Michael: 00:11

This is no office podcast or Wednesday with Michael or something like that. So, welcome, everyone. This is, going to be something new that we're gonna do because, as you know, we have the no office podcast. This is going into no office podcast feed, and no office podcast has been on a hiatus. It's been there was a pause, when we were recording, and now, we think we should go back with season 2 or 3 or however we're gonna call it.

Michael: 00:51

So, so next season of no office podcast is coming, and it's coming on September 4th. So after the summer holidays, after the summer vacations. So, a but as as I wanted to advertise this, new chapter and, give you a sneak peek, I decided to record this Wednesday. So the idea will be this. We'll be recording every Wednesday starting from September at 10 PM 10 AM.

Michael: 01:25

Sorry. 10 AM New York time, 10 AM Eastern time, or 1600 European Central Time. And, we'll be recording live. There will be, a segment where I'll be explaining things, talking about Nozbe, talking about, getting things done together with the team in a remote environment. So the typical no office podcast themes, and there will be q and a after, the show, live q and a.

Michael: 01:55

And the whole thing will be recorded as an audio podcast, to be shipped, for everyone on a Friday, on a mighty Friday. So every Friday, people will be reminded to do a weekly review and to listen to a new episode of Novice podcast. That's the idea. That's the, that's the plan, And we'll start in September. So in 2 months.

Michael: 02:20

But now I wanted to just, you know, reappear in no office, podcast feed, among no office podcast subscribers and also give you a sneak peek of how it's gonna go and talk about this brand new feature that we just launched of Nozbe, messages. Because, you know, we have a whole, video recorded, about this, so I'm gonna show it to you right now. I mean, I'm gonna show you where this video is. So if you go to nozvi.com/messages, and we'll have the link in the show notes, you will see, you know, a video of me explaining explaining, messages, how it how it works, and, why we launched messages in Nozbe. And, you can see where it is.

Michael: 03:10

Like, if you, if you have the new Nozbe and if you have more people on your team than just yourself, then you will see messages, and you'll be able to send messages, 1 on 1 messages to anyone on your team. So kind of private messages. And then, it's it's the same interface, as as comments in tasks in Nozbe. So let's, let's explain why. Let's talk about the why of messages because, I don't know if you know, but in our team and in, in Nozbe and among our customers, there was a tension.

Michael: 03:51

We were not sure if we should send messages, to, if we should, you know, have messages, in Nozbe and, it it was, you know, a controversial topic because Nozbe is about productivity. It's about getting things done. It's about this, simple concept of projects, tasks, and comments. And, that was the key, and that was the most important thing. And, sending messages was always considered not productive.

Michael: 04:27

Like, you know, chatting, you know, FOMO, fear of missing out when you're chatting with other people. So, we've been using internally at Nozbe Slack, and we have encouraged our customers to do that as well because we have a Slack integration with Nozbe. Some other customers have been using Microsoft Teams, and the integration of with Microsoft Teams is coming to Nozbe anyway. But we thought, you know, why why not make messages productive? Why not make chat productive?

Michael: 04:56

So, that's what we did. And, the main idea was to see, if we can, you know, make it different. So as you can see, the the interface of a message is is very similar. I mean, it's exactly the same as a interface to comment. This way, it kind of invites you to send a longer message.

Michael: 05:19

So not just, hi, message. How are you, message. I have a question, message. Like, it's not productive. But, you know, we are accustomed, and our customers, Nozbe users, are accustomed to to sending thoughtful comments in comments to tasks.

Michael: 05:36

So we want them to also send thoughtful messages. For example, just, you know, preparing this, this, live event, Evelina, who's on the backstage, hi to Evelina, she, she sent me a message yesterday saying, hey, Michael. Because we agreed that we're gonna do the live thing. Where is the task for that? And I was like, oh, man.

Michael: 06:01

I forgot. Could you prepare a task for me with a checklist of things we should discuss? And then she did. So, like, we discussed this privately in messages, but then there was a task in Nozbe, and it was easy to link to the to the task because as as you can see, it's the same interface. So it's really easy to link to a project or a task, from within a message.

Michael: 06:24

And then together with this feature, the feature of messages, we also launched the second feature that you can create, you know, a task from any message or any comment, to any task. So this way, if you talk, to somebody privately in a message and they just, you know, have this great idea. So you can basically tell them, let's convert this message to a task. So, again, this is the way of for us to make messages productive and tightly integrated into your project and task management application. And the best part it's, you know, it's available, you know, on any platform.

