I’ve had 10,000+ students in my online courses since 2018, and I get a lot of questions about this process, like…

• How did you turn your keynote into a full-length online course?

• How did you turn your private, on-site workshop into an asynchronous online course?

In this video, you’ll go behind the scenes and learn about the course creation process.

What’s Inside

First, you’ll see the student’s perspective:

• 0:00 Intro
• 0:31 Student Perspective: Inside the Videos and Lessons via Teachable
• 2:25 Student Perspective: Private Community via LinkedIn
• 2:38 Student Perspective: Weekly Messages via Kit
• 3:39 Student Perspective: Live Office Hours via Zoom

Then, you’ll learn about the instructor’s perspective:

• 5:10 Instructor Perspective: Step 1 – Make the Content
• 6:54 Instructor Perspective: Step 2 – Record (via Camtasia)
• 7:15 Instructor Perspective: Step 3 – Edit
• 7:35 Instructor Perspective: Step 4 – Upload (e.g., captions and transcripts via Descript)
• 9:36 Instructor Perspective: Step 5 – Get People to Register
• 10:45 Who’s Involved (Outsourcing)
• 11:43 How Long it Takes

Resources Mentioned

• https://teachable.com/
• https://kit.com/
• https://www.techsmith.com/store/camtasia
• https://web.descript.com/
• https://zapier.com/

The post How to Make Online Courses appeared first on Depict Data Studio.

In this podcast episode, I sat down with Heather Sager to share behind-the-scenes tips on managing parenthood and entrepreneurship.

How to Listen

• LISTEN to the full  episode on Apple Podcast or Spotify
• READ the episode transcript

What’s Inside

• Owning the ‘make it work’ mindset
• Aligning your work schedule with your energy levels
• Making tough choices around your time
• Ann’s surprisingly simple tip to maintain her business boundaries
• Focusing on financial goals over chasing trends
• The real deal with passive income
• Ways to bring more help into your personal life
• Embracing the long game of entrepreneurship

Episode Quick Guide

• 0:00 Self-Employed Pregnancy and Maternity Leave
• 3:58 Navigating Business and Pregnancy
• 14:18 Transition to Short-Term Projects and Simplify Business Operations
• 20:32 Travel and Work Independently
• 24:58 The Challenges of Performing and Recovering
• 35:31 Balancing Work and Rest in Self-Employment
• 42:06 Simplifying Business and Avoiding Time-Wasting Activities
• 48:31 Shift to Digital Courses
• 58:29 Balancing Personal and Professional Brand
• 1:04:08 Using Your Voice for Marketing Success

The post Entrepreneurial Insights for Expecting Mothers on Heather Sager’s “Hint of Hustle” Podcast appeared first on Depict Data Studio.

Exercise, eat breakfast with the family, work on energizing projects for a few hours… 

… and then call it a day. 

Take the kids to gymnastics. Volunteer at field day.

Take off the entire summer for bucket list adventures.

Months-long road trips around the United States. 

Cruises through Europe.

Passports full of stamps.

Meg K. Wheeler from The Equitable Money Project invited me to speak on her podcast about building a thriving business around your life — not building a life around your business.

Listen to the Podcast

Search for the “Disrupt Your Money” podcast on your favorite podcast app.

Or, listen on Spotify here:

Watch the Podcast

Or, you can watch our conversation:

Learn More

Meg asked me to write a blog post about my experiences, too. You can read that post here.

Inside, you’ll see how my business has evolved over the past decade. I also share behind-the-scenes revenue and expenses info. And, you’ll see five tips for transitioning from burnout to summers abroad.

Your Turn

What types of questions do you have about building a business that fits your family? Comment below!

The post Building a Business that Fits Your Family: Disrupt Your Money Podcast appeared first on Depict Data Studio.

“I wasn’t planning on it. I wanted to take off the summer to be with my kids, so I did. I didn’t do anything profound.”

“But that’s exactly what’s profound about it – that you don’t even think it’s a big deal.”

—

Here’s how it worked.

When kindergarten ended and the kids went on summer break, so did I.

First, we enjoyed an Orlando staycation week.

We sang our favorite Encanto songs around Disney.

We slipped ‘n’ slid in the backyard.

Then, we packed our camping gear and headed west.

We spraypainted cars at Cadillac Ranch.

We rented bikes in New Mexico.

We jeeped through southwestern Utah’s trails on 100-degree days.

And then cooled off at the local rec centers.

We ate glamorous dinners while BLM-camping.

We collected treasures and mosquito bites along the Colorado River.

We cub-wrestled and cuddled in the tent every morning.

We ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches along creeks.

We cartwheeled through the Salt Flats.

We tagged along to mommy’s work conference in Boise. The girls still talk about the closing party, which was luau-themed.

