RoamFM
Norman Chella
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RoamFM is the podcast all about Roam Research, for members of the Roaman community. Join us as we dive into the minds of amazing Roam users, taking a peek into how they use Roam to create wonderful connections.
Available episodes
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Oldest first
Jun 18, 2021
Cato Minor: Roam Experiments, Medieval Knowledge Work, Memory
*Join our AirrSpace to talk about how Roam could scale! *You can find it here
In this episode, we talk with Cato Minor, who is the Duck of Roam, quacking his way into fun, ridiculous experiments with physical controls, crazy CSS, and much more. But behind these experiments, is the intention to explore something deeper.
Coming in from medieval Twitter, Cato Minor focuses on digital humanities studying medieval, Latin, as well as classic Latin. In the midst of trying out many note-taking apps throughout the years, he had stumbled into Roam.
*We talked about:*
* Knowledge workers of the past and now, what are the differences between them?
* Memory as a process of internalization and digestion, and how outsourcing this to a tool hinders our ability to learn
* Adventures of note-taking: the differences between the many note-taking apps Cato has tried
* How do we make the digital word more physical?
* The interesting physical experiments, from using a train set controller to a TV remote to use Roam!
* The power of medieval diagrams: how can we learn from people who have drawn outlines in the Middle Ages
* How do we create win-win situations for the individual in the PKM space?
* How will Roam scale?
Enjoy!
*Timestamps*
* 3:48 Where Cato Minor got his name from
* 5:19 Medieval Latin and Cato's fascination with it
* 7:13 In the Middle Ages, all knowledge should serve us in our seeking of God
* 9:20 Memory is what gives us material to transform
* 16:34 Make your notes unique
* 18:59 Roam is a great motivator for experimentation
* 22:47 Physical touch gives us food for thoughts
* 24:21 Everything is a touch screen
* 29:28 Cato's adventure in experiencing other apps
* 41:00 How to make peace in the continent of Note-taking
* 48:39 What you can do now with CSS
* 55:09 How do we foster a tinkerer's community?
* 1:05:00 Roam's growth via the community
* 1:09:18 How will Roam scale?
* 1:16:25 On Featuritis vs. Engelbartian Intelligence
* 1:25:23 [[What does Roam mean to you?]]
*Links*
* Cato Minor's TwitterSupport the show
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Apr 24, 2021
Bardia Pourvakil: Autodidact, Roam Team, and Fulfillment
*Warning! This is an explicit episode!*
In this episode, we talk with Bardia Pourvakil, AKA @thepericulum. Bardia is a member of the Roam Research team, having started off as a technical writer and dove into the world of Roam.
*We talk about:*
* Bardia's origin story as a technical writer to discovering Roam Research
* What are the key components for a tool autodidacts use to learn?
* How he joined the Roam team and built up his Clojure skills through contacting Conor
* Roam team's workflow, and Roam pairing sessions
* Bardia's emphasis on community, building things for developers to build upon and the search for fulfillment
Enjoy!
*Timestamps*
* 4:16 Bardia's origin story as a technical writer
* 10:43 Joining Roam as Support
* 13:26 "You're being really annoying but I like you" - [[Conor White-Sullivan]]
* 15:34 The 3-hour pairing session with the CTO
* 18:48 The power of the Roam Community
* 22:46 Build things for developers to build upon
* 24:57 The search for fulfilment and finding that answer
* 27:50 Never fall in love too much with what you're doing
* 31:21 Bardia never believes in institutions
* 34:08 Learning by Design
* 40:34 Roam Team workflow
* 43:36 Roam Pairing and Roam Games
* 47:37 What Roam is still missing and documentation
* 53:05 What Bardia is excited about: Mobile apps
* 58:10 The wonderful world of Roamania/Roam Manor
* 1:04:10 The cross pollination of ideas and inviting Roamans to Roamania
* 1:08:36 The Roam House Guestbook
* 1:11:28 [[What does Roam mean to you?]]
* 1:13:30 Bardia's dstryd.albums and creating art naturally
*Links*
* Bardia's Twitter
* dstroyd.albms Instagram
Support the show
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Apr 10, 2021
Beau Haan: Roam Book Club, Block-level Zettelkasten, Roaman Community
*WARNING: This is an explicit episode!*
This is for Lydia.
In this episode, we talk with Beau Haan, a trained actor, model, and one of the key pillars of the Roaman community. Leading the Roam Book Club, he's built a space for many participants to share their thoughts with a Roam-specific Zettelkasten method. With up to 300 actives in RBC3, they found the chance to discover more of themselves and their thoughts at block-level.
We talked about:
* Beau's origin stories, from running away from home to entering rehab and telling stories
* The loss of loved ones and the impact that has on one's life
* Discovering Roam Research and how he became a true believer without even trying the app
* What he learned from his personal coaching sessions with [[Sönke Ahrens]]
* How questioning the way you learn is questioning your identity
Enjoy the episode!
