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Doing Business in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

I don’t see many people speaking about this, but artificial intelligence will fundamentally change how we do business.

It is already happening behind the scenes, but it is only visible to those who work in this field. 

Here are some examples.

Infinite Personalization.

Any decent newsletter service allows you to personalize the message to include the customer’s name and other personal data. But with AI, this can go so much further. For example, a color theme can be automatically selected for each user based on the time of day the email goes out and even the reader’s mood. The message will be sent in their mother tongue using a perfect translation. 

The presentation of your site will be uniquely tailored to each of your visitors or customers. 

This fine-grained personalization is impossible for a team of humans to handle, but it is trivial for an AI, especially when you aggregate data from multiple sources. It may not be possible for you, but you can bet the big guys are working on it. 

Each of us will begin to see and interact with their unique and custom version of the Internet. 

Next is the “No Code” “No Design” options. 

You will be able to describe to an AI system, in natural language, what you want to offer and to whom, and you will instantly get an app and a website built for it. AI will render most developers and designers obsolete and lower the barrier-to-entry for many inspired entrepreneurs and creators. 

Can a computer do it?

Your offer should be something that cannot be easily explained or described.

If you can explain it easily, then a computer can do it much faster than you and at a near-infinite scale. 

I believe most businesses will be surprised to wake up being obsolete overnight, but some pay attention and position themselves to take advantage of the upcoming tide.

Critique

There are some examples on the web where the AI is really dumb or comes up with solutions that make no sense to us humans. It is also said that AI will never be creative. 

We can add this to the long list of things that we previously thought a computer could not do. 

The development of AI (as with most things related to computers) has an exponential development curve. This means that the distance between a “dumb AI” and a superintelligence is not as long as we might imagine. 

We can choose to leverage this new powerful tool or resing to watching others do it. 

New Paradigm Tools for Online Businesses

Tools for the New Paradigm Online Presence

Tools for the New Paradigm Online Presence

A curated list by the Spiritual Software Engineer

Updated: May 2021

Analytics Tools

Goolge Analytics – free, but you pay with your data. I still use this one, just because they are really good and what they do.

Mamoto – is free but you need tech skills to install.

Scheduling Platforms

Full disclosure: I am getting out of Facebook and friends. Moving to Telegram, MeWe, and other alternatives. But if you still plan to use Facebook, read on.

I do social media once a week. My motto is to empower those who visit Inelia’s page. I rarely see anything else on social media. I have saved links to go straight to the pages I want to, so I avoid seeing what “the algorithm thinks I should see”.

For this to work and still be active throughout the week I use scheduling tools.

TweekDeck – by Twiter for Twitter

Facebook Creator Studio – by Facebook for Facebook and Instagram

YouTube uploads have a scheduling feature when posting videos

Buffer – you can use one tool to post everywhere – I have some issues with this platform

Hootsuite –  similar to Buffer above, you can post from one place to multiple platforms. Used to have a clunky interface, I have not looked at it in the past 2-3 years.

TailwindApp – I use this for Instagram. The reason I keep using them is because of their analytics capabilities, but most of all they have a feature to suggest “relevant hashtags” that I find very helpful. This is a paid service.

Newsletter Service

MailChimp – as long as you don’t talk about vaccines you’re fine. Otherwise, you will get kicked out. Make sure you export your list once a week so you don’t lose your subscribers. This is a really powerful tool, but they did not choose our paradigm.

SendInBlue – has a nice free plan that can get you started. The interface is a bit slow, but I use it for personal projects where I am not sure if I will make money.

AWeber.com – next best from AWeber. It does the job, but not as easy to integrate with a website like MailChimp is.

There are other alternatives here, but in my mind, they are for medium to large businesses, not really for startups.

Backup Services

I use my own tools here. But here are some guiding principles.

You need to backup:

  • your content – keep copies of what you write/create/record on your computer as well – not just online
  • your email subscribers – export your list once a week and keep a backup on your computer
  • your website – do a full backup 2 – 3 times per year. If you have your content backed up and your list then you can rebuild the site even if you lose it completely. For more active businesses you need to backup more often.

The location of your backup is important. If you backup your site and store the backup on the site server, that will also be lost if your site is hacked or the server crashes. Backups should not be kept next to the original data. Ideally, you store the backup data, encrypted in a cloud storage service. See next.

Cloud services for backup

Cloud services allow you to share files across devices and, important for me, allow me to work on my stuff on any computer that has an internet connection. It is like a portable “hard drive”.

