news at that time wasn’t really mainstream apart from a lot of scary stuff! So I find it really interesting to have come from seeing mainstream media saying robots are going to take over the world and take your jobs, to now actually read news about the good stuff around robotics and AI. So that role at RoboPro was working in a publishing company and I got to learn a bit about publishing when I was working in the digital marketing department there.

For Bot-Hive, I was one of the original team members, and then I was the head of customer success, as well as working on the creative content. We had a head of content, who was doing a lot of the PR, and news stories, and I would do the creative content. I did the social media, the podcasts, the YouTube videos, events, speaking at events, that kind of thing. Bot-Hive is still quite a new platform though. It’s a startup. So once we launched the MVP (Minimum Viable Product), and the customer process and content arm, the next stage was to concentrate on the web developers who are actually developing the platform. That means that the content team have stepped away for the moment, myself included, just to enable the developers to do their magic for the moment, and then we’ll see how it goes!

What are your thoughts about how we can connect the community surrounding robotics with the general public? How can we make complex topics like that more accessible?

I think the mainstream media has a lot to do with this. They like to sensationalise everything. They say, for example, that robots are going to take over the world, they’re going to take our jobs. But what they’re not telling you is that those jobs aren’t being filled. There’s a lot of small print at the bottom, but they neglect that because they like it to sound very exciting. People watch movies like The Terminator, but they don’t really talk about all the good stuff happening in robotics and AI. What about the robots that are helping to improve agriculture? What about the search and rescue robots that are helping with natural disasters? What about the robots that are cleaning the oceans? Does anyone talk about those? You know, not really. I think the media, then, has a really important role in making news about robotics and AI more transparent and truthful. It has to be made a lot more balanced. It’s really important that all the work that’s going on in academia at the moment, which I saw when I worked at Bristol Robotics Lab, is spoken about because there’s some really great stuff going on. All over the country, and across Europe and beyond, there is great research and development going on. People just need to talk about it more. When I worked in academia, I would always try to help those working there to step away from academia and out into the public, and I think it’s really important that all the work that they’re doing gets showcased. There’s a slight gap between academia and marketing at the moment where people aren’t speaking as much as they need to be. Their work needs to be marketed a bit more, essentially, because it’s really cool and important stuff. It deserves to be spoken about more.

As a freelancer, how do you use technology such as spreadsheets and databases to make your job easier?

I completely rely on spreadsheets and databases, because as a freelancer you have to jump from project to project extremely quickly. I might be having a conversation with Laura, who’s a data scientist, and then suddenly, I’ll jump into talking about risk assessments for film and television sets. So I have to keep track of everything that I’m doing all the time, and I use spreadsheets and databases to keep a running order of my thoughts about what I’m doing. That allows me to keep a log of what I’m doing, and to keep a track of data. In marketing, there’s a lot of analytics involved. You have to look at your campaign, see how many impressions it has, and keep a running order of that, so you can have an overview which lets you see whether your campaign is working or not. Often people think that marketing and communications is just about writing or speaking, or social media, but actually, it’s quite data heavy, because there’s no point running a campaign if the data shows you that it’s not working. So spreadsheets are super integral to any marketing job.

I also use an online database called Airtable. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of it, but Airtable is really great because it’s like a spreadsheet with pre-built filters. So that’s where I keep all of my content as well. If I ever have a day where I’ve got writer’s block or can’t think of what to write or create, I can have a quick click to see what I’ve posted previously and give myself some ideas. It also means that I have it available as a resource as well, for myself and if I ever need to share it with others. If a client says to me, for example, ‘oh, do you remember that advert we posted at that time’, I can quickly jump into the spreadsheet and navigate the right item very quickly, rather than slowly scrolling through loads of documents and folders. Spreadsheets and databases are great to just help me keep my life organised, essentially.

Is that different or similar to the way you used those technologies in your previous roles?