*Timestamps*
* 3:55 How Roam has changed how Beau behaves in the world
* 7:13 "I'm supposed to be dead": Beau's origin story
* 11:35 "I wish they had Roam" losing loved ones to drugs or alcohol
* 13:06 The story of Lydia
* 19:29 Discovering Roam Research for storytelling
* 21:21 Signing up for the Believer's Plan
* 22:25 [[Sönke Ahrens]]' private coaching sessions
* 25:31 Roam granularity and the power of the community
* 27:40 Testing Roam Zettelkasten with Roam Book Club
* 29:16 "You're wrong about Zettelkasten"
* 32:18 The Angel named [[Matt McKinlay]]
* 36:19 Learning who you were in Roam Book Club 3
* 40:29 Preparing for the next wave of Roamans
* 45:35 Questioning the way you learn is questioning your identity
* 50:49 Becoming defensive from questioned identity
* 53:17 Outsourcing our learning methods to others and blaming them for failure
* 55:55 We have the fear of public speaking and thinking as ourselves
* 57:55 [[Sönke Ahrens]]: Forget about the tool and focus on the writing
* 1:03:50 The rush of being at the peak of a mountain
* 1:10:17 Emitting the same energy as the believer's call
* 1:13:59 The friend, and the RBC Workflow
* 1:18:30 The beauty of Roam is the people
* 1:22:07 The Roam Energy, and articulating infinity
* 1:23:58 Protect the Roamans from those only wanting to make profit
* 1:29:52 Join the town and be part of Roam
* 1:31:37 [[What does Roam mean to you?]]
* 1:33:22 A Letter to Lydia
*Links*
* Beau Haan's Twitter
* Roam Book Club's Twitter
* Bookclub 4 Waiting ListSupport the show
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Mar 29, 2021
Abhay Prasanna: Aesthetics, Personal Salience and Sovereignty
In this episode, we talk with [[Abhay Prasanna]], Founder of Roam Bounties, and active Roaman in Slack as well as the Twitter Roaman community. Abhay is always up to date when it comes to everything related to CSS and adding in visualizations to one's roam graph to make it look prettier, more functional, and much more.
As someone who has created one of the most, used Roam themes, Dracula Pro (adapted set of colors from another theme), Abhay has been on a long journey to explore himself through the usage of Roam.
*We talked about:*
* Life before Roam: From engineering to management consulting
* Gaining a vision once he discovered Roam: The perfect notebook
* His daily notes workflow where 90% of his blocks live only in his daily notes!
* Aesthetics and how they play a part in him viewing his own knowledge graph
* Tackling the voice of the unreliable narrator, defining who you are through making connections and building evidence on yourself
* What do you really want from your Roam graph and how does that affect you in life? From algorithms of thought to algorithms of feeling.
Enjoy!
*Timestamps*
* 3:47 Abhay's origin story and the little breadcrumbs of our lives
* 5:40 Connecting life experiences and emergent writing in Roam
* 9:46 The anticipatory regret for not writing something and not making a connection
* 12:47 You write for the entirety of your knowledge graph
* 14:05 Abhay's workflow is an evolution
* 16:34 Marginality, Mattering and the Roam Community
* 19:43 The writing happens in conversations, and Pokemon evolutions
* 24:06 Valuing the structure of your mind and your Roam graph
* 30:54 We are completely innocent and blameless and make mistakes
* 32:39 The shadow of optimization, and wanting to feel functional
* 35:33 CSS and the power of aesthetics
* 38:32 Learning CSS with Roam as the experiment
* 40:14 Providing the act of service for the Roam community
* 46:28 Why purple is a memorable color
* 49:01 How do you plan for Roam experiments?
* 51:20 There are things that we value, but do not have exclusive rights to our attention
* 52:31 Salience, sovereignty, and protecting our own attention
* 59:54 How do we tackle the Unreliable Narrator, our lies and our truths?
* 1:01:50 Continuity of contact, not closure into conclusion, and facing heuristics
* 1:03:34 Finding what you don't resonate with helps with answering what you really want
* 1:10:52 The only agenda is to figure out what is actually salient
* 1:15:01 Algorithms of feeling and using Roam templates for your emotions
* 1:20:00 Revelation and illumination are hard to distinguish
* 1:20:49 What Abhay is looking forward to in Roam
* 1:23:42 [[What does Roam mean to you?]]
*Links*
* Abhay's Twitter
* Dracula Pro Roam Theme
* Masonry Vanilla CSSSupport the show
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Mar 29, 2021
Jeff Morris Jr.: Investing Frameworks, Product Management
In this episode, we talk with Jeff Morris Jr. aka @jmj on Twitter, who is the Founder and General Partner of Chapter One VC. He was previously the VP of Product Revenue at Tinder, and in the role, Tinder became the number one top-grossing apps in the app store.
He invests in early-stage startups who are passionate about the future of work developer tools and subscription businesses. So if you are interested in having a product person on your cap table, Jeff is the person to go to.
As someone who I've been following for quite a while on Twitter @JMJ, he is quite the enthusiastic person when it comes to Roam Research and tweeting about it quite a number of times.
I've brought him onto the show to talk about:
* His origin story, how he dreamed of becoming a professional NBA player, to screenwriting and diving into tech startups
* Becoming connected with Roam Research after glancing at the tool from someone's screen-share and getting connected with [[Conor White-Sullivan]] later on.