Michael: 07:05

So if you have an iPhone or Android or, you know, or Windows or Mac, you can send messages to anyone on your team, and you don't have to you don't have to think. What kind of platform are they using? How do I get in touch with them, you just send them through Nozbe. So this makes I mean, the messages makes, Nozbe a complete super app, a complete communication app, a team communication app. So here on our on our page where we explain, you know, about messages, you can learn more about messages, which brings you to our messages help page, which again you can see in my video, which I encourage you to see after this.

Michael: 07:48

And then there is, like, a very nice, presentation of of how messages work, you know, how easy it is to to send a message to anyone on your team and how is how easy it is to communicate with people, inside of your, of your company. And, also, here we explain, you know, all the features of messages, that they have the same features as comments to tasks, which is really important, as we said, you know, to make messages really productive. And then, that how you can create even a task from a message. Like here, Dominika has has prepared something, so let's just make it a task. You know, let's just create the the task from it.

Michael: 08:26

So it's really easy. It's really easy, to to to make messages productive, which, which was the goal. You know? And, to give you an idea how how messages, came to be, when we were, testing messages internally, I actually what I did was, you know, I built a proof of concept in Nozbe, of messages, which means I create a project, a private project just for me, where I had a in the individual tasks because in new Nozbe, you can create a task for anyone on your team regardless if they have access to the project or not. So I created a task for Evelina, for Magda, for the whole marketing team, Each for each of them an individual task.

Michael: 09:13

And I told them, let's communicate through this task, not through a message, not through Slack. And this is how we started. And this is how I realized, hey, this is really cool that we can actually have all the communication, you know, in 1 in 1 platform. So, so this is available today on all the platforms for, new Nozbe, customers, for new Nozbe members. Even on free plan, when you have a free plan of, of up to 3 projects and 3 people on your team, you can try messages.

Michael: 09:46

And the cool thing is you have this green, you know, green bubble. You have this green, you know, counter. You can also, you can also, check check change notifications. So if you don't wanna be receiving the, you know, notification notifications about messages, you can disable them. But you can you will still be able to see, you know, the counter of messages, which is, which is great and useful.

Michael: 10:09

So, again, our take on messages is to make them more asynchronous, more productive, more calm, so you're not stuck chatting with people. And eventually, hopefully, you will be adding more tasks where you will be commenting on these tasks. Another thing which is really important for me as a leader, for me as a CEO of Nozbe is that, you know, when you lead a team, you know, 1 of the, you know, 1 of the principles of management is that you should be praising in public and, you know, talking, you know, try trying to be critical, you know, should be critical in private. This is 1 of the famous coaches that, quoted that that you should praise in public and, you know, criticize in private. And now I know that it was no famous coach, but it was actually, the Katarina, the, how do you call that?

Michael: 11:09

The, you know, the the, char of Russia. She was the 1, you know, many years ago, like 100 of years ago that that said that. So the idea is that, you know, when you have a task and there is some constructive feedback in the task, that's correct. Like, you should put a comment there, to the task. But, but if you want to, let other people know, for example, let's say let's say, Elena, who's here, let's let's let's say she has like, 1 of her projects is not, like, not moving forward.

Michael: 11:43

And instead of me, you know, lashing on her, you know, in the project saying, hey, what's going on here? I can just write her a message. Hey, Evelina, what's wrong with this project? I can link to the project, you know, directly in the message saying, hey, what's up with that project? When are you planning to, you know, go ahead with this?

Michael: 12:00

And then she can reply to me and she's saying, oh, Michael, sorry. You know, let's let's let I was busy with this and that, but now I'm gonna have time, you know, tomorrow and I'm gonna, you know, deal with that. So this way we can, you know, iron out the details and we can just, you know, talk privately using a message inside of Nozbe, which is just you know again very very productive so that was, you know, the the the main thing and again, this is available only to, to new Nozbe, customers. So if you're a Nozbe personal user, well, I would say this is the time to finally migrate to take the plunge and migrate to the new Nozbe. New Nozbe is is, has been over the last years has been ironed out.

Michael: 12:48

We it's it's it's easier to use, you know, it's, the fact that new Nozbe is harder to use is its urban legend, I would say. Also, the new Nozbe has this very cool interface of priority and incoming, which is completely different from from Nozbe Personal where all, you know, due dates or mentions, everything goes just straight to priority. Whereas, we have the priority, which is your priority, and incoming is, like, every notification that should have your attention. And I think it's more in line the new housebase is more in line in get with getting things done with gtd especially more in line with the new gtt4 teams even so so this way it's just better better to use but you know you don't have to take my word for granted you can just check your Nozbe yourself it's for free and then do the migration yourself, or you can write to, Nozbe customer support. And if you like to support, we can help you migrate or we can migrate for you.