Google Drive – It’s Google, so privacy is an issue

Dropbox – This is the one I use with a good experience so far.

OneDrive – Microsft – well, it’s Microsoft.

NextCloud – I hear good things about it, related to privacy, but I have never used it

FTP Uploaders

This is relevant mostly for WordPress. All other website builders generally feature a drag and drop upload feature.

FileZilla is your friend here. I have been using it on Windows for more than 15 years, and I see they have a Mac version as well

Hosting companies

This is relevant only if you want to have a WordPress site that you would like to host on your server. If not, skip ahead.

SiteGround (affiliate link) – this is the one I use and recommend to everyone. They are not the cheapest, but they have good support and that is a must even for someone technical like me. Also, their email function is working properly. (UPDATE in May 2021: I have had some trouble with their support lately, but their performance and speed are still the best I could find, so I am still using them.)

Stay AWAY from these guys. Despite being voted “The BEST of 2020” by CNET.com, they offer really bad service and support.

  • HostGator – used to be a big fan of them, but they lost their ways
  • BlueHost – really bad
  • GoDaddy – really bad
  • Site5 – we used to be really good, but no longer an option
  • Dreamhost – bad

All these options are very cheap, but that means they had to cut corners. You will pay more in time lost and having to hire a dev since their support is non-responsive (or incompetent).

If you want to build a business and not a hobby, do not buy a “shared hosting plan”. You will share the server with other people you have no control over and that will affect your reputation and the performance of your site. So make sure when you budget your business that you include the costs for good hosting.

Site builders

WordPress.com – you can create a website for free, but with some limitations and not able to use your own domain. See this as an example of this working:

https://laurabruno.wordpress.com/  (UPDATE May 2021: I no longer recommend WordPress for people starting out, because it is too technical, too easy to mess up, too hard to get the site to be fast)

WIX – they say you can create a free site (but I did not find the option yet). This used to be bad, but right now it looks really, really good. They have evolved! – See this example. (I think that on the free plan you need to keep the Wix brand at the top). If top performance is important for your business, then look at Squarespace instead.

SquareSpace – more professional than WIX in my estimation. I know good examples of businesses built on Squarespace. Better overall performance. Integrates with Shopify for an online store.

Kajabi – a great “all in one platform” if you’re selling your knowledge: courses, videos, tutorials. The great thing about it is you just pay them and they handle email, hosting, security, subscriptions, payments. I am a student in Kajabi powered sites and I like the experience. I have not used it myself to build a business and if I were to choose it I would inquire about the possibility to export my data and move elsewhere if I want to. In other words, I need to make sure I own the business I build and I can use the email list I build without restrictions.

Landing pages – These can be a powerful idea when you’re just starting and you need to keep an eye on your budget. Ideal for simple tests, for building an email list, for getting feedback on a service you want to launch. Instead of building a full website, instead, you have just a page that is hyper-focused on one goal. This hyper-focus is a good thing. Look for tools that offer analytics so you know how well your page is doing and that they work on mobile. Both AWeber and MailChimp allow you to build simple landing pages with their paid subscriptions. For more options look into dedicated services.

Teachable, Shopify and Etsy – if you know you are going to teach something, or sell a product. These are built to help you get your business going and take away the problems with setting up payments and configuring a store and so on. If you are really serious about starting a business these are the ones I would recommend.

A note about Etsy:
Unlike Teachable and Shopify where you can build a business, Etsy is a good place to start, but it is not enough just by itself. Mainly because on Etsy you are building their brand and not yours, and you are also in instant competition with the entire Etsy audience. That is both good (there is an audience!) and bad (as it may be hard to get known).

WordPress Themes

I think it helps to learn how to think about choosing a theme before I actually tell you which theme to choose 😁.

Since this tools set is focused on building a business, this means your theme needs to support a store, in this case: WooCommerce. It also needs to be mobile-friendly (it is called: “responsive”). It needs to play well with social media. And it needs to be fast/high performance.

Some readers will notice that I did not say it needs to be “pretty”, and that is on purpose, as we are focusing on the customers and making their experience a good one while using the website.

I almost never choose a theme based on the colors or the images or the layout with one very, very rare exception: the theme matches the criteria above and it’s a perfect fit for what I have in mind!

I much rather prefer a theme that is easy to customize than one that is “ready-made” but almost impossible to change after you install it. This is because as you grow and you get to know your audience better, you want to be able to make incremental changes to how your website looks, or even a complete redesign, without having to purchase another theme.