* What to look out for as an investor In companies like Roam: staying far away from the San Francisco Bay area startup scene, becoming non-conformist to tackling problems and more
* What is it about Conor's decisions that has compelled Jeff to invest in Roam Research?
* Jeff's workflows on how he keeps track of investor meetings, learnings, health and more
* What will Roam look like 40 years from now, and why it's the Jimi Hendrix of the PKM space.
Enjoy!
*Timestamps*
* 3:00 Jeff's dreams of becoming a professional NBA player, and Jumpsoles
* 4:53 Catcher in the Rye, Screenwriting and getting a script picked up by Sony
* 8:26 Discovering Roam Research through an engineer's screenshare
* 9:55 People who invested in Evernote did not think Roam was a good investment idea
* 10:39 The 10-hour pitch on the porch and beers
* 12:54 Evernote vs Roam, from an investor's perspective
* 16:04 Jeff's note-taking workflow before and after Roam
* 17:13 Roam Consultants and Multiplayer Graphs
* 21:03 Conor's truth seeking and conspiracy theories
* 21:58 How do you measure scalable complexity?
* 24:09 "Roam was meant for power users at the start"
* 24:42 "I think the goal of Roam should be to make Roam accessible to as many people as possible"
* 26:15 New users can get overwhelmed by all the power users
* 30:18 The Non-Conformist Personality of Roam Research, and Jimi Hendrix
* 33:06 Hiring the Roam team, and why Conor needs to find his lead guitarist
* 36:03 The flaws of the Bay Area, and tech talent groupthink
* 40:16 The rise of distributed companies and what that means for investors
* 44:32 What will Roam look like decades from now according to the both of us
* 49:35 The metric of company durability
* 51:12 Infopop, the information management system for the physical world
* 53:59 When is Jeff going to hire a Chief Meme Officer?
* 57:06 How Jeff structures his Roam graph for investor meetings and more through templates
* 1:00:00 Product frameworks and investing frameworks
* 1:03:16 [[What does Roam mean to you?]]
*Links*
* Jeff's Twitter (@jmj)
* Chapter OneSupport the show
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Mar 29, 2021
Ryan Muller: Fractal Inquiry, Spaced Repetition, Education
In this episode, we talk with Ryan Muller, the author of Fractal Inquiry. Focusing on learning and education at Google For Education, Ryan wrote Fractal Inquiry in pursuit of a system for building knowledge in Roam.
It covers the tools you need, plus six tips and eight use cases in building your knowledge graph through one of my favorite methods of knowledge expansion: questions. How do you develop the right questions to dive further into a field/thought/idea?
We talked about:
* How evergreen and atomic notes are tied together via questions, using fractals as an analogy
* Ryan's origin story, how he dove into note-taking and spaced repetition, from learning languages to other fields
* Fractal inquiry: What is a fractal? How do you shape the right questions? What constitutes a good and bad question? When should you delete them? When should you filter them out?
* Would a public fractal inquiry graph work?
* The education system and how the field as a whole is slow in growth compared to others.
If you're on the journey to cultivate a quality knowledge graph, Look no further. Let's dive into my chat with Ryan Muller, the author of [[Fractal Inquiry]].
*Timestamps*
* 5:19 Ryan's origin story and obsession with spaced repetition
* 7:11 Discovering [[Stian Håklev (侯爽)]]'s research system
* 9:47 Combining the spaced repetition system with block references
* 12:56 When do you stop inquiring into one atomic idea?
* 15:26 What is a fractal, and how does it help with questions
* 20:38 Can you do fractal inquiry in a public graph? What do you need?
* 23:39 Current focus on macro-economics
* 27:13 Formulating useful questions using spaced repetition
* 31:20 A very small percentage of Ryan's inquiries in his graph are future-oriented
* 34:04 Changes in education, learning with YouTube and Minecraft
* 39:00 Where the US education system may be going and where does Roam fit into that
* 48:32 Excited feature request: more support for incremental reading in Roam
* 51:37 [[How would you describe Roam to someone who hasn't started using it?]]
* 53:35 [[What does Roam mean to you?]]
* 56:12 What compelled Ryan to start asking more questions in the first place? + How to do it in Roam
*Links*
* Ryan's Twitter
* Fractal Inquiry
Support the show
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Dec 21, 2020
Richard Meadows: The First Roaman, Optionality
Welcome to the final episode of Season 1!
In this episode, we talk with Richard Meadows, a finance writer, investor, and journalist. After quitting his full-time job at age 25, he has been pursuing his own hobbies and research interests while traveling around the world. He is also the author of Optionality: How to Survive and Thrive in a Volatile World.
Optionality the book lays out the time tested strategy for not only becoming resilient to shocks, but also positioning yourself to profit from an unpredictable world, especially in the world that we are living in right now. I reached out to Richard because I found out something very fascinating about him: he is the first user of Roam Research!
We talked about:
* Richard's origin story: from a business reporter in New Zealand to quitting his full-time job at 25
* Making the big trip to India and meeting Conor, becoming the first beta tester of Roam Research
* How did his workflow improve over time? We look at Richard's writing workflows and hear what is considered a page, what queries are used, nesting decisions and more
* Optionality: What is it? How can we apply it?