We earned Junior Ranger Badges from lava rocks.

We hiked around Jenny Lake with my 30-pound “backpack.”

We watched the geysers from Old Faithful Inn.

We cub-wrestled and cuddled some more.

We collected wood for campfires.

We held our noses around the stinky mud pots.

We had snowball fights in July.

We rodeo’d in Wyoming, and stayed afterwards to get the clowns’ autographs.

We meditated among fallen trees in Wyoming, my 6-year-old’s “happy place.” Mine too, girl. Mine too.

We walked along dinosaur tracks.

We earned more Junior Ranger Badges.

We motorcycled through Sturgis.

We panned for gold, explored mines, and rode horses through the Black Hills.

We kayaked in Custer State Park.

We napped whenever we wanted to.

We smiled nicely for the camera.

We drank 5-cent coffee among the jackalopes.

We met up with grandpa and made him buy us all the toys.

We splashed in fountains in Omaha.

We stopped at public parks to get the wiggles out.

We celebrated our wedding anniversary from a children’s museum.

We forgot to make reservations and couldn’t actually go to the top of the arch.

We zoo’d and baseball’d in St. Louis.

We Varisty’d in Atlanta.

After 7 weeks, 20 states, and 7,412 miles, we were home.

We went back-to-school shopping and got our ears pierced.

Our 18-month-old FINALLY started walking. No more 30-pound “backpack” for mommy to carry!!!

We staycationed in Orlando some more.

A couple weeks later, it was time for first grade for the big kid, “Daddy School” for the little kids, and work for mom.

From 5 Weeks Off in 2021…

Last year, in the summer of 2021, my husband and I loaded our 3 kids into our Jeep for a 5-week road trip throughout the southwestern U.S.

In our 1998 Jeep with 275,00 miles.

With our 4-month-old son.

That seemed… normal… for us.

After all, we’d spent 2019 and early 2020 traveling throughout South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Surely we could handle tent-camping for 5 weeks.

My only regret: that it wasn’t longer.

… to 3 Months Off in 2022

I started planning my 2022 summer vacation an entire year in advance:

• scheduling all my client workshops and consulting projects for non-summer months;
• spacing out my online courses to allow for a long summer break; and
• politely declining all volunteer work (podcast interviews, guest lecturing, opportunities to review books and manuscripts, and serving on committees).

And then I took 3 months off.

And nobody minded.

I would say to prospective clients, “I’m not available over the summer, how about a fall training?” It was simple.

There were zero business repercussions.

Quite the opposite.

2022 has been the highest net revenue year yet for Depict Data Studio, despite working the least. Likely because I worked the least, and was the most focused.

It Took Years to Fine-Tune My Own Schedule

My 3-month vacation didn’t happen overnight.

It was 8 years in the making.

My first day of self-employment was September 8, 2014.

Ten days later, my husband turned 30, and he decided he was ready to have kids. This threw me off; we’d been married nearly a decade already (high-school sweethearts) and we’d firmly decided we were on the no-kids track.

After some convincing, I changed my mind, and our first daughter was born in 2015.

In 2015, practically overnight, I transformed from a typical DC-area workaholic into taking several months off for maternity leave. With lots of long-term contracts on my plate, this was no small feat. There was lots of planning. Subcontractors, adjusting timelines, submitting deliverables. During my very first year of self-employment, I was already working part-time. By necessity, not by choice.

In 2016 and 2017, I chose to take off Fridays to be with baby 1. We called them “Field Trip Fridays” and we visited every museum, zoo, and state park within a 2-hour drive of our apartment.

In 2018, baby 2 was born, and despite Field Trip Fridays with my two kiddos, my frequent work travel was taking a toll. I couldn’t stand to be away from my kids. There were lots of homesick flights to/from conferences and client workshops.

In 2019, we sold nearly everything to travel the world with our two kids. This felt logical at the time: Just bring the kids along as I taught dataviz in Guatemala, Zambia, Canada, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, Korea… It was a grand adventure and my only regret is not taking the leap sooner.

In 2020, we hunkered down in Florida during the pandemic, fell in love with purple sunsets and palm trees, bought a house, and decided to try for baby 3. I knew I’d be working virtually for a while. It’s rough to be pregnant on planes, so I figured it’d be easier to be pregnant on my own couch during quarantine.

Despite years of Field Trip Fridays and frequent time off, 2021 demanded even more flexibility. Baby 3 arrived early. There were multiple hospital stays. I was grateful that I’d carefully crafted this part-time schedule, one percent at a time, over the past few years. It was another year of working part-time by necessity, not by choice, with the exception of a 5-week not-long-enough camping trip in the middle.

By 2022, it was time to go for it: The full 3-month vacation dream.

