HELLO, I'M SETH WERKHEISER

CUE CARDS

What a great clip. I can only imagine the sense of relief after a show is over. WHEW.

COLLABORATION IS HOW WE THRIVE

By shifting from competition to collaboration, you:
Create sustainability—because you no longer have to do everything alone.
Build trust & credibility—because people respect businesses that uplift others.
Challenge the corporate model—because small businesses thrive in community, not isolation.

Social media has led us to believe the idea of the lone genius. We figure everything out on our own. Growth as the singular focus.

What’s the old adage? To go fast, go alone. To go far, go with others.

AI-ENHANCED FREELANCERS

AI won’t replace you but AI-enhanced freelancers will.

If you’re not using AI to streamline your workflow, automate admin tasks, or turbocharge your creativity, you’re already losing to those who are. It’s pointless to try to fight technology, become comfortable with it and own it! This will give you the time to do the tasks you need to focus on and be present with potential clients and collaborators.

AI-enhanced freelancers. Damn, it’s true.

I use chatGPT to do some very basic, menial formatting work for me, across several of my clients. If I did it all “by hand” I’d be adding hours every month of busy work. Not worth it.

(via ‘How to freelance in 2025‘ by xavografica)

THE “FINALLY ORGANIZING YOUR DIGITAL PHOTOS” ZOOM HANG OUT CALL

This started by me posting on Substack Notes, a screen shot of a bunch of folders filled with my digital photos dating back to 2002. I explained how I got all those photos extracted from Apple Photos (formerly iPhoto), and into their own folders. Then how I backed them all up via Backblaze.

This got some traction, so I wondererd if people would be interested in hopping on a Zoom call and talking about it. I set up a landing page using Tally, and got over 30 replies.

From there I set up an event in Luma, and emailed those folks, and as of writing this I got 29 people signed up to attend.

It’s on Thursday, March 20 from 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EDT. If you wanna come, register here.

- This is definitely not for the hardcore photographer crowd.

- This is for the casual iPhone / photographer who just happens to have a jillion photos scattered everywhere and you’re looking for a temporary support group to figure things out together.

I figured out an okay system to get all my iPhone photos off my device and stored on an external HD, again, all backed up via Backblaze (which backs up two external HDs and my laptop for $9/mo).

Because of this, I was able to cancel my yearly Google subscription for more photo storage (I was using it to back up my iPhone photos), and cut my iCloud to the .99 cents per month plan.

Thursday, March 20 from 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EDT. Register here.

UPDATING WEBSITES

It’s been so amazing to see people updating their websites. This from Zach Sprowls:

“The idea of a website HQ is not original to me. I got it from Seth Werkheiser over at SOCIAL MEDIA ESCAPE CLUB. His ideas, encouragement, and the community he’s building over there have been invaluable. Thank you, Seth!”

And then this from Menka Sanghvi:

“Totally echo Zach’s words. I have built my new website HQ too, and it even has a “microblog” where I go to first, whenever I get that strong impulse to share on social media! Thanks Seth.”

Just look at their incredible micro-blog set up!

I mean it – we’ve dumped years of text and photos and video onto these social media platforms. It’s no wonder no one visits our websites – we’re not updating them!

Filling out websites with everything we’ve been giving away for free to social media is a great start. Set up your own Twitter-like feed on your own site. Make it easy to publish new things on a platform you control!

SUBSTACK PODCASTS ARE MORE PLATFORM LOCK IN

So I had a handful of video interviews on Substack. They were sent out as newsletters, but they were also posts that I wrote. Not just show notes, but like… full posts.

Well, I didn’t like the way Substack handles podcasts… I mean, no individual episode art? The organization was a wreck, too. I just didn’t like how it felt.

I signed up a free trial of Transistor – for $19/mo you get unlimited podcasts. And they’re all just, like, in their own sandbox. Like, if I just delete one, nothing else is touched.

I learned the hard way that this is not the case with Substack. I uploaded all the audio from these videos to Transistor, and it worked great. Seriously. What a solid system. Everything just laid out in a way that makes sense, unlike how Substack sort of blurs together a post and a podcast episode.

RUNNING

Gorgeous morning here in PA. Getting up to 60F today. Objects in motion stay in motion.

QUICK NYC TRIP

Spent a night in New York City. Did an eight mile run from my hotel, all the way around Central park, and back. Haven’t run that far in a minute, so that was quite a feat. Took no photos during the entire run (1.5 hours), just wanted to soak in the entire experience.

I read 4000 Weeks last year, which has made me think of the quickness of life. Is this maybe my last trip to NYC?

I went to Grand Central. I used to walk through that building a few times a week when I moved to NYC back in 2004. My god, what a simpler time, right? No streaming music. Two years before I joined Twitter.

Every moment is a gift. Grateful to be able to make this trip.

BETTER VS MORE

On a group call today we got talking about an influx of subscribers, and instead of trying to replicate that to get more more more, we talked about ways to get closer to those subscribers. One at a time if needed.

What brought them in? What resonated? How can you meet them?

Can you take 100 new subscribers and find people willing to dive in? Hop on Zoom call?

Maybe it’s “just” 20 people, but those 20 (or 10 or 5 or one) can change your life.

Making more content isn’t always the answer, like Scott says here. Seek more (and better) conversations, and see what happens.