* How do we prepare for an ambiguous future and volatile world?
* Why asking yourself 'What's your 10-year plan' is a stupid question
* How can you use Roam to figure out what options are the best for you?
Enjoy!
*Links*
* Richard's Website: The Deep Dish
* Richard Meadows' Twitter
Support the show
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Dec 21, 2020
Sam Marfleet: Stories, Study Guides, The Hero with a Thousand Faces
In this episode, we talk with Sam Marfleet, who is a writer, a marketer, and currently writing a study guide to The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Hailing from Trinidad and Tobago. He discovered Roam in early 2020, Which had answers to a question he's had in a very long time: How can he remember all of these stacks of notebooks that he's had written and forgotten?
As someone fascinated with storytelling, writing, and symbolism, Sam had embarked on this study guide to explore the meaning of a story. So in this episode, we talked about:
* How Sam discovered Roam Research and the impact it had on him
* The Hero of a Thousand Faces: why story is an interesting concept
* The relationship between books and the public intellectual space, and why we like to measure the number of books read
* Exploring the study guide as a format: how Sam's study guide helps you understand the material better
* Joseph Campbell's works on mythologies, the stories that we tell, and the psychological challenges that are manifested as symbolic characters
* Diving into the empirical truth of stories (aka. metaphysical): what does it mean for a story to be true? What does it mean to have a story influence every aspect of our lives, ethics, society, and more?
* The Public Mythology Graph: what a graph about humanity's stories should look like, who should be involved, and more.
Enjoy!
*Links*
* Sam's Website
* Sam's TwitterSupport the show
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Dec 16, 2020
Ramses Oudt: RoamStack, Online Courses, Knowledge Management
In this episode, we talk with Ramses Oudt, who is the Co-Founder of RoamStack, helping you find the tools, techniques, and workflows. You need to get the most out of Roam Research. Ramses is a teacher turned technical consultant, a move made possible becausehe is obsessed with knowledge management, having discovered Roam in February this year, after several people urged him to check it out. Roam cured his writer's block after just a few weeks of use and since then he's used it to think more profoundly about work challenges than ever before through RoamStack.
We talked about:
* Pondering the question: How do I make knowledge my own?
* His career from telemarketer to policymaker in the HR department and his foray into knowledge management.
* Achieving greater knowledge management through Building a Second Brain
* Implementing the PARA system into Roam and his workflows using the tool
* The problem with online courses today, as someone who is a prolific online course taker, Ramses shares his insights on why courses are formatted as they are right now as content dumps.
* Creating RoamStack, starting from Fabricating Serendipity by Kahlil Corazo
* The purpose of RoamStack as a knowledge hub for the non-technical Roaman
* Ramses thoughts on the best practices of managing a shared graph environment.
Enjoy!
*Links*
* Ramses' Website
* Ramses' Twitter
* RoamStack WebsiteSupport the show
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Dec 16, 2020
Mridula Duggal: PhD Research, Macroeconomics, Inflation Expectations
In this episode, we talk with Mridula Duggal who is a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at the IDEA Graduate Programme, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, and Barcelona Graduate School of Economics. Focusing on monetary policy, adaptive expectations, and fiscal policy, we are going to dive into the world of economics, I hope your Roam is open because we're going to take a lot of notes for this one. From reading research papers and taking notes in the margins, as well as handwriting her own personal notes on paper Mridula found a solution to her problem when it came to resurfacing up previous notes when she found Roam research this year.
*We talked about:*
* Her note-taking origin story: How she made the transition from only paper for note-taking into Roam Research
* Her workflows on paper and applying those in Roam
* The frameworks she uses when reading up research papers for her field
* The world of macroeconomics, focusing on inflation expectations: how do agents form these expectations, what are the factors, and what policies do countries implement in response?
* The history of inflation targeting and her interest in a specific area of macroeconomics
Enjoy!
*Links*
* Mridula's Website
* Mridula's Twitter
Support the show
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Dec 4, 2020
Cortex Futura: Algorithms of Thought, Political Science and Context-Dependent Insight
In this episode, we talk with Lukas Kawerau, aka. Cortex Futura on Twitter! A known Roaman in the personal knowledge management space, Cortex is an educator through the Roam courses Galaxy Brain and Cite to Write, to help you build deeper knowledge and think better.
In the middle of getting a Ph.D. in Political Science, he has done work on governance, cyber security, and data analysis throughout his career. With that comes the itch to make things, connect, to write notes down, and create his own personal workflows until stumbling into Roam. In this episode we talk about:
* The name Cortex Futura: Where does it come from?
* Lukas' origin story and how Roam blew his mind
* The Cortex Ph.D. workflow: Using Google Scholar, Zotero, Synchronous Reading, and more
* The principles of context-dependent insight, and how it differs from progressive summarization
* Algorithms of Thought, how tools of thought will expand and make an impact on existing institutions
* What Naval said on…
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Dec 2, 2020
R.J. Nestor: Your Road to Roam, Getting Things Done, Non-singing (V1)
In this episode, we talk with RJ Nestor, an executive coach, musician, and writer. With 20 years of experience helping people say what they mean to say and do what they mean to do, he does a variety of things: from coaching actors how to sing to teaching communication principles for business leaders and more. With Roam in his toolkit, R.J. provides the tools and guidance to execute your ideas and realize your potential.
