Say Hello to Margot

I have a chic, new, French intern — my first intern ever!

Say Hello to My Chic New French Intern

This is Margot. She is one of Betty’s closest friends and has been a welcome visitor in our home for years.

Like Betty, Margot just finished her first year of university. Margot is studying marketing (oops! she’s actually in an audio-visual program), and her program requires a summer internship.

In France the word for internship is “stage”, which rhymes with “Taj” as in Taj Mahal. An intern is a “stagiaire”. Students are required to do a stage at least twice before they finish high school. Doing a stage is also required during university, depending on the program of study.

When Margot starting looking for her summer stage, she reached out to me to see if I would be willing to take her on as an intern, and of course, I said yes! I have never had an intern before, but I adore Margot and knew she would be great to work with.

Margot is smart, talented, and speaks fluent English — even though she’s never lived in an English-speaking country, which is remarkable. In high school, Margot started making “edits” on Tiktok for fun. Edits are typically fan-made videos of found footage from movies or interviews or concerts, that have been edited together, with a song in the background.

Margot got really good at making edits, has grown her Tiktok account, and is really comfortable making content for TikTok. So naturally, as she thought about her stage with me, her priority is to get me publishing on TikTok.

Margot’s Plan for Her Internship

On her first day, she made a plan:
-Margot wants to publish a Tiktok of my French renovation content, on my account, each day of her stage.
-She’s starting with content from the very beginning, when we first bought the Tall House.
-Her #1 goal is to get 10,000 followers on my Tiktok account during her stage.

If you are on Tiktok, would you please go follow my account? Let’s help Margot impress her professors!

This is What Our Process Looks Like

Margot has published 6 videos on my Tiktok account so far. She’s doing a terrific job, and we are figuring out a good process:

First, I organize all the photos and videos of a certain room or project into a Google Photos album, and share the album with Margot. Then, I write a script for the video, and record it on my phone using the Voice Memos app. I record it a few times to try and get a good take, and then I text Margot the best recording.

Then, Margot edits a video using the voice recording and the footage/images in the album. She adds captions and sends me a draft. Sometimes I have suggested changes, sometimes I don’t. When we’re both happy with it, she schedules the video to publish. She’s so fast!

And can I just tell you how much fun it’s been going back through those early photos and videos of the renovation? We’ve done so much! And I had forgotten about some of the projects!

If you missed out on the Tall House renovation, or want to relive it, I know you’ll LOVE the videos Margot has made for my Tiktok account. Go take a look!

We are also trying to figure out an efficient way to take an older renovation highlight, that has expired, and compile all the story panels into one longer-form video. We know many people really love the slow renovation process and want to see all the work and details, and we’d love to make those renovation stories available again.

If we hit 10,000 followers, Margot wants to try diversifying my content, by creating sections on Tiktok for my books, my essays, French life, family life, Alt Summit, travel, etc.

Please follow us over on Tiktok and enjoy the renovation reruns!

---

Today Marks 30 Days of Daily Posting

Today is June 30th, and I am happy to report that I stuck with my personal goal of publishing on Substack every day this month. I’m still thinking about what I want to take from this experience and what kind of publishing schedule I want moving forward, but here are ten of my first impressions from the experience:

-I really loved getting to check in with you every day. I was definitely having flashbacks to my early blogging days, pre-social-media, when I would post on Design Mom multiple times each day.

-Publicly announcing a goal or plan continues to be a good way for me to stick to the goal or plan.

-Writing every day makes it easier to write every day.

-I planned to write first thing in the mornings, and ended up almost always writing late at night, using midnight as my deadline.

-I’m not trained at analyzing data, but from what I can tell, a daily email was probably too much for about half the people who subscribe to my Substack. It looks like I need to publish more than once per week, but not daily.

-One of the main things I wanted to try during this month of daily publishing, was inviting fellow writers to join me on a series of Substack Lives, and I never managed to do it. Not once!

-There was a specific essay I wanted to finish this month, and I didn’t do that either. Which still kind of surprises me. I could not have predicted that.

-I posted less on social media this month than is normal for me. Specifically, I posted far less on Instagram Stories. The reality is that making content — writing, videos, photographs — all takes time. And if I’m publishing a lot on one platform, I have less time for other platforms.

-I had the idea that Substack’s chat feature might be a good way for people who are part of the Design Mom community to connect with each other. But now that the month is finishing up, I’m not actually sure you want that.

-Publishing daily allowed me to respond more immediately to the day’s news, which I personally found valuable.

---

To all of you who opened my emails, or hearted a post, or left a comment, or emailed me a message, or shared an essay I wrote with someone else, or posted my work on social media, or upgraded to a paid subscription if you were able, I am sincerely grateful.

I am endlessly amazed at this beautiful community.

Thank you for being here. (And if you’re so inclined, thank you for finding me on Tiktok too.)

kisses,
Gabrielle