Good morning members!

I want to start this email by thanking those of you who have chosen to support my work on Locals.com at $2/mo :-D

For those in a hurry, here’s the short version of today's update:

• Going forward I’m going to focus on where most of you view or read my content:
  o TheAutomationBlog.com
  o YouTube.com/@InsightsIA
  o Linkedin.com/company/InsightsIA

• This means I will be focusing my efforts on the membership programs at:
  o https://TheAutomationBlog.com/join
  o https://YouTube.com/@InsightsIA/join

• These Memberships are already available at the $5, $10, and $25 levels

The rest of the story:

When I originally launched Automation.Locals.com, I had hoped that it was going to grow into a new platform that would make it a perfect place to grow a new community. But after trading several long emails with their staff over the last several months, I’ve come to the conclusion that for my community to grow it’s going to be necessary to migrate to another platform.

That’s not to say I’m closing Automation.Locals.com – I’m still hopeful they’ll find a way to work my extensive feedback into upcoming releases! But as of the time of this writing, I have confirmed they have no current plans to do so, and therefore I must focus my efforts on programs that do.

So as part of my new 2025 posting schedule, I’m going to stop cross-posting updates and livestreams to Automation.Locals.com and to some social media sites (Facebook, Twitter/X, Rumble, etc) where my content gets virtually no views or interaction.

While I wanted to continue to support as many of these sites as possible, the last 12-18 months has shown me that those sites are not the preferred places you choose to consume my content, as it gets virtually no views or interactions there.

So going forward I’ll be focusing on posting on The Automation Blog, YouTube, and LinkedIn, and you’ll find my active membership programs & communities at Blog and YouTube.

These memberships programs have actually been in place for several months, and for 2025 the membership levels to include the following benefits:

• No Membership: Public free content includes short tips, quick looks, audio podcasts and sponsored episodes much like those released in 2024.

• Level 1 - $5/mo (new): New and previous how-tos, unsponsored video podcasts, and unsponsored/members only shows much like 2024.

• Level 2 - $10/mo: All Level 1 benefits plus member only livestreams and Q & As, much like the $10 and $25/mo members received in 2024.

• Level 3 - $25/mo: All Level 1+2 benefits plus a member only Discord (a forum like chat & voice app and website) which I will be personally monitoring for chats and questions on work days, plus member Live Chats most Wednesdays, 6-7pm ET, similar to the Q&A sessions from 2024, but not streamed or recorded.

As far as the content schedule, previously I was dedicating nearly half of every week to public and membership content creation in the hopes of growing the membership program, finding new sponsors, or finding new training customers to offset my costs.

After reviewing the numbers from 2023 and 2024, it’s clear this strategy does not generate enough revenue to justify continuing to produce content at this pace.

So for 2025 I’m going work on ways to optimize content generation, with the goal being by the end of 2025 my members will have a completely updated and constantly growing video library of how-to videos that they can access whenever needed.

And if we are able to grow the number of members on these platforms from around 40 level 2 members today, to around 240 level 2 members (or equivalent mix,) then I’ll also be able to bring back the News Show at least once a week (in addition to continuing the planned weekly release of new, in-depth automation how-tos.)

And this is where you come in – a call to action:

Ideally, I’d love to get all of you to move over to one of my new membership programs and communities at https://TheAutomationBlog.com/join or https://YouTube.com/@InsightsIA/join as I feel you’re going to get a lot more value from your monthly subscription that you will at Locals.com.

But if you’re not ready to make the move to either platform you really don’t have to do anything. Well, except to be aware of the fact that I will not be monitoring automation.locals.com going forward, so if you want to get in touch with me the best way would be to reply to this email.

And what ever you decide, I want to end this email as I started it, buy thanking you for all of your support over they years on Locals.com, and I also want to wishing you an awesome 2025!

Sincerely,

Shawn Michael Tierney
Technology Enthusiast & Instructor

Insights In Automation
75 S Church St
BLDG 3 FL 3 STE 372
Pittsfield, MA 01201