*We talked about:*
* RJ's origin story, from his background in musical theatre and juggling creative projects
* Using David Allen's Getting Things Done for coaching, creative work and writing screenplays
* Discovering Roam Research, R.J.'s Workflows and starting the day, the night before
* R.J.'s special system to capture all the chaos in our heads
* How R.J.'s course Your Road to Roam can help new Roamans in designing their own Roam system
* How to sing by not singing
Enjoy!
*Links*
* R.J. Nestor's Twitter
* R.J. Nestor's Website
* Your Road to R…
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Nov 25, 2020
Andy Narracott: Finding Impact, Social Entrepeneurship and Philanthropy (V1)
In this episode, we talk with Andy Narracott, Founder of Finding Impact, a practical resource for social entrepreneurs in the trenches, making things happen against all odds. This includes the Finding Impact Podcast, with weekly interviews on strategy, tactics, and practical advice on helping you build your social enterprise, as well as his newsletter.
Andy, a consultant with a background in international development, focusing on sanitation has quite an interesting background. So reaching out to him, I wanted to ask about his workflows. His fields of interest and everything in between.
We talked about:
* How he discovered Roam Research and how he's been taking notes before discovering this tool
* Workflows on how he uses Roam for work, as well as a personal knowledge management system, deep in the fields of sanitation, international development, and social entrepreneurship.
* The meaning of impact. How do you find it in any business that you do?
* The flaws of philanthropy,…
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Nov 21, 2020
Mike Schmitz: Faith-Based Productivity and Sketch Notes (V1)
In this episode we talk with Mike Schmitz, who is a productivity nerd (as written on his website), loves reading books and enjoys making things.
He is currently the Executive Editor at The Sweet Setup, a website where you can discover the best apps and workflows for your iPhone, Mac and iPad, as well as Co-Host of the Focused Bookworm and Intentional Family podcasts.
His website, faith based productivity talks about his intersections: the amazing tips, tricks and principles of productivity, and his faith from his sermon sketch notes, as well as his Bible study notes. Mike combines all of this in Roam.
We talked about:
* Mike's origin story and how he became a productivity coach from writing so much and combining it with faith
* The impact of his sermon sketch notes, as well as his quotes and passages from the Bible
* His Roam workflows and observations + how he pools emails as a to-do on Rome.
* The meaning of faith-based productivity and the true definition of hustle
* '…
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Nov 20, 2020
Drew Coffman: Leonardo Da Vinci, Roam Community, Nostalgia (V1)
In this episode, we talk with Drew Coffman, who is an optimist interested in the connections between creativity, technology and true meaning.
As someone who has been on Twitter for a very long time, Drew is in multiple circles from Tech Twitter, to Roam Twitter, and many other things that captures his attention. His YouTube channel (aptly named Drew Coffman), has videos about Roam Research from a beginner's point of view, trying to understand the different features that the tool has.
We talked about:
* Roam's community and how that is a hidden feature of Roam
* The impact of Roam research on our ability to interact with each other, through our notes
* The power of nostalgia and how it impacts us.
* Leonardo da Vinci, The Renaissance Man
* Answering the question: What would your [[Mona Lisa]] be?
Enjoy!
*Links*
* Drew's Twitter
* Drew's YouTube ChannelSupport the show
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Nov 10, 2020
Joel Chan: Knowledge Synthesis, Analog Media and Zettel Questions
In this episode, we talk with Joel Chan, Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland.
His involves the following quote: 'My research seeks to understand and create generalizable configurations of people, computing and information that augment human intelligence and creativity. I want to help create a future where any person or community can design the futures they want to live in.'
In the pursuit of his research, he has stumbled into Roam and is dedicated to seeing its possibilities. Implementing a hybrid Zettelkasten and Zettel Question system, he has designed a system to achieve knowledge synthesis which is what we will be talking about in this episode.
We covered:
* Joel's workflow, how he creates notes, Zettels and Zettel Questions
* Synthesis and the sum of all its parts: How do you integrate knowledge from different fields to create something new?
* Charles Darwin's notebooks, and Roam's competitor
* Why is analog media so powerful?
Enjoy!
*Timestamps*
* 2:…
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Oct 27, 2020
Roam Creators x Monetization (Audio Version)
*Click here for the video version on YouTube!*
With Roam Fund, Roam Scholars Program, APIs and Multiplayer Roam coming up, there's still some things I'd like to figure out:
* *How will Roam enable creators to maintain a sustainable career?*
* *What are the possibilities and models for monetization using a Roam graph?*
* *Are there example products out there that we can replicate in Roam as a source of income?*
Introducing the first (of many) RoamFM hangouts, this talk will be about* monetization models, premium graphs and defining the 'Roam Creator'.*
This hangout is simple:
* Zoom Room where I'll kick things with my thoughts on public/premium graphs (will be made available on the RoamFM graph), monetization models and what a Roam Creator can be
* An open discussion on these topics
* Some announcements for RoamFM
* Later on we'll close off with prompts and questions on what other possibilities to consider (to talk right then and there, or to save for another hangout)…
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Oct 26, 2020
Mat McGann: Roam for Teamwork, Health Horizon
In this episode, we talk with Matt McGann, who is the founder of Health Horizon. tracking upcoming health technologies as they develop in real time for companies, investors, and innovators as well.