What’s In Store for 2023

I’ll continue working the K12 school calendar. When my kids are home from school, the Depict Data Studio office is closed.

I’ve already had to decline speaking at a few summer 2023 conferences. Most of these organizations also host virtual training throughout the year, so it’s simply a “let’s work together in the spring or fall” scenario.

I’ll try to find time for volunteer projects again.

It’s a tough balancing act: Spend a few extra hours on a blog post that a hundred thousand people will skim or speak in a graduate course to just 15 people, which is an intimate setting where we can really connect?

Both volunteering options help the next generation of datavizzers. I’ll probably focus on blogging as my primary volunteering outlet because it has the most efficient “one to many” structure.

Answering Your Questions

Want to work up to regular 3-month vacations and part-time work? What sorts of logistical questions do you have? Ask me anything.

The post How I Took 3 Months Off Work appeared first on Depict Data Studio.

…and the rest was history!

YouTubing, blogging, and speaking at conferences just for fun quickly transformed into a fulfilling, creative business that’s taken me all over the world and enabled me to work with dream organizations. I never intended to start a business; it just kind of happened naturally thanks to YouTubing and blogging.

Here’s what the YouTubing portion of the journey looked like.

Why I Started YouTubing

A decade ago, I was working full-time as an evaluation consultant in Washington, DC.

I was also finishing my master’s degree at a nearby university, tackling one course at a time in the evenings after work.

And, I was starting to give data presentations at conferences as a regular part of my job. I also went to plenty of lunchtime brown bags around the city to meet people who worked in similar areas.

After the events, we’d stay in touch, and I started getting requests for data tutoring. “I loved your talk!” the emails would say. “Can I hire you to teach me how to do that?” Or, “I have a job interview coming up. Can I hire you to help me prep for the Excel tests that I’ll have to take as part of the hiring process?”

I’d been a formal statistics tutor and Spanish tutor in college through a small invite-only program. I got paid $25/hour back then, which felt like a million dollars for an 18-year-old college student.

So, in my mid-20s, I started tutoring colleagues after work in coffee shops around D.C. I started charging $25/hour and worked up to months-long projects at $125/hour.

Pretty soon, my schedule was way too busy. Again. Story of my life!!

“How can I help more of my colleagues with their datasets?!” I wondered. I decided to start YouTubing! My plan was to make one video that could help infinite colleagues. Then, I’d make another video that could help infinite colleagues. And so on. I’d help more people in less time.

The Earliest Videos

In between regular work and grad school assignments, I’d record short tutorials on common Excel formulas and post them to YouTube.

I didn’t have a webcam; I used my laptop’s built-in camera.

I didn’t have a microphone; you can hear my fingers clacking on the keyboard. Subscribers complained about the poor sound quality, so I bought a $15 microphone after a few videos.

I didn’t know how to edit videos; I’d record them in a single take with a “show must go on” approach.

I was awkward on camera; I rushed through my speaking points, afraid that I’d say “um” or “uhh” if I stopped to breathe between sentences. I didn’t want people to get bored while watching the videos, so I talked reallyreallyreally fast in an effort to hold their attention.

I didn’t know where to post videos – online courses hadn’t really been invented yet – so they were created out-of-order and posted in random places around my blog’s pages. At one point, I had a single webpage with ~50 videos embedded in it. As you’d imagine, it loaded really slow! I created an html Table of Contents to make the page easier to navigate. I added toggle buttons to hide the videos that you weren’t currently watching. I added buttons with links to download the supplemental materials. I was essentially creating a structured online course before that technology had been invented. I saw the need for organized videos and materials, and was thrilled when tech like Teachable, Thinkific, Kajabi, and all the others were released later on.

If you want a good laugh, you can watch my very first YouTube video here!

The Middle Years

By 2014, thanks to blogging and YouTubing, there was so much demand for my dataviz training that I left the corporate world and started my own company.

I started having kids, which left me without any “let me YouTube just for fun!” time.

I’d also finished grad school, so I didn’t need any “productive procrastination” away from my papers anymore.

For a few years, I didn’t create any YouTube videos. (Although I did continue blogging 2-3 times each month.)

This Year

I don’t focus on revenue growth as a business goal. I’m not here to help you make a million dollars a year.

Instead, I’ve focused on mastery and quality: leading the best private workshops I can, creating the best online course experience I can, and producing the best public resources like blog posts and YouTube videos that I can. As you can imagine, revenue growth is a natural byproduct. When you master your craft and produce high-quality experiences, you grow your business.

Here’s how I’ve focused on mastery and quality on YouTube this year.

Upgrading My Equipment, Tech, and Skills

Here’s what I’m currently using:

• Shure microphone, custom-ordered in brand purple (farewell Yeti mic).
• Mic arm so the mic is an inch from my mouth and I stop slouching over.
• Windscreen to cut down on background noise.
• Circle light to make up for working in a one-window room.
• Colored LEDs for fun.
• Canon camera (farewell webcams) so that I’m in focus and the background is slightly blurred.