Michael: 13:48

So we can move you from Nozbe personal to new Nozbe, for you and make sure that everything is properly imported, properly, migrated. And this way, you know, you can get started with the new Nozbe. And also whatever you have used, like, you know, you know, your your final day of usage of, you know, you paid for, everything will be transferred to the new Nozbe. So everything will be fair and square. And, but you don't have to take my word for it.

Michael: 14:16

Here in nozbe.com, if you go to how it works, then, you will have this video. Again, another video featuring, yours truly. But this video is very, cool because we've had, you know, many customers saying, I don't wanna start with new Nozbe because it's so difficult to use. It would be difficult for my team. And this video, again, I show that you can get started in less than 5 minutes.

Michael: 14:43

And it you know, it's with a timer. So you can really see that in 5 minutes, I'm setting up from 0 to hero, a u Nozbe account, and, inviting my team members and getting things done together in 5 minutes. So so in 5 minutes, and it's for free because it's up to 3 users, up to 3 projects. So you don't have to pay for anything yet, but you can onboard your team, right away. So it's really important that, that you give it a try.

Michael: 15:12

So watch this video and see for yourself that you can use Nozbe, in less than 5 minutes. Recently, we've had customers who are still on Nozbe Personal for their personal tasks, but they have already set up new Nozbe for their team. So this way, they already start using Nozbe with a team and they they can get advantage of the messages feature. And on the other hand, they will be able to, later migrate their personal account back to new Nozbe as additional workspace. Because in new Nozbe, you can have separate workspaces.

Michael: 15:42

Workspace for your team, workspace for private tasks, which is really glorious. This is like a perfect separation of, you know, private stuff and and and, business stuff. This was 1 of the main requests of Nozbe Personal users way back when to really have a bigger separation of what's, you know, what's company stuff and what's mine. You know? And Nozbe has this promise, to, to be able to give you this option to organize your private and business life in 1 app.

Michael: 16:14

And that's the idea. Now the whole communication can be in the app and for me let me tell you about something else. Say goodbye to email. So, I've been talking about email and the fact that you should not be using email inside of your company internally ever again once you start using Nozbe forever. And now I'm hoping that the new messages feature will be the the last straw to finally move you and your team to stop using email for, collaboration.

Michael: 16:51

You should be using email still with the, you know, external people, but, but even then you can have joint projects so we can share projects with other teams, which is really cool. But internally, you just, you know, add comments to tasks, create tasks, and if not, send messages. Like, you have the whole thing in your Nozbe app at the palm of your hands, and it's here. You know? It syncs across devices and across across people.

Michael: 17:18

So, I hope this will be the motivation for people to stop using email internally. Because as you know, like, in 1 email, there can be multiple queries, you know, cc, bcc, you know, the noise, the the newsletters, and and it's and Nozbe and, you know, email is not secure where where whereas in Nozbe, if you attach an attachment to a task, it's encrypted. It's encrypted both, when you while you're sending the message, but also, it's it's encrypted stored on our servers. So it's really really, it's really safe. So, again, I think, you know, messages in Nozbe will be this feature that will, you know, kind of change the industry.

Michael: 18:05

It will change the way you get stuff done in Teams because you will no longer have the need to communicate internally, without you know, with email, or or through, you know, Slack or you will you won't have to pay for Slack. You won't have to pay for for other, chat messages or, you know, chat apps or, you know, you won't have this, you know, fact that you will you have discussed something in WhatsApp, but you haven't copied this, so it's not in your task manager. In in Nozbe, the messages are tightly integrated in the system. You can easily click link a message, link a message to a task, to a project, to a tag. You know?

Michael: 18:47

It's it's just much easier. It doesn't get easier than that. And, and speaking of email, some people, some of our customers, they have discovered that, you know, in in the new Nozbe, the, you can have email for any project or even any section of a project. So this way when they have when they're using other applications, which they require in their industry, and they receive notifications from these applications, they very often, for notifications, use the internal Nozbe email. So this way every notification becomes a task in Nozbe.

Michael: 19:22

This is, like, the easiest way to integrate Nozbe, without any computer knowledge whatsoever, just using email again. So, again, I hope that this will change the way we use, we use Nozbe. So, now that, you know, we talked about the messages and about, you know, how it happened and why it happened, If you have any questions, let me know. I'm gonna check if there are, you know, any questions. Yes.