He is also the creator of Roam for Teamwork: covering multiplayer knowledge bases, where everything is connected and nothing is duplicated. How to set up Rome as a place where teamwork naturally builds a coherent repository of the organization's knowledge. So if you are interested in setting up a multi-player Roam for your team, this is a great resource for you. You can find this roamforteamwork.com.
Starting off with a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics at the Australian National University and getting into entrepreneurship, Mat is now working on Health Horizon, managing a team of four on a shared Roam Graph. So this episode will be all about processes, methods, product management and more, all on detailed Roam-specific processes. We are going to get technical In this episode.
We talked about:…
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Oct 14, 2020
Brandon Toner: Healthcare, Note-taking Philosophy, Schooling with Roam
In this episode, we talk with Brandon Toner, a pharmacist based in Nova Scotia, Canada. He's known from his goal to build a habit of expression through a reset on Twitter. This is a broad episode ranging from healthcare to school, note-taking philosophies and the search for powerful conversations.
We talked about:
* Doing a hard reset on Twitter
* Information management in pharmacy, healthcare and possibilities with Roam Research
* Intricacies in healthcare and what information we must consider
* Brandon's workflow in the field of learning healthcare
* The philosophy of note-taking and its connection to identity, expression and more
* How Roam can help you build your own worldview
Enjoy!
*Timestamps*
* 1:50 Brandon's criteria for Twitter conversations
* 3:34 Hard reset on Twitter and connecting with people an dideas
* 5:53 The Dark times, and the tools that never felt quite right
* 8:01 Brandon's future version of himself
* 9:40 What Brandon does: Pharmacy in…
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Oct 7, 2020
Tracy Winchell: Roaman Journal, Three Selves, Next Note to Myself
In this episode, we talk with Tracy Winchell, the Founder of Roaman Journals. A teacher of daily journaling practices to others, Tracy is a self introspective person when it comes to facing ourselves in writing. And when introduced to Roam, she has started implementing the tool into journaling.
In this episode, we talked about:
* Life before Roam Research: her time as a journalist, within broadcasting and more
* Her workflow for journaling and introspection in Roam
* Our relationship with the creator/higher power
* The intricacies of daily journaling and how Tracy approaches it
* The three selves, and how we should confront them
There is a part one and part two to this episode, so you might hear a disconnect in the middle of the episode due to technical difficulties. Enjoy!
*Timestamps*
* 1:36 Artillery and firing guns
* 5:04 Accidentally ending up in front of a microphone: Tracy's origin story
* 8:28 Starting the Reboots Podcast and the moment of clarity
* 10:23…
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Sep 27, 2020
Dalton Mabery: Obsidian, Remixing Knowledge, and Elitism
In this episode, we talk with Dalton Mabery, a YouTuber, video editor and tweet thread maker at 20 years old, trying to find the intersection between church and technology. His YouTube channel covers tech, productivity, and lifestyle with a lot of tutorials and guides on many networked thought thinking tools, including Roam.
We talked about:
* His note-taking origin story, and stumbling into Roam
* Dalton's information capture workflow, and remixing past knowledge
* Overcoming traditional definitions of creativity
* Why he left #roamcult due to negative experiences and impressions: can we be elitist or too cultish?
* Future-proofing notes and why Obsidian caught his attention
Note: This was recorded a while ago and ever since then, Dalton has made the decision to come back to Roam Research.
Enjoy!
*For the full transcript, click here*
*Timestamps*
* 1:19 The fun in reading books: Dalton Mabery's note-taking origin story
* 3:06 Discovering Roam through Not Overthink…
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Sep 16, 2020
Ali Abdaal: Content Creation, The Perfect Note-Taking App
In this episode, we talk with Ali Abdaal, a Cambridge university medicine graduate, a former doctor in the UK National Health Service and a prolific YouTuber, making videos about life as a medical student, productivity tips, tech, Roam Research, Notion and more.
We talked about:
* Ali's note-taking origin story: From storing notes on close-up magic to seduction, medicine and now book notes
* His information capture workflow, using Evernote, Notion and Roam for specific uses.
* Why Ali thinks he is not a creative person
* Defining creativity from remixing content as opposed to originality
* Pursuing the perfect note-taking app, and the similarities between note-taking apps and marriage
* and content creation, as well as the value that we can provide to others who we are trying to help defining the perfect note taking app. Ali talks to me about the similarities between a note taking app and marriage.
Enjoy!
*Timestamps*
* +1:09
* 1:09 Life after 9-5
* 3:09 Fulfillm…
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Sep 5, 2020
Aravind Balla: Gatsby-theme-Andy, Learning Curve
In this episode, we talk with Aravind Balla, a software developer working remotely from Hyderabad, India. He loves JS and CSS, and is the co-host of the Learning Curve podcast, sharing his findings, discoveries, and, his learning journey with fellow host Bretik.