I upgrade my set-up every few months. The full, updated list of equipment is here.

Here’s what it currently looks like behind the scenes:

I invested in public speaking training so that I sound like myself on camera, don’t rush, and vary my tone and cadence.

I learned basic video editing so I can use a variety of imagery: full-screen direct-to-camera shots; the webcam embedded in the corner; B-roll; and so on. I currently use Camtasia to both record and edit videos.

I hired an animator to create intro and outro animations.

I add transcriptions with Descript instead of relying on YouTube’s auto-generated captions. Descript’s captions are more accurate than YouTube’s. And, uploading a transcription file helps with SEO. (When people are Google-searching for dataviz topics, then Google searches through my transcripts and figures out if my video is relevant to their question.)

Upgrading My Content Creation Approach

Most importantly, I’ve upgraded my entire content creation approach.

In January 2022, as I was setting my business goals for the year, I wanted to master what I call the Long-Form-Short-Form approach to content creation.

My approach involves:

• Choosing a topic to share publicly (typically, anonymized case studies from past projects or Quick Wins for daraviz best practices and accessibility).
• Creating new slides about that topic (so I’d have the option of turning that into a YouTube video, online course lesson, and/or conference presentation).
• Writing a blog post about that topic with the images inside the post. The video gets embedded in the blog post, too.
• Creating a downloadable resource to share, like a checklist, cheat sheet, or dataviz template. I share these free and low-cost resources via Gumroad.
• Recording a YouTube video (which is easy once you’ve already got the slides created, the speaking points written out in your blog post, and a resource to share).
• Making a thumbnail image. I have quarterly photoshoots with a brand photographer and make the thumbnails in good ol’ PowerPoint.
• Transcribing the video on Descript.
• Adding timestamps (chapters) to the video.
• Writing a newsletter to my mailing list (ConvertKit) to let them know about the new resources.
• Breaking up that long form video and blog post into several social media images (the “short form” version), which I make on Canva and schedule on Buffer.

Phew! That’s a lot of ways to repurpose and recycle content across multiple platforms.

I realize this is jargon for most of you.

But for the fellow bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers, and course creators reading this, I hope you can appreciate my mega transformation over the past decade. I’ve gone from “let me create this quick video just for fun” to “let me create conference slides AND write a blog post AND make a downloadable resource AND make a video AND add captions to help with accessibility and SEO AND add timestamps to break it up into chapters AND share it better than ever on social media.”

The Long-Form-Short-Form Approach in Action

Here’s an example of that workflow.

• I was invited to speak at a conference.
• I chose a topic (an anonymized version of a project I worked on a few years ago).
• I made a downloadable resource (the graphs that I’d be talking about in the presentation).
• I made slides and presented them at the conference.
• An hour after the conference, I recorded the YouTube video (since the speaking points were already fresh in my mind). This was a free public event for a small audience, so it was the perfect opportunity to repurpose the content for my own larger audience.
• I created a thumbnail image.
• I added captions (Descript) and timestamps to make the longer video easier to navigate.
• I wrote up my speaking points and turned them into a blog post. (I usually write the blog post before the conference presentation/YouTube video to help me organize my thoughts, but this time, I made the video before I did the writing.)
• I made several images for social media (Canva), scheduled the blog post (WordPress), scheduled a newsletter to my email subscribers (ConvertKit), and scheduled the social media posts (Buffer).

It takes a full workday to complete that entire process, which is much longer than my “lemme make whatever video I feel like, whenever I feel like” approach from a decade ago. But, it’s more effective, so it’s worth the time investment.

My Latest YouTube Stats

Between 2012 and 2022:

• 109 videos (and hundreds more inside my online courses)
• 9,100 subscribers
• 2,400,000 views
• $13,000 made directly from video ads
• $22,000 made directly from the downloadable resources that accompany the videos
• Millions made indirectly from people who watch the videos and hire me for private workshops and/or join my online courses

I do wish I had more subscribers. If I was a full-time YouTuber–and gave up my private workshops and online courses entirely–I know I could grow my channel to millions of subscribers.

Being a full-time YouTuber is an entirely different business model from being a dataviz speaker and course creator. I’m not interested in switching careers at the moment.

Video Highlights

Here are some notable videos over the years.

Most Views

I made this one in the middle of the night, “thanks” to my never-ending battle with insomnia. And it’s made me thousands of dollars in ad money. A couple hours well spent!

Most Controversial

People either think the Excel test is way too hard or way too easy.

I didn’t create the test!! I just recorded myself taking it.