Michael: 19:57

Here, Jesse is asking if we can chat with more than 2 people at once. Not yet. Now it's only 1 on 1 chatting, 1 on 1 messages. But, you know, contact, contact, customer support, send your request, send your feedback, and we'll see what we can do to improve the messages. Our idea was that once we decided that we wanted messages, and we wanted at at least 1 on 1 messages right now, we wanted to first, you know, because it was a controversial feature, we wanted to ship it as soon as possible to our customers.

Michael: 20:33

So make sure to try it out, and, and test it 1 on 1 with your team, with your team members, and see how it works and see what you're missing. And send us your feedback and we'll we'll be happy to review it and to see how we can improve on this on this feature. So, again, because this this, feature is pretty controversial, We wanted to ship it as soon as possible and get the get as much feedback as we could. And that's why also it was important and I would like to, you know, say that I'm really proud of our team that we managed to send this to ship it to our customers before summer holidays. We wanted to make sure that people start using it before they are, off on holidays or while they're on a holiday so they can check how this works.

Michael: 21:18

Also, let me talk about, you know, migration from Nozbe Personal. So if you're a Nozbe Personal user, you can migrate to to to a new Nozbe. And, also, we will be offering, as I as I mentioned, assisted migration. So we will help you migrate to new Nozbe also over the summer. So this way, if you do you know, should you decide to move to new Nozbe because of, you know, messages and other features of new Nozbe, we can help you with that over the summer.

Michael: 21:46

So when you're back from holidays and when you start, you know, working, your whole team is crunching, you know, sprinting from September to the finish line of the, you know, of of the year, you will have the new Nozbe set up. So, make sure to contact our customer support. We'll be happy to to assist you with migration, answer any questions you might have. Also, if you're not sure that Nozbe is for you and you wanna, you know, consult this, Here, book a demo. There is a very nice link, book a demo.

Michael: 22:15

You can talk to Magda, 1 of our, marketing and support people. Magda is amazing. Magda, will not only demo Nozbe for you, but most importantly, she will talk to you and ask you about your needs and your about your industry and explain to you how Nozbe can help you leverage what you have, how you can get more organized with Nozbe. So she will adapt the demo for you and give you tips for your team. And as I mentioned, also check out the, you know, the messages, the the help section, you know, on our help page.

Michael: 22:50

The link is very complicated. It's nozbe.help. So so make sure to go to nozbe.help and check check out, you know, messages, check and check out everything else we have on nozbe.help because we have everything here. Everything here is nicely written. It's all there.

Michael: 23:06

So this way you can, you know, you can quickly, get the hang of it, you know, and and and and and, realize what, you know, what, what you can do. Because there are so many you know, Nozbe is is still around. You know, it's it's still simple with the structure of task, projects, tasks, and comments, but it has so many powerful features, that you start discovering while using it. So make sure to go to nozbe.help, on a Friday and check all these advanced features, you know, forwarding to email to Nozbe, sharing projects with other teams, sharing tasks with with other members. So make sure to to to learn all about this.

Michael: 23:50

And now to conclude, I also wanted to to tell you that, you know, in the new NoSp, as I mentioned, there is there are 2 you know, you can have many multiple workspaces. You can have, you know, a workspace for your team. You can have a private workspace with your private tasks, which is great. Or if you have a bigger team, you can have multiple workspaces. So, in in Nozbe, we have this, when you go to Nozbe.

Michael: 24:14

Website, we have, you know, we have, the business plan. So Nozbe Business, where is it? There you go. There is a premium plan and there is business plan. In business plan, you can have several workspaces, unlimited workspace, actually.

Michael: 24:28

So this way, you'll be able to, for example, have a, you know, marketing team in a different workspace, sales team in a different workspace. So you can, you know, share this, you know, and and or if you're a, you know, serial entrepreneur, you can go to, you can have several companies, you know, using Nozbe Business. This way, you know, we have many multiple serial entrepreneurs using Nozbe and managing all of their businesses from 1 app, from Nozbe, from their phone, which, I would say is very cool that you can manage all of that from a smartphone. I mean, we are really, living in wonderful time. So make sure to check it out because Nozbe Business is just 1 and a half times more expensive than premium, so not much more expensive.

Michael: 25:14

But then you can have multiple workspaces. And with premium, you can have just 1 workspace. So, if you already are using, you know, power using 2 workspaces, it pays for itself, very easily. So make sure to check it out. Again, if you go to nozbe.com/guide so if you go to how it works, you can learn more about setting up your team in less than 5 minutes.