In the #roamcult community he is known for creating Gatsby-theme-Andy, a digital gardening theme inspired by the works of Andy Matuschak and is based on Gatsby-theme-brain.
We talked about:
* Aravind's note-taking workflow
* How Notion and Roam plays different roles in his work
* Examples of evergreen notes from Aravind's graph
* The origin story of Gatsby-theme-andy
* Defining what is publishable in a digital garden
* Planning episode for the Learning Curve Podcast
Enjoy!
*Timestamps*
* 03:24 From Evernote to Notion and Aravind's meta questions
* 05:54 No more Evernote except for Kindle highlights
* 08:40 There was no friction in transitioning to Roam
* 09:38 Notion vs Roam for Teams
* 10:58 Loading…
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Sep 1, 2020
Kahlil Corazo: Fabricating Serendipity, Accessible Genomics, Business Model Canvas
Today's guest is Kahlil Corazo, who is building Project Accessible Genomics, a playbook for deploying genomic pathogen surveillance in the global South. He is also creating training materials on using Roam for project management, as well as Fabricating Serendipity, connecting Roam individuals to each other, and see its results.
The longest episode so far in RoamFM, we talked about:
* Project Management and how startups can use Roam
* The Idea-to-Reality production stack, and the Rider and the Stallion Model
* Fabricating Serendipity between Roamans
* Breaking down the Business Model Canvas using Roam
* Possibilities in the field of genomics
Included as well are my own reflections on the podcast so far. Enjoy!
*Timestamps*
* 2:14 Fabricating serendipity: The podcast and RoamStack
* 4:16 Masterminds and Discovering Roam
* 7:08 Serendipity happened because of that simple meetup
* 9:02 Training teams for project management through Roam
* 13:38 New ways for online e…
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Aug 22, 2020
Jessie Li: Roam/CN and Collective Intelligence
In this episode, we talk with Jessie Li, an independent consultant at Singapore Management University's Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center, and Founder of Fat Garage, an interesting website covering Chinese entrepreneurs in niche markets, such as asteroid mining, synthetic biology, and more.
She founded the roam/cn Community, a collective of Roam users from all walks of life in Mandarin, filled with videos, articles, and other resources to learn together, and develop use cases for Roam Research.
We talked about:
* How she discovered Roam through Product Hunt, and getting jealous of her friend's Roam graph
* Supporting Chinese Roam users in roam/cn and growing up to 200+ members
* The future of Roam in media, as a university and a new Twitter
Enjoy!
Thank you to Matt Brockwell for the awesome review!
*Timestamps*
* 3:45 Jessie's background, developing China's entrepreneurship ecosystem
* 8:25 The meaning of 'Fat Garage'
* 11:31 Discovering the tool through Product…
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Aug 14, 2020
David Crandall: Future of Roam, Data Architecture, Interfaces
In this episode, we talk with David Crandall, a software architect and fractional CTO. As someone involved in Data Architecture since the mid-nineties, he has been obsessive with note-taking, having done so for 25+ years(!). Roam fits the bill for writing all his thoughts!
We talked about:
* *The Dark times: how he found Roam, moving abroad with 26 luggage bags and more*
* *David's workflows: Meeting notes, habit tracking and anti-productivity*
* *Why he dislikes non-contextual metadata*
* *Predicting the future of Roam from a software architect's perspective, and #roamcult*
Enjoy!
*Timestamps*
* 2:28 25 Years of Note-taking and discovering Roam
* 5:40 What caught his attention, and the Daily Notes page
* 8:52 Transferring all his analog notes in
* 9:40 Moving a family of six to Cozumel, Mexico
* 13:12 David's workflow, and learning Roam in quarantine
* 17:02 Meeting notes: David's process for turning nouns into pages
* 20:20 Non-contextual tagging and why Da…
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Aug 6, 2020
Mark Robertson: History, Socratic Dialogue, Live-Roaming
In this episode, we're having a conversation with Mark Robertson, who is an instructor of history at several California community colleges, teaching American and World History. He focuses on historical memory, race and racism, US foreign policy, and critical pedagogy. His true joy in life is to assist and empowering the interested to better know themselves as learners and as a part of our larger human community. You can find him on Twitter @calhistorian.
We talked about:
* *Struggling to find the perfect tool on the journey to be a history instructor*
* *Discovering Roam through the Tiago-Conor disagreement*
* *The influence of the book, The Past as a Foreign Country, on our perception of history*
* *Live-Roaming: Using Roam to teach students in college*
* *Why he refuses to lecture, and the use of Socratic Dialogue*
Enjoy!
A big thank you to Dave Thackeray for our first review on the show! You can check it out here
*Timestamps*
* 3:48 Origin story: Almost failing and…
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Aug 3, 2020
Cherry Sun: Stem Cell Research, Lab Books and Collaborative Research
In this episode, we're talking with a member of the #roamcult who uses Roam as a lab book.