Video That’s Led to the Most Paid Jobs

What a nice surprise!

(Executives recognize these “dashboard don’ts” in their staff, and they hire me to come and train their staff to make simpler dashboards.)

Underdog Award

I’m surprised this one doesn’t have more views.

The downloadable resource–the templates to create all the one-pagers–is such a gem.

But, the video itself is too long, and it was posted on aea365, which doesn’t get as many views as my own blog.

Favorite Videos on Other Channels

So many!!! Some of my favorite videos have been collaborations for my friends’ YouTube channels.

I especially love this lesson on using colored phrases for qualitative data visualization, which I made for Jon Schwabish’s channel.

I also love this video on starter dashboards for the “Data Is Not Scary” theme for Kate Strachnyi’s channel.

What’s Next

For years, I’ve dreamed about focusing on YouTube, rather than treating my channel as an afterthought around my private workshops and online courses.

For years, I haven’t made the time. And I haven’t been interested in switching from a private workshop/online course business model to a YouTube business model.

I’m not sure whether I’ll ever choose to make the time or make the switch, though.

I love teaching dataviz through videos. Learning software how-to’s through screenshots is the worst. It’s so much better to watch someone’s mouse move on the screen!

But, I’ve done that. I’ve created 6 online courses that involve recorded tutorials, live Office Hours Q&As each week, 1:1 consultations, swag bags, downloadable resources, guest speakers, and more.

YouTubing is still a fun hobby, but with running a business… raising 3 kids… going to the gym… gardening in my backyard… planning fun outings with neighborhood families… I already have a life full of wonderful hobbies. As usual, there isn’t time for much more.

That being said, there are some specific tweaks I’m working towards in 2023:

• Finally adding intro music to accompany the intro animation.
• Upgrading my recording/editing software. Camtasia only lets you record full-screen, direct to camera videos in 720p resolution, which is grainy. I want to record in 1040p resolution. Sometimes YouTubers record their full-screen, direct to camera shots entirely on their camera’s memory card. Then, they record their software demos and screensharing from their laptop. Then, they have to merge the various files inside their editing software (Camtasia, etc.). That’s a lot of extra files to keep track of! I’d prefer to find a single software program that does everything. If you have suggestions, please comment on this blog post and let me know.
• Keeping all videos to 10 minutes or less. People complain about short videos. People complain about long videos. I think the sweet spot for my topics is around 10 minutes.
• Figuring out which topics can/should be shared on YouTube. Everyone wants Excel dataviz tips, but I’ve got a course on that. Everyone wants dataviz accessibility tips, but I’ve got a course on that. I’ve also got courses on dashboards, reports, presentations, and formulas/pivot tables. So what goes on YouTube?? This is the most challenging aspect of YouTube and blogging for me: finding one-off topics that aren’t already covered comprehensively inside my online courses.
• Setting a realistic goal for videos. For 2022, I wanted to publish 20 blog posts, 10 of which would involve the long-form-short-form approach with the embedded YouTube videos and downloadable resources. I’ll finish the year with ~24 blog posts and just 6 videos. I’m not sure what’s realistic for 2023 given my other goals for online courses and private workshops, which take up the majority of my time. We’ll see! Stay tuned.

Your Turn

Have any YouTube questions for me? Post them here and I’ll respond ASAP.

It would mean the world to me if you’d subscribe to my YouTube channel here.

The post Celebrating 10 Years of Dataviz YouTubing! appeared first on Depict Data Studio.

Side note: If you’re on the fence about joining social media… Social media can be the first step towards forging long-lasting friendships with colleagues. Go for it!

In addition to her career as an evaluator, and her busy teaching schedule as a professor, Dana recently launched the EvaluLand podcast.

On her podcast, we talked about my unexpected shift from being an evaluator to a data visualization designer, along with my tips getting started working for yourself or teaching online.

Watch Our Conversation

Listen to the Episode

Or, listen to the episode here: https://evaluland.fireside.fm/8

Ann’s Trajectory into Evaluation

Here’s a recap of what we discussed.

Dana: I’m curious how you transitioned from evaluation and research work into what you do now?

Ten years ago, it was a really big deal to do anything besides a technical report.

That was the norm (and in some work places, still is).

At a conference, we stood up and said, “What if we have a technical report but we also have a one-pager for each of the 30 schools in this project? That way, each school can view their own data? And what if, instead of tediously copying and pasting from Excel to Word, we just write some VBA code to automate the process and save days of time?”

These concepts were groundbreaking at the time.

Fast forward a few more jobs, to when I worked with foundations. I would help train their nonprofits on evaluation, data collection, data analysis, and data visualization.

I remember thinking, “This is my favorite thing in the world! I like teaching more than I like writing the actual reports myself.”

I got to work on technical assistance projects about one day a week and realized I wanted to do that five days a week.

