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Twitter's Samantha Warren sits down with Treehouse's Dan Gorgone to discuss how she got started as a designer, the value of Style Tiles, and her work as a designer with Twitter.
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[Treehouse Friends]
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Hey, everyone, this is Dan Gorgone with Treehouse.
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We're here in Orlando at the In Control conference,
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and our guest right now is Samantha Warren, from Twitter.
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Hi, Samantha. >>Hi! >>Thanks for joining us. >>Thanks for having me today.
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>>I wanted to ask, for the benefit of those who aren't familiar with you,
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can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
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>>I'm currently a designer at Twitter.
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I've been in the industry, I guess, for about, oh, I don't know, 9 years now.
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I went to school for print design, and
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shortly after doing print design, I happened into a very unique situation
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where someone actually offered to teach me HTML and CSS,
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and so I got into the web industry.
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And I worked at all sorts of different agencies and in-house ever since.
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>>Working at these different agencies, you've had a bunch of different experiences
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with different kinds of clients, internal clients, external—
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>>Yeah. >>Can you tell us maybe some of the main ideas,
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some of the tips that I think all of us need to know
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when we want to try to gain the trust of clients and prospectives?
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>>It's about expectations. Every time you walk into a new project
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with a client or stakeholder, they're going to have different expectations
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about what they're going to get, what they're paying for,
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what the final result will be, their level of involvement
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in the project, and it's about having a process that—
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we talk a lot about responsive design and the idea that
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the screen width responds to whatever device you're on or
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whatever screen width you're on, but it's also a little bit about how
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our design process responds to the situation that it's in,
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the types of clients that you're working with, what they're expecting, but also
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the type of team you're on, who's helping out,
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what kind of timeline, what kind of budget you have,
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because all of these things are always different.
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I've never had 2 projects that are exactly the same.
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So how do you create a tool, a toolbox, and a set of—
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an infrastructure to always know where to begin
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and how to be flexible throughout the entire process.
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>>One of those things in the toolbox, so to speak,
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would be the style tiles. >>Yes.
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>>Can you tell us about style tiles
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and what kind of—I suppose it's client interaction,
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probably drove you to creating this?
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>>Well, over a period of time, I began to have many
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projects that had some similarities,
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one being that there were clients that already had a
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brand or a logo, maybe a color palette.
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They already had some expectations as far as
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what sort of design they were going to get in the end,
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and so this—and many of the clients also,
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to some degree, would have limited budgets.
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And so I needed a way to be able to
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still give them options from the very get-go
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without necessarily spending all the time
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of making full mock-ups—different options of full mock-ups
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for them—and still get them the product in time.
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So developing a process where I asked a lot of questions,
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and then made what at first I called actual simple comps,
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just like a piece of a comp, to give them some options
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and have them be part of the process,
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really listening to what they're saying
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and showing them the correlation between what they said and
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how that actually translated in the process.
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Yeah, so I started out with making simple comps,
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which were sort of smaller versions of a comp,
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and that sort of morphed into what I call the style tiles.
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And even just calling them style tiles with cascading style sheets, a client
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understood that that was a direct reference to CSS and that that was for the web.
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Because a lot of branding agencies or logo agencies
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will sometimes do mood boards, for example, with their clients.
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So a style tile is actually a lot like a mood board, but more specific to the web.
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And by doing that, clients feel more involved in the process.
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>>And I think that's part of gaining their trust, too,
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is that when clients sort of give everything to you
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and they're kind of waiting for—hopefully, they'll get things right,
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hopefully, they'll understand my vision as the client,
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because there are plenty of clients out there who fancy themselves
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as designers, and they're really not.
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But I could see that this is a nice happy medium
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where they can get their hands on some kinds of designs,
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and you've already sort of set the limits there.
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>>Well, it's a tough situation, because at the end of the day,
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the client is paying for the website they're getting, so they have to be happy with it.
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They have to feel as though that was something that they helped create.
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So by really listening to what your clients are saying
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and showing them—this is what you're saying, and this is how
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I'm going to actually take that into account and apply that to
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goals and objectives that your users have—
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It doesn't necessarily mean doing exactly what your clients are asking,
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but it's more taking them down the path and showing them
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the journey that you're going through in order to get
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the final product that would be the best solution.
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>>So you've done this, and you've created this, not just for clients, but for everyone.