Michael: 25:36

Then, of course, our structure of projects, tasks, and comments. And then there is, you know, the our our powerful Nozbe features unique to Nozbe, the priority incoming and activity. And also here, you can learn about multiple spaces in Nozbe. So how to use multiple workspaces, how to, you know, manage your stuff between different, workspaces. So make sure to check it out.

Michael: 25:59

It's, you know, it's it's something that, you know, we've been working on. We've been, perfecting and with our customers. And as you know, I talk to my to to my this new structure here that we will have a live recording every Wednesday at 10 AM, eastern time, starting from September. And then a podcast, audio podcast on Friday, will enable us to just, you know, be in touch more. So, we will be bringing, you know, all of your questions here.

Michael: 26:42

We'll be responding to your questions. Maybe sometimes we'll invite some guests. But the idea is that to have this consistent experience that you can get in touch with NOSPI, get in touch with us, get in touch with me, because, you know, we are a small company, compared to our big competitors. Nozbe is, is, you know, privately owned. We have no VC money.

Michael: 27:04

Our customers are our, investors. So make sure to, you know, to support us and and, build Nozbe with us. And before I head off for the summer, for the summer vacation, I mentioned that, you know, migration is now can be now assisted by our team. So if you wanna migrate from personal to new Nozbe, and also that you can have you know, you can check out the business accounts and you can check, you know, the the the new Nozbe, messages feature. And all of that, it's really easy to try.

Michael: 27:38

And in in July and and August, there is a special offer, but we are not announcing it. It's we're not making a big promo or a big splash, but I'm telling you now, because you're an awesome listener and you're listening to to me here live or, on the podcast. So if you write to if if in July and aug or August, you sign up for Nozbe or migrate to new Nozbe, and change from monthly to yearly plan, which saves you only 20%. Because when you move to a yearly plan, you basically save 2 months. Write to customer support and tell them that Michael told you on the podcast that, he wants to give you 2 extra months.

Michael: 28:22

And then customer support will give you 2 extra months because I said so here on the podcast. And there are we have witnesses. We have, people live. We have people listening out, on the audio podcast. So it's there.

Michael: 28:35

It's stated in July August, special offer, only time limited, only for the summer. If you decide to migrate to your Nozbe, set up your Nozbe, set up your Nozbe for your team from scratch in, you know, in in less than 5 minutes. If you do that and go for a yearly plan, instead of 12 months, you will get 14 months. Just write to support and, you know, tell them that Michael sent you and Michael gave you, gave you the special offer. So, this way, not only you will save because you will save, you know, 2 months, when going yearly, but you will get 2 months extra.

Michael: 29:15

So, basically, you will extend for 14 months. So make sure to check it out, Tell them Michael sent you. And, yeah. And, basically, I got it. You know?

Michael: 29:26

I've I've talked about everything I wanted to to share today. If you have any questions, you know, still let me know in the comments. And if not, send them to customer support. So when we start our regular recording of no office podcast and live, Wednesdays, on Wednesday 4th, September 4th, at 10 AM EST or 1600 Central European Time. Let me check just 1 thing.

Michael: 29:56

It's 1600 euro this time. But also let me check 1 more stuff. There you go. So it's gonna be 3 PM London time. So 3 PM UK and Ireland.

Michael: 30:12

So 3 PM, every, Wednesday. So, we'll be recording starting from September. I can't wait to have, like, a regular podcast, regular recording with you guys, talking about stuff, how to manage a company where not everyone is in the office, how to manage company where you can manage the whole thing from the palm of your hand using a smartphone and a Nozbe app, and how you can have the action and communication in 1 app having Nozbe with your projects, tasks, and comments, and now messages as well. And, I think the the message feature, the messages feature will will completely, you know, change the way, people communicate in Nozbe. And, this way, we will have people using messages everywhere and stop using Slack, which is not productive.

Michael: 31:10

Stop using other messaging platforms and have everything around your tasks, projects, and comments. So thanks for listening. Thanks for being live today. Thanks for, for being, you know, awesome Nozbe customers. And again, I've been doing this for 17 years, and, I'm just getting started now with messages.

Michael: 31:35

We have changed our mind from something that we thought wasn't part of Nozbe, and now it is. And our customers, the early feedback we've received this week was awesome. People have discovered this feature on their own without big promotion. And I think, you know, there is a new chapter for Nozbe being this perfect, you know, 1 communication and action app in a team where everything is just much better organized. So, again, thank you so much.

Michael: 32:07

Have a great summer. Have a great summer vacation, and enjoy your time. And, see you in September, hear you in September, and let's, get things done together.