Quite similar, actually. When I was more heavily involved in digital marketing at the publishing agency, we used to sell impressions. When you’re selling impressions, there are a lot of numbers involved all the time. So making use of the right technologies was really important, because if we didn’t keep track of all of the data, the sales department weren’t able to sell the impressions. Our work with spreadsheets and databases, therefore, was integral to make the whole business run, because that data that we kept was what the sales department needed to refer to in order to do their jobs and bring money into the business to keep the business going. So even though it was a marketing job, it was extremely data and spreadsheet heavy, and that data was very, very important. And that is just one example of one previous role, which was at the publishing company. In all my roles I have used spreadsheets and databases in basically exactly the same way. I cannot do without them and never have been able to. I probably never will be able to do without them because they’re so important.

How did you learn to use them?

I learned some basic skills at school, and Business Studies was a connected GCSE that I did. I learned some very basic skills there. But most of my learning was done through learning on the job, actually. It’s really important to have a good manager who has the patience to be able to teach you those things on the job. I learned how to connect marketing to spreadsheets whilst I was at the publishing company. Because I was a manager, I was managed by a really, really lovely guy who was super, super patient and a really great teacher. And I think that’s what gave me the confidence as well, because I didn’t feel fearful of asking questions, and because he was so welcoming and very patient with me. So, yeah, for me it was mostly learning on the job in a very hands on way.

Is your learning process — the one you just described — one that you would recommend to others?

I can’t speak on behalf of everyone, obviously, because I know that some people prefer just to put headphones in and watch a YouTube tutorial or do an online course. But I like to learn by doing: that’s just my personality type. As I said before, I used to be quite fearful of asking for help sometimes because I’ve had managers in the past that haven’t been particularly patient with me. So in those cases I’ve just had to learn by trial and error by myself. Throughout the whole span of my career, I wish there had been affordable or more accessible courses, especially at the time when I was first learning, because when I was starting out, there just weren’t that many. There were some, but they were extremely expensive, which meant that learning in that way just wasn’t really accessible. So that’s why I think that the stuff that you guys at Taught By Humans are doing is really awesome, because I wish I had a resource like that 10 years ago. A platform that’s accessible and welcoming is so valuable in helping to give you the basic skills for actual real life stuff.

Is there any other information or advice that I’ve neglected to ask you about that you think would be valuable for our readers?

I think that collaboration and community are really, really key. Community is something that I have learned over the years which is so so important to both your confidence and your career. I really love networking in Bristol, because everyone’s so welcoming. Everyone’s really willing to help out as well, which is really, really nice. And there’s so many resources that seem to be buried by mainstream media when they talk about scary robotics and AI, but actually, there’s so much cool stuff going out there. For example, even though I don’t directly work in robotics anymore, I’m actually mentoring a robotics student who’s setting up his own business. And that came about just because he asked me. He just asked me outright whilst I was working in robotics, and then we’ve reconnected again. So even though I’m not currently working in robotics, I’ve been able to help pass him on to other people, just because he came up and asked me. People are nice and more than happy to help each other, you just need to ask them. So my advice would be: be brave. Get out there and talk to people because you never know what opportunities might arise.

That’s great advice. Thank you for speaking to me today.

Thank you very much for having me.

Takeaways

So, what can we learn from this interview?

Takeaway #1: Managing people by supporting them and making them feel comfortable to ask questions often is more successful than managing people in a critically and firmly. It could allow employees to work quicker, more efficiently and, arguably most importantly, make them happier.

Takeaway #2: Spreadsheets and databases are incredibly useful in any career: even those that aren’t on first thought very data heavy. Taking the time to learn how to use them, whether that be on the job, through YouTube tutorials or organised courses, can only make your life easier.

Takeaway #3: Be brave and talk to those people that might be able to help and support you. Even though it may end up in rejection, nobody will be offended by being asked for help, and the opportunities that might come your way — which would never have otherwise — are worth the risk.

Thanks to Yas for taking the time to speak to Taught By Humans and for sharing such valuable advice and insight. If this interview with Yas has been useful or of interest to you, look out for her short and sweet videos which will be announced later this week, and take a look at the rest of our interview series, all available on the Thoughts By Humans blog!