Editing The Pen Addict 179/transcript (section)

== Modern Goods Sponsorship ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' Talking about improving your life. Let's talk about do that. Modern goods. They are a fantastic sponsor. We love them so much. And we love, we love Dudek modern goods so much. And I say them, it's Myke Dudek, right? You know, this is the guy. If you buy something from Dudek modern goods, you know, you are going to be getting something handmade by the wonderful Myke Dudek of the Clicky Post. Who's such a fantastic friend of this show. Um, and Myke started Dudek modern goods because as he was becoming more and more excited and interested in pens, he wanted somewhere elegant and useful to store his favorite stuff. So as his pen collection just grew and grew and grew over time, he had his own ideas of how he wanted to store them, but couldn't find any solutions that fit his mind. So he decided to go out and make his own stuff. So projects like the cube, the block and the groove were born. Um, and I actually have a groove on my desk now. You know, I've been using the cube for a long time. Um, I decided, uh, I wanted somewhere to put a couple of notebooks. So I was just leaving them on the desk. So I, uh, brought the, the groove out of the cupboard over there and I, it's, it's now sitting on my desk with all my favorite pens in it and a couple of field notes, notebooks here as well. Um, I couldn't be happier with my Dudek products so much so that when, uh, Relay FM had its one year anniversary, we commissioned Myke to make some, uh, little wooden blocks for us. Right. Which I spoke about before, because I wanted something that I could give as a gift that I hoped that my friends would keep around for a long time. And I knew I could trust Myke's work. So that was why I gave him that task. Right. Yep. He is super passionate about crafting these beautiful and functional products and he truly believes and he sets out to make sure that they will last you a lifetime. Um, all of these products, all of the Dudek's, Nudeck Modern Good products are handmade in Arizona, USA from solid walnut and they have a distinct modern and minimal design mixed with the rich grain and the color of the walnut. These pieces will earn a place on your desk today. And in 30 years time, they're still going to look great and still look like they belong. There are nine different designs that you can choose from with several options to fit your needs. Whether you have larger pens in your collection or need space to hold your pocket notebooks or journal in addition to your writing instruments. The support by our community for Dudek Modern Goods has been tremendous. And Myke wanted me to pass on a massive thank you to all of you and to say just how great a privilege it is every time he mails out a piece to a buyer. Myke does ship internationally with reasonable shipping rates. You have to remember that walnut is heavy, so it's not cheap, but it's reasonable. But, you know, for international shoppers, depending on where you are, the dollar can be good for you, right? So you can end up still making a pretty good deal. And he has shipped to more than 20 countries so far. Now, it's something I just wanted to mention. We are going to talk about this again in a little bit of a fracture. And Myke has the exact same issue. As the holiday months are generally the busiest for makers like Myke, he wanted to get the word out that if you are thinking about buying a piece as a gift, or if you want one as a gift yourself and you want somebody in your family or a friend to buy this for you, you should be getting those orders in right now. Because if you want to definitely get a piece for the holiday season, Myke should be starting to make it as soon as possible to make sure that you beat the rush. So if you are interested, which you really, really should be, go to dudekmoderngoods.com. That's D-U-D-E-K-M-O-D-E-R-N-G-O-O-D-S. And of course, there'll be a link in the show notes. That's dudekmoderngoods.com. Don't forget, every piece is handmade. So it's important to get that order in as soon as you can. And we have a special deal for Pen Addict listeners. He's going to offer 10% off, which is fantastic, any product from dudekmoderngoods.com and all the way through the month of November. So this is only available until the end of November, 2015. So act fast. Thank you so much to Myke Dudek and Dudek Modern Goods for sponsoring this week's episode and for being such a great pillar of our lovely community.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, this is wonderful. And everyone's seen pictures of my desk there. My desk is covered up. I probably have at least five or so different Dudek Modern Goods goods on my desk. And I ordered one specifically for work. I ordered the daily for work, which is like a three-pin slot in it. I keep two notebooks in the slot in the back. And I use that thing every day at work, you know, keep my pins in there, reach for them constantly, take my notebook when I have to go into, you know, one of the server rooms to do some work behind the scenes. So it's like the perfect little setup for my desk at work. And then at home, I just have the mass storage. I've got the block and I've got all kinds of things, all these different shapes, cubes and grooves and all them. But I love the ones with the notebook slots in them for sure, like the daily and the groove. Those are just, those are killer. Not only for yourself, but they make great gifts for anyone else that's in the stationery. They're just like the perfect setup for your desk. And I love them. So thank you, dude. Yeah, he's the best. Yep.