At the time, I was working and earning my master’s degree at night. Friends, family, and colleagues kept asking me, “What’s next for you, once your graduate?” I had no idea. I hadn’t intended on switching jobs. But people kept asking, so I kept thinking about it.

I remember telling my husband, “Someday, when we’re 65 and I retire, I’m going to do data viz training full-time!”

And he said to me, “But that’s decades away! You’re 28. That’s a long time to wait. You’re really going to put off your dreams for decades?”

And I thought, “I guess I should do this now. Why would I put my life on hold?”

I aready had a good job. It was risky to leave something good in hopes that it would lead to something great. I pulled the trigger, and seven years later, the rest is history.

Ann’s Career Shift: From Evaluator to Entrepreneur

Dana: I want to talk a little bit about how your career has shifted. What’s been the difference for you between entrepreneurship and independent consulting? How has that transition been for you?

My identity has certainly shifted over the years.

Way back, I started as a researcher who was going to do a Ph.D. program.

Then, I was an evaluator in salaried positions for a while.

Then, in my one of my first projects as an independent consultant, I was a one-woman evaluation team. At the time, it was perfectly feasible to work on the project all by myself.

My specialty, though, is data visualization. And there’s a huge demand for that. It got to a point where it didn’t make sense to turn down the data viz jobs that I’m passionate about. There was a natural transition where I began training evaluators on how to do data viz.

Then, a few years later, I shifted to, “I’m a data visualization designer.”

It was truly only a year ago that I shifted my thinking to, “I’m actually this ‘entrepreneur’ people talk about.”

I was in a book club of fellow data analysts who are self-employed. We’d read a book together every quarter. One time, we read Company of One by Paul Jarvis together. Paul talks about the value of staying small and nimble.

The measure of success used to be how many employees your business has. Paul presented new metrics of success:

• How much time do you have with your family?
• How profitable are you?
• How many hours a day do you have to work?
• Are you able to scale?
• Are you just being paid by the hour? So if you take an hour off, you don’t get paid? Or do you have passive income coming in?

I was so persuaded by the idea that small is great.

My setup now is very lean. It’s me plus a 5 hour/week assistant. I did at one point have up to 10 subcontractors, where one person designed the icons, one person created the report cover, etc. I was trying to coordinate all of it while I was traveling around the world teaching workshops. I’d be waiting in line to board a day-long flight to another continent, trying to clumsily thumb-type instructions to contractors to keep the projects moving. It was just too many details and wasn’t any fun. I focus on trainings now not only because I love it, but also to save my sanity.

I don’t consider myself moonlighting. I’m not a consultant or a freelancer. Depict Data Studio is definitely a company with a clear structure, processes, automations, and regular passive income. I have a workflow where I do this, and then my assistant does this. And we try to avoid as much manual work as possible, letting the tech do the tedious tasks for us.

How to Start Online Courses

Dana: I’d like to talk about your online courses and how you got into them. What’s your number one tip for somebody interested in doing this? I’m personally struggling with this because I teach and my university brings in income through the students who I bring into the program. So, I’m not sure how I should/could do this personally.

A decade ago, I started teaching about data very informally at brown bags for fellow staff members in my company.

Word spread that Ann knows this Excel shortcut, and Ann can take a spreadsheet and turn it into a dashboard fairly seamlessly.

It came pretty naturally to me and I just assumed it did for everyone else too. How lucky am I that it doesn’t, because I’ll be employed for a while that way!

People started asking me for help. I started blogging around the same time, and making very informal YouTube videos as well. I simply started YouTubing to answer the questions I was getting. I kept getting the same questions over and over, and realized there were thing everyone was struggling with. I didn’t have time to answer everyone individually as I was taking graduate classes myself and had a very demanding job.

I would go home at the end of a long day and I would record a little 2- to 5- minute answer to their question, and then post the video on YouTube. I loved doing that and found it so gratifying to teach. It feels really good as a service to the community to help other people.

A few years later, Chris Lysy from Fresh Spectrum said to me, “Wow, you actually enjoy being on camera. Most people hate it. Why don’t you make an online course?” I pushed back that I already had blog posts and YouTube videos. The software didn’t quite exist yet that would allow me to turn disparate YouTube tutorials into a planned course, and I’d never seen this done before. Chris planted the idea, and I thought about it on and off for the next few years.

I went for it in Spring of 2018. I made a complimentary mini course using my favorite pre-existing YouTube videos I already had.

Then, I started making full-length paid courses. I was translating what I’ve already been doing with clients in-person to a virtual setting Not everybody is going to fly me out to teach all 30 of their staff. Some people are self-employed, some people are based in other countries, some companies have staff located in multiple offices, etc. There are so many benefits to offering courses online. Participants can learn whenever it’s convenient for their own schedule.