Cherry Sun is a second-year Ph.D. student based in Auckland, New Zealand. She's studying a stem cell population from the human placenta and its potential role in babies that are born dangerously small ([[Fetal Growth Restriction]]).
As someone who is doing multiple experiments at the same time, Cherry has been finding ways to capture thoughts, record measurements, and results, and to collect all of them in one graph and database for her to make all the connections and Roam fits the bill.
We talked about:
* *Cherry Sun's origin story: How she went from pen and paper to Notion to Roam. *
* *Using Roam as a lab book, for experimentation ad stem cell research*
* *Predictions in using Roam for collaborative research in her field*
Enjoy!
*Timestamps*
* 2:33 From Notion to Roam for recording experiments
* 5:03 When the square brackets started flying
* 6:18 Searchability and changing t…
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Jul 23, 2020
Maggie Appleton: Digital Anthropology, Digital Gardens and Illustrated Notes
In this episode, we talk with Maggie Appleton who is the Art Director, Metaphor Designer & Anthropological All-Rounder at egghead.io.
Soon to start a Masters in Digital Anthropology, she is known for her contributions to digital gardens as well as illustrated notes. She is at the forefront of visual thinking and when it comes to Roam, she's done a lot as well. I'm using her theme right now for my private Roam!
We talked about:
* The dark times pre-Roam and how she discovered it
* Her digital garden and definitions of an evergreen note, growing from budding to seedlings to the Evergreen
* Discussions on the #roamcult itself, and her take on who Roam users are from an anthropological perspective
* And the tool itself, from workflows to predictions to the freedom in which one can find their own ways of using Roam.
Enjoy!
*Timestamps*
* 02:31 Life during the before times, how Maggie stumbled into Roam
* 04:53 "Most of Roam is resources" How PARA fits in Roam
* 07:31 Usi…
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Jul 16, 2020
Stian Håklev: Pedagogy, Collaborative Learning and Open Science
In this episode, we talk with Stian Håklev, who is the engineer/learning architect for Minerva Project.
* We talked about his origin story: diving open science, collaborative communities, and international development and connecting all these findings through Roam.
* What should get a page and what shouldn't, using references as an inbox and more
* His thoughts on Roam as a networked thought tool, and how it changed his thinking.
Enjoy!
*Timestamps*
* 1:59 Stian Håklev's origin story
* 4:13 Linux, programming and open source
* 5:48 Academic citations in multiple Chinese journals
* 6:47 How can we support self learners and collaborative learning? PhD and pedagogical theories
* 9:30 Minerva Project and rethinking undergraduate education
* 11:54 Introducing Roam into Stian's PhD reading workflow
* 14:06 Building the Frankenstein of Roam Research
* 18:31 How Stian Håklev uses Roam Research: From manual linking to using the tool VIDEO: Reproducing PhD reading wo…
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Jul 16, 2020
Robert Haisfield: Gamification, Behavior Design and Exploratory Search
Our guest in this episode today is Robert Haisfield, Founder of Influence Insights, as well as the behavioral product strategist at Spark Wave. Focusing on behavior design and gamification, he applies his knowledge to tech products better accomplish their intended goals.
We talked about:
* Rob's note-taking origin story, from standup comedy to behavioral science papers and consulting
* The exploratory behavior of people, what they expect from entering digital gardens and public Roams
* Workflows, usages of Roam, in particular 'pruning' your database for quality use
* Entry points to one's Roam to accommodate for different readers
Enjoy!
*Timestamps*
* 2:20 Writing down everything, note taking and standup comedy
* 4:38 Research through Notion, Bear and now Roam
* 8:14 How Rob found Roam, and older Notion workflows1
* 11:34 Testing Roam out with projects, and note-taking hygiene
* 13:49 Overwhelming graphs, Bear vs. Roam
* 17:37 Switching from a keyword approach…
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Jul 16, 2020
Michael Ashcroft: Alexander Technique, Coaching and Roam Culture
In this episode, we talk with Michael Ashcroft, a consultant, co-founder and Non-Executive Director of the Carbon Removal Centre, a UK-based non-profit organization whose purpose is to advance sustainable carbon removal.
He is also a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique, an awareness-based educational process that helps people live with greater ease and freedom, and a Co-Active coach, working with clients in his spare time.
We talked about:
* *How he stumbled into Roam Research from Building A Second Brain*
* *His workflow when building his second brain*
* *The Alexander Technique, and using Roam to expand his understanding of it, and applying it to coaching*
* *How he uses Roam as a self-coaching tool*
* *#roamcult as a culture, not a cult: The filter for meeting interesting people*
Enjoy!
*Timestamps*
* 02:08 Michael's origin story and meta-realization: Building A Second Brain
* 04:29 Michael's workflow and version of smart notes
* 07:09 Deconstructing h…
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Jul 2, 2020
Introducing RoamFM
Welcome to RoamFM. Here, we dive into the minds, workflows and machinations of the #roamcult, the believers of [[Roam Research]].
Launching in July, we'll be talking with members of the #roamcult on how they use Roam and what amazing connections were through this tool. Guests are varied in experience, background and ways of thinking, so we'll explore different ways to use Roam.
Enjoy!
Support the show
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