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You've opened this up, it's creative commons, it's accessible to everyone.
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So, devil's advocate, you know, why would I get—
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why would I release my secrets, and this great process
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to potential other designers out there who might steal my business?
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Why give that away?
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>>I've been really fortunate to be surrounded by some very smart people
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who are active in the open source community, and
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specifically in the development community.
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I've seen a lot of what they've done, as far as how that's helped progress
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where the web is currently.
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And so for me, I see that development has made such great
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strides by opening up and making their secrets transparent
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to the world and sharing, so I really feel very passionately about
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having that same kind of community feel within the design area.
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It has been for so long—this idea of like keep it secret,
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like this is my secret sauce, and this is what you're paying for.
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But at the end of the day, we all want great-looking websites.
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How many times do you go to a website, and you're like, "Oh, this is terrible!"
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I mean it would be wonderful if the web was all beautiful, like—
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so let's help each other to share what works for you.
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I'm not saying style tiles works for everyone at all.
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I just happen to have a situation that happened over and over and over,
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and I thought to myself, there has to be a way that I can
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do this better, and maybe I can save time for other people
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to help them get farther faster.
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>>So you mentioned secrets. So let's talk Twitter.
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All the Twitter secrets.
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Tell us about—what is it like working at Twitter,
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and particularly as a designer, what is like working there?
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>>Well, the design team at Twitter is currently around 40, 40 designers.
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It's a really passionate, talented group of people who all come from
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different walks of life, all over the country,
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and we get together to solve big problems.
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And it's definitely very different than working in client services
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or an agency, but being surrounded by really smart people
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is wonderfully refreshing, and it's like a fountain.
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You take in so much from all these different designers,
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which allows there to be so much creativity to get back.
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>>So 40 designers for 140 characters.
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A lot of people have to be wondering what are all these people
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doing, and I know you can't reveal all the secrets, of course.
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But, so we're talking about different ways of maybe bringing Twitter
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to different parts of the world, different devices, different sorts of interfaces?
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>>Well, when I first applied, that was the first thing I thought.
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I was like, well what would I do at Twitter, it's only 140 characters.
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But when you start to really think about all the things
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that Twitter does, I mean Twitter is so many different things to so many different people
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all over the world, on different devices, and in so many different ways.
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You know, you have people in the Middle East who are using it
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to communicate and start revolutions.
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I know people just down the street probably Twittering their lunch right now.
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I mean it could be anything to anyone, and so really trying to put together
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a team of smart people who can solve lots of different kinds of problems.
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I'm sure you could come up with a list right now of things that
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you thought—Why don't they do this, or how come this is this way?
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And I can assure you all those things are on a list for us, too.
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And it takes a lot of people to try and accomplish all those things.
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>>So parting thoughts: Advice for designers.
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Now designers that are out there, if they're watching this interview,
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they already heard you talk about some of the ways you can gain
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the trust of clients, and kind of this philosophy of
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sharing and collaborating and working together.
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What other keys are there out there
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for people who want to get into the design game?
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>>Well, there's quite a few things.
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I think, for one, I've seen a lot of designers who get right out school lately
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and think that their design career is a sprint.
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Like, let's get to the end right away, let's do these crazy big projects,
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and I would—my first piece of advice would be to
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see it as a marathon, like take on some of those harder projects.
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Do some things that may not feel comfortable or right.
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Try making a responsive website for yourself.
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And then try making it again. And then do it again.
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And do some things that may not necessarily seem like short-term gains,
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but really do them to make yourself feel uncomfortable,
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and do the hard work to learn things for the long term.
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So that would be my first piece of advice.
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Another thing would be to just have fun.
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Like really don't take your work too seriously.
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Have fun and learn from the people around you.
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It is—We're doing really important things, but at the end of the day,
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we all become designers because we love this stuff.
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This industry is full of passionate people.
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Don't lose your passion, don't become jaded,
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and really, really look at the bright side of things.
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>>Nice. Awesome. So how can we follow you from here out? Twitter?
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>>Yeah, on Twitter, I'm @samanthatoy.
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Toy is my middle name, so that would be probably
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the best way to find me online.
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>>Okay, awesome. Well thank you for your time. Really appreciate it.
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Samantha Warren from Twitter. Thanks for joining us here on Treehouse Friends.
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See you next time.
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[Treehouse Friends]
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