From there, it just grew and grew, and I now have six full-length courses (which are each the equivalent of a two-day workshop). I offer Office Hours where students can ask me questions. We hold live sessions with guest speakers. We’ve built ebooks, handouts, and checklists. There are opportunities to submit work and get feedback. And, the early birds even get Swag Bags with t-shirts and stickers as a treat for signing up early. It’s grown very slowly, intentionally but slowly.

That being said, although I have six full courses now, that’s not a realistic starting point for anybody. I recommend people start exactly how I did: Make a very short courses that’s 30 to 60 minutes long on a topic you’ve already presented about (e.g., at a conference or staff meeting). Start with the audience’s favorite presentation that people love every time. Or, start with your favorite presentation that you’re really excited about.

Take that 30- to 60-minute talk and record it. Not all in one video, of course! Maybe there are four lessons inside your talk. Turn that into four shorter videos. You could give it away for free if you’re trying to build your email list. Or, sell it.

Recycling Content

Dana: I know you always talk about recycling your content and I’m realizing I don’t do that very well. I’ve got this perfect demonstration I did at a conference in 2018 on how to survey children. There’s really not much out there and it was based on my thesis. People ate it up! That would be a perfect one to maybe build up more but it could be pretty ready to go. That actually really excites me, so thank you!

I bet your slides are 90% done and you remember 90% of your speaking points.

I bet you have clear breaks in your presentation by topics where you can record this 10 minutes, this 10 minutes and so on.

You can make it interactive just like you do a regular presentation. Not just “Does anyone have any questions?” at the end, but you can say “Comment below the video” or “Try it out and come back and reflect on this here.”

I bet you could transform that talk into a recorded course in half a day. You’ve already recorded yourself online (through your professor position in virtual school this semester), and you already know how to do podcasts. It’s going to be really easy for you to do this.

Chris Lysy taught me about recycling content. At a past conference presentation, he was saying, what a shame that we all fly to conferences. We spend all this time prepping our presentation. We have amazing learning for a couple of days. We then go home. Learning doesn’t have to stop! What if we also wrote a blog post with key takeaways from our presentation? At a bare minimum, write a blog post. But you could make a video course based on that conference presentation.

Sharing Resources and Expertise

Dana: I wish more people would blog, create podcasts, and share their resources. The reason I blog is to share all of this. It makes me sad when people feel like they need to hoard their information and never share out of fear. I want to learn something and share it. Why should everybody do the same work over and over again? Instead, you can take what I’ve done and make something more of it.

There’s definitely a misconception in the consulting space where, if you share your perfect expertise and knowledge in a blog post, other consultants will steal it. Or, nobody will hire you.

I’ve had the complete opposite experience.

The more tips I share online, the more business I get.

One person from a group’s team will be on my newsletter list, have followed my blog, or maybe seen me speak. They want everyone else on their team to benefit and learn from me. So, when it’s time to bring in a speaker, they naturally reach out to me. Then everybody on their team gets to benefit, and I get to keep a roof over my head. I have never lost business over anything I’ve shared online.

I also think that sharing knowledge leads to so much life satisfaction.

One of my favorite books of all time is Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin.

It’s a financial book, kind of. But it’s really about life purpose and making sure that the limited days you’re alive are spent really well, and that you’re making the world a better place. That you’re not just consuming and giving yourself temporary happiness by buying a new purse or going on vacation. But, instead, you’re giving yourself lasting satisfaction by creating rather than consuming. Vicki Robin talks about how the tippy-top of ultimate happiness is achieved by giving to others and being of service to others.

And that’s why I love teaching, too. Because you clearly see the impact that you have on helping other people out. And, you get to stay in business while you do it. It’s such a natural path for me. I highly recommend teaching online. But just start small.

Shifting from a Scarcity Mindset to an Abundance Mindset

I used to have the scarcity mindset where, if I don’t accept this project, even though it’s not a good fit, maybe the client will never want to work with me again.

But then I transformed very slowly into an abundance mindset. My thinking is, “There’s plenty of work to go around, and plenty of people to help. It’s not like if you help somebody else, your career goes down the toilet. It’s not that. It’s just that you have this amazing network of really talented, hardworking people around you that you get to collaborate with.”

Merging Personal and Professional Ann

I used to have Professional Ann and Personal Ann.

Professional Ann wore suits and heels to work, and worked by the White House. Sure, I talked to my co-workers, but I wasn’t sharing my life with them.

Here’s Professional Ann:

Meanwhile, here’s Personal Ann, a Wild Child riding her Harley in the Salt Flats during her fourth cross-country trip:

It was a weird tension. I realized that at some point in my life I’d have to merge them and be myself all the time.

I finally got the courage to do that and share many things about my life. I share 90% of how I’m feeling on my InstaStories and don’t filter myself. Deven Wisner asked me, “How do you decide to share online? What’s your strategy?” My answer was, “I don’t think about it.”

The tipping point for me was that I started getting emails from other women in data. These emails basically said, “I was on the fence about starting blogging/speaking/etc, but I saw you doing it and thought, ‘I can do it too!'”

For about a year, I honestly hated those messages. I never wanted to be known. I just wanted to share data. It wasn’t a goal to grow an audience.

I felt really reluctantly placed on a pedestal.

I didn’t want to be this role model for women in data. I didn’t ask for that. But here I am. So, I thought, “Well, okay, I owe it to them to be a leader and be a role model. And to not just show the great parts of working for yourself, but also the not-so-great parts.”

Dana: I wonder if the sharing more of the personal side helps to humanize you more so that people don’t put you on a pedestal. I certainly don’t want to be on a pedestal. And every person I’ve put on a pedestal has toppled.

If you need somebody good to follow on Instagram who’s at the top of her career game but also is so real, I’d suggest Farnoosh Torabi. She’s a finance expert with a NY Times Bestselling book. On her InstaStories, she’ll share what her life is like as she’s getting ready to be interviewed on national television. Her makeup turned out weird, or her kids are throwing a fit and crying on the floor. Farnoosh is this amazing, professional woman who has so much expertise, but she’s also a real person. It just makes me love her more. I’m learning not just about finance, but what it’s like behind the scenes. The more she shares, the more I admire her for being herself online.

Teaching in the Virtual World

Dana: What kind of tips do you have for those of us teaching in this virtual world now?

I think there’s this misconception that every video has to be perfect if it’s recorded.

And that to be professional means you have perfect posture. Or you sit very stiffly and not move at all.

Early on, my speaking points were perfect. I wouldn’t use any casual language like um, so, or hmmm. I sounded like a robot! Nobody wants to listen to a boring robot. We want to connect with real human beings.

How to Be Natural On Camera

I’m a fan on planning in bullet point form, but I don’t recommend reading off a script.

I have tried multiple approaches including:

• “The show must go on.” You have one take! Keep recording even if you make a mistake. That’s what you’d sound like in-person, after all.
• Starting and stopping and starting and stopping, and then editing the recording afterwards to make it “perfect.” This takes five times longer!

I highly recommend recording everything in a single take. It’s more like teaching live. And, you’ll sound more like a real person. Embrace the hiccups and just deal with whatever happens.

Teaching Data Viz Around the World

Dana: I would love to talk a little bit about travel because I know you did travel a lot before COVID-19 hit. How did you get into it? How you did you do it? How did this process work for you? How can others with this dream of traveling either for or outside of work do this as well?

This could be a whole other podcast! Here’s the 30-second answer. I’m starting year seven of my business, but in year one we decided to have kids. (I started working for myself, and a week later my husband turned 30, and said, “I’m ready to be a dad now!” And I said, “No!” We were high school sweethearts, so we’ve been together forever, and kids were never in the plan. I came around, and we’ve never regretted it.)

I had all these great data viz trainings that I was traveling for, but I also just wanted to be home for bath time.

I felt like I had to pick, am I going to quit my job or be a stay-at-home mom?

We thought, what if my husband quits his job, and we sold our house and our belongings? It felt very logical to us. The family came along and we traveled for this perfect year until COVID flipped everything upside down.

What is Something in Evaluation that is Giving You Life Right Now?

Dana: What is something in evaluation that is giving you life right now?

I’ve got two.

The first one is evaluators who were never into cultural competence or racial equity are getting into it now and really taking the topic seriously due to the Black Lives Matter movement. That’s so exciting for me to see all of those ‘Aha!’ moments going on for people to recognize that white people have been really privileged for a long time and it’s our responsibility to do something about it.

And the second one is that, ten years ago, when I gave a dashboard presentation at a national conference, I had suggested also creating a one-pager to accompany a technical report. It was groundbreaking at the time. Luckily, that’s not the case anymore. I see evaluators making slideshows, one-pagers, infographics, and dashboards, and thinking so carefully about what stakeholders can actually use to inform decisions and make better programs. It makes me really hopeful to think of what’s next in evaluation.

Resources

Dana: Do you have any resources that you’d like to share?

My resource recommendation is my mini course, Soar Beyond the Dusty Shelf Report. It’s really a mindset course to get you thinking about what impact, if any, are your reports having now. And it’s not just reports, but infographics, dashboards, slideshows, etc. In the course, I give examples of what’s possible with reports, and share some tried-and-true tips like the 30-3-1 approach.

Your Turn

Comment below: What surprised you about our conversation? Do you have additional questions about careers in evaluation or data visualization?

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