User Friendly

William from User Friendly stops by to discuss how the show started, where it’s going, and, of course, various rabbit holes along the way.

User Friendly

https://youtube.com/live/hY8kANKUteE

Bad AI Transcript

Hey, everybody, and welcome to this conversation with, would you go by Bill? I have William here. So William from UserFriendly. William or Bill. I mean, either way, people call me worse, so either helps, but usually Bill. But Bill, okay. So Bill from UserFriendly. And I was going to butcher your last name here. Is it, would I say Sickens or Sykens? No, it’s Sickens. You got it spot on. Oh, okay. Because sometimes whenever you have the, you know, Sometimes people have a long vowel on their name for whatever reason. So I didn’t want to get it wrong. No worries. Spot on. But Bill has a program called User Friendly, which you can find here at userfriendlyshow.com. It’s also on the radio in Portland and Seattle. Am I right? That’s correct. Yeah.
Oh, wow. So that was just out of memory. Go figure. I should have looked that up beforehand, but I didn’t. So I was just yanking it out of my head. No worries. You had it right. So why look it up? That’s right. So but I’ve been on Bill’s show a few times and I thought, would it be fun to sit down and talk a little bit about his journey to doing these kind of things? So my first question, Bill, would be user friendly. How did it start? Well, you know, it’s kind of a fun story. We started back in 2013. So this is our 12th year doing the show. And the funny thing about it is, is this whole thing started in my kitchen. At the time, I lived in Reno, Nevada, and we would have friends over every week to do tabletop role playing. And one night we got done and, you know, somebody said this would make a good
topic for doing a podcast at the time, but podcasting was really a new thing back in the day. So it’s like, well, okay, well, you know, we’ll think about it. And then I worked in the, you know, business community and everything like that. And kind of threw the idea around and had one of the local radio stations come back and say, Hey, well, if you want to do technology at the time, that’s what it was. We would love to give you a go. So a few weeks later, I end up with a schedule and we’re on the air on a very small station. But still, you know, it’s where we started. Half hour format at the time. And I think we did eight or nine episodes of that. And that was how we got started. So on the air in Reno? In Reno, yeah. Yeah. At the time. Oh, that’s cool. So you were talking about role playing game and then you’re saying that
but how did you get from role-playing games into technology as a general thing? Cause it seems, I mean, there’s some connection there, but it’s not direct. Oh, it’s not even indirect. I mean, I guess today you could argue a connection maybe with some of the tools and stuff, but at the time, no, it was definitely very much two different things. And that’s why it’s also a little bit odd how that came into being. So a little bit of a background on that. I’ve since ago, 1998 have run a technology company and, um, as a career as a software engineer and do some things like that in addition to our show. So that’s where the technology end of it came from. That’s what I was kind of known for in the area. But it was and is a very niche audience. There’s a lot of people that are interested in technology, but it is very specific. And in today’s world, doing a podcast, it would work a lot better just because anybody around the world that is interested can listen that you’re not limited to who happens to tune in on the air that week.
Right. But what happened is, is like i say, we’re new role-playing games and, uh, on a hobby side, do cosplay and go to the comic cons and all this kind of stuff. And we were at a comic-con that was put on at the time by a steve wozniak in san Jose, California. Um, that was a comic-con that combined pop culture and technology. So our team decided if apple can do it, so can we. And at the time, you know i mean yeah of course why not go with the winners? Right. Yeah. So, That’s what Microsoft said for the Zune. The what? No, I’m kidding. Yes. There have been a few things like that out there. But in this case, you know, and this isn’t the Apple Lisa either, if you’ve ever heard of that. You know, but it was an idea to be able to blend the two together. And they wanted us to go to an hour format at the time. And so I proposed it. And let’s give it a go and give it a try. And it worked quite well. So that’s what we’ve been doing since then.
So we covered both topics. And as time has gone by, they have blended a lot more together. So the role playing gaming side of it certainly can include video games and all of that type of a thing. And the technology side of that’s pretty self-explanatory. But having the two together has really benefited. I think our audience likes it a lot better. And I get that because our numbers went up when we started doing that. And it’s a lot more enjoyable to do because there’s a lot more material to be able to pull from to present. Right, yeah, so you have a bigger pool, right? Can I ask, what game were you playing? Were you playing Dungeons & Dragons or was it a different role? Of course it was Dungeons & Dragons for everybody, right? Well, there’s a lot of other ones, so it could have been something else. Yeah, and I footnote that. I actually do play a lot of different games, but at the time it was Dungeons & Dragons specifically.
And we had just the one technology blend is we had gotten this app on our smart speaker. I won’t say the name to activate everybody’s here, but our smart speaker and that would actually do dice rolls and give you some of the rules back. So we were playing with that. And that’s part of what came into this could be a good idea. So there was a little bit of technology, very early version of it, but yeah. Yeah. Oh, that’s cool though. That’s so fun that you’re just kind of, you’re like, Hey, why don’t we do this? And then you just, Go and do it. But it sounds like as far as your background, though, you’re a bit entrepreneurial, I’m guessing. So you said software. And so are you the boss? Yeah. Oh, yeah. And like I say, I do both sides of it. If I attempted to live on what I did get on doing the show, not so much now, but in the beginning, I certainly would have been in a very different situation. So I needed to have both. But that’s where I started.
my career was, you know, doing software design. Originally, we had a store in a mall in Reno that sold hardware, and that’s where that started. And then kind of morphed out of that, and over the years, dropped the hardware part of it, just went to software, and now we do software robotics. But that end of it definitely gave a lot of exposure to the technology side of things. And a lot of people don’t talk about it well. So one of the things we seem to be able to do is take subjects that were normally in the clouds and explain it and discuss it in a way where that everybody could relate to it and understand what it was. And that is really what kind of keyed into all of this in the very beginning. Oh, yeah. So exactly. I think everybody gets, you know, my guess is, you know, just from, you know, my knowledge base, they’re like, oh, talk to Bill. He’ll fix your computer for you. And then you became that guy, right? So you’re the guy that knows these answers and everybody kind of comes to you and does that. But
It’s not necessarily all their questions aren’t overly complicated. It’s just they just don’t click with it, right? But, yeah, bringing it to the masses like that I think is a very good thing. I mean, at this point, we’re all going in that direction. I do find it funny, though, Bill, that so I have children, and so I’ve been involv...

A Conversation with William from User Friendly