#55. Katie Paterson. Community & Rethinking Productivity

****Join Katie on Oct 14th for a webinar with us on ⁠"What's stopping you from doing the thing?" Sign up here.⁠

Katie Paterson runs Katie Does Comms and is the founder of The Outsiders, an Edinburgh community for freelancers and people who work on their own.

We talk about Katie’s route into communications and why she thinks good comms has much more to do with human connection than finding people’s “pain points”. From there, we get into The Outsiders: how it started, why people sometimes need permission to leave their desks and spend time outside, and what Katie calls “gentle ambition”.

Later we talk about walking as part of the thinking process rather than something we do when the work is finished; the pressure to optimise and measure everything; what happens when a community grows beyond its founder; and why admitting you don’t know what you’re doing can sometimes make collaboration easier.

03:19 – Katie’s background, adventure and a 22,000 km bike trip
10:16 – Communications, marketing and human connection
13:52 – Pain-point marketing and Andrew’s experience in the fitness industry
16:35 – Helping people see a positive version of the future
23:46 – The beginnings of The Outsiders
33:56 – How the community has grown
36:42 – Permission to spend time outdoors, fun and “gentle ambition”
42:05 – Outdoor Office Day and using walking as a way to think
46:25 – Movement, cognition, affordances and AI as an environment
51:05 – Growth at all costs, KPIs and trying to measure things in isolation
56:38 – What happens when a community becomes bigger than its founder
1:03:18 – Collaboration, not knowing the answers and letting other people contribute
1:06:31 – Starting with the smallest possible version of an idea

Katie Paterson
Katiedoescomms.co.uk
Katie on LinkedIn

The Outsiders
theoutsiders.org.uk

Outdoor Office Day / Nature Desks
naturedesks.com/outdoor-office-day

Charles Darwin’s Sandwalk
Darwin walked the Sandwalk at Down House every day. It became known as his “thinking path”.
Down House and the Sandwalk – English Heritage

“Your AI Is Not a Tool” – L. M. Sacasas
This is the piece Andrew mentions when talking about the idea that AI might be better understood as an environment rather than simply a tool.
The Convivial Society: Your AI Is Not a Tool