My Recommendation

UPDATED May 2021: Because of big performance issues with Divi I no longer recommend them. What I now use is the pro theme from GeneratePress. They are blazing fast and play nice with other performance-related plugins.

I am no longer recommending anything else. Why? Because as of May 2021, Google uses our site speed as a factor in their ranking algorithm as well as how nice the pages load and function on mobile devices. So it does not matter how pretty and well designed your site is, if it’s not fast and it’s not mobile-friendly it will not matter.

Unless you can afford to hire a good performance-oriented developer, just get GeneratePress.

WordPress plugins

There are a few WordPress plugins that I install all the time on any new WordPress project:

  • WP Forms – for contact forms and other intake forms. (If you care about performance stay away from Contact Form 7)
  • WPS Hide Login – helps with site security by hiding the default login page
  • All In One WP Security – for securing your WordPress install against hacking. Please note that on projects where I need top performance I am no longer using this plugin.
  • Yoast SEO – the free edition – gets your website ready to be indexed by Google in a fairly easy way. When you generate money with the website it is worth geting their PRO version.
  • WP Mail SMTP – a wpforms product – I will install this if the website cannot send email. It allows you to configure in a much more flexible and advanced way how email is sent and also to do tests. (Do not use Easy STMP as it has security problems)
  • WooCommerce – if you plan to make this a business this will be the plugin to use to sell things. This is a powerful tool, but rather hard to configure, and the free version, while it works, it lacks many of the things that make an excellent store. If you lack the tech skills you will be much better off building your store on Shopify.
  • EasyDigitalDownloads – this is an alternative to WooCommerce if you are sure you will sell only digital products. Since there is no shipping required, a plugin optimized for digital delivery can do a much better job than a plugin that needs to be more general.

LIVE Streaming: Events, Webinars, Workshops

Workshop – means you need live interactions from your participants.

Webinar – means you are talking to people, but they cannot talk back, at most they ask questions via text chat

Events – You LIVE stream something that you do – like a webinar, but maybe you don’t stay in front of the computer if you’re streaming a Yoga glass (for example).

Zoom – workshops, webinars, events.

  • PRO: easy to use, most everyone knows how to use it by now, good quality for the streaming
  • CONS: you need to pay for meetings longer than one hour, and if privacy is a concern, they don’t do very well, even if they claim “end-to-end” encryption

Google Meet – workshops, webinars, events

  • PRO: easy to use, good quality, integrates seamlessly with Google Calendar, and it’s free
  • CONS: it’s Google, you need a google account with them, so you get all the related privacy issues.

Facebook Live, YouTube Live, InstaTV – webinars

  • PRO: free (just as Google is free), easy to set up, it’s “trendy”, people in your audience will get notified about you without having to do anything special
  • CONS: comments are very hard to manage, especially in a solo operation, does not look very “professional”

Team Communication

Slack – instead of communicating via email, it is more effective to use a tool like Slack. This way you can organize the communication in channels of interest, and get notified about only the important stuff, and also be able to search your older messages. You need to have been part of a team with more than 3 people to understand the power of this tool. It’s free with some limitations, after a while you can no longer search older messages unless you pay. The paid version is not cheap.

Discord – is like Slack, but it was designed for gamers. The big advantage is that it is free (last time I checked). The biggest drawbacks are the name itself and being game-oriented, which can be a put-off when you want to do “work”.

Circle.so – a new kid on the block, shows promise and it is more intuitive to use than Slack or Discord.

Telegram Groups – it’s like Whatsapp but NOT from Facebook, so for now it has better privacy. It will work for small teams and small projects, but if your team grows you will need to move to Slack or Discord.

Screen Capture

ManyCam – the paid version – is what I use to record my screen, to create “picture-in-picture” images, to color correct my image, to LIVE stream to YouTube and Facebook at the same time. This is a very powerful and versatile app and if your business requires teaching through video, or doing live casts it is worth the time and money invested in learning this tool.

There are free alternatives, but I find that a paid software not only saves you time but also makes you look more professional.

Video Editing Tools

Video Editing is a complex process, but I will focus here on cutting, trimming, adding intro and outro, and logo overlays.

DaVinci Resolve – is the tool I use most often. The free version is powerful enough for what I need it to do. The UI is pretty complex, and I suggest watching a YouTube tutorial before trying to work with it so you don’t feel lost. The good news is that once you learn the process for your workflow, it’s pretty easy and fast.

HitFilm Express – is the tool that I used before Resolve (above). It is somewhat simpler to use, but it lacks some more advanced features that I needed. This also has a complex user interface, but there are tutorials about it.

Note about video: video is a complex system to present media. It has the visual component, but also the audio track and it can have subtitles. Videos can have hundreds of formats, each with its own settings and parameters and that can be utterly confusing. If you plan to work with video it is worth the time and the money to have someone teach you a process for what you need, or else you might get lost in the hundreds of options available. Resist the urge to become a video editor, unless that is actually your business. Hire help or buy focused tools. You will make your money back.

YouTube had some video editing capabilities that most people will find good enough when they start.

Image editors for Social Media

I use Photoshop for my Social Media posts, but it’s unrealistic to expect someone to learn this tool unless they are passionate about it. Seriously, unless you’re into photography, learning Photoshop can be a massive waste of time better spent focusing on your business.

Therefore the tool I recommend now is Canva. They make it super easy to create images for social media, providing templates and the correct sizes that you should be working on. And the fact that you can collaborate on your designs is a big plus!

PRO Tip: If you like someone’s presence on Social Media reach out and ask them what tool/process they use. You will find some gems.

Free High-Quality Images

Unsplash – This is the place I use most often.

Pixabay – This is the place I go to when I can’t find what I need on Unsplash. Be careful with Pixabay, I have had complaints with images from them that were not actually free to use.

Your own photography – if you’re so inclined and have a good enough phone, your own images can go a long way, since they will be unique and feel more authentic. However, taking good pictures is a skill in itself so balance this with your need to look professional.

Once you have a business that is working and the branding becomes important, you will want to invest in paid images, since almost everyone is using Unsplash these days. Look at places like Shutterstock, Dreamstime, iStock.

Hire Help

Fiverr – many vendors, you need to shop around to find someone who is a good fit. A lot of them are really bad. My own experience with Fiverr is: don’t go for the cheapest option, and be ready to hire 2-3 people for the same job, and chose the one that is the best.

UpWork – unlike Fiverr where you search for a vendor, on UpWork you post a job and allow vendors to find and bid for your project. Because the payment method was blocked in Romania I could not use them, but from other sources, I hear the quality of work is better than Fiverr.

99Designs  – this is targeted specifically towards design: be it logos, websites, or brochures.

Hire a consultant for a strategy session. It is worth spending an hour with someone competent to draw a map for you to follow. You will save both time and money.

Image Resizer

Using images that are way too big for your website can slow down the loading time, especially on mobile. While performance optimization is a long and complex discussion, you can get to some low-hanging fruit, by properly resizing your images.

The tool I suggest is here is “Image Resizer” because it’s super easy and a 1, 2, 3 step process. I don’t personally use this tool very often because I have similar options in Photoshop, but the advantage of this tool is that is available everywhere and it works and you don’t need to learn anything.

OptIn Popups

I don’t like OptIn popups but the data suggest that they work in getting people to subscribe to your newsletter.

The providers I have used are:

Mailmunch – they have a free plan (branded), and they integrate easily with WordPress. I just noticed that in their paid plans you have landing pages and email marketing. That could save you some money when you first start testing things online.

OptInMonster – they don’t have a free plan, but they come highly recommended as a mature product. Unless there is a clear indication that this is a better fit for you than MailMunch, I would not use this one.

Podcasting Platforms

There is some tech required to record and edit the audio file for your podcast and that is not what I am addressing here.

I am talking here about the place that will store your audio files, and podcast information and will allow you to link it to podcast syndication platforms like iTunes or Google Podcasts.

Transistor.fm – is the tool that I recommend. It is not free, but it’s well worth the money. I have tried to “do my own thing” and host the podcast files myself, but it takes so much time to do it right, that it’s best to pay someone to do it for you in a professional way.

Payment Processors

PayPal – everyone knows about PayPal. Some customers don’t trust PayPal and in the past, there were issues with accessing your funds. To be fair I’ve seen no problems in the past 2 years with access to funds.

Stripe – is the main PayPal competitor and worth checking out. As far as I know, they allow for a smoother and more customized checkout experience which will influence your cart abandonment rates.

SquareUp – I have not used this one but it comes highly recommended.

Things to keep in mind:

  • Is this tool available in your country?
  • How do they help you with your tax documents?
  • How fast can you access your money?
  • How do they process refunds (is there a fee)?
  • Do they have an easy checkout experience?
  • Do they accept credit cards?

Let me know if you have questions about any of these or you’d like more specific details.

My every day list of tools

Following is the list of tools I use to make my life easier. 

As a caveat, I am mostly active in the online software environment, so this list is heavily skewed in that direction.

1. Total Commander – geeky tool for file management. Features a “side by side” layout, making it easy to know what the source and what is the destination for what you are doing. Unlike the “copy/paste” concept in Windows Explorer. It has other neat features like super quick preview and edit capabilities.

2. FileZilla – Free FTP client – pretty basic – but it works. 

3. Sublime – my go-to text editor. It has replaced NotePad++ because it has a more polished UI that is easier on the eyes. It has syntax highlight and a neat feature that shows you what has changed in the document, even if you don’t use a versioning system. 

4. Photoshop – for my photo editing and image creation on Social Media and sometimes for personal photographs. 

5. Voice Metter Banana – virtual sound mixer for Windows. It allows me to record a call, increase the volume of the people on the call, and mix in music when needed

6. GoldWave – a sound editor, used mostly to clear noise from audio, or for trimming. Sometimes I use Audacity – depending on what I am trying to do.

7. Grammarly – AI-powered spell checker to make sure my writing is not filled with typos and grammar issues.

8. Slack – manage project communications

9. Evernote – taking notes, research, learning, todo list. Its beauty is that it syncs on all of my devices, has tags, can search text into an image, and is fast!

10. Zoho Docs – alternative to Google Docs – online solution for spreadsheets and writing documents

11. Asana – for project management 

12. Putty – SSH client for windows. Used for server management.

13. rsync – backup utility for my websites – creates versioned backups fast.

14. PhpStorm – long time favorite Php IDE – I like everything from JetBrains. They’re the best when it comes to creating software developer tools 🙂

14. ManyCam – virtual camera for Zoom calls – used to add titles, color correct my image, add filters and looks as PRO as possible 

15. Cmder – console for Windows (replacement for cmd) – mainly because it supports colors, making debugging console applications much easier. It also uses much cleaner fonts. Not sure when Windows will get a decent default console app.

16. Fastmail – email provider that respects my privacy

17. ESET – internet security: antivirus, firewall, sandboxing, and all that jazz. I’ve been using this for ten years now, and I am a happy customer!

18. Duplicati – Windows space-efficient backup tool based on the Linux “duplicity” tool. It saved me one from a complete HDD failure. 

19. Dropbox – cloud storage and sharing among devices.

20. Git and GitHub – software versioning system.

21. Figma – wireframes, mockups, design.

22. Google Calendar – mostly for reminders and sometimes for planning ahead skill development. 

If you know better, faster, and more useful alternatives for these tools, let me know in the comments below. I am always looking to expand my arsenal! The categories I care about are productivity, software development, and design. 

New Normal – Collaboration Tools – Trello

Trello – The playful and pretty way to manage a project

If you are a fan of using post-it notes to organize your projects, you will love this next tool!

This post is part of the “New Normal – Collaboration Tools” series, and we are going to look at Trello.

Trello is so simple that it can be explained with just the picture below:

The idea is to use cards, organized in lists, to keep track of what is going on in the project. And the most simple version is to have the three classic lists:

  • To do 
  • Working On In
  • Done 

As you have guessed, you choose a card from the “To Do” list and move it to “Working On It” and when you finish, you move the card to the “Done List.”

So why is this so powerful, and not just use sticky cards on a real board? 

This series is called “Collaboration” tools, so that is where the power is. The Trello boards can be shared with teams of people. Now everyone can see the lists and move the cards around. This way, you can easily coordinate. For example, two people cannot pick up the same card to start working on it. Everyone has a clear picture of the status of the project by looking at the board. 

And the goodies don’t stop here! 

Each card can have its own comments – keeping the discussion always linked to the correct context.

The cards can have checklists – those can be used in very creative ways. For example, you can fragment the work further in sub-tasks, you can have a list of prerequisites that you are waiting to be fulfilled, and so on.

And the cards also have attachments. Attachments allow you to link relevant files to the card so the team can easily find them and access them as needed.

You can assign the card to someone, and you can set a due date! 

The interface is very friendly, playful, and easy to grasp! But make no mistake, Trello is not a toy. If you have time to dig into it, you will discover that it is an amazingly powerful tool. 

How to choose between Trello and Asana? 

If you are just starting with project management online, go with Trello. The free tier will serve you well for a long time. Asana is more complex and not as easy to learn. The only reason I am using Asana over Trello is due to my own resistance to change :). 

The New Normal – Collaboration Tools – Google Docs

A new era of remote work and collaboration is upon us. And it is time to build a “new normal” as we have this excellent opportunity for a reset. 

I have mixed feelings about Google, but leaving that aside, for now, let us have a look at their Google Docs platforms and how to use it to collaborate with your team. 

My idea here is to share with you what is possible so you can make an informed decision if this is something you can use to support your project and your people. If you do like these features, there are plenty of YouTube tutorials on how to use them. 

As you go through this keep in mind the “sunk costs” of using old technology (MS Word… I am looking at you!):

– I am used to it, and it works just fine

– I don’t have time to learn something new

– This is too confusing…

Note that this is your brain resisting change. When you evaluate a new tool, honestly consider the question: “if I were a master as this would this help my project and my team?” and try to ignore the “I don’t want change” mind chatter. 

Back to business! 

To get the most out of this tool, you will need a Google Account. It’s free to get one – free as in you pay with your attention and your privacy. If that is fine with you, then let’s proceed. 

Top collaboration features:

1. Multiple Live Editors of the document

This is ideal when you work with your team over a Zoom or Skype call. It allows everyone to open the document on their device and start working on it. The changes will be visible to everyone nearly instantly. No more sharing of Word Documents around! 

Tip: it may be a good idea, for some projects, that each editor uses their own color, so you can know later on what you wrote and what others wrote. (This is just a simple solution to this the advanced way is “version control” explained last)

2. Make suggestions instead of edits!

This is based on (or similar to) the MS Word “Track Changes” feature. You need to change your editing mode to “Suggestions,” and now, all the changes you make will have your name attached to them, and they will be next to the old text (instead of overwriting the old text). This feature allows anyone to chime in when doing brainstorm and review. At the end, the author of the document can review all the suggestions and approve or reject them. This is such a powerful tool because you can instantly see on the side of the document if there are changes that you need to review, and you have the name of the person who suggested the change. On top of this, each change gets a comment section where you can ask for clarifications, or you can explain why your suggestion should be accepted. 

This is, by far, my favorite tool to use when working on a document that requires the team’s input.

3. Comments

This feature is similar to the previous one. But instead of editing the document in “Suggestions” mode, you select a piece of text and make a comment on it. 

This comment will create a discussion box around it. This feature is useful in some cases, but it lacks the quick “accept/reject change” buttons that a suggestion has. So any editing suggestion you make as a comment has to be manually typed into the document later. 

Comments are great to give feedback on the text regarding legibility or clarity because you are not suggesting a change, you just need the author to make some clarifications. 

4. Assigning Tasks

This tool does not replace a proper project management tool (like Asana or Trello) but, for small teams, it can work wonders! Using the comments or suggestion features, when the discussion box is open, you can notify someone (prefix their name with @), or you can assign that item to someone (prefix their name with +). 

The beauty of this is that they get an email notification, so they will know their input is required. And if you have assigned the item to someone, in their google drive view, next to the document name, they will see a number of pending issues that they need to resolve. 

I hope it is obvious how this can be used to keep track of what needs to be done in a small project, so you don’t have tasks being forgotten or now knowing who is supposed to work on them. 

5. Version History

This is the least used feature, but one of the most powerful. I am a big fan of backups. It allows me to move quickly and to make mistakes, knowing that I have a solid safety net. If I screw up, I can restore the old version, and everything is good again! 

For large documents and documents that need to go through many revisions, sometimes it is helpful to see a “history” of how the document grew, what was changed, why, and by whom. Google Docs allows you to do that out of the box because the document has in it a history of the changes. This is tracked automatically, you don’t need to do anything. 

You can, however, at some point, label one of the versions as, say, “Final Draft” or “Version 1 – Published” and later one “Version 1.1” and so on. These labels that you create make it easier for you and the team when you go back to look at the timeline to make sense of what are the important edit points. 

In software development, this tool is used a lot, and I know how powerful it is. If you are new to this “version control” thing, you may not see the power of it right away, but give it a go in a big project, and you’ll not regret it. You will no longer be afraid you make a mistake, or that someone in the team got in and accidentally destroyed the document with large copy/paste operation. You can always “go back in time,” to when things were in good shape! And when you are no longer concerned with making mistakes, you can allow your creativity to shine!

In conclusion 

I’ve stormed through these features. If there is one in particular that you like, look for YouTube tutorials about it and put it to good use! 

Go create something amazing!