'''Myke Hurley:''' He's just a super nice guy as well. Just like, I can't stop talking about him now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I know. We talk a lot, Myke and I talk a lot just about like life stuff. Just, he's just all around like salt of the earth kind of guy.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep. No doubt. But yeah, you had a super busy weekend. Tell everybody why you're so sick right now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'm sick because I have the conference, the conference crud. Is that what you got? Conference flu, man. Conference flu. Yeah. So, um, Notco exhibited at what was called American Field this weekend in Atlanta. It's like a pop-up shop, um, that they do around the country, um, under the American Field banner. It's, uh, you know, American made goods, um, lots of local craftsmen, um, that, and then lots of just, um, people that travel to all the American Field shows, vendors that travel to all the American Field shows. Um, they've had them in Boston and Brooklyn and DC and Atlanta. So, you know, they kind of get together these, these makers and, um, I'll come together under one roof and have, just have like a pop-up shop and get, uh, the, the community out to come check out these goods and, and support, uh, support local makers and USA made goods. And, you know, we weren't sure, you know, from a knock perspective, is this a good thing? Was, is it worthwhile type of stuff? Um, would we fit in, um, to, to the show? And, um, it turns out it was really, really good. Um, you know, it's like, it's totally like the hipster paradise, right? Like I totally, I felt out of place because I didn't have my jeans rolled up, you know, in like boots, or I didn't have any like, uh, man capris on, you know, and, and things like that. So I felt a little bit out of place, you know, as far as the, the hipster level goes, but, uh, like our friend, Matt Alexander and Need, that's, they would be fit in. Like perfectly there. Right. That's, that's the, uh, type of place it is. So it had a lot of those type of goods. Um, you know, you see like the, the raw denim goods and, you know, custom made boots goods and just beautiful craftsmanship and all this stuff. And then you'd have like a lot of local, like food vendors, right? Like coffee brewers and chocolatiers. And there was someone in Atlanta that made like their own special, like sweet tea, you know, and just like very cool things that, so it was like 50% like clothing type goods. And then probably like 40 or 50%, um, into like food type goods, which was, which was cool. Cause we always had samples of food. We had free beer, free vodka, bloody Mary mix. There was all kinds of great stuff. And, uh, it was, it was really great just to getting around, talking to a lot of these vendors, lots of leather workers there, you know, people making different bags and wallets and things like that. And, you know, it turned out to be great for us. Number one, cause we were such a big outlier. People were very confused. We confused the hell out of a lot of people, which was great because that allows us to have a conversation. Right. And that's why my voice is shot. And, you know, just from talking all weekend and explaining to people, like we were one of the few pops of color in the entire room, if you will. Like if you can picture like all the, you know, you look online, you see all like someone, uh, Dan said in the, uh, in the chat room, the urban lumberjack style, you know, it's dark and wood and flannel. And you see all those characteristics like running through the theme. Right. And then you go over to like the knock booth and you see this green with this bright yellow and this orange with this bright blue and sky blue with pink. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That combo, man.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We sold a bunch of those. Good. Good.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Those things, man. I'm telling you, you should just only sell them in person because.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I know. It's the truth. They sell in person. They look good. They came out so good. And, um.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I have to, I want to just very quickly petition the audience. If you ever want to get a knock co-product, like trust me, buy the sky blue and the hot pink one. Just trust me. It looks amazing. So many people were buying those things. And I love my, uh, the, the, I have a couple of products in that, in that colorway. And it's way, way, way my favorite colorway.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. At the Atlanta pen show, we sold out of that color. Yep. I mean, I think that was the first color we sold out of, um, because it looks so good in person. Like people can't pass it up. So, you know, so people see the, like the color on our table, you know, in a room full of, you know, like tan leather. Um, it, it really stands out. So they'll come over and see what's going on and they look at it and they're like, huh? So this is a thing, you know, like this thing exists, you know, for pens and paper. I see. Okay. They're, they're very confused. And we talked to them. They're like, wow, this is really cool. And, you know, just enjoy hearing our story and hearing our conversation, especially, um, since, you know, most of the visitors to the show were, um, Atlantans or at least Georgians themselves, you know, in the area that, you know, someone local is actually doing this. And they were, they were, everyone always had like this huge grin on their face. Like, this is so strange yet it really, really cool. And, uh, just those conversations happened from, you know, the minute we opened to the minute we closed, you know, just people coming by and talking to us and learning about the products and, uh, and us getting to explain what we do. The funniest thing is that everyone who had most people, you know, 98% of the people, there had no idea what, like these were pin cases and, you know, what exactly we did. You know, we definitely had some of our customers come in and, you know, they were super to us and bought a lot of stuff, but most people, they would pick up the fodder stack, you know, that holds like the one notebook and the pin sleeve on the outside. Almost everyone who would come by the table, pick that up and like, try to open it up somehow and ask if they could fit their iPhone into it. So that was like, that was like the most common thing is like our fodder stack display, our, our poor little fodder stacks were getting, uh, we're getting a workout because people were trying to figure out how to open them. And then we had one, you know, loaded out, but people still don't look at it that way. They have a vision in their head of what it should be until I show them that here's how the notebook goes in and here's where the pin goes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And they're like, Oh, that's really cool. When you see people try and use your products in this way, does it inform future product decisions?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Sure. Sure.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Would you make potentially, right? No commitment. Like, would you make an iPhone case?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We would. I mean, I mean, we don't have plans to specifically make one just an iPhone case, but that's kind of how the Sinclair came about. Um, and the Sinclair is a new product. We, we did the soft launch of the Sinclair at the show, right? So it's a new product where it's a zip top case. It's got three pin slots on one slot on one side, a notebook slot on the opposite side and can then kind of an open space in the middle where you can fit your pins on the one side, the notebook on one side, and you can slot a phone down the middle. I mean, it's kind of, uh, I can't say it was on purpose, but it wasn't not on purpose. Right. Because people use things for different, different people, you know, figure out how to use things to fit them the best way. And that was certainly kind of a conscious decision. We're not calling it like an iPhone case because I mean, like the iPhone sixes pluses are too big for it, but I keep picking up. I'm sorry. You hear me rattling the zippers. Um, but it's kind of a nice additional, additional thing you can use it for if you need to, you know, you can slide your phone in